Appearance
Archaeology
The claim:
"There is absolutely no archaeological evidence to directly support the Book of Mormon or the Nephites and Lamanites, who were supposed to have numbered in the millions."[1]
The CES Letter quotes John Clark on the New York Hill Cumorah — "no artifacts, no walls, no trenches, no arrowheads" — compares the absence to Roman and Mayan ruins, invokes Thomas Stuart Ferguson's loss of faith, and implies that the Smithsonian and National Geographic have weighed in against the Book of Mormon.[1:1]
What does "no evidence" actually mean when the majority of once-criticized claims have since been confirmed?
What the Smithsonian actually said
The CES Letter implies that major scientific institutions investigated and rejected the Book of Mormon. The reality is more mundane.
The Smithsonian Institution sent a form letter to anyone who wrote in asking whether they used the Book of Mormon in archaeological research. The letter said: "The Book of Mormon is a religious document and not a scientific guide. The Smithsonian Institution has never used it in archaeological research."[2]
That's it. A government agency saying it doesn't use a religious text to guide fieldwork. The same institution has never used the Bible, the Quran, or the Bhagavad Gita for that purpose either.
An earlier version of the Smithsonian letter included specific archaeological objections — claims about metals, plants, and animals. In 1982, anthropologist John L. Sorenson published a point-by-point critique showing that several of those claims were factually wrong.[3] The Smithsonian quietly revised its letter in March 1998, dropping the specific objections entirely.[4]
| Smithsonian Claim (Pre-1998) | Problem |
|---|---|
| No iron or steel in pre-Columbian Americas | Over 100 ancient iron specimens documented in Mesoamerican literature[3:1] |
| No Old World domesticated plants or animals | Transoceanic contact evidence accumulating since the 1960s |
| All Native Americans crossed via Bering Strait exclusively | Monte Verde (Chile) shows occupation 12,500+ years ago, predating standard Bering models |
| No silk in pre-Columbian Americas | Kapok, wild silkworms, and other silk-like fibers existed in Mesoamerica |
The National Geographic Society issued a similar form letter: "Neither the Society nor any other institution of equal prestige has ever used the Book of Mormon in locating archaeological sites."[5]
Neither institution conducted an investigation. Neither examined the evidence. They answered mail.
Bottom line: The Smithsonian and National Geographic never investigated the Book of Mormon. They issued form letters — and the Smithsonian's original list of specific objections contained enough factual errors that the institution dropped them entirely in 1998.
The Bible comparison backfires
The CES Letter contrasts Book of Mormon archaeology unfavorably with the Bible, pointing to Roman ruins in Britain and Mayan civilizations in Central America. The implication: real ancient texts leave real archaeological proof, and the Book of Mormon doesn't.
The comparison doesn't hold up the way the CES Letter needs it to.
| Category | Bible | Book of Mormon |
|---|---|---|
| Place names positively identified | Slightly more than half[6] | No confirmed place names (no toponymic continuity) |
| Location of Mount Sinai | Unknown — over 20 candidates | N/A |
| Archaeological evidence for the Exodus | None[7] | N/A |
| Evidence for Israelite conquest of Canaan | Contradicted by most archaeological evidence[8] | N/A |
| Readable ancient inscriptions | Hundreds of thousands | Only Mayan script fully decipherable |
| Years of professional excavation | ~200 years | Fewer than 200 sites thoroughly excavated |
The Exodus — the founding event of Israelite identity, involving millions of people wandering a desert for forty years — has zero direct archaeological evidence. No campsites, no graves, no artifacts. The Sinai Peninsula shows "almost no sign of any occupation for the entire 2nd millennium BCE."[7:1]
Kadesh-Barnea, where the Israelites reportedly spent 38 years, was uninhabited before the 12th century BC.[7:2] William Dever concludes that "the external material evidence supports almost nothing of the biblical account of a large-scale, concerted Israelite military invasion of Canaan."[8:1]
No serious scholar concludes that the Bible is therefore fiction. They conclude that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. The CES Letter applies one standard to the Book of Mormon and a different standard to everything else.
Why Book of Mormon archaeology is harder than Bible archaeology
Bible lands have something Mesoamerica lacks: toponymic continuity. Modern Damascus, Jerusalem, and Jericho sit on or near their ancient sites and retain their ancient names. Archaeologists can calculate distances from known reference points.[9]
In Mesoamerica, names disappeared from one era to the next. Only 12 of approximately 6,000 Maya sites retain their pre-Columbian names.[10] Even if archaeologists excavated a Nephite city, they would have no way to identify it as Nephite without a readable inscription connecting it to the Book of Mormon narrative.
Fewer than 200 Mesoamerican sites have been thoroughly excavated — less than one ten-thousandth of available data.[10:1] Over 99% of Central American sites remain unexcavated.
The Church does not take a position on the specific geographic locations of Book of Mormon events in the ancient Americas. Without an agreed-upon geography, you can't run the kind of targeted excavation that located Troy or Ur. This isn't a dodge. It's the honest state of the field.
The Ferguson quote and its missing context
The CES Letter quotes Thomas Stuart Ferguson's 1976 letter — "you can't set Book of Mormon geography down anywhere — because it is fictional" — as the verdict of a professional archaeologist.[11]
Ferguson was a lawyer, not a trained archaeologist. He founded the New World Archaeological Foundation (NWAF) with Church funding in the 1950s, hoping to find direct proof of the Book of Mormon. When that proof didn't materialize on his timeline, he grew disillusioned.[12]
What the CES Letter doesn't mention:
- Ferguson continued attending Church, singing in the choir, and calling the LDS Church "better than any other brand of organized religion."[13]
- The NWAF's actual archaeological work — which Ferguson supervised but did not conduct — produced significant contributions to Mesoamerican scholarship that continue today.
- Professional LDS archaeologists like John Clark spent decades publishing peer-reviewed work and reached conclusions opposite Ferguson's.
- Most of the archaeological evidence catalogued in this article — Nahom, cement chronology, barley, LiDAR surveys, Becan fortifications, Clark and Roper's systematic studies — was discovered after Ferguson's 1976 letter.
A disappointed lawyer's private letter, written before most of the relevant evidence existed, is not a scientific finding.
The Hill Cumorah quote — and what it actually argues
The CES Letter quotes John Clark saying the New York Hill Cumorah is "archaeologically speaking, a clean hill. No artifacts, no walls, no trenches, no arrowheads."[14]
This is accurate. Clark said exactly that.
But the CES Letter omits what Clark was arguing. Clark was making the case that the New York hill cannot be the final battle site described in the Book of Mormon — and that the text's internal geography points elsewhere. His conclusion: "This is not the place of Mormon's last stand. We must look elsewhere for that hill."[15]
The CES Letter uses Clark's quote to argue against the Book of Mormon. Clark used the same data to argue for a Mesoamerican setting. The quote is deployed against its author's own conclusion.
Worth Acknowledging
There is genuine tension between some early Church leaders' statements identifying the New York hill as the Book of Mormon's Cumorah and the Limited Geography Model's relocation of that site to Mesoamerica. The Church has never canonized a specific Book of Mormon geography.
Nahom — the strongest single correlation
The Book of Mormon says Ishmael died and "was buried in the place which was called Nahom" (1 Nephi 16:34). The passive construction — "was called" — indicates a pre-existing place name, not one invented by Lehi's party.
Three ancient altars discovered in 1988 at the Bar'an temple near Marib, Yemen, bear inscriptions referencing a "Nihmite" — a person from the NHM tribal region. The altars date to the 7th-8th century BC, placing them before or during Lehi's lifetime.[16]
The modern Nihm tribal region sits exactly where the Book of Mormon's travel narrative requires: along the ancient incense trail, at the point where the route turns eastward toward the coast.[17] Terryl Givens, writing for Oxford University Press, called these altars "the first actual archaeological evidence for the historicity of the Book of Mormon."[18]
No map available to Joseph Smith in 1829 showed NHM/Nahom in this location. The inscriptions weren't discovered until 1988. The name carries the right Semitic consonants — NHM — in a region associated with mourning and burial, matching the narrative context exactly.
Lehi's Trail — seven confirmed Old World locations
Nahom isn't an isolated data point. Scripture Central documents archaeological evidence for seven locations along Lehi's journey from Jerusalem to the Promised Land.[19]
Valley of Lemuel. George Potter and Craig Thorsted discovered Wadi Tayyib al-Ism in 1995 — the first and only known perennially flowing river or stream in all of northwest Arabia. The wadi's sheer granite walls rise approximately 2,000 feet, matching Lehi's description of a valley "firm and steadfast, and immovable" (1 Nephi 2:10). Fruits and grains grow naturally at the site.[20]
Bountiful. After leaving Nahom, Nephi's family traveled "nearly eastward" and arrived at a coastal location they called Bountiful (1 Nephi 17:5). Traveling east from the Nihm region leads to the coast of Oman — specifically to Khor Kharfot in the Dhofar region.
Khor Kharfot matches 12 criteria from Nephi's description: fresh water, fruit, honey, coastal access, mountains and cliffs, ore for tools, and timber for shipbuilding. In 2000, BYU geologists discovered two large deposits of iron ore within a few days' walk of the seacoast — confirming Nephi's claim of finding ore to make tools (1 Nephi 17:9-10).[21] No other location on the entire Arabian coastline fits all the criteria simultaneously.
The scorecard: 13% confirmed to 75%
In 2005, BYU anthropologist John Clark compiled a list of sixty items from the Book of Mormon that critics had publicly attacked. He tracked their confirmation status over time.[22]
| Year | Items confirmed | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| 1842 (12 years after publication) | 8 of 60 | 13% |
| 2005 | 35 definitively, 10 tentatively | 58-75% |
The trend is unidirectional. Items move from unconfirmed to confirmed. Not one confirmed item has moved back.
Roper expanded the list — same result
Matthew Roper of the Interpreter Foundation expanded Clark's 60-item list to 226 features claimed as anachronisms, drawing from over 1,000 critical publications spanning 1830 to 2024.[23]
| Period | Total claims | Confirmed | Partially confirmed | Unconfirmed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1830-1844 | 102 | 7 (6.9%) | 2 (2.0%) | 93 (91.2%) |
| 1845-1965 | 168 | 36 (21.4%) | 10 (6.0%) | 122 (72.6%) |
| 1966-2024 | 226 | 174 (77.0%) | 31 (13.7%) | 21 (9.3%) |
In 1844, over 90% of claimed anachronisms were unconfirmed. By 2024, that number dropped to 9.3%. The same trajectory Clark found, with four times the data. For a full treatment, see Anachronisms.
Archaeological evidence the CES Letter doesn't mention
The CES Letter says there is "absolutely no archaeological evidence." Here is what that claim requires you to ignore.
Key Point
Several of these items were once cited as proof of fraud — anachronisms no 19th-century author should have gotten right. The evidence caught up. For a deep dive on individual anachronisms, see Anachronisms.
Cement — confirmed, and the timing is uncanny
The Book of Mormon describes Nephites becoming "exceedingly expert in the working of cement" around the first century BC, building "houses of cement" and entire "cities, both of wood and of cement" (Helaman 3:7, 9, 11).
In the nineteenth century, critics dismissed this as absurd.
They were wrong. Archaeological evidence shows an "explosion of activity" in cement building around 100 BC in the Northern Peten — precisely matching the Book of Mormon's chronology. At Teotihuacan, fully developed cement appeared in the first century AD.[24]
| Period | Cement Development in Mesoamerica |
|---|---|
| 1100-600 BC | Non-structural lime plasters and stuccos |
| 800-300 BC | Maya discovered burned limestone + water = durable plaster |
| ~100 BC | Structural cement "explosion of activity" — matches Helaman 3 |
| 1st century AD | Fully developed cement at Teotihuacan |
| AD 300+ | Most Teotihuacan inhabitants lived in plaster-and-concrete compounds |
No one in the nineteenth century could have known that cement was extensively used in Mesoamerica beginning at precisely the time the Book of Mormon describes.[25]
Fortifications matching Alma's descriptions
Captain Moroni's defensive earthworks — ditches, embankments of thrown-up earth, timber palisades, and towers (Alma 49-50) — were once considered fanciful. Ancient Mesoamericans were thought to be peaceful.
That view collapsed in the 1970s. David Webster excavated Becan in Campeche, Mexico — a Maya site fortified before AD 300.[26]
| Feature | Alma 49-50 | Becan (pre-AD 300) |
|---|---|---|
| Ditch surrounding the city | Yes (Alma 49:18) | Yes — 5.3 m deep, 16 m wide |
| Earth heaped on inner bank | Yes (Alma 50:1-2) | Yes — embankment on inner lip, total defensive height 11.6 m |
| Timber palisade atop wall | Yes (Alma 50:2-3) | Suspected — postholes found |
| Towers overlooking defenses | Yes (Alma 50:4) | Evidence of elevated platforms |
| Narrow entry points | Yes (Alma 49:21) | Causeways controlling access |
Webster estimated Becan's fortifications could have been built by 10,000 workers in about 40 days.[26:1] The Book of Mormon describes Moroni's fortifications being completed within months. At least 20 additional fortified sites have since been documented across Maya centers, including Edzna (a large moated fortress) and Monte Alban (three kilometers of defensive walls before 200 BC).[27]
By 2000, Webster himself observed that in Mesoamerican scholarship, "warfare is all the rage."[26:2] The field reversed completely.
LiDAR — invisible civilizations revealed
In 2018, LiDAR technology surveyed 2,100 square kilometers of northern Guatemala's Mirador Basin. The results were staggering: 60,000 previously unknown structures — houses, palaces, elevated highways, fortifications — hidden beneath jungle canopy.[28]
Scientists revised Maya lowland population estimates to 10-15 million people. Some estimates reach 20 million.
The CES Letter says there's no evidence for populations "who were supposed to have numbered in the millions." LiDAR found millions — in the very region most LDS scholars propose for Book of Mormon events.
| LiDAR Finding | Book of Mormon Parallel |
|---|---|
| 60,000+ structures under jungle canopy | "The whole face of the land had become covered with buildings" (Mormon 1:7) |
| Maya sacbeob — elevated stone causeways | "Many highways cast up, and many roads made" (3 Nephi 6:8) |
| Defensive walls, ramparts, fortresses | Peak fortifications AD 250-500, matching final Nephite wars |
| Industrial-scale food production | "Abundance of flocks and herds" (Alma 1:29) |
| 10-15 million population estimate | "Numerous almost, as it were the sand of the sea" (Mormon 1:7) |
Only ~1.4% of the 350,000-square-kilometer Maya world has been surveyed by LiDAR.[28:1] In 2024, researchers surveyed 50 square miles in Campeche, Mexico, and found 6,500 previously unknown structures, including a large city with stone pyramids nobody knew existed.[29]
If entire cities with highways and fortifications remained completely invisible until 2018, the argument that "we should have found Nephite evidence by now" collapses.
Highways matching 3 Nephi
"And there were many highways cast up, and many roads made, which led from city to city, and from land to land, and from place to place" (3 Nephi 6:8).
Maya sacbeob (elevated stone causeways) match this description precisely. Anthropologist Justine M. Shaw documented a three-tiered highway system: local, core-outlier, and intersite roads — paralleling Mormon's description of highways from "city to city, land to land, place to place."[30]
One highway at Dzibilchaltun measured 66 feet wide and up to 7 feet high. More than 80 have been documented at Chichen Itza alone. The construction qualifies as "cast up" — these are not worn paths but deliberately raised, engineered roads.
Barley
The Book of Mormon mentions barley four times (Mosiah 7:22; 9:9; Alma 11:7, 15). Critics called this a clear anachronism.
In 1983, archaeologists discovered domesticated "little barley" (Hordeum pusillum) at a pre-Columbian site in Arizona. Cultivated specimens have since been found dating to approximately 800 BC in Iowa, with extensive evidence across the Mississippi River valley and into Mexico.[31]
Steel swords in 600 BC
Nephi describes the sword of Laban as having a blade "of the most precious steel" (1 Nephi 4:9). Critics said steel didn't exist in 600 BC.
A sword discovered near Jericho — roughly 12 miles from Jerusalem — dates to King Josiah's era, contemporary with Lehi. Metallurgical analysis confirmed "the iron was deliberately hardened into steel."[32] Multiple gold-hilted swords from the same period have been found across Assyria, Persia, and Scythian territories.
Metal plates in stone boxes
In 1830, the idea of ancient records on metal plates, stored in a stone box, was widely mocked. Since then, thousands of metal documents — copper, silver, bronze, gold — have been discovered across the ancient world.[33]
The inscriptions of Darius were found on gold and silver plates embedded in hewn stone boxes at Persepolis (~515 BC). Three gold plates from Pyrgi, Italy (500 BC) had holes for binding. The Copper Scroll from the Dead Sea Scrolls dates to 50-100 AD.[34]
The Mulek seal
The Book of Mormon describes a group claiming descent from Mulek, a son of King Zedekiah (Helaman 6:10; 8:21). A clay seal excavated in Jerusalem bears the name "Malkiyahu ben hamelek" — Malkiyahu, son of the king — dating to the late 7th or early 6th century BC. "Mulek" is a plausible hypocoristic form of Malkiyahu, the same way "Alex" shortens "Alexander."[35]
The vindication pattern
These aren't isolated curiosities. They form a pattern.
| Claim | 19th-century verdict | Current evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Cement in ancient America | Impossible | Confirmed — matches Book of Mormon timeline exactly[24:1] |
| NHM place name in Arabia | Unknowable | Altar inscriptions from 7th-8th century BC[16:1] |
| Massive ancient populations (millions) | No evidence | LiDAR reveals 10-15 million in Maya lowlands[28:2] |
| Large-scale fortifications | Fanciful — Maya were peaceful | 20+ fortified sites, Becan matches Alma 49-50[26:3] |
| Highway systems | No evidence | Maya sacbeob match 3 Nephi 6:8 precisely[30:1] |
| Barley in pre-Columbian America | Anachronism | Cultivated specimens from 800 BC[31:1] |
| Steel in 600 BC Near East | Anachronism | Vered Jericho sword confirmed by metallurgical analysis[32:1] |
| Ancient records on metal plates | Absurd | Thousands of examples worldwide[33:1] |
The direction is always the same. Evidence that didn't exist in 1830 keeps appearing — and it keeps matching the text.
What genuine absence looks like
Some elements remain unresolved. No Book of Mormon city has been definitively identified by name. Horses, chariots, and large-scale New World metallurgy during Book of Mormon times remain open questions. (For more on these, see Anachronisms.)
These are real gaps. Intellectual honesty requires naming them.
But "unresolved" is not "disproven." The track record runs one direction. Cement was unresolved. Barley was unresolved. Steel was unresolved. Fortifications were unresolved. Populations in the millions were unresolved. All five moved to confirmed. Not one confirmed item has moved back.
The CES Letter's claim that there is "absolutely no archaeological evidence" requires ignoring Nahom, Lehi's Trail, cement, fortifications, LiDAR populations, highways, barley, steel, metal plates, and the Mulek seal. It requires ignoring Clark's scorecard. It requires ignoring Roper's expanded analysis. It requires ignoring the systematic trend of vindication spanning nearly two centuries.
"Absolutely no evidence" is not an honest summary of the data.
Bottom line: The CES Letter says there is "absolutely no archaeological evidence" for the Book of Mormon. That claim was already dubious in 2013. Since then, LiDAR has revealed civilizations of 10-15 million people under jungle canopy, Roper has documented 174 confirmed items from a list of 226 once-criticized claims, and the evidence trajectory has continued its unbroken 190-year trend — always in the Book of Mormon's favor, never against it.
Runnells, CES Letter (2017), "Book of Mormon," no. 6, pp. 11-13. ↩︎ ↩︎
"Statement Regarding the Book of Mormon," Smithsonian Institution (revised March 1998). The current statement reads: "The Book of Mormon is a religious document and not a scientific guide. The Smithsonian Institution has never used it in archaeological research." ↩︎
John L. Sorenson, An Evaluation of the Smithsonian Institution "Statement Regarding the Book of Mormon" (Provo, UT: FARMS, 1982; revised 1995). Sorenson documented factual errors and outdated claims in the Smithsonian's original detailed statement. ↩︎ ↩︎
The Smithsonian revised its form letter in March 1998, removing the detailed list of specific objections. See "Smithsonian Statement on Book of Mormon Archaeology," FAIR. https://www.fairlatterdaysaints.org/answers/Smithsonian_statement_on_Book_of_Mormon_archaeology ↩︎
National Geographic Society, form letter (1989): "Neither the Society nor any other institution of equal prestige has ever used the Book of Mormon in locating archaeological sites." ↩︎
"Biblical Archaeology Compared to the Book of Mormon," FAIR. https://www.fairlatterdaysaints.org/answers/Biblical_archaeology_compared_to_the_Book_of_Mormon ↩︎
Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman, The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts (New York: Free Press, 2001), 62-63. The Sinai shows "almost no sign of any occupation for the entire 2nd millennium BCE." ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎
William G. Dever, Who Were the Early Israelites and Where Did They Come From? (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2003). Dever concludes: "the external material evidence supports almost nothing of the biblical account of a large-scale, concerted Israelite military invasion of Canaan." ↩︎ ↩︎
"Biblical Archaeology Compared to the Book of Mormon," FAIR. https://www.fairlatterdaysaints.org/answers/Biblical_archaeology_compared_to_the_Book_of_Mormon ↩︎
William Hamblin, "Basic Methodological Problems with the Anti-Mormon Approach to the Geography and Archaeology of the Book of Mormon," Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 2, no. 1 (1993). https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/jbms/vol2/iss1/11/ ↩︎ ↩︎
Runnells, CES Letter (2017), "Book of Mormon," no. 6, pp. 12-13. The CES Letter quotes Ferguson's February 20, 1976 letter. ↩︎
"Thomas Stuart Ferguson and Mormon Archaeology," FAIR. https://www.fairlatterdaysaints.org/answers/Thomas_Stuart_Ferguson_and_Mormon_archaeology ↩︎
Stan Larson, "The Odyssey of Thomas Stuart Ferguson," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 23, no. 1 (1990): 55-93. Ferguson wrote: "I think the LDS Church is better than any other brand of organized religion and I have not lost faith in a very large segment of it." ↩︎
Runnells, CES Letter (2017), "Book of Mormon," no. 6, pp. 11-12. The CES Letter quotes Clark's statement about the New York Hill Cumorah. ↩︎
John E. Clark, "Archaeology, Relics, and Book of Mormon Belief," Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 14, no. 2 (2005): 38-49. ↩︎
Warren P. Aston, "Newly Found Altars from Nahom," Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 10, no. 2 (2001): 56-61. See also Warren P. Aston, "A History of NaHoM," BYU Studies 51, no. 2 (2012). https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/byusq/vol51/iss2/6/ ↩︎ ↩︎
Neal Rappleye, "The Nahom Convergence Reexamined," Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 60 (2024): 1-86. https://interpreterfoundation.org/journal/the-nahom-convergence-reexamined/ ↩︎
Terryl L. Givens, By the Hand of Mormon: The American Scripture that Launched a New World Religion (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002). ↩︎
"Archaeological Evidence for 7 Locations on Lehi's Journey to the Promised Land," Scripture Central. https://scripturecentral.org/blog/archaeological-evidence-for-7-locations-on-lehi-s-journey-to-the-promised-land ↩︎
"Book of Mormon Evidence: Valley of Lemuel," Scripture Central. https://scripturecentral.org/evidence/book-of-mormon-evidence-valley-of-lemuel ↩︎
Warren P. Aston, "Nephi's Bountiful: Contrasting Both Candidates," Interpreter 55 (2023): 219-268. See also "Book of Mormon Evidence: Bountiful," Scripture Central. https://scripturecentral.org/evidence/book-of-mormon-evidence-bountiful ↩︎
John E. Clark, "Archeological Trends and Book of Mormon Origins," BYU Studies 44, no. 4 (2005): 83-104. https://byustudies.byu.edu/article/archaeological-trends-and-the-book-of-mormon-origins ↩︎
Matthew Roper, "Anachronisms: Accidental Evidence in Book of Mormon Criticisms" (series), Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 65 (2025, ongoing). Roper expanded Clark's list to 226 items drawn from over 1,000 critical publications. https://interpreterfoundation.org/journal/anachronisms-accidental-evidence-in-book-of-mormon-criticisms-introduction ↩︎
Michael D. Coe and Stephen Houston, The Maya, 9th ed. (London: Thames & Hudson, 2015). See also "Book of Mormon Evidence: Cement," Scripture Central. https://scripturecentral.org/evidence/book-of-mormon-evidence-cement ↩︎ ↩︎
John L. Sorenson, Mormon's Codex: An Ancient American Book (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book / Neal A. Maxwell Institute, 2013). ↩︎
David L. Webster, Defensive Earthworks at Becan, Campeche, Mexico: Implications for Maya Warfare (New Orleans: Middle American Research Institute, Tulane University, 1976). See also "Book of Mormon Evidence: Fortifications," Scripture Central. https://scripturecentral.org/evidence/book-of-mormon-evidence-fortifications ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎
Matthew Roper, "Anachronisms: Accidental Evidence — Chapter 2: Warfare in the Book of Mormon," Interpreter 65 (2025). By 2024, thirty-two of thirty-nine warfare items had been confirmed. https://interpreterfoundation.org/journal/anachronisms-accidental-evidence-in-book-of-mormon-criticisms-chapter-2-warfare-in-the-book-of-mormon ↩︎
Marcello A. Canuto et al., "Ancient Lowland Maya Complexity as Revealed by Airborne Laser Scanning of Northern Guatemala," Science 361, no. 6409 (2018). https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aau0137 ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎
"Have We Recovered All Major Maya Cities? Not Even Close, New Research Suggests," Tulane University (2024). https://news.tulane.edu/pr/have-we-recovered-all-major-maya-cities-not-even-close-new-research-suggests ↩︎
"Book of Mormon Evidence: Highways," Scripture Central. https://scripturecentral.org/evidence/book-of-mormon-evidence-highways ↩︎ ↩︎
"Book of Mormon Evidence: Barley," Scripture Central. https://scripturecentral.org/evidence/book-of-mormon-evidence-barley. Cultivated specimens in Iowa date to approximately 800 BC. ↩︎ ↩︎
"Book of Mormon Evidence: Laban's Steel Sword," Scripture Central. https://scripturecentral.org/evidence/book-of-mormon-evidence-laban-s-steel-sword ↩︎ ↩︎
H. Curtis Wright, "Ancient Burials of Metal Documents in Stone Boxes," in John M. Lundquist and Stephen D. Ricks, eds., By Study and Also by Faith (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book / FARMS, 1990), 1:273-334. ↩︎ ↩︎
"Book of Mormon Evidence: Records Hidden in Boxes," Scripture Central. https://scripturecentral.org/evidence/book-of-mormon-evidence-records-hidden-in-boxes ↩︎
"Book of Mormon Evidence: Mulek," Scripture Central. https://scripturecentral.org/evidence/book-of-mormon-evidence-mulek-1 ↩︎