Comoro & Moroni

[pogi]

55 minutes ago, Rajah Manchou said:

Yes, but only because I am taking the earliest Arabic geographies at face value, even if they might be nothing but myth. But there could be something to all these tall tales.

Curiously, the Comoros Island are linked back to Israel, or at least the Arabian Peninsula. DNA testing shows a high level of Middle Eastern-like DNA in Comorian and Malagasy populations. That's easy enough to explain given trade routes. But it gets complicated because these migrations seem to have passed through Southeast Asia (KMR) first. The debate on this continues amongst linguists and population geneticists, but it does seem certain that the Comorians are closely related to the Lemba Jews who claim to have departed Israel around the time of the Lehites. 

"Interestingly, there are a number of similarities between the genetic profile of the Comoros islanders and the Lemba of South Africa, a Bantu speaking people whose Semitic origins are evident at both the cultural and genetic level.^15, 65 The Lemba have high frequencies of the Middle Eastern Y-chromosome HgJ-12f2a (25%), a potentially SEA Y, Hg-K(xPQR) (32%) and a Bantu Y, E-PN1 (30%) (similar to E-M2), raising the possibility that the Lemba and Comorian populations are consequences of similar demographic processes. The high-resolution genotyping of the Lemba Y chromosomes and mitochondria will elucidate this question." (source)
 

This is all intriguing if the Book of Mormon stories took place on the Comoros Island.  It would be pretty good evidence for the historicity of the Book of Mormon. but I am having difficulty with the Comoros Island connection to the Americas.  You are claiming that the 2 separate but similar stories might not be coincidence, but I am having a hard time seeing the connection.  How are the two groups related?

Isn't the potential Comoros connection to a group who departed Israel from around the time of Lehi just another coincidence?  You are not claiming that they are related to the Lehites in any way are you? As far as we know, all of the Lehites made it to America.  They didn't leave a small group on an island on their way to the Americas. 

2 different groups depart Israel around the same time. Each group ends up in different locations. Each location has a mountain/hill of the same name associated with buried golden records, with an association to a character named Mormoni. 

You are right, if Joseph Smith pulled these names off of a map and made up the story, "he picked a winner" and imagined up an almost parallel reality to the Comoros by pure chance.  That doesn't seem likely.  If not, this is all just so bizarre that there could actually be these two almost parallel realities.  You say it is not coincidence, but how could it not be?  Either way you look at it, it all seems unlikely. 

Edited April 26, 2017 by pogi

[RevTestament]

1 hour ago, pogi said:

This is all intriguing if the Book of Mormon stories took place on the Comoros Island.  It would be pretty good evidence for the historicity of the Book of Mormon. but I am having difficulty with the Comoros Island connection to the Americas.  You are claiming that the 2 separate but similar stories might not be coincidence, but I am having a hard time seeing the connection.  How are the two groups related?

Isn't the potential Comoros connection to a group who departed Israel from around the time of Lehi just another coincidence?  You are not claiming that they are related to the Lehites in any way are you? As far as we know, all of the Lehites made it to America.  They didn't leave a small group on an island on their way to the Americas. 

2 different groups depart Israel around the same time. Each group ends up in different locations. Each location has a mountain/hill of the same name associated with buried golden records, with an association to a character named Mormoni. 

You are right, if Joseph Smith pulled these names off of a map and made up the story, "he picked a winner" and imagined up an almost parallel reality to the Comoros by pure chance.  That doesn't seem likely.  If not, this is all just so bizarre that there could actually be these two almost parallel realities.  You say it is not coincidence, but how could it not be?  Either way you look at it, it all seems unlikely. 

Not so unlikely if the Lehi boat happened to stop there.... That I believe is quite feasible or even likely. It is quite likely the Lehites stopped for water and supplies, even if the BoM doesn't mention it.

[clarkgoble]

1 hour ago, cinepro said:

Heck, this brings to question the odds of the Jaredites naming a hill "Ramah", which was also the name of a place in the Old Testament.

I think that could be easily explained as a translation of the name and that the name in the indigenous language was different. The idea that Mormon or Moroni would always transliterate terms rather than translate them seems questionable IMO. I suspect this accounts for the large number of Hebrew names of places despite the clear indications in the text that Hebrew wasn't the main language of the Nephites. (Mos 1:2-5; Alma 7:1; Morm 9:34) This of course also would explain the problem of animal/plant names since they used a "close enough" Hebrew word to represent a new entity there was no Hebrew word for. 

Quote

And it doesn't look like Joseph Smith was picking that name at random.  There is a much more direct and obvious connection that is pretty easy to see: 

Joseph Smith, Captain Kidd Lore, and Treasure-Seeking in New York and New England during the Early Republic

I think the Kidd stories aren't terribly plausible and are little better than the map argument. The main evidence for a connection are late accounts lambasting Joseph as shiftless and lazy and mentions the Kidd story. There's no direct evidence so it's an other "maybe, possibly, he heard the terms from these accounts." The connection to Comoros/Meroni is purely speculative. If the tales were told third hand it assumes those names would be recounted. But to call this circumstantial is being generous. I think that article saying, "in light of Joseph Smith’s idolization of Captain Kidd and pursuit of pirate treasure..." is pretty wishful thinking. The argument at that point appears to be a report that his father had looked for Kidd's treasure and Porter Rockwell saying people had looked for the treasure near Cumorah. Later in the article there's a bit more data so this may just be poor writing (assuming the reader is familiar with an argument you've not yet made)

Quote

From Dialog article:

Pomeroy Tucker and other Palmyra neighbors remembered that young Joseph Smith read adventure stories and the lives of rogues and criminals, including the legendary Captain Kidd.52 Palmyra resident Philetus Spear wrote that Smith “had for a library a copy of the ‘Arabian Nights,’ stories of Captain Kidd, and a few nov- els.”53 In an 1881 interview on the origins of Mormonism, Anna Ruth Eaton, another of Smith’s Palmyra neighbors, counted “the redoubtable Captain Kidd” as Smith’s “hero,” saying that he had “the autobiography of Capt. Kidd, the pirate. This latter work was eagerly and often perused.” 

But all these are very late recollections written decades after the events in question - often more than 50 years later and typically in a fashion designed to talk him down.

I'll avoid the traditional debates over how well read and literate Joseph was as they are fairly unresolvable. Even if we take for granted Joseph did read somewhat, the scattershot argument of "he could have seen these books" is extremely circumstantial. There's one book, General History of the Pyrates, that mentions "Comaro." So there's one book that might have mentioned a variant spelling of the location. That's not much. As I read the paper the primary overarching argument is more that Joseph was fixated on Kidd and thus would have sought out maps that would put him in contact with the Comoros/Meroni maps. But that's so circumstantial that it's really a house of cards with each layer depending upon multiple "ifs."

I'm not saying it's not possible. It most certainly is possible Joseph saw a map with both these words. However that's far from an argument it's likely. Just that it's a "might be" parallel hunt that matches the best of apologetics going overboard with dubious parallels they can't really establish. The whole point of the Kidd argument in the paper is primarily as a motive to establish why Joseph would seek out obscure maps of that area.

Again I think we have to ask the probabilities even for the naturalistic critic's point of view. What's more likely, this pretty elaborate circumstantial chain that has Joseph looking up obscure maps of Asia, or that he simply made up the terms the way he made up related terms like Mormon and so forth. After all the naturalistic critic can't explain all names so clearly their model demands Joseph be able to make up reasonable sounding names. But at that point, what need is there for the map argument? It is useful only to the "this couldn't be coincidence" which ends up only working with a pretty circumstantial set of arguments one has to buy first. Even were I a naturalist critic I think Ockham's Razor would just be, "he made it up."

Edited April 26, 2017 by clarkgoble

[Rajah Manchou]

2 hours ago, pogi said:

This is all intriguing if the Book of Mormon stories took place on the Comoros Island.  It would be pretty good evidence for the historicity of the Book of Mormon. but I am having difficulty with the Comoros Island connection to the Americas.  You are claiming that the 2 separate but similar stories might not be coincidence, but I am having a hard time seeing the connection.  How are the two groups related?

Isn't the potential Comoros connection to a group who departed Israel from around the time of Lehi just another coincidence?  You are not claiming that they are related to the Lehites in any way are you? As far as we know, all of the Lehites made it to America.  They didn't leave a small group on an island on their way to the Americas. 

2 different groups depart Israel around the same time. Each group ends up in different locations. Each location has a mountain/hill of the same name associated with buried golden records, with an association to a character named Mormoni. 

You are right, if Joseph Smith pulled these names off of a map and made up the story, "he picked a winner" and imagined up an almost parallel reality to the Comoros by pure chance.  That doesn't seem likely.  If not, this is all just so bizarre that there could actually be these two almost parallel realities.  You say it is not coincidence, but how could it not be?  Either way you look at it, it all seems unlikely. 

I'm not trying to prove the Book of Mormon is history, or that Lehites sailed to America, or that a warrior named Moroni buried golden plates in a hill called Cumorah. I'm not entirely convinced that the Book of Mormon took place anywhere, let alone America. I like to believe it did, and I start from that belief, but there's plenty of material on that subject written by people who know it far better than I do. From my personal research I find it far more likely that the Book of Mormon took place on an island in the sea.

My purpose in starting this thread was to show that there is an interesting alt-story behind these two terms Moroni + Comoro that challenges the argument that this word combo is evidence that the Book of Mormon is 19th-century fiction. I don't buy that argument, but I'll let the evidence fall where it will. And whether those terms came from a physical location full of Nephites, a Captain Kidd treasure map, an ancient Arabic geography, or by chance, its still worth knowing the story behind the story.

Edited April 26, 2017 by Rajah Manchou

[RevTestament]

11 minutes ago, Rajah Manchou said:

I'm not trying to prove the Book of Mormon is history, or that Lehites sailed to America, or that a guy named Moroni buried golden plates in a hill called Cumorah. I'm not entirely convinced that the Book of Mormon took place anywhere, let alone America. I like to believe it did, and I start from that belief, but there's plenty of material on that subject written by people who know that material far better than I do. I only want to show that there is an interesting alt-story behind these two terms Moroni + Comoro that many critics use as some sort of evidence that the Book of Mormon is 19th-century fiction. I don't buy that argument, but let the evidence fall where it will. And whether those terms came from a physical location full of Nephites, a Captain Kidd treasure map, an ancient Arabic geography, or by chance, its still worth knowing the story behind the story.

The Capt Kidd books available in the region do not mention Cumoros and Moroni. I believe Comoros is as close as one of them gets. Nor are there "treasure maps" of the area in these works. It was well known that Kidd had apparently stashed treasure after returning to the New World, and treasure-seeking attention would have been focused on that area. It is almost ironic that Kidd did go to the Comoros to hunt for pirates, as that was a well-known hiding place for pirates at the time, but was unable to find any. This is when his crew became desperate and essentially rail-roaded him into sacking the British ship which got him in trouble. Anyway no one has ever shown a Kidd book which mentions any form of both names - much less one of the dime-store booklets of the time. Nor have they shown Smith had access to any such map. However, the islands are in the very middle of what I believe to be the route to the promised land by the Lehites - making it a potential 1st stop for the Lehites - which certainly would have made Semitic names they encountered memorable to them. That is quite feasible as to how these names ended up in the BoM.

[pogi]

1 hour ago, Rajah Manchou said:

I'm not trying to prove the Book of Mormon is history, or that Lehites sailed to America, or that a warrior named Moroni buried golden plates in a hill called Cumorah. I'm not entirely convinced that the Book of Mormon took place anywhere, let alone America. I like to believe it did, and I start from that belief, but there's plenty of material on that subject written by people who know it far better than I do. From my personal research I find it far more likely that the Book of Mormon took place on an island in the sea.

My purpose in starting this thread was to show that there is an interesting alt-story behind these two terms Moroni + Comoro that challenges the argument that this word combo is evidence that the Book of Mormon is 19th-century fiction. I don't buy that argument, but I'll let the evidence fall where it will. And whether those terms came from a physical location full of Nephites, a Captain Kidd treasure map, an ancient Arabic geography, or by chance, its still worth knowing the story behind the story.

I appreciate you sharing this information.  It really is fascinating to read about the parallels of the BoM to some of the research you have done.  

Edited April 26, 2017 by pogi

[Calm]

8 hours ago, Rajah Manchou said:

I'm not trying to prove the Book of Mormon is history, or that Lehites sailed to America, or that a warrior named Moroni buried golden plates in a hill called Cumorah. I'm not entirely convinced that the Book of Mormon took place anywhere, let alone America. I like to believe it did, and I start from that belief, but there's plenty of material on that subject written by people who know it far better than I do. From my personal research I find it far more likely that the Book of Mormon took place on an island in the sea.

My purpose in starting this thread was to show that there is an interesting alt-story behind these two terms Moroni + Comoro that challenges the argument that this word combo is evidence that the Book of Mormon is 19th-century fiction. I don't buy that argument, but I'll let the evidence fall where it will. And whether those terms came from a physical location full of Nephites, a Captain Kidd treasure map, an ancient Arabic geography, or by chance, its still worth knowing the story behind the story.

I read you as sharing possibilities mostly out of interest in learning yourself and assuming that others are also interested in exploration.  You never come across as proselytizing this position to me or being careless in making connections or just trying to pull in any material to build a case on quantity rather than quality...which is why you get points from me even though I think it an unlikely connection.  Also the information is just interesting even without the connection.

Edited April 27, 2017 by Calm

[Rajah Manchou]

8 hours ago, RevTestament said:

However, the islands are in the very middle of what I believe to be the route to the promised land by the Lehites - making it a potential 1st stop for the Lehites - which certainly would have made Semitic names they encountered memorable to them. That is quite feasible as to how these names ended up in the BoM.

I served my mission in Madagascar, and taught a few people from Moroni. It was always interesting to see their reaction when we taught the second (iirc) discussion and told them the name of the angel. Here's another interesting one, the name for "man" in Malagasy is lehilahy. Even though I'm pretty sure we can chalk that one up to being a coincidence, it was always fun to hear so many Book of Mormon-sounding names as we walked around town.

Just as an FYI, the Malagasy language is most closely related to a language called Ma'anyan, an austronesian language. Linguistically and genetically, its starting to look like the Malagasy people came originally from an area around southern Borneo, known today as Banjarmasin and known in Ma'anyan histories as Halaman. Their migration from the Malay Archipelago to the Comoros is one of history's great mysteries.

Here's some background behind the groups involved. There is a tribe called the Antemoro or Antimorona in Madagascar that has been found to carry high levels of DNA (J1 and T1) most often associated with the Jewish diaspora. How these high concentrations of DNA associated with Assyrian and Babylonian exiles got to a tribe called the "People of Moro" or the "People of Morona" who sailed from the Malay Archipelago to the Comoros is another mystery. The most logical explanation would be that they were associated with Arab and Persian trade, but there are problems with that explanation as much of their language, culture and genetics appears to have come from the Malay Archipelago.

"Haplogroup J1 is predominant in Middle East, and also very frequent in North and Northeast Africa, Europe, India and Pakistan. The T1 haplogroup, found at very low frequency in the world, seems to have a Southwestern Asia origin and to be associated with many demographic processes such as the spread of agriculture, the Assyrian and Babylonian exiles and the Jewish Diaspora [49]...the J1 Median-Joining network on the minimal haplotype showed that the J1 haplotype in the Antemoro corresponded exactly to those found in individuals from Cyprus, Turkey and Palestine and was close to some haplotypes from the Comoros. The study by Msaidie (2010) on Comoros populations showed the presence of haplogroups J1 in this area and the author deduced from Comoros populations haplogroup frequencies analysis that the gene flow would be compatible with an origin from Iran." (source)

Edited April 27, 2017 by Rajah Manchou

[clarkgoble]

8 hours ago, Rajah Manchou said:

My purpose in starting this thread was to show that there is an interesting alt-story behind these two terms Moroni + Comoro that challenges the argument that this word combo is evidence that the Book of Mormon is 19th-century fiction. I don't buy that argument, but I'll let the evidence fall where it will. And whether those terms came from a physical location full of Nephites, a Captain Kidd treasure map, an ancient Arabic geography, or by chance, its still worth knowing the story behind the story.

While I was a bit critical, I must say I appreciated what you wrote and learned a lot I didn't know.

[Rajah Manchou]

16 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

While I was a bit critical, I must say I appreciated what you wrote and learned a lot I didn't know.

No worries, I appreciate questions that force me to check my comments and sources more thoroughly. And to see errors in my thinking that I wouldn't catch otherwise. You'll see almost every comment I make is edited a few times because I reread and catch things that just won't pass the clarkgoble, cinepro, robert smith, johnniecake or revtestament test. Please do continue being critical.

Edited April 27, 2017 by Rajah Manchou
Because I edit almost every comment I make

[clarkgoble]

BTW - what part of Madagascar were you in? We get cocoa beans from a plantation on the coast. But it's basically a three day trip just to get there so it's one of the few plantations we've not visited. 

[Rajah Manchou]

1 hour ago, clarkgoble said:

BTW - what part of Madagascar were you in? We get cocoa beans from a plantation on the coast. But it's basically a three day trip just to get there so it's one of the few plantations we've not visited. 

I was there in the early years before the Madagascar mission opened up, so the mission home was in Durban South Africa. I spent a year in La Reunion (a little French island off the coast) and then a year in Antananarivo, the capital city of Madagascar. We did take a trip to the coast once, but otherwise we were always up in the Merina highlands. I'm guessing the cocoa plantation is up in the north? Maybe Sambava or Marovato?

[Johnnie Cake]

11 hours ago, Rajah Manchou said:

I served my mission in Madagascar, and taught a few people from Moroni. It was always interesting to see their reaction when we taught the second (iirc) discussion and told them the name of the angel. Here's another interesting one, the name for "man" in Malagasy is lehilahy. Even though I'm pretty sure we can chalk that one up to being a coincidence, it was always fun to hear so many Book of Mormon-sounding names as we walked around town.

Just as an FYI, the Malagasy language is most closely related to a language called Ma'anyan, an austronesian language. Linguistically and genetically, its starting to look like the Malagasy people came originally from an area around southern Borneo, known today as Banjarmasin and known in Ma'anyan histories as Halaman. Their migration from the Malay Archipelago to the Comoros is one of history's great mysteries.

Here's some background behind the groups involved. There is a tribe called the Antemoro or Antimorona in Madagascar that has been found to carry high levels of DNA (J1 and T1) most often associated with the Jewish diaspora. How these high concentrations of DNA associated with Assyrian and Babylonian exiles got to a tribe called the "People of Moro" or the "People of Morona" who sailed from the Malay Archipelago to the Comoros is another mystery. The most logical explanation would be that they were associated with Arab and Persian trade, but there are problems with that explanation as much of their language, culture and genetics appears to have come from the Malay Archipelago.

"Haplogroup J1 is predominant in Middle East, and also very frequent in North and Northeast Africa, Europe, India and Pakistan. The T1 haplogroup, found at very low frequency in the world, seems to have a Southwestern Asia origin and to be associated with many demographic processes such as the spread of agriculture, the Assyrian and Babylonian exiles and the Jewish Diaspora [49]...the J1 Median-Joining network on the minimal haplotype showed that the J1 haplotype in the Antemoro corresponded exactly to those found in individuals from Cyprus, Turkey and Palestine and was close to some haplotypes from the Comoros. The study by Msaidie (2010) on Comoros populations showed the presence of haplogroups J1 in this area and the author deduced from Comoros populations haplogroup frequencies analysis that the gene flow would be compatible with an origin from Iran." (source)

Question:  Is you're theory that the BoM took place on an island and not in the America's in part due to the lack of supporting DNA in the Americas for a Jewish migration?  This is not intended as a highjack...just a question

[clarkgoble]

7 hours ago, Rajah Manchou said:

I'm guessing the cocoa plantation is up in the north? Maybe Sambava or Marovato?

Sambrino Valley. 

[Rajah Manchou]

1 hour ago, Johnnie Cake said:

Question:  Is you're theory that the BoM took place on an island and not in the America's in part due to the lack of supporting DNA in the Americas for a Jewish migration?  This is not intended as a highjack...just a question

One part due to the absence of supporting DNA, and another part due to the absence of supporting elephants, silk, chariots, metal swords, iron slag, metallurgy, cimeters, boats, scripts, Christianity, horses, golden plates, brass plates, cattle, goats, sheep, pigs, wheat, barley, bees, Greek names, churches, synagogues, Solomon-like temples, etc. All these things are found within range of the island/peninsula of Kamara during the Book of Mormon timeframe. (source)

Essentially, if one is willing to accept the Book of Mormon account happened on an island peninsula in the sea then the Book of Mormon becomes a surprisingly accurate historical text. Even the geography fits in a way that is difficult to dismiss as a coincidence:

Land Northward
Land of Zarahemla
Land of Nephi

Edited April 27, 2017 by Rajah Manchou

[clarkgoble]

Isn't the Camara island far too small (and within sight of the main Philippines island?) Or are you thinking of a different Camara Island? (I'm assuming not the Canadian one)

[Rajah Manchou]

5 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

Isn't the Camara island far too small (and within sight of the main Philippines island?) Or are you thinking of a different Camara Island? (I'm assuming not the Canadian one)

Hard to know what to call it since there were so many variations, but as soon as a say the Malay Peninsula, the thread dies. So, oh well, here goes nothing:

"All these things are found within range of the Malay Peninsula during the Book of Mormon timeframe." (source)

[clarkgoble]

Ah. OK. So you are looking at the entire Malay Peninsula. I'm skeptical of that location due to the connection with America - particularly in the prophesies. However the Malay theory, while a very minor view, has been written about a lot. There was even a Sunstone article a few years back.

[Rajah Manchou]

2 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

Ah. OK. So you are looking at the entire Malay Peninsula. I'm skeptical of that location due to the connection with America - particularly in the prophesies. However the Malay theory, while a very minor view, has been written about a lot. There was even a Sunstone article a few years back.

Yeah, that's exactly why the thread dies as soon as those two words are mentioned. This model is completely different from that one.

[Johnnie Cake]

48 minutes ago, Rajah Manchou said:

One part due to the absence of supporting DNA, and another part due to the absence of supporting elephants, silk, chariots, metal swords, iron slag, metallurgy, cimeters, boats, scripts, Christianity, horses, golden plates, brass plates, cattle, goats, sheep, pigs, wheat, barley, bees, Greek names, churches, synagogues, Solomon-like temples, etc. All these things are found within range of the island/peninsula of Kamara during the Book of Mormon timeframe. (source)

Essentially, if one is willing to accept the Book of Mormon account happened on an island peninsula in the sea then the Book of Mormon becomes a surprisingly accurate historical text. Even the geography fits in a way that is difficult to dismiss as a coincidence:

Land Northward
Land of Zarahemla
Land of Nephi

I think I understand where you're coming from...where as I take all of these misses in the Americas and conclude that the Book is not what it claims, you on the other hand take the book at its word and merely move its location to one that better fits the Book's claims. 

[Rajah Manchou]

1 minute ago, Johnnie Cake said:

I think I understand where you're coming from...where as I take all of these misses in the Americas and conclude that the Book is not what it claims, you on the other hand take the book at its word and merely move its location to one that better fits the Book's claims. 

That's a good way of putting it. I see it as a spectrum. On the left we have the models that best meet the physical and geographical requirements of the Book of Mormon. On the right we have those that meet the revelatory requirements of the Book of Mormon. I'd say this model is far left. Meso is in the middle. Heartland is on the right.

All have strengths and weaknesses. But all help us understand the text better.

[clarkgoble]

6 hours ago, Rajah Manchou said:

Yeah, that's exactly why the thread dies as soon as those two words are mentioned. This model is completely different from that one.

Not having been involved in the prior discussions, how is your model different from that Sunstone article? And how do you deal with the Moroni/Cumorah issue? Obviously movement is part of the mesoamerican model too which rejects the final war of Moroni being in New York. But moving it to Mexico seems far less radical than moving it to Asia.

[Rajah Manchou]

6 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

Not having been involved in the prior discussions, how is your model different from that Sunstone article?

I should have been more exact with that comment. Ralph Olsen, who passed away a few years back, wrote that Sunstone article, and did an extraordinary job considering he didn't have access to the Internet and had never set foot in Asia. So I have a great deal of respect for his open mind and dedication in putting together a rogue geography model that was doomed to go nowhere beyond a couple of pages in Sunstone.

The problem with the Malay Model map is that it doesn't fit the archeology on the ground. It places everything south in Malaysia, below the line where we find sites that date back to the Book of Mormon period. So out of curiosity, I moved everything up a few hundred miles to match the Sidon with the Tapi River, and surprisingly everything fit. The city of Nephi lines up with the first civilization in southeast Asia dating back to the 6th century BC. The city of Zarahemla lines up with the ancient walled capital of Srah in the central plains of southern Thailand and the land of Moron lines up with Manoron in Myanmar (known as Moron, Mron, Moro and Rahma in ancient times). So you can see how the main features of the peninsula line up quite well with physical sites that date exactly to the right time, and also have names that sound vaguely like those in the Book of Mormon. Nearly all anachronisms are resolved, and the Book of Mormon starts to look like an authentic history (complete with domesticated elephants, silk, horses, chariots, iron swords etc.) of the Biblical groups that ancient texts claim once lived there.

But since almost all of this revised Malay Model map is north in Burma and Siam and not Malaysia, the "Malay Model" is now a misnomer. So I'm calling it the Kamara Model, as Kamara is the name given to this ancient culture/civilization by a handful of Khmer historians.

6 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

And how do you deal with the Moroni/Cumorah issue? Obviously movement is part of the mesoamerican model too which rejects the final war of Moroni being in New York. But moving it to Mexico seems far less radical than moving it to Asia.

The way I see it, there's no way around the movement problem. The Heartland model must explain how the Jaredites got to America in the 3rd millennium BC and how the Mulekites and Nephites got to America in the 6th century BC. The Meso model must explain how the Jaredites, Mulekites and Nephites got to Mexico. This model resolves the problem of pre-Columbian trans-oceanic voyages and only needs to explain how the plates get to New York sometime before 1820. That's a much easier movement to resolve than the movements the New World models propose.

Most importantly, the final war in the Book of Mormon seems to coincide with a great conflict/uprising in Kamara (Komoriyya) sometime between the 4th and 6th century AD. This is the conflict that drove the Kamara people to the Comoros Islands and points further west. The Comorians have traces of paternal haplogroup Q1a3 which is also found in Bolivia, Paraguay, Chile and Argentina. And of course we now know that austronesians likely reached the east coast of South America long before Columbus. 

Edited April 28, 2017 by Rajah Manchou

[RevTestament]

20 hours ago, Rajah Manchou said:

That's a good way of putting it. I see it as a spectrum. On the left we have the models that best meet the physical and geographical requirements of the Book of Mormon. On the right we have those that meet the revelatory requirements of the Book of Mormon. I'd say this model is far left. Meso is in the middle. Heartland is on the right.

All have strengths and weaknesses. But all help us understand the text better.

I will posit at least one geographical issue with the Malay setting. Your original Land of Nephi is very close to Zarahemla. The Book of Mormon talks about a 20-21 day travel to get to Zarahemla. Unless they are crawling that's about 350 miles to cover to get to Zarahemla. Your model puts these lands adjacent. and much closer - maybe 100 miles apart - which would be 5 miles per day of travel. That doesn't seem to make any geographical sense.

[Rajah Manchou]

1 hour ago, RevTestament said:

I will posit at least one geographical issue with the Malay setting. Your original Land of Nephi is very close to Zarahemla. The Book of Mormon talks about a 20-21 day travel to get to Zarahemla. Unless they are crawling that's about 350 miles to cover to get to Zarahemla. Your model puts these lands adjacent. and much closer - maybe 100 miles apart - which would be 5 miles per day of travel. That doesn't seem to make any geographical sense.

Good point, and thanks for taking the time to look it over. There are a few things I have identified as weak points, and your comment has identified one of them.

Having been to this area of Malaysia and Thailand, 5 miles per day through the jungle is not easy and in some places you would be crawling, literally. There are accounts of the first Europeans in Siam taking a week or more to go 30-50 miles. One Chinese monk says that a very similar journey took him one month + 11 days and then another 30 to get to the top of the peninsula. (source) 

I don't like to compare one model to another, but the geography I am proposing above places the distance around 200 miles, slightly farther than the Meso model and it is within the range recommended by John Clark and others. Also, in Mosiah 24 it says it was 12 days from Alma to Zarahemla. If you look at Clark's internal map it is possible that the Nephi and Zarahemla were much closer than 350 miles apart.

But I think you are looking at the old Malay Model map, which does place Nephi too close to Zarahemla. Again, this model is completely different. You can see the locations I am proposing here.


 

Edited April 28, 2017 by Rajah Manchou