Apologetics and Evidence

Is it   safe   to conclude that because there is no archaeological evidence for the Book of Mormon that it is false?   The most highly prized, primary text in Mormonism (The Book of Mormon) makes the claims that there have been vast amounts of people (Jarom 1:8), involved in great wars in North America (Mormon 6:6-15), with swords, arrows, darts, javelins, etc. made of steel (Ether 7:9; Jarom 1:8), also having farming equipment made of steel (Jarom 1:8), and numerous minted coins of various worth (Alma 11:4-19). This is not even close to being an exhaustive list of archaeological issues found in the Book of Mormon. We could go on discussing chariots, horses, wheat, the use of Early Modern English in the Book of Mormon, and many others… Argument from silence or the burden of proof? “The book of Mormon makes some extraordinary claims about there being wars with large numbers of warriors in the Americas. The problem with this is that there has been no archaeological evidence...

The Bible, in comparison to other religious texts specifically, is the absolute truth. People sometimes assume that the Bible cannot be true because there are so many other options of biblical interpretation as well as so many other options of religions that claim to have sacred texts. With such availability, one often assumes that we cannot possibly know which religion is true, if any at all. The arguments in this article will discuss some of the issues directly concerning the veracity of the Bible in comparison to other supposed, sacred or holy writings, and will establish the idea that the qualities of one sacred text does not necessarily mean that the next sacred text in line has those same qualities. Finally, there will be a discussion on truth, discerning the idea of relevance, and a brief ethical discussion of whether or not it is morally correct to explore the truth claims of other religions. Ultimately, this article as a whole will seek to answer the question, “How can the Bib...