The Narrow Neck Debate Continues...

[MormonMason]

Another point of interest worth some consideration.  Anyone else seen the Church film, "How Rare a Possession"? Anyone else recall the opening sequence where Moroni begins traveling to the place where he deposits the Book of Mormon? If you noticed, he starts out by walking to the edge of a high place near a waterfall, which has the appearance of somewhere in Mesoamerica.  From there he walks until another part of the sequence shows him walking through a desolate desert, followed by a sequence of Moroni walking across the Great Plains with the Rockies far on his left.  The final sequence has him walking through an area that has the appearance of forestry in upstate New York and ultimately burying artifacts in what ostensibly is the hill in New York.

 

In addition, sets and costumes were created for the Parley P. Pratt conversion story that gave the air of Mesoamerica when they made the video sequences.  Something to think about when one considers that that film was an official Church missionary tool that was widely shown in Visitor's Centers and to investigators all over the US and elsewhere.

[Rob Osborn]

Was reading the BoM text last night and it speaks of the land northward on several occasion as being q land covered with large bodies of water. In the limited meso-American model there are no areas in Mexico that could be considered being covered by large bodies of water. How do you limited setting guys reconcile this?

[Questing Beast]

You act as if you know that Joseph Smith "had" to compose the statements that the witnesses signed, but you show no evidence that you know that.

 

You claim that one phrase in a statement "clearly" indicates the author of the statement authored Moroni's writings. It does not.

 

You try to dismiss the similarity between "Lamanai" and "Lamoni" as coincidence. You ignore the geographical aspect that makes the similarity striking: namely, that there is archaeological evidence of a movement of peoples who produced a distinctive style of pottery from one place to another about the very time that the Book of Mormon states that converted Lamanites, including Lamoni apparently, left Lamanite lands to settle in the land of Jershon, which many believe was in the area now known as Belize. So when I quoted the Book of Mormon concerning how Nephite cities, towns, and villages were named, a name that has survived as "Lamanai" in Belize may be more than coincidence. If Lamoni migrated with the group, which seems likely, then it also seems likely that the place of his settlement could very well be named "Lamoni", which could very well end up as "Lamanai". So the situation is much more complex than your hasty dismissal allows.

True enough. Intriguing connections. But it will require a lot more of the same, before I will consider any such apparent connections as anything more than coincidence or even misapplied phonetics. I'd have to know for myself, in other words, that the association is based on solid fact and not just some modern twisting of the phonetics where there is actually no historic or continuous connection going clear back to before the time of Christ....

[Mola Ram Suda Ram]

Was reading the BoM text last night and it speaks of the land northward on several occasion as being q land covered with large bodies of water. In the limited meso-American model there are no areas in Mexico that could be considered being covered by large bodies of water. How do you limited setting guys reconcile this?

Mexico? I am not sure anyone is saying that mexico is the land northward. That might be part ofthe problem.

[Questing Beast]

Of course some are saying Mexico is the "land northward", it is north of the isthmus of Tehuantepec, so is the "land northward". The full hemispheric model proponents also say that Mexico is the "land northward", just not all of it, being only the southern part of the "land northward": whereas the LGT proponents are saying that southern Mexico is the ENTIRE "land northward". The rest of North America above southern Mexico lies outside of the purview of the BoM "authors", i.e. Mormon and Moroni and the "original sources" that they are quoting from....

[MormonMason]

Was reading the BoM text last night and it speaks of the land northward on several occasion as being q land covered with large bodies of water. In the limited meso-American model there are no areas in Mexico that could be considered being covered by large bodies of water. How do you limited setting guys reconcile this?

Pretty easily, actually.  These definitions would be defined by those who lived in conditions dissimilar to what they encountered when they made forays into the lands to the north.  In addition, lands in Mexico, north of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, were considerably wetter in those times than they are now.  Olmec civilization was forced on the move because things were drying up and changing in their original homeland, which was altering their manner of agriculture.

 

But, even with the changes, it still was much wetter then than by today's situation.  Remember, as a result of this there were larger bodies of water in Book of Mormon times and even bodies of water large enough to be called seas, such as the Texcoco Lake Complex (my and someone I know's personal proposals for the "Sea North" of the Book of Mormon), which was a rather large body of salt water that was almost as large as the Valley of Mexico now is.  The Spaniards dried up the entire lake bed to make what would later become Mexico City, and to force the remaining Azteca to abandon their culture and their way of life of living on their inland sea, which is why it isn't there anymore.

 

But those of Israel would have considered that large body of water a sea.  And, then there is the Papaloapan River Basin and Lagoon, (part of the proposed Mesoamerican model's waters of Ripliancum). Following are three photos (taken by George and Eve DeLange) of what the large body of water at Alvarado Port (or Puerto de Alvarado) that is connected to it looks like today.

 

 

 

 

 

The latter two photos are taken from many miles away from the lagoon/river basin/port complex.  It still cannot be fit into the camera area.

 

Recall that I mentioned that it was larger and wetter there in Book of Mormon times.  But even now these bodies of water are not so small when you are standing there looking at it rather than on a Google Earth map from many miles up. In any case it all was larger than anything in the proposed land south.  To those who had crossed into the northern lands and become aware of these waters, they really did "exceed all" that they then knew.  It's really not all that hard to reconcile once you let the text speak for itself and keep in mind what the ancients would have thought when encountering such things.

[MormonMason]

Of course some are saying Mexico is the "land northward", it is north of the isthmus of Tehuantepec, so is the "land northward". The full hemispheric model proponents also say that Mexico is the "land northward", just not all of it, being only the southern part of the "land northward": whereas the LGT proponents are saying that southern Mexico is the ENTIRE "land northward". The rest of North America above southern Mexico lies outside of the purview of the BoM "authors", i.e. Mormon and Moroni and the "original sources" that they are quoting from....

For others who propose Mesoamerica, it is the fact that the culture cores of the region do not go much further than certain northernmost boundaries.  For me, there is that reason plus another reason for that.  That other reason is that in Book of Mormon times this same culture core upper limit also bordered on what once was an actual sea north, a sea by ancient Israelite standards that now is gone.

[USU78]

Another point of interest worth some consideration.  Anyone else seen the Church film, "How Rare a Possession"? Anyone else recall the opening sequence where Moroni begins traveling to the place where he deposits the Book of Mormon? If you noticed, he starts out by walking to the edge of a high place near a waterfall, which has the appearance of somewhere in Mesoamerica.  From there he walks until another part of the sequence shows him walking through a desolate desert, followed by a sequence of Moroni walking across the Great Plains with the Rockies far on his left.  The final sequence has him walking through an area that has the appearance of forestry in upstate New York and ultimately burying artifacts in what ostensibly is the hill in New York.

 

In addition, sets and costumes were created for the Parley P. Pratt conversion story that gave the air of Mesoamerica when they made the video sequences.  Something to think about when one considers that that film was an official Church missionary tool that was widely shown in Visitor's Centers and to investigators all over the US and elsewhere.

 

But but but . . . he'd have had to cross the Mississippi . . . couldn't have happened.

 

 Also . . . why is Osborn shying away from naming specific cites from the BoM on the issue of bodies of water?  Did he look at Ether 2?  Or is he simply being fed generalities from 3rd party non-faithful sources in order to throw mud at the wall and not to provide clarity?

Edited September 13, 2013 by USU78

[Rob Osborn]

But but but . . . he'd have had to cross the Mississippi . . . couldn't have happened.

 

 Also . . . why is Osborn shying away from naming specific cites from the BoM on the issue of bodies of water?  Did he look at Ether 2?  Or is he simply being fed generalities from 3rd party non-faithful sources in order to throw mud at the wall and not to provide clarity?

I have already specified the finger lakes andGreat Lakes as part of thoae "large bodies of water". I could specify more in North America but you get the point.

[Rob Osborn]

Pretty easily, actually.  These definitions would be defined by those who lived in conditions dissimilar to what they encountered when they made forays into the lands to the north.  In addition, lands in Mexico, north of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, were considerably wetter in those times than they are now.  Olmec civilization was forced on the move because things were drying up and changing in their original homeland, which was altering their manner of agriculture.

 

But, even with the changes, it still was much wetter then than by today's situation.  Remember, as a result of this there were larger bodies of water in Book of Mormon times and even bodies of water large enough to be called seas, such as the Texcoco Lake Complex (my and someone I know's personal proposals for the "Sea North" of the Book of Mormon), which was a rather large body of salt water that was almost as large as the Valley of Mexico now is.  The Spaniards dried up the entire lake bed to make what would later become Mexico City, and to force the remaining Azteca to abandon their culture and their way of life of living on their inland sea, which is why it isn't there anymore.

 

But those of Israel would have considered that large body of water a sea.  And, then there is the Papaloapan River Basin and Lagoon, (part of the proposed Mesoamerican model's waters of Ripliancum). Following are three photos (taken by George and Eve DeLange) of what the large body of water at Alvarado Port (or Puerto de Alvarado) that is connected to it looks like today.

 

 

 

 

 

The latter two photos are taken from many miles away from the lagoon/river basin/port complex.  It still cannot be fit into the camera area.

 

Recall that I mentioned that it was larger and wetter there in Book of Mormon times.  But even now these bodies of water are not so small when you are standing there looking at it rather than on a Google Earth map from many miles up. In any case it all was larger than anything in the proposed land south.  To those who had crossed into the northern lands and become aware of these waters, they really did "exceed all" that they then knew.  It's really not all that hard to reconcile once you let the text speak for itself and keep in mind what the ancients would have thought when encountering such things.

So, what point northward does the land northward stop being Nephite or Jaredite lands? Is it just beyond where Mexico city now is or was it farther north? Where exactly is this "north sea"?

[USU78]

I have already specified the finger lakes andGreat Lakes as part of thoae "large bodies of water". I could specify more in North America but you get the point.

 

You are ignoring Ether 2, which barges and bodies of water are highly unlikely to be the "large bodies of water" of Nephite usage.

 

Be specific, si vous plait

[Mola Ram Suda Ram]

So, what point northward does the land northward stop being Nephite or Jaredite lands? Is it just beyond where Mexico city now is or was it farther north? Where exactly is this "north sea"?

Completely irrelevant. You could not even begin to answer this question for your own theory. The BoM simply doesn't give us enough info to know.

[Robert F. Smith]

It becomes an important detail when added to all the other details being questioned or explored. The main reason why the details matter to so many is because they are in possession of some doubts and are trying to find out which way it goes. Some approach with doubt "leading", and others with faith "leading", some are apologists and others skeptics or critics, still others are disbelievers who once believed and want to convince everybody that their new paradigm of disbelief is founded on rock solid logic and evidence: "How could you still believe this nonsense?" That's their approach. Which firms up the questioning position of those who are examining the details through either faith or doubt, but still have questions. They want answers to confirm their faith or weaken their doubts. The isthmus argument is fundamentally an argument about JS: did he create the BoM or did he receive it? Either way could be under inspiration, but which is it? If the isthmus issue, combined with the other details, lead to a conviction that the details in the text don't find a real world "home", being contradictory or inconsistent or simply impossible to resolve with the requirements somewhere in the Western Hemisphere, then JS created the book (under inspiration or not is a personal conclusion). If the details can be satisfactorily resolved into a plausible setting then JS received the book and did not make anything up....

In a sense, Beast, this is true of the great unwashed masses -- those for example who have been approached out on the street by Jay Leno for his "Jaywalking" segments on all manner of subjects.  What is remarkable is that they typically include bright, pertinacious faces who seem to have been sleepwalking their way through school and life, missing some of the most important sign-posts.  This includes intelligent-looking college students, who have some of the most sincere and completely wrong notions about ordinary things that they should know.  It gets a lotta laughs, but hits uncomfortably close to home.

 

In my experience, most people do not ask serious questions about the Book of Mormon, and I didn't either when I first read it.  I had a number of embarrassingly silly notions about the book then, which only intensive scholarly study could begin to clarify and alleviate.  Most people approach the Bible in the same unscholarly way, and if they ever take a gander at the Holy Land it is usually via a slide show, or if a personal visit, usually from an air-conditioned bus.  Get a couple of semesters of "Biblical History and Archaeology" at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem under your belt (tours of archeological sites included, led by a doctoral candidate), and you only begin to comprehend just how demanding biblical interpretation can be and how many years of preparation it can take.

 

In my experience, faith and doubt had nothing to do with how Scripture was approached in the university classroom, and the same would apply to Homer's The Iliad.  In either case, it is a wonderful voyage of discovery, but must be treated with proper academic method --which in itself is a discipline requiring considerable preparation in a number of academic areas.  I know of several non-Mormon scholars who have read the Book of Mormon in scholarly fashion, and  have very much appreciated their unique points of view afterward.

[Robert F. Smith]

Was reading the BoM text last night and it speaks of the land northward on several occasion as being q land covered with large bodies of water. In the limited meso-American model there are no areas in Mexico that could be considered being covered by large bodies of water. How do you limited setting guys reconcile this?

This issue has been discussed in print for years.  What you really need to do is get large atlases of Mexico and Guatemala out and look at the topographic features.  Then explain to us why all those Mexican bodies of water and rivers are irrelevant or don't exist.

If, on the other hand, you are demanding that such large bodies can only be the Great Lakes or the land of  ten-thousand lakes (Minnesota), then you are casting realism to the winds. First because the peoples of Mexico knew nothing of such regions of North America, but also because scholars don't focus on a single issue, but understand reality as a complex set of correlates.

[Rob Osborn]

This issue has been discussed in print for years.  What you really need to do is get large atlases of Mexico and Guatemala out and look at the topographic features.  Then explain to us why all those Mexican bodies of water and rivers are irrelevant or don't exist.

If, on the other hand, you are demanding that such large bodies can only be the Great Lakes or the land of  ten-thousand lakes (Minnesota), then you are casting realism to the winds. First because the peoples of Mexico knew nothing of such regions of North America, but also because scholars don't focus on a single issue, but understand reality as a complex set of correlates.

I dont really see much as far as large bodies of water in the limited geography model. You have really got to be kidding that peoplw in Mexico didnt know about the Great Lakes anciently. We know that Great Lakes copper was traded in Mexico anciently. This is a direct connection with those two lands.

[Rob Osborn]

Completely irrelevant. You could not even begin to answer this question for your own theory. The BoM simply doesn't give us enough info to know.

Its required for the limited geography model. How far north did the Nepgite nation extend?

[Robert F. Smith]

So, what point northward does the land northward stop being Nephite or Jaredite lands? Is it just beyond where Mexico city now is or was it farther north? Where exactly is this "north sea"?

One way to approach such questions is to examine atlases (Mike Coe has a nice one available), which deal with the cultures of Mexico and/or the Americas in general, and see how they map out the various cultures which occupied certain territories at known time periods.  This helps limit the wild speculation.

 

As for seas, one needs to bear in mind the view of ancient peoples that all islands and continents were surrounded by water.  I saw a map of that sort last year in a museum, and it had the oceans surrounding continents as a kind of mythical conception.  One needs to read the Book of Mormon with the same eye for myth that one brings to the reading of the Bible.  This includes also notions about dragons, satyrs, and Rahab in the Bible and Book of Mormon.  One needs to distinguish what is figurative from what is not.

[Robert F. Smith]

I dont really see much as far as large bodies of water in the limited geography model. You have really got to be kidding that peoplw in Mexico didnt know about the Great Lakes anciently. We know that Great Lakes copper was traded in Mexico anciently. This is a direct connection with those two lands.

Yes, of course, copper was traded, and I wrote the only accurate description of that trade which you have seen in this thread (and I cited my scholarly sources).  That does not mean that traders were hauling the stuff overland or down rivers in boats to Mesoamerica.  No archeologist thinks that, for the reasons which I described in standard sources.  There were trade networks with mutiple stages, and no Mesoamericans had any knowledge of the Great Lakes.  You are judging their knowledge of such things at vast distances away as if they had modern communications and travel, which is absurd.  Go to your local university, talk to an anthropology professor, and ask him if your notions of Mesoamerican knowledge of the Great Lakes is in any way realistic.  He'll laugh you out of his office!!

 

You need to stop pretending and get out a large atlas of Mexico.

[MormonMason]

So, what point northward does the land northward stop being Nephite or Jaredite lands? Is it just beyond where Mexico city now is or was it farther north? Where exactly is this "north sea"?

Slightly farther north (but only if you hold the view that Teotihuacan was possibly originally a Nephite Temple City that went apostate and influenced the rest of the Nephite world), and that's about it.  The interesting thing is, and this is the reason why some hold to such a view as I mention, is because dating of the time of the growth of varied sects and religions in the area dates to roughly the same time period as when that happened in the Book of Mormon.

 

And, I told you what I thought that that north sea was.  In my view (and that of some others; admittedly we are in a minority at the present), it was the former Lake Texcoco/Texcoco Lake Complex, which was a large, natural, saltwater body that actually was a connected cluster of salt water lakes and and freshwater lakes.  It no longer exists.  The Spaniards obliterated most all of it as well as the ruins of the seat of the Aztec Empire that came after Book of Mormon times to sit right on the waters.  They built Mexico City right over top of it all.  But that lake complex was there in Book of Mormon times, larger even, and more than matched the definition of sea for ancient Israelites.  Here is a relevant quote from a scientific paper on the subject:

 

The Valley of Mexico is an endorheic basin in the highest part of the Mexican Plateau (2,240-2,390 m.a.s.l.) between 19°01'18" - 20°09'12" N and 98°31'58" - 99°30'52" W.  It is oval in shape with axes of 125km (N-S) and 90 km (E-W) and a mean area of 9,600 km² (Alvarez and Navarro, 1957; DDF, 1975).

 

Originally, the basin was almost totally occupied (80%, approximately 7,868 km²) by ancient Lake Texcoco.  Later, it split into a smaller freshwater lake in the south (Xochimilco), and a larger saline lake, Texcoco Lake, in the north.  When the Aztecs arrived in 1245. a lacustrine complex of four interconnected water-bodies was present in the valley: Zumpango, Xaltocan, Texcoco, and Xochimilco.  Through damming, Xaltocan was separated into Xaltocan and San Cristobal lakes, Texcoco into Texcoco and Mexico lakes, and Xochimilco into Xochimilco and Calco lakes.  Climatic change, drainage, and the growth of Mexico City has led to the now almost complete demise of this once huge lake complex.  There remain just sparse remnants, namely fragments of Zumpango, Texcoco, and Xochimilco (Alcocer and Escobarm 1990; DDF, 1975).

 

J. Alcocer and W. D. Williams, "Historical and recent changes in Lake Texcoco, a saline lake in Mexico," in International Journal of Salt Lake Research [Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers,1996], 5:45-46).

 

 

This body of water was 7,868 square kilometers in area  (or 3,037.83783784 square miles in area, for the metrically impaired).  Contrast that with the size of the Dead Sea in the Jordan Rift Valley, which is only 1,010 square kilometers in area (or 389.961389961 square miles in area, for the metrically impaired).  As I said, it qualifies as a sea north by more than ancient Israelite standards.

[Rob Osborn]

Yes, of course, copper was traded, and I wrote the only accurate description of that trade which you have seen in this thread (and I cited my scholarly sources).  That does not mean that traders were hauling the stuff overland or down rivers in boats to Mesoamerica.  No archeologist thinks that, for the reasons which I described in standard sources.  There were trade networks with mutiple stages, and no Mesoamericans had any knowledge of the Great Lakes.  You are judging their knowledge of such things at vast distances away as if they had modern communications and travel, which is absurd.  Go to your local university, talk to an anthropology professor, and ask him if your notions of Mesoamerican knowledge of the Great Lakes is in any way realistic.  He'll laugh you out of his office!!

 

You need to stop pretending and get out a large atlas of Mexico.

You are unrealistic. Why do you insist on limiting ancient civilizations. Tell you what, why dont you go to your local university and talk to an anthropology professor and state that you believe there was an ancient civil war in North America that resulted in millions of deaths. He will most surely laugh you out of his office. Lets just stop the nonsense and be honest with the text of the BoM- what it actually does say and doesnt say.

[Tiki]

Rob Osborn, on 13 Sept 2013 - 11:57 AM, said:

So, what point northward does the land northward stop being Nephite or Jaredite lands? Is it just beyond where Mexico city now is or was it farther north? Where exactly is this "north sea"?

One way to approach such questions is to examine atlases (Mike Coe has a nice one available), which deal with the cultures of Mexico and/or the Americas in general, and see how they map out the various cultures which occupied certain territories at known time periods.  This helps limit the wild speculation.

 

As for seas, one needs to bear in mind the view of ancient peoples that all islands and continents were surrounded by water.  I saw a map of that sort last year in a museum, and it had the oceans surrounding continents as a kind of mythical conception.  One needs to read the Book of Mormon with the same eye for myth that one brings to the reading of the Bible.  This includes also notions about dragons, satyrs, and Rahab in the Bible and Book of Mormon.  One needs to distinguish what is figurative from what is not.

So the North Sea and continents surrounded by water, was a mythical conception. Interesting. I bet the Nephites knowing the earth and the planets revolving around the sun at around 70 B.C. was also a mythical conception. (Alma 30:44) It may be Rahab and his dragon told them. The more I study the LGT, the more stupid the Nephites become, and the more myth is contained in their record.

Even the Jaredites were restricted, for thousands of years, to a narrow neck of land, 500 x 200 miles of it, despite this promise by The Creator of Heaven and Earth and All Things Therein:

43 And there will I bless thee and thy seed, and raise up unto me of thy seed, and of the seed of thy brother, and they who shall go with thee, a great nation. And there shall be none greater than the nation which I will raise up unto me of thy seed, upon all the face of the earth.

Its good to know great means puny. Would that be considered loan shifting?

[MormonMason]

I dont really see much as far as large bodies of water in the limited geography model. You have really got to be kidding that peoplw in Mexico didnt know about the Great Lakes anciently. We know that Great Lakes copper was traded in Mexico anciently. This is a direct connection with those two lands.

Got a legitimate scientific (not crank) source for that? (I guess we can call that a CFR).  Mesoamericans had their own copper, both native and later smelted.  What would be the point of sending traders to acquire copper from a place thousands of miles away when they already had their own? Of course, in fairness to you, I should mention that it is thought that Mesoamericans did not start smelting copper until fairly late--in spite of archaeological evidence to the contrary that goes back to 300 BCE, in Oaxaca (if I recall correctly the name of the location). I do know that claims of trading of Great Lakes copper with the Cypriots and Minoans turned out to be crank information.  I do hope you are not trying to rely on materials such as those.

 

And, even if it were true that Great Lakes copper was traded to Mesoamericans during Book of Mormon times, that range would have been as far north as the Cahokia.  The Mesomericans never would have had contact with the Great Lakes, not having gone far enough north (again, if they were trading with the Cahokia, they would never have gone further than their trading partners, which is hundreds of miles south and west from the Great Lakes region in North America).  And, if they knew about the Great Lakes, pray tell, where else is it written? One would expect at least something of that nature.

[Rob Osborn]

Slightly farther north (but only if you hold the view that Teotihuacan was possibly originally a Nephite Temple City that went apostate and influenced the rest of the Nephite world), and that's about it.  The interesting thing is, and this is the reason why some hold to such a view as I mention, is because dating of the time of the growth of varied sects and religions in the area dates to roughly the same time period as when that happened in the Book of Mormon.

 

And, I told you what I thought that that north sea was.  In my view (and that of some others; admittedly we are in a minority at the present), it was the former Lake Texcoco/Texcoco Lake Complex, which was a large, natural, saltwater body that actually was a connected cluster of salt water lakes and and freshwater lakes.  It no longer exists.  The Spaniards obliterated most all of it as well as the ruins of the seat of the Aztec Empire that came after Book of Mormon times to sit right on the waters.  They built Mexico City right over top of it all.  But that lake complex was there in Book of Mormon times, larger even, and more than matched the definition of sea for ancient Israelites.  Here is a relevant quote from a scientific paper on the subject:

 

 

This body of water was 7,868 square kilometers in area  (or 3,037.83783784 square miles in area, for the metrically impaired).  Contrast that with the size of the Dead Sea in the Jordan Rift Valley, which is only 1,010 square kilometers in area (or 389.961389961 square miles in area, for the metrically impaired).  As I said, it qualifies as a sea north by more than ancient Israelite standards.

I picture Tiotihuacan as being Jaredite. I have long debated with myself if this was the capital Moron. It appears by all means to be a capital city. My own belief is that it wasnt Nepgite or Lamanite. I dont believe the Nephites had the resources coupled with the type of vain ambition to build such monuments and pyramids. Some cite Tiotihuacan as Nepgite because of the use of "cement". My own theory is that the nephites "cement" was more of the "adobe" as seen in all parts of the Americas, especially the southwest.

I can believe some lakes and bodies of water existed on the cobtinents in ancient times. What really matters though is to what extent did the nephites speak of in these bodies northward- how many miles. My argument is that this boundary extended up into Canada. People naturally have the tendancy to venture and settle all parts of lands that are livable. It seems that the rate of griwth over thousands of miles is the natural effect of a civilization after several hundred years. Is this not how the Europeans who came to America also grew? Why should the Nephites and Jaredites be any different?

[MormonMason]

You are unrealistic. Why do you insist on limiting ancient civilizations. Tell you what, why dont you go to your local university and talk to an anthropology professor and state that you believe there was an ancient civil war in North America that resulted in millions of deaths. He will most surely laugh you out of his office. Lets just stop the nonsense and be honest with the text of the BoM- what it actually does say and doesnt say.

That's right.  You will be laughed out of the office.  Wars of total extermination and civil wars on massive scale (like those described in, say, the Book of Mormon) are known to be a Mesoamerican phenomenon.

 

And, I agree with you that we need to be honest with the text of the Book of Mormon.  So, when are you going to start doing so? The Book of Mormon is very clear that all the remaining Nephites were gathered together in only the land of Cumorah, and that they lived in tents and camped round about the hill Cumorah.  That is what the Book of Mormon actually says.  You, knowing that there is no way a Great Lakes setting for the final battles cannot accommodate such massive numbers around the New York hill, must violate the sense of the Book of Mormon text and flat out contradict it in claiming that the Nephites were spread out and made a bunch of small fortifications for hundreds of miles around to hold off the Lamanites.  You misread the text at every turn and try to set forth the Jaredites as controls for Nephite situations when the situations of both peoples clearly differ on massive scale.

[Anijen]

I dont really see much as far as large bodies of water in the limited geography model. You have really got to be kidding that peoplw in Mexico didnt know about the Great Lakes anciently. We know that Great Lakes copper was traded in Mexico anciently. This is a direct connection with those two lands.

CFR, untrue, on all counts. 1. Show me where the people of Mexico during the time of  the Book of Mormon knew anything about the people up in the Great Lakes area. 2.Show me where the copper of the Great Lakes was traded in Mexico anciently.

 

There is no direct connection "with those two lands."

 

I call a CFR that show your claims, or or take away your absurd statements. They are false.