Book of Mormon Geography

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Shulem
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Re: Ace of Clubs

Post by Shulem »

Shulem wrote:
Mon Sep 19, 2022 3:09 am
So, what’s the big deal about Great Lakes being large bodies of water that covered the land northward?

The large bodies of water in the land northward are the most impressive topographic feature given in the Book of Mormon story. It’s indicative of a collective of supersized lakes or seas that cover the northern reaches of the continent itself. One can only conclude that while Joseph was dictating (translating) the descriptive nature of these vast waters that Oliver immediately called to mind the Great Lakes. These very large bodies of water were only miles away from Cumorah itself with Lake Ontario to the north, Lake Erie to the west, and the rest of the giant watery collective spreading across the northern reaches of the continent. And this is why I get so defensive (sorry Vogel) and adamant that when the word “continent” is used to include Book of Mormon topographical features, it always applies to North America. The large bodies of water are in North America and the very hill Cumorah lies in the shadows of those great waters and even the Finger Lakes which figure so prominently in Smith’s neck of the woods are dwarfed by the vastness of the large bodies of water that make up the Great Lakes! So yes, “this continent” has direct reference to North America. The entire narrative and story take place in North America, on this very continent!

Continent in the most general terms can be expressed as hemispheric as Dan Vogel demonstrated earlier -- western vs. eastern, but let’s be clear that when we magnify and identify the area of the continent for Book of Mormon lands, we break it down to the point that it’s North America which is the very continent where the Book of Mormon takes place with ground zero on the southern tip of a peninsula and last stop northward at Cumorah. Smith was aware of the distance between the two. He knew what it was like for young Mormon to be carried off from Zarahemla to the land northward. Smith knew what it was like to traverse over land and water. He did so himself when his own father carried him off from Vermont to Western New York. When we put things in proper perspective, we can better understand the geography of the Book of Mormon and the stories Smith was telling.
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Shulem
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Great Lakes

Post by Shulem »

Ace of Clubs wrote: Large bodies of water!

Image


QUESTION: Why are the large bodies of water so large?


King of Clubs wrote:
Waters of Ripliancum, which, by interpretation, is large, or to exceed all!

Ether 15:8


Any questions?

:D
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Re: Book of Mormon Geography

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Dear Critic,

If you believe the Book of Mormon is fiction then you have a choice to make regarding Smith’s imagined geography as told in the story. But first, you have no choice but to accept the account of Jerusalem and Arabia as actual historical places. From Jerusalem to the Arabian coast are real places on the map. Then comes the ocean and Lehi’s landing. It’s up to you to decide whether Smith had an actual place in mind in which to use as a template for building the geography of the stories given in the novel. Either Smith identified an actual place on the world map for Lehi to land or he did not. Take your pick! If you elect to go with no specific or definite place on the globe but allow the stories to unfold in a random imagined geography for a place that doesn’t exist -- then there is no need to calculate or identify the geography using time, space, and distance on an actual map. Anything goes! In this case it would simply be a matter of Smith making up stories without looking at the map to ensure that things remain coherent and consistent or that geography told in the story lines up with what’s on the map.

Do you think Smith didn’t care about where his story took place on the map? Do you? How might that compare to the fact that he gave every bit of care and concern to the chronology in ensuring that those numbers added up and were consistent with the story? I’ve said it before and will say it again: Geography & Chronology go hand in hand with Smith’s story telling. Otherwise, it’s simply unbelievable in every respect. If the chronology doesn’t add up and can be shown to be in disarray then who would believe the story? The same goes for the geography which must be made to appear as if it comes together within the story having cohesion and consistency. This is why Smith needed a geographic template in which to build his story on the very land of promise in which he himself dwelt.

Won’t you join me in coming to this obvious conclusion and embrace the obvious need for Delmarva to serve as Smith’s geographical template in which to bring Lehi to the land of promise? And just in case Smith elected to declare where Zarahemla was on the map he would need to have a place in which to identify wherein the landform would appear just like in the story!

Join me and come to the full realization that Delmarva is the answer.

Shulem
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Brant A. Gardner’s flawed apologetics

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From the East to the West: The Problem of Directions in the Book of Mormon

Brandt Gardner wrote:The 1985 publication of John L. Sorenson’s An Ancient American Setting for the Book of Mormon presented the best argument for a New World location for the Book of Mormon. For all of its strengths, however, one aspect of the model has remained perplexing. It appeared that in order to accept that correlation one must accept that the Nephites rotated north to what we typically understand as northwest.

Joseph Smith, including (Nephi, Alma, and Mormon) never rotated north or made it to be anything other than true north. North is north and always has been and always will be just as the North Star. If Lehi was said to travel in a SE direction down into Arabia to reach the sea then we can conclude a return direction is NW. There is no skewing of that line! Lehi came from the NW to go to the SE and what determined that line was the difference between true NORTH and true SOUTH.

Brandt Gardner wrote:There was just that little problem of north not being north.

That’s not a little problem! It’s as big as the whole world from pole to pole.

Brandt Gardner wrote:The result is a way to understand Book of Mormon directions without requiring any skewing of magnetic north.

Nephi understood directions and never skewed magnetic north -- not once! He had no reason to skew any direction including south, east, and west. Nor did his successors. Neither did Alma or Mormon. The white and delightsome descendants of the Jews had no reason to skew any direction, period. The sun always rose in the east and set in the west, every single day!

Brandt Gardner wrote: In addition to his work on the geography, Sorenson expanded his correlation to include the relationship between the available historical and cultural information for that region and the descriptions and events in the Book of Mormon.

The historical and cultural information of today’s Mesoamerican region has absolutely nothing to do with Nephi, Alma, and Mormon’s definition of direction as translated by Joseph Smith who understood their directions the same as his own. Cardinal directions reported in the Book of Mormon are the same cardinal directions reported by the Jews in the Bible.

Brandt Gardner wrote: I propose that if Mesoamerica is a good fit for the Book of Mormon’s real world geography, then information about Mesoamerica may be used to reexamine and refine the nature of that fit.

Absolutely not! You cannot fit a square peg into a round hole. Nephi, Alma, and Mormon were a round hole in their own times and reported the cardinal directions exactly as they had always done since Lehi made the SE journey to the Arabian Sea. The directions of the Jews were the directions of the Nephites. The Mesoamericans who came later are a square peg and had nothing to do with what Nephi, Alma, and Mormon wrote as translated by Joseph Smith.

Brandt Gardner wrote: In short, an understanding of the Mesoamerican directional system offers an explanation for the way that Book of Mormon directions correspond to that geography, without recourse to an artificial shift in the directions.

Absolutely not! The Mesoamerican directional system was not known to Nephi nor was it passed down to Alma and Mormon. The directional system used by those characters is the same system they inherited from Lehi and the Jews. Mesoamerican ideas came later and is an apologetic red herring. Nothing in Mesoamerica can change the cardinal directions as understood by Lehi and Nephi who passed all their knowledge and wisdom they received from the Jews down to their own posterity. Alma embraced the knowledge of what he inherited as did Mormon. What was north & south to Lehi was also north & south to Alma and Mormon. What was east & west to Nephi was east & west to Alma and Mormon. And that is exactly what Joseph Smith translated as he understood it!

Mesoamerican directional systems are a red herring used by apologists to take our eye off the ball. The only ball we need to keep our eyes on is that of white and delightsome Nephi, Alma, and Mormon, as translated by Joseph Smith. Mesoamerican culture and history that followed have absolutely nothing to do with Book of Mormon cardinal directions. Brant Gardner is making stuff up out of thin air. He can’t transform cardinal directions of Nephi, Alma, and Mormon as translated by Joseph Smith any more than John Gee can read a king’s name in Facsimile No. 3. Gardner’s apologetic is DOA and is a dishonest approach in understanding Book of Mormon geography. How sad, what a waste of time and talent.
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Brant A. Gardner’s flawed apologetics

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Brant Gardner’s references to a so-called Mesoamerican directional system and Mayan studies have absolutely nothing to do, whatsoever, with Lehi, Nephi, Alma, and Mormon who are interpreted through Joseph Smith’s translations. Gardner presents a red herring and apologetic doubletalk that insults my intelligence. Don’t even bother reading it! What a waste of time! I will come straight out and say that Gardner is totally confused in his Book of Mormon studies and doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He may be a nice guy, fine, but he’s a lousy scholar in my opinion.

Run away from this nonsense!

This is so retarded:

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Re: Great Lakes

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Shulem wrote:
Mon Sep 19, 2022 6:03 pm
QUESTION: Why are the large bodies of water so large?


King of Clubs wrote:
Waters of Ripliancum, which, by interpretation, is large, or to exceed all!

Ether 15:8


Any questions?

:D
Are these so large they might also be known as "great lakes"?
Cry Heaven and let loose the Penguins of Peace
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Zosimus
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Re: How long?

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Shulem wrote:
Mon Sep 12, 2022 1:35 pm
Yes, the peninsula was to the south and the mainland was all that was northward. The neck is what separated both.
My take is that the whole enchilada, narrative and geography, was an expansion of commonplace accounts of the lost tribes as found in the Christian pseudopigraha and the Midrash.

There are countless references to a geography that isolated the 10 tribes and other lost sheep from the Old World. For example, according to the 4th century History of the Rechabites, during the reign of King Zedekiah the sons of Rechab were carried by God across the many waters to a peninsula/island. For a comparison of the Rechabite narrative and geography with the Book of Mormon go here. Likewise, the Sons of Moses were given a peninsula surrounded by sea on three sides:

Image

This is why the Land of Promise in the Book of Mormon is also "nearly surrounded by water" (Alma 22:32). It's as simple as that.

The Book of Mormon isn't describing Delmarva, its describing the same geography that Jews, Christians and Muslims have for centuries been describing in texts as the home of exiled Jews.
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Re: How long?

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Zosimus wrote:
Wed Sep 21, 2022 9:05 am
Shulem wrote:
Mon Sep 12, 2022 1:35 pm
Yes, the peninsula was to the south and the mainland was all that was northward. The neck is what separated both.
My take is that the whole enchilada, narrative and geography, was an expansion of commonplace accounts of the lost tribes as found in the Christian pseudopigraha and the Midrash.

There are countless references to the geography that isolated the 10 tribes and other lost sheep from the Old World. For example, according to the 4th century History of the Rechabites, during the reign of King Zedekiah the sons of Rechab were carried by God across the many waters to a peninsula/island. For a comparison of the Rechabite narrative and geography with the Book of Mormon go here. Likewise, the Sons of Moses were given a peninsula surrounded by sea on three sides:

Zosimus,

Those are interesting references and it’s entirely possibly that Joseph Smith was aware of these matters as he was about other source material available in his time whether orally or in writing. Joseph was always borrowing from others in order to come up with material to preach his gospel. The One Eternal Now is one such example.

Thank you for providing specific information in which Smith may have used to formulate his ideas in order to produce his own novel. The most important concluding element of the Book of Mormon was to get the plates into Joseph’s backyard. Cumorah was in the land of promise in which the prophecy of the choice seer would be raised up in the last days to translate the plates. I believe the journey started at the tip of Delmarva and worked its way northward where at Cumorah the story would formerly end.
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Re: Great Lakes

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Moksha wrote:
Wed Sep 21, 2022 8:59 am
Are these so large they might also be known as "great lakes"?

How did you know?! Very impressive. You figured it out!

In time, at the right moment, I’ll play the Ace of Hearts. That card will really get your attention and make the apologists shake in their boots. I’ll keep that card up my sleeve until it’s time to play it -- along side the King, Queen, and Jack of Hearts.

Yeah baby! Shulem has the winning cards. ;)
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Question for Brant Gardner

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Brant Gardner wrote:Image

Brant,

Using your map with the identifying designations given therein to include the two seas (East Sea & West Sea) and the names of places and features on the land, please plot the following course:

Beginning at “EAST SEA BORDERS” proceed in a south-southeast direction (the same direction Lehi took in Arabia) and continue on that course until you reach the sea.

QUESTION: What is the final destination?

The answer based on your map would be Lehi’s First Inheritance! But how so? That’s simply not possible. Allow me to explain.

In the Book of Mormon, if Alma or Mormon were to depart from the “East Sea Borders” of the narrow neck to continue a journey in a south-southeast direction they would have to sail directly into the sea! Can you not reason that a SE course from the borders of the eastern side of the narrow neck only leads to the sea? Can you not reason that your scheme to create a directional system to make your model fit the text given in the Book of Mormon is impossible? And yet the question I posed in taking a SE course from borders of the east sea leads anyone looking at your map to plot the obvious course to Lehi’s First Landing. Can you not see that your model does not fit the text of the Book of Mormon? Look, if Alma or Mormon were to face east, they would see the sun rise in the morning. They know the light of the morning sun rises in the east and sets in the west at the end of the day. That’s a universal understanding of the characters in the Book of Mormon.

It's checkmate my friend. You lose.
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