Author: Jonathan Neville

My list of references to David Whitmer’s account of the messenger who took the abridged plates to Cumorah includes the article by Edward Stevenson published in the 1877 Juvenile Instructor, but it’s interesting to see the article itself.

Click to enlarge

The relevant text:

Source: Letter VII

This latest gem was recently brought to my attention. 

Our historians are at it again, changing Church history to accommodate M2C.

In the 1820s, the hill did not have a name. It later became known as the Hill Cumorah because Moroni, the Book of Mormon’s final author and the angel who met with Joseph Smith, wrote that he had hidden the golden plates in a hill called Cumorah (see Mormon 6:6).

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/learn/historic-sites/new-york/hill-cumorah?lang=eng

To make the declarative statement that “the hill did not have a name,” the historians have to ignore the accounts we have, or assume they are false and thus unworthy of consideration. They also have to assume that the absence of contemporaneous records from the 1820s means that anything we don’t have a contemporaneous record of didn’t happen.

By this logic, the First Vision didn’t happen, because that was also not reported until after the 1820s. 

Notice that the historians don’t bother to state their assumptions. They certainly don’t link to the actual historical accounts.

Because the Saints books have created a false historical narrative by censoring Cumorah from the record to accommodate M2C, most Church members will never know the actual Church history. 

This latest website compounds that error by inventing a fake explanation for the name Cumorah. The historians claim the hill was later named Cumorah because of Mormon 6:6, which is a flat contradiction to the historical record. But because this is what our M2C scholars want people to believe, their peers in the Church History Department have accommodated them.

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Regarding Cumorah, we have Lucy Mack Smith reporting two specific, distinct references to Cumorah from the 1820s. Anyone who has read the Saints book, volume 1, knows that the historians relied primarily on Lucy’s account for much of the early history. Yet when it comes to Cumorah, they’ve concluded that her memory was wrong so they changed Church history, not for any rationale based on actual history, but instead purely to accommodate the modern opinions of the M2C scholars.

This revisionist history is literally unbelievable. It’s yet another step toward fictionalizing the Book of Mormon.

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According to Lucy, when Moroni first appeared to Joseph Smith in 1823, he identified the hill as Cumorah:

Source: About Central America

We recently released an updated version of Whatever Happened to the Golden Plates?

Video explanation: https://youtu.be/s0cglDYMz-w

Topic: Two sets of plates. 

Traditional view: Joseph obtained the plates from the hill in New York and returned them to the messenger when he was finished with the translation.

New view: Moroni deposited only the abridged record in the stone box in the hill. Joseph took these plates to Harmony and translated them there. He and Oliver planned to re-translate the Book of Lehi (the lost 116 pages), but the Lord told him to translate the plates of Nephi instead (D&C 10). Except Joseph didn’t have the plates of Nephi. Those plates were still in the depository of Nephite records. Before he left Harmony, Joseph gave the abridged plates to a messenger (one of the three Nephites). The messenger returned the abridged plates to the repository, picked up the plates of Nephi, and took those plates to Fayette, where Joseph translated them. 

Amazon link.

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We have also posted short video explanations of some of my other books. All are available wherever LDS books are sold.

A Man that Can Translate

youtube explanation https://youtu.be/4-sKO3y28qI

Topic: Joseph as an actual translator. 

Traditional view: Joseph translated the engravings by the gift and power of God and by means of the Urim and Thummim. Alternative view: Joseph read words that appeared on a stone in the hat (SITH), and the words were provided by a supernatural translator because Joseph didn’t even use the plates. Alternative view: Joseph was a conman who composed or copied the texts he produced.

New view: Joseph’s claim that he translated the characters (engravings) on the plates is consistent with the language he dictated and the evidence from witnesses and the Original Manuscript. Whatever the witnesses who described the stone-in-the-hat (SITH) were witnessing, it could not have been the translation because Joseph explained that he could not display the plates or Urim and Thummim that he used to translate. Evidence indicates Joseph conducted one or more demonstrations with SITH, just as he later did when people asked for revelations through the stone. Later, witnesses related SITH to refute the Spalding theory. 

Amazon link

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Between these Hills

youtube explanation: https://youtu.be/80DpjOEkrqI

Topic: The New York Cumorah. 

Traditional view: Moroni identified the hill as Cumorah the first night he met Joseph, and Joseph and Oliver reaffirmed that setting. Alternative view: Joseph and Oliver merely speculated about Cumorah, and/or early Church members created a false tradition about Cumorah that Joseph and Oliver adopted. Alternative view: Because the text is fiction, no Cumorah exists in the real world.

New view: Mormonism Unvailed claimed the Book of Mormon was fiction, taken from a novel by Solomon Spalding. In response, Joseph and Oliver affirmed it was a fact that the hill in New York was the same hill Mormon described in Mormon 6:6 (Letter VII). This reality has important implications for interpreting the text. Also discussed in Moroni’s America and Letter VII: Oliver and Joseph explain the Hill Cumorah.

Amazon link.

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Infinite Goodness

youtube explanation: https://youtu.be/_Tx0vcJeIoE

Topic: Joseph as a young religious seeker. 

Traditional view: Joseph was an uneducated, barely literate prophet uniquely capable of receiving revelation from God, including the text of the Book of Mormon. Alternative view: Joseph was a gifted religious genius whose “inspired eclecticism” who drew on contemporary sources to channel inspiration. Alternative view: Joseph was a charismatic conman whether pious or not.

New view: Joseph became a religious seeker when he survived life-threatening leg surgery. During his years of convalescence and after his family moved to Palmyra, he acquired “an intimate acquaintance with those of different denominations” by reading Christian literature, including the works of Jonathan Edwards. Most of the non-biblical language in the Book of Mormon and early revelations draws from Jonathan Edwards. He translated the text using his own lexicon as any translator would do, albeit inspired in his choice of words and phrasing. 

Amazon link.  

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Moroni’s America

https://youtu.be/77RdkJ-DKPo

Topic: Setting of Book of Mormon events. 

Traditional view: The Book of Mormon events in the New World covered the entire Western Hemisphere, with Panama as the narrow neck separating the “land northward” from the “land southward” and the hill Cumorah in western New York. Alternative view: The events took place within a limited area of Mesoamerica with the hill Cumorah in southern Mexico, meaning that Joseph and Oliver misled everyone about the New York Cumorah.

New view: Joseph and Oliver were correct about the New York Cumorah and the text of the Book of Mormon describes a North American setting that is consistent with extrinsic evidence from archaeology, anthropology, geology and geography. Understanding this setting helps readers better understand the teachings of the prophets about the text and its relevance today.

Amazon link.

Source: About Central America

One of the most popular posts on this blog was titled “Simplicity.” I originally posted it on May 26, 2016. I’m reposting it here, with some additional material.

Simplicity

William of  Ockham

The simplest explanation is usually the best, a principle often described as Occam’s razor. “Among competing hypotheses, the one with the fewest assumptions should be selected.”

On the topic of Book of Mormon geography, which setting requires the fewest assumptions?

Which explanation is the simplest?

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The New York  Cumorah has one assumption.

1. Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery knew that the Hill Cumorah in New York was the place where the Nephite and Jaredite civilizations were destroyed and the location of the repository of Nephite records (Mormon 6:6). 

The historical record shows us that Moroni told Joseph the name of the hill the first time they met. Joseph and Oliver visited the repository of Nephite records in the hill (which was separate from Moroni’s stone box). 

Everything directly attributable to Joseph and Oliver is consistent with that setting. The text of the Book of Mormon, as well as extrinsic scientific evidence, corroborates that setting.

Contrary ideas that Cumorah is not in New York are not directly attributable to them; therefore, these contrary ideas were produced by other people who didn’t know (or didn’t believe) what Joseph and Oliver knew and taught.

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Modern LDS scholars such as Jack Welch and Dan Peterson and their followers reject the New York Cumorah because it conflicts with their personal theories that the setting of the Book of Mormon events is in Mesoamerica. While they recognize the historical references to Cumorah, they rationalize that there are “two Cumorahs” with a false one in New York and the real one in southern Mexico.

The Mesoamerican/Two Cumorahs theory (M2C) relies on a series of assumptions:

1. Joseph Smith didn’t know where the Book of Mormon events took place.

2. Joseph misled his mother Lucy Mack Smith when he told her what Moroni told him about Cumorah and when he referred to the hill as Cumorah before he even got the plates; or else Lucy misremembered or misled her readers when she dictated her history.

3. Oliver Cowdery (or another unknown person) at some unspecified date started a false folk tradition that Cumorah was in New York, based on an incorrect assumption. 

4. David Whitmer reported meeting the messenger who was taking the abridged plates from Harmony to Cumorah, but either the messenger lied, or David lied about that meeting or conflated his own specific memory of the first time he heard the word “Cumorah” with Oliver’s folk tradition.

5. Joseph misled his wife Emma when he wrote to her about crossing the plains of the Nephites after he’d crossed Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois.

6. As Assistant President of the Church, Oliver misled everyone when he memorialized the false folk tradition in Letter VII in July 1835, published in the Messenger and Advocate. 

7. Joseph, for unexplained reasons, passively adopted Oliver’s false speculation, had it copied into his personal journal as part of his life history, and specifically encouraged its re-publication in the Gospel Reflector and Times and Seasons, while his brother William republished it in The Prophet.

8. Oliver lied to Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, David Whitmer, etc. when he told them about visiting the repository of Nephite records in the hill Cumorah in New York; or else these witnesses lied about what Oliver told them.

9. Joseph, who wrote very little himself, nevertheless wrote a series of lengthy articles in the Times and Seasons about Central America in 1842 that he left anonymous for unknown reasons. Although the articles didn’t mention Cumorah, RLDS scholar L.E. Hills determined that Cumorah cannot be in New York because of these articles. He published the first M2C map in 1917. 

10. In September, 1842, Joseph misled everyone when he specifically referred to Cumorah in a signed letter published in the Times and Seasons (now D&C 128:20), because he referred to the hill in New York from which the “glad tidings” came as Cumorah.

11. Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, Wilford Woodruff, and others of Joseph’s contemporaries and successors misled everyone because they believed what Joseph and Oliver about the hill Cumorah. 

12. Certain LDS scholars such as John Sorenson, Dan Peterson, Jack Welch, and their followers have corrected the false tradition perpetrated by Joseph and Oliver because they, the scholars, know more about Cumorah than Joseph and Oliver did. These modern M2C scholars have determined that L.E. Hills’ map is correct after all, albeit with minor corrections.

13. Anyone who still believes what Joseph, Oliver and their associates taught about the New York Cumorah is either ignorant, an apostate or is verging on apostasy.

14. Etc.

Which set of assumptions makes the most sense to you?

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Here are some relevant quotations about simplicity.

“If you can’t explain it to a six year old, you don’t understand it yourself.”
― Albert Einstein

To which Groucho Marx replied:

“A child of five could understand this. Send someone to fetch a child of five.”
― Groucho Marx

“Truth is ever to be found in the simplicity, and not in the multiplicity and confusion of things.”
― Isaac Newton

“Why did they believe? Because they saw miracles. Things one man took as chance, a man of faith took as a sign. A loved one recovering from disease, a fortunate business deal, a chance meeting with a long lost friend. It wasn’t the grand doctrines or the sweeping ideals that seemed to make believers out of men. It was the simple magic in the world around them.”
― Brandon Sanderson, The Hero of Ages

“People who pride themselves on their “complexity” and deride others for being “simplistic” should realize that the truth is often not very complicated. What gets complex is evading the truth.”
― Thomas Sowell, Barbarians inside the Gates and Other Controversial Essays

“..things are never as complicated as they seem. It is only our arrogance that prompts us to find unnecessarily complicated answers to simple problems.”
― Muhammad Yunus, Banker to the Poor: Micro-Lending and the Battle Against World Poverty

“I am not a genius, I am just curious. I ask many questions. and when the answer is simple, then God is answering.”
― Albert Einstein

Source: About Central America

MHA (the Mormon History Association) attracts a variety of wonderful people who share a common interest in Mormon history (Mormon meaning everyone interested in all things Mormon, including but not limited to LDS topics). There were around 200 presenters, many in person and many remote on Zoom. 

The panels discussed a wide range of topics from many different points of view. 

With respect to SITH (the stone-in-the-hat theory), however, there isn’t much room for alternative perspectives and interpretations. 

MHA “seer stone”

As an demonstration of how entrenched SITH is among Mormon historians, there is an annual tradition at MHA: the transfer of the “Mormon History Association Presidential Seer Stone” from the past president of MHA to the incoming president. 

One historian described the stone this way: “This stone is a chunk of rock from historian Leonard Arrington’s boyhood farm in Idaho, plucked out of the irrigation ditch by the late and much missed Dean L. May near the close of Dean’s tenure as MHA president. Each MHA president since then has had custody of the stone during his or her tenure, a constant, solid reminder of the goals and principles of MHA.”

This tradition started 20 years ago. 

It’s not clear how this “seer stone” represents the “goals and principles of MHA,” but one of the goals is apparently to keep SITH alive and well. 

One session challenged the modern “consensus” that Joseph Smith produced the Book of Mormon with the seer stone he found in a well. One of our favorite smooth-faced SITH scholars posed a typically ridiculous rhetorical question. Others in the audience had some meaningful comments and questions. Afterward, a woman in the audience said she was glad to hear an alternative to SITH because the seer stone narrative didn’t make any sense.

The SITH narrative today is based on poor apologetics from the 19th century, relies on out-of-context statements, and embraces the pejorative rhetoric from the 1834 book Mormonism Unvailed. Yet scholars have come up with a variety of rationalizations to paper over the obvious problems with SITH. 

I’ll discuss the conference more when I have time. 

Key reminder: You can dislike someone’s opinion without disliking the person who has it.

Source: About Central America

One of the noticeable geographical features of the Book of Mormon is the “neck of land.” 

People often ask me, “Where is the narrow neck of land?” 

My answer: Ether 10:20. That’s the only place in the scriptures where that phrase is used.

There is a “narrow neck” in Alma 63:5 and a “small neck of land” in Alma 22:32, but normally we treat different terms as meaning different things, and there’s no reason not to follow that rule here.

IOW, the three terms might refer to the same geographical feature, but nothing in the text requires that. And if they refer to three different features, most models of Book of Mormon geography don’t follow the text.

Relative terms. It’s true that the passages also refer to the “land northward” and the “land southward,” but these vague terms are relational, not proper nouns. If you live in Salt Lake, Provo is the land southward while Ogden is the land northward. If you live in Ogden, Salt Lake is the land southward and Brigham City is the land northward. 

True, these vague terms might possibly be proper nouns–that’s one of multiple working hypotheses–but nothing in the text requires them to be proper nouns, and if they are merely relative to where the speaker is, most models of Book of Mormon geography don’t follow the text.

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What constitutes “small” or “narrow.”

Lots of people have speculated about what these terms mean. Some authors who conflate the terms say the Isthmus of Tehuantepec is the small/narrow neck. Others think it’s the Isthmus of Darien (Panama). Such features are only “narrow” or “small” when viewed on a map or from space. 

I’ve looked at how the term was used in Joseph Smith’s day. It turns out that these were common terms during the Revolutionary War. I have about 20 examples, all showing a diverse application including land bridges, peninsulas and islands, but all consistently featuring no more than about 15 miles in width, down to a few paces wide.

The point is, the references in the Book of Mormon are subject to lots of alternative interpretations; i.e., multiple working hypotheses.

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Map of Virginia – Revolutionary War sites

Here’s what George Washington wrote:

I observe you are directed by the Governor to pay particular attention to the fortifications in the State and that in consequence of that you propose to garrison Portsmouth with 1200 men and to divide the remainder of what troops you may have among the posts at York, Hampton & Williamsburgh. The reasons you assign for having a garrison at Portsmouth are good; but I can by no means think it would be prudent to have any considerable stationary force at Hampton and York. These by being upon a narrow neck of land, would be in danger of being cut off. The enemy might very easily throw up a few ships into York and James’ river, as far as Queens Creek; and land a body of men there, who throw up a few Redoubts, would intercept their retreat and oblige them to surrender at discretion.

In this case, the “narrow neck of land” was about 12 miles wide at its widest point. And it’s not an isthmus, either. 

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In this example, Washington wrote of a “narrow neck of land” that is about 7.5 miles across, from Sandwich, MA, to Buzzards Bay, MA.

Your Letter of the twelfth Instant I received Saturday Evening;1 I gave immediate attention to your Orders, and as it was judged extremely difficult, if not impracticable, to convey the Mortars by land, I gave Orders to the proper persons to prepare every thing necessary for conveying them by water, and to work day and night until they were compleated. This day they will go on board of Lighters to Sandwich from which place they are to be conveyed over the narrow neck of land to a place called Buzzards Bay,2 where they will be put on board two Lighters and conveyed to Rhode Island, from thence, keeping near the land, to New York. 

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Washington referred to Manhattan as a narrow neck of land.

We discovered at the same time by their movements, and our Intelligence, that with the assistance of their Ships they intended to draw a Line round us, and cut of all communication, between the City and Country; thereby reducing us to the necessity of fighting our way out under every disadvantage—surrendering at discretion—or Starving—That they might have accomplished one or the other of these, if we had stayed at New York, is certain; because the City, as I presume you know, stands upon the point of a narrow Neck of Land laying between the East & North Rivers; & not more than a Mile Wide for Six or Seven Miles back; both Rivers having sufficient depth of Water for Ships of any burthen; and because they were not only Superior in Numbers, but could bring their whole force to any one point, whereas we, to keep open the communication were obliged to have an extended Line, or rather a chain of Posts, for near 18 Miles.

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The papers of Thomas Jefferson include a reference to Bunker’s Hill on a “peninsula joined to the mainland by a neck of land” that was only “a few paces wide.”

[13–18 Sep. 1786]

I am unable to say what was the number of Americans engaged in the affair of Bunker’s hill. I am able however to set right a gross falsehood of Andrews. He says that the Americans who were engaged were constantly relieved by fresh hands. This is entirely untrue. Bunker’s hill (or rather Brede’s hill whereon the action was) is a peninsula, joined to the main land by a neck of land almost level with the water, a few paces wide, and between one and two hundred toises long. On one side of this neck lay a vessel of war, and on the other several gun-boats. The body of our army was on the main land; and only a detachment had been sent into the peninsula. When the enemy determined to make the attack, they sent the vessel of war and gun-boats to take the position before mentioned to cut off all reinforcements, which they effectually did. 

the “small neck” at Bunker Hill

Source: Letter VII