The problem is the 20% that is driven by M2C and taints the rest.
I completely agree that the primary purposes of the Book of Mormon as stated by the prophets and the Title Page:
Which is to show unto the remnant of the house of Israel what great things the Lord hath done for their fathers; and that they may know the covenants of the Lord, that they are not cast off forever—And also to the convincing of the Jew and Gentile that Jesus is the Christ, the Eternal God, manifesting himself unto all nations…
(Title Page, 2)
Here’s a still image of a “Come Follow Me” lesson from Book of Mormon Central. Like everyone else affiliated with Book of Mormon Central, these two professors are awesome people. I like them personally. They undoubtedly have the best of intentions. (I don’t use names because I’ve agreed not to, and their identities don’t matter anyway. It’s content, not identity, that matters.)
This still image is taken from the time when one of the professors said “We try to be neutral” on the question of geography.
They try.
But as Yoda said, “Do or do not… there is no try.”
He couldn’t say “we are neutral” because they are not neutral. After all, they are standing in front of the BYU fantasy map that teaches M2C.
Nothing prevents these professors or anyone else at Book of Mormon Central from being actually neutral. Yet they insist on imposing only one interpretation of the text–the interpretation created and publicized by the M2C promoters.
In an effort to convey a phony “neutrality” despite their M2C interpretation of the text, they developed this map with directions and distances that, they claim, “match the approximately 550 geography descriptions in the text as closely as possible.” As though no viable alternative is possible.
The result is they are teaching the youth of the Church to understand the Book of Mormon in a fictional setting.
An integral part of the map is showing Cumorah far from any possible western New York.
Had he thought of it, Eber D. Howe would have loved to include such a fictional map in Mormonism Unvailed as part of his “attempt to prove it a fiction.”
As we’ll see in my upcoming video analysis of this episode, the good intentions of the M2C proponents don’t matter one way or the other because they are imprinting an indelible and specific interpretation of the Book of Mormon on the minds of their viewers (and students) that reinforces M2C and SITH.
As a preview, here are some stills from the “neutral” video.
Source: About Central America