Question
Dear Gramps,
I was baptized as a Mormon 8/06 age 60, from a Catholic background. Why are there not any archeological artifacts on ancient world of Book of Mormon as there are on the bible? Why does the Book of Mormon talk of horses, metal, cows, etc.. when these did not come to new world until after 1492?
Gil
Answer
Dear Gil,
You are apparently bringing with you to your new religion, a number of rather worn false notions that are still being propagated by the other Christian churches who present themselves as enemies of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It is true that no specific archaeological site has yet been identified with the Book of Mormon. However, there are multitudinous records of every artifact and material that is mentioned in the Book of Mormon, with the possible exception of steel. However, steel was made in the Old World before the time that Lehi and his colony left for the Promised Land. Further, steel is easily oxidized and would normally rust away in a geologically short time.
It is true that the Spaniards found no horses among the Aztec Indians when they invaded Mexico, but Sir Francis Drake recorded that he saw large bands of wild horses near the coast of what is now Oregon when he sailed up the west coast of North America. I have seen the skeleton of a pre-Columbian horse in the archeological Museum in Buenos Aires, Argentina
The remains of elephants, and mammoths (a cousin to the elephant) have been found in various places in the Western Hemisphere. The remains of mammoths have been found in Alaska and Siberia, frozen in the ice, with the flesh still intact. The remains of elephants have been unearthed in the La Brea tar pits in Los Angeles, California. I have seen the exhumed remains of an elephant that was unearthed by a road crew in Nebraska a few years ago, and now resides in the Dawson County Historical Museum in Lexington, Nebraska.
The pre-Columbian wheel is known to exist, and smooth stone roads are found extensively in Central and South America
Some fifteen of the native American Indian tribes retain legends of a white redeemer god who came among them.
A manuscript of the Quiché Indians in Guatemala has been discovered and translated into Spanish (and now into English) called the Popol Vuh, which gives a history of the Quiché people, in which is an account of the creation, a redeemer god, of their coming from the other side of the sea, from the east, and an account of their obscurity (dark skin).
Numbers of books have been written on both the internal and external evidences that the Book of Mormon is indeed an accurate historical account. The evidence of its authenticity is replete.
Gramps
