Book of Mormon Hill Cumorah

[Cumorah3]

...Yes I admit it is possible that scavengers could pick the place clean and that bad weather could erode all traces of bones.

...I would not expect to find prodigious amounts of bones or weapons but I would expect to find some things. Older battle scenes have left enough evidence for us to piece things together. I see no reason why this could not be one of them. Just a matter of finding it.

.

In my opinion it's more than "just a matter of finding" it. The problem is PROVING it!

How do you go about doing that?

Yes, you could dig for any bones and artifacts that might remain near the hill, and have them dated if possible.

But what else, other than walking into the hill and finding records obviously, could you do to prove to Latter-day Saints, and eventually to the world, that you'd found the original Hill Cumorah?

I'm hoping that some of the brilliant minds and experts on this board will make some serious comments on this. Their suggestions just might be followed some day.

Assume that you are almost certain that you have located the original Hill Cumorah/Ramah.

How do you prove it?

[poulsenll]

I thought I would "bump" this thread to help answer gaucho's comment on another thread about the possible sites along the Gulf of Mexico coast that might fulfill the requirements of the description of the Hill Cumorah found in the text of the Book of Mormon. There is one more site a short distance northwest of Sorenson's proposed site but it is a stretch due to lack of rivers or streams with there sources within the area.

Larry P

[poulsenll]

Thanks Larry,

But Bernal looks more like a hill that stands out on its own where as Tepetzintla looks like just one in the crowd.

What's your opinion?

Warship

I sort of favor Tepetzintla. It is larger than Bernal but seems to fit the description somewhat better due to the large number of rivers having there source on the hill. Both of them are well isolated in the middle of the coastal plain away from other significant mountains unlike Cerro Vigia. By the way Tepetzintla means "under or below the hill"

Larry P

[SolarPowered]

Gads, does nobody actually read the Book of Mormon?! Or the earlier posts in this thread, two of which already explain this? Mormon 6:6 reads, in part:

...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.

The Book of Mormon itself says that the plates that made up the BoM were not buried in the hill Cumorah, but were given to Moroni, who carried them around for decades before he buried them where Joseph eventually found them.

As many have pointed out, Joseph did not refer to the hill in New York as "Cumorah" until the usage by others had become so entrenched that he apparently just gave up and joined everyone else in calling it that.

[freakin a man]

Gads, does nobody actually read the Book of Mormon?! Or the earlier posts in this thread, two of which already explain this? Mormon 6:6 reads, in part:

...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.

The Book of Mormon itself says that the plates that made up the BoM were not buried in the hill Cumorah, but were given to Moroni, who carried them around for decades before he buried them where Joseph eventually found them.

As many have pointed out, Joseph did not refer to the hill in New York as "Cumorah" until the usage by others had become so entrenched that he apparently just gave up and joined everyone else in calling it that.

There is a Jordon River in Utah. Perhaps it was this river that Jesus was baptized in.

[Maya]

Just one question.... at thje other possibilities the sea is quite close... dont you think that had beeb mentioned in the BM... at leas I think they would have refered to Cumorah beeing close to big waters???

The NY one does not sound right to me. I think rather that Mormoni used the 36 years to walk there... and around.

Freakin's answer is the same one I would have given. Mormon removed all the records from the Hill Shim where they had been hidden by Ammaron(Mormon 1:2)during there journey too the Land of Cumorah and hid them again in the Hill Cumorah except for those few plates which he gave to MOroni (Mormon 6:6). Moroni after adding his writings and abridging the book of Ether carried this small group of plates with him as he wandered for 36 years before sealing up the record and burying them.(Moroni 10:1-2). Moroni does not specify where he buried them. It is presumed to be the hill in New York, later also called Cumorah, since that is where Joseph Smith found them. I encourage you to read these scriptures and figure this out for yourself.

I agree with this.

I go for Ainswort! But I am still open for new findings anywhere.

This has been so interesting to read!

[Paul McNabb]

From the images and from my visit to the New York Cumorah, I can't see how anyone, including Joseph Smith, could think the 385 battle could have taken place there. Even if Mormon's description of troop count was highly exaggerated, the New York Cumorah would have been relatively insignificant (militarily) in the final battle and an unremarkable landmark for a gathering point. But that's just an opinion, right?

Do we have any military people here would would like to comment on the relative merits of the various possibilities given that we are dealing with hundreds of thousands of people involved in the gathering and fighting?

[grego]

I think the BoM HC would be north, where the Nephites were retreating.

It would have also supposedly given them an advantage in the fight--easy gathering for defense? water supplies/ springs? river/ flood control against an advancing army? morning sunlight in the enemy's eyes? rolling boulders?

No need to exaggerate numbers. 240,000; women and children? I imagine easily 300,000+ Lamanites.

[Paul McNabb]

The problem with the 240,000 figure is that it may not be a "count" as much as a description of the command structure. For example, someone translating a text about a Roman battle could conceivably state that a centurion and his 100 men (centuria) were destroyed, when in fact a centuria officially had only 80 soldiers and could be undermanned even at that.

Thus when the BoM says that "Lamah had fallen with his ten thousand" it doesn't have to mean that 10,001 men died. It may be that "ten thousand" is a military term for a group of soldiers similar to how a centuria is a group of soldiers, without actually giving us much information about the actual troop count.

Given that the Nephites had suffered so many losses, these "ten thousands" may have been something quite understrength compared to the units' "official" strength, which itself might not have been 10,000 at all.

Maybe Oliver should have capitalized and hyphenated "Lamah had fallen with his Ten-Thousand."

[Tarski]

Uncle Dale:

Go to the Little Bighorn Battfield Museum in Montana -- and see how many artifacts

were left on the ground, from a relatively tiny military skirmish. Here we are not

just talking about the troopers' brass buttons and lead musket-balls, but a plethora

of artifacts from both side of that tiny battle.

Now, multiply the scale of "Custer's Last Stand" by a magnitude of several thousands,

and extend it over days or weeks -- and then multiply all of that by a factor of two

(for both the Jaredite and Nephite extinctions) -- and then tell the archaeologists that

they should not expect to find one single artifact within ten miles of the hill????

Preposterous!

Uncle, I think you may be significantly overstating your case. In the first place, In the 130 years since the Battle of the Little Bighorn, almost every artifact, with the exception of a few shell casings and lead slugs, has completely disappeared from that site. Of course, that was quite a small skirmish compared to many Civil War battles. The site of the Battle of Gettysburg, in Pennsylvania, now yields hardly any artifactual remnants of that battle of 200,000 soldiers! Except for the odd shell casing or uniform button, there is nothing left at that site (except a cemetery) to indicate that a large battle ever took place, and we're talking here about a battle that took place less than 150 years ago! Even the site of the great Battle of the Somme (58,000 British casualties on the first day alone!) which dwarfed the Civil War battles, has been silently reclaimed by Mother Nature, in less than a century.

So, your arguments are without merit. Large battles do not leave artifacts that endure for long. Cities, yes. Battles, no.

Thats not because we didn't find mountains of artifacts--we did and it got put in museums and private collections. You can get stuff off of Ebay! And yet when I was living in Virginia as a child I could still find lead slugs in the trees and foxhole type constructions.

The physical evidence isn't absent as it is for the monumental battles supposed to have happened in the BoM.

[Tarski]

From the images and from my visit to the New York Cumorah, I can't see how anyone, including Joseph Smith, could think the 385 battle could have taken place there. Even if Mormon's description of troop count was highly exaggerated, the New York Cumorah would have been relatively insignificant (militarily) in the final battle and an unremarkable landmark for a gathering point. But that's just an opinion, right?

Do we have any military people here would would like to comment on the relative merits of the various possibilities given that we are dealing with hundreds of thousands of people involved in the gathering and fighting?

Of course, if JS or someone else invented the stories then we don't expect the kind of consistancy you are talking about. People have a hard time with big numbers.

That he made it up is consistant with the archeological facts.

[poulsenll]

Thanks Larry,

But Bernal looks more like a hill that stands out on its own where as Tepetzintla looks like just one in the crowd.

What's your opinion?

Warship

I sort of favor Tepetzintla. It is larger than Bernal but seems to fit the description somewhat better due to the large number of rivers having there source on the hill. Both of them are well isolated in the middle of the coastal plain away from other significant mountains unlike Cerro Vigia. By the way Tepetzintla means "under or below the hill"

Larry P

Sorry I dont have an actual photo to show. Us armchair geographers will have to be satisfied with this satellite view

As you can see Tepetzintla is quite isolated from other mountains.

Larry P

edited to adjust picture size.

[poulsenll]

For those who cant find this thread.

"bump"

Larry P

[USU78]

I wish there'd been an "I don't know" option.

The proposals are all interesting, but hardly conclusive of the question.

USU "Not worried if I never find out for certain" 78