How could Joseph have known about ancient cement technology in the first century B.C. in Mesoamerica?
Background: Helaman 3:9-11 indicates that cement as a structural material began to be used around the 1st century B.C. Critics once ridiculed this as wildly out of place for the Americas. But in recent decades, it has become well known that ancient Mesoamericans did in fact use cement in their buildings – and this appears to have begun about when the Book of Mormon says it did. I offer some details on my Book of Mormon Evidences page, and FARMS offers a related article on cement in the Book of Mormon. Mesoamerican work with cement involved more than merely applying a veneer to buildings, as some anti-Mormons have alleged. Important structural elements were made with cement. John Welch provides further data in his article, “A Steady Stream of Significant Recognitions” in Echoes and Evidences of the Book of Mormon, ed. D.W. Parry, D.C. Peterson, and J.W. Welch (Provo, Utah: FARMS, 2002), pp. 372-374: No one in the nineteenth century could have known that cement, in fact, was extensively
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