Many Book of Mormon Geographies

[Hagoth]

Last week I posted about Bible archaeology vs. Book of Mormon lack-of-archaeology. This got be thinking about Book of Mormon geography and why there are so many competing models. Here's a website that maps of a few of them (note the tabs along the top): http://bookofmormon.online/map/srilanka

One theory that I find particularly interesting is the Malay model, because it seems to fit the Book of Mormon story better than anyplace in the Americas, if you farm the data effectively. Here's a series of short articles about it from Wheat and Tares:
https://wheatandtares.org/2011/10/04/th ... rt-1-of-4/
https://wheatandtares.org/2011/10/11/th ... rt-2-of-4/
https://wheatandtares.org/2011/10/18/th ... rt-3-of-4/
https://wheatandtares.org/2011/10/25/th ... rt-4-of-4/

Some of the parallels include:

...documented use of writing on metal plates,wheeled vehicles, a millennialist tradition among indigenous people, suitable flora and fauna, a town called “Lammuella,” a modern Burmese battleground known as “Kawmoora,” and—of course—the persistent legend of a prophetic brother who left his rebellious kin, taking with him a golden book containing the words of Y’wa, promising that the words from this book would someday be restored.

They even had elephants. The explanation for the Gold Plates ending up in America is that Moroni sailed here with them with a stop-over in... are you ready for this?... Comoros, where he was so well received that a city was named after him.

The problems, of course, is that modern prophets from Joseph Smith to Gordon B. Hinkley have insisted that the BoM is about the United States of Merkuh, and God repeatedly reminds us in the D&C that the American Indians are Lamanites.

Any thoughts?

[moksha]

Hagoth, that is really interesting. Was the Laurasia and Gondwana model left off for questionable timeline reasons? That particular model would put Missouri in a more favorable biblical position.

[ulmite]

Very interesting, I had never heard about this before.
Obviously Moroni took the plates to NY as an angel, the same way he took them out of NY. Or else the 3 Nephites.
Volcanism is actually about as plausible as it is in the Americas, given the time limit.
I think that taking the Malay geography model and coping with how much the LDS Church stresses the America version put it about on the same level as believing that JS didn't get the revelation to do polygamy and coping with angels with swords and a long century of practicing and justifying it, and another century (and counting) of justifying.

[Hagoth]

Obviously Moroni took the plates to NY as an angel, the same way he took them out of NY. Or else the 3 Nephites.

That is actually given serious consideration in this model as well.

Of course, what all of this demonstrates in flashing red neon is how little solid evidence there is for the Book of Mormon. I could just as well propose that it happened right here in Utah and come up with as many parallels. I think we can safely rule out Antarctica and the Moon (unless those Quakers are actually Lamanites).

I like Moksha's suggestion. If we're going to reinvent the entire story to try to make it fit into some real time and place we might just as well say the science behind our dating techniques has been modified by God to test our faith, and Cureloms and Cumons are really brachiosaurs and triceratops (aka the Bedrock Geographic Model).

[Brent]

The geography doesn't fit anywhere unless you close your eyes in prayer...The hard twisting of "facts" supporting the BoM either shows great imagination or flailing desperation; depends on the author.

[Corsair]

We all know that there is no official LDS position on the location of Book of Mormon people. I am confident that the LDS church would pounce upon firm evidence, but none has appeared. My seminary teacher asserted that the face of all the land was changed in the devastation during Christ's crucifixion. So it's apparently no surprise that we can't find anything. The Book of Mormon cities we know best come from writings before Christ was born so they were wiped out when he died.

[deacon blues]

For those who believe Joseph wrote the BOM: do you believe the reference to "the face of the land was changed" was a premeditated explanation by Joseph to account for discrepancies between BOM geography and modern geography? Was Joseph that smart?

[RubinHighlander]

For those who believe Joseph wrote the BOM: do you believe the reference to "the face of the land was changed" was a premeditated explanation by Joseph to account for discrepancies between BOM geography and modern geography? Was Joseph that smart?

I used to try an equate recent geologic events to the descriptions found in the BOM. Problem is, once I started learning more about geology, no big events line up to the BOM timeline and there were certainly not enough to meet the description of big earthquakes and volcanoes, etc. For example, the great flood of Lake Bonneville was about 15k years ago and affected Utah, Idaho and Oregon. As far as earthquakes, well, big ones trigger off every 200-1000 years along the various fault lines from Alaska down through central America, but there's not evidence they all slipped at once a grand scale to sink big Nephite cities into the ocean or swallow them up. Same problem for volcanic eruptions. Pile on top of all this lack of geologic evidence the anthropological evidence of people all over the two continents being here 12k years ago and now you are way outside the bible timeline. This is all really moot for me now, to me the BOM is complete BS, just a few of the mental gymnastics I used to struggled with as a TBM.

[2bizE]

There were definitely several models I have never heard of. I lean more toward the Narnia or he Land of Oz models.

[moksha]

The Great Lakes region model does have all those similar place names going for it, plus the known Hill Cumorah is found in that model. Still, it is hard to find an area that fits all known data. Of course, if you place all of that together on an alternate earth connected to the New York Hill Cumorah cave via some type of dimensional portal you could have yet another model.

[Hagoth]

For those who believe Joseph wrote the BOM: do you believe the reference to "the face of the land was changed" was a premeditated explanation by Joseph to account for discrepancies between BOM geography and modern geography? Was Joseph that smart?

The apologetic response to this that I have read (Sorenson?) is that the face of the land was changed in a way that would only be noticeable to someone who knew it like the back of their hand. Small rocks were broken, paving stones were jumbled, walking trails were disrupted, etc. In other words, the standard goalpost transportation rhetoric.

I used to try an equate recent geologic events to the descriptions found in the BOM. Problem is, once I started learning more about geology, no big events line up to the BOM timeline and there were certainly not enough to meet the description of big earthquakes and volcanoes, etc. For example, the great flood of Lake Bonneville was about 15k years ago and affected Utah, Idaho and Oregon. As far as earthquakes, well, big ones trigger off every 200-1000 years along the various fault lines from Alaska down through central America, but there's not evidence they all slipped at once a grand scale to sink big Nephite cities into the ocean or swallow them up. Same problem for volcanic eruptions. Pile on top of all this lack of geologic evidence the anthropological evidence of people all over the two continents being here 12k years ago and now you are way outside the bible timeline. This is all really moot for me now, to me the BOM is complete BS, just a few of the mental gymnastics I used to struggled with as a TBM.

Various apologists have pointed to the volcanic activity at Ceren, in El Salvador and underwater ruins and artifacts in Lake Atitlan, Guatemala as evidences of Jesus' wrath. These sound enticingly confirmational at first, but only because the whole story is never given.

The Ceren eruption was a small rift in the ground that affected only one tiny village. The people had time to flee but the pet duck (and only domesticate) died because they forgot to untie its leash. Also, this happened 600 years too late to be blamed on Jesus.

There was a sacred site on an island in Lake Atitlan that was inundated by the gradual rise of lake waters around 250 years after the BoM cataclysm. Other artifacts found in the lake have been attributed to the Spaniards dumping them there because they considered them pagan. So the sum total of evidence for all of the cities that were swallowed up by the sea is pretty lame.

[RubinHighlander]

Another one I could never wrap my brain around was the day the sun went down but it was still bright all night, then the three days of darkness. From my youth it never made sense those events happened for the Nephites on one side of the globe but not for the Israelis and Romans on the other side. I used to try to solve it: Did the Earth stopped spinning for 24 hours? But then somebody will be in the light or dark for those hours, yet it only happened on one side of the globe? Maybe it was a super nova that burned super bright for the Nephites for a few hours, then dimmed down to a new star for the shepherds and three wise men? Maybe the Earth was flat back then? I suppose the three days of darkness can be attributed to the smoke and mist of the mass destruction that never happened, except for one small village living by the volcano that never erupted at that time.

The events are presented as literal; they were taught to me as literal. Backing them off to parables and metaphors now is just an attempt to cover up the pile of crap with decaying leaves from the sacred grove.

[Thoughtful]

Another one I could never wrap my brain around was the day the sun went down but it was still bright all night, then the three days of darkness. From my youth it never made sense those events happened for the Nephites on one side of the globe but not for the Israelis and Romans on the other side. I used to try to solve it: Did the Earth stopped spinning for 24 hours? But then somebody will be in the light or dark for those hours, yet it only happened on one side of the globe? Maybe it was a super nova that burned super bright for the Nephites for a few hours, then dimmed down to a new star for the shepherds and three wise men? Maybe the Earth was flat back then? I suppose the three days of darkness can be attributed to the smoke and mist of the mass destruction that never happened, except for one small village living by the volcano that never erupted at that time.

The events are presented as literal; they were taught to me as literal. Backing them off to parables and metaphors now is just an attempt to cover up the pile of crap with decaying leaves from the sacred grove.

Funny coincidence. Day before yesterday my 6yo was telling me about what would happen if the earth stopped spinning. She concluded that either we would all fly off, OR a huge hurricane would happen and basically demolish everything and everyone.

So I'm not a physicist, but even a 6yo can figure out that the earth can't just stop and hang out for a few days....

[Hagoth]

Anything is possible, 'cause Jesus.

[Corsair]

Anything is possible, 'cause Jesus.

Your satire has more than a bit of truth. The essence of most apologetics is that there are possible explanations which are plausibly true. It's a polite spin on an argument from ignorance when claims end with "God did it". For example, we don't know how "Joseph interpreted the papyrus", or "when exactly the Melchizedek priesthood was restored", or "the reasons for plural marriage". But apologists have a firm testimony of their beliefs and this conclusion informs all the explanations they can produce.

[FiveFingerMnemonic]

Zelph!!! Enough said, right Meldrum?

[Phil Lurkerman]

I've always found the Malay hypothesis fascinating and I'm impressed with the effort Dr. Olsen expended in working through the details. The problem with such alternative geographies though, is that to accept their premise, you have to be willing to view the LDS church - both early and modern - as highly error prone and pretty much all of its leadership incorrect in their beliefs about the Book of Mormon's meaning as it relates to the place of the USA in the divine plan. You also have to believe that God would go to all of the trouble of getting the Book of Mormon translated and published and then allow the organization most associated with it to propagate a false narrative about its true location and provenance - which has caused many to doubt its truthfulness. Either a trickster God or a very apathetic one - take your pick.

For myself, I've come to believe that the most likely location for the Book of Mormon events was the amazingly creative mind of Joseph Smith Jr. In my view, the evidence best supports an imagined entire western hemisphere designed to incorporate and resolve many of the religious, political, and historical disputes of the early 19th century burned-over district of NY and surrounding. I think you really have to want the book to be true in order to locate it anywhere on this planet.

[Hagoth]

I've always found the Malay hypothesis fascinating and I'm impressed with the effort Dr. Olsen expended in working through the details. The problem with such alternative geographies though, is that to accept their premise, you have to be willing to view the LDS church - both early and modern - as highly error prone and pretty much all of its leadership incorrect in their beliefs about the Book of Mormon's meaning as it relates to the place of the USA in the divine plan. You also have to believe that God would go to all of the trouble of getting the Book of Mormon translated and published and then allow the organization most associated with it to propagate a false narrative about its true location and provenance - which has caused many to doubt its truthfulness. Either a trickster God or a very apathetic one - take your pick.

For myself, I've come to believe that the most likely location for the Book of Mormon events was the amazingly creative mind of Joseph Smith Jr. In my view, the evidence best supports an imagined entire western hemisphere designed to incorporate and resolve many of the religious, political, and historical disputes of the early 19th century burned-over district of NY and surrounding. I think you really have to want the book to be true in order to locate it anywhere on this planet.

I totally agree. The people who appear to most desperately want the book to be literally true are also the same people who have no problem discounting what it actually says about itself and what their prophets have said about it. I am boggled by their simultaneous adoration for and disrespect of the text.

The geography is very simple:
Land Northward: North America
Narrow Neck of Land: Panama
Land Southward: South America
Land of many waters: Great Lakes, Finger Lakes
Treeless place where they built with cement: Northern Mexico/American Southwest, adobe pueblos

The realization that the author truncated travel distances for the benefit of the story (or just didn't take the time to measure them and calculate travel times) has caused all of this unnecessary ruckus by people who insist on taking the book more literally than the guy who wrote it. Otherwise there would be no need to pretend that west is really north, that narrowness isn't a requisite of a narrow neck, that the whole thing happened on another continent, or any of the other fantastic machinations that continue to materialize.

And on top of all of that, geographic concerns barely scratch the surface of Book of Mormon problems.

[moksha]

... all of this unnecessary ruckus by people who insist on taking the book more literally than the guy who wrote it.

Maybe so, but it still would have been nice if the book had come with a map having as much detail as that one for Middle Earth. Of course, if they used the same map, generations of LDS seminary students would have been quizzed on which lake was directly north of The Shire and which bay the Anduin River emptied into.

[Vlad the Emailer]

The people who appear to most desperately want the book to be literally true are also the same people who have no problem discounting what it actually says about itself and what their prophets have said about it. I am boggled by their simultaneous adoration for and disrespect of the text.

Precisely.

That's why I have such a difficult time comprehending and forgiving TBM's whether they be professional apologists or my own DW. I, too, cannot fathom people so psychologically invested that they will create and/or accept any possible explanation or rationalization, even if it directly contradicts other related ones they've also so enthusiastically created and/or accepted.

It is wholly unnecessary to speculate on the people or places of the BoM. It's author and the book itself made that more than clear (western hemisphere), as have prophet's, seers, and revelators right up to and including the likes of Jeff Holland.

They scramble from one deception/absurd rationalization to another yet somehow if you don't buy into all the contradictions and absolute nonsense then you are the problem?!!?