Book of Mormon Geography

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Doctor CamNC4Me
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Re: Book of Mormon Geography

Post by Doctor CamNC4Me »

Any statements by post-Joseph Smith ‘leaders’ is akin to people speculating on George R.R. Martin’s geographic models of Westeros and Essos. You just really need to look at his inspiration for, say, Westeros and you can see he modeled it off the British Isles by flipping them around and tacking Ireland onto one end while enlarging the map enormously. Joseph Smith modeled his geography off the Late War’s geography, and simply tweaked it a bit. It doesn’t have to be a perfect match; if you’re familiar with the Late War it’s clear he riffed on it, but didn’t need to be faithful to every detail.

I do want to make one point about the 14 miles being a day and a half journey. I’ve done a fair amount of walking in my life, and I can tell you unless you’re walking on a graded road and you’re totally unencumbered 14 miles is easily a day and a half’s journey for your average bloke back in the day. You have rest breaks, lunch, possibly pack animals that need to be watered and fed, perhaps visits with other travelers, and so forth. The Delmarva neck fits better than the Isthmus of Panama within the textual narrative of the Book of Mormon - I think the narrowest coast-to-coast points are ~30 miles, but that doesn’t really take into account the terrain. I’m fairly confident Joseph Smith would be more familiar with the Delmarva peninsula than the IoP.

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Zosimus
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Re: Book of Mormon Geography

Post by Zosimus »

Doctor CamNC4Me wrote:
Thu Sep 08, 2022 2:39 am
Joseph Smith modeled his geography off the Late War’s geography, and simply tweaked it a bit. It doesn’t have to be a perfect match; if you’re familiar with the Late War it’s clear he riffed on it, but didn’t need to be faithful to every detail.
What I'm proposing is that Samuel Mitchell is the common denominator, he makes his motives clear in the letter he sent to Gilbert Hunt. Hunt appreciated Mitchell's words so much he included his letter in the preface of The Late War:

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As early as 1817, Samuel Mitchell lamented the lack of a good American History, and praises Hunt's attempt at an American History in an imitated "biblical style". A decade later Martin Harris would take the Book of Mormon transcript to Mitchell and Mitchell would identify the characters as those of a nation now extinct. He told Martin the name of that nation.

Two years later, the Book of Mormon -- a history of the moundbuilders in an imitated biblical style -- was published.
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Re: Book of Mormon Geography

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I’m sure Joseph Smith was inspired by the Mound Builders, or at least he thought they were descended from Jews and he incorporated elements of that theory into the overarching Book of Mormon narrative? It’s been a while since I went down that rabbit hole, so I could be off with regard to the Jewish connection and the MBs.

Regardless, all I’m saying is Joseph Smith took inspo from the LW and then framed the geography of the Book of Mormon onto the delmarva peninsula as demonstrated by Shulem. Just as Westeros isn’t a faithful simulacrum of the British Isles, the delmarva peninsula is just a shape onto which Joseph Smith could frame the movement of Nephites and the rest. I think he sourced names of towns from the Great Lakes region, but his mental map was that of the delmarva peninsula. If you go to Shulem’s original thread on the topic you can see him piece it together better than I can explain it. It’s actually pretty remarkable.

Whatever the case may be, I don’t really have a dog in the fight, but I do find Shulem’s theory much more plausible than the hemispheric model because of things like the Final Battle at Cumorah taking place near delmarva instead of thousands of miles from, I dunno, Mexico or Central America, not to mention Moroni having to drag the plates a reasonable distance versus over an entire continent.

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Re: “Into the land northward”

Post by Shulem »

Zosimus wrote:
Thu Sep 08, 2022 12:26 am
I know, that's why I said earlier that it won't be possible to come to any conclusions about Delmarva.

I appreciate your participation in this thread and your willingness to share your thoughts and ideas.

Zosimus wrote:
Thu Sep 08, 2022 12:26 am
Beyond the narrow neck and being surrounded on three sides by water, everything else is mindreading. I'm just looking for anything about Delmarva that might prove to be a template Joesph used.

“Template” being a key word. Joseph was looking at a map and was making things fit into his story. Lehi’s sojourn from Jerusalem through Arabia and to the coast is absolute proof of that. Joseph was cognizant of basic geography, cardinal direction, and distance. With that in mind, it was up to Joseph to choose and select where Lehi would go from there and locate as you said, “the narrow neck and being surrounded on three sides by water” in the promised land which was on the other side of the world -- the *same* continent in which Columbus discovered and where white Europeans interacted with the Lamanites and colonized the land as prophesied in the Book of Mormon.

Zosimus wrote:
Thu Sep 08, 2022 12:26 am
Narrow Neck, check
Surrounded by water on three sides, check

This is a bullseye in the American continent! The most vital elements in showcasing the landform in which Lehi discovered was “surrounded by water on three sides” that come together in perfect harmony in which only a peninsula running north and south as in the Book of Mormon can match this description. It’s that pesky “three sides” that dismiss apologetic models out of hand. They don’t have the definitive “three sides” and the three seas (East, West, South) in which to properly “surround” their model.

Zosimus wrote:
Thu Sep 08, 2022 12:26 am
Is there anything else about the geography of Delmarva that turns up in the Book of Mormon?

I have more to add and will in time. These threads are already quite long. But the question you might ask is there any other landform or peninsula in the New World that fits the description of being surrounded by three sides of water and has a narrow neck leading northward other than Delmarva? And remember the primary goal is to have an old and tired lonely man carry the gold plates to New York State and deposit them in Joseph Smith’s backyard. That is key!

Delmarva has been well imagined to be the very place:

simon southerton wrote:
Wed Jul 28, 2021 12:42 am
The Delmarva Peninsula fits perfectly with the text of the Book of Mormon. It's the right orientation, the landmass is roughly the right size, and it is conveniently located to the Hill Cumorah. And it is easy to imagine how this geography found its way into the mind of Joseph Smith. Anything Smith said after publication of the Book of Mormon is completely irrelevant. The cat was out of the bag and he latched onto anything that embellished his fantasy.
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Re: Book of Mormon Geography

Post by Shulem »

Shulem wrote:
Wed Sep 07, 2022 4:45 pm
I won’t even begin to discuss it further or see any need to find additional fault in this model. Sorry, it’s simply DOA out of the starting gate.
Zosimus wrote:
Thu Sep 08, 2022 2:00 am
This is a model I have looked at extensively. Setting aside all the ways it doesn't fit with post-1830 statements by Church leaders and members, I'd argue its the only geography that matches the internal geography and narrative of the Book of Mormon.

In my other threads I cover quite a bit of ground on how Mormon & Moroni left the peninsula to travel northward to Cumorah. Time and distance are manifested and expressed in ways that make it absolutely impossible to consider the idea they left Asia and traveled to the other side of the globe in order to fight a war. The war they were fighting was always for territory that existed in the promised land of *this* the American continent. Asia contradicts the internal geography expressed in the stories. It contradicts the prophesies of Columbus and later Europeans colonizing the land in which the latter-day choice seer (Joseph Smith) would be raised up in the last days.

Asia is DOA.
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Re: Book of Mormon Geography

Post by Shulem »

Zosimus wrote:
Thu Sep 08, 2022 2:00 am
What's most striking about this model is that it corresponds with:

1. Samuel Mitchell's hypothesis that the moundbuilders came from this geography and fought a great battle of extinction near the Hill Cumorah

There were a lot of stories and theories out there in which Joseph Smith was able to draw from. Radio Free Mormon provides an excellent podcast on the VIEW OF THE HEBREWS and other ideas circulating during Smith’s time.

Zosimus wrote:
Thu Sep 08, 2022 2:00 am
2. Captain Kidd's ship (the Kedah Merchant) was named after the main trading port in this geography

I’m convinced that Captain Kidd played a key role in influencing Joseph Smith since his treasure digging days and in coming up with ideas for his future novel.

Zosimus wrote:
Thu Sep 08, 2022 2:00 am
3. The mythological founder of this geography was a warrior from the Middle East named Maroni

That may have well been a name Smith mined from available sources in which to enrich his own story.

Zosimus wrote:
Thu Sep 08, 2022 2:00 am
4. Arabic geographies describing this island/peninsula referred to it by names that resemble toponyms in the Book of Mormon: Komara, Komorriya, Rahma, Sidon, Kamran (fun fact, the Comoros Islands are called Comoro because Arabic geographers believed the Comoros Islands and Madagascar were settled by a Biblical people called the Kumr (think Moriancumr), who after the tower had sailed to the peninsula of Komara in ships modeled after Noah's Ark (not unlike the Jaredites).

Again, more sources in which to gather names and make his own story seem legitimate. I happen to think that Captain Kidd and his treasure island schemes influenced young Joseph.

Zosimus wrote:
Thu Sep 08, 2022 2:00 am
5. The maps of this geography that could have been used as a template in the decades before the publication of the Book of Mormon match the internal geography of the Book of Mormon quite well.

I wouldn’t go that far but I will agree that it influenced Joseph in how to come up with his own material of his own making.
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Re: Book of Mormon Geography

Post by Doctor CamNC4Me »

3-sides with an east-west-south sea set up, a narrow neck, and desolation northward?

- Punta Arenas, Chile -

:shock:

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Re: Dan Vogel and Captain Kidd

Post by Shulem »

dan vogel wrote:
Fri Sep 02, 2022 3:27 pm
Lehi and Captain Kidd were different people.

Yes, they were different people. Both sailed south into the Indian Ocean toward Madagascar and then around South Africa. Both entered the Atlantic and sailed north to America. It makes total sense that borrowings of names such as Cumorah and Moroni follow the same route in which they were taken. It makes sense that if Joseph stole names he also used the route that got him to those names and beyond.

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Re: “Into the land northward”

Post by Zosimus »

I should make a disclaimer at this point. My approach to the internal geography of the Book of Mormon has been to start with a clean slate. I'm trying to make zero assumptions about who authored the book, when it was written, and where the narrative took place. I'm only looking at the text itself, and trying to get as close to the original manuscript as possible, giving priority to what is known about the 116 lost pages. This is not easy to do because, depending on the participants in the discussion, there's a tendency to give priority to things that apologists and critics have "revealed" about the text over the past 200 years and we're left to handle the text as either:

1. the Book of Mormon is a wholly accurate historical text chiseled into golden plates by ancient American prophets and is without flaws, or
2. the Book of Mormon is a complete fabrication of a mythological American history written by a lone fraudster in the 1820s.

I understand why discussions of Book of Mormon origins trend to these extremes, but in my opinion once we end up there, we're spinning our wheels.
Shulem wrote:
Thu Sep 08, 2022 2:37 pm
“Template” being a key word. Joseph was looking at a map and was making things fit into his story. Lehi’s sojourn from Jerusalem through Arabia and to the coast is absolute proof of that. Joseph was cognizant of basic geography, cardinal direction, and distance.
If we both agree to start with the assumption that the the author(s) of the Book or Mormon was looking at a map, and/or was cognizant of basic geography, cardinal directions, and distances, let's start there.

Would you agree that apologists are mostly correct in concluding that the last known geographically accurate point in the Lehite narrative was somewhere on the coast of Oman? Would you agree that the trail of Lehi through the Arabian Peninsula and mention of Nahum are data points that strengthen the argument that the author(s) of the Book of Mormon had information about these geographies?
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Re: Book of Mormon Geography

Post by Zosimus »

Shulem wrote:
Thu Sep 08, 2022 3:59 pm
Asia is DOA.
Not at all. I'm a believer in absurd coincidence, but a historical peninsula of Komara founded by a Maroni dating to the same time period as the Book of Mormon Land of Cumorah with its Maroni are data points that can't easily be brushed off.

Before declaring this model DOA, we should be able to explain how the author of the Book of Mormon seemingly made a series of wild guesses and coincidentally fabricated a geography identified alternatively as both Cumorah and Ramah and a Maroni that dates to the same time period as a historical Komara and Rahma founded by a Middle Eastern warrior named Maroni.

If the author of the Book of Mormon was familiar with history, geography, and was referencing maps and other popular publications, it would not have been easy to ignore all the chatter in the 1810s/1820s about the White Jews and Black Jews dispersed throughout Asia and the isles of the sea. The author of the Book of Mormon would have likely known about their records etched into brass plates. Note, the chatter about these Jews of Comorin was that they were a remnant of the Tribe of Manasseh and their brothers were spread far and wide. It's worth considering these popular accounts as a starting point for both the Book of Mormon narrative and geography.

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