The Book of Mormon’s Historicity and Supporting Evidence – part 1

by Cody Calderwood

This is going to be a two part series. The first part will explain why I am writing this and why I am referring to Mesoamerica. The second part will discuss some of the interesting examples to support my claim.

First of all, let me just say that as interesting as I find all of this corresponding evidence from Mesoamerica (region of Guatemala and southern Mexico), I recognize that it is only through the Spirit that one can gain a testimony of the Book of Mormon. This is because religion is a faith based endeavor, not an empirical evidenced based one. It is only through the Spirit that one can gain a testimony of Jesus Christ, and that is the central mission of the book. I have felt the peaceful confirmations through the Spirit. I have seen the power the Book of Mormon brought into the lives of people I taught on my mission, and I have a personal belief and testimony that the Book of Mormon contains prophetic counsel, witnesses of Christ, and lessons that we can learn and apply in our life to achieve greater happiness and peace.

Having said that, many people have had their testimony of the Book of Mormon and of Joseph Smith shaken because of evidence they have been presented or encountered that seemed to have called into question the authenticity of the Book of Mormon.

My point of providing this piece is not to compile a comprehensive list that proves the historicity of the Book of Mormon. It would require way too much time and energy to put forth such a work, and I don’t think you will ever be able to prove beyond a doubt the historicity of the book. I believe that God allowed enough ambiguity to require faith. My intent is merely to provide some links that allow people to see that there is a possible connection with the Book of Mormon and actual historical peoples that will allow you to continue in faith, believing that the Book of Mormon is what Joseph Smith claimed it was. My hope is that after reading some of this you will come away saying that yes it is very possible that the Book of Mormon is an actual historical document. I have provided some references that should help allow people to see that it is not so farfetched to believe in the historicity of the Book of Mormon. These references are brief, but I’m of the opinion that each point that gets referenced is worthy of an entire discussion. This is not meant to be a scientific paper that can withstand severe scrutiny, but rather an appetizer. It is meant to show that there is actual scientific data and evidence to support my claims and to refute many of the claims of the critics of the Book of Mormon. If after reading this you still disagree, that’s just fine by me. We can still be friends.

For context with this discussion I think it is helpful to dismiss a commonly held misconception of the people of the Book of Mormon. Some members of the church erroneously believe that the people mentioned in the Book of Mormon (Jaredites, Nephites, Lamanites and Mulekites) were the only human inhabitants in the Western Hemisphere. This is untrue. There is evidence enough in the Book of Mormon that there were other people populating this continent at the same time as them. One example is in 2 Nephi 5:6 when Nephi refers to “all those who would go with me.” He already specifically named his family, the other unnamed individuals are likely non-Lehite descendants. Another example is In Jacob 7:1–26 we read of Sherem’s encounter with Jacob. Since Jacob was one of the original Lehites in the New World, the maximum adult population among the Lehites couldn’t have been more than a dozen people. Yet Sherem had come from another settlement and had never met Jacob, the chief Nephite priest.

I personally believe that the Lord led many other groups of people to this hemisphere. Look at Jacob chapter 5 and read Zenos’s olive tree allegory as an example that the Lord led many groups of people away to populate different parts of the world that could include North, Central, and South America. Like the Mulekites, it’s possible that these other groups of people didn’t keep a record and fell into apostasy and illiteracy. Or, it’s possible that some of the other groups of people did keep records but the Lord hasn’t brought their records to light yet.

The other peoples interacting with the Nephites and Lamanites aren’t explicitly mentioned because that is not the purpose of the Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon is essentially a family journal. This family journal was kept by divine commandment to help those members of this family (house of Israel) that landed in Mesoamerica and others who read to be convinced “that Jesus is the Christ, the Eternal God, manifesting himself unto all nations.” (taken from the title page of the Book of Mormon) Think of it this way. If you were commanded by God to keep a journal of the miracles you had experienced, the spiritual lessons you had learned, and the importance of Christ, would you list a detailed record of politics, sociology, and all of your neighbors? Most likely not. It is my personal opinion that we would have received much of that information in the lost 116 manuscript pages that would have been the Book of Lehi. That is the book that was charged with keeping record of the history of the people, whereas the plates of Nephi were charged with keeping record of the more spiritual matters. This is a big reason why the Book of Mormon doesn’t have detailed records of the history of the people. Thankfully though there is sufficient evidence to draw some parallels.

Some of the biggest critiques of the Book of Mormon are concerning the perceived anachronisms found therein. An anachronism is defined as: “something (such as a word, an object, or an event) that is mistakenly placed in a time where it does not belong.” Many critics point to these anachronisms as proof that Joseph Smith fabricated the Book of Mormon from his own mind. Before I list some of these anachronisms, it’s important to understand two critical points. First is how archaeology works. Archaeology is the study of material remains. That means that archaeologists can only draw conclusions based on the limited material that remains. One important thing to remember is that if an item has not been found, that doesn’t mean it didn’t exist. The absence of evidence is not proof. This is very important with respect to the Book of Mormon because you will see that many of the early anachronisms associated with the Book of Mormon have since been discovered to actually be an accurate portrayal of Mesoamerican life. Many critics prematurely jump to a conclusion based off of limited archaeological data, which is incorrect.

The other important point to remember is that a lack of evidence in Mesoamerica has an explanation from Mesoamerican cultures with respect to conquering nations. In Mesoamerica we have evidence of warring nations battling each other. The nation that is victorious would then destroy the temples, the sculptures, the monuments and the historical record of the conquered people in an attempt to subjugate them and eliminate their past from memory so as to better control them. It is well documented[1] that the Aztecs and Maya both practiced this on occasion. We have an example of this in the Book of Mormon. The final battle of the Nephites and Lamanites ended in the utter destruction of the Nephites. It is very possible that the Lamanites then proceeded to destroy the temples, sculptures, monuments and history of the Nephite people as was practiced by the Aztecs and Maya. Another tragic event that likely erased evidence of the Nephites was at the hand of the Spaniards who conquered the Americas in the 1500’s. When they came the overzealous priests destroyed all written records they could find because they viewed the Aztecs and Maya as heathens worshipping pagan Gods [2]. And all gold that they found they caused to be melted down into gold bars and shipped back to Spain.

The Lord in his infinite wisdom caused the prophet Moroni to bury the gold plates in the earth far away from where the Spaniards were destroying all written records and were melting all gold down. I sometimes wonder what academic treasures we would have today had the Spaniards not destroyed so much of Mesoamerican written culture. There are only four written pieces, or codices, that survived the Spanish destruction. In fact, a quote by a famous Maya scholar, Michael D. Coe, represents well my thoughts with this. He said, “Our knowledge of ancient Maya thought must represent only a tiny fraction of the whole picture, for of the thousands of books in which the full extent of their learning and ritual was recorded, only four have survived to modern times (as though all that posterity knew of ourselves were to be based upon three prayer books and Pilgrim’s Progress).” Can you imagine if every historical document of the United States’ young 250 year history was destroyed except for 4 small books? What limited conclusions would future civilizations be able to draw from such a small source? Now to put that in perspective, the Mesoamerican culture that we know of spanned over 3,000 years.

Knowing that archaeology is limited in drawing conclusions about an ancient people, and knowing that most of the written record of Mesoamerica had been destroyed, we need to tread carefully in drawing any final and lasting conclusions from the current scientific evidence we have. This is not to say that science is evil or bad. Quite the contrary. Science can be a wonderful avenue for arriving at truth. But we need to use caution at drawing final conclusions and instead need to keep open the possibility that scientific theories will continue to change as new evidence comes forth.

Back to the anachronisms. When the Book of Mormon was published in 1830 there were many anachronisms found in it. Critics immediately latched on to these as proof that Joseph Smith was a fraud. Here is a sample of some of those anachronisms: