FAIR is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing well-documented answers to criticisms of the doctrine, practice, and history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Question: Should there be archaeological evidence for the Book of Mormon?
Question: Should there be archaeological evidence for the Book of Mormon?
It is natural to want archaeological evidence for historical events. However, most historical events will not have archaeological evidence for various reasons, such as "most human artifacts perish. Most archaeological sites have not been excavated. What we have, therefore, is only a small portion of the evidence that once existed."[1]
For example, the Battle of Hastings was a very prominent battle on the British isle in 1066. Despite its importance and the existence of an abbey ostensibly built to commemorate the location of the battle, no archaeological evidence for the battle has been found. Some possible reasons include:
In part the absence of evidence is because there has been relatively little archaeological investigation at the abbey. But more significantly, the chances of material surviving from a single day in 1066, however fateful, is very low. This is partly because such evidence is likely to be of an ephemeral nature, and will have been destroyed by the clay that makes up the underlying geology of the site, and which is relatively acidic compared to other historical battlefields that have preserved buried features.
But more importantly, the very act of building the abbey and the subsequent centuries of occupation involved major changes to the topography of the ridge on which it sits, including terracing and levelling of the sloping ground to allow construction of buildings. According to the historical sources describing the battle, the top of the ridge was where Harold placed his standard and was the focus of much of the fighting. So the changes which occurred here after 1066 will have seriously eroded most, if not all, of the potential archaeological evidence that might be expected to survive from the 11th century.[2]
As another example, the Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt has elicited some archaeological research without success. When asked whether or not this disproved the historicity of the Exodus, one biblical scholar noted:
Some archaeologists had said, “We’ve combed the Sinai and didn’t find anything.” But an Israeli archaeologist laughed at that claim and told me, “It was five jeeps.” It was a survey, not an excavation of the whole Sinai Peninsula. Moreover, even if we had excavated the whole Sinai, what could we find that people traveling from Egypt to Israel around thirty-three hundred years ago would have left that we would dig up now? A piece of petrified wood with “Moses loves Zipporah” carved in it? An Israeli archaeologist told me that a vehicle that was lost in Sinai in the 1973 war was found recently under sixteen meters of sand. Sixteen meters down in forty years (a biblical number)! Finding objects thirty-three hundred years down presents a rather harder challenge.[3]
As a result, there should not be an expectation that archaeological evidence will be discovered proving the historicity of the Book of Mormon. Instead, when some evidence is uncovered that could provide some corroboration when seen from a faithful perspective, such evidence should be celebrated.
Notes
- ↑ Daniel C. Peterson and John Gee, “Editor’s Introduction: Through a Glass, Darkly,” FARMS Review of Books 9:2 (1997), xxiii.
- ↑ "Where Did the Battle of Hastings Happen?" English-Heritage.org.uk, Home > Visit > Places To Visit > 1066 Battle Of Hastings, Abbey And Battlefield > History And Stories > Where Did The Battle Happen? (accessed 27 February 2023).
- ↑ Richard Elliot Friedman, The Exodus: How It Happened and Why It Matters (HarperOne, 2017), 19.