JESUS CHRIST AMONG THE ANCIENT AMERICANS

by Paul M. Hanson

Examine the evidence for yourself—there is a wealth of it, and you can make your own decision. This is all the author asks of you, and it is no more than you would consider reasonable in any investigation.

Jesus Christ in America! Incredible, impossible, you think?

Here, selected from the world's leading authorities on American archaeology, and from his own investigations in the ruins, the museums, and the libraries, the author presents his material. Read it, and judge for yourself. There will be many things to cause you to wonder, to doubt previous impressions.

When Spanish missionaries followed Cortez into Mexico, they were amazed to find that the people had a religion like their own in so many respects, and yet different in such remarkable ways, that they considered it a Satanic imitation of the truth to corrupt the souls of men. Vigorously they set out to destroy this religion, burning the literature, and torturing the people. Books that might have opened to us the secrets of America's past went up in flames.

But there were some things these fanatics and zealots could not destroy: the buried and forgotten buildings, monuments, and inscriptions that have come to light under the spade of the archaeologist, the long memories of the people, and the legends and stories of ancient times. These were reserved for a later and more sympathetic generation of investigators.

America is a land of mysteries—concerning the origin of the nations inhabiting these lands when the white man came, concerning the culture, the religion, the arts and crafts, the architecture.

For many years the author has been studying the evidence, sifting and correlating facts in which he found a common theme, an inescapable conclusion: that Christianity was known to the ancient Americans and that it was so written into the records that not all the powers of the Spanish Inquisition could erase it.

Here is the procession of the great races of ancient America: the Aztecs, the Toltecs, the Mayas, the Incas, together with their forerunners and kindred peoples. Here are pictures of their ruined temples, their religious symbolism—remnants that time has not been able to destroy. They have a story to tell to those who can understand. More than a hundred years ago, the same story was brought to the world in a book that became almost immediately to many a focal point of enduring faith, to others an object of doubt—the Book of Mormon. The world has been incredulous of its claims. Through the years, however, archaeology cumulatively has tended to corroborate its remarkable message, as this book demonstrates.

The author has endeavored to produce a dependable contribution in this growing field of evidence. It has been his purpose to include in these pages what would pass critical judgment.