A couple of my favorite books and videos dealing with the Book of Mormon are available at NephiProject.com. The information on Lehi’s trail (great videos) and the book Lehi in the Wilderness demand much more attention than they have received.
It’s hard to think of the Book of Mormon as just uplifting fiction when someone could literally use it as a guide to identify plausible candidates for places that learned anti-Mormons have ridiculed as impossible – places like the River Laman and Bountiful. Dig into First Nephi, go to Arabia, explore, and bingo – looks like there is the Valley Lemuel, the River Laman, the burial place Nahom, Shazer, plausible pathways in the directions Nephi states, and finally great candidates for Bountiful. Well, I’ve oversimplified the process, but that’s roughly what several people have down, with fascinating results. Now just how did Joseph Smith imagine up all that? At the least, the information from George Potter et al. is worthy of consideration rather than utter neglect. And those who look at the evidence will at least come away with some new insights about the Book of Mormon.
Jeff, I see you sprinkled your post with words such as “plausible” and “candidates.” I agree that those are appropriate words to use as there is no smoking-gun slam-dunk proof.
But I just know that the RfM crowd is going to miscontrue, mischaractize, and jump all over your statements.
Keep up the good work.
RfM?
Recovering from Mormonism discussion board–they act as our friendly, neighborhood trash-talkers.
They remind me of the sheep (oops–did I just call them sheep? Irony of ironies) in Orwell’s 1984 who seem unable (or worse, unwilling) to carefully discuss the facts behind any of their claims, preferring instead to seize on a some seemingly juicy nugget of controversy to milk it for more than it’s worth (the technique is not new–watch Hannity and Colmes sometime).
More info than you probably wanted, but hey, why the heck not?
Recovering from Mormonism discussion board–they act as our friendly, neighborhood trash-talkers.
They remind me of the sheep (oops–did I just call them sheep? Irony of ironies) in Orwell’s 1984 who seem unable (or worse, unwilling) to carefully discuss the facts behind any of their claims, preferring instead to seize on a some seemingly juicy nugget of controversy to milk it for more than it’s worth (the technique is not new–watch Hannity and Colmes sometime).
More info than you probably wanted, but hey, why the heck not?
I think you’re referring to Orwell’s Animal Farm, not 1984.
I think so too. My bad. I knew the difference, but I wrote that post in haste.