Deficient Archaeology
Both the LDS and the RLDS/CoC churches have made the claim that archaeological evidence backs up the historicity of the Book of Mormon. However, reputable institutions and scholars of the ancient history of the Americas find it impossible to support this claim.
Smithsonian Institution
When asked about the Book of Mormon, the Smithsonian Institute issues their official statement on the topic. It reads in part:
“It can be stated definitely that there is no connection between the archaeology of the new world and the subject matter of the Book of Mormon…. We know of no authentic cases of ancient Egyptian or Hebrew writings having been found in the New World…thus far no iron, steel, brass, gold and silver coins, metal, swords, breastplates, arm shields, armor, horses and chariots or silk have ever been found in pre-colonial archeological sites…it was not until after the conquest of the New World that these materials appeared…. Furthermore, cattle, sheep, swine, horses and asses, such as we know them were introduced in the New World in post-Columbus times…there are no archaeological sites that have been identified with the name of cities mentioned in the Book of Mormon.”
It is interesting to note in comparison, the official statement of the Smithsonian Institution concerning the archaeology of the Bible:
“Much of the Bible, in particular the historical books of the old testament, are as accurate historical documents as any that we have from antiquity and are in fact more accurate than many of the Egyptian, Mesopotamian, or Greek histories. These Biblical records can be and are used…in archaeological work. For the most part, historical events described took place and the peoples cited really existed.” (The Bible as History, Information from the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution Washington, D.C. 20560)
National Geographic Society
In Jerald and Sandra Tanner’s book Archaeology and the Book of Mormon, we find the following statement:
“The National Geographic Society has been asked several times whether The Book of Mormon has been substantiated by archeological findings. We referred this question to Dr. Neil M. Judd, a noted archeologist at the Smithsonian Institution. His reply follows: ‘Neither representatives of the National Geographic Society nor, to my knowledge, archeologists connected with any other institution of equal prestige have ever used the Book of Mormon in locating historic ruins in Middle America or elsewhere.’”
Archaeologists and Anthropologists
Dr. Michael Coe, a professor of anthropology at Yale University and an authority on the archeology of the New World, made the following observation:
“Let me now state uncategorically that as far as I know there is not one professionally trained archaeologist, who is not a Mormon, who sees any scientific justification for believing the [Book of Mormon]…. Nothing, absolutely nothing has ever shown up in any New World excavation which would suggest to a dispassionate observer that the Book of Mormon, as claimed by Joseph Smith, is a historical document relating to the history of early migrants to our hemisphere.” (Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, Vol. 4. No. 2, Summer 1973 pp. 41-46.)
Dee F. Green, a former professor of Anthropology at Weber State University, was also at one time deeply involved in archaeological work at Brigham Young University. From 1958-61 he served as editor of the University Archaeological Society Newsletter. Green admitted that Book of Mormon archaeology is conspicuously absent. In an article for Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, he stated,
“The first myth we need to eliminate is that Book of Mormon archaeology exists…. Biblical archaeology can be studied because we do know where Jerusalem and Jericho were and are, but we do not know where Zarahemla and Bountiful (nor any other location for that matter) were or are.”
Thomas Stuart Ferguson, an ardent defender of the Book of Mormon, received a $250,000 grant from the Mormon Church to establish the New World Archaeology Foundation for the purpose of accelerating the search for artifacts to prove the validity of the Book of Mormon. He stated that there was no doubt in his mind the evidence would be forth-coming. However, after years of excavating he came to the conclusion that instead of proving the Book of Mormon true, the organization he founded was actually disproving it. Discouraged, he wrote in a letter to Mr. & Mrs. H.W. Lawrence on February 20, 1976,
“You can’t set Book of Mormon geography down anywhere—because it is fictional and will never meet the requirements of the dirt-archeology. I should say what is in the ground will never conform to what is in the book.”53 [emphasis added]
Ferguson confessed to Jerald and Sandra Tanner, highly regarded researchers of Mormon History, that he, “…had not only given up the Book of Abraham, but that he had come to the conclusion that Joseph Smith was not a prophet and that Mormonism was not true. He told them he had spent twenty-five years trying to prove Mormonism, but had finally come to the conclusion that all his work in this regard had been in vain. He said that his training in law had taught him how to weigh evidence and that the case against Joseph Smith was absolutely devastating and could not be explained away.” (Ferguson’s Manuscript Revealed, 1988, Utah Lighthouse Ministry, Salt Lake City, p. 3)
Dr. Raymond T. Matheny, a Brigham Young University professor, concluded, after working in the area of Mesoamerican archaeology for twenty-two years, that scientific evidence did not support the theory of a New World setting for the peoples and events chronicled in the Book of Mormon. He also reached the conclusion that the Book of Mormon contains many major historical and cultural anachronisms. He declared:
“I have felt that Mormons…have been grasping at straws for a very long time trying to thread together all these little esoteric finds, out of context, and [they] really don’t have much meaning when they’re isolated.” Matheny’s overall assessment of the evidence amounts to a blunt denial that archaeology offers any support for the historicity of the Book of Mormon: “I would say in evaluating the Book of Mormon that it has no place in the New World whatsoever.” (Sunstone, 1984)
B.H. Roberts’s story is perhaps the saddest account of an LDS scholar discovering the truth about the Book of Mormon. He wrote six volumes of comprehensive LDS Church History, and was considered one of the most respected theologians and historians the Mormon Church ever had. He spent his life defending the Mormon Church and was recognized as an expert Book of Mormon apologist. In 1921 he was challenged with the following five major problems in the Book of Mormon, which he could not answer.
- If the American Indians were all descendants of a Jew named Lehi, why, in the wide diversity of the American Indian languages, is there no trace of the Hebrew language?
- The Book of Mormon says that Lehi found horses when he arrived in America. The horses described in the Book of Mormon (as well as many other domestic animals) did not exist in the New World before the arrival of the Spanish Conquistadors.
- Nephi is stated to have had a “bow of steel.” Jews did not have steel in 600 BC, or the knowledge to smelt iron for the production of steel. Nor did this knowledge exist in the Americas at that time. (Editor’s note: Although the KJV of the Bible uses the phrase “bow of steel” in the Old Testament, the NIV correctly interprets this phrase to read “bow of bronze.”
- The Book of Mormon frequently mentions “swords and cimeters.” Cimeters were unknown until the rise of the Moslem faith approximately 600 A.D. (The Book of Mormon story concludes in 421 A.D., almost 200 years prior to this time.)
- The Book of Mormon says that Nephites possessed silk. Silk did not exist in America in pre-Columbian times.
Roberts took these questions to the general authorities of the Mormon Church. When he could get no satisfactory answers he became more and more disillusioned with the Book of Mormon and finally admitted that he had spent a lifetime defending a book that was a fraud. Dejectedly he wrote, “Is all this sober history…or is it a wondertale of an immature mind, unconscious of what a test he is laying on human credulity when asking men to accept his narrative as solemn history?”(B. H. Roberts, A Book of Mormon Study, pt. 4. p. 17.
Two months before his death, Roberts told his friend, Wesley P. Lloyd, former dean of the graduate school of BYU, “The defense the brethren made for the Book of Mormon might ‘satisfy people who didn’t think, but [it was] a very inadequate answer for a thinking man.’” (Jim Spencer, B. H. Roberts Mormon Apologist, cited in Saints Alive in Jesus Journal, Summer 1986, pp. 5-6.)
Archaeological Myths
Specific claims made in the Book of Mormon which are not validated by archaeology include the following.
Summary
- There is no archaeological evidence that the Nephites ever existed.
- There is no evidence that the ancient inhabitants of this continent had Christian beliefs.
- There is no evidence indicating Book of Mormon cities.
- No evidence of any Book of Mormon coins.
- There is no evidence that the domesticated animals mentioned in the Book of Mormon existed in America before Columbus arrived.
- Finally, there is no evidence of any artifacts to indicate that the Book of Mormon is actual history.
Joseph Smith claimed that the Book of Mormon is a true history of the ancient inhabitants of the Americas as revealed to him by God. The information presented above shows that there is no archaeological evidence to support that claim.