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Bees In The Book Of Mormon

Holly3278

By Holly3278,
in LDS Gospel Discussion

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Old Tex

Old Tex

Posted
Posted

It sounds like someone is claiming that no bees were in the western hemisphere before 1500. How in the world does anyone know that? The place may have been covered with wild bees. Something was necessary to pollanate all the plants and flowers that grew before 1500.

I think sometimes we feel we have to defend against some critic's statement when there is no substance to it. I think that I would first ask for conclusive proof that there were no bees anywhere in the western hemisphere before 1500 and put the bee in their court, so to speak.

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Traveler

Traveler

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Posted

Hi everyone. Somebody told me that the Book of Mormon describes bees in ancient times in the Book of Mormon like in BC times but yet bees were not introduced to the Americas until the 1500s by the Spanish. What is up with that? How do I refute this argument?

I have read some of the answers and some are very good. However, I would take a different approach. I would say that this is a most interesting question but that I am not interested is wasting anybody's time. Therefore if I can give a good sound answer to this question would they come to church with me and consider reading and praying about the Book of Mormon.

If they asked for some concession from me concerning this question I would very politely remind them that I did not ask any any questions concerning this subject. Then I would again ask if they were serious about an answer or just pretending something else with their question.

The Traveler

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Elphaba

Elphaba

Posted
Posted

I have read some of the answers and some are very good. However, I would take a different approach. I would say that this is a most interesting question but that I am not interested is wasting anybody's time. Therefore if I can give a good sound answer to this question would they come to church with me and consider reading and praying about the Book of Mormon.

Let me get this straight. If someone is asking you a question about bees in order to trap you into an "anti" discussion, you're going to beat them to it by doing the very same thing: you're going to trap him into going to Church with you if you provide the right answer.

Do you not see the absurdity of this? I assure you, if this is really an "anti," he is not going to go to church with you. I'm sitting here really hoping you already know this.

If they asked for some concession from me concerning this question I would very politely remind them that I did not ask any any questions concerning this subject. Then I would again ask if they were serious about an answer or just pretending something else with their question.

Please. If they're asking for some concession, then obviously they're not really interested in the bees. Are you really going to stand there and act obtuse?

Either answer the question, and then, like an adult, tell him you're not interested in further discussion if it turns out there is an attempt to "catch you" in some way. Or just tell them you're not interested from the very beginning. Or, answer their question and be pleasantly surprised that that's all he wanted!

All this insipid muscle flexing over bees?

Elphaba

Edited to change my error of "butterflies" to "bees." Thanks to Outshined.

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snipe123

snipe123

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Posted

Hi everyone. Somebody told me that the Book of Mormon describes bees in ancient times in the Book of Mormon like in BC times but yet bees were not introduced to the Americas until the 1500s by the Spanish. What is up with that? How do I refute this argument?

In the field of science (I am not a scientist, so please forgive me if I am wrong) there are some definite hard and fast rules that seem to be irrefutable...as an example, gravity does in fact seem to work as described to me in school... :dontknow: big shock...but there are other theories out there that are not as hard and fast...further research will surely refute the findings of former researchers and the drawing board is always being revisited so to speak...

This is ESPECIALLY true in the field of archeology...We think we have an accurate picture of this or that people, or this or that animal, on this or that continent, at this or that time, and then someone comes along with something they dug up in the sand that totally blows the picture away...The bee question is an interesting one, but the validity of the Book of Mormon is not in question just because our current notions of when bees came to this continent (or horses, or Elephants, or steel, etc...)happens to disagree with what The Book of Mormon says...Compaired to biblical archaeology, Book of Mormon archaeology is in it's INFANCY...Some exciting things have been found to be sure, but I hardly consider them to be vindication on the one hand or invalidation on the other...again, these studies are in their INFANCY...Until all the returns are in, questions like this one cannot be conclusive...If your waiting for archaeology to prove or disprove the Book of Mormon and its message, then you will be waiting for a long time.

Take the Bible as a case in point...Yep, lots of the cities mentioned in the Bible have been found and in fact a lot of them still have people in them! :huh: Wars mentioned in the Bible have been shown through archaeological and historical sources to have actually taken place, and there is even historical evidence identifying people mentioned in the Bible...There is a lot of evidence to suggest that Jesus was a historical figure, who gathered a religious following, performed miracles etc...having said all that, what EVIDENCE do you have that Jesus Christ is the son of God, and that he died for your sins, or that anything else he actually said is true? There is evidence that he did in fact say and teach what he did, and his followers did the same, but what EVIDENCE do you have to indicate that what he, and they said is true? Or that what the Bible says is true? If you are waiting for exterior evidence to prove those questions, you will also be waiting for a very long time...

These are questions of faith...Faith provides the evidence where evidence is lacking..."faith is the substance[evidence] of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen...

Now we do have the evidence of the Holy Ghost, (To testify to the reality of Christ is the Holy Ghosts main function) and a witness to the reality of the atonement of Christ...we know that he died for us as a result of that Spiritual witness...and that witness is far superior to any arguments a man may devise to prove Christs mission is a reality...so if we can accept Christ on faith, why do we continue to keep The Book of Mormon on trial just because it happens to disagree with our current feeble reasoning? Encouraging someone to "have faith sister" , or inviting them to pray about The Book of Mormon is not a trite dismissal of her concerns, or a weak answer to a difficult problem, but a means by which she (and others) can have the matter settled "...ye receive no witness until after the trial of your faith..." You will be amazed what things can be learned by the Spirit when we dismiss doubt and exercise our faith...

The Book of Mormon contains its own promise in determining its validity, to those willing to accept the challenge and responsibility... The exterior evidence is great, we like to hear it, and sometimes we get to thumb our noses at the critics when we find some vindicating evidence, but we certainly shouldn't doubt when a critics challenge does not have an immediate answer that satisfies them...we are satisfied by our faith and once in awhile we get some good hard facts...time will vindicate The Book of Mormon, but it will probably never be proven to its critics who are hell-bent on disproving it in order to relieve themselves of the responsibilty of answering to a prophet of God...

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snipe123

snipe123

Posted
Posted

It sounds like someone is claiming that no bees were in the western hemisphere before 1500. How in the world does anyone know that? The place may have been covered with wild bees. Something was necessary to pollanate all the plants and flowers that grew before 1500.

I think sometimes we feel we have to defend against some critic's statement when there is no substance to it. I think that I would first ask for conclusive proof that there were no bees anywhere in the western hemisphere before 1500 and put the bee in their court, so to speak.

Bees are only one example of thousands of insects that aid in pollination...sorry, couldn't help mentioning that... :dontknow:

I do like the idea of putting bees in their court...where is their evidence that there were no bees anywhere on the continent...that seems far more diffucult to prove than saying that there were some bees somewhere...

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a-train

a-train

Posted
Posted

This is the greatest trouble with a the spirit of anti. One cannot PROVE there is no God if there really is none. One cannot PROVE Jesus was not God if he really wasn't. One cannot PROVE there were no bees if there really weren't any. The antis demand proof that there is a God, but accept their own notions with no proof at all.

They say: 'You have no evidence!' We have the writings of witnesses who presently witnessed the things of which we speak. That is a lot more than antis have! And for those who have the sweet Spirit of Confirmation in their hearts, they ARE witnesses.

-a-train

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Doctor Steuss

Doctor Steuss

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Posted

Why don't you just ask Gordon B Hinckley? He wouldn't give you a theory on it. He could get the answer straight from God.

BH Roberts attempted that avenue. Seems that ruling the entire cosmos and planning the salvation of mankind takes precedence over answering little questions that those of faith seem to not be overly bothered by.

Now if I could only get an answer as to why the Bible classifies a bat as a fowl.

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snipe123

snipe123

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Posted

This is the greatest trouble with a the spirit of anti. One cannot PROVE there is no God if there really is none. One cannot PROVE Jesus was not God if he really wasn't. One cannot PROVE there were no bees if there really weren't any. The antis demand proof that there is a God, but accept their own notions with no proof at all.

They say: 'You have no evidence!' We have the writings of witnesses who presently witnessed the things of which we speak. That is a lot more than antis have! And for those who have the sweet Spirit of Confirmation in their hearts, they ARE witnesses.

-a-train

You know a-train I have been pondering this very question of evidence (or more specifically the question of witnesses) off and on all day and I think you cut to the heart of what I have been thinking...and I think we are like-minded on this...here's my thoughts...

We have in the Bible, what ammounts to a testimony of witnesses that are written down (speaking of the Gospels as an example) by those who were most closely associated with The Lord. More specifically in Acts we have Lukes account (written after the fact) of the conversion of Paul, and what ammounts to the birth of the apostlolic missionary ferver of the rest of the apostles...We can assume for the sake of argument that Luke was not a first hand witness of every single thing he describes in Acts...In other words, Luke was not present when Peter and John were freed from imprisonment by an angel (Acts 5) but we assume that he either talked to them about it, or talked to someone who had talked to them, or God told him, and he wrote it...In any event, we accept it as a genuine account of what actually happened...we accept Lukes account of things and his witness...We know that Jesus showed himself to hundreds of people after his ressurection and thousands during his mortal ministry and yet we have a very small fraction of the written testimonies of these people...a very tiny fraction have been accepted as scripture...Of course all this is overshadowed by the fact that we have the ultimate witness of The Holy Ghost as to the mission and ministry of Christ...

We also have a few of his detractors writings or testimonies...perhaps the most prominant being the writings of the anti-christian Celsus...He labors mightily to explain away all the claims of Jesus, regarding Virgin birth and his divine calling etc...he quotes from his little band of Jewish and Roman witnesses and collects stories in order to discredit the Christian account of how things happened...These witnesses we fimly reject if not for their inconsistency, then at least because they contradict that which we believe by faith and because of the Christian witnesses most intimately aquainted with his doings. Then of course we have the ultimate witness of The Holy Spirit (again).

I think most Christians will agree with what I have said thus far...neither I, nor they, would question the basic witnesses we have regarding the doings of the Lord and his Apostles...

So now to my point...we know that literally hundreds if not thousands of people interacted with Joseph Smith and were witnesses to many glorious things...some of them wrote down in journals and other places their thoughts and doings with the prophet (and many of these have been published by historians and biographers etc so I won't bother quoting what we are familiar with) and their thoughts regarding his character etc...we have witnesses who have recorded their testimonies with respect to the Gold plates and the angel Moroni...we have people who were present during the dedication of the temple who saw angels and experienced the rushing wind that the Doctrine & Covenants references...In short, there are plenty of possitve accounts about our modern prophets...we also have some detractors...the earliest anti-mormon source material that blasts the character of Joseph Smith without regard to any exploration of all the wonderful things that are said about him told by those who were most intimately associated with him...in other words the ACTUAL witnesses...those who are qualified to say anything about him...

So the question I would ask Mormon detractors is this: How do you decide which witnesses you are going to believe? I would say that you should accept the testimony of the witnesses who are most qualified to give an accurate account, and those which the Holy Spirit tells you are truthful...and I am asking you to do no more than what you have done in your acceptance of Christs witnesses...

For Example:

If you were a pagan Greek living in say, the middle of the 1st Century and you were presented with the written account of Mark(because obviously the Bible was not in existence yet) with all of it's stories of miracles, teachings, and testimonies, and you know that over in the local coluseum there are Christians being thrown to wild beasts on a regular basis, or they are being impaled on Pikes and torched to provide light for the emperors dinner parties....and then the opposing written account of Celsus with his stories, testimonies and explanations is also given to you in which a perfectly plausible explaination is given to disprove the Christian view, how do you decide which testimony is true? How did those early converts make such a life threatening decision? Who is right? Celsus, or Mark? Not all of those presented with this choice had the benefit of actually seeing for themselves, they did not have tow thousand years of Christian history and biblical scholarship to fall back on, but they did listen to witnesses while there were still some who had actually seen...That is not enough however, for how did they know the witnesses were not dilluded or outright deceitful? The answer has to be The Holy Spirit of God. By the Holy Ghost we may "...know the truth of all things."

A lot of Christians say I believe it because the Bible says it...but if they really think about it, they had to come to believe in some way that The Bible was a reliable witness first, before they would accept what it says as vital to their salvation...In short, they had to have a witness, just as assuradly as the pagan Greek did...The Holy Spirit was their guide in proving that Jesus was what Mark says, and not what Celsus said.

So why are Mormons so criticized for reading or listening to the accounts of witnesses (The Book of Mormon, or Joseph Smith, or Parley Pratt, or Gordon B Hinckley) and then receiving a witness from The Holy Spirit...Why are we told that we have to use "our minds and our intellects" as I was told once by Ed Decker and Bob Larson?

I would invite everyone to examine the account of the witnesses...witnesses who lived and interacted with Joseph Smith intimately...Witnesses who signed their names to afidavits testifying to the reality of the Gold Plates and the Angel Moroni...witnesses to the doings and sayings of those who were actually involved in this mighty work of God who spoke to the character of Joseph...then you can compaire them to the witnesses of the detractors...Ask that the Holy Spirit confirm to you which witnesses are to be believed...ask if Moroni was a real person who promised that a person who prays about his record (The Book of Mormon)will recieve a witness from The Holy Spirit as to its truthfulness...If you do this with sincerity, then I am confident that you will conclude, what I have concluded, and that is, that this work is true, it is from God.

Be willing to use the Holy Spirit as your guide just as the early Christians did, and as Mormons are taught to do today...

Edited: My spelling is just simply aweful!

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snipe123

snipe123

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Posted

<div class='quotemain'>

Why don't you just ask Gordon B Hinckley? He wouldn't give you a theory on it. He could get the answer straight from God.

BH Roberts attempted that avenue. Seems that ruling the entire cosmos and planning the salvation of mankind takes precedence over answering little questions that those of faith seem to not be overly bothered by.

Now if I could only get an answer as to why the Bible classifies a bat as a fowl.

HAHAHAHA!!!!

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