Mayan Nephites
Posted: Tue Sep 17, 2019 9:57 am
So, this past week DW and I took a much needed vacation (Caribbean cruise!), leaving the kids at home with grandparents. Preparing for the trip led to some interesting events including when DW noticed for the first time that I wasn't wearing my garment top (and haven't been for around 3 years at this point, but that may be another discussion).
As part of our trip we toured through some expansive Mayan ruins. I spent a few weeks before the trip reading up on Mayan culture and history, and I took some time to replay Dr. Coe's MS interview. Good stuff.
On our return we were telling my parents about the trip. I let them know that the ruins were the real highlight for me, giving them a brief description of the city we spent some time in. My mother asked what kinds of links we saw to the BoM. I laughed a little bit and simply said "None."
She looked a bit confused so I went on to explain that we have a good idea who the Mayan people were. We can read large parts of the few texts we have today, we understand a great deal about their theology, their societal structures, the rituals. We also have some pretty good guesses as to what caused their downfall between 800-1200AD.
I told her that what we know of the Maya does not describe a BoM people and the people described in the BoM are not the Maya. Theology, zoology, herbology, linguistics, society and government structure, there just isn't any overlap between what is described in BoM and what we know of the Maya.
She got a confused look on her face again and said "But I thought the Nephites and Lamanites were the direct ancestors of all native people in America."
I told her that is what the church used to teach, but because there is literally zero archaeological evidence of the Nephites even the scriptures themselves now say the Nephites/Lamanaites were only among native ancestors. In short, we have no idea who the Nephites were or where they might have lived despite all the teachings to the contrary over the last 180 years.
And that is where the conversation ended, never to be brought up again. Good times!
As part of our trip we toured through some expansive Mayan ruins. I spent a few weeks before the trip reading up on Mayan culture and history, and I took some time to replay Dr. Coe's MS interview. Good stuff.
On our return we were telling my parents about the trip. I let them know that the ruins were the real highlight for me, giving them a brief description of the city we spent some time in. My mother asked what kinds of links we saw to the BoM. I laughed a little bit and simply said "None."
She looked a bit confused so I went on to explain that we have a good idea who the Mayan people were. We can read large parts of the few texts we have today, we understand a great deal about their theology, their societal structures, the rituals. We also have some pretty good guesses as to what caused their downfall between 800-1200AD.
I told her that what we know of the Maya does not describe a BoM people and the people described in the BoM are not the Maya. Theology, zoology, herbology, linguistics, society and government structure, there just isn't any overlap between what is described in BoM and what we know of the Maya.
She got a confused look on her face again and said "But I thought the Nephites and Lamanites were the direct ancestors of all native people in America."
I told her that is what the church used to teach, but because there is literally zero archaeological evidence of the Nephites even the scriptures themselves now say the Nephites/Lamanaites were only among native ancestors. In short, we have no idea who the Nephites were or where they might have lived despite all the teachings to the contrary over the last 180 years.
And that is where the conversation ended, never to be brought up again. Good times!