The controversy over the Newark Holy Stones, as they have come to be called, lies in the answer to how this ancient form of writing came to America, and how mounds that carbon date to a period just after Christ (150 - 250 AD) could have artifacts with biblical text, since the Bible had not yet been completed in Europe.

How could the HopewelIl Mound Builders have known about Old Testament writings? The five books of Moses, contained in the brass plates of Laban, would have had this information for the Nephites to pass down.

The Bat Creek Stone

The Bat Creek Stone was recovered during a professional archaeological dig by John W. Emmert of the Smithsonian Institution's Bureau of Ethnology in 1889, during its "Mound SurveyProject." The inscribed stone was found in an undisturbed Hopewell grave mound along the Little Tennessee River near the mouth of Bat Creek. The inscription was assumed to be "Paleo-Cherokee,"and subsequently published by the Smithsonian.

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The Decalogue Stone

The Decalogue Stone was discovered inside a stone box inscribed with writing determined to be an ancient script now called "Block Hebrew," or "Monumental Hebrew" because of its being found in Jerusalem near the 4th century, A.D. (Biblical Archacology Review Nov./Dec. 1986, p. 33). Upon translation it was found to be a complete rendition of the 10 commandments. The figure on the front is a robed man identified as "Moses."