Phony Relics form “proof” of Mormonism?

Around the middle of August of this year, Glenn Beck on Fox News started openly talking about Mormonism, and part of his talk was devoted to various artifacts which were to authenticate the claims that the American Indians were somehow descended from the alleged “lost tribes of Israel”.  Beck cited the Bat Creek stone and some other artifacts, and spoke about them as if they were established fact and totally genuine.  For those who may be curious about these items and some others, I offer the following for you.

THE BAT CREEK FRAUD: A FINAL STATEMENT
Robert C. Mainfort, Jr., and Mary L. Kwas
Tennessee Anthropologist Vol. XVIII, No. 2, Fall 1993

Reproduced with permission from The Tennessee Anthropologist

Introduction
Debate over the so-called Bat Creek stone and related issues has monopolized a substantial amount of journal space that could have more profitably been used for scholarly articles in the field of anthropology, rather than fantasy. Unfortunately, the Tennessee Anthropologist now has the dubious distinction of catapulting the stone into some degree of national notoriety (McCulloch 1993b). We regret imposing again upon the editor and readers, but the recent attack on us in this journal leaves little choice.

Since we would have preferred not to publish additional commentary on this matter, we will simply cut to the heart of the matter and refer readers to previous articles for background material (Mainfort and Kwas 1991; McCulloch 1988).

The Inscription
In an earlier article, McCulloch (1988: 116) encouraged readers of this journal to “seek out the views of qualified Semitic . . . scholars” concerning the Bat Creek stone. This we did (Mainfort and Kwas 1991). Frank Moore Cross is recognized as the authority on paleo-Hebrew (cf. McCarter 1993). Yet McCulloch (1993a: 2), an economist by profession, claims that Cross “makes no less than three elementary and readily documentable errors of Hebrew paleography” and goes on to accuse Cross of “shooting from the hip” in his (Cross’s) assessment of the inscription (1993a: 5). What is one to make of these statements? Here we have an economist, lacking professional credentials in paleography and ancient languages, accusing a highly regarded professional Semitist of making “elementary errors” and worse. We feel that, particularly in this context, such remarks have no place in a scholarly publication.

It would seem that McCulloch has little use for the opinions of Semitists (or archaeologists) whose views do not equate with his own. Since McCulloch dislikes Cross’s evaluation of the inscription, he suggests that “readers would do well to seek out additional qualified opinions” about the Bat Creek Stone (1993a: 5). We therefore call attention to recent published comments on this topic by the Semitist P. Kyle McCarter, Jr., of Johns Hopkins University (1993):
“There are, however, paleographical difficulties with the forms of the five letters (characters i – v in McCulloch [1988] and 7 – 3 in McCulloch [1993b]; McCarter’s comments reference the 1993 article – authors) some of which do not correspond to their proposed paleo-Hebrew prototypes closely enough to be considered authentic (he [letter 5], waw [letter 6], dalet [letter 7]). Considerations of this kind have already been raised by Frank Cross, whose observations McCulloch has attempted to rebut in detail. So, for example when Cross objects to the form of the alleged Bat Creek he (letter 5) as ‘impossible in the period 100 B.C. – A.D. 100,’ McCulloch responds by calling this a ‘clearcut error,’ citing an example of what he considers an ‘essentially identical’ paleo-Hebrew he from Mark McLean’s doctoral dissertation, which Cross himself directed. In fact, however, although this he may look similar to an untrained eye (emphasis added), it is quite unlike the Bat Creek sign, most especially because it has a clear vertical stem extending below the bottom horizontal, as is always the case with the paleo-Hebrew he. There does not seem much point in reproducing here the other details of the exchange between Cross and McCulloch, except to say that after looking it over in detail, it strikes me that Cross’s analysis is reasonable and convincing” (1993: 54-55).

McCarter’s statement regarding an “untrained eye” aptly summarizes our own sentiments about the content of McCulloch’s (1988, 1993a, 1993b) excursions into epigraphy, historical archaeology, metallurgy, physics, and the history of North American archaeology.

Further:
“The traces of the sign (letter 8) that follows this sequence cannot be interpreted as a paleo-Hebrew he under any circumstances, and this rules out the reading fyhwdh, “to Judah.” Gordon’s suggestion that it be completed with a mem (as also strongly advocated by McCulloch [1993a: 3] – authors), giving lyhwdm, ‘to (the) Judeans/Jews,’ can be accepted only on the unlikely assumption that the writer omitted a yod (y) while intending to write lyhwdym” (McCarter 1993:55).

McCarter (1993: 55) also notes that McCulloch’s “translation” of the sequence lyhwd as “to Yehud/Judea” is “ruled out by other considerations.” Namely:
“Yehud was a name used in the late Persian period (538-332 B.C.) for the district of the Persian empire that corresponded to Judea in the Hellenistic and Roman periods, and though it appears commonly as yhwd on coins and seals of the late Persian period (i.e., the fourth century), it would be out of place on an artifact from the time of the First Jewish Revolt. McCulloch’s appeal to a personal name in a paleo-Hebrew tomb inscription (the Abba inscription) is beside the point, since it is not simply a question of orthographic convention, as he seems to understand it, but of the currency of the name itself. It would be as if a contemporary citizen of New York should refer to his home as New Amsterdam.”
McCulloch (1993a: 6) accuses us of misrepresenting the views of Semitist and stone proponent Cyrus Gordon. He is incorrect. We were very explicit in stating that Gordon “considers some [but not all] of the signs to be Paleo-Hebrew” (Mainfort and Kwas 1991: 14) and noted elsewhere that Gordon and Cross agree that at least three of the signs are not decipherable as Paleo-Hebrew, an assessment further supported by McCarter. Parenthetically, McCulloch (1993a: 5) also mentions that Gordon also made “a few outright errors” in translating the inscription.

We will also note that McCulloch (1993a: 5-6) himself presents the views of McCarter in such a way that they do not accurately reflect McCarter’s published statements about the stone. McCarter (1993: 55) has, in fact, stated that:
“It is probably not a case of the coincidental similarity of random scratches to ancient letters, since, as noted above, the similarity extends to an intelligible sequence of five letters —. too much for coincidence.”

but goes on to say that:
“It seems probable that we are dealing here not with a coincidental similarity but with a fraud,” and, “In any case, the Bat Creek stone has no place in the inventory of Hebrew inscriptions from the time of the First Jewish Revolt against Rome.” It is quite obvious that McCarter no longer “reserves final judgment on the inscription” (McCulloch (1993a: 5).
The stone, quite simply, is a fake.

The Brass Bracelets
As we noted previously (Mainfort and Kwas 1991), C-shaped trass bracelets are fairly common on archaeological sites of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in eastern North America. Although specimens cut from heavy gauge wire seem to occur more frequently, hammered examples exhibiting seams (usually with a B-shapped cross-section) are by no means rare. Specimens of this type have been reported for the Grimsby site (Kenyon 1982), the Gros Cap cemetery (Nem and Cleland 1974), Chota-Tanasee (Newman 1986), and numerous other sites (e.g., Birk and Johnson 1992). An exhaustive listing is hardly necessary for most readers of this journal.

McCulloch (1993a:7) faults us for not citing “a single (C-shaped brass bracelet) that is actually known to have been wrought and not drawn or-cast.” Yet in attempting to marshall evidence for his contention that similar objects were “a popular ornament in the Mediterranean world,” he cites only examples of bronze, silver, and gold bracelets. Nor does he indicate that these specimens are structurally similar to the Bat Creek artifacts. This is quite unconvincing, since the issue (at least as framed by McCulloch [1993a]) involves narrow brass bracelets that exhibit seams.

The Radiocarbon Determination
The inscription is a fraud, so the radiocarbon date is immaterial. McCarter (1993: 55) rather neatly summarizes the issue:
“But even if we assume, for the sake of argument, that the wooden fragments are as old as the carbon-14 test indicates, the relevance of their date to that of the stone depends entirely on the integrity of their association with it. And if, as I’ve already suggested, this is a case of fraud, that integrity can hardly be assumed.”

The association of the brass bracelets with the burial and the wood fragments is also extremely dubious. The bracelets represent relatively modern European trade items, and simply represent another element in this hoax.

It should go without saying that no professional archaeologist would (or at least, should) use a single radiocarbon determination as the basis for a revolutionary claim. Regarding the association of the wooden disk with the stone, we stand by our previous statements thai considering the primitive excavation techniques of the day and the unreliability of John Emmert, the degree of association between the dated material and the stone is, at best, very tenuous. Nowhere do we suggest that it is only McCulloch who “alleges” an association between the stone and the wood fragments.

Cyrus Thomas And Other Early Researchers
We stand by our previous statements that Cyrus Thomas became aware that the inscription was a fraud sometime after the publication of the Mound Survey volume (1894) and prior to his North American archaeology book (1898). To reiterate, despite the significance attributed to the stone in his previous works, Thomas (1898, 1903, 1905) did not mention the stone in his three major subsequent volumes on North American archaeology and ethnology. Moreover, the absence of the stone from the other early archaeological and ethnological works we cited previously strongly underscores the fact that other researchers did not regard the stone as genuine.

We again note the circumstances regarding the fraudulent Holly Oak gorget (Griffin el al 1988). McCulloch (1993a: 16) is not correct in stating that: “Silence is hardly the equivalent of denunciation.” By this kind of illogic, the lack of articles on extraterrestrial artifacts in American Antiquity must be viewed as condoning the views of Erick van Daniken.

John Emmert
We stand by our previous assertion that John Emmert is the most likely culprit in this hoax. Andrew Whiteford (1952), who himself had WPA experience in the Tennessee Valley, commented about Emmert’s untrustworthiness over 40 years ago. Emmert also reported some non-credible discoveries during his employment with the Peabody Museum (Williams 1993).

Concluding Remarks
The Bat Creek stone is a fraud. Other related issues raised by stone proponents, including the radiocarbon date, are therefore irrelevant. The current leading proponent of the stone’s authenticity is an economist, lacking professional credentials in paleography, ancient languages, and archaeology.

The sentiments of professional archaeologists about frauds such as the Bat Creek stone were ably summarized over 100 years ago by the Reverend Stephen D. Peet (1892):

“One of the greatest among many annoyances to archaeologists is that so many fraudulent relics are found in mounds. It seems difficult to fasten the frauds on any one, for they are planted probably in the night and are adroitly covered up. Some of them are wrought with reference to the special sensation that may be made, and are very starting in their resemblance to foreign articles. These are very easily detected and are rejected at once; others, however, bear a resemblance to the relics of the Mound-builders, and are very deceiving. The most of these have some ancient alphabet, Hebrew, Phoenician, Hittite, and are recognized as frauds by these means. Among these are the Grave Creek Tablet, the Newark Holy stone, the Pemberton Ax, the Stone from Grand Traverse Bay, and a great many others. Not one of these has been accepted by the skilled archaeologists, but they have been discussed and defended by others until they have grown wearisome.”

References Cited
Birk, Douglas A., and Elden Johnson
1992 The Mdewakanton Dakota and Initial French Contact. In: Calumet and Fleur-de-Lys, edited by J.A. Walthall and T.E. Emerson, pp. 203-240. Smithsonian Institution, Washington.

Griffin, James B., D.J. Meltzer, B.D. Smith, and W.C. Sturtevant
1988 A Mammoth Fraud in Science. American Antiquity 53(3): 578-582.

Kenyon, W.A.
1982 The Grimsby Site: A Historic Neutral Cemetery. Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto_;

 Toronto.

_{Mainfort, Robert C., Jr. and Mary L. Kwas
1991 The Bat Creek Stone: Judeans in Tennessee? Tennessee Anthropologist 16(1): 1-19.}

_{McCarter, P. Kyle, Jr.
1993 Let’s be Serious About the Bat Creek Stone. Biblical Archaeology Review 19(4): 54-55, 83.}

McCuIloch, J. Huston
1988 The Bat Creek Inscription: Cherokee or Hebrew? Tennessee Anthropologist 13(2): 79-123.
1993a The Bat Creek Stone: a Reply to Mainfort and Kwas. Tennessee Anthropologist 18(1): 1-26.
1993b Did Judean Refugees Escape to Tennessee? Biblical Archaeology Review 19(4): 46-53, 82-83.

Nern, Craig F., and Charles E. Cleland

1974 The Gros Cap Cemetery Site, St. Ignace, Michigan: A Reconsideration of the Greenlees Collection. Michigan Archaeologist 20(1): 1-58.

Newman, Robert D.
1986 Euro-American Artifacts. In: Overkill Cherokee Archaeology at Chota-Tanasee, edited by G.F. Schroedl, pp. 415-454. University of Tennessee, Department of Anthropology, Report of Investigations 38 and Tennessee Valley Authority Publications in Anthropology 42.

Peet, Stephen D.
1892 Frauds and their Perpetrators. American Antiquarian and Oriental Journal 14(1): 52.

Thomas, Cyrus
1890 The Cherokee in Pre-Columbian Times. N.D.C. Hodges, New York.
1894 Report on the Mound Explorations of the Bureau of Ethnology. Twelfth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution 1890-91. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C.
1898 Introduction to the Study of North American Archaeology. Robert Clarke,
Cincinnati.
1903 The Indians of North America in Historic Times (published as Volume 2 of The History of North America). George Barrie and Sons, Philadelphia.

Thomas, Cyrus and W.J. McGee
1905 Prehistoric North America, (published as Volume 14 of The History of North America). George Barrie and Sons, Philadelphia.

Whiteford, Andrew H.
1952 A Frame of Reference for the Archaeology of Eastern Tennessee. In: Archeology of Eastern United States, edited by J.B. Griffin, pp. 207-225. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.

Williams, Stephen
1993 Fantastic Archaeology: Another Road Taken by Some. Paper presented to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Boston, Massachusetts.

 

 

Mormon church donates debunked artifacts to Michigan museum

The Associated Press/October 27, 2003

 

Grand Rapids, Mich. — Some of the now-debunked Michigan Relics — once considered by some influential Mormons as evidence of the church’s connection to a Near Eastern culture in ancient America — have a new home.

For decades, the Mormon Church kept a large collection of the artifacts in its Salt Lake City museum, but never formally claimed them to be genuine.

This past summer, after scholars examined the relics and declared them fakes, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints donated the 797 objects to the Michigan Historical Museum, which will display them next month.

The relics were once hailed as the greatest archaeological discoveries since Pompeii. But there are many clues they are really fakes, Michigan State Archaeologist John Halsey told The Grand Rapids Press.

Among the relics are engraved slate tablets. One scene depicts the crucifixion of Christ. The problem is, all the engravings tell stories of the Old Testament.

“It is arguably the largest archaeological fraud ever in this country, and the longest running,” Halsey said.

James Scotford claimed he found the first relic — a large clay casket — while digging a post hole on a Michigan farm in October 1890. He announced his discovery, touching off a frenzy of digging.

Over the next 30 years, thousands of artifacts were found, including tiny caskets, amulets, tools, smoking pipes and tablets. The items were made of clay, copper and slate, and most bore the mark “IH/,” which some interpreted as a tribal signature or a mystic symbol. Some thought it was a variation on IHS, the ancient Hebrew symbol for Jehovah.

A syndicate was formed to corner the market and sell the items to the highest bidder, perhaps the Smithsonian Institution.

Oddly, nearly all the items were found when Scotford, a former magician and sleight-of-hand expert, was present.

Almost from the beginning, skeptics doubted the authenticity of the finds. Francis Kelsey, a University of Michigan Latin professor, called them forgeries in 1892.

The relics, however, had their vocal promoters, chief among them Daniel Soper, a former Michigan Secretary of State who was forced to resign because of corruption.

In the early 1900s, Soper teamed with Scotford to sell the objects. They enlisted the support of the Rev. James Savage, a priest at Most Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Detroit.

Historians and archaeologists today believe Savage, who became the most avid collector, was not privy to the scam, but was duped to give the finds credibility. Savage believed the artifacts were left by the Lost Ten Tribes of Israel or a colony of ancient Jews.

In 1911, Scotford’s stepdaughter signed an affidavit saying she saw her stepfather making the relics.

Savage died still believing the Michigan Relics were genuine. He bequeathed his large collection to Notre Dame University. When a pair of Mormon missionaries found the collection there in 1960, the university gladly donated it to the church.

In 1977, the church asked Richard Stamps, a Mormon and Oakland University archaeology professor, to examine the relics.

Stamps also concluded they were fakes. The copper relics, he said, were made from ordinary commercial copper stock and had been treated with chemicals to make it look older.

In 1998-99, Stamps again studied the relics in the Mormon collection and reached the same conclusion.

“Poor Father Savage. I feel so sorry for this Catholic father,” Stamps said. “I think Scotford was cranking these things out and slipping them into the ground, and I think Savage didn’t have a clue.”

Through Stamps, the Mormon Church decided to donate its collection to the Michigan Historical Museum in Lansing. It arrived there recently, and workers began preparing the Michigan Relics for an exhibit opening Nov. 15 and running through Aug. 15.



ARCHAEOLOGY

Great find in West Virginia nothing more than a fraud

Tuesday, November 11, 2008 3:05 AM

By Bradley T. Lepper

In 1838, excavators of the Grave Creek Mound in West Virginia made a remarkable discovery: a small stone bearing inscribed markings that were variously read as Celtic, Norse or Phoenician.

The stone appeared to confirm the then-popular idea that an Old World culture built the magnificent and mysterious mounds of eastern North America.

Last month, at the annual meeting of the West Virginia Archeological Society, anthropologist David Oestreicher offered evidence to suggest that the Grave Creek stone can be dismissed as a fraud.

His arguments were summarized by Rick Steelhammer in The Charleston Gazette on Oct. 13.

Oestreicher found the source for the stone’s confusing mixture of ancient alphabets in an 18th-century book on the “unknown letters that are found in the most ancient coins and monuments of Spain.” According to Oestreicher, “everything on the stone,” including “impossible sequences of characters with the same mistakes,” can be found in this book.

Oestreicher thinks the perpetrator of the fraud was a local Wheeling physician, James W. Clemens. Clemens had borrowed a large sum of money to bankroll the excavations and was disappointed when nothing significant was found.

Planting the sensational artifact provided an opportunity to recoup his losses. But many scholars ridiculed the stone as a crude forgery, and Clemens’ dreams of fortune and glory ended in financial ruin.

The historian Terry Barnhart wrote that the true significance of the Grave Creek controversy is the light it sheds on the development of 19th-century American archaeology.

William Broad and Nicholas Wade, in their book Betrayers of the Truth, argue that the study of fakes and frauds show us science “as it is, as distinct from how it ought to be.”

It is a “human process governed by the ordinary human passions of ambition, pride, and greed.” And “the step from greed to fraud is as small in science as in other walks of life.”

Bradley T. Lepper is curator of archaeology at the Ohio Historical Society.

blepper@ohiohistory.org

From “Bad Archaeology” Website

Since the unexpected discovery in 1492 of humans not accounted for in the Bible, Europeans were keen to find out where they had come from. An ingenious solution was proposed: they were the tribes of Israel that disappeared from history with the fall of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah in the middle of the first millennium BC. A whole religion has been built on these foundations.

There was also a movement in the late nineteenth century to identify the English with the same lost tribes. There are still traces of the ‘British-Israelite’ movement today.

The Israelite hypothesis

 

Very quickly after the discovery of the New World, Europeans began to treat its inhabitants as little more than their possessions. There was some debate about whether they were fully human and thus descendants of Adam. At first, few of their fellow Europeans protested, but in the early sixteenth century, Bartolomé de Las Casas (1474-1566) became a champion of the Native American cause. He spent many years trying to improve the conditions under which they lived in the Spanish colonies in the West Indies, Peru and Guatemala. Las Casas believed that the Native Americans should be converted to Christianity, as he was convinced that they originated in Ancient Israel and felt that the Bible contained the proof that they were members of the Lost Tribes of Israel. He was not alone and it was in no small measure thanks to his efforts that Pope Paul III (1468-1549; pope 1534-49) declared that the Native Americans were fully human, after all, in 1537.

A report by the seventeenth-century Portuguese traveller, António Montezinos (also known as Aharón Leví de Montezinos), published in 1644, reawakened interest in the subject. He claimed that there was a Jewish tribe living beyond the mountain passes of the Andes and that he had heard them recite the She‘ma Yisro‘el (the expression of the Jewish faith) and saw them observe Jewish rituals. Alas, Montezinos was a fantasist whose stories were accepted uncritically.

Having decided that some of the Native Americans practised Hebrew rites and were therefore ancient Canaanites or the lost tribes of Israel, this meant that they were in dire need of conversion. Thomas Thorowgood’s Jewes in America, or, Probabilities that the Americans are of that race, first published in 1650, was one of the first to argue for the need to convert these lost tribes. The second edition of 1660 quotes the authority of John Eliot (1604-1690), the “Apostle to the Indians”, who went on to publish a translation of the bible into the Massachusetts dialect of Algonquin in 1663. Groups like the Corporation for Propagating the Gospel of Jesus Christ in New England were founded by English settlers who believed that the Native Americans were lost Jews who would need to be reconciled with Christ at the end of time. Although the belief that Indians were Hebrews quickly faded as knowledge of their languages, customs and beliefs increased, Edward Johnson (1598-1672), author of The Wonder-Working Providence of Sion’s Saviour (published in 1654), argued that a mass conversion of Indians was necessary if America were to be the site of the new heaven and new earth.

Menasseh ben Israel (1604-1657), a respected Dutch Jewish scholar, was heavily influenced by the account of António Montezinos and wrote his best-selling book, The Hope of Israel, which he dedicated to the English Parliament. Meeting Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658; Lord Protector of England 1653-1658), he petitioned for the recall of the Jews (who had been expelled from England in 1290) and expressed his belief that the dispersion of Jews to all corners of the Earth was the beginning of the redemption. Certain Christian traditions claimed that when the Ten Tribes of Israel were found and restored to the Holy Land, the return of Christ to reign supreme was not far off, a belief that is still had by some, especially American, fundamentalist churches. There was thus a considerable vested interest among some believers to identify the Lost Tribes. Now that apparently Israelite tribes had been discovered in the Americas, ben Israel argued, Cromwell must readmit the Jews to England to bring about the Messianic era. Similar sentiments were expressed, albeit in more humanistic terms, in the second half of the eighteenth century during the American and French revolutions. Some abolitionists, for instance, claimed that the Messianic Age would be ushered in when the slaves were freed and when the native Americans, as descendants of the Ten Lost Tribes, were converted to Christianity. The sometimes eccentric religious beliefs of the pioneer settlers developed political overtones, with the production of bizarre propaganda works such as the Apocalypse de Chiokoyhikoy, chef des Iroquois (published in 1777 by the newly-formed Congress and condemned by the Inquisition in 1779). This purported to be an account of the end of the world by an Iroquois prophet, denigrating the English to support the cause for American independence by showing how the Iroquois would be better off under American rule.　

This page was last updated on 23 July 2007
Written by: Keith Fitzpatrick-Matthews

From “Bad Archaeology” Website

Mormonism

The most long lasting effect of these ideas about the Israelite origins of the Native Americans was the establishment of a completely new religion, which its founder, Joseph Smith (1805-1844), claimed to have been directly revealed to him in 1827. According to the Book of Mormon, the holy text of the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints (more popularly known as the Mormons), a people known as the Jaredites arrived in America around 2247 BCE. The Jaredites were a group of people from the Middle East who had fled their homeland, following the destruction of the Tower of Babel and built a thriving civilisation. Their civilisation was subsequently destroyed in a great battle at Hill Cumorah; there is much debate within the church about the location of this hill, which places it anywhere between the Gulf of Mexico and New York. The Jaredites were followed around 600 BCE, before the fall of Jerusalem, by further groups of Israelites, the Lamanites and Nephites, who were the builders of the earthen mounds of the eastern USA. When war broke out between the Lamanites and the Nephites, the Lamanites eventually won and wiped out the Nephites c 421 CE. The Lamanites were cursed by god for their sinful behaviour and accordingly he turned them red-skinned.

As an apparently historical narrative, the story told by the Book of Mormon ought to be testable, just like the bible, but despite many years of effort by Mormon archaeologists, no archaeological evidence has ever been found to support any of this story. Indeed, it looks like an obvious justification for European supremacy: the Lamanites (who are the Native Americans) are not only not the original inhabitants of the Americas, as the much superior Jaredites were there first, but they have also committed a sin so terrible that they now bear its mark for all time. This is exactly the same argument that was once used by Christian apologists for the apartheid régime in South Africa, who argued that the Africans, as descendants of Ham, had been cursed by Jehovah and bore the mark of the curse as their black skin. The arrival of the Jaredites corresponds neither to the arrival of the first humans in North America (the precise date is hotly disputed, but they were there by 13,000 BCE at the latest) nor to the first flourishings of any American civilisation. This causes problems for Mormon archaeologists, who are able to detect numerous civilisations in North America, none of which appears to be of the right date or to possess any of the characteristics attributed to them in the ‘divinely inspired’ Book of Mormon.

The Book of Mormon and archaeology

 

The narrative parts of the Book of Mormon are devoted to the migrations of people from ancient Judaea to America. Three migrations are supposed to have occurred: the first c 2247 BCE, involving the Jaredites, who were wiped out c 600 BCE at the Battle at Hill Cumorah; the second and third migrations, of the Nephites and the Lamanites, happened after 600 BCE, between the times of the Assyrian and Babylonian victories over Israel and Judah. The Nephites kept the Law of Moses, but the Lamanites abandoned their ancestral beliefs, as a result of which, the “Lord God did cause a skin of blackness to come upon them” (2 Nephi 5.21). Once again, the Nephites were wiped out c 421 CE at a second Battle at Hill Cumorah.

If the claims of the Book of Mormon to be a true record of American history are correct, we would hope to find archaeological evidence for the achievements of these trans-Atlantic Israelites. According to the Book of Mormon, the people spread from north to south and from sea to sea (Mormon 1.17), building fortified cities (Helaman 3.8-9). They had metallurgy (Jarom 1.8, 2 Nephi 5.15, Alma 43.18-19), wheat and barley (Mosiah 9.9), coinage (Helaman 3.7-12, Alma 11.5-20), domesticated elephants, horses, cattle, sheep, goats and pigs (Ether 9.17-19), an organised religion based around temples and synagogues (Jerom 1.8, Helaman 3.9), silk and linen (Alma 4.6, Ether 10.24), a written language known as Reformed Egyptian (Helaman 3.15, Mormon 9.32) and a military technology that included archery and chariots (3 Nephi 3:22).

Some members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints have pointed to certain Native American seasonal festivals and other gatherings as evidence for the accuracy of the Book of Mormon. The ancient city of Kaminaljuyu (the modern Guatemala City) has been identified with Nephi, mentioned in the Book of Mormon, while a hill in New York state (USA) is identified with Hill Cumorah (although there are some non-orthodox Mormons who claim it to be El Cerro Vigia, a hill in southern Mexico, or one of a number of other sites).

The modern science of genetics has allowed archaeologists to examine the ancestries of present-day Native Americans. If they were descended from the Lamanites of the Book of Mormon, then we would expect to find close correspondences between their DNA and that of modern Jewish and Palestinian people. In fact, there is no correspondence whatsoever beyond those traits that link all humans. The DNA of all Native Americans is very similar to that of present-day Siberians, although there is also controversial evidence that some early peoples – those associated with a tool type known as Clovis points – may have migrated from Europe along the southern margins of the polar ice cap.

Things get worse for the Mormon Bad Archaeologists. No bones or seeds from any of the domestic species described by the Book of Mormon have ever been identified in the excavations of pre-Columbian sites; similarly, although meteoric iron and native copper were hammered into shapes by some Native American peoples, there is no evidence for true metallurgy before the arrival of Europeans; no recognisable Jewish temples (which ought to resemble their Old World precursors) have ever been identified, while the synagogues named in the Book of Mormon did not exist anywhere at the time of any of the supposed migrations. The technology of archery has not been recognised on American sites older than 1000 CE, almost six hundred years after the second Battle at Hill Cumorah, although it is always possible that evidence for archery at an earlier date will one day be found. The only writing systems to have been recognised in the Americas are those used by the Maya and the Aztecs, neither of which resembles Egyptian hieroglyphs, although Joseph Smith, the founder of the religion, produced a scrap of papyrus containing hieroglyphs he claimed to be a Reformed Egyptian text written by the Patriarch Abraham. Another problem that has never been explained is why Jewish people would write in Egyptian, the language of their hated oppressors, that they had never used in their native land.

Some have made claims that the physical evidence has been found. They include such things as the Bat Creek Stone, the Kinderhook Plates, the Newark Stones and the Phoenician Ten Commandments (otherwise known as the Los Lunas inscription). Not one of these has proved to be anything other than a nineteenth- or twentieth-century forgery. The fortified cities, the coins, the silken garments, the chariots and so on continue to prove frustratingly elusive for orthodox Mormon archaeology.

　This page was last updated on 28 July 2007
Written by: Keith Fitzpatrick-Matthews and James Doeser

Of course, the proverbial “icing on the cake” is the letters from the Smithsonian Institution and the National Geographic Society wherein they state that they have never used the Book of Mormon as an archaeological resource or as a scientific guide.  The Smithsonian also states the true origin of the American Indians – is basically Mongoloid and it also states that the claims about when steel, glass, and silk were actually found in the New World, contrary to the claims of Mormonism.  The National Geographic Society letter says that there is no archaeological evidence to confirm the claims of the Book of Mormon.

Here are the letters from both organizations:

Smithsonian Institution Letter

1996

 

Your recent inquiry concerning the Smithsonian Institution’s alleged use of the Book of Mormon as a scientific guide has been received in the Smithsonian’s Department of Anthropology.

The Book of Mormon is a religious document and not a scientific guide. The Smithsonian Institution has never used it in archeological research and any information that you have received to the contrary is incorrect. Accurate information about the Smithsonian’s position is contained in the enclosed “Statement Regarding the Book of Mormon,” which was prepared to respond to the numerous inquiries that the Smithsonian receives on this topic.

Because the Smithsonian regards the unauthorized use of its name to disseminate inaccurate information as unlawful, we would appreciate your assistance in providing us with the names of any individuals who are misusing the Smithsonian’s name. Please address any correspondence to:

Anthropology Outreach Office
Department of Anthropology
National Museum of Natural History MRC 112
Smithsonian Institution
Washington, DC 20560

PREPARED BY
THE DEPARTMENT OF ANTHROPOLOGY
SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION
1996

　

Smithsonian Institution Letter – Statement Regarding The Book Of Mormon

1996

 

The Smithsonian Institution has never used the Book of Mormon in any way as a scientific guide. Smithsonian archeologists see no direct connection between the archeology of the New World and the subject matter of the book.

The physical type of the American Indian is basically Mongoloid, being most closely related to that of the peoples of eastern. central, and northeastern Asia. Archaeological evidence indicates that the ancestors of the present Indians cane into the New World – probably over a land bridge known to have existed in the Being Strait region during the last Ice Age – in a continuing series of small migrations beginning from about 25,000 to 30,000 years ago.

Present evidence indicates that the first people to reach this continent from the East were the Norsemen who briefly visited the northeastern part of North America around A.D. 1000 and then settled in Greenland. There is nothing to show that they reached Mexico or Central America.

One of the main lines of evidence supporting the scientific finding that contacts with Old World civilizations if indeed they occurred at all, were of very little significance for the development of American Indian civilizations, is the fact that none of the principal Old World domesticated food plants or animals (except the dog) occurred in the New World in pre-Columbian times. American Indians had no wheat, barley oats, millet, rice, cattle, pigs, chickens, horses, donkeys, camels before 1492. (Camels and horses were in the Americas, along with the bison, mammoth, and mastodon, but all these animals became extinct around 10,000 B.C. at the time when the early big game hunters spread across the Americas.)

Iron, steel, glass, and silk were not used in the New World before 1492 (except for occasional use of un smelted meteoric iron). Native copper was worked in various locations in pre-Columbian times, but true metallurgy was limited to southern Mexico and the Andean region, where its occurrence in late prehistoric times involved gold, silver, copper, and their alloys, but not iron.

There is a possibility that the spread of cultural traits across the Pacific to Mesoamerica and the northwestern coast of South America began several hundred years before the Christian era. However, any such inter-hemispheric contacts appear to have been the results of accidental voyages originating in eastern and southern Asia. It is by no means certain that even such contacts occurred; certainly there were no contacts with the ancient Egyptians, Hebrews, or other peoples of Western Asia and the Near East.

No reputable Egyptologist or other specialist on Old World archeology, and no expert on New World prehistory, has discovered or confirmed any relationship between archaeological remains in Mexico and archaeological remains in Egypt.

Reports of findings of ancient Egyptian Hebrew, and other Old World writings in the New World in pre-Columbian contexts have frequently appeared in newspapers, magazines, and sensational books. None of these claims has stood up to examination by reputable scholars. No inscriptions using Old World forms of writing have been shown to have occurred in any part of the Americas before 1492 except for a few Norse rune stones which have been found in Greenland.

　

National Geographic Society Letter

January 11, 1990

 

Dear Mr. Larson:

Thank you for writing to the National Geographic Society.

The Society has never used the Book of Mormon to locate archaeological sites, and we do not believe that any of the places named in the Book of Mormon can be placed geographically by the evidence of archeology. So far as we know there is no archaeological evidence to verify the history of early peoples of the Western Hemisphere as presented in the Book of Mormon.

I hope you will find this information useful.

Yours truly,

Pamela Tucci
Research Correspondence

 

Advertisement

More on Glenn Beck and Mormonism

Glenn Beck – born again Christian?  Some evangelical leaders as well as many rank and file Christians have somehow been fooled into thinking just that, and some of them just because Beck used the term “atonement”, as if no self-respecting Mormon would ever use such a “Christian” term.  Obviously those Christians haven’t ever looked deeply into Mormon theology, otherwise they would see that Mormon theology indeed does use that term, as well as other “Christian” terms.

So you ask, what’s wrong with that?  What’s wrong indeed.  While the terminology used sounds the same, the meaning of the terminology is very different.  The Mormon view of Christ’s atonement is that it was somehow limited – meaning that Christ’s death on the cross would not also cleanse man from really serious sin, like murder, and that man would have to atone for it himself by the shedding of his own blood, in contradiction to what it says in the Bible, that Christ died once and for all for all of the sins of mankind.

They also believe that God the Father and Jesus have physical bodies and that God the Father was once a man just like one of us.  They also believe that there was also a God the Mother, although they don’t refer to “her” very often.  They also claim that Jesus was the result of a physical union between God the Father and Mary.  They also claim that Jesus and Lucifer are brothers – spirit brothers to be more exact, since Lucifer was never allowed bodily form due to his rebellion in the spirit world.  They also believe that we can become gods if we are good and faithful to all of the Mormon doctrines and do all of the works required by the many Mormon ceremonies and other tasks.

They also believe that one can be saved even in the afterlife through something called Baptism for the Dead, or proxy baptism, and this particular doctrine has gotten the Mormon church in more than a bit of trouble with both the Jews and the Catholics, resulting in some legal action on the part of the Jews and some official directives issued by Mormon leadership where they told Mormons to stop proxy baptizing Jewish and Catholic dead people.  Mormons base proxy baptism on essentially one verse, 1 Corinthians 15:29, but the writer of the Corinthians is not establishing proxy baptism, but rather telling the Corinthians NOT to do it, instead telling them that because Christ rose from the dead, all Christians will also rise from the dead when Christ returns.  In other words, proxy baptism is NOT Biblical. In proxy baptism, spirit ministers go to the dead and offer them the chance to become Mormons and thus go to heaven.  This is called Second Chance, which again, is not found anywhere in the Bible.

Just like Islam, Mormons also teach make the claim that they are the one true church, although they have toned down their rhetoric about it.  Now they make the claim by saying that there was a great apostasy some time after Christ left the earth and the original apostles died, and that it took Joseph Smith, aided by the Book of Mormon and God the father and Jesus and others to restore true Christianity.  Yet they also make the claim that they are not Christians, saying that those who do claim to be Christians are not truly Christian – only Mormonism is truly Christian.

Finally, and getting back to Beck, his claims about the American Indians as being part of the “lost tribes of Israel” is simply ludicrous.  Granted that at one time it was more or less accepted fact, as was made evident through books like James Adair’s “History of the American Indians” back in 1763, I believe, but it has since been proven many times over that they are of a different ethnic group entirely and that they came to the Americas largely via the ancient land bridge where the Bering Strait is today.  Beck’s claims that the Smithsonian was/is allegedly in some kind of huge conspiracy with the government and other entities concerning the American Indians is equally absurd.  For years, the Mormons claimed that the Smithsonian Institute considered the Book of Mormon to be a reliable source concerning the indigenous peoples of the Americas.  Finally it got so bad that the Smithsonian issued a letter stating that they never endorse the Book of Mormon.  Apparently that letter wasn’t good enough, so a second letter was also issued.  It got so bad that the then current Prophet of the Mormon church had to issue a letter stating that until such time that legitimate evidence could be produced to substantiate Mormon claims about the Lamanite and Nephite civilizations, that they must stop making such claims.  I guess that Glenn Beck never read any of those letters, or else he would not persist in his “unusual” claims, including that the Bat Creek Stone and others somehow prove Mormon claims.

I guess that Mormons do indeed live in their own reality, totally ignoring all Biblical and scientific fact.  I believe that one of their early leaders said that they will have their own science, their own math, their own literature, and their own culture.  It’s just too bad that they have left the real world behind.

The following is a reproduction of the letter from the Smithsonian Institute.  Below it, there is a similar letter from the National Geographic society.

Information from the
National Museum of Natural History
Smithsonian Institution Washington, D.C. 20560

Your recent inquiry concerning the Smithsonian Institution’s alleged use of the Book of Mormon as a scientific guide has been received in the Smithsonians Department of Anthropology.

The Book of Mormon is a religious document and not a scientific guide. The Smithsonian Institution has never used it in archaeological research and any information that you have received to the contrary is incorrect. Accurate information about the Smithsonians position is contained in the enclosed Statement Regarding the Book of Mormon, which was prepared to respond to the numerous inquiries that the Smithsonian receives on this topic.

Because the Smithsonian regards the unauthorized use of its name to disseminate inaccurate information as unlawful, we would appreciate your assistance in providing us with the names of any individuals who are misusing the Smithsonians name. Please address any correspondence to:

Public Information Officer
Department of Anthropology
National Museum of Natural History
Smithsonian Institution, MRC 112
Washington, DC 20560

Prepared by
THE DEPARTMENT OF ANTHROPOLOGY
SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION

This is a similar letter from the National Geographic Society in response to similar Mormon claims.

National Geographic Society

WASHINGTON, D.C.  20036

January 11, 1990

Dear Mr. Larson:

    Thank you for writing to the National Geographic Society.

    The Society has never used the Book of Mormon to locate archaeological sites, and we do not believe that any of the places named in the Book of Mormon can be placed geographically by the evidence of archaeology. So far as we know there is no archaeological evidence to verify the history of early peoples of the Western Hemisphere as presented in the Book of Mormon.

    I hope you will find this information useful.

 

Yours truly,

Pamela Tucci
Research Correspondence

More on Islamic Terror

I’ve read a number of newspaper articles and online posts recently from a variety of sources, both conservative and liberal, and it amazes me how the liberals in our country and elsewhere just don’t seem to “get it” about Islamic violence. Instead, it is always brought up by the liberal factions that either the violence was brought on by aggressive actions against Islam, or by offending Muslims in one way of another, or that whoever was on the receiving end of the violence “deserved” it. Corollary to those notions is the ever popular assertion that “only radical Islamists or Islamic nutcases” are ever responsible for the violence/acts of terror. If that is indeed the case, just how many thousands or hundreds of thousands of “radicals” or “nutcases” are there? Are we to believe that Islam, in spite of its claims of being a religion of peace, should be more appropriately be called a religion with a lot of radicals, and that they seem to have far more radicals than all of the other religions put together? Exactly how many of the thousands of acts of violence committed every year are we to credit to “nutcases”? Could it not be the case that many of the acts of violence or terrorism are actually endorsed by the Islamic leaders as being legitimate acts ordered by Allah as dictated by the Qu’ran and that they might actually be encouraging their followers to engage in those acts to carry out the will of Allah for the world? Excuse me if I am possibly in error but that is certainly the way it appears to me, based on what I have learned about Islam and its history since its beginnings in the 7th century. I will grant that the level of violence seems to be at a lower level than during the first few centuries, but then it seemed to rise again toward the end of the 19th century through the 1950’s, then slow for awhile, and then in the 1970’s, start increasing again. Are we headed again toward some kind of new world conflict where we will see a modern battle between Islamic forces and the “infidels” (read non-Muslims and Christians who refuse to submit/convert to Islam)? It is starting to look that way to me. Whether through the “verbal jihad” of the Ahmadi Muslims or the very real jihad of the other sects, as well as the assertions from the Islamic world that only the Qu’ran has the pure word of God, there appears to be a very real battle line being formed, and the non-Muslim people of the world would be well-advised to stand up for their way of life or risk losing it to the “converting sword” of Islam.

I realize that this sounds more than a bit dramatic and alarmist, but all one needs to do is look at what has already happened in Europe other countries around the world where Islam has taken root and one can see that as far as Islam is concerned, there indeed is no religion other than Islam and no God other than Allah and that those who resist face probable violence and/or death.

Again, those from the liberal and/or Islamic side of things will try to insist that Christians are no better, that they have committed just as many grievous acts of terror as the radicals of Islam, but frankly, the facts just don’t back their claims.  They also point to the Crusades, claiming that it ws the Christians who acted first, when in fact they only acted after at least 300 years or more of Islamic violence and murder of Christians and non-Muslims in Christian lands.  No my friends, the Crusaders were only trying to defend or rescue Christians and non-Muslims from death, rape, and torture at the hands of armies of Muslims.  Were those Muslims just radicals and not representative of Islam?

It is my fervent desire that through this blog and others in the future, the US will wake from its slumbers and take a firm stand against the alleged religion of peace. Personally, I don’t have anything against Islam, even though I thoroughly disagree with it and am convinced that it is a false religion, and I pray daily that the “people of the book” will some day open their hearts to the true God – the Holy God of the Bible, and leave Islam.

The Bible vs. The Quran

Much fuss has been made over the violent passages in the Bible, and the people who make these claims try to say that there is no difference – that the Quran is no more violent than the Bible, or conversely that the Bible is as violent as the Quran.  The following article should go a long way toward dispelling those claims.

Flying Hijacked Planes into Glass Houses

A response to the American Muslim article:
Throwing Stones at the Quran from a Glass House

In an article entitled, “Throwing Stones at the Quran from a Glass House”, The American Muslim claims that the verses of violence and war in the Bible can be misread in “exactly the same way as some verses in the Qur’an” (emphasis ours). In other words, the on-line magazine alleges that, like the Quran, there are Biblical verses with open-ended commands to violence that are not bound by historical context within the passage itself.

Our first clue that this probably isn’t true is the scarcity of Christian terrorist groups. Not too many people are losing their heads to fanatics screaming praises to Jesus (or Moses, Buddha or the many Hindu gods either) as they are to shouts of “Allah Akbar!” That there are so many Islamic terrorist groups composed of fundamentalists (or purists) of the Muslim faith is enough to impress any reasonable person that there is something far more dangerous about Islam.

Nevertheless, to support their claim, The American Muslim quotes sixteen of the worst passages that the Bible has to offer in the way of violence. Others are alluded to as well, but delving into these particular verses should be a large enough sample to expose whatever sophistry might be at play.

Their first try is a passage from Deuteronomy that might appear to command present-day believers to take a city by force and slaughter the inhabitants on order from God:

“When you approach a city to fight against it, you shall offer it terms of peace. If it agrees to make peace with you and opens to you, then all the people who are found in it shall become your forced labor and shall serve you. However, if it does not make peace with you, but makes war against you, then you shall besiege it. When the LORD your God gives it into your hand, you shall strike all the men in it with the edge of the sword. Only the women and the children and the animals and all that is in the city, all its spoil, you shall take as booty for yourself; and you shall use the spoil of your enemies which the LORD your God has given you. Only in the cities of these peoples that the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, you shall not leave alive anything that breathes” (Deuteronomy 20:10-17 – As quoted by The American Muslim

Except for the part about sparing women and children, this sounds similar to a verse from the Qur’an:

And when We would destroy a township We send commandment to its folk who live at ease, and afterward they commit abomination therein, and so the Word (of doom) hath effect for it, and we annihilate it with complete annihilation. (Quran 17:16)

But, in fact, the Biblical passage is not an open-ended command, but instead, a story of history bound within the text. Having trouble seeing this? That’s because the author of The American Muslim piece cleverly left out this part of the passage:

“Completely destroy them—the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites—as the LORD your God has commanded you”

Yes, it turns out that this was a specific command, given at a specific time to the tribe of Israel concerning a discrete target. This is why Christians and Jews do not treat these verses as present-day imperatives.

Strategic omission is just one way that Muslim apologists manipulate Biblical passages. (In this case, The American Muslim editors did not even include an ellipsis in place of the omission, since it may have raised the suspicions of the reader).

The next passage that The American Muslim claims promotes violence is from the apostle Paul, who writes:

“Hymenaeus and Alexander I have delivered to Satan that they may learn not to blaspheme.” (1Timothy 1:20)

The violence in the passage is not exactly evident from this reading. In the context of the previous verse, these two men “suffered shipwreck with regard to the faith,” but there is nothing to indicate that they were physically harmed as a result. It was the practice of the early Church to excommunicate apostates, and there is every reason to believe that this was the “fate” of these two individuals. They were expelled from the Church by Paul. The Christian Church does not advocate killing apostates.

Contrast this with the words of Muhammad:

“Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him.'” (Bukhari 84:57)

Not much ambiguity there. Abu Bakr, the first caliph and several other Muslims testified that Muhammad had indeed put Muslim apostates to death. For this reason, the practice is coded in Islamic law.

The next passage that is supposed to inspire Christians to violence is the recounting of David’s victory against the Philistines:

“This day the LORD will deliver you into my hand, and I will strike you down, and cut off your head; and I will give the dead bodies of the host of the Philistines this day to the birds of the air and to the wild beasts of the earth; that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel, Then David ran and stood over the Philistine, and took his sword and drew it out of its sheath, and killed him, and cut off his head with it…. And David took the head of the Philistine and brought it to Jerusalem; but he put his armor in his tent. And as David returned from the slaughter of the Philistine, Abner took him, and brought him before Saul with the head of the Philistine in his hand.” (1 Samuel 17:46 – As Quoted by The American Muslim)

This is actually parts of verse 46 through 54. We won’t waste much time here, because it is apparent that this is a recounting of an historical event. The omitted passages from within the text make it even more obvious.

Compare this to the word of Allah in the Quran:

“I will instill terror into the hearts of the Unbelievers: smite ye above their necks and smite all their finger-tips off them.” (Quran 8:12)

There is no historical context to mitigate this Qur’anic exhortation either in the verse or in those that surround it. (The American Muslim actually makes a monumental effort to bring historical context to the verse from sources external to the Qur’an in this article, which contains several inaccuracies regarding the timing of the “revelation” of the verse, the justification for attacking caravans, and the fate of hostages taken in battle, some of whom were actually put to death).

The next five passages quoted by The American Muslim, in trying to make the case that the Bible can be used to command violence, all suffer from the same problems as above:

“Then Abishai the son of Zeruiah said to the king, “Why should this dead dog curse my lord the king? Let me go over and take off his head.”… And there is also with you Shimei the son of Gera, the Benjaminite from Bahurim, who cursed me with a grievous curse on the day when I went to Mahanaim; but when he came down to meet me at the Jordan, I swore to him by the LORD, saying, I will not put you to death with the sword.’ Now therefore hold him not guiltless, for you are a wise man; you will know what you ought to do to him, and you shall bring his gray head down with blood to Sheol.” (2 Samuel 16:9, 1 Kings 2:8)

” When they came into the house, as he lay on his bed in his bedchamber, they smote him, and slew him, and beheaded him. They took his head, and went by the way of the Arabah all night, and brought the head of Ishbosheth to David at Hebron. And they said to the king, “Here is the head of Ishbosheth, the son of Saul, your enemy, who sought your life; the LORD has avenged my lord the king this day on Saul and on his offspring.” (2 Samuel 4:7)

“That is not true. But a man of the hill country of Ephraim, called Sheba the son of Bichri, has lifted up his hand against King David; give up him alone, and I will withdraw from the city.” And the woman said to Joab, “Behold, his head shall be thrown to you over the wall.” Then the woman went to all the people in her wisdom. And they cut off the head of Sheba the son of Bichri, and threw it out to Joab.” (2 Samuel 20:21)

“at Jezreel by this time tommorrow…And when the letter came to them, they took the king’s sons, and slew them, seventy persons, and put their heads in baskets, and sent them to him at Jezreel. When the messenger came and told him, “They have brought the heads of the king’s sons,” he said, “Lay them in two heaps at the entrance of the gate until the morning.”. (2 Kings Chapter 10 verse 6) “God has now fulfilled the prophecy of the prophet Elijah. So Jehu put to death all who were left of the house of Ahab in Jezreel, as well as all of his close friends and priests, until he had left not one single survivor.” (2 Kings Chapter 10 verse 10) “He put to death all of Ahab’s house, who were left there and so blotted it out, in fulfillment of the word which YAHWEH had spoken to Elijah.” (2 Kings Chapter 10 verse 7)

“When the LORD your God brings you into the land where you are entering to possess it, and clears away many nations before you, the Hittites and the Girgashites and the Amorites and the Canaanites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and stronger than you. And when the LORD your God delivers them before you and you defeat them, then you shall utterly destroy them. You shall make no covenant with them and show no favor to them.” (Deuteronomy 7:1-2)

No doubt these were bad days to be particular individuals by the name of Shimei, Ishbosheth, Sheba or Ahab, but they obviously aren’t around anymore to complain. Same with the tribes mentioned in the passage from Deuteronomy. This is history, of course, not some open-ended instruction like:

“Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, and those who are with him are ruthless to the Unbelievers, but merciful to each other.” (Quran 48:29)

At this point, The American Muslim pulls two verses out of the New Testament Gospels. The first is quoted as if they are the words of Jesus:

“I tell you that to everyone who has, more shall be given, but from the one who does not have, even what he does have shall be taken away. But these enemies of mine, who did not want me to reign over them, bring them here and slay them in my presence.”(Luke 19:26-27)

But, in fact, this is the tail end of a parable being told by Jesus. The words actually belong to one of the characters in his story.

Again, contrast this with the actual words of Muhammad:

[Allah’s Apostle said] “The Hour will not be established until you fight with the Jews, and the stone behind which a Jew will be hiding will say. “O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, so kill him.” (Bukhari 52:256)

We don’t have to play the same games here that The American Muslim does to try and convince Christians that they should kill based on the words of a parable. Not only are these Muhammad’s own words, but there are many Muslims at this very moment who are trying to kill Jews in Israel. Their religious leaders quote this passage to inspire them.

Moving along to the second New Testament verse that supposedly advocates violence:

“Do not think that I have come to send peace on earth. I did not come to send peace, but a sword. I am sent to set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law” (Matthew 10:34-35)

Though not quoted in the article, the passage actually goes on to say, “Your enemies will be the members of your own household. Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves a son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it. ”

Obviously, Jesus is speaking of the coming hardships that will be suffered by Christians (ironically, the worst abusers eventually turned out to be Muslims). The “sword” is a metaphor for the persecution against believers, not an admonition for them to take up arms. In fact, elsewhere Jesus prevented one of his disciples from fighting on his behalf and rebuked him for doing so. In confirmation of this, none of his immediate followers formed an armed militia of any sort. There were no armies claiming to be “Christian” for many centuries.

By contrast, Muhammad was a military leader who killed people in battle, executed captives and enslaved women and children. When he said that “Jihad in the way of Allah elevates the position of a man in paradise” (Sahih Muslim 20:4645), his followers knew what he meant. They engaged in warfare following his death, which continues to this day.

The American Muslim then moves back to the Old Testament:

“I will send my fear before thee, and will destroy all the people to whom thou shalt come, and I will make all thine enemies turn their backs unto thee.” (Exodus 23:27)

Is this an open-ended imperative for present-day Christians and Jews? Hardly. Here’s the next verse:

“I will send the hornet ahead of you to drive the Hivites, Canaanites and Hittites out of your way”

Again, not a good time to be a Hivate, Hittite, or a Canaanite… but who is these days?

By contrast, the Qur’an speaks ill of Christians, Jews, “unbelievers” and “pagans,” and commands its readers to “slay the infidel wherever ye find him.” The historical context of the verse is apparently not all that conspicuous, judging by the fact that so many Muslims are trying so hard to kill these people in the name of Allah.

The American Muslim tries again:

And the LORD our God delivered him before us; and we smote him, and his sons, and all his people. At God’s instructions, the Israelites “utterly destroyed the men, women, and the little ones” leaving “none to remain.” And we took all his cities at that time, and utterly destroyed the men, and the women, and the little ones, of every city, we left none to remain. (Deuteronomy 2:33-36)

At this point, you can probably guess that there is something being left out. If you look at the original passage, you’ll find that it refers to the Battle of Jahaz and even says “at that time” (emphasizing that this is history – not edict).

Next is this passage from Joshua:

Joshua said to the people of Israel, “The Lord has given you the city of the all silver, and gold, and vessels of brass and iron, are consecrated unto the Lord: They shall come into the treasury of the Lord. The people utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword. (Joshua 6:21-23 as Quoted by the American Muslim)

The manipulation of the original passage is so extensive that the verse is barely recognizable. The author employs both omission and juxtaposition to try and emphasize that the city in question was destroyed. In fact, the original does say that not everyone within the city was killed. Even so, this is still a violent passage… but it is not open-ended instruction.

The city in question was Jericho, and the verses tell of the battle between the ancient Israelites and the inhabitants therein – and the subsequent massacre. It is obviously a historical passage, and it no more inspires violence than reading an account of the Japanese slaughter of the people of Nanjing in 1937.

The American Muslim then pulls a verse from the Old Testament that it says can be interpreted to mean that apostates should be stoned:

“And he should go and worship other gods and bow down to them or to the sun or the moon or all the army of the heavens, …and you must stone such one with stones and such one must die.” (Deuteronomy 17:3-5, as quoted by the American Muslim)

What does the ellipsis leave out, you may be wondering? Well, it turns out that this was yet another specific command handed down to a specific people at a specific time:

“If a man or woman living among you in one of the towns the LORD gives you is found doing evil in the eyes of the LORD your God in violation of his covenant, and contrary to my command has worshiped other gods, bowing down to them or to the sun or the moon or the stars in the sky, and this has been brought to your attention, then you must investigate it thoroughly. If it is true and it has been proved that this detestable thing has been done in Israel, take the man or woman who has done this evil deed to your city gate and stone that person to death” (Actual text)

No Christian in their right mind would kill someone for worshipping a different god based on this passage. While it’s true that Christian apostates have been killed in sporadic and rare historical incidents, it was not the example of Jesus, nor is it a part of Christian teaching.

As we have already pointed out, however, Islam’s most reliable Hadith mandates the execution of apostates from Islam. It is firmly established in Islamic law, since it is the example set forth by Muhammad himself.

The American Muslim then submits a rare New Testament verse as proof that Christians can interpret the Bible as a command to murder in the way that Jihadis wage holy war:

“Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.” (Romans 1:20-32, as quoted by the American Muslim)

It is unclear why the author cites verses 20-32 but quotes only the last verse. The full text of the passage actually contains a rebuke against killing and it assigns judgment to God alone. The next verses in sequence confirm this:

“You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things. Now we know that God’s judgment against those who do such things is based on truth. So when you, a mere human, pass judgment on them and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God’s judgment?” (Romans 2:1)

God is the judge, and not man, according to the context of this passage. How anyone is supposed to interpret this to mean exactly the opposite – that they should kill another human being – is a leap of logic that escapes this writer (and generations of Christians as well, apparently).

Muhammad’s own words, however, contain no such cryptic message:

“Fighting is prescribed for you, and ye dislike it. But it is possible that ye dislike a thing which is good for you, and that ye love a thing which is bad for you. But Allah knoweth, and ye know not.” (Quran 2:216)

Now, at last, The American Muslim pulls out the grand finale – the famous passage from Numbers that is quoted so enthusiastically by the detractors of Western religion:

“Now therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known man intimately. But all the girls who have not known man intimately, spare for yourselves.” (Numbers 31:17-18)

From the way this is quoted, it sounds as if God is telling today’s Bible-thumpers to kill every man within reach and enslave their women and children. What a horrible world this would be if Christians took this fragment literally and killed the nearest person.

So why aren’t the Jews and Christians of today doing this?

Well, it’s most likely because there aren’t any Midianites around, since that was the unfortunate tribe on which this vengeance is specifically commanded – as it is obvious from the surrounding verses. Again, this is a historical narration that clearly refers to an obscure tribe, unlike many of the open-ended passages of violence against unbelievers, “idolaters,” polytheists, Jews and Christians found in the Qur’an.

Contemporary Islamic apologists, such as the author of this American Muslim piece, apparently borrowed this research from secular critics of Christianity, who use passages such as these to make dark insinuations about the character of the god of the Bible and thus bolster their rejection of all religion.

This certainly makes for some strange bedfellows, given that most atheists would concur that the god of Muhammad is far more violent than the god of the New Testament. (Those who may not agree are free to travel to a Muslim country and see how publicly denying Allah there compares to Christian “intolerance” at home, but they may want to make out a will beforehand).

We’ll leave it to the theologians to respond, since the character of God and the nature of progressive revelation falls outside the scope of this discussion. Our only interest here is in the argument that Muslims are trying to make by citing such passages.

Since Muslims do not argue the point that Muhammad commanded the slaughter and enslavement of others at various times in his last ten years (a practice that his followers have faithfully applied to this very day), their logic here is quite tenuous. At best, these apologists appear to be trying to bring other religions down to the level of Islam, particularly Christianity.

What makes this noteworthy is that Christians and others do not act as if they need to bring Islam down to their religion of choice. The reason is that no other religion regularly kills members of every other faith explicitly in the name its god. And, on the rare occasions when this does happen, the response is anger and denouncement rather than the general indifference that Muslims have for Islamic terror (aside from the 15% or so who openly endorse it).

Islamic terrorists wage holy war on a daily basis because it is the literal command of the Qur’an. Western Muslim apologists (concerned solely with the image of Islam) window-dress these violent passages through a complex series of appeals to a patchwork of external Muslim sources. Then, after delicately arranging the products of this Herculean charade in such a way as to convince the rest of us that these Qur’anic verses of violence are not what they appear, the apologist steps back, wipes the sweat from his brow and says, “See how clear it is? No Muslim could possibly interpret this command to kill as a command to kill.”

Well, why are these verses in the Qur’an at all, then? If they are supposed to be history, then why do they appear as imperative? Why isn’t the context right there in the text as it is in the Old Testament?

After all, this is supposed to be Allah’s perfect book. How is it that it is so vulnerable to the worst sort of “misinterpretation”?

Lacking a decent answer to these questions, Muslims attack the Bible instead.

See also: Comparing Islam and Christianity, Muhammad and Jesus

Also: The Political Violence of the Bible and the Koran by Bill Warner in the American Thinker. This article points out that about 67% of the Quran is devoted to Jihad. The Islamic trilogy (the Quran, Hadith and Sira) contain 9.6 times as much violence as the Hebrew Bible (there New Testament has none).

The difference, as we point out in this article is not just quantitative, but one of quality as well. As Warner puts it: “The political violence of the Koran is eternal and universal. The political violence of the Bible was for that particular historical time and place. This is the vast difference between Islam and other ideologies. The violence remains a constant threat to all non-Islamic cultures, now and into the future.”

When will America Finally Take A Stand?

Hi all,
As a concerned American I am constantly amazed at the apathy or naivete of our politicians and military about Islamic terror and the worldwide Islamic agenda. Today, a good friend of mine sent me the following several excerpts from a speech given by a Lebanese Christian who has experienced first-hand what will eventually happen in the US if we do nothing to stop it.

I give you the following:

EVERY AMERICAN NEEDS TO READ THIS!
Editor’s Note: Below are selected excerpts from Brigitte Gabriel’s speech delivered at the Intelligence Summit in Washington DC

We gather here today to share information and knowledge. Intelligence is not merely cold hard data about numerical strength or armament or disposition of military forces. The most important element of intelligence has to be understanding the mindset and intention of the enemy. The West has been wallowing in a state of ignorance and denial for thirty years as Muslim extremist perpetrated evil against innocent victims in the name of Allah.

I was ten years old when my home exploded around me, burying me under the rubble and leaving me to drink my blood to survive, as the perpetrators shouted, ‘Allah Akbar!’ My only crime was that I was a Christian living in a Christian town. At 10 years old, I learned the meaning of the word ‘infidel.’

I had a crash course in survival. Not in the Girl Scouts, but in a bomb shelter where I lived for seven years in pitch darkness, freezing cold, drinking stale water and eating grass to live. At the age of 13, I dressed in my burial clothes going to bed at night, waiting to be slaughtered. By the age of 20, I had buried most of my friends–killed by Muslims. We were not Americans living in New York , or Britons in London . We were Arab Christians living in Lebanon.

As a victim of Islamic terror, I was amazed when I saw Americans waking up on September 12, 2001, and asking themselves ‘Why do they hate us?’ The psychoanalyst experts were coming up with all sort of excuses as to what did we do to offend the Muslim World. But if America and the West were paying attention to the Middle East they would not have had to ask the question. Simply put, they hate us because we are defined in their eyes by one simple word: ‘infidels.’

Under the banner of Islam ‘la, ilaha illa Allah, muhammad

rasoulu Allah,’ (None is god except Allah; Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah) they murdered Jewish children in Israel, massacred Christians in Lebanon, killed Copts in Egypt, Assyrians in Syria, Hindus in India, and expelled almost 900,000 Jews from Muslim lands. We Middle Eastern infidels paid the price then. Now infidels worldwide are paying the price for indifference and shortsightedness.

Tolerating evil is a crime. Appeasing murderers doesn’t buy protection. It earns one disrespect and loathing in the enemy’s eyes. Yet apathy is the weapon by which the West is committing suicide. Political correctness forms the shackles around our ankles, by which Islamist’s are leading us to our demise.

America and the West are doomed to failure in this war unless they stand up and identify the real enemy: Islam. You hear about Cahaba and Salafi Islam as the only extreme form of Islam. All the other Muslims, supposedly, are wonderful moderates. Closer to the truth are the pictures of the irrational eruption of violence in reaction to the cartoons of Mohammed printed by a Danish newspaper. From burning embassies, to calls to butcher those who mock Islam, to warnings that the West be prepared for another holocaust, those pictures have given us a glimpse into the real face of the enemy. News pictures and video of these events represent a canvas of hate decorated by different nationalities who share one common ideology of hate, bigotry and intolerance derived from one source: authentic Islam. An Islam that is awakening from centuries of slumber to re-ignite its wrath against the infidel and dominate the world. An Islam which has declared ‘Intifada’ on the West.
America and the West can no longer afford to lay in their lazy state of overweight ignorance. The consequences of this mental disease are starting to attack the body, and if they don’t take the necessary steps now to control it, death will be knocking soon. If you want to understand the nature of the enemy we face, visualize a tapestry of snakes. They slither and they hiss, and they would eat each other alive, but they will unite in a hideous mass to achieve their common goal of imposing Islam on the world.

This is the ugly face of the enemy we are fighting. We are fighting a powerful ideology that is capable of altering basic human instincts. An ideology that can turn a mother into a launching pad of death. A perfect example is a recently elected Hamas official in the Palestinian Territories who raves in heavenly joy about sending her three sons to death and offering the ones who are still alive for the cause. It is an ideology that is capable of offering highly educated individuals such as doctors and lawyers far more joy in attaining death than any respect and stature life in society is ever capable of giving them.

The United States has been a prime target for radical Islamic hatred and terror. Every Friday, mosques in the Middle East ring with shrill prayers and monotonous chants calling death, destruction and damnation down on America and its people. The radical Islamist deeds have been as vile as their words. Since the Iran hostage crisis, more than three thousand Americans have died in a terror campaign almost unprecedented in its calculated cruelty along with thousands of other citizens worldwide. Even the Nazis did not turn their own children into human bombs, and then rejoice at their deaths as well the deaths of their victims. This intentional, indiscriminate and wholesale murder of innocent American citizens is justified and glorified in the name of Islam.
America cannot effectively defend itself in this war unless and until the American people understand the nature of the enemy that we face. Even after 9/11 there are those who say that we must engage our terrorist enemies, that we must address their grievances. Their grievance is our freedom of religion. Their grievance is our freedom of speech. Their grievance is our democratic process where the rule of law comes from the voices of many not that of just one prophet. It is the respect we instill in our children towards all religions. It is the equality we grant each other as human beings sharing a planet and striving to make the world a better place for all humanity. Their grievance is the kindness and respect a man shows a woman, the justice we practice as equals under the law, and the mercy we grant our enemy. Their grievance cannot be answered by an apology for who or what we are.

Our mediocre attitude of not confronting Islamic forces of bigotry and hatred wherever they raised their ugly head in the last 30 years, has empowered and strengthened our enemy to launch a full scale attack on the very freedoms we cherish in their effort to impose their values and way of life on our civilization.

If we don’t wake up and challenge our Muslim community to take action against the terrorists within it, if we don’t believe in ourselves as Americans and in the standards we should hold every patriotic American to, we are going to pay a price for our delusion. For the sake of our children and our country, we must wake up and take action. In the face of a torrent of hateful invective and terrorist murder, America ‘s learning curve since the Iran hostage crisis is so shallow that it is almost flat. The longer we lay supine, the more difficult it will be to stand erect.

This is all coming true. A non-patriot pro-Muslim is President of this great country. How can this happen?? APATHY, that’s how!!! Send this around.

Brigitte Gabriel is an expert on the Middle East conflict and lectures nationally and internationally on the subject. She’s the former news anchor of World News for Middle East television and the founder of AmericanCongressforTruth.com

Wrong Court Hearing Case Against Arizona?

There has been a lot of controversy over the Obama Administration’s relentless attack against the governor and the state of Arizona over their legislation to help cope with the invasion of their state by illegal aliens, criminals, and Mexican drug cartels, but what many may not realize is that it may be worse that we think.  Please carefully read the following article and judge for yourself.

Wrong Court Ruled on Arizona Law 
 
In a stunning development that could potentially send the nation into a Constitutional crisis, an astute attorney who is well-versed in Constitutional law states that the ruling against the State of Arizona by Judge Susan Bolton concerning its new immigration law is illegal. 
 
The attorney in question submitted her assertion in a special article in the Canada Free Press. Her argument states in part, “Does anyone read the U.S. Constitution these days? American lawyers don’t read it. Federal Judge Susan R. Bolton apparently has never read it. Same goes for our illustrious Attorney General Eric Holder. 
 
But this lawyer has read it and she is going to show you something in Our Constitution which is as plain as the nose on your face. 
 
“Article III, Sec. 2, clause 2 says: “In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction. In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction.” 
 
In other words, the Judge in the Arizona case has absolutely no Constitutional jurisdiction over the matter upon which she ruled. As the Constitution makes abundantly clear, only the U.S. Supreme Court can issue rulings that involve a state. This means that neither Judge Bolton nor the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco , to which the case is being appealed, have any legal standing whatsoever to rule on the issue. Thus, U.S. Attorney-General Eric Holder filed the federal government’s lawsuit against the state of Arizona in a court that has no authority to hear the case. 
 
In a related development, another explosive discovery was made by those who actually take the Constitution seriously. The Constitution specifically allows an individual state to wage war against a neighboring country in the event of an invasion, should there be a dangerous delay or inaction on the part of the federal government. 
 
From Article I, Section 10 of the U.S. Constitution, we find these words: No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay.” 
 
No one who is actually familiar with the crisis at the southern border can deny that Arizona is endangered by the relentless assault of lawless Mexican invaders who ignore our laws, inundate our schools and medical facilities with unpaid bills, and even endanger the very lives of citizens with criminal drug cartels that engage in kidnapping, murder, human trafficking, and other mayhem, including aiming missile and grenade launchers directly at U.S. border cities from just across the Mexican border. This is every bit as much of an invasion as the nation of Iran sending in a fleet of warships to the Port of Charleston . 
 
The Constitution that forms the basis of the rule of law in this country says that Arizona has legal right to protect itself in the case of inaction or delay on the part of the federal government, including waging war in its self-defense. 
 
This, when coupled with the clear Constitutional mandate that only the Supreme Court hear cases involving the states, should be ample legal basis for attorneys representing Arizona to go after the federal government with a vengeance. 
 
Governor Jan Brewer and the stalwart members of the Arizona legislature have ample legal reason to stand firm against the illegal bullying of an arrogant, lawless federal government. And there are established procedures by which Federal Judge Susan R. Bolton can be removed from her position as a result of her violating her oath of office to uphold and defend the Constitution for the  United States of America .

Glenn Beck – The New Face of Mormonism?

In one big stroke, Beck has all but claimed God, country, and patriotism for the Mormons, and now the Christian community will be forced into a “me too” sort of thing, possibly turning into a battle to see who can show themselves to be more patriotic, more faithful to God, etc. What’s that old saying – the last story teller never stands a chance? Also, the liberals and the atheist/agnostic crowd will get a big kick out of seeing Christians and Mormons at each other’s throats, if it indeed comes to that. It will also force the “religious right” Christians to take a long and hard look at their relationship with Mormons, Mormon support of conservative (read Republican?) candidates and conservative-sponsored legislation,  and Mormon money – which helps run the engines of many conservative  candidates. It’s a fact that Mormons have fully adopted the Republican Party and have contributed millions to Republican candidates and conservative causes for decades. It is also a fact that per capita, they generally show much more commitment to supporting conservative candidates and causes than many of their Christian counterparts. This then raises the question, are Christians as committed to telling the truth and sharing the Gospel as the Mormons are in telling their story and in sharing their false gospel? It also forces us to ask whether we are Christians in deed or in name only. Are we the lukewarm people which we are warned not to be, that Jesus will spit out of His mouth come judgment day? When will the “sleeping giant”, as Billy Graham calls us, finally wake up and take the stand that Christ wants us to take, to defend our Christian beliefs and to take back our country that is in its current sad state of affairs? I may be wrong but it seems to me that many Christians simply don’t care enough about things – aren’t upset and/or willing to get out of their “comfort zones” and take some heat,  to do more than occasionally gripe about it and then go on with their daily lives.  Could it be that the easy life that Christians have in the US has lulled us all into a deadly complacency so that we don’t take a stand on important issues anymore and just let the other side have their way?   Beyond that, doesn’t it now seem that many Christians, including some fairly prominent Christian leaders, think that either Beck is a Christian and we should leave him alone or that he is doing Christian work and we should leave him alone and not criticize what he is doing? 

Don’t get me wrong – last Saturday’s rally in DC was incredible and wouldn’t it be great if something similar could happen in every major city in the US.  That’s not my point.  When Glenn Beck speaks about God, he is talking about the Mormon god (I believe they call him Jehovah and/or “heavenly father”) and not the Christian God of the Bible.  When he talks about Jesus, again, he is talking about the Mormon version of Jesus and not the Jesus of the Bible.  So what, you might say.  So what indeed.  According to Mormon theology, their god (heavenly father, etc) is only one of billions that are all through the universe, unlike the God the Father who is the one and only Creator of the universe and everything in it.  Their Jesus is the spirit-brother of Lucifer, otherwise known as Satan, unlike the Jesus of the Bible, who is our Savior and is one with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit and reigns with them in heaven.

Beck may have even had a pure motive for doing last Saturday’s event that didn’t involve trying to generate converts to Mormonism. But, he IS a Mormon and a very dedicated one, and one whose mentor was a renegade Mormon with such unusual teachings, even for mainstream Mormonism, that Mormon leaders removed the man from BYU. Mormonism is NOT Christian, in spite of the Mormon claim that Mormonism is the one true church.  If you go to Beck’s website, just about every page has some sort of invitational phrase, offering to guide potential converts to Mormons or to Beck himself, who will help you on the path to Mormonism. As a good Mormon, it is his duty to try to convert everyone he can to Mormonism, and that is a fact. He has a Mormon agenda, one that includes trying to re-write the history of the American Indians, as well as trying to establish as fact the Mormon claim that the American Indians are somehow descended from the “lost tribes of Israel”, contrary to well-established fact. In his attempts to do so, he has lumped the US government, institutions like the Smithsonian, and others, in a massive conspiracy to in his words “re-write the history of the American Indians”, and claims that they are the ones in error, citing a plethora of bogus information and pseudo-scientific “evidence” from LDS sources, most of them with absolutely no legitimate credentials whatsoever. The problem is that absolute lack of credible evidence doesn’t matter to Mormons, because they are driven by their feelings and their “testimony”, which then trumps all scientific, historical, archaeological, and any other kind of solid evidence which calls into question any of their beliefs. It was either Brigham Young or one of the other early leaders who stated that they will have their own history, their own math, their own literature, their own science, and basically their own reality.

You will notice that so far, the LDS leadership have been extremely quiet regarding Beck, but in many of the “unofficial” LDS websites, they are openly praising him and his efforts to evangelize our corrupt nation and expose it to Mormonism. He has also possibly turned into one of the biggest threats to liberalism in the US, and that has the liberals and the atheists/agnostics in a total uproar. In fact, I believe that they may now be more infuriated with Beck than Palin, as well as at the people who have been chanting “Palin – Beck for President and VP”.

So what next? What do we do to counter the Mormon threat? I call it a threat because Mormons would have us believe that their church is the only true Christian church and Mormonism is trying to pass itself off as Christianity, much like a chameleon changes its colors to blend in with its surroundings, and it is doing a very good job.  The answer is very simple – do what Christ said to do – the Great Commission. Share the gospel with everyone. Raise our children in a truly Christian home and lead them by a Christian example. Perhaps most importantly, live our Christian faith and take a stand for our beliefs and our country. Talk to our Mormon neighbors and try to show them the truth about Mormonism in a loving manner and not in an insulting or egotistical way. We must be as committed and willing to preach the truth as the Mormons are to preach their false doctrine.  Pray and ask for God’s enabling power, bathing the whole process in prayer.  After all, with God nothing is impossible.  Don’t ever be discouraged.  As it says in Romans chapter 8: 38, 39, “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus”. 

For more information on the Book of Mormon, please visit my website: www.solomonspalding.info.

Art Vanick

Glenn Beck: The New LDS Apologist?

This is weird.  Glenn Beck, who became a Mormon a few years back, is now using his program to promote Mormon archaeology.  If you click on these links you can view it.  He also has a conspiracy theory about how science, government, commerce, and religion, not in the least, the Smithsonian Institute, purposefully altered history.   My good friend Kurt Van Gorden sent me the links below, as well as the descriptions of what he is saying in the videos.

            In the first video, about half way through, I about fell out of my chair when Beck referenced Adair’s History of the American Indians ( imagine! ) as proof of similarity between Native American ceremonies and Israelites.  He forgot to mention that it predates the BOM by several decades (It was written arounde 1765!).  He then ties the Egyptian pyramid math to the Indian mounds (only FARMS and the Maxwell Institute have ventured in this arena, which instantly identified his sources for me).  Then in the second video, he uses the fraudulent Newark Stone and the fraudulent Bat Creek stone Hebrew inscriptions as proof of Hebrew among the Indians.  He dismisses the claims of fraud as a Smithsonian conspiracy to demean the intelligence of the Native American.  You’ve got to see it to believe it.  Modern science has abundantly proven the origin of the American Indians, yet Beck is still using a fairy tale written by Adair as “proof” of the authenticity of the Book of Mormon!

            One more thing.  Notice that when he discusses scalping of Colonialists and Indians, he makes the sweeping statement, “Even Puritan Ministers” scalped for money.  Now get this.  Here he is trying to tell us that people have changed history to benefit themselves, but he just did the same here.  There is no evidence that “Puritan Ministers” (plural) scalped Indians for money.  There is evidence that one Puritan minister (singular) did such, which was carried in a story in the Boston Globe (Boston Globe, Date: 12/31/2000 Page: B10 Section: Metro/Region.)  How is that for Beck changing history?  If this is Beck’s style for the new untainted history, then give me the old history any day.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7bwIKq_9MQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9VA1cbh0jI

Has Glenn Beck become the new “face” of LDS apologetics?

Just one state and its problems

Hi folks,

A good friend of mine sent me this in an email.  He and I live in California, the “Golden State”, and it apparently has become golden for most of the illegal aliens who have come across the border and are living off of the taxpayers of our state.  The statistics in this post are meant to educate, not encourage hate, as many on the left will more than likely claim.  California taxpayers are being overburdened with excessive taxes and out of control spending, as well as by having not only to pay for their own welfare but also for those who are in the state of California illegally.  As if the situation in California isn’t bad enough with the tremendous drain on our already weakened economy, Nancy Pelosi wants to make it worse by taxing the retirement income of all legitimate citizens so that she can then give it to those who are here illegally, raising their financial status while cutting down the financial status of people who have paid more than their fair share of taxes all of their lives.  If she and all of the other liberals in the US want to financially build up all of the illegal aliens, then let them lead by example, starting with George Soros, and go right on down the line, doing what Jesus told the young rich man to do – namely give all of their wealth to the poor.  I’ve heard enough talk from Pelosi and the others about this.  Let’s see them give away all of their money to the illegal aliens.  Jesus told people to give from their hearts as the Holy Spirit moved them.  He did not say that it was right for the government to take from those who have to then give to those who don’t have.  Please, lead us by your example, Madame Speaker. 

The following is the email I received from my friend:

Just One State be sure and read the last part.. 

This is only one State………………If this doesn’t open eyes, nothing will!  

 
>From the L. A. Times 
1. 40% of all workers in L. A. County ( L. A. County  has 10.2 million people) are working for cash and not paying taxes. 
   This is because they are predominantly illegal immigrants working without a green card.
2. 95% of warrants for murder in Los Angeles are for illegal aliens.
3. 75% of people on the most wanted list in Los Angeles are illegal aliens.  
4. Over 2/3 of all births in Los Angeles County are to illegal alien Mexicans on Medi-Cal, whose births were paid for by taxpayers.
5. Nearly 35% of all inmates in California detention centers are Mexican nationals here illegally.
6. Over 300,000 illegal aliens in   Los Angeles County are living in garages.
7. The FBI reports half of all gang members in Los Angeles are most likely illegal aliens from south of the border.
8. Nearly 60% of all occupants of HUD properties are illegal.
9. 21 radio stations in L. A. are Spanish speaking.
10. In L.. A. County 5.1 million people speak English, 3.9 million speak Spanish.. (There are 10.2 million people in L. A. County .)
  
(All 10 of the above facts were published in the Los Angeles Times) 
  
Less than 2% of illegal aliens are picking our crops, but 29% are on welfare. Over 70% of the   United States ‘ annual population growth(and over 90% of California , Florida , and New York ) results from immigration. 29% of inmates in federal prisons are illegal aliens .  
  
We are fools for letting this continue  
  
HOW CAN YOU HELP ?
  
Send copies of this letter to at least two other people.  100 would  be even better.
This  is only one State…………….
  
If this doesn’t open your eyes nothing will, and you wonder why Nancy Pelosi wants them to become voters!
   
                                           ************************************* 
 
LET’S IMPEACH HER NOW BEFORE SHE DOES FURTHER DAMAGE!! 

Windfall Tax on Retirement Income 

Adding a tax to your retirement is simply another way of saying to the American people, you’re so darn stupid that we’re going to keep doing this until we drain every cent from you. That’s what the Speaker of the House is saying. Read below……………
 
Nancy Pelosi wants a Windfall Tax on Retirement Income.  In other words tax what you have made by investing toward your retirement..  
Madam speaker Nancy Pelosi wants to put a Windfall Tax on all stock market profits (including Retirement fund, 401K and Mutual Funds! 
 
Alas, it is true – all to help the 12 Million Illegal Immigrants and other unemployed Minorities!
 
This woman is frightening.
 
She quotes…’ We need to work toward the goal of equalizing income, (didn’t Marx say something like this?), in our country and at the same time limiting the amount the rich can invest.’  (I am not rich, are you?)

When asked how these new tax dollars would be spent, she replied:

‘We need to raise the standard of living of our poor, unemployed and minorities. For example, we have an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in our country who need our help along with millions of unemployed minorities. Stock market windfall profits taxes could go a long way to guarantee these people the standard of living they would like to have as ‘Americans’.’   
(Read that quote again and again and let it sink in.)  ‘Lower your retirement, give it to others who have not worked as you have for it’.

Ben Stein’s Sunday message

Hi folks,

I just got this forwarded to me and I felt that it was too good to be relegated to just being forwarded via email.  It is allegedly a televised message by Ben Stein.  The reason I say allegedly is because I haven’t checked it out on Snopes.  It doesn’t really matter because I wholeheartedly agree with what Mr. Stein is saying.  Here is Ben’s message:

The following was written by Ben Stein and recited by him on CBS Sunday Morning Commentary.

My confession:

I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish.  And it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautiful lit up, bejeweled trees, Christmas trees..  I don’t feel threatened.  I don’t feel discriminated against. That’s what they are, Christmas trees.

It doesn’t bother me a bit when people say, ‘Merry Christmas’ to me.  I don’t think they are slighting me or getting ready to put me in a ghetto.  In fact, I kind of like it.  It shows that we are all brothers and sisters celebrating this happy time of year. It doesn’t bother me at all that there is a manger scene on display at a key intersection near my beach house in Malibu .  If people want a creche, it’s just as fine with me as is the Menorah a few hundred yards away.

I don’t like getting pushed around for being a Jew, and I don’t think Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians.  I think people who believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around, period.  I have no idea where the concept came from, that America is an explicitly atheist country.  I can’t find it in the Constitution and I don’t like it being shoved down my throat.

Or maybe I can put it another way: where did the idea come from that we should worship celebrities and we aren’t allowed to worship God as we understand Him?  I guess that’s a sign that I’m getting old, too.  But there are a lot of us who are wondering where these celebrities came from and where the America we knew went to.

In light of the many jokes we send to one another for a laugh, this is a little different:  This is not intended to be a joke; it’s not funny, it’s intended to get you thinking.

Billy Graham’s daughter was interviewed on the Early Show and Jane Clayson asked her ‘How could God let something like this happen?’ (regarding Hurricane Katrina)..  Anne Graham gave an extremely profound and insightful response.  She said, ‘I believe God is deeply saddened by this, just as we are, but for years we’ve been telling God to get out of our schools, to get out of our government and to get out of our lives….  And being the gentleman He is, I believe He has calmly backed out..  How can we expect God to give us His blessing and His protection if we demand He leave us alone?’

In light of recent events… terrorists attack, school shootings, etc.  I think it started when Madeleine Murray O’Hare (she was murdered, her body found a few years ago) complained she didn’t want prayer in our schools, and we said OK.  Then someone said you better not read the Bible in school..  The Bible says thou shalt not kill; thou shalt not steal, and love your neighbor as yourself.  And we said OK.

Then Dr…. Benjamin Spock said we shouldn’t spank our children when they misbehave, because their little personalities would be warped and we might damage their self-esteem (Dr. Spock’s son committed suicide).  We said an expert should know what he’s talking about.  And we said okay..

Now we’re asking ourselves why our children have no conscience, why they don’t know right from wrong, and why it doesn’t bother them to kill strangers, their classmates, and themselves.

Probably, if we think about it long and hard enough, we can figure it out.  I think it has a great deal to do with ‘WE REAP WHAT WE SOW.’

Funny how simple it is for people to trash God and then wonder why the world’s going to hell. Funny how we believe what the newspapers say, but question what the Bible says.  Funny how you can send ‘jokes’ through e-mail and they spread like wildfire, but when you start sending messages regarding the Lord, people think twice about sharing..  Funny how lewd, crude, vulgar and obscene articles pass freely through cyberspace, but public discussion of God is suppressed in the school and workplace.

Are you laughing yet?

Funny how when you forward this message, you will not send it to many on your address list because you’re not sure what they believe, or what they will think of you for sending it.

Funny how we can be more worried about what other people think of us than what God thinks of us.

Pass it on if you think it has merit.
 
If not, then just discard it… no one will know you did…  But, if you discard this thought process, don’t sit back and complain about what bad shape the world is in.  

My Best Regards,  Honestly and respectfully,

Ben Stein