JWWallace is a very interesting fellow, but I've always had difficulty getting into his videos, not that the content isn't interesting but I haven't been able to focus on his content. This was awesome. The kookie green screen and the goggles were funny. I do like the actual drives though, but this was really good. Thank you.
As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I feel I have to comment on two aspects of this conversation that surprised me. First, it is so strange to me that so many Christians seem to base their belief in scripture on archaeological or forensic evidence like this. It seems like the Bible is more believable because Jerusalem existed, or the mix of proper names matches what we would expect, or we've found coins with Pilate's name on them. None of those can be used to prove, or even *comment on,* whether Jesus Christ rose from the dead. In our parlance, that knowledge can only be found via a witness from the Holy Spirit. Evidence is nice and all, but it cannot serve as a substitute for the confirming witness of the Holy Ghost, promised to us in John chapter 14. Because science changes all the time, and history is continually rewritten, and if I have based my testimony on external evidences then some news story or Nat Geo article could shake my faith. But if I have a witness through the Spirit, then *nothing* can steal that from me. Second, I feel like I have to defend the Book of Mormon, which you mentioned at 22:43. Could I point out a few things you may not be aware of? While I stand by my words in the first paragraph, that I base my testimony on spiritual witnesses and not hard evidence, there are a few evidential things I'd like to point out. (1) The first several dozen pages of the Book of Mormon take place in the Middle East, beginning at Jerusalem and ending on the southern coast of the Arabian peninsula. There are several remarkable archaeological sites, including one in Saudi Arabia called Nahom, that are mentioned in the Book of Mormon text. (2) There are several very good reasons why there isn't widespread archaeological evidence in the New World: a) Unlike the New Testament, the good guys are dead at the end of the book. The bad guys would hardly have kept their memory alive for the last 1,600 years. b) As a result, we don't know what Book of Mormon locations are called now, to be able to identify them. Jerusalem has retained its identity for 3,000+ years, but that's not true for BoM cities like Zarahemla and Nephihah. c) We don't even actually know WHERE these places are--in the past, people thought the story encompassed all of North and South America, but that theory was discarded several generations ago. There is now a lively debate within the Church as to which of several "limited geography models" is correct, with some gunning for somewhere near the Yucatan Peninsula and others various places in the American Midwest. (3) The word "coin" never appears in the BoM text (just in the explanatory headers, which were NOT part of the original text). Instead, a system of weights and measures is described that directly correlates to specific amounts of grain, which as I understand is consistent with what we know of Native American history and culture. (4) Every test you apply to the Apostles (willingly gave their lives for their testimony, had very little to gain, etc) apply to the Three Witnesses of the Book of Mormon, only *better.* All three of them--Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer, and Martin Harris--grew disaffected with Joseph Smith and eventually left the Church. Oliver and Martin eventually returned, but David never did. However, all of them maintained to their deathbeds that they had seen an angel, who had shown them the Golden Plates and commanded them to bear witness. There is plenty more I could say, including evidence of Hebrew influence seen throughout the Book of Mormon in naming conventions/sentence structure/teaching styles, but you didn't ask for an essay so I'll stop.
Ah yes, Mr Wallace and his detective shtick. Having heard his same rhetoric repeatedly, much of which is in this video, it's blatantly obvious that he's not a historian, but rather an apologist. Among several other problematic historical assertions, he did not address the type of historical sources that the "canonical gospels" even are, the probable memetic connections, the recognition of anonymous authorship, or the literary devices used. We do not even have the original manuscripts to examine. These are not historically reliable texts. Anyone who cares to do a proper historical analysis would understand that.
