Digging Into The Book Of Mormon

[ERayR]

The Church has taken an official position that the NY Hill Cumorah is the same as the Book of Mormon's Cumorah. I think that those who teach otherwise in a church setting have apostatized.

In the first quote below, Pres. Joseph Fielding Smith (at the time, President of the Q12, the Church Historian, the last GA to hold that position until Elder Marlin Jensen) points out that those who hold to the Mesoamerican view are weak in the faith. So it isn't like the Mesoamerican view has just crept in amongst the Brethren; they've discussed it and disposed of it.

Joseph Fielding Smith:

"LOCALE OF CUMORAH, RAMAH, AND RIPLIANCUM. This modernistic theory of necessity , in order to be consistent, must place the waters of Ripliancum and the Hill Cumorah some place within the restricted territory of Central America, notwithstanding the teachings of the Church to the contrary for upwards of 100 years. Because of this theory some members of the Church have become confused and greatly disturbed in their faith in the Book of Mormon." -- Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, 3:233 (ed. McConkie). This was published in what would later become a Priesthood Manual. It is still in publication; the Deseret Book website lists it as "authoritative," and Doctrines of Salvation is one of the most frequently-cited GA treatises in General Conference.

Was this the same Joseph Fielding Smith that said that man would never set foot on the moon? Don't get me wrong I still reverence President Smith as a prophet seer and revelator. I just recognize that he too could err and it was up to me to receive my own witness. Today we have a much larger data base to formulate ideas from but still have to seek that witness from the Holy Ghost.

[Chaos]

But Martin Harris, was lied to, of course. Because it all really happened within the confines of Mesoamerica.

Isn't it amazing how the Lord deceives men to hasten his work?

Show more courtesy when you are talking to people who believe in God.

[robuchan]

The Lord does not tell us how to think and what assumptions to make. So lets not blame the Lord on how we interpret history or anthropology.

When we are given all the history to satisfy every persons doubts or confusion that takes away the requirement of faith. Besides Moroni's mission was not to give Joseph Smith a geography lesson but in help restoring the Lords church.

That might be your bottom line, you are the one who controls your feelings. For me and many others I do not felt like I was being tricked by anyone, not by our past leaders, not by the church, certainly not by the Lord. Through my own labors of study and research I do not find it confusing at all. If I did find it confusing I certainly would not be complaining that the Lord tricked me or that Joseph lied. I would research and try to study and find out.

I agree

Because it is not important for our salvation. Your idea is like going to medical school and having the medical doctors instead teaching you medicine they teach you how to make a waffle.

Can you possibly give me a reason God chose to have Joseph Smith go to a hill named Cumorah to get the plates other than trickery?

[Benjamin McGuire]

Bob Crockett writes:

My posting style is very benign.

No it isn't. It is highly polemical. It is incredibly condescending at times. Whatever gave you the idea that your posting style was a model of decorum?

Ben M.

[Benjamin McGuire]

Robuchan writes:

Can you possibly give me a reason God chose to have Joseph Smith go to a hill named Cumorah to get the plates other than trickery?

Can you perhaps provide references where Joseph Smith refers to the drumlin in New York as "Cumorah"?

Ben

[robuchan]

Robuchan writes:

Can you perhaps provide references where Joseph Smith refers to the drumlin in New York as "Cumorah"?

Ben

What do you mean by this?

[Benjamin McGuire]

Exactly what I said. Let's try it a different way. What is the earliest reference you can find that calls the hill Cumorah where Joseph found the gold plates? And more to the point, what is the earliest reference you can find where Joseph Smith calls the hill where he obtained the plates "Cumorah"?

The point of course is that it really does matter who identifies the hill as Cumorah and when it is identified that way - particularly if you want to assert that God sent Joseph to such a hill. Is the hill called Cumorah because it was the Nephite hill Cumorah and it was the location of the plates? Or were the plates found there, and because the plates were found there eventually it was named (or misnamed) as Cumorah? (That is, does God send Joseph to the hill Cumorah - or does God simply send Joseph to a hill, and because Joseph was sent there it eventually gets named Cumorah).

Ben M.

Edited July 20, 2012 by Benjamin McGuire

[Calm]

Again, might you have a link to the transcript of the President Anthony Ivins General Conference quote? Thanks.

Perhaps I can help: http://archive.org/stream/conferencereport1928a#page/n0/mode/2up

[Anijen]

Can you possibly give me a reason God chose to have Joseph Smith go to a hill named Cumorah to get the plates other than trickery?

1. It was not named Cumorah as Benjamin McGuire has stated.

2. And the point being made is; how can it be trickery if the hill had no name?

3.God lead Joesph to a hill (that would later be called Cumorah after the hill mentioned in the Book of Mormon, this does not mean it is the same hill). God lead Joseph there so that Joseph could receive instruction and then later to retrieve the plates. These plates I believe were buried by Moroni centuries early after walking and avoiding hostile enemies. I believe God lead and protected Moroni to that hill because that would be in the distant future the area Joseph would live.

Edited July 20, 2012 by Jeff Holt

[mfbukowski]

Anaco:

People seem to have little patience for this. I got banned for a week for making a comment similar to this. I think it's a real issue that should be addressed.

The Lord is authoring all this. He's intervening fairly intimately at times in the restoration, so it's clear He could and would intervene if necessary. Why did he allow so much trickery and confusion in restoration events: two hill Cumorah's, Joseph's false teachings of hemisphere model, BOM translation with the plates here, there, and nowhere.

A few timely comments from the Angel Moroni or otherwise revealed to Joseph would have gone a long ways on some of these issues.

The bottom line is that two Hill Cumorah's is very confusing and feels like we're being tricked. I don't think God wants his children to feel like he tricks them. So why wouldn't he straighten it out with one line from Angel Moroni to Joseph or hard coded into the BOM or with a D&C revelation?

How about Adam and the fall? Poor old satan got tricked into that one. Can't even pull off a good sin without getting tricked by God into turning it into something good!

How about poor old Judas Iscariot who was just trying to do the right thing? Turns in a treasonous revolutionary and what happens? He is reviled through history!

And Cain's sacrifice? Dude he really got the shaft didn't he? And Sodom and Gomorrah? Did he really give those poor folks the politically correct necessary warnings that they were about to get nuked? God has no more ethics than those who bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

If you want to see it as God being "tricky" you don't even have to touch the Restoration for examples

CAUTION! THIS POST CONTAINS SARCASM, READ AT YOUR OWN RISK!

Edited July 20, 2012 by mfbukowski

[robuchan]

Exactly what I said. Let's try it a different way. What is the earliest reference you can find that calls the hill Cumorah where Joseph found the gold plates? And more to the point, what is the earliest reference you can find where Joseph Smith calls the hill where he obtained the plates "Cumorah"?

The point of course is that it really does matter who identifies the hill as Cumorah and when it is identified that way - particularly if you want to assert that God sent Joseph to such a hill. Is the hill called Cumorah because it was the Nephite hill Cumorah and it was the location of the plates? Or were the plates found there, and because the plates were found there eventually it was named (or misnamed) as Cumorah? (That is, does God send Joseph to the hill Cumorah - or does God simply send Joseph to a hill, and because Joseph was sent there it eventually gets named Cumorah).

Ben M.

Hmm. Interesting. I never knew that. I guess I'll have to trust you on that one. The hill was not known as Cumorah before this event, and Joseph was the one who named it?

[robuchan]

How about Adam and the fall? Poor old satan got tricked into that one. Can't even pull off a good sin without getting tricked by God into turning it into something good!

How about poor old Judas Iscariot who was just trying to do the right thing? Turns in a treasonous revolutionary and what happens? He is reviled through history!

And Cain's sacrifice? Dude he really got the shaft didn't he? And Sodom and Gomorrah? Did he really give those poor folks the politically correct necessary warnings that they were about to get nuked? God has no more ethics than those who bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

If you want to see it as God being "tricky" you don't even have to touch the Restoration for examples

CAUTION! THIS POST CONTAINS SARCASM, READ AT YOUR OWN RISK!

I don't see any of those as trickery. You're just talking about instances where people were punished for sins that they already knew were wrong. Except for maybe the Satan example.

[blackstrap]

IIRC it wasn't Joseph who first named it.

[mfbukowski]

I strongly suspect, my padawan learner, that when all is revealed that you, me and a great many others will have to reconsider some of our opinions.

And if necessary I will be leading the chorus- all together now- "WE WERE WRONG!"

We're all just slogging along doing the best we can.

[123]

Anybody who contradicts the Brethren is on a low road to apostasy, particularly if they call the Brethren's pronouncements "opinions."

I want to defend Bob Crockett's position and give the newbies a heads up. You'll argue "till your blue in the face" this point without success to the already embedded supporters of Mesoamerica. Your only hope is to "educate" newcomers with the facts as earlier posters have tried:

theplains post #23 cited Church History Vol. 1:

"This Book, which contained these things was hid in the earth by Moroni, in a hill called by him Cumorah, which hill is now in the state of New York, near the village of Palmyra, in Ontario county." (OLIVER COWDERY'S SPEECH TO THE DELAWARES.)

BoM witness Oliver Cowdery, confidant of Joseph, scribe of the BoM, witness of multiple angels said that Moroni called it "Cumorah." Cowdery also said the final Nephite battle took place in Palmyra.

This is why posters here ignored that post.

Next, Cinepro chimed in at posting #25 the following:

"Hmmm...I wonder if the students in Religion 122 at BYU-I are still getting this handout?"

With a link to the handout which is an extraction from a chapter from Doctrines of Salvation by President Joseph Fielding Smith entitled "WHERE IS THE HILL CUMORAH?" containing facts, sufficient for Pres. Smith to ignore would be inventors of a second Cumorah. If you think you are smarter than Pres. Smith you deserve to be misled.

Which brings me to my final acknowledgement of Bob Crockett's post at #27 with an additional 10 statements by highly respected prophets and apostles, including the Messenger and Advocate historical account by Joseph and Oliver that emphatically says the final Nephite battle happened in Palmyra.

My advice to Crockett and others who respect LDS prophets, apostles, church history and canon, keep respecting.

To others who are new to this thread, those official statements from church officials are the deathblow to Sorenson et. al., i.e. Ferguson 2.0 because you can't believe in a small geographical area and a final battle in Palmyra.

Why? Because you have a single reference to a Jaredite named Omer who it says walked past "where the Nephites were destroyed." This means the small geographical area is around Palmyra, depending the lay of the land in a given model.

Likewise will they ignore BoM prophecy - on which lands where they fulfilled? Bob Crockett (and others) has every right to show the double standard and to challenge adherents of a second Cumorah to choose sides - prophets and apostles/official church history & canon, i.e. faith -or- some pseudoscientific theory by some academician, be it from the Y or some other University.

[mfbukowski]

The Bretheren themselves admit that they have varied, differing, and even conflicting opinions.

Indeed- as recently as the last general conference.

At the same time it should be remembered that not every statement made by a Church leader, past or present, necessarily constitutes doctrine. It is commonly understood in the Church that a statement made by one leader on a single occasion often represents a personal, though well-considered, opinion, not meant to be official or binding for the whole Church. The Prophet Joseph Smith taught that “a prophet [is] a prophet only when he [is] acting as such.”⁵ President Clark, quoted earlier, observed:

“To this point runs a simple story my father told me as a boy, I do not know on what authority, but it illustrates the point. His story was that during the excitement incident to the coming of [Johnston’s] Army, Brother Brigham preached to the people in a morning meeting a sermon vibrant with defiance to the approaching army, and declaring an intention to oppose and drive them back. In the afternoon meeting he arose and said that Brigham Young had been talking in the morning, but the Lord was going to talk now. He then delivered an address, the tempo of which was the opposite from the morning talk. …

“… The Church will know by the testimony of the Holy Ghost in the body of the members, whether the brethren in voicing their views are ‘moved upon by the Holy Ghost’; and in due time that knowledge will be made manifest.”⁶

http://www.lds.org/general-conference/2012/04/the-doctrine-of-christ?lang=eng

[123]

And if necessary I will be leading the chorus- all together now- "WE WERE WRONG!" We're all just slogging along doing the best we can.

That's a cop-out. You have the truth but are refusing to adjust your paradigm. In that day it will be tooooo late to say "it was just a hobby for us, not a doctrinal issue." Really? Bob has proven beyond a doubt that it is doctrine and anything causing confusion of the BoM is of the devil.

[mfbukowski]

That's a cop-out. You have the truth but are refusing to adjust your paradigm. In that day it will be tooooo late to say "it was just a hobby for us, not a doctrinal issue." Really? Bob has proven beyond a doubt that it is doctrine and anything causing confusion of the BoM is of the devil.

I do not subscribe to that version of theology. Oddly enough I actually believe we will still be learning things on the other side. I actually believe that we do temple work for people who have not learned all that there is to learn here.

Are you sure you're not an Evangelical Creedal Christian?

[123]

Indeed- ...It is commonly understood in the Church that a statement made by one leader on a single occasion often represents a personal, though well-considered, opinion, not meant to be official or binding for the whole Church. The Prophet Joseph Smith taught that “a prophet [is] a prophet only when he [is] acting as such.

Another justification which won't work. It is a fact of history, as stated in the first church history, that the hill was identified by Moroni as "Cumorah" and that the final Nephite battle took place there. To make it more or less than a statement by the prophet, to the public, is wishful thinking no offense.

[mfbukowski]

Another justification which won't work. It is a fact of history, as stated in the first church history, that the hill was identified by Moroni as "Cumorah" and that the final Nephite battle took place there. To make it more or less than a statement by the prophet, to the public, is wishful thinking no offense.

LOL! You should have checked the source. THAT STATEMENT WAS MADE BY AN APOSTLE IN THE LAST CONFERENCE.

My troll detector is flashing red.

[123]

I do not subscribe to that version of theology. Oddly enough I actually believe we will still be learning things on the other side. I actually believe that we do temple work for people who have not learned all that there is to learn here.

Are you sure you're not an Evangelical Creedal Christian?

Do want the parables of Jesus or BoM warnings?

[cursor]

To others who are new to this thread, those official statements from church officials are the deathblow to Sorenson et. al., i.e. Ferguson 2.0 because you can't believe in a small geographical area and a final battle in Palmyra. Why? Because you have a single reference to a Jaredite named Omer who it says walked past "where the Nephites were destroyed." This means the small geographical area is around Palmyra, depending the lay of the land in a given model.

Your conclusion here is entirely based on the presumption that the hill in Palmyra is the same hill where both the Jaredite and Nephite cultures were destroyed. That just can't be so. Mormon provides us with quite a comprehensive picture of the geographic relationships in Book of Mormon. A very major point he makes is that the [real] hill Ramah/Cumorah is not at all far from the narrow neck of land.

[blackstrap]

Have you been to NY in the winter?

If my salvation hinges on where Cumorah is I've got a serious problem.

[123]

Your conclusion here is entirely based on the presumption that the hill in Palmyra is the same hill where both the Jaredite and Nephite cultures were destroyed. That just can't be so. Mormon provides us with quite a comprehensive picture of the geographic relationships in Book of Mormon. A very major point he makes is that the [real] hill Ramah/Cumorah is not at all far from the narrow neck of land.

Have you been to NY in the winter?

If my salvation hinges on where Cumorah is I've got a serious problem.

Are your testimonies based on faith? Which side of the paradigm are you two on?

[blackstrap]

Land Southward full of wild beasts and snakes. I've spent some time in Central America in the jungle.Very apt description. Great Lakes region,well other than a few bears and the occasional mountain lion and rattler,not fitting the description.