Hey guys! We're gonna talk about
anachronism today. An anachronism is
something that shows up in a time period
in which it isn't believed to have
existed. For instance, in the movie
Gladiator, you might notice that when
this chariot crashes there's a gas
canister in the back. Is such a thing
even possible? Yes, it is, but gas
canisters didn't exist in ancient Rome.
It's an anachronism. Over the years
people have drawn much attention to
things they view as anachronism in the
Book of Mormon, things like steel horses,
cement, and stuff like that so let's talk
about it.
For reasons you're about to see, I'm not
going to address each and every alleged
anachronism people are concerned about.
Instead, I'm gonna use the work of a
researcher, Matthew Roper, just to give
you a bird's eye view of what this
controversy is all about. What Roper did
was he hunted down every anachronism he
could find that was brought up by
Latter-day Saint critics from 1830 all
the way until 2019 and then he kept
track of what happened with those claims
over time, so we're gonna look at the
status of alleged anachronisms from
three different time periods. The first
period is between 1830, the year the Book
of Mormon was published and 1844, the
year Joseph Smith died. Between those
years critics brought up 90 anachronisms.
By 1844, further research debunked four
of them and one was trending towards
being disproved leaving 85 left which is
a lot between 1845 and 1965. That's 120
years.
Critics brought up 59 additional
anachronism for a combined total of a
hundred and forty-nine by 1965.
A combined total of only 21 had been
debunked and also five more were
trending towards being disproved. As you
can see, even by 1965 things still aren't
looking great for the Book of Mormon.
There's a lot of red on this chart and
finally between 1966 and 2019, 55 more
anachronisms came up for a grand total of
204 but since 1965 a hundred and
twenty-two anachronism have been
disproved for a total of a hundred and
forty-three. Also now a total of 27 are
trending towards being debunked leaving
only 34 that are still unaccounted for,
or about 17 percent. As it stands, about
83 percent of alleged anachronisms
have either been debunked or are headed
that way so there are several things we
learn from this. The first seems to be
that when it comes to anachronisms, with
time at least in the last 55 years,
Joseph's is just looking better and
better and who knows what's in store for
the next 55 years but as of right now,
there are still questions we don't yet
have answers for. For most members that's
not a problem for a couple of reasons.
First, as this data
clearly indicates, perceived anachronisms
are dropping like flies but also,
members testimonies are founded on the
challenge described in Moroni 10 to
study the Book of Mormon and ask God
through prayer if it is true or not and
when God tells you the Book of Mormon is
true, you don't say, "But God, there's no
evidence of wheat in pre-columbian
Mesoamerica!" You just patiently wait for
the time when research catches up with
revelation. And Latter-day Saints aren't
the only people in this boat. For example,
a prominent non Latter-day Saint
biblical archaeologist named Kenneth
Kitchen wrote, "In the field of history,
whether it be the patriarchs, or David, or
anyone else, we are repeatedly told that
no extra biblical occurrences of this or
that individual have been found, so their
historicity is to be dismissed or
treated as doubtful regardless of all
other indications. No such wrong
criterion is applied elsewhere - why here>
Absence of evidence is not, and should
not be confounded with, evidence of
absence."
In other words, just because you haven't
found something yet doesn't mean there's
nothing there to find. That said there
are some people who are of the opinion
that if we haven't found ancient steel
swords or other anachronisms in the new
world by now, it's just a pipe dream. But
it may be good to keep in mind that as
of 2011, less than 1% of ancient
Mesoamerican ruins had been uncovered
and studied. That stack comes from George
Stewart who was one of National
Geographics leading experts on
Mesoamerican archaeology for a very long
time. And after lead our technology
revealed a glimpse of the vastness of
ruins that need to be explored that
percentage is now probably significantly
smaller than he estimated. I've got one
more quote for you, this time from Neal a
Maxwell. He wrote, "All of the scriptures
including the Book of Mormon will remain
in the realm of faith. Science will not
be able to prove or disprove Holy Writ.
However, enough plausible evidence will
come forth to prevent scoffers from
having a field day but not enough to
remove the requirement of faith.
Believers must be patient during such
unfolding and that's exactly what's
happening with Book of Mormon
anachronisms. Over the years, enough
evidence has come forward, in my opinion,
to prevent scoffers from having a field
day but it doesn't prove anything.
Faith still is and always will be a
requirement. Check out the links in the
description for more info on this topic
and have a great day.
