Author: Jonathan Neville

But, as President Nelson taught in the last General Conference, “I know that good inspiration is based upon good information.”

The M2C scholars at BYU and CES have methodically deprived members of the Church of good information. 

That’s really my only problem with what they’re doing. Disagreeing about the significance, relevance, or interpretation of the information is fair, but censoring it is not.
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The easy way, which most people take, is to defer to the experts. We’re all busy. We all have our own interests and priorities. It’s only rational to let the experts do the work and tell us what to think.

Plus, we have the 14th Article of Faith.

On top of that, all is well in Zion; Zion prospereth. The Church is building more temples. The economy along the Wasatch front is fantastic. People are building bigger and better houses, buying new cars and boats, going on vacations. Unemployment is low.

BYU and CES students (and missionaries) accept the fantasy map of the Book of Mormon without questioning it. Book of Mormon Central, FairMormon, and the Interpreter have all the answers; after all, they’ve been hired by Church leaders to guide the Church.

And now we have EME (the Early Modern English theory).

I know a lot of people think Book of Mormon historicity/geography is a peripheral issue.

As the famous exclamation goes, “What difference does it make?”

In a sense, I completely agree; most of what we do in the Church is focused on service and striving to become more like Christ. We all agree with that.

Yet the Book of Mormon is the instrument the Lord prepared for us to accomplish His work. The divine authenticity of the Book of Mormon is central to the message of the restored Gospel.

There are billions of people on the planet who have never heard of the Restoration, but most of those who have heard about it have rejected it as not believable.

In my view, many LDS scholars have impeded the work by confusing the message of the Book of Mormon by creating and promoting the Mesoamerican/two-Cumorahs theory (M2C). We were warned about this by Joseph Fielding Smith and other leaders, and the evidence of the fulfillment of those warnings is all around us–except maybe not along the Wasatch front?
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To recap this series, we’re looking at how the M2C web has distorted and corrupted LDS scholarship, creating a bubble within which these scholars work. They have successfully brought many Church members into their bubble, mainly by using (and I think abusing) their positions of trust at BYU and CES.

Most of the time in this blog I have focused on the issue of the New York Cumorah, which is a bright line. Remember, M2C is founded on the premise that the prophets are wrong about the New York Cumorah. If the prophets are correct, then M2C is false. It’s that simple.*

But the problem is far more extensive than just the New York Cumorah.

Mesomania has led many LDS scholars to doubt what Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery said and taught because they assume M2C and then frame everything else to fit or at least accommodate M2C. The latest example is the idea that Joseph didn’t even translate the Book of Mormon, which I’ll discuss in part 5.

Other examples of real-world impact are these:

– BookofMormonCentral deceiving readers and donors (and Church leaders) into thinking it is neutral on geography issues, when really its goal is “to increase understanding of the Book of Mormon as an ancient Mesoamerican codex.”

– BookofMormonCentral and FairMormon censoring the teachings of the prophets about the New York Cumorah and related evidence that supports and corroborates the teachings of the prophets, while also sowing confusion among the Saints on this topic to promote M2C.

– The Joseph Smith Papers skewing the search function and tailoring the notes to accommodate M2C.

– The Church History Department publishing revisionist Church history in the otherwise awesome book Saints solely to accommodate M2C.

– The Church Correlation Department editing the Joseph Smith lesson manual, commissioning and distributing exclusively M2C artwork, and many other activities to promote M2C.

We’ll eventually explore each of those examples, starting with EME in part 5.
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* The New York Cumorah says nothing about Book of Mormon geography other than that Cumorah is in New York. Other events in the Book of Mormon could have taken place anywhere. But if the prophets are correct, there is only one Cumorah and it is in New York.

Most of those who have heard about the Church or the Book of Mormon still know virtually nothing about it–again, a tremendous blessing and opportunity. But about half of those who do know something have negative impressions.

One of the reasons for these negative impressions, IMO, is that so many of the responses to the arguments made by our critics have consisted of confirmation bias designed to satisfy believers. To some degree, I suppose, those responses have been effective for that purpose. They confirm the biases of those who already want to believe.

In my view, though, these responses are unpersuasive to impartial observers, to say nothing of the critics.

I propose that we could do a much better job sharing the Book of Mormon and bringing people to Christ if we took a more realistic approach to the way we frame our positions. A key element is believing the words of the prophets.
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A fine example of this is the response to The Late War and other pseudo-biblical books. The principal responders have been members of the M2C citation cartel, such as FairMormon* and the Interpreter.

They are writing from within the M2C bubble to others within that bubble, which is fine for people living in that bubble. But the billions of people I mentioned above are well outside the M2C bubble and are highly unlikely to ever enter it.

It’s for those billions (and anyone else who is outside the M2C bubble) that I have worked through The Late War issue.
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As these billions of people begin to learn about the Book of Mormon, they will search the Internet for more information. In no time, they will come across the critics who cite The Late War as a reason to disbelieve the Book of Mormon. If the only responses from Church members that they can find are those published so far by the M2C citation cartel, I think unbiased investigators will find the critics more persuasive for the reasons I explain below.

When the critics are more persuasive, people are unlikely to give the Book of Mormon serious consideration. That’s an outcome we must work to avoid to give the billions of people in the world a fair chance to accept the Gospel.
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The basic response from the M2C citation cartel has been to deny that Joseph read The Late War, to question the methodology of the critics, to find alternate sources for the similarities, and to claim that Joseph didn’t even translate the Book of Mormon into English. I’ll discuss the problems with each of these in more detail below, but first I’ll review part 2 of this series and explain my biases and assumptions.

In part 2 I discussed the historical context of The Late War, including its formatting similarities to the Book of Mormon and its endorsement by Professor Mitchill, to whom Martin Harris took the copy of the characters transcribed from the plates by Joseph Smith. I think this context makes it highly unlikely that Joseph was unaware of The Late War.

Today in part 3 we will look at what I consider textual influences of The Late War and other pseudo-biblical texts.

To reiterate, here are my biases:

1. I think Joseph Smith actually translated the engravings on the plates by using the Nephite interpreters and studying it out in his mind. (e.g., D&C 8:1; 9:8; 10:41, 45)

2. I think he used the Urim and Thummim to articulate his understanding of the engravings, dictating in his own language and dialect, which was a product of his life experience and education. (e.g., D&C 1:24)

3. I think he was familiar with The Late War and other similar books, but he did not copy their language, syntax or themes. Instead, these books became part of his mental language bank, including his vocabulary and manner of speech.

Of course, I think my biases are confirmed by the evidence, as I’ll explain below.
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My biases drive my methodology, so I’ll explain how I approach this issue.

When there are multiple ways to interpret the evidence (as there always are), I lean toward interpretations that are consistent with and that corroborate what the prophets have said. 

In legal terms, I give greater weight to what the prophets have said than to what others have said, which means that in case of a conflict or discrepancy, I defer to the prophets. 

By prophets, I mean Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery, who were the founding prophets of this dispensation. It was these two, together, who received all the Priesthood keys. The line of authority of every holder of the Priesthood today goes directly from President Cowdery to Peter, James and John, for example.**    

I give greater weight to canonized works than to uncanonized works, but I haven’t found any conflicts between these with respect to the words of the prophets.

Here are two examples of my methodology.

1. The only part of the Book of Mormon that Joseph said was “a literal translation” is the Title Page. 

(He also said the Title Page was a “genuine and literal translation” as I’ve discussed elsewhere.)

I infer from this that the rest of the translation was not “literal” in the same sense, even though it was true, correct, accurate, etc.

There can be a significant difference between a “literal” translation and an “idiomatic” translation. Here is a simple example of the difference:

“I have coldness” is a literal translation from French j’ai froid, but “I’m cold” is the idiomatic translation. The idiomatic translation is accurate, but the translator uses his/her own natural speech patterns in the second language instead of a word-for-word literal translation.

Because Joseph said only that the Title Page was a literal translation, I infer that he made an idiomatic translation of the rest of the text, rendering it into his own speech patterns by drawing from his mental language bank.***

2. D&C 1:24 tells us that the Lord worked with Joseph’s own idioms.

Behold, I am God and have spoken it; these commandments are of me, and were given unto my servants in their weakness, after the manner of their language, that they might come to understanding.

Some have told me this passage applies only to the Doctrine and Covenants and not the Book of Mormon, but Joseph received some of the sections in the D&C before he translated one word of the Book of Mormon. Based on D&C 1:24, I infer that Joseph translated the text “after the manner of his language.”

This means we have two reasons to conclude that Joseph performed an idiomatic translation.****

People are free to disagree with my inferences, of course. I set them forth here precisely so people can decide whether or not to agree. I’m always interested in considering others’ perspectives. For this analysis, though, you have my biases and methodology.

You may wonder, if Joseph translated the text “after the manner of his language,” why did he need the Urim and Thummim (the Nephite interpreters)? I think the interpreters themselves operate by drawing on the prophet’s own mental language base.

Joseph was taught by Moroni for four years before he obtained the plates. He explained he was familiar with the people, their modes of travel, etc. He studied the engravings for months before he began dictating to Martin Harris. The Lord explained to Oliver that he had to do more than ask; he had to work out the translation in his mind. Certainly that instruction applied to Joseph as well.

Anyone who has translated from one language to another knows how many variations come to mind during the process. I think the interpreters solidified his thoughts so he could read the text coherently, but they did not give him new syntax or terminology; they drew on Joseph’s mental language base.

This is different from the gift of tongues, for example, that allows people to speak and understand other languages. (People experience the gift of tongues without any need for a device, but that’s a topic for another time.)
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Critics have pointed to parallels between The Late War and the Book of Mormon such as these:

The Late War is one of the four pseudo-biblical texts involved here. The others are The American Revolution, The First Book of Napoleon, and The First Book of the American Chronicles of the Times. I detailed these in part 2.

LDS defenders such as FairMormon have accurately pointed out how the critics extracted phrases from different passages and stitched them together to compose these similarities. They have also shown that some of these phrases are common with the Bible and/or other sources.

For the details, see their analysis here:
https://www.fairmormon.org/answers/Book_of_Mormon/Plagiarism_accusations/The_Late_War#Question:_Did_Joseph_Smith_plagiarize_passages_from_Gilbert_Hunt.27s_book_The_Late_War.2C_between_the_United_States_and_Great_Britain.2C_from_June.2C_1812.2C_to_February.2C_1815.3F

These exchanges provide enough evidence to confirm whichever bias you have. 

If you think the Book of Mormon is fiction, then the critics have given you some comparisons that will confirm your bias.

If you think the Book of Mormon is not fiction, then FairMormon has raised enough questions about the comparison to confirm your bias.

But what if you don’t have a bias one way or the other?
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Let’s say you are an investigator, one of the billions of people who have never heard of the Book of Mormon. Someone tells you about it and you are interested. You do some quick research on the Internet and come across the CES Letter or another critic who claims the Book of Mormon is fiction, copied from The Late War. You read about the similarities such as the ones I posted above.

I think anyone who sees these similarities would find them persuasive on their face; i.e., they would conclude that Joseph copied from The Late War.

(BTW, these similarities are even more unsettling for long-time Church members who don’t realize there were other books published before the Book of Mormon that also used the “Ancient Historical Style” that sought to emulate biblical language. Imagine how they feel when it is anti-Mormons who first tell them about it. Far better, IMO, to educate the Saints about these issues directly in Church, CES, BYU, etc.)

Back to the objective investigator.

You ask the missionaries or your friend about these similarities. They refer you to the FairMormon response I linked to above.

Do you find it persuasive?

Possibly. But not likely.

Here’s why.

The critics did not know about The Late War before doing their analysis of 100,000+ books. The similarities to The Late War popped out of their statistical study.  Then they did their qualitative analysis and came up with their lists of similarities in theme and language. That’s a persuasive framing.

Now, let’s look at how FairMormon responded, again from the perspective of an objective investigator.

1. FairMormon criticized the critics’ methodology, but is that a plausible defense? I don’t think so because the critics’ methodology did, after all, lead them to The Late War which contains all these similarities. Plus, it was objective; they assessed over 100,000 books.

I rate this defense as unpersuasive.

2. FairMormon also points out that there is no proof Joseph ever read The Late War. This is technically true, but if there was such evidence, it would not have taken a statistical study of 100,000+ books to find the book. The problem here is that we have no proof that Joseph ever read anything prior to translating the Book of Mormon, except for the Bible.

It seems highly implausible that he never read anything else. During the long winter nights in upstate New York, what were people doing other than reading and discussing issues? Joseph himself wrote that, between the ages of 12 and 15, he was concerned with the situation of the world of mankind. Although he was not skilled as a writer, he definitely was not illiterate, despite his lack of formal education.

As I showed in part 2, the historical and cultural context makes it unlikely that Joseph never read The Late War. Plus, the formatting similarities and the connection with Professor Mitchill at least suggest a direct connection.

I rate this defense as unpersuasive.

3. Next, FairMormon goes through a few of the similarities, showing how they were cut and pasted together to create phony similarities such as those I showed above. This is a persuasive defense, to an extent. Many of the phrases also appear in the Bible; i.e., they are common to both the Book of Mormon and The Late War. Everyone agrees that Joseph read the Bible and was influenced by it. The Book of Mormon contains many direct quotations from the Bible, so it is not problematic to have Biblical phrases show up in the text, even if they also appear in The Late War. 

I rate this defense as persuasive as far as it goes, but inadequate and ultimately unpersuasive.

Why inadequate? Because there are many passages common between The Late War and the Book of Mormon that are not found in the Bible.

I’ll discuss specific examples below, but let’s say that FairMormon or others show that these passages are also found in books other than the pseudo-biblical texts. As we already saw, there is no evidence that Joseph read any books other than the Bible. Thus we are left assessing the relative probabilities of his having read The Late War and other pseudo-biblical texts vs. the other books.

Given the historical context, The Late War is surely one of the books Joseph was most likely to have read. Plus, any alternative books are cited as sources would have to include all of the passages that are common between The Late War and the Book of Mormon, which also means they were written in the “Ancient Historical Style.” And there are only a few of those–the very ones we are discussing here. 

4. FairMormon links to Stanford Carmack’s Interpreter article about Early Modern English (EME). Brother Carmack has done an extensive statistical analysis that shows clearly different and unique syntax in the Book of Mormon that is not found in the Bible, The Late War, or the other pseudo-biblical books. This syntax cannot be explained by the theory that Joseph copied from the other books.

I rate this defense as persuasive as far as it goes, but inadequate.

The reason? Brother Carmack’s argument effectively proves there are distinctive elements in the Book of Mormon that could not have been copied, but there remain distinctive elements that are common between the Book of Mormon and the pseudo-biblical books that are not found in the Bible. This leaves us with the same problem that argument 3 left; i.e., how to explain the indisputably common elements?

In part 4 of this M2C web series I’ll discuss Brother Carmack’s argument in more detail. Here, I want to evaluate the elements that are common between the Book of Mormon and the pseudo-biblical texts. In my view, these corroborate the teachings of Joseph Smith and the D&C that I mentioned at the outset.

That is, they show that the pseudo-biblical texts added to Joseph’s mental language bank, the resource he drew upon to dictate his translation of the Book of Mormon and the other revelations that comprise our standard works.
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The critics’ lists of similarities between The Late War and the Book of Mormon are rightly criticized for being concocted. True, some of the phrases are identical; that’s what makes these lists persuasive to people who want to believe the Book of Mormon is fiction. But that is mere confirmation bias because many of these phrases are also found in the Bible, which is an acknowledged source for both books.

In other words, these terms and phrases were in Joseph’s mental language bank, but because he could have acquired them from the Bible, they are not really persuasive evidence that he acquired them from the pseudo-biblical books. Any impartial investigator would be able to understand this.

What is more problematic are the unusual Book of Mormon terms and phrases that are not found in the Bible but are found in The Late War and other pseudo-biblical texts. These appear seemingly at random throughout the Book of Mormon. In many cases they also appear in Joseph’s other revelatory work, including the Doctrine and Covenants and the Pearl of Great Price.

Proponents of the EME theory suggest that Joseph was not the original translator into English. This means the English text was not his; i.e., he was learning as he read from the stone. I disagree for he reasons I’ll explain in part 4, but EME proponents could argue that Joseph acquired these terms and phrases when he dictated the Book of Mormon, independent of the pseudo-biblical books.

I doubt an impartial investigator would find that explanation persuasive. I’m skeptical that many believers would find it persuasive, but I’ll defer my discussion of that to Part 4 when I focus on EME.

Here, I offer an explanation that I think is persuasive to impartial investigators, believers, and maybe even critics.

The accumulation of these examples makes a strong case for the pseudo-biblical books as the source of Joseph’s mental language bank, while also refuting claims of intentional copying or plagiarism.

In the interest of time and space I’ll provide only a few examples out of many more I have found.
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1. Methought and go and declare. The term methought doesn’t appear in the Bible, but it appears in the Book of Mormon and the First Book of Napoleon. The term also appears in Shakespeare and other writings, so its mere appearance in the Book of Mormon could be coincidental and unconnected to the pseudo-biblical books.

But consider the context and the related word combination go and declare.

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*The official name of the organization is FairMormon, but I refer to them as FairlyMormon because, IMO, their adherence and fidelity to M2C leads them to mislead members of the Church and investigators. See https://fairlymormon.blogspot.com/

**We usually show the line of authority going through the Three Witnesses who ordained the original Quorum of the Twelve, but Oliver was the only one of the Three Witnesses who received his Priesthood directly from Peter, James and John, and the historical record shows Oliver ordaining many, if not most, of the original Quorum himself. 

***The nature of the translation has been much studied and debated. Here I’m merely pointing out that what Joseph said is corroborated by what we see when we analyze the influence of The Late War and other pseudo-biblical texts.

****Ironically, an idiomatic translation lends credence to the M2C position that the original text was a Mayan codex, but that Joseph didn’t translate it literally so we have “horses” instead of “tapirs” and no mention of jaguars, jade and jungles. There are other reasons to reject that approach, starting with the Hill Cumorah in New York, that I don’t discuss in this analysis of The Late War.

I’ll explain with a parable.

There was a baker in a village in rural France whose reputation extended all the way to Paris. Her specialty was a cake that incorporated nuts, fruits, creams, and several spices. Some of the ingredients she prepared over several days before adding them to the mix at just the right time to achieve the  combination of moistness, softness, and crustiness that made her cake unique.

Someone sent one of her cakes to the King, but by the time it arrived, it had dried out. He asked his top scholars to study the cake so they could replicate it and make one that he could enjoy fresh without having to travel to the village.

After months of study, the experts determined that the chemistry involved was so complex that no village baker could have possibly produced such a cake. The idea that baker had produced the cake was obviously a naive folk legend. Instead, the cake had to be the work of unknown alchemists of exceptional skill whose work could only be understood after several more years of study–all to be funded by taxing the King’s subjects, of course.
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BYU’s infamous fantasy map of the Book of Mormon that teaches students the prophets are wrong

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Naturally, critics of the Book of Mormon have always sought to discredit its divine authenticity. They say it is fictional because Joseph (and/or others) wrote it and/or copied it from one or more sources.

Faithful LDS refute those claims with semantic arguments. They write blogs, post comments on Facebook and other social media, read and write books and articles, etc., all focusing on semantics, word choice, statistical analysis, etc.

KEY POINT: The intellectual debate over the divine authenticity of the Book of Mormon is essentially an exercise in confirmation bias. There is “evidence” to support whatever you want to believe. 

Most participants in these discussions forget this key point. Their own confirmation bias blinds them to others’ perspectives. Anyone who wants to understand the issues thoroughly should be able to at least articulate contrary positions, using the facts and arguments of the various proponents.

Lawyers learn this in their first year at law school, but anyone who analytically observes the world realizes that those with whom we disagree are not merely ignorant or stupid. Everyone has different biochemistry and brain structure, different family and religious and social backgrounds, all of which (and more) lead to different biases we seek to confirm.

That said, I think it’s possible to break through confirmation bias if we heed the words of the prophets and the scriptures. That’s why we have prophets, after all.

In my view, these prophetic sources explain the evidence in such a way as to corroborate what Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery said all along.

This is why it is so destructive to have M2C intellectuals teaching the world (including LDS youth) that the prophets are wrong about the New York Cumorah–and all the other things I listed above.
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People taught by M2C intellectuals and their followers come to view the Book of Mormon through the lens of M2C. My term for this condition is Mesomania. Mesomania leads one to interpret the text as a Mayan codex, complete with volcanoes, the three Js: jaguars, jungles and jade, etc.

M2C is promoted by a group of intellectuals who live in an intellectual bubble that I refer to as the citation cartel. Once you escape the M2C bubble, you begin to realize how pervasive it is.

I know how this works from personal experience, because for decades I, too, had Mesomania. I learned it through CES and BYU. Like the M2C intellectuals, for decades I could “not unsee” Mesoamerica when I read the Book of Mormon. I even accepted the premise that the prophets were wrong about the New York Cumorah.

But then I learned more about what the prophets have actually taught. I learned about Letter VII and its widespread distribution while Joseph Smith was alive. I learned about the archaeology, anthropology, geology and geography that supports and corroborates the teachings of the prophets.

Now, the influence of M2C on LDS intellectual pursuits is more obvious to me than ever. In this blog series about the M2C web, I’m going to look at several aspects of this problem, including the treatment of The Late War, the Early Modern English theory (EME), and the revisionist Church history in Saints.

NOTE: This post about The Late War includes references from multiple perspectives. Many LDS do not want to know what critics say. If that describes you, that’s fine, but I suggest you skip this rest of post. I’m writing for those who want to understand why the critics say what they do, how LDS defenders have responded, and what I think is the best way to understand all the evidence.
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Background on The Late War

A few years ago, a couple of critics of the Church did an analysis of over 100,000 books published before 1830, searching for connections with the Book of Mormon. They concluded that a book called The Late War, originally published in 1816, had the most similarities to the Book of Mormon. The Late War is a narrative of the War of 1812, written in a style that emulates the King James Bible. This style has been called a “pseudo-Archaic,” “pseudo-Biblical” or “Ancient Historical” style.

These critics claimed there were so many similarities of language and theme between The Late War and the Book of Mormon that Joseph Smith must have copied from The Late War when he created the Book of Mormon. Other critics have made similar comparisons, including the CES Letter which as been read by (and believed by) many thousands of Church members and investigators.

Faithful LDS writers responded by claiming that critics manipulated the texts to find comparisons, that there is no evidence Joseph ever read The Late War, that distinctive phrases are actually common with other sources, and that the differences between the two books outweigh the similarities such that that there is little to no relationship between them.

(Citations to many of these articles on both sides are found at the end of this post.)

The latest response to The Late War is the theory that the Book of Mormon is written in Early Modern English (EME), a form of the language that predates the King James Version. This means that Joseph Smith could not have copied either the KJV Bible or The Late War and other books written in a pseudo-Biblical style. As the article explains, “There are a number of archaic features of complementation missing from the four pseudo-biblical writings in this domain. This argues against Joseph having been the author or English language translator of the Book of Mormon.”

The conclusion of EME? Joseph didn’t translate the Book of Mormon at all. Instead, he merely used a seer stone to read a translation performed by some unknown person 300-400 years earlier.

In part 4 of this series I’ll explain why I completely disagree with the EME theory
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The way we all interpret the evidence is driven by the bias we seek to confirm. When it comes to the Book of Mormon, if you’re a critic, you focus on facts that you think confirm your disbelief. If you’re a believer, you focus on facts you think confirm your belief.

To be clear, I’ll explain my biases up front.

1. I think Joseph Smith actually translated the engravings on the plates by using the Nephite interpreters and studying it out in his mind. (e.g., D&C 8:1; 9:8; 10:41, 45)

2. I think he used the Urim and Thummim to articulate his understanding of the engravings, dictating in his own language and dialect, which was a product of his life experience and education. (e.g., D&C 1:24)

3. I think he was familiar with The Late War and other similar books, but he did not copy their language, syntax or themes. Instead, these books became part of his mental language base, including his vocabulary and manner of speech.

Of course, I think my biases are confirmed by the evidence, as I’ll explain below.

However, I recognize that my biases differ from the prevailing biases shared by LDS scholars, especially among the M2C intellectuals. But those differences, in turn, are driven by the differences between our views regarding Joseph Smith.

That is, I think Joseph knew a lot about the Book of Mormon and its peoples.

M2C intellectuals think Joseph knew next to nothing about them, and therefore they claim to know more about the Book of Mormon and its peoples than Joseph did. For a while now, they’ve been saying Joseph didn’t even use the plates. Now they’re saying Joseph didn’t even translate.
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If The Late War issue is new to you, you can see some of the comparisons set forth in the web pages I listed at the end of this post.*

There are undeniable similarities between The Late War and the Book of Mormon. The critics and defenders have focused on the nature of these similarities and what they mean, but they are all arguments about semantics and linguistics. I’ll discuss the semantic arguments in part 3, and the linguistic arguments in part 4, including Early Modern English, but let’s start by looking at the non-semantic similarities.

First, think of the historical and geographical context. In May, 1814, during the War of 1812, the British invaded the town of Pultneyville, NY, located only 17 miles due north of Palmyra on the shores of Lake Ontario. The British ships fired on the town, British troops invaded, and both the local militia and the British suffered casualties.

Joseph and his family moved from Vermont to Palmyra in the winter of 1816-7, less than three years after the nearby British invasion. As a 12-year-old boy, Joseph surely would have known about the War of 1812. It seems unimaginable that he and his siblings would not have been taught about it and read about it. The Late War was written and published specifically for school children. It was published in several editions starting in 1816.

Even if Joseph and every member of his family never read or saw The Late War, it seems even more unlikely that Martin Harris and other residents of Palmyra had never read it. And how likely is it that no copies were available to Joseph and his contemporaries between 1816 and 1829?

That’s the historical context. Now let’s look at the practical similarities.

In this series of images to the left, we see the first three pages of each book, starting with the Book of Mormon.

In both cases, we have a Title Page, a Copyright Page, and a Preface.

I’ve looked at other books from this period and there is considerable variation among them. Most have a table of contents in the first few pages, for example.

I’m sure there are other books of this vintage that follow the same form as the Book of Mormon and The Late War, but these two books are unusually similar, as you can see.

The first page in each book is a Title Page with a long, detailed title.

The author and printer are listed, along with the location of the printer and the date printed.

Obviously, the formatting is different. I’m not saying the Book of Mormon is an exact copy by any means. But we can all see the similarity between the two.

Both have the word “The” above the main title. The main title is followed by a multi-line subtitle.

Notice how the title page of The Late War reads, “Written in the Ancient Historical Style.” This is Hunt’s description of his effort to mimic the style of the King James Version.

The Late War also contains “a sketch of the late Algerine War.” The term “sketch” is interesting because it’s the term Joseph Smith used in the Wentworth Letter when he described Moroni’s visit.

I was informed also concerning the aboriginal inhabitants of this country, and shown who they were, and from whence they came;—a brief sketch of their origin, progress, civilization, laws, governments, of their righteousness and iniquity, and the blessings of God being finally withdrawn from them as a people, was made known unto me.

The second page in each book is the full Copyright certificate.

I took these images from online databases.

You can see a copy of the original Book of Mormon in the Joseph Smith Papers here:
http://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/book-of-mormon-1830/7

An 1819 edition of The Late War is available here:
https://archive.org/stream/latewarbetweenun00inhunt#page/n5/mode/2up/search/rehearse

Again, these two books are not unique in having the entire copyright notice printed on the second page.

However, many books I looked at simply state “copyright secured” or something similar. Some don’t have a copyright on the second page at all.

The point is, Joseph was not required to print the entire copyright notice on the obverse side of the title page.

But he did.

Just like G. J. Hunt did when he published The Late War.

Both copyrights were filed in district courts in New York, albeit in different districts. Both copyright notices fill the entire page, with the Book of Mormon using a smaller font to avoid extending to a second page.

The third page in each book is a Preface. Some books of the period had prefaces, while others did not.

In both books, the word PREFACE is in all caps, followed by a period and set off with a line from the text below it.

Obviously, the text of the preface is different in each book. Joseph’s preface to the Book of Mormon is one long paragraph of four long sentences, while the preface to The Late War includes numbered paragraphs.

Still, the formatting we see here shows some commonality in design.

Maybe Grandin, the printer in Palmyra, decided how the Book of Mormon should be arranged. Perhaps Grandin showed Joseph other books to get ideas of how he wanted the Book of Mormon to be printed.

But it seems unlikely that Grandin would have told Joseph he needed a Preface.

Instead, Joseph apparently decided he needed to explain what happened to the lost manuscript. Perhaps Grandin suggested he do so in a Preface.

However, it seems just as plausible to me that Joseph didn’t need Grandin’s suggestions. Had he read The Late War, as I think he surely did given his proximity in time and place to the events of that war, he could have gotten the idea of writing his explanation as a preface from that book

One counterpoint to the possibility that Joseph followed the formatting of The Late War is the placement of the testimony of the Three and Eight Witnesses at the end of the book.

The Late War, by contrast, includes two endorsements at the beginning, immediately following the Preface. That might have seemed a more logical place for the testimony of the witnesses.

On the other hand, the final pages of The Late War include a list of the officers of the American Bible Society, an endorsement of sorts of the goal of The Late War to encourage more Bible reading. That could be considered comparable to the endorsement by the eleven witnesses.

There may have been other practical reasons why Joseph put the testimony of the witnesses at the end of the book, such as something having to do with printing, timing, composition, etc.

But the endorsements of The Late War raise another interesting point.

The first endorsement was written by Samuel L. Mitchill, the professor in New York to whom Martin Harris took the characters Joseph had copied from the plates.

This could have been a coincidence, of course. But others have suggested that, given Professor Mitchill’s strong endorsement of The Late War, perhaps Martin and Joseph hoped for a similar endorsement.

That seems likely to me.

We don’t know exactly what Martin showed Professor Mitchill, but we assume it included a translation of the characters as well as the copy of the characters themselves. This would have been Joseph’s first attempts to translate the characters into English, and perhaps he sought Mitchill’s approval of the type of language he was using.

Surely Joseph would have been pleased to procure an endorsement from the prominent Professor Mitchill similar to the one Mitchill gave to The Late War:

“Your Chronicle of events deserves to be mentioned in the list of useful publications. It will answer as a document of constant and ready reference. The reception of it into schools, will render familiar to children the chief actions in the contest, and teach them, at the same time, to respect their country and its institutions.
“It seems to me one of the best attempts to imitate the biblical style; and if the perusal of it can induce young persons to relish and love the sacred books whose language you have imitated, it will be the strongest of all recommendations.”

Had Joseph obtained such an endorsement, it would have helped public acceptance of the Book of Mormon, to put it mildly.
_____

These practical considerations give context to the semantic and linguistic issues.

The Late War was not the first book to imitate the Biblical style. Three specific prior books also have relevance to understanding the semantic issues.

The First Book of Napoleon, published in London in 1809, uses a pseudo-Biblical style to describe Napoleon’s history. You can see it here:
https://archive.org/stream/firstbooknapole00gruagoog#page/n5/search/rehearse

The first verse gives an idea of its style: “And behold it came to pass, in these latter days, that an evil spirit arose on the face of the earth, and greatly troubled the sons of men.”

Another book, The American Revolution by Richard Snowden, published in Baltimore in 1796, was “Written in Scriptural, or Ancient Historical Style,” according to its title page. You can see The American Revolution here:
https://archive.org/stream/americanrevoluti00snow#page/n5

Recall that the title page of The Late War also claimed it was written in the “Ancient Historical Style.” Another example of how The Late War is derivative of The American Revolution are these passages:

Such passages are not evidence of joint authorship, but they do indicate influence, whether intentional or not. These similar passages were derived from a common Biblical source, because neither passage highlighted in red appears in the Bible. It seems reasonable to infer that The Late War copied at least these phrases from The American Revolution.

The fourth book is John Leacock’s The First Book of the American Chronicles of the Times, published in 1774-5.

All four books are available on BYU’s WordCruncher library, an outstanding reference that you can download here:
http://www.wordcruncher.com.
_____

If you look at the lists prepared by the critics, you’ll see lots of superficial similarities between The Late War and the Book of Mormon (similar to the comparison I just made between The American Revolution and The Late War, actually). The counter argument is that these lists are heavily manipulated to make the similarities seem more obvious. For example, critics combine isolated phrases from different pages to compose something that also appears in the Book of Mormon.

People seeking to confirm their bias that the Book of Mormon is fiction are satisfied with the misleading and superficial similarities. They are uninterested in counter arguments and contradictory evidence.

People seeking to confirm their bias that the Book of Mormon is not fiction are satisfied with the explanation that the similarities are contrived. They, too, are uninterested in counter arguments and contradictory evidence.

Others, who may be troubled by the similarities but still seek to confirm their bias that the Book of Mormon is not fiction are satisfied with the EME explanation. This is the claim that the syntax is so complex and different between the Book of Mormon and both the Bible and the pseudo-biblical texts that Joseph didn’t copy from any of these sources. In fact, statistical analysis shows that the syntax is so complex that it could only have been produced by someone intimately familiar with EME, which predates the King James Version. That is, Joseph himself could not have produced the Book of Mormon.

I think the statistical evidence is a powerful argument that Joseph did not copy The Late War (or the Bible), but I also think that the EME theory goes too far.
_____

I have a different explanation of all the evidence.

I think Joseph read and was familiar with the Bible as well as The Late War and other pseudo-biblical books for the practical reasons explained in this post.

I think these books, as well as the Bible, contributed to Joseph’s mental language base. That’s what Part 3 of my series on the M2C web covers.

But I also think Joseph did not directly copy from or plagiarize those books when he dictated the Book of Mormon, partly because the similarities compiled by the critics are contrived, but more because of the statistical syntax evidence compiled by Carmack and Skousen, which demonstrates distinct syntax in the Book of Mormon text in many cases that is not found in either the Bible or the pseudo-biblical texts. (That said, I do think Joseph copied passages from the KJV Bible because he recognized them when he was translating the plates, but that’s a topic for another day.)

I also think Joseph was the first and only translator of the ancient Nephite records into English and that what appears to be EME is actually Joseph’s own dialect and manner of speech. That’s the topic of part 4 of my series on the M2C web.
_____
* List of books written in the Biblical style:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_books_in_the_style_of_the_King_James_Bible

List of comparisons by the critics.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/faithpromotingrumor/2013/10/the-book-of-mormon-and-the-late-war-direct-literary-dependence/

http://www.rickgrunder.com/parallels/mp193.pdf

http://wordtree.org/thelatewar/

Some of the rebuttals to these comparisons:

https://interpreterfoundation.org/a-bayesian-cease-fire-in-the-late-war-on-the-book-of-mormon/

https://www.mormoninterpreter.com/the-late-war-against-the-book-of-mormon/

http://www.conflictofjustice.com/late-war-between-the-united-states-great-britain-book-of-mormon/

https://www.fairmormon.org/answers/Book_of_Mormon/Plagiarism_accusations/The_Late_War

https://www.mormoninterpreter.com/is-the-book-of-mormon-a-pseudo-archaic-text/

M2C started as an innocent thought experiment on how to vindicate what people mistakenly believed that Joseph Smith taught in anonymous articles in the 1842 Times and Seasons.

M2C web

Based on these anonymous articles, these experts simply assumed the Book of Mormon took place in Central America. Then they calculated that New York was too far away, so the prophets were wrong abut that being the location of Cumorah.*

Now Mesomania has reached the point where M2C intellectuals are teaching that Joseph Smith didn’t even translate the Book of Mormon.
_____

The intellectual genealogy of M2C is a fascinating topic that I’ve discussed before, as long-time readers know. In upcoming posts, I’ll discuss how the M2C web has captured Church history, including the new book Saints and ideas about Joseph’s use of the plates.

The latest fad is the Early Modern English theory (EME).

For several reasons, I’ve been reluctant to comment on EME, which has been put forth by Royal Skousen and Stanford Carmack, but it has reached a stage where I’m going to go ahead and explain what I think, FWIW.

I greatly admire and respect Brothers Skousen and Carmack. They are awesome people and outstanding scholars, meticulous and thorough and faithful. I often rely on and cite Brother Skousen’s work on the Original and Printers Manuscript of the Book of Mormon. Plus, I’m very grateful to Book of Mormon Central for making his work available to the public. You can see it here:
https://bookofmormoncentral.org/content/book-mormon-earliest-text
and here
https://bookofmormoncentral.org/content/analysis-of-textual-variants-of-the-book-of-mormon

However…

In recent years, Brother Carmack has developed a theory that the text of the Book of Mormon was dictated in Early Modern English, a form of English that predates the King James Bible. The idea is that Joseph didn’t merely copy the King James Bible, and he didn’t try to emulate Biblical language the way books such as The Late War did, but instead he didn’t translate the Nephite plates at all.

According to the EME theory, Joseph merely read the seer stone in the hat. The stone displayed the translation that had been accomplished by an unknown person using language that predated Joseph by 300-400 years.

I’m simplifying, of course, and you can read all the detailed articles in the Interpreter if you want. But I think you see the problem already.

Now we’re supposed to believe that not only did Joseph not use the plates (the latest fad in revisionist Church history), but he didn’t even translate them.

This is a critical component of the M2C web because it further supports the M2C position that Joseph knew nothing about the Book of Mormon. Or, if he knew anything, he surely knew much less than today’s M2C intellectuals know.

Therefore, pursuant to the 14th Article of Faith, we need to follow today’s scholars even when they disagree with what Joseph Smith (and the revelations) taught.
_____

Readers here know about the M2C citation cartel. Prominent participants in the cartel include BYU Studies (edited by John W. (Jack) Welch) and the Interpreter (founded and edited by Dan Peterson). Brothers Welch and Peterson have long been among the most prominent and forceful proponents of M2C. They, along with John Sorenson and their followers, have taught M2C throughout the Church. They, more than anyone, have woven the M2C web.

Envision the M2C web as a filter. Anything that fits M2C can pass through unharmed, but anything that contradicts M2C, including the teachings of the prophets, is trapped, quarantined, and sucked dry.

To mix metaphors, without the enduring and adamant support of M2C by Brothers Welch and Peterson, M2C would dissipate like the morning dew.

Not only do they have highly influential positions at BYU Studies and the Interpreter, but they are long-time BYU faculty. They are two of the most prominent of the scholars who have been hired by the prophets to guide the Church, pursuant to the 14th Article of Faith.

To be sure, BYU Studies and the Interpreter produce a lot of important and useful scholarly material that is unrelated to M2C and is therefore not tainted by Mesomania. I encourage people to read both journals, as well as the other publications of the M2C citation cartel.

However, we have to be vigilant when BYU Studies and the Interpreter combine to enthusiastically embrace something. The reason?

M2C is founded on the premise that the prophets are wrong about the New York Cumorah. 

Therefore, the M2C citation cartel does everything possible to support this premise. 

In September, BYU Studies and the Interpreter are sponsoring a lecture by Brothers Skousen and Carmack to introduce their latest book about Early Modern English. This prompted me to discuss it on this blog.

IMO, the Early Modern English theory, however it originated, is part of the M2C web and is being used to support M2C.
_____

According to the cartel, anyone who believes what the prophets have taught about Cumorah believes in a notion that is “manifestly absurd” and “worthy only of a witless sci-fi movie.” John L. Sorenson, Mormon’s Codex.

According to the cartel, all the prophets who have taught that Cumorah is in New York were ignorant speculators who misled the Church by repeating a false folk tradition. This includes Joseph Smith, Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer, Brigham Young, Wilford Woodruff, Joseph F. Smith, James E. Talmage, etc., all the way down to President Marion G. Romney and Elder Mark E. Petersen, both of whom declared in General Conference that Cumorah was in New York.

But the M2C citation cartel has a dilemma. How do they persuade members (and leaders) of the Church that the prophets have all been wrong?

The M2C academic cycle

The academic cycle explains how M2C has permeated the Church overall, but let’s look in more detail on how it works.

1. They start by censoring the teachings of the prophets. This requires the coordinated efforts of the M2C citation cartel, plus the Church History, Curriculum and Correlation Departments. That’s why we never see the teachings of the prophets about Cumorah in the curriculum, in lesson manuals, or on display in visitors centers. That’s why the new Church history book Saints edits out all the early references to Cumorah, changes the wording of the original documents, etc.
It’s basically censorship.

2. The problem is, the teachings of the prophets are widely available in older publications. We can read about it in Jesus the Christ, A Marvelous Work and a Wonder, Doctrines of Salvation, , in early Church publications, and the addresses in General Conference. None of those books or other sources are on the missionary reading lists any longer, though. Few if any of the youth in the Church have read these or even know about them.

Even fewer Church members read old General Conference addresses. Sure, they’re available on lds.org–they’re part of the historical record, after all–but people barely read the current General Conference addresses.

Little by little, as older generations die off, the teachings of the prophets about Cumorah will continue to fade into oblivion.

Really, the biggest problem for M2C is Letter VII, which is found right in Joseph Smith’s personal history, which means it’s available in the Joseph Smith Papers. It’s not impossible that the editors of the Joseph Smith Papers will decide to purge Letter VII from the documents if too many people start reading it, the way the Correlation Department purged a critical passage from the Wentworth letter in the Joseph Smith lesson manual, but we can hope that doesn’t happen. Meanwhile, Letter VII is pretty well buried in the Joseph Smith Papers, with no editorial comments calling attention to i.

3. What does an M2C intellectual do with people who somehow discover what the prophets have taught about Cumorah?

Thanks to the Internet, censorship cannot succeed. Some people, on their own, will find out what the prophets have taught.

The M2C intellectuals start by claiming the prophets were only expressing their opinions, and they were wrong. Even CES and BYU teachers tell this to any students who dare to ask how M2C can be reconciled with the teachings of the prophets.

Some Church members know that President Ezra Taft Benson specifically warned against this rationalization, when he said, ““The learned may feel the prophet is only inspired when he agrees with them, otherwise the prophet is just giving his opinion—speaking as a man.” 

You’ll never see a member of the M2C citation cartel mingle their philosophy with this teaching from a prophet. How could they?

But never fear, they have more arrows in their quiver.

4. The next fallback is the one taken by Fairly Mormon and the Correlation Department; i.e., they say the prophets have never actually taught that Cumorah is in New York. In other words, who do you believe, Fairly Mormon and the Correlation Department, or your lying eyes?

They accomplish this by conflating two separate issues.

The prophets have always taught that while Cumorah is in New York, we don’t know for sure where other Book of Mormon events took place. This is a perfectly reasonable position to take that is also perfectly consistent with the New York Cumorah.

But the M2C intellectuals mingle the two teachings to confuse people. They explain that the prophets were actually not even expressing their opinions (to avoid President Benson’s observation) but that they were merely articulating possibilities about the geography, including the New York Cumorah.

This is the current position that you will be told if you inquire directly to Church leaders and you receive the response from the Correlation Department that I discussed before.
_____

That’s a long introduction, but it leads directly to the Early Modern English theory.

To avoid contradicting the prophets, M2C is now positioned to say the prophets never knew anything!

This is a multi-step process as well, but it requires you to believe that Joseph Smith did not know that much about the Book of Mormon. That’s how he could be fooled into accepting the erroneous folk tradition that the hill Cumorah was in New York.

In fact, M2C scholars are now teaching that Joseph didn’t even translate the plates after all.

The latest thinking about the translation is that Joseph didn’t use the plates. You’ll hear this from M2C intellectuals as well as Church historians. Missionaries serving at Church history sites have been told to explain this to people who ask about the translation. The new Church films about Harmony and Fayette depict this revisionist history.

Forget what the D&C says about translating the engravings or working it out in the mind. Forget what Oliver Cowdery and Lucy Mack Smith said about Joseph looking at the plates through the interpreters. Now we’re being told to believe that the plates sat covered in a cloth the entire time (except when they were out in the woods), serving a sort of talisman to somehow build faith. Joseph merely read what was written on a stone that he put in a hat.

Then along comes the Early Modern English theory that Joseph merely read a translation that was performed by someone else, living 300 to 400 years before Joseph.

The bottom line of all this: Joseph knew less about the Book of Mormon than today’s scholars, who have been hired by the prophet to guide the Church. 

Therefore, if the scholars teach M2C, M2C is what we are to believe. If the scholars say Joseph didn’t use the plates, we have to believe that. If the scholars say Joseph didn’t even translate the Book of Mormon, we have to believe that.

If we wonder what to think about the scriptures or the teachings of the prophets, we should turn to Dan Peterson’s Interpreter to have all these things interpreted for us.
_____

IMO, neither M2C nor the revisionist Church history fits the facts or the revelations.

Tomorrow I’ll explain why, with respect to EME.
_____

* The M2C intellectuals concocted the idea that there are really two Cumorahs. The one in New York, according to M2C, is not the Cumorah of Mormon 6:6; i.e., Moroni had to haul the plates from the “real Cumorah” which is somewhere in Mexico to New York.

The belief in M2C (which I call Mesomania) has led LDS intellectuals to not only repudiate the prophets, but to revise Church history and engage in Orwellian tactics to perpetrate and perpetuate M2C.

Elder Kevin Pearson of the Seventy gave an excellent presentation, as reported in this press release:

https://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/elder-pearson-independent-voices-needed-sustain-faith

He showed this slide. The press release explains what he said.

Elder Pearson said the Church’s effort to take the gospel of Jesus Christ to all the world presents a “massive challenge” due to a lack of awareness of the Church.

He said as many as 6.6 billion people of the 7.6 billion who inhabit the earth have never heard about the gospel. 

At first glance, that might seem like a problem. Nearly 200 years after the Restoration and to this day, most of the world’s population has heard nothing about it.

But really it’s more of an opportunity and blessing, because it means that 6.6 billion people have never be confused by M2C.

IOW, we members of the Church have an opportunity to get our story straight on the Book of Mormon before most of the world hears about it for the first time. 
_____

30 years ago this coming October General Conference, President Ezra Taft Benson gave an awesome challenge when he declared,

The Book of Mormon is the instrument that God designed to “sweep the earth as with a flood, to gather out [His] elect.” (Moses 7:62.) This sacred volume of scripture needs to become more central in our preaching, our teaching, and our missionary work.

He quoted Elder Bruce R. McConkie’s words: ““Few men on earth, either in or out of the Church, have caught the vision of what the Book of Mormon is all about.  … The Book of Mormon shall so affect men that the whole earth and all its peoples will have been influenced and governed by it. … There is no greater issue ever to confront mankind in modern times than this: Is the Book of Mormon the mind and will and voice of God to all men?”

(Note: other speakers at that conference included Russell M. Nelson, Dallin H. Oaks, and M. Russell Ballard.)

If we really believe this–if we really believe that the Book of Mormon is intended for everyone on Earth–we better figure out how we are going to present it to the world.

BYU fantasy map of the Book of Mormon–the worst possible way to persuade the world that the book is true.

Are we going to stick with the M2C intellectuals and teach the world what CES and BYU are teaching our youth?

That is, are we going to tell the world that the Book of Mormon took place in a fantasy land?

Are we going to tell the world that our own prophets are wrong about the New York Cumorah?

As of right now, from all I can see, the answer appears to be yes.

It seems obvious how well that’s going to work out.
_____

The contrast in explanations below demonstrates the clarity of the prophets vs. the confusion of the M2C intellectuals.

Put yourself in the place of a prospective investigator. Two young people knock on your door–let’s say they are Hare Krishna to give us a sense of how Mormon missionaries appear to people in other cultures–and ask you to read their holy book. They testify to you that it is the word of God.

You: “What is it about?”
Them: “It’s an inspired translation of one-thousand years of sacred history that is found nowhere else.”
You think: sounds interesting.
You: “Who were the people? Where did they live?”
Them: “Well… you just have to read it and pray about it and you will know it is true.”

If you’re like most people, busy and already satisfied with your religion, you’ll probably end the conversation there, just as most investigators do. But maybe you’ll cut them some slack.

You think: they misunderstood me.
You: “No, I mean, what people does the book talk about? Where did they live?”
Them: “They lived between 600 BC and 400 AD in the western hemisphere.”
You think: Cool, I’ve always liked archaeology.
You: “You mean the Inca? the Aztecs?”
Them: “Well… we’re not sure. Mostly we think they were Mayans.”
You’ve recently read about Mayans in the news, so you say: “Don’t we know all about the Mayans? You said this history of yours is found nowhere else.”
Them: “Yes, it’s the sacred history of people who lived among the Mayans but were not actually Mayans.”
You (increasingly skeptical): “Where exactly did the people in your book live?”
They pull out a fantasy map, the one from BYU or CES.
Them: “We don’t know where they lived in the real world, but the book describes a place such as this.”

If you made it this far with them, you’ll end the conversation now. As nice as they are, these young people are obviously deluded.

But maybe your curiosity prompts you to look them up on the Internet. You discover that, in fact, their prophets did once explain that the book described two civilizations, both of which had final wars of extermination in western New York. That’s intriguing, but it’s not what these young visitors told you about Mayans. Maybe you look a little more. If you do, you soon discover that the scholars in this religion say the prophets were wrong.

You think, if their own scholars don’t believe their prophets, why should I?
And you lose all interest.
_____

Now, compare that with this scenario.

You: “What is it about?”
Them: “It’s an inspired translation of one-thousand years of sacred history that is found nowhere else.”
You think: sounds interesting.
You: “Who were the people? Where did they live?”
Them: “They were the ancestors of the Native Americans in the Eastern United States. They were divided into two great nations. One destroyed the other at a battleground in western New York.”
You: “I’ve never heard of this before.”
Them: “They left behind vast earthworks and artifacts in museums across the United States, but no written records. Except this.” They hold up the book.
Now, you have something specific and real to latch onto. You take the book from them.

They say, “It describes how Jesus Christ visited the people after his resurrection…”
_____

Confusion vs. clarity. 

We understand why academics prefer the confusion, the endless semantic debates, the constant search for more highly selective “correspondences” to confirm their biases.

But most people in the world don’t share their Mesomania. Investigators are not going to invest time and energy trying to make sense of M2C and the never-ending debates among the M2C scholars about their various “models” of Book of Mormon geography.

Most people in the world don’t care about all the details, so long as they have clarity and reality.

This is exactly the type of clarity that prophets have long provided regarding the Book of Mormon. It is why Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery wrote Letter VII and why Joseph had it republished in all the Church newspapers.

Here is the clarity taught by the prophets.

1. Cumorah is in New York.
2. We don’t know where the rest of the events took place because there are so many plausible locations, but that doesn’t matter because we do have one sure touchstone between the Book of Mormon and the New World to rely upon.

In the world today, there are over 1 billion Hindus, nearly 1.8 billion Muslims, about 1 billion Buddhists and believers in other Asian and African traditional religions. There are about 1.2 billion nonreligious and agnostics/atheists. Plus, of course, 2.4 billion Christians. Most Christians who have heard of the Book of Mormon have already rejected it (and have leaders who strongly oppose it).

As Elder Pearson pointed out, most of these people have never heard of the Book of Mormon, the restored Gospel, etc. Many of them have barely heard of Jesus Christ.

Do we really think the best way to approach them is to tell them we have a sacred record of real people but we have no idea where they lived or who they were?

Or, worse, that we can only explain the Book of Mormon by referring to a fantasy map?

It’s an absurd proposition.

And it’s all the more absurd because our own scriptures declare who the Lamanites were and where their descendants live; i.e., New York, Ohio, and the Midwest (D&C 28, 30, 32). Our own prophets have consistently and persistently declared that both the Jaredites and the Nephites fought wars of annihilation that culminated in western New York.

But instead of sharing this clarity–this crystal clear clarity from the prophets–the M2C intellectuals have generated a mass of confusion with illusory correspondences to Mayan culture.
_____

Elder Pearson also pointed out that “Of the remaining 1.0 billion people who likely have heard of the Church, approximately half have an unfavorable impression about us.”

There are a lot of factors involved with that unfavorable impression that I don’t have time to get into. People debate religious precepts, interpretations of the Bible, social issues, etc.

But fundamentally, when our message to the world about our unique scriptures, the Book of Mormon, is that our own prophets were wrong about where it took place so we explain it with a fantasy map, how can we expect anyone to take us seriously?

Ironically, Fairly Mormon is one of the major contributors to this mass of confusion.

More later…

I stipulate this may not be important for the tiny percentage of people in the world who are raised LDS or who receive the gift of a spiritual witness powerful enough to break through their traditions. Here I’m discussing the reason for the gap between what is currently happening with the Book of Mormon in the world and what could be happening.

The Book of Mormon is the instrument God provided to gather Israel and to convince the world that Jesus is the Christ. Is it accomplishing that task? Little by little, sure, but I think there is a major impediment that is preventing much more widespread acceptance of the Book of Mormon.
_____

God’s loving involvement with the lives of people everywhere in the world not only vindicates the faith of religious believers, but confirms their individual biases that their religions traditions–the source of their belief in God–are true.

Think of an example of God’s intervention in your life–maybe an answer to a prayer, a miraculous healing, or a chance encounter with someone that changes both of your lives. Whether you are LDS, Catholic, Hindu, Muslim, Pentecostal, or anything else, that intervention will confirm your bias that your religion is true. Your religion taught you that God has this power, so when the power was made manifest, it “proved” your religion is true, at least to your satisfaction.

During Christ’s ministry, the people were deeply attached to their respective traditions. How did Christ break through the powerful psychology of confirmation bias?

He broke through by doing things no one else could do. He performed miracles that shattered preconceptions and long-held traditions and biases. True, even the miracles were not persuasive enough to break through the confirmation bias of everyone, but they were persuasive enough to convince many people that their traditions were false and that they should at least listen to what Christ had to say.

In our day, the Book of Mormon is a tangible miracle that can be persuasive enough to break through confirmation bias psychology. When its divine authenticity is established, it can fulfill its role as the instrument God prepared to gather Israel and convince people that Jesus is the Christ.
_____

Joseph discussed this point with the members of Zion’s Camp as they crossed the plains of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. They observed the mounds and artifacts of the Hopewell Indians, which Joseph said were left by the Nephites and constituted evidence of the divine authenticity of the Book of Mormon. About a year later, Joseph and Oliver Cowdery wrote and published Letter VII, which firmly established the New York hill as the Hill Cumorah of Mormon 6:6.

Since then, many modern prophets have reaffirmed the New York Cumorah. The prophets have consistently and persistently taught that:

1. Cumorah is in New York.

2. We don’t know where the other events took place. (This makes sense because there are so many plausible locations for Book of Mormon sites, and because so long as we know where one Book of Mormon site in the New World is located, it’s not necessary to know the other sites to establish the divine authenticity of the book.)

The key point is that Cumorah is a sure, known connection between the Book of Mormon and the modern world, firmly established by the modern prophets. 

D&C 1:38 “What I the Lord have spoken, I have spoken, and I excuse not myself; and though the heavens and the earth pass away, my word shall not pass away, but shall all be fulfilled, whether by mine own voice or by the voice of my servants, it is the same.”

Because it is based on the clear, unambiguous teachings of the modern prophets, the New York Cumorah is the house built upon a rock (Matthew 7:24-5; 3 Nephi 14:24-5).

By contrast, because it is premised on the repudiation of the modern prophets, M2C is the house built upon sand. (Matthew 7:26-7; 3 Nephi 14:26-7).

By teaching that the prophets were wrong, and that we actually have nothing but academic speculation to connect the Book of Mormon to the real world, M2C jettisoned the one sure touchstone between the Book of Mormon and reality in the New World. 

Look at what M2C has done already.

Unmoored from its prophetic anchor in the New York Cumorah, the Book of Mormon has been cast adrift into a morass of speculation, semantics, and confusion. Now it is heading directly into the shadows of a “metaphorical” understanding, which is a euphemism for labeling it as fiction.

BYU fantasy map, based on M2C interpretation of the Book of Mormon, teaches students that the prophets are wrong about the Hill Cumorah in New York

Because they insist the prophets are wrong, the M2C intellectuals have persuaded CES and BYU to teach the youth that the Book of Mormon took place in an imaginary fantasy world based on the M2C interpretation of the text.

By repudiating the prophets, the M2C intellectuals have, even if inadvertently, accomplished what anti-Mormons have long sought.

They’ve detached the Book of Mormon from the real world.
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I realize the M2C citation cartel has produced all kinds of books and articles that appear scholarly, peer-reviewed, etc. But to anyone who doesn’t share the M2C bias–to anyone outside the M2C bubble–these materials are transparent confirmation bias.

Lists of carefully selected attributes of Mayan culture that “correspond” to carefully framed interpretations (and interpolations) of the text do not constitute persuasive evidence to anyone who doesn’t already accept M2C because of their faith in the M2C intellectuals.

To the contrary, experts on ancient Mesoamerica, whether LDS or not, who don’t share the M2C bias find the work of the M2C citation cartel unpersuasive at best.

People outside the M2C bubble, both LDS and otherwise, know this. Ask any missionary. All their investigators ask about evidence for the Book of Mormon.

The missionaries tell their investigators to pray about it. That’s a fine answer, but we all know that investigators go to the Internet the moment the missionaries leave the house.

On the Internet, investigators quickly learn that (i) no non-LDS Mayan expert sees connections between the Book of Mormon and the ancient Mayans; (ii) there is a conflict between the LDS prophets and the M2C intellectuals (e.g., here); and (iii) the most aggressive opponents to the New York Cumorah are the M2C intellectuals themselves.

Think how different it would be for investigators (and missionaries) if the M2C intellectuals aligned themselves with the prophets!
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The M2C intellectuals have years of practice finding ways to repudiate the prophets. They say Cumorah is a “clean hill,” that there is no archaeology to support the Book of Mormon events in Ohio and New York, etc. I’ve addressed all of these arguments on the merits in this blog and other places. The bottom line, as Joseph Smith himself observed, is that the evidence for the divine authenticity of the Book of Mormon is seen in the mounds and artifacts that are currently on display throughout the Midwestern and Eastern United States. There is no scientific need (or justification) to repudiate the teachings of the prophets about the New York Cumorah.
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I also realize the M2C intellectuals don’t like it when I point out they’ve repudiated the prophets. They prefer the explanation that the prophets weren’t speaking as prophets when they taught the Hill Cumorah is in New York; i.e., they were merely speaking as men, and they were wrong because the M2C intellectuals know better.

As the saying goes, that’s an exception you could drive a Mack truck through. Any time a prophet teaches something you don’t like, or you disagree with, just say he’s speaking as a man and you’re home free. Outside of the M2C bubble, I can’t see many LDS accepting that approach.

And imagine a missionary explaining this to an investigator.

Missionary: “We have a living prophet.”
Investigator: “But according to the Internet, your own scholars think your prophets were wrong about the Hill Cumorah in New York.”
Missionary (to himself): Hmm, that’s a good point. That’s what my CES/BYU teachers told me.
Missionary (to investigator): “A prophet is only a prophet when he’s speaking as a prophet.”
Investigator: “So you can pick and choose what you want to believe?”
Missionary: “Yes. Well, not really. We still believe most of what the prophets teach…”

By repudiating the prophets, the M2C intellectuals are throwing away a critically important aspect of the Book of Mormon. This is having disastrous consequences that seem to be the elephant in the room no one wants to talk about.

How can people accept the Book of Mormon as a divine translation of an authentic history of real people when we can’t confidently tell them of one single connection between the text and the New World setting?

No one had this problem while Joseph Smith was alive. Everyone knew Cumorah was in New York. In fact, no one had this problem until a few decades ago, when M2C intellectuals began using the Academic cycle to persuade vulnerable students that the prophets were wrong.

It continues to amaze me that millions of people come to our visitors centers in Salt Lake City and Palmyra, New York, only to learn that the prophets were wrong when they said the Hill Cumorah was in New York.

It’s confusing enough to show Mesoamerican imagery in every Church building and publication. But on top of that, visitors see M2C being explicitly taught on Temple Square, a direct repudiation of the teachings of the prophets. Sooner or later, the CES/BYU fantasy maps will make their way into Church buildings and media and visitors centers (as they already have in the Palmyra, New York, chapel).

When we reach that point, how can we expect anyone to accept the divine authenticity of the Book of Mormon?
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I realize that the M2C intellectuals and their followers believe the “correspondences” they’ve found in Mesoamerica affirm their spiritual beliefs in the authenticity of the Book of Mormon. And that’s fine. It’s natural for people to confirm their biases, regardless of what they are.

If people want to believe the Book of Mormon took place in Baja California, or Peru, or Chile, or Panama, or Guatemala, or Mesoamerica, or Eritrea, or Malaysia, and they can confirm their bias by evidence that is meaningful to them, that’s great. They are reconciling their faith with their reality, as they see it.

But obviously, this only works for those who already believe the Book of Mormon because the Lord has given them the spiritual gift of exceedingly great faith, as Moroni explained.

Those who have been given a different spiritual gift–say, the gift of knowledge or of wisdom–are unlikely to overcome their own confirmation bias without a tangible miracle.

That tangible miracle should be the Book of Mormon.

A house built on stone is a tangible miracle–especially when it is the modern prophets who have identified the stone, in this case, the New York Cumorah.

But M2C has demolished the house built on stone and replaced it with a house built on sand.

Until we return to the teachings of the prophets, there is no tangible miracle for the people of the world to accept.
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If/when we apply the teachings of the prophets to establish the divine authenticity of the Book of Mormon, starting with the New York Cumorah, we can break through the psychology of confirmation bias that currently prevents people throughout the world from seriously considering what that means in their lives.