Demographics and the Book of Mormon

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"It is a common practice in ancient texts to hyperbolically overstate population and areas of land seized to demonstrate the enormity of the feat accomplished. For example, as Old Testament scholar David M. Fouts argues, theological and population claims served numerous purposes in ancient texts, and they tend to be hyperbolic figures of speech for rhetorical and literary purposes rather than historically verifiable claims as in modern histories... [Even though the Book of Mormon] presents itself as a totalizing account of all Jaredites, it is far more likely only a dynastic report of a minority. No human writer could possibly know that every last one of the Jaredites was included within the population whose slaughter is recounted in the epic tale of the various Jaredite dynasties." -Blake Ostler (LDS)