#Palmyra manuscript

[adventuressclubamericas]

Adventuresses We Love - Lady Hester Stanhope Lady Hester Stanhope was raised with the privilege that came with being a member of the British aristocracy in the late 18th century. She served as official hostess and, later, private secretary, for her uncle, William Pitt the Younger, during his terms as Prime Minister. After his death, though, and a series of misfortunes, Lady Stanhope turned her back on England and set off for a life of adventure.

Her travels took her to the Middle East, where she’d spend the rest of her life. En route to Cairo, her ship sank in a storm off Rhodes, taking her clothes with it. Stanhope and her party borrowed Turkish clothes in the aftermath, but she refused traditional women’s attire, adopting instead Turkish male clothing. She’d continue to dress in this manner from then on.

She’d explore Greece, Malta, Turkey, Egypt, Syria, the Holy Land, and finally, Lebanon, keeping careful notes along the way. In Egypt, she became the first English woman to enter the Great Pyramid, while in Syria she was the first English woman to visit Palmyra. The trip to Palmyra took her through Bedouin controlled territory. There were concerns that the Bedouin would be hostile towards the outsiders, but Stanhope so thoroughly charmed their leader that not only were she and her party welcomed, but they also started referring to her as “Queen Hester.”

In 1815, she’d lead what would be the first modern archaeological excavation in the Holy Land. An Italian manuscript suggested that a fortune in gold was buried in Ascalon in what is now Israel. The dig wouldn’t find any gold but did recover many important artifacts and made several important scientific discoveries.

Lady Stanhope would finally settle in Lebanon. At first, she was warmly greeted by the Emir. The reception would turn cooler, though, over the years as she gave support and refuge to those fleeing fighting between different parties throughout the country. The support of the people led to her becoming the de-facto ruler of her district in Lebanon.

Lady Hester Stanhope, “the Queen of the Desert,” died in her sleep June 23, 1839, at her home in Lebanon. She was 63. The diaries she’d kept during her adventures were published in three volumes after her death.

[bond-servant-of-christ-jesus]

Mormonism

Mormonism: a religious cult that was founded by Joseph Smith in the woods of Palmyra, New York in the year 1821. He claimed that God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ appeared to him and told him to establish a completely new church. In other words, he had visions that told him to start a new religion.

Smith claimed that the "Angel Moroni" gave him some golden "Nephi Plates" so that he could translate them into English. This religious text is known as the Book of Mormon. The three other religious texts use by the Mormons are the King James Version, Pearl of Great Price, and the Doctrine and Covenants.

The Mormon Church claims that the entire Christian church and the Bible have been totally corrupted. Thus, its alleged purpose is to restore the church back to the original teachings of Jesus Christ and the apostles.

Is A Total Apostasy Of The Christian Church Possible?:

The Lord Jesus Christ specifically taught that the gates of hell would never prevail against His church (Matthew 16:18). Paul said that God would be eternally glorified in Christ and His saints (Ephesians 3:21). If the Mormon Church is correct, then God must be a liar. May that never be. God has always preserved His faithful remnant. While the Bible does speak of apostasy, it nowhere mentions a total apostasy.

The Words of the Lord are incorruptible. His Word shall endure forever (Isaiah 40:8; Proverbs 30:5-6; 1 Peter 1:23-25). The Scripture cannot be broken (John 10:35). It is simply not possible for the Bible to be lost and forgotten. Those who present strange doctrine are to be deemed heretics (1 Timothy 1:3-4; 2 John 9-11). The faith has been delivered to the saints "once for all" (Jude 3). Thus, there is no need for new revelations. Angelic visions are not an acceptable method of drawing attention to oneself (Colossians 2:18).

The Apostle Paul in Galatians 1:8-9 wrote a categorical condemnation of any different gospels that could arise in the future after his death. He even issued an anathema to angels who could theoretically arrive to preach differently from the doctrine originally delivered by the apostles. So, even granting that Joseph Smith had an encounter with the Angel Moroni, Mormonism is a false religion because it preaches a different message of salvation. According to Paul, another gospel is no gospel at all (Galatians 1:6-7). The gospel never needed to be restored because it was never lost to begin with. Mormon revelation is not of divine but human origin. The simple, true gospel involves placing trust in the finished work of Jesus Christ alone. We are not saved by obeying various laws, ordinances, and attending temple ceremonies.

It is one thing to say that the church has become unrecognizably dirty throughout history, but it is quite another to claim that the church disappeared completely from the face of the earth. The possibility of such a claim is ruled out by Scripture itself.

The Mormon Claim Of Being The Complete Restoration Of Lost Truth Is Unfounded:

An essential question that needs to be addressed is, "When did the Christian church go into the state of total apostasy?" There has always been a unanimous consensus on what constitutes the essential doctrines of the Christian faith in the earliest church creeds. The New Testament is supported by thousands of different manuscripts. It is almost one hundred percent textually pure. The creed summarizing the gospel message that the Apostle Paul recounted in 1 Corinthians 15:1-8 has been dated back to the first century, thereby proving that the gospel has not been lost or altered.

Why would Mormons use the Bible at all, since they maintain that the whole of Christianity was lost in the first century and the canon was assembled (along with the King James Version being produced in the seventeenth century) by an allegedly apostate church? Which parts of the Bible have been corrupted?

If any of Joseph Smith's claims regarding the alleged total apostasy of Christendom were true, then he should have been able to give an extensive list of all of the original teachings of Jesus Christ, where every denomination had went wrong, provide the exact date of when Christianity went extinct, and go back to the original teachings of Jesus and the apostles. He should have been able to refer to established facts, writings, history, etc. However, Joseph Smith never took the time to verify any of his claims.

[tamilakam]

[dddots]

Palm-leaf Book Models

Despite being extremely busy with commissions, I make it a point to keep doing personal work, self-exploration and loads of readings about books and their structures. Making palm-leaf books has been always been on my mind. Though I did forget about it for a while until recently, I was encouraged by some friends to really try it. 

I was very grateful that my brother, Kenneth, was able to visit the San Francisco Center For The Book last year to look at the Turning Over An Old Leaf exhibition about palm-leaf manuscripts. He managed to buy a copy of the catalogue, as well as took tons of photographs for me. 

Palm-leaf manuscripts were mainly made from two types of palms: the palmyra palm (Borassus flabellifer) or the talipot palm (Corypha umbraculifera). I did toy with the idea of making my own palm-leaf paper, but after watching a video about how they are made, decided that I should not attempt to steal a leaf from the palms in the parks nearby. So I made my models using materials that I could find in my studio (and of course, Louis’ studio).

The first model I made was with paper and binder’s board, and I used a black cotton thread to sew up the book. It is modelled after the Balinese style palm-leaf book as seen in the catalogue. Machine-made paper has a very different structure and texture to palm-leaf, which I assume will have a very strong grain. Therefore for the second model, I made use of wood veneers in various wood types to make a model similar to the Burmese palm-leaf books seen in the catalogue. 

[valinaraii]

And if you are wondering if I care more about cultural heritage than human lives, you are wrong. But there are things worth to risk one’s live in order to be safe. Tell that to the firefighters who saved Notre-Dame’s relics and, ultimately, the building itself. Tell that to Khaled-al-Asaad who watched over Palmyra’s museum and was tortured and murdered because of it. Tell the Brazilians that their national museum isn’t worth. Tell the people of Sarajevo who, decades ago, rescued books and manuscripts while bombs and bullets rained over them. 

There’s a conforting feeling in thinking that, when we are gone, there will be something that will survive us, for centuries and centuries. Notre Dame is one of these things.

[upennmanuscripts]

“Manuscript Country”: Landscapes of South Asian Manuscript Libraries

“Manuscript Country”: Landscapes of South Asian Manuscript Libraries

by Anthony Cerulli

Palm-leaf and paper manuscripts have been produced and circulated in South Asian literary cultures for a long time, going back well before the turn of the Common Era. For centuries, scribes across South Asia produced and re-produced texts on dried leaves of palmyra and talipot palm trees, and occasionally on other materials like birch bark. They wrote in classical and vernacular…

[examiningmormonism]

Critically Examining the Case for Book of Mormon Historicity

Preface: This started as a YouTube comment and turned into a much more extended essay, as I had meant to work on such an essay for some time. In case you're inclined to ask why I bothered to write all of this, here's why: for different reasons, I find the ancient Near East, the Bible, ancient Mesoamerica, and Mormon origins to be profoundly interesting, and these subjects converge in discussing with LDS scholars the origins of the Book of Mormon. I've never been LDS and my interest in Mormonism is largely academic, though as a believing Christian I have an interest in engaging Mormonism from an orthodox Christian perspective. For those who are interested in reading through this, I hope it both stimulates your own consideration of these issues and sharpens up your ability to engage credibly with LDS family and friends who use such arguments. This essay considers seventeen arguments made by Dr. John Clark, a well-regarded archaeologist of ancient Mesoamerica.

As a non-Mormon and an interested reader of LDS scholarship (which I enjoy reading in the midst of deep disagreements) , I think that this video provides a good encapsulation of where defenses of Book of Mormon historicity tend to go wrong:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkF4hlddGfw

 The basic model of these arguments for Book of Mormon historicity are that there is a feature of the Book of Mormon text which was unknown or absurd in Joseph's day but which is now confirmed by historians of the ancient Near East and Mesoamerica in our own day. In order to evaluate these arguments, I want to spell out what I take to be important methodological points:

1. The two models we are comparing are a) the Book of Mormon as an ancient Mesoamerican codex engraved by authors of roughly Near Eastern extraction and b) the Book of Mormon as a production of the 19th century, written by author(s) familiar with the then popular ideas about the "Mound Builders." These mounds no longer occasion much interest because most of them have been removed or have been built over. But to persons of Joseph Smith's time and place, the Indian Mounds dotted the landscape and provided observers with much material upon which to speculate. Dan Vogel's "Indian Origins and the Book of Mormon" provides a clear and well-argued defense of this model of Book of Mormon origins.

2. This means that we are not looking at what scholars of ancient America thought in Joseph Smith's day. Then, as today, what academics thought and what was ingrained in the popular understanding were very different things. As LDS scholars often point out, Joseph Smith was relatively unlearned. We would therefore expect a production by Smith or someone associated with him to reflect popular understandings of ancient American civilization rather than academic understandings of that civilization. Hence, to compare what **academics** thought of ancient America in the 19th century with the Book of Mormon is a false trail. Nobody is suggesting that a 19th century scholar of ancient America composed the Book of Mormon.

3. We are not comparing 19th century conceptions of Mesoamerica with 21st century conceptions of Mesoamerica, as nonbelieving accounts for the production of the Book of Mormon do not set its narrative in Central America. Rather, as just described above, the setting of the Book of Mormon according to those who reject its historical authenticity is generally in the North American Heartland, including upstate New York.

These considerations lead us to the most important principle in evaluating claims of Book of Mormon authenticity. If a feature of the Book of Mormon text is found **both** in the ancient world **and** in the popular understanding of Joseph Smith's time and place, then the feature of the text **provides no argument for its authenticity or for its non-authenticity.** Both skeptics and believers of the Book can fall into this trap. In the same vein, we must understand that American culture in the 19th century was far from a monolith. What was believable and normal in 1830 Palmyra might be laughable to a scholar of that period or to a layperson in another area of the country. Thus, that critics once laughed at a feature of the Book of Mormon which has since been found in the ancient world is only significant if the feature was laughable and unexpected in the precise cultural context which enveloped Joseph Smith himself.

Each of the arguments made by Dr. Clark is a point which concerns two worlds. While Dr. Clark is an eminent expert in one of these worlds, in the other, he is merely a layman. The former is Mesoamerica, the latter is 19th century upstate New York. This point must be emphasized, because in several instances Dr. Clark explicitly makes a claim about what was conceivable for "19th century Yankees", with similar claims implied for his other arguments. My argument is that the major failure of his argument turns not on a misunderstanding of Central America (Clark is too much of a scholar to simply have "misconceptions" about Central America), but on a series of failures to grapple with Joseph Smith's own cultural context. Because of the paramount importance of a well-crafted methodology in approaching the question of Book of Mormon historicity, I will be returning to this point again and again in relation to the specific arguments presented by Dr. Clark.

With these points in mind, let's turn to the specific arguments.

1. Metal plates in stone boxes.

The first concerns metal plates sealed in stone boxes. We are told that this claim was thought to be ludicrous in Joseph's time but has since been shown to be authentically ancient. The engraved gold plates of Darius, sealed in a stone box, probably provide the closest analogue to the Book of Mormon plates. But there are serious issues with using this as an argument for the Book's authenticity. First, while engraved metal plates have been found in the ancient world, there has never been a text of the size of the Book of Mormon found- not even close. That a local aristocrat such as Laban had much of the Old Testament translated into Egyptian and engraved on brass plates indicates that the engraving of large records, comprising multiple scrolls, must have been somewhat common in the 6th century BC. The plates that have been discovered provide only a moderate parallel to the description found in the Book of Mormon.

Still, were there no analogue of similar precision found in Joseph Smith's own time and place, this would be a remarkable parallel. However, there are such analogues. The first comes from the surviving Spalding Manuscript, which I use only as an example of what was current in Joseph Smith's background, not as an argument for the Spalding-Rigdon model of BoM authorship. The Spalding Manuscript describes a colony of Roman Christians from the 4th century AD, blown ashore to the American continent accidentally. The internal narrative of the story is that Fabius, the leader of the colony, recorded the history of his people on a document and then sealed it away in a stone box, placing that box inside a cave. Fabius does so in order that the record might come forth and be translated by future Europeans so that they might know the history of Fabius' people. The plates of the Book of Mormon are similarly supposed to record the history of an ancient civilization extracted from the Old World, sealed away in a box with the intention that they should later come forth and be translated so that the later inhabitants of the American continent might know its history. Moreover, testimony from Brigham Young and Oliver Cowdery suggests that the stone box was thought to be hidden away inside a cave filled with records. I am not suggesting literary dependence. Rather, I am pointing out that analogues, even relatively close ones, were indeed present to Joseph Smith in 1830, and that the currency of these ideas indicates that the Book of Mormon's internal account of its sealing in a stone box does not need to be explained in terms of the ancient world: ultimately, it would be a wash.

But what about metal plates? Fabius' account is not engraved on plates of metal. Was this laughable in Smith's context? No, it wasn't. Fawn Brodie (whatever one thinks of her reconstruction of Smith, I refer to her book because of its citation of primary texts) notes that "a Palmyra paper in 1821 had reported that diggers on the Erie Canal had unearthed 'several brass plates' along with skeletons and fragments of pottery." (No Man Knows My History, 35) So, we find that in the cultural world immersing the young Joseph Smith, there are already ideas of records sealed up in stone boxes as well as engraved metal plates, and that these ideas were linked with the Indians, particularly the Mound Builders which forms the setting of the Book of Mormon according to nonbelievers.

So this, at best, is a wash. At worst, the immediacy of the parallel to Joseph's own context and the lack of precise analogues in the Near East (given the length of the record) provides a slight advantage to nonbelieving models for BoM origins. An argument could be made for either, but this is miles away from the slam dunk suggested by Dr. Clark.

2. Ancient American writing

Dr. Clark argues that the Book's description of writing and books in ancient America are exceptionally prescient, given what was then thought of ancient America.

The above examples suffice to show that it was hardly inconceivable in Joseph Smith's world that ancient Americans had writing systems. After all, the fundamental idea undergirding popular ideas about the Mound Builders was that the Mound Builders represented a lost civilization of basically Old World extraction, having all the sophistication known from the Old World, but wiped out by the ancestors of the American Indians known in the 19th century. The Book of Mormon provides a particular spin on this narrative, but it is recognizable as a form of the narrative. So, given the Book's situation in this narrative world (according to those of us who don't believe the Book is historically authentic), it is entirely reasonable that writing systems should be described. And since nobody is alleging that Joseph produced the Book based on an academic understanding of Mesoamerica current in his day, Clark's comparison of the BoM with the scholarly knowledge in 1830 is a false one. However ludicrous ancient American writing might have been to the scholars of 1830, Joseph Smith wasn't acquainted with their ideas, but with the ideas of those for whom ancient American writing was to be expected.

There is thus a close analogue in both the world of Joseph Smith and in ancient Mesoamerica, if one is simply considering the presence of written language. Given that the writing systems of ancient Mesoamerica are not presently related to any Old World writing system, the parallel to the Book of Mormon is quite vague, as the latter describes writing systems derived from Hebrew and Egyptian. So the parallel is merely in the concept of written texts- hardly precise enough to be striking.

3. Ancient American Warfare

Dr. Clark describes the notion of warfare in ancient America as having been "ridiculed" in the Book of Mormon until about twenty years ago. But as before, the question concerns the source of that ridicule. Would a person in Joseph's environment ridicule the idea of wars of extermination among the ancient inhabitants of the Americas? Certainly not. This was the basis for the mythos of the Mound Builders- that the creators of the advanced civilizations of ancient America were savagely wiped out by the ancestors of the Native Americans known to Joseph and his contemporaries. These immense wars of genocide were then seen to explain the ubiquity of the mounds heaped up with the remains of ancient inhabitants of the continent. The Book of Mormon contains a number of passages suggesting its origin, in part, as an etiology of these mounds, where the bones were visibly heaped up almost immediately under the surface:

Alma 16:11: "Nevertheless, after many days their dead bodies were heaped up upon the face of the earth, and they were covered with a shallow covering."

Alma 28:11: "And the bodies of many thousands are laid low in the earth, while the bodies of many thousands are moldering in heaps upon the face of the earth; yea, and many thousands are mourning for the loss of their kindred, because they have reason to fear, according to the promises of the Lord, that they are consigned to a state of endless wo."

Mormon 2:15: "And it came to pass that my sorrow did return unto me again, and I saw that the day of grace was passed with them, both temporally and spiritually; for I saw thousands of them hewn down in open rebellion against their God, and heaped up as dung upon the face of the land. And thus three hundred and forty and four years had passed away."

Ether 11:6: "And there was great calamity in all the land, for they had testified that a great curse should come upon the land, and also upon the people, and that there should be a great destruction among them, such an one as never had been upon the face of the earth, and their bones should become as heaps of earth upon the face of the land except they should repent of their wickedness."

Even apart from the link between the Mound Builder mythos and the Book of Mormon, bloody wars with Native Americans were a matter of living memory and direct knowledge for contemporaries of Joseph Smith's. This is one place where I am genuinely mystified by Dr. Clark's assertion. Why would anybody in Joseph Smith's environment be surprised that he describes ancient Americans as fighting wars?

4. Nature of Civilization

Dr. Clark states that the account of ancient American civilization differs markedly from what Joseph would have expected from his own knowledge of the American Indians and their culture, But this misses the point in a crucially important way. The Mound Builder mythos itself arose as an explanation for an apparent discontinuity for the high civilization evident from the mounds and the perceived low culture of the Native Americans of the 19th century. As wrong as Rodney Meldrum is, he and his compatriots have played a helpful role in reminding everyone that there is evidence of civilization in North America, with highways, fortifications, and the like. In their efforts to demonstrate that "Joseph knew" the setting of the Book of Mormon in the Heartland of North America, they have also provided extremely helpful documentation showing that this evidence of civilization was known to Joseph and his contemporaries.The important point is that these features were immediately apparent in Joseph Smith's own day, as the mounds which have now been eradicated or built over were visible to the naked eye and well-known as a feature of the landscape.

[As a minor footnote, even if these things were not known to Joseph and his contemporaries, anyone describing an ancient civilization of Old World extraction would draw features known from Old World cultures, which is particularly predictable for a narrative like the Book of Mormon, anchored in the detailed information given about ancient Israelite civilization.]

According to the Mount Builder mythos, the architects of the great civilization evident in the Mounds were wiped out by the ancestors of the Indians known to 19th century Americans. In the Book of Mormon, this position is neatly filled by the Lamanites, cursed with a red skin (which is at the very least the strong prima facie evidence of the BoM text) and identified as the forefathers of the Indians. 2 Nephi 5:24 serves as an etiology for the perceived low culture of these Indians:

2 Nephi 5:24: "And because of their cursing which was upon them they did become an idle people, full of mischief and subtlety, and did seek in the wilderness for beasts of prey."

Enos 1:20 provides an even clearer example:

Enos 1:20: "And I bear record that the people of Nephi did seek diligently to restore the Lamanites unto the true faith in God. But our labors were vain; their hatred was fixed, and they were led by their evil nature that they became wild, and ferocious, and a bloodthirsty people, full of idolatry and filthiness; feeding upon beasts of prey; dwelling in tents, and wandering about in the wilderness with a short skin girdle about their loins and their heads shaven; and their skill was in the bow, and in the cimeter, and the ax. And many of them did eat nothing save it was raw meat; and they were continually seeking to destroy us."

And see also:

Mormon 6:9: "And it came to pass that they did fall upon my people with the sword, and with the bow, and with the arrow, and with the ax, and with all manner of weapons of war."

The red-skinned Lamanites are noted for their association with the bow and the axe- both well known associates of Native Americans known to Smith, whose favorite weapons were the bow and the tomahawk axe. I'm not sure when the teepee became a stereotype for Native Americans in general, but if it was present in Smith's day (I'm working to confirm or deny its presence), then the notation about the tents provides another specific convergence to Smith's background and context. The reference to the shaven heads likewise hits the mark for the Native Americans known to Smith, for whom a partially or entirely shaved head was a common hairstyle. And the reference to loincloths is easily accounted for in terms of the "breechcloth" which was common to most Native American tribes and would have been immediately known to Smith and his contemporaries. Thus, while the Nephites (and righteous Lamanites who are turned white- thus suggesting a path of redemption for the Natives known to Smith) are described in terms of civilization familiar to the Old World, the Lamanites who are the ancestors of the American Indians known to Smith (in the unbelieving model of Book of Mormon origins) are described in a way which immediately rings true with what was thought in the 19th century. I don't write this to attack Smith or his contemporaries for believing this, but simply to note that the Book of Mormon resembles almost precisely what one would expect from a text drawing on the Mound Builder mythos.

5. Weapons and Armor

Dr. Clark then states that the description of Book of Mormon weapons and armor converge unexpectedly and specifically with ancient Mesoamerica. As evidence for the historicity of the Book of Mormon, this point cannot prove very much, since the weapons described are easily explained as a result of a) a biblical history of ancient America mirroring biblical warfare, where all of the mentioned weapons and armor are described and b) knowledge of weapons used by Indians of the 19th century and found in Indian Mounds. The latter accounts for the peculiar prominence of the axe (tomahawk) and bow in relation to the Lamanites, who are linked with the Native Americans of the 19th century on the non-historical model of Book of Mormon authorship.

5a. Excursus on Metals in Mesoamerica

By itself, then, the presence of these weapons is neither an argument for or against the Book of Mormon, as their textual presence can be explained both as an authentic Mesoamerican history and as a projection of biblical warfare. However, when further detail is considered, the weapons described point away from Book of Mormon historicity and towards a 19th century origin. First, as mentioned above, the weapons associated with the Lamanites are suggestive of a 19th century cultural background. Second, and more seriously, while most references to Book of Mormon weapons and armor are nondescript concerning their makeup, those details which do exist each point towards a metallic origin. No reader of the Book of Mormon without knowledge of ancient America would have any reason to suppose that they were made of anything else- on "bloodstains" see below. Evidence of metallurgy in Mesoamerica during Book of Mormon times is slim to nonexistent. It is important to distinguish metallurgy from the use of metal. John Sorenson has plausibly noted linguistic and some archaeological evidence for the use of metals in Central America during Book of Mormon times.

However, as Deanne Matheny points out:

"It is important to distinguish between metalworking, 'the act or process of shaping things out of metal' and metallurgy, the 'science and technology of metals' which may involve such processes as smelting, casting, and alloying." ("Does the Shoe Fit" in "New Approaches to the Book of Mormon", p. 283)

The Book of Mormon is very clear that the Lehites and the Jaredites possessed advanced metallurgical technology. Not only does the text describe tools (such as swords fashioned after Laban's model) which can only be produced by metallurgy, it makes explicit references to metallurgy. "Dross" is used as a metaphor in both Alma 32:3 and 34:29. The latter is placed in the mouth of Alma himself, preaching to the people and saying "if ye do not remember to be charitable, ye are as dross, which the refiners do cast out, (it being of no worth) and is trodden under foot of men." This comment is immensely significant in evaluating the presence of metallurgy in the Book of Mormon, because its use as a metaphor indicates that it must have been common enough for the average person to understand. Hence, in the society described, metallurgists would play an important economic and civic role, and given the intelligibility of the metaphor, it would be strange if Book of Mormon civilizations did not use their knowledge of advanced metallurgy to produce metal weapons and armor, as such implements would provide a decisive advantage in war with those cities which did not use metallurgical technology.

Helaman 6:11 explicitly describes the extent of metallurgy at this point in Book of Mormon history: "And behold, there was all manner of gold in both these lands, and of silver, and of precious ore of every kind; and there were also curious workmen, who did work all kinds of ore and did refine it; and thus they did become rich."

Helaman 6:9 describes the geographical extent of this knowledge: "And it came to pass that they became exceedingly rich, both the Lamanites and the Nephites; and they did have an exceeding plenty of gold, and of silver, and of all manner of precious metals, both in the land south and in the land north."

Thus, in the first century before Christ, advanced metallurgy is known among both Nephites and Lamanites and is prominent throughout the entirety of the lands described in the text. Given the vast extent of this knowledge- in both land northward and land southward, among both Nephites and Lamanites, among both rich and common (as evident in its intelligible metaphorical application)- it would be totally unexpected for this knowledge to simply pass away, as some Book of Mormon scholars have suggested occurred. Metallurgy is an important enough technology that once it is established on a large scale, it will not be forgotten by accident.

2 Nephi 5:14-15: And I, Nephi, did take the sword of Laban, and after the manner of it did make many swords, lest by any means the people who were now called Lamanites should come upon us and destroy us; for I knew their hatred towards me and my children and those who were called my people. And I did teach my people to build buildings, and to work in all manner of wood, and of iron, and of copper, and of brass, and of steel, and of gold, and of silver, and of precious ores, which were in great abundance.

The close textual conjunction of the making of swords like Laban's sword and the description of metallurgy strongly mitigates against an interpretation which suggests that the swords were like Laban's in form but not in their metallic constitution. 1 Nephi 17:10-11 describes the process of Nephi's metallurgical knowledge, where ore is mined, refined through the use of bellows as smelting tools. The emphasis placed on the working of various metals suggests that they must have been of supreme importance in Book of Mormon societies. Indeed, the use of metal seems to be a literary motif that runs throughout the Book, as signified in its engraving on a book of metal plates.

Jarom 1:8: And we multiplied exceedingly, and spread upon the face of the land, and became exceedingly rich in gold, and in silver, and in precious things, and in fine workmanship of wood, in buildings, and in machinery, and also in iron and copper, and brass and steel, making all manner of tools of every kind to till the ground, and weapons of war -- yea, the sharp pointed arrow, and the quiver, and the dart, and the javelin, and all preparations for war.

The text here links the use of metallurgical "machinery" with the making of both agricultural tools and weapons of war. Such would be expected from a projection of Old World civilization as known from the Bible, but would be manifestly unexpected as a description of an ancient Mesoamerican civilization.

Ether 7:9: Wherefore, he came to the hill Ephraim, and he did molten out of the hill, and made swords out of steel for those whom he had drawn away with him; and after he had armed them with swords he returned to the city Nehor and gave battle unto his brother Corihor, by which means he obtained the kingdom and restored it unto his father Kib.

Here, almost at the earliest point in Book of Mormon history, we are told of metal swords being produced by metallurgy in ancient America.

Ether 10:23-27: And they did work in all manner of ore, and they did make gold, and silver, and iron, and brass, and all manner of metals; and they did dig it out of the earth; wherefore they did cast up mighty heaps of earth to get ore, of gold, and of silver, and of iron, and of copper. And they did work all manner of fine work. And they did have silks, and fine-twined linen; and they did work all manner of cloth, that they might clothe themselves from their nakedness. And they did make all manner of tools to till the earth, both to plow and to sow, to reap and to hoe, and also to thrash. And they did make all manner of tools with which they did work their beasts. And they did make all manner of weapons of war. And they did work all manner of work of exceedingly curious workmanship.

Several centuries later (during the time of Kish and Lib) in Jaredite history, metal is a central feature of Jaredite civilization, and the mining of ore and its refining into metal is described in the context of agricultural tools and weapons of war. The phrase "exceedingly curious workmanship" is also generally used of metallic implements in the Book of Mormon.

At the very latest point in Book of Mormon chronology, Moroni indicates that metallurgical knowledge was available to him in Mormon 8:5: "Behold, my father hath made this record, and he hath written the intent thereof. And behold, I would write it also if I had room upon the plates, but I have not; and ore I have none, for I am alone."

If ore were available, the text clearly implies, Moroni had the skills necessary to extract the necessary metals and make additional plates. Thus, metallurgy is in evidence from almost the beginning of the Jaredite history to the exact end of the Lehite history. Moreover, it is not presented as an ancillary feature of Book of Mormon civilizations. Rather, metallurgy is presented as central to the economies of both Nephite and Jaredite peoples. It is described in conjunction with the creation of agricultural and military implements during both the Jaredite and Lehite periods. War and food are twin pillars of any ancient society, including ancient America. It was known at the beginning, middle, and end of the Lehite period, with its use spanning the entirety of Book of Mormon lands and both Nephite and Lamanite branches of the nation.

Evidence for metallurgy during this period in Central America is basically absent. I say "basically" only to leave open the possibility that I have missed the publication of marginal evidence for metallurgy during the appropriate period. However, as far as I know, the first evidence for metallurgy in Mesoamerica comes around 700 AD. Before this period, the only evidence for pre-Columbian metallurgy is in ancient Peru, which is not relevant to Book of Mormon lands on the standard Mesoamerican geography. What is remarkable is the absence of the evidence in Mesoamerica during Book of Mormon times when its presence is clearly known in Central American archaeology from 700 onwards, especially in light of the centrality of metallurgy to Book of Mormon civilizations.

While it is always possible that evidence for metallurgy will be forthcoming in the future, as long as one is speaking of the present state of the evidence, one is faced with the complete absence of archaeological evidence for one of the most central features of Book of Mormon civilizations for the entirety of its timeline of two and a half millennia. Given the appearance of such evidence several centuries after Mormon's death, this is evidence that one would expect to see if the Book of Mormon were truly an ancient Mesoamerican codex. But it is missing.

Back to Weapons and Armor

I spent so much space discussing the issue of metallurgy because of the centrality of warfare to Book of Mormon history and the importance placed on the convergence between Book of Mormon history and ancient America in this respect by Dr. Clark and other LDS scholars. Below I will return to the issue of specific weapons and the nature of the convergence with Mesoamerican evidence.

5b. Breastplates:

Breastplates are described several times in the Book of Mormon, and are known from ancient America. However, the one time that the makeup of a breastplate is identified, we are told that it is of brass and copper, referring to Jaredite armor brought to King Mosiah:

Mosiah 8:10: And behold, also, they have brought breastplates, which are large, and they are of brass and of copper, and are perfectly sound.

5c. Swords:

Ether 7:9: Wherefore, he came to the hill Ephraim, and he did molten out of the hill, and made swords out of steel for those whom he had drawn away with him; and after he had armed them with swords he returned to the city Nehor and gave battle unto his brother Corihor, by which means he obtained the kingdom and restored it unto his father Kib.

1 Nephi 4:9: And I beheld his sword, and I drew it forth from the sheath thereof; and the hilt thereof was of pure gold, and the workmanship thereof was exceedingly fine, and I saw that the blade thereof was of the most precious steel.

2 Nephi 5:14: And I, Nephi, did take the sword of Laban, and after the manner of it did make many swords, lest by any means the people who were now called Lamanites should come upon us and destroy us; for I knew their hatred towards me and my children and those who were called my people.

Mosiah 8:11: And again, they have brought swords, the hilts thereof have perished, and the blades thereof were cankered with rust; and there is no one in the land that is able to interpret the language or the engravings that are on the plates. Therefore I said unto thee: Canst thou translate?

Thus, when it comes to swords, the only textual evidence for the composition of swords in the text of the Book of Mormon is that they are metal. Dr. Clark, however, argues that there is evidence for non-metal swords in Alma 24, where the swords are described as having the ability to be stained with blood.The first thing to point out is that the text describes the swords, after having been cleansed, becoming "bright", an adjective which makes far more sense in reference to a clean metal sword which shines in the sunlight than it does to a wooden sword. Second, the use of "bloodstained" in reference to swords provides little evidence that the swords were anything other than metal, as "bloodstained" is used of metal swords in the parlance of Joseph Smith's day.

To give just one example (searching Google Books produces a good number of examples) from 1825, Augustin Thierry's "History of the Conquest of England" (p. 127) describes a "bloodstained sword." Language of staining with blood is frequently metaphorical- one says that one has bloodstained hands if one is guilty of murder, not because the skin on one's hand has reddened permanently. Given, then, that this phrase was attested in Joseph Smith's day when speaking of metal swords, one cannot take this as evidence that the swords are anything other than metal. Of course, it's possible, given the constraints of the text, that some of the swords described could be made of something other than metal. But there are a number of passages which clearly describe metal swords, and there are no passages which clearly describe a non-metal sword. There are no hermeneutical grounds for assuming that every sword in the text refers to a non-metal sword unless it specifically states otherwise. Such an interpretation must be brought to the text on the basis of Mesoamerican archaeology, in which case the strength of an independent convergence between the text and the evidence disappears.

Evidence for metallurgy in the appropriate time periods is presently lacking, and the Book of Mormon text needs to be supplemented by conjecture to bring it into line with the archaeological evidence. Thus, the picture that Clark paints of a specific convergence between the Book of Mormon text and Mesoamerican civilization of the appropriate time period is exaggerated at best. At a deeper level, however, this point reveals the profound discordance presently existing between Mesoamerican archaeology and the Book of Mormon. Throughout the text, metallurgy is presented as widely known and centrally important for agriculture, warfare, and trade. With regard to the specific issue of weapons, the convergence suggested by Dr. Clark is actually a substantial discordance, for the weapons known from ancient Mesoamerica are not made of metal, while the only indications provided in the text are for metal weapons and armor, along with a substantial metallurgical industry. This must be regarded as a substantial argument against the historicity of the Book of Mormon- a major textual feature permeating the whole narrative which is entirely absent from the appropriate time and place.

5d. Cotton Armor

Dr. Clark briefly mentions cotton armor as a convergence between the Book of Mormon and ancient Mesoamerica. Such a convergence, as something not present in the Bible nor (to the best of my knowledge) to the Indians of Joseph Smith's day, would be exactly the kind of convergence which is striking. But it is not present, as Dr. Clark suggests, in the Book of Mormon text. On screen, Alma 43:19 is cited, which refers to the "thick clothing" of the Nephite armies. At most, this is a vague convergence rather than a specific one as cotton is not mentioned. However, a better textual explanation for this feature can be found. I discussed above the description of Lamanites as wearing loincloths and its connection with the "breechcloths" widely known among the Indians of Joseph Smith's day. This is described in the text as one of the features differentiating the civilization of the early Nephites with the wildness of the Lamanites, who are nearly naked, live in tents, and subsist on uncooked meat. Here, in Alma 43, we see Nephite and Lamanite soldiers clashing, and the differences between the two cultures (the stereotypical contrasts present in the Mound Builder mythos) is drawn into focus. In Alma 43:20, we are told about the Lamanites who see the Nephites with their armor and "thick clothing":

"Now the army of Zerahemnah was not prepared with any such thing; they had only their swords and their cimeters, their bows and their arrows, their stones and their slings; and they were naked, save it were a skin which was girded about their loins; yea, all were naked, save it were the Zoramites and the Amalekites"

This text is very similar to the above-cited text concerning the initial wildness of Laman's people. We are told of their typical weapons of warfare and their near-nakedness except the "skin which was girded about their loins." The meeting of these armies thus provides a glimpse at the sharp difference between the civilized Nephites and the wild Lamanites who explain the perceived savagery of 19th century Native Americans. The reference to "thick garments" then, is explained best as a contrast between the near-nakedness of the Lamanite army with the sophistication and civilization of the Nephite army. While it is possible, given the constraints of the text, that it refers to cotton armor, the literary contrast is sufficient to explain why "thick garments" are described, so that absent any additional evidence (which is not, as far as I can see, present), it is an unjustified leap to identify characteristically Mesoamerican cotton armor in the Book of Mormon text.

To sum up this most important section, there is nothing that I can see in the textual description of Book of Mormon implements of war that is convergent with ancient Mesoamerica in a way that is discordant with Joseph's own context. On the other hand, there are major discordances between present knowledge of Mesoamerica and the Book of Mormon- discordances which are convergent with Joseph's own context.

6. The Use of Severed Arms as War Tribute to the King

Dr. Clark next turns to the story of Ammon and the presentation of severed arms to King Lamoni as evidence of a convergence with ancient Mesoamerican war practice, which is said to include the presentation of severed arms as a traditional feature of warfare. However, the documentation provided about ancient America is too vague to make this a strong convergence. This article cites the specific sources underlying this argument:

https://knowhy.bookofmormoncentral.org/content/why-did-the-servants-present-lamoni-with-the-arms-of-his-enemies

In this case, two sets of parallels are cited. The first set comes from the ancient Near East, but the parallel concerns merely the severing of any body part as a war trophy, including heads, arms, hands, or legs. This practice is attested in the Bible, obviously available to Joseph Smith, and does not apparently include the ritual presentation of the severed body parts to the king. From ancient America, Izapa Stela 25 is cited, which is mythological in nature. It shows two heroic twins in a fight with Seven Macaw. When one attempts to grab Seven Macaw, Seven Macaw tears off his arm and hangs it over a fire. Here, the only parallel is in the tearing off of an arm, hardly specific enough to require situating the Book of Mormon in the ancient world. And while the authors state that the story "likely reflects actual Maya attitudes and practices in war and conflict", no specific evidence for this practice is described. The other example cited comes over a thousand years after the close of the Book of Mormon and refers to the Aztecs throwing severed limbs of Spanish soldiers at the Spaniards to taunt them. In addition to the chronological gap, there is no evidence that this was an established ritual among Mesoamerican civilizations, and the severed limbs are used to taunt enemy soldiers and strike terror into them rather than being ritually presented to the king.

Ultimately, then, there is no specific evidence that the practice described (once) in the Book of Mormon was a ritual practice in ancient Mesoamerica. Alma 17 describes Ammon's enemies "lifting their clubs" against Ammon, who cuts their arms off. The image which one is supposed to derive from this is of a number of soldiers attacking Ammon all at once, who is so skillful in battle that as soon as one raises an arm against him, he slices the arm off, and within moments, he swiftly maneuvers to cut another arm off in the same way. Thus, the severed arms are significant in that they particularly reflect Ammon's valor and skill in warfare and his ability to decisively win an engagement in which he is significantly outnumbered. The peculiarities of the text are explained in terms of the literary purpose of the story. As above, this does not rule out ancient Mesoamerican context, but absent more specific evidence, hypothesizing such a context is unnecessary to explain the text's production and thus does not indicate an anomaly in a model of 19th century authorship requiring the Book's ancient authenticity as an explanation.

7. Towers as a Place of Final Surrender

Dr. Clark then turns to the scene described in Moroni 9, where Mormon narrates the Lamanites' taking prisoners from the tower of Sherrizah. This, he argues, reflects the ancient Mesoamerican practice of fleeing to the tower/pyramid (the two are used interchangeably in the Bible and thus reasonably so in the Book of Mormon) as places of last defense and surrender. While he may have additional evidence for this practice, the only evidence he cites is the fact that broken or burning pyramids are a symbol of a city's conquest in Mesoamerican art and iconography, which is vaguer than the specific convergence being cited. More importantly, however, the notion of the tower as a place of last refuge is present in the Bible and thus directly available to Joseph Smith:

(Judges 9:50-52)  Then Abimelech went to Thebez and encamped against Thebez and captured it. But there was a strong tower within the city, and all the men and women and all the leaders of the city fled to it and shut themselves in, and they went up to the roof of the tower. And Abimelech came to the tower and fought against it and drew near to the door of the tower to burn it with fire.

While Abimelech is then unexpectedly killed, the story closely resembles the story in Moroni 9, where women and children had apparently fled to a tower at which they were defeated and captured. Since this textual feature was available to Joseph Smith, it cannot provide evidence for an unexpected convergence with Mesoamerican civilization at a point which diverges from Joseph's time and place.

8. Human Sacrifice and Cannibalism

Clark briefly mentions human sacrifice and cannibalism as a convergence between the Book of Mormon and ancient Mesoamerica. This is true, but both were also present among the North American Indians with whom Joseph and his contemporaries were familiar. North American Indians were often especially reviled because of the exquisite ritual torture exacted by some tribes upon captured European settlers. Likewise, while the evidence for cannibalism among North American Indians has been controversial, there is no question that Europeans who encountered them believed them to have practiced cannibalism, as is documented among early Jesuit encounters with the Iroquois. As above, then, since the feature is present both in ancient Mesoamerica and in Joseph Smith's world, it cannot provide an argument for either as the source of the Book of Mormon.

9. Large Troop Numbers

Both the Book of Mormon and ancient Mesoamerica featured large battles, but such large battles were also believed necessary to explain the heaps of human bones found throughout North America, so the presence of large armies in the Book of Mormon provides no specific evidence for either time period as the Book's production context.

10. Large Structures Such as Temples and Palaces

This was discussed in #4 above. Far from being "foreign to the gossip along the Erie Canal" as Dr. Clark suggests, the known presence of an advanced civilization in ancient North America was the foundation for popular speculation about the Mound Builders which forms the nonbelieving production model for the Book of Mormon.

11. Cement Buildings in the Land Northward

Here, Dr. Clark refers to the presence of cement buildings mentioned once in Helaman and states that the notion of cement buildings was "considered ridiculous" in 1830. Actually, cement plaster had been discovered in the aforementioned North American mounds and thus forms a part of the most pertinent background for the production model of a non-historical Book of Mormon. The Spalding manuscript (which I again present only as an example of what was present in Joseph Smith's cultural world, not as a literary source for the Book of Mormon) also refers to the working of stone to build walls and other stone implements.

The description in Helaman 3 is the only place where cement is mentioned in the Book of Mormon, and the specific content of the reference is highly problematic. First, it states that the use of cement to build houses came about because of the lack of timber in the land, suggesting it was a novelty. However, in Mesoamerica, the use of cement was relatively common before the time of Helaman 3. Second, Teotihuacan did suffer from deforestation, but the deforestation occurred as a result of the use of cement, which requires the burning of timber. To attribute the rise of cement buildings to a lack of timber reverses the order of causation and makes little sense in itself.

Brant Gardner suggests that Mormon has unintentionally anachronized his abridgment and has projected the deforestation he knew onto Helaman's time. If one were already persuaded of Book of Mormon historicity, then this is a potential explanatory route, but for the person who is not persuaded, the fact that this kind of textual massaging is necessary appears to undermine the utility of the parallel as an argument for the Book's authenticity. Moreover, the text reports that Mormon was working with far more extended sources, so that if he were making a specific explanatory connection, one would assume that it had a basis in the sources he was abridging.

As a general parallel, then, cement appears in both the Book of Mormon and ancient Mesoamerica. But since its presence was known among the Mound Builders, it cannot be used as an argument for an ancient Mesoamerican setting over and against a modern setting in the genre of Mound Builder myths. Moreover, the specifics of the parallel are problematic for an ancient Mesoamerican setting, suggesting a 19th century Mound Builder origin as a cleaner and simpler model, at least in this respect.

12. Kings

Dr. Clark suggests that Joseph's own context provides no basis for inferring kings among ancient American tribes. This is another instance where I find his claim mystifying. Kings among Native Americans were known from the historical memory of European settlers, who remembered "King Philip's War" and the "Four Mohawk Kings" to pick two examples almost at random. The Spalding Manuscript (again, just as an example of what was circulating at the time, not a literary source) also has Fabius immediately encounter a Native American king. It would be more surprising if the Book of Mormon did not mention Native American kings than if it did, and this is certainly not an argument for an ancient Mesoamerican production context.

13. Coriantumr's Stone

Here, I'm willing to grant a slight advantage to the proponents of historicity. The text in Omni 1 describing Coriantumr's stone fits very well with Mesoamerican royal stelas where the history of a particular king or dynasty was engraved iconographically on a large stone. Given other considerations, this argument is relatively minor, but this is a good match.

Nevertheless, one can find enough analogues to plausibly situate this in Joseph Smith's context. The Spalding Manuscript (above qualifications holding) describes engravings and art on stones among the Native peoples encountered by Fabius. Petroglyphs of North American Indians were also known (to the best of my knowledge) in Joseph Smith's day. A closer analogue is perhaps the stone box in which the record is sealed, which as described in #1, was a feature of Joseph's cultural background. This also fits with the overall literary themes of the Book of Mormon. Additionally, the idea of writing on stones is analogous to writing appearing on seerstones, which is directly described in King Mosiah's translation of this very stela and of course is present to Joseph Smith in his use of a seerstone. Writing appearing on the Liahona runs in the same vein. As a nonbeliever in BoM historicity, I find the link between Mosiah reading the translation in stones and Coriantumr engraving his record in stones to be the probable explanation for this textual feature. That the stone is "large" likely relates to Coriantumr and the Jaredites being "large."

14. King Benjamin's Labors

Clark states that a king "laboring with his own hands" as is recorded of Benjamin was a remarkable thing to claim. I'm not sure what the argument is, since Clark doesn't cite a Mesoamerican parallel, though perhaps he meant to. But the remarkable nature of this work is part of the point of King Benjamin's speech- that he was not a king who lorded his power over his subjects. Additionally, this is part of the larger literary theme in the Book of Mormon which presents relative economic egalitarianism as the ideal to which societies should confirm. This was a common theme in Restorationist movements of Joseph Smith's time, and one which the early Latter-day Saints attempted to put into practice with the "United Order", where all things were held in common. The inspiration for this is in Acts, where the apostolic Church is said to have "held all things in common." So this motif was directly available to Smith in his own world.

15. Riplakish's Throne and Olmec Thrones

Dr. Clark suggests that the Book of Mormon's description of Riplakish's "exceedingly beautiful throne" in Ether 10 presents a remarkable convergence with what is known of Olmec culture, which produced elaborate stone thrones. Remember that the key in determining Book of Mormon authenticity is to present features of the Book of Mormon text which would be unexpected to someone like Joseph Smith but are confirmed in ancient Mesoamerica. However, in this case, biblical parallelism is sufficient to explain the presence of the throne of Riplakish. As described in the methodological discussion above, the description of the building of the throne is concordant with what is known of the Olmec, but it is also perfectly concordant with what one would expect to see from a biblically-based narrative of a covenant civilization in America. As such, the throne is consistent with both models but alone points in neither direction.

Moreover, the parallel is not specific enough to alone indicate a connection with the Olmec people, and the story of Riplakish is linked in a number of respects with the story of King Noah, who is polygamous, gathers up precious metals, and erects a beautiful throne. King Noah comes long after the end of Olmec civilization, and while one might suggest that he represents a remnant of Jaredite culture, the presence of these features in his story as well decreases the specificity of a proposed link with Olmec culture. Along these same lines, were this derived from Olmec civilization, one might expect the "exceedingly beautiful throne" to be a staple of the Jaredite history rather than something mentioned only in connection with one king. This is, of course, intelligible in light of the fact that Ether is identified as an abridgment of a very extensive history, but it reduces the value of the throne as a specific parallel which would stand out as a sign of connection with Olmec peoples. All we are told of the throne is that it is "exceedingly beautiful", a description which could be applied to most royal thrones. Thus, the convergence with Olmec civilization is simply that Riplakish constructs a throne as the Olmec constructed thrones. This is consistent with Book of Mormon historicity but is far too vague to be indicative of it.

Can one find a more specific explanation for the presence of the throne in the narratives of Kings Riplakish and Noah in Joseph Smith's background? I believe we can, in 1 Kings. All commentators on the Book of Mormon, believing or not, agree that the KJV Bible was available to Joseph Smith, known prominently in his time, and formed an influence upon the text. To be clear, I do not think typological resemblances are arguments against historicity, a fallacious argument made by a number of critics of the Book of Mormon. What we seek is a model which is sufficient to explain the specific features of the Book of Mormon text. The specific links with the story of King Solomon are not incompatible with historicity, but they seriously weaken the usefulness of the "throne" as an argument for the setting of the Book of Mormon in ancient Mesoamerica. Both ancient and modern authorship are sufficient to explain the presence of this textual feature, and it cannot be used to advantage one model over the other. Joseph (or Solomon Spalding, or Sidney Rigdon, or whoever) could be creating a fictional narrative based on the biblical Solomon just as easily as Mormon and Moroni could be telling the stories of Kings Noah and Riplakish in such a way as to echo the biblical Solomon narrative.

Note the multiple connections with the story of King Solomon. Riplakish has many wives and concubines, as does Solomon:

(Ether 10:5) And it came to pass that Riplakish did not do that which was right in the sight of the Lord, for he did have many wives and concubines...

(1 Kings 11:3)  He had 700 wives, princesses, and 300 concubines. And his wives turned away his heart.

Riplakish taxes the people heavily and uses the funds to build great buildings, as Solomon:

(Ether 10:5) ...and did lay that upon men's shoulders which was grievous to be borne; yea, he did tax them with heavy taxes; and with the taxes he did build many spacious buildings.

(1 Kings 9:15-19)  And this is the account of the forced labor that King Solomon drafted to build the house of the Lord and his own house and the Millo and the wall of Jerusalem and Hazor and Megiddo and Gezer (Pharaoh king of Egypt had gone up and captured Gezer and burned it with fire, and had killed the Canaanites who lived in the city, and had given it as dowry to his daughter, Solomon's wife; so Solomon rebuilt Gezer) and Lower Beth-horon and Baalath and Tamar in the wilderness, in the land of Judah, and all the store cities that Solomon had, and the cities for his chariots, and the cities for his horsemen, and whatever Solomon desired to build in Jerusalem, in Lebanon, and in all the land of his dominion.

Riplakish is especially interested in precious metals, which are similarly abundant in the time of Solomon:

(Ether 10:7)  Wherefore he did obtain all his fine work, yea, even his fine gold he did cause to be refined in prison, and all manner of fine workmanship he did cause to be wrought in prison. And it came to pass that he did afflict the people with his whoredoms and abominations.

(1 Kings 10:21)  All King Solomon's drinking vessels were of gold, and all the vessels of the House of the Forest of Lebanon were of pure gold. None were of silver; silver was not considered as anything in the days of Solomon.

And after a reign of about forty years (42 in the case of Riplakish, 40 in the case of Solomon) the heavy draft of forced labor causes a rebellion which tears apart the kingdom and instigates a civil war:

(Ether 10:8) And when he had reigned for the space of forty and two years the people did rise up in rebellion against him; and there began to be war again in the land, insomuch that Riplakish was killed, and his descendants were driven out of the land.

(1 Kings 12:1-4)  Rehoboam went to Shechem, for all Israel had come to Shechem to make him king. And as soon as Jeroboam the son of Nebat heard of it (for he was still in Egypt, where he had fled from King Solomon), then Jeroboam returned from Egypt. And they sent and called him, and Jeroboam and all the assembly of Israel came and said to Rehoboam, "Your father made our yoke heavy. Now therefore lighten the hard service of your father and his heavy yoke on us, and we will serve you."

(1 Kings 15:6)  Now there was war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam all the days of his life.

Given the multiple links between the story of Solomon and the story of Riplakish which exist already, it is reasonable to look for the source of the "exceedingly beautiful throne" in this context. And indeed, it is in the immediate context of all of these parallels that one finds the most detailed description of any human throne in the Bible:

(1 Kings 10:18-20)  The king also made a great ivory throne and overlaid it with the finest gold. The throne had six steps, and at the back of the throne was a calf's head, and on each side of the seat were armrests and two lions standing beside the armrests, while twelve lions stood there, one on each end of a step on the six steps. The like of it was never made in any kingdom.

As a sidenote, additional links with this story are found in Morianton, who is the eventual successor of Riplakish. Morianton is said to have gained power over all the land by easing the burdens of the Jaredite people (Ether 10:9) so that the people themselves anoint him as king (Ether 10:10). This matches quite closely the story of Jeroboam, who gains power over all the tribes except Judah after he promises to ease their burden of forced labor. Like Morianton, the people themselves gather and crown Jeroboam as king (1 Kings 12:20). Morianton, like Jeroboam, is said to be faithful in easing the burdens of the people but unfaithful to the Lord. This additional set of textual links reinforces the argument made above that the biblical story is sufficient to explain the distinctive features of the Book of Mormon text.

16. Trees Growing from Hearts

Next, Dr. Clark points to the metaphor of a tree growing from the heart in Alma 32, comparing it to an image from the Dresden Codex of a tree growing out of the heart of the Maize God. Perhaps a closer connection, though not mentioned here, is in Piedras Negras Stela 11, where a plant is seen growing from the heart of a sacrificial victim. Alma 32:28 describes a seed as a symbol of "the word" of God. The growth of this seed into a tree is likened to the growth of faith in the believer. Is there a reasonable explanation from Joseph Smith's context? Yes- as with much of the above, the KJV Bible provides a sufficient source for the language of the Book of Mormon.

In Matthew 13, Jesus tells the parable of the sower, where the sower sows seed upon different sorts of soil so that the seed grows with different strengths. Jesus, like Alma, identifies the seed as a symbol of the word of God. The soil symbolizes the heart of the hearer. In Matthew 13:19, Jesus describes the seed as having been "sown in the heart." In the same context (Matthew 13:31-32), Jesus likens the kingdom of God to a "mustard seed" which then "becometh a tree." The literary dependence of Alma 32 on Matthew 13 is also indicated by the phrase "good seed" in Alma 32:28 and Matthew 13:24 and the comparison of an unprepared recipient of the word with barren ground in Alma 32:39 and Matthew 13:5. Additionally, given the literary link between the mustard seed-tree relation in Matthew 13 and Alma 32, it is notable that in Matthew 17 the mustard seed is itself the symbol of faith, the growth of which is the principal subject of the parable of Alma 32.

In ancient Mesoamerica, by contrast, the tree growing out of the heart is an image of human sacrifice, which is patterned after the cosmic offering of the gods to give life to the world. In the Dresden Codex cited by Clark, the heart depicted belongs to the Maize God, whose sacrificial death gives birth to the renewal of the agricultural year, symbolized by a tree growing from his heart, the focal point of Mesoamerican sacrifice. In the Piedras Negras Stela 11 which I cited above as a potentially closer parallel, the tree grows from the heart for basically the same reason: human sacrifice, focused on the heart, is what sustains the world in existence and secures a good harvest, the primary concern of all agrarian societies.

Thus, the interpretive matrix wherein the parable of Alma 32 is intelligible is found in what is perhaps the most well-known parable of Jesus, which is present to Joseph Smith in KJV Matthew 13. Matthew 13 alone describes a seed representing "the word" sown in "the heart", unable to grow in barren soil, and growing into an enormous tree. An innertextual echo from Matthew 17 links the seed with faith, thus accounting for each of the symbols in Alma's parable. By contrast, the Mesoamerican images of a tree growing from man's heart, while superficially resembling Alma 32, is intelligible in a symbolic matrix unrelated to Alma 32 except in a marginal way- the proponent of the BoM as a Mesoamerican codex might link the human sacrifice with the heart of faith by reading the former through the sacrifice of Jesus in which one is called to believe. But these connections are extraneous to the actual text of Alma 32. While such a connection might provide new light on the text for a person who is convinced of the Book of Mormon's ancient pedigree on other grounds, the imagery of Alma 32 itself provides no argument for situating the Book of Mormon in an ancient Mesoamerican setting.

In light of the methodology described at the beginning, the features of Alma 32 are sufficiently explained from Joseph Smith's own background and do not require anything else. While they do not rule out a Mesoamerican background, the sufficiency of Joseph's background undermines this image as an argument for an ancient production context.

17. 400 Years as a Significant Block of Time

Dr. Clark notes that 400 years was a Mesoamerican "baktun", one of the most important blocks of time on the Mesoamerican calendar. He connects this to the repeated prophecy of Nephite destruction "four hundred years" from the coming of Christ. The difficulty is that there is no evidence (at least not here or that I've seen) for the use of twenty as a base number or the use of four hundred as a number which is intrinsically significant. What explains the 400 year prophecy? First, note that the 400 year prophecy is mentioned three times: Alma 45, Helaman 13, and Mormon 8. The first two are prophetic, the last records the year when the 400 year prophecy is fulfilled. But equally significant to the Book of Mormon is the 600 year prophecy, marking the time from Lehi's exodus to the coming of Christ. This is mentioned four times: 1 Nephi 10, 1 Nephi 19, 2 Nephi 25, and 3 Nephi 1. The first three are prophetic, the last records the year when the 600 year timeline is completed.

Even though the 600 year prophecy is mentioned once more (and we can say that it's about equally significant to the Book of Mormon's prophetic calendar), Dr. Clark doesn't mention it, because it is not a specially significant number in the Mesoamerican calendar, and even if it was, the prophecy originated in a Near Eastern context. What about the 400, then? Why 400? If Joseph was to make up a text, why not 300 years, or 500 years? The answer seems to me to be simple. The roughly 600 year timespan between Lehi and Christ is fixed by the date of the exile at around 600 BC and the coming of Christ at around 1 AD. So the 600 year prophecy is locked in, as it were. Then, a millennium is one of the most significant timespans in biblical prophecy, especially in a millennarian environment, in which Joseph moved. So if Lehi leaves Jerusalem on the eve of its destruction and the whole story is to take place over a millennium, 400 years is the consequence.

While I doubt that the following passage was a literary source for the 400 year prophecy in the Book of Mormon, it is useful to show how a 400 year prophecy exists biblically in a context uncorrelated with the Mesoamerican calendar:

(Genesis 15:13-14)  Then the Lord said to Abram, "Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years. But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions.

This is cited in Acts 7:6 as well. If one wanted to suggest a literary parallel, the 400 year timespan in both Genesis 15 and the Book of Mormon is completed with a cataclysmic national judgment. But I'm not suggesting a literary parallel.

Since a 400 year timespan is only used in these three instances in the Book of Mormon, and since it can be neatly explained in terms of the necessary result of a millennium long history combined with the known historical date of the exile in relation to Christ's birth, this cannot be considered a remarkable connection between the Book of Mormon and ancient Mesoamerican calendrical cycles.

---

For those who have read this, thanks a lot. I initially meant this to be a relatively brief comment only touching on one or two of the issues raised in the video. However, after I accidentally hit the back button and deleted the entire thing, I decided to turn it into an extended essay. Dr. Clark is a good scholar, certainly not a hack. He thus provides a good test case to see how well the best defenses of setting the Book of Mormon's production in ancient Mesoamerica can hold up. My intent has not been to pick holes here and there with Dr. Clark's arguments. Rather, it has been to demonstrate a series of systemic failures which explain what I take to be the failure of LDS defenses of the Book more generally. The flaws are fundamentally joined to each other in that they seek convergences between the Book of Mormon and ancient Mesoamerica without really engaging with a detailed portrait of Joseph Smith's own time and place. My intent has been to show that the Book of Mormon is better explained in terms of the 19th century Mound Builder mythos than as an ancient Mesoamerican document. Far from being "crazy" or "unheard of", again and again, specific features and details of the Book of Mormon narrative are exactly what one would expect to somebody like Joseph Smith, who was immersed in that world. Were it a Mesoamerican scholar of 1830 producing the Book of Mormon, I would not expect the text that we have. But nobody thinks that a Mesoamerican scholar of 1830 produced the Book of Mormon. Instead of comparing the expectations of such a scholar to the text of the Book and modern archaeological knowledge, one should compare the expectations of someone like Joseph Smith to the text. While the narrative diverges from an academic understanding of ancient America as it was conceived in 1830, it strongly converges with a popular understanding of the North American Heartland in 1830. While the connections with Mesoamerican civilization are at times tenuous, where those connections do exist, they almost always simultaneously exist in Joseph Smith's background, and so cannot be used as an argument for or against either model. What differentiates the two models is those instances (which I would argue are frequent) where the text converges with the 19th century and diverges from ancient Mesoamerica. I have focused on the former in this piece, but I have also touched on the latter.

Thanks again for reading!

[cancerbiophd]

Hey cass!! So i finally got back some analysis results for my research and they're pretty much exactly what my PI and I were hoping for! It's on habitat specific competition between two reef sharks on this little atoll in the middle of the pacific called Palmyra. Im so so excited to start on the writing process so I could have my first pub out (hopefully in PLOS one or as a letter in the journal of biology, but we'll see) Do you have any of your godly tips for starting an outline?? Stay awesome!

hi bae!! oh gosh CONGRATS! i’m so happy for you and your project and your shiny new potential publication!!

i have a post here about tips on writing a research manuscript for publication. i hope it helps!

for the outline portion, i like to make a list of my main figures with the text portion summarizing the main finding, followed by sub-points for sub-figures. something like this:

Figure 1. The higher the sun gets in the sky, the hotter the temperature  a. Position of sun in sky vs temperature in northern hemisphere  b. Position of sun in sky vs temperature in southern hemisphere

Figure 2. The hotter the temperature, the more I sweat  a. Temperature vs buckets of sweat  b. idk why i thought of this example maybe because my a/c is still broken and THE REPAIR PEOPLE ARE TAKING FOREVER TO SHOW UP

ahem. anyway. you gets my point haha. you can make of course customize the outline to whatever level of detail you’d like (eg. adding the hypothesis or purpose, any actual numbers, any particular phrasing of stuff, etc). here’s a post from another blog on making an outline for a dissertation (so lots of detail). 

when you’re done with the outline, be sure to meet with your PI so everything is agreed upon. for your first outline meeting, i would recommend just having the bare bones (so just figures and sub-figures, no heavy detail) so at least you know you’re on the right track before spending too much time on detail. 

hope that helps! and once again, congrats!!! i’m so proud of you

[tanyushenka]

 AUTOGRAPH MANUSCRIPT TRAVEL JOURNAL,  by Rosamund E. Beaufort.   UNPUBLISHED JOURNAL OF A FEMALE ENGLISH TRAVELLER IN THE MIDDLE EAST IN THE 1850s. Rosa Beaufort (the elder daughter of Admiral Sir Francis Beaufort) travelled with her sister Emily from Egypt to Lebanon and Syria in 1859, following an earlier tour of Egypt the previous year. The sisters were intrepid travellers, most notably when they accompanied a Bedouin caravan through the Syrian desert to Palmyra. They undertook this journey in the company of the painter Carl Haag and one of the more extraordinary women of her age, the Hon. Mrs Digby el Mesreb, the English widow of the Earl of Ellensborough who was now married to Abdul Medjuel al-Mesreb, head of the Mesreb tribe. Source: sothebys.com

[yums-ville]

HILOBROW HEROES: HESTER LUCY STANHOPE

(On his or her birthday, HiLobrow irregularly pays tribute to one of our high-, low-, no-, or hilobrow heroes.)

By: Elina Shatkin, March 12, 2013

The impudent, indulged daughter of an Earl, HESTER STANHOPE (1776–1839) was born to drink champagne and dine on turtle but she ended her days holed up in a crumbling monastery in remote Lebanon, a ghostly eminence jabbering messianic prophecies like a Bene Gesserit witch. A flamboyant extrovert who loved to shock, she honed her rhetorical zeal at dinner parties hosted by her uncle, future Prime Minister William Pitt. Still unmarried at 33, she set off with a younger paramour for the Middle East. After surviving a shipwreck on Rhodes she began shaving her head. In Cairo she turned herself out like a Turkish man in billowing trousers, brocaded overcoat, and turban — the style she would wear for the rest of her life. Though she dismissed or despised Byron, Burckhardt, Bankes and other renowned European travelers, her shadow looms large over all subsequent female Arabists. Her letters are replete with an unshakeable belief in her singularity: “I am the sun, the star, the earl, the lion, the light from heaven, and the Queen.” Making the dangerous trek to the ruins of Palmyra, an ancient desert oasis, she communed with its long-dead ruler Queen Zenobia, who she considered her spiritual ancestor. Enticed by a medieval manuscript claiming a treasure was buried in Ashkelon, she took it upon herself to excavate the site. She would smash and toss into the sea the first great statue she uncovered to prove her virtuous motives. Another manuscript would lead her to the last act of her life when a Syrian doctor read her a prophecy that fed her wildest fantasies: the Mahdi (redeemer) would arrive seeking a woman “from a far country to partake in the mission.” It’s unclear whether this “Circe of the desert” believed she was to be the Mahdi’s handmaiden or the Mahdi herself. She ensconced herself in a hilltop monastery in Djoun where she took in refugees and became obsessed with alchemy and astrology. Alone in her decaying fortress, she was ultimately the archaeologist of her own delusion.

[whileiamdying]

When jihadists overran northern Mali in 2012, they destroyed thousands of ancient manuscripts in the medieval university town of Timbuktu.

They demolished numerous mausoleums and burned more than 4,000 ancient manuscripts. However, a handful of courageous people risked their lives to rescue more than 300,000 manuscripts and hide them at secret locations, saving this unique cultural heritage from oblivion. The Buddha statues in Afghanistan, the ruins of Nimrod, the temple at Palmyra: when Islamists take over, treasures of the world’s cultural heritage that do not fit into their religious-fundamentalist worldview come under grave threat. The jihadists’ attention-grabbing actions pervade the media and aim to destroy ancient identities and cultural commonalities. The famous manuscripts of the medieval university town of Timbuktu - testimony to a highly developed culture of scripture and Islamic-African learning - were in serious danger when Islamists occupied northern Mali. But some of Timbuktu’s residents were able to prevent the worst, bringing this world cultural heritage to safety in a historically unique operation supported by UNESCO. Our film ‘Monuments Men of Timbuktu’ combines the story behind the secret salvation of Timbuktu’s manuscripts with hitherto unreleased footage from the time of the jihadi occupation and documents the suffering of the people under Sharia law.

[balinesefineart]

a little about lontar: Balinese lontar are the texts & illustrations inscribed on dried rectangular pieces of palmyra palm leaf in Aksara Bali script. For about a thousand years these palm leaf manuscripts addressing various aspects of Balinese life like religion, astronomy, astrology, history, genealogy & healing were scribed & re-inscribed on fresh lontar to preserve these important texts. Books & the internet of course now dominate. a descendant of the Brahmi script (one of the oldest writing systems from ancient India used to denote Sanskrit texts), this Balinese script along with the Javanese version, is considered the most elaborate and ornate among Brahmic scripts of Southeast Asia. Like the art & everything else creative here, it is perhaps no surprise that Bali’s written script also evolved its own artistic flair. There is just something about this island ... not everybody here in Bali today can read or write this script - the young woman shown here mostly taught herself #balineseculture #balineseart #interiordesign #interiors #traditionalmodern #luxe #fineart #monumentalart #authenticart #artwithculture #hinduart #fantasyart #fitout #artforsale #interiorart #investmentart #spiritualart #sacredart #art #artcollector https://www.instagram.com/p/BndXbYYH6up/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1o4bli7xc2zil

[thunderlane109]

ward McKendree Bounds (August 15, 1835 – August 24, 1913) prominently known as E.M. Bounds, was an American author, attorney, and member of the Methodist Episcopal Church South clergy. He is known for writing 11 books, nine of which focused on the subject of prayer. Only two of Bounds’ books were published before he died. After his death, Rev. Claudius (Claude) Lysias Chilton, Jr., grandson of William Parish Chilton and admirer of Bounds, worked on preserving and preparing Bounds’ collection of manuscripts for publication. By 1921, more editorial work was being done by Rev. Homer W. Hodge.

Contents

1 Early life

2 Writing background

3 Published works

4 Notes

5 References

6 Further reading

7 External links

Early life

Edward McKendree Bounds was born on August 15, 1835, in Shelbyville, Missouri. He is the son of Thomas Jefferson and Hester A. (née Purnell) Bounds.[1] In the preface to E.M. Bounds on Prayer, published by Hendrickson Christian Classics Series over 90 years after Bounds’ death, it is surmised that young Edward was named after the evangelist, William McKendree, who planted churches in western Missouri and served as the fourth bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church.[1] He was the fifth child, in a family of three sons and three daughters.[1]

Thomas Jefferson Bounds was one of the original settlers of Shelby County. Prior to organizing the County, Thomas Bounds served as the first Justice of the Peace.[2] In April 1835, he was named County Clerk, followed by an appointment to serve as the County Commissioner in December 1835.[2] In 1836, he began holding circuit court in his home, during the third term each year.[2] In his capacity as County Commissioner, he platted the town into blocks and lots for new settlers.[2] In 1840, he advanced the building of the First Methodist Church. In 1849, Thomas contracted tuberculosis and died.[3][4]

After his father’s death, 14-year-old Bounds joined several other relatives in a trek to Mesquite Canyon in California, following the discovery of gold in the area. After four unsuccessful years, they returned to Missouri. Bounds studied law in Hannibal, Missouri, after which, at age 19, he became the youngest practicing lawyer in the state of Missouri.[4] Although apprenticed as an attorney, Bounds felt called to Christian ministry in his early twenties during the Third Great Awakening. Following a brush arbor revival meeting led by Evangelist Smith Thomas, he closed his law office and moved to Palmyra, Missouri to enroll in the Centenary Seminary. Two years later, in 1859 at the age of 24, he was ordained by his denomination and was named pastor of the nearby Monticello, Missouri Methodist Church.[4]

Marriage and children

Bounds’ first marriage was to Emma (Emmie) Elizabeth Barnett from Washington, Georgia on September 19, 1876. They had two daughters, Celeste and Corneille, and a son, Edward. Emmie died on February 18, 1886.

Twenty months later, Edward married Emmie’s cousin, Harriet (Hattie) Elizabeth Barnett in 1887. To them were born three sons (Samuel, Charles, and Osborne) and three daughters (Elizabeth, Mary, and Emmie). His son Edward, by his first wife, died at the age of six, and his son Charles, by his second wife, died eight days after his first birthday.[3]

Military service

E.M. Bounds did not support slavery. But, because he was a pastor at a congregation in the recently formed Methodist Episcopal Church South, his name was included in a list of 250 names who were to take an oath of allegiance and post a $500 bond. Edward saw no reason for a U.S. Citizen to take such an oath, he was morally opposed to the Union raising funds in this way, and he didn’t have the $500.[4] Bounds and the others on the list were arrested in 1861 by Union troops, and Bounds was charged as a Confederate sympathizer. He was held with other non-combatants in a Federal prison in St. Louis for a year and a half. He was then transferred to Memphis and released in a prisoner exchange between the Union and the Confederacy.[3]

He became a chaplain in the Confederate States Army (3rd Missouri Infantry CSA).[5] During the Second Battle of Franklin, Bounds suffered a severe forehead injury from a Union saber, and he was taken prisoner. On June 28, 1865, Bounds was among Confederate prisoners who were released upon the taking of an oath of loyalty to the United States.

Pastoral service

Upon his release as a prisoner of the Union Army, he felt compelled to return to war-torn Franklin and help rebuild it spiritually, and he became the pastor of the Franklin Methodist Episcopal Church, South. His primary method was to establish weekly prayer sessions that sometimes lasted several hours. Bounds was regionally celebrated for leading spiritual revival in Franklin and eventually began an itinerant preaching ministry throughout the country.

After serving several important churches in St. Louis and other places, south, he became Editor of the St. Louis Christian Advocate for eight years and, later, Associate Editor of The Nashville Christian Advocate for four years. The trial of his faith came to him while in Nashville, and he quietly retired to his home without asking even a pension. His principal work in Washington, Georgia (his home) was rising at 4 am and praying until 7 am. He filled a few engagements as an evangelist during the eighteen years of his lifework. “While on speaking engagements, he would not neglect his early morning time in prayer, and cared nothing for the protests of the other occupants of his room at being awakened so early. No man could have made more melting appeals for lost souls and backslidden ministers than did Bounds. Tears ran down his face as he pleaded for us all in that room.”[6]

According to people who were constantly with him, in prayer and preaching, for eight years “Not a foolish word did we ever hear him utter. He was one of the most intense eagles of God that ever penetrated the spiritual ether. He could not brook delay in rising, or being late for dinner. He would go with me to street meetings often in Brooklyn and listen to the preaching and sing with us those beautiful songs of Wesley and Watts. He often reprimanded me for asking the unconverted to sing of Heaven. Said he: ‘They have no heart to sing, they do not know God, and God does not hear them. Quit asking sinners to sing the songs of Zion and the Lamb.'”

Writing background

Only two of Bounds’ books were published before he died. After his death, Rev. Claudius (Claude) Lysias Chilton, Jr., grandson of William Parish Chilton and admirer of Bounds, worked on preserving and preparing Bounds’ collection of manuscripts for publication. By 1921, more editorial work was being done by Rev. Homer W. Hodge.

Chilton said of Bounds’ books, “These books are unfailing wells for a lifetime of spiritual water-drawing. They are hidden treasures, wrought in the darkness of dawn and the heat of the noon, on the anvil of experience,and beaten into wondrous form by the mighty stroke of the divine. They are living voices whereby he, being dead, yet speaketh!”[7]

Published works

Power Through Prayer (e-text)

Prayer and Praying Men (e-text) (online book)

Purpose in Prayer (e-text)

The Essentials of Prayer (e-text) (online book)

The Necessity of Prayer (e-text) (online book)

The Possibilities of Prayer (e-text)

The Reality of Prayer (e-text)

The Weapon of Prayer (e-text)

Preacher and Prayer (Internet Archive) (online book)

Satan: His Personality, Power and Overthrow (online book)

Heaven: A Place – A City – A Home (online book)

The Ineffable Glory: Thoughts on the Resurrection (online book)

The Collected Works of E. M. Bounds

Notes

  Bounds on Prayer 2006, pages viii–xiv

“The General History of Shelby County, Missouri” (PDF). Shelby.mogenweb.org. 1911. Retrieved 2013-06-08.

Complete Works 2000, page 9–10

Failed Ambition 2004, pages 85–87

“3rd Missouri Infantry CSA”. Missouridivision-scv.org. Retrieved 2013-06-08.

Heaven 1921, pages 5–6

  Necessity 2009, foreword

References

Bounds, E.M. (2106). Prayer Warrior Bootcamp, Targeted Communications, 318 pages. ISBN 978-0991312634

Bounds, E.M. (2006). E.M. Bounds on Prayer, Hendrickson Christian Classics Series, 267 pages. ISBN 978-1598560527

Bounds, E.M. (2000). The Complete Works of E.M. Bounds on Prayer, Prince Press, 568 pages. ISBN 978-1565635838

Jewett, Tom (2004). Failed Ambition: The Civil War Journals & Letters of Cavalryman Homer Harris, 300 pages. ISBN 978-1438240879

Bounds, E.M.; and Homer W. Hodges (1921). Heaven, a Place, A City, A Home, Baker Books, 151 pages. ISBN 978-0801006487

Bounds, E.M., (foreword by Claude Chilton). The Necessity of Prayer, 84 pages. ISBN 978-0585035987

Further reading

Wikiquote has quotations related to: Edward McKendree Bounds

King, Darrel D. “E.M. Bounds (Men of Faith)”, Bethany House, 1998. (ISBN 0-764-22009-8)

Dorsett, Lyle W. “E. M. Bounds: Man of Prayer”, Zondervan (September 1991) (ISBN 0310539315)

External links

Works by or about Edward McKendree Bounds at Internet Archive

Works by Edward McKendree Bounds at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)

Authority control

WorldCat Identities

VIAF: 57140210

LCCN: n85093288

ISNI: 0000 0001 1214 0412

NDL: 00433991

IATH: w6z91zdz

Categories:

American Methodist clergy

Christian writers

1835 births

1913 deaths

Confederate States Army chaplains

American Civil War prisoners of war

Methodist writers

American religious writers

Editors of Christian publications

Methodist evangelists

American evangelists

American print editors

Methodist chaplains

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    ward McKendree Bounds (August 15, 1835 – August 24, 1913) prominently known as E.M. Bounds, was an…

[jobs-in-dubai-uae]

Abu Dhabi, UAE: Europe and the Middle East can learn to better coexist by looking to deep historical links between the regions, according to a leading historian at Paris Sorbonne University-Abu Dhabi. Dr Yann Rodier, one of the leaders of an international conference held in the capital this week, said the event tackled the evolving relations between the regions involving trade, diplomacy, culture and religion to be able to better understand today’s societies. "It is very important to study history, especially the origins and the routes regarding globalisation and globalised societies in the world and especially in the UAE," he said. "It is a way to highlight the peaceful exchanges between the Middle East and Europe because we have a tendency to focus on the [poor] relations and we need to remind [ourselves] that the exchanges between both regions were also fruitful exchanges in science, commerce, diplomacy and culture." The landscape in the Gulf, along the Arabian coast, features a number of Portuguese fortresses - a symbol of heritage of the Early Modern Times between 1500 and 1820. "This is proof that you have different periods of cohabitation, sometimes conflictual sometimes peaceful, between Christian Europeans and Arab tribes at that time," he said. "It is key to understanding how societies are built, to be able to apply this today." The conference, themed The Middle East and Europe: Cross-cultural, Diplomatic and Economic Exchanges in the Early Modern Period, promotes coexistence, namely due to today’s regional turmoil and the portrayal of the Middle East in European media. "The trend is to focus on the issues and geopolitical conflictual context but, often, we forget that relationships between east and west were also fruitful and peaceful through diplomatic, commercial and cultural relations," Dr Rodier said. "The will to understand the other and find a solution to cohabitate between different communities is the beginning of globalisation so people should learn from history and it’s a way to remind [them of] the different ways to better understand the other and to build something together." Dr Ingrid Perisse, the university’s head of archaeology and history of arts, said the conference was about the connection and relationships between east and west. "It’s a way to show that the connection and links between the two parts of the world are not something new," she sad. "They go back centuries and this connection goes very deep." Dr Perisse spoke about archaeologists-travellers and the discovery of Arabian heritage from the 16th-18th century. "I am an archaeologist so my source isn’t a manuscript, it’s the objects and monuments," she said. "What was important in the early modern days about travellers is when they travelled from Europe to the Levant and to the Arabian peninsula, they discovered they had a close connection regarding the heritage of monuments, like in Baalbek in Lebanon and Palmyra in Syria. In the renaissance period, they discovered buildings were very similar to those from Rome so they realised they shared the same routes of knowledge and of the evolution of humanity together." Dr Paulo Lemos Horta, associate professor at New York University-Abu Dhabi, spoke about cosmopolitan misreadings. "My own paper shows the importance of the hypothesis that [the 16th century Portuguese poet] Luís Vaz de Camões spent time in the Gulf, on Hormuz Island. "In his epic poem about Vasco da Gama’s discovery of a route to India, Camões has Ibn Majid, the legendary navigator born in Ras al Khaimah, lead the Portuguese from Muscat to India, a claim that proves controversial to this day." The conference brought together scholars who work on all sides of cross-cultural exchanges in the Middle East to yield insights into how European travelogues can help archeologists know where to look for the foundations of old structures. For instance, a reference in an English travelogue led to a successful excavation of the foundations of a mosque in Ras al Khaimah. An exhibition is running in parallel at the university’s library until March 16, illustrating the same topics in different forms, such as travel stories, maps, linguistic treatises, reports and diplomatic documents from a variety of historical sources. The exhibition, which focuses on occidental and oriental sources to renew visitors’ vision of history, also contains the first Quran translated into Latin for scholars by a German theologian in 1692. © The National via Edarabia.com

[edarabia]

Abu Dhabi, UAE: Europe and the Middle East can learn to better coexist by looking to deep historical links between the regions, according to a leading historian at Paris Sorbonne University-Abu Dhabi. Dr Yann Rodier, one of the leaders of an international conference held in the capital this week, said the event tackled the evolving relations between the regions involving trade, diplomacy, culture and religion to be able to better understand today’s societies. "It is very important to study history, especially the origins and the routes regarding globalisation and globalised societies in the world and especially in the UAE," he said. "It is a way to highlight the peaceful exchanges between the Middle East and Europe because we have a tendency to focus on the [poor] relations and we need to remind [ourselves] that the exchanges between both regions were also fruitful exchanges in science, commerce, diplomacy and culture." The landscape in the Gulf, along the Arabian coast, features a number of Portuguese fortresses - a symbol of heritage of the Early Modern Times between 1500 and 1820. "This is proof that you have different periods of cohabitation, sometimes conflictual sometimes peaceful, between Christian Europeans and Arab tribes at that time," he said. "It is key to understanding how societies are built, to be able to apply this today." The conference, themed The Middle East and Europe: Cross-cultural, Diplomatic and Economic Exchanges in the Early Modern Period, promotes coexistence, namely due to today’s regional turmoil and the portrayal of the Middle East in European media. "The trend is to focus on the issues and geopolitical conflictual context but, often, we forget that relationships between east and west were also fruitful and peaceful through diplomatic, commercial and cultural relations," Dr Rodier said. "The will to understand the other and find a solution to cohabitate between different communities is the beginning of globalisation so people should learn from history and it’s a way to remind [them of] the different ways to better understand the other and to build something together." Dr Ingrid Perisse, the university’s head of archaeology and history of arts, said the conference was about the connection and relationships between east and west. "It’s a way to show that the connection and links between the two parts of the world are not something new," she sad. "They go back centuries and this connection goes very deep." Dr Perisse spoke about archaeologists-travellers and the discovery of Arabian heritage from the 16th-18th century. "I am an archaeologist so my source isn’t a manuscript, it’s the objects and monuments," she said. "What was important in the early modern days about travellers is when they travelled from Europe to the Levant and to the Arabian peninsula, they discovered they had a close connection regarding the heritage of monuments, like in Baalbek in Lebanon and Palmyra in Syria. In the renaissance period, they discovered buildings were very similar to those from Rome so they realised they shared the same routes of knowledge and of the evolution of humanity together." Dr Paulo Lemos Horta, associate professor at New York University-Abu Dhabi, spoke about cosmopolitan misreadings. "My own paper shows the importance of the hypothesis that [the 16th century Portuguese poet] Luís Vaz de Camões spent time in the Gulf, on Hormuz Island. "In his epic poem about Vasco da Gama’s discovery of a route to India, Camões has Ibn Majid, the legendary navigator born in Ras al Khaimah, lead the Portuguese from Muscat to India, a claim that proves controversial to this day." The conference brought together scholars who work on all sides of cross-cultural exchanges in the Middle East to yield insights into how European travelogues can help archeologists know where to look for the foundations of old structures. For instance, a reference in an English travelogue led to a successful excavation of the foundations of a mosque in Ras al Khaimah. An exhibition is running in parallel at the university’s library until March 16, illustrating the same topics in different forms, such as travel stories, maps, linguistic treatises, reports and diplomatic documents from a variety of historical sources. The exhibition, which focuses on occidental and oriental sources to renew visitors’ vision of history, also contains the first Quran translated into Latin for scholars by a German theologian in 1692. © The National

[nofomoartworld]

Hyperallergic: The Getty’s Online Palmyra Exhibition Falls into Orientalist Traps

Louis Vignes, “Temple of Bel, view of the cella” (1864) Albumen print. 8.8 x 11.4 in. (All images, unless otherwise noted, are courtesy of the Getty Research Institute.)

In news and commentary on the Syrian Civil War, few places have attracted as much attention as the city of Palmyra (Tadmur in Arabic). Taken by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in 2015, to become the scene of executions of residents and the destruction of antiquities, and then retaken dramatically by Russian and Syrian government forces in March 2016, Palmyra has been a constant topic of discussion around the world. Against this backdrop, the Getty Research Institute’s (GRI) first online exhibition, The Legacy of Ancient Palmyra, announced just days before ISIS recaptured both the ancient ruins and the adjacent namesake modern town in December, is poignantly relevant.

The exhibition features the works of two French artists: the architect Louis-François Cassas, and the photographer Louis Vignes. Cassas visited Palmyra from May to June of 1785; his drawings of the site were published as engravings in 1799. The GRI acquired proof prints of these engravings in 1984. Vignes took what appear to be the very first photographs of Palmyra, in 1864. But these images were never widely distributed at the time, and are mostly unknown today. These photographs were acquired by the GRI in 2015. (The institute has generously made both sets of images available for high quality download.)

The pairing of these two artists in this exhibition is inspired. While they may have been chosen primarily because they are owned by the GRI, the images of Cassas and Vignes raise several important questions about Palmyra and how we view it. We can see how the state of the ruins and the town changed over a period of 80 years. We encounter two Frenchmen whose work is largely unknown, especially in the English-speaking world — where they are overshadowed by William Halifax and the merchants of the British Levant Company who “rediscovered” the site in 1691, and by Robert “Palmyra” Wood and his 1753 publication The Ruins of Palmyra. We can compare images of the city in these two different media to see how their differences affect the way that each artist presents the site.

Simon Charles-Miger after Louis-François Cassas “Louis-François Cassas presenting gifts to Bedouin sheikhs” (1799) etching, plate mark: 8.4 x 16.1 in.

The exhibition is well organized; the layout is attractive, the images stunning — Cassas’s drawings populated by artificially composed groups of people, Vignes’s photographs silent and empty of figures. In addition to these two men’s works, the curators provide a well-chosen selection of other images: views of the site by different artists, scenes of modern excavations at Palmyra, photographs of funerary busts and other artifacts. The accompanying text is particularly successful in presenting the classical city and its monuments, as well as describing how publication of images of those monuments helped influence the growth of neoclassical style in the mid- to late 18th century.

Louis Perrier after Louis-François Cassas, “City plan of Palmyra” (detail of area of modern village) (1799) etching. plate mark: 26.3 x 18.5 in.

Thomas Major after Giovanni Battista Borra, “A Geometrical Plan of the Ruined City of Palmyra” (detail of area of modern village) (from Robert Wood, The Ruins of Palmyra, 1753, pl. 2)

Of special interest is the fascinating and valuable light that Vignes and Cassas shed on the modern village of Palmyra. The ancient site was never abandoned. Reduced to a village centered on the Temple of Bel enclosure, it continued to be inhabited up to the early 1930s, when the inhabitants were relocated to make way for more extensive excavation of the temple. (This was the beginning of the modern town of Palmyra adjacent to the ruins.) Cassas’s plans of the overall site and of the Temple of Bel enclosure provide a great deal of information on the village in the late 18th century. The modern features of the site were often ignored by Western travelers, though some of them are noted on the site plan drawn by Giovanni Battista Borra that accompanied Wood’s text.

Louis Perrier after Louis-François Cassas, “City plan of Palmyra” (1799) key noting features of the village

We see the surrounding land used for fields and gardens, a cemetery, a (ruined) mosque, and a mill. (Borra’s plan has the same basic features but with less detail, and less accuracy.) Cassas’s Temple of Bel plan includes several elements of the modern village that are otherwise hardly known. His lengthy manuscript on Palmyra, also acquired by the GRI, provides unique possibilities for further research into the 18th-century village as well as into his own attitudes towards the ancient site and its modern successor.

Charles Nicolas Varin after Louis-François Cassas, “Plan of the Temple of Bel” (1799)

But most of these insights are ignored by the exhibition. Instead, by omitting almost all discussion of the modern village, and of post-classical Palmyra generally, the exhibition makes Palmyra’s legacy solely about modern European and American interactions with it. Indeed, it was people like Cassas and Vignes who (we are told) were responsible for “creating Palmyra’s legacy.” Modern interpretations of Zenobia, Palmyra’s famous third-century queen, are cited exclusively from European and American literature, with no mention of the similarly vast body of Arabic novels, operas, plays, and television programs about Zanūbyā or al-Zabbāʾ. Vignes and Cassas are called out for ignoring that the cella (inner sanctuary) of the Temple of Bel served as a mosque in their day, even though Cassas comments on the mosque clearly in his plans. Meanwhile, the exhibition mentions the use of the cella as a mosque only one other time — while implying that the temple was turned directly into a mosque, when in fact it had first served as a church for hundreds of years. So we must ask: who is ignoring the uses of this building?

Charles Nicolas Varin after Louis-François Cassas, “Plan of the Temple of Bel” (1799) detail of cella-mosque

More than passing over this history in silence, the exhibition actively reproduces many of the Orientalist stereotypes of the site from the last 300 years of Western engagement: narratives of “decline,” ruins frozen in time “for over a thousand years” (even though regular modern activity in the 18th century extended over at least one-third of the site). The classical form of the Temple of Bel is said to represent its “former perfection,” while its medieval fortifications and modern, mudbrick houses reflects a “raw view of the site.” Fifteen hundred years of post-classical history are reduced to a brief parade of conquerors as we progress quickly from Palmyra’s glorious ancient past to its heroic Western rediscovery.

The exhibition does briefly address these sorts of problems in discussing the late 19th to early 20th century collecting and looting of artifacts by European and American visitors to Palmyra. These practices broke Ottoman antiquities law, and from our current perspective, violate accepted ethical norms — among other things, they encourage further looting and forgery. But the GRI presents artifact looting as a controversy with two compelling sides. It takes seriously the dubious argument of “saving” ancient artifacts, despite the long history of reliance on this argument to justify theft and violation of antiquities laws. This is ironic, given that the GRI is part of the Getty Trust — which includes the J. Paul Getty Museum, with its own history of dubious acquisitions (purchasing items stolen from other countries or items with questionable provenance). While the Getty Museum is known for collecting only Western art, the GRI is responsible for extensive research and publication on material from other parts of the world, including a critical look at Orientalist photography. So it is more than a little surprising that the first GRI online exhibition should be an Orientalist one: a Syrian city reimagined as the heritage of its European visitors.

Louis Vignes, “Temple of Bel” (1864) medieval gate with mudbrick houses

The Legacy of Ancient Palmyra gives us only one legacy of this city. There are other legacies too: the post-classical city, which thrived as a trading center for hundreds of years; the removal of the modern inhabitants and destruction of their village in the 1930s to make way for archaeologists; the modern town of Palmyra, with tens of thousands of people who have suffered greatly, killed or displaced by ISIS, many of their homes destroyed; the infamous Tadmur Prison; the Orientalism of Western explorers; the propaganda of the Syrian state. These are mostly ignored. Many, many articles over the last two years have dealt with the classical city and its Western inheritance, but other aspects of Palmyra are discussed rarely, and usually in less prominent outlets. One noteworthy exception that deals thoughtfully with Palmyra’s complicated pasts is Ingrid Rowland’s New York Review of Books essay from September 2016, surveying the Getty’s own Vignes photographs.

More than anything, the GRI exhibition represents a lost opportunity. But things may change: Claire Voon reports that the curators are planning updates to the exhibition, including a translation and redesign for readers of Arabic. Perhaps there is time to address more of Palmyra’s varied legacies, alternately rich and heartbreaking.

The Getty Research Institute’s first online exhibition, The Legacy of Ancient Palmyra, launched earlier this month. It will continue indefinitely.

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