“Exceedingly Expert in the Working of Cement” (Howlers # 9)

“When I was a young married man,” recalled President Heber J. Grant in 1929, “another young man who had received a doctor’s degree ridiculed me for believing in the Book of Mormon. He said he could point out two lies in that book. One was that people had built their homes out of cement and that they were very skillful in the use of cement. He said there had never been found and never would be found, a house built of cement by the ancient inhabitants of this country, because the people in that early age knew nothing about cement. He said that should be enough to make one disbelieve the book. I said: `That does not affect my faith one particle. I read the Book of Mormon prayerfully and supplicated God for a testimony in my heart and soul of the divinity of it, and I have accepted it and believe it with all my heart.’ I also said to him, `If my children not find cement houses, I expect that my grandchildren will.’ He said, well what is the good of talking to a fool like that.”

                                       Heber J. Grant, Conference Report, April 1929, 129.

What I find significant about Book of Mormon references to pre-Columbian cement (Helaman 3:3-12) is not that it existed in the Americas (some nineteenth century sources do reference this), but rather the level of skill involved in that technology. The people, Mormon affirms, “became “exceedingly expert” in this technology (Helaman 3:7). The other significant point is the reference to its introduction among a particular group of people more than two thousand years ago. Both of these points find substantial confirmation archaeologically. The following initially appeared as a FARMS Update in May 1991 based on research by Matthew G. Wells and John W. Welch and was subsequently published in Reexploring the Book of Mormon (1992), 212-14.

Helaman 3:7-11 reports that Nephite dissenters moved from the land of Zarahemla into the land northward and began building with cement. "The people . . . who went forth became exceedingly expert in the working of cement; therefore they did build houses of cement," "all manner of their buildings," and many cities "both of wood and of cement." The Book of Mormon dates this significant technological advance to the year 46 B.C.

Recent research shows that cement was in fact extensively used in Mesoamerica beginning largely at this time. One of the most notable uses of cement is in the temple complex at Teotihuacan, north of present-day Mexico City. According to David S. Hyman, the structural use of cement appears suddenly in the archaeological record. Its earliest sample "is a fully developed product." The cement floor slabs at this site "were remarkably high in structural quality." Although exposed to the elements for nearly two thousand years, they still "exceed many present-day building code requirements" (David S. Hyman, A Study of the Calcareous Cements in Prehispanic Mesoamerican Building Construction. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University, 1970), ii, sect. 6, p. 7).

After its discovery, cement was used at many sites in the Valley of Mexico and in the Maya regions of southern Mexico, Guatemala, and Honduras. It was used in the construction of buildings at such sites as Cerro de Texcotzingo, Tula, Palenque, Tikal, Copan, Uxmal, and Chichen Itza. Further, the use of cement "is a Maya habit, absent from non-Maya examples of corbelled vaulting from the south-eastern United States to southern South America" (George Kubler, The Art and Architecture of Ancient America. Baltimore: Penguin, 1975, 201, italics added).

Mesoamerican cement was almost exclusively lime cement. The limestone was purified on a "cylindrical pile of timber, which requires a vast amount of labor to cut and considerable skill to construct in such a way that combustion of the stone and wood is complete and a minimum of impurities remains in the product" (Tatiana Proskouriakoff, An Album of Maya Architecture. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1963, xv). The fact that very little carbon is found in this cement "attests to the ability of these ancient peoples" (Hyman, A Study of Calcareous Cements, sect. 6, p. 5).

John Sorenson further noted the expert sophistication in the use of cement at El Tajin, east of Mexico City, after Book of Mormon times. Cement roofs covered areas of seventy-five square meters! "Sometimes the builders filled a room with stones and mud, smoothed the surface on top to receive the concrete, then removed the interior fill when the [slab] on top had dried" (John Sorenson, “Digging into the Book of Mormon,” Ensign 14 October 1984: 19).

The presence of expert cement technology in pre-Hispanic Mesoamerica is a remarkable archaeological fact, inviting much further research. Cement seems to take on significant roles in Mesoamerican architecture close to the time when the Book of Mormon says this development occurred. It is also a significant factor in locating the Book of Mormon lands of Zarahemla and Desolation, for Zarahemla must be south of areas where cement was used as early as the middle first century B.C. Until samples of cement are found outside of the southwest areas of North America, one may reasonably assume that Book of Mormon lands were not far south of the sites where ancient cement is found.

Seantum’s Confession (Howlers # 6)

“At a later period occurred the trial of Nephi for the murder of Seantum, the Chief Judge. The real murderer was the judge’s brother, who is forced to confess by a series confessions based on threats such as would undoubtedly be rejected by the judge of an English criminal court. Finally comes the statement, `because of this fear and this paleness which has come upon your face, behold we know that thou art guilty.’”

James Williams, “The Law of the Book of Mormon” American Law Review 34 (1900): 222.

John W. Welch has written extensively on the subject of law and the Book of Mormon published an article in 1992 in which he wrote the following:

The trial of Seantum in Helaman 7-8 raises some interesting points of Nephite and Israelite law. The story is familiar, how Nephi spoke from his garden tower (see Helaman 7:10), was threatened with a lawsuit for reviling against the government, but in the end revealed that the chief judge was "murdered, and he [lay] in his blood; and he [had] been murdered by his brother, who [sought] to sit in the judgment-seat" (Helaman 8:27). Five men ran and found things to be as Nephi had said.

A public proclamation was then sent out by heralds announcing the murder and calling a day of fasting, mourning, and burial (see Helaman 9:10). The day after the death of a political leader was traditionally a day of fasting, mourning, and burial (see 1 Samuel 31:13; 2 Samuel 1:12).

Following the burial, five suspects (the men who had been sent to investigate) were brought to the judges. They could not be convicted, however, on circumstantial evidence, for such was ruled out under Israelite law, which required every fact to be substantiated by the testimony of two eyewitnesses (see Deuteronomy 19:15). This presented a serious problem in this particular case, however, for no one had witnessed the killing of the chief judge. Seantum had killed his brother "by a garb of secrecy" (Helaman 9:6).

Cases of unwitnessed murders presented special problems under the law of Moses. While the two-witness rule would seem to stand insurmountably in the way of ever obtaining a conviction in such cases, such slayings could not simply be ignored. If a person was found slain in the land and the murderer could not be found, solemn rituals, oaths of innocence, and special purification of all the men in the village had to be performed (see Deuteronomy 21:1-9). Things turned out differently in Seantum's case, however, for he was soon exposed in a way that opened the door to an exceptional rule of evidence that justified his conviction.

Nephi first revealed to the people that Seantum was the murderer, that they would find blood on the skirts of his cloak, and that he would say certain things to them when they told him, "We know that thou are guilty" (Helaman 9:34). Indeed, Seantum was soon detected and immediately confessed his guilt (see Helaman 9:37-38).

Seantum's self-incriminating admission would normally not be admissible in a Jewish court of law. Under the Talmud, no man could be put to death on his own testimony: "No man may call himself a wrongdoer," especially in a capital case (TB, Sanhedrin 9b). But from earlier times came four episodes that gave rise to an exception to this rule against self-incriminating confessions under certain circumstances. Those precedents, each of which involved convictions or punishments based on confessions, were the executions of (1) Aachan (see Joshua 7), of (2) the man who admitted that he had killed Saul (see 2 Samuel 1:10-16), and of (3) the two assassins of Ishbosheth, the son of Saul (see 2 Samuel 4:8-12), as well as (4) the voluntary confession of Micah, the son who stole from his mother (see Judges 17:1-4).

The ancients reconciled these four cases with their rigid two-witness rule by explaining that they involved confessions before trial or were proceedings before kings or rulers instead of judges (See Menachem Elon, The Principles of Jewish Law [Jerusalem: Keter, 1975], 614). An exception was especially granted when the confession was "corroborated by an ordeal as well as by the production of the corpus delicti," (Ze'ev Falk, Hebrew Law in Biblical Times [Jerusalem: Wahrmann, 1964], 71), as in the case of Aachan, who was detected by the casting of lots and whose confession was corroborated by the finding of the illegal goods under his tent floor.

Thus, one can with reasonable confidence conclude that in the biblical period the normal two-witness rule could be overridden in the special case of a self-incriminating confession, if the confession occurred outside of court, or if God's will was evidenced in the matter by ordeal, lots, or otherwise in the detection of the offender, and if corroborating physical evidence of the crime could be produced.

Seantum's self-incriminating confession satisfies all three of these requirements precisely, and thus his conviction was ensured. His confession was spontaneous and before trial. The evidence of God's will was supplied through Nephi's prophecy. Tangible evidence was present in the blood found on Seantum's cloak. These factors, under biblical law, would override the normal Jewish concerns about the use of self-incriminating confessions to obtain a conviction.

Given the complicated and important ancient legal issues presented by the case of Seantum, it is little wonder that the text makes special note of the fact that Seantum himself was legitimately "brought to prove that he himself was the very murderer" (Helaman 9:38). No further evidence was legally needed to convict him under these circumstances.

Welch’s article, “The Case of An Unobserved Murder,” was published in Reexploring the Book of Mormon (1992), 242-44. For further reading see Welch, The Legal Cases in the Book of Mormon (Brigham Young University Press and the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, 2008).

The "Garb" of Secrecy (Howlers #4)

                                                         

“A `garb of secrecy’ is surely a formidable instrument with which to stab a man!”

                                      M. T. Lamb, The Golden Bible (1887), 57.

“`Garb’ is clothing; one cannot be stabbed with a piece of clothing—it would be even more difficult for someone to be stabbed with that!”

                                     Weldon Langfield, The Truth About Mormonism (1991), 50.

John Tvedtnes and David Bokovoy offer the following insight:

In Helaman 9:6, we read that the Nephite judge had been "stabbed by his brother by a garb of secrecy." Critics have contended that this makes no sense in English since "garb" has the same meaning as "garment" or "clothing." This idiom is the same as the English "under cloak of secrecy." But what is most interesting is that the Hebrew word beged means both "garment" or "garb" (e.g. Genesis 39:12-13) and "treachery." This is an obvious word-play in the Hebrew original of the Book of Mormon. As for the preposition by, in Hebrew its range of meaning includes "in," "with," and "by means of."

David E. Bokovoy and John A. Tvedtnes, Testaments: Links Between the Book of Mormon and the Hebrew Bible (2003), 204.