Where did the Book of Mormon Take Place?

[Analytics]

In my "Impressive Evidence" thread, the model treated one of my pieces of pro evidence differently than I intended. The evidence in question was phrased thusly:

Limited geography models — Internal consistency when the text is mapped to a constrained region (e.g. Narrow Neck of Land, Siden)

My intention was that this was referring specifically to John Sorenson's Mesoamerica theory and not merely that the geographical features described in the book are internally consistent. GPT interpreted it as mere internal consistency, not consistency with Mesoamerica.

Just to flesh this out, in the final pages of An American Setting, Sorrenson said:
 

Quote

This book has not attempted to provide a definitive map that could lead readers to the precise spot where Nephi landed or where Mormon fought. Nor did it aim to prove that the events of the Book of Mormon took place in a particular way or in specific archaeological phases.

What has been done, first of all, is to show that the Book of Mormon story could have had a concrete setting—that it is plausible to treat it as a history in a particular geographical and cultural context. The geographical setting identified meets the criteria set out unintentionally by the Book of Mormon as it tells its story. Dimensions, climate, topography, configuration of land and water, and cultural levels exhibited in scriptural statements were found to agree with characteristics of central and southern Mesoamerica. Cultural, historical, and archaeological data substantiate the geographical correlation. In the interest of space, much available data was omitted; still, the agreements have been consistent and arresting.

The comparisons have had two thrusts. First, as already indicated, agreements between the scriptural account and the external materials show that the former is plausible in terms of the latter. The Book of Mormon shows so many striking similarities to the Mesoamerican setting that it seems to me impossible for rational people willing to examine the data to maintain that the book is a mere romance or speculative history written in the third decade of the nineteenth century in New York State. If in the eyes of some this is “proof” of the authenticity of the volume, they are free to draw that conclusion. The correlations pointed out are probably not yet detailed enough to satisfy everyone on that point, but the issue is at least on new ground. (https://bmslr.org/books/An Ancient American Setting For The Book Of Mormon.pdf page 354-355)

 

In a later essay, he made the point more sharply: "In addition to writing, other social and cultural conditions required by the scriptural text to be present in the Nephite homeland area confirm Mesoamerica as the only plausible location of Book of Mormon lands." (https://scripturecentral.org/archive/periodicals/journal-article/dna)

Should Sorenson's Mesoamerican arguments in An American Setting be included in my analysis, or is this now a theory that has seen its time go by? This one is important and I think consequential, and I don't want to misrepresent what believers believe about the alleged basket of "impressive evidence" I am evaluating. 

 

Edited April 21 by Analytics

[Pyreaux]

Mesoamerica theory has more going for it with the temples, writings and iron work that Heartland doesn't have. Sorenson rejects Heartland specifically. I don't think Sorenson considers many other 300-mile possible geographical areas because of the wealth of parallel evidence in Mesoamerica.

[theplains]

The Book of Mormon describes a distant land reached by sea and treated as a promised land, but it 
never directly identifies that land as the Western Hemisphere. The connection to the Americas comes 
from interpretation rather than a clear, unambiguous statement in the scripture itself.

[Pyreaux]

2 minutes ago, theplains said:

The Book of Mormon describes a distant land reached by sea and treated as a promised land, but it 
never directly identifies that land as the Western Hemisphere. The connection to the Americas comes 
from interpretation rather than a clear, unambiguous statement in the scripture itself.

A very astute observation. Many used to assume the Hill Cumorah is in New York, but in reading the scripture it can't be, and now we have a better candidate in Mesoamerica than Heartland. I don't think Sorenson considered places like India or Ethiopia when making his statement.

[theplains]

11 minutes ago, Pyreaux said:

A very astute observation. Many used to assume the Hill Cumorah is in New York, but in reading the scripture it can't be, and now we have a better candidate in Mesoamerica than Heartland. I don't think Sorenson considered places like India or Ethiopia when making his statement.

The church taught two great battles took place on the same hill, better known as the hill Cumorah.
See the 1928 General Conference.

Edited April 21 by theplains

[Stormin' Mormon]

Brant Gardner, in his book "Traditions of the Fathers," argues that for a geographic correlation to be compelling, it must be productive.  In other words, the correlation feeds back into the text expanding our understanding of it and explaining some other oddities.  

One example he highlights is the Lamanite attack on Ammonihah. In the text, this is the only Lamanite attack (or one of the only) that does not put the subject city under tribute.  Instead, it's a lightning raid that carries off captives.  It's an oddity in the text.  But place that story in a Mesoamerican context, and that context expands our understanding of what happened.  The Lamanites have a new king.  A coronation ceremony requires human sacrifices taken in battle.  The Anti-Nephi-Lehis aren't fighting back and so aren't suitable for this purpose.  Thus, the raid on Ammonihah, the emphasis on captives, and the lack of an actual conquest of the city. 

I subscribe to the Sorenson model, but not just because the book fits inside that cultural region, but because the cultural region fits inside the book.  

[Pyreaux]

7 hours ago, theplains said:

The church taught two great battles took place on the same hill, better known as the hill Cumorah.
See the 1928 General Conference.

Link didn't work for me. I trust you, but by "taught" you mean someone at General Conference thought so and took it upon themselves to broadcast their thoughts, which are generally distinguished from being the unanimous voice of the Twelve. Just as Christians might commonly say the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers are the same rivers in Genesis, but if you've read the book carefully, you know it can't be.

Edited April 22 by Pyreaux

[InCognitus]

21 minutes ago, theplains said:

The Book of Mormon describes a distant land reached by sea and treated as a promised land, but it 
never directly identifies that land as the Western Hemisphere. The connection to the Americas comes 
from interpretation rather than a clear, unambiguous statement in the scripture itself.

The connection to the Western Hemisphere comes directly from revelation to Joseph Smith as given to him by the angel of God.  From Joseph Smith's Wentworth Letter (published in the March 1, 1842 edition of Times and Seasons), writing about the first visit he had from the angel of God on September 21st, 1823:

"On the evening on the 21st of September, A.D. 1823, while I was praying unto God, and endeavoring to exercise faith in the precious promises of scripture on a sudden a light like that of day, only of a far purer and more glorious appearance and brightness burst into the room, indeed the first sight was as though the house was filled with consuming fire; the appearance produced a shock that affected the whole body; in a moment a personage stood before me surrounded with a glory yet greater than that with which I was already surrounded. This messenger proclaimed himself to be an angel of God, sent to bring the joyful tidings, that the covenant which God made with ancient Israel was at hand to be fulfilled...

"I was also informed concerning the aboriginal inhabitants of this country, and shown who they were, and from whence they came; a brief sketch of their origin, progress, civilization, laws, governments, of their righteousness and iniquity, and the blessings of God being finally withdrawn from them as a people, was made known unto me; I was also told where were deposited some plates on which were engraven an abridgment of the records of the ancient prophets that had existed on this continent. The angel appeared to me three times the same night and unfolded the same things. After having received many visits from the angels of God unfolding the majesty, and glory of the events that should transpire in the last days, on the morning of the 22d of September, A.D. 1827, the angel of the Lord delivered the records into my hands."

[InCognitus]

28 minutes ago, theplains said:

The church taught two great battles took place on the same hill, better known as the hill Cumorah.
See the 1928 General Conference.

See Brant Gardner's response to you posting this same thing (under the user name telnetd) on September 1, 2013, located here.

[The Nehor]

25 minutes ago, Stormin' Mormon said:

Brant Gardner, in his book "Traditions of the Fathers," argues that for a geographic correlation to be compelling, it must be productive.  In other words, the correlation feeds back into the text expanding our understanding of it and explaining some other oddities.  

One example he highlights is the Lamanite attack on Ammonihah. In the text, this is the only Lamanite attack (or one of the only) that does not put the subject city under tribute.  Instead, it's a lightning raid that carries off captives.  It's an oddity in the text.  But place that story in a Mesoamerican context, and that context expands our understanding of what happened.  The Lamanites have a new king.  A coronation ceremony requires human sacrifices taken in battle.  The Anti-Nephi-Lehis aren't fighting back and so aren't suitable for this purpose.  Thus, the raid on Ammonihah, the emphasis on captives, and the lack of an actual conquest of the city. 

I subscribe to the Sorenson model, but not just because the book fits inside that cultural region, but because the cultural region fits inside the book.  

I think it is more likely that attack would have been a slave raid. While some Mesomaerican coronation ceremonies involved human sacrifice of captives all those we know of that followed this practice are after the Book of Mormon would have taken place. It is possible that coronation ceremony goes back further but there are a number of diatribes about the wickedness of the Lamanites and none of them mention human sacrifice until the time of Mormon. I would think that would be a common polemic if it were going on.

[webbles]

2 hours ago, Analytics said:

In my "Impressive Evidence" thread, the model treated one of my pieces of pro evidence differently than I intended. The evidence in question was phrased thusly:

Limited geography models — Internal consistency when the text is mapped to a constrained region (e.g. Narrow Neck of Land, Siden)

My intention was that this was referring specifically to John Sorenson's Mesoamerica theory and not merely that the geographical features described in the book are internally consistent. GPT interpreted it as mere internal consistency, not consistency with Mesoamerica.

I think maybe doing it for both aspects is a good idea.  Since the AI work is discussing what is in the text itself, talking about the internal consistencies in the text without trying to fit it to a specific location is, in my mind, a valid aspect in the discussion.  Then include another point where the apologist says that it fits in mesoamerica using Sorenson's and Grant's model.

[longview]

Although I lean toward Sorensen's view, I did not vote for any. I remain concerned about explanations of the "directions" problem. I feel that there were severe cataclysms at the time of the Crucifixion that changed the landscape and caused much of the shorelines to greatly shift and bodies of water to appear and disappear.

I wonder if the prophet Mormon was aware of the changes. If only we could recover the lost 116 page manuscript (it might provide a lot of clarifications such as pinpointing where Nephi's boat landed). I remember years ago of reading a column that natives told visiting archaeologists that MANY more structures remain buried under the dense cover of jungle. I am hoping for records to be unearthed in a few of those places. 

Edited April 21 by longview

[Analytics]

53 minutes ago, webbles said:

I think maybe doing it for both aspects is a good idea.  Since the AI work is discussing what is in the text itself, talking about the internal consistencies in the text without trying to fit it to a specific location is, in my mind, a valid aspect in the discussion.  Then include another point where the apologist says that it fits in mesoamerica using Sorenson's and Grant's model.

Yes, internal consistencies can serve as evidence on some level, but lots of fictional books are internally consistent. Because of that, internal consistency isn't very strong evidence. If we go beyond that and say that it is an uncanny fit for a very specific geography that a 19th century author couldn't know about, then that is much stronger evidence, but it also carries more risk--if we accept the alleged fits in Mesoamerica as evidence, then other alleged pieces of evidence would need to be viewed from that paradigm. For example, if we say, "Wow! The fit is really strong in Mesoamerica--that is the only plausible candidate!" Then it isn't necessarily strong evidence of antiquity if people in 11th Century India wrote on metal plates--the pertinent question is whether people in 5th-century Mesoamerica did.

The contribution I'm trying to make by going through this is to put the focus on internal consistency with these arguments. If we argue the distance between cities is a great evidence that it took place in the real world (Mesoamerica) and metal plates is it took place in the real world (11th century India) and Chiasmus in Alma 36 is a great example of a Hebraism (ancient near east), and it was written in a mix of phrases that Joseph Smith allegedly was incapable of saying because they were early modern english, and other phrases that an early modern english speaker was incapable of saying because they hadn't been invented yet, then we aren't talking about a real-world hypothesis that can be tested and falsified. We are picking and choosing individual parallels where we find them, even if they contradict each other when looked at as a package. 

It reminds me of what Kent P. Jackson said in BYU studies about Hugh Nibley:

Quote

There are serious problems involved in this kind of methodology. The various religious communities from whose documents Nibley draws his material had mutually exclusive beliefs in many areas. By removing their ideas from their own context (thus rendering them invalid) and joining them with ideas from other communities—similarly removed from their own context—Nibley creates an artificial synthesis that never in reality existed. The result would be unacceptable and no doubt unrecognizable to any of the original groups. Generalization is the key ingredient. Such phrases as “the ancient world is now all one” (13), “ancient civilization was . . .” (43), and “according to the ancients” (131) presuppose a common worldview for all the disparate cultures of the ancient world. But this idea is as unhelpful as “according to modern man” would be to postulate a common ideology for Ottoman bureaucrats, Bolshevik revolutionaries, Nazi fascists, Afghan peasant women, and Manhattan Yuppies. In spite of influences such as Hellenism, the Roman Empire, and Christianity, the ancient world was as diverse as our own, if not more so—a fact that is generally ignored in this book. 

 

Edited April 21 by Analytics

[webbles]

2 hours ago, Analytics said:

Yes, internal consistencies can serve as evidence on some level, but lots of fictional books are internally consistent. Because of that, internal consistency isn't very strong evidence. If we go beyond that and say that it is an uncanny fit for a very specific geography that a 19th century author couldn't know about, then that is much stronger evidence, but it also carries more risk--if we accept the alleged fits in Mesoamerica as evidence, then other alleged pieces of evidence would need to be viewed from that paradigm. For example, if we say, "Wow! The fit is really strong in Mesoamerica--that is the only plausible candidate!" Then it isn't necessarily strong evidence of antiquity if people in 11th Century India wrote on metal plates--the pertinent question is whether people in 5th-century Mesoamerica did.

The contribution I'm trying to make by going through this is to put the focus on internal consistency with these arguments. If we argue the distance between cities is a great evidence that it took place in the real world (Mesoamerica) and metal plates is it took place in the real world (11th century India) and Chiasmus in Alma 36 is a great example of a Hebraism (ancient near east), and it was written in a mix of phrases that Joseph Smith allegedly was incapable of saying because they were early modern english, and other phrases that an early modern english speaker was incapable of saying because they hadn't been invented yet, then we aren't talking about a real-world hypothesis that can be tested and falsified. We are picking and choosing individual parallels where we find them, even if they contradict each other when looked at as a package. 

It reminds me of what Kent P. Jackson said in BYU studies about Hugh Nibley:

 

Sure lots of fictional books are internally consistent, but this is kind of like the parallel issue you brought up at the end.  Joseph orally dictated this book in a few months.  How many fictional books were written like the Book of Mormon (no notes, a few months, only one draft) have the same level of internally consistency.  Just because lots of fictional books are internally consistent doesn't say that Book of Mormon is fictional.  Just like saying 11th century Indians wrote on metal plates doesn't say that Mesoamerican's wrote on metal plates.

I think your ledger will mostly average out the strengths/weaknesses of both of the ideas (internally consistent in just the text and relationship with real world locations).  So I don't see a problem with doing both of them.

[Zosimus]

14 hours ago, Analytics said:

then we aren't talking about a real-world hypothesis that can be tested and falsified. We are picking and choosing individual parallels where we find them, even if they contradict each other when looked at as a package. 

What could help is a single LGM as a null hypothesis, or a wrong model, to test whether Sorenson is correct in saying "Mesoamerica is the only plausible location of Book of Mormon lands." A geographic correlation needs to demonstrate not just that the text fits a proposed location, but that it fits that location better than it fits a control location we know is wrong. If the null model passes the test, the test isn't working.

If a randomly chosen geography that has nothing to do with the Book of Mormon also has evidence for the Book of Mormon in it, then we can be pretty sure that the methodology of identifying Book of Mormon geographies is broken.I don't think anyone has ever ran that control against the methodologies 

Since Analytics and Pyreaux have both mentioned India in this thread, why not test it as the null model?

16 hours ago, Stormin' Mormon said:

Brant Gardner, in his book "Traditions of the Fathers," argues that for a geographic correlation to be compelling, it must be productive.  In other words, the correlation feeds back into the text expanding our understanding of it and explaining some other oddities.  

That the right model feeds back into the text and explains oddities is interesting but could an explanation be produced for any setting if we looked hard enough? Mesoamerican coronation sacrifice explains the Ammonihah raid, ok, but what would a null test find if we looked just as hard at the same passage in the wrong place? For example, you use the example of the Anti-Nephi-Lehis not fighting back. Well that sounds kinda like the Sabbath Massacre which was known in 1820s America through 1 Maccabees 2:29-38. It also sounds a lot like the tradition of nonviolence (ahimsa) practised in India since the Mahabharata. I don't know of any examples of tribes making a moral decision to be nonviolent in Mesoamerica. So the wrong place could explain an oddity better than the right place, if you pick and choose which oddities you care about

Edited April 22 by Zosimus

[The Nehor]

22 hours ago, longview said:

Although I lean toward Sorensen's view, I did not vote for any. I remain concerned about explanations of the "directions" problem. I feel that there were severe cataclysms at the time of the Crucifixion that changed the landscape and caused much of the shorelines to greatly shift and bodies of water to appear and disappear.

I wonder if the prophet Mormon was aware of the changes. If only we could recover the lost 116 page manuscript (it might provide a lot of clarifications such as pinpointing where Nephi's boat landed). I remember years ago of reading a column that natives told visiting archaeologists that MANY more structures remain buried under the dense cover of jungle. I am hoping for records to be unearthed in a few of those places. 

I wouldn’t hold out much hope for an exact location to be identified in some text. Also the ancient world had very few maps. Distances were known primarily by how many days travel it is from A to B. An overhead view of the world was rarely considered or visualized.

[Kevin Christensen]

On 4/21/2026 at 4:41 PM, Analytics said:

Yes, internal consistencies can serve as evidence on some level, but lots of fictional books are internally consistent. Because of that, internal consistency isn't very strong evidence. If we go beyond that and say that it is an uncanny fit for a very specific geography that a 19th century author couldn't know about, then that is much stronger evidence, but it also carries more risk--if we accept the alleged fits in Mesoamerica as evidence, then other alleged pieces of evidence would need to be viewed from that paradigm. For example, if we say, "Wow! The fit is really strong in Mesoamerica--that is the only plausible candidate!" Then it isn't necessarily strong evidence of antiquity if people in 11th Century India wrote on metal plates--the pertinent question is whether people in 5th-century Mesoamerica did.

The contribution I'm trying to make by going through this is to put the focus on internal consistency with these arguments. If we argue the distance between cities is a great evidence that it took place in the real world (Mesoamerica) and metal plates is it took place in the real world (11th century India) and Chiasmus in Alma 36 is a great example of a Hebraism (ancient near east), and it was written in a mix of phrases that Joseph Smith allegedly was incapable of saying because they were early modern english, and other phrases that an early modern english speaker was incapable of saying because they hadn't been invented yet, then we aren't talking about a real-world hypothesis that can be tested and falsified. We are picking and choosing individual parallels where we find them, even if they contradict each other when looked at as a package. 

It reminds me of what Kent P. Jackson said in BYU studies about Hugh Nibley:

 

Nibley put out a formal discussion of his methodology in a series of essays called "New Approaches to Book of Mormon Study" in the Improvement Era in 1953, and reprinted in The Prophetic Book of Mormon in 1989.  I still find it relevant and persuasive.  He discusses internal evidence, external evidence, and circumstantial evidence.   And as far as Nibley's viewpoint as a scholar goes, he wrote back in the Improvement Era series on Abraham that he takes a big picture approach, rather than that of a narrow specialist.   He reports that he knew many famous scholars who deliberately refused to read outside of their specialties because that might affect the pictures constructed via their specialized readings.  The notable thing about Nibley's genius is that he read and synthesized from such wide reading and across many different languages, cultures, times, topics, and places.  He simply did not believe specialization led to the best overall understanding.  At the SBL Meeting in Denver, during the Q&A after he read his essay in The Book of Enoch as a Theodicy,"  Jesuit scholar George McCrae put his hands over his face and said, "It is obscene for one man to know that much."  It's worth reading Shirley Rick's account of her collaborative work with tracking down footnotes for the Collected Works.   Those tracking down footnotes reporting finding Nibley's shorthand marginalia all over the complete Greek and Latin Patrologia, which leaves Hebrew, Babylonian, Egyptian, German, Russian, Spanish, English, French, and others out of the picture.  

Regarding Jackson's BYU Studies review of the first Nibley volume in the Collected Works, Old Testament and Related Studies, it was not Jackson's mature careful, considered response to the overall 19 volumes of the collected works, but just one response to one book by a young professor.  It is a book I read carefully, found mind expanding and transformative on many topics, and happen to love.  Jackson wrote a book on Genesis that I bought, which did not survive my book reduction after retiring and moving to Tooele.  That one, unlike Nibley's was safe, staid and conventional. Louis Midgely responded to Jackson's review in the bibliography in By Study and By Faith, vol. 1.  Among other things, Midgley shows that in that review, the now retired, then young "Jackson accepts the myth of the neutral observer somehow allowing 'the evidence to speak its truth, without theory, presuppositions, or bias getting in the way."  (Midgley, lxxii).  Trial by ideology is not the same thing as conscious paradigm testing.  A "Not us!" dismissal is not the same thing as a "Why us?" inquiry.  Incidentally, Jackson later contributed an essay to that volume on By Study and By Faith to honor Nibley, basically putting all passages in the New Testament speaking of an apostacy in chronological order, to powerful effect.  And Jackson later wrote a devastating response to Martha Nibley's book, in the FARMS Review of Books, in which the fact that he had written an essay for BYU Studies critical of her father's scholarship, was itself, disproof of several of her claims.   

https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/msr/vol17/iss1/6/

And much more recently the mature Professor Jackson wrote two powerful essays for Interpreter, that are absolutely devastating for the now common claims that Joseph Smith borrowed from Adam Clark's Bible commentaries.

https://interpreterfoundation.org/journal/author/kentj

As far as paradigm testing goes, all paradigm debates involve deciding "Which paradigm is better?" and "Which problems are more significant to have solved?"  It is important to have some self-awareness of how one's ideology affects those choices, and to deliberately consider values are not completely paradigm dependent.  That is, puzzle generation and testability, accuracy of key predictions, comprehensiveness and coherence, simplicity and aesthetics, fruitfulness, and future promise.  On that, see Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. 

As as far as "puzzle definition and solution" goes for Book of Mormon New World geography, I remain very impressed by Larry Poulson, who noted that the Book of Mormon contains many more passages describing the Sidon than it has for the narrow Neck.  When he put all the passages together, and used 3D Geographic Model of the Western hemisphere, to search for candidate rivers that match the textual description, he found exactly one river that fit.  The Grijalva.  He shows that many specific Book of Mormon stories come to life in specific settings.  And he showed that Mesoamerican concepts of directions were based on Quadrants, rather than vectors, and that that particular detail, improves the case for Mesoamerican setting.   Plus there are things like Matt Roper's recent extension of John Clark's work on the clear tendency to resolution of issues over time, Stubbs on language influence from Hebrew, Phoenician and Egyptian, Jerry Grover on geology, including a specific volcanic eruption in the right time and place, etc.  The overall case I see now is many magnitudes better than it was when I was young.  That is, fruitful and promising. And I have yet to read any skeptical approach to the Book of Mormon that fully and persuasively engages the range of growing evidence I see. The one serious attempt to read the apologetic literature was by John Charles Duffy in Sunstone, and it turned out that rather than engage that evidence, he appealed to two specific metaphors to dismiss it all.  (See my "Notice and Value" essay in the Midgley Festschrift for details.)  I have found that I learn far more about the skeptical case from informed believers than I do of the believer's case from skeptics. So, I weigh puzzle solving and testability, accuracy of key predictions, comprehensiveness and coherence, fruitfulness, simplicity and aesthetics, and future promise, and for me it all adds up to "cause to believe" that I find very impressive.  Not absolute proof, of course.  (I regularly see those who complain that "How can I have faith in the absence of absolute coercive proof, endorsed by secular authorities and religious skeptics alike?")  And I have tried out and reviewed in detail a wide range of other approaches, fraud, fiction, conspiracy, and other geographies, such as the Heartlanders, Baja, Malay Peninsula, Florida, Delaware peninsula, etc, which by Kuhn's measures, offer very little "cause to believe" for me in comparison.

FWIW,

Kevin Christensen

Tooele, UT

Edited April 24 by Kevin Christensen

[Zosimus]

4 hours ago, Kevin Christensen said:

Plus there are things like Matt Roper's recent extension of John Clark's work on the clear tendency to resolution of issues over time

Expanding the field to include evidence outside Mesoamerica is not the same as solving puzzles, or resolving issues over time:

"Importantly, this study does not attempt to correct or contend with the geographic or demographic assumptions held by those who have proposed anachronisms. Rather, it aims to simply identify, categorize, and assess allegations on their own terms, based on whatever stated or implicit assumptions the authors bring to the table. Given the imprecision and variability of the claims involved, this requires the investigation of a broad swath of literature and scientific data. That is, when an alleged anachronism assumes a hemispheric model for the Book of Mormon’s geography, evidence from the entire Western hemisphere is considered as relevant and valid for assessing the claim." - Anachronisms: Accidental Evidence in Book of Mormon Criticisms

Well sure, if we consider all the models, then all our issues can be resolved over time.

This is what Analytics is pointing out. You can't draw a target around Mesoamerica to solve the River Sidon problem, and then draw one around the Arctic Circle to solve the mammoth elephant problem, and then one around India to solve the metal plate inscription problem and then one around Argentina to solve the pre-Columbian horse problem. Wouldn't Kuhn say that forever expanding the constraints of your paradigm to solve puzzles is a sign that your paradigm isn't working?

Every piece of Old World evidence used to support the Meso paradigm is a problem, and Roper's scorecard is full of them. Every loan shift is damage and Roper's scorecard is full of them.

It starts to feel like this approach to solving puzzles

[rodheadlee]

Larry Poulsen had some great maps of his Meso America theory. His stuff was based totally on geography. Somewhere on an old laptop I have a copies of that stuff. It pretty much lined up with John Sorenson's theories. 

I only had high school level history and  geography and I actually did not graduate in 1972 when I was supposed to but in 1982 when I got baptized I always thought the book took place in Central America and southern Mexico. To me the Olmecs and the Mayans were the BoM people. With it being no coincidence how El Salvador got its name. 

I just wanted to add that I did not get a computer and internet to study these things until 1999. 

Edited April 23 by rodheadlee

[the narrator]

Other: Joseph's paracosm

[Zosimus]

12 hours ago, the narrator said:

Joseph's paracosm

We have accounts of Joseph reading Arabian Nights. Philetus B. Spear recalled that Joseph had a few novels including a “copy of the Arabian Nights". William Purple claimed Joseph and the treasure diggers "drew all their philosophy from the Arabian nights and other kindred literature of that period", around the same time his mother has him reciting stories of the ancient inhabitants of America. Joseph was also surely interested at that time in the source from whence those moundbuilders sprang. More on this below...

What if Joseph had built (or extended) his paracosm from the geography of Arabian Nights? 

I'm thinking it was the Edward Forster's translation, 4th edition, London 1815 that Joseph had access to. I believe the Arabian Nights listed in the Social Friends' Library at Dartmouth College was this same edition, which was re-published widely in America:

• Philadelphia, Mathew Carey and successor firms (Carey & Hart, etc.), multiple impressions 1794–1820s.
• Boston, various firms, at least two reprints in the 1800s–1810s.
• New York, Evert Duyckinck / G. & R. Waite, Forster-derived 4-vol. sets in the 1810s.
• Worcester, MA, Isaiah Thomas produced a two-volume printing in 1794 that stayed in circulation.

"We set sail, and steered towards the East Indies [by way] of the Persian gulf, which is formed by the coast of Arabia Felix on the right, and by that of Persia on the left, and is commonly supposed to be seventy leagues in breadth in the widest part; beyond this gulf, the Western Sea, or Indian Ocean, is very spacious, and is bounded by the coast of Abyssinia, extending in length four thousand five hundred leagues to the island of Vakvak."

In the notes found in Forster's translation, Vakvak are the islands beyond China.

So in the book that William Purple says had diseased Joseph's mind, the hero skirts Arabia and sails into a chain of mysterious islands, one of which was known as Comorin, where several contemporary accounts in Joseph's orbit (eg. View of the Hebrews) identify a colony of first temple Israelites (Tribe of Manasseh in some accounts) who had fled Jerusalem with records (written on brass plates in some accounts) that predated the Babylonian captivity. 

When Martin Harris took the gold plate characters to Mitchill and Anthon, they were both in the middle of building out their own moundbuilder theories about the ancient inhabitants of America, and the source from whence they sprang. They both were in agreement, that the source was the maritime networks stretching to America from South India or, as it was known in Anthon's Classical Dictionary published the year before Harris showed up at his office, Comaria:

Joseph had years to build his Lehite paracosm, from Arabian Nights all the way forward to Mitchill and Anthon giving Harris their learned dissertations on the characters and the nation, in the east, that they came from

Edited April 24 by Zosimus

[the narrator]

12 hours ago, Zosimus said:

Joseph had years to build his Lehite paracosm, from Arabian Nights all the way forward to Mitchill and Anthon giving Harris their learned dissertations on the characters and the nation, in the east, that they came from

Between her 4th and 7th grades, my (even more than me) autistic daughter and her little group of neurodiverse friends would spend every lunch recess playing a story-telling game they called "Realm." It basically involved telling stories within a fantastical land, Realm. My daughter had created an entire culture in Realm, with its own religion, myths, histories, clothing, and several dozens of names.

She's incredibly gifted and an endless force of creativity. (Her room is FILLED with drawings, puppets, costumes, and other sorts of crafted arts.) One day as we were driving together I asked her to imagine that she found an ancient history of Realm in our backyard written by an ancient Realm historian and to read it to me. She began, "The History of Realm, by So-And-So, and then without pausing proceeded to immediately just tell an improved 20 minute "reading" until we reached our destination.

Like most childhood paracosms though, hers suddenly faded when she became a teen. Thankfully, people like Tolkein, CS Lewis, and James Cameron kept their paracosms going into adulthood to bring us the various stories they tell within theirs.

[the narrator]

2 hours ago, the narrator said:

She began, "The History of Realm, by So-And-So, and then without pausing proceeded to immediately just tell an improved 20 minute "reading" until we reached our destination.

I did this a few times with her, and each time her voice would change into a story-telling mode with a different cadence and tone until she was finished.

[theplains]

On 4/21/2026 at 5:17 PM, InCognitus said:

The connection to the Western Hemisphere comes directly from revelation to Joseph Smith as given to him by the angel of God.  From Joseph Smith's Wentworth Letter (published in the March 1, 1842 edition of Times and Seasons), writing about the first visit he had from the angel of God on September 21st, 1823:

Thanks for the link.

[theplains]

On 4/21/2026 at 5:21 PM, InCognitus said:

See Brant Gardner's response to you posting this same thing (under the user name telnetd) on September 1, 2013, located here.

Thanks for providing Brant's reply to telnetd way back on September 1, 2013. I checked all the 6 
pages in the thread and didn't see a follow-up reply from her to him.   @Brant Gardner @telnetd

Let me add my comments.

Brant said, "Actually, President Ivins was pretty restrained in how he spoke of the New York hill".

I don't get a sense of First Presidency member Ivins being restrained in his comments. From the 
1928 General conference, here's more of what he said:

"So far as we have information this was the final disposition which was made of the records given 
into the custody of Mormon, from the plates of. Nephi. This latter, with the addition of the Book 
of Ether, and the few chapters written by Moroni, constitute the record contained in the Book of 
Mormon.

All of the remaining records, Mormon tells us, were deposited in the Hill Cumorah.

That the Hill Cumorah and the Hill Ramah are identical is shown by the following: Moroni, in the
Rook of Ether, says ...

The passages which I have quoted from the Book of Mormon and the more extended discussion of this 
subject by Elder B. H. Roberts which was published in The Deseret News of March 3, 1928, definitely
establish the following facts: That the Hill Cumorah, and the Hill Ramah are identical; that it was 
around this hill that the armies of both the Jaredites and Nephites, fought their great last battles; 
that it was in this hill that Mormon deposited all of the sacred records which had been entrusted to 
his care by Ammaron, except the abridg-ment which he had made from the plates of Nephi, which were 
delivered into the hands of his son, Moroni. We know positively that it was in this hill that Moroni 
deposited the abridgment made by his father, and his own abridgment of the record of the Jaredites, 
and that it was from this hill that Joseph Smith obtained possession of them.

According to the Book of Mormon many hundreds of thousands of people fell in battle around this 
hill, and the immediate vicinity. It was here that two once powerful nations were exterminated so 
far as their natural existence was concerned. It was here that these nations gathered together for 
their last great struggles.

These people were human, as we are; they carried with them their most precious possessions until the 
last, and when the end of the mighty struggle came, and the result was in doubt, they hid them away 
in order that they might not fall into the hands of their enemies. 

Without doubt these treasures lie concealed today, some of them, at least, to be brought forth in 
the not distant future. How soon this will be we do not know, but this is certain, we are more than 
a century nearer that time than we were at the time when Joseph Smith took from their resting place 
in the Hill Cumorah, the plates from which he translated the contents of the Book of Mormon.

All of these incidents to which I have referred, my brethren and sisters, are very closely associated 
with this particular spot in the State of New York. Therefore I feel, as I said in the beginning 
of my remarks, that the acquisition of that spot of ground is more than an incident in the history 
of the Church; it is an epoch—an epoch which in my opinion is fraught with that which may become 
of greater interest to the Latter-day Saints than that which has already occurred. We know that all 
of these records, all the sacred records of the Nephite people, were deposited by Mormon in that 
hill. That incident alone is sufficient to make it the sacred and hallowed spot that it is to us. 
I thank God that in a way which seems to have been providential it has come into the possession of 
the Church.

I bear witness to you that the words which I have read here, quoted from the Book of Mormon, which 
refer to the future, will be fulfilled. Those additional records will come forth, they will be 
published to the world, that the children of our Father may be converted to faith in Christ, our 
Lord and Redeemer, through  obedience to the doctrines which he taught. May God our Father hasten 
that day, is my humble prayer, and I ask it through Jesus Christ. Amen."

This has been repeated by other significant church leaders - the two hills are the same.

Here are a few notable ones.

1] 

"It is known that the Hill Cumorah where the Nephites were destroyed is the hill where the 
Jaredites were also destroyed. This hill was known to the Jaredites as Rama. It was approximately 
near to the waters of Ripliancum, which the Book of Ether says, “by interpretation, is large, 
or to exceed all.” Mormon adds: “And it came to pass that we did march forth to the land of 
Cumorah, and we did pitch our tents round about the hill Cumorah; and it was in a land of many 
waters, rivers, and fountains; and here we had hope to gain advantage over the Lamanites.

It must be conceded that this description fits perfectly the land of Cumorah in New York, as it 
has been known since the visitation of Moroni to the Prophet Joseph Smith, for the hill is in 
the proximity of the Great Lakes and also in the land of many rivers and fountains. Moreover, the 
Prophet Joseph Smith himself is on record, definitely declaring the present hill called Cumorah 
to be the exact hill spoken of in the Book of Mormon.

Further, the fact that all of his associates from the beginning down have spoken of it as the
identical hill where Mormon and Moroni hid the records, must carry some weight. It is difficult 
for a reasonable person to believe that such men as Oliver Cowdery, Brigham Young, Parley P. Pratt, 
Orson Pratt, David Whitmer, and many others, could speak frequently of the Spot where the Prophet 
Joseph Smith obtained the plates as the Hill Cumorah, and not be corrected by the Prophet, if 
that were not the fact. That they did speak of this hill in the days of the Prophet in this definite
manner is an established record of history" (Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, 
Vol.3).

2] 

"In the western part of the state of New York near Palmyra is a prominent hill known as the “hill 
Cumorah.” (Morm. 6:6.) On July twenty-fifth of this year, as I stood on the crest of that hill 
admiring with awe the breathtaking panorama which stretched out before me on every hand, my mind 
reverted to the events which occurred in that vicinity some twenty-five centuries ago—events 
which brought to an end the great Jaredite nation.

This second civilization to which I refer, the Nephites, flourished in America between 600 b.c. 
and a.d. 400. Their civilization came to an end for the same reason, at the same place, and in 
the same manner as did the Jaredites’.

Now my beloved brethren and sisters everywhere, both members of the Church and nonmembers, I bear 
you my personal witness that I know that the things I have presented to you today are true—both 
those pertaining to past events and those pertaining to events yet to come" (Marion G. Romney,
General Conference, October 4, 1975).

3]

In 1990 the office of the First Presidency, in a letter written by the Secretary to the First 
Presidency, stated that Cumorah is in New York:

Dear Bishop Brooks:

I have been asked to forward to you for acknowledgment and handling the enclosed copy of a letter 
to President Gordon B. Hinckley from Ronnie Sparks of your ward. Brother Sparks inquired about 
the location of the Hill Cumorah mentioned in the Book of Mormon, where the last battle between 
the Nephites and Lamanites took place.

The Church has long maintained, as attested to by references in the writings of General Authorities, 
that the Hill Cumorah in western New York state is the same as referenced in the Book of Mormon.

The Brethren appreciate your assistance in responding to this inquiry, and asked that you convey 
to Brother Sparks their commendation for his gospel study.

4] 

"... at that time lying buried in the side of a hill near Joseph's home. The hill, which was known 
by one division of the ancient peoples as Cumorah, by another as Ramah, is situated near Palmyra 
in the county of Wayne, State of New York.

Here they became a flourishing nation; but, giving way in time to internal dissensions, they 
divided into factions, which warred with one another until the people were totally destroyed. 
This destruction, which occurred near the hill Ramah, afterward known among the Nephites as
Cumorah, probably took place at about the time of Lehi's landing in South America" (James E. 
Talmage, Articles of Faith).