Legends of the Great White God: Consistent with Book of Mormon Claims?
” and Diane Wirth’s recent scholarly article, “Quetzalcoatl, the Maya Maize God, and Jesus Christ.”) • The extensive practices of sacrifice in Mesoamerica offer many parallels to the ancient Near East. For example, a well known Mesoamerican archeologist, Alfred V. Kidder, in discussing ancient Guatemalan cultures, said, “The belief that pungent smoke is sweet in the nostrils of the gods is one of the many extraordinary likenesses between Old World and New World religions.” [A.V. Kidder, J.D. Jennings, and E.M. Shook, Excavations at Kaminaljuyu, Guatemala, University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State Press (1977), p. 93, as cited by Sorenson, Images of Ancient America, p. 142] One parallel that early Spanish missionaries missed, according to Nancy M. Farris, is that “[s]laughter of a blameless being (animal, human, divine, and combinations thereof) and the sharing of flesh embodied the principal link between the natural and supernatural orders in both cases.” [N.M. Farris, “Sacrifice and Com
