Jenkins 20: It’s all Coincidence

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/enigmaticmirror/2015/07/08/hamblin-27-the-entrada-of-ad-378/

 So there’s lots of wars described in the Book of Mormon in the 360s/370s, and lots in real world Maya history around the same time. This would be an impressive match or correlation if the Maya were a peaceful bunch whose lives were seldom rocked by wars and invasions, which would not be the case. They had war after war, invasion after invasion, and dynasties changed and fell frequently. It would be hard to point to a twenty or thirty year period without being able to select some tumult or dramatic violence somewhere.

I am on less secure ground when talking about the Book of Mormon, but my impression is that we have plenty of wars and struggles recorded there, over the centuries. So there’d be plenty of opportunities to chose from there as well.

It would be truly odd if the two sets of records did not enjoy a vague correspondence or correlation somewhere along the way.

I am struck by the way that you not only accept the Book of Mormon’s record, but even the dates that are given. Boy, such precision is going to make any case you may present massively harder to prove, and raises the bar of proof enormously, especially given the accuracy of most Maya datings. Rather you than me!

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/enigmaticmirror/2015/07/08/hamblin-28-homophony-and-proper-names/

I see nothing here that demands or merits a response.

What you are basically saying is that some Mayan names could, conceivably, recall versions of Book of Mormon names, and/or vice versa. There are a huge number of ifs and buts, as you correctly and modestly recognize. As you say,

“Nonetheless, some interesting results occur–more than I think we should expect from random chance homophony.   … Admittedly many of these suggestions are speculative.  But the fact that BOM names contain plausible Maya components–some of which actually make sense out of otherwise apparently random sounds–means the BOM broadly fits the very limited and ambiguous Maya name data we have for the early Classic period.”

I see nothing that goes beyond random choice homophony.

Actually, I think that what you have here fits exactly what Neal Rappleye was writing about in his sage remarks about Sorenson’s book Mormon’s Codex

“I will say that some of the “correspondences” here are fairly weak, some being more just comparisons than anything else (any two things can be compared, whether they are related or not).”

Indeed.

So you no longer attempting even to offer credible objective evidence to prove any aspect of the Book of Mormon?