Transcription
This video is part four in a series. I'll link to the other episodes in the description below.
The record of the Nephites, which we call the Book of Mormon, began with a man named Lehi and his family. Uh they lived near Jerusalem during the time of Jeremiah the prophet. So if someone wanted to criticize the Book of Mormon, why not start at the very beginning with Lehi?
So as Google's Gemini AI says here, yes, the use of Lehi as a personal name in the Book of Mormon has been historically criticized by some critics and scholars. And as it states here, for a long time, the absence of the name Lehi as an attested personal name in ancient Neareastern sources was considered problematic for the histo. However, more recent archaeological findings and linguistic analysis have provided evidence for the name Lehi as a personal name in the ancient near east. And here we have some information on the name the word Lehi. It has now been found in various ancient cemetic sources including a fifth century BC which is basically on a pottery shard uh which was found near the Red Sea. And while it is true that Lehi can mean jaw, um it is also true that it can be used as a nickname and apparently has been used as a nickname either for people or for a place, a location. And so this initial criticism of the name Lehi that went on forever uh has now essentially been countered.
Be at Lehi in Israel's house of Lehi is an archaeological site about 20 mi southwest of Jerusalem. The site was first discovered in 1961 when road workers accidentally broke through a cave which contained inscriptions from around 600 BC. It should be noted that is around 600 BC as the approximate date given from when Lehi and his family left Jerusalem. Key finds at this site include the Jerusalem cave which has in it the oldest known Hebrew inscription mentioning Jerusalem and numerous other artifacts like ancient olive presses, uh religious structures and burial caves. While it has not been proven that the site is connected to the Lehi of the Book of Mormon, one thing is clear that after years of criticism regarding the name Lehi, I think we can say this name can no longer be dismissed as some clumsy mistake on the part of Joseph Smith.
According to the testimony of both Joseph Smith and the narrative in the Book of Mormon, Lehi and his family along with whatever servants that they brought along with them, which has been estimated to be around 25 to 50 people, which came to the new world uh to what they call the land of Joseph, which was spoken of as a land of promise. This group of people eventually grew to become a large civilization with many cities, villages, strongholds, and religious sites.
Here in the United States, we find rocks that have been quarried and used as defensive barriers and also rocks have been quarried for the grinding of grain. There are also mass burial sites where thousands and thousands were buried after massive battles which exactly is described in the Book of Mormon. There are ancient copper and iron ore mines which are also described in the Book of Mormon. Ancient forts and strongholds exactly as the Book of Mormon describes. ancient cities surrounded by defensive walls made by piling up earth and using lumber as posts for fences and towers which is again exactly as described in the Book of Mormon. Ancient stone anchors have been found near rivers like the Ohio, the Mississippi, and the Missouri, which supports what the Book of Mormon says regarding the shipping that occurred on these rivers. And there are many thousands of ancient archaeological sites and also relics, some with Hebrew inscriptions on them. And yet archaeologists know surprisingly little about these people. There are so many ancient and mysterious sites in this country that haven't been officially investigated yet. No one has cataloged all of them. No one knows for sure how many there are. And sadly, evidence that could help solve the mystery is consistently denounced as fake by the powers that be. Even though many of these artifacts were discovered by their own archaeologists and verified by even forensic geologists as being ancient, remarkably much of the solid evidences that we have for the Book of Mormon come from sources not affiliated with Mormonism at all.
The Book of Mormon tells of two major people groups that came to the New World. one from the time of the great tower at the time of the confusion of the languages in the Bible and the other around 600 BC or so. Both groups of people grew and developed into large civilizations in basically the same area as each other just at different time frames. Both of these civilizations were abruptly and completely destroyed. What is interesting is that the official stance of archaeology confirms that two great civilizations existed in North America long before the Native American tribes that the Europeans encountered in the 1600s. Archaeologyy's official stance is that both of these civilizations were considerably more advanced and well organized than the native tribes that the Europeans encountered and that both of these civilizations were abruptly destroyed and the people completely wiped out. Fascinating.
And these two people group according to archaeologists are called the Adena culture and the Hopewell culture. Both of these two civilizations appeared in North America, building their civilizations in the eastern half of what is now the United States, stretching from the Great Lakes down into the Ohio Valley, parts of Kentucky, as well as Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri. They then mysteriously and abruptly disappeared one day, which parallels the Geredites and the Nephites depicted in the Book of Mormon. But how did these two cultures get their name? The Adena culture was named after Thomas Worthington's estate, which he named Adena in the early 1900s near Chelathy, Ohio, and there were archaeological findings there. The Hopewell culture was named after MC Hopewell who owned a farm where many mounds were built by this culture were excavated between 1891 in 1892. Intriguingly, the timeline for when archaeologists say that the Hopewell civilization appeared and then disappeared turns out to be an excellent match for the timeline of the Nephites. Coming sometime after the Adena culture abruptly ended due to massive wars, the Hopewell culture is believed to have existed from roughly 200 BC to 500 AD. The word roughly is not a word that I actually chose. It's the word used by archaeologists themselves when I looked up these dates. These dates are admittedly rough estimates. uh best guess as it were. If the Book of Mormon is true, then it could help give us a more accurate picture of that timeline.
So, let's make a comparison between the timeline of the Hopewell culture and the Nephites. Again, it is roughly approximated that the Hopewell culture began around 200 BC. This estimate could be off by as much as a century or two. So the nature of the rough estimate can potentially close the gap regarding the start of the civilization which is depicted here by the lighter shading of green and blue. And I would also argue that the actual beginning of the Nephite culture um as discernable by archaeologists examining historical sites today could be a little difficult to measure for reasons that I will go into in a moment.
According to the Book of Mormon, Lehi and his family left Jerusalem around 600 BC. Since the estimate for the start of the Hopewell culture is admittedly rough, the Book of Mormon timeline may be around 200 years earlier than the official start given for the Hopewell culture. But the start of the Hopewell culture is the earliest estimate for this culture to have fully developed into what would be called the Hopewell culture. and not necessarily when the people group of this land first began to develop their civilization. I hope that makes sense. But let's examine some potential factors in this timeline.
After leaving Jerusalem, Lehi and his family traveled for 8 years in the wilderness. They built a ship that could be 3 to 6 months. It would have been 2 to 4 months to cross the ocean. Many believe that they landed in Florida. Interestingly, Florida is where we find some of the earliest archaeological evidences for a people in the eastern US, a people who some believe migrated north to eventually become what we call the Hopewell. The Book of Mormon does not specify the time frame how long Lehi's family remained at their initial landing place. However, the Book of Mormon text does indicate that after Lehi's death, Nephi led the righteous away from there, journeying northward to what they would call the land of Nephi. Based on archaeological evidence, this was likely southern Ohio and surrounding areas like parts of Kentucky. And while it's hard to know how many years would have passed at this point, it likely took a century or more before the population of the newly dubbed Nephites. and their cities would have grown to sufficient number and size, including the building of more permanent and lasting structures that archaeologists could then recognize as being part of the Hopewell culture.
Additionally, we read in the Nephite record that Mosiah was warned by the Lord to leave the land of Nephi. The Nephites then settled in the land of Zarahelma, which some think may have been in Illinois and other areas. The land of Zarahelma is where the Nephites gathered and merged with the Mulikites. It is possible that the merger between the Nephites and the Mulikites is truly the beginning of the culture archaeologists call the Hopewell as they would have spread across much of the land where we find the Hopewell sites. All in all, what we can take away from the text is that the Nephite culture was uprooted several times and not to mention the cataclysm during the time of Christ's coming and what effect that has on the archaeology of the Hopewell. When we consider all these factors and the nature of the admittedly rough guess for the start of the Hopewell culture, the timeline for the Hopewell and the Nephites culture is actually considered a pretty close match as far as archaeological timelines go.
Civilizations take time to spin up and grow, especially when you start out with just 25 to 50 people. So, how do you define the actual beginning if they had several restarts? And all you have to go by are the archaeological excavations of a civilization that was built using mostly materials like lumber that quickly degraded and faded into the landscape within a century. On the other hand, the ending of a large, well-developed civilization when it is abrupt, like it was with the Nephites and the Hopewell, is much easier to estimate and pinpoint. Not only is it more recent, which means the evidence would which means more of the evidence would survive, but the society as a whole would have stopped building and producing artifacts all in a very short space of time.
According to the Book of Mormon, the Nephite civilization was destroyed in a final battle around 400 AD. Archaeologists have settled as an approximate date of 500 AD for mysterious and abrupt end to the hope well. So in terms of archaeological timelines, that's close enough to be considered a near exact match considering the archaeological timeline can be off by as much as a century or two. You might also consider the possibility that after the Lammonites defeated the Nephites, they may have taken over and lived in some of the Nephite cities, which could contribute to the appearance of that civilization lingering a little longer. However, based on what we know about the Lammonites, probably wasn't too long before they as a people broke down into smaller bands or factions and started fighting one another. And since the Lamemonites did not appear to possess the same level of expertise, technology, or work ethic as the Nephites, the cities left behind by the Nephites, no doubt, quickly fell into disrepair. Some of those cities may have even been destroyed later in the ongoing battles between the different Lammonite groups.
What is interesting to me is that Joseph Smith could not have known the timeline for the Adena or the Hopewell cultures since very little was known about them when he translated the Book of Mormon. In fact, these two cultures hadn't truly been differentiated yet as being separate or distinct. Archaeologists only knew that someone in the past had built mounds. These two cultures would not become distinct entities in the minds of archaeologists to receive their own separate names, nor even their timelines defined until long after Joseph Smith was dead. So therefore, we can know with certainty that Joseph Smith did not create the timeline for the Book of Mormon based on conjecture from the scientific community regarding the mounduilders. And if he were creating a narrative based on what little was known of the mounduilders, he would have thought there was just one ancient civilization and not two that had arisen and then disappeared because that was not known until the after the time of Joseph Smith. So, it's truly remarkable.
The Book of Mormon matches these two cultures very closely in timeline and in their features, one before and one after, and how both were wiped out completely off the map. That means the similarities between what archaeology would eventually figure out after the Book of Mormon was published and the Book of Mormon narrative are either a very big coincidence or the two groups written about in the Book of Mormon existed in the places where the Adena and Hop cultures existed about the same time frame as those cultures because the Book of Mormon is true.
There are other similarities between the Nephites and the Hopewell. Aside from the timeline and how both cultures suddenly vanished, the Hopewell were an advanced civilization. They didn't wear buckkins like Native Americans did, but spun and produced woven fabrics. This is in accordance with what the Book of Mormon tells us. We have evidence of this from bodies buried in mounds. The Ohio History Center in Columbus, Ohio, houses a significant collection of Hopewell cultural artifacts, including woven fabrics tucked away in drawers out of the harsh light to preserve them. And yet, in a painting housed nearby depicting the Hopewell, it shows them in buckkins like the Native American tribes wore later on. Why is there an agenda at work here?
Archaeology also reveals that both the Adena and the Hopewell had advanced knowledge of astronomy. They built large cities, temples, forts, and other defensive barriers for war. They sailed ships up and down the Missouri, the Ohio, and the Mississippi rivers, as well as the Great Lakes. They mined copper and ore and there are ancient copper mines and iron ore mines in this country. And we have even discovered ancient iron ore smelting sites in the Great Lakes region despite critics of the Book of Mormon having long claimed that the Hopewell did not have that technology. And yet someone did long before the Native Americans. These ancient people also left Hebrew inscriptions on rocks and tablets, including inscriptions of the Ten Commandments.
Sadly, the Smithsonian has worked for years to cover up, dismiss, and even hide evidence that does not match the narrative they settled on long ago regarding the native cultures of North America. But the evidence for the ancient history of this continent is far more interesting and varied than they want to admit. Even discoveries made by certified archaeologists who were employed by the Smithsonian have been discounted as fakes. What is the reason for doing so? While fakes most certainly exist, in many cases there is no tangible evidence that the artifact is fraudulent. And the only reason given for rejecting them is that they do not match their expectations. And that expectation when traced back to its origin seems to have arisen from the notion of manifest destiny which has sought to diminish the standing of the indigenous tribes so as to diminish their claims on the land. Quite frankly, this effort was essentially racist and continues to persist even now as our government continues to break treaties and ignore the claims of the sovereign tribes of this country.
Among relics found by professional archaeologists employed by the Smithsonian but discounted as fakes include the Newark Holy Stones which depict a figure of Moses with the name Moses written on it and the Ten Commandments written along its edges. There is exactly zero reasons to dismiss this artifact and it has been verified as authentic by a well-known forensic geologist who is not associated with Mormonism in any way. And then there's the Bat Creek stone, an artifact found in Tennessee in 1889, which was initially thought to have Cherokee inscriptions by the Smithsonian archaeologist Cyrus Thomas. But it was later considered a hoax only after it was re-examined by a scholar Cyrus Gordon and found to be ancient Hebrew which read for the Judeans. Judans refer to the ancient inhabitants of the Kingdom of Judah. In other words, the Jews. I find it interesting how this was considered a true artifact since 1889. But when it was discovered in 1960 that they were looking at it upside down and the writing was PaleoHebrew, it was suddenly denounced as a hoax even though it was dug up by an archaeologist employed by the Smithsonian.
And here's the thing. Archaeologists have already predetermined in their minds that the people who lived on this continent before the Europeans arrived could not have been so advanced and could not have come here by boat and certainly could have nothing to do with the Israelites. And if they find anything that seems to indicate any of these things, it's thrown out or discounted, buried, or hidden away. This is because they have decided that all Native Americans came here by crossing the bearing straits by landbridge. And with these ideas, these predeterminations that they have made, anything that conflicts with that consensus is automatically discounted. The problem is that evidence to the contrary continues to mount and much of it is extremely compelling to the point where even non Mormons are shouting about it and having arguments with their colleagues. Books are being written. Shows on television are coming out where we're having this conflicting evidence. America on Earth on the History Channel does a good job of delving into this topic. The history that we were all taught growing up is wrong. My name is Scott Walter and I'm a forensic geologist. There's a hidden history in this country that nobody knows about. There are pyramids here, chambers, tombs, inscriptions. They're all over this country. We're going to investigate these artifacts and sites, and we're going to get to the truth. Sometimes history isn't what we've been told. It's an excellent show, by the way, and you can often find episodes on YouTube as well.
Next week, we'll dive into a couple of things, including the most recent DNA findings, as genetic testing initially appeared to strike a deadly blow against the Book of Mormon, only to later turn around and become powerful evidence for its truth. Until next time, God bless.