Reddit Post on Joseph's Bad Math in the Book of Mormon
Posted: Tue Jul 17, 2018 9:53 am
If you ever had any doubts about the plausibility of the Book of Mormon, read no farther than the excerpt below from Reddit (I won't provide a link in case it would cause any problems, but a simple search on Reddit for "Joseph Bad Math" should take you there if you desire). This person has an excellent point - not only does the Book of Mormon suffer from a complete lack of external evidence and a truly appalling number of anachronisms, in many ways the internal logic of the narrative just doesn't work. I should have seen this decades ago, but like a chump I read it for years and believed it without thinking about it:
Joseph Smith was really bad at math. Math vs the Nephites.
Jacob chp 2. About 56 yrs since Lehi and company left Jerusalem. Jacob is now about 45-50.
He is upset at the white and fair Nephites and angrily chastises them. He says they are worse than their enemies the loathsome dark Lamanites.
The rich Nephites have become arrogant and proud about their wealth and they have “gold, silver, and all manner of precious ores”. Those that have more are proud and mistreat the poor and they like to wear “costly apparel”.
What does this have to do with math? We have had 2 generations born since leaving Jerusalem. The first generation are from 2 families and make up about 3 dozen people. The second generation are all cousins and they may total about 72 people by this point. They have separated into 2 groups, so if we put half in each group we have about 18 first generation Nephites, and 36 second generation Nephites. That gives me about 54 Nephites trying to survive in an untamed wilderness.
The first generation know Hebrew and Egyptian. If this story is true then they need to build a temple of great size. They need to make copies of Laban’s sword. They needed to go gold hunting and begin to accumulate it in large quantities. Some had to be more successful at this than others so they can be proud and arrogant to the poorer Nephites. Some of the ones not building temples or mining for gold need to start making clothing. They must have multiple levels of clothing so the rich can buy the nice clothes.
Creating a new civilization is hard work. The First American settlers would have all starved without help from charitable “Lamanites”. Many of them did starve to death. They had no mining, temple building, or metallurgy for making swords. (Story of 1st colonial blacksmith: http://bigelowsociety.com/rod/bsmith.htm)
The first priorities are food, water, and shelter. Growing, gathering, and hunting for food is a full-time job. Anthropologists say you need at least 72 people before you can have one person that you can spare to become a pot maker. You can’t spare anyone to look for pretty metals, that have no functional value. No one is going to be willing to trade basic survival needs like food, clothes, or shelter for abstract valuables such as gold or silver.
You would need multiple clothing makers if you are going to have multiple clothing lines of various status. They need to make the necessary tools to raise and sheer sheep, or grow and harvest cotton, or tan and make leather. If you use cotton you need to make tools to make looms, then you need to run the looms to make cloth, then you need to use the cloth to make clothing. Keep in mind you have multiple clothing lines so the rich can get the nice clothes.
Some people are finding much more gold and silver than others so you also need at least 2 mining companies so one can be rich and one poor. Each person mining or making clothes is one less hunter, gatherer, or farmer. They have no training and no experience, no tools, no fertilizers, insecticides or GMOs. The need to find or grow enough food to survive, build homes (or at least basic shelter), a huge temple, make swords, and hunt for gold that is useless except that it allows a few to become proud.
Only the first generation has any experience with gold or silver as currency or a commodity. The second generation should have no use for it in their new life and no reason to consider it valuable since they can’t spend it or trade it. Mountain climbers do not take backpacks of money up Everest, because there is nowhere to spend it. Same with gold in a new civilization. Bartering useful items or skills makes sense, Impractical metals of theoretical value do not.
Making swords is complicated technology. I doubt any of us with all of our education and knowledge could go into the wilderness and make a steel sword.
They need to find and mine ore.
They must smelt it, and to do that they must build a powerful forge to melt the metal out of the rocks.
They need tools to shape the smelted ore.
They need an understanding of how to alloy different metals to create useful tools that don’t break with mild use.
Steel that is not too brittle, and also not too soft requires a skill in metallurgy that was unknown in the Americas.
This start from scratch civilization is mathematically too low on manpower to be doing these kinds of Gilligan’s island things.
Talks by modern apostles like Elder Holland teach that the Americas were not inhabited. The Book of Mormon also claims that the Book of Mormon lands were kept free of other people as an inheritance for the Nephites (See footnote).
Without people to trade with, or to help them, the projects claimed to have been accomplished defy math. It is silly to claim that a second-generation society of less than 100 people has rich and poor, mines gold and silver and iron, makes swords and other tools, builds temples, and has clothing nice enough that some people are arrogant about their nice clothes and horde of gold.
Footnote: 2nd Nephi 1:8 that says that God kept the promised land a secret so it would not be overrun by other groups. It is also inconsistent with pre-DNA teachings such as those by Jeffrey Holland, “Holy scripture records that “after the waters had receded from off the face of this land it became a choice land above all other lands, a chosen land of the Lord; wherefore the Lord would have that all men should serve him who dwell upon the face thereof.” (Ether 13:2.) Such a special place needed now to be kept apart from other regions, free from the indiscriminate traveler as well as the soldier of fortune. To guarantee such sanctity the very surface of the earth was rent. In response to God’s decree, the great continents separated and the ocean rushed in to surround them. The promised place was set apart. Without habitation it waited for the fulfillment of God’s special purposes.”
“With care and selectivity, the Lord began almost at once to re-people the promised land. The Jaredites came first, with stories of the great flood fresh in their memories and the Lord’s solemn declaration ringing in their ears: “Whoso should possess this land of promise, from that time henceforth and forever, should serve him, the true and only God, or they should be swept off when the fulness of his wrath should come upon them.” (Ether 2:8.)
