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To: Grunthor

Noah didn’t have enough room for all the meat animals to feed a T-Rex. ;-)


28 posted on 11/26/2011 7:11:45 PM PST by Ripliancum (Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you. -Eph. 4:31)
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To: Ripliancum
New World Archaeological Foundation

From the mid-1950s onwards, the Church-owned Brigham Young University has sponsored (under the banner of the New World Archaeological Foundation, or NWAF) a large number of archaeological excavations in Mesoamerica, with a focus on the Mesoamerican time period known as the Preclassic (earlier than c. AD 200).[108] The results of these and other investigations, while producing valuable archaeological data, have not led to any widespread acceptance by non-LDS archaeologists of the Book of Mormon account. Citing the lack of specific New World geographic locations to search, Michael D. Coe, a prominent Mesoamerican archaeologist and Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at Yale University, wrote,

"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 historicity of The Book of Mormon, and I would like to state that there are quite a few Mormon archaeologists who join this group".[109]

In 1955 Thomas Ferguson, an LDS member and founder of the NWAF, with five years of funding from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, began to dig throughout Mesoamerica for evidence of the veracity of the Book of Mormon claims. In a 1961 newsletter Ferguson predicted that although nothing had been found, the Book of Mormon cities would be found within 10 years. In 1972, Christian scholar Hal Hougey wrote Ferguson questioning the progress given the stated timetable in which the cities would be found.[110] Replying to Hougey as well as secular and non-secular requests, Ferguson wrote in a letter dated 5 June 1972:

"Ten years have passed... I had sincerely hoped that Book-of-Mormon cities would be positively identified within 10 years — and time has proved me wrong in my anticipation."[110]

During the period of 1959-1961, NWAF colleague Dee Green was editor of the BYU Archaeological Society Newsletter and had an article from it published in the summer of 1969 edition of Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, pp 76–78 in which he acknowledged that the NWAF findings did not back up the veracity of the Book of Mormon claims. After this article and another six years of fruitless search, Thomas Ferguson published a 29-page paper in 1975 where he concluded,

"I'm afraid that up to this point, I must agree with Dee Green, who has told us that to date there is no Book-of-Mormon geography...".[111]

In 1976, referring to his own paper, Ferguson wrote a letter in which he stated:

"...The real implication of the paper is that you can't set the 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."[112]

Ferguson’s archaeological efforts failed to garner complete support from all prominent LDS scholars. Author and LDS Professor of Biblical and Mormon scripture Hugh Nibley published the following critical remarks:

“...Book of Mormon archaeologists have often been disappointed in the past because they have consistently looked for the wrong things... Blinded by the gold of the pharaohs and the mighty ruins of Babylon, Book of Mormon students have declared themselves “not interested” in the drab and commonplace remains of our lowly Indians. But in all the Book of Mormon we look in vain for anything that promises majestic ruins.”[113]

 

 

From -->  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archaeology_and_the_Book_of_Mormon

74 posted on 11/27/2011 4:51:50 AM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going)
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To: Ripliancum

he he he


87 posted on 11/27/2011 6:38:14 AM PST by Grunthor (pro-illegal alien "conservatives" piss me off.)
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