Why the Book of Mormon couldn't be fiction: a thread

Disclaimer: We love the Book of Mormon because of what we learn of Christ. We look for physical real world evidence to push back against the Church's enemies who would tear it and us down

Onward
#churchofjesuschrist #deznat https://twitter.com/Watchmelosemym1/status/1282780900887941120

Nephi, entrenched in old Jewish culture of Jerusalem uses a lot of culturalisms that a Christian farmer from rural New York wouldn't have a clue about.

Nephi condemning the Lamanites for eating carnivorous animals is him pointing out that they had abandoned the Law of Moses

Nephi's use of Chiasmus. Unknown to the world until early 1900s Bible scholars. Then checked and found in Nephi's writings and perhaps elsewhere

When Nephi quotes Isaiah 2:16, the KJV has one phrase, the Greek Septuagint has another, but the BoM has both. Did 20 yo, uneducated farmer who could barely write Joseph Smith consult a Greek Bible just for that one phrase, .... Just because it was poetic? Not. Chance

Nephi records details of the Arabian peninsula that I doubt would've been in the geography books that J.S. didn't have. Where Ishmael died, Nahum, is actually there. The land Bountiful, with a dozen qualifiers describing it and nothing like it anywhere nearby, is right there.

As each author passes the record down, the writing style changes, each time. Tricky enough for educated and trained authors. The story line gets really complicated, but holds true to itself, very difficult for a young adult reciting it without notes or checking manuscripts

Linguistic things: BoM describes the "Land" of Jerusalem. Bible doesn't use that phrase, but! The later discovered Dead Sea Scrolls do!

Consistent use of unfamiliar name prefixes and suffixes

Nephite Coinage, a binary, base 2 system. MesoAmericans had a base 2 counting system. Food for thought.

Size of BoM cultures. Very recent LIDAR scans of Guatemala reveal ruined cities that would've had 5-10 mil inhabitants, 100x more than previously thought possible

Aztecs had a ceremonial ritual of burying their weapons deep into pits at the base of their temples or in the center of their cities. Sounds eerily like the People of Ammon

Speaking of the Aztecs and Mayans. As Mormon watched his culture get dessimated in 380 BC, the secular archaeologists tell us that invading Aztecs wiped through the Mayan heartland, razing cities, committing mass genocide in.... Wait for it 380BC.

A few candidates for MASSIVE, MASSIVE volcanic eruptions occured in MesoAmerica around the time of Christ's life/death. A massive eruption event would happen a lot like the destruction described in 3 Nephi, but I doubt JS would know anything about volcanoes.

Those are what're on the top of my head this evening. There's lots more (complex political intrigue, warfare strategy, names only found in BoM and Dead Sea Scrolls, etc). If you want sources, they are BoM, Wikipedia, National Geographic, FARMS, nothing obscure

Given the testimony of each scribe that worked with JS, the 3 witnesses, and the 8 witnesses, and the few others who got to see/feel the plates, it's no fiction.

And if JS didn't make it up, where did it come from???

Have a good night, the Book is True, not because evidence says it is, but because God revealed to me it is, completely and totally unmistakably. You can read my experience here Https://thirdhour.org/blog/faith/why-i-stay

One last thing: the book is uncanny at hitting secular culture and philosophies on the head, like Korihor, and the other anti-Christs of the ancient Americas. "Joseph was brilliant and lucky, they say"...