As a nevermo with tbm Dear Wife i have attended 3 hour blocks for over 30 years but yesterday was a FIRST, for a most TBM female/wife/mother of a friend asked the following question in Gospel Doctrine which was "boring along" until this.

the passage, Jacob 1-15,16,17 : " and now it came to pass that the people of Nephi, under the reign of the second king ( Book of Mormon says the time period is 544-421 b.c.), began to grow hard in their hearts, and indulge THEMSELVES somewhat in wicked practices, such as like unto David of old desiring MANY wives and concubines, and also Solomon, his son, yea, and the also began to search much gold and silver, and began to be lifted up somewhat in pride, wherefore I, Jacob gave unto them these words as i taught them in the TEMPLE...."

she asked the teacher " how many people were around in this group at this time that came from jerusalem? she continued " seems like jacob is talking to hundreds/thousands of people, but there was no way that lehi/nephi family could be more than several generations so there was less than a 100 people- can u explain this? she also asked how the few people could be digging for gold and how could they build a temple?

TBM was really looking for practical, make sense answers ;of course she got a "gee, we don't know, maybe they had lots of children, maybe they intermingled with other people already there. " and the lesson bored on!!

how do the mopologists explain this passage which seems to be speaking to a much larger group than could have logically been lehi's direct descendants.

would appreciate your comments and explanations!

i see this one TBM fading in her thus far strong beliefs in moism.

thanx


k

Why would either route (100 people or extant populations) be a problem?

Digging for gold is not complex and is easily done by one person.

Why does Jacob need to be speaking to a huge.population or does it matter if he.was only speaking to.100 adults?

There are estimates that somewhere between 43-73 people traveled with Nephi to the New World. Of those, roughly a third split off to form the Lamanite group. So let's do some very basic math and see how many possible people we can come up with.
Assumptions:
1) 30 to 50 Nephites
2) 5 to 7 children per generation
3) 3 generations each spanning 20 years roughly

(30 to 50) original Nephites
((30 to 50) / 2 * (5 to 7)) = 75 to 175 in generation 1
((75 to 175) /2 * (5 to 7)) = 187 to 612 in generation 2
((187 to 612) /2 * (5 to 7)) = 467 to 2142 in generation 3

This gives us a possible population when Jacob was talking of 759 to 2979. Now this does not take into account deaths or other factors, but Jacob could easily have been talking to hundreds if not thousands of Nephites by this point in time.

Not only that, but the Book of Mormon itself speaks of "extant populations"..... that clearly didn't come over with Lehi.

http://en.fairmormon.org/Book_of_Mormon ... mographics

http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/publica ... m=1&id=616

You sir are a saint.

LOL Agreed. I came back to the Church and can barely tolerate a full 50 minutes of a sacrament meeting and often leave when they start spouting non-sense from the pulpit after the sacrament.

5 to 7 children that lived? That seems very high for that period of time. Here's some more info on the Book of Mormon population:

http://www.mormonthink.com/book-of-morm ... population

This shows that the populations spoken of in the Book of Mormon could not have occurred unless the Book of Mormon people had a much, much, much higher rate of steady population growth than was ever achieved in the world until the industrialized era of the 20th century. Not to mention the fact that there were constant wars that were always killing off people.

It makes no sense unless the Book of Mormon peoples married Indians that already lived in the Americas but using that just brings up other problems as the numerous teachings of the prophets and the scriptures that show that the land was uninhabited until the Book of Mormon people came as it was saved for their inheritance. Then of course there's the flood that would have wiped out anyone that could have been here...

More lies. The book of Mormon NEVER mentions anyone who didn't come over from the old world.

Your use of generalized world-wide pre-industrial averages is invalid in this case since we are talking about a small isolated population not subject to those same factors. The factors involved in this population's growth mainly have to do with fertility, disease, deaths, food supplies, etc. As we know, human populations can grow rapidly when negative factors are mitigated (demonstrated by the rapid growth of populations in some areas in the world in the modern era). I see no indication of any negative factors influencing the Nephite population at this time so stating that the population would grow far below what is possible is highly unlikely. We simply have no indication of plagues, drought, famine, or war being a major factor limiting population growth during this period.

Exactly. The numbers cannot be realistically extrapolated from one extended family. This small group would have necessitated cousins marrying each other. Who knows what that would do to a gene-pool.

People died young. They reproduced young. They had a couple kids and were lucky if those kids lived to reproduce. Malnutrition was a huge problem.

How can FACTS from the Book of Mormon which debunk your claims actually be "lies" idiot???

Cite chapter and verse that mentions these other people, Son of Satan.

Incorrect. You have no statements of famine or malnutrition being a problem. Also, it takes many generations of interbreeding for genetic problems to manifest. We are talking about at most 3 generations here.

Maybe you can tell us where they lived that they had modern quality heathcare and substantial crops and animals that malnutrition wasn't an issue.

They had the priesthood (aka power of God). God can do things like heal the sick, cause plenty of rain to fall, etc. Those little miracle things that the BofM mentions from time-to-time.

Read the articles lazy fudge!

Where did this occur? Also, why does God not do this today? Cruel much?

Read the beginning of the BofM where God calls Lehi and later Nephi as a prophet. As far as why aren't there these kinds of miracles seen today? The answer is simple. We are a very disbelieving and wicked generation. That is why the gifts of the spirit are infrequently seen.

I just need a location.

The location needs to have had extensive farming of the crops mentioned in the Book of Mormon. There needs to have been animal husbandry of the animals mentioned in the Book of Mormon. I guess we need some cement structures and a temple. Metalworks. Chariots. Stuff like that. Oh, and longer lifespans and bigger families than anywhere else in the world at that time.