Year of Maroni

telnetd · February 14, 2024

See this part of the Joseph Smith Papers. It's a record of the name of the angel
who is said to have appeared to Joseph.

https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/history-circa-1841-draft-draft-3/20#full-transcript

The room was exceedingly light but not so much so as immediately around his person
When I first looked upon <him> it I was afraid; but the fear soon left me: calling
me by name, <he> said. that he was a messenger. sent from the presence of God to me.
and that his name was Nephi.— that he had a work for me to do that my name should
be had for good and evil. among all nations. kindreds. & tongues— that there was a
book deposited: written upon gold plates, giving an account of the former inhabitants
of this Continent. as well as their origin.

Benjamin McGuire · February 14, 2024

49 minutes ago, telnetd said:

See this part of the Joseph Smith Papers. It's a record of the name of the angel who is said to have appeared to Joseph.

That's pretty late though. We have several published references to the name of the angel as Moroni starting in 1834. So this particular instance (which has its own documented history - the error actually first occurs in 1838) is widely viewed as being an error. As an error, there is also a long history of responses to it by the LDS Church and its historians - beginning in the 1870s.

webbles · February 14, 2024

2 hours ago, telnetd said:

@Benjamin McGuire @Zosimus

See this part of the Joseph Smith Papers. It's a record of the name of the angel
who is said to have appeared to Joseph.

https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/history-circa-1841-draft-draft-3/20#full-transcript

The room was exceedingly light but not so much so as immediately around his person
When I first looked upon <him> it I was afraid; but the fear soon left me: calling
me by name, <he> said. that he was a messenger. sent from the presence of God to me.
and that his name was Nephi.— that he had a work for me to do that my name should
be had for good and evil. among all nations. kindreds. & tongues— that there was a
book deposited: written upon gold plates, giving an account of the former inhabitants
of this Continent. as well as their origin.

https://www.fairlatterdaysaints.org/answers/Moroni's_visit/Nephi_or_Moroni has a nice graphic showing the timeline of usage of Moroni vs Nephi.

You can see that there at least 4 separate instances (one of them antagonistic) of Moroni before the Nephi instance.

Zosimus · February 15, 2024

20 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

But this is meaningless - in more ways than one. Let's review, shall we? Do we believe that there are military chiefs that can preternaturally change their shape? I don't.

I wouldn't expect you to believe it, and it wouldn't matter anyway. We'd need to establish what Buddhist priests in Siam believed. We'd need to establish whether this was/is a common belief in Kedah. I'm doing that, or trying. I live in the area that Low traveled through in 1824. I was standing in the port he entered into Siam just 4 days ago. More on this later, but probably not here. I'm writing it up for elsewhere.

20 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

On the other hand, one of the staples of Asian mythology about dragons is their ability to change shape. So something here is being lost in translation. On top of this, Marong means "dragon." And, we don't have a history in Malaysia of "Marong" actually being used as a title for military chiefs (especially those that can change their shape). So we have this problem - that you are elevating a single source which is not terribly believable - and trying to elevate it. This just doesn't work.

Although I agree it doesn't work, I'm not doing that. What you seem to be doing is taking that same single source and elevating that to support your argument that there's nothing there. But have you ever read Low's journal from his travels through Siam where he collected that information. I have, and a number of Low's other writings. Before you can claim its meaningless, its important to dig deeper into the sources.

20 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

And what I don't find is any modern discussion of Malaysian literature (and the Kedah Annals in particular) which uses this idea or asserts this idea. What I do find is an uncontested narrative that the individuals in the Kedah Annals (both of them) that are named with the identifier "Marong" as using that identifier in conjunction with its native meaning of Dragon and using it because they want to identify their leadership as a dynasty named after the dragon. So which am I supposed to believe here? Your version doesn't seem to bear up under scrutiny.

I've shared above that there are others in the history of Kedah and nearby Funan, that was supposedly founded by a descendent of Marong, that potentially shared the title Marong, but it doesn't come through as Marong because the accounts we have weren't English. There's an inscription from Champa dating to the Book of Mormon time period (1st - 2nd century AD) with the name Sri Mara (Cham: ꨦꨴꨫ ꨠꨩꨣ, Khmer: ឝ្រី មារ, Thai: ศรีมาระ fl. 137 or 192 AD). Scholars have attempted to connect this Sri Mara to Fan Shi Man, the founder of Funan.

I can already hear you thinking, this is totally irrelevant, what is the relationship between Mara and Marong? (source)

Given the possible historical overlap between Marong "the great (dragon) family" and the Kaundinya founders, we should also look closer at the accounts of the rulers named Kaundinya. As the paper above asks, is it possible that the Kedah Annals still preserve the tradition of [the original Kunadinya]? Is it conceivable that Marong (the great dragon family) was the original Sri Mara? It would be meaningful if there was a relationship between Mara and other historical figures of Kedah. For a more solid source, this comes from the well-known text "The Indianized States of South-East Asia" by the respected George Coedès:

"There is good reason to consider [Fan Shih-man's] name as a transcription of that of the king Sri Mara mentioned in the venerable Sanskrit stele of Vo-canh .. this inscription was long thought to be Cham, but in 1927 Louis Finot attributed it to a vassal state of Funan. If the identification of Sri Mara with Fan Shih-man is correct, the inscription - which emanates from a descendant of Sri Mara who reigned, to judge by the script, in the third century - must be considered as one of the sources for the history of Funan" (source)

The ruler of Funan might have been a Mara. Coedes goes on to make the connection between the rulers of Funan and the kingdoms in lower Burma and the Malay Peninsula, where the great dragon dynasty (marong) would have been established. So it seems, the great dragon dynasty would have been dominate across the Malay Peninsula and Indochina during the Book of Mormon time period. The name of their rulers seem to share the title Mara/Marong. For good measure, there was another Mara in Kedah between 1008 and 1017. His name is translated from Sanskritish-Malay-Siamese as Mara-Wijayottunggawarman. In Chinese accounts it is something like Ma Lo P'i or. Maravi with a straight Sanskrit pronunciation. Which btw made me wonder if Kaempfer may have got his Maroni from some mishearing of a Brahmin or Chinese priests pronunciation of Marong or Maron from the Siamese zodiac.

So, if we don't elevate Low's single account as our single source and we look closer at the inscriptions from the period, it does appear that the two Marong's in Low's introduction may not be the only two "marongs" in history.

20 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

It isn't a data point at all. This is what I keep trying to point out. It isn't a true statement that you are making - and your attempts to try and forge this false idea into evidence means that you really don't understand how the process of collecting evidence to support a hypothesis actually works.

With all due respect, and I do have a good deal of it since reading your post on verisimilitude months ago, you don't yet know how much data I have collected. I could flip this and accuse you of being sloppy because you drew your conclusions about Low's account from a single source without reading his 1824 journal, or his other writings on the Siamese religion. But I won't do that, because I know you would have dug deeper if you had a reason to. I don't expect these texts are a high priority in your research bin. So cut me some slack. I'm digging. wrt my efforts to retrace Low's physical path through Ligor and pulling his journal from a dusty shelf in the Siam Society of Bangkok, I'm doing as much as I can to put the legwork in during my spare moments. Chill with the belittling comments. Moving along

Its worth considering that Marong was the founder of Kedah and not just Ligor (Siam). So Low would have known about Marong soon after his arrival in Penang, in 1819. We don't know how early it was known that Marong was a chief from the westward or where westward was. My Malay friends usually don't accept that Marong was Indian, because the annals say Marong came from Rum (Meditarranean region), they speculate that he was Phoenician, Sabean, Hebrew or Hanif. I suspect this is all wishful thinking, considering they'd rather their homeland be founded by a monotheist "of the book". In any case, Marong was a foreign founder. He was a chief, a settler and a ruler.

From James Low's journal:

20 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

No. And for the record, when I reject submissions that rejection isn't always the final say.

I'll stand by my earlier comment then. If within an 18th century travel account of Guatemala a German physician had linked the term marong (dragon) with maroni, it would surely be noted by Book of Mormon scholars. If then in an introduction to an 1849 translation of a Guatemalan annal, a British civil servant reported that a native shaman had told him that marong was a title given to military chiefs, the Interpreter would likely have an article or five about it. You as a reviewer might object strongly that the claim is nonsense, but others would see it as a data point in support of the Mesoamerican model. I'd guess there'd be no end to hearing about Maroni the Guatemalan warrior chief from the Mediterranean on this forum. It'd be like NHM all over again.

20 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

It is irrelevant.

It's relevant, but I don't want to get offtrack by bringing up John Spaulding's second (1851) statement about Manuscript Found 😀

20 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

So let me get back to the questions that I asked that you haven't answered. If this is all really about the appearance of a Siamese Zodiac term that bears some similarity to the name Moroni, why is all of this other stuff relevant? The Book of Mormon offers nothing to support the idea that Moroni is either a title or was chosen as a name because it means something associated with a military leader. You haven't explained why Martin Harris's trip to see Samuel Mitchell means anything. You haven't come up with any sort of argument that would explain why this couldn't be purely coincidence that we have two words that look similar (in their English transliterations of course). These are important questions given what you provided - in part because what you provided isn't simply what you claim it is. Instead, it seems that you are trying to string together chains of unrelated issues to try and alleviate the argument that it is merely coincidence - but I don't see you doing a very good job of it. The links have to be real and not imaginary.

I'll touch on this briefly only, because your follow-up response will be important in determining how appropriate this forum is to a deeper discussion. In short, Samuel Mitchell, according to one account, tells Martin Harris that the characters on the transcript are authentic, and he gives Martin the name of the nation they came from. If this account is accurate, Martin Harris had returned to Joseph with confirmation that the characters from the plates were authentic, and more importantly, the name of the nation associated with the characters that became the Book of Mormon. The characters were almost entirely some style of Arabic or resembled the characters on the passports of the Ottoman Empire (as Joseph Smith Sr. told Fayette Lapham). And the nation, following Mitchell's hypothesis that Malays fought a battle to extinction 60 miles from Manchester, was "Kumr" or Malayo-Polynesian. But this requires space and time to establish.

Edited February 15, 2024 by Zosimus

Zosimus · February 15, 2024

18 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

Martha Spaulding McKinstry is a different sort of animal. Her recollection isn't of the Book of Mormon at all but the Spaulding Manuscript from which the Book of Mormon was allegedly plagiarized. Most of the accounts that we have of that manuscript were not written by the supposed eyewitnesses but by the people wanting to publish them (the signatures are usually genuine). You can see that from my analysis here of the Hurlbut affidavits. This includes Martha Spaulding's affidavit.

Maroni doesn't come from Martha, it comes from Matilda Spaulding's statement, which is also problematic. I included it because weebles asked for other instances. I didn't want to get offtrack so I included iti under a comment that it was a tangential instances.

18 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

In all of this though, we still have to wonder why you want this to matter. What difference does it make? Do we care if there were misspellings? Do you really think that Matilda's claim that the original (and non-existent) manuscript of her adoptive father Solomon Spaulding was in fact the original source of the Book of Mormon and that it used the name Maroni? If you believe this, then trying to place the Book of Mormon in the Malaysian Peninsula seems pointless. On top of this, we still have to wonder why, if Spaulding was the author of the Book of Mormon would Martin Harris's trip to see Samuel Mitchell at all meaningful? All of these little facts don't really come together into a coherent narrative (even assuming that we take them at face value).

I responded in my previous post.

Edited February 15, 2024 by Zosimus

Benjamin McGuire · February 15, 2024

13 hours ago, Zosimus said:

I wouldn't expect you to believe it, and it wouldn't matter anyway. We'd need to establish what Buddhist priests in Siam believed. We'd need to establish whether this was/is a common belief in Kedah. I'm doing that, or trying. I live in the area that Low traveled through in 1824. I was standing in the port he entered into Siam just 4 days ago. More on this later, but probably not here. I'm writing it up for elsewhere.

You aren't doing that. Let's cover the two major issues.

First, let's take it at face value and assume that the record accurately conveys what the Buddhist priest believed. As you note, the Buddhist priest believed that it was a title for military leaders who could shape change. The shape changing is important. Why? Because we understand today that the term when translated from Siamese (instead of transliterated) means dragon. And dragons in Asian mythology are shape changers. So there is a language connection there. It makes it reasonable. However, it is this connection that creates problems for what you do with it. There are absolutely zero military leaders in the Kedah Annals who are supernatural shape changers. So we wouldn't expect to see the Buddhists title to show up there as a title for a military leader who can supernaturally change their shape. Because of this absence in the Kedah Annals, there isn't any way to assess whether or not this is a common belief in the Kedah Annals. You have to be able to differentiate between the uses of the term dragon (this is part of what I have been arguing). Since the figure of the dragon appears prominently in the Siamese Zodiac, and it figures prominently in Siamese mythology (dragons seems to be the most frequently pictured mythological creature in Thai literature and art). So the fact that we can find occurrences of the term dragon in the Kedah Annals isn't itself particularly surprising. Nor would it be surprising for a new dynasty in the Malaysian peninsula to try and associate itself with the mythical figure of a dragon - after all, the dragon is one of the most common figures associated historically with different Chinese dynasties. So the problem for you is how you differentiate between references to the belief expressed by a Buddhist priest in the early 1820s with the attempt to associate a dynasty with the figure of a dragon more than a thousand years earlier? Your argument simply doesn't have any explanatory power here.

Second, there are no military leaders who have the supernatural ability. You seem to scoff at my belief - but really, I don't know of anyone who believes in military leaders with the supernatural ability to shape change. If there are accounts of these in that part of the world, they fit solidly into the realm of mythological accounts (even if they involve real people). Real military leaders would never be given such a title. They might be given such a title long after the fact - once their deeds and actions were moved from the realm of history into the realm of mythology. But that creates part of this problem. If you want to make a claim that a contemporary of the Moroni in the Book of Mormon was given a title like that - because they were a military leader capable of supernaturally changing shape - then we are going to run into the problem of a history that isn't really history - a fictional account of the past.

Both of these points leave me with the understanding that what you really want to do is to cut out the part about the supernatural shapeshifting. You want to make it just about being a military leader. That way you can find some connection to Moroni in the Book of Mormon along with the toponym. But there is a real problem here. It seems more than a little obvious that the connection between the shapeshifting and the title is in fact the meaning of the word in Siamese. Without the shapeshifting, there isn't any reason to give a military leader the title of a dragon when he doesn't have these supernatural powers. And of course we have the obvious - that there isn't any reason to suppose in the Book of Mormon that the name Moroni has anything to do with anything supernatural or with a dragon. These just aren't themes in the Book of Mormon. This is, of course, more than mildly interesting in another way - because if the references are so abundant in that part of the world to these ideas, their absence in the Book of Mormon is a real blow to the idea that the Book of Mormon comes out of that part of the world, and out of that particular cultural mix.

And by 'elsewhere', I assume you mean that other board that we don't mention here, where you have also been posting this nonsense.

13 hours ago, Zosimus said:

Although I agree it doesn't work, I'm not doing that. What you seem to be doing is taking that same single source and elevating that to support your argument that there's nothing there. But have you ever read Low's journal from his travels through Siam where he collected that information. I have, and a number of Low's other writings. Before you can claim its meaningless, its important to dig deeper into the sources.

You just don't get it. We don't have any reason to accept Low's account as accurately reflecting the historical reality. The comments of the Buddhist priest are interesting, but ultimately don't have any value in interpreting the historical text. And this is shown by the text that your expert source provides.

13 hours ago, Zosimus said:

I can already hear you thinking, this is totally irrelevant, what is the relationship between Mara and Marong? (source)

Show me a modern linguist's claim that matches this. What you are providing represents a certain sort of popular approach to languages that flourished in a particular time frame that has been replaced by much better understandings. Is there a reason why your interest is in this old material and not in stuff that is current? Could it be because this sort of narrative building that we see here isn't reflective of what we know now?

Look we are debating the details here. You want to claim that this is evidence for some larger proposition - and this is where the whole thing falls flat. You don't use speculation as evidence - and this is all wild speculation.

13 hours ago, Zosimus said:

Given the possible historical overlap between

See? Possible doesn't even begin to approach the level of even likely or probably. Making something possible allows for people to cling to a hope which is all that is necessary perhaps for belief. But when it comes to questions of evidence or fact, it doesn't do anything at all. And for me, what I find is that you provide a string of these sorts of claims. The reason is that there isn't actually any evidence that pulls all of this together. And when you say you want to "take a closer look" what this really means is searching through material to see if you can find something that supports your intuited belief. This isn't really how the process works - and it's why it isn't predictive.

13 hours ago, Zosimus said:

So, if we don't elevate Low's single account as our single source and we look closer at the inscriptions from the period, it does appear that the two Marong's in Low's introduction may not be the only two "marongs" in history.

I have no doubts about this. In fact we can read all about it here.

The problem isn't finding names that look or sound similar to a name that we have in mind. You can see from that link that we can find people with the name Maran pretty much anywhere we want to look. The source that you provide is fun because it follows more closely the current translation of the Kedah - calling the name "The Great Family". This has nothing to do with being a military leader who can supernaturally shape change. I don't have any issues with lots of people being given this name. The problem isn't with you finding it - the problem comes when you want to assert that the name means something we wouldn't expect it to mean, and the problem comes when you assert that this meaning (that we don't expect) implies something for the authorship of the Book of Mormon. That people have the name - sure, there is no problem there. The problem with elevating Low's account isn't over the existence of the names, it's over the assertion (that even Low doesn't make) that the account that he reproduces of his discussion with the Buddhist priest is actually how we should be understanding this name. It is this elevation that I am saying is nonsensical.

14 hours ago, Zosimus said:

I'll stand by my earlier comment then. If within an 18th century travel account of Guatemala a German physician had linked the term marong (dragon) with maroni, it would surely be noted by Book of Mormon scholars. If then in an introduction to an 1849 translation of a Guatemalan annal, a British civil servant reported that a native shaman had told him that marong was a title given to military chiefs, the Interpreter would likely have an article or five about it. You as a reviewer might object strongly that the claim is nonsense, but others would see it as a data point in support of the Mesoamerican model. I'd guess there'd be no end to hearing about Maroni the Guatemalan warrior chief from the Mediterranean on this forum. It'd be like NHM all over again.

And I will continue to assert that this is nonsense. And I will tell you why. First, you are changing the narrative here. Low's account did not say that Marong was the title given to military chiefs. He said that it was a title given to military chiefs who could shape change supernaturally. For anyone familiar with Asian mythology, this isn't a particularly surprising charge. A quick search yields this site:

Quote

Despite the dragon's fearsome aspect, it was not usually seen as the bad-intentioned monster that inhabits the myths of other cultures around the world where it is typically slain by a brave hero figure. Indeed, in China, the dragon was and is regarded as being a just and benevolent creature. It is for this reason they became associated with rulership and especially the emperors of China who, in their capacity as the holders of the Mandate of Heaven and as God's representative on earth, must always rule in a just and impartial manner for the good of all their subjects.

Another reason rulers should emulate dragons is that the creature was considered one of the four most intelligent animals (along with the phoenix, unicorn, and tortoise). One famous myth tells of a dragon actively helping a ruler, Yu the Great (c. 2070 BCE), the legendary founder of the Xia dynasty, who was helped by a dragon (or actually was a dragon) and a turtle to manage the floodwaters which were devastating his kingdom and so control them into a better irrigation system

Or this bit:

Quote

In folk-tales, there was a race of dragons led by their Dragon-king Lung-Wang. With scaly bodies, four legs, and horns they could take on human form and whisk away young girls.

I think that actually spending some time would come up with an entire range of these sorts of references. This is important to the context of the remarks that Low provides. But, in the Book of Mormon, while we have military leaders, we don't have anything at all that resembles this shape changing. Now the Book of Mormon does mention dragons. We have the quote from Isaiah 51:9 in 2 Nephi 8:9. We have the quote from Isaiah 13:22 which we see in 2 Nephi 23:22. And we have the comments in Mosiah 20:11 and Alma 43:44. But what we don't have in any of this is the sense of this shapeshifting Chinese mythical creature. And we don't see the word dragon connected to military leaders.

Now, if there was some reference of the sort you point out - there would certainly be interest in it. But, it isn't the same sort of scenario. You are recasting the content of Low's account in a way that is favorable to your argument - and in a way that diminishes the problems that are right there for everyone to see.

14 hours ago, Zosimus said:

With all due respect, and I do have a good deal of it since reading your post on verisimilitude months ago, you don't yet know how much data I have collected. I could flip this and accuse you of being sloppy because you drew your conclusions about Low's account from a single source without reading his 1824 journal, or his other writings on the Siamese religion. But I won't do that, because I know you would have dug deeper if you had a reason to. I don't expect these texts are a high priority in your research bin. So cut me some slack. I'm digging. wrt my efforts to retrace Low's physical path through Ligor and pulling his journal from a dusty shelf in the Siam Society of Bangkok, I'm doing as much as I can to put the legwork in during my spare moments. Chill with the belittling comments. Moving along

Then bring out your data and explain how it is relevant. Maybe, instead of using questionable early 19th century sources, you provide something from the last 50 years. I can draw conclusions about Low's accounts because the things you are claiming from it aren't being discussed in current material. Perhaps, instead, you could simply point me in the direction of any sort of standard of evidence that you are using in your research other than the old "I know it when I see it".

14 hours ago, Zosimus said:

I'll touch on this briefly only, because your follow-up response will be important in determining how appropriate this forum is to a deeper discussion. In short, Samuel Mitchell, according to one account, tells Martin Harris that the characters on the transcript are authentic, and he gives Martin the name of the nation they came from. If this account is accurate, Martin Harris had returned to Joseph with confirmation that the characters from the plates were authentic, and more importantly, the name of the nation associated with the characters that became the Book of Mormon. The characters were almost entirely some style of Arabic or resembled the characters on the passports of the Ottoman Empire (as Joseph Smith Sr. told Fayette Lapham). And the nation, following Mitchell's hypothesis that Malays fought a battle to extinction 60 miles from Manchester, was "Kumr" or Malayo-Polynesian. But this requires space and time to establish.

Ah yes. Bennett. Well, let me be the first to point out the obvious -

No matter how much you would like Bennett's theory to be true, we can ascertain with relative certainty that it wasn't true. North America was not populated by Malaysians who were destroyed by invading Tartans. So, whether or not Bennett suggested that the characters alleged to be from the Gold Plates were Malaysian in nature (we have the alleged sample, we can compare it ourselves), it doesn't have any real value for asking what might have happened. In other words, Mitchell's hypothesis isn't true - it is completely wrong.

So I am left wondering what you think that this even means. It's almost as if you want to believe that Mitchell was right, and thus that the Book of Mormon represents a group that came to America from Malaysia with that group that Mitchell fantasized about ... am I wrong here?

Zosimus · February 15, 2024

5 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

You aren't doing that. Let's cover the two major issues.

First, let's take it at face value and assume that the record accurately conveys what the Buddhist priest believed. As you note, the Buddhist priest believed that it was a title for military leaders who could shape change. The shape changing is important. Why? Because we understand today that the term when translated from Siamese (instead of transliterated) means dragon. And dragons in Asian mythology are shape changers. So there is a language connection there. It makes it reasonable. However, it is this connection that creates problems for what you do with it.

There are critical layers here, that Low, would not have been aware of. Marong, in the siamese zodiac, doesn't track 1:1 as dragon. In the Siamese zodiac, the naka has replaced the dragon. If you ask a Thai person what marong means, you're going to get two responses. Some (particularly those of Chinese heritage) might say dragon, but others will say naga/naka. This is an important distinction, a naga is not a dragon. I need to validate this statement, but my sense at the moment is that It matters where you are. If you are in an area with a heavy Chinese influence, you're going to lean towards marong = dragon, and the naga guardians are going to have horns, like a Chinese dragon. If you come from a background with a heavier Hindu or Brahminical influence, you might lean towards marong = makara, which is also not a dragon, nor a naka. If you come from an Indian Buddhist background you'll probably see the marong as a naka/naga. If we consider that Low was in Kedah, and Ligor, those he interviewed would almost certainly be of Chinese (Malay Penang) background and Theravada Buddhist (Phuket and Ligor).

The Siamese priest that supposedly told Low that marong was a title for military chiefs that can preternaturally change their shapes was almost certainly a Theravada monk. As far as I can tell Marong, the founder of Kedah, was known to the Siamese. But I doubt they agree with the claim that Siam was founded by this Marong Mahawangsa. The dominant founding mythology in the north is that of a western prince marrying a naga queen. This is the story of Kaundinya that I mentioned earlier, and his story gets jumbled together with another account of a founder called Huntien. Kaundinya usually said to be from India and Huntien from a place called Wou-Wen (which incidentally has been associated with Oman by Lacouperie) but is more likely some point further south on the Malay Peninsula. Wherever he was from, he was a devote follower of his god. One night he had a dream wherein he was told to build a ship and sail to a distant land. He woke up and discovered a divine bow. He took the bow and departed by ship to Funan. There he met resistance, but after marrying the local princess, became the subcontinents first foreign ruler. Similar story for Kaundinya. He sails to Funan, marries into the local naka dynasty, and becomes the first foreign ruler. Even today, marriage ceremonies in Cambodia play out this drama. The bride dresses as the local naga princess and the groom the foreign trader that becomes King of the Nakas.

So with that background, we go south, to Kedah. Marong is a similar narrative with differences. I can only assume these differences come from an attempt to sanitize the story into something more palatable to Arabic settlers. The whole story is whitewashed. Instead of the phoenix (garuda) visiting Shiva at the top of Mount Meru, the garuda pays a visit to King Solomon in Jerusalem. Instead of the local princess, we have a wedding between a prince of Rum and a princess in China, and Marong is the soldier assigned to guard the prince through the dangerous waters to China. The interesting element here, that we don't find in the Kaundinya and Huntien accounts, is that Marong is half "naka", although the Muslim historians don't dare call him that. They instead use the term gergasi, which means giant. Marong was the descendant of Dhu al-Qarnayn and a gergasi (giant) princess. I'm not going to get into the complications of this Marong being a descendant of Dhu al-Qarnayn, but you may already be familiar with this figure from the Quran.

I'm overdoing this, but wanted to provide some background to demonstrate that this comment that marong is a military chief that can shift shapes is complicated. It doesn't fit in the Islamicized Hikayat Merong Mahawangsa, but it would make perfect sense to a Siamese Buddhist priest. It would have been a common belief that nakas rule over the underworld, the ground under their feet. The water they swim in and drink. Nakas are shapeshifters. You could be talking to one and not know it. It could be that the Siamese priest wasn't even referring to Marong Mahawangsa or considering the Kedah Annals. He was almost certainly referring to Nantopananta, a Naga Prince that wanted to become a Buddhist monk. However the monastic rules amusingly ban nagas from being monks, only humans are allowed into the priesthood. Not wanting to be excluded, Nantopananta shifted his shape into that of a human and proceeded to the temple to complete his ordination. Not sure what happens, but somehow he accidentally shifts back into a snake form and scares all the other monks to death.

When that Buddhist priest was ordained he would have been reminded of the story of the shapeshifting naga prince. The monk ordination ceremony in Thailand is called Buat Nak, which means something like serpent ordination. Upon ordination, the initiates are referred to as nakas. During the ordination ceremony, the initiate is given a new name of naka. To prevent a naka from ever tricking the monks again, every initiate is asked if they are human. Let me just post the text of the initiation (source):

Quote

Your new name is Naga and your preceptor's name is Venerable Tissa. The Assembly of the Sangha (community of monks) will use the name Naga for the applicant and Venerable Tissa for the preceptor. These two names will be used in the course of the ceremony for this bhikkhu ordination.

Please listen to me, Naga, now is the time to instruct you on how to answer the questions that will be put to you by the Assembly. It is not, however, correct to instruct you in the middle of the Assembly - therefore, I will instruct you outside of it.

Please stand up, Naga, and go backwards with your palms together in the 'prayer posture' thereby paying respects to the Assembly of the Sangha. Then stop at a place about twenty feet from the Assembly and stand there.

Please listen attentively, Naga, now is the time for you to be honest and tell the truth. When you are back in the middle of the Assembly of the Sangha you will be questioned concerning any hindrances regarding your eligibility for higher ordination. Answer truthfully and according to the facts, do not be at a loss, do not be embarrassed. You are just to answer 'yes' if it is true or 'no' if it is not.

The questions are as follows:

1. Do you suffer from leprosy?
If you do, answer 'Yes, Venerable Sir', if you do not, answer 'No, Venerable Sir'.
2. Have you got boils?
3. Have you got eczema?
4. Have you got tuberculosis?
5. Do you get epilepsy?
6. Are you a human being?
7. Are you a man?
8. Are you a free man?
9. Are you free from government service?
10. Have you got your parents' permission to be ordained?
11. Have you a set of three robes and an almsbowl?
12. What is your name? (My name is Naga.)
13. What is your preceptor's name? (My preceptor's name is Venerable Tissa.)

I have instructed you, Naga, on how to answer the questions that you will be asked when you are back in the Assembly. I am now going to the Assembly alone, you are to remain here and come to the Assembly only when you are called.

So I'm not so sure that this Buddhist priest that Low interviewed was even considering Marong Mahawangsa or if he was even familiar with the hikayat, being a Buddhist. He probably heard Low ask about the marong, thought he was talking about a naka, and said something about shapeshifting snakes that try to fool abbots into thinking they are humans. And Low jots down something about marong being a title for military chiefs that can preternaturally change their shape. But now that I'm motivated to understand where the military chief part comes from, I'll have to understand better the story of Nantopananta, the shapeshifting naga that tried to become a monk. My recollection is of myths that nakas were commonly commissioned by human rulers to lead armies into battle, but I need to dig through my notes.

I wanted to get into the different roles of naga in different traditions, including their role as treasure gaurdians of golden spiritual texts that are buried in the ground for future treasure hunters to discover, because this is more important to my hypothesis than naga (marong) being military leaders. But this has become a wall of text, so I'll stop here for now. Will get to your other points later today.

Edited February 15, 2024 by Zosimus

Benjamin McGuire · February 16, 2024

45 minutes ago, Zosimus said:

If you come from a background with a heavier Hindu or Brahminical influence, you might lean towards marong = makara, which is also not a dragon, nor a naka. If you come from an Indian Buddhist background you'll probably see the marong as a naka/naga. If we consider that Low was in Kedah, and Ligor, those he interviewed would almost certainly be of Chinese (Malay Penang) background and Theravada Buddhist (Phuket and Ligor).

You still don't seem to get it. This distinction doesn't matter because none of these represent a military leader. You want to keep engaging the minutia when the conclusions that you start with (you certainly aren't drawing them from the data) are problematic.

48 minutes ago, Zosimus said:

I'm overdoing this, but wanted to provide some background to demonstrate that this comment that marong is a military chief that can shift shapes is complicated.

The background is an irrelevancy. There is nothing like this in the Book of Mormon. There is no reason to connect the two apart from a similarity that you see between two words - one a name in the English text of the Book of Mormon and the other in the anglicized transliteration of another text. That is the problem that you have. There isn't anything there that connects the two. We can make it as complicated as you want - it still won't draw a connection between point A and point B - and it is this connection that is necessary for the conclusions that you have intuited. You can go as deep as you want - but it is never going to help with the real argument that you are trying to make. We can make an identical argument for any other instance of a name that is similar (to the same degree) with the name Moroni in the Book of Mormon.

Zosimus · February 16, 2024

6 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

You still don't seem to get it. This distinction doesn't matter because none of these represent a military leader.

Wait, but I've never claimed that marong "represents" a military leader, or that there an etymological relationship between marong and some term that means military chief. For example. Phra Ong is an attested Siamese title given to a military chief, even today (source), and seems to have been swapped in for the name of Marong for two sons of Marong Mahawangsa (source):

Rajah Marong Mahapudisat becomes Rajah Phra Ong Mahapudisat after arrival of Buddhism
Rajah Marong Mahawangsa becomes Rajah Phra Ong Mahawangsa after arrival of Buddhism

That doesn't mean it has any etymological relationship to a term that means military chief. But this does seem to suggest that Marong was indeed a title, and was replaced by Phra Ong after the arrival of Buddhism. In the end, does it matter to my hypothesis? No, it doesn't.

6 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

You want to keep engaging the minutia when the conclusions that you start with (you certainly aren't drawing them from the data) are problematic.

Hmm, I see what is happening. I said in the OP "Marong was a title given to military leaders" when it is more precise to say "Marong was a title given to a military leader"

We should have also started off by making it clear that when Low says he's going to "trace the etymology of the name Marong Mahawangsa", he doesn't.

To be clear, I'm not claiming that marong is another word in Siamese or otherwise for military chief, or that there's some etymological relationship between the term marong (dragon/naka) and "military chief" I am repeating what a Buddhist priest in Siam told Low, that Marong was a title bestowed on a military chief or military chiefs. We aren't told explicitly that Rajah Marong Mahawangsa is the military chief that the priest is referring to, but we can safely assume it since Low includes it in the introduction to his translation of the Hikayat Marong Mahawangsa. We also aren't explicitly told that this title was given to any other military chiefs. So I should not assume just because the son, Rajah Marong Mahapudisat, shares the name Marong with his father, that it was a military title for the son. Just like Doctor Philastus Hurlbut was not a doctor, rather his parents just named him Doctor.

Now, to establish whether or not marong was actually a title of some sort and not just a name given to a single military leader, we'd have to dissect the word. Unlike Low, we'd have to truly trace its etymology. The only etymology we have for marong is that it comes from the Chinese word for dragon, 龙 lóng. Does the Siamese priest, certainly familiar with the royal title Phra Ong, make an assumption about Mar Ong or Ma lóng as a title? I don't know. I simply don't know why the monk told Low that marong was a title bestowed on a military chief.

In the end, does it matter to my hypothesis? Nope

The etymology I'm looking most closely at is the one (I think) we've already agreed is the most solid, that marong means dragon/serpent/naga and that mahawangsa means family/clan/dynasty. I'm interested in Low's comment that marong was a title given to a military chief, but I'm more interested in marong/maroni being synonymous with naga. Why? Because one of the roles of the naga is as a treasure guardian, of religious treasure texts more specifically, and Moroni in my view was a treasure guardian.

6 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

There is nothing like this in the Book of Mormon. There is no reason to connect the two apart from a similarity that you see between two words - one a name in the English text of the Book of Mormon and the other in the anglicized transliteration of another text. That is the problem that you have. There isn't anything there that connects the two. We can make it as complicated as you want - it still won't draw a connection between point A and point B - and it is this connection that is necessary for the conclusions that you have intuited. You can go as deep as you want - but it is never going to help with the real argument that you are trying to make. We can make an identical argument for any other instance of a name that is similar (to the same degree) with the name Moroni in the Book of Mormon.

And there's the rub. Going from point A to point B will never be uncomplicated because we have no consensus on where point B comes from or where it even is. Which is why I like to post on all forums, including that one, because I'm trying to find point B, and both forums have people and opinions I respect. But its not the place I plan to post any conclusions to.

So before "bringing out the data", can I ask your thoughts on the etymology of Moroni in the Book of Mormon? Is there anything here that stands out, or is it more nonsense? I don't know at this point what the standard of evidence would even be. Its pointless to try and connect point A to point B if there's no agreement on what point B is.

Let me ask, is there anything out there that you feel connects point A to point B? That ol' one shred of evidence question.

Edited February 16, 2024 by Zosimus

telnetd · February 16, 2024

On 2/14/2024 at 1:36 PM, Benjamin McGuire said:

That's pretty late though. We have several published references to the name of the angel as Moroni starting in 1834. So this particular instance (which has its own documented history - the error actually first occurs in 1838) is widely viewed as being an error. As an error, there is also a long history of responses to it by the LDS Church and its historians - beginning in the 1870s.

Thanks. Webbles posted this link to me.

https://www.fairlatterdaysaints.org/answers/Moroni's_visit/Nephi_or_Moroni

Benjamin McGuire · February 16, 2024

12 hours ago, Zosimus said:

In the end, does it matter to my hypothesis? No, it doesn't.

If it doesn't matter, then why bring it up?

12 hours ago, Zosimus said:

We aren't told explicitly that Rajah Marong Mahawangsa is the military chief that the priest is referring to, but we can safely assume it since Low includes it in the introduction to his translation of the Hikayat Marong Mahawangsa.

Let us suppose that you are right, that we can assume this - the Kedah Annals are written in the late 18th to early 19th centuries (they are written contemporary to Low). This doesn't represent contemporary history.

12 hours ago, Zosimus said:

The etymology I'm looking most closely at is the one (I think) we've already agreed is the most solid, that marong means dragon/serpent/naga and that mahawangsa means family/clan/dynasty. I'm interested in Low's comment that marong was a title given to a military chief, but I'm more interested in marong/maroni being synonymous with naga. Why? Because one of the roles of the naga is as a treasure guardian, of religious treasure texts more specifically, and Moroni in my view was a treasure guardian.

And now you lose me again. Parallelomania. Let's see if I am understanding you correctly ok?

Assumption 1: Moroni can be understood as a treasure guardian in early LDS narratives of the discovery of the gold plates.

Assumption 2: The word Marong can be understood as meaning Naga in a Malaysian context.

Assumption 3: Nagas can be found as treasure guardians in Asian literature.

From this, you conclude that Moroni (the angel who delivered the gold plates to Joseph Smith, and not the characters in the text of the Book of Mormon) should be understood as really being a Morang - a Naga treasure guardian.

Does this represent your point of view?

Now, your question -

12 hours ago, Zosimus said:

So before "bringing out the data", can I ask your thoughts on the etymology of Moroni in the Book of Mormon? Is there anything here that stands out, or is it more nonsense? I don't know at this point what the standard of evidence would even be. Its pointless to try and connect point A to point B if there's no agreement on what point B is.

Yeah, I think that most of that is meaningless. Where the text offers us insight into the etymology of a name, we have something more to go on than pure speculation. Moroni (as a name in the text) first shows up (I believe) in Alma 43. This occurs more than 500 years after Lehi's arrival in the promised land. In general, the ideas in the Onomasticon has several assumptions that aren't spelled out. Here is perhaps the most significant of those assumptions:

Quote

Inseparable from a control of the primary languages is a knowledge of which languages apply to the Book of Mormon onomasticon and to what extent they apply. When considering possible language sources for the Book of Mormon, Hebrew of the Biblical period is the first choice. Nearly equal in consideration to Hebrew is Egyptian, followed by the other Semitic languages in use at or before the time of Lehi, namely, Ugaritic, Phoenician, Moabite, Ammonite, Akkadian, Aramaic, etc. Semitic languages first attested after the time of Lehi, such as Classical Arabic, the later Aramaic dialects, Ethiopic dialects, etc., are not as relevant as the earlier languages, but may be used with extreme caution. Other non-Semitic languages with which the Hebrews could have had contact before the time of Lehi, such as Hittite, Greek, Hurrian, Sumerian, etc., should be a last resort.

There is no mechanism in this process to attempt to recognize that names may have etymologies that exist outside these languages. If the gold plates were produced in some specific place at a particular point in time, and that place and time contained languages outside of this closed list, then this closure of the list almost certainly guarantees errors (I note in passing that this is true whether or not the gold plates were an authentic historical record or the Book of Mormon is a purely 19th century invention). The entry in the onomasticon for Moroni isn't particularly convincing. Because of this, if we accept the premise that after 500 years, the Nephite language had become something of a hybrid (particularly in terms of its names), then Moroni becomes a good candidate for having an etymology that exists outside this rigid framework.

13 hours ago, Zosimus said:

Let me ask, is there anything out there that you feel connects point A to point B? That ol' one shred of evidence question.

I think that without any context, for what you mean by a Point A to Point B, it is hard to answer this question. But you can see my arguments about parallels in my published materials. My first foray was this discussion here. (I am having trouble getting to BYU's website right now, so I am using an alternate site hosting the papers). You can also see my discussion of parallels here and here in my 2 part review essay at interpreter. There are a least a couple of examples in part 2 where I take apart and analyze arguments for and against the identity of textual parallels.

ksfisher · February 16, 2024

14 minutes ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

The entry in the onomasticon for Moroni isn't particularly convincing. Because of this, if we accept the premise that after 500 years, the Nephite language had become something of a hybrid (particularly in terms of its names), then Moroni becomes a good candidate for having an etymology that exists outside this rigid framework.

What do you consider to be the relationship between the Nephite Moroni and Moron found in the Jaredite record?

Zosimus · February 16, 2024

9 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

If it doesn't matter, then why bring it up?

Because I'm often posting thoughts, just in case someone out there might have some ideas, or a thread of research to pick up.

Since it was the eve of lunar new year, year of the dragon (marong here), I felt like posting about some things I'd been thinking about maroni/marong in the lunar zodiac. But Marong = Maroni is not critical to my hypothesis, which I consider to be the geography model I'd been discussing in the other thread. I posted this thread over here because it wasn't necessarily relevant to my hypothesis on Book of Mormon geography over there. The Kaempfer, Mitchell, Rafinesque, and Low stuff are my attempts to make sense of why the geography of the Malay Peninsula fits so well with the internal geography of the Book of Mormon. But in the end, none of that explains it.

9 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

Let us suppose that you are right, that we can assume this - the Kedah Annals are written in the late 18th to early 19th centuries (they are written contemporary to Low). This doesn't represent contemporary history.

Also my reason for Marong not being critical to my hypothesis. He's late. The HMM has been thoroughly whitewashed by Islamic historians. Its only useful for identifying patterns that might reflect earlier accounts, or as a potential source for a 19th century author/translator of the Book of Mormon. But this is a stretch. Which is why I said in my second post under the OP that I don't think it works as a source for authorship. Its too difficult to argue that somehow Mitchell or Rafinesque knew any details of Low's mission to Siam in 1824. It's interesting, but it's a dead end, or rather I don't see a way forward without additional information. Which is why I also said in my second post under the OP, that my best conclusion is that it's another Book of Mormon mystery.

"Its another Book of Mormon mystery. I've scoured the docs and have found no possible written source before the 1840s for the usage of Maroni or Marong as a military title or name, let alone both at the same time as we find in the Kedah Annals. There are 2 or 3 pre-1830 sources that identify it as an astronomical term in the Siamese zodiac, but there's nothing in English that would suggest it was ever used for the founders of Kedah or Siam. The first to document it as a name or title was Captain James Low in his translation of the Kedah Annals, published in 1849, 19 years after the Book of Mormon. James Low did collect his information on Marong/Maroni on an expedition he made to Siam in the 1820s, but it seems he didn't publish anything about it outside his journal until well after the publication of the Book of Mormon. Its highly unlikely Joseph Smith, or anyone in his orbit, could have known the title. Even Rafinesque didn't write about Maroni as a symbol in the Siamese zodiac until until 1836. 6 years too late."

In other words, I fully acknowledged, before you even joined the discussion, that Low's account of Marong doesn't explain anything and that there are no other examples of Maroni or Marong as a military title or name. Which is why it's been particularly frustrating that you continued to jab at me for "elevating Low's account" and "giving meaning to it where there is none". Just read my comment above.

I find the vo-canh inscription, the oldest inscription in SE Asia, to be far more useful to my geography hypothesis. There's agreement that the name Sri Mara on the stele dating to the 4th century AD is MARAN. (source)

We've already established that there was another Sri Mara ruling in Kedah in 1008. We can't simply assume that this Sri Mara in Kedah is a Maran like the Sri Mara in Champa, but we must accept that the Champa Marans were making ports of call in Kedah to get to Champa. There's no way around Kedah. Everyone going east to China (or Americas in the case of the Lehites) had to stop there.

This is why I'm looking at Kedah as the starting point for a Book of Mormon model. I'm not going to just assume that the Lehites, the Mulekites and the Jaredites were all three independently the greatest navigators in human history. If we're going to get serious about the Book of Mormon as a historical text, we have to acknowledge that the Malay Peninsula, Kedah specifically, was the last known port-of-call for Nephi. That was its role in history as the half-way point between west and east. The monsoon winds gave ancient mariners no other choice but to stop here and wait.

“From the outset {Kedah] appears to have functioned primarily as a coastal trading post which, over time, developed to become the most extensive entrepot complex on the west coast of the Thai-Malay peninsula. Part of the reason for this can be explained by its favourable bay and estuary, but another important factor was the seasonality of the monsoons, which would have required ships to layover for months at a time as they waited for the winds to change direction. From May to October the Southwest Monsoon blows across the India Ocean. Ships leaving from Sri Lanka or South India would be blown eastwards, making landfall somewhere along the Thai-Malay peninsula. From October to December the Northeast Monsoon blows in the opposite direction allowing ships from China to utilise it on their journeys to Southeast Asia and beyond. The Bujang Valley was therefore one of the most natural stop off points on the west coast. From here, ships could moor before continuing their journeys east or west, and goods could be traded and moved across transpeninsular routes to entrepots on the Gulf of Thailand such as Langkasuka or Tambralinga.” (source)

So let's look at the archeological evidence for Kedah and see if it fits chronologically. From a paper published in 2022 (source)

Right in the path of the Lehites, the oldest dated structure on the peninsula, a boat jetty dated from 582 BC to 420 AD. The Lehites left Oman around 589 BC, and Moroni signs off in 421 AD.

And the purpose of that boat jetty? To export iron to the west. What was one of the first things Nephi tells is he did after they arrived? He started forging. When someone forges iron, it leaves a trace. We should expect to find iron furnaces, slag and tuyeres not far from the landing point.

If Book of Mormon scholars are really serious about establishing the historicity of the Book of Mormon events, this is key. The fact that this civilization was established or visited by rulers/traders from the west by the name of Marong (according to the Kedah Annals) and Mara/Maran (according to the Vo-canh inscription) is just an added bonus.

Edited February 17, 2024 by Zosimus

Zosimus · February 16, 2024

9 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

Let's see if I am understanding you correctly ok?

Assumption 1: Moroni can be understood as a treasure guardian in early LDS narratives of the discovery of the gold plates.

Assumption 2: The word Marong can be understood as meaning Naga in a Malaysian context.

Assumption 3: Nagas can be found as treasure guardians in Asian literature.

From this, you conclude that Moroni (the angel who delivered the gold plates to Joseph Smith, and not the characters in the text of the Book of Mormon) should be understood as really being a Morang - a Naga treasure guardian.

Does this represent your point of view?

Mostly, yes. But Moroni from the Book of Mormon was that treasure guardian. Some important context is required, which I don't want to get into too deeply here, because this is a thorough departure from the geography. And I think its important to establish the geography first. But here's some background on the terma (treasure text) and terton (treasure finder) tradition. Some understanding of this tradition is needed if we're going to discuss here in this forum.

https://www.dialoguejournal.com/articles/the-production-of-the-book-of-mormon-in-light-of-a-tibetan-buddhist-parallel, particularly footnote 21

"There are also some events described in Mahāyāna history that allude to similar occurrences. It is said, for example, that the Mahāyāna sūtras were held hidden in the Dragon World until the appropriate time and that Nāgārjuna retrieved the Śatasāhasrikāprajñāpāramitā from the nāgas at the bottom of the sea."

Kedah, particularly during the reign of Sri Mara, was an important center of this tradition (source) during the 'dark period' between Padmasambhava and the revelation of the first treasure texts by treasure hunters. It was known at the time as Lembah Bujang, or Naga Valley. As a naksat city under Ligor it was given the marong from the Siamese zodiac as its seal. It was literally the city of the Marong (or Maroni according to Kaempfer) under Siamese rule. (source)

Mostly I'd like to stick to the geography though, since this is all useless if we can't place the events.

Edited February 17, 2024 by Zosimus

Benjamin McGuire · February 17, 2024

On 2/16/2024 at 1:18 PM, ksfisher said:

What do you consider to be the relationship between the Nephite Moroni and Moron found in the Jaredite record?

We don't have any way to assess this, do we. It seems likely that they are connected (if we accept in a straight forward way the claims of the text). But beyond that, we have nothing. You can see a significant difference between the Book of Mormon onomasticon and the Lexicon of Greek Personal Names. One of the things you will notice at that site is that you really cannot search on anglicized transliterations. It doesn't make much sense to do so. So, to search for Timothy in the database, I search for Τιμόθεος. And I get the complete set of places with approximate dates where that personal name can be found.

The Book of Mormon onomasticon faces immediate challenges in that we have a much harder time with dates, and a near impossibility with places. We don't work with original language names - and the text is problematic because it doesn't simply transliterate names. Consider for example, the entry for Timothy in the Book of Mormon onomasticon:

Quote

TIMOTHY derives from the Greek timotheos, "honoring God" or "honored by God."

The occurrence of names of Greek origin suggests the possibility of Greek contacts with the eastern Mediterranean area in antiquity. Since the late second millennium B.C. Syrians and Phoenicians had trading contacts with the Aegean kingdoms, and in the first millennium B.C. Greek mercenaries and merchants maintained a significant and ongoing presence in Syro-Palestinian territories.[1] Alternatively, it is also possible that ethnic Greek mariners made contact with the Nephites before AD 30 and may have passed on Greek names.

I can point out the problem (from a technical perspective) that "timotheos" isn't Greek (it is an anglicized transliteration), and because it clearly is not a part of the set of languages that I referenced earlier, we have an immediate problem that requires the acceptance of others.

So is the Nephite Moroni related to the Jaredite Moron? Perhaps. But it seems unlikely that the name would come from a text - we would want to consider the idea that the Jaredites weren't extinct (at least not in terms of people and their culture - although perhaps in terms of a polity). And if this is the case, then it isn't necessarily some sort of direct connection. There are lots of "others" in the Book of Mormon from which the name might come. So the resemblance in the anglicized transliterations creates room for reasonable speculation, at least from an etymological standpoint, there isn't enough to go on to make any sort of claim that isn't wild speculation.

And, without any indication of the meaning of either Moroni or Moron in the text, there really isn't much value in trying to speculate about it. The names themselves don't play a significant role in the text - there isn't going to be anything added to our reading by suggesting an etymological connection between the two.

Benjamin McGuire · February 17, 2024

21 hours ago, Zosimus said:

Because I'm often posting thoughts, just in case someone out there might have some ideas, or a thread of research to pick up.

But this doesn't really seem to be what you are doing here, frankly. It seems to me that you are trying to find avenues for arguments to support an idea that you have intuited. Without actually taking the time to engage real methodology, this will never get you anywhere.

21 hours ago, Zosimus said:

Which is why I also said in my second post under the OP, that my best conclusion is that it's another Book of Mormon mystery.

But this points right back to the problem. It isn't a Book of Mormon mystery at all. There is no reason or need to draw this connection here. There is no connection between A and B which would suggest that this is at all relevant to the Book of Mormon. And there is no mystery because we aren't looking at some unexplained puzzle.

21 hours ago, Zosimus said:

I've scoured the docs and have found no possible written source before the 1840s for the usage of Maroni or Marong as a military title or name, let alone both at the same time as we find in the Kedah Annals.

See this? This isn't a description of what's going on in the Book of Mormon. Moroni doesn't appear in the Book of Mormon as a military title. It does appear as a name. But we can find lots of homonyms to that name in lots of places and times.

21 hours ago, Zosimus said:

This is why I'm looking at Kedah as the starting point for a Book of Mormon model. I'm not going to just assume that the Lehites, the Mulekites and the Jaredites were all three independently the greatest navigators in human history. If we're going to get serious about the Book of Mormon as a historical text, we have to acknowledge that the Malay Peninsula, Kedah specifically, was the last known port-of-call for Nephi. That was its role in history as the half-way point between west and east. The monsoon winds gave ancient mariners no other choice but to stop here and wait.

No. This is all complete nonsense. And I mean complete nonsense. The narrative itself doesn't support this. So you have to reject the narrative for a personal theory that you intuited (on the basis of reasons other than a close reading of the text).

At any rate, I think I am done here. It seems to me that you already know what is 'true' - you just are hoping that you can find a way to prove it. Let me just suggest that you start instead by finding a good methodology - and that you then follow that methodology - and accept the outcome if it shows that your theory isn't workable ...

Zosimus · February 17, 2024

6 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

But this doesn't really seem to be what you are doing here, frankly. It seems to me that you are trying to find avenues for arguments to support an idea that you have intuited. Without actually taking the time to engage real methodology, this will never get you anywhere.

Its a discussion forum, Its a forum for dialogue. Its not like mormondialogue.org is some sort of peer review. I certainly agree that it won't go anywhere without engaging real methodology. But its a Book of Mormon geography model. Is it even possible to engage real methodology if Point B can be no other place than a place that doesn't fit the narrative?

So again. Where is your point B? Where do you intuit the events in the Book of Mormon took place? Do you believe the Book of Mormon is history, if so, where?

6 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

No. This is all complete nonsense. And I mean complete nonsense. The narrative itself doesn't support this.

The narrative doesn't tell us where it happened. All we have is Joseph's comment (not from the text) that the angel told him the plates were a record of the former inhabitants of America and the source from whence they sprang. But that's not from the narrative.

The narrative tells us that the Lehites sailed somewhere in the 6th century BC. The evidence doesn't support anything beyond the Indian Ocean in the 6th century BC. So yes, my model does fit the narrative. The narrative also tells us there were elephants, horses, chariots, cattle, silk, and steel in the land. My model supports all of this, with evidence. The other models don't.

Sure, there's some stuff that wouldn't qualify as solid evidence, but its information that helps us resolve anachronisms. For example, the narrative tells us there were kings keeping their records on metal plates. The Maran kings were keeping records on metal plates (source) and they were present in the region at the time. So we can begin to see how the Book of Mormon narrative actually does fit within history. I could go on but will save that for the other thread.

I'm putting together a model, its nothing more than a model, that fits the narrative. But if you insist the narrative must happen in America, even though nothing fits with America, then I agree this won't ever work. If you know of a model that fits the narrative better, please, share it.

6 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

So you have to reject the narrative for a personal theory that you intuited (on the basis of reasons other than a close reading of the text).

I’m not rejecting the narrative. There's simply no evidence for a trans-pacific voyage before 1492, this is not my personal theory. If we force ourselves to stay within the bounds of evidence, we can't go beyond the Malay Peninsula because there's no evidence any vessel from the Arabian Sea got around the Malay Peninsula until towards the end of the Book of Mormon. (source) Before then, the evidence seems to suggest the only way to the Pacific was to get down at the narrowest point (Kra Isthmus) and walk across. Or, hop aboard an austronesian vessel, most likely at Kedah, where incidentally we find a jetty dated to within 7 years after the Lehites departed.

If your position is that somehow the Lehites defy the odds and get to the Pacific without assistance, there's still no evidence for your position. Its, as you say, nonsense or a personal theory that you hope to be true. It’s certainly not in the data.

Even if we do get Nephi around the peninsula, we have the entire Pacific Ocean to cross. Only the Austronesians could do this, but not until well after the closing of the narrative. So we have our first real chronological problem, and we haven't even made it to 2nd Nephi. Do you have any solutions, or just criticism?

Given the data, my solution is that the Kra Isthmus is the narrow neck of land. The Line Bountiful was the portage route across the narrow neck. And Hagoth was a ship builder taking advantage of that trade route near the inlet leading to the portage route. The Kra isthmus historically played the same role as the narrow neck during the Book of Mormon time frame. It was 1 to 1.5 days to walk across. It was a fortified line where armies defended invasions from the south. It was the most important trading port in the land, with evidence for ships that could carry hundreds of people northward (the kolondiaphonta mentioned in the screengrab above were the largest recorded in ancient history). It fits the narrative without requiring the Lehites to do something that wasn’t possible for another 2000 years.

Only problem is that it isn’t where everyone hopes it would be. I'm unconcerned about that. If you have a better solution that fits where you hope it’d be, I’d love to hear it.

6 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

At any rate, I think I am done here. It seems to me that you already know what is 'true' - you just are hoping that you can find a way to prove it. Let me just suggest that you start instead by finding a good methodology - and that you then follow that methodology - and accept the outcome if it shows that your theory isn't workable ...

This is our problem isn't it. The methodology used by Book of Mormon modelers isn't working. They assume it had to be where they hope it to be and they know to be 'true' and they are hoping they can find a way to prove it. But they haven't been able to support that with evidence. People are accepting the outcome and leaving the church. This will remain true so long as the models we provide are built to fit America instead of the Book of Mormon. If this is the requirement, then it is a problem I can't solve.

The narrative doesn't support the Meso model. It doesn't support the Heartland model. I haven't seen a model that doesn't fall to pieces by 1 Nephi chapter 18.

Which model do you feel most accurately represents the narrative? Would you say my methodology over here is workable? I've read Gardner and Roper on BOM geography methodology and am trying to incorporate their ideas as well. Are those acceptable methodologies? These were both published in the Interpreter so I assume you reviewed them.

I'm actually not at all afraid to accept where the evidence leads, or doesn't lead. I have no skin in the game other than a nagging need to know what's true. Is there any history in the Book of Mormon, or is it instead our 19th century Hikayat Moroni?

No problem if you prefer not to respond.

Edited February 18, 2024 by Zosimus

Zosimus · February 18, 2024

Just learned that Rafinesque was in Palmyra on May 31, 1826. Joseph Jr, wasn't there as he was in Bainbridge at the time. Since Rafinesque was claiming that he had received the Walam Olum in 1822, I thought it worth following up here.

Note Rafinesque's claim that the Lenape Annals (his alleged Native American history) begin in Asia, and Native American tribes were led by a Snake Priest name Nakopowa.

Rafinesque also identifies America as Akomenaki, or snake island

He also provides the following as translations for other terms that I assume he had made up, but I don't know for sure yet:

Maskanako (strong snakes)
Nakowa (dark snakes)
Nakowak (black snakes)
Sinako (stony snake)

These all seem to be inspired by the term naka = serpent, and he does ramble on to explain that the "Nagas (snakes) of the Hindus" are also the "U-long or antidiluvian dragons of China" and that the Lenape Ako or N'akho is "very similar with Nahash and Nagas".

U-long must be long (dragon), the root of marong as we discussed earlier in this thread.

I know I said earlier that Rafinesque was a dead-end in the effort to understand the etymology of Maroni/Moroni. But now its worth looking again at The American Nations where he follows Kempfer (sic) and Fynlayson as identifying Maron/Maroni of the Siamese zodiac as "dragon".

Edited February 18, 2024 by Zosimus

Zosimus · February 19, 2024

Since the discussion has wrapped up here, and I'd like to get back to the geography thread, let's summarize by reworking the OP before the thread is locked.

Tonight marks the first day of the Year of the Dragon in the Chinese lunar calendar. In ancient Siam this was called the year of Marong. In Thailand, even today, the fifth year in the lunar cycle is referred to as the Year of Marong. (source)

"Marong is a Siamese word used in their astrological or astronomical works. It is applied to a man who can by supernatural means assume any shape he pleases. A Buddhist Priest of Siam acquaints me that it is a title bestowed on a military chief - and also signifies a person who can preternaturally change his appearance” (source)

According to this 1849 source, seemingly dating to an 1824 interview with a Buddhist monk in Siam, Marong was a title given to a military leader. Likely this is a reference to the founder of the first kingdom on the Malay Peninsula Marong Mahawangsa. His son, the founder of the Kingdom of Siam according to some accounts, also had the name Marong. (source)

Although we don't have anything to support that Marong was etymologically related to anything other than the Chinese word long, for dragon, we can verify that it was a title given to a military chief in the Hikayat Marong Mahawangsa (Kedah Annals), and at least two kings on the Kedah kings list. There is something that happens on that king's list that might support Marong as a title. Two kings towards the end of the list - after Buddhism arrived in Kedah as we know due to appearance of Mahapodisat (maha bodhisatva) as a name of Marong's son - share the same name as the first two kings on the list. The only difference being that Marong is swapped out for the attested Siamese title Phra Ong. More research needs to be done here before we can understand Low's 1849 comment that marong was a title for a military chief that could preternaturally change his shape, perhaps like a dragon or naga in the Chinese and Siamese traditions.

So why is this at all relevant? Well, a variation of the Siamese military title 'Marong' is Maroni as we find in Samuel Rafinesque's "The American Nations"

Rafinesque was a French polymath, born in Constantinople. He dabbled in native North American and Central American history and hieroglyphics. He is probably best known for his claim to have translated a Lenape record called the Walam Olum. Samuel Rafinesque was also a friend and associate to Samuel Mitchell. Further work needs to be done to establish this, but Rafinesque may have been mentored by Mitchell and even lived in his home. (source)

If the name Samuel Mitchell sounds familiar to this forum, its likely because Samuel Mitchell was the professor Martin Harris had visited in 1828 (two years before the publication of the Book of Mormon) to show the transcript of ancient hieroglyphic letters taken from the Golden Plates. And how did Joseph Smith spell the name of the last person to engrave upon the Golden Plates? Maroni, just as it appears in the Kaempfer and Rafinesque Siamese zodiac tables.

It could be:

A coincidence
More data to support the claim that Joseph Smith was the world's greatest guesser
Another thing to suggest that the author of the Book of Mormon was riffing off things being discussed only in very tight academic circles in the 1820s
Supporting data that the Book of Mormon is a record, or annal, of a military chief alternatively named Maroni or Moroni

Since this thread opened, more information has come to light.

Rafinesque visited Palmyra in 1826 on an expedition. Joseph Jr was not there at that time because he was on trial in Bainbridge. (source)
Rafinesque associated the term u-long with the antediluvian dragons of China and the Hebrew nashash (serpent) and the nagas of Hinduism/Buddhism. (source)
Rafinesque saw a relationship, unsure if etymological or otherwise, between the naga and the naka/nako clan within the Walam Olum. For example, the priest that led the snake people to America was named Nakopowa. (source)

Some research questions. Did he ever provide further information on the snake people/clan and their journey to the land of snakes (America)? Did he ever associate Mitchell's Malay Native Americans, a hypothesis he references in his text, with the naka tribes described in the Walam Olum? Did he ever consider the Lenape, or other NY tribes, to be snake clans ie nagas? While in Palmyra, did Rafinesque enter into a conversation with anyone? Given Joseph Smith Jr was on trial that day for treasure digging, did the topic of Joseph or treasure digging come up? Was Rafinesque familiar with the folk belief that Maron (and by association in his Siamese zodiac table, Maroni) was a holy name for a spirit or an angel for conjurations? Would need to do more research on Rafinesque's association of naga with Hebrew nashash and determine if Rafinesque was familiar with MARON in The Greater Key of Solomon. Did Rafinesque ever explicitly associate maron/maroni with naga or dragons, or with spirits and conjurations or the idea of treasures and guarding treasures?

I normally wouldn't think Americans in 1826 would have any inkling of such things. But Rafinesque's knowledge of world history, and particularly Asian history, has impressed me. Almost all of his conclusions are a jumbled mess, but he was extremely well read and sometimes he got things right, ahead of his time. For example, he was one of the first, if not the first, to use the term "evolution" in the context of biological speciation. 30 years before Charles Darwin. Also while researching this yesterday, I found that Rafinesque may have been the first person to identify the continent of Sundaland (even calling it Sunda Land), 115 years before Reinout Willem van Bemmelen proposed it. (source) It could also be argued that he was working on a translation of Native American texts 8-10 years before Joseph Smith. In any case, my initial reading of his works shows that he was familiar with, and accurately referenced, nearly all the important works of his time on Asian history and religion. I'll be looking for pre-1826 sources that discuss the naga or dragon or the Hebrew nashash and checking if Rafinesque ever quoted from such sources.

I appreciate the discussion @Benjamin McGuire and (if anyone else is still here) Happy Year of Maroni!

Edited February 19, 2024 by Zosimus

webbles · February 19, 2024

17 minutes ago, Zosimus said:

And how did Joseph Smith spell the name of the last person to engrave upon the Golden Plates? Maroni, just as it appears in the Kaempfer and Rafinesque Siamese zodiac tables.

You keep repeating this but this is not right. I don't think we have any instance of Joseph spelling it "Maroni". We have two instances where two different scribes spelled it Maroni, but we have many more instances of scribes spelling it Moroni.

Zosimus · February 19, 2024

1 hour ago, webbles said:

You keep repeating this but this is not right. I don't think we have any instance of Joseph spelling it "Maroni". We have two instances where two different scribes spelled it Maroni, but we have many more instances of scribes spelling it Moroni.

AFAIK we don't have any instance of Joseph spelling it at all. Moroni or Maroni, when you say them, they sound very similar. As you already have pointed out.

If Rafinesque, or anyone, was having a verbal conversation about the name Maroni/Moroni or Maron/Moron or Marong/Morong/Merong, they wouldn't be particular about the spelling until it came time to write it down. That explains the variations in spelling. Its the translator/transcriber trying their best to spell it the way it is pronounced. So we can safely agree that Joseph Smith, in his 1832 dictated history, and in the official manuscript, pronounced it in a way that sounded M-A-R-O-N-I

In any case, the spelling is not something that is critical to anything. The pronunciation is. I find it worth mentioning since it gives us a hint as to how Joseph pronounced it, and how the being that first repeated the name to him pronounced it. I think that is important. We do know that the angel verbally repeated his name to Joseph. I doubt the angel then proceeded to spell it out for him

Edited February 19, 2024 by Zosimus

InCognitus · February 19, 2024

18 minutes ago, Zosimus said:

Moroni or Maroni, when you say them, they sound very similar same. As you already have pointed out.

If Rafinesque, or anyone, was having a verbal conversation about the name Maroni/Moroni or Maron/Moron or Marong/Morong/Merong, they wouldn't be particular about the spelling until it came time to writing it down later. That explains the variations in spelling. Its the translator/transcriber trying their best to spell it the way it is pronounced. So we can safely agree that Joseph Smith, in his 1832 dictated history, and in the official manuscript, pronounced it in a way that sounded M-A-R-O-N-I

In any case, the spelling is not something that is critical to anything. I just find it worth mentioning since it gives us a hint as to how Joseph pronounced it, and how the being that first repeated the name to him pronounced it. We do know that the angel verbally said his name to Joseph. I doubt the angel then proceeded to spell it out for him

But obviously Joseph Smith didn't believe the name was spelled incorrectly in the 1830, 1837, and 1840 editions of the Book of Mormon, or don't you think he would have corrected it? (He certainly made other corrections in the 1837 and 1840 editions, and even added the subscript "Moroni" to the title page of the 1840 edition). I find it hard to believe that he would think "Maroni" was the correct spelling in that case. I also think the pronunciation of "Maroni" and "Moroni" to be too similar (in English) to make a case out of that.

Zosimus · February 19, 2024

5 minutes ago, InCognitus said:

I also think the pronunciation of "Maroni" and "Moroni" to be too similar (in English) to make a case out of that.

Yes its the pronunciation that matters. It seems he pronounced it in a way that caused his scribes in two cases to spell it Maroni and not Moroni

webbles · February 19, 2024

18 minutes ago, Zosimus said:

Moroni or Maroni, when you say them, they sound very similar same. As you already have pointed out.

If Rafinesque, or anyone, was having a verbal conversation about the name Maroni/Moroni or Maron/Moron or Marong/Morong/Merong, they wouldn't be particular about the spelling until it came time to writing it down later. That explains the variations in spelling. Its the translator/transcriber trying their best to spell it the way it is pronounced. So we can safely agree that Joseph Smith, in his 1832 dictated history, and in the official manuscript, pronounced it in a way that sounded M-A-R-O-N-I

In any case, the spelling is not something that is critical to anything. I just find it worth mentioning since it gives us a hint as to how Joseph pronounced it, and how the being that first repeated the name to him pronounced it. We do know that the angel verbally said his name to Joseph. I doubt the angel then proceeded to spell it out for him

How Joseph pronounced it is completely different from how he spelled it. If you had said "And how did Joseph Smith pronounce the name of the last person to engrave upon the Golden Plates? Maroni, just as it appears in the Kaempfer and Rafinesque Siamese zodiac tables. ", that is a little better.

We do have indications from the original manuscript that Joseph somehow knew the correct spelling of proper names.

For instance, the first time the name Zenock/Zenoch is found, Oliver first writes "Zenock" and then crosses it out and replaces it with "Zenoch" (Alma 33:15 - original manuscript https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/original-manuscript-of-the-book-of-mormon-circa-12-april-1828-circa-1-july-1829/118 ). The next time it is encountered, Oliver writes "Zenoch" (Alma 34:7 - https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/original-manuscript-of-the-book-of-mormon-circa-12-april-1828-circa-1-july-1829/119 ) but later on, Oliver reverts back to "Zenock" (1 Nephi 19:10 - https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/original-manuscript-of-the-book-of-mormon-circa-12-april-1828-circa-1-july-1829/35 ). Zenock/Zenoch (with the hard k sound) are verbally the same so the only reason for Oliver to replace "Zenock" with "Zenoch" is if Joseph corrects him with the correct spelling.

Another instance is "Coriantumr". In the first instance it occurs (Helaman 1:15 - https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/original-manuscript-of-the-book-of-mormon-circa-12-april-1828-circa-1-july-1829/194 ), Oliver writes "Coriantummer", then crosses it out and writes "Coriantumr". Royal Skousen says that the "r" at the end of "Coriantumr" is done with a flourish and that is the only known instance of that flourish (page 2883 of Volume 4 of Analysis of Textual Variants of the Book of Mormon). Skousen speculates that Oliver is a little exasperated by the weird spelling of "Coriantumr".

InCognitus · February 19, 2024

16 minutes ago, Zosimus said:

Yes its the pronunciation that matters. It seems he pronounced it in a way that caused his scribes in two cases to spell it Maroni and not Moroni

Except that doesn't explain why he himself spelled it "Moroni" even when adding it to the title page of the 1840 edition of the Book of Mormon.

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