What Mormon Archaeologists and Maytag Repairmen Have in Common

One of the advantages of working on the apologetics section of LifeWay.com is that interesting related material, produced by our Broadman & Holman publishing division, often makes it into my hands. I recently obtained a copy of the Holman QuickSource Bible Atlas, and I was looking through it with my son when a thought occurred to me.

This colorful book is loaded with images of maps, charts, archaeological ruins, geographical points of interest, artifacts, and stone inscriptions. It is a graphic testimony to the historical grounding of the biblical narratives. Much to the embarrassment of various skeptics over the centuries, archaeology has been very kind to biblical Christianity. However, the same cannot be said for one of the cults of Christianity — Mormonism — which claims to be the true and "restored" church of Jesus Christ.

The Book of Mormon (BOM) is billed as "another testimony of Jesus Christ." In it are elaborate stories of Semitic tribes making their way to the New World. It includes descriptions of their peoples, cultures, and exploits, along with an alleged post-resurrection appearance of Jesus among them. The BOM includes enough description of these things that we ought to know what to look for (and where, in some cases) in order to validate its tales. The problem is, nobody can seem to find any evidence that any of these things has actually occurred.

Is the BOM just talking about an isolated region of the Americas? I'll let it speak for itself:

And it came to pass that [the Nephites in America] did multiply and spread, and did go forth from the land southward to the land northward, and did spread insomuch that they began to cover the face of the whole earth, from the sea south, to the sea north, from the sea west, to the sea east. (Helaman 3:8)

The whole face of the land had become covered with buildings, and the people were as numerous almost, as it were the sand of the sea. (Mormon 1:7)

Unfortunately for them, none of the cities or battlefield sites has been found. No ancient documents or stone inscriptions in either Hebrew or "Reformed Egyptian" (the supposed language of the original BOM) have been found. No artifacts or coins found and none of the metals allegedly forged by these people. But it's not as though we have found nothing in the Americas. Indeed, the archaeological record is quite rich and we know quite a bit about the various people-groups across the two continents. It's just that we have not found any remains that match the BOM description of early American history (although some feeble attempts have been made).

And there are things mentioned in the BOM that ought to have still been around when westerners first hit this continent. According to the book of Mosiah (7:22, 9:9, 10:5) crops like wheat, barley, and flax were cultivated by these people. Unfortunately, these are unknown in the Americas until their introduction by Europeans. And in the book of Ether (9:18-19) there is mention of animals like cattle, oxen, sheep, swine, goats, horses, and even elephants — none of which had been on the continents for many thousands of years, if ever. Even the American Indian races themselves show no trace of their alleged Hebrew ancestry, which has been reconfirmed in modern times by DNA studies.

The bottom line is that a book like the Bible Atlas remains an unrealized fantasy for the Mormon. At best, an equivalent book would be filled with artistic conceptions. I think that we Christians are so used to making pilgrimages to holy lands, reading magazines graced by archaeological photos, and seeing biblical content echoed in secular histories that we are in danger of becoming desensitized to our rich historical legacy. When skeptics charge the Bible with being filled with mythology, it may prove difficult to confirm some of the miraculous events that they are really exercised about, but of those evidences that historical analysis can yield, we have more than enough to fill our books.

Writing in the secular publication Biblical Archaeology Review, Prof. William G. Dever of the University of Arizona concluded that the Bible's status as an authentic record of the ancient people it chronicles must be considered uncontested:

The Bible is no longer an isolated relic from antiquity, without provenance and thus without credibility. Archaeology may not have proven the specific historical existence of certain biblical personalities such as Abraham or Moses, but it has for all time demolished the notion that the Bible is pure mythology. The Bible is about real, flesh-and-blood people, in a particular time and place.