Anachronisms in the Book of Mormon

A three part article:
- - Part A: The Basics
  - Part B: A Little More
  - Part C: The Illogical Argument

Part A: The Basics

Some individuals claim that anachronisms exist in the Book of Mormon, and that the existence of these proves that the Book of Mormon isn't true.

Many of these anachronism were brought up shortly after the Book of Mormon was published. A short list of these would include elephants, cement, swords, bees, and barely.

The anachronisms fall into four basic categories:

Claimed to be an anachronism because of a misunderstanding of context
Claimed to be an anachronism because of poor assumptions
Claimed to be an anachronism, but new evidence proves otherwise
Claimed to be an anachronism, and unresolved as to evidence

It is interesting to see what time and discovery has done for these claimed anachronisms. Shortly after the publication of the Book of Mormon the list of claimed anachronisms was long and appeared to be solid. Time has, as it often does, cleared up most of these claims.

FAIR LDS has an extensive collection of information regarding anachronism claims.

THIS ARTICLE starts off with the basics of anachronism and then dives deeper.
THIS SECOND ARTICLE dives even deeper into the subject.

I suggest reading both of these articles if you would like to dive deeper into this subject. They provide an extensive trove of fantastic information. One of my favorite pieces from these articles is also one of simplest pieces of information. This is the two tables below.

This table shows anachronisms claimed in the year 1842. As you can see many of these are colored red, as they showed a strong possibility of an anachronism at that time.

Chief among these are the first 3: steel swords, brass plates, and golden plates. But many others posed problems too, such as: barely, large cities, highways, cement, swords, spears, and human sacrifice - as these are all mentioned in the Book of Mormon.

This is the same table, but updated for information available as of 2005.

You will notice that many more of the items are green and some are now yellow. From 1842 to 2005 the list of items confirms to NOT BE anachronisms, went from 13.3% of the list to 58% of the list. As our archeological understanding of the Americas has improved, the lost of potential problems for the Book of Mormon has shrunk immensely.

Steel swords, brass plates, barley, highways, large cities, human sacrifice, and many more have been shown to exist in Book of Mormon times.

If the pattern continues, which we should expect it to do, the list of possible anachronisms will continue to shrink.

Part B: A Little More

I mentioned above four possible categories for anachronism in the Book of Mormon

Claimed to be an anachronism because of a misunderstanding of context
Claimed to be an anachronism because of poor assumptions
Claimed to be an anachronism, but new evidence proves otherwise
Claimed to be an anachronism, and unresolved as to evidence

An example of a Type 1 claim could be elephants. A person could claim: "The Book of Mormon says there was elephants in the Americas and that isn't true so the Book of Mormon is false". However, that person would be misunderstand the context. Elephants are mentioned only a single time, and that is in Ether 9:19. In this case the text mentions that the Jaredites had elephants when on the American continent. An important context here is that the Jaredites were on the American continent at a time that mammoths could have existed. Once though to be have become extinct many thousands of years ago, new scientific evidence put mammoths on the American continent only a few thousand years ago.

It is very likely that the Jaredites had seen eastern elephants, came to America, saw mammoths or mastodons and called them by the same name that they would have used for Elephants. This type of name borrowing still happens today and is quite common. So as we see, the detail that it was the Jaredites who encountered "elephants" and not the descendants of Lehi, is important context that is often missed. This context makes a big difference in the strength of the claim.

An example of a Type 2 claim could be swords. A person could claim: "The Book of Mormon says there were swords, but swords were brought over by the Europeans. Therefore, the Book of Mormon is false." In this case the person often assumes that the book is talking about Eurpean style broadswords made of steel, that they were very common among the Book of Mormon people, and they we would easily find evidence of them now if they had existed. These assumptions lead to poor expectations and misunderstanding.

Yes steel swords are mentioned in the Book of Mormon, but it doesn't say they were common. It is also not likely that we would easily find them. Metal swords are a rare find at any archeological site in any part of the world. But also, we shouldn't assume such a specific definition of the word "swords". Spanish records tell of the Mesoamerican people the fighting with "swords". However, we know from archeological evidence, that these were actually made of wood and stone and were called Macuahuitl. But to the people who had to fight against them, the Spanish, they were swords - and they were a real threat.

When we begin to strip away our assumptions from our experiences, and pop culture references, our minds are able to see a broader context that allows for a much better understanding.

An example of a Type 3 claim would be barley. A person could claim: "The Book of Mormon mentions barley, but barley was brought over by the Europeans and didn't exist in the Americans before then. Joseph Smith was just a dumb farm boy and didn't know this, he messed up, and so the Book of Mormon is false." And it would have been hard to refute this up until the 1980 when scientists began to find evidence of pre-columbian barley that had been stored at Native American sites.

This is a great example of science catching up with Book of Mormon claims. This has happened several times, including with: highways, cement, large cities, and others.

An example of a Type 4 claim could be golden plates: A person could claim that "The Book of Mormon mentions gold plates and there is no evidence of such plates being used, therefore the Book of Mormon is false." It is correct that we don't have archeological evidence of golden plates being used, however, does that mean that the Book of Mormon is false? In these cases we should first we should watch out for bad assumptions of misunderstanding. First the Book of Mormon doesn't claim that this was a common way of recording things, in fact it would indicate the opposite, so it is very unlikely that we will find golden plates laying around an archeological site. In addition, golden plates would have been a primary target for any conquering forces to remove. Both taking the valuable metal and destroying the people's records. Second we should remember that at one point "brass plates used for record keeping" was considered an anachronism, but now is proven scientific fact.

Though we don't have any scientific evidence of golden plates used for record keeping, that lack of evidence absolutely does not prove the Book of Mormon to be false.

These 4 types of claims are one way to look at claims of anachronism in the Book of Mormon. Doing so helps us approach these subjects, filter out good information from bad, and apply a logical analysis of each claim.

Part C: The Illogical Argument

There is a certain perspective that we should keep when considering a claim of falsehood based on scientific anachronism. This perspective is the logical strength of the claim. Some claims would be very strong to make. For example, if the Book of Mormon claimed that the Nephites had the advanced technology of space flight - this would clearly be anachronistic and could not be reconciled. Some would make it sound like "elephants" and "swords" and "barely" and "golden plates" are as strong as such an absurd claim, but they are not so strong.

To illustrate this we'll use the often reference claim of horses in the Book of Mormon. The claim is that "Horses died out at the end of the last ice age in the Americans and weren't seen again until the Europeans brought them over. Yet the Book of Mormon says there were horses during Nephite times and so the Book of Mormon is false."

We could analyze this claim like elephants and swords and barely, and we would see that it isn't so strong, however for now we are just going to use it to illustrate how claims are not always logical.

An honest interpretation of the scientific data is "We don't have strong scientific evidence of horses in the America's during the Book of Mormon times." It is not honest to say "Science proves that there weren't horses during Book of Mormon times." The honest version acknowledges the current evidence, while leaving the door open for further scientific discovery. This further scientific discovery has already cleared up several claimed anachronisms. There is still decades, maybe centuries, worth of work to be done in American archeology. The timeline of other animal's existence in the Americas has already been changed, it is distinct possibility that the timeline for horses could be change also. An honest scientific position is that we don't have that evidence, but that lack of evidence doesn't prove it wasn't the case. Therefore a claim to science doesn't prove the Book of Mormon to be false.

This false scientific claim is made even more egregious when the individual believes in biblical inerrancy. The scientific evidence related to the creation of the universe is far more robust that the scientific evidence related to horses in America. Yet these individuals claim that science proves the Book of Mormon to be false in relation to horses, while also claiming that the Bible proves science to be false in relation to the creation. This hypocritical claim should not be taken seriously. If the science of creation doesn't prove the Bible to be false, then the lack of evidence for horses can not prove the Book of Mormon to be false. One can not stand on two departing boats at the same time. You can't claim science against the Book of Mormon while claiming that the Bible is fully immune to science.

When all is considered, none of the anachronistic claims against the Book of Mormon are so strong that they have no potential of being cleared up.

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