Aristomenes of Messene and the Book of Mormon

[Solon]

Pausanias, a Roman-era writer who wrote a Description of Greece in the second century CE, included many details and anecdotes in his ample work. Among them was the story of Aristomenes, the great Messenian hero (and one of my favorite characters from antiquity).

Here's the story:

The setting is late 7th—early 6th century BCE Greece. Sparta/Lakonia is fighting a war against its neighbor to the west, Messene. The Spartans are the finest army around, but they can’t get the best of the great hero Aristomenes. Aristomenes has all sorts of adventures, is repeatedly captured yet manages to escape, and terrorizes the Spartan army. Eventually, the Messenians are defeated and enslaved to become Sparta’s helot/serf population.

Near the end of the war against Sparta, when it became clear that the Messenian cause was lost, Aristomenes acted to ensure that his descendants would someday inherit his homeland (his 'promised land').

Paus. 4.20.4: There was something the Messenians kept hidden; if it was lost it would make Messene disappear forever, but if it was kept the oracles . . . declared that one day in the course of time the Messenians would recover their country. Aristomenes knew the oracles and went and got this thing during the night. When he was in the loneliest part of Mount Ithome, he dug a hole in the mountainside, and asked Zeus of Ithome and the gods who had saved the Messenians to guard what he left there, and not to put the one Messenian hope of a return home into Lakonian hands.

A few paragraphs later, Pausanias tells his readers what Aristomenes hid.

For over 300 years, the people of Messene remained in bondage until the Battle of Leuctra in 371 BCE. Led by the city of Thebes and its brilliant general Epaminondas, a coalition of Greek forces defeated the Spartans decisively and ended the Spartan aura of military invincibility. As a consequence of Sparta’s defeat, Messene was re-founded.

Around this time (so the story in Pausanias goes), a man named Epiteles was visited by a messenger in a dream that instructed him to dig something up on Mt. Ithome and give it to Epaminondas (who also had a dream). Epiteles did so.

Paus. 4.26.8: Epaminondas offered sacrifice and prayed to the vision he had dreamed and then he opened the jar. Inside he found a leaf of tin beaten to extreme fineness and rolled up like a scroll, and inscribed with the mystery of the Great goddesses: this was the thing Aristomenes had hidden.

So, we have a heroic general/leader who, realizing his cause was lost, buried the most sacred writings (written on a thin metal plate) of his people in a mountain and prayed to Zeus to preserve it so that his people might someday re-inherit their lands. Hundreds of years later, a vision told another man where to find the record, and the city was restored.

Now, some apologists (such as the author of this site http://www.jefflindsay.com/bme10.shtml) might claim that this proves BoM authenticity because it confirms ancient traditions that parallel certain BoM events.


Others would conclude that the author of the BoM knew this story from Pausanias (readily available in the 19th century) and modeled certain characters on the esteemed Aristomenes.

I'll allow each to draw his/her own conclusions.

I share this with the board not to build or destroy faith - faith is for the other category IMO - but to show that apologists have a long way to go before they'll convince me of BoM historicity with anachronistic arguments that cite Greco-Roman heritage as evidence of BoM practices. Testimonies of the book based on faith, spiritual witness, etc. are outside of this discussion; Archaeology and ancient comparanda . . . not so much.

[translations are from Levi's Penguin edition of Pausanias (2 vols.)]

[All-American]

Interesting. Proves nothing, but interesting.

[Solon]

Originally Posted by All-American

Interesting. Proves nothing, but interesting.

I'm not trying to prove anything.

[Archaea]

Perhaps you're correct that these stories were readily available, but I wonder how much a guy in Vermont or New York could have known. To me, that conclusion is quite dubious.

You'd have to prove a library with a good translation in a town he visited.

[creekster]

I didn't read all of Lindsay's site, but the skim I did seems to show his site is a step away from suggesting the ancient stories prove authenticity. Instead, he suggests they only provide evidecne that the BoM story was not unheard of anciently and thus critics who said burying metal records was an unknown procedure were wrong. Do you disagree with this conclusion?

[Solon]

Originally Posted by Archaea

Perhaps you're correct that these stories were readily available, but I wonder how much a guy in Vermont or New York could have known. To me, that conclusion is quite dubious.

You'd have to prove a library with a good translation in a town he visited.

I included the story not to prove or disprove, but to demonstrate how the same episode can be used (albeit not convincingly) by both sides of an issue.

BTW, Quinn has an extensive chapter on bookstores and public libraries in the Palmyra/Manchester area during the 1820s in Early Mormonism and the Magic World View (Chapter 6). While the chapter is not directed at uncovering Smith's access to classical texts, Quinn makes it clear that Palmyra/Manchester was not an isolated backwater, but the surrounding communities boasted 23 public libraries and numerous, well-stocked bookstores.

Pausanias is a pretty standard text and would be included in any reputable classics collection.

[Solon]

Originally Posted by creekster

I didn't read all of Lindsay's site, but the skim I did seems to show his site is a step away from suggesting the ancient stories prove authenticity. Instead, he suggests they only provide evidecne that the BoM story was not unheard of anciently and thus critics who said burying metal records was an unknown procedure were wrong. Do you disagree with this conclusion?

Sure, he discredits anyone who would have said that burying metal records was unknown . . . but using the Greeks and Romans to prove his point is beside the point. They lived hundreds of miles and years away from Lehi's Jerusalem.

[creekster]

Originally Posted by Solon

Sure, he discredits anyone who would have said that burying metal records was unknown . . . but using the Greeks and Romans to prove his point is beside the point. They lived hundreds of miles and years away from Lehi's Jerusalem.

Moroni lived farther away than that when he buried the plates.

I guess your point is not very clear to me. We agree that the ancient tale shows that stories claiming metal records were being buried anciently were well-known in the ancient Greek/Roman world so anyone claiming the contrary is wrong. We also seem to agree that this does nto 'prove' the authenticity of the BoM. There also seems to be some consensus that overclaiming this evidence would be ill-advised, although it is not clear to me that Lindsay (or any other unidentified 'apologist') was doing so, even though I concede I did not relaly read all of Lindsay's site. What else is there here that you are trying to say?

[Indy Coug]

Originally Posted by Solon

I share this with the board not to build or destroy faith - faith is for the other category IMO - but to show that apologists have a long way to go before they'll convince me of BoM historicity with anachronistic arguments that cite Greco-Roman heritage as evidence of BoM practices. Testimonies of the book based on faith, spiritual witness, etc. are outside of this discussion; Archaeology and ancient comparanda . . . not so much.

It's obvious that God didn't want people to be able to verify the historicity of the Book of Mormon.

He took the plates back from Joseph Smith when the translation was done. Very few people saw the plates.

He sealed up the plates from translation that contained more of the history (wars, kings, affairs of the people etc.) of the Nephites/Lamanites which might be used to correlate with the New World.

And so on and so forth.

So I agree that it's a useless task trying to authenticate the historicity of the Book of Mormon. God rigged it.

[Solon]

Sorry I'm not being too clear.

The website, among other things, cites at length from John Tvetnes' book, The Book of Mormon and Other Hidden Books, in particular a chapter entitled "Hiding Records in Stone Boxes." Although I am laboring to secure a copy of Tvetnes' book, I do not yet have one, so I'm relying on this site.

At any rate, Tvetnes (through this site, at least) seems to claim that hiding records written on metal plates in boxes was commonly done in the ancient world, especially ancient Greece, therefore there is ancient precedent for the Book of Mormon story - something little ol' Joe Smith could have never known about. My gripe is that these hidden metal writings in Greece could just as easily be a modern impetus for the story of Mormon/Moroni. A parallel practice from Greece, several hundred years after Lehi is supposed to have left Jerusalem does not make a reputable case. That's all. I'm not openly trying to discredit the BoM; rather, I'm trying to discredit these kinds of apologetics.

It may not be all that big of a point to most - bag on these types of anachronistic historical comparanda - but I had to vent a little. (To me, at least), it's disingenuous by Tvetnes (if indeed he says what the website credits him with saying).

I agree with Indy (if indeed I'm not misunderstanding him). The debate on the BoM it's not about being able to verify BoM historicity. It's about people's personal convictions, based on spiritual belief/faith/whatever.