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An archaeologist on “Archaeology and the Book of Mormon”

An archaeologist on “Archaeology and the Book of Mormon”

Last updated on: December 17, 2025 at 8:38 pm by Dan Peterson

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An archaeologist on “Archaeology and the Book of Mormon” 2025-12-17T20:38:02-07:00 Dan Peterson

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First, though: A very happy 250th birthday to Jane Austen!

The excavated acropolis at Kaminaljuyú, Guatemala
(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)

This article, which was written by John E. Clark, went up today on the website of the Interpreter Foundation: Steadfast in Defense of Faith: “Archaeology and the Book of Mormon: Thomas Stuart Ferguson’s Ambivalent Testimony”:

Part of our book chapter reprint series, this article originally appeared in Steadfast in Defense of Faith: Essays in Honor of Daniel C. Peterson, edited by Shirley Ricks, Stephen D. Ricks, and Louis Midgley. For more information, go to https://interpreterfoundation.org/books/steadfast-in-defense-of-faith/.

“By some accounts Thomas Stuart Ferguson is one of the most famous apostates from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in my lifetime, but most members of the restored Church have never heard of him. In the 1950s Ferguson, a lawyer by profession and an archaeologist by avocation and inclination, championed archaeological evidence as vindication of the Book of Mormon as an ancient book. Ferguson’s arguments for the Book of Mormon carried weight because he was involved in objective archaeological excavations. He founded the New World Archaeological Foundation (NWAF) in 1952 and helped obtain funding for research in Mexico to test the book’s historic accuracy. He worked with outstanding archaeologists of his day. This all changed in 1967 with his loss of faith in the Book of Abraham. Soon after, Ferguson rescinded his witness of the Book of Mormon and pronounced this scripture a modern fabrication. Ferguson’s anti-testimony has had more traction among the persuadable than his positive testimony ever did, and his negative claims continue to impact seekers for truth about the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith.”

A depiction of a soul being conveyed to heaven by two angels, by William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825–1905). Wikimedia Commons public domain image. Too bad about the wings.

Now, though, for something quite different, as I continue to download into my files passages from my reading to which I want continued access for future writing. Here is some material from Lucid Dying: The New Science Revolutionizing How We Understand Life and Death (New York: Grand Central Publishing, 2024), which was written by Sam Parnia, M.D., Ph.D. “AWARE-I” was the first of his major large-scale formal studies::

Importantly, in AWARE-I almost 9 percent had features of a recalled experience of death and 2 percent—two individuals—actually recalled hearing specific sounds or conversations and visually observing their own resuscitation efforts from above. They had experienced the sense of separation from the body—the elusive so-called out-of-body phenomenon. While one patient declined to return to the hospital for detailed interviews because of poor health, the other, a fifty-seven-year-old man, accurately described details of events that had occurred in the cardiac catheterization room after his heart had stopped following a major heart attack.

He specifically recalled feeling that he had been above his own body. He said he had seen people in the room around him and that they had given his heart electrical shock treatment (defibrillation) twice. He had a bird’s-eye view of all that was happening to him below while looking from above. He also specifically heard a nurse (“ Sarah”) speaking, and he also heard the staff say, “We’ve got him back.” Importantly, we were able to verify that his period of conscious awareness had happened when his heart was not beating and had lasted at least three to five minutes. This was very significant, as it was the first time that a study had identified a case of conscious awareness—in support of what so many people had claimed to have experienced—while there was no heartbeat. It had also been able to show how long consciousness had lasted.

In short, this was definitive verification of the perceived out-of-body phenomenon that people had talked about. (79)

And here’s a curious case. I neither draw any particular lesson from it nor know what exactly to make of it. But it’s interesting:

In the New Yorker magazine, the neurologist Dr. Oliver Sacks highlighted such an inexplicable case. Dr. Tony Cicoria is an orthopedic surgeon, who, in 1994, at the age of forty-two, had been struck by lightning. He had seen “a flash of light coming” before being hit in the face. This caused his heart to stop. He described separating from his body and watching events from above. Luckily, a nurse was close by and started CPR before an ambulance arrived.

Tony was successfully resuscitated and eventually he recovered. However, over two or three days, he noticed something strange. He had developed a new and insatiable appetite for the piano. Sacks explained, “This was completely out of keeping with anything in his past.” He started to buy recordings and found himself especially captivated by “a Vladimir Ashkenazy recording of Chopin favorites: the ‘Military’ Polonaise, the ‘Winter Wind’ Étude, the ‘Black Keys’ Étude, the A-flat Major Polonaise.” He wanted to play them all, and his head was flooded with music that seemed to come from nowhere. Cicoria taught himself how to play the piano, and within three months of the lightning strike he was spending nearly all his spare time playing and composing music on the piano. (90-91)

“Am Abend vor Christi Geburt” (“On the evening before Christ’s birth”; Michael Rieser, 1868) Wikimedia CC public domain image

I like this song, which was written by Chris Eaton and Amy Grant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOQRtYYERGo

I have travelled many moonless nights
Cold and weary, with a babe inside.
And I wonder what I’ve done.
Holy Father, you have come
And chosen me now
To carry your son.
I am waiting in a silent prayer.
I am frightened by the load I bear.
In a world as cold as stone,
Must I walk this path alone?
Be with me now.
Be with me now.

[Chorus]
Breath of heaven,
Hold me together.
Be forever near me.
Breath of heaven,
Breath of heaven,
Light up my darkness.
Pour over me your holiness,
For you are holy.

Breath of heaven,
Do you wonder as you watch my face
If a wiser one should have had my place?
But I offer all I am
For the mercy of your plan.
Help me be strong.
Help me be . . .
Help me . . .

[Chorus: x2]

Breath of heaven!
Breath of heaven!
Breath of heaven!

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Thomas Stuart Ferguson

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