Modern Research and the Book of Mormon

MODERN RESEARCH AND THE BOOK OF MORMON.

While taking a railroad journey some time ago I met a gentle­man who, when he learned that I was a Mormon, expressed great surprise that any intelligent man could be carried away by such a delusion as Mormonism, and especially by such a glaring fraud as the Book of Mormon. I told him there were a few things con­nected with the Book of Mormon which, if he would explain, it would have a tendency to remove the delusion from my mind. He seemed very anxious to undertake the task, and I presented in substance some of the following reasons for my belief.

Passing by the divine origin of the book and the many remark­able evidences connected with its translation, evidences, by the way, which when carefully investigated cannot but impress any honest searcher after truth, we took up the subject of American archaeology and its bearing on the story of the Book of Mormon.

Joseph Smith never made any claims to an education. As a work of fiction the Book of Mormon does not rank very high in a literary sense. All of us are aware of the fact that when fiction writers undertake to describe countries or conditions with which they are unfamiliar, they make all kinds of errors. This fact is not confined to poor writers, but even the best informed make errors which often appear very ridiculous. Now, the Book of Mormon, if not a divine record, must be fiction, and considering the ignorance of Joseph Smith and the extensive country which he undertakes to describe; a country, by the way, most of which was, at that time, practically undiscovered territory, and all of which was an unknown wilderness so far as Joseph Smith was concerned. Under these conditions it ought to be an easy matter for any in­telligent writer to point out all kinds of errors which of necessity would be found in the book.

The Book of Mormon was published in the spring of 1829. At that time very little was known of the arclueology of the country. None of the books on the subject which we now have were then written. Half of the American continent was an unexplored wilderness. Brief accounts of the ruins of Peru and Mexico had reached the world through Humboldt and others, but no system­atic study of them had been made and no one knew whether the style of their architecture resembled that of Egypt, Greece or Hindustan. In those days it was the prevailing opinion that America had never been peopled by any other race than the red man. That the American races had never known domestic animals such as the elephant, horse, ox, sheep and swine. That they were unfamiliar with iron and steel. That outside of Mexico they had never known a written language.

In the face of these beliefs one can see how ridiculous it seemed for Joseph Smith to announce that he had published a history of ancient America, and to begin with the statement that the ancient people were white. That among their domestic animals they counted the elephant, horse, ox, sheep and swine. That they were familiar with iron and steel. That they had a written language. These and many other statements of the book seemed strangely out of place in those days. A man to make them must have been a fool, or possessed of an assurance that they were true. And this was the fact, for no man lived who had a more abiding faith in the divinity of the book than did Joseph Smith. If the world consider him an imposter the wonder is that it noticed him at all. A fiction or falsehood does not long endure. Occasionally things appear which to all human appearances seem false but which will not down. Christianity was an instance of this kind; the Book of Mormon is another. Looking back now without pre­judice it is difficult to explain the reception the world accorded the new book. Instead of indifference and ridicule, it met pre­judice and anger, the reception the world always accords a new truth.

As to the other claims mentioned: the tradition preserved by so many tribes of a white people who had previously occupied the country, together with the representations of bearded white men on the columns of the old temples of Central America, make it pretty certain that there was something in the statement of the Incas that the older monuments were erected by a white people who had occupied the country before their time. So many remains of animals of the elephant tribe have been found in recent years that it is now generally admitted that they were very numerous here in ancient times. The same can be said of the horse, while the bison were cattle as much so as the hump-backed cattle of Arabia. Sheep and swine existed in the wild state at the time of the discovery. The presence of woollen cloth in the old tombs shows that sheep in the domestic state were had by the old people. Iron implements have been found in the works of the Mound Builders of the United States, and there are evidences that a written language was common to both continents.

Charnay, the French archaeologist, made it quite clear that the old civilization of Mexico and Central America was the work of one people. They were the builders of the pyramidial structures found scattered over that region. Their works are found in the United States as far north as St. Louis, and it is probable that they extended beyond the limits indicated, as the evidences so far iden­tified were the work of a very numerous people. Charnay placed the advent of these people into Mexico at about 700 A.D., but recent discoveries in Mexico make it quite clear that some of the great monuments of that country belonged to a much earlier period. Excavations at Texcoco and Teotihuacan during the last two years show that those cities have been occupied and destroyed three times. At Texcoco, the Spanish found a prosperous city four hundred years ago. Tradition and history placed the found­ing of that city as far back as the twelfth century. Fifteen feet below the ruins of this city was found the ruins of another with its palaces and homes and paved street, and below that still another. Conservative estimates place the founding of the first city before the time of Christ. The extent of this first civilization and the time when it flourished corresponds to the Jaredite civili­zation of the Book of Mormon.

From Quito to Lake Titicaca in the mountain valleys of Peru once flourished a great people. They built great cities, great roads, and great forts to defend their country. This people antedated the Inca empire and was far, more advanced in civili­zation. This is the exact territory which was occupied by the earlier Nephite civilization, and the record indicates just such a condition as is shown to have existed there. This could hardly have been a coincidence.

The chief centre of the later Nephite civilization was in the country known as Colombia, South America. In this region their history is given to us in greatest detail. The cities are located so distinctly in the history that it is not difficult to trace their re­lative positions. Here were fought great battles and forts were built for defense. The districts where these forts were built are known. Now when America was discovered this region was occu­pied by a semi-civilized or barbarous people. It was not thought until within the last ten years that any other people had ever occupied the country. But recent investigations show clearly that the country knew another people and another civilization.

The writer has found in the depths of the forest, remains of old stone forts in the exact districts indicated in the Book of Mormon. We have reason to believe that we were the first white men to visit these forts. There is no possibility that Joseph Smith could have known anything about this region. Is it a coincidence that it so exactly harmonizes with the description given in the Book of Mormon?

The Book of Mormon speaks of great wars between the inhabi­tants of the country. The Jaredites were entirely destroyed. Of this great struggle nothing can be gathered from the ruins, except that the people who built them disappeared. Their works are buried beneath the wreck of the civilization which followed them. Of this latter people much remains to tell the melancholy story of their struggle for existence. South of Mexico City their works have been obliterated by the more recent civilizations, but north of that city they are quite distinct. North of the Rio Grande they can be traced in a continuous line to St. Louis, and eastward along the Ohio to the line of the state of New York. Joseph Smith knew nothing of this system of defensive works, yet they stretch along exactly the line indicated as the one covered by the Nephite and Lamanite armies.

When the Nephite migration into North America began, ships were built on the isthmus and launched into the bay of Panama. These carried emigrants to some point far to the north, a land of desolation where there was no timber and where the people were compelled to build houses of cement. Now it is a strange fact that recent investigations in Arizona show that the builders of all of the old cities of that region came there by the Gulf of Cali­fornia, and spread out along the tributaries of the Colorado. Their houses were built in exactly the manner described in the Book of Mormon, and all evidences of their civilization so far brought to light is an exact counterpart of that found in that part of South America from, which the Book of Mormon says they came. These people, too, perished in the manner described in the record. Their cities were destroyed and the people swept from the earth by some relentless foe. Hardly a mound can be opened now without exposing the bones of the dead, mingled with the charred remains of their dwellings.

Down in Colombia there is a belief pretty generally entertained that some time in the long ago a colony of Jews reached that country. Tradition says they came from Jerusalem and landed on the coast near the mouth of the Magdalena river, which they ascended in boats, and built a city at the first rapids, where they continued to reside until expelled by the red men. They then took refuge in the almost inaccessible valleys of the Andes of Antioquia, where their descendents still reside. We have seen these people, and whether there is anything in the story or not we cannot say, but they bear a most striking resemblance to the Hebrew race and the tradition is exactly a counterpart of the story of the Mulek colony of the Book of Mormon.

We might enumerate other instances of a like nature showing the harmony between tradition and investigation of the ruins, and the Book of Mormon; but this article is long enough. This fact must be apparent to the unprejudiced mind, that as a theory, the Book of Mormon alone of all the theories current eighty years ago has survived, and every discovery made tends to strengthen its position. If it were a work of fiction this could not be true. On the contrary, every discovery would point out its weak parts.

The result of eighty years of investigation has proven just what those who believed in it expected it would prove. The Book of Mormon is a fact. Further discovery will strengthen its position until fail* minded men will declare as did my fellow traveler, that there is something divine in the Book of Mormon.

Logan, Utah.                                                                                        Joel Ricks.