DiscussMormonism.com

I recently found this website, obviously written by believers in the hemispheric theory, which makes the following claims:

Q. Did Joseph Smith say anything about the geography in the Book of Mormon?
A. Yes. He did say that:

* Lehi sailed from the Middle East and landed in the Americas a little south of the Isthmus of Darien, Panama. It is about 40 miles across whereas the Panama canal is 37 miles.
* He said that the ruins of Quirigua, Guatemala was surely from Nephite origin.
* He said that the Jaredites settled in Aztalan, Wisconsin. This is an archeological site similar to the thousands found in the Mississippi valley region attributed to the Mound Builders of North America. The site contains three small stepped pyramidal mounds located between Milwaukee and Madison. It was named by judge N. F. Hyer who surveyed the site in 1837. The Aztecs had a tradition that their ancestors came from a country at the north, which they called Aztalan and since they looked to be of Aztec origin, the name of Aztalan was given.
* Joseph stated that a skeleton found by Zion’s Camp in southern Illinois was a Lamanite warrior by the name of Zelph. Zelph was a chieftain under the great prophet Onandagus, whose fame was known from the Hill Cumorah or eastern sea to the Rocky Mountains. Joseph also said that an arrow had killed Zelph during the last great struggle between the Lamanites and Nephites. This had been shown to him of the Almighty.

http://www.bookofmormongeography.net/qu ... answer.htm

I'm familiar with all of these statements with the exception of the Jaredite/Wisconsin statement. I cannot find more information on this. I can only find references to an "unnamed Mormon writer" in 1845 who made this claim. Does anyone know if Joseph Smith made this statement or is this an error?

Allow me to reconcile all of these with the facts that there be no more confusion.

The Jaredite barges did land in Wisconsin however they were flying saucers not ships. They were hiding underwater from the Beta Centauians and later hid in Wisconsin because nobody in their right mind would go there. After the great starship battle between Shiz and Coriantumr the radiation poisoned the land, being called Desolation. The Nephites landed in Panama but when King Mosiah fled from the wicked he led his people through a wormhole to the planet Xenon which used to exist between Earth and Mars. Some of the Lamanites followed. Then the bulk of Book of Mormon history took place there. Unfortunately the planet was unstable and the land became harsh. Wars broke out over resources and the great leaded Kalel....I mean Mormon hid the repository of their race in a small ship. After the Battle of Cumorah Moroni fled to this ship and returned to Earth. It crashed in New York on a hill that Moroni named Cumorah in homage to his lost people. He did not know that the evil Sorceror Onandagus was hunting him. In a series of adventures in which Moroni learned about friendship and the human spirit with the aid of his friends Steve (a small raccoon) and Mahonri Moriancumer (his pet rock) he founght to defeat Onandagus. One of his adventures involved a duel with arrows against Onandagus's most powerful warrior, Zelph. The battle lasted 3 days. In the end Moroni confronted Onandagus in the middle of a dark ritual he was performing to make delightsome people undelightsome. While Onandagus was defeated the spillover from the release of magical energies altered the timeline so that the Nephites and the Jaredites never were. Mornoni pleaded with God to let their story be told and God finally told him to return to Earth to give Joseph the story to share with the world.

Glad I could clear that up for everyone.

The Nehor wrote:Allow me to reconcile all of these with the facts that there be no more confusion.

The Jaredite barges did land in Wisconsin however they were flying saucers not ships. They were hiding underwater from the Beta Centauians and later hid in Wisconsin because nobody in their right mind would go there. After the great starship battle between Shiz and Coriantumr the radiation poisoned the land, being called Desolation. The Nephites landed in Panama but when King Mosiah fled from the wicked he led his people through a wormhole to the planet Xenon which used to exist between Earth and Mars. Some of the Lamanites followed. Then the bulk of Book of Mormon history took place there. Unfortunately the planet was unstable and the land became harsh. Wars broke out over resources and the great leaded Kalel....I mean Mormon hid the repository of their race in a small ship. After the Battle of Cumorah Moroni fled to this ship and returned to Earth. It crashed in New York on a hill that Moroni named Cumorah in homage to his lost people. He did not know that the evil Sorceror Onandagus was hunting him. In a series of adventures in which Moroni learned about friendship and the human spirit with the aid of his friends Steve (a small raccoon) and Mahonri Moriancumer (his pet rock) he founght to defeat Onandagus. One of his adventures involved a duel with arrows against Onandagus's most powerful warrior, Zelph. The battle lasted 3 days. In the end Moroni confronted Onandagus in the middle of a dark ritual he was performing to make delightsome people undelightsome. While Onandagus was defeated the spillover from the release of magical energies altered the timeline so that the Nephites and the Jaredites never were. Mornoni pleaded with God to let their story be told and God finally told him to return to Earth to give Joseph the story to share with the world.

Glad I could clear that up for everyone.

It sounds like something you would here at your local fast and testimony meeting.

thestyleguy wrote:It sounds like something you would here at your local fast and testimony meeting.

I think I'm attending the wrong ward if this is what you get.

The Nehor wrote:

thestyleguy wrote:It sounds like something you would here at your local fast and testimony meeting.

I think I'm attending the wrong ward if this is what you get.

Wrong ward or not, that changing of the timeline idea should be kept in reserve by apologists.

Interesting, Beastie. I have not seen this before.

http://content.wisconsinhistory.org/u?/tp,14958

In the first column this glyph that was found in Wisconsin is being attributed to Lehi's vision. It says "Discovery of America in the 8th century by a civilized race from Asia or Europe, probable settlement of the United States by them. Ruins of one of their cities in Wisconsin."

The Azatlan and Azteka references are attributed to Baron Humboldt, but the article says Baron's comments are a corroboration. Column Four has a heading that states "Another evidence for the Book of Mormon."

There is nothing in the article that references Joseph Smith. The article itself was published by an S Brannan.

What a funny looking tree of life. ;)

And while I am here, Beastie, I have a question for you. Have you ever found information about Zelph's arrow? Who is currently in possession of it?

Trinity wrote:And while I am here, Beastie, I have a question for you. Have you ever found information about Zelph's arrow? Who is currently in possession of it?

You know, was it Sorenson or Clark who said that we probably already have Nephite artifacts, we just don't know that they're Nephite?

I was thinking, if we can find Zelph's arrow, there would be an artifact that we "know" is Lamanite (could be Nephite through friendly fire I suppose). If we can find out who owns it, we could maybe get archeologists to examine it and tell us how different it is from arrows used by, say, American Indians in the region in the late 1700s/early 1800s. Wouldn't that be a fascinating study?

Clark made the following statement at his BYU devotional:

The logical challenges with the first assertion, that no cities have been located, are more subtle. Book of Mormon cities have been found, they are well known, and their artifacts grace the finest museums. They are merely masked by archaeological labels such as “Maya,” “Olmec,” and so on. The problem, then, is not that Book of Mormon artifacts have not been found, only that they have not been recognized for what they are. Again, if you stumbled onto Zarahemla, how would you know?

I haven't really studied Zelph that much, so I don't know what happened to the arrow. Maybe it's in the vault. ;)

That's a good lead, Trinity - the newspaper The Prophet was published in NY in 1844 and 1845, according to Dale's archives. So now we have to figure out who authored this particular article. I'll try to dig around some more.

Dale's archives:

http://www.sidneyrigdon.com/dbroadhu/NY/1844Prof.htm

According to Wilford Woodruff, they also collected bone fragments from Zelph. I don't recall if it was Wilford or not, I will look it up when I get home tonight. These are very likely in the possession of the Church. We can thus establish Lamanite DNA structure for sure! The Church should jump at the chance since this will prove once and for all that they are right and all of those nasty scientists are just full of dirty lies.

John