Mormonism, Anachronism #1

In the Book of Mormon, I have found a large number of anachronisms, which are errors that have to do with placing a person, animal, object, event, etc., in an inappropriate period of time. An example would be saying that Alexander the Great used machine guns to attack Tyre. In this series of blog posts, several of these anachronisms will be examined.

Possible Anachronism #1, Horses

To try to be as fair as possible we will examine one topic at a time, state a possible error in the Book of Mormon, consider evidence for and against whether or not there actually is an error, and attempt to draw a conclusion.

Thesis: Horses are mentioned multiple times in the Book of Mormon. However, no horses were on the North American continent (the location where the events of the BoM took place) during the time period described, 2500 BC - 400 AD. Horses became extinct in the Northern Hemisphere around 10,000 years ago and were not reintroduced until after 1400 AD by the Spaniards. The fact that Joseph Smith includes horses in the Book of Mormon at a time period when historical and archaeological evidence says that horses were not present is evidence against validity of the Book of Mormon.
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In the statement above, I made several assumptions and statements which have not yet been justified. There would be no reason to agree with the statement above unless it is backed up with accurate information!

Josh's assumptions:

1. Horses are mentioned in the BoM (Book of Mormon)
2. There were no horses on the North American continent from 2500 BC to 400 AD
• Horses became extinct in North America 10,000 years ago
• Horses were not introduced until after 1400 AD
3. What Joseph Smith meant by 'horses' is not a different type of animal (for example, a Tapir)

Justification for Josh's assumptions:

1. Horses are mentioned as being present in North America by the BoM during the time period from 2500 BC to 400 AD. See:
• 1 Nephi 18:25
• Enos 1:21
• Alma 18
• Alma 20:6
• 3 Nephi 3:22
• 3 Nephi 4:4
• 3 Nephi 6:1
• Ether 9:19
2. There were no horses on the North American continent from 2500 BC to 400 AD
• Extinction
• The latest evidence of horses existing on the North American Continent comes from Barry W. Baker, Michael B. Collins, and C. Britt Bousman.
• http://web.archive.org/web/20080227230023/http://www.txstate.edu/anthropology/cas/journal_articles/crp.pdf
• These horse bones are dated back to before 10,000 BC
• I do not know of any evidence of there being horses on the North American Continent later than this time. If you know of any evidence, please share!!!
• Mormon apologist John L. Sorenson with FARMS claims that horses may have survived past 10,000 BC, but I do not know of any non-Mormon archaeologists who agree. A discuss of his ideas may be found here http://www.mormonfortress.com/horse.html.
• Sorenson does not have any horse bones or physical evidence to base his claims on
•  
• Introduction
• According to Jay F. Kirkpatrick, Ph.D. and Patricia M. Fazio, Ph.D. horses were introduced to North America by the Spaniards after 1400 AD.
• http://web.archive.org/web/20061129200009/http://www.saplonline.org/wild_horses_native.htm
3. When Josheph Smith mentioned horses, he actually meant horses.
• Mormon apologist Robert R. Bennett claims that Joseph Smith may have actually been reffering to 'tapirs' when he mentioned 'horses.'
• Since everyone knows what a horse looks like, I encourage everyone to do a google image search of 'tapir' and decide for yourself.

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Conclusion:
Joseph Smith mentions horses being present on the North American continent at various points between 2500 BC and 400 AD, historical and archaeological evidence points towards the extinction of horses in North America before 10,000 BC and their introduction after 1400 AD, and the best interpretation of 'horse' in the BoM is 'horse' (not 'tapir' or some other 4 legged mammal). Unless my statement is shown to be false by solid evidence, the BoM contains a significant error.