We’re continuing our conversation with Jerry Grover. This time we’re looking to the stars. The Book of Mormon star is unique because when night came, it did not get dark. How can that be explained? Jerry Grover discusses why the event may have happened in the Western Hemisphere, but not the Eastern Hemisphere. Check out our conversation…
Copyright © 2023
Gospel Tangents
All Rights Reserved
Except for book reviews, no content may be reproduced without written permission.
Copyright © 2023
Gospel Tangents
All Rights Reserved
Except for book reviews, no content may be reproduced without written permission.
Night of Brightness in Book of Mormon
GT 00:26 Is it okay if we shift gears a little bit?
Jerry 00:27 Sure.
GT 00:29 I know I talked to you a little before. When Jesus was born, the sun went down, and it was still bright as day. And then the sun came up, and it was still bright. How would we describe that event? Would you call it geological? Or would that be astrological?
Jerry 00:52 Wow. So, if I actually sold books, which I don’t do, because all my books are free, I’d tell you to wait for my next book so you could buy it.
GT 00:58 Oh, are you coming out with a book?
Jerry 01:00 Yeah.
GT 01:00 I didn’t realize that.
Jerry 01:01 Yeah. Actually, I have an article up on my academia.edu. I put out, as I’m working on my book, I put stuff different up for peer review. I pay for peer review and everything, and get book reviews if people want to. But, essentially, yeah, I have explained that. There’s another fellow that published.
GT 01:19 On academia.edu?
Jerry 01:20 Yeah, yeah. It’s Two Days of Brightness and the Stars of Bethlehem. So, I look at all of the events at the time of Christ. There’s another fellow published who I exchanged ideas, who has a partially similar [idea,] but essentially, what you’re looking at for the night of brightness is what I call it, is, again, I just lay out the parameters. What does the Book of Mormon say? So, what are the parameters of the event? There were lights. It talks about signs and wonders, not just the brightness. It had to occur for at least sundown to the next morning. So, it had a period of time it had to lapse. And then the other thing is, well, they didn’t see it in Israel. Right?
GT 02:10 Yeah, it wasn’t light in Israel.
Jerry 02:11 The Chinese didn’t document it, who document astronomy. So, it’s actually got to be more of a local duration and a local event. And really, I actually looked and said, okay is it a supernova? Could that be the star or light? No, because supernovas last too long, and they are observable by all. So, basically, there’s not a lot of things that survive.
Jerry 02:33 A meteor shower? Well, yeah, but you’d have to have it so bright. They periodically occur as we pass through an old comet tail, so, they’re actually predictable. So, they wouldn’t be some strange event. They may have been part of it. I’m not saying it wasn’t. And, also, Mesoamerica, if that’s your premise, you have to actually look, when meteor showers occur. They’re usually after midnight, because we’re running, because the Earth has to run into them, into the dust, I mean, you can pull some from the backside, but that’s why most of your meteor showers, or the big ones are after midnight. So, that doesn’t really work either, because you have to have brightness from dusk to dawn.
Jerry 03:18 But the one event that does work is a coronal mass emission or ejection. And what happens is the solar cycle is, I think it averages about 11, it’s like 9 to 11 years. What happens is you have the magnetic poles, or the magnetic alignment of the sun is shifting. And when it happens, it can throw out solar flares. A coronal mass ejection or emission is not a solar flare. It’s bigger. It’s a huge swinging out of all this plasma. It then travels, and it hits the magnetosphere and actually warps the magnetosphere. We’ve had a few more recent ones. It creates electromagnetic problems even down to the surface of the Earth. I mean, it’s a concern of the power grid, if we have one of these things. People are looking at it, because there was one in the late/middle 1800s, a Carrington Event, which, when it came, it actually caught, and what happens is when it shifts the magnetosphere, the northern lights go on super charge and they move south. And so, when this event happened, all the northern lights, supercharged northern lights, weird domes and shaped things occurred in Mesoamerica. And there was also brightness. They thought it was daytime. Gold miners got up and were starting to mine in the middle of the night. So it actually did create [problems.]
GT 03:20 When did this happen?
Jerry 03:57 It was 1859, 1869, but it’s called the Carrington Event. You can just look it up on Wikipedia. And it actually interrupted all the telegraph. In fact, it was so powerful, like, guys got shocked, the telegraph operators got shocked. And there’s nothing, but there was enough residual electricity in the line, that they could still use it, just from the electricity from the event. And so, yeah, so that’s a known, documented [event.] And if you look at it, it only occurred on one side of the Earth, because it was a short duration, 12 hours. It was actually two in a row, that event. And so that actually explains both the brightness and the signs and wonders, which they had not seen.
GT 05:41 Is it like the northern lights or something?
Jerry 05:46 Yeah, so the Northern Lights, number one, it wasn’t just their standard northern lights. They were crazy. Because, you had this all this plasma, because northern lights are caused by ions, from the plasma in the solar wind, or the plasma hits the magnetosphere, and then some of the ionization drops in. That’s why up at the pole you see them, because they go to the North Pole, because that’s where the northern magnetic flux field is found. So, it actually changes the magnetosphere. And so, it shifts. And the auroras are, like, in a band. They typically occur in a band that fluctuates, but it just pushed the whole band south. And so what they were seeing, again, for Mesoamerica, would have been a disaster, because you sees snakes in the sky, which to them have a religious connotation. Green snakes, Quetzalcoatl, who knows? For them, it would have caused them to panic, because anciently, they look at nature, and religion as the same. When they have some unexplained event, it’s usually some religious sign or something.
GT 07:03 Right. Right.
Jerry 07:04 Yeah, so that does explain. And then the other question was a star. I actually use the Book of Mormon, as I looked at that event, and I said it’s obviously a ritual day they pick to kill people. So, Mesoamerica, that means something was supposed to happen on that day, special. They picked a day to kill these prisoners.
GT 07:31 Like the summer solstice, or spring solstice or something like that?
Jerry 07:34 Yeah, what? But there’s a verse just before that. It says there is uproar throughout the land. The only time it’s ever used in the Book of Mormon. In Mesoamerica, that’s what they do before a solar eclipse. They come out and they make dogs howl. They pound drums. They scream, because what they’re trying to do is they believe that a snake or even a jaguar in some areas is eating the sun. And then they also sacrifice people. The Aztecs sacrificed prisoners. And they were light-complected. They were albino prisoners, interestingly enough. They were the special ones. I’m not saying the Nephites were that. I mean, they probably wouldn’t look all that different. But, who knows? So I said, that looks like a solar eclipse date. So, then I went into Mesoamerica. I mean, we know when all the solar eclipses [were.] There’s a whole website or book that has every solar eclipse, all the way back historically. And interestingly enough, there was, in Mesoamerica, and we know Christ was born before 4 BC, because Herod died. We know when Herod died, because there was a lunar eclipse. Josephus talked about it. So, we know it was prior to 4 BC. And in 6 BC, there was a solar eclipse that rose. The sun came up in eclipse, which is extremely rare. Again, if that is the date of Christ’s birth, again, you have the snakes in the sky, which they believe eat the sun. The night before, it’s all light. The sun comes up half eaten or almost fully eaten. It would have been catastrophic for them, religiously. The other thing is, as far as the stars, you have everybody, I mean, the people Mesoamerica, presuming that’s where it happened, saw a star some sort, probably a comet. But nobody in Israel saw the star. Herod didn’t. The Magi [saw it.] But that’s the thing is that solar eclipse that came up in Mesoamerica in solar eclipse, it set in Persia in partial eclipse at sunset. So, it’s an interesting [thing.]
GT 07:37 This is 6 BC, you said?
Jerry 10:01 Yeah. And they believe in Mesopotamia, that’s the rising of a new king or the death of an old king. An eclipse is associated with that, so it matched. Well, so the issue of the star is okay, so what is this star? People said [that] it’s a comet. Well, nobody saw it there. Even the songs are wrong. And it says [that] the shepherds saw the star. No, the angels told the shepherds where to go. They didn’t know. And so, there’s an astronomer named Molnar, who wrote a book, Star of Bethlehem. And he, basically, said, “What I’m going to do is I’m going to take the astrological beliefs of Babylon,” where they project, astrologically, dates of birth of divine kings. And he, so he did that and said, “Hey, there’s one day that’s like 1 in 10,000; one that almost never occurs, where everything’s right for the birth of a divine king. And it’s the same date as that solar eclipse. He didn’t even know about the solar eclipse. Yeah, and so his projection, and he said that it’s basically Jupiter was a star that had an actual occultation. The moon went in front of it. And then I went on and actually looked at their software, where you can go back and look at the night sky on any day, anciently. So I brought that data up. It was interesting, because you actually had all of the planets aligning in a line. Even Uranus, which I’m not even sure they knew exactly was a planet back then. And that’s the prophecy from Numbers where it says, “A scepter will rise over Israel, when Christ is born.” So, there’s a lot of things telling me that date is probably the date.
Jerry 11:36 And then if you use that date chronologically, that’s what my book is about. You’ll find it matches the Mesoamerican battle date, where you would expect, and it also matches the departure from Jerusalem. So, it actually solves all these problems. And then again, kind of on this issue of the signs and wonders, kind of the funky thing is, I did do a translation of the Caracters document, which is actually, part of it was basically a summation of the prophetic calendar. So it actually has the event. And it uses these two snakes, which means brightness for the Egyptian, and there are two squiggly lines. Actually, the way it writes two squiggly lines, it kind of looks like the northern lights. So, graphically the glyph actually seems to match. Again, that’s kind of a little bit, that’s more of the linguistic. So, yeah, so I do have a complete explanation for the for the night of brightness, and the signs and wonders actually matches what you might expect. I did try to find evidence of it.
Jerry 12:47 They do think that there is a change in the carbon-14 based when they have these events. The Carrington event didn’t generate it. But there was another one. I tried to go back and look for when Christ was born to see whether I can determine that. The data wasn’t definitive. They hadn’t broken it down enough for me to tell a particular year, when they use the tree, the dendrochronology is how they established the curve for the carbon 14. They get trees and then take the different carbon out of that ring, and then they count it back. So, I couldn’t really find that kind of evidence, but I’m not sure you would expect it, because a Carrington event didn’t have it. So, can I say that there was a coronal mass emission on that date? No, but from what we call the event, it does describe what the Book of Mormon indicates.
GT 13:43 Would it have had an impact on plants, then, do you think or no?
Jerry 13:46 No, not really, because it’s very short term.
Jerry 13:49 And interestingly enough, the funny thing is, like, the northern, it did say they heard something. They heard the signs and wonders, they seemed to hear. And, the northern lights do make, like, a snake hissing sound. So, that even matched. I mean, it’s not the northern lights, themselves, but what happens is, because they’re too high, so you wouldn’t hear it. But there’s kind of this, what they figured out, they actually did a big study where the ions drop, and then they hit an atmospheric layer, not that far up. And then it’s like a capacitor, then they release their charge, and then it makes this crackling, hissing sound. And so that’s been reported by a lot of people historically, but they never figured it out. They’re like, this couldn’t be the northern lights, because they’re clear up there, stratosphere level stuff. Anyway, so even that element of the description in the event in the Book of Mormon was supportive of that. So, another little detail.
GT 14:50 Very interesting.
Book of Mormon Languages
Jerry 14:51 Yeah. So that is kind of what I say. I do spend a lot of time on scientific issues and linguistic issues. I don’t spend a lot of time on chiasmus. Right? These other things, I’m familiar with them. And, I mean, like the original texts of Skousen, I’ve donated to that project, and I keep talking to him about doing an original text on the Book of Abraham. It needs to be done, which would solve a lot of these, “Well, which was first, the A or the B text?” I mean, I do think those are valuable, kind of linguistic things that kind of fall within my bailiwick.
GT 14:51 You’re friends with Brian Stubbs, right?
Jerry 15:27 Yeah, see Brian I paid for all his book. He found, basically, Semitic and Egyptian in Uto-Aztecan in a significant amount, like 1500 terms, and it’s also following all the historical linguistic rules, of sound shifts and everything. But he taught at a small college. He didn’t have access to money. And it’s just like my stuff. I couldn’t write an article. It’s too big. There’s too much. My stuff, I have to write books, because it’s too voluminous. You can’t just look at the geology of Mesoamerica in one article and try to get it in The Interpreter. Number one, I’d have to wait for three years for it to come out. I’m already on, two books done by the time. Do you know what I’m saying? And plus they want to own copyright. I’m like, “No, I just want to own my own stuff.”
Jerry 16:23 Brian, I basically said, “Listen, you’ve got a lot of great research.” He’d been working on it for 30 years. He says, “Well, I need to get it organized.”
Jerry 16:30 I said, “Well, okay, let’s hire staff. I’ll give you money for a staff. I’ll pay for the publication of it. You own the copyright. I don’t care. I only ask that I’d be able to put it up.” Well, I put it up for free, but I actually paid him for every download that he got, just my own money. I didn’t get any money. It’s all for free.
GT 16:47 Wow.
Jerry 16:48 Yeah, because that was a piece of work that I thought was very important that he couldn’t really get any funding for from anybody to get it out there. He does have a little book that he sells for the layman, but the big, huge book that most people can’t [understand.] It’s written for linguists. It’s hard to [read.] So, that’s some research I sponsored and published and that’s on my website. Anybody can look at it and download it. And I’ve had a lot of downloads of that one.
GT 17:18 Did you see my Brant Gardner [interview] where he critiqued, well, he mentioned you, I guess. But he also critiqued Brian Stubbs?
Jerry 17:24 Yeah, well, what Brant was saying was it’s in the wrong place. Because he’s saying the Mixe or Zoque related, I mean, they’re kind of same language. But the Zoque, it shows that they came up into the Book of Mormon, the Grijalva, the Chiapa de Corzo. I don’t disagree.
GT 17:41 He puts the Uto, it’s like the Ute Indian. Tight? It’s, like, Southwest United States.
Jerry 17:47 There’s two things he said. It’s like the wrong place. But Brian didn’t say that oh this may be a migration of Nephites. There’s all kinds of plenty of names. Well, Uto-Aztecan, we don’t have a map, but it kind of goes, Aztecs spoke it and while they still speak, stonewashed speaking, it kind of goes up all the way to the Hopi. And then there’s a few little tribes in California, but, like, Navajo is not Uto-Aztecan.
GT 18:13 Oh, okay.
Jerry 18:14 So it kind of trails up there. So there’s two issues. One is, is it in the place where the Book of Mormon took place? And it’s like, well, there’s not really tons of evidence. But, actually, some of the Maya, the people looked at that, and they said, “Hey, there’s loan words coming in from the Nahuatl really early. So, it seems like there may have been Nahuatl-speaking people because you don’t get loan words, unless they have some close proximity. So, there are some, and no one’s really looked in great detail, to be honest with you. The research, archaeological and linguistic, is whoever wants to work on it. It’s not like it’s really organized and well-funded. I mean, there’s, like 25 Uto-Aztecan people or something that know anything, you know, this stuff.
Jerry 19:05 And they don’t care about Book of Mormon and where it came from. But I would say that there’s actually some evidence that there, actually was some proximity down in the Grijalva or Book of Mormon area that the Nahuatl may have been there. And, also, you have all these migrations to the north. So, it may have been an Aztec area, because of an earlier [migration.] You have Hagoth and all the apostates. They always go north. I’m sure some went south, but mostly north. And it’s where you would expect it, along the Pacific coast, that they migrated up there. So, what he’s finding may not be the residual of the Book of Mormon people, but it may have been somebody that left, that then grew. And then the other thing he said is, “Well the evidence is they came from north to south. That’s what some believe. There’s some Uto-Aztecan, based on corn didn’t come from north to south. Corn was domesticated in Mesoamerica and then went up. And so, they have early words for corn. So, it’s pretty clear. It seems like, actually, the migration of the language went from south to north, not north to south. Again, it’s not anything that’s has some volume treatise. But I would say there’s evidence contrary to what Brant is saying, that some of the Uto-Aztecans are saying, that would indicate that that, actually, does make sense, what Brian is saying, that originated in the south. It didn’t necessarily mean that that particular Nahuatl came from the Book of Mormon. It may have come from persons that migrated long before the Book of Mormon people got wiped out. Does that make sense what I’m saying?
GT 20:55 Yeah.
Jerry 20:56 So I would say the jury’s really out on that, it’s not unanimity. And in linguistics, it’s kind of an art form. It’s not like physics or something. There are people proposing language families and the reality is, I think the evidence is pretty obvious. There’s a correlation. There’s an infusion going on. And I haven’t published anything, but the other thing is, I went through Brian’s work/ It was interesting, because, like, the Egyptian a lot of the terms are really related to, like, Aztec religion, what ended up being in Aztec religion, either Gods names or the sacrifice like Flint and the day names. So, it’s like, it’s almost like it’s a little subset. The Egyptian was not like a lingua franca, I don’t think. I think maybe it’s just a priestly type used by only a certain class of people, perhaps.
Jerry 21:54 Again, this is my little look at it. But the interesting thing, again, I did this book on the Caracters. The interesting thing is the characters document is basically, the first part looks like it’s, basically, the preface of the book of Mosiah. But the other is, like, part of the prophetic calendar. So it has all the dates, but it, also, the way, in both of the sections, it has calendrical markers, which match the way that the Maya did their day counts. I mean, you have a distance number. And then if you take the glyph for the distance number, it’s like this funky H thing in the Caracters document. You can find it in the corresponding Maya glyph as an infix glyph. [It’s the] same for, they have a posterior date indicator glyph, and you can find that same calendrical marker in the Maya glyphs.
Jerry 22:55 So, there’s, obviously, some loaning going on into the Maya, of certain elements. And then I took those words, and some of them were the same ones that Brian had identified, as being semitic. So, I do think there’s some other correlation. It’s in my book, but I haven’t really–you know, maybe Brian hasn’t read it. I don’t know. But, again, Brant does different. He works on different stuff. As I said, the geography, he’s doing other things, which are very valuable, I think. But I don’t agree with everybody that does research on the Book of Mormon. And it’s not like we all get together and it’s a kumbaya together. And, it’s okay. Obviously, sometimes I publish something, and somebody points out something, “Oh, maybe I was incorrect.” I mean, I’m not egotistical. I won’t defend something wrong, just because I said it. I mean, so far, nothing.
Laman Means Unbeliever?
GT 23:53 I know you’re not a DNA expert. But, you know, that’s one of the big things for the critics. You’re a geologist, but do you have anything to say on that issue?
Jerry 24:04 Well, you asked a question about volcanoes in the book. Let me answer that, and then I’ll segue into it. I do think there is a volcano identified in the Book of Mormon, Sherrizah. Because Sherrizah is derived from a biblical name. That biblical name is not Hebrew. It’s from Zen. It was loaned into the Bible, from Zen, and it means prince of fire. And that’s exactly in Mesoamerica what the God of volcanoes is called. And that’s actually one of the words that Brian identified. So I do think, if you look at the names, now, Matt Bowen published something which, when I did the Caracters document, I knew the Lamanite glyph, but I could not figure out where it came, from the Egyptian. Like, I don’t know. I mean, I know that that’s…
GT 24:58 You’re not an Egyptian expert?
Jerry 24:59 Well, no I am. I do know Egyptian, but I could not find it, like I did find everything else in there. Because I was looking for their proposed meaning of Laman, that the Book of Mormon Onomasticon had done. Matt Bowen came out and he said, “No, it’s actually from l”mn. I can’t remember the Hebrew, but it means unbeliever.”
GT 25:16 Unbeliever?
Jerry 25:18 Yes. Laman means unbeliever.
GT 25:20 It does?
Jerry 25:20 Yeah, and I actually found that in the Egyptian. That actually matched. I did find it in the reformed Egyptian, the one–but that’s the interesting thing. So, when he’s talking about Lamanites, I mean, I’m not talking about when they first came. You had this family. But they talked about it early, “Well, we’re calling all these others Lamanites.” Well, it ended up being Lamanites means unbelievers. So, you can have this whole, everyone’s always looking for this tribe that has derived from, I think you’re really looking at, they mix with the population, a very small group. I mean, Sorenson has them at 24, if you calculate. And that’s another thing. I mean, the numbers in the book, I have a whole book on the numbers in the Book of Mormon, that you find. Like, the number 24 is, it’s a founding number, and it’s a destruction number. You have the 24 plates, you have 24 families, Jared, the first king had 24 sons. So, you actually find these numeric things, which the Hebrew really got into. But now I’ve gotten off track. So, let’s see. What was going on?
GT 25:32 Laman, unbelievers.
Jerry 26:29 Right. And so, really, when you’re looking at– I’m not saying a DNA expert, but the reality is Lamanites are not–that’s not the definition. It’s not genealogical DNA, ancestry. It was just anybody that didn’t believe was classified as Lamanite, and probably culturally. I wrote a book showing the actual, the sacrifice of Abinadi.
GT 26:57 So Nephi’s brother..
Jerry 26:59 Abinadi actually matched one of the year, all the year prophecies in one of the Maya years, Year Bearing years. So it’s really, when they’re talking like Laman, it’s just like Maya culture, unbelievers. That’s a Lamanite. It doesn’t mean it’s genetic. And, in fact, I think that’s it’s kind of curious, because Mormon talks about him being like a pure Nephites. It’s like he’s the exception. Maybe he shows some link to the earlier families. So, what I’m saying is, it’s a different take. Because t I wrote a book on all the names in the Book of Mormon, explaining how the Jaredite names look like they’re just constructed. They’re using Sumerian etymology, constructing it in Mesoamerican name, the way they would the structure, Mesoamerican names. And all the names mean something. They’re metonymic. So, if you’re looking at the Book of Mormon, the names–and I’m not sure, were they assigned after the fact? I don’t know.
Jerry 28:04 I mean, like, Nephi, Lehi, anything with a hi had plates. And that means alloy, hi means alloy, in the Sumerian. And so some of the names, I think, are actually constructed in Egyptian, Hebrew ,and in Sumerian, they actually can mean a lot of [things.] They’re very complex. And the glyph forms, like in the Caracters document, are super fascinating, because they can actually mean different things, like Mosiah, the Son of God. That’s what the Egyptian has, and Benjamin, the right hand, left hand. It’s like meme in Egyptian and it actually can be written backwards or forwards. So, there’s funky things going on. And that’s what the Maya did. We know the Maya did that. They did all kinds of weird, artistic, funky things and substitute head variants. And three different glyphs could mean the same thing.
Jerry 28:54 And so, there’s parallel structures, like you see in the Caracters document, it has like some parallel mirror images. And so, I think, kind of the whole, related to the whole DNA thing: number one, and that’s the other thing the Caracters document said is, it actually said that 20,000 people fled with Mosiah. That’s it. So, you’re looking at a very small population. Of course, the critics would say, “Oh, you’re just going from all the hemispheres to the smaller models.” I don’t care about any of that. I’m just looking at what it says. I mean, it’s pretty obvious it wasn’t a big area. I mean, they walked. I did a book on the land northward, and it’s like, well, they weren’t going that far. And so, what I’m saying is you had a small population. You had people getting wiped out half the time. And so, I don’t know what you would necessarily expect. The other thing is kind of, because I regularly…
GT 29:52 Well, let me go back here for Laman. I just want to make sure I’m understanding that point. Because you said Laman means unbeliever.
Jerry 29:57 Yeah.
GT 29:58 And so the question…
Jerry 30:00 There’s an article by Bowen.
GT 30:02 Matt Bowman?
Jerry 30:02 Yeah Bowen. He’s a professor at BYU-Hawaii. And he writes a ton. He wrote the…
GT 30:08 Bowen or Bowman?
Jerry 30:09 Bowen.
GT 30:10 Bowen.
Jerry 30:12 I think, yeah.
GT 30:13 Okay. Because…
Jerry 30:14 Just look, he’s on the board of editors of The Interpreter. He’s on an editorial board. So, you can just see his picture on there.
GT 30:20 Okay. Because, I mean, I can see two groups that don’t like each other. Oh, you’re just unbelievers. You’re ex-Mormons or whatever.
Jerry 30:30 Yeah, kind of like some of the podcasters.
GT 30:34 (Chuckling) So I can say, “Well, they’re the unbelievers.” But Nephi had a brother named Laman. If we have these people that are unbelievers, and then that got transferred back to Nephi’s brother, are you saying that it could have worked that way? Or are you saying that Nephi really had a brother named Laman?
Jerry 30:59 I’m not saying anything. (Chuckling) I’m just saying, then you’ll call me an ex-Mormon or something. (Chuckling)
GT 31:10 Well, we’re all ex-Mormons now. (Chuckling) Right?
Jerry 31:14 Now that I’m on your podcast, I’m now exposed.
GT 31:16 (Chuckling)
Jerry 31:17 But the reality is, no, that’s a good question. I’ve thought about that a lot. And the other thing I thought about, also, in relation to Brian’s work, is you don’t see what you would normally expect from historical linguistic changes of the names in the Book of Mormon. So, you have a Noah of Jaredite times. You have a Noah for thousands of years. Names are more resistant to change, but they do change over time. So it’s like, why are you not seeing that, what the names?
GT 31:50 You’re saying the names in the Book of Mormon should change more than they do?
Jerry 31:53 Well, you would expect Nephi here Nephi there, I mean, yeah, if they were phonetic, if they’re purely phonetic–now, they’re glyph forms, that’s different. You may have a glyph form in the reformed Egyptian, that really doesn’t have phonetics in it, maybe just more logographic, then you can pronounce it any way you want. It still has the same meaning. So, it’s not really phonetically driven meaning. So it could be, if you do subscribe that these are metonymic, meaning that the names are described, which we know that’s actually true for some, because it says [that] the such and such is interpreted to mean this. Right? That’s found on some of the word names in the Book of Mormon, place names, that kind of thing. So, we know they mean something, because it tells us this is what something means. So, if you subscribe to that, then yes, that’s the question is, was that name assigned after the fact?
GT 32:53 Yeah.
Jerry 32:54 And I think the evidence is, probably that’s the case. Otherwise, maybe it was prophetic. Right. But I’m like, I don’t think Lehi [thought,] “I’m going to name my kid unbeliever.” You know what I’m saying? That would be kind of a bad deal.
GT 33:12 I mean, because I’ve heard [that] Jacob, supposedly, means deceiver. And he deceives his brother.
Jerry 33:18 And they changed it…
GT 33:19 to Israel.
Jerry 33:20 Exactly. That’s what I’m saying. So you had to have after the fact changes. I’m not trying to be a heretic there. There are some examples. So, I do think that’s possible. It’s also possible that maybe in the interpretation, so they’re looking at the glyph form, and the interpreter when it came through the interpreter–because you’re looking at a thousand years. We know the Lamanites, Nephites, there were different languages. In the early languages, I mean, Enos saying, “I had to learn that language of my fathers even early on.” It’s like, it’s not the lingua franca. Something else is going on with the languages. And so, Alma said, “Liahona means this.” He had to tell them. It wasn’t obvious that it meant compass. Right? So, they didn’t know. So it’s telling you, some things have changed. So, essentially, yes, you’re looking at probably– now whether it was during their lifetimes, maybe some of them could have been like–and that’s not atypical in some of the Native American, where you actually get assigned a name later in life, or at the time that you make your passage into manhood or something like that. So, they would give him a name and then it’s changed. But I think a lot of them, because these are oral traditions, where they’re telling these stories. They may have them written, but they’re telling these stories, or they’re teaching them their scriptures. And so the name, itself, may have been part of the story or the meaning of this point they were trying to get across. Does that make sense?
GT 33:21 Yeah, it does make sense.
Jerry 33:51 So, I do think that’s probably a good possibility that they were assigned at some point in time after that.
GT 34:59 You’re agnostic as to whether Laman really was Nephi’s brother?
Jerry 35:05 Well, he had a brother. But was that his name? I don’t think so. I mean, the other interesting thing is that glyph, I don’t know if I can [say it.] We’ve got mixed company here. But that glyph, the glyph in the reformed Egyptian for Laman, for Lamanite, it means dirty, filthy in Egyptian. And in Mesoamerica, it’s found. It means, basically, crap or worse, shit. That’s the meaning. So, no doubt when the Lamanites say these frickin’ Nephites call us the crap people…
GT 35:40 Dirty.
Jerry 35:41 Yeah, no wonder we hate their guts. You know what I’m saying. And that’s the whole thing about like, I’m not going to get into racism in the Book of Mormon. But it’s like, hey. People are like, “Oh, the Book of Mormon should…” Like, listen. These ancient peoples. You would expect [that] they had super bad prejudices. And they weren’t all righteous, either. Most of the time they were wicked. So, you wouldn’t expect them to not have racist stuff. Now, whether [it was] a curse from God, I mean, that’s a whole ‘nother question. But the fact that they would be prejudiced against these other people, it’s not really racist, but at least ethnocentric. That’s not at all surprising. In fact, that to me, tells me it probably is an ancient text. Because that’s what you would expect, especially from Hebrew tradition. Outsiders were not [liked.] They weren’t supposed to marry them.
GT 36:37 Right.
Jerry 36:38 So, it’s a little different take.
GT 36:43 Yeah, that’s interesting.
Jerry 36:43 In fact, that’s, like, one of the themes that Mormon is trying to point out is, like, stripling warriors, look, they’re righteous. Samuel the Lamanite, he’s righteous. You guys are all freaking wicked. He’s, like, basically trying to say, “This is something that you need…” The principle he’s teaching is to not be that way. Now, yes, there are examples of it. I mean, some is cultural, like, the darkening of the skin. I mean, I wrote that in a book, too. I mean, the Order of Nehor, actually, the Maya they, as part of their initiation or purification, they would just paint themselves black and put a red mark on their head. And then later, three months later, they would wash it all off to be pure. So, I do think, when it talks about pigmentation, like the skin change from lightness or darkness, that’s probably a cultural phenomenon, at least that portion of it. It’s not really a skin color. It’s just representing the different cultures and different practices for skin coloration and stuff like that. I didn’t write about that. But those are kind of–I do think, again, the Book of Mormon to me, of all the things that people use to attack it, I’m like, “Actually, that kind of verifies what I would expect. I mean you’re viewing it as an attack, it’s actually a support the Book of Mormon.
Jerry 36:44 I don’t care about being an apologist. I’m not out there trying to do a fireside. I don’t care. I just I do my own research. I have my own ideas, publish it, people can download it. It’s free, if they want it. I’m not out there engaging with–I mean, I put my stuff in ex-Mormon Reddit or whatever, if people want to review it. And my peer review, I just use non-LDS, often where I can get them and pay them to do it blind. Because I’m interested in just getting…
GT 38:27 Feedback.
Jerry 38:28 Yeah, negative. I mean, sometimes you have to pick through all the F words and stuff. But also if they have a point, I’ll take it out if it’s valid. I don’t just discount it because they’re angry or something. But, yeah, so I’m just, for me, it’s not– like they say, “Well, you’re an apologist.” I don’t care about any of that stuff. I just do my own research, I write it. I sponsor ones that I think are valid. I mean, or interesting research that doesn’t have any funding, I’ll help it out, sometimes. And that’s what I do. And I do, like I said, I do mostly scientific and linguistic. I get into some of these other areas. I’ve been down Mesoamerica. I’ve tooled all around. And so, I mean, I do know the geography. And then, my books, I get into archaeology and all these other things. It’s not like I don’t look at those. But still, I’m not going into some of the textual stuff, very heavy. But I do get into, like, the names. I did one on the names. Again, my kids kept asking me, “Well, these names are all like found in New England,” or something.
Jerry 39:38 I’m like, I don’t think so. I was like, “Well, let’s look at the names.” And then I started asking these questions and then what does Curelom mean? What does Cumom mean? Can I find meanings for those?
Jerry 39:45 Ziff, I did a book on Ziff and the metallurgy of the plates. And we found it. We found Ziff in an enclave of, basically, Aramaic in Iran, from the first exile. They stayed there and that word came up. But it means like false gold or gold plated ziff. So I can actually put it back at the time of Nephi, or Lehi’s departure and in Arabic it’s like the money of the genies of the gin in Abkar, the evil place. So the fact that no would have Ziff it’s like, that actually matches what you expect. They use it to adorn buildings. So I mean, it actually matches pretty much the Book of Mormon. So, I looked at that. Curelom, again, I’m looking at Sumerian constructed. Cure means mountain. Lom means sheep. Cure is, like, also wool or loom. And then you have Cumom. Cu means plow. Mom means beast. So, like Alpaca and llama, probably. And the reason that they were left that way is because camelids were not domesticated until after the Jaredites had already left. So, that’s why they had to construct the name for them, because they didn’t really have a glyph form available to them. Does that make sense?
Jerry 41:18 Yeah, so I kind of went through all the unknown words, even the weight. Well, they call it money system. It’s not money. It’s really just their commodity exchange. So, they just put–the main is measure of grain. But, like, a limnah, for example, if you lay out the system, that’s seven measures of grain. Well, la in Sumerian is measure. Imin-na is seven. That can go up, shiblom is, like, half and so even those. So, all of them, I have reasonable explanations for constructing all of that. So, I do think all of the names in the Book of Mormon have meaning. Now some of it’s hard to figure out, because we don’t know much about the character system. You know, one of the persons that led 10,000 in the final battle, we don’t know anything about him. So, it’s hard to say, okay, here’s the story around this guy, or something. They probably had one, at the end. Mormon probably even did it at the end. So, I do think you have to be careful when you’re–like these definitions of DNA. It’s like, listen, you only had 20,000 [Nephites] at the time of Mosiah. They clearly, when they came in, there were other people here. The first clue, is they said, “Well, there’s the wild goats and the goats.” Okay, somebody domesticated them. Right?
Explaining DNA/Book of Mormon
Jerry 41:18 So, there’s just some obvious clues that are pretty clear [that] somebody was around. So, then you have, basically, a lot of people being wiped out. You have just unbelievers. So, it’s kind of interesting, because I actually do spend quite a bit of time on updating Wikipedia, just myself, because I’m not paid. So, like the pre-Columbian Contact page, for years, I keep putting up, “Listen, you’ve got all this evidence of Polynesian contact in South America.” Oh, man, they just– people, “No, it’s impossible. It’s impossible.” Well, they finally found the DNA recently, in Polynesia of Colombian Indians. So, it’s taken this long to find something that was–even a lot of other people were saying, “Look, there’s evidence of some contact. And, especially, it didn’t make any sense. You have them going all the way across, they find Easter Island. They’re able to get to all these little islands and somehow, they miss South America? (Chuckling) You know, it just didn’t make any sense that they would not be able to find South America, the Polynesians. So, I guess what I’m saying is, a lot of people say there’s still [no] DNA evidence. I’m like, “Well, maybe wait.” You’ve got to sample the right populations You have to sample pre-Columbian contact, honestly, because of the intermarriage, the genetics past that is polluted by European blood. So, you’ve got to find some mummies or something that was pre-contact. Right? And so it’s not all that easy. I’m not saying they will be found, but I wouldn’t be surprised if somebody pops up with something.
Jerry 44:35 But again, I don’t, you don’t want to make stuff up. And that’s part of the problem with kind of some of what comes out of the Heartlanders a little bit. They take something and then kind of extrapolate. I try to stick to the science. Although, some of the critics say, “Well, the consensus of the science…” Listen. That’s a religious and political term. Scientists as well. execute lets you know there’s some funny global warming and consensus 98%. And they always say, well, 10 out of nine out of 10 people use Crest. Well, I’m the guy that uses Colgate. I’m sorry. What I’m saying so science, there isn’t unanimity in every area of science on all topics. There’s softer science and there’s physics is a harder science. Archaeology is more of a softer [science], because there’s a lot of subject to a lot of interpolate even geology. I did say that in one speech I gave is that archaeologist is just a geologist with a lot of imagination.
Jerry 45:43 But so, so the DNA answer, I guess, I don’t know that I’m the expert to provide it. But I do think there’s to say that we know everything.
GT 45:52 The jury’s out for you.
Jerry 45:54 Yeah, I mean, meaning it may be there, we just haven’t found it. Maybe don’t expect much. Or, you know, there wasn’t that many that went. There wasn’t an initial population that was very large that came. And then again, there’s all the other arguments, so we don’t really know their DNA and all that kind of thing. I agree with all those too. But again, it’s not something I’ve taken on I mean, I do think it would be interesting to [look at.] I mean, and that’s the other problem is you can’t even do DNA sampling of pre-Columbian burials. I mean, because they don’t allow it. Because the Native American or the protection of Native American, it’s very difficult to even do that. So I mean, like, Kennewick Man. Now think you could even sample that now unless the tribe says okay. But a lot of them don’t. And so, you have to respect that. I’m not saying that’s bad. I’m just saying that’s just the reality.
GT 46:42 It’s just tough to do with your scientist.
Jerry 46:44 Yes. Yeah. So I’m not saying to do it. I’m just saying that that may be inhibited of getting data that could actually figure out maybe some things so.
GT 46:54 Well, cool. Can you remind people where you can download all your stuff? I guess academia.edu is one place.
Jerry 47:00 Yeah, I have. Everything’s up there. There’s a website. www.BMLSLR.org. Yes, Book of Mormon Science and Linguistic Research.org. There are videos. Brian Stubbs stuff, I’ve got all of his publications not related to LDS or anything. So, I’ve got a whole page where if you’re interested in his work, you can download the full book, you can download all the reviews that have been done. It’s kind of like a one stop shop for Brian’s stuff. If you don’t like mine, so
GT 47:34 Cool. Very cool.
Jerry 47:35 The one good thing about my stuff, if you don’t like it, it’s free. So, you get what you pay for.
GT 47:39 Cool. All right. Well, Jerry Grover, I really appreciate you for being here on Gospel Tangents. And appreciate you talking about Geology in the Book of Mormon.
Jerry 47:54 Yeah, well, thanks. You know, it’s been interesting to talk. And, not really a plug for Gospel Tangents, but I mean, I do think you’re excellent podcaster, because…
GT 48:05 Thank you.
Jerry 48:06 Well, you’re not just trying to prove all these points. And it’s not about you. Right? It’s about the topic or the person. That’s what podcasters should do, which I don’t find many of them does.
GT 48:21 All right. Well, thank you very much. I appreciate it.
Jerry 48:23 Okay. Great.
GT 48:24 Thanks.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 49:48 — 45.6MB) | Embed
Subscribe: Email | | More
