Where did the Book of Mormon Take Place?

[webbles]

6 minutes ago, Ryan Dahle said:

Actually, that isn't quite correct. You have to actually go read their research to sift through the nuances. Many summaries online are likely going to misrepresent their claims in some way. 

I think everything that they used to say was modern has now been found in EModE.  There's also things that they once attributed to EModE only have been shown to also be in modern.  But I don't think there is anything left that is "modern only".  It is kind of hard since there isn't a "grand theory" but just a bunch of data points.

[webbles]

17 minutes ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

Exactly. So why is an author that is writing/translating in the 1500s quoting a bible that doesn't exist?

The author could be late 1600s and still fit EModE.  Though, there might be some things that Carmack has argued are completely gone by then.  I'd have to double check.

But we have the same problem with why did Joseph use EModE that would be really difficult for him to have picked up naturally.  And it isn't just a few things.  If it was 1 or 2, I could easily explain that away as just pure luck or him making a good guess based off of what archaic should sound like.  But there's a lot and some of them don't show up in his later writings.  And then there's the evidence from the Original Manuscript that makes it look like Joseph was actually reading the text and not generating it at that time (I think this is where the "tight control" really comes from for Skousen).

There was a person on the forum (I think it was JarMan or something) that posited a French scholar who originally wrote the Book of Mormon, then it was translated into English in the 1600s, and then another person updated it with some more modern English before it made it to Joseph.  That was quite the theory but difficult for me to accept.

[Calm]

2 hours ago, webbles said:

The EModE is really curious to me.  I'm getting to the point that I can't see how Joseph could have done it but I don't know what that means.

Is any theory given by Carmack?  I understood Skousen to be reluctant to theorize in the past, but haven’t been tracking more recent stuff.

To me when something seems both novel and odd, it makes sense to try and gather as much data as possible before theorizing, so a lack of an explanation at this point doesn’t bother me.  
 

I see this in a later post, so it seems it’s still at the collecting data stage.

”It is kind of hard since there isn't a "grand theory" but just a bunch of data points.”

Edited May 15 by Calm

[Ryan Dahle]

9 minutes ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

Exactly. So why is an author that is writing/translating in the 1500s quoting a bible that doesn't exist?

That doesn't seem to be the right question. Neither Skousen nor Carmack seem to think the text was translated by a human author living in the 1500s. They think the text was revealed to Smith by revelation. And that opens up many new, but mostly untestable, authorship possibilities. 

It may be helpful to think of this more like an unexpected scientific discovery that has a lot of supporting data but can't yet be fully explained, especially in the deeper sense of why things exist as they do. Nearly every scientific discipline faces this on some level. And when scientists encounter unexpected data or reach the edge of their observable domain, they often enter into a phase of multiple hypothesis formulations without any definitive or compelling answers. 

Similar types of problems often arise in contexts of human society and behavior. Consider a murder case that goes cold. There may be enough evidence to strongly indicate that someone was murdered (in contrast to an accident or some other cause of death), but in some circumstances investigators simply don't find enough evidence to identify the culprit. They might be able to rule out many suspects, but that doesn't mean they will have a full working theory for who committed the crime or what the motivation was. The issue of the language of the Book of Mormon is actually quite similar to this. Skousen and Carmack feel they have strong enough data to rule out Joseph Smith as the likely author of the text. They can look at the language of the text, look at the language of Smith's milieu, look at examples of pseudo-biblical writings from the same period, look at language from earlier periods, and then make judgments based on robust sets of data and known principles of language use and acquisition. So, contrary to the narrator's repeated claims that they aren't engaging in linguistics, they actually are doing so. They are studying the text with the linguistic tools and databases available to them, and then reaching conclusions based on that data, as well as their own faith-convictions and the historical circumstances related Smith's dictation of the Book of Mormon. 

What Skousen and Carmack don't have is a lot of data about what happens on the other side of the veil. Nor do they have a lot of data about how God would go about facilitating a divine translation (not exactly a lot of specific precedents for that in scriptural data). So a good place to start would be to list out every factor in the spirit world and other heavenly realms that might possibly influence the translation of a text, as well as all of the assumptions that we might have about those realms. What is known for certain, what is less certain, and what is entirely speculative based on LDS scriptural data and other modern sources of doctrine? As I have attempted to do this myself, I realized pretty quickly that there are just a lot of unknowns, all across the board, involving just about every facet that one might imagine. We might consider factors such as: 

1. How does language and knowledge of mortal life transition into the next life?
2. What types of languages are spoken by angelic beings? Is the gift of tongues always activated, or do spirits have more normative language acquisition processes in some contexts?
3. What types of activities are being accomplished by spirits in the Spirit World? And to what extent do those activities relate to mortality?
4. What types of books and texts are available in the Spirit World? How are they used? Who are they for?
5. If God were to carry out translation for human audiences, what process would he use? Would he delegate it to a council or committee? Who would be part of such a council? Were beings from different time periods involved in the translation process? Did they speak different languages? Was the gift of tongues involved? What even is that gift, specifically and how would it work for a human translation? Or were the divine being operating more based on their own individual development and progress, without heightened linguistic gifts? 
6. Are there various versions of the Book of Mormon in the Spirit World? If so, when was the first one created? What language was it in? Do translations take place in that realm for the inhabitants there? 
7. What were all of the specific purposes and goals of the Book of Mormon's translation?
8. Who are all of the intended audiences of the Book of Mormon, and were different aspects of the text intended to be meaningful to different audiences in different time periods?
9. To what degree is God controlling the quantity and quality of evidence that might become available in support of the Book of Mormon's authenticity and divine origins? 
10. Are there any symbolic components to the language of the Book of Mormon? If so, what is intended?

I'm sure more questions could be asked, but the point is simply that there are a LOT of questions that would first need to be answered before one can meaningfully propose or critique any specific theory of translation which posits that one or more divine entities were involved in the process. I think this is why Skousen and Carmack are not attempting to develop a detailed explanation for specifically how the text was divinely translated or why it possesses the features it does. 

So I think the debate primarily rests on the two following elements:

• (Element 1) All of the data that points away from Smith's authorship (nuanced analysis of grammar, lexis, and syntax involving a wide variety of features) provided by Skousen and Carmack
• (Element 2) The various limitations of the data and the underlying assumptions that are being used to interpret it (gaps in the databases, spoken vs. written language, idiolectic tendencies, varying abilities to mimic archaism, availability of archaic sources in Smith's environment, etc.)

If it turns out that the linguistic data and analysis provided by Skousen and Carmack (Element 1) is actually pretty compelling and that the efforts to question or undermine it (Element 2) are actually not very valid or significant, then one will naturally be more open to the revealed-words hypothesis, despite the remaining unknowns about why the text is the way it is. One would simply assume that there could be multiple unknown factors that may have led to the specific nature of the text. In contrast, if it turns out that one or more of the issues identified in Element 2 sufficiently undermine the data and analysis in Element 1, then there wouldn't be much of a need to assume a divinely-revealed English text in the first place (since one or more factors could reasonably explain how Smith may have produced it, despite the data marshaled in Element 1). 

In short, I don't think it is enough to point to the fact that proponents of the revealed-words hypothesis can't explain why the text is the way it is. Everyone agrees that limitation is at play. What isn't agreed on is what significance that limitation should have relative to the rest of the data, considering all of the unknowns about divine entities and processes. 

[InCognitus]

I haven't finished watching this yet (I'm part way through), but this video is totally relevant to this folder's topic.  It just got posted an hour ago:

ETA:  I watched the entire video.  Brant Gardner does a great job of setting forth some important methodological considerations for determining the location of Book of Mormon events and he (and Jasmin Rappleye, Neal Rappleye, and Stephen Smoot) weighs each of the proposed models (Heartland, Baja, Meso-America) against the various considerations.  It's worth watching.

Spoiler alert:  The Baja and Heartland models don't stack up so well (is anyone surprised? ).  Some Heartland adherents were complaining in the comments that they should have had a Heartland representative on the panel.  

Edited May 24 by InCognitus

[champatsch]

I enjoyed watching this. The following scripture was read by Smoot to stress that the Book of Mormon record was not buried in the hill Cumorah. The following is taken from the critical text, which except for the accidentals is how the first edition reads:

Quote

(Mormon 6:6)
        And it came to pass that
        when we had gathered in all our people in one to the land of Cumorah,
        behold, I Mormon began to be old.
        And knowing it to be the last struggle of my people
        and having been commanded of the Lord
        that I should not suffer that the records
        which had been handed down by our fathers, which were sacred,
        to fall into the hands of the Lamanites
        —for the Lamanites would destroy them—
        therefore I made this record out of the plates of Nephi
        and hid up in the hill Cumorah all the records
        which had been entrusted to me by the hand of the Lord,
        save it were these few plates which I gave unto my son Moroni.

I wish they would bring the same subject matter expertise and intellectual rigor to their views on Book of Mormon English. I have lightly emphasized above two aspects of the text that Joseph Smith almost certainly did not author.

First, we see an early modern switch from finite to infinitive complementation after the verb suffer. There is a 1598 example that is very similar to this syntax, which I have shown in a paper along with another example from Malory involving the verb command. The verbal complementation complex after the verb suffer in the Book of Mormon is unique in several ways (archaic in nature and nonbiblical in pattern), indicating that Joseph Smith did not word the syntax in more than 60 instances.

Second, we read one instance of pro-form "save it were," and the Book of Mormon's frequent usage of pro-form "save it were" is exceptional, since almost no texts before the Book of Mormon have any examples. The few texts that do have examples of pro-form "save it were" have only one instance, not more than 70! In addition, the textual usage of "except | save it were" shows a sharp distributional shift toward the end of the book of Helaman, which Joseph Smith was unlikely to have authored, since he probably did not think about shifting from a mixture of "except | save  it  be | were" to only "save it be | were." The shift could only have occurred consciously, since 86 instances of "save it be | were" occur consecutively, after a prolonged mixture of except and save usage.

Edited May 25 by champatsch

[theplains]

On 5/15/2026 at 12:16 AM, Calm said:

 Does make it easier to dismiss the text as fabrication if one insists they have to be considered the same by Saints.

Based on the sources I provided earlier, LDS leaders taught that the hill Cumorah and Ramah are 
the same hill and in the same place.

If you believe those teachings are false, then that's up to you.  As for me, I don't believe the 
Book of Mormon is a historical document.

[theplains]

On 5/14/2026 at 10:56 PM, Zosimus said:

Do you accept a landing in Chile? Is your narrow neck then Panama or somewhere in North America?

I don't believe the Book of Mormon is a historical document.

[theplains]

On 5/14/2026 at 5:19 PM, Amulek said:

So the existence of a mistaken belief by itself does not prove someone is a false teacher or that they are leading people into sin. The bigger question is whether they are drawing people toward faith in Christ, repentance, love of God and neighbor, etc., or away from those things.

Leading someone to worship a foreign god is a pretty serious sin.

[champatsch]

Here is the author who is the best model for the "save it «be»" usage of the Book of Mormon. A Scottish English minister, James Canaries. His 1684 book has one example each of pro-form "save it was" (very rare) and "save it were" (rare), and two of "save it be" (uncommon), plus another example of "save it was" as part of a cleft construction. The Book of Mormon has dozens of pro-form examples of these, the only text to have more than five, as well as a few examples of "save it be" as part of a cleft construction.

Quote

James Canaries, "A discourse . . ." (Edinburgh, 1684) [EEBO B18463: pages 14, 214, 219, 245, 271]

looking but never so overly into any Book of this nature; save it was that sacred one, wherein our Religion is most divinely established.
----------------
and so leave us nothing to ex⸗pect more beyond this life, save it were a new reiteration of its own self, and that knowledge we enjoy’d in it.
----------------
or em⸗ploy any thing of us below the Chin, (save it be in those ebullitions of conten⸗tion and strife which they are indeed very and only apt to occasion);
----------------
I know none that ever held any thing like this latter, save it be the Quakers;
----------------
Yet save it was that I saw two John Bap⸗tists Skulls, one at Amiens, and another at Rome (the nether Jaw being . . .

So why are we not told that Canaries influenced Joseph Smith's spiritual language? Because it does not fit a preferred narrative.

[theplains]

On 5/14/2026 at 2:33 PM, the narrator said:

I guess you should add it to the long list of wrong things Church leaders have said.

President Wilford Woodruff said that a prophet will never be allowed to lead the Church astray
(Gospel Principles).

[theplains]

On 5/14/2026 at 6:56 PM, Kevin Christensen said:

Mormon and Moroni, both of whom, recorded relevant eye-witness descriptions of the hill and its environs, were also prophets who reported personal encounters with the Risen Lord.  If President Romney was doing something other than affirming received tradition, then it should be easy to reconcile the eye witness descriptions with the New York Hill.

What eye-witness descriptions of the hill and its environ by Mormon and Moroni make President
Romney's statement (and all the other statements by LDS leaders) false and misleading?

[Navidad]

I don't mean to ask something that is out of line with this thread. Lately, I have been doing a lot of studying of Buechner's concept of the gospel as drama, comedy, and fairy tale. I also am investigating Tolkien's concept of faerian as myths that have meaning and much more.

In those studies I have come across the idea of the paracosm. A paracosm is a world invented by a child with its geography, customs, languages, morals, etc. There is a whole new field of psychology devoted to the paracosm in gifted children, not as an escape mechanism, but as the work of a creative and highly intelligent child. There are those who believe Narnia is such a world. I wonder if there has ever been a study of the Book of Mormon world as a possible paracosm of Joseph Smith? The little we know of his childhood indicates he might have been such a child and could have created the world through visions created by his own fertile mind. I am not interested in suggesting this as the origin of the world of the Book of Mormon. But I am indeed interested in knowing if such an explanation as the paracosm has ever been proposed in the case of Joseph Smith. Thanks so much . 

[webbles]

2 hours ago, Navidad said:

I don't mean to ask something that is out of line with this thread. Lately, I have been doing a lot of studying of Buechner's concept of the gospel as drama, comedy, and fairy tale. I also am investigating Tolkien's concept of faerian as myths that have meaning and much more.

In those studies I have come across the idea of the paracosm. A paracosm is a world invented by a child with its geography, customs, languages, morals, etc. There is a whole new field of psychology devoted to the paracosm in gifted children, not as an escape mechanism, but as the work of a creative and highly intelligent child. There are those who believe Narnia is such a world. I wonder if there has ever been a study of the Book of Mormon world as a possible paracosm of Joseph Smith? The little we know of his childhood indicates he might have been such a child and could have created the world through visions created by his own fertile mind. I am not interested in suggesting this as the origin of the world of the Book of Mormon. But I am indeed interested in knowing if such an explanation as the paracosm has ever been proposed in the case of Joseph Smith. Thanks so much . 

Yes, it has been proposed.  @the narrator has brought it up several times in this forum.  I don't know how old of an idea it is but he might know.

[Calm]

8 hours ago, theplains said:

What eye-witness descriptions of the hill and its environ by Mormon and Moroni make President
Romney's statement (and all the other statements by LDS leaders) false and misleading?

This is a short summary of the arguments (a bit over 2 minutes):

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1EQ8xRrEPF/

Actual descriptions are referred to in the last third.

Edited May 25 by Calm

[the narrator]

On 5/25/2026 at 7:14 AM, theplains said:

President Wilford Woodruff said that a prophet will never be allowed to lead the Church astray
(Gospel Principles).

He was wrong.

[the narrator]

21 hours ago, webbles said:

Yes, it has been proposed.  @the narrator has brought it up several times in this forum.  I don't know how old of an idea it is but he might know.

It was first coined in the late 90s. I first encountered it a few years ago, and had not seen anybody yet discuss it in the context of Joseph Smith and the BofM.

[InCognitus]

On 5/25/2026 at 7:08 AM, theplains said:

Leading someone to worship a foreign god is a pretty serious sin.

You can't get more "foreign" than a god who is "wholly other" and contradicts the biblical teaching that humans and God are the same "kind" of being (Acts 17:28-29).

[InCognitus]

On 5/25/2026 at 7:14 AM, theplains said:

President Wilford Woodruff said that a prophet will never be allowed to lead the Church astray
(Gospel Principles).

"The church" has not been led astray.  The official position of "the church" is that there is no official position on the location of the Book of Mormon events.

[theplains]

18 hours ago, InCognitus said:

"The church" has not been led astray.  The official position of "the church" is that there is no official position on the location of the Book of Mormon events.

I would reword it slightly.

"The official position of the church now is that the location of the hills Cumorah and
Ramah is unknown. But it was taught as truth in the past by our prominent leaders".

[theplains]

18 hours ago, InCognitus said:

You can't get more "foreign" than a god who is

Once a man (Heavenly Father) who supposedly became a God.

[theplains]

On 5/25/2026 at 5:46 PM, Calm said:

This is a short summary of the arguments (a bit over 2 minutes):

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1EQ8xRrEPF/

Actual descriptions are referred to in the last third.

That Facebook video is not really coming from an LDS leader and doesn't actually discount what
previous LDS leaders have taught.

In the Book of Mormon narrative, Cumorah is part of a larger geographic system that includes
the land northward, the land southward, east and west seas, and the "narrow neck of land" connecting 
them.

Early believers were taught and believed the Book of Mormon described events spanning much of the 
Americas. In that older “hemispheric” view the narrow neck of land was often associated with Isthmus 
of Panama. Nephite and Lamanite civilizations supposedly spread across large parts of the continents, 
and the final battle at Hill Cumorah was simply much farther north. 

The “many waters, rivers, and fountains” language is actually from Ether 15:8–11 contextually nearby 
passages and earlier Ether geography descriptions (especially Ether 2–10), where the Jaredite land 
is described broadly as a water-rich environment.

Where the real Cumorah connection comes from

The actual textual link between “Ramah” and “Cumorah” is this:

Ether 15:11 - "And it came to pass that they did pitch their tents by the hill Ramah; and it was 
that same hill where my father Mormon did hide up the records unto the Lord".

Then in the Nephite record:

Mormon 6:2 - "And it came to pass that we did march forth to the land of Cumorah".

So the text itself creates this equivalence: Jaredite name: Ramah, Nephite name: Cumorah, same 
hill, according to the record.

That's the actual internal connection.

The "many waters, rivers, and fountains" idea comes from broader Jaredite geography descriptions 
in Ether.

So when people connect it to the New York Hill Cumorah, they are doing this:

• Ether describes a land with abundant water systems.
• Ramah/Cumorah is in that Jaredite land.
• Western New York has many lakes, rivers, and wetlands (Finger Lakes region).

That is why LDS leaders taught they are the same hill and that hill is in New York. 

Then add to this the supposed revelation in Doctrine and Covenants 128. "Glad tidings from Cumorah! 
Moroni, an angel from heaven, declaring the fulfilment of the prophets—the book to be revealed".

In addition to all the other sources from LDS leaders, I found another.

“Letter VII.” Oliver Cowdery to W. W. Phelps. Latter Day Saints’ Messenger and Advocate (Kirtland, 
Ohio) 1, no. 10 (July 1835)

[Calm]

4 hours ago, theplains said:

That Facebook video is not really coming from an LDS leader and doesn't actually discount what
previous LDS leaders have taught.

 

You asked for eyewitness descriptions, which would be Mormon and Moroni and possibly other descriptions in the text, not LDS leaders who didn’t live in BoM times when the Hill Cumorah became a repository.

[Kevin Christensen]

On 5/25/2026 at 7:04 AM, theplains said:

Based on the sources I provided earlier, LDS leaders taught that the hill Cumorah and Ramah are 
the same hill and in the same place.

If you believe those teachings are false, then that's up to you.  As for me, I don't believe the 
Book of Mormon is a historical document.

Archimedes famously said that "Give me a lever and a place to stand, and I can move the world."    There is a difference between looking for leverage, and looking for understanding.  

I frequently point out that the formal statement of "mine authority and the authority of my servants in D&C 1 tries to accurately set our expectations of LDS Leaders.

Quote

24 Behold, I am God and have spoken it; these commandments are of me, and were given unto my servants in their weakness, after the manner of their language, that they might come to understanding.

25 And inasmuch as they erred it might be made known;

26 And inasmuch as they sought wisdom they might be instructed;

27 And inasmuch as they sinned they might be chastened, that they might repent;

28 And inasmuch as they were humble they might be made strong, and blessed from on high, and receive knowledge from time to time.

The difference between citing Marion G. Romney or Joseph Fielding Smith on the location of Cumorah and citing Mormon and Moroni's descriptive passages is that Mormon and Moroni are eye-witness, and General Authorities Romney and Smith and others are later interpreters, whose interpretations, I notice, never deal with the details of Mormon's and Moroni's descriptions.   Since I do not place Romney and Smith on an inappropriate pedestal,  I cannot be impressed by your attempts to topple them and the Book of Mormon against a standard of infallibility that D&C 1 expressly tells me not to adopt.  I am impressed by Sperry, Palmer, and Sorenson, and Brant Gardner, and Larry Poulson, because they carefully consider what Mormon and Moroni provided.   See Sperry's telling discussion here:

https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/jbms/vol4/iss1/30/

Sorenson labored to gather all of the relevant verses which must be accounted for to solve the puzzle of the New World Book of Mormon setting in places like this:

https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/mi/54/

That is, he notices verse in Mormon 6:6 that describes the plates as being taken from the Nephite Cumorah, but never states exactly where they were buried, and they notice the location must make sense relative to the story of This is something that none of those LDS authorities who unquestioningly passed along the received tradition have ever done.  So, really, how much authority do they have on that particular issue?  Do they discuss the movements relative to a candidate Land of Desolation, a Narrow Neck, City of Lib, destructions in 3 Nephi, evidence for the rise and fall of literate civilizations, a narrow neck of land that extends from the Sea East to the Sea West that divides the land southward from the land northward, the account of Limhi's explorers and the time and distance constrained by the movement of Alma's people?  I notice that far from committing its readers to received traditions as unquestionable, the Book of Mormon cautions us with the story of Old World disciples who, on a topic like "the other sheep" supposed that they understood, and did not ask, and therefore, were not taught.

Sorenson also made a serious attempt to consider a wide range of interpretations in the Source Book and to provide a way to evaluate them against essential details that any model ought to account for.  And he produced detailed work in An Ancient American Setting for the Book of Mormon and his final work, Mormon's Codex, both of which also deal with cultural and archeological issues. And other well informed authors have tweaked his interpretations, notably on the issue of directions.  See the work of Larry Poulson and Brant Gardner.  And also Jerry Grover on Geology and accounting for the destructions in 3 Nephi, and also the recent and revolutionary LiDar surveys, and the linguistic evidence for Egyptian, Hebrew and Phoenician evidence Brian Stubbs has compiled? 

Sterling McMurrin famously dismissed the Book of Mormon based on an insight gained, not from his notable education, but adopted when he was "younger than I can remember."  As bright as McMurrin was, not only did he never read Mormon's Codex, having died before he could, but he never actually read the Book of Mormon.   Just who actually has authority ought not be assumed, but explored.  But we all get to decided which questions are worth exploring.

FWYW

Kevin Christensen

Tooele, UT

 

Edited Thursday at 08:04 PM by Kevin Christensen
typo

[InCognitus]

On 5/27/2026 at 8:15 AM, theplains said:

Once a man (Heavenly Father) who supposedly became a God.

No.  A God who was once a man as Joseph Smith taught (and no thinking Christian today believes in a God who was once a man, right?), the same as Jesus Christ was once a man.  And he "became" our God when we accepted his plan for us in the beginning.