No Touch

If I were to give you the shortest answer possible without reading any replies it would be this:It is not true. They are not sufficient, and I honestly believe someone has to condition you to believe that it is. Every book in the Bible was written at least 1800 years ago, in societies and cultures that faced different issues than we do today, and every attempt to suggest that the Bible can address every possible issue and problem is an attempt to ascribe supernatural powers to it that, in my opinion, border on the exact kind of idolatry it teaches against. To think that a book (yes, any book) can answer all your questions and solve all your problems, effectively meaning you do not need to seek out God is to allow this book to replace God. Now having given that some thought, I may decide to write further on this subject.

My Avatar is a B&W version of one of eight symbols that appear on gold discs on the gates around the Temple Patrons' door and appear on the two sets of large eastern doors on the Washington DC Temple. Rather similar IMO to the sun stones on the Nauvoo temple.

That's fine, and how one defines "significant impact" may make all the difference, but for my part, I don't much care. What someone considers significant is irrelevant. I only care that they were here, and while the lack of any comprehensive knowledge about the goings-on in the area at that time make it impossible to prove, the point for me is that it is not only possible, but these BoM stories actually do fit into the history we know when understood properly.

I don't think it was culturally significant and something worth discussing. The only point is that semitic folks are quite fond of growing beards and they are quite capable of doing it. We are speaking of the Olmec as Jaredites theory. I assume that the Nephites (and Lamanites as well) intermarried with the natives to such an extent as to where very few would still be growing beards at any point. No, many "orientals" have significant facial hair, even if not something that looks like a westerner's beard (that's where we get our stereo of a Fu-Man-Chu). Bearded Asians are quite prominent in their art from Mongol and Chinese emperors to philosophers to Japanese gods and so on.Indigenous Americans on the other hand, particularly those from the areas in question such as the Yucatan, such as the Maya, are known to have been beardless people. And this was according to a woman who's grandmother is full-blooded Indigenous, who I think has quite a good bit of first hand information on this subject. And with that said, if the natives are so naturally disinclined to grow beards, it stands for reason that those who did have beards must have been to some degree "Foreign". And it should be that suprising. Stuff like the cocaine mummies in Egypt suggest also that there was some transit between the Near East and the New World at this time. Which one can also fit in with the fact that Lehi coming in later was probably an Egyptian Jew.

Just to throw my own 2 cents in: Despite it not really being LDS doctrine, I do, being LDS, believe that Jesus Christ was married, for many of the same reasons mentioned earlier. Basically, it was pretty much standard practice for every Jewish man to be married. It would be even moreso expected for a religious leader. Jesus is even called Rabbi at times, and in his time one could not be a Rabbi if they did not have at least 1 wife. One has to logically assume that if he was a single man in his 30s acting as a religious authority, it would be scandalous and something his enemies would use to discredit him. And niether his enemies in the priestly class in the Bible or sbsequent generations of anti-Christian authors in the time before Constantine make such an assertion to discredit Christ (to the best of my knowledge).

For whatever it's worth also, one does also find in some art work attributed to the Olmecs that does depict bearded males, despite the fact that, as I was reminded of on a tour of Mayan ruins a few months back, Mayans and most other Indigenous American races didn't grow beards. The fact that anyone was depicting people who did seems to disagree at the very least with the commonly held perceptions that Pre-Columbian America was never visited or settled between the time people crossed the Bering and when the Europeans "discovered" them.