Talk:Jaredites

Technology and the Book of Mormon

One of the glaring problems with the book of mormon is that of the level of technology for the times excluded many items and actions being contemporay with the times. One of the worst is the forging of white stones into balls on a mountaintop before Christ was born. Forging and iron working were not widespread until the middle ages, 10 centuries later. The irony of this is that is the exaple is used to teach, do all you can first, then let the lord do what you can not. I guess this would include inventing a new technology.

Perhaps so. I'm no apologist, however, forging metalic or glass balls is found in other cultures including Egyptian and Indian, Aryan/Sanskrit as well as Masonic, Hebrew and Enoch legends (enoch forging brass orbs and gold plates, glass windows in Noah's ark, iron swords and glass in egypt, molten stones and glass in india, etc.). Even Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom point to forged stones. The idea is not new in history - similar legends exist other places. This is a problem with much of history - especially religious history - the abraham story, the exodus story, Jericho's walls, Jonah and the whale, Ur, Sodom and Gomorrah, Non-israelite Solomon's temple references, the crucifixtion story locations, ressurection of Jesus, etc. And i've just disucssed the Bible, let alone non-abrahamic texts which are even more suspect or more solid. Technology or landmarks are talked about that others believe did not exist until centuries later.

You've probably not chosen the best example, but it is a point that potential readers should take into account if they require physical evidence for religious history. Religion skeptics eat this up, but the believers wait until more data is available. -Visorstuff 19:25, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

Archaeology and the Book of Mormon

In the section Jaredites as Hamites, there are two bullet items related to Archaeology and the Book of Mormon. The second bullet item is partially covered in the American civilizations portion of the Archaeology article, but the first isn't. This is the first that I've learned of this information, so whoever placed this information in would be the one to add it to the Archaeology article. Val42 05:07, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

Neutrality needed

This article, especially the section on the Jaredite origin of blacks, reads like it is taken from Mormon scripture and doctrine. Thus I added the bias tag. Kit 05:29, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

The article has the obligatory neutrality disclaimers: "The Jaredites are an alleged ancient people ...." and "According to the narrative ...." Since no one but Mormons believe in their existance, there isn't much else that can be said that isn't from a Mormon point-of-view. Or do you know of anyone else that believes in the existance of the Jaredites? Val42 15:05, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

Agree with you Val42. The reasoning for the bias tag makes no sense. The term would not exist without "Mormon scripture and doctrine." He is relatively new Wikipedia (under 500 edits, since he signed up in July) and may not know norms in faith-based articles. I'll leave a note on his talk page, as he may have a valid concern, but not have expressed it well. -Visorstuff 16:06, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

I agree with all of the above. Surely it is one of the most significant fact about the jaredites (and the other pre-historical societies of the Americas alleged to have existed in the scriptures of Joseph Smith) that their existence has never been independently confirmed. Consensus amongst archaeologists is that no such group ever existed on the American continent, a fact which appears to be missing from this article. --Salimfadhley (talk) 11:36, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

I left the following note on Todfox/Kit's talk page:

Please follow the discussion you created at Jaredite. You stated:

This article, especially the section on the Jaredite origin of blacks, reads like it is taken from Mormon scripture and doctrine. Thus I added the bias tag.

NPOV on religious articles is taken seriously by myself and a number of other admins who watch religous articles. However, your argument is not sound. No offense meant, but this is a faith-based topic, and should be written from the point of view of its origination (which in this case would be a Mormon viewpoint) - that is common sense. If not, we may as well add similar tags to hundreds of biblical characters including Cain, Cush and Esau, Moses and others as their is no physical evidence for their existence and the historical infomation about them is believed based on faith in the Bible/Torah/Koran. The article includes a number of "obligatory neutrality disclaimers" such as "The Jaredites are an alleged ancient people ... " and "according to the narrative ...." and "in the Book of Mormon, specifically the Book of Ether, the Jaredites are described."

I don't think any reader who reads the article will think any more than this is a people described in the Book of Mormon. I guess we are having a hard time understanding your concern. If you have specific concerns about the article, lets address them, but to say this is written from a "Mormon point of view" is not a sound argument, as the term would not exist if it were not for the Mormon point of view. Either clarify your thoughts or withdraw your argument. The tag will likely be removed by myself or another admin within a few days if no response. We want to ensure that religious-based articles are NPOV, so your concern is important, but your reasoning is either faulty or incomplete. -User:Visorstuff 16:20, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

The first section has disclaimers, but the second section, detailing the logic behind the link between black people and the jaredites has few to none. In particular, the last assertion about the Olmecs is made almost exclusively by Mormons and is not supported by most researchers, but the article makes it sound like a fact. Other statements in the same section present other religious beliefs as fact and could use some editting but the last statement is the most egregious one.

I apologize for not putting more complete rationale for the tag in my original message. Kit 07:36, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

I'm wondering if the connections made in this section are from the work cited in the article, The Jaredites Were Black by David Grant Stewart, 1978. If so, then this should be made clearer. Val42 16:47, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

Yes, if it was made more clear that the whole section is taken from Mormon doctrine and only believed by them then I don't think I'd have a problem with it. It is overall a bit unclearly written and inacessible to most readers as written in any case. Kit 20:49, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

I think you did a good job with this, and agree that the NPOV tag is no longer needed. Kit 21:23, 29 October 2005 (UTC) I believe I have corrected this denotation error. Please let me know if you want to add back the tag, as I am removing it today. -Visorstuff 00:18, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

Olmec

In the para which mentions the Olmec, which presently reads:

Many Mormons believe that the Jaredites could be the Olmecs of Mesoamerica, due largely to similarities between archeological evidence and the recorded history of the Jaredites. It has been suggested that the Olmecs may have been of black African descent, because of the physiognomies on the ancient giant Olmec stone heads,

there seems to be a conflation of two separate (and non-standard) conceptions re the Olmec. One is the Mormon claim that the Olmec might represent the Jaredites, based on some interpretation of alleged archaeological similarities, and the other is the view put forward by several Afrocentrist sources (such as Ivan van Sertima) that the Olmec are descendents of Black African cultures, particularly the Mandé, based on alleged physiognomic similarities and a supposed 'decipherment' of the Olmec script as written in an African language, such as Vai or Libyco-Berber. AFAIK, the Mormon claim does not rely upon the Afrocentrist one for its evidence, and the two are not related- so mention of the second one is not appropriate here, and should be removed.

Neither of these two conceptions re the Olmec find support beyond their close circle of proponents, and are in fact rejected/discounted by most if not all scholars active in the field. A disclaimer to this effect was recently removed, and to give the clearer picture something similar ought to be re-inserted.--cjllw | TALK 03:31, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

I've now deleted the sentence referring to the Afrocentrist version of Olmec origins, per the above argument (ie this is a separate claim, the 'evidence' of which is not relied upon by the BoM version.--cjllw | TALK 00:54, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Contributed additional references to the sections Geography of Jaredites, and Proposed Jaredite origins. Onondaga (talk) 03:59, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Nephites, Lamanites, and Mulekites

Ok, a part of this article was originally like this: They finally destroyed themselves about the time Lehi and the other refugees from Jerusalem arrived in America (see also Nephites, Lamanites, and Mulekites). But almost a year ago Val42 edited it to this: They finally destroyed themselves about the time Lehi and the other refugees from Jerusalem arrived in America (see also , Lamanites, and ). Now I don't see any point in that and returned it to it's original version. But didn't anyone notice that before? --Hayashi-no-Kame 16:26, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Descendants of Ham

I checked out this section of this article, and it doesn't seem to have any references to support this theory except for the last reference. However, this last reference doesn't support the entire section. Unless there are references and/or reasonable objections within a week, I will remove this entire section from the article. — Val42 01:16, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

I have removed the section, for the reasons stated above. — Val42 03:49, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Not Generally Accepted

The article states 'The existence of the Jaredites is not generally accepted by non-LDS historians or archaeologists.' The phrase "Not Generally Accepted" implies that the overwhelming opinion of archaeologists does not object but implies there might be some acceptance, however I am not aware of a single scholarly paper defending the jaredite theory of pre-historical American population, other than those published by LDS universities.

Unless I hear an objection I'd like to change 'Not generally accepted' to 'Not accepted'. --Salimfadhley (talk) 11:41, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

I added this sentence, and - rather cowardly - said "not generally accepted" to avoid revert wars. I agree that "not accepted by any" is almost certainly correct. The same point applies to almost all the Mormon-related articles... LeContexte (talk) 13:35, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

"mythical" label

I reverted the phrase "The Jaredites are a mythical people written of in the Book of Mormon" to "The Jaredites are a people written of in the Book of Mormon". This phrasing implies the book presents them as a mythical people. Also, while the Book of Mormon's historicity is generally doubted, yet many Mormon readers believe it is literal.

So there isn't really a consensus making this the common understanding necessary to qualify such an introductory label. The article already states that many scholars doubt Jaredite existance, and the issue you're really concerned with is the subject of its own article at "Historicity of the Book of Mormon". Rich jj (talk) 19:06, 16 September 2008 (UTC)