There are various primary criticisms that tend to be hurled at the
Book
of Mormon, but which have been addressed many times. One need only use
Google to dredge them up, but similarly, Google can be used to find the
counter-arguments. More people ought to do the latter when they see the
former. This series of posts represents my responses to those criticisms.
Criticism:
There is no evidence for the sudden appearance of written language or
change of language in
Mesoamerica that coincides with the Book of
Mormon.
Response: One of the biggest puzzles
about the Olmecs that remains unsolved to this very day is where they
came from and how they developed written language and art so
immediately. The Book of Mormon offers at least a partial explanation
for this question in the story of the
Jaredites. The estimated timeline
of the arrival and decline of the Jaredites and the carbon-dated
development of the
Olmec civilization are an uncanny match.
Further,
there are numerous articles that address the "disappearance" of the
Olmec and the Maya by contending that
Mayans are really a later instance
of Olmec culture, just as the people of the
Yucatan,
Guatemala, and
Honduras are considered the "lost Mayans" today. They never really went
anywhere. Their culture just shifted to a new paradigm and continued.
See
Takalik Abaj for a textbook example of this (I've visited the outskirts of this site. It's amazing!).
See
Ancient City Found in Mexico; Shows Olmec Influence
for more about the huge amount we have yet to discover in Mesoamerica
(and that is being lost to development every waking moment) and about
the Olmec influences on the later Mayan cultures.
