Jesus the Creator of everything

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_The CCC
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Re: Jesus the Creator of everything

Post by _The CCC »

What would a Christian God artifact look like in a Mesoamerican context?
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Re: Jesus the Creator of everything

Post by _spotlight »

The CCC wrote:What would a Christian God artifact look like in a Mesoamerican context?

Take your pick.
Or is the Christian god simply the missing god that they believed in but left no record of similar to their missing DNA? :rolleyes:
Kolob’s set time is “one thousand years according to the time appointed unto that whereon thou standest” (Abraham 3:4). I take this as a round number. - Gee
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Re: Jesus the Creator of everything

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Is this one?
SEE https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shepherd%27s_crook

Or this one?
SEE https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shamrock

Or this one.
SEE http://www.christianitytoday.com/histor ... ymbol.html

We know what some of the symbology of Christianity in the Old World looked like; But what would be a Christian symbol in Mesoamerica look like.
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Re: Jesus the Creator of everything

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The CCC wrote:Is this one?
SEE https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shepherd%27s_crook

Or this one?
SEE https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shamrock

Or this one.
SEE http://www.christianitytoday.com/histor ... ymbol.html

We know what some of the symbology of Christianity in the Old World looked like; But what would be a Christian symbol in Mesoamerica look like.


Oh no, not another argument from ignorance. Is this the standard of LDS thinking taught in Sunday School these days?
There were supposedly nearly 400 years of peace after the visit of Christ to the Americas and in all that time nothing was inscribed upon a wall or on a monument documenting such an extraordinary visit? There would be no need to use hidden symbology during this time period.

The production of stelae by the Maya had its origin around 400 BC and continued through to the end of the Classic Period, around 900 AD

The timing isn't right for the Book of Mormon.

Stelae were essentially stone banners raised to glorify the king and record his deeds.

Monuments to kings are abundant but a god descending out of the sky after destroying most of the population has no monuments commemorating the event?

...appearing to chart the life of a particular individual, with key dates being celebrated, such as birth, marriage and military victories.

Military victories after the period of Christ's visit?

Maya cities with a history of stonecarving that extended back into the Early Classic preferred to pair their stelae with a circular altar, which may have represented a cut tree trunk and have been used to perform human sacrifice

In memory of the sacrifice of Christ, yeah that's the ticket.

The hieroglyphic texts on the stelae describe how some of the calendrical ceremonies required the king to perform ritual dance and bloodletting.

Seems to contradict the text of the Book of Mormon.

As well as marking the boundary, they defined the sacred geometry of the city and referred to important seats of deities in the ceremonial centre of the Copán.

No help here.

the stela bears a portrait of the rain god Yaxhal Chaak

Or here.

At times, when a new king came to power, old stelae would be respectfully buried and replaced with new ones, or they might be broken.[46] When a Maya city was invaded by a rival, it was pillaged by the victors. One of the most striking archaeological markers of such an invasion is the destruction of the defeated city's stelae, which were broken and cast down. At the end of the Preclassic, around 150 AD, this fate appears to have befallen the important city of El Mirador, where most of the stelae were found smashed.

Battles going on during the 400 years of peace after Christ's visit? Oh noes.

link
Kolob’s set time is “one thousand years according to the time appointed unto that whereon thou standest” (Abraham 3:4). I take this as a round number. - Gee
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Re: Jesus the Creator of everything

Post by _The CCC »

The Lehites were not the Maya.
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Re: Jesus the Creator of everything

Post by _spotlight »

The CCC wrote:The Lehites were not the Maya.

No argument there. :wink:

But you did post this:
What would a Christian God artifact look like in a Mesoamerican context?

The Maya were in Mesoamerica at the right time, 400BC to 900AD.

So how is it that the Maya sailed right on through the three days of darkness and destruction without commemorating that event on their stelae? Was it such a tiny destruction in a location of such restricted extent that it went unnoticed by the vast majority of those who occupied Mesoamerica? How is it that their neighbors were engaged in wars and battles during the period of peace among the Lehites who were also in Mesoamerica without disturbing them? Just because the Lehites were at peace among themselves would not mean that their neighbors would leave them alone. Did they feel sorry for them because they just got spanked by their god? Did they mock them for worshipping the wrong diety that treated them so poorly compared to those who worshipped other gods who managed to escape such a destruction?

The Aztecs didn't arrive until 1300s so they are not the Lehites either.
The Toltec civilization flourished in central Mexico between the 10th and mid-12th centuries CE so they are not the Lehites.
The Tarascan are contemporaries with the Aztecs so they are not the Lehites.

What about the Mixtecs?
Blood sacrifice from the ears and tongue, and bird feathers were sometimes offered in purified vessels as gifts to the gods. These rituals were accompanied by dances that sometimes included human heart and animal sacrifices. Fire ceremonies indicated a renewal of the world and a granting of a new epoch given by the gods who were satisfied by the offerings provided to them.
http://www.crystalinks.com/mixtec.html

Hmmm, the Mixtecs don't seem to be a good fit either.

What about the inhabitants of Teotihuacan?
The city is thought to have been established around 100 BC, with major monuments continuously under construction until about 250 AD.[2] The city may have lasted until sometime between the 7th and 8th centuries AD, but its major monuments were sacked and systematically burned around 550 AD.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teotihuacan

So the city escaped the three days of darkness and destruction. No monuments here describing the descent of Jesus either.
That removes the Nahua, Otomi, or Totonac ethnic groups from contention.

From the swampy ground, they constructed raised beds, called chinampas. Creating high agricultural productivity despite old methods of cultivation.[10] This allowed for the formation of channels, and subsequently canoe traffic, to transport food from farms around the city.

Seems like canoes would have been mentioned in the Book of Mormon if this were a fit.

The city reached its peak in AD 450, when it was the center of a powerful culture whose influence extended through much of the Mesoamerican region. At its peak, the city covered over 30 km² (over  11 1⁄2 square miles), and perhaps housed a population of 150,000 people, with one estimate reaching as high as 250,000.[12] Various districts in the city housed people from across the Teotihuacano region of influence, which spread south as far as Guatemala. Notably absent from the city are fortifications and military structures.

Well they missed the civil war between the Lamanites and the Nephites apparently.

The creation of murals, perhaps tens of thousands of murals, reached its height between 450 and 650.

Nothing about three days of darkness and destruction in those murals?

Scholars had thought that invaders attacked the city in the 7th or 8th century, sacking and burning it. More recent evidence, however, seems to indicate that the burning was limited to the structures and dwellings associated primarily with the ruling class.[21] Some think this suggests that the burning was from an internal uprising.

So the city wasn't even sacked by outsiders.

The decline of Teotihuacan has been correlated to lengthy droughts related to the climate changes of 535–536. This theory of ecological decline is supported by archaeological remains that show a rise in the percentage of juvenile skeletons with evidence of malnutrition during the 6th century.


They worshipped the following gods:
The Storm God, the Great Goddess, the Feathered Serpent, the Old God, the War Serpent, the Netted Jaguar, the Pulque God, the Fat God, and the Flayed God, the Great Goddess of Teotihuacan.

The consensus among scholars is that the primary deity of Teotihuacan was the Great Goddess of Teotihuacan.

That's enough of Teotihuacan. They certainly don't fit the Book of Mormon.

What about the Olmecs?
It seems that the Olmec had their roots in early farming cultures of Tabasco, which began between 5100 BCE and 4600 BCE.

Oh oh, prior to Adam and Eve. That's not good.

In addition to their influence with contemporaneous Mesoamerican cultures, as the first civilization in Mesoamerica, the Olmecs are credited, or speculatively credited, with many "firsts", including the bloodletting and perhaps human sacrifice


At the El Manatí site, disarticulated skulls and femurs, as well as the complete skeletons of newborn or unborn children, have been discovered amidst the other offerings, leading to speculation concerning infant sacrifice. Scholars have not determined how the infants met their deaths.[58] Some authors have associated infant sacrifice with Olmec ritual art showing limp were-jaguar babies, most famously in La Venta's Altar 5 (on the right) or Las Limas figure.


The name "Olmec" means "rubber people" in Nahuatl,...The term "rubber people" refers to the ancient practice, spanning from ancient Olmecs to Aztecs, of extracting latex from Castilla elastica, a rubber tree in the area. The juice of a local vine, Ipomoea alba, was then mixed with this latex to create rubber as early as 1600 BCE


What about the Zapotec?
The Zapotec languages belong to a language family called Oto-manguean, an ancient family of Mesoamerican languages. It is estimated that today's Oto-manguean languages branched off from a common root at around 1500 BC.

Well that doesn't work out for the Book of Mormon.

Like most Mesoamerican religious systems, the Zapotec religion was polytheistic. Some known deities were Cocijo, the rain god (similar to the Aztec god Tlaloc); Coquihani, the god of light; and Pitao Cozobi, the god of maize.[14]. Zapotec deities were predominantly associated with fertility or agriculture. Both male and female deities are represented, differentiated by costume.

It is believed that the Zapotec used human sacrifice in some of their rituals.


Well who am I missing? Why are there no murals or stelae that mention the destruction and three days of darkness and a visit of a god that descended from the sky? It seems rather absurd that more mundane events seem to get recorded but this monumental event gets ignored. :rolleyes:
Kolob’s set time is “one thousand years according to the time appointed unto that whereon thou standest” (Abraham 3:4). I take this as a round number. - Gee
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Re: Jesus the Creator of everything

Post by _SonOfZeus »

JESUS CHRIST IS THE CREATOR; however, there's much we don't know about the process, the vista and the depth of the created. Nor will we know these until he comes.

The scriptures never speak in absolutes. Until the early 20th century, everyone thought the Milky Way was the Universe. Then Dr. Edwin Hubble discovered the blurry stars in photographs of the night sky were far-off galaxies, and suddenly the Universe grew exponentially. Not only was it larger than we had any idea, we're now becoming aware that there may be far more universes than there are stars. It reminds me of something I read years ago, uttered by some ancient (probably Greek), to the gist that everything is a system in the midst of like systems.

Stars make up solar systems, solar systems make up galaxies, galaxies make up universes and universes make up the cosmos, and cosmoses make up what? It works astronomically and microscopically. The scriptures speak of God, gods and creation. But they also speak of nations, but again, not in absolutes.

O thou king, the most high God gave Nebuchadnezzar thy father a kingdom,
and majesty, and glory, and honour: And for the majesty that he gave him,
all people, nations, and languages, trembled and feared before him: whom
he would he slew; and whom he would he kept alive; and whom he would
he set up; and whom he would he put down.
(Daniel 5:18-19)

The scripture says God caused all people, all nations and all languages to tremble and fear because of the great Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar. But did this include the peoples of Europe, China, Japan, or the Olmecs in the Western Hemisphere? No. Everything is given in the context of the times and places it was given.

This includes what we're given to understand about the creation and operation of the Cosmos. When the scriptures tell us that Jesus created "all things," we're given to understand it in the context of what's been revealed. We know that our Adam was not the first or the last Adam to exist, nor is our earth the first earth or the last, nor is Jesus Christ the only Messiah and Savior to exist, nor is God, our Eternal Father, the only God the Father to exist in the Cosmos. We know nothing about such things nor are we supposed to. We don't know how many Lucifers there have been or how many and what types of rebellions there have been.

Eternity and the expanse of the heavens are far greater than our finite minds can comprehend. Thus we know that there be Lords many and gods many, but to us there is but ONE.

Evangelicals say there is a single God, that He was never anything but God and that He has no peers. Muslims go further and say God has no peers, nor spouse, nor sons or daughters. Nor does He need them. He's self-existent, yet He created angels, an Earth and humans He doesn't need. For a long time, evangelical Christians and Muslims believe, only God existed, and He existed a long time before creating anything -- an eternity, in fact. For countless eons He existed alone with no one to interact with. Not a single star to give forth light. And he happened to either be, or change His appearance, to be anthropomorphic. Since He was never created, it's difficult to tell.

To latter-day saints, revelation has made God's existence and the Universe far more reasonable. We say God is ONE, but how so? Many Christians believe the Father, Son and Holy Spirit to be separate entities, but one God. Thus, the Father is God, the Son is God and the Holy Spirit is God, but they are ONE God. But how so?

When Jesus prayed to the Father (an interaction) concerning the Twelve, he asked that “THEY would be ONE, even as WE are ONE,” right? He thus told us in which way he and the Father are one. Not one entity, but three, acting with a single purpose. This creates a problem for the Evangelicals, who maintain that only God was not created. Does this mean the Son was there, also, in the eternities? Was there interaction between them? How long can a 3-way conversation (interaction) last before the first angel was created? Did God exist as a single entity or a trinity?

Before Jesus revealed what he did in the meridian of time, the only thing known about God, we're told, was that only God (a single entity) was self existent. Jesus revealed the existence of two more entities, making God a triumvirate, acting as one, not a trinity. Jesus changed the entire understanding of God, just as Joseph Smith did. Those not able to keep up should go to the back of the class.
..
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Re: Jesus the Creator of everything

Post by _SonOfZeus »

The CCC wrote:The Lehites were not the Maya.

They may not have been the Maya, but they were most likely a part of the Maya.

We know they did not exist in what is now the United States, because the Book of Mormon doesn't mention snow. It also didn't support the population, nor did it have the volcanic ability that Mesoamerica had. Nor the deposits of silver and gold. The Hill Cumorah of New York had zero strategic value and most likely would nor have been as widely known as the Book of Mormon Cumorah. The Book of Mormon Cumorah was north of the narrow neck of land. Such did not exist in New York. Poisonous serpents cut the narrow neck off from cattle and man for a number of years. That wouldn't be possible given New York winters.

As much as i would have loved for the Nephites to have lived in my back yard, it just didn't. Thus, to have existed on this continent, as Moroni told Joseph Smith, the Book of Mormon events had to take place in Mesoamerica.
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