Janderich:
Pure speculation about the Hill Cumorah Paul (albeit one that suits your belief).
Not true. LDS Prophets have been very clear about the Hill Cumorah. Either you trust your prophets or you don’t
To let all the Catholics reading this thread know what we’re talking about, here’s a basic intro to the Hill Cumorah. In the Book of Mormon, at the end anyway, there were two main groups, or tribes if you will, of people: The Nephites (the “
white and delightsome” good guys) and the Lamanites, the Cain to the Nephite’s Abel if you will. They fought all the way from what has been theorized as Central or South America to a great and final battle, portrayed in the Book of Mormon in the book of, well Mormon (emphasis added):
Mormon, Chapter 6:1-6, 10-11
1 And now I finish my record concerning the adestruction of my people, the Nephites. And it came to pass that we did march forth before the Lamanites.
2 And I, Mormon, wrote an epistle unto the king of the Lamanites, and desired of him that he would grant unto us that we might
gather together our people unto the land of Cumorah, by a hill which was called Cumorah, and there we could give them battle.
3 And it came to pass that the king of the Lamanites did grant unto me the thing which I desired.
4 And it came to pass that we did march forth to the land of Cumorah, and we did pitch our tents around about the hill Cumorah; and it was in a land of many waters, rivers, and fountains; and here we had hope to gain advantage over the Lamanites.
5 And when three hundred and eighty and four years had passed away, we had gathered in all the remainder of our people unto the land of Cumorah.
6 And it came to pass that when we had gathered in all our people in one to the land of Cumorah, behold I, Mormon, began to be old; and knowing it to be the last struggle of my people, and having been commanded of the Lord that I should not suffer the records which had been handed down by our fathers, which were asacred, to fall into the hands of the Lamanites, (for the Lamanites would destroy them) therefore I made this record out of the plates of Nephi, and
hid up in the hill Cumorah all the records which had been entrusted to me by the hand of the Lord, save it were these few plates which I gave unto my son Moroni.
…
10 And it came to pass that
my men were hewn down, yea, even my ten thousand who were with me, and I fell wounded in the midst; and they passed by me that they did not put an end to my life.
11 And when they had gone through and hewn down all my people save it were twenty and four of us, (among whom was my son Moroni) and we having survived the dead of our people, did behold on the morrow, when the Lamanites had returned unto their camps,
from the top of the hill Cumorah, the ten thousand of my people who were hewn down, being led in the front by me.
This is why the ex-Mormons keep bringing this point up over and over, asking evidence. They assume that if 10,000 people died in a great battle, that there should be at least one small but “beyond a reasonable doubt” piece of archeological evidence that 10,000 people had been slain in a very small and very specific piece of land less than 1600 years ago. At the very least, we have asked for one piece of evidence that shows anything at all from the 2000+ years of civilization of the Jaredites or the
1000 years of history of the Nephites and Lamanites as described in the Book of Mormon. I mean, logically, you’d think that if a civilization ruled the land for 1000 years, there’d be at least one verifiable landmark, or language evidence, or something, right?
Right?
Our friend Janderich is claiming that the actual location of the Hill Cumorah is “pure speculation.” I cannot imagine that he was raised Mormon, or has ever actually done any kind of study into Mormon history at all, seeing as how this is the one piece of information that has been taught since literally the very first days of the church. However, don’t take my word for it - Google to the rescue! Here’s a quote from one of my very favorite “Come on, this guy can’t be serious” Mormon authors, courtesy of one of my favorite sites,
MormonThink.com:
Both the Nephite and Jaredite civilizations fought their final great wars of extinction at or near the Hill Cumorah (or Ramah as the Jaredites termed it), which hill is located between Palmyra and Manchester in the western part of the state of New York.
- Apostle Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, p. 175
And of course, we have this letter (courtesy of
Utah Lighthouse Ministries):
Of course, you may not trust something that’s not a primary source, so here’s a few from official authorized church publications, courtesy of
LDS.org (emphasis added):
… President Benson also visited the Hill Cumorah, where the Prophet Joseph Smith unearthed the golden plates from which the Book of Mormon was translated. President Benson attended the final performance of the 1986 Hill Cumorah Pageant August 2, and on Sunday morning, August 3, addressed a gathering estimated at more than fifteen thousand.
Zion on Zoar Road
BY RICHARD M. ROMNEY
‘New Era’ magazine, June 1981
Thousands of years ago, glaciers pulverized rocks and scooped through the landscape outside what is now Buffalo, New York. The ice rivers left behind a series of soft-shouldered mounds called drumlins, hills that are today rich in foliage and equally rich in memories. It was in one such hill many miles to the east, Cumorah, that Moroni buried the plates of gold. It was in 1820, in a grove surrounded by drumlins, that Joseph Smith kneeled in prayer.
