4.6 • 5.2K Ratings
🗓️ 17 April 2018
⏱️ 72 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
A re-release of our first interview with Dr. Coe released in August 2011:
Dr. Michael Coe is the Charles J. MacCurdy professor emeritus of Anthropology at Yale University and curator emeritus of the Division of Anthropology at the school’s Peabody Museum of Natural History. He is an expert on the Maya, who inhabited the same part of Mexico and Central American where Mormon scholars say the events of the Book of Mormon took place. In this interview, Coe discusses the challenges facing Mormon archaeologists attempting to prove the historical truth of their central scripture and his own views on Joseph Smith.
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
0:00.0 | Mormon Stories Podcast is a production of the Open Stories Foundation. |
0:12.0 | All donations to Mormon Stories are fully tax deductible and go directly towards keeping |
0:16.4 | the podcast alive and towards building a community of support for Mormons like you. |
0:21.4 | To support the podcast or to join the community, please become a monthly subscriber today at |
0:26.6 | MormonStories.org. Okay, so this has been fabulous. Let's switch really quickly to your |
0:33.4 | experience with Mormon archaeologists. And basically, I'm curious to know if you've ever |
0:44.7 | pulled these guys aside and asked, man, do you believe this stuff? And how they |
0:51.2 | reconcile it? I'm curious to know if you've ever seen a believing archaeologist, |
0:55.4 | losing, believing Mormonologists, lose his faith, or if you've seen nuanced views of the |
1:02.4 | Book of Mormon. And then finally, wasn't there a famous, you know, Mormon who wrote a book |
1:08.2 | about ancient American archaeology who then stopped believing in the church and left? |
1:12.4 | So, yeah, talk about all that to the extent that you've got the story. Of course, this |
1:18.5 | is a very tender subject with archaeologists who are Mormons, a very tender subject. I |
1:27.7 | had many, many discussions over the years with Garathlo who was a really good friend. I |
1:34.7 | still respect him enormously, you know, one of the great people of New World archaeology. |
1:42.2 | He started out when I first met him that time when Doc Kitter told me to go over and |
1:49.2 | look at those excavations in Chalpas. I was working on the Pacific Coast of Guatemala |
1:54.0 | on really early stuff, finding stuff that was quite amazing on the earliest villages. And |
2:00.6 | I went over not only because of Doc Kitter telling me to be my spy among the New World |
2:06.3 | Archaeology Foundation, but also because I want to see what they've been getting because |
2:10.4 | they're right next door to where I was. And so I got to know Garath then. And we remain |
2:16.6 | close friends all through his life. Garath was a definitely, a believing Mormon then. He |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Dr. John Dehlin, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Dr. John Dehlin and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.