"We seldom get into trouble when we speak softly. It is only when we raise our voices that the sparks fly and tiny molehills become great mountains of contention."
What Could Joseph Smith Have Known about Mesoamerica?
by Jeff Lindsay
Frederick Catherwood’s Depiction of the Temple at Tulum, published in his 1844 collection on lithographs, Views of Ancient Monuments.
See Wikipedia, “Frederick Cartherwood.”
Mesoamerica
has become the focal point for understanding the Book of Mormon. John
Sorenson's landmark works, An
Ancient American Setting for the Book of Mormon
(Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1985) and his masterpiece, Mormon's
Codex: An Ancient American Book
(Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2013), ably demonstrate that there is
a plausible geographical and cultural setting that can accommodate
the Book of Mormon text.
However,
some common misconceptions about the scope of the Book of Mormon need
to be tossed out, especially the old notion that the Book of Mormon
covers much of the Western Hemisphere, across many thousands of
miles, needs to be rejected.
While
the Book of Mormon makes sense in light of modern knowledge of
ancient Mesoamerican patterns of society, warfare, trade, literacy,
temple building, and numerous other elements, and while the only
plausible geographical setting for the Book of Mormon is a tiny
section of the New World centered in Mesoamerica, around the Isthmus
of Tehuantepec, it is important to understand that Joseph Smith did
not have access to this knowledge.
He
translated the book, but apparently did not know the scope of its
geography.
Many
early leaders of the Church simply assumed that the Book of Mormon
dealt with all of the Americas and all of the ancestors of the
Indians. When information about Mesoamerica became available in the
1840s, there was keen interest in Mesoamerica as the possible
location of the Book of Mormon, as we will see below.
But
this interest faded as the Church faced more serious issues: the
martyrdom of Joseph, crossing the plains, struggling for survival
against pressures from the US government, etc.
It
was not until well into this century that the issue of Book of Mormon
geography became a topic for serious study, and then many scholars
and thinkers realized that old assumptions needed to be revisited.
The result has been an increasing consensus for a limited geography
in Mesoamerica.
As
increasing evidence points to Mesoamerica as the only serious
candidate for the location of the Book of Mormon, and as information
about ancient culture and life in Mesoamerica provides further
parallels consistent with the Book of Mormon, it is time for critics
to consider how much of this Joseph could have fabricated based on
his knowledge of Mesoamerica.
The
reality is that Mesoamerica was not the focus of Joseph Smith's
thoughts, at least not until he learned of newly available
information about that part of the world that came out AFTER
publication of the Book of Mormon.
There
was one brief episode in Nauvoo when Nephite geography received new
attention. A phenomenally popular book by John Lloyd Stephens,
Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan
(New York, 1841), came into the possession of Church leaders in
Nauvoo in 1842.
It
constituted the first body of information of any substance from which
they, together with most people in the English-speaking world, could
learn about some of the most spectacular ruins in Mesoamerica. The
Saints' newspaper, the Times and Seasons, published long
excerpts from the book.
Apostle
Orson Pratt later recalled, "Most of the discoveries made by
Catherwood and Stephens were original ... [i.e.] had not been
described by previous travelers" [Millennial Star, Vol.
11, No. 8, 15 April 1849, p. 116].
Stephens's
biographer confirms Pratt's recollection: "The acceptance of an
'Indian civilization' demanded, to an American living in 1839 [when
the first edition of Stephens appeared in England], an entire
reorientation, for to him, an Indian was one of those barbaric, tepee
dwellers against whom wars were constantly waged.... Nor did one ever
think of calling the other [e.g., Mesoamerican] indigenous
inhabitants of the continent 'civilized.' In the universally accepted
opinion [of that day], they were like their North American
counterparts — savages" [Victor Wolfgang Von Hagen, Maya
Explorer: The Life of John Lloyd Stephens, Norman, Oklahoma:
University of Oklahoma Press, 1948, p. 75].
Enthusiastic
comments published at Nauvoo showed that the Church's leaders,
including Joseph Smith, were immensely stimulated by the new
information. Within a few weeks of the first notice, they announced
they had just discovered, by reading Stephens's book, that the
Nephites' prime homeland must have been in Central, not South,
America. [See Times and Seasons, Vol. 3, No. 22, 15 Sept.
1842, pp. 921-922.
Later,
the October 1st issue indicated that the editors had learned another
important fact relating to the Book of Mormon from studying Stephens'
work, namely, that "Central America, or Guatimala [sic]"
was where the city of Zarahemla had been.
Maps
of Guatemala in that day tended to show Chiapas in southern Mexico as
part of Guatemala, according to Sorenson.]
An
implication was that South America might not have been involved to a
major degree, or perhaps not at all. (Also implicit was the point
that the old interpretation was not considered by them to have come
by revelation.)
Some
people who want to place Book of Mormon events in the United States
try to dismiss Joseph's comments about the work of John Lloyd
Stephens. To understand why they are wrong and why the reaction of
Joseph and other Church leaders to Stephens' work cannot be
dismissed, see the highly detailed discussion in "Joseph
Smith, John Lloyd Stephens, and the Times and Seasons"
by David C. Handy at BMAF.org (2010).
The
leaders of the Church did not know the geographical details of the
Book of Mormon when it was published, but were glad to learn of new
discoveries of ancient civilizations that seemed consistent with the
civilizations described in the Book of Mormon — a consistency
that has been greatly strengthened since. It appeared that new
information was leading them to revise their previous deductions —
not revelations — about the scope of the Book of Mormon.
That
flash of insight would fade, and for decades the general membership
of the Church would think of the Book of Mormon as dealing with the
entire New World. But careful reading of the text clearly demands a
limited geography, and Mesoamerica is the prime candidate.
Recently
I have had anti-Mormon critics say that it would have been obvious
for Joseph to write about large cities and civilization in the
ancient Americas. But the civilizations of Mesoamerica and the Book
of Mormon are a world apart from the tribes Joseph might have known
of in New York.
In
fact, when the Book of Mormon was published, the idea of ancient
advanced civilizations on this continent was so utterly foreign that
the witnesses of the Book of Mormon expected it to be rejected by the
people. David Whitmer, in an 1883 interview with James H. Hart, said:
When
we [the Witnesses] were first told to publish our statement, we felt
sure that the people would not believe it, for the Book told of a
people who were refined and dwelt in large cities; but the Lord told
us that He would make it known to the people, and people should
discover evidence of the truth of what is written in the Book.
(Interview
with James H. Hart, Richmond, Mo., Aug. 21, 1883, as recorded in
Hart's notebook, reprinted in Lyndon W. Cook, David
Whitmer Interviews: A restoration Witness
(Orem, Utah: Grandin Book, 1991), p. 76, as cited by Daniel C.
Peterson, FARMS
Review of Books, Vol. 9, No. 1,
1997, p. xxvi.)
Although
the published works of Stephens would begin to educate the world
about the grandeur of ancient civilization on this continent, Joseph
Smith and the witnesses did not yet know that.
How
can critics explain the many parallels between the Book of Mormon and
Mesoamerica — the cities, temples, priests, kings, markets,
highways, classes of society, literacy, patterns of warfare
(including guerilla warfare), the existence of secret societies, the
evil of human sacrifice, and so forth — that are so untypical
of the Native Americans that Joseph could have known?
If
Joseph extracted the Book of Mormon from his own environment and
knowledge, why is Mesoamerica such a good fit? And how could it be a
fit at all, when there was so little information about it at the time
the Book of Mormon published?
If
Joseph were just fabricating a book based on what he knew, how
foolish it would have been to write about anything other than the
kind of tribes that lived in New York!
Critics
claim that the idea of Native Americans coming from Israel was common
in 1830, and that Joseph could simply have made up the story based on
popular ideas about Native American origins and about their legends
that suggested to some that Christ had visited the Americas (e.g.,
the Quetzalcoatl legends of Mesoamerica).
Again,
there is little basis for such conclusions, for popular views on
these topics would not have guided Joseph Smith to create the fabric
of the Book of Mormon. There was simply a huge disconnect between the
peoples described in the Book of Mormon and the Iroquois or other
tribes that might have been known to Joseph Smith.
It
was not until the publications of Stephens and others after 1830
that Latter-day Saints could see a serious connection between the
ancient inhabitants of the Americas and the Book of Mormon.
Sorenson
(ibid., p. 489) offers further insight on the prevailing state of
common knowledge about ancient Native Americans when the Book of
Mormon emerged:
The
generally low level of public information and chaotic jumble of
"fact" on "pre-Indian" settlers of America that
prevailed in Joseph Smith's day is illustrated by Josiah Priest,
American Antiquities and Discoveries in the West... (Albany:
Hoffman and White, 1833).
In
this credulous mishmash of opinions and excerpts from many books,
mainly about eastern North America, he believes that "not only
Asiatic nations, very soon after the flood," but also
"Polynesians, Malays, Australasians, Phoenicians, Egyptians,
Greeks, Romans, Israelites, Tartars, Scandinavians, Danes,
Norwegians, Welch, and Scotch, have colonized different parts of the
continent" (p. iv).
"All
the principles of the stoic school of the Greeks are found in the
practice of the American savages" (p. 386).
Priest
cites Humboldt in curious ways. Page 246 reproduces a drawing of the
Aztec calendar stone from him, and he is the cited source for
Priest's supposition that Quetzalcoatl, far from being identified
with Jesus Christ, was a Buddhist or Brahman missionary from India
(p. 206), yet contradictorily, he also thinks that this "white
and bearded man" came from some island in the Pacific "on
the northeast of Asia" whose inhabitants were more civilized
than the Chinese (p. 208).
Clavigero
is the source for his notion that the Aztecs came from the China
coast by sea near the Bering Strait, then on to Mexico (p. 272).
Christian symbolism arrived via Asiatic Nestorian Christians who
crossed to America in Mongol ships. The ten tribes reached America by
ships via Norway, having amalgamated with the Scythians (=Tartars),
hence the "Jewish" parallels evident among the Indians.
Incidentally,
Dr. Samuel L. Mitchell, no doubt the same person who was seen by
Martin Harris, is one of the "antiquarians" whose opinions
are summarized regarding the origin of the Indians; in Mitchell's
view they included Malay, Tartar, and Scandinavian transoceanic
voyagers. Also, see a piece in the Portsmouth Journal (New
Hampshire) for 1 November 1834, that reported, obviously on the basis
of some urban newspaper, the vague information that expeditions into
Mexican back country in 1786, 1805, and 1807 had produced drawings
and detailed descriptions of ancient monuments; however, these had
remained in the portfolios of the Mexican Museum until 1828, when "M.
Abbebaradere, a French savant," became possessor of them. He
planned to publish them in Paris.
The
discoveries included "ancient idols of granite,... pyramids,
subterranean sepulchres,... colossal bas-reliefs sculptured in
granite or modeled in stucco, zodiacs, hieroglyphics differing from
those of Egypt," and so on.
But
no such publication was ever issued, nor was there any equivalent
volume until Stephens's. Clavigero's volume on Mexico appeared in an
English edition in 1817 in Philadelphia, but it was mainly a
description of the Aztecs that gave little ancient historical
information.
Humboldt's
English edition of Vues des cordilleras [Vues des
Cordillères et monuments des peuples indigènes de
l'Amérique] came out in London in 1814, but neither could
it have informed Smith about more than snatches of fact on
Mesoamerican civilization. The 1833 volume by Priest, who had vastly
better library resources and scholarly skills than Smith, does not
cite either Clavigero or Humboldt.
The
issue of written language also merits consideration. The Book of
Mormon describes people who kept and cherished written records, who
recorded their history, who had priests and prophets and books of
scripture and prophecy, and who used written language in their
commerce.
None
of this was characteristic of the Native Americans in Joseph's area.
Today
we all know that Mesoamericans had written language anciently, but
this was not common knowledge in Joseph Smith's day. In fact, it was
only in recent decades that this became understood and accepted by
most scholars.
It
is one more area that Joseph could not have fabricated.
To
propose that ancient Native Americans had culture so advanced as to
have a major tradition of written records was utterly without
foundation — something likely to be mocked by the world of
1830. But once again, time has vindicated Joseph Smith.
Regarding
the development of scholarly appreciation of written language in
ancient Mesoamerica, consider the work of Linda Schele, as given in
her
obituary in the New York Times,
April 22, 1998, by Robert Thomas, Jr., excerpts of which follow:
Linda
Schele, a one-time studio art teacher who made a fateful vacation
visit to Mexico that turned her life upside down and helped
revolutionize Mayan scholarship, died on Saturday at a hospital near
her home in Austin, Texas. She was 55 and widely known for her
pioneering work in decoding inscriptions on Mayan monuments. . . .
Dr.
Schele (SHE-lee) was more or less contentedly teaching studio art at
the University of South Alabama in Mobile when her husband, a
Cincinnati-trained architect who had long been fascinated with
pre-Columbian architecture, suggested that the couple spend their
1970 Christmas vacation visiting Mayan ruins in Mexico. . . .
As
the travelers began their tour, they were persuaded to make a slight
detour from their itinerary to spend a couple of hours visiting the
ruins at the obscure Mayan city of Palenque.
When
they got there, Dr. Schele was so taken with the beauty of the site
and so enthralled by the scholars she encountered there that the
two-hour visit stretched to 12 days. By the time she got back to
Mobile she had a new life's work.
She
remained at South Alabama until she had obtained a doctorate in Latin
American studies from the University of Texas and become a professor
of art there, in 1981, but Dr. Schele spent virtually every spare
moment at Palenque and other Mayan sites.
Although
the Mayans, who flourished from about A.D. 200 to 900, had long been
recognized for their scientific work in devising a calendar based on
advanced astronomical observations, they had been largely dismissed
by scholars as sort of idiot savants, an illiterate nation of idle
and indolent stargazers who devoted all their considerable
mathematical and intellectual resources simply to marking time.
They
were also seen as a blissfully peaceful people, whose fabled cities
lacked even rudimentary fortifications.
As
for the abundant carvings and glyphs on the countless monuments among
the ruins, scholars had assumed these were variously religious
symbols or arcane notations denoting the movement of planets....
Over
the next dozen years, Dr. Schele and others deciphered and
interpreted inscriptions throughout the Mayan realm, but it was not
until 1986, when Dr. Schele helped organize an exhibition at the
Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, that the world learned the
full implications of the work: Far from being an ethereal peaceful
people, the Mayans were a warring nation who tortured and sometimes
sacrificed their captives, whose nobles engaged in blood-letting
rituals to placate their gods….
It
was only in recent decades that scholars recognized the existence and
significance of written records among ancient Native Americans, and
systems of writing were only found in Book of Mormon lands,
Mesoamerica. Was Joseph Smith just incredibly lucky that what looked
like a silly blunder in 1830 would be validated in our day?
The
understanding of the warlike nature of the ancient Mayans is also a
recent scholarly development. Thank you, Linda Schele!
Of
the many other areas showing parallels to the Book of Mormon,
consider the Mesoamerican justice system. John Sorenson explains
(Images of Ancient America: Visualizing Book of Mormon Life,
(Provo, Utah: Research Press, 1998), p. 116):
One
of the primary duties of a ruler was to settle disputes among his
people. Sometimes that could be done by him personally, but in a
population of much size, he would not have time to deal with every
conflict. Judges were delegated to carry out that duty.
Cortez,
for example, described the situation at the great market in the Aztec
capital:
"There
is in this square a very large building, like a Court of Justice,
where there are always ten or twelve persons, sitting as judges, and
delivering their decisions upon all cases which arise in the
markets."
[Fernando
Cortées: His Five Letters of Relation to the Emperor Charles
V, ed. and transl. Francis A. MacNutt (Glorieta, New Mexico: Rio
Grande Press, 1977) 1:259]
In
public assemblies, the Spaniards observed native police officers with
pine cudgels who enforced order if required to do so by the
authorities.
Police
and judges in a legal system are also mentioned in various contexts
in the Book of Mormon, but would not have been part of Joseph Smith's
experience with local Native American tribes. (Mesoamerican societies
also had prisons, as the Book of Mormon teaches.)
To
ascribe such complex elements of civilization to people viewed as
primitive savages would have been remarkably foolhardy, but these
elements are now known to have been present in the Americas —
and again in Mesoamerica, the very place where the physical geography
can be aligned with the Book of Mormon.
The
role of merchants in ancient Mesoamerica also is consistent with the
Book of Mormon, where we read of numerous merchants in 3 Nephi 6:11,
in a context where they are associated with the upper classes,
wealth, and contentions:
10 But it came to pass in the twenty and ninth year there began to be
some disputings among the people; and some were lifted up unto pride
and boastings because of their exceedingly great riches, yea, even
unto great persecutions;
11 For there were many merchants in the land, and also many lawyers, and
many officers.
12 And the people began to be distinguished by ranks, according to their
riches and their chances for learning; yea, some were ignorant
because of their poverty, and others did receive great learning
because of their riches.
This
is inconsistent with anything Joseph Smith would have known about
Native Americans, but entirely plausible in ancient Mesoamerica. Dr.
Mary Miller and Dr. Karl Taube discuss merchants in An Illustrated
Dictionary of the Gods and Symbols of Ancient Mexico and the Maya
(New York: Thames and Hudson, 1993, p. 112):
In
Aztec society merchants, or pochteca as they were called, held
a very special niche in which they functioned as emissaries,
ambassadors, spies, and warriors — not merely as traders….
Because
of the role merchants played in the expansion of mercantile
domination of the Aztec realm, they received special honors.
Motecuhzoma II brought the pochteca into his court and treated
them as if they were nobility.
The
importance of merchants is linked to the significance of major
markets that existed as distinctive features of Mesoamerica, also
consistent with the Book of Mormon, but not part of what Joseph Smith
would have known of Native Americans.
The
numerous parallels between ancient Mesoamerican practices and culture
with the Book of Mormon could not have been fabricated by Joseph
Smith based on what he could have known. And certainly the
geographical consistency and plausibility with Mesoamerica could not
have been the result of a fabrication in 1830. For most students of
the Book of Mormon, its Mesoamerican connections in the Book of
Mormon demand far more attention than they have received.
The North American Review, 1841
One
critic has recently insisted that information about ancient
Mesoamerican civilization was common knowledge in Joseph Smith's day.
It is true that the basic story of the Spanish conquest was widely
known, and several scholars like von Humboldt had written about
Mesoamerica, but the concept of advanced ancient civilization and
vast cities does not appear to have been part of the common knowledge
of the masses.
The
review begins on page
479
of the publication. Near the beginning of the review, on page
480,
we have this comment regarding the ancient Mesoamericans and "the
riddle of their history":
The
recent discoveries in Central America have attracted a new attention
to these questions. The time for constructing a theory is not yet.
The materials are still too scanty. But they are accumulating in
great richness; and to no part of the world does the historical
inquirer look with a more intense interest, than to that country,
lately as little thought of as if it did not exist, now known to be
so fruitful in marvels.
It
would be all but incredible, if it were not now shown to be certainly
true, that in the wilds of Central America are found vast
architectural piles, with complicated decorations chiselled in hard
stone, which, different as is their style, might without extravagance
be called worthy of the best eras of European art. The "vast
buildings or terraces, and pyramidal structures, grand and in good
preservation, richly ornamented," struck Mr. Stephens on his
first approach, as "in picturesque effect almost equal to the
ruins of Thebes."
Stephens
is quoted on page
490
as he describes the experience of looking out over one of the ancient
cities:
There
is no rudeness or barbarity in the design or proportions; on the
contrary, the whole wears an air of architectural symmetry and
grandeur; and as the stranger ascends the steps and casts a
bewildered eye along its open and desolate doors, it is hard to
believe that he sees before him the work of a race in whose epitaph,
as written by historians, they are called ignorant of art, and said
to have perished in the rudeness of savage life.
Stephens
is challenging the day's common knowledge of Native Americans,
showing that the architectural evidence points to an ancient people
who were not rude savages or barbarians.
Also
see page
491
and page
492,
where we read an amusing illustration of the ignorance of the day.
The
reviewer quotes a passage from a competitor's journal that argues for
the ignorance of learned men and the British public by pointing out
how some allegedly new discoveries were previously documented by
others ("... we can adduce an extraordinary instance of the
ignorance prevailing among literary and scientific men in general, of
the immense sources of information from which they have been excluded
by the voluminous pedantry employed upon the subject....
This
circumstance is alone sufficient to show that the subject is, unlike
Egyptian antiquities, comparatively new to the reading British
public."), but the reviewer then points out that this is in fact
a serious error and that Stephens' report of Copan appears to be the
first — all of which only strengthens the case for the lack of
widespread knowledge about Mesoamerica in that era, even among the
learned.
Jeff Lindsay has been defending the Church on the Internet since 1994, when he launched his
LDSFAQ website under JeffLindsay.com. He has also long been blogging about LDS matters on
the blog Mormanity (mormanity.blogspot.com). Jeff is a longtime resident of Appleton,
Wisconsin, who recently moved to Shanghai, China, with his wife, Kendra.
He works for an Asian corporation as head of intellectual property. Jeff and Kendra are the parents of 4 boys, 3 married and the the youngest on a mission.
He is a former innovation and IP consultant, a former professor, and former Corporate Patent
Strategist and Senior Research Fellow for a multinational corporation.
Jeff Lindsay, Cheryl Perkins and Mukund Karanjikar are authors of the book Conquering
Innovation Fatigue (John Wiley & Sons, 2009).
Jeff has a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Brigham Young University and is a registered US
patent agent. He has more than 100 granted US patents and is author of numerous publications.
Jeff's hobbies include photography, amateur magic, writing, and Mandarin Chinese.