Do you see how that is a fundamental logical thinking error?
Nowhere does the text of the Book of Mormon identify the “Western hemisphere,” the “Americas,” or even “America” as Lehi’s land of promise.
There is no basis in the text for looking at any particular part of the world.
The only place the text excludes is the Arabian peninsula (because the directions given for Lehi’s journey from Jerusalem lead to the coast of the Arabian peninsula).
Based on the text alone, the only requirement is that Lehi crossed “large waters” and arrived at a land mass.
Based on the text alone, Lehi could have landed literally anywhere. He could have landed in Australia, Chile, Guatemala, Florida, or Japan. He could have circumnavigated Africa and ended up in Italy.
Based on the text alone, choosing the “Americas” is as arbitrary as choosing Malaysia or Eritrea or anywhere else on the planet.
To discover the location of Book of Mormon events, we have to look outside the text for more information.
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Some M2C scholars claim Moroni had to live in the Americas because he hid the abridged plates in the hill in western New York.
They say he could have easily carried the plates from Mesoamerica to New York.
By the same reasoning, Moroni could have carried the plates from Japan, Australia, or Italy. He just needed a boat to cross the same way Lehi did.
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Because the text never mentions the name of Lehi’s promised land, how do we know that Lehi’s promised land of the Book of Mormon was in America?
Solely because Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery said it was. They reported what Moroni told Joseph and what they learned from their own experience. This includes both the American setting of the Book of Mormon and the location of Cumorah in New York.
Everyone else relied on what Joseph and Oliver taught.
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Do you see the problem for M2C scholars, their employees and followers?
The sources they rely on to claim the Book of Mormon events took place in the Americas also taught that the Hill Cumorah of Mormon 6:6 was in New York.
Our M2C friends simply choose to:
– accept the teachings of the prophets about America generally, while they
– reject the teachings of the prophets about the New York Cumorah.
There’s nothing logical about this. It’s pure bias confirmation.
Ask any M2C believer why they are looking in Mesoamerica. They’ll give you lots of rhetoric about north-flowing rivers, the “narrow neck of land,” various “correspondences” with the extensive Mayan civilization, and, sooner or later, they’ll throw in some teachings from the prophets about America. They’ll probably tell you Joseph Smith wrote about Mesoamerica in the 1842 Times and Seasons.
What they won’t tell you is that ultimately, the source of authority for America as the setting for the Book of Mormon boils down to Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery, who both also taught that the “hill in New York” is Cumorah.
This is the same irrational approach taken by the people who support SITH by quoting Emma Smith’s so-called “Last Testimony” or David Whitmer’s various statements. They accept the SITH material but they outright reject the rest of what Emma and David had to say.
To promote both SITH and M2C, our intellectuals simply reject what Joseph and Oliver taught in favor of their own private theories.
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As always, I emphasize that people can believe whatever they want. There are faithful members of the Church who believe M2C. There are faithful members who don’t even believe the Book of Mormon is a real history.
But there are also many faithful members who still believe the teachings of the prophets about Cumorah, the Urim and Thummim, etc.
These members have difficulty agreeing with the intellectuals that the prophets are wrong. They think M2C and SITH contradict the teachings of the prophets. They think the teachings of the prophets not only make more sense, but are corroborated by historical and extrinsic evidence.
Because our intellectuals mostly favor M2C and SITH, their citation cartels exclude those Church members who still believe the teachings of the prophets on these issues.
But maybe that will change someday. Especially as more and more Church members learn enough to make informed decisions.
Source: About Central America
3 thoughts on “M2C does not stick to the text of the Book of Mormon”
“There is no basis in the text for looking at any particular part of the world.”
This statement helps explain why there are over 150 documented theories about where the events of the Book of Mormon took place. However, I totally disagree with the beginning sentence. There is much evidence inside the Book of Mormon that points us in the right direction. As the blog implies, you can eliminate many countries that are within walking distance of Jerusalem. How far can you walk in 8 years? Obviously, nobody who believes in the Book of Mormon can ignore the evidence that the Land of Bountiful, where Nephi built the ship has to be by the Arabian Sea or Indian Ocean. There appears to be only 2 likely places on the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula with water, fruit, honey, iron, timber, etc.
There are a plethora of pundits proclaiming perfect places where it happened. They have made a list of some popular locations and then tried to match some of the evidence to the various locations and then eliminate locations that don’t fit the evidence they favor. One theory says it all happened in a few counties in western New York.
Ok, let’s start with a clean slate and pretend it could be anywhere in the world–no confirmation bias or preconceived notions. What criteria or evidence (start with only the text of the Book of Mormon) could be used as a logical place to start and try to narrow it down to a specific location where Lehi landed and his descendants lived and fought battles until the Nephites were destroyed? This is going to be a fun exercise! Wait! The Annotated Edition of the Book of Mormon has already done this.
Why would Moroni carry the plates 3,000 miles along with the breastplate and the Urim and Thummim from Mesoamerica or Australia or Malaysia (many 26 to 60-mile narrow necks of land) or Tonga or Chile or Japan or Italy or England or Antarctica or Madagascar or Djibouti or Comoros (Moroni is the capital and largest city) or New Zealand (on the northern Island near Auckland, there is a narrow neck of land only 22 miles across—sounds like a day or day and a half journey for a Nephite)? Oh, don’t forget Indonesia. It has many narrow necks of land.
Please don’t let this single evidence (narrow neck of land) be your only evidence and sway your conclusion BEFORE you examine ALL the evidence! Sadly, this is exactly what M2C has done by latching on to the Isthmus of Tehuantepec with a determination to NEVER let go! It reminds me of the old gun bumper sticker, “You can have my gun when you pry it from my cold dead fingers.”
If you don’t like that analogy, think of the racoon trap in the book “Where the Red Fern Grows.” When the coon sticks his paw into a hole with a shiny object, the hard headed coon will not let go of the shiny object and the nails keep the coon from puling out their paw and so they are trapped.
Also remember that the “narrow neck of land” was a Jaredite reference as stated in Ether 10:20, “And they built a great city by the narrow neck of land, by the place where the sea divides the land.” This is one of the best clues in the Book of Mormon.
Don’t read more about this clue because we are limited to what is stated in the Book of Mormon. [I don’t know of any place in the world where the sea divides the land better than the Great Lakes which contain 20% of the fresh water of the world.]
During 40 years of wandering, Moroni would run the risk that the Lamanites would intercept him and kill him and destroy the records that Mormon spent many years abridging. This would be an unacceptable RISK! This would negate all of the record keeping from the days of the Jaredites to the end of the Nephites. What about the wagon loads of records that Mormon referenced to make the abridgement? How did all these records get to the hill Cumorah from Mesoamerica or 150 other countries of the world?
M2C loves a single piece of evidence at the expense of all other evidence. It is their iconic hourglass shaped narrow neck of land with an east and west sea. All they did was rotate the Isthmus of Tehuantepec 90 degrees to the right to get the east and west sea. Otherwise it would be the north and south sea. The BYU VirtualScriptures loves this same fantasy map.
Can you imagine how boring or difficult it would be to read any book (not a book on psychology or mathematics) if it had no geographical references or dates or measurement of time or locations or characteristics or descriptions of the people involved or their names?
How far into the Book of Mormon do we get before we know anything about Geography?
1 Nephi 1:4
For it came to pass in the commencement of the afirst year of the reign of bZedekiah, king of Judah, (my father, Lehi, having dwelt at cJerusalem in all his days); and in that same year there came many dprophets, prophesying unto the people that they must erepent, or the great city fJerusalem must be destroyed.
Not so fast–Verse 2 tells us about Jews and Egyptians. Some say that Nephi’s first sentence about paying respect to his being “born of goodly parents” reflects the cultural writing styles of the area during that time period.
Not counting the chapter headings, Jerusalem is mentioned 6 times and Jews 3 times in the first chapter of the Book of Mormon.
Verse 17 of Chapter 1 tells us there are 2 sets of plates! About 90%+ of church members think there is only 1 set of plates as illustrated by the paintings of Moroni giving the plates to Joseph.
As you read the book, gather and document every clue from beginning to end, you will discover that the Book of Mormon happened in America where Adam dwelt. If America was not a land “choice above all other lands” (1 Nephi 2:20), why was the garden of Eden located there? At that time, it was all one continent surrounded by one body of water. There was no narrow neck of land. It was a covenant land from the days of Adam.
After you have gathered all the internal evidence, you can add evidence from other scripture and world history. I’m not talking about what you heard in school. A lot of truths have been kept hidden from the public. Look for the original documents! The picture should be very clear.
Now add what the prophets have said from Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery to President Russell M. Nelson, there is no room for doubt!
Elder Holland talks about the “Greatness of Evidence” (physical and spiritual). Look at https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/transcript-elder-holland-speaks-book-of-mormon-chiasmus-conference-2017
In Alma 5, Alma asks the church members at Zarahemla 50 very poignant questions that related specifically about their progress toward Eternal Life. Think of it as similar to a Temple Recommend interview. Alma asks 2 questions about being stripped of pride and envy. I fear that pride and envy are keeping everyone from have a clear understanding of the truth.
Alma asks another question in verse 30, “And again I say unto you, is there one among you that doth make a amock of his brother, or that heapeth upon him persecutions?
31 Wo unto such an one, for he is not prepared, and the atime is at hand that he must repent or he cannot be saved!
Since intellectuals and scholars are hijacking church history, I don’t see any unity or reconciliation any time soon. All we can do is present the truth and let the reader decide. The reader can’t decide if the truth has been censored.
The very next sentence after the one you disagree with is “The only place the text excludes is the Arabian peninsula.”
🙂
There’s no reason given in the text why Moroni could not have brought the plates to New York from anywhere in the world. That’s the point. We have to rely on what Joseph and Oliver said or there is no reason to look at the Western Hemisphere any more than the Eastern Hemisphere. Same with the garden of Eden.
Initially, I’m looking at it as if we only had the text of the Book of Mormon and no prophets to enlighten us. Later, I add common sense.
Based on the text only and common sense, I’m just trying to point out that Moroni could not have brought the plates from ANYWHERE in the world to New York. We’ve eliminated the Arabian Peninsula. We should also eliminate nearby countries like Libya, Egypt, Sudan, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia, Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, etc. Also, 71% of the earth’s surface is water. Next, anywhere above the Arctic Circle (66.5 degrees north latitude) or below the Antarctic Circle (66.5 degrees south latitude) would be very inhospitable–doesn’t pass the common sense test. How far north or south of these circles would you draw the line? You could easily move it to 60 degrees north and south. Remember Jerusalem is about 32 degrees north latitude (not stated in the text).
The text of the Book of Mormon does give us many clues. “Many days” is used many times in the Book of Mormon. It likely means less than a month or more than a month and certainly less than a year. The Jaredites travelled for 344 days on the water. We don’t know their starting or ending point other than it was “a land choice above all other lands.” Mosiah 7:4 states, “4 And now, they knew not the course they should travel in the wilderness to go up to the land of Lehi-Nephi; therefore they wandered many days in the wilderness, even aforty days did they wander.” Mosiah 22:13 states, “13 And after being many days in the wilderness they aarrived in the land of Zarahemla, and joined Mosiah’s people, and became his subjects.” These 2 trips were going in opposite directions.
We don’t know the actual route of this trip, but it appears to be less than a year–much less. It also appears that there were no very tall mountains in the area to navigate by. These are just some examples. Fortunately, we have statements form Joseph and Oliver to modern day prophets. We know Cumorah was located in New York.
We know Lehi departed by ship in the fall after the harvest and landed in the spring because they planted their seeds and they grew exceedingly. It must have been a favorable climate.
“Pico de Orizaba, rising more than 18,400 feet on the border between Mexico’s Puebla and Veracruz states, Pico de Orizaba claims two superlatives: the tallest mountain in Mexico, and the tallest volcano in North America. It’s also very prominent in the landscape, potentially visible from ships in the Gulf of Mexico, about 70 miles away.” Although this mountain is about 180 miles northwest of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, it could be used for navigation.
About 200 miles southeast of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec is Volcán Tajumulco, in western Guatemala. It is the highest mountain in Central America at 13,786 ft. Between these 2 mountains there are many mountains in the 3,000 to 6,000-foot range. With these tall mountains and the 135-mile wide Isthmus of Tehuantepec separating the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, how could anyone get lost? The geography of the Heartland makes so much more sense.
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