By Jack H. West, 1954.
Some authoritative researchers, according to Farnsworth, say that the other migration, known as the Mayan-Toltec migration, occurred about 600 B.C. , and this civilization continued to flourish “until it reached its highest point between the second and fifth centuries after Christ.” The year 421 A.D. , the Book of Mormon tells us, was the last time the prophet Moroni wrote on the plates, but actually the last great battle took place about the year 385 A.D. – “Between the second and fifth centuries after Christ.”
Now listen to what the scientists say about something that happened right after this: Sometime after this a great catastrophe took place which almost wiped out this ancient civilization and left it in the condition the Spaniards under Cortez, and his followers, found it.” (Ibid., Farnsworth, p.3.)
You know this has puzzled the scientists. Why these Indian people, as we know them today—or mis-know them really—walked out of their cities by the thousands of cities– just walked out—no evidence of pestilence, no evidence of famine, no evidence of war in the cities. The people just walked out and left city after city after city—cities, in some cases, that once held over a million highly cultured people. They left, and did not come back. And until you read the Book of Mormon story you do not know why. (See Mormon 6:2-6.) They were going to make a combined force, a last stand—men and women and children fighting, trying to get a decision as to which side would win, the Lamanites or the Nephites. Which side did win? The Lamanites. And the Nephites, in the main—not entirely, but in the main—were killed off.
Now let us go back and check it again. Do scientists agree that there were two main groups of people in early times coming into this land? Yes. Do they agree that one of these groups came at the time of the Jaredite nation? Yes. And do they agree that the other people came at the time of the Nephite-Lamanite nation? Yes. Isn’t it interesting that they call the second people the Mayan-Toltecs—two names. If they could translate those names correctly, what would they call them? Nephite-Lamanites.
In addition to recording two major migrations, the Book of Mormon also tells us that the Nephites brought with them from the old continent certain records known as the brass plates of Laban. These must have been very important, for in securing these plates, a man lost his life. Nephi, the son of Lehi, had never shed the blood of man, and he shirked from the responsibility of slaying Laban. But the spirit said to him:
Behold the Lord slayeth the wicked to bring forth his righteous purposes. It is better that one man should perish than that a nation should dwindle and perish in unbelief (1 Nephi 4:13).
This must have been a very important record for the people—a record which would keep them from “dwindling in unbelief.”
For behold, Laban hath the record of the Jews and also a genealogy of thy forefathers, and they are engraven upon plates of brass.
Wherefore, the Lord hath commanded me that thou and thy brothers should go into the house of Laban and seek the records, and bring them down hither into the wilderness (1 Nephi 3:3-4).
And the Book of Mormon goes on to tell us of things written on the brass plates, so that we have every reason to believe that that record was similar to the Old Testament up to, but not including, the capture of Jerusalem by the Babylonians. (See Nephi 5:10-13.) When this statement was read by some of our friends in other churches, they got up in their pulpits again and shouted, “Blasphemy.” They said, “You mean to tell us that these heathen savages had a record in ancient times similar to the Old Testament?” And all our Latter-Day Saint people could tell them back there in 1830, when the book came off the press, was: “We believe that book. We have a testimony of its truth.” But at that time they could not have proven the statement that these people had records similar to the Old Testament. Today for Latter-day Saints do not need to prove it because science has done it for us.
Let us go back to page 41 of America Before Columbus and read a quotation from DeRoo. He says,
That man was created to the image of God was a part of Mexican beliefs, says Kingsborough. Another point of coincidence with the scripture record is found in the Mexican Goddess ‘Coiacoatl’ or serpent woman whom the Aztecs addressed as our Lady and Mother, the first goddess who brought forth, who bequeathed the sufferings of childbirth to women as a tribute of death; by whom sin came into the world. In all this we see much to remind us of the mother of the human family.
Where did they get this information, if indeed they did not have such a record as they claimed to have had? And the Indians told the first Christian ministers who came among them many of these stories when they were first able to understand each other in sign language.
As further evidence that the ancient inhabitants of the Americas had a knowledge and record of the Old Testament, let us read on page 26, the quote of Alvin Colton, a man who lived with many of the Indian tribes and learned many of their legends:
The story of the flood is widely current among the American Indians. A man (Noach) [notice how close—not Noah, but Noach] with certain other people, escaped in a boat filled with various animals and birds. A rainbow is the sign this will not happen again.
Do you know that there is no other place except in the Bible where the story of the rainbow as a promise from God to his children that he would never again destroy the earth by flood is told? That is the only place it has been found recorded, and yet the American people knew of this rainbow when the first Christian ministers came amongst them.
Mr. Colton’s statement continues:
In course time a tower was erected for the purpose of reaching the cloud, but the god, incensed at this presumption, destroyed the tower, confused the language of the day and disbursed the people.
Jacob and his twelve sons are found in the legends of the American Indians. Some of the tribes ‘used to build an altar of twelve stones in memory of a great ancestor of theirs who had twelve sons.’ They had traditions that all Indian tribes descended from one man who had twelve sons. [What was Jacob’s other name? Israel. He had twelve sons, and they became the heads, in their prime condition at least, of the twelve tribes of Israel. The Indians knew this background of the Old Testament story. ] That this man was a notable and renowned prince, having great dominion; and that the Indians, his posterity, will yet recover that same dominion and influence.’
But isn’t that interesting? Yes, the Indians had that legend. I talked with an old Indian, a “Patriarch” the guide called him, way out a thousand miles by jungle trail from Mexico City, in his little hut in the Yucatan. And in my broken Spanish with the help of the guide, I told him briefly (in an hour’s time) the story of his ancient religion coming from the Golden Bible. He listened intently; then when I go to the story where Christ came amongst them—the Son of God who was a God in his own right, who died, crucified on a cross on the old continent, during which time there was a great destruction on this continent for three hours—the old man’s eyes filled with tears and he started to nod, and he said, “Si, es verdad. Si, es correcto!” (Yes, that’s right. Yes, that’s correct.) From then on, when I would go on telling the rest of the story, from time to time he would nod and say the same thing. Then for two hours I sat in his hut listening to the legends of the Indian people. It was marvelous to me, of course. He told me they did have the legend that their people would become great again like their forefather who had twelve sons, but not until after their true ancient religion came back to them again.
Point after point, his story tied in perfectly with the Book of Mormon story. Yes, they had brass plates as described, a record of the old continent.
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