Author: Jonathan Neville

Because many of our LDS intellectuals at BYU are teaching their students that President Cowdery was wrong when he declared it was a fact that the final battles of the Nephites and Jaredites took place at the Hill Cumorah in western New York, we’re going to look at some evidence.

As you consider the evidence, recall that these intellectuals are telling their students, and members of the Church generally, to disbelieve all the prophets and apostles who have reiterated what President Cowdery wrote. It doesn’t matter that the New York Cumorah was taught in General Conference by members of the First Presidency. These intellectuals insist all the prophets and apostles are wrong.

In my view, there should be a pretty high standard of proof to justify these claims.

Here’s a preview of my conclusion:

Your BYU/CES intellectuals are trying to persuade you to disbelieve the prophets and apostles because they insist that a site in Mesoamerica is such a better fit with the text–so much more of a land among seas and a land of seas–than western New York that President Cowdery could not possibly have been telling the truth.

See what you think.
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There is a remarkable sentence in 1 Nephi 17:5: “And we beheld the sea, which we called Irreantum, which, being interpreted, is many waters.”

This tells us that sea = Irreantum = many waters.

There are 11 verses in the Book of Mormon that refer to “many waters” and 81 that refer to “sea.”

I don’t know why these terms were used in these frequencies,* but they were used interchangeably as synonyms.

Nephi called the sea they crossed Irreantum or many waters, while the Lamanites believed “they were also wronged while crossing the sea“ (Mosiah 10:12). The brother of Jared asked the Lord to touch the stones that “we may have light while we shall cross the sea“ (Ether 3:4) and the Jaredites “did build barges, in which they did cross many waters“ (Ether 2:6).

Because they are synonyms, conceptually we could replace instances of sea and many waters with Irreantum throughout the text. Or we could change many waters to sea. The point here is that many waters is a specific term, a synonym for sea.

Let’s see how this relates to Cumorah.
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One caveat. On principle, I don’t like semantic arguments because words can be easily redefined to confirm whatever bias one has. Just look at the M2C sophistry about what is a promised land, a country, and a great nation. Semantic arguments boil down to whether you agree with or oppose the bias being confirmed.

But I think this is an exception because Nephi himself gave us specific definitions, and the M2C intellectuals are insisting their case is so strong that it justifies disbelieving our prophets and apostles.
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We have one description of Cumorah that specifically mentions many waters: Mormon 6:4.

4 And it came to pass that we did march forth to the land of Cumorah, and we did pitch our tents around about the hill Cumorah; and it was in a land of many waters, rivers, and fountains; and here we had hope to gain advantage over the Lamanites.

We have another likely reference to the land of Cumorah that also uses the term: Mosiah 8:8.

8 And they were lost in the wilderness for the space of many days, yet they were diligent, and found not the land of Zarahemla but returned to this land, having traveled in a land among many waters, having discovered a land which was covered with bones of men, and of beasts, and was also covered with ruins of buildings of every kind, having discovered a land which had been peopled with a people who were as numerous as the hosts of Israel.

If we use the synonym, we get these descriptions:

– a land of seas, rivers and fountains

– a land among seas

Where in the Americas is there such a land?

Let’s compare western New York with Mesoamerica and see which qualifies.

The New York Cumorah is literally surrounded by seas. Lake Erie and Lake Ontario are most obvious, but the finger lakes also qualify as seas.

It’s difficult to tell on this map how large the finger lakes are, so look at the close-up below.

The Sea of Galilee in Israel is 64 square miles. Lake Seneca is 67 square miles. Cayuga Lake is 66 square miles. Oneida Lake (upper right) is 80 square miles. Even Canandaigua Lake is 17 square miles.

The Hill Cumorah is located near the “E” in FINGER.

Of course, all the land within the area of the Great Lakes could be called “a land among seas” and “a land of seas.” We know this because we look at satellite photos and maps derived from them.

But for someone on the ground, especially ancient explorers new to the area, the Great Lakes are much too vast for exploration. The shoreline of Lake Erie alone is 871 miles, so you’re not going to travel all the way around that in a few days. The shoreline of Lake Superior is 2,726 miles. Limhi’s explorers could not possibly have explored the entire Great Lakes, let alone Lake Erie.

However, the finger lakes are close together. It’s only 9 miles from Cumorah to Canandaigua Lake, and about 15 miles from Cumorah to Seneca Lake. Those two lakes are 13.5 miles apart, and it’s only another ten miles from Seneca Lake to Cayuga Lake. These are relatively short distances that Limhi’s explorers could have easily covered. From their respective shores, you can see the finger lakes are distinct and have natural boundaries. Because they are larger than the Sea of Galilee, they qualify as seas, or many waters. (Canandaigua Lake, at only 17 square miles, might not technically qualify as a sea, but unless you circumnavigate it, you can’t tell how big it is.)

This means that when you are at Cumorah, you have major seas on the north (Lake Ontario, 17 miles away), west (Lake Erie, 80 miles away), east (Oneida Lake, 60 miles away), and south (Lakes Seneca, Cayuga, and Canandaigua). By any measure, this is a land among seas and a land of seas, just as the Book of Mormon describes.
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Now, let’s look at Mesoamerica. Remember, this has to be such a perfect fit for the text of the Book of Mormon that we’re supposed to disbelieve our prophets and apostles who teach that Cumorah is in New York. We’ve already seen that New York perfectly matches the description in the text. Mesoamerica must be an even more perfect fit. 

The red circle is the exact same size, on the exact same scale, as the map of New York above. This is the proposed M2C location for Cumorah, according to BYU Studies and the other M2C theories.

You have a sea to the north, for sure; it’s part of the Gulf of Mexico. But then what?

Is this location a land among seas and a land of seas as the Book of Mormon describes? 

Let’s look closer. Here, we see there is, in fact, a body of water near the Mesoamerican “Cumorah.” It’s called Lago or Laguna Catemaco. It’s surface area is 28 square miles, about the same as Lake Canandaigua (which I suggested might not even qualify as a sea).

Catemaco’s water level is controlled by dams, yet it is still shallow, averaging 25 feet deep. (Lake Canandaigua has an average depth of 127 feet, with a maximum depth of 276 feet.)

Let’s say Catemaco qualifies as a sea despite its size and depth. Does that put this M2C Cumorah in a land among seas and a land of seas? It would qualify as a land on the seashore, or a land near the sea, but I don’t see any way, using plain English, that it qualifies as either a land among seas or a land of seas. 

It’s merely a coastal location with one lake. If this is a land among seas and a land of seas, then every site along a coastline is also. Such an interpretation means the terms are not only not descriptive, but they are meaningless.

And yet based on this, our intellectuals expect us to reject the prophets and apostles.

Seriously?

Maybe you notice the body of water to the southwest, next to the mountains. This is 85 miles away, but that doesn’t matter because it was formed in 1954 by the construction of a dam.
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Here’s the main point.

Your BYU/CES intellectuals are trying to persuade you to disbelieve the prophets and apostles because they insist this site in Mesoamerica is such a better fit with the text–so much more of a land among seas and a land of seas–than western New York that President Cowdery could not possibly have been telling the truth.

In fact, according to the intellectuals, this site in Mexico is so much better than western New York that you have to disbelieve not only President Cowdery, but also Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, Wilford Woodruff, Orson Pratt, Parley P. Pratt, Joseph Fielding Smith, James E. Talmage, Anthony Ivins, LeGrand Richards, Marion G. Romney, Mark E. Petersen, etc.
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In my view, our intellectuals have it completely backwards.

I think the maps demonstrate that President Cowdery and all the other prophets and apostles somehow (presumably by luck according to our intellectuals) happened to identify the single best location in the western hemisphere, if not the world, that qualifies as a land among seas and a land of seas, especially from the perspective of people living between 200 BC and 400 AD.

Without even referencing these details about the seas, President Cowdery and the prophets and apostles who believed him have authenticated the historicity of the Book of Mormon in a real-world setting.

But because our BYU/CES intellectuals have persuaded so many LDS to disbelieve the prophets and apostles, they are looking for Cumorah in the wrong place.

And our own visitors centers are depicting this Mexican “Cumorah” to millions of people every year.

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* People have published articles on the etymology of Irreantum, but I’m not aware of anyone who has suggested an explanation for the relative frequency of these terms.

If you’re a student at BYU or in CES, your teachers are using a fantasy map to teach you about the Book of Mormon. Here’s the link: http://bom.byu.edu/

BYU’s fantasy map of the Book of Mormon

I think this is a disastrous development. It is the penultimate step toward the inevitable destination, the last stop on the road of rejecting what the prophets and apostles have taught about Cumorah. The final stop will be declaring that the Book of Mormon is a “righteous parable,” a euphemism for calling it fiction. We can expect that next, within a few years, unless people change course and revert to what the prophets and apostles have consistently taught for over 150 years, beginning with Letter VII.

Well, actually not beginning with Letter VII.

Joseph knew Cumorah was in New York before he even got the plates in 1827. But in terms of official publications, Letter VII was the first to specify, without hesitation or equivocation, that the hill Cumorah in New York was not only the place where Moroni buried the plates, but also the site of Mormon’s depository and the scene of the final battles of the Jaredites and Nephites.

For those new to the blog, Letter VII was written by President Oliver Cowdery in 1835. He was Assistant President of the Church, making him the senior member of the First Presidency after Joseph Smith. Letter VII was published in the official Church newspaper, the Messenger and Advocate, and, at Joseph’s direction and with his approval, it was republished in many other Church publications, including the Millennial Star, the Times and Seasons, the Prophet, and the Improvement Era. You can read it right now in Joseph Smith’s own History, 1834-1836, at this link:
http://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/history-1834-1836/90

The New York Cumorah has been taught repeatedly and consistently, including by members of the First Presidency in General Conference, and has never been changed by any Church leaders. But your BYU/CES teachers will tell you it is false because, according to some LDS intellectuals, Cumorah is actually in Central America.

Or, worse, in a fantasy land.
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BTW, you don’t have to rely on BYU for your fantasy map. You can create your own fantasy maps on several web pages.

Just google “fantasy map generator” and you’ll find plenty of them.

Here’s one I created from this site: https://mewo2.com/notes/terrain/

You can experiment with different settings and come up with lots of fantasy maps that could fit the M2C (Mesoamerican/two-Cumorahs) interpretation of the Book of Mormon.

This site generates islands, but you can construe the text to make it work.

Another site,
http://donjon.bin.sh/fantasy/world/,  generates bigger maps that are probably more useful because there are many options for a “narrow neck” when you follow the Mesoamerican methodology and conflate the different terms, assume there are lots of mountains and volcanoes, etc.

Just look at how many fantasy places you could place the Book of Mormon once you untether it from the prophets and apostles!

A word of caution if you embark on this path. To be a legitimate M2C cartographer, you have to follow the M2C rules.
1. You must assume that the prophets and apostles are wrong about Cumorah, but the M2C intellectuals are right.
2. You must assume that narrow neck = narrow neck of land = small neck = narrow passage.
3. You have to assume “sea east” is a proper noun and not a relative adjective based on the location of the writer.
4. You have to assume that Joseph translated plants and animals wrong; e.g., “horse” really means “tapir.”
5. You must assume that the Book of Mormon secretly refers to volcanoes, massive stone temple, jaguars, jungles and jade. Although none of these are mentioned in Joseph’s translation, he wasn’t looking through the Mesoamerican lens, so he didn’t translate the text exactly right.
6. You must assume that… well, you know the rest.
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How did we get to the point where BYU is teaching students that the Book of Mormon events happened in a fantasy world?

The genealogy of this fantasy map is a topic for another post, but in short, some LDS intellectuals decided we should disbelieve the prophets and apostles about Cumorah. Instead, we should follow them, the intellectuals, wherever they lead. They decided among themselves that the Book of Mormon actually took place in Central America (Mesoamerica), so they concocted an interpretation of the text that fit Central America.

Then they announced that all the prophets and apostles, from Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery on, were merely expressing their opinions about Cumorah in New York. And they were wrong.

At some point, BYU told them to stop teaching a specific geography in Mesoamerica. Fine, they said. They decided to apply the Mesoamerican interpretation of the text to create an “abstract” map, which is the fantasy map depicted above.

Look where they put Cumorah:

Cumorah in never-never land

This is just about as far from western New York as it is possible to imagine, short of putting it on the moon.

This map is a flat-out repudiation of the prophets and apostles.

And BYU teaches it proudly. They encourage seminary and institute teachers to use it. They want it available to everyone in the Church.

Let’s look at how BYU explains this map. The explanation is on this web page: http://bom.byu.edu/

My comments in red.

The Church and BYU stay neutral in questions of exactly where the Book of Mormon took place. I hear this statement often, but I don’t know where it comes from. Certainly the artwork in every chapel and visitors center portrays the Mesoamerican setting. The North Visitors Center on Temple Square teaches M2C, with Mormon’s depository in Mesoamerica and Moroni far away in New York burying the plates. The displays never quote the statements from apostles and prophets about the New York Cumorah.

I suppose it’s accurate to say “the Church” isn’t teaching what these paintings and visitors centers are teaching. 

In terms of official publications, the New York Cumorah has not only been repeatedly taught, even in General Conference, but no alternative Cumorahs have ever been taught or even alluded to in those forums.

Consequently, I ascribe the artwork and visitors centers to the staff people who have been indoctrinated at BYU/CES into thinking M2C.

But BYU is a different story. It is anything but neutral to put Cumorah in a fantasy land, especially a fantasy land defined by the M2C interpretation of the text. 

Furthermore, BYU Studies is the exact opposite of neutral. It is all-in on M2C, from its home page through its editorial content. 

The Lord could have removed all questions regarding the exact locations of these events but he did not. It’s true that apart from the New York Cumorah, the Lord has not revealed the “exact locations of these events.” That’s for us to work out on our own, at least for the time being.

But if consistent and repeated statements by members of the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve in official Church publications and General Conference are wrong, as the M2C intellectuals claim, then why have official Church publications and General Conference at all? If these teachings are merely opinions, as the M2C intellectuals claim, why take the time to listen and read them? 

The repudiation of the New York Cumorah is free license to reject anything the prophets and apostles teach if we happen to disagree because of our area of expertise. 

For that reason, our design team has chosen to develop an internal map that shows relational directions and approximate distances that match the approximately 550 geography descriptions in the text as closely as possible. Obviously, these are entirely subjective judgments. But think about the implications of this statement. If true–if the fantasy map matches the text “as closely as possible” as this statement claims–what does that say about the authenticity of the Book of Mormon? 

Because these intellectuals are confusing their own subjective interpretations with objective reality, they are teaching us that the Book of Mormon fits best in a fantasy world.

The inherently vague descriptions in the text accommodate many interpretations, but all these interpretations are nothing more than exercises in bias confirmation. This presents us with the choice between two biases.

1. We are biased in favor of what the prophets and apostles have taught about Cumorah in New York and figure out how the text corroborates that teaching.

OR

2. We are biased against what the prophets and apostles have taught and figure out how the text describes anything but Cumorah in New York.

The BYU fantasy map reflects the second bias, based on the M2C procedure. 

Step 1, concoct a predetermined M2C theory. 
Step 2: subjectively impose a bias-confirming interpretation on the text. 

BYU merely adds a third step: 

Step 3: fix the many problems with the M2C interpretation by creating a fantasy world. 

These are artistic renditions. Fair enough. So are the many web-based fantasy map generators.
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The obvious problem with a fantasy map is the inherent subjectivity of the interpretations.

BYU professors resolved that by simply adopting the Mesoamerican interpretation, such as the semi-official one that has appeared on the home page of BYU Studies for years:
https://byustudies.byu.edu/charts/160-plausible-locations-mesoamerica-book-mormon-places

BYU Studies map

You might wonder, how is the BYU fantasy map the same as the BYU Studies map?

BYU simply rotated it 90 degrees and made the “narrow neck” even narrower. The reason, of course, is that the BYU Studies map never made sense. They had to re-define “north” to mean “west” and “narrow neck” to mean “a little narrower than the rest of the land.”

BYU professors “fixed” these problems with their fantasy map, but it is based on the exact same interpretation of the text.

Basically, the BYU fantasy map is a wink and a nod to students, who know their teachers think the “real” location is Mesoamerica. The fantasy map is a way to comply with the directive to not teach Mesoamerica, while still teaching Mesoamerica.

When it gets down to it, fantasy and Mesoamerica are really the same thing; a rejection of the prophets and apostles.

Cumorah, according to BYU Studies

For Cumorah, BYU Studies is even more specific.

You can see it at this link: https://byustudies.byu.edu/charts/159-plausible-locations-final-battles

Just for fun, imagine a group of LDS scholars hiking through the jungles of Mesoamerica looking for the “real” Hill Cumorah. It sounds absurd, doesn’t it?

But it’s reality. You can see a presentation on an expedition to Mesoamerica looking for Cumorah here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKwEeaQ_7gE
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If the point wasn’t already clear, the bottom of the BYU web page depicts the stark difference between fantasy and reality:

Fantasy Book of Mormon vs real Bible

I think it’s cheating to use a real-world map of the Middle East. If BYU is going to reject the New York Cumorah as the starting place, they should reject Jerusalem as the starting place, too. Let’s see what kind of “abstract” map they would construct based on the descriptions in 1 Nephi.

One thing for sure, it would look nothing like the real world.

BYU’s latest effort to repudiate the New York Cumorah is appalling to me, precisely because of this stark contrast between real and fantasy worlds. I think the Book of Mormon describes North America very well.

If we start with Cumorah in New York and apply the descriptions to real-world geography, geology, anthropology and archaeology, we get a map that fits nicely and is consistent with all the teachings of the prophets and apostles (including the presence of Lehi’s posterity in Latin America, which is the hinterlands of the Book of Mormon text).

I explained all of this in Moroni’s America. There are lots of free maps you can look at on my web page, here: https://www.moronisamerica.com/maps/.

The M2C intellectuals disagree because they are so deeply invested in M2C that they “can’t unsee Mesoamerica” when they read the text. But they’re not reading the same text the rest of us are.

Their version of the Book of Mormon describes volcanoes, the 3 Ms (Mayans, mountains, massive stone temples), and the three Js (jungles, jaguars, and jade).

The BYU fantasy map incorporates the M2C interpretation. It is being imprinted on students throughout the Church. 

It doesn’t take much imagination to see where that will lead.

In 2018, it’s time to get real about Cumorah.

Lately, people want to know who, exactly, is promoting M2C. They have children and/or grandchildren attending BYU or in CES and they want to prepare them for what they will learn and from whom. I’m reluctant to identify individuals because people change their views from time to time. Just because someone promotes M2C (or, worse, BYU’s fantasy map of the Book of Mormon) doesn’t mean he/she won’t later change course.

Besides, as I keep emphasizing, people can have strong testimonies and can promote faith regardless of what they think about Book of Mormon geography. M2C is not some kind of scarlet letter.

But, in my opinion and experience, M2C does have the long-term impact of causing confusion and disturbing faith, especially because it’s a gateway drug to rejecting what the prophets teach about other topics.

As I explain below, I think anyone who starts with the premise that the prophets and apostles were wrong about Cumorah is not only embarking on a futile effort, but is leading others to doubt the prophets and apostles in their respective areas of expertise. 

Students at BYU and CES are especially vulnerable because they trust their teachers (as they should).

But when their teachers tell them to disbelieve the prophets and apostles about the Hill Cumorah, they introduce the idea that they, the intellectuals, are the final say on what students should believe. As long as the prophets and apostles agree with the intellectuals, according to the M2C BYU/CES teachers, then students should believe the prophets and apostles. But when the intellectuals disagree with the prophets and apostles, then the students should believe the M2C intellectuals.

Long-time readers of this blog know that in the early days, I took an academic approach of critiquing specific publications from what I called the “citation cartel” of FARMS, FairMormon, BookofMormonCentral, BYU Studies, the Interpreter, etc. Some of the scholars whose work I cited and assessed objected. While unwilling to discuss these things with me personally, they said it was inappropriate for me to cite them by name. In the interests of civility, I agreed to leave names out of the discussions going forward.

Besides, I personally like the LDS scholars and intellectuals who promote M2C (the Mesoamerican/two-Cumorahs theory) and I don’t think personalities have anything to do with the merits of an academic argument. I certainly have never intended any offense. I’ve always said I would prefer private conversations and resolution of disagreements, but because they are unwilling to engage in that effort, I’ve written this blog instead.

That said, anyone who wants to know who promotes M2C can visit the directory pages of the Interpreter Foundation and BookofMormonCentral, two organizations that dogmatically promote M2C to the point of excluding and uniformly criticizing alternatives, contrary to the Church’s position of neutrality. People publicly affiliated with these groups embrace the editorial positions of these organizations. They reject the teachings of the prophets and apostles about Cumorah, as well as the Church’s position of neutrality, and that’s a serious matter in my view.

Therefore, in 2018, it’s time to get real about Cumorah.
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This is the first of a series I’ll post about Cumorah. I realize these are long, but lately people have claimed that I “cherry pick” quotations and don’t apply academic standards. I have a lot of detailed analysis that I haven’t published because I don’t think enough people are interested in it. People like short posts. They like tweets, actually. But I like to delve into issues and understand them from multiple perspectives, and there may be some readers who think likewise, so I’ll go ahead and post these here.
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I start with an article by John Clark titled “The Final Battle for Cumorah,” Review of Books on the Book of Mormon 6/2 (1994): 79-113. You can access it directly from the Neal A. Maxwell Institute here: https://publications.mi.byu.edu/pdf-control.php/publications/review/6/2/S00005-51b10ada1f8b75Clark.pdf

BookofMormonCentral references it here: https://archive.bookofmormoncentral.org/content/final-battle-cumorah. (At the end of this post, I have a comment on Book of Mormon Central, showing how dogmatic their editorial position is.)

This is a seminal article in many respects. Brother Clark lays out the reasons why so many intellectuals in the Church reject what the prophets and apostles have taught about Cumorah. His arguments here have endured.

Well, they have not merely endured. They have prevailed among LDS intellectuals and I think it’s important to show why.

The article is framed as a “Review of Christ in North America (1993), by Delbert W. Curtis.”
Here is the Abstract: “Clark examines the scholarship and logic involved in assuming a one-Cumorah theory for Book of Mormon geography.”

Notice the editorial position here. The “one-Cumorah theory” is merely an “assumption” that can be assessed by examining its “scholarship and logic.” That statement is a poetically concise description of M2C.

Brother Clark usually does a nice job cutting to the key issues, and this article is no exception. In fact, one of his observations on page 84 helped lead me to embark on this review of Cumorah issues. 

“But these other scholars are never cited, nor is it clear that Curtis has read them with anything but disdain….”

I agree with Brother Clark that it’s important to cite scholars specifically and to read them with respect and due consideration. Maybe I should have been more specific for the last year or so and used more citations. At least in this post, it is clear that I am evaluating what Brother Clark wrote, citing his work specifically and treating it with complete respect.

Here’s another wonderful observation from p. 84.

“Anyone with over a month’s experience in the Church knows that interpretation of scriptures is tricky business and that differences of opinion are rarely resolved, especially when it concerns what someone “meant.” The existence of Curtis’s book is clear evidence that the scriptures for Zion and the land of promise can be read in a narrow sense. The question, however, is whether they should be.”

This is exactly what I’ve been trying to say since I started this blog. The semantic debates are, ultimately, nothing more than bias confirmation. If you want to believe a scripture means one thing, you can interpret it that way. If I want to believe it means something else, I can interpret it my way. Most of the debates about Book of Mormon geography involve this type of bias confirmation that can never be resolved. That’s how we have ended up with dozens of different theories about Book of Mormon geography.

Actually, the futility of private interpretation that Brother Clark describes here is precisely why we have prophets and apostles, a point that doesn’t seen to dawn on him, as we’ll see.
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The specific example that prompted Brother Clark’s comment was the quotation from History, 1838-1856 of a sermon given by Joseph Smith on 8 April 1844. You can read it here:
http://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/history-1838-1856-volume-e-1-1-july-1843-30-april-1844/354

“The whole of America is the land of Zion itself from the north to the south, and it is described by the prophets, who declare that it is the Zion where the mountain of the Lord should be, and that it should be in the center of the land.”  This is often quoted as evidence that Zion is the entire western hemisphere, meaning the continents of North and South America, and Brother Clark adopts that interpretation as we’ll see in a moment.

Back in 1994, people were citing Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, which put this passage in italics. People rarely read the rest of the sermon, but Joseph went on to say this: “I have received instructions from the Lord that from henceforth wherever the Elders of Israel shall build up churches and branches unto the Lord throughout the States, there shall be a stake of Zion; in the great cities as Boston, NewYork &c. there shall be stakes.” This observation, along with other contemporary references to the United States as “America” and the historical context of the division between the states in the North and South, make it is obvious to me that Joseph used the term “the whole of America” to refer to the United States. Twelve years earlier, Joseph had received a revelation that said, “For behold, the Southern States shall be divided against the Northern States…” D&C 87:3. He was, in effect, telling his listeners that all of America, meaning the entire United States and not just the northern states where they lived, was Zion.

But my interpretation is not binding on anyone else, and that’s the point that Brother Clark tries to make. 

“The citation from Joseph Smith, as I understand it, appears to include “the whole of America.” That this is “singular” only appears to weaken Curtis’s reading that “Zion is from Mexico on the south to Canada on the north.” Curtis appears to read the statement to mean that the land of Zion is in the center of the land; I think “center” refers to “the mountain of the Lord” as being in the center of the land. In any event, why would anyone want to read this statement so narrowly? The obvious suspicion is that it is the only reading that will support Curtis’s geography. The same is true of the “Zion” scriptures. These appear to mention a Zion in “the tops of the mountains,” a reference that
many have considered as an accurate description of the Salt Lake City intermountain region. It would be a poor description indeed for the Great Lakes area.” (emphasis added) pp. 84-5.

Here, Brother Clark simply disagrees with Brother Curtis’ interpretation, which he characterizes as “narrow,” supposedly in contrast to Brother Clark’s more “expansive” interpretation. He prefers his own view to Brother Curtis’ because “The obvious suspicion is that it is the only reading that will support Curtis’s geography.” This is precisely the type of accusation to which I thought Brother Clark objected, yet he doesn’t seem to realize what he is doing.

Parsing the grammar of someone’s hand-written account of Joseph’s spoken, extemporaneous sermon is silly enough, but characterizing someone else’s interpretation as “narrow” and therefore invalid is beyond silly. Prior revelations had identified Missouri as the land of Zion. How can it be unreasonable to ask what land Missouri is in the center of?

My point is not to resolve the question of Zion, but to show how even a writer as precise and careful as Brother Clark can be blind to his own analytical errors.
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In the next part of his article, Brother Clark sets forth the Columbus argument that so many M2C writers have relied upon. I engage this just to show how easy it is to support one’s argument by attacking an easy target and ignoring arguments that contradict what you’re advocating.

Fortunately for Brother Clark, Brother Curtis is an easy target. Brother Clark quotes him as writing, “Columbus didn’t actually come to North America…” Of course, that’s factually wrong. The Bahamas and Cuba are north of southern Mexico and are part of North America.

I’ve shown previously that, in fact, the first place Columbus landed (probably–the location remains open for debate) was the island of San Salvador in the Bahamas. This is less than 400 miles from Florida. (Many LDS think Lehi landed in Florida.) On that first voyage, Columbus also visited Cayo Cruz in Cuba, which is only 134 miles from Florida.

By contrast, San Salvador is 1,400 miles from the east coast of southern Mexico. M2C intellectuals think Lehi landed on the west coast of southern Mexico or Guatemala, which of course is even farther away from San Salvador, Cayo Cruz, and the other places Columbus visited in 1492.

M2C intellectuals like to invoke all of Columbus’ voyages, because on his fourth voyage in 1502 he visited Trujillon on the east coast of Honduras, which is closer to their Mesoamerican setting. But it’s still far away. In addition to being the wrong coast, Trujillo is 300 miles away from Guatemala City.

Plus, before Columbus’ fourth voyage in 1502, Cabot landed in Newfoundland (1497) and Cabral landed in Brazil (1500), so it’s difficult to justify Columbus 4th voyage as the one Nephi described in 1 Nephi 13:12. Before the time of the events in verse 13, when “other Gentiles” are coming, the man in verse 12 had already sailed upon the many waters “unto the seed of my brethren, who were in the promised land.” This means the Bahamas and Cuba, not Mesoamerica. Columbus’ fourth voyage to Honduras was too late to qualify.

If, as I believe, Lehi and Nephi crossed the Atlantic and landed in Florida, they would have sailed roughly the same route Columbus did through the Caribbean. (The Mulekites also sailed along a similar route, as I explain here.)

There’s another important point. Assuming Lehi sailed all the way to Florida through the area Columbus visited, it’s not surprising that Nephi, having had a vision of the promised land, recognized the place when they sailed through the area on their way to the landing site in Florida. The M2C theory requires that Lehi landed on the west coast of Mexico, an area Columbus never saw or even came close to, which raises the question of how Nephi would have recognized it from his vision.

I realize all of this is getting in the weeds, but when M2C scholars insist Columbus visited Mesoamerica and not North America (meaning the U.S.), we have to assess their claims. No matter how you look at it, Columbus and Nephi are aligned with Caribbean voyages but not with a theory that has Lehi landing on the west coast of Mesoamerica.

This is a digression from Cumorah, obviously, but Brother Clark’s Columbus discussion fails to take into account these critical elements.

As do the Columbus arguments of all the M2C proponents.
_____

On, finally, to Cumorah.

On pages 93-4, Brother Clark gives a nice biographical introduction that contains good persuasion techniques:

For the first 22 years of my life I thought the location of Cumorah was well-known. as Joseph Smith received the plates from Moroni at that spot. My father occasionally told us stories about the New York Cumorah that he had heard while serving a mission there during World War II. I was told of tremendous earthworks and defensive trenches encountered by the earliest settlers in Palmyra, and of large deposits of metal weapons. I also heard of a vision wherein his mission president saw a red-headed Moroni lamenting over the destruction of his people. These were moving images in my youth. As with Curtis, I was extremely offended when I first heard the two-Cumorah theory. and I reacted strongly against it. 

Until I heard the two-Cumorah theory after returning from my mission, I had no idea that the location of Cumorah was even a question or that the location of Book of Mormon lands was a topic of research. My initial reaction was to take offense and to argue the point with my roommate who was taking a class in Book of Mormon archaeology from M. Wells Jakeman. In the course of our arguments, it soon dawned on me that I had unthinkingly accepted a traditional view of the matter and had never seriously looked at the statements from the Book of Mormon. The internal evidence from the Book of Mormon eventually convinced me that I had been naive in accepting the traditional view and that there must be two hills called Cumorah: that of the Book of Mormon and one in New York.

I especially enjoyed this biohistory because it’s the inverse of the one I use all the time; i.e., that I had been an M2C believer/proponent for decades before, to use Brother Clark’s words, “it dawned on me that I had unthinkingly accepted a traditional view of the matter.”

In other words, by the time I went to BYU, Brother Clark and his fellow M2C promoters had successfully reversed the “traditional view of the matter” by replacing the words of the prophets with the words of the scholars.

Currently, students at BYU and in CES are never taught what the prophets and apostles have consistently taught about the Hill Cumorah. 

Instead, they are presented with a fantasy map of Book of Mormon geography that is based on the M2C interpretation of the text!

The map is supposedly based on the “best interpretation” of the text, by which the intellectuals mean their own interpretation, driven by M2C ideology.

The map makes sure that students never make a connection between Cumorah and New York.

If they ask about this, their teachers tell them that Joseph and Oliver were ignorant speculators who misled the Church about the true location of Cumorah.

(Or words to that effect.)

Or, for the only alternative point of view permitted at BYU and CES, BYU/CES students can go to to the home page of BYU Studies and find another “plausible” map that is the only one presented by BYU Studies.

Like BYU’s fantasy map, the BYU Studies map also teaches students that (i) Cumorah cannot be in New York; (ii) Joseph and Oliver were ignorant speculators who misled the Church; (iii) all the prophets and apostles who have spoken about Cumorah were also wrong and should not have accepted what Joseph and Oliver taught; and (iv) students should believe their BYU/CES teachers instead of the prophets and apostles.

If you go to the BookofMormonCentral web page directory, you’ll see that the people responsible for these maps are BYU professors who drive the M2C editorial policy.

Let’s see how Brother Clark explains and justifies this reversal.
_____

First, he cites David Palmer’s “excellent” book, In Search of Cumorah: New Evidences for the
Book of Mormon from Ancient Mexico. I put Brother Clark’s term excellent in quotation marks because I would have used the term infamous instead.

Brother Palmer wrote the entry about Cumorah that is still found in the Encyclopedia of Mormonism (EoM). Following good citation cartel practice, he cites his own book, John L. Sorenson, and our own Brother John Clark. You can see the entry here:
http://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collection/EoM/id/4391/show/5649

[BTW, I love a lot of things about the EoM, but the entry on Cumorah is probably my favorite. Read it and you’ll see why.]

I characterize Brother Palmer’s book as infamous not only because of the self-serving citation in EoM, but because of its role in the phony plagiarized fax that FairMormon, FARMS, and the rest of the citation cartel use as authority for their M2C ideology. I’ve blogged about that here:
http://bookofmormonwars.blogspot.com/2016/11/how-to-create-some-doctrine.html

Let’s get back to Brother Clark’s article and see how Brother Palmer’s book fits in.

P. 94: “It is noteworthy that this [i.e., Palmer’s] book is not cited by Curtis, nor are its arguments for the internal evidence for the hill Cumorah considered . This is not polite or serious scholarship. The location of the hill Cumorah is the primary strut in Curtis’s argument for Book of Mormon lands, yet
he presents no analysis of the statements from the Book of Mormon which reveal features of this hill. He assumes that the New York Cumorah and that mentioned in the Book of Mormon are one and the same. All his arguments for the configuration of Book of Mormon lands (see next section) follow from the assumption that the hill Cumorah is the one known Book of Mormon location in the New World.”

I suspect you already know what I’m going to write about this passage, but I’ll write it anyway–in a moment.

First, though, I need to digress and point out that Brother Palmer himself reviewed one of Brother Curtis’ pieces in another classic from the Review of Books on the Book of Mormon. You can read it here:
 https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1040&context=msr In that article, Brother Palmer writes, “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has never taken an official position on issues of Book of Mormon geography. Some unofficial books, written before modem
archaeological methods were applied, assumed that Mormon’s Cumorah and the New York hill were the same. This tradition, begun by Oliver Cowdery, has continued to the present. The New York hill came to be known as the one Book of Mormon location known with certainty. However, it was generally believed that Mesoamerica was the cradle of those cultures.”

I provided that quotation to help explain Brother Clark’s views and why he characterizes the Palmer book as “excellent.” Brother Palmer frames the New York Cumorah as a “tradition begun by Oliver Cowdery,” presumably referring to Letter VII without citing it. “Some unofficial books” assumed the tradition was correct, but they were “written before modern archaeological methods were applied.”

Another way to frame the New York Cumorah is the way Joseph Smith did.

Joseph referred to the eight historical letters that include Letter VII as “President Cowdery’s letters.” Why? Because when he wrote Letter VII, Oliver Cowdery was the Assistant President of the Church–a calling that placed him senior in authority to the First and Second Counselors in the First Presidency. Joseph designated President Cowdery as spokesman. Letter VII was published in the official Church newspaper, the Messenger and Advocate, copied into Joseph Smith’s history, and republished in other official Church newspapers, including the Times and Seasons and the Improvement Era. Neither Brother Palmer nor Brother Clark will mention any of that.

You can read everything published by the citation cartel–and everything in Encyclopedia of Mormonism–and never learn a thing about Letter VII and its context.

For that matter, you can read all of the Joseph Smith Papers, including the notes, and never learn the context and importance of these letters, but that’s a topic for another day.
_____

Back to Brother Clark. I’ll just put my comments in red.

It is noteworthy that this [i.e., Palmer’s] book is not cited by Curtis, nor are its arguments for the internal evidence for the hill Cumorah considered. This is not polite or serious scholarship. Is it impolite and unserious because Brothers Palmer and Clark are both part of the citation cartel? Is Curtis supposed to cite and consider Palmer because Palmer cited Clark in EoM? Since when is anyone required to cite and address every book on a topic? For that matter, why is it not impolite and unserious for Palmer and Clark not to cite and consider Letter VII?  

The location of the hill Cumorah is the primary strut in Curtis’s argument for Book of Mormon lands, yet he presents no analysis of the statements from the Book of Mormon which reveal features of this hill. When we read the Palmer/Clark list of “features of this hill” supposedly “revealed” by the statements in the Book of Mormon, we see they are actually little more than self-serving interpretations designed to point to Central America. 

He assumes that the New York Cumorah and that mentioned in the Book of Mormon are one and the same. All his arguments for the configuration of Book of Mormon lands (see next section) follow from the assumption that the hill Cumorah is the one known Book of Mormon location in the New World. Brother Clark makes a good point here. Brother Curtis did make an assumption that Cumorah was in New York. The issue is the validity of that assumption. Brother Clark addresses that next.

The meager evidence adduced to support this claim come from the “traditional” view and a few early statements of dubious origin. I haven’t read Curtis’ book so I don’t know if he cites other evidence, but let’s look at what Brother Clark considers “meager evidence.”

Curtis’s primary text is the Oliver Cowdery story of the Nephite records repository, as related by Brigham Young many years later. Until now, it has been quite easy to ignore this story as being devoid of specific content. 

We can understand why M2C proponents have ignored President Young’s account, and it’s not because it lacks specifics. It is precisely because it contains specifics that contradict their M2C theory. 

But in light of its place in Curtis’s argument I cite it here and consider it briefly. Good for Brother Clark to at least consider it, albeit briefly. But you’ll see that his “consideration” of President Young’s sermon is cursory and misleading.

On June 17, 1877, Brigham Young addressed the Saints in Farmington, Utah, on the occasion of organizing a stake there. Brother Clark doesn’t mention the historical context. This was one of the last sermons President Young gave. He died two months later on August 29th. He spent the last year of his life introducing important temple practices and reorganizing the Priesthood throughout Utah. He was quite ill but felt an urgency to leave the Church in as good a shape as he could. In this very sermon, he emphasizes that he discussed the room in Cumorah precisely so it would not be forgotten. 

The primary focus of the first part of his discourse was to warn the Saints against seeking after money and precious metals. As part of this message he conveyed the following story: 

“Oliver Cowdery went with the Prophet Joseph when he deposited these plates [for sake of space I omit all but the first and last sentence from Brother Clark’s quotation, but this passage is familiar to readers of this blog]. I tell you this as coming not only from Oliver Cowdery, but others who were familiar with it, and who understood it just as well as we understand coming to this meeting, enjoying the day, and by and by we separate and go away, forgetting most of what is said, but remembering some things.”

You can read the entire quotation here: http://jod.mrm.org/19/36. 

If we accept this story at face value, it would seem to indicate that the hill Cumorah in New York is indeed the one in which Mormon deposited all of the plates. Do you see the argument here? If we accept what President Young taught “at face value” it destroys the Mesoamerican/two-Cumorahs theory. So of course, Brother Clark and other M2C proponents cannot accept it at face value. Instead, they prefer to ignore it–and hope we ignore it also.

This is exactly the same argument the M2C proponents make for rejecting the other prophets and apostles; i.e., we should not accept what they teach “at face value.”

There is no indication in this story that Joseph and Oliver were carried away in vision, rather, the
circumstances appear quite pedestrian-a walk to the hill with the plates to return them to the angel. This story also indicates that at least two visits were involved and that other people were familiar

with this story.

Brother Clark recognizes that President Young spoke in a practical, matter-of-fact manner. But he begins his quotation where all the M2C writers begin because he doesn’t want readers to know exactly how practical and real President Young was. When you read this, you see why Brother Clark and other M2C proponents always omit this part. Brigham Young introduced the account of Oliver’s experience by saying:

“I lived right in the country where the plates were found from which the Book of Mormon was translated, and I know a great many things pertaining to that country. I believe I will take the liberty to tell you of another circumstance that will be as marvelous as anything can be. This is an incident in the life of Oliver Cowdery, but he did not take the liberty of telling such things in meeting as I take. I tell these things to you, and I have a motive for doing so. I want to carry them to the ears of my brethren and sisters, and to the children also, that they may grow to an understanding of some things that seem to be entirely hidden from the human family.”

Brigham Young specifically grounded Oliver’s experience in the reality of western New York; i.e., he explained that he, Brigham, grew up in that area and knew about it. 

So besides omitting Brigham’s introduction, how does Brother Clark justify rejecting what Brigham Young taught “at face value?” He quotes another source.

Heber C. Kimball alluded to a slightly different version of the story with the significant difference that a vision experience is mentioned.

“Brother Mills mentioned in his song, that crossing the Plains with hand-carts was one of the greatest events that ever transpired in this Church. I will admit that it is an important event , successfully testing another method for gathering Israel, but its importance is small in comparison with the visitation of the angel of God to the Prophet Joseph, and with the reception of the sacred records from
the hand of Moroni at the hill Cumorah. How does it compare with the vision that Joseph and others had, when they went into a cave in the hill Cumorah. and saw more records than ten men could carry? There were books piled up on tables, book upon book. Those records this people will yet have. if they accept of the Book of Mormon and observe its precepts, and keep the commandments.”

Now, it makes a great deal of difference whether we are dealing with a vision of a record repository or with a less miraculous event. The two statements cited above suggest that the matter will remain ambiguous until we receive further revelation on the matter. Given this uncertainty, it seems unfortunate to place so much emphasis on these cave stories one way or the other.

I agree with Brother Clark that it does make a “great deal of difference” whether Brigham Young was relating an actual experience or a spiritual vision, so let’s look at the evidence. The only reason to suspect the account was a spiritual vision is Brother Kimball’s use of the term “vision” here. But “vision” is a synonym for “view.” Brother Kimball could have meant the “view” that Joseph and others had. Why does that connotation make more sense? Because “Joseph and others” shared the same experience. They went into the cave and “saw more records than ten men could carry.” 

To construe this as merely a “spiritual vision” we have to believe that (i) multiple people shared the same vision, (ii) that they had this vision on multiple occasions because they visited the depository at least twice, (iii) that Oliver was not speaking from personal experience when he affirmed in Letter VII that the depository was in the Hill Cumorah in New York, (iv) that Brigham Young didn’t realize it was a “spiritual vision” but Brother Kimball did; (v) and that Wilford Woodruff and several others who also related this account were also misled into believing it was a real experience. Elsewhere I’ve written a more detailed analysis of this incident, but this is sufficient for now.

The basic approach of M2C proponents is to generate confusion and conflict this way so that they, the scholars, can rescue us from the problems created by the supposedly inconsistent statements of the prophets and apostles. 

I think a better approach is to reconcile the supposed inconsistent statements. Understanding Brother Kimball’s term “vision” as “view” is a simple way to reconcile the various statements and is consistent with the context of Brother Kimball’s own statement.

Brother Clark and other M2C proponents also omit the conclusion of Brigham Young’s account because they wish the account of the depository in the Hill Cumorah would be forgotten: 

“I relate this to you, and I want you to understand it. I take this liberty of referring to those things so that they will not be forgotten and lost. Carlos Smith was a young man of as much veracity as any young man we had, and he was a witness to these things. Samuel Smith saw some things, Hyrum saw a good many things, but Joseph was the leader. Now, you may think I am unwise in publicly telling these things, thinking perhaps I should preserve them in my own breast; but such is not my mind. I would like the people called Latter-day Saints to understand some little things with regard to the workings and dealings of the Lord with his people here upon the earth.“

Brother Clark continues:

Contrary to some claims I have heard, the remainder of Brigham Young’s discourse in Farmington that day gives no indication that this was one tall tale among many that he fabricated for the occasion. The direct historical background to this story, and the accuracy of the version recorded in the Journal
of Discourses (or Brigham’s memory of Oliver’s account), are both important questions but are beyond my abilities to address. The story should raise a few Questions for most Mormons, however, because it does not appear to conform to other information we have about the plates. Joseph Smith’s official history indicates that the plates were returned to Moroni In a different manner than indicated in “Oliver’s story.”

This is an example of Brother Clark’s fairness and objectivity; i.e., he recognizes that some attacks on Brigham Young lack merit. But then he raises another perceived conflict: “does not appear to conform.” Let’s take a look.

He quotes Joseph Smith-History 1:60: 

“I soon found out the reason why I had received such strict charges to keep them safe, and why it was that the messenger had said that when I had done what was required at my hand, he would call for them. For no sooner was it known that I had them, than the most strenuous exertions were used to get them from me. Every stratagem that could be invented was resorted to for that purpose. The persecution became more bitter and severe than before, and multitudes were on the alert continually
to get them from me if possible. But by the wisdom of God, they remained safe in my hands until I had accomplished by them what was required at my hand. When, according to arrangements, the messenger called for them, I delivered them up to him; and he has them in his charge until this day, being the second day of May, one thousand eight hundred and thirty-eight.”

Of course, this account can be taken as an allusion to a return trip to Cumorah to deliver the plates as Brigham Young and Heber C. Kimball mentioned, but it can also be read that Moroni visited Joseph and took the plates back.

First, notice that Joseph did not identify the messenger here. Brother Clark assumes it was Moroni, and that Joseph delivered the plates directly to Moroni. Joseph did obtain the Harmony plates from Moroni when he took them from the stone box on the Hill Cumorah, but he handed these over to “a messenger” before he left Harmony. This may or may not have been Moroni (I think it wasn’t; Moroni could have sent another messenger to “call for the plates.”) On their way to Fayette, Joseph, Oliver and David Whitmer encountered a messenger who had the plates and was taking them to Cumorah. Then in Fayette, Joseph received the plates of Nephi, which he translated in Fayette. Later, his mother said that the plates Joseph showed to the 8 witnesses he obtained from one of the three Nephites. Brigham Young’s account is consistent with Joseph getting the Harmony plates from Moroni, turning them over to Moroni or another messenger when he was finished translating them in Harmony, receiving the plates of Nephi in Fayette from one of the 3 Nephites, taking these back to the depository in the Hill Cumorah, then getting them again to show the 8 witnesses.

I would further suggest that the circumstances surrounding the vision given to the Three Witnesses, their stories of the experience, and Joseph’s relief that others had seen these things, do not fit
Brigham’s version of Oliver Cowdery’s story about returning the plates to an angel at the hill Cumorah, or of paying a return visit. These are valid observations as traditionally interpreted, but the two sets of plates explanation addresses all of these and is consistent with the revelations in the D&C.

Moreover, Oliver’s and Joseph’ s awkward silence about this event certainly cannot be attributed to hesitancy about testifying of angels, gold plates. and the like. Another good point as traditionally interpreted, except that they had good reason not to discuss the depository openly. The treasure hunters were aggressive enough just knowing about the plates. As readers of this blog know, I think they moved the records in the depository, which is why David Whitmer later said the plates were no longer in Cumorah, but were not far from there. Oliver also said the plates were no longer in Cumorah. I think they used wagons to move them, which explains why Brigham Young referred to wagons, etc.

There are issues of the timing of events and the reasons for silence here that I am not competent to
address. Fair enough. We didn’t know about two sets of plates until recently.

Certainly this story deserves more analysis in its historic context and more comparison to other claims we have for events surrounding the plates. Parts of the story do not square with other,
more reliable information. Therefore, it would seem poor procedure to take the story “at face value” as certain evidence that Mormon’s Cumorah was in New York.

This is that “sowing confusion” tactic that the M2C promoters rely upon. In my view, we are justified in believing the prophets and apostles “at face value.” I don’t see the point of having prophets and apostles if we disbelieve them unless and until we can independently verify what they teach.

But that’s my own bias. Obviously the M2C promoters take an approach different from mine.

The question for each of us is, which approach do you take?

P. 98. Curtis has proposed a procedure for dealing with conflicting claims from the early brethren. He argues that one give precedence to the standard works. What does the Book of Mormon tell us about the location of Cumorah? Palmer reviews the detailed evidence for the hill that indicates that the small hill in New York is an unlikely candidate. These are the lists of criteria that are really just interpretations of the text designed to describe Mesoamerica.

More convincing evidence for the location of Mormon’s Cumorah/Ramah comes from a relative geography of natural features. The Book of Mormon clearly indicates that the hill Cumorah was (1) near a narrow neck of land in a land northward and (2) close to the borders of an East sea. These minimal and incontrovertible geographic relationships are not met by the hill near Palmyra, despite Curtis’s claims to the contrary.

The next section is a series of semantic arguments that I won’t take the time to address, except conceptually.

The major criterion for evaluating a geography is how well it can account for the complexity of detail in the Book of Mormon without recourse to special assumptions. Throughout this analysis, Brother Clark is oblivious to “special assumptions” he makes, such as the critical special assumption that geographic terms used in the Book of Mormon are proper nouns instead of adjectives relative to the writer’s perspective at any given time and place. He also conflates the various terms “narrow neck,” “narrow neck of land,” “small neck” and “narrow passage.”

The geography described by Sorenson, for example, that Curtis reacts against, can account for all of the unambiguous details of the Book of Mormon by making only one special assumption; the assumption is that the hill Cumorah in New York is not the one mentioned in the Book of Mormon. 

Actually, the “special assumption” that stands out in Sorenson’s work, as well as the work of other M2C proponents such as Brother Clark, is the “special assumption” that the prophets and apostles are wrong.

I just listed other “special assumptions” that Brother Clark doesn’t recognize. He writes this seemingly with a straight face:

I think the Book of Mormon clearly describes a small land (hat has an East sea and a West sea, a
land northward connected by a narrow neck to a land southward, and a major river in the land southward that runs northward. The hill Cumorah is described as in the land northward, north of the
narrow neck, and near the East sea. Curtis’s hill Cumorah, in contrast, is located to the east of his narrow neck of land , and to the east of the River Sidon and Zarahemla, and south of the East
Sea.

Every clause of that paragraph is based on unstated “special assumptions” that are not required by the text, but Brother Clark doesn’t acknowledge those. Instead, he simply states his interpretation is “clear.”

This lack of self-awareness renders the entire semantic discussion pointless. When Brother Clark either cannot recognize the assumptions he is making, or refuses to acknowledge them, engaging on a line-by-line basis serves no purpose. His entire analysis is pure bias confirmation. I trust readers who are interested can dissect it easily.

He does raise the inevitable M2C question about snow, however.

All of the details of physical geography mentioned in the Book of Mormon, and those that can be inferred, fit more comfortably into a Mesoamerican setting than a New York setting. Well, except the plants and animals mentioned, which according to Sorenson and other M2C promoters were mistranslations on the part of Joseph (i.e., “horses” should read “tapirs”). And then there’s the obvious problem that volcanoes are never mentioned in the text but are ubiquitous in Mesoamerica. Same with tall, steep mountains, massive stone pyramids, jungles, jaguars, and jade. 

In this regard, what is not mentioned or alluded to requires explanation if the Book of Mormon writers lived in New York. I cannot imagine Moroni in a cave in New York Cumorah working through the winter scratching out the history of the Iaredites on gold plates. Rather than lamenting his weakness in expression (Ether 12:25), Moroni should have complained of numb fingers, freezing cold plates, and inability to hold his stylus.

Although Mormon notes he didn’t have time or space to write about even a hundredth part of the proceedings of the people, including such important topics as shipping and building of ships, Brother Clark thinks he should have been complaining about cold weather.

In the next section, Brother Clark provides a cascading series of assumptions about what evidence we should expect where. Again, Brother Curtis is an easy target because he is insisting on a western New York location for the entire Book of Mormon. Brother Clark points out that Brother Curtis relies exclusively on McGavin and Bean’s Book of Mormon Geography, which, as Brother Clark points out, was out of date even in 1948 when it was published, and anyway included a section on Mesoamerica as part of Book of Mormon lands.

p. 107. The overall impression of Curtis’s discussion of artifacts might appear impressive, but such an impression would be misleading. Christ in North America exhibits the common failing of amateur excursions into archaeology. Curtis lacks any appreciation of time, either in his construction of archaeological expectations or in his handling of the archaeological information. Curtis is interested only in showing that forts. weapons, and bones have been recovered in the narrow neck region in abundance. This is a good start. The critical question is: What do they date to? We are not told; Curtis does not cite any study that would contain this information. Archaeological dating techniques have come a long way since 1948. These are good observations, and Brother Clark doesn’t claim expertise about western New York, so he is probably unaware of the sites in Western New York that demonstrate Hopewell occupation in 300-400 AD, research that is ongoing. Hopewell are the Ohio-centered people who many of us think were Nephites. 

The general cultural-historical picture for upstate New York, as I understand it, does not support Curtis’s scheme. Our minimal expectations for the Book of Mormon are at least two traditions of
civilization: laredite and Nephite/Lamanite. Curtis devotes all of his energies to discussing the period from the time of Christ to A.D. 400. What of the earlier periods? Is there any impressive archaeological evidence in New York for an early tradition? No. Here is a disconnect between expectations and the text. Brother Clark considers Mayan structures in Mesoamerica to be impressive and therefore expects no less of the Jaredites/Nephites. But the text never once mentions a stone building. In one passage a stone wall is mentioned, and there is no lack of stone walls in ancient North America. Everything else described in the text is made of earth and wood, with a brief exception for structures made of cement and wood. What Brother Clark is looking for does not appear in the text, so why would we expect to find it in the ground? In reality, ancient North American earth structures are extensive and sophisticated, just as we would expect from the text.

Most of the sites and weapons Curtis recapitulates from McGavin and Bean probably postdate A.D. 400. Undoubtedly much information has been destroyed, modified, and even misunderstood, but we would expect some information to survive.

Here is an expectation that the archaeological record does fulfill.

One of Curtis’s main claims for archaeological expectations is that we are looking for things that we ought not. I think he is absolutely correct on this score. It does not follow, however, that his anemic list of archaeological expectations resolves the problem, especially when he ignores the bulk of the text. 

I wonder if Brother Clark is writing tongue-in-cheek here, because as I pointed out above, the text does not describe what he expects to find. It certainly describes nothing like Mesoamerica.

True, the Nephites did not move to the land northward until quite late in their hi story, but the Jaredites had lived there for over a thousand years previous to Nephite occupation. This is not a trivial point. Curtis’s silence on the laredites is inexplicable.

Given the paucity of information in the text about the Jaredites, most of what people write about them is speculative. Brother Clark and other M2C proponents think they have discovered Jaredite civilization in Mesoamerica, so they conflate those discoveries with what the text actually says. They “can’t unsee” Mesoamerican any more. But that doesn’t mean the rest of us are required to impose their vision on the text. 

p. 110. Towards a Book of Mormon Geography
In this final section, I want to view Christ ill North America in a broader context. It is my impression that no other topic in Book of Mormon studies lends itself so readily to poor scholarship as the subject of geography. That’s possible, but there’s a lot of nonsense about other topics as well. Think “horses = tapirs” as an example.

Christ in North America is merely the latest, but not the last, in a long series of highly improbable
geographies based upon dubious assumptions, minimal research, fallacious logic, and wishful thinking. This is ironic, given that Brother Clark has cited Brother Sorenson’s work so often in this article. Certainly, Brother Sorenson has done a lot of research, but neither he nor Brother Clark recognize or acknowledge their own dubious assumptions, beginning with their shared assumption that the prophets and apostles are wrong.

I find little of redeeming value in the substance of Curtis’s book. But can anything of
lasting value be salvaged from it? Yes. Christ in North America will stand for the next few years as an example of what not to do in writing a Book of Mormon geography. IOW, the worst thing to do is start with an assumption that the prophets and apostles are correct.

I do not mean to be cruel or flippant in this claim; often a poor example of “scholarship” is more useful to the cause of science than a good one. Scholars wishing to write Book of Mormon geographies should heed the tragic lessons of Christ in North America and profit thereby.

What are some of the scholarly traps that one should avoid in writing a Book of Mormon geography? What can we learn from Christ in North America? First, one should avoid the trap of obvious facts. Curtis begins his study where it ought to end-with a known geographical Book of Mormon location in the New World. 

There it is. We have to start with the premise that the prophets and apostles are wrong, unless we can independently verify what they teach. That’s really the essence of Brother Clark’s argument, and the essence of all the M2C arguments, including BYU’s fantasy map. 

Most of the distortions of the Book of Mormon text in Christ in North America are a logical consequence of assuming a priori that the Cumorah in New York is the one mentioned in the
Book of Mormon. Curtis’s unconvincing attempt to make this point serves as a useful caution for anyone seduced by this easy “fact.”

IOW, anyone “seduced” by the unambiguous statements of prophets and apostles for over 150 years.

The second caution is related to the first. Curtis’s assumption of one known geographic point compromised the rest of his geography. Again, believing the prophets is a mistake, according to Brother Clark.

One should work out a consistent geography based upon the information provided within the Book of Mormon itself, independently of any locations in real space that one thinks might be Book of Mormon spots. This is the popular approach and accounts for BYU’s abstract fantasy map, but if we apply this standard to any other source, such as the Bible, we’ll also get myriad models of geography that have no relationship to the real world. No two people can possibly interpret the text identically because the geographic terms are too vague. So why bother? 

Here’s why.

The scholars love this approach because, as Brother Clark exemplifies here, they have “special expertise” that empowers them with unique abilities to discern and interpret the text authoritatively. This work can’t be left to mere prophets and apostles; in fact, teachings of the prophets and apostles must be repudiated unless and until validated by the intellectuals.

That’s why LDS intellectuals have titled their journal The Interpreter.  Like the scribes and Pharisees of the New Testament, these self-appointed guides take it upon themselves to determine what the scriptures mean. 

The other approach is to start with what the prophets and apostles have consistently and uniformly taught. That means there is one Cumorah and it is in New York. Everything beyond that is specifically identified as speculation, open to study, reflection, discussion, debate, etc. 

While I agree with Brother Clark that Brother Curtis may have fallen short of rigorous study and analysis, that’s not because his fundamental premise was wrong.

I think anyone who starts with the premise that the prophets and apostles were wrong about Cumorah is not only embarking on a futile effort, but is leading others to doubt the prophets and apostles in their respective areas of expertise. 

Very few Book of Mormon geography scholars have followed this procedure. but it is absolutely
fundamental. 

There it is again. It is absolutely fundamental to M2C to start with rejecting the prophets and apostles.

It is hard to be convinced of a Book of Mormon geography when it is clear the author has not studied the book in enough detail to get the basic facts clear. Every time I see or hear an M2C proponent make this argument, I ask how they identify massive stone buildings as Book of Mormon structures. They are inevitably surprised when the search the scriptures only to find that the text never mentions anything built of stone, except a single stone wall. Beyond that, much of what Brother Clark characterizes as “clear basic facts” are actually just his interpretations and assumptions. 

In Curtis’s book, his discussion of the River Sidon, the narrow neck of land, and the location of Cumorah in relation to Zarahemla all signal a basic misunderstanding or misreading of the text.

Academic arrogance at its finest.
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I think I’ve covered enough of the article. Anyone interested can read and analyze the rest. I’ve gone through this material to show how the M2C proponents don’t heed their own advice, and how they don’t even realize it.

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Here is a screenshot from Book of Mormon Central’s listing of Brother Clark’s article.

You can see from the links how thoroughly they want people to reject the prophets. They don’t link to my short book about Letter VII: instead, they link to the delightful “response” to my book. Of course, they refuse to publish my response to that “response,” leaving their readers misinformed, as usual, about the actual state of my arguments and what the prophets and apostles have actually said.

Pretty much everything on Book of Mormon Central is designed to persuade people to reject what the prophets and apostles have said about Cumorah in New York. They are clever; they portray themselves as following the Church’s position of neutrality, but when you look closely, you see they are dogmatically advancing their corporate mission “to increase understanding of the Book of Mormon as an ancient Mesoamerican codex.”

They are completely uninterested in neutrality; in fact, in their academic arrogance, they don’t trust their readers with alternative viewpoints–including the viewpoints of the prophets and apostles.

Due to popular demand, we have released a larger-print version of the Letter VII book. Many people prefer a larger font for easier reading.

The large font is available on Amazon here.

The smaller font is on Amazon here.

Some people are printing the 3-page Letter VII summary and including it with the book when they share the book with friends and family. You can get the summary here:
http://www.lettervii.com/2018/01/printable-summary-of-letter-vii.html

You’ll notice the subtitle now reads Joseph Smith & Oliver Cowdery Explain the Hill Cumorah. This reflects Joseph’s involvement with the writing, and subsequent endorsement, of Letter VII.

Joseph referred to these as “President Cowdery’s letters,” a title many modern intellectuals have forgotten or refuse to acknowledge. They continue to insist that Letter VII’s teaching about Cumorah was wrong. Worse, these intellectuals say Joseph and Oliver promoted a false theory that misled the Church.

This is what students are being told in BYU Book of Mormon classes if they dare ask their professors about Letter VII. 

This is because BYU Book of Mormon professors are teaching their students that Cumorah is not in New York. In fact, they are teaching their students a fantasy world map of the Book of Mormon that equates the Book of Mormon with fiction. You can see that here: http://bom.byu.edu/

In fact, they promote this fantasy map with the tagline “Discover the Book of Mormon like you’ve never seen it before.”

That’s because this is the first time that BYU (and, apparently, CES) have taught students that the Book of Mormon took place in a fantasy world.
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When President Cowdery wrote and published Letter VII, he was the Assistant President of the Church, making him second only to Joseph Smith and higher in seniority than the First and Second Counselors in the First Presidency. Hyrum Smith later held this same calling, but after he was murdered in Carthage with his brother Joseph, no one else has held the calling of Assistant President of the Church.

In 2017 the most popular post on this blog was “Watching General Conference with your BYU Book of Mormon professor.” Today I’m releasing a youtube version of the post. It’s at this link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-63nlsdAPfo&feature=youtu.be

Many members of the Church don’t realize that some intellectuals at BYU/CES continue to promote the Meosamerican/two-Cumorahs theory (“M2C”). This is the theory that Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery were mistaken when they taught that the Hill Cumorah was in New York.

Instead, the intellectuals claim that Cumorah is in southern Mexico (or somewhere else) because they know better than Joseph and Oliver did.

Of course, the problem with M2C is that the New York Cumorah was established as a fact in 1835 when President Cowdery of the First Presidency wrote and published Letter VII. This teaching has been consistently and repeatedly taught by members of the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve for over 150 years–including in General Conference–and has never been contradicted by any member of those quorums.

The only ones who have contradicted the New York Cumorah are a handful of intellectuals in the Church. Unfortunately, these intellectuals have widespread influence because they’ve been teaching at BYU and CES for decades.

This video depicts the thinking of anonymous BYU-affiliated scholars, as reflected by their writing. Of course, not all BYU/CES faculty agree with the views depicted here, but these views reflect the “consensus” of the intellectuals about Book of Mormon geography.

Here’s a screen shot from the video to give you an idea:
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People ask me for the names of those who promote M2C, but this isn’t a personality issue or an ad hominem argument. I personally like and respect these intellectuals, who are all faithful Latter-day Saints. I’ve had classes from some and have learned a lot from their books and articles. I cite them in my own work.

I just think they are mistaken about this one issue.

And it’s a core issue for those who believe in the Book of Mormon and want to share it with the world.

I think M2C is destructive for the same reason Joseph Fielding Smith said; i.e., that it causes members of the Church to become confused and disturbed in their faith. I also think it impedes missionary work for the same reason. Because it relies on the premise that the prophets and apostles are wrong, it’s a gateway drug to disbelieving the prophets and apostles on other issues.

To see M2C on display, read the web page and material put out by Book of Mormon Central America here: https://bookofmormoncentral.org/. They have a lot of good material, but they insist on M2C and thereby cause needless harm because they’re teaching people to disbelieve the prophets and apostles.

It is no secret who promotes M2C. They are publicly associated with Book of Mormon Central America, which you can see here: https://bookofmormoncentral.org/directory

You can also see M2C on display at Meridian Magazine, BYU Studies, the Interpreter, and other groups affiliated with these intellectuals. A good guide to promoters of the Mesoamerican/two-Cumorahs theory is the Interpreter Foundation, here: http://interpreterfoundation.org/foundation/

From now on, this blog will assume everyone who believes the Book of Mormon accepts the words of the prophets and apostles about the Hill Cumorah in New York.

IOW, we’re moving on from the handful of intellectuals who apparently continue to reject the New York Cumorah and we’re going to explore ways to expand the consensus beyond Mormons.

The consensus we seek to establish is that (i) the Book of Mormon testifies of Christ and (ii) its divine authenticity as a true history of real people demonstrates God’s love for His children, His involvement in the world, and the ongoing vitality of His covenants.

The Book of Mormon was written for the entire world. According to the Title Page, it was written “to the convincing of the Jew and Gentile that Jesus is the Christ, the Eternal God, manifesting himself unto all nations.”

I’m interested in how this purpose is being accomplished.

The Internet is obviously a major component. I’m posting the following graphic depicting the top 100 websites so we can have a baseline for considering how the Internet will help the Book of Mormon testify of Jesus Christ to the entire world.

Think about your involvement with the Internet and what you can do to help the Book of Mormon fulfill its purpose.

http://www.visualcapitalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/top-100-websites.html

In fact, the only ones who don’t care about the historicity/geography are a subset of those who are currently active in Church. Let’s say 40% of Church members are active. That’s about 5 million people. Of them, maybe half don’t care about historicity/geography. That’s about 2.5 million people in the world of 7.6 billion people.

While it’s great that so many active members have such a strong spiritual testimony that they don’t care about historicity/geography, the numbers speak for themselves.

We saw recently on this blog that the British Mission in the 1840s baptized more members than they had copies of the Book of Mormon. [With over 150 million copies in print today (plus millions of electronic copies), an equivalent result would be over 200 million members instead of the reported 16 million.]

How did the Apostles accomplish this in the British Mission?

Parley P. Pratt, who published the Millennial Star, explicitly recognized that some people may need to know of physical evidence before they can exercise faith enough to read the book and receive a spiritual witness. Among other things, he published Letter VII, which declared unambiguously that the final battles of the Jaredites and Nephites took place in New York. This grounded the Book of Mormon in reality.

When they wrote Letter VII, Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery knew how important it was to ground the text in reality. Ignoring or rejecting what they wrote leads to confusion and doubt. This creates friction that deters people from reading the Book of Mormon.

The other day I heard a comment about friction.

“Any time you add friction to a process, people do less of it. So for example if you have a restaurant that doesn’t have good parking, you will get fewer people coming, even if you knew that they could all get parking, but in their minds they thought, ‘It’s kind of hard to park. It might take me a few minutes.'”

“If you add friction to anything, people change their behavior–and it doesn’t even take much friction.”
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Let’s consider friction in terms of missionary, retention and activation work.

We all want people to read the Book of Mormon. That’s a major point of doing missionary, retention, and activation work. But as we all know, people have a lot of demands on their time–as well as distractions.

Anyone who considers reading the Book of Mormon compares that activity with their alternatives. E.g., read the Book of Mormon or watch TV?

People make cost/benefit decisions. What are the costs of reading vs the benefits of reading? The higher the cost, the less likely they are to read. Or, the lower the anticipated benefits, the less likely they are to read.

Think of costs in terms of friction. Like in the restaurant example above, additional costs or impediments make people less likely to read the Book of Mormon.

Imagine an investigator who is looking at a copy of the Book of Mormon, wondering whether to read it. She has talked with the missionaries, maybe, or a friend. They told her the book relates the appearance of Jesus Christ in the Americas. Naturally she asked, “Where and when did this happen?”

They told her, “Soon after his resurrection.”

“But where?”

“We don’t know. Somewhere in the Americas. Probably in Central America, as the painting in the book shows.” The missionaries or friends show her the John Scott painting in the book they gave her.

Not knowing any better, she accepts that explanation. Maybe she is curious enough to read. Maybe she likes what she has heard and that’s enough motivation. But people today have all been trained to research things on the Internet.

She goes to the Internet and quickly sees a variety of opinions about the Book of Mormon that boil down to the question: Is it fiction or real?

If she looks into it more, she’ll discover that while all the prophets and apostles have taught that the Hill Cumorah is in New York, certain intellectuals in the Church teach that such a location is impossible. They teach the prophets and apostles were wrong.

Is that going to help our investigator believe the Book of Mormon is true? Or are the teachings of these intellectuals introducing friction to the process, creating impediments for investigators and less active members of the Church?
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When we reject what Joseph and Oliver said in Letter VII, we are introducing friction to the process. We will have fewer people read the book as a result.

And the only reason we’re rejecting Letter VII is because of the work of a handful of intellectuals who think they know more than all the prophets and apostles who have endorsed and taught what Letter VII proclaims about the Hill Cumorah in New York.

In 2017 the most popular post on this blog was “Watching General Conference with your BYU Book of Mormon professor.” Next week I’m releasing a youtube version of the post.

As a preview, and in honor of President Monson’s funeral today, I’m sharing a still frame from the video that shows young Elder Monson sitting next to young Elder Hinckley. They are in the lower left corner, next to the silhouettes of our BYU faculty who are watching General Conference with us.

It’s an interesting shot because there are four Presidents of the Church visible: Kimball, Benson, Hinckley, and Monson.

President Romney is at the podium, with President Kimball to his right and President Benson to his left behind him.

President Hunter was present, but not visible from this perspective.

BTW, sitting next to President Benson behind Pres. Romney are Mark E. Petersen, Delbert L. Stapely, and LeGrand Richards.

In front of them you can see Boyd K. Packer and just a glimpse of Marvin J. Ashton.

For context, here are the members of the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve at the time. President Monson outlived all the others.

First Presidency

Spencer W. Kimball, President
Nathan Eldon Tanner, 1st Counselor
Marion G. Romney, 2nd Counselor

Quorum of the Twelve

Ezra Taft Benson
Mark E. Petersen
Delbert L. Stapley
LeGrand Richards
Hugh B. Brown
Howard W. Hunter
Gordon B. Hinckley
Thomas S. Monson
Boyd K. Packer
Marvin J. Ashton
Bruce R. McConkie
L. Tom Perry