Iron

2 Nephi 5:15; “And I did teach my people to build buildings, and to work in all manner of wood, and of iron, and of copper, and of brass, and of steel, and of gold, and of silver, and of precious ores, which were in great abundance.” – BC 588 – 570.

The findings for this particular subject matter are just as damning as all the others in Joseph Smith’s story of the Book of Mormon.  In the tenth chapter of a book called “History of the Manufacture of Iron in All Ages, pgs. 100-103, by James Moore Swank it says;

“It would not be profitable to inquire minutely whether the mound-builders or any other aboriginal inhabitants of the United States, or the aboriginal inhabitants of any other part of the American continent, possessed a knowledge of the use and consequently of the manufacture of iron. It may be said with positiveness that it has not been proved that they possessed this knowledge even in the slightest degree, if we except the very rare vise of meteoric iron. Antiquarians have not neglected a subject of so much importance, but their researches have produced only negative results. Rude hatchets and other small implements of iron have been found in situations which give color to the theory ‘that they may have been of aboriginal origin and may have been made from iron ore, but the weight of much concurrent testimony is wholly against this supposition.  Foster, in his Prehistoric Races of the United States of America, says that “no implement of iron has been found in connection with the ancient civilizations of America.”  (16)

I highly encourage the reader to investigate this claim by the Book of Mormon in addition to reading the entire chapter of the book mentioned above.  It gives quite an extensive history of the early American Indians, the mounds throughout Mesoamerica and northern America regarding their use of iron.  The book was written in 1892.  You can read a pdf copy at the link provided or see the real thing at Stanford University Library.

The Mormon Church will tell you of course the archaeologists have definitively found direct evidences of just the opposite of what all other researchers have to say.  In Milton R. Hunter’s book, Archaeology and the Book of Mormon, chapter six, pg. 127 it says;

“The inhabitants of ancient America not only used steel, but they also mined and refined numerous metals, including iron. After the colonists had arrived in America and Nephi had become the leader of the Nephites, he taught them many industries.”

What is so incredulous about this is the fact that the LDS archaeologists are purportedly down in Mesoamerica in the temples of people who performed human sacrifices and they’re claiming these are the holy people of God in the Book of Mormon?!  If these are the people of their god I am utterly grateful that I got out of Mormonism!

16 – http://books.google.com/books?id=qeoJAAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=history+of+iron#PPA100,M1