Recently Matt Fraud posted an article, "Is the Book of Mormon Actually Ancient?”
The
book is also — conveniently enough — filled with 19th-century Protestant
theology. It seems a little suspicious that it addresses many hot-button issues
Protestants faced at that time.
Firstly, here are the various
aspects of Protestant theologies that are not found in the Book of Mormon, and are often contradicted by the text:
·
Sola Fide
·
Forensic Justification
·
Penal Substitution
·
Eternal Security
·
Imputed Righteousness
These are
aspects of Protestant theologies of the 19th century which the Book
of Mormon contradicts.
As to the
charge that the text addresses “many hot button issues Protestants faced at that
time,” many of these issues were addressed in early Christianity, too, such as
universalism, infant baptism, and the theology of water baptism (btw: baptismal
regeneration is affirmed in the text, another doctrine many Protestants reject
[though Fraud has not read the book, so not surprising that he is ignorant of
this, too]). Furthermore, infant baptism was something that was practiced in
ancient Mesoamerica, so it is to be expected that Mormon would address this (cf.
Moroni 8). For example, Michael D. Coe and Stephen Houston report that the Maya
at Yucatan, when the Spanish arrived, practiced a form of baptism for children:
The Life Cycle
Immediately
after birth, Yucatec mothers washed their infants and then fastened them to a
cradle, their little heads compressed between two boards in such a way that
after two days a permanent fore-and-aft flattening had taken place, which the
Maya considered a mark of beauty. As soon as possible, the anxious parents went
to consult with a priest so as to learn the destiny of their offspring and the
name that the child was to bear until baptism.
The
Spanish Fathers were quite astounded that the Maya had a baptismal rite, which
took place at an auspicious time when there were a number of children between
the ages of three and twelve in the settlement. The ceremony took place in the
house of a town elder, in the presence of their parents who had observed
various abstinences in honor to the occasion. The children and their fathers
remained inside a cord held by four old and venerable men representing the Rain
God, while the priest performed various acts of purification and blessed the
candidates with incense, tobacco, and holy water. From that time on the older
girls, at least, were considered marriageable. A part of such rituals is the héets
meek, a ceremony in which babies
are placed on the hip, soon ready for walking. (Michael D.
Coe and Stephen Houston, The Maya [10th ed.; [London: Thames &
Hudson, 2022], 27)
As another example, Burr
Cartwright Brundage noted that the Aztecs performed a baptism of fire for
infants four days after their birth:
The
Nahualli
The
concept of the nahualli is peripheral to the Aztec’s concept of his fate. In
addition to his soul a man cold possess, as part of the power of his
personality, a special affinity for an animal or some other aspect of nature.
When considered in this fashion a man was a nahualli, a transcorporate being.
The etymology of the Nahuatl word is uncertain, but it meant two rather
different things to the Aztecs.
.
. .
There
was a related concept which was democratic in the sense that it was not
restricted to the rare individual but applied to every individual in the
society. This could take concrete form in the baptism of the newborn child in
the family fire four days after birth; in this ceremony, the child might be
dedicated to an animal appropriate to his birthdate. Supposedly this closed a
magic circle whereby that child when adult would suffer all the dangers and
vicissitudes suffered by his individual animal or by his particular species of
animals (our sources are often unclear as to that is implied). The animal thus
became the personification of that man’s fate and in some readings of the
concept the animal’s death caused—indeed was—the simultaneous death of the person.
An invisible and indestructible bound thus might unite a man with his animal
partner—the two could exist simultaneously or the nahualli could become his
animal counterpart while temporarily giving up his own being. (Burr Cartwright
Brundage, The Fifth Sun: Aztec Gods, Aztec World [Austin, Texas:
University of Texas Press, 1979], 182, 183)
As for the charge that the Book of Mormon contains many anachronisms, let me quote from a past blog A Prime Example of Catholic Answers’ Deception Concerning the Book of Mormon, as I am sure the Catholic Answers article was written by Jimmy "Gish Gallop" Akin, someone who has to insist on gish gallops when debating an informed opponent (or have debates on non-dogmatic issues or very minor topics when he is on the defensive, such as his debate against Steven Nemes):
Bees in the New World
Scientists have demonstrated that honey bees were first brought to the New World by Spanish explorers in the fifteenth century, but the Book of Mormon, in Ether 2:3, claims they were introduced around 2000 B.C.
The problem was that Joseph Smith wasn’t a naturalist; he didn’t know anything about bees and where and when they might be found. He saw bees in America and threw them in the Book of Mormon as a little local color. He didn’t realize he’d get stung by them. (Problems with the Book of Mormon, Catholic Answers)
This is a double non sequitur, though one has to give the author some points for being so confident in his deception.
Non sequitur no. 1:
Bees are only mentioned as being in the possession of Book of Mormon peoples in the Old World. Ether 2:3, speaking of the Jaredites' travel in the Old World, reads:
And they did also carry with them deseret, which, by interpretation, is a honey bee; and thus they did carry with them swarms of bees, and all manner of that which was upon the face of the land, seeds of every kind. (BTW, we have strong linguistic evidence for the Book of Mormon here the author is ignorant of; see, for e.g., “Deseret,” Book of Mormon Onomasticon Website, and Kevin L. Barney, “On the Etymology of Deseret”)
While "bee" is mentioned by Nephi, it is part of an Isaiah quotation; it is not speaking of the fauna of the New World:
And it shall come to pass in that day that the Lord shall hiss for the fly that is in the uttermost part of Egypt, and for the bee that is in the land of Assyria. (2 Nephi 17:18 [= Isaiah 7:18])
This is more evidence that the author of the piece (dollars to donuts, the author is Jimmy “Gish Gallop” Akin) is ignorant of the Book of Mormon.
Non sequitur no. 2:
Bees were known to the Maya and other Mesoamerican cultures before the Conquistadors, showing that the author (again, probably Jimmy Akin, who is an intellectual fraud) is ignorant of New World history and scholarship. Consider the following from non-LDS sources:
Paragraph VIII. Of bees and their honey wax.
There are two kinds of bees and both are very much smaller than ours. The larger kind of these breeds in hives, which are very small. They do not make honeycomb as ours do, but a kind of small blisters like walnuts of wax all joined one to the other and full of honey. To cut them away they do nothing more than open the hives and to break away these blisters with a small stick, and thus the honey runs out and they take the wax when they please. The rest breed I the woods in hollows of trees and of stones and there they search for the wax, in which and in honey this land abounds, and the honey is very good, except that, as the fertility of the nourishment of the bees is great, it sometimes comes out a little watery and it is necessary to give it a boiling on the fire, and when this is done it is very good and keeps very well. The wax is good, except that it is very smoky, and the cause has never been ascertained, and in some provinces it is much more yellow on account of the flowers. These bees do not sting nor do they do harm when the honeycombs are cut. (Diego de Landa, c. 1566, Landa’s Relación De Las Cosas De Yucatan: A Translation, ed. Alfred M. Tozzer [New York: Kraus Reprint Corporation, 1966], 193-94)
There were several breeds of dogs current among the Maya, each with its own name. One such strain was barkless; males were castrated and fattened on corn, and either eaten or sacrificed. Another was used in the hunt. Both wild and domestic turkeys were known, but only the former used as sacrificial victims in ceremonies. As he still does today, the Maya farmer raised the native stingless bees, which are kept in small, hollow logs closed with mud plaster at either end and stacked up in A-frames, but wild honey was also much appreciated. (Michael D. Coe, The Maya [2d ed.; New York: Penguin Book, 1966], 163)
Melipona beecheii
STINGLESS BEE
Abeja (S) Ba’alel kaab (M)
Identification: Much of the bee’s body shows black with some yellow and brown stripes; it measures a bit less than a centimeter. Long, thin, brown papery tubes mark the nest entrance (Schwarz 1932).
Habitat: Ko’olel kaab live in tropical dry and wet forests, building hives in small caverns and crevasses.
Range: They range at least through Mexico down to Costa Rica and are native to the area (Schwarz 1932).
Similar species: Stingless bees are part of the Meliponinae subfamily; within the family exist two main genera: Melipona and Trigona. Trigona, probably the most common genus of stingless bees in the Maya area, measure somewhat longer than Melipona beecheii.
KO’OLEL KAAB have vestiges of a stinger, which they may try to poke you with, having forgotten that their stinger and venom dried up long ago. Their true defense is flying ton your nose and ears and hair and, if really angry, pinching you with their tiny front teeth. Bees give their life to protect the hive.
Ko’olel kaab build their hives in something hollow: a cavity formed by tree roots, a fissure in the wall of a ruin, a small cavern in the earth, or in the soft paper of a live termite nest. Extending from a cavity full of comb, a thin brittle entrance tube flares open like a flower. Brown and papers, the tube is filled with the constant traffic of small black bees coming and going (Schwartz 1948).
Years ago, one hundred or more, trees were laden with honeycomb. During a drought or when food was scarce, the Maya could live on the high-calorie sustenance, but today honey is a rare food to find in the forest. Maya beekeepers say that as there is less jungle and less pesticide-free water, the bees produce less honey. Today, in parts of Mexico and Central America, beekeepers’ sales of wax and honey are an important part of their livelihood (Chemas and Rico-Gray 1991).
Pictures of queen and worker bees, pieces of comb, and bee gods are drawn throughout old Maya codices (Tozzer and Allen 1910). The ancient Maya used wax for various things, although probably not as candles. Most important, wax was itz, a sacred manifestation of god, used in ceremony. The Postclassic Maya meliculturists (Melipona beehive owners) began to fast during the month of Zotz (September 140October 3), purifying their bodies for the following month’s (Tzec: October 2-23) celebration of bees (Sharer 1994). During Tzec they prayed to the four Bacabs, the four gods who each held up a corner of the sky and bore a special color and year, in particular they prayed to Hobnil to give them lots of honey. Hobnil closely resembles the Mayan word hobonil (“of the beehive”) and is the Bacab who resided in the east, overlooking the red Kan years. Beekeepers offered honey, wax, and copal to the bee gods (Thompson 1970) and drew their pictures using honey as their paint. At the end of the ceremony the Mayas prepared and drank balche, a beverage made from fermented honey, water, and the bark of the ba’al che’ tree (Lonchocarpus yucatanensis).
The ancient Maya domesticated stingless bees, keeping and raising them like a farm animal. In past times people provided small burrows for the bees to build their hives in. Traditionally a piece of a living hive was placed inside a hollow log. This acted as a seed for a new hive, and the bees began to build around the old nest. The needs of the log were sealed with clay plugs or stones and a new hole was carved in the side for the bees to use as an entrance. Hanging from a roof corner or within a home garden, the hive was easily accessible as a family needed honey or wax. The plugs were pulled from the hive and the sacs of honey scooped out. Ko’olel kaab store their honey in small ovals of wax that clusters together and break off easily.
In the wild, a hive or the site of a hive, can exist for decades. A young virgin queen bee is thought to go in search of a new nesting site along with a harem of female worker bees and males. Descending on a suitable cavern, the flurry of the swarm soon subsides into quiet, industrious working. The queen bee, until impregnated, remains indistinguishable from other worker bees. Once she begins to lay eggs, her abdomen swells to the point where she is nearly immobile.
Female worker bees prepare hexagonal wax cells, each filled with pollen and honey, in which bee eggs will be laid. Only young females can produce wax, excreting it form the back of their abdomens in the form of small white scales. The queen lowers her abdomen into the tax box and lays and egg in the bed of pollen and honey. Once submerged into the food, the queen turns around to examine her work and then goes on to the next cell. A worker bee bites and bends down the side of the hexagon in order to seal it closed. Only one bee seals the chests full of larvae, although if removed, another replaces her immediately. The larva eats the surrounding food and grows. Worker bees carry away bits of the wax cradle as they are no longer needed.
Eventually all the of wax is taken, used in other construction, and the larva spins itself into a silk cocoon.
The exact function of the male ko’olel kaab remains unclear: it may be simply to fertilize the queen, maintain the hive, or produce wax, although the latter seems unlikely. What is clear is the expulsion from the hive of many of the males at some point during the year. Cast and barred from the nest, they die outside in droves on the ground (Schwarz 1948).
Today, Maya beekeepers predominately raise a European honey bee (Apis mellifera), which is locally called abeja Americana. The European honey bee began to replace the ko’olel kaab in the 1930s and 1940s, when modern apiculture was introduced and honey production began to boom. The honey bee, which actually came to Mesoamerica from Europe along with the Spaniards in the 1500s, is valued for its higher rate of production, despite its lower quality. The aggressive honey bee can forage nectar from all types of blossoms and can adapt to less pristine, deforested environments whereas ko’olel kaab requires blossoms from trees twenty years or older. Ko’olel kaab, in Mayan, means “woman of the honey.” With the introduction of the honey bee, ko’olel kaab honey became reserved for medicinal and ceremonial uses (Chemas and Rico-Ray 1991).
A third type of bee is now common in Central America: the African honey bee. Having migrated up from South America, African honey bee. Having migrated up from South America, African bees have become increasingly common and are widely recognized for their aggressive behavior. African bees dispatch scouts that will buzz and hassle people trespassing into the bees’ territory. If you are buzzed in this way, leave quickly. A swarm of bees may soon follow; in addition to being aggressive, they deliver a painful sting.
Bees are the cupids of trees; they bring the pollen of one tree to the flower of another as they forage for the ingredients of honey. Ko’olel kaab carry their booty in tiny pouches attached to their hind legs. Worker bees, through pheromones, leave a trail of scent marks for other bees to follow to the sources of discovered food. The mark may last for two or three days, and bees forage both alone and in groups; each bee adds to the mark en route to the nest (Leuthold 1975). Ko’olel Kaab often visit chakaj fiddlewood, and ts’itts’il che’ (Gymnopodium floribundum), gathering pollen and nectar from each blossom. The best honey comes from the nectar of ts’itts’il che’ flowers, a tree that grows mainly in tropical dry forest. The bees turn its nectar into large quantities of thick, red, sweet-smelling and -tasting honey. The bees must visit over two million blossoms to make 0.45 kg of honey (Chemas and Rico-Gray 1991).
The honey produced from each strain of pollen and nectar has a unique taste, fragrance, color, and healing property. Some honeys cure sore throats, others consumption, constipation, or swollen injuries. Many of the Mayan names for trees and blossoms describe the healing they offer to humans. Ko’olek kaab honey can currently be brought to Merida, Mexico (Chemas and Rico-Gray, 1991). (Victoria Schlesinger, Animals and Plants of the Ancient Maya: A Guide [Austin: University of Texas Press, 2001], 246-250, 252)
Here is an image of bees in Mayan art (ibid., 249):
In the preface to Jarosław Zrałka, Christophe Helmke, Laura Sotelo, and Wiesław Koszku, "The Discovery of Beehive and the Identification of Apiaries Among the Ancient Maya," Latin American Antiquity 29, no. 3 (2018): 514-31, we read:
Recently, an exceptional find was made by the Nakum Archaeological Project in an offering deposited deep within the architectural core of the Precolumbian Maya site of Nakum located in northeastern Guatemala. The form of the object and comparisons made to ethnographic analogs indicate that it is a clay beehive, most probably one of the oldest in the Maya area and in the whole of Mesoamerica. Whether the object was used for its intended function or is an emulation, or skeuomorph, of perishable counterparts, remains unknown. The importance of this find lies in the fact that beekeeping is an activity that is traced with difficulty in archaeology. The present paper discusses the discovery of this artifact at Nakum, which dates to the end of the Preclassic period (ca. 100 BC–AD 250/300), in a wider temporal and spatial context and provides new data on Precolumbian beekeeping. We use a broad comparative vantage, drawing on archaeological, epigraphic, and ethnohistorical sources to discuss Mesoamerican beekeeping and its role in both the daily and the ritual lives of the Maya.
On the presence of "honey" in the New World, see, for e.g., Karne Hursh Graber, "Honey: A sweet Maya legacy."
I do love my Roman Catholic
friends and family, which includes a number of Catholic priests; however, Rome
preaches a false gospel. For example, icon veneration (a topic Akin refused to
debate me on back in 2020), the Immaculate Conception, papal primacy as defined in 1870, and so forth. Their gospel is a false gospel which results in idolatry
being dogmatized and claiming that if one knowingly rejects fables of history
such as the bodily assumption of Mary to be under anathema. For more, see, for e.g.:
How we Know Roman Catholicism is False: A Primer
Why I am not a Roman Catholic, Will Never Return to Rome, and Why You Should Leave, Too
On the Book of Mormon, see, for e.g.
Book of Mormon Evidences by Jeff Lindsay
For a good primer to the case for the Book of Mormon. Still have to find a Roman Catholic apologist interact with the Arabian Peninsula geography of the Book of Mormon, the discovery of the seal of Mulek, son of Zedekiah, Matt Bowen's work on the onomaticon of the Book of Mormon and corresponding word plays thereof, and other evidences for the text being what it claims to be--a 19th-century translation of an ancient text. Of course, none of these things Fraud, his lackey "Thursday" and even the Roman apologists he has on know about, let alone have (or can) interact with.