Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Studies of the Book of Mormon/Book of Mormon Difficulties: A Study/Origin

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Animals, metals, grains and textiles

A FAIR Analysis of: Criticism of Mormonism/Books A work by author: B.H. Roberts, edited by Brigham D. Madsen

The Question of the Origin of Native American Races and Their Culture

Can we successfully maintain the Book of Mormon’s comparatively recent advent of man in America and the existence of his iron and steel and domestic animal, and written language stage of culture against the deduction of our late American writers upon these themes? If we cannot, what is to be the effect of it all upon the minds of our youth? What is to be our general standing before the enlightened opinion of mankind? Is silence to be our answer?...Silence in an age of free inquiry is impossible…Most humbly, but also most anxiously, I await the further development of knowledge that will make it possible for us to give a reasonable answer to those who question us concerning the matters herein discussed.
—B.H. Roberts, “Book of Mormon Difficulties: A Study,” ‘’Studies of the Book of Mormon’’, p. 143

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116-117

Claim

• Roberts presents the following questions regarding the origin of Native Americans compared to what might be assumed from the Book of Mormon:
• Roberts notes that the Book of Mormon “tells of the origin of American peoples.
• According to Roberts, the Book of Mormon “postulates those lands as uninhabited” when the Jaredites arrived. (yea, into that quarter where never had man been.”

Response

• Roberts associates the lands that are uninhabited with the entirety of the North and South American continents.
• For a detailed response, see: Book of Mormon: Limited geography theory

117

Claim

• Roberts notes that “it is assumed that [the Jaredites] seat of Government and center of civilization was in Central America; that their movements in occupying the land from first to last were confined to the North continent.”
• Roberts notes that the Jaredites were a “iron age civilization far advanced,” rather than a stone age civilization.

Response
 FAIR WIKI EDITORS: Check sources

119

Claim

• Roberts states that the Nephites and Jaredites,

…are the only peoples that occupied the American continents, up to 420 A.D., according to the Book of Mormon; they speak of no other with whom they came in contact, or who immigrated into the land during their occupancy of it.

Author's source(s)

• 2 Nephi 1꞉8-9

Response
 FAIR WIKI EDITORS: Check sources

142

Claim

• Roberts states that the Book of Mormon requires “an empty America” in 3000 years B.C., the establishment of an iron age culture (the Jaredites), following by a total destruction which leaves “the American continents again without human inhabitants.”

Response
 FAIR WIKI EDITORS: Check sources