Another implausible claim in the Book of Mormon is the Nephite construction of a temple which is purportedly patterned after the
According to the Old Testament accounts, Solomon’s temple was approximately 20 stories high, required the oversight of over 3,000 officials, over 180,000 workmen and took over 7 years to build. How is it possible, then, that a small and of colonists (no more than 50 in number) could construct a temple like Solomon’s temple within 30, 50 or even 100 years of their arrival? Exmormon.org founder Eric Kettunen asked these same questions as he was delving into the metallurgy claims of the Book of Mormon:
In 2 Nephi 5:5 Nephi and his family and friends separate from the Lamanites 12 years after landing in the
*Nephi and family - wife and possibly a possibly some children
*Zoram and his family - wife and possibly some children
*Sam and his family - again a family
*Jacob - a young man or boy
*Joseph - an even younger man or boy
*Others of Nephi's sisters - perhaps as many as 3-4 women.
*"and all those who would go with me". That could at best be a few of Ishmael's family. So let's give some credit here to 4 more men, 4 more women and a few more children even though these extra people are never mentioned in the Book of Mormon.
These total to (again these are HIGHER estimates than the story allows):
8 men
15 children
10 women
Mormons could argue for slightly different numbers of people, but for the sake of the story it really does not matter. The numbers are small, very small. A few Mormons have written me and the highest number given me is 500 people. That 500 people could already exist as Nephites is a great leap of faith in Nephite procreation.
Now from the Book of Mormon:
2 Nephi 5:14-16 "14.) And I, Nephi, did take the sword of Laban, and after the manner of it did make many swords... 15.) And I did teach my people to build buildings, and to work in all manner of wood, and of iron, and of copper, and of brass, and of steel, and of gold, and of silver, and of precious ores, which were in great abundance. 16.) And I, Nephi, did build a temple; and I did construct it after the temple of Solomon save it were not built of so many precious things; for they were not to be found upon the land, wherefore, it could not be built like unto Solomon's temple. But the manner of the construction was like unto the
How likely is it that 8 men, 15 children and 10 women, who just fled into the wilderness, would be able to do the following? Just for fun, is this any more plausible with a society of 500 people, most of them children?
Steel making - this is complex all by itself - mixing iron with carbon
Iron mining and manufacturing - the production of elemental iron from iron ore
Coal mining - coal is required in the production of iron and is refined into coke
Limestone mining - limestone is also required
Tin or zinc mining - depending on the definition of "brass"
Refining and manufacturing of tin or zinc since they do not occur in an elemental state in nature
Smelting
Fluxing
Grinding
Roasting - to eliminate sulfur in copper, silver and some iron ores
Copper mining
Complex furnaces - to have reduction atmospheres to produce the metals
Mining tools - where did the hardened tools come from to start with?
Prospecting - how did they know how to identify ores?
Gold mining
Silver mining
Complex wood working - a small replica of Solomon's temple
How could a few people run a complex metallurgical culture in the wilderness and at the same time make shelters, get food and just plain survive? This is only a few years after coming to the American continent by boat. Some LDS apologists refer to meteoric iron as the raw material Nephites had used. This is quite unlikely as there is no archeological evidence that meteoric iron fragments were used beyond simple ornamental items like crude mirrors or decorations. The meteoric iron would have to be melted then mixed with correct percentages of carbon to make steel. That is as a complex of a technology as producing elemental iron, so which ever way you look at it, the possibility is incredibly remote that steel was manufactured.
Let us look at more claims.
They were working with copper!!
This requires roasting (remove the sulfides with oxygen) and a completely different set of metallurgical processes than steel making. Native copper, which requires no processing, is quite rare. If Nephi were referring to native copper, there would have been no need to "train" in it as it is already in its elemental state and easily workable. Some LDS apologists have written me saying that the Nephites went all the way to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to get their copper. They traveled thousands of miles for some metal? Mormons can not have it both ways. LDS scholars claim Nephites lived in only a very small geographical area of
They developed brass!! They had to learn how to make alloys with copper. They would have had to then develop zinc and/or tin mines with these metallic elements each requiring different metallurgical processes to extract the metals from the ore. How bizarre can the story get? It gets worse....
They were working with precious ores. This adds gold and silver mining to the list and different metallurgical methods again are required for processing the ore.
This was all done with 8 men, 10 women and 15 or so children. How could I have ever believed it? But it gets even worse yet....
They then went and built a temple like Solomon's. Solomon's
We could go on about the self contradictory statements in the verses like precious ores being in abundance and then not being there in the very next verse. The story is so absurd that it alone should keep a rational person from believing in the Book of Mormon.
And to top it off, no archeological evidence supports mining activity, which leaves indestructible evidence, during the Book of Mormon period in
