Modern Research and the Book of Mormon

MODERN RESEARCH AND THE BOOK OF MORMON.

BY ELDER WALTER M. WOLFE OF THE LONDON CONFERENCE.

The Book of Mormon gives an account of two distinct settlements of America by Asiatic peoples. The first followed the confusion of tongues at the Tower of Babel, and hence was contemporaneous with the development of the Euphrates and Nile valleys. Concerning the exact locality where this party, known as the Jaredites, landed, I know of no definite statement, but it is generally conceded to have been on the coast of North America; while the Nephites, more than fifteen hundred years later, landed on the west coast of South America. That such a migration as that of Jared and his brother is neither impossible nor improbable is clearly proved from the statement of no less an authority than Josephus:

“After this they were dispersed abroad, on account of their languages, and went out by colonies everywhere; and each colony took possession of that land which they light upon, and unto which God led them; so that the whole con­tinent was filled with them, both the inland and maritime countries. There were some also who passed over the sea in ships, and inhabited the islands.”— Antiquities of the Jews, Book I., Chapter 5.

In a very short space of time after the confusion of tongues, the Chaldaeans and Egyptians had each arrived at a wonderful state of civilization, a civilization that in many respects is not equalled to-day. Four thousand years ago arts flourished that were lost before Israel became a nation, and we can only vaguely estimate the advancement that science had made by the ruins of that prehistoric age. Indeed many conscientious historians see fit to reject the Bible because it is apparently impossible for such progress in art, science, literature and government to have been made in the few centuries that biblical chronologists allow for their evolution.

To this objection two answers may be given: the first, that time alone considered, there was no greater progress made in the transition from the palm-thatched hut to the pyramids of Egypt and the temples of ancient Chaldaea than has been made in art and science in the much shorter period that has elapsed since the invention of printing and the discovery of America, or the more recent application of steam power in mechanics. Nor are we any more bound to accept the chronology of Archbishop Usher, that adorns the reference columns of our Bibles, than we are to accept the theories of the explorer who claims to have discovered cities that antedate the Christian era by twenty thousand years. To a certain extent the whole question of chron­ology is an unsolvable one as no two places present exactly the same conditions.

Two hundred years will bring about more changes in a moist climate than will two thousand years in one that is dry and possesses an equable tem­perature. In the second place, from the standpoint of Latter-day Saints, we must believe that men of old received by direct revelation knowledge that placed them far in advance of their age, or of any age for that matter. To this class belonged Abraham and the brother of Jared. Their knowledge of the arts and sciences was communicated to those among whom they lived, and immediately became practical and potential, without the slow process of natural evolution and development. Following the high civilization that arose under such inspiration, there was naturally a period of depression and the retrogression would be more marked in those nations where successive races held control, as in the old world, than in those where only one people held sway. It is very probable that the immediate descendants of Jared and his brother were as far advanced as were the Egyptians who were instructed by Abraham many centuries later.

Between the ruins of Yucatan and those of ancient Egypt and Chaldaea a very strong resemblance exists. There are the same prevailing types of pyramids and towers in each. The pyramids of Central America, with the exception of possibly one or two, were not discovered until long after the publication of the Book of Mormon. In fact the Book of Mormon is the pioneer work on American archaeology, if we omit a few of the early publica­tions of the Spanish monks. But the early explorers of such ruins as those of Palenque and Copan regarded the Central American civilization as subsequent to that of Egypt. In fancy they would picture Egyptian or Phoenician sailors passing through the pillars of Hercules and, driven across the Atlantic by stormy weather, finally landing on the shores of the Caribbean Sea, where they reproduced the structure and recreated the religious symbolism of their native land. Gradually, however, this view became untenable, and it was admitted that the ruins of tropical America were as old as those of oldest Asia and Africa, if they did not antedate them. One of the first public state­ments of this change of opinion is to be found in Schoolcraft’s “Ethnological Researches,” published in 1853.

“In view of the best light and information which I have been able to col­lect on the subject, my opinion is that, the earliest inhabitants of America were the descendants of Ham, the youngest son of Noah; and that the first SETTLEMENT WAS MADE SHORTLY AFTER THE CONFUSION OF TONGUES AT the building of the Tower of Babel. Moses tells us that about that period, ‘the Lord scattered the people abroad upon the face of the whole earth’ (Gen. xi:8, 9). America, then, according to this portion of sacred his­tory, was at that time re-occupied by man; for the writer could not have meant by ‘all the earth’ only about one-half of it.”

Of late years science is willing to make many more concessions in this regard. The eminent explorer Dr. Le Plongeon has written a volume to prove that in Yucatan rather than in the Euphrates valley was the cradle of civiliza­tion, and that thence Egypt derived her arts and architecture. He has read the Book of Mormon and his position towards it may be likened unto that of a very famous agnostic, recently deceased, who, while he denied the truthful­ness of the Book of Genesis, could not help wondering where Moses obtained his information. So it is with the Book of Mormon. Both its historical and doctrinal truths are becoming more incontrovertible. Men may deny and may rage against them, even as did the Jewish persecutors against the early Christians, but down in their innermost hearts they are wondering where the boy Joseph Smith, obtained the knowledge and the inspiration that enabled him to give such a book to the world.

But Central America and South America have only commenced to- disclose what is hidden in the recesses of their virgin forests. It is safe to say that as many cities and greater pyramids than have been discovered are yet to be brought to light. The Spanish conquistadores were gold-hunters, not archae­ologists, and the jungle was never penetrated by them when not absolutely necessary, and then with eyes closed to everything but precious metals and slaves. The priests, with a few notable exceptions, thought more of money than of souls and for them the crumbling temples and grass-grown pyramids had no value. The mohogany hunters and rubber gatherers of to-day are as blind as their predecessors, and the natives have such a dread of the ghosts, whom they believe yet frequent the scenes amid which they lived, that they are unwilling to visit the ruins, to act as guides, or even to tell of their location. With such difficulties to contend against, it will take systematic research, the covering of clearly defined districts methodically and carefully, to give a knowledge of what to-day is called “prehistoric America,” and when this knowledge is obtained, if we may judge the future by the past, it will only bear an additional testimony to the divine authenticity of the Book of Mormon. New evidences are being brought to light; grander ruins unearthed from time to time. One of these is mentioned by Dr. George H. Brimhall, in the Im­provement Era for July. He quotes from a recent issue of the Los Angeles Sunday Times:

“This land is old that we call new. It has its pyramids, as vast and as hoary as those of the ancient Nile. It has its buried cities and its monuments of antiquity, of which we know comparatively nothing. It has traces of language which no modern scholar has ever been able to decipher; relics of art which in coloring and finish put to shame the best endeavors of to-day: monuments of masonry which no modern engineer’s skill would be able to rear.

In tropical Mexico, some sixty miles southeast of the town of Madeline, in the heart of a virgin forest, is a mighty pyramid, beside which the great Egyptian Cheops is but a pigmy. Its vast base measures four thousand three hundred and fifty feet around, while it towers upward seven hundred and fifty feet, a stupendous mass of granite. Would you reach its top, no toilsome climb is yours, such as that you must make under the sun of Egypt, for a spiral roadway leads you to its lofty summit, on which you can ride up as a well-graded hillside. Beyond this pyramid is a lofty hillock, with its hundreds of chambers cut in the solid rock, their walls and floors of stone smooth as the sculptor’s image. An unread history in hieroglyphics written upon their walls, which no modern sage has yet deciphered. Here, too, are their imple­ments of stone, and curious pictures, and charcoal for their fires.

Whence came these mighty builders and whither have they gone, leaving their habitations silent and unoccupied?

All over the wide area of our continent are the signs of prehistoric races, and yet we turn our most earnest gaze to the Orient, leaving our own his­tories unwritten and unraveled. Some wise man may yet be found who shall open this unlettered volume, and startle the world with knowledge of civili­zations outranking the years of the Sphinx and the Pyramids, and the myths and legends of the ancient East. We may yet learn how the first great tidal wave of Humanity rolled on from sunrise to sunset; learn of races who dwelt here with the story of Eden fresh in their ears, and its memories warm in their hearts.”

The traditions of the natives harmonize with the teachings of the ruins. Elder Moses Thatcher said in the Contributor (1881) that Ixtilxochitl, an Aztec writer, “fixes the date of the first peopling of America about the year 2000 B.C.; this closely accords with that given by the Book of Mormon, which positively declares that it occurred at the time of the dispersion, when God in His anger scattered the people upon the face of the whole earth. … Referring to the quotations from Ixtilxochitl, seventeen hundred and sixteen years are said to have elapsed from the creation to the flood. Moses, accord­ing to Usher, places it sixteen hundred and fifty six, a difference of only sixty years. They agree exactly as to the number of cubits, fifteen, which the waters prevailed over the highest mountain. Such a coincidence can lead to but one conclusion, the identity of origin of the two accounts.”

The state of Chiapas borders on portions of Yucatan and Guatemala. In Professor Short’s “North Americans of Antiquity” occurs the following state­ment accredited to Clavijero: “The Chiapanese have been the first peoples of the New World, if we give credit to their traditions. They say that Votan, the grandson of that respectable old man who built the great ark to save him­self and family from the deluge, and one of those who undertook the building of that lofty edifice, which was to reach up to heaven, went by express com­mand of the Lord to people that land. They say also that the first people came from the quarter of the north, and that when they arrived at Soconusco, they separated, some going to inhabit the country of Nicaragua, and others remaining at Chiapas.”

There can be no doubt that the most ancient ruins, especially the pyramids, are of Jaredite origin. Indeed the Indians of to-day, Lamanites without a question, assert that these ruins belonged to a people that was extinct before the Lamanite settlement of Central America. But the traditions give rise to other questions. Are these traditions of Jaradite or Nephite origin, or are they common to both peoples? Evidently the last view should be taken of the case for the Quiches and Mayas of to-day look to Votan as their divine ancestor. Some stories make him identical with Noah; others, nearer the truth, consider him to be a grandson of Noah and the leader of the American colonists. They also have a tradition of the landing of white people on the shores of the Gulf of Campeache and their subsequent settlement of Costa Rica and Nicaragua, and say that some of their descendants are still to be found in Nicaragua and Honduras. But the date that they give to this emigration is at least two thou­sand five hundred years later than the period assigned to Votan. So it would seem that Clavijero has blended two distinct narratives and in this error has been followed by Professor Short. It is certain, however, that the aboriginal race, be they called Jaredites or not, had the same account of the creation, the fall, the flood, and the tower of Babel that the Indians of to-day, be they Nephites, Lamanites, or what not, possess. That the former race passed away before the latter took possession of the land is the strongest evidence that, though coming down in two distinct streams, these traditions had a common origin, a proof not alone of the divine authenticity of the Book of Mormon, but a positive evidence of the correctness of the Mosaic account of the creation and dispersion, as recorded in the Book of Genesis.

Concerning the history, religion and government of the first immigrants to the American continent, after the flood, the Book of Mormon is the only source of knowledge, and must so continue to be until a new Rosetta stone shall give the key to the hieroglyphics of the ancients. But with the Nephites and Lamanites, who reached the coast of South America about 600 B.C., the case is very different. The Book of Mormon out of the way, there is still overwhelming evidence that the natives of the land with which the Book of Mormon deals are of Jewish stock. Traditions, religious rites and ceremonies, language itself attest the fact. At first this claim was made especially for the Sioux and their northern conquerors, but as the years go on, so much stronger proofs are adduced from the customs and traditions of the more civilized tribes that are located south of the Rio Grande, that the Indians of the United States are now seldom mentioned in this connection. And yet when the Book of Mormon was translated the most learned man in the world did not know as much of the history of Central America as does the average child in the Intermediate department of a Latter-day Saint’s Sunday school of to-day. The Book of Mormon was not given to the world to confirm history already known; but, on the contrary, and it is one of the most strange and convincing facts about that inspired work, history, tradition, customs, language have all been revealed from ruined cities and from peoples extant to-day to confirm its story and to be a witness to the nations of the veracity of the plates that were found in the hill Cumorah, and of the divine mission of the Prophet Joseph Smith.