Author: Jonathan Neville

The April Liahona has several articles exclusive to the online edition. Here’s a link to one of them:

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/liahona/2021/04/digital-only-young-adults/what-you-can-do-when-others-dont-believe?lang=eng

These are important articles that address the widespread (and growing) problem of faithful Latter-day Saints whose friends and family members leave the Church. 

As these articles point out, people join and leave the Church for a variety of individual reasons and under varying circumstances. We’ve discussed this before, such as here. 

Some people who leave cite doctrinal issues raised by the Gospel Topics Essays, or Church history topics such as those set out in Rough Stone Rolling, as factors in their decision. Others refer to CES Letter, MormonStories, or other similar websites.

We’ve known for a long time that the Book of Mormon is the keystone of our religion. Few people leave the Church with an intact testimony that the Book of Mormon is true. Meanwhile, surveys show that only about one-half of millennials in the Church today still believe the Book of Mormon is an authentic history. 

Youth and new converts are being taught the Book of Mormon by reference to a hypothetical geographic setting that teaches Cumorah is not in New York as had been consistently taught by prophets and apostles since the early days of the Church. 

Nearly a century ago, Joseph Fielding Smith warned that the idea that Cumorah is not in New York (M2C, the Mesoamerican/two-Cumorahs theory) would cause members to become confused and disturbed in their faith. How could it be otherwise?

When he wrote the CES Letter, Jeremy Runnels hoped for a different perspective. Instead, LDS apologists stuck to M2C, SITH, and related theories. 

After many requests for a different response, I’ve started two blogs on the topics.

For the CES Letter, see https://cesanswers.blogspot.com/

For MormonStories, see https://mormonstoriesreviewed.blogspot.com/

These are works in progress that I’ll update as time allows. 

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It’s interesting that these articles don’t appear on the international online pages. For example, here’s a comparison of the Liahona in English and French.

The red arrows show the articles in the English Liahona that correspond to the articles in the French Liahona. The area circled in blue are in English only.

(click to enlarge)

Maybe it was the difficulty of translating so much content that led to these articles being omitted from the foreign-language editions of the Liahona, but the same issues that disturb the faith of English-speaking Latter-day Saints disturb the faith of those who speak other languages.

Source: Book of Mormon Concensus

In the April 2021 General Conference, President Nelson used the term “lazy learners.” He encouraged each of us to “Become an engaged learner.” He pointed out that “It takes faith to follow prophets rather than pundits and popular opinion.“

There are lots of implications for his message, but I’d like to apply it to the ongoing problem of deference to the credentialed class of LDS scholars who purport to be “Interpreters” for the rest of us. 

One category of “lazy learners” are those who don’t study, but another category is those who think they are studying when they read/watch the teachings of scholars instead of original source material, particularly the scriptures and the teachings of the prophets, including Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery.

Deferring to an intellectual because of his/her credentials, affiliation with BYU or CES, résumé including Church service, or popularity, is a form of lazy learning because all we’re doing is learning what that intellectual thinks. We’re not thinking for ourselves.

This is particularly true when we defer to the M2C citation cartel who have been promoting their M2C theory for decades and continue to do so. They enforce their M2C theory through a variety of rhetorical techniques we have discussed many times on this blog.

From time to time, I still hear objections to the term “M2C citation cartel.”

Let me explain once again. 

I didn’t invent the term “citation cartel,” although if you google “citation cartel” images, you’ll see several images of the M2C citation cartel among the first results. The term is widely used in academic circles to describe an ongoing problem with published scholarship. The term does not refer to drug or criminal cartels. 

A citation cartel is any group of like-minded scholars (and their followers) who cite one another to bolster the impression that their groupthink is both widely accepted and the best theory regarding whatever topic they write about. It can be considered “peer approval” masquerading as “peer review.”

Here’s one way to identify a citation cartel:

In our experience, a citation cartel differs from the ordinary in that it usually involves one or more or all of the following: 

i) a small number, often just two or three, journals are involved; 

ii) similarly, the diversity of authors involved is small, i.e., smaller as one would expect for a healthy research community; 

iii) often there is a large overlap of editors in the journals that sustain a particular cartel. 

The M2C citation cartel easily satisfies these criteria. 

i) We are dealing with two basic journals: (i) BYU Studies, and (ii) the various publications that arose from FARMS, including the current Interpreter, which Dan Peterson started after he was removed from FARMS, but which continues publishing the same type of material that the FARMS journals, led by Brother Peterson, did. 

To the extent Book of Mormon Central could be considered a journal because of its “kno-whys” and other content, it is merely another branch of FARMS anyway.

Both BYU Studies and the FARMS publications have long promoted M2C exclusively. We could hardly expect otherwise, since Jack Welch founded FARMS and was the long-time editor of BYU Studies. The FARMS logo included a Mayan glyph to represent the Book of Mormon. 

Now Book of Mormon Central, also led by Brother Welch, uses the same M2C logo. 

This logo demonstrates the antithesis of academic inquiry by imposing the outcome–M2C–on anyone who hopes to publish in these journals. That’s why we see peer approval in these journals instead of actual peer review.

ii) The research community publishing in these journals consists of a handful of influential authors, all of whom promote M2C, plus their students and followers. Anyone who proposes an alternative to M2C, especially anyone who still believes and corroborates what Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery taught, is not only unwelcome, but the target of derision and censorship.

iii) The overlap of editors in the journals is obvious. Now Steven Harper edits BYU Studies, but as we’ve seen, he continues to promote M2C, both at BYU Studies and through his other work, including the Saints book. 

I’ve referred to the M2C citation cartel as a Potemkin village because the same content surfaces in other venues, such as FairMormon (nkn FairLatterdaySaints), Meridian Magazine, and various blogs. But at the core, all of this content originated from the handful of M2C scholars we know and love. 

We cannot expect them to adjust, let alone change, their views on M2C. We can only humor them, try to sift out the M2C influence in their content (because they have produced some fine research on other topics), and let them continue to confirm their biases while the rest of us move on to better understand and corroborate the teachings of the prophets about the New York Cumorah, the translation of the plates, and related topics.

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Most LDS members think most LDS intellectuals have accepted the Mesoamerican/two-Cumorahs theory (M2C). They may be right, but I’ve heard from enough LDS intellectuals who disagree with M2C but dare not challenge the M2C citation cartel to know that, despite the image of consensus conveyed by the Potemkin village, plenty of people have peered around the corner and have seen that M2C is little more than wishful thinking.

Of course, people can believe whatever they want. I’m not trying to persuade anyone to reject M2C. My hope is for everyone to make informed decisions instead of having their opinions assigned to them by dogmatic members of a citation cartel.

I have no problem with people who embrace M2C with full knowledge of all relevant facts. 

The problem I see is that people embrace M2C based on incomplete knowledge, just as people leave the Church because of incomplete knowledge (combined with poor apologetics, a topic for another day). In both cases, people think they know everything on a given topic, but even cursory discussions with them shows they have huge gaps. I’ve spoken to many M2C believers who have never heard of Letter VII and its content, let alone its pervasiveness during the lifetimes of Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery.

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The reason the M2C citation cartel has dominated is not because of careful analysis of Church history; as we’ve seen repeatedly, the opposite is true, because M2C is based on rejecting early Church history about the Hill Cumorah and related topics.

The reason is also not because of careful analysis of the text of the Book of Mormon, or of careful analysis of archaeology, anthropology, etc., because the opposite is also true in those cases. The M2C advocates continually revise their interpretation of the Book of Mormon text to align with whatever the latest science tells them about Mesoamerica. They’ve admitted they “can’t unsee” Mesoamerica when they read the Book of Mormon. They read into it all kinds of Mesoamerican culture that no one else sees.

M2C was originally developed by the RLDS scholar LE Hills, who published the basic M2C map in 1917. 

LDS scholars such as John Sorenson, Jack Welch, and Dan Peterson adopted the Hills map and began promoting it as the only approved setting for the Book of Mormon.

They taught it to generations of LDS students.

Now, BYU and CES formally teach M2C, all the while proclaiming “neutrality.”

To repeat: The members of the M2C citation cartel are all fine scholars, faithful Church members, nice people, etc. They are all doing what they think is right.

Fortunately, Church leaders have made it clear that individual members are not only entitled to, but are responsible to, make up our own minds on these issues.

We can each chose to be “engaged learners” making informed decisions based on all the evidence instead of “lazy learners” who consume the digested and filtered opinions of agenda-driven intellectuals.

Source: About Central America

The ongoing discussion about Book of Mormon historicity and geography should be reframed as a puzzle, not a fight, competition, or even problem.

The ultimate issue is the divine authenticity of the Book of Mormon. On that issue, there are two opposite, incompatible realities. There is only one road; each person has to decide which direction to travel.

1. For some, the Book of Mormon relates actual events that took place somewhere on Earth involving real human beings.

2. For others, the Book of Mormon is fiction, whether pious or fraudulent.

Each side includes numerous nuances. For example, while nearly all nonbelievers accept scenario #2, there are lots of active, believing Latter-day Saints (LDS) who accept the Book of Mormon as teaching correct principles, even though they disbelieve its authenticity as an actual history. The percentage of LDS who adopt that approach is increasing. Surveys show that only about 50% of active Millennials believe the Book of Mormon is an authentic history.

In my view, that’s the inevitable result of teaching the Book of Mormon by referencing a fantasy map, as is being done at BYU and in CES. Two of the most popular LDS youtubers developed and teach the BYU fantasy map online as well as in the classroom.

For some LDS, Book of Mormon historicity is irrelevant. Obviously, one’s belief about Book of Mormon historicity is not a temple recommend question. Anyone can actively participate in Church activities independent of what they think about the Book of Mormon.

For non-LDS, however, and for most former LDS, it is a core issue.

Recognizing this is one reason why historicity is an important issue to many LDS.

Book of Mormon Central, for example, claims “We build enduring faith in Jesus Christ by making the Book of Mormon accessible, comprehensible, and defensible to people everywhere.”

Many of us think they are doing the exact opposite by imposing their M2C* interpretation on the text. We find the M2C arguments not only unpersuasive, but destructive of faith. Rejecting the teachings of Joseph Smith, Oliver Cowdery, and their associates about the New York Cumorah undermines the credibility of everything they taught, as we’re seeing with the ongoing saga of SITH (the stone-in-the-hat version of the translation, which claims Joseph didn’t really translate the plates).

Nevertheless, we’re on the same side as our friends at Book of Mormon Central. 

We, like them, still believe the Book of Mormon relates actual history. We think the historicity of the Book of Mormon is foundational to its acceptance as scripture.

In that sense, we’re on the same team.

Once we recognize we’re on the same team, we can see Book of Mormon historicity as a puzzle to be solved, together, instead of a competition, fight, argument, debate, problem, etc. It is not a win/lose situation.

As teammates, we should support one another.

Despite the false representations made by my scholarly LDS critics, I have emphasized over and over on this blog that people can believe whatever they want. I’m happy to refer people to the M2C citation cartel because 80-90% of what they produce is pretty good. I like them personally and I think they have good intentions. 

I just think their M2C bias has blinded them and channeled them into bias confirmation. And I think that becomes obvious with side-by-side comparisons of the text itself, Church history, teachings of the prophets, and external evidence from archaeology, anthropology, geology, geography, etc.

The only way to actually support one another is to make all the evidence available and show the different interpretations, assumptions and related psychology.

At one point a few years ago, we had actually reached an agreement to provide such comparisons, but one person in particular vetoed the project, which I’ll be discussing in my book on LDS apologetics later this year. 

This has been my objection to the M2C citation cartel from the beginning. Censorship never prevails, especially in today’s world.

In fact, the ongoing censorship by the M2C citation cartel is a gift to the critics such as CESLetter and MormonStories. 

For this reason, I’m going to provide more side-by-side comparisons in coming weeks.

We can solve this puzzle. We’re on the same team.

Stay tuned.

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*M2C is the “Mesoamerican/two-Cumorahs” theory that Joseph and Oliver were ignorant speculators who misled the Church about the New York Cumorah. M2C teaches that their contemporaries and successors, including members of the First Presidency speaking in General Conference, who have taught the New York Cumorah were merely teaching their own incorrect opinions as men, and that modern LDS scholars have come up with the correct beliefs about Book of Mormon settings and historicity.

Source: Book of Mormon Concensus

FYI, I started a series on agenda-driven history on my LetterVII blog.

https://www.lettervii.com/2021/04/steven-c-harper-and-agenda-driven.html

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One of the issues that our M2C scholars debate is the translation of the Book of Mormon. 

Anyone who reads the Book of Mormon knows it describes nothing like Mayan culture. There are no references to jade, jungles and jaguars, nothing about massive stone pyramids, nothing about volcanoes, nothing about ubiquitous stone engravings relating the history of the people beginning long before Lehi arrived, etc.

This leads our M2C intellectuals to conclude that Joseph didn’t translate the plates literally, or even close to literally. They think the Book of Mormon is a “loose” translation.  

Basically, the M2C proponents insist that Joseph Smith mistranslated the Book of Mormon. Here’s how Brant Gardner, one of the more prominent M2C proponents, puts it: “We have evidence that Joseph dictated ‘north.’ What we do not have evidence of is what the text on the plates said.” 

Did you catch that? According to our M2C scholars, Joseph Smith’s translation is not evidence of what the plates said!

This is why, despite the language in the text, they “cannot unsee” Mesoamerican culture when they read it. A “horse” is a “tapir,” a “tower” is a “massive stone pyramid,” etc.

Such a “loose” translation seems to conflict with the idea of an “iron-clad” translation promoted by various LDS scholars; i.e., the idea that Joseph read words that appeared on the stone in the hat (SITH). 

LDS scholars such as Royal Skousen say Joseph was not the translator. This excerpt discussing SITH is from his book on the King James language in the text. 

What this means is that the Book of Mormon is a creative and cultural translation of what was on the plates, not a literal one. Based on the linguistic evidence, the translation must have involved serious intervention from the English-language translator, who was not Joseph Smith. Nonetheless, the text was revealed to Joseph Smith by means of his translation instrument, and he read it off word for word to his scribe. To our modern-day, skeptical minds, this is indeed “a marvelous work and a wonder.” 

http://www.bookofmormoncentralamerica.com/2020/01/royal-skousen-translation-and-m2c.html 

SITH depends on the theory that the Mysterious Unknown Supernatural Translator (MUST) somehow translated the plates into English and caused the words that they should appear on the stone in the hat. 

To reconcile SITH with M2C, our M2C scholars have to conclude it was not Joseph who mistranslated the plates, but the MUST, who provided a “creative and cultural translation” but forgot to include all the elements of Mayan culture.

To many of us, this sounds ridiculous, but that is what M2C boils down to. 

Of course, people can believe whatever they want. That’s fine with me. All we do on this blog is discuss the facts and ramifications of the various theories.

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Previously, we’ve discussed the awesome Gospel Topics Essay on Book of Mormon Translation (GTE).

http://www.bookofmormoncentralamerica.com/2020/06/review-of-gospel-topics-essay-on.html 

The GTE forgot to even quote (let alone discuss) what Joseph and Oliver said about the translation with the Urim and Thummim.

Instead, the GTE mingles the theories of scholars with quotations dated decades after the events from people such as David Whitmer and Emma Smith.

For example, here’s a screen capture from the essay:

That quotation comes from Oliver Cowdery’s Letter I, an excerpt of which is found in the Pearl of Great Price, Joseph Smith-History, note 1. Here it is in context, with the omitted portion in red.

Oliver Cowdery describes these events thus: “These were days never to be forgotten—to sit under the sound of a voice dictated by the inspiration of heaven, awakened the utmost gratitude of this bosom! Day after day I continued, uninterrupted, to write from his mouth, as he translated with the Urim and Thummim, or, as the Nephites would have said, ‘Interpreters,’ the history or record called ‘The Book of Mormon.’

(Joseph Smith—History, Note, 1) also at https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/history-1834-1836/49

Many faithful Latter-day Saints find it astonishing that a Gospel Topics Essay on the Translation of the Book of Mormon would not even inform readers what Joseph and Oliver had to say. 

But many of us also find it astonishing that the GTE on Book of Mormon Geography is silent about Cumorah, precisely the same way that the Saints book, volume 1, is silent on Cumorah.

That’s one of the topics I’ll be discussing in the series on the Letter VII blog.

https://www.lettervii.com/2021/04/steven-c-harper-and-agenda-driven.html

Source: About Central America

Many Latter-day Saints remain perplexed at the revisionist Church history narratives we see replacing long-familiar traditional history. In my view, these changes are based not on new historical sources or better analysis, but instead they are driven by specific agendas.

Brother Harper’s books Joseph Smith’s First Vision and First Vision: Memory and Mormon Origins, contain some wonderful insights into the work of historians that we’ll discuss in this series.

BTW, on these blogs I’m going to start posting only summaries of the longer articles I send to subscribers to MOBOM, the Museum of the Book of Mormon. You can subscribe for free here:

https://www.mobom.org/

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Here is Brother Harper’s bio as provided in First Vision: Memory and Mormon Origins.

Steven C. Harper earned a PhD in early American history from Lehigh University, where he was Lawrence Henry Gipson Fellow. He taught at Brigham Young University campuses in Hawaii and Utah, and served as a volume editor of The Joseph Smith Papers and later as managing historian and a general editor of Saints: The Story of The Church of Jesus Christ in the Latter Days. He is the author of Promised Land (2006) a study of colonial Pennsylvania’s dispossession of the Lenape or Delawares. He is also the author of dozens of articles and two books on early Latter-day Saint history. He is currently editor of BYU Studies Quarterly and professor of Church History and Doctrine at Brigham Young University.

Here we see the revolving door between BYU and the Church History Department, which helps explain why Saints teaches what it does. We’ll discuss that throughout this series.

BYU Studies continues to produce important articles, such as those in the issue focusing on the First Vision, which you can see here:

https://byustudies.byu.edu/journal/59-2/

Like most Latter-day Saints, I love BYU Studies. I have physical copies of dozens of issues, although the digital copies are more useful. It has always been disappointing to see BYU Studies promote the Mesoamerican/Two-Cumorahs theory (M2C), but we all understood that was inevitable because the long-time editor was one of the major proponents of M2C. 

It’s similar to the annoying editorial stance of Book of Mormon Central, FAIRLDS, the Interpreter, and the rest of the M2C citation cartel. They produce a lot of great material, but much of it is tainted by their M2C worldview that directly contradicts the Church’s position of neutrality on these issues.

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When Brother Harper replaced John W. Welch as Editor of BYU Studies, some of us hoped he would change direction and extract BYU Studies from the M2C citation cartel. 

Sadly, that hasn’t happened. BYU Studies still features the M2C maps that depict Book of Mormon events, including the final battles at Cumorah, taking place in Mesoamerica.

https://byustudies.byu.edu/further-study-chart/159-plausible-locations-of-the-final-battles/

BYU Studies also promoted the fake story that it was Moroni who showed the plates to Mary Whitmer instead of Nephi (one of the Three Nephites), as both Mary and David explained. 

https://byustudies.byu.edu/article/mary-whitmer-and-moroni-experiences-of-an-artist-in-creating-a-historical-painting/

The article simply omits David Whitmer’s statement about what Joseph said after they encountered the messenger on the way to Fayette from Harmony. 

Shortly afterwards, David relates, the Prophet looked very white but with a heavenly appearance and said their visitor was one of the three Nephites to whom the Savior gave the promise of life on earth until He should come in power. After arriving home, David again saw this personage, and mother Whitmer, who was very kind to Joseph Smith, is said to have seen not only this Nephite, but to have also been shown by him the sealed and unsealed portions of the plates from which the Book of Mormon was translated.

See full account, with references, at 

http://www.lettervii.com/p/trip-to-fayette-references.html

As we’ve discussed before, this wasn’t the only time Joseph identified this messenger as one of the Nephites. It’s pretty easy to create fake history by simply omitting historical references that contradict the history you want to promote.

Why would M2C proponents insist it was Moroni who showed the plates to Mary Whitmer? 

M2C proponents simply cannot accept David’s statement that the messenger was going to Cumorah before meeting Joseph in Fayette. They have no explanation for why he would take the abridged plates Joseph translated in Harmony back to Cumorah, or why Joseph translated the plates of Nephi in Fayette after having translated the Title Page, which was on “the last leaf of the plates,” in Harmony.

We’ve seen how the previous editor of BYU Studies simply changed the history of the trip from Harmony to Fayette, the same way he created the fake Moroni story by simply omitting David’s statement that the messenger was one of the Nephites and Mary’s statement that the messenger called himself Brother Nephi.

http://www.bookofmormoncentralamerica.com/2017/12/opening-heavens-but-censoring-history.html

The irony in all of this is that Brother Harper is an outstanding historian. His discussion of the intersection between memory and history incisive. It deserves a lot of attention, as we’ll see in this series.

Source: Letter VII