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The following first appeared on Daniel C. Peteron’s blog, Sic et Non. To see the original post, click here.
I’ve posted before — here and here — about the exciting, innovative, and potentially explosive work of Brian Stubbs, in which he argues for the presence of ancient Semitic and Egyptian influences in the languages of the Uto-Aztecan family.
Since I’m not an expert historical/comparative Semitic linguist and know nothing whatever about Uto-Aztecan languages, I’ve been eager to know what people with relevant training and background might have to say about his research. I’m delighted, accordingly, to see a new review in BYU Studies:
“Exploring the Explanatory Power of Semitic and Egyptian in Uto-Aztecan”
The implications of this work for the background plausibility of the Book of Mormon should, as I’ve observed, be obvious. If Brian Stubbs is wrong, it doesn’t much affect the case for the Book of Mormon since few if any of us expected Semitic and/or Egyptian elements in Uto-Aztecan in the first place. But if he’s right, it will demonstrate beyond reasonable question that there were Pre-Columbian contacts of some substantial sort between peoples of the Americas and peoples of the ancient Middle East.
However, even if the claims of the Book of Mormon are bracketed, this is really interesting stuff.
