This article is within the scope of WikiProject Latter Day Saint movement, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Mormonism and the Latter Day Saint movement on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Latter Day Saint movementWikipedia:WikiProject Latter Day Saint movementTemplate:WikiProject Latter Day Saint movementLatter Day Saint movement articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Archaeology, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Archaeology on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.ArchaeologyWikipedia:WikiProject ArchaeologyTemplate:WikiProject ArchaeologyArchaeology articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Mesoamerica, a project which is currently considered to be inactive.MesoamericaWikipedia:WikiProject MesoamericaTemplate:WikiProject MesoamericaMesoamerica articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Christianity, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Christianity on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.ChristianityWikipedia:WikiProject ChristianityTemplate:WikiProject ChristianityChristianity articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Mexico, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Mexico on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.MexicoWikipedia:WikiProject MexicoTemplate:WikiProject MexicoMexico articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Skepticism, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of science, pseudoscience, pseudohistory and skepticism related articles on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.SkepticismWikipedia:WikiProject SkepticismTemplate:WikiProject SkepticismSkepticism articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Alternative views, a collaborative effort to improve Wikipedia's coverage of significant alternative views in every field, from the sciences to the humanities. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion.Alternative ViewsWikipedia:WikiProject Alternative ViewsTemplate:WikiProject Alternative ViewsAlternative Views articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Literature, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Literature on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.LiteratureWikipedia:WikiProject LiteratureTemplate:WikiProject LiteratureLiterature articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject United States, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of topics relating to the United States of America on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the ongoing discussions.
The Wikimedia Foundation's Terms of Use require that editors disclose their "employer, client, and affiliation" with respect to any paid contribution; see WP:PAID. For advice about reviewing paid contributions, see WP:COIRESPONSE.
Adri-at-BYU (talk·contribs) has been paid by BYU. Their editing has included contributions to this article.
"Archaeological studies in the New World that tie Book of Mormon places and peoples to real world locations and civilizations are incredibly difficult since there are generally no landmarks defined in the Book of Mormon that can unambiguously identify real world locations."
It would seem to me that this is inaccurate - or at least highly debatable - as the Hill Cumorah seems to be as close to a landmark that can "unambiguously identify real world locations" as one could want. I understand the "two Cumorahs" hypothesis is popular among some, but I don't think that the article should state this so categorically. Not to mention that this is arguably a non-sequitur: standard archeological research doesn't start with *any* landmarks to help them out so why should this make the process "incredibly difficult." Lastly, of course, I'd love to see a citation.
Does anyone object if I simply strike this sentence? Trevdna (talk) 17:44, 26 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
You are looking in the wrong place. Look in North America. You won't find much evidence though because Most of it was destroyed by the government to show that the Native Americans are savage, or were destroyed by accident by farmers when creating farmland. 38.141.37.227 (talk) 21:03, 16 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Joseph Smith himself identified several locations across North America as specific locations in the Book of Mormon. For example, when he found a skull in the midwest, Smith purported to identify the individual as a Lamanite who was killed in the final wars that exterminated the Nephites. Less definitively, Smith commanded that the banks of the river across from Nauvoo should be called "Zarahemla". Finally, Smith himself was very clear that the Palmyra hill was the location of the last battle of the Nephites. The two Cumorahs theory is a post-hoc explanation after it because definitive that no ancient battlefield or even stone box was ever present on and around the hill. There had previously been a story recounted by Brigham Young and otheres about Smith finding an even larger trove of plates in a cave that magically opened to him [1]. However, this story has been downplayed and discredited by the church and its adherents for many decades now after it became clear that the hill is a drumlin (a gravel pile deposited by a glacier) and a cave is physically impossible.
Smith was also extremely clear on several occasions, not to mention the Book of Mormon itself, that the entire western hemisphere is where the events of the Book of Mormon took place. All the apologia since has had to discredit his declarations because the archeology so decidedly discredits Smith.
There is already a whole page for Anachronisms in the Book of Mormon and it seems redundant to have so much on this page. Before I do anything, does anyone have thoughts on moving any information not already there to the Anachronisms page? I could leave a condensed summary on this Archaeology page linking to Anachronisms. Feel free to leave feedback or alternate suggestions! I'm not thinking to move everything, probably things like the animals. Adri-at-BYU (talk) 19:47, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
We should definitely remove the apologetics from that part of the article. But removing this section would detract from the article. If we aren't talking about what hasn't been found, what are we talking about? Big Money Threepwood (talk) 08:22, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yes it would detract from this article in the sense of reducing it considerably, but I don't see a problem with that. Wikipedia as a whole is the project we're trying to improve, we don't need to pad one page with a slightly condensed version of another page just to make the first page look good. I agree the section is redundant, and it requires duplicated effort to keep both pages current and consistent.
Talking of duplicated effort, this suggestion has been made before - I was involved in a discussion in 2018, and an archive search tells me that wasn't the first. Small improvements have been made but there has never (yet?) been enough consensus to fix the underlying problem, which is the large overlap in scope between the two pages.
We could do with reaching some kind of consensus here. Do we carry on as it is? Merge the two pages under one heading? Delete the duplicated parts from this page or the other? How about, replace the Anachronisms section here with a one-paragraph summary, and move it up the page so it's more obvious that this is not the only archaeology-related Book of Mormon page? Pastychomper (talk) 15:45, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This article is, at least in name, about archaeology. Does any of the content here discuss actual archaeology? I see the 19th century findings section doesn't discuss anything found in the 19th century for example.
If this article is purely a duplicate of one or more, we are better moving information into appropriate articles and winding this one down. On the other hand, if someone has sources about archaeology and not anachronisms, this article may be able to be built into the expected direction. Big Money Threepwood (talk) 15:53, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There are also pages for Historicity of the Book of Mormon and Proposed Book of Mormon geographical setting as well as the anachronisms one, and among those, a lot of content from this archaeology page is covered. What I'm not sure about placing from this page onto others is the old world archaeology section, cultural belief section and information from Latter-day Saints and Book of Mormon Archaeology section. Maybe the page can start with those. The stuff about Mound Builder fiction might belong better on another page, or it could be organized differently. I recognize my bias (so please correct me if needed), but I have been source checking and this page feels at times like a synthesis essay than an encyclopedia article presenting relevant coverage on archaeology and the BoM Adri-at-BYU (talk) 19:30, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
We assert facts, including the fact that the Book of Mormon is a confabulation[edit]
[1] I am at a loss here for how anyone thinks that what is needed here is an attribution of this fact to "mainstream" as though there is any dispute whatsoever about this plain fact. Does anyone have an argument for why we should attribute this fact to "mainstream" people who actually know what they're talking about? jps (talk) 13:09, 12 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
