John Lundwall argues that a society with the Book of Mormon’s histories, religious texts, and correspondence should have left traces of its writing. He reads Mormon 9 as grounds to expect Hebrew and argues that trade would carry writing beyond even a small settlement. Thomas W. Murphy raises a related objection to a proposed Mesoamerican setting, drawing on Thomas Stuart Ferguson’s search for Hebrew and Egyptian writing. The question is what the book predicts should survive. Lundwall, 1:45:38–1:51:18 · Murphy, Counter #3
What the Book of Mormon says about writing
- Helaman 3:13–16 describes many books and records kept by many people, chiefly Nephites, and passed down through generations. That depicts more recordkeeping than a single family archive. It gives no percentage of the population who could read or write. Helaman 3
- Mosiah 24:4–7 describes teachers spreading the language of Nephi among the Lamanites and teaching them to keep records and write to one another. This is a stronger reason to expect writing outside the compilers’ circle. The passage leaves the script and writing materials unspecified. Mosiah 24
- Mormon 9:32–34 identifies the characters of Moroni’s record as reformed Egyptian and says he would have written in Hebrew with more space on the plates. He says both had been altered. He describes the compilers’ writing choices. The passage leaves open what script people used for letters or how closely their Hebrew resembled writing in the ancient Near East. Mormon 9
What Maya writing establishes
Excavators at San Bartolo, Guatemala, dated early Maya writing on painted plaster to about 300–200 BCE. A later study identified several scribal hands among the fragments and a calendar day sign in a securely dated context. These are Indigenous texts. They show that trained scribes used writing in Mesoamerica during part of the period described by the Book of Mormon. Maya writing combines signs for words and syllables. A script can encode speech without an alphabet. The finds leave open how widely people could read and supply no Hebrew or Nephite identification. San Bartolo excavation report · Calendar study and photographs · Dresden State and University Library on Maya writing
What would we expect to survive?
The material matters. The Maya used folded bark-paper books, and only four pre-Hispanic examples are known to survive. Writing also survives on stone, plaster, and ceramics. The Book of Mormon describes some records being burned in Alma 14. That gives us a reason to take loss seriously, while leaving the material of those records unspecified. Roman letters from Vindolanda survived in unusually wet, oxygen-poor deposits. Lundwall’s comparison to Roman fragments raises a fair question about survival. To turn it into an estimate, we would need comparable numbers of writers and records, materials, burial conditions, and excavation coverage. Getty on the surviving Maya codices · Alma 14:8 · Vindolanda excavation and preservation
Trade makes it possible for inscribed objects to travel. To expect another community to adopt a script, we would also need to know who used it, what it was used for, and how closely the communities interacted. A model that predicts common inscriptions on durable objects at well-excavated sites has a stronger expectation of finds than a model that predicts private writing on perishable material. In either case, the language claim needs a securely dated inscription with enough text for specialists to identify the script and language independently. Ferguson’s proposed seal readings remained disputed. The cited excavations and the seals leave the specific Hebrew or Egyptian-derived writing claim uncorroborated. The Church affirms an ancient American setting and takes no position on specific locations. Ferguson’s script test · Church statement on geography
How I’d answer a friend. “I believe the Book of Mormon is an ancient record. It does describe writing outside Moroni’s circle, and we still have to explain why we lack securely identified traces of the specific writing its people used. San Bartolo answers the general question about ancient writing. To judge the narrower objection, I’d ask where we should find which script, on what material, and why we’d expect it to survive.” Practice the conversation