DiscussMormonism.com

dan vogel wrote: ↑

Tue Aug 02, 2022 6:47 pm

Joseph Smith, early Mormons, and the 19th century are important to understanding the Book of Mormon in every other way besides geography. That's an interesting position.

Hi Dan and Shulem, I've been enjoying the discussion. Wanted to jump in with something somewhat related that has intrigued me for the past few years. I've been curious about Martin Harris' visits to Samuel Mitchill in 1828. Dan, as you may know, Mitchell's hypothesis was that the mound builders of North America were Malays that fought a great battle of extinction with another race just a few miles southeast of Palmyra.

Richard Bennet seems to think that Mitchell was interested in what Harris had to say because he saw confirmation of his Malay hypothesis in the characters that Harris delivered to him. (source)

It hasn't yet been touched by Mormon historians or apologists, but in the same decade the Book of Mormon was published, a British diplomat stationed in Kedah (Malaysia) began publishing accounts from his journal of a text called the Hikayat Merong Mahawangsa, which spins a fantastic foundational myth of a half-Middle Eastern half-Malay warrior chief named ...

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Maroni

Zosimus wrote: ↑

Tue Aug 16, 2022 4:44 pm

Hi Dan and Shulem, I've been enjoying the discussion. Wanted to jump in with something somewhat related that has intrigued me for the past few years. I've been curious about Martin Harris' visits to Samuel Mitchill in 1828.

Thanks for chiming in and enjoying the discussion and I hope you find the Delmarva experience to be eye-opening and consider the possibility that this is indeed what Smith was mapping in his mind as he told the story. I really don’t have anything to add about your post but I did some Googling to find out more and found it somewhat interesting. Dan knows a lot more about the mound myths than I do. Joseph Smith was no doubt influenced by those myths and stories circulating during his time-- both oral and written. It was Smith’s habit of borrowing and stealing from anything and everything in order to build his own religious empire and set himself up as the prophet to the whole world.

Vogel is probably familiar with everything Martin Harris ever said about the translation and contents of the Book of Mormon. Harris was one of the most important witnesses to the whole event because he was in on it from the get-go and also knew what Joseph said in the lost manuscript. I’m convinced the lost manuscript tells us exactly how many days Lehi sailed prior to landing at the promised land. The account dictated to Cowdery does not! Why? Because Smith couldn’t remember the number, he assigned in the first telling and couldn’t chance being exposed by the missing manuscript which would prove a contradiction that would be too difficult to explain away. I discuss that in a lot of detail in other threads on this board.

Please permit me to stoop a little and steal a couple pics from an apologetic website that illustrates the narrow neck using the actual text of the Book of Mormon. The apologetic artist is pretty much spot on in converting the text into an image that appropriately represents how the narrow neck relates to the main landforms of north and south and how the neck itself was set within the ocean based on cardinal directions specified by the text.



I congratulate the artist who created these maps for demonstrating accuracy and for correctly interpreting the text of the Book of Mormon in order to provide a proper outline of exactly what’s described in the Book of Mormon.

Well done!

NEPHICODE.COM wrote:

Alma 50:34 wrote:And it came to pass that they did not head them until they had come to the borders of the land Desolation; and there they did head them, by the narrow pass which led by the sea into the land northward, yea, by the sea, on the west and on the east.

Alma 52:9 wrote:And he also sent orders unto him that he should fortify the land Bountiful, and secure the narrow pass which led into the land northward, lest the Lamanites should obtain that point and should have power to harass them on every side.

Mormon 2:29 wrote:And the Lamanites did give unto us the land northward, yea, even to the narrow passage which led into the land southward. And we did give unto the Lamanites all the land southward.

Mormon 3:5 wrote:And it came to pass that I did cause my people that they should gather themselves together at the land Desolation, to a city which was in the borders, by the narrow pass which led into the land southward.

The “narrow pass” within the narrow neck is easily discernable on the map of Delmarva in which water tributaries are the very obstacles that cause a narrow pass to be the only way to get through on dry ground. I believe that is exactly what Joseph Smith had in mind.

Shulem wrote: ↑

Wed Aug 17, 2022 4:13 pm

I congratulate the artist who created these maps for demonstrating accuracy and for correctly interpreting the text of the Book of Mormon in order to provide a proper outline of exactly what’s described in the Book of Mormon.

Well done!

The 'artist' of that model got there by deleting all of South America, claiming there was some cataclysmic flood that had shaped the entire continent into a neat fit for Alma 22

dan vogel wrote: ↑

Sun Jul 31, 2022 7:20 pm

It is not widely known, but in 1842 Caleb Atwater wrote a letter to the postmaster of Nauvoo, who was then Sidney Rigdon, and proposed a special edition of the Book of Mormon to be bound with his 1820 study of the Ohio mounds.

What a find! Is there a source to read the entire letter or will you cover this in an upcoming video?

Zosimus wrote: ↑

Thu Aug 18, 2022 12:51 am

The 'artist' of that model got there by deleting all of South America, claiming there was some cataclysmic flood that had shaped the entire continent into a neat fit for Alma 22

Fictional stories allow themselves much latitude. Think of how a great chunk of Middle Earth dropped off at the end of the First Age.

Zosimus wrote: ↑

Thu Aug 18, 2022 2:09 am

dan vogel wrote: ↑

Sun Jul 31, 2022 7:20 pm

It is not widely known, but in 1842 Caleb Atwater wrote a letter to the postmaster of Nauvoo, who was then Sidney Rigdon, and proposed a special edition of the Book of Mormon to be bound with his 1820 study of the Ohio mounds.

What a find! Is there a source to read the entire letter or will you cover this in an upcoming video?

Dan can come shout me down if I'm off base here but I believe this is what he is referencing: https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper ... ber-1842/1

I’ve made it clear in my long threads (please read them) that the testimony of young Joseph Smith best describes the geography of the Book of Mormon as it relates to the actual text of the book. Explanations, stories, and narrations that came after publication are to be considered cautiously because Smith was apt to evolve and modify his claims according to present needs and whatever was needful to increase faith. I’ve stressed in my threads that the word “continent” (not continents) was how the geography was first presented by the prophet. Likewise, America (not Americas) was the definition for the Promised Land. Americas (plural) is a modern apologetic construct in order to broaden the playing field wherein missing archeological evidence can be hidden in a mass of imagined confusion.

The Testimony of the Three Witnesses was originally published with the book and leads us to understand that the former inhabitants of *this* continent (America) came HERE as explained in the book wherein it “is a record of the people of Nephi, and also of the Lamanites, their brethren, and also of the people of Jared, who came from the tower of which hath been spoken.”

Notice that they “came” and in that they arrived but where did they arrive? They arrived HERE, in America, the land of liberty, the Promised Land, and at Cumorah is where the plates where buried. The very Title Page of the Book of Mormon states that the plates were “Sealed by the hand of Moroni, and hid up unto the Lord, to come forth in due time by way of the Gentile.”

Thus, they CAME to America and their records would COME FORTH out of America!

Shulem wrote: ↑

Thu Aug 18, 2022 9:33 pm

I’ve made it clear in my long threads (please read them) that the testimony of young Joseph Smith best describes the geography of the Book of Mormon as it relates to the actual text of the book. Explanations, stories, and narrations that came after publication are to be considered cautiously because Smith was apt to evolve and modify his claims according to present needs and whatever was needful to increase faith. I’ve stressed in my threads that the word “continent” (not continents) was how the geography was first presented by the prophet. Likewise, America (not Americas) was the definition for the Promised Land. Americas (plural) is a modern apologetic construct in order to broaden the playing field wherein missing archeological evidence can be hidden in a mass of imagined confusion.

The Testimony of the Three Witnesses was originally published with the book and leads us to understand that the former inhabitants of *this* continent (America) came HERE as explained in the book wherein it “is a record of the people of Nephi, and also of the Lamanites, their brethren, and also of the people of Jared, who came from the tower of which hath been spoken.”

Notice that they “came” and in that they arrived but where did they arrive? They arrived HERE, in America, the land of liberty, the Promised Land, and at Cumorah is where the plates where buried. The very Title Page of the Book of Mormon states that the plates were “Sealed by the hand of Moroni, and hid up unto the Lord, to come forth in due time by way of the Gentile.”

Thus, they CAME to America and their records would COME FORTH out of America!

The "American Continent" can refer collectively to South, Central, and South America. Joseph Smith didn't think only the Indians of North America were Lamanites. Coming "here" means the American Continent. When Joseph Smith says the American Continent, you must remember he claimed Lehi landed in Chile and believed the cities Stephens discovered in Central America were Nephite. It doesn't make sense to argue that he meant one thing when he referred to the continent while explaining away all his other statements. Likewise, it doesn't make sense to impose a narrow definition on "here" in the Testimony of the witnesses, probably written by Cowdery, and ignore his naming Chile as Lehi's landing place only a few months later.