Joseph Epstein has a wonderful piece in the Wall St. Journal today. Although he was writing specifically about politics, his point applies very well to religious discussions.

The subtitle of his article is “Our self-image is no so bound up in ideology that any disagreement feels like a personal attack.”

Think of a missionary sharing the gospel. Many investigators will take the mere existence of a missionary from another church as a criticism of his/her own beliefs. Because our self-image is “bound up in ideology,” the investigator may feel offended (or personally attacked) whenever the missionary offers a “better” religion, such as the “fullness of the gospel” which implies the investigator doesn’t have the fullness. The missionary may feel personally attacked when others oppose what he/she is teaching.

Even within the Church, people conflate their ideological beliefs with their self-image. People who have strong views on issues of Church History or Book of Mormon geography often consider these views as part of their self-image and therefore become defensive when others disagree with their views.

Recognizing this would go a long way to resolving the problem.
_____

Here are excerpts from Epstein’s piece:

There’s Too Much Virtue in Politics

Our self-image is now so bound up in ideology that any disagreement feels like a personal attack.

Lesson 30 in Gospel Doctrine includes the story of King Joaiah and the re-discovery of the book of the law. You will have this lesson in another week or two, depending on where you live.

Here’s the summary:

2 Chronicles 34. After Hezekiah’s son and grandson rule in wickedness, Hezekiah’s great-grandson Josiah becomes king of Judah. Josiah destroys the idols in the kingdom and repairs the temple (34:1–13). 

The book of the law is found in the temple and read to Josiah, who weeps when he learns how far the people have strayed from the law (34:14–21). 

https://www.lds.org/manual/old-testament-gospel-doctrine-teachers-manual/lesson-30?lang=eng

You can see the parallel to Letter VII.

During Joseph Smith’s lifetime, he made sure Church members everywhere knew about President Cowdery’s eight gospel topics essays, which he published as letters. Each is important, but Letter VII unambiguously declares that the hill Cumorah of Mormon 6:6 is in New York.

Letter VII was frequently republished, but the last official republication was in 1899 in the Improvement Era (Joseph F. Smith of the First Presidency was editor). Since then, Letter VII has been lost, like a lot of other things about Cumorah. Certain scholars have successfully censored and suppressed the teachings of the prophets, including Letter VII.

But now it has been rediscovered in the Joseph Smith Papers. You can read the Cumorah part right here: http://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/history-1834-1836/90

Like Josiah and his people, today we are thrilled to re-learn what the prophets have taught all along about the hill Cumorah in New York. Letter VII is causing many Church members to reject the traditions of their fathers regarding the Mesoamerican/two-Cumorahs theory (M2C).

As in Josiah’s day, there are some people who don’t want to know what the prophets have taught because it threatens their craft, their income, or even their reputation (for the M2C scholars who have spent their careers developing and defending M2C).

The biggest challenge for these scholars is acknowledging they’ve been wrong because they rejected the prophets.

But most members of the Church still believe the prophets and embrace Letter VII once they learn about it.
_____

The Church has a great video that explains the Josiah account.

The parallel to Letter VII seemed obvious to me, so I made a little video to explain it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4_71A8DCsg&feature=youtu.be

Enjoy.

And when your Gospel Doctrine class studies Josiah in Lesson 30, be sure to bring up the parallel to Letter VII today.

This no-wise is a sign that the M2C intellectuals feel threatened, like the Ephesian sellers of idols who tried to silence the Apostle Paul.

To write and publish a no-wise such as #453, the M2C intellectuals must be desperate.
_____

The book the M2C intellectuals don’t want you to read

Years ago I allowed Book of Mormon Central to publish in their archive, for free, the first edition of my book, Letter VII: Oliver Cowdery Explains the Hill Cumorah. For a long time it was the most popular, or one of the most popular, items in their archive.

Lately, they removed it from their archive. 

This is typical of the way the M2C citation cartel censors any information that contradicts the M2C dogma. The last thing they want is for members of the Church to be fully informed about what the prophets have taught. They can control BYU, CES and the Departments in the Church Office Building by keeping people ignorant.

Fortunately for the truth, in the age of the Internet, censorship backfires. 

More and more people are reading and talking about Letter VII for the first time–including many Church leaders.

The trend is accelerating, too.
_____

Because of Letter VII, the stark contrast between the M2C intellectuals and the prophets is becoming clearer.

Once Church members understand what the M2C intellectuals are up to, most of them still choose the prophets over the intellectuals. But that’s only when they realize the intellectuals have been misleading them for decades by suppressing the words of the prophets.

This no-wise #453 exposes the efforts of the M2C intellectuals to cast doubt on the teachings of the prophets.

The only thing I wish is that it had been #451, as in Fahrenheit 451.

(I blogged about that here: http://bookofmormonwars.blogspot.com/2017/08/fahrenheit-451.html)
_____

This no-wise #453 is a beauty. It’s my all-time favorite because of the way it exposes, in their own words, the audacity of these intellectuals who are teaching our youth to disbelieve the prophets.

Look at the title:

How Are Oliver Cowdery’s Messenger and Advocate Letters to Be Understood and Used?

This title demonstrates the unrelenting arrogance of these intellectuals. They are not merely suggesting or proposing an interpretation; they declare how these letters “are… to be understood and used.”

I never agreed to join a church run by intellectuals, but that’s what these M2C “scholars” are attempting to establish. Sadly, they have a lot of converts. That’s not a surprise because of the positions of responsibility they possess as employees of BYU, CES and COB.

Innocent, trusting students are diverted every day away from the prophets because of the teachings of these M2C intellectuals.

Ordinarily, faithful Church members look to the prophets for guidance on how to understand and use declarations made by the prophets. When Oliver Cowdery published these letters (letters III – VIII) he was Assistant President of the Church. As a member of the First Presidency, he was a prophet, seer and revelator, as are all the apostles. Subsequent prophets have shown us how to “understand and use” these letters by quoting from them and relying upon them, as we’ve seen many times on this blog.

No prophet has ever questioned the New York Cumorah, let alone repudiated it. To the contrary, many have specifically reaffirmed it, including members of the First Presidency speaking in General Conference.

Nevertheless, the Council of Springville and their adherents at BYU/CES.COB insist the prophets are wrong. 

These intellectuals assert superior knowledge based on their academic credentials and their M2C citation cartel that reinforces their academic arrogance through a phony “peer-review” process that creates an illusion of academic rigor.

Now they purport to tell Church members how to “understand and use” the statements of members of the First Presidency.
_____

This no-wise demonstrates all the classic techniques of the M2C citation cartel, which they have adapted from George Orwell’s book 1984. “Who controls the present controls the past, who controls the past controls the future.”)

No-wise 453

– cites only other members of the citation cartel
– will be reprinted in Meridian Magazine, another charter member of the M2C citation cartel
– will be covered by the Deseret News, whose editors have decided to participate in the M2C citation cartel
– will be cited at FairMormon, another charter member of the M2C citation cartel
– will be promoted to LDS youth, especially missionary-age youth, as part of the ongoing effort to persuade the youth to believe the M2C intellectuals instead of the prophets
– will be cited by other disciples of the M2C intellectuals and taught throughout BYU, CES, and materials produced by employees at COB, especially the Church History and Correlation Departments.

One delightful attribute of the citation cartel is how effectively they collude to suppress contrary views (and facts). For example, my observations will not appear in any of the publications of the citation cartel.

Consequently, unwary members (and leaders) of the Church who trust these intellectuals but are themselves ignorant of the facts will accept what these M2C intellectuals are teaching.
_____

I post my comments about the No-wise articles on another blog, so you can read my detailed analysis there. http://www.bookofmormoncentralamerica.com/2018/07/no-wise-453-how-are-oliver-cowderys.html

But you don’t have to read that analysis to see how arrogant the Council of Springville has become. Just read the title of No-wise #453.
_____

The influence of these M2C intellectuals is alarming. 

I’ve had several people tell me that they side with the intellectuals against the prophets. Among them are senior missionary couples, Stake and local Church leaders, and of course many employees at BYU, CES, and the Church Office Building, especially those in the Church History and Correlation Departments.

When we realize that every new student at a BYU campus is taught that the prophets are wrong, we should also realize we have a problem.

When we realize that every high school student in Seminary is taught that the prophets are wrong, we should also realize we have a problem.

When we realize that every college student in Institute is taught that the prophets are wrong, we should also realize we have a problem.

When we realize our own visitors centers are teaching guests that the prophets are wrong, we should also realize we have a problem.

But really, these are only a few tips of the iceberg.

The real problem is not that these M2C intellectuals are lying to their students, like “the long smoothed faced hypocrites” Joseph Smith denounced.

The real problem is that so many members of the Church are willing and even eager to believe the intellectuals instead of the prophets.

I continue to hope that will change as more and more members and leaders become familiar with Letter VII. I don’t think most readers of this no-wise are going to find it persuasive unless they have already chosen to follow the intellectuals instead of the prophets.
________________________________________

*The Council of Springville is Book of Mormon Central. Like the Nicean council, the intellectuals at Book of Mormon Central have assumed responsibility for telling Church members what to think. See the explanation here: http://www.bookofmormoncentralamerica.com/2016/08/the-council-of-springville.html. As I pointed out there, “It’s reassuring to know that the current prophets, seers and revelators are bound by the limits imposed by the Council of Springville.”

This is the same mentality behind the Interpreter, Dan Peterson’s successor to FARMS, that also purports to tell people how to interpret the scriptures, Church history, etc. The title alone–the Interpreter–reflects the arrogance of these intellectuals.

In contrast to the Council of Springville and the Interpreter, we have an observation by a previous prophet in 2 Peter 1:20 “Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of private interpretation.” 

The intellectuals will tell you that this epistle wasn’t actually written by Peter, that it shouldn’t have been included in the New Testament, etc.

But let’s read the passage in context:

This no-wise demonstrates how freely and openly the M2C intellectuals repudiate the prophets, as well as how carefully they use sophistry, misdirection and censorship to confuse and mislead the Saints.

Below in red are the comments I would have made had they asked for my input as part of a legitimate peer review. (Of course, we know that nothing published by the M2C citation cartel ever undergoes a legitimate peer review–their work wouldn’t withstand such a review–but it’s fun to think about what such a peer review would look like.)

NOTE: I’m writing this as a helpful insider; i.e., as someone who wants to see Book of Mormon Central (BOMC) become legitimate.

So far, BOMC has engaged in pure confirmation bias, which is why it is not taken seriously be non-LDS or LDS who don’t share the bias of the M2C intellectuals.

It’s tragic, because BOMC has raised a lot of money from Church members who have been, let’s say “misled,” by BOMC’s claim that BOMC follows the Church’s policy of neutrality on Book of Mormon geography issues. 

This no-wise is just the latest example of how BOMC is instead nothing but an M2C advocacy group that actively teaches people to disbelieve the prophets.

Theoretically, BOMC has the potential to do so much good. My peer reviews are my effort to dislodge BOMC from its Groupthink M2C mentality that is so counterproductive and destructive of faith in the prophets and the Book of Mormon itself.

Original in blue, my comments in red.
_____

How Are Oliver Cowdery’s Messenger and Advocate Letters to Be Understood and Used?

[This needs to be reworded for two reasons. 

First, the prophets have long told us how to understand and use these letters. The letters have been reprinted multiple times in official Church publications. Portions of Letter I are canonized. Portions of Letter VII have been repeatedly taught by the prophets, and no prophet has ever repudiated or even questioned Letter VII’s teaching. 

Second, we cannot presume to tell Church members how to understand and use these letters, especially when we’re contradicting the prophets. The title should be something such as “Understanding the context and significance of Oliver Cowdery’s Messenger and Advocate letters.”]

The Know

The letters by Oliver Cowdery. Image via BYU Harold B. Lee Library

Portrait of Oliver Cowdery via the Joseph Smith Papers

The Why

Image of Oliver Cowdery’s Letter VII. Image via BYU’s Harold B. Lee Library

• 1.J. Leroy Caldwell, “Messenger and Advocate,” in Encyclopedia of Mormonism, ed. Daniel H. Ludlow (New York, NY: Macmillan, 1992), 2:892.
• 2.The letters can be read online at the Book of Mormon Central archive.
• [The footnote cites the Book of Mormon Central (BOMC) archive. While this might be useful to drive traffic to the archive, a better reference would be the archive.org version, https://archive.org/stream/latterdaysaintsm01unse#page/12, which is searchable (unlike the BOMC archive),  easier to read than the BOMC archive, and lets readers see the letters in context. 
  Most readers would also appreciate a link to the Joseph Smith Papers where they can read these letters in Joseph’s own history: http://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/history-1834-1836/48]
• 3.“Letter II,” Latter Day Saints’ Messenger and Advocate 1, no. 2 (November 1834): 27–28. In October of the same year [actually, the same year and month] that Oliver began [publishing] his letters, the anti-Mormon author E. D. Howe published his highly influential work Mormonism Unvailed [sic] in nearby Painesville, Ohio. In it, Howe attempted to prove that the Book of Mormon was a modern fabrication based on a manuscript written by a certain Solomon Spalding and that Joseph Smith’s reputation, including his honesty and moral character, was suspect. Howe’s book can be accessed online at https://archive.org/details/mormonismunvaile00howe. Unlike other anti-Mormon writers, like Alexander Campbell, whom Oliver also responded to elsewhere in the Messenger and Advocate, Howe was never mentioned by name in any of Oliver’s letters to Phelps. [Naming Howe would only draw more attention to his book.] Nevertheless, the timing of the publication of Howe’s book, the considerable influence it wielded in popular discourse on Mormonism, and the overall content and focus of Oliver’s letters all make it seem very likely that Oliver was at the very least indirectly responding to Howe. 
• [This note should inform readers that most of Howe’s book attacked the character of Joseph Smith and his family, a topic Oliver specifically addressed in Letter II (which was quoted at the beginning of this note).]
• On Oliver’s efforts to defend the Church, see generally John W. Welch, “Oliver Cowdery’s 1835 Response to Alexander Campbell’s 1831 ‘Delusions’,”in Oliver Cowdery: Scribe, Elder, Witness, ed. John W. Welch and Larry E. Morris (Provo, UT: Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, 2006), 221–239; John W. Welch, “Oliver Cowdery as Editor, Defender, and Justice of the Peace in Kirtland,” in Days Never to Be Forgotten: Oliver Cowdery, ed. Alexander L. Baugh (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2009), 267–270.
• [These are all typical citation cartel references that are not directly on point. The note should reference the only book ever published that focuses specifically on these letters, the first edition of which can be read in the BOMC archive here: 
• https://archive.bookofmormoncentral.org/content/letter-vii-0. Later editions of the book provide more detailed analysis and context and should be cited. Jonathan Neville, Letter VII: Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery Explain the Hill Cumorah, Digital Legend, 2018.]
• 4.See “History, circa Summer 1832,” online.
• 5.One year earlier, the Church’s newspaper The Evening and the Morning Star ran editorials by William Phelps on the content and message of the Book of Mormon and the early progress of Mormon missionary efforts, but these articles provided neither a substantive history behind the early life of Joseph Smith nor a clear narrative describing the coming forth of the Book of Mormon. See “The Book of Mormon,” The Evening and the Morning Star 1, no. 8 (January 1833): 56–58; “Rise and Progress of the Church of Christ,” The Evening and the Morning Star 1, no. 11 (April 1833): 83–84. On the importance of Oliver’s letters as an early Church history, see Richard Bushman, “Oliver’s Joseph,” in Days Never to Be Forgotten, 6–10.” Phelps, “The Book of Mormon,” 57, appears to be the first recorded [published] instance of the hill in New York where Joseph Smith received the plates being called Cumorah.
• [The earliest recorded instance is probably Oliver’s notebook in which he wrote everything Joseph told him when they were in Harmony in 1829. Although we don’t have that notebook, there are references to its existence and content. Another early record is Parley P. Pratt’s autobiography, in which he wrote of the 1830-1 missionary to the Lamanites that ““This Book, which contained these things, was hid in the earth by Moroni, in a hill called by him, Cumorah, which hill is now in the State of New York, near the village of Palmyra, in Ontario County.” Autobiography of Parley P. Pratt, p. 43. Of course, Joseph’s mother quoted Joseph referring to the hill as Cumorah even before he got the plates, but we don’t know if she recorded that at the time, or merely recalled it later. Any of these, or another written or verbal source, could have provided the basis for Phelps’ article.]
• 6.Karen Lynn Davidson et al., eds., The Joseph Smith Papers: Histories, Volume 1: Joseph Smith Histories, 1832–1844 (Salt Lake City, UT: The Church Historian’s Press, 2012), xxi.
• 7.Joseph Smith letter to Oliver Cowdery, “Brother O. Cowdery,” Latter Day Saints’ Messenger and Advocate 1, no. 3 (December 1834): 40. It seems very likely that Joseph provided his support in an effort to counter the accusations made in Howe’s Mormonism Unvailed. Additionally, it seems that that Oliver had access to Joseph’s 1832 history and incorporated elements of it in his sketch of Joseph Smith’s early life. See the discussion in “JS Defended Himself in Letter in Messenger and Advocate,” online; Roger Nicholson, The Cowdery Conundrum: Oliver’s Aborted Attempt to Describe Joseph Smith’s First Vision in 1834 and 1835,” Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture 8 (2014): 27–44.
• 8.Davidson et al., eds., The Joseph Smith Papers: Histories, Volume 1, 39.
• 9.Pages 46–103 of the 1834–1836 history are written in the hands of these scribes. The history can be accessed online.
• 10.Republications of Oliver’s letters began appearing in 1840 when Parley P. Pratt reprinted Oliver’s depiction of the visitation of Moroni to Joseph Smith. See “A Remarkable Vision,” The Latter-day Saints’ Millennial Star 1, no. 2 (June 1840): 42–44; “A Remarkable Vision,” The Latter-day Saints’ Millennial Star 1, no. 5 (September 1840): 105–109; “A Remarkable Vision,” The Latter-day Saints’ Millennial Star 1, no. 6 (October 1840): 150–154; “A Remarkable Vision,” The Latter-day Saints’ Millennial Star 1, no. 7 (November 1840): 174–178. The letters were further republished in 1840 (“Copy of a Letter written by O. Cowdery,” Times and Seasons 2, no. 1 [November 1, 1840]: 199–201; “Letter II,” Times and Seasons 2, no. 2 [November 15, 1840]: 208–212; “Letter III,” Times and Seasons2, no. 3 [December 1, 1840]: 224–225; “Letter IV,” Times and Seasons 2, no. 4 [December 15, 1840]: 240–242; Orson Pratt, A[n] Interesting Account of Several Remarkable Visions [Edinburgh: Ballantyne and Hughes, 1840], 8–12), 1841 (“Letter VI,” Times and Seasons 2, no. 11 [April 1, 1841]: 359–363; “Rise of the Church,” Times and Seasons 2, no. 12 [April 15, 1841]: 376–379; “Letter VIII,” Times and Seasons 2, no. 13 [May 1, 1841]: 390–396; “O. Cowdery’s Letters to W. W. Phelps,” Gospel Reflector 1, no. 6 [March 15, 1841]; 137–176), 1843 (“O. Cowdery’s First Letter to W. W. Phelps,” The Latter-day Saints’ Millennial Star 3, no. 9 [January 1843]: 152–154), and 1844 (Letters by Oliver Cowdery, to W.W. Phelps on the Origin of the Book of Mormon and the Rise of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints [Liverpool: Ward and Cairns, 1844]; “O. Cowdery’s Letters to W. W. Phelps,” The Prophet 1, no. 7 [June 29, 1844]).
• [This footnote cites The Prophet, which published Letter VII on June 29, 1844 (2 days after the martyrdom of Joseph and Hyrum Smith), but doesn’t include the other letters, which were published beginning with the first issue of The Prophet. The note doesn’t tell readers that William Smith, Joseph’s brother, was the editor when Letter VII was published in The Prophet. It also doesn’t disclose that the letters were later published in the Improvement Era when Joseph F. Smith was the editor.]
• 11.“Letter III,” Latter Day Saints’ Messenger and Advocate 1, no. 3 (December 1834): 42–43.
• 12.Joseph’s journal entry on November 9, 1835, which was copied by Warren Cowdery into the 1834–1836 history project, clearly recounted the 1820 vision in which Joseph saw and heard two beings. See Dean C. Jessee, “The Earliest Accounts of Joseph Smith’s First Vision,” in Opening the Heavens: Accounts of Divine Manifestation, 1820–1844, ed. John W. Welch, 2nd ed. (Provo: Brigham Young University Press, 2017), 9–12. For a recent attempt at making sense of Oliver’s omission of the 1820 vision, see Nicholson, “The Cowdery Conundrum,” 27–44.
• 13.Bushman, “Oliver’s Joseph,” 6.
• 14.History, 1838–1856, volume A-1 [23 December 1805–30 August 1834], p. 1. “Sometime in the second year after our removal to Manchester [1819], there was in the place where we lived an unusual excitement on the subject of religion.”
• 15.“Letter IV,” Latter Day Saints’ Messenger and Advocate 1, no. 5 (February 1835): 78. “You will recollect that I mentioned the time of a religious excitement, in Palmyra and vicinity to have been in the 15th year of our brother J. Smith Jr’s, age—that was an error in the type—it should have been in the 17th.—You will please remember this correction, as it will be necessary for the full understanding of what will follow in time. This would bring the date down to the year 1823.”
• 16.History, 1838–1856, volume A-1 [23 December 1805–30 August 1834], p. 3. “I at last came to the determination to ask of God, concluding that if he gave wisdom to them that lacked wisdom, and would give liberally and not upbraid, I might venture. So in accordance with this my determination to ask of God, I retired to the woods to make the attempt. It was on the morning of a beautiful clear day early in the spring of Eightteen hundred and twenty. It was the first time in my life that I had <​made​> such an attempt, for amidst all <​my​> anxieties I had never as yet made the attempt to pray vocally.”
• 17.“Letter IV,” 78–79. “On the evening of the 21st of September, 1823, previous to retiring to rest, our brother’s mind was unusually wrought up on the subject which had so long agitated his mind—his heart was drawn out in fervent prayer, and his whole soul was so lost to every thing of a temporal nature, that earth, to him, had lost its claims, and all he desired was to be prepared in heart to commune with some kind messenger who could communicate to him the desired information of his acceptance with God. . . . While continuing in prayer for a manifestation in some way that his sins were forgiven; endeavoring to exercise faith in the scriptures, on a sudden a light like that of day, only of a purer and far more glorious appearance and brightness, burst into the room.”
• 18.See “Letter VIII,” Latter Day Saints’ Messenger and Advocate 2, no. 1 (October 1835): 197–198, where Oliver quotes Moroni for an astounding 1078 words.
• 19.Oliver’s overwrought verbosity, his penchant for “rhetorical flourishes” which make “the story more Oliver’s than Joseph’s,” his telltale “flowery journalese,” and his ”florid romantic language“ have been noted by careful readers. See for instance the remarks of Bushman, “Oliver’s Joseph,” 7; Arthur Henry King, The Abundance of the Heart (Salt Lake City, UT: Bookcraft, 1986), 204; Davidson et al., eds., The Joseph Smith Papers: Histories, Volume 1, 38.
• 20.“Last Days of Oliver Cowdery,” Deseret News (April 13, 1859)” 48.
• 21.See Scott H. Faulring, “The Return of Oliver Cowdery,” in Oliver Cowdery, 321–362.
• 22.Oliver makes his views plain in “Letter VII,” Latter Day Saints’ Messenger and Advocate 1, no. 10 (July 1835): 155–159.
• 23.As made clear in Joseph Smith’s December 1834 letter cited above, the extent of the Prophet’s involvement with the compositions of the Messenger and Advocate letters was to provide Oliver with information about his youth and upbringing. In the absence of any corroborative evidence attesting to Joseph’s input beyond this, any comments made by Oliver in these letters concerning the geography of the Book of Mormon must therefore have been his alone.
• 24.“On August 17, 1835, in the midst of the Saints’ attempts to petition the government for help, Oliver Cowdery and Sidney Rigdon presented a document titled ‘Declaration of Government and Law’ to Church members in Kirtland, Ohio. The declaration—now Doctrine and Covenants 134—sought to address all of the Saints’ concerns.” Spencer W. McBride, “Of Governments and Laws,” online at history.lds.org.
• 25.An excerpt from Letter I providing Oliver Cowdery’s firsthand testimony of the translation of the Book of Mormon and the visitation of John the Baptist was included in the 1851 Pearl of Great Price as a footnote to republished portions of Joseph Smith’s 1838 history. The Pearl of Great Price was canonized as scripture in 1880. This excerpt is present in the current 2013 edition of the Pearl of Great Price (Joseph Smith—History 1:71 footnote). Beyond this footnote reproducing part of Letter I, no material from the letters has been canonized, including any material from Letter VII concerning the location of the hill Cumorah.
• 26.“Church leadership officially and consistently distances itself from issues regarding Book of Mormon geography.” John E. Clark, “Book of Mormon Geography,” in Encyclopedia of Mormonism, 1:176. See also Book of Mormon Central, “Where Did the Book of Mormon Happen?” KnoWhy 431 (May 8, 2018). While a number of later Church leaders felt confident in following Oliver in identifying the hill Cumorah as the hill in New York, 
• [Classic deception here. Every member of the Quorum of the Twelve and First Presidency who has ever addressed the topic has affirmed the New York Cumorah, including specific witnesses given in General Conference. None has disputed or repudiated Letter VII.]
• others, such as apostle and later Church president Harold B. Lee, demurred. “Some say the Hill Cumorah was in southern Mexico (and someone pushed it down still farther) and not in western New York. Well, if the Lord wanted us to know where it was, or where Zarahemla was, he’d have given us latitude and longitude, don’t you think?” 
• [The M2C intellectuals continue to deceive Church members by taking this obscure, unofficial comment out of context, as I explained here: 
• http://bookofmormonwars.blogspot.com/2017/10/fairmormons-famous-harold-b-lee.html]
• For the Lee citation, and additional citations showing some variance amongst Church leaders on the issue of the location of the hill Cumorah, see FairMormon’s collection of Hill Cumorah Quotes.
• [No surprise to see FairMormon, a charter member of the M2C citation cartel, cited here. I’ve addressed all of this and more in these blog posts:
• http://bookofmormonwars.blogspot.com/2017/11/what-is-official-mormon-doctrine.html
• My series on getting real about Cumorah, starting with my observations about John Clark:
• http://bookofmormonwars.blogspot.com/2018/01/getting-real-about-cumorah-part-1-john.html

• 27.Joseph Smith himself appeared somewhat ambivalent towards the location of the hill Cumorah. In Joseph’s earliest history the “place . . . where the plates [were] deposited” goes unnamed. History, circa Summer 1832, p. 4. In his 1838 history the Prophet again merely describes the location where he found the plates as “a hill of considerable size” without positively identifying it as Cumorah. History, 1838–1856, volume A-1 [23 December 1805–30 August 1834], addendum, p. 7. Also in 1838, while describing how he obtained the Book of Mormon, Joseph spoke generally of “a hill in Manchester, Ontario County New York” as the repository of the plates, again without identifying it as Cumorah. Joseph Smith, Elders’ Journal (July 1838): 43. 
• [By this standard, Joseph was “ambivalent” about most of the Book of Mormon. He never referred to most of the Book of Mormon prophets by name, nor did he quote most of the passages in the Book of Mormon. He could have had good reasons to avoid naming the hill, such as to avoid encouraging people to dig it up looking for treasure.]
•  Some 4 years later, however, in a letter dated 6 September 1842, Joseph exulted at hearing “Glad tidings from Cumorah! Moroni, An Angel from heaven, declaring the fulfilment of the prophets.” “Letter to ‘The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints,’ 6 September 1842 [D&C 128],” p. 7. It’s conceivable that Joseph eventually accepted the identity of the hill Cumorah as being the hill in Palmyra after this theory became popular amongst early Church members. 
• [This is an especially poor argument. It claims that it is “conceivable” that Joseph accepted a false folk theory, while it is not conceivable that (i) Joseph and Oliver actually visited the depository in the hill as explained by several prophets, (ii) that Joseph’s mother and Parley P. Pratt and Oliver Cowdery and David Whitmer were telling the truth in their accounts of the origin of the name Cumorah, and (iii) that all the prophets who have affirmed the New York Cumorah were also telling the truth.]
• Be that as it may, it would still appear that, as with Oliver, Joseph Smith’s views on Book of Mormon geography were the product of his being informed by popular nineteenth century Mormon speculation, not revelation.
• [This is even worse than the previous argument. The article claims Joseph learned Book of Mormon geography from a popular travel book because he, Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer, and all the other prophets who have affirmed the New York Cumorah are merely ignorant speculators who have misled the Church.]
•  See Matthew Roper, “Limited Geography and the Book of Mormon: Historical Antecedents and Early Interpretations,” FARMS Review 16, no. 2 (2004): 225–275; “Joseph Smith, Revelation, and Book of Mormon Geography,” FARMS Review 22, no. 2 (2010): 15–85; Matthew Roper, Paul J. Fields, and Atul Nepal, “Joseph Smith, the Times and Seasons, and Central American Ruins,” Journal of the Book of Mormon and Other Restoration Scripture 22, no. 2 (2013): 84–97; Neal Rappleye, “‘War of Words and Tumult of Opinions’: The Battle for Joseph Smith’s Words in Book of Mormon Geography,” Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture 11 (2014): 37–95; Matthew Roper, “John Bernhisel’s Gift to a Prophet: Incidents of Travel in Central America and the Book of Mormon,” Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture 16 (2015): 207–253; Mark Alan Wright, “Joseph Smith and Native American Artifacts,” in Approaching Antiquity: Joseph and the Ancient World, edited by Lincoln H. Blumell, Matthew J. Grey, and Andrew H. Hedges (Salt Lake City and Provo, UT: Deseret Book and Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2015), 119–140; Matthew Roper, “Joseph Smith, Central American Ruins, and the Book of Mormon,” in Approaching Antiquity, 141–162.
• [These articles are all classic examples of confirmation bias that I’ve addressed in detail. You can search for them on my blog. The bottom line of all of these M2C scholars is this:
• The prophets and apostles are ignorant speculator who misled the Church until the M2C scholars, including Matt Roper, Neal Rappleye, Mark Alan Wright, etc. came along and corrected them.]

The day after the final presentation of the Hill Cumorah Pageant I took this photo of the Mayan temple being dismantled.

I hope they never construct it again, unless the Mesomaniacs at BYU and Book of Mormon Central finally locate the “real Cumorah” in southern Mexico and they haul this stage down there. That’s where this stage belongs.

Sadly, thanks to the Correlation Department and the intellectuals at BYU/CES, the Hill Cumorah Pageant is an outward repudiation of all the prophets who have stood on this hill in New York and declared it to be the scene of the final battles of the Nephites and Jaredites.
_____

Everyone in Palmyra knows about the Church’s plans to move the pageant to a nearby location, but the timing has not been announced, so far as I know. Let’s hope they don’t rebuild another Mayan temple, though.
_____

Sometimes I edit cartoons to apply to the topic of Book of Mormon geography. Today there was a comic that I didn’t have to edit. It’s a behind-the-scenes look at Book of Mormon Central. I posted it here.

http://www.bookofmormoncentralamerica.com/2018/07/behind-scenes-at-book-of-mormon-central.html

Actually, maybe I should have edited it a little. Not everything they do is stupid. Just everything that is driven by their Mesomania. Which means about half of their no-wise.
_____

A lot of people visit Palmyra in the fall to see the leaves in New England. If you go, be sure to visit the Oliver Cowdery Memorial. Ask the missionaries about it. As far as I know, that memorial is the only place in the Church where members can learn what the prophets have said about the Hill Cumorah.

Those displays should all be in the Cumorah Visitors Center. I think they will be, eventually.

How else could he have depicted their latest management meeting on how to perpetuate and perpetrate M2C (their Mesoamerican/two Cumorahs theory)?

http://dilbert.com/strip/2018-07-24