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Anachronism
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Answer contributed by Scripture Central
Last updated on February 1, 2018

Some readers, assuming that grapes were unknown in pre-Columbian America, have wondered why the Book of Mormon mentions “wine” (Mosiah 11:15; 22:10; Alma 55:9; 3 Nephi 18:1; Moroni 6:6) and “liquors” (Alma 55:32).1 However, “there is ample evidence of the wide distribution both in North and South America of native undistilled alcoholic liquors, or beers and wines.”2 American species of grapes were grown in various regions of the Americas, including New Mexico, the West Indies, the Atlantic Gulf Coast, and the Yucatan. The Opata of northern Mexico, for example, reportedly made red wine from local grapes. Archaeologists have also identified seeds of grapes (vitis vinifera) in Chiapas, Mexico, dating to the Late Pre-Classic Period and these may have been used to make wine. 

The term wine, however, need not refer specifically to beverages of grapes. “There is no reason why the term `wine’ should not be retained to include the many varieties of liquor made by savage and semi-civilized races from the sap of trees. The latex of vegetable stems is sufficiently homologous with the juice of fruits, as that of the grape, to be classified with it in a genus [of beverages] distinct from fermented grains.”3 In addition to using grapes, Mesoamericans made a variety of fermented beverages from other fruits and plants, including, bananas, pineapple, agave, cactus fruit, palm sap, and tree bark with honey. The Spanish referred to the beverages made from these fruits as “wine” when they arrived in the New World.

  • 1. John A. Price, “The Book of Mormon vs Anthropological Prehistory,” The Indian Historian 7 (Summer, 1974): 35–40.
  • 2. Weston La Barre, “Native American Beers,” American Anthropologist 40, no. 2 (1938): 224.
  • 3. A. E. Crawley, “Drinks, drinking,” in Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, ed. James Hastings (New York, NY: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1951), 73.

Further Reading

John L. Sorenson, Images of Ancient Americas: Visualizing the Book of Mormon (Provo, UT: FARMS, 1998), 42–45, 53.

Book of Mormon Central, “Why Does the Book of Mormon Mention Wine, Vineyards, and Wine-Presses? (Mosiah 11:15),” KnoWhy 88 (April 28, 2016).

John L. Sorenson, Mormon’s Codex: An Ancient American Book (Salt Lake City and Provo, UT: Deseret Book and Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, 2013), 307–308.

Kirk Magleby, “King Noah’s Wine,” Book of Mormon Resources, November 12, 2011.

Book of Mormon Anachronisms: Wine and Grapes,” FairMormon Answers, online at fairmormon.org.

For more on various Pre-Columbian wines and other liquors, see Sonia Corcuera, “Beverages,” in Oxford Encyclopedia of Mesoamerican Cultures, ed. David Carrasco (Oxford University Press, 2001), 1:85–88; and Peter T. Furst, Alcohol in Ancient Mexico (Salt Lake City, UT: University of Utah Press, 2000).

Peter T. Furst, “Intoxicants and Intoxication,” in Archaeology of Ancient Mexico and Central America: An Encyclopedia, ed. Susan Toby Evan and David L. Webster (New York, NY: Garland Publishing, 2001), 371–375.

Tim Unwin, Wine and the Vine: An Historical Geography of Viticulture and the Wine Trade (New York City, NY: Routledge, 1996), 215–217.

Search Questions

Book of Mormon Reference

Mosiah 11:15

Mosiah 22:10

Alma 55:9

Alma 55:32

3 Nephi 18:1

Moroni 6:6

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Scripture Central's picture
Answer contributed by Scripture Central
Last updated on February 1, 2018

Barley is mentioned four times in the Book of Mormon.1 Once this was considered a problem because it was believed that domesticated barley was unknown in the Americas until after the arrival of Columbus.2 In the early 1980s, however, archaeologists announced the surprising discovery of pre-Columbian domesticated barley at a Hohokam archaeological site in Phoenix Arizona. Additional discoveries of this hitherto unknown species of barley (Hordeum pusillum) have been found in other parts of North America, ranging from Mexico to the South-eastern United States.

Over time, more and more evidence for the domestication of little barley in the Americas has emerged over an increasingly wider span of both time and geography. Little barley may have diffused to other regions of the Americas which were known to trade with the southwest and eastern United States. In any case, evidence demonstrates that in at least some parts of the Americas, a type of barley was a highly important crop during Book of Mormon times.

  • 1. See Mosiah 7:22; 9:9; Alma 11:7, 15.
  • 2. “It is a somewhat stubborn fact that barley was never found upon either of these western continents until imported by Europeans in modern times!” M.T. Lamb, The Golden Bible (New York, NY: Ward & Drummond, 1887), 304; “But where is the proof of this extraordinary assertion? It seems very probable that, if Americans had once had wheat and barley, they would not have given up their cultivation and use, and yet they were not to be found in America when the Europeans came.” This author then noted that while ancient pre-Columbian sites were known in Peru, Arizona and Ohio for example, “not a vestige of wheat or barley has ever been found” at any of these sites. Charles A. Shook, Cumorah Revisited (Cincinnati, OH: Standard Publishng, 1910), 382–383; “Barley never grew in the New World before the white man brought it here!” Latayne Colvette Scott, The Mormon Mirage (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1979), 82; “If there was no barley in America until the white man came, then Alma 11:4–19 must be false. If God were the one that wrote the Book of Mormon, is it not a reasonable assumption that he would have known there was no barley in the New World? The Book of Mormon ... falls short of authenticatable [sic] truth.” Rick Branch, “Nephite Nickels,” The Utah Evangel 29, no. 10 (October 1982): 1.

Further Reading

Book of Mormon Central, “How Can Barley in the Book of Mormon Feed Faith? (Mosiah 9:9),” KnoWhy 87 (April 27, 2016).

Book of Mormon Anachronisms: Barley,” FairMormon Answers, online at fairmormon.org.

Tyler Livingston, “Barley and the Book of Mormon: New Evidence,” Book of Mormon Archaeological Forum (2010).

John L. Sorenson, Images of Ancient America: Visualizing Book of Mormon Life (Provo, Utah: Research Press, 1998), 32–45.

John L. Sorenson, “Viva Zapato! Hurray for the Shoe!Review of Books on the Book of Mormon 6, no. 1 (1994): 335–342.

John L. Sorenson and Robert F. Smith, “Barley in Ancient America,” in Reexploring the Book of Mormon: A Decade of New Research, ed. John W. Welch (Salt Lake City and Provo, UT: Deseret Book and FARMS, 1992), 130–132.  

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Book of Mormon Reference

Mosiah 7:22