Loan-shift / translation language · Incomplete record
Miller and Roper argue that animal references should be evaluated alongside cross-cultural naming practices, preservation conditions, and the difficulty of establishing final extinction dates. They propose that some species could have survived later than their youngest known remains, and that some familiar names may designate different American animals; they present these as possible explanations for the text’s animal references.
Roper argues that the witnesses’ later religious differences and other spiritual commitments do not establish that they withdrew their Book of Mormon testimony. He reads their repeated statements as affirming the reality of their encounters and argues that spiritual and bodily perception need not exclude each other.