There is one thought on “Anachronisms: Accidental Evidence in Book of Mormon Criticisms — Chapter 4: Ancient Culture”.

  1. Excellent article. I probably have a comment on one area, the 360 day calendar solving the 600 year issue. It actually introduces two more anachronisms instead of solving one. Your citation there by Smith provides no references to any Near Eastern 360 day calendars, and relies on Sorenson’s Ancient America book. A few Near Eastern calendars have 365 day calendars which include 360 days of months and 5 days. These are not 360 day calendars. There were no exclusive 360 day calendars pre-exile in Palestine (or post-exile for that matter. So that is one anachronism. The earliest evidence of the Long Count calendar is 36 BC in Mesoamerica, so that is also an anachronism as it is too late.
    In addition, the argument cited is from Sorenson’s Ancient America, however Sorenson indicated later after that book (in 1993 and again in 1997) that he no longer held that position but defers to Spackman’s proposal that the 600 year count was a lunar calendar . See https://scripturecentral.org/archive/periodicals/journal-article/notes-and-communications-comments-nephite-chronology and http://www.bmslr.org/books/Nephite%20Culture%20and%20Society%20-%20Collected%20Papers.pdf (pgs 172-175)

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