Merry Christmas and the latest news

Several things are happening right now. You may recall that the ominous date of 21 December 2012 is almost here. What will the end of this cycle of the Maya calendar bring? (spoiler: nothing, really) Daniel has been invited back to the PRT Paranormal Talk podcast to talk about it on this auspicious night. The host, Phillip Pearse, has a copy of An LDS Guide to Mesoamerica to give to a lucky caller. Tune in to listen to the show live this Friday at 9:00 pm Pacific time.

Jeff Lindsay of the Mormanity blog has written a nice review of our latest book, An LDS Guide to the Yucatán. Click here to read it. Mormanity is a nice site with thought-provoking articles about Book of Mormon and other general Church topics.

For those of you who were not able to attend the Book of Mormon Archaeological Forum's conference this year, it was recorded and the videos have been uploaded to YouTube when they are ready. Daniel's presentation took a while because there were so many graphics to include along with the video, but he has been working with the video editor and it appears to be ready. Click here to watch his presentation on Hard Evidence for Horses in Ancient America.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you all! Remember that Daniel's headlining cruise with CruiseLady to the Yucatán earlier this year that was canceled has been reschedule. If you would like to go, plan on September of 2013. That should give you some time to get ready. More details will be forthcoming.

Click here to listen to Paranormal Talk.
Click here to read the book review on Mormanity.
Click here to watch Daniel's presentation at this year's BMAF conference.

Radio spots this month

November has been a busy month for Daniel. A lot of radio and podcast shows had him scheduled to appear as a guest. On the 2nd, he appeared on the Spiritually Raw podcast as part of on episode entitled Alpha to Omega. A number of guests were scheduled for short interviews about their particular specialties. Daniel was up first and fielded some challenging questions. That episode is now online and listeners vote for which guest they want to have back on for a full-length interview. If you would like to hear Daniel back on, go to the website and vote!

On the 23rd, Daniel was invited to be a guest on Tehilla Radio in Trinidad and Tobago. The show is called The Truth Forum with host Irvin Paddier. This is a Caribbean Christian radio show, working at spreading the word of God in that part of the world. The appearance had been scheduled earlier in the month, but had to be changed because of some technical difficulties. This was Daniel's first time on a radio show broadcast from outside the U.S. Aside from some minor audio snags, it went fine and was an interesting experience. We do not know if this interview was recorded and will be available later, but we will let you know if we receive any new information.

Earlier this week on Monday the 26th, Daniel was on PRT Paranormal Talk, a podcast based in Riverside, CA with Phillip Pearse. As you might guess from the name of the show, it deals just with paranormal and other mysterious topics. Phillip was curious to hear the Mormon view about topics like hauntings, cryptids like Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster, UFOs, and other such things. Obviously, we have something to say about some of these subjects, but others are left to speculation. Daniel and Phillip had a great conversation and we will be sending Phillip a copy of An LDS Guide to Mesoamerica for him to give away in a contest that he holds between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Click here to listen.

As you can see, the appearance on Strange Days Indeed was just the last in a long line of spots Daniel did this month. Currently, nothing new is scheduled, but several of these guests have asked him if he would be willing to come on again and hosts from other shows have expressed interest as well. As always, we will keep you updated on what eventually happens.

Click here to listen to Alpha and Omega on Spiritually Raw.
Click here to register and vote for Daniel.
Click here to listen to PRT Paranormal Talk.

More radio show guest spots

Tonight, Daniel is scheduled to appear on the podcast Strange Days Indeed with host Cara Marie. This appearance was planned quite a while ago, so he is excited that it is finally here. The show can be found at the Blog Talk Radio website. Strange Days Indeed Radio is dedicated to exploring how God and Spirit work in our lives. Cara  has a lot of questions and topics she wants to talk about, so Daniel is looking forward to having a stimulating discussion with Cara and her listeners.

Daniel has been quite busy with radio and podcast interviews these days, including one a few days ago to The Truth Forum, a show broadcast from the country of Trinidad and Tobago. As these shows get archived and available, we will post links to them so that you can listen at your convenience.

Click here to listen to Strange Days Indeed Radio with Cara Marie live.

Get our new book for Kindle, or not

An LDS Guide to the Yucatán is now available as a direct download for Kindle from Amazon.com. We were very excited to receive this news; now both books can be downloaded digitally. However, we must admit that we were a bit disappointed with the results. Viewed on a Kindle Fire, the download from Amazon.com leaves a lot to be desired. All of the information is there, but it seems that the Kindle format is not so great for graphics-intensive publications. Many of the pictures are distorted, some are incorrect, and the whole look of the original book is lost. If you buy the Kindle version, hoping it looks like An LDS Guide to Mesoamerica, you'll be in for a bit of a surprise. Our original files look good, but something happened in the conversion process for the Kindle format.

They are supposed to be correcting some mistakes, but until they do some major improvements to the format, it just won't look that good on Kindle. If you already have our first book, then getting the Kindle version so you can have the info with you digitally is a good idea, but to really see An LDS Guide to the Yucatán as we intended, we recommend you purchase and download it directly from Cedar Fort. They will e-mail you a PDF, so it can be viewed on any device, even on a (gasp) computer. The PDF keeps all the correct formatting and you can zoom in to see more detail on the pictures and graphics. If you haven't already done so, buy it and enjoy it today! For those of you interested in Daniel's presentation at this year's BMAF conference, much of it is found in the chapter on the Caves of Loltún.

Click here to buy the book as a PDF from Cedar Fort.
If you must, click here to buy the Kindle version from Amazon.com.

Ancient Maya golden tablets lost in Guatemala?

During his recent visit to Utah, Daniel heard about a German researcher who says that texts in ancient Mayan tell of a record on gold tablets. Dr. Lund also mentioned it as part of his keynote address at the recent BMAF conference. Supposedly, gold tablets on which the Maya recorded their laws are now buried under the waters of Lake Izabal in Guatemala. This amazing information comes from writings in the Dresden Codex and was deciphered by Joachim Rittsteig.

A story this revolutionary bears further scrutiny, so Daniel decided to check it out. Described as an expert in Mayan writing and professor emeritus at Dresden University, Joachim Rittsteig has been studying the Dresden Codex, one of only four books in Mayan that survived widespread destruction and book-burning by Diego de Landa and other early Catholic priests during the conquest. After 40 years of study, Rittsteig claims that page 52 of this folded Mayan book, named for the city in which it currently resides, holds the key to the location of 2,156 gold tablets, weighing a total of eight tons and buried in a stone box. Rittsteig believes the tablets were housed at the mythical city of Atlan on the shore that sank into Lake Izabal during an earthquake in AD 1224. Amid a considerable amount of controversy, he headed an expedition in 2011 to the lake, but ended up not finding anything significant.

Joachim is actually a retired math professor, who has had a lifelong interest in Maya history and has written about it. His study of the codex has been on his own, apparently without any formal training. The Dresden Codex was discovered in 1739 in the possession of an anonymous rich man in Vienna. It was donated to the Saxon State Library in Dresden, and is considered the most complete of the Mayan codices and the oldest known book from the Americas. It was written in the 11th or 12th centuries AD around Chichén Itzá and may be a copy of an original text from 300 or 400 years earlier. Many credentialed Maya scholars have condemned Rittsteig and his methods. The general scholarly consensus is that the codices contain religious and calendric information. Its astronomical tables are very accurate and many of its signs are numeric, but no one apart from Rittsteig believes it is a treasure map. Because of damage during WWII and reconfiguring of the pieces, there is some confusion as to the correct page numbering. As best as we can tell, page 52 is shown here.

On the topic of the codices and how much they can tell us of ancient Maya culture, we turn to the words of Michael Coe, a very accomplished and renowned Maya scholar, whose quotes have often been used by critics of the Book of Mormon as evidence against it. In his book, The Maya, he wrote, "Our knowledge of ancient Maya thought must represent only a tiny fraction of the whole picture, for of the thousands of books in which the full extent of their learning and ritual was recorded, only four have survived to modern times (as though all that posterity knew of ourselves were to be based upon three prayer books and Pilgrim's Progress)."

So, did the late-Classic Maya of the Yucatán write their laws on golden tablets that were kept in a city in central Guatemala? Would they have written about it in a book with tables for the Moon and Venus, locations of the Rain God, and ceremonial instructions? That remains to be seen. While we find the whole idea a bit suspect, the the idea of important writing on gold tablets in Mesoamerica from a non-LDS source is worth considering. If not from deciphering the codex, where did he get that idea?

Click here to read an article about Rittsteig and his expedition.
Click here to see a German page with a description of the gold tablets.

Back from this year's BMAF conference

Daniel and Derek were at this year's Book of Mormon Archaeological Forum's annual conference. There were some great speakers this time and some very insightful information was shared. The conference was held at the Salt Lake Sheraton again, but this time the room was expanded for a larger audience. Daniel was the final speaker and his presentation on Hard Evidence for Horses in Ancient America was well received. The event was recorded, and video is being made available on the Internet. We will let you know if any of Daniel's talk will be uploaded and viewable.

The day before the conference, Daniel had a full schedule, meeting with LDS travel agencies, visiting the office of a new online bookstore, and being interviewed by Mills Crenshaw on his radio show, Drive Time Live. Among the callers was Carl, a self-professed atheist or ex-Mormon who was rather antagonistic toward any suggestion that there was any supporting evidence for the Book of Mormon. Daniel did his best to answer the barrage of accusations thrown his way, but did it make any difference? Probably not. Listen to the show and decide for yourself.

The first video to be completed is of Kirk Magelby's presentation on the history of Book of Mormon research. John Welch joined him for an interesting exchange.

Click here to listen to Daniel on Drive Time Live with Mills Crenshaw.
Click here to watch Kirk Magelby and John Welch's presentation.