Interesting coincidence with Abinadi and a Maya tradition

[Sojourn]

I stumbled across an interesting coincidence while reading the Book of Mormon with my wife and something I subsequently saw while watching a YouTube video.  I don’t plan to make more of it than a coincidence. It went like this.

Warning: This might be gruesome for some

We read in the book of Mosiah about Abinadi’s death as follows

Mosiah 17:13

13 And it came to pass that they took him [Abinadi] and bound him, and scourged his skin with faggots, yea, even unto death.

And three chapters later King Noah gets it too.

Mosiah 19:20  and caused that he [King Noah] should suffer, even unto death by fire.

I decided to refresh my memory of the use of the word faggot and the one I liked came from here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faggot

faggot or fagot, branch or twig, or bundle of these

So, I surmised from this that Abinadi was burned to death using a bundle of burning sticks.

Then,that same day, I was watching this YouTube video: Cracking the Mayan Code PBS Nova https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5ppfC6y-5s

At minute 49 I saw these two pictures (See below)

 

The narrator said that this sculpture was of a man who had been scalped, disemboweled, had wood tied to his back, and set him on fire.  All very gruesome, I am sorry for that.

I am not suggesting that this is a sculpture of Abinadi or King Noah.  The Maya flourished some 500 years after the Abinadi story so the time and place could be very far apart, but it does suggest that Joseph Smith got one form of corporal punishment that was consistent with or in use with an ancient American culture, where in his [Joseph smith’s] world it would have been hanging, and to get it right in a little over 2 months of translating is impressive.

[Vort]

Nice one.

 

Royal Skousen has suggested that "scourged" in these verses might be a misreading in the original (now non-existent) translator's text of "scorched". Thus, whereas our current text has Abinidi being beaten almost to death before being burned alive, Skousen's postulated text would have Abinidi simply being burned to death, without any initial scourging.

[David13]

I was reading today on another forum about a possible connection with the BoM and the Olmec civilization. 

Now here we see Mayan.

I tried to find information on the Los Angeles Temple.  They have a Mayan theme in the architecture, I think it's Mayan.

I know that temple builders lived for many years around Mexico, central and south American many years ago.

And there were mound builders, or crude temple builders along the Mississippi river in the very distant past.

What the connection is may never be known, or "proved".

dc

[Blackmarch]

there are connections all the way from canada to the bottom of south america to across the pacific (and a little to the atlantic). almost al lof which Joseph smith could not have known about.

Edited May 29, 2015 by Blackmarch