Those Implausible Golden Plates of the Book of Mormon: Why I Gave in to Anti-Mormon Pressure
by Jeff Lindsay
Note:
On several pages of the LDSFAQ (Mormon Answers)
section of my website and on my Mormanity blog,
I provide evidence that the concept of ancient people writing sacred
scripture on metal plates has found increasing support since the days
of Joseph Smith.
My
statements have drawn the wrath of a critic of the Church, who has
told many others that we LDS apologists are deliberately deceptive
when we state that there was opposition to the very idea of ancient
writing on metal plates in Joseph's day — though now, of
course, there is a growing body of evidence for the plausibility of
that practice.
What
follows is an essay I wrote in response to the demands of the critic.
Yes, with apologies, I responded to someone who I think really didn't
want an answer. Communication with him may be futile, but perhaps
what follows might be of help to others.
One tentative model of the gold plates, from Steven Pratt — “A Model of the Plates,” New Era, July 2007, 32.
The Accusation and Demand
"If
you don't respond to my list of objections within 30 days, I will
assume that you have no answer and will tell everyone that you
implicitly agree — and that you are a Mormon liar."
I
get these kind of barbs occasionally from our critics. I see this as
spiritual spam whose purpose is to waste my time and trick me into
falling for some trap — especially the trap of thinking that
somebody really cares about my response. Delete. Move on. That's my
normal procedure for dealing with these uncivil spamsters.
Once
I received one of those demands with a more ominous flavor. Sent by a
noted critic of other Christians, it began with the normal
pleasantries: a list of arguments and quotes, an accusation that I
was a liar and/or stupid, and the requirement that I respond within
30 days or be exposed for what I am.
But
this was more than just spiritual spam — there was also an
ominous threat involving someone else, making this more of a ransom
note from a spiritual terrorist than just another immature and
hostile spammer.
That
message came in a follow-up note sent a few minutes after the first:
"I've shared my emails to you with an exiting Mormon woman to
show her that you can't and won't refute my charges. She'll be
checking your web site in a month, too. Presumably she'll use this in
helping her Mormon friends see the light, as well."
Ah,
so now, if I failed to comply with the demands in the ransom note and
turn over many hours of my time as a ransom payment, one or more
souls will perish — spiritual decapitations, if you will. Or
perhaps a sentence of years of hard labor in spiritual captivity.
This was ugly, and I struggled with what to do.
"You
don't negotiate with terrorists. You never give in to their demands.
If you do, it will just encourage them and make things worse."
That's so easy to say, and it makes a lot of sense — until
someone you care about is the one being held hostage.
I
don't know who the "exiting Mormon and her friends" are
that Mr. S. has taken into spiritual or mental captivity, but my
heart goes out to them. I want them to know I care. I want them to
know that sometimes there are answers to questions, and that
sometimes the arguments they are fed may be distortions or otherwise
unfair.
If
I knew where they were being held, perhaps I'd get some of my Marine
friends to rush in and rescue them with a helpful home teaching
visit. Maybe it's a case where we need to send in some high-power
drones, but the only drone I have access to is me, and I am giving
in on this one. Buckling. Paying the ransom demanded, and hoping that
the captive souls might find a way to escape and come back.
Forgive
me, fellow LDS defenders, if I am only making things worse.
What
follows is the first message from the hostage taker, our noble
Christian critic, with the full name replaced by "Mr S."
After reading my LDSFAQ web page, "My
Turn: Infrequently Asked Questions for Critics of LDS Religion,"
Mr. S. was infuriated that I would say that the idea of ancient
Americans keeping a sacred record on metal plates was a ridiculous
concept in 1830 when the Book of Mormon came out.
Of
course, there were scholars who knew that some ancient peoples had
written on metal of various kinds, and there were educated people who
knew that there were great civilizations in the ancient Americas that
including written records.
I
did not say that nobody could have known that the ancient inhabitants
of Mesoamerica kept written records, nor did I say that nobody knew
of ancient writing on metal. My statement about the golden plates
being "too funny for words" in 1830 was a reference to the
response he received.
Mr.
S. misunderstands that. Sorry if I wasn't precise enough, but I hope
this post will clear things up. So let's begin with his gentle note:
Dear Mr. Lindsay,
You state:
When the Book of Mormon was published in 1830, the idea of ancient people
in this continent keeping a written record was hilarious, and the
idea of them or anybody else writing on metal plates was simply
bizarre — "too funny for words," as Hugh Nibley puts
it. It was ridiculed many times, and still is by some critics.
http://www.jefflindsay.com/myturn.shtml
This is
hilarious! But not for the reasons you state. You can cite all of the
Mormon "apologists" you like (Paul Cheesman made this
idiotic and insupportable claim for years), but someday you're just
going to have to look at sources written BEFORE the Book of Mormon
was published. When you do, you'll find that —
Jahn's
BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY published in English in 1823 (Andover, MA)
states that "Those books [of the ancient Jews], which were
inscribed on tablets of wood, lead, brass, or ivory, were connected
together by rings at the back ..."
Now you know: a
scholarly work on archaeology before 1830 claimed the Jews wrote on
metal plates AND bound them with rings at the back. Curiously, Joseph
Smith knew about this book — he mentions it in the TIMES AND
SEASONS (Sept. 1, 1842) to vindicate the Book of Mormon.
Tellingly,
Joseph (as editor) leaves out the fact that that Jahn's book was
published seven years prior to the Book of Mormon. (In case the terms
confuse you, the T & S points out that "Tablets, tables, and
plates are all of the same import ...")
In ANTIQUITIES OF
THE JEWS (Philadelphia, 1823) William Brown, D. D. wrote "It is
generally thought that engraving on brass and lead, and on rock or
tablets of stone, was the form in which the public laws were written
..."
Did you catch that? "IT IS GENERALLY THOUGHT."
How could it be "Too funny for words" if it was something
"generally thought" by antiquarians in 1823?
In AN
INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF BIBLIOGRAPHY (Vol. I, London, 1814),
Thomas Hartwell Horne devotes pages 33 - 35 to lead and brass as
writing materials of the ancients.
And let's not forget the
Apocrypha and Bible. I Macabees 8:22 mentions an epistle written on
"tables of brass." The Bible states that "ancient
writings were inscribed on gold (Exodus 28:36; 39:30)." That
last quote is from p. 48 of Paul Chessman's ANCIENT WRITING ON METAL
PLATES. Curiously, he too claims Joseph couldn't have known about
ancient writing on metal plates.
Here's an UNSUBSTANTIATED
claim from the THE NATURAL AND ABORIGINAL HISTORY OF TENNESSEE (1823)
by Judge John Haywood:
"two or three plates of brass, with characters
inscribed upon them resembling letters" found in West Virginia,
and a circular piece of brass with letter-like
characters found in North Carolina (328-30).
Haywood
later concludes "since we can trace this art into Egypt prior to
the exodus ... there seems to be incontrovertible evidence that the
inscriptions in America were made by people of the Old world."
(372)
Who were these people who thought in 1830 that the
ancients writing on metal plates was "too funny for words"?
It wasn't Jahn or Brown or Horne or Haywood or ANYONE familiar with
the Bible and the Apocrypha (which all Bibles included at that time —
even Joseph's).
As to
your ridiculous notion that the idea in 1830 that any ancient
Americans kept a written record was considered "hilarious"
let's look at a book about American archaeology published ten years
before the Book of Mormon called ARCHAEOLOGIA AMERICANA published by
the American Antiquarian Society — which is still in existence in
Worcester, MA.
In it, Baron von Humboldt quotes Montezuma as
saying to Cortez: "We know from our books ... that myself, and
those who inhabit this country, are not natives, but strangers, who
came a great distance." Where did Montezuma of the Aztecs get
this information? From BOOKS written by earlier Aztecs.
Humboldt
didn't find that hilarious. Or Cortez. Or Montezuma. Or the American
Antiquarian Society. Can you tell me who did?
I'll close with
a quote from Joseph Smith's hometown newspaper the WAYNE SENTINAL of
June 1, 1827 (printed on the same press as the Book of Mormon) —
nothing indicates the editor found this article, "Decyphering
Hieroglyphics," hilarious: The article claimed a Professor
Seyffarth of Leipzig had found:
". . . a Mexican
manuscript in hieroglyphics, from which he infers that the Mexicans
and the Egyptians had intercourse with each other from the remotest
antiquity, and that they had the same system of mythology."
(Hmm.
Ancient American Indian writing based on Egyptian. Could this be
where Joseph got the idea for reformed Egyptian, reading the local
newspaper?)
I suspect you knew much of the above already. If
so, you're just another Mormon liar. If not, then, like Hugh Nibley,
you don't do very thorough research — you just repeat other Mormons
without bothering to check. However, I'll keep an eye on your web
site. If your hilarious (and pathetic) claims remains up a month from
now, I'll know it's the former.
Oh, I'd appreciate your citing
instances that the idea that the ancients wrote on metal plates or
that ancient Americans had a writing system "was ridiculed many
times, and still is by some critics." I don't want citations
that ridicule Joseph Smith's claims regarding the book of Mormon —
that's not what you said.
I
want to see just one writer ridiculing these ideas UNRELATED to
Joseph Smith. You see, one can scoff at Joseph's claims of a golden
book and Nephite authors and still accept the ancient Hebrews wrote
on metal plates and that ancient Americans had a writing system. I'd
especially be interested in any modern scholars who doubt Jahn and
Humboldt.
Very sincerely,
"Mr. S." (full name withheld)
Giving in: My Response
Mr.
S. makes some valid points. There were people before 1830 who had
seen Mesoamerica and knew that they had writing. However, this was
definitely not generally known in Joseph's environment before about
1842, when members of the Church saw the impressive and widely
publicized work of John Lloyd Stephens, Incidents of Travel in
Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan (New York, 1841, which had
been published in Europe in 1839).
This
book was, for most of the English-speaking world, their first real
exposure to the startling nature of ancient Mesoamerican
civilization. Church members were excited by this new evidence,
supporting previously ridiculed notions that now made sense.
The
Saints' newspaper, the Times and Seasons, published long
excerpts from the book. An 1848 editorial comment exults about the
significance of Stephens' work:
Stephens's
late discoveries in Central America of Egyptian hieroglyphics, great
numbers of which he has given in his drawings, and published in his
able book of that curious region, and the still later discovery of
many thousands of mummies in the caverns of Mexico, similar to those
of Ancient Egypt, are evidences so pointed, that Ancient America must
have been peopled from the highly civilized nations of Asia, that the
learned are at last convinced of the fact.
The
unlearned, however, have got the start of the learned in this
instance, for they found it out about nineteen years ago through the
medium of the Book of Mormon. The
Latter-Day Saints Millennial Star. Volume X, p. 343.
Apostle
Orson Pratt, writing later in 1849, responded to a criticism of his
excitement over the work of Stephens. An anonymous merchant pointed
out that Humboldt and others had written of similar things long
before. Pratt, like LDS apologists today, recognized that there was
prior knowledge in this area:
Now
no one will dispute the fact that the existence of antique remains in
different parts of America was known long before Mr. Smith was born.
But every well-informed person knows that the most of the discoveries
made by Catherwood and Stephens were original —
that the most of the forty-four cities described by [Stephens] had
not been described by previous travelers." "Reply to a
Pamphlet Printed in Glasgow, Entitled, "Remarks on Mormonism,"
part 3. Millennial Star, Vol. 11, No. 8, 15 April 1849, pp. 115-116.
There
is no evidence that Joseph Smith had seen von Humboldt's writings or
Ethan Smith's work, View of the Hebrews,
that cited some of von Humboldt, and if he did and were fabricating
his text, he clearly failed to take advantage of the numerous details
that could have been used to strengthen the case for plausibility
(see my note, "The
Book of Mormon and the Writings of Alexander von Humboldt").
For
the typical American, it was Stephens, not Humboldt or others before
1830, who opened up the vision of Mesoamerica as a place where great
ancient civilizations once existed.
Stephens'
biographer gave us an important insight into the impact of Stephens'
work:
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, as cited
by John L. Sorenson, "How
Could Joseph Smith Write So Accurately about Ancient American
Civilization?")
As
Mr. S. observes, there also were people who had written about some of
the ancients writing on metal. But this knowledge, had by some
scholars, was not widely known by any means and is very unlikely to
have been known by Joseph Smith or his associates.
There
is no evidence, for example, that Joseph Smith had access to Jahn's
book, which does not appear to have been available in the nearby
Manchester Library. Do we have any critics in the 1830s pointing to
von Humboldt or Jahn as sources that Joseph must have used to add
plausibility to props in his story?
Do
we find them noting that ancient writing of scripture on metal plates
per se was a plausible notion Smith had derived from earlier
sources? No, we find them guffawing at every turn.
From
what I've seen, among the many reactions of early critics to the
story of gold plates, we find shock, dismay, outrage, sarcasm,
righteous indignation, scorn, mocking, and related rejections. What I
have not seen is the least acknowledgment of plausibility in the
external physical trappings of the Book of Mormon story.
For
example. we do not find learned critics admitting that ancient
peoples in the New World could have written sacred texts on metal
plates and buried their record in stone boxes as Joseph described,
particularly if they had ties to the Old World where such practices
were well known.
We
do not find critics dismissing Joseph's story as an obvious build on
established knowledge about ancient writing on metal plates.
Again,
what Mr. S. fails to recognize is that neither I nor Nibley is
arguing that nobody knew about ancient writing on metal. Neither do
we argue that Joseph Smith could not possibly have known that writing
on metal was known in the ancient world.
We
argue that this was not common knowledge, and that the basic concepts
were rejected and ridiculed, along with everything about the Book of
Mormon — a book that has become less ridiculous with time.
Remember,
Stephens' biographer wrote that prior to publication of Stephens'
work in 1839, which caused "an entire reorientation" in the
minds of Americans, they viewed the native inhabitants of the
continent as mere savages.
After 1839, as educated people
became more aware of the extensive civilization of ancient
Mesoamerica, there was still little recognition outside the Church
that such findings might shed favorable light on the Book of Mormon.
Critics still condemned it as utterly implausible. An
intriguing exception in the reaction of journalists outside the
Church to the Book of Mormon comes from The New Yorker, edited
by Horace Greeley.
On
Dec. 12, 1840, there was an article in which a writer under the name
of Josephine, believed to be the daughter of General Charles Sanford,
a New York lawyer and military figure (according to Donald Q. Cannon,
"In
the Press: Early Newspaper Reports on the Initial Publication of the
Book of Mormon," Journal of Book of Mormon Studies,
Vol. 16, No. 1, 2007, pp. 4-15, see footnote 51). This was later
reprinted in the Iowa Territorial Gazette, Feb. 3, 1841.
After
a fair-minded description of the Book of Mormon, Josephine refers to
recent discoveries about Mesoamerica, apparently referencing the work
of Stephens:
If
on comparison it appears that these characters are similar to those
recently discovered on those ruins in Central America, which have
attracted so much attention lately, and which are decidedly of
Egyptian architecture, it will make a very strong point for Smith. It
will tend to prove that the plates are genuine, even if it does not
establish the truth of his inspiration, or the fidelity of his
translation....
Josephine
and The New Yorker do not seem to be aware that knowledge of
ancient hieroglyphic-like writing in ancient Mesoamerican
civilizations was common knowledge before publication of the Book of
Mormon, and seem to view the knowledge brought by Stephens' works as
something that is novel.
If the stout criticism of Mr. S.
adequately describes the basic knowledge readily accessible to young
Joseph Smith about Mesoamerica and the record keeping practices of
the ancients, we might expect an educated Josephine to have written
about the obvious plagiarism of prior sources.
As for the idea
of ancient Hebrews writing on metal plates, critics now insist that
there were plenty of sources that Joseph could have drawn upon for
the idea. While a mention of "tables" or tablets" of
metal need not conjure up the notion of a book on thin metal leaves,
there certainly are references in the Bible and elsewhere to words
recorded on metal.
However,
this seems to have done little to reduce the general hostility to the
notion of a record like the Book of Mormon, which still seems to have
been "too funny for words," in spite of the various sources
cited by Mr. S.
Do
we find early critics recognizing the relevance of those sources and
thereby finding an attempt by Smith to conjure up an air of
plausibility in the alleged physical record itself? I would
appreciate any citations for such, but I have found none.
In
searching for early critical reactions to the gold plates, using
Google Books, I found nothing that would allow for any degree of
plausibility in the account. Most critics guffaw and speak of
blasphemy and spiritual error, but a few do address the props
themselves.
But
after a very careful study of the book, a conscientious and
painstaking examination of all the evidence he has been able to
gather both for and against it, the author of these pages has been
forced to reject every one of the above claims.
He
is compelled to believe that no such people as are described in the
Book of Mormon ever lived upon this continent; that no such records
were ever engraved upon golden plates, or any other plates, in the
early ages; that no such men as Mormon or Moroni or any other of the
prophets or kings or wise men mentioned in the book, ever existed in
this country; that Jesus Christ never appeared upon this continent in
person, or had a people here before its discovery by Columbus.
In
short, that no such civilization, Christian or otherwise, as is
described in the Book of Mormon had an existence upon either North or
South America.
No
such records were ever engraved upon plates of gold or other metals.
He doesn't seem to be hinting that the basic idea of records on metal
plates was well known and plausible, albeit a pious fraud in Joseph's
case. No, the very concept of such props is absolutely rejected —
almost as if it were too funny for words.
Stuart Martin,
writing in 1920, says that no one pointed out to young Joseph that
gold would corrode if left buried so long, ridiculing the concept of
preserving a text on buried gold plates. (Mystery
of Mormonism, printed by Kessinger Publishing, 2003, p. 27).
In 1857, the
critic John Hyde, Jr. specifically argued that the idea of ancient
Hebrews writing on metal plates was implausible. In Mormonism:
Its Leaders and Designs
(New York: W.P. Fetridge, 1857, pp. 217-218), we read this:
The
plates. We must remember that it is a Hebrew youth, who "has
lived at Jerusalem all his days," until he leaves for "the
wilderness." ... The writing materials then in use, and it was
only very few who could use them, would be those such a youth would
be familiar with. Now the Jews did not use plates of brass at that
time. Their writing materials were
1. Tablets smeared with wax.
2. Linen rubbed with a kind of gum.
3. Tanned leather and vellum.
4. Parchment (invented by Attalus of Pergamos).
5. Papyrus. (M. Sturat, O. Test. Can.)
All the writings of the Jews long
anterior and subsequent to Zedekiah were in rolls. (Isa.,
xxxiv. 4; Jer. xxxvi. 25; Ezek., iii 9, 10l Ps. xl. 7; Zech. v. 1,
etc., etc.) These rolls were chiefly parchment and papyrus.... The
use of this material superseded the stones filled with lead (Job),
Hesiods leaden tables, Solon's wooden planks, the wax tables, so
clumsy and easily erased. This material rolled up could be bound with
flax and sealed.... The Jews used this material. The Egyptians, whose
language Nephi gives his father, used this material. Contradiction
and inconsistency are stamped on any other assertion. This is another
strong proof of imposture.
Jabs
about the plates continue:
The
genealogies were kept by public registrars and were written in Hebrew
on rolls of papyrus and parchment, not on plates, nor in the Egyptian
language. They were very extensive, embracing all members of the
family, and were sacredly preserved.... This mass of names, embracing
from Joseph, son of Jacob, down to Lehi, even though they had been,
as pretended, engraved on brass plates, would have formed an
immense volume and a great weight. (p. 219)
To have told one
of those old Levites, specifically punctilious and even
superstitious, that some one had copied their law in the language of
the Egyptians (idolaters and enemies) in the first place, and had it
durably engraved on brass, when they were handling so delicately
these papyrus rolls, would have called it an infamous imposture.
Every wise man will imitate the skepticism of that Levite. (p.
220)
All this vast mass of matter, it is pretended, was on
these singular brass plates: the Pentateuch, history, prophecies, and
of course the Psalms, for was not David a prophet? Add to all this
the genealogies of their families ever since Abraham! One man could
never have carried it all. (p. 221-222)
Michael Ash
also cites LaRoy Sunderland'a pamphlet, Mormonism Exposed and Refuted
(Piercy & Reed Printers, New York, 1838), for these two quotes:
The
book of Mormon purports to have been originally engraved on brass
plates.... How could brass be written on? (p. 44)
This book
speaks... of the Jewish Scriptures, having been kept by Jews on
plates of brass, six hundred years before Christ. The Jews never kept
any of their records on plates of brass. (p. 46)
Information
about the novelty of Stephens' publications comes from scholarship
around Stephens' own experience. Stephens was a lawyer who, prior to
pursuing his law studies, had four
years of education at Columbia College in New York City.
Through
his successful publications about his travels in the late 1830s, he
was among a handful of elites who had traveled the world and had a
personal network including scholars of Europe and North America.
In
a biography of Stephens, Peter Harris, "Cities of Stone:
Stephens & Catherwood in Yucatan, 1839-1842 — Co-Incidents
of Travel in Yucatan," Photoarts Journal (Summer 2006),
http://www.photoarts.com/harris/z.html
(initial page), we read the following in the introduction:
In
1839 a young American lawyer, fresh from his astonishingly successful
publication of two books of travel, secured an appointment as charge
d'affaires to the Republic of Central America.
His
official task was to locate the seat of government of that
civil-war-torn country (then a confederation of states that are today
the independent countries of Central America) and conclude a trade
agreement with it.
His
real reason for this journey, however, was to explore the jungles of
Central America and the Yucatan Peninsula for the remnants of a
once-great civilization whose existence was only hinted at in the
literature of the period.
In
1841 John Lloyd Stephens published Incidents of Travel in Central
America, Chiapas, and Yucatan, bringing to the world for the
first time a reliable account of the Xculoc, Palace of the
Figurespre-Columbian ruins of the Yucatan Peninsula and northern
Central America, ruins of a civilization we know today as the Maya.
The
existence of the fabulous cities of Palenque, Copan, and Uxmal was
finally, unequivocally confirmed. The romantic image of ancient stone
cities mouldering beneath the thick tropical rain-forest captivated
the public's imagination, and the two volumes, illustrated with
Frederick Catherwood's phenomenally accurate engravings, caused a
sensation on both sides of the Atlantic.
Scarcely
three months after the publication of Central America Stephens and
Catherwood organized a second trip to Yucatan to continue their
explorations, which had been cut short at Uxmal by Catherwood's
illness. The results of this expedition were published in 1843 as
Incidents of Travel in Yucatan.
These
books were the first accurate and reliable descriptions of the Maya
ruins of southern Mexico and northern Central America to be
published. (emphasis mine)
But
with all of his connections and access to information, how much about
Mesoamerica had been obvious and well known to him for years prior to
his travels there? Was he just rehashing and publicizing what was
already well known? On page 4
of Harris (http://www.photoarts.com/harris/0025.html),
we read the following:
Exactly
when and where Stephens' interest became piqued by the antiquities of
Yucatan and Central America is uncertain. While he was in London he
may have heard of the reports of Juan Galindo, the English-born
governor of the state of Peten, Guatemala, whose notices concerning
the ruins of Palenque and Copan were published in London and Paris
between 1831 and 1836.
Earlier,
an edited version of Antonio del Rio's report to the governor of
Guatemala had appeared in London in 1822, with illustrations by
Frederick Waldeck. In its appendix, entitled Teatro Critico
Americano, one Dr. Pablo Felix Cabrera, of Guatemala, purports to
prove that the ruins are Egyptian in origin.
In
1834, the two volume Antiquites Americaines had been published
in Paris, which also attempted to show that the ancient monuments of
the New World were not indigenous, but rather the products of the
civilizations of Egypt and India.
The
European ethnocentricity that dismissed the inhabitants of the
Americas as "men just emerging from barbarity" insisted
that if there had been an "advanced" civilization in the
New World, it had been brought over by the Egyptians, the "Hindoos,"
the lost tribes of Israel, or survivors from Atlantis.
In
1838, Jean Frederick Comte de Waldeck published Voyage Pittoresque et
Archaeologique dans le Province d'Yucatan. At the age of 68
Waldeck, under the sponsorship of the Mexican government, had spent
two years living in the ruins at Palenque, where he took a teenage
Maya bride. He returned to Paris in 1838 to publish Voyage
Pittoresque, his first work.
Waldeck's
magnum opus was not published until 1866 (he lived to be 106 years
old) and he is today dismissed as an eccentric whose "ideas are
so absurd as to preclude any intelligent discussion of them."
Although
F. L. Hawks (whom Stephens had met in London) and John Russell
Bartlett each claim to have called his attention to the reports of
ruined stone cities in Yucatan and Central America, their conflicting
accounts agree that it was this 1838 work, with 22 of Waldeck's
inaccurate and romanticized drawings of Maya sculpture and
architecture, that was the final spur to Stephens.
John
Russell Bartlett, a New York merchant, bookseller, and ardent
"antiquarian," was later librarian for John Carter Brown's
collection of books on the Americas and chief of the U.S.-Mexican
Border Comission of 1854.
He
was a founder, in 1842, of the American Antiquarian Society (Stephens
and Catherwood were charter members) and was active in the circle of
American intellectuals who were the forerunners of the
anthropologists and ethnologists of today.
In
an autobiographical memoir prepared for his family Bartlett wrote,
"...I claim to have first suggested these [explorations in
Central America and Yucatan] to Mr. S."
Hawks,
too, in his obituary of Stephens in "Putnam's Monthly Magazine,"
claimed, "In repeated conversations with the present writer, the
attention of Mr. Stephens was called to the ruins of Guatemala and
Yucatan, as represented in the works of Del Rio and Waldeck."
From
the accounts of Hawks and Bartlett and the date of publication of
Waldeck's Voyage Pittoresque (1838) we may assume that Stephens' plan
to explore the ruins did not crystallize until the latter half of
1838 or the early part of 1839.
"Fortunately
for him," Bartlett continues, "Mr. Frederick Catherwood, a
distinguished architect and draughtsman who had spent much time in
Egypt and the Holy Land, and with whom he was on intimate terms, was
then in New York. Mr. Catherwood had great enthusiasm in every thing
(sic) appertaining to architecture, and was an ardent lover of the
picturesque, and of archaeological research. Mr. Stephens made him a
favorable offer to accompany him to Central America, which offer he
at once accepted."
The
existence of advanced ancient civilizations in the Americas with
great cities worthy of exploration did not seem to be well known to
Stephens until long after the Book of Mormon was published. Can we
expect those on the frontier without the benefits of advanced
education and world travel to have fared better?
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 chiseled 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.
Have Mormon Scholars Mislead the Public Regarding Knowledge in Joseph Smith's Day?
In
the section, "The Question of Negative Proof," Hamblin
takes Metcalfe to task for stating, as Mr. S. does, that "Apologists
have asserted that Smith and contemporaries could not have known that
some ancient peoples engraved on metallic plates."
This
is a distortion of what Nibley and many others have stated, and
Hamblin provides their quotes to illustrate that. Cheesman could have
been more clear and precise, certainly, but the righteous indignation
of Mr. S. may not be fully justified.
Summary
So
where do we stand? We Latter-day Saints need to be clearer, perhaps,
that there was information about ancient writing on metal that Joseph
Smith could have known about. And it's theoretically possible he
could have been on the cutting edge of knowledge about Mesoamerica
before he encountered Stephens' work.
But
in spite of the diverse tidbits of knowledge in various arcane
sources before 1830, there is still no dispute that Joseph's story of
ancient gold plates was ridiculed and most certainly WAS NOT
recognized as having any hint of plausibility.
The
props as well as the story were dismissed as outrageous. Several
references above, found by searching through Google Books
with some important leads from Hamblin's article, "An
Apologist for the Critics: Brent Lee Metcalfe's Assumptions and Methodologies,"
provide evidence of learned people dismissing the idea of ancient
Hebrews or others having kept such records. Michael Ash has some of
the same finds and additional useful sources in his article, "Metal
Plates & Stone Boxes."
I
hope that Mr. S. will gratefully receive this little ransom payment
and release his captives, or at least give them a fair-minded
retraction of some of the hostile claims he has been feeding them. If
not, I hope that some he has influenced might see this and recognize
that there might be another side to the stories they have heard.
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.