Saturday, July 10, 2021

1 April, 1846 issue of the Millennial Star: Book of Mormon Evidence to be Found in Mexico

 In the April 1, 1846, issue of The Latter-day Saints’ Millennial Star (volume 7, no. 7), p. 110, an excerpt from pp. 182-83 of Barbara Anne Simon's 1836 The Ten Tribes of Israel Historically Identified with the Aborigines of the Western Hemisphere under the heading of “Evidence for the Book of Mormon.” What is interesting is that the editor, Thomas Ward, believed that the book provided evidence for the Book of Mormon, not in America’s Heartland, but in Central America:

 

“The fact of the Mexicans recording, both in their paintings and songs, the Deluge, the building of the tower of Babel, the confusion of tongues, and the dispersion, &c., being generally admitted by the Spanish writers on America, it is almost unnecessary to the authority of any particular author, to prove what no one will deny; since Gomara, in his history of the Indians, describing the conference of Nicaragua with Gil Goncales and the Calezeasters, introduces this chief as putting a variety of questions to the Spaniards. The first of which was, “whether they were acquainted with the Deluge,” and others no less curious, showing that the Indians were not unaccustomed to abstruse speculation, and that besides the knowledge of many traditions contained in the Old Testament, they possessed some information respecting the New. It may be interesting to insert the entire passage of Gomara, giving an account of this conference. “Nicaragua, who was so acute and skilled in the knowledge of the tires and antiquities of his own countrymen, had a long conference with Gil Goncales, and the ecclesiastic. He inquired if the Christians were acquainted with the great Deluge which had swallowed up the earth, men and animals, &c.; and whether the earth was to be revolutionized, (trastornar) or the firmament to remove? When and how the sun, moon, and stars would be deprived of their light? What was the honour and reverence due to the triune God, &c., where should go after death, and what would be their occupation, &c.