I love the many faith stories laced through multiple generations of families who taught the history of Godly interaction with the House of Israel all through the Book of Mormon. Principles and reasons why they ought to be embraced come through much more clearly than those of the Old Testament. The book truly is a Second Witness of Jesus Christ and how He cares and ministers to those who love Him. It's always fun to tune in and gain the perspectives of other people of faith. Keep up the good work.

The narrative of the BoM begins during the 1st year reign of Zedekiah. Historically, it is common knowledge 21 year old Zedekiah was appointed King in 597 BC by Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar. This appointment was initiated after Nebuchadnezzar had taken all of Jerusalem captive ( King and family, prophets, Priests, craftsmen, merchants, families, etc). The riches of the Temple were taken but not destroyed until eleven years later. The author of the BoM does not seem to be aware of this?

I'm glad you interviewed Ryan :) - It's always interesting to hear a different person's perspective on the Book of Mormon, and I liked what he had to say. He seems like he may be one of the excellent young scholars who will follow in the footsteps of Brant Gardner and John L Sorenson. I've been interested in Book of Mormon historical evidence for about 30 years now and I really love how more and more evidence is being found over time which confirm its historicity, for those who are inclined to believe and who have an open mind. There is still much to uncover and explain, but the trend is in that overall direction. There is a lot of additional information that has come to light since Sorenson's first book on a Mesoamerican setting was published in 1986. Sometimes new information comes to light that can cause us to rethink our previous assumptions, and that is one of the many reasons why it's important to keep an open mind, and be willing to modify some details of a particular theory when needed. I also loved what Ryan said at the end of the video, regarding his recommendations on what a person just beginning to go through a faith crisis should do. That is pretty much how I have handled negative information that I have come across over the years. I'm finding in many ways that it's much easier to find positive as well as negative information online than there used to be. So having so much information available at our fingertips is both a positive and a negative thing. Overall though I see it as positive because I feel like we thus have the potential to be a much better informed and more knowledgeable generation than our predecessors, and thus hopefully better able to withstand the trials of our faith that will come in our lives. One recommendation I have on this interview: Ryan's voice was kind of muted compared to yours. I found that I had to turn up the volume higher to hear him better, but then your voice was pretty loud :) - Next time you interview him I would make sure his audio set up is working better :)

Are there any non-lds scholar that thinks the BoM is historical?

I’m Excited for this one!

Great video, lots of good info, thanks for having your guest on... but... the audio was so bad. I could hardly hear the guest without turning it up full blast, but than you would be too loud. So there wasn't a happy medium. Other than that, thanks for doing these videos Murph.

I will agree with you both that it does not make sense for the god described by the LDS tradition to expect people to believe without sufficient epistemic backing for claims associated with its teachings, identity, and purpose. Does this god wish me to believe in the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon? Does it have rhe knowledge necessary to understand what would lead me to believe in the truth of the Book of Mormon? Does it have the power to present me with whatever circumstances, conditions, information, data, etc. that would lead me to believe in the Book of Mormon without infringing on my agency? If the answer to all those questions is yes, then the fact that I don't believe the Book of Mormon is true is a logical problem for the existence of the god of the LDS tradition.

Any possibility of balancing the audio and re-uploading? This is difficult to watch, even though the content is so engaging.

I wish the guest’s audio was louder.

Loved this but Dahle's sound was quite muffled for me.

His audio is so bad. Nearly impossible to understand in my car without turning it up to full blast

This is a great channel. Too bad the comments section is full of haters.

Robert Boyle, John Tyndall, Ernest Watson, Ellen Hutchins....lots of famous Irish scientists to follow in their footsteps. A scientific life is so much more full, interesting, complex, and awe-inspiring than trying to make the BoM, a clear work of fiction, scientific or historical.

For critics and naysayers, please write us a copy the Book of Mormon in the same time that Joseph Smith translated it and under the same conditions. And then come back here in no more than 60 days to show us your rendition of the Book of Mormon or whatever you want to call it. No computers. No research. And don't forget the quill pan that you're writing with. Also, remember you have to create and/or clearly explain doctrine supported by the Bible that most Christians are totally confused about. And when you're ready to die for it all along with your brother, then we'll talk about your book and its authenticity.👈👀😁

Soooo.....comment time! 14:50 He says that LDS faith needs to have some connection to reality. I've termed that an underpinning to faith, otherwise it is a blind faith, and you have no objective means (as much as possible) to validate claims. He's right. And that is the fatal flow of Mormonism, in a nutshell. 15:50 "God doesn't want to prove everything..." I think that's correct, and as ex-LDS, I don't seek or request that you prove everything. Not even close to that. I ask that the extraordinary physical claim of The Book of Mormon setting be validated, just as we would validate any other claim of the existence of ancient civilizations. I think LDS people, though, use this as some sort of evidentiary loophole, as if entirely physical claims (existence of massive civilizations, for example), are somehow validated with "faith" despite unambiguous data to the contrary. A rebuttal to this LDS tactic, that permeates LDS apologetics, is the incontrovertible fact, that the New Testament setting, the physical setting (history, culture, locations, etc.) is true. Period. There was a Herod, Pilot, Nazareth, River Jordan, Romans, Jews, etc. Nobody debates that. If that were not a fact, then believing the NT would be a blind faith. And that would beg the question, why not believe in every faith claim? Thus, we see, that the Christian God does, in fact, provide incontrovertible evidence for the physical setting of his NT gospel. Why would he not also do so for The Book of Mormon? 16:30 We can't quote Alma, as evidence for Alma, until we can show that the civilization that "Alma" purportedly belonged to, existed. And "Alma" is wrong, by the way. We demonstrate the existence of ancient civilizations through physical supporting evidence. It's not a matter, at all, for faith. This again, is an LDS apologetic "loophole" regarding evidentiary burdens. Believing, in the first instance, as "Alma" states, does not demonstrate, or validate a claim regarding the existence of civilizations. They exist, or not, whether you believe so, or not. No matter how profoundly you believe it or not. 19:25 You must always view proposed evidence with no bias (as much as that is humanly possible). That Ryan would stipulate that any other approach is appropriate, is a HUGE red flag to any proposal of "evidence" he may posit. In the first instance, all of us can do this, with The Book of Mormon / evidence, whether we are or are not LDS. Why? Because we are talking about entirely physical claims in the text. We're not debating about whether Abinadi shocked people who touched him, for example, we're debating whether the civilization he supposedly belonged to even existed on this planet... And we don't do that with bias, in either direction, as much as is possible. 23:00 Anything that was present and obviously known to Joseph Smith, Jr., before the "translation" / dictation began in December of 1827, that is included in the text of The Book of Mormon, is not usable as evidence for it being ancient. 24:00 Ryan talks about things that are ambiguous. He's wasting time...of course we don't debate the veracity of ambiguous things. We don't do that with anything. Why bring this up? 27:20 Ryan is copping out on archeology. Poisoning the well, so to speak. Yes, archeology can't be used as a 100% measure of veracity, because it's a developing picture (everywhere), but he's indicating that it's not worth much at all, which is patently false. Cop-out. 28:11 Somebody needs to put out a memo to LDS apologists on this one. Yes, a small percentage of sites have been excavated in Mesoamerica (is that where The Book of Mormon happened?), but you need to stipulate that that is the case nearly everywhere on this planet. We've excavated a small percentage of sites, everywhere. There's just too many sites, found, and too much inhabitable land mass to sift through, in any event...This apologetic mantra borders on an argument from silence. I'm sensing, and I'm not 30 minutes into this, whether it's intentional or not, an attempt to lessen evidentiary burdens by the LDS (the claimants), as a cop-out to the evidentiary burden...that's very disheartening. 28:40 "We don't have enough data to rule things out very well..." Ummm, yes, actually, we do, on quite a few things (not everything, so Ryan isn't completely wrong in his assertion), have data that can, for all intents and purposes, rule stuff out. Example: Horses 31:25 Atlatl's were in use by native people's throughout the America's when the Europeans arrived. This was a pretty well known thing, and a tech that was developed in multiple, independent cultures, globally. There's no reason to believe Smith would not have heard of their use... 35:10 Brass plates. The problem is they contain Isaiah, portions of which, as far as we can tell, weren't written yet...the other problem is the Bible that Joseph Smith had talks about tablets of brass... 37:00 Lundall really hits this out of the park. The description of the civilization in The Book of Mormon is one of a reductive alphabet using people's, not just a very tiny portion of the people, for religious purposes only, writing. Ryan really needs to listen to the Lundall presentation. Lundall didn't claim they were all writing on plates as the only medium. That's a strawman. But again, the text of The Book of Mormon claims a civilization that is advanced in ways that are hallmarked of reductive alphabetical writing in the culture (like where the supposed Lehi came from...). Lundall correctly asserts that the text itself, is an anachronism, not just what is in the text... 37:25 Ryan is arguing against the "absence of evidence" fallacy, with an "argument from silence" fallacy. 38:45 Ryan's / Matt's "...on the anachronisms issue...". Anachronisms tell us that something is anachronistic. True anachronisms do that. If you gave me a history book written by a person that supposed followed Lincoln around during the civil war, and wrote down what he did, and I read it, and in it, it talked about Lincoln calling his commanders up on his iPhone, I'd know that's an insurmountable anachronism. The advantage that The Book of Mormon has, amongst the general readership, is who among us is sufficiently versed in ancient American history, to realize that there are things that literally jump right off the pages and practically scream "anachronism" to experts who have read the text. John Doe investigator probably doesn't know there weren't domesticated horses in the America's at the time of The Book of Mormon. But if you're a biologist / anthropologist in that field of study, that would jump out like an iPhone citation would to a lot of us from a supposed civil war era text...And The Book of Mormon is FULL of such things. 41:42 Nephi as a place name is in 2 Maccabees which was in the Bible Joseph Smith had, prior to and during The Book of Mormon dictation... 43:20 Exactly, contested... Jershon a derivative of (Hebrew)....Say's WHO? (non-LDS Hebrew scholar please) And isn't it just a respelling of the Bible name Gershon in Exodus 6:17? Isn't that the more likely source of the name? A respelling of a name that is found in the Bible, that Joseph Smith had, and read? This is the PROBLEM, when you dig deep into the "evidence", you end up, invariably with things being only postulated by LDS scholars, or simply not what is proposed by apologists, at all. 47:00 The Book of Mormon says they traveled along "near", the border of the Red Sea, before reaching "Nahom". The proposed apologetic "Nahom" site is at least 120 miles inland, and there is an entire, nearly impassible mountain range between it and the Red Sea. That is why the frankincense trail didn't follow the border of the Red Sea, because they needed to get to the ports in what is today Oman, and it was essentially impossible to do so from the South-Eastern border or "near" it, as The Book of Mormon demands, of the Red Sea and over that mountain range. If it were possible, that would have been the route of the trail, because it's a much better route, much more hospitable than on the east side of the mountain range where the proposed "Nahom" is. And recall, the Lehite party did not turn eastward, according to the text, until AFTER they arrived at the supposed "Nahom". So in the first instance, the apologetic proposal is in the wrong place, by over 100 miles, according to The Book of Mormon text. All stop... I'm not even half-way through this, and I think you can see the issues... 53:40 The entire Nephi ship building saga is, I mean no personal offense in saying this...it's absurd. A trans-oceanic sailing vessel, with provision, for 40-50 people. Starting with no tools for construction, etc. On and on, there's just so many things that just are absurd with it...where did they get the sails, rope, how did they hold fresh water for 40-50 people, for (going really fast) 2 1/2 months? (About 1,500 gallons, just to survive, 10 feet long, 5 feet wide, 5 feet deep, volume) 1:08:50 Alrighty then....If there is "a lot" of positive evidence for the existence of The Book of Mormon civilization, PLEASE show it. Saying I've not "studied enough" or "you just don't know what you don't know", is just not gonna cut it, and is NOT evidence, and is insulting. Please show us something, physical, from experts in any applicable field of science, that validates the extraordinary and unique premise of Book of Mormon history. PLEASE... I'm half way through this video, and there's been nothing... Stopping here. I watched the rest.

APOLOGETICS is not EVIDENCE.

PARALLELS???? Gee, Joseph Smith had access to The Bible...so of course The Book of Mormon parallels the stories of The Bible. DUH

The BOM …a volume of fiction with no linguistic, archaeological or historical facts to back it up…..just a whole lot of ever changing spin and “warm and fuzzy feelings”…🫢