Brant Gardner’s latest on the Book of Mormon geography

YouTube
transcript

Comments

3:19 Murph:
in the last episode there’s one um sort of pushback that I forgot to ask you
about that people would raise against the mesoAmerican geographical model so
we’ll talk about that briefly.

Zelph
the white Lamanite which I believe comes when Joseph Smith and some of the
church leaders are sort of marching in Zion’s camp and he points…

I think
he writes in a letter how they cross like the plains of the Nephites to his
wife Emma

Joseph’s letter to Emma
in the Joseph Smith Papers (JSP), describing his activities while traveling west
across Ohio, Indiana and Illinois:

https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/letter-to-emma-smith-4-june-1834/2

The whole of our journey, in the midst of so large a
company of social honest men and sincere men, wandering over the
plains of the Nephites, recounting occasionaly the history of the Book of
Mormon, roving over the mounds of that once beloved people of the Lord,
picking up their skulls & their bones, as a proof of its divine
authenticity,14 and gazing upon a country the fertility, the splendour
and the goodness so indescribable, all serves to pass away time unnoticed,

and
then there’s some

3:46

sources
or accounts of there being like a skeleton and he says that’s Zelph the white
Lamanite. I know heartlanders would use that to support oh The Book of Mormon
happened here in North America.

What’s
your take on that on Zelph the white Lamanite?

Note 14
above in the JSP:

On 3 June, the Camp of Israel passed through the
vicinity of what is now Valley City, Illinois, where several members of the
camp climbed a large mound. At the top, they uncovered the skeletal remains
of an individual JS reportedly identified as Zelph, a “white Lamanite.”
Archeologists have since identified the mound as Naples–Russell Mound #8 and
have classified it as a Hopewell burial mound of the Middle Woodland period
of the North American pre-Columbian era (roughly 50 BC to AD 250). (Godfrey,
“The Zelph Story,” 31, 34; Farnsworth, “Lamanitish Arrows,” 25–48.)

4:00

Brant: I
think first of all it’s important to note that it’s a lamanite and not a nephite

Brant is
correct that Zelph was identified as a Lamanite. However, the identification
was in the context of the larger identification of the Nephites and the great
last battle. E.g., Wilford Woodruff recorded this in his journal:

Zelph was a large thick set man and a man of God he was
a warrior under the great prophet ^Onandagus^ that was known from the hill
Camorah ^or east sea^ to the Rocky mountains. The
above knowledge Joseph receieved in a vision.

https://wilfordwoodruffpapers.org/documents/b048a7c5-6b6b-438a-bce7-262d5ba297d8/page/b7e83f61-fb13-43c4-bee7-5ab95fb957f1

the
second thing is they talk about going over the planes of uh you know what is
it the plains of the lamanites they’re plains anyway I think if I
remember right but I yeah

4:19

but they’re
not mentioned in the Book of Mormon so this is not a book of Mormon
geographic location uh this is some

4:26

location
somewhere but it isn’t mentioned in the Book of Mormon

Comment: Brant
says JS referred to the “plains of the Lamanites.” Murph doesn’t correct him,
but we can all read the account above, where Joseph writes “plains of the
Nephites.” 

Maybe Brant simply misspoke, but in the context of his interview, this seems like deliberate misinformation to persuade unsuspecting viewers. 

Brant says the plains are “not mentioned” in the text. While the generalized phrase “plains of the Nephites”
is not specifically used in the current text (we can’t know what the 116
pages said), we have several references to Nephite “plains” that were significant
in the war chapters and during the destruction before Christ’s visit. In one passage, a specific “plains” is identified “the plains of Nephihah,” but in other passages the term is generalized, just as Joseph used the term to describe Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. 

There
were also Jaredite plains, supporting the idea that the Jaredites lived in the same area as the Nephites.

Nephite
plains:

I saw the plains of the earth, that they were
broken up;(1 Nephi 12:4)

20 And it came to pass they sent embassies to the army
of the Lamanites, which protected the city of Mulek, to their leader, whose
name was Jacob, desiring him that he would come out with his armies to meet
them upon the plains between the two cities. But behold, Jacob, who
was a Zoramite, would not come out with his army to meet them upon the plains. (Alma 52:20)

And it came to pass that when they had come to the city
of Nephihah, they did pitch their tents in the plains of Nephihah,
which is near the city of Nephihah.

 19 Now Moroni
was desirous that the Lamanites should come out to battle against them, upon
the plains; (Alma 62:18–19)

Jaredite
plains:

28 And it came to pass that Shared fought against him
for the space of three days. And it came to pass that Coriantumr beat him,
and did pursue him until he came to the plains of Heshlon.

 29 And it came
to pass that Shared gave him battle again upon the plains; and behold,
he did beat Coriantumr, and drove him back again to the valley of Gilgal. (Ether 13:28–29)

15 And it came to pass that Lib did pursue him until he
came to the plains of Agosh. And Coriantumr had taken all the people
with him as he fled before Lib in that quarter of the land whither he fled.

 16 And when he
had come to the plains of Agosh he gave battle unto Lib, (Ether 14:15–16)

Brant should explain why he misrepresented the scriptures this way.

4:33

we know
that uh you know some of the peoples came North there is no reason to believe
that we don’t have lamanites moving North after the end of The Book of Mormon

M: so
it’s like uh here you go the lamanite

B: yep

4:47

yeah I
mean having lamanites that are northward is not unusual,

Comment: Brant’s
point that Lamanites may have moved north is a red herring. Everyone agrees that the Lamanites likely migrated in all directions after the end of the Book of Mormon.

Brant simply doesn’t address the point that Joseph specifically
identified Nephites while crossing Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. They were roving
over their mounds and picking up their bones “as proof of the divine
authenticity” of the Book of Mormon.

Nor does Brant mention that Joseph also identified Jaredites in this area.

so you
know having him there uh the only thing you have to worry about is this

4:59

idea of
being a white lamanite and what does that mean and the definition that you
would get from The Book of Mormon would have been that he was a converted
lamanite

When he says “the only thing you have to worry about” he’s referring to the M2C advocates. Proponents of the North American setting (Heartland) don’t worry about anything regarding the Zelph account.

Brant’s idea
is congruent with what Wilford Woodruff recorded:

His name was Zelph he was a white lamanite, a large thick set man, and a man of God. The curse had been
taken from him because of his righteousness.

https://wilfordwoodruffpapers.org/documents/7fa48660-76da-4b7d-be34-ec03b88b3d57/page/59f7b665-644c-418f-9338-1a1e8a67bacd

and
that must mean that somewhere as Mormon or Moroni is doing these travels he
managed to talk to some

people
and you know convert a few people perhaps some who uh you know kept that tradition
going

Brant’s
speculation here ignores the historical accounts and merely confirms his M2C
bias and worldview.

Instead of engaging in such raw speculation, we ought to look at the actual historical accounts.

For some
events in Church history, Wilford Woodruff is the sole source (much like Lucy
Mack Smith for JS’s early years). In the case of Zelph, there are multiple
accounts from different people who were present. Naturally, each recorded
different elements of the event. A good overview is here:

https://www.mobom.org/zelph-account

Woodruff’s
account is the most detailed, so I’ll include it here.

From his
journal, May 1834:

we visited many of the mounds which were flung up by
the ancient inhabitants of this Continent probably by the Nephites & Lamanites[.]

we visited one of these Mounds and several of the
brethren dug into it and took from it the bones of a man[.] Brother Joseph
had a vission respecting the person he said he was a white Lamanite the curs
was taken from him or at least in part[.] he was killed in battle with an arrow
the arrow was found among his ribs, one of his thigh bones was broken this
was done by a stone flung from a sling in battle years before his death his
name was Zelph some of his bones were brought into the camp and the thigh bone
which was broken was put into my waggon and I carried it to Missouri.

Zelph was a large thick set man and a man of God he was
a warrior under the great prophet ^Onandagus^ that was known from the hill
Camorah ^or east sea^ to the Rocky mountains. The above knowledge Joseph receieved
in a vision.

https://wilfordwoodruffpapers.org/documents/b048a7c5-6b6b-438a-bce7-262d5ba297d8/page/b7e83f61-fb13-43c4-bee7-5ab95fb957f1

From the
History of Zion’s Camp:

On the tops of the mounds were stones which personated
the apperance of three altars, one above the other, according to the ancient
order, and the remains of bones were shown over the surface of the ground.

Wilford Woodruff says, “this mound was considered
three hundred feet above the Illinois river, we had a shovel and a hoe with
us, and while we were desending the mound, the Prophet Joseph stopped
suddenly and pointed to the ground and said. “Brotherin dig in
there.”

And when we had dug one foot we uncovered the skeleton
of a man, which was entire, and in a good state of perservation, and between
his ribs in the back bone was found the stone point of a lamanitish arrow,
whiched produced his death. Milton Homes took the arrow out of the back bone, also one of the thigh bones which had
been broken, and took it to camp, and put it into my wagon; and at noon while
resting in camp, the Prophet Joseph, while lying in his wagon, was rap[p]ed
in vision, and the history of this man whoes body we discovered,
was shown unto him.

His name was Zelph he was a white lamanite, a large thick
set man, and a man of God. The curse had been taken from him because of his righteousness.
He was a warrior, and a chiefton He fought under the prophet Onondagus, who held
domion from the east to the west sea including the Rocky-mountains. Zelph had
his thigh bone broken from the sling of a stone, while in battle, many years
before his death. He was killed in battle by the arrow found in his back
bone, dureing a great struggle with the Lamenites, and I Wilford Woodruff, carried
the thigh bone to Clay County and burried it in that country, I intended to have burried it in Jackson County, thinking that some
prophet might have prophisied to him that the members of Zions camp whould
have taken his bones with them to Zion and buried them their, when they went
up to redeem Zion; But not having the privlage of gowing to Jackson County, I
buried it in Clay County.

https://wilfordwoodruffpapers.org/documents/7fa48660-76da-4b7d-be34-ec03b88b3d57/page/59f7b665-644c-418f-9338-1a1e8a67bacd

so we
don’t know how long after the Book of Mormon closed

5:30

that
that would have been there um if we actually had that skeleton and we dug it
up archaeologically we’d found that it… we would find that it came from time
period long after the Book of Mormon

The note in
the JS Papers quoted above explains otherwise:

Archeologists have since identified the mound as
Naples–Russell Mound #8 and have classified it as a Hopewell burial mound of
the Middle Woodland period of the North American pre-Columbian era (roughly
50 BC to AD 250).

In other
words, archaeologists date the mound to Book of Mormon time frames. They have
also sourced the artifacts in the mound to the Rocky Mountains and upper
eastern Midwest, corroborating what Wilford Woodruff recorded.

Brant the anthropologist surely knows this, but he misled his viewers here. 

M: okay
so you wouldn’t see that as necessarily undermining the Mesoamerican geographical
model and do you also think that this was Joseph Smith maybe guessing because
you know you don’t believe, we don’t believe that he knew uh where the Book
of Mormon took place

B:
yeah, we don’t

M: do
you think he was sorted guessing or speculating

Brant
claims that “we don’t” believe Joseph knew where the Book of Mormon took
place. He’s speaking on behalf of M2C proponents, of course.

I’ve
discussed this before:

The entire premise for M2C is that the scholars know what
Joseph Smith was secretly thinking, and that among Joseph’s thoughts was ignorance about the Book of Mormon and its setting (despite what Joseph actually said). This is how they deal with the extreme cognitive
dissonance they experience when they confront Joseph’s actions and statements.

Here is an example. In 2005, BYU and the Library
of Congress sponsored a two-day academic conference to commemorate the 200th
anniversary of Joseph Smith’s birth. I blogged about it here. The conference proceedings included these statements
about what Joseph was thinking in his inner thoughts:

– Joseph Smith did not fully understand the
Book of Mormon.
– One thing all readers share with Joseph
is a partial understanding of the book’s complexities.
– Over the last sixty years, Hugh Nibley,
John Sorenson, and other scholars have shown the Book of Mormon to be “truer”
than Joseph Smith or any of his contemporaries could know.
– Consequently,  what  Joseph
 Smith  knew  and  understood about the book ought to be
research questions rather than presumptions.  Thanks  in
 large  part  to  his  critics,  it  is
 becoming  clear that Joseph Smith did not fully understand the
geography, scope, historical scale, literary form, or cultural content of the
book.
– In 1842, after reading about ancient
cities in Central America, Joseph speculated that Book of Mormon lands were
located there.
– Joseph did not know exactly where Book of
Mormon lands were… he considered their location  an  important
 question  addressable  through scholarship.

that
incident for some people has taken as you know Revelation and some

6:12

people
is just a discussion or speculation you know however you want to read that um
I would say that most of the scholars would not accept it as a revelation

“For some people” means those who were present at the time and those who accept what they said.

The M2C scholars
don’t accept it as a revelation, but Brant offers no rationale for rejecting
what Woodruff and others recorded except that Zelph contradicts their
theories.

As we saw
above, Wilford Woodruff explained Joseph had a vision:

The published history of Zion’s Camp gives an account
of the bones of a man which we dug out of a mound. His name was Zelph. The
Lord showed the Prophet the history of the man in a vision.

https://wilfordwoodruffpapers.org/documents/093b0c5c-db84-40fa-96ea-b4185b18bf43/page/d4ceb072-2ecb-4e2f-a284-6b2d53344fcb

6:25

even in
the Heartland for the people who would say yes this was a revelation it would
be a revelation that’s so late that it wouldn’t have anything to do with the
Book of Mormon or a book of Mormon geography it would simply say you know
this is you know something that occurred after the Book of Mormon ended

Brant repeats his misstatement about the dating of Zelph’s mound and the artifacts there as we saw above.

B: Mark
Wright gave a paper at

6:46

Fair several
years ago called um Heartland is Hinterland he argued that after the Book of
Mormon there would have been a northern migration we know that there was a
northern migration of peoples from uh mesoamerica up into at least the
southeast uh so the fact that there is a lamanite that you might have known
something you know might have either

retained
something because of uh you know Heritage of the nephite because

they didn’t
all die you know the nation was gone but never not every single Nephite was
dead or somebody that Moroni had converted but still after the Book of
Mormon.

M: okay right
okay so it’s possible that Joseph Smith could have been uh not wrong then in
saying that that’s um Zelf yeah it could have been something that maybe came
from the book

B:  yeah I mean for those people who want to
believe that that was a revelation and

7:48

that that’s exactly
what happened there is a context of which we can see that happening

Wright’s
paper has lots of problems, but it was published anyway in the Interpreter
because all of the “peer reviewers” (if any) already agreed with Wright’s
premise. They are “peer approvers,” not reviewers.

I’ve written
about that paper quite a bit. Here’s a sample:

One of the most insightful articles on this topic is
“Heartland as Hinterland: The Mesoamerican Core and North American
Periphery of Book of Mormon Geography,” published here. It deals with a
few of Joseph’s actions that I listed above, such as the letter to Emma and
the Zelph account.

Of course, the article never mentions Letter VII or the
revelations in the D&C.

Instead, it relies on the anonymous Times and Seasons
articles, erroneously attributing them to Joseph and then using them to
reinterpret and invert the plain language of what Joseph actually wrote.

Here’s how the article handles Joseph’s letter to Emma
and his revelation about Zelph: “The individuals and geographic features
that are named in these accounts are nowhere to be found in the text of the
Book of Mormon. They are external to its history.”

Joseph explained that he had learned about the Book of
Mormon people even before he translated the plates, and his mother confirmed
this, but the M2C scholars reject what he Lucy said. Instead, they insist
Joseph knew nothing except what he translated.

The reason they take this position is obvious: it puts
them not only on an even playing field with Joseph (because they’re both
limited to interpreting the text), but (in their minds) it makes their
interpretations superior to Joseph’s because they have PhDs and decades of
more recent archaeological, linguistic, and other research.

___________________

When you consider theories about Book of Mormon
geography, consider whether the proponents are relying on actual evidence, or
instead on their subjective interpretations of what they think Joseph’s inner
thoughts were.

[the interview proceeds with a discussion of the translation]