There’s a lot of good material in this book, but it is full of Mesoamerican dogma.

The first section opens with a wonderful photo that makes the reader think finally, Book of Mormon Central is going to consider what Joseph Smith said about the Book of Mormon.

This is the statue of Joseph and Hyrum that sits just west of the temple in Nauvoo. Behind them is the Mississippi River and the spot designated in D&C 125 as the city named Zarahemla. The settlement was actually named Zarahemla as required by the revelation, and there was an intention to build a temple there facing the one in Nauvoo, but the Saints were driven from Nauvoo before these plans could be realized.

Many think the Lord named the spot because it was the site of the ancient Nephite city of Zarahemla (a topic for another post). So when you open the book and see this, you think, wow, maybe our friends at Book of Mormon Central are finally going to relate the Book of Mormon to Church history.

But then you turn the pages and you’re disappointed to see no such connection.

Which we should have expected based on the Mesoamerican references on the cover.

We have the usual suspects: a “Mayan temple” (Chichen Itza, constructed after Book of Mormon time frames), Lake Atitlan (a lake in the highlands of Guatemala which promoters of the Mesoamerican/two-Cumorahs theory like to call the Waters of Mormon), and several examples of Book of Mormon characters dressed up as Mayans.

I like a lot of the material Book of Mormon Central produces, particularly on their Old World research. But their Mesomania makes it difficult for me to accept their work overall. Their dogmatic editorial slant puts us in the position of constantly wondering whether they are telling us everything. Often they are not, as I’ll show in just one example below.

The book is full of Mesoamerican imagery, commentary, and references, thereby assuring us that Book of Mormon Central continues to earn its nickname of Book of Mormon Central America.

The people behind this book claim that the “real Cumorah” is somewhere in southern Mexico. Their dogmatic insistence on repudiating Joseph, Oliver, and all the prophets and apostles who have spoken about Cumorah undermines the credibility of everything they do.*

This kind of thinking leads to the Mesoamerican/two-Cumorahs theory being displayed right on Temple Square, as I mentioned here:
http://bookofmormonwars.blogspot.com/2017/11/visiting-temple-square-moroni-at-hill.html
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I’m only taking the time to look at one example of Mesomania, but there are many that you will find if you read this book.

Item #72 on page 172 addresses the question, “Why are horses mentioned in the Book of Mormon?”

The answer: “Readers can interpret the presence of horses in the Book of Mormon in a variety of different ways.”

But they only give us these three.

1. Horses in the Archaeological Record
2. Nephi Could Have Borrowed the Word Horse
3. Horse Could Be a Result of Translation

Let’s look at each one.

1. Horses in the Archaeological Record

This section cites Daniel Johnson’s excellent article in BYU Studies, which Book of Mormon Central has in its archive here: https://archive.bookofmormoncentral.org/node/310

The article includes this map:

The article explains: “By conventional wis­dom, horses from these [Spanish] expeditions would have to be the earliest sources for horses later described among indigenous peoples. As documented by the Spanish conquerors and their chroniclers themselves, the actual events of each of these excursions into the New World prove such an assertion practically impossible… Researchers used to believe that horses discarded by Hernando de Soto’s men in 1541 were the ancestors of all American horses west of the lower Mississippi. That assertion now rests firmly in the realm of fiction.”

The article notes that while researchers have tested DNA samples from Mexico, they all date to ice age or post-contact periods. However, they “have had surprising results from some North American samples. A horse bone from Pratt Cave near El Paso, Texas, dated from 6020 to 5890  BC. Another specimen from Wolf Spider Cave in Colorado dated from AD 1260 to 1400. A bone from Horsethief Cave in Wyoming dated to 1100 BC.”

These are within Book of Mormon time frames for Jaredites, and they are in locations we would expect if the Jaredites landed in North America and “spread upon the face of the land.”

But, as a BYU Studies publication, the article cannot corroborate what Joseph Smith taught about Cumorah in New York. It cannot connect the evidence in North America to a North American setting. 

Instead, the article has to focus on Mesoamerica, where a horse tooth was found in Yucatan, and indulge in speculation such as this:

“Analysts can safely say it is likely that no horses existed in the Yucatán Peninsula or elsewhere in Mesoamerica by the Maya Postclassic era. But what if some horse populations survived in remote enough areas and in small enough numbers not to have been noticed by the Span­ish conquerors and other European settlers?”

Compare that to the widespread and well-established use of horses by the North American Indian tribes, including horses such as the pinto that cannot be traced to Spanish breeds.

2. Nephi Could Have Borrowed the Word Horse

Because there were no horses in Mesoamerica during Book of Mormon time frames, the book proposes this: “Another approach to this question suggests that the word horse in the Book of Mormon is being used to refer to a different animal… Different Maya and Aztec groups applied their labels for deer or tapir to the Spaniards’ horses.”

I’m all in favor of multiple working hypotheses, but why does Book of Mormon Central go to such lengths to reject (and censor) any working hypothesis that corroborates what Joseph, Oliver, and all the modern prophets and apostles have taught about Cumorah in New York?

3. Horse Could Be a Result of Translation

Here we have the infamous theory that Joseph mistranslated the text. “It is also possible that horse is a ‘translator anachronism,’ Brant A. Gardner explained… Without the original text, it is impossible to be sure whether horse is a loan-shift the Nephites made or an anachronism caused by translation, but in either case the word horse would not refer to what today’s readers might assume or expect.”

Later, the article quotes Brother Gardner to say, “In the vast majority of the cases, it is reasonable that we are seeing a translation anachronism rather than a historical anachronism.”

How about a working hypothesis that Joseph translated the text correctly and the Nephites did have horses in North America? 

That possibility never appears in the article.
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BTW, you’ll be interested to note that Covenant Communications published the book. Covenant has a long-held editorial policy in favor of the Mesoamerican/two-Cumorahs theory. They have rejected books that corroborate what Joseph and Oliver taught about the New York Hill Cumorah because they are “too controversial.”
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*Some say my “dogmatic insistence” that Joseph and Oliver were correct about Cumorah is the problem. Some the problem is my “dogmatic insistence” that every other prophet and apostle who has spoken about Cumorah, including members of the First Presidency speaking in General Conference, is correct.

I freely admit that I am biased in favor of supporting the teachings of the prophets. Apart from Mesomania, I can’t understand why Book of Mormon Central is so firmly biased against supporting those teachings.

But it’s not only a case of deferring to the prophets. The archaeology, anthropology, geology, and geography of North America, starting with Cumorah in New York, are all a better fit to the actual text than the Mesoamerican/two-Cumorahs theory.

I want to point out some details of “Moroni’s Cumorah,” which our LDS intellectuals describe as “a hill in New York” where Moroni deposited the plates after walking 2,400 miles north from the “real Cumorah” they are still searching for in southern Mexico.

Why they’re looking in Mexico is a fun story for another day.

But for now, imagine you’re a missionary serving on Temple Square.

Millions of people visit Temple Square every year, and you take them to see this display of Mormon abridging the record in a Mayan cave. Then you take them across the hall (the distance representing the 2,400 miles) to New York where Moroni is burying the plates.

As a missionary, you hope your visitors don’t know anything about Church history, because if they do, they will ask questions you can’t answer without contradicting these displays.

For example, what happens when a visitor points out that Joseph Smith, Oliver Cowdery, Brigham Young, and every other prophet and apostle who has spoken on the issue has declared that there is one Cumorah and it is in New York?

Are you supposed to explain that these exhibits, which directly contradict the prophets, are wrong? Or are you supposed to say we believe the intellectuals now instead of the prophets?

Do you just hope no one asks the question? And how do you deal with the cognitive dissonance you feel every day when you walk through these displays?
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The problem is, these displays reflect what our intellectuals say, not what the scriptures and the prophets say.

Our intellectuals can’t explain Church history so they resort to magical thinking and invented scenarios that contradict what Joseph and Oliver explained.

You’re a missionary, taking a visitor to look at the display of Moroni on “a hill in New York.”

Lehi with the Liahona

Moroni puts the Liahona in the stone box

Moroni puts the sword of Laban in the stone box

Go to amazon.com and search for “Why Mormons Need the Book of Mormon.”

As some of you know, this is a first in a series that I’ll be announcing in January.

Tuesday I visited Temple Square to admire the exhibit of two-Cumorahs that repudiates what Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery taught in Letter VII.

This exhibit also repudiates what every prophet and apostle has taught about Cumorah, including members of the First Presidency speaking in General Conference.

Most LDS people prefer to follow the prophets instead of the intellectuals, so how have the intellectuals prevailed in pushing their theory?

Because of visual persuasion–and presuasion.
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The saying goes, “a picture is worth a thousand words.” But for the Book of Mormon, a picture is worth 269,510 words (the number of words in the text).

Millions of visitors to Temple Square see this exhibit. Millions more see the ubiquitous painting of Christ visiting the Mayans, which is featured in the missionary edition of the Book of Mormon, in chapels and media worldwide–and even on the Temple Square Instagram page.

Temple Square instagram page

Far more people (members, investigators, and the general public) see these images than will ever read the words in the Book of Mormon. But if people get around to actually reading the text, they will interpret it in a Mayan setting because of visual persuasion and visual presuasion.

Christ visiting earthworks, not Mayan stone pyramids

It’s a combination of ignorance and the social-validation feedback loop. But education will fix the former and lead to changes in the latter.

1. Ignorance. Few BYU/CES teachers know about Letter VII. They have never been taught about it themselves, but some may have discovered it on their own. In such cases, they are taught by BYU/CES to consider it an irrelevant and false statement by Oliver Cowdery and Joseph Smith, a historical artifact that should never be mentioned and certainly not taught at BYU/CES.

Consequently, these teachers do not know how frequently Letter VII was reprinted during Joseph’s lifetime, or how consistently Church leaders have reaffirmed it, including members of the First Presidency speaking in General Conference. But when they do learn the facts, these faculty tend to change their minds.

Data show the impact of Letter VII on LDS members’ belief in the Mesoamerican/two-Cumorahs theory before and after learning about Letter VII. When we look at these numbers, we see why the intellectuals continue to suppress and oppose Letter VII.

[Note: Most of those who retain a belief in Mesoamerica after learning about Letter VII are intellectuals who have taught or written about the Mesoamerican/two-Cumorahs theory or are otherwise invested in that theory for various reasons. For a list of reasons they’ve given for rejecting Letter VII, see here.]

As more BYU/CES teachers learn about Letter VII, the data suggest that believing and sustaining Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery will become more acceptable than the current practice of repudiating them. 

They will then teach their students to sustain and believe the prophets and apostles by accepting Letter VII and all the consistent and repeated statements in support of the New York Cumorah.

Eventually, the North American setting will become the consensus view and social validation will switch.

2. Social-validation feedback loop. The Mesoamerican/two-Cumorahs theory has been the popular theory for intellectuals to believe because it portrays Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery as ignorant, uneducated men who changed their views when exposed to scholarly works. Their successors who affirmed Letter VII’s teachings about the New York Cumorah, including members of the First Presidency speaking in General Conference, were duped by the false tradition Joseph and Oliver started.

If you consider yourself an intellectual, you like to think your education and sophistication make your beliefs superior than those of mere Church prophets and apostles who started and perpetrated an ignorant folk belief about Cumorah being in New York. 

Plus, as an intellectual, you must continue the tradition. You have to read, listen to, and repeat what the intellectuals at BYU have been promoting through FARMS, BYU Studies, the Interpreter, FairMormon, BMAF (and its corporate subsidiary Book of Mormon Central), Mesoamerican Meridian Magazine, and the rest.

If you toe the line of the Mesoamerican/two-Cumorahs theory, your students will think you are smart, your colleagues (and supervisors) will approve, and the scholarly, peer-approved publications (former known as the citation cartel) may even publish your articles.

But if you express any degree of support for what Joseph and Oliver (and all their contemporaries and successors) taught about the Hill Cumorah (i.e., that it’s in New York), you will be deemed an ignorant rube and told not to discuss your quasi-apostate theories.
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The great thing about social validation, though, is that once it switches, it can switch fast. We can only hope it happens sooner than later.
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Lately, BYU and CES have apparently asked their teachers to not link the Book of Mormon to any real-world geography.

IOW, teachers are not supposed to do what Joseph and Oliver did.

Teachers are supposed to pretend that Church leaders have not consistently and specifically taught the New York Cumorah for over 150 years.

Because BYU/CES students are not supposed to know this.

Instead, they’re supposed to study the Book of Mormon as taking place in a fantasy land.

This “abstract map” is creating a new social-validation feedback loop.

Students at BYU/CES will learn the map, teach it to investigators, and then, when they become teachers themselves (and staff employees in the Church), they’ll teach the fantasy map to upcoming generations.

The Mesoamerican/two-Cumorahs theory is being replaced by the fantasy map, which really teaches there is no Cumorah in the real world.
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Or, maybe members of the Church will express their dismay and disgust at what the intellectuals have been doing and share their belief in and support of Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery. 

As long as our intellectuals are repudiating what Joseph and Oliver (and all their ordained successors) taught about the New York Cumorah, they might as well repudiate other things taught by the prophets (and the scriptures).

They’re on a roll, so why not continue?

A popular example is Darwinian evolution.

LDS intellectuals have long sought to have the Church embrace Darwinian evolution, and now, in the Gospel Topics Essays, they have accomplished their goal.

The essay on DNA is found here: https://www.lds.org/topics/book-of-mormon-and-dna-studies?lang=eng.

As one delightful (and “faithful”) analysis of the essay points out, “The samples used to prove this misunderstood LDS theory [that the Indians designated by D&C 28, 30 and 32 as Lamanites are really descendants of Abraham] are actually around 10,000 years old. This is out of the Book of Mormon timeline.”

The Gospel Topics Essay fully embraces Darwinian evolution, including the theory that anatomically modern Homo sapiens evolved about 200,000 years ago.

And we thought family history going back to Adam was a challenge!
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Three years and two months after Joseph Smith Jr. was born, Charles Darwin was born in England. He published On the Origin of Species, which contains his theory of evolution and natural selection, in 1859.

According to our LDS intellectuals, had Joseph lived until 1859, he would have realized that Darwin was correct and the Bible was wrong.

This is the same approach our intellectuals take when they claim Joseph learned from the Stephens and Catherwood book about Central America that Moroni was mistaken about Cumorah in New York, the inhabitants of “this country” being Lamanites, etc.

According to the intellectuals, Moroni himself was confused, but the intellectuals have come to the rescue by determining that Cumorah is actually in Mexico.
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Courtesy of our intellectuals, the Gospel Topics essay is correcting another mistake that Joseph surely would have corrected had he lived long enough to read On the Origin of Species.

Joseph would have changed D&C 77:7, which teaches that the earth has a temporal existence of 7,000 years.

He would have edited D&C 28, 30 and 32 to clarify that the Indians living in New York, Ohio, and Missouri, who have different DNA haplogroups than the Lamanites living in Central America, were not actually Lamanites but descendants of people who arrived in the Americas more than 10,000 years ago.

He would have edited the Book of Mormon references to Adam and Eve as the first people and parents of all humanity.

He would have provided a new translation of Genesis and other Biblical passages to correct references to Adam and Eve as our first parents.

Because, according to our intellectuals, Adam and Eve are mythological symbols, Joseph would have prevented Joseph F. Smith from seeing Adam and Eve as distinct persons, as related in D&C 138:38.
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I’m all in favor of offering multiple working hypotheses. For some faithful, active LDS, Darwinian evolution is acceptable. Even inspiring, apparently. And that’s fine.

However, I think a better approach would be to consider it as an alternative, not a replacement, for the traditional scriptural teaching of Adam and Eve as the first people, the parents of all of humanity.

Thanks to this Gospel Topics essay, which repudiates the scriptural teaching, LDS who accept the scriptural teaching are left wondering, where do my beliefs fit in? And, how do I reconcile the scriptures with what the Gospel Topics essay teaches?

There are still LDS (and other Christians) who accept and believe in what the scriptures teach. They know that science is continually changing in light of new information. Scientists don’t know everything. This is a much longer topic, but there may yet be scientific confirmation of what the scriptures teach.

Framing the science as an alternative working hypothesis, instead of a final word as the Gospel Topics essay does, would be a more prudent and more accurate approach, IMO.
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On what other topics have the intellectuals succeeded in repudiating Joseph Smith?

Usually I hear this from advocates of the Mesoamerican/two-Cumorahs theory who realize their theory contradicts the teachings of the prophets and apostles. They handle their cognitive dissonance by telling themselves–and others–that the geography doesn’t matter.

This is an avoidance mechanism.


But by claiming it doesn’t matter, they are aggravating and prolonging the problem that is causing members to become confused and disturbed in their faith. The mixed messages about Cumorah are an impediment to investigators. People leave the Church when they lose faith in the divine authenticity of the Book of Mormon, as the surveys show.

Maybe worst of all, every year thousands of students at BYU and in CES are being taught to disbelieve the prophets and apostles, and this will continue until the issue is resolved. 
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For Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery, the location of Cumorah mattered.

A lot.

When confronted with the 1834 anti-Mormon book Mormonism Unvailed [sic], the book that claimed the Book of Mormon was fiction based on the writings of Solomon Spaulding, did they respond by saying the geography doesn’t matter?

No.

In Letter VII, they declared the authenticity of the Book of Mormon by affirming that it was a fact that the final battles of the Nephites and Jaredites took place in the mile-wide valley west of the hill in New York where Joseph found the first set of plates in Moroni’s stone box.

The Hill Cumorah, as Moroni called it.

They declared this was also the site of Mormon’s depository (Mormon 6:6)

Joseph Smith made sure every member of the Church in his day knew this truth. Letter VII was reprinted in the Times and Seasons, the Gospel Reflector, the Millennial Star, the Prophet (the New York newspaper), and the Improvement Era.

Joseph’s own brothers, Don Carlos and William, both reprinted it. It was included in a special pamphlet in England.

Joseph himself referred to it again in D&C 128.
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Why are so many active LDS eager to reject not only what Joseph and Oliver declared about Cumorah, but also their emphasis on its importance?

Joseph and Oliver knew the location of the Hill Cumorah mattered, because a claim that it didn’t matter would amount to conceding the argument that the Book of Mormon was fiction; i.e., that Mormonism Unvailed was correct.

The latest iteration of the claim that the Book of Mormon is fiction is the “abstract map” being taught at BYU and CES.

Look at this location of Cumorah. It doesn’t exactly look like New York, does it?

It doesn’t look like anywhere on planet Earth.

That’s because it’s not. It’s a fantasy map, teaching the students that the Book of Mormon took place in a fictional world.

It’s unbelievable that it is BYU/CES teaching this.

One would expect something like this to come out of an anti-Mormon ministry. It’s the modern equivalent to Mormonism Unvailed.

And I think we should respond the same way Joseph and Oliver responded to Mormonism Unvailed; i.e., we should reaffirm the consistent teachings of the prophets and apostles that Cumorah is in New York.
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Let’s return to the question, Why are so many active LDS eager to reject not only what Joseph and Oliver declared about Cumorah, but also their emphasis on its importance?

For many active LDS, the geography of the Book of Mormon may not matter. They have faith that the book is true. End of story. That’s a gift of the Spirit, but those who have that gift can’t expect everyone to have the same gift. Everyone has different spiritual gifts. (Moroni 10, D&C 46, 1 Corinthians 12)

[Besides, it’s an ironic argument. Religious people everywhere have implicit faith in their beliefs. We send missionaries to them precisely because we know faith alone can lead people to believe in things that aren’t true.]

Other active LDS don’t believe the Book of Mormon is a literal history. Instead, they think it’s a sort of inspired parable, teaching correct principles like the parables in the New Testament.

Still other LDS believe in the divine authenticity of the Book of Mormon and it is for that reason that they seek evidence of its reality. The same reason why people learn about Israel and Egypt, whether through books or travel, lead faithful LDS to want to know more about the setting and context of the Book of Mormon.

The only reason there is confusion about the Hill Cumorah is that intellectuals in the Church have decided the prophets and apostles are wrong, and they’ve been teaching students at BYU/CES for decades to believe this.

These intellectuals are causing cognitive dissonance for members and investigators alike.

Overall, IMO, it is the confusion about the Hill Cumorah that leads members of the Church to resolve their cognitive dissonance by saying the location of the Hill Cumorah doesn’t matter.

But Joseph and Oliver knew otherwise.

I think by now it is obvious that they were right.

We ought to accept them as the prophets and apostles they were, and as the two witnesses of the restoration of the Priesthood, the translation of the Book of Mormon, and the visitation of Moses, Elijah, Elias, and the Savior Himself.