Cumorah

  • Thread starter Thread starter SirThomasMore
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
Ok, I was doing a little more digging on this, and found some contradictory information from lds sources.

I know, big surprise right. 🤷
  1. In post #20, Paul supplied us with a copy of a letter from the first presidency stating the hill was in New York. The letter was dated 10-16-1990.
  2. On fairmormon.org, we have this ( bolding mine)
“The Church emphasizes the doctrinal and historical value of the Book of Mormon, not its geography. While some Latter-day Saints have looked for possible locations and explanations [for Book of Mormon geography] because the New York Hill Cumorah does not readily fit the Book of Mormon description of Cumorah, there are no conclusive connections between the Book of Mormon text and any specific site.
—Fax from the Office of the First Presidency to FARMS, April 12, 1993.”
en.fairmormon.org/Book_of_Mormon_geography:Statements

How can it be, that in less than 3 years, the first presidency can go from definitively saying the hill is in New York to not readily fit?

I also noticed that fair doesn’t provide a copy of the fax…hmmm…🤷

Could someone in authority (especially the first presidency), pick a side, any side, and stick to it?
 
No, they cannot officially pick a location for the events described in the BoM, for multiple reasons. Choose one, and only one:
  1. It is fiction
  2. Any given specific location can be definitively disproved.
  3. It would cause schism.
  4. It is the message of the BoM that is important, not its literal truth.
  5. Implications for a NE N. America location could be devastating, given a different time-line.
Positive consequences for picking one geography are:

Name one, and only one. Can’t? Then you know why.
 
twopekinguys said:
Ok, I was doing a little more digging on this, and found some contradictory information from lds sources.

I know, big surprise right. 🤷
  1. In post #20, Paul supplied us with a copy of a letter from the first presidency stating the hill was in New York. The letter was dated 10-16-1990.
  2. On fairmormon.org, we have this ( bolding mine)
“The Church emphasizes the doctrinal and historical value of the Book of Mormon, not its geography. While some Latter-day Saints have looked for possible locations and explanations [for Book of Mormon geography] because the New York Hill Cumorah does not readily fit the Book of Mormon description of Cumorah, there are no conclusive connections between the Book of Mormon text and any specific site.
—Fax from the Office of the First Presidency to FARMS, April 12, 1993.”
en.fairmormon.org/Book_of_Mormon_geography:Statements

How can it be, that in less than 3 years, the first presidency can go from definitively saying the hill is in New York to not readily fit?

I also noticed that fair doesn’t provide a copy of the fax…hmmm…🤷

Could someone in authority (especially the first presidency), pick a side, any side, and stick to it?
Click to expand...
The CoLDS panicked when they finally realized that if Cumorah was THE Cumorah, they would be forced to excavate. They KNOW nothing will be found and it will destroy the CoLDS. They had to quickly change their minds…like they have done so many times in the past as new findings and sciences threaten to disprove their fiction
 
twopekinguys said:
Ok, I was doing a little more digging on this, and found some contradictory information from lds sources.

I know, big surprise right. 🤷
  1. In post #20, Paul supplied us with a copy of a letter from the first presidency stating the hill was in New York. The letter was dated 10-16-1990.
  2. On fairmormon.org, we have this ( bolding mine)
“The Church emphasizes the doctrinal and historical value of the Book of Mormon, not its geography. While some Latter-day Saints have looked for possible locations and explanations [for Book of Mormon geography] because the New York Hill Cumorah does not readily fit the Book of Mormon description of Cumorah, there are no conclusive connections between the Book of Mormon text and any specific site.
—Fax from the Office of the First Presidency to FARMS, April 12, 1993.”
en.fairmormon.org/Book_of_Mormon_geography:Statements

How can it be, that in less than 3 years, the first presidency can go from definitively saying the hill is in New York to not readily fit?

I also noticed that fair doesn’t provide a copy of the fax…hmmm…🤷

Could someone in authority (especially the first presidency), pick a side, any side, and stick to it?
Click to expand...
It’s even better than that. LDS prophets have accepted the North American siting of Cumorah as a revealed truth on the basis of the Zelph story. Consider not only the opinion, but the persuasive argumentation presented by Joseph Fielding Smith in Doctrine of Salvation:

*In the face of this evidence coming from the Prophet Joseph Smith, Oliver Cowdery, and David Whitmer, we cannot say that the Nephites and Lamanites did not possess the territory of the United States and that the Hill Cumorah is in Central America. Neither can we say that the great struggle which resulted in the destruction of the Nephites took place in Central America. If Zelph, a righteous man, was fighting under a great prophet-general in the last battles between the Nephites and Lamanites; if that great prophet-general was known from the Rocky Mountains to “the Hill Cumorah or eastern sea,” then some of those battles, and evidently the final battles did take place within the borders of what is now the United States.

There were no righteous prophets, save the Three Nephites, after the death of Moroni, and we learn that Zelph was slain during one of these battles during the great last struggle between the Nephites and Lamanites and was buried near the Illinois River.

In the Book of Mormon story the Lamanites were constantly crowding the Nephites back towards the north and east. If the battles in which Zelph took part were fought in the country traversed by the Zion’s Camp, then we have every reason to believe from what is written in the Book of Mormon, that the Nephites were forced farther and farther to the north and east until they found themselves in the land of Ripliancum, which both Ether and Mormon declare to us was the land of Ramah or Cumorah, a land of “many waters,” which “by interpretation, is large, or to exceed all.”

This being true, what would be more natural then that Moroni, like his father Mormon, would deposit the plates in the land where the battles came to an end and the Nephites were destroyed? This Moroni says he did, and from all the evidence in the Book of Mormon, augmented by the testimony of the Prophet Joseph Smith, these final battles took place in the territory known as the United States and in the neighborhood of the Great Lakes and hills of Western New York. And here Moroni found the resting place for the sacred instruments which had been committed to his care.*

This text come from a compilation made by McConkie, so I don’t know if this was written during Smith’s tenure as Prophet. Nevertheless, it is a sharp rebuff to the glib “well, we don’t really know where it happened” line that LDS apologists present today.
 
soren1 said:
It’s even better than that. LDS prophets have accepted the North American siting of Cumorah as a revealed truth on the basis of the Zelph story. Consider not only the opinion, but the persuasive argumentation presented by Joseph Fielding Smith in Doctrine of Salvation:

*In the face of this evidence coming from the Prophet Joseph Smith, Oliver Cowdery, and David Whitmer, we cannot say that the Nephites and Lamanites did not possess the territory of the United States and that the Hill Cumorah is in Central America. Neither can we say that the great struggle which resulted in the destruction of the Nephites took place in Central America. If Zelph, a righteous man, was fighting under a great prophet-general in the last battles between the Nephites and Lamanites; if that great prophet-general was known from the Rocky Mountains to “the Hill Cumorah or eastern sea,” then some of those battles, and evidently the final battles did take place within the borders of what is now the United States.

There were no righteous prophets, save the Three Nephites, after the death of Moroni, and we learn that Zelph was slain during one of these battles during the great last struggle between the Nephites and Lamanites and was buried near the Illinois River.

In the Book of Mormon story the Lamanites were constantly crowding the Nephites back towards the north and east. If the battles in which Zelph took part were fought in the country traversed by the Zion’s Camp, then we have every reason to believe from what is written in the Book of Mormon, that the Nephites were forced farther and farther to the north and east until they found themselves in the land of Ripliancum, which both Ether and Mormon declare to us was the land of Ramah or Cumorah, a land of “many waters,” which “by interpretation, is large, or to exceed all.”

This being true, what would be more natural then that Moroni, like his father Mormon, would deposit the plates in the land where the battles came to an end and the Nephites were destroyed? This Moroni says he did, and from all the evidence in the Book of Mormon, augmented by the testimony of the Prophet Joseph Smith, these final battles took place in the territory known as the United States and in the neighborhood of the Great Lakes and hills of Western New York. And here Moroni found the resting place for the sacred instruments which had been committed to his care.*

This text come from a compilation made by McConkie, so I don’t know if this was written during Smith’s tenure as Prophet. Nevertheless, it is a sharp rebuff to the glib “well, we don’t really know where it happened” line that LDS apologists present today.
Click to expand...
Like I said, I just wish they would pick A side, ANY side, but I’m guessing that isn’t going to happen in my lifetime.

Why does the old saying “Is this the hill you want to die on?” keep popping into my head?
 
SirThomasMore said:
The CoLDS panicked when they finally realized that if Cumorah was THE Cumorah, they would be forced to excavate. They KNOW nothing will be found and it will destroy the CoLDS. They had to quickly change their minds…like they have done so many times in the past as new findings and sciences threaten to disprove their fiction
Click to expand...
The phenomenon you describe demonstrates another important example of the double-standard in LDS apologetics. Whenever any of the falsifiable claims of Smith are falsified, the Book of Abraham being the premier example, Smith’s defenders will often say, “Well, that unfavorable conclusion comes from secular studies, whereas Smith taught from revelation, and our critics don’t give enough credit to that fact. For instance, there might be some truth that could be known from those papyri by revealed means that would be impervious to scholarly methods. Unlike our critics, we, as Latter-day Saints, prefer the truths of revelation to the limited findings of scholarship.” [This is not a caricature: see http://www2.ida.net/graphics/shirtail/lostbook.htm”]here.]

Not only is this a gross example of duplex veritas thinking, it is also hypocritical. For we can see that Mormons change their interpretation of BOM geography to avoid the snares of secular research, and then impeach instances of revealed teaching that don’t fit with their scholar-driven revisionism. Evidently they are quite willing to go the skeptic’s route and take their own research over revelation as a source for truth when it suits them.
 
twopekinguys said:
Like I said, I just wish they would pick A side, ANY side, but I’m guessing that isn’t going to happen in my lifetime.

Why does the old saying “Is this the hill you want to die on?” keep popping into my head?
Click to expand...
Looking over that quote from Fielding Smith, I realized there is an error in my first post about Zelph. I said that Smith claimed Zelph was in a battle west of Cumorah, when in fact none of the witnesses report that. Rather, I was conflating my memory of the Zelph witnesses with Fielding Smith’s argument. The witnesses only say Zelph was killed in the concluding war with the Lamanites. Fielding Smith concludes, on the basis of the Book of Mormon, that Cumorah is on the east coast because of the east-west push between the Nephites and Lamanites during that conflict
 
soren1 said:
Looking over that quote from Fielding Smith, I realized there is an error in my first post about Zelph. I said that Smith claimed Zelph was in a battle west of Cumorah, when in fact none of the witnesses report that. Rather, I was conflating my memory of the Zelph witnesses with Fielding Smith’s argument. The witnesses only say Zelph was killed in the concluding war with the Lamanites. Fielding Smith concludes, on the basis of the Book of Mormon, that Cumorah is on the east coast because of the east-west push between the Nephites and Lamanites during that conflict
Click to expand...
OH no, please say it isn’t so…you made an error!?!

50 lashes with a wet noodle for you!!

If that is the biggest mistake you’ve made, I don’t think you have anything to worry about. 😃

I mean let’s put it in perspective. It’s not like you said the hill is in NY, then changed to MesoAmerica or anything. 😛
 
twopekinguys said:
OH no, please say it isn’t so…you made an error!?!

50 lashes with a wet noodle for you!!

If that is the biggest mistake you’ve made, I don’t think you have anything to worry about. 😃
Click to expand...
These details matter. I have found in my experience that uncrossed t’s and undotted i’s will always be sniffed out by Mormons. Failure to cover any base, even a small, uncontroversial one, can provide them with grounds to attack your credibility. For instance, a Mormon could point to my error and claim I was Englishing the story to make the Zelph case seem more incontrovertible as an argument for a North American Cumorah than it really is. I am have gotten bruised by such minor missteps in the past.
I mean let’s put it in perspective. It’s not like you said the hill is in NY, then changed to MesoAmerica or anything. 😛
Click to expand...
Indeed. But the point is, if you are going to point out such gross errors in LDS scholarship or the active misrepresentation of “creedal” doctrines presented by the Church itself, you have to run a pretty tight ship on your own end.
 
soren1 said:
These details matter. I have found in my experience that uncrossed t’s and undotted i’s will always be sniffed out by Mormons. Failure to cover any base, even a small, uncontroversial one, can provide them with grounds to attack your credibility. For instance, a Mormon could point to my error and claim I was Englishing the story to make the Zelph case seem more incontrovertible as an argument for a North American Cumorah than it really is. I am have gotten bruised by such minor missteps in the past.

Indeed. But the point is, if you are going to point out such gross errors in LDS scholarship or the active misrepresentation of “creedal” doctrines presented by the Church itself, you have to run a pretty tight ship on your own end.
Click to expand...
I agree, I have seen many a non mormon post jumped on if an I wasn’t dotted, or a T crossed, even though a trivial error doesn’t change the information being presented.

I believe it is used primarily as a tool to divert attention from the information presented so they don’t have to face it, or deal with it.
 
soren1 said:
Indeed. But the point is, if you are going to point out such gross errors in LDS scholarship or the active misrepresentation of “creedal” doctrines presented by the Church itself, you have to run a pretty tight ship on your own end.
Click to expand...
So true, and something we should all remember.
 
SirThomasMore said:
The CoLDS panicked when they finally realized that if Cumorah was THE Cumorah, they would be forced to excavate. They KNOW nothing will be found and it will destroy the CoLDS. They had to quickly change their minds…like they have done so many times in the past as new findings and sciences threaten to disprove their fiction
Click to expand...
In that case, boys and girls, here’s another brick in the wall: “As I passed by the hill of Cumorah, where the plates are, the angel met me and said that I had not been engaged enough in the work of the Lord…” (Lucy Mack Smith, Biographical Sketches of Joseph Smith, Orson Pratt & SW Richards, 1853, pp 79-85, 100-101, cited in The Keystone of Mormonism, Paul Cheesman, Deseret Books, 1973, p 13)

It seems as though this is twice that Lucy Mack finked out her son and showed that he did indeed claim that the hill only three miles away was one and the same as Hill Cumorah, something the church doesn’t want us to know.

This quote is from Joseph to Lucy after he’d been rebuffed on his first attempt to collect the plates. He’d gotten the plates and set them down, they disappeared and he couldn’t retrieve them. This conversation occurred after he returned home to not work on his family’s farm.

So again, we now have Lucy Mack twice quoting Joseph as to the real location of the Hill Cumorah and thus refuting the church’s position of the missing and/or unidentified Hill quandry.
 
I think I have the right thread here (I’m subscribed to over 28 at the moment), since Catholicism has been, at least at certain times, linked to the abominable church in 1 Neohi 13 and 14, here’s something I found that’s somewhat less than amusing. Perhaps it shows a pattern of behavior of the LDS toward Catholicism when tied into the captions:

youtube.com/watch?v=BWwygBaAnw8&NR=1

And here’s another to show one particular missionary handled someone who disagreed with LDS doctrine:

youtube.com/watch?v=heDz8IN9nw8&feature=related
 
soren1 said:
These details matter. I have found in my experience that uncrossed t’s and undotted i’s will always be sniffed out by Mormons. Failure to cover any base, even a small, uncontroversial one, can provide them with grounds to attack your credibility. For instance, a Mormon could point to my error and claim I was Englishing the story to make the Zelph case seem more incontrovertible as an argument for a North American Cumorah than it really is. I am have gotten bruised by such minor missteps in the past.

Indeed. But the point is, if you are going to point out such gross errors in LDS scholarship or the active misrepresentation of “creedal” doctrines presented by the Church itself, you have to run a pretty tight ship on your own end.
Click to expand...
Of course. Fair is fair. If the critics go for the minutia and cherry pick, then they have to be VERY sure that the cherry isn’t a grape.

The problem with apologetics, for any faith, is that everything hangs on the interpretation of words…thus NOT getting it right isn’t a minor misstep. It’s a major problem. It can change everything.
 
PaulDupre said:
Thanks for posting those links. I love Shawn McCraney.
Click to expand...
You bet. I found that first one by accident and the second one, while not representative of all missionaries, shows that the church teaches that it and it alone is correct.

I like Shawn, too, but his hair’s a bit distracting sometimes.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top