History and time sometimes
provide a useful perspective with which to evaluate criticisms of the Book of
Mormon. One example of this can be seen in the claim that Book of Mormon
references to Pre-Columbian barley are anachronistic. In 1887 M.T. Lamb, wrote,
“ It is a somewhat stubborn fact that barley
was never found upon either of these western continents until imported by
Europeans in modern times!” (M.T. Lamb, The
Golden Bible, 1887, 304). Several
decades in 1910 another erudite critic referenced such references in the Book
of Mormon and asked, “But where is the proof of this extraordinary assertion?
It seems very probable that, if Americans had once had wheat and barley, they
would not have given up their cultivation and use, and yet they were not to be
found in America when the Europeans came.” He then noted that while ancient
Pre-Columbian sites were known in Peru, Arizona and Ohio for example, “not a
vestige of wheat or barley has ever been found” at any of these sites (Charles
Shook, Cumorah Revisited, 1910, 382-383).
In an unpublished collection of potential criticisms raised by critics of the
Book of Mormon B.H. Roberts once listed references to wheat and barley among
other potential “Book of Mormon difficulties” (Subsequently published in Brigham
D. Madsen, ed., B.H. Roberts: Studies of
the Book of Mormon, 1985, 95). Other critics of the Book of Mormon have
been equally negative in their assessment. George Arbaugh saw in such Book of
Mormon references to wheat and barley a reflection of Joseph Smith’s
contemporary culture (George Arbaugh, Revelation
in Mormonism, 1932, 55). “In this
book, we are told,” states William Biederwolf in a widely circulated pamphlet,
“that barley was among the produce of the earth, whereas all respected
scholarship is absolutely positive in its authority” that barley is only a
modern New World crop (William Biederwolf, Mormonism
Under the Searchlight, 1947).
In 1964 a skeptical Gordon
Fraser asserted, “The only grain known in America was maize” (Gordon
Fraser, What Does the Book of Mormon
Teach? 1964, 90). Elsewhere the same author described the Book of Mormon
references to barley as one of numerous “verifiable blunders” found in the Book
of Mormon (Gordon Fraser, Is Mormonism
Christian? 1977), 141). In 1970
Wayne Ham stated, “The findings of American archaeology do not substantiate the
claim that such items were known among the ancient Americans,” in particular
“wheat” and “barley” (Wayne Ham,
“Problems in Interpreting the Book of Mormon as History,” Courage 1 September 1970: 20). Four years later, John Price
asserted, “The aboriginal New World did not have wheat [and] barley” (John A. Price, “The Book of Mormon vs
Anthropological Prehistory.” The Indian
Historian 7/3 Summer 1974: 38). In a work published in 1979, yet another
critic could safely affirm what previous critics already knew that, “barley
never grew in the New World before the white man brought it here!” (Latayne
Colvett Scott, The Mormon Mirage,
1979, 82). Others were even more smug,
“If there was no barley in America until the white man came, then Alma 11:4-19
must be false. If God were the one that wrote the Book of Mormon, is it not a
reasonable assumption that he would have known there was no barley in the New
World? The Book of Mormon... falls short of authenticatable [sic] truth” (Rick
Branch, “Nephite Nickels.” The Utah
Evangel 29/10 October 1982: 1).
At
the very time that last statement was being made, archaeological work was underway
at a Pre-Columbian Hohokam site in downtown Phoenix Arizona, which would show
that such claims were premature. “Perhaps,” reported a writer in 1983, “the
most startling evidence of Hohokam agricultural sophistication came last year
when salvage archaeologists found preserved grains of what looks like
domesticated barley, the first ever found in the New World” (Daniel B. Adams,
“Last Ditch Archaeology,” Science 83
December 1983: 32; see also John W. Welch, Reexploring
the Book of Mormon, 1992, 130-32; John Sorenson, “Digging into the Book of
Mormon: Our Changing Understanding of Ancient America and It’s Scripture,” Ensign (October 1984): 20; Sorenson, An Ancient American Setting for the Book of
Mormon, 1985), 184-86).
In addition to samples
identified at the site near Phoenix, “extensive archaeological evidence also
points to the cultivation of little barley in the southwest and parts of Mexico”
(Michael T. Dunne and William Green, “Terminal Archaic and Early Woodland Plant
Use at the Gast Spring Site (13LA152), Southeast Iowa,” Mid-continental Journal of Archaeology 23/1 Spring 1998: 64.
Presumably northern Mexico).
Samples have been found at other
North American pre-Columbian sites in throughout the Central and Eastern United
States. Concerning the discovery and identification of samples in Illinois and
Oklahoma, two researchers states, “This project reveal[s] a previously
unidentified seed type now identified as little barley (hordeum pussillum), and there are strong indications that this
grain must be added to the list of starchy–seeded plants that were cultivated
in the region by [sic] 2000 years ago” (Nancy Asch and David Asch,
“Archaeobotany.” In Charles R. McGimsey and Michael D. Conner, eds., Deer Track: A Late Woodland Village in the
Mississippi Valley Kampsville, Illinois: Center for American Archaeology,
1985, 44. See also 78).
Tyler Livingston in a more recent article reported the identification of additional samples from Arkansas, Alabama,
Missouri, North Carolina, Wisonsin, and Iowa
Barley samples dating back
several thousand years indicate that Pre-Columbian barley was widely known and
cultivated over a long and extended period in the New World. “It is reasonable
to conclude,” stated one of the principal archaeologists associated with these
discoveries, “that we are looking at a North American domesticated grain crop
whose existence has not [previously] been suspected” (V. L. Bohrer, “Domesticated and Wild Crops
in the CAEP Study Area.” In P. M. Spoerl
and G. J. Gummerman, eds., Prehistoric
Cultural Development in Central Arizona: Archaeology of the Upper New River
Region. Southern Illinois University at Carbondale Center for
Archaeological Investigations, Occasional Paper 5, 1984: 252).
While informed Latter-day Saints
scholars have been aware of this discovery since 1984, some critics remain
uninformed or choose to ignore this discovery if one is to judge by some of
their statements (Peter Bartley, Mormonism: The
Prophet, the Book and the Cult, 1989, 50-51; Weldon Langfield, The Truth About Mormonism, 1991, 40;
Robert McKay, “No Book of Mormon Evidence,” The
Evangel 38/4 May-June 1991: 8; Reed
and Farkas, Mormons Answered Verse by
Verse, 1992, 110; James White, Letters
to a Mormon Elder, 1993, 139).
Others have attempted to
downplay the discovery by noting that this American barley is of a New World
and not an Old World variety as if this were somehow problematic for the Book
of Mormon (Deanne G. Matheny in “Does the shoe fit? A critique of the limited
Tehuantepec geography.” In Brent Lee Metcalfe,
New Approaches to the Book of Mormon,
1993, 302).
The Book of Mormon, of course,
does not claim that the barley mentioned was introduced by the Nephites from
the Old World. Latter-day Saint anthropologist John Sorenson summed up the
implications of these discoveries, “So here was a domesticated barley in use in
several parts of North America over a long period of time. Crop exchanges
between North America and Mesoamerica have been documented by archaeology
making it possible that this native barley was known in that tropical southland
and conceivably was even cultivated there. The key point is that these
unexpected results from botany are recent. More discoveries will surely be made
as research continues” (John Sorenson, “Viva Zapato! Hurray for the Shoe! A
Response to Deanne G. Matheny, “Does the shoe fit? A critique of the limited
Tehuantepec geography.” Review of Books
on the Book of Mormon 6/1 1994: 342).
The history of the Book of
Mormon barley question is instructive. Had one been persuaded by early
arguments one might have conceivably rejected the Book of Mormon because there
was then no evidence for pre-Columbian barley. This was, after all, the
scholarly consensus of the time. Now, however, it turns out that this view was
wrong, as were the hasty conclusions of those who rejected the Book of Mormon
on that basis. There was in fact
archaeological evidence for barley in pre-Columbian America. It just hadn't
been discovered yet.
A little barley.
A lesson on the dangers of hasty
judgment about the Book of Mormon, the merits of faith, patience, and the
likelihood of new and unexpected discoveries in the future for those who keep
looking.