5) Horses, cattle, oxen, sheep, swine, goats, elephants, wheels, chariots, wheat, silk, steel, and iron did not exist in pre-Columbian America during Book of Mormon times. Why are these things mentioned in the Book of Mormon as being made available in the Americas between 2200 BC - 421 AD?

Answer: The contents of this one issue could be answered with a book-length response. I (and others) have written on this topic in depth elsewhere (I address this at length in Shaken Faith Syndrome) so I’ll try to sum up the most important points. An anachronism is something that doesn’t fit the time period in which it supposedly exists. A cell phone in the hands of Abraham Lincoln would be an anachronism. According to critics, the Book of Mormon contains a number of anachronisms—from plants to animals, from technology to weapons. In each case it is claimed (and supposedly supported by scholarship) that those things mentioned in the Book of Mormon did not exist in the ancient Americas. The Book of Mormon, for example, mentions horses. While ancient miniature horses existed many tens of thousands of years ago in the Americas, by the time the Lehites arrived the horses would have become extinct—at least that’s what current science tells us. The Book of Mormon also mentions the use of swords, whereas scientists tell us that ancient Americans (during Book of Mormon times) did not have the technology to make metal swords.

I won’t go through the details of every supposed Book of Mormon anachronism, because interested readers can consult the sources I listed earlier. The critics’ list includes many more items than horses and swords, but we’ll just pick on those two topics in order to keep this part of the booklet to a minimum. In virtually all instances regarding Book of Mormon anachronisms the problem can typically be attributed to 1 of 2 problems.

1) Ancient examples of some of these items haven’t yet been discovered but might be discovered some day. While this may sound like a cop-out, it does regrettably describe the state of archaeology—especially Mesoamerican archaeology. In the humid jungles of Central America most things tend to rot or become overgrown. Cloth rots, metal rots, and even bones can rot. Lack of funding often delays (by years or decades) the excavation of known or newly discovered sites (which are often looted by the time archaeologists get there).

It's a simple fact that most things disappear or return to the dust. It is an unavoidable fact that we don’t know if the anachronistic items mentioned in the Book of Mormon were prevalent in the location and times they were mentioned, or if they were anomalies even back in their day. Archaeology is a journal of discoveries that have uprooted previous assumptions. The bones of animals once thought not to exist in some locations have been found; cultural characteristics thought to be unknown to some cultures have been discovered. The door is never shut. New findings regularly emerge. It’s important to point out, for instance, that in Joseph Smith’s day only about 13% of the items mentioned in the Book of Mormon were known to have existed in ancient Mesoamerica. Today about 75% of those things mentioned in the Book of Mormon have some degree of confirmative support from Mesoamerican archaeology during Book of Mormon times.

2) Assumptions often stand as the gatekeepers to Book of Mormon anachronisms. Who says that Nephite swords were all made of metal? (You’ll notice the all in this query, because it’s certainly possible that in addition to Laban’s sword—which came from the Old World—there may have been some early Nephite metal swords.) The belief that swords have to be made of metal is an assumption and something we read into the text—it’s an interpretation of the data. The Aztecs, for example, had wooden clubs laced with bone-cutting obsidian. Know what the Spaniards called these weapons? “Swords.”

Animal categories in the ancient world were different from animal categories in our modern world. In the Bible, there were often single Hebrew words for a variety of different animals. In the Bible the Hebrew word for “horse” is sus and means “leaping,” but it can also refer to the rapid flight of swallows and cranes. Typically our English Bibles translate the word “sus” as “horse,” but twice it is translated as “crane,” and twice as “horseback”–referring to a rider. As noted earlier, our brains like patterns, so we tend to group lots of things into similar patterns. This happens when we first encounter unfamiliar items such as plants and animals. While modern societies may not do this as frequently, past societies did. When the Greeks first encountered a large, unfamiliar animal in the Nile, for example, they named it hippopotamus or “river horse.” Likewise, when the conquistadors arrived in the New World both the natives and the Spaniards had problems classifying new animals. When the Spaniards encountered the coatamundi they described the animal as active, as large as a small dog, but with a snout like a pig. One common Spanish name for this animal was tejon, but tejon is also the Spanish name for the badger as well as the raccoon. The Aztecs called it pisote, which means glutton, but the same term is also applied to peccaries or wild pigs.

This could be the solution to the problem with some seemingly anachronistic animals or plants in the Book of Mormon. When the Aztecs first saw the European horses, they called them “deer.” Does this mean that the Mayans, the Europeans, or the horse didn’t really exist? Three codex-style painted vases from the late-classic period of Mayan culture (pre-Columbian) appear to depict Mayans riding saddled deer.

It’s also possible that the Book of Mormon “horse” referred to the Mesoamerican Tapir (of the large variety). They are actually very similar to horses. Guess to which animal(s) the Mayan term tzimin referred? “Tapir” or….(here it comes)… “horse.”

We are narrow-minded thinkers. And by that I mean you, not me. No, of course, me too. All people are narrow-minded thinkers. We can’t help it; it’s part of being human. It’s tough to think outside of the box and to realize that not everyone comprehends, labels, or sees things like we do. The fact is that every supposed Book of Mormon anachronism can be explained by understanding how different labels worked in antiquity as compared to what those same labels refer to in our own day.

The critics, of course, cry foul. As the author of the CES Letter complained:

I was amazed to learn that, according to these unofficial apologists, translate doesn't really mean translate, horses aren’t really horses (they’re tapirs), chariots aren’t really chariots….

Unfortunately, this is a common complaint made by numerous critics. It shows a vacuous understanding of real world scholarship. The complaint implies that there is a single definition for every word and that this single definition should fit every place and time in which it is expressed. What then, pray tell, does the word “gay” mean—and remember, you can only give a single unambiguous definition that spans all generations. Does it mean “happy,” or does it refer to same-gender attraction? What about the simple word “fast”? Most people probably think of something moving quickly. But if you “hold fast” to your position, you are not moving at all. How about a keyboard? Is this something on which you type or play Chopsticks? How about a mouse? Do you put your hand on it while you are at your computer, or are you afraid it will bite? Is a soap something with which you wash, or something you watch on TV? The word “chariot” in our King James Version Bibles (which, critics are quick to remind us, is the underlying language used in the Book of Mormon) refers not only to wheeled chariots but also to palanquins (or human-borne sedans).

When apologists argue that Book of Mormon words—such as “horse,” “chariot,” or “swords”—might mean something different than what we 21st century Americans envision, the alternatives are not selected at random; there is no suggestion that “horse” actually means “toenail,” or that “chariot,” means “running shoe.” The possible alternative definitions are selected from real-world examples wherein those words have been used (or could have been used) to refer to something else. This is how language works in the real world.