Ancient Italy: The true Book of Mormon location

[_Darth J]

EDIT: Disregard the China theory. I am quite convinced now that the Italy setting is correct.

[_Ray A]

Challenging the Italy setting for the Book of Mormon would be a Malay setting:

A MALAY SITE FOR Book of Mormon EVENTS (PDF) (Sunstone, March 2004)

[_Darth J]

Critics have frequently talked about honeybees being mentioned in the book of Ether, citing a lack of pre-Columbian honeybees in the Americas. The Italian geography model, which has more compelling parallels than the Mesoamerican model, also resolves the honeybee issue.

Honey was known among the Etruscans, who correspond to the Jaredites.

A food derived from gathering and cultivation, honey has accompanied, often behind the scenes, the history of Italian nourishment from the remote past to our days. Used by the Etruscans as a votive offering, honey was mentioned for the first time by the Romans in detailed descriptions of its culinary usage, which was that of a sauce for savory dishes.

There is also an Italian subspecies of honeybee, which further corroborates the Book of Mormon narrative perfectly. The Western Honeybee

is very slightly larger than its cousin the eastern honeybee. As it moved from the Middle East and into Europe it developed into several distinct races, Italian, Caucasian, Black etc. Modern man transported these bees to the USA, Australia and New Zealand where they were not indigenous.



Notice that the Italian bee, pictured above, is described as being transported from the Middle East---exactly what we would expect from a Book of Mormon perspective.

[_Molok]

I would also like to add that an Italian setting for the Book of Mormon would address the alleged anachronism of the French word "adieu" being in Jac. 7:27. Italy, as we all know, is in very close proximity to France. In Oklahoma, where I grew up, one would say France was just a whoop and a holler away. It is perfectly conceivable some French gentiles could have migrated to Italy on some of those big, wide roads, and influencing the people living in Italy. Yet another anti Mormon chestnut successfully roasted on the open fire of truth. AMEN.

[_truth dancer]

Hey Darth...

I think you are inspired.

If the Book of Mormon took place in Italy, well that would explain why in the Book of Mormon the following are not found:

Panthers, corn, beans, squash, jade, wild turkeys, macaws, rabbits, armadillos, chilies, papaya, guava, breadnut, avocado, shell horns, cocoa, maize, skull deformation, feather headdresses, cocoa beans used as money, chewing the leaves of the sapodilla tree, resin from copal trees used in religious ceremonies, blowpipes, clay pellets used for hunting, cotton, earthen banks, irrigation canals, Mayan calendars, obsidian, slightly crossed eyes by hanging beads over children’s heads, filed teeth or inlaid with jade or pyrite. Young men painting themselves black until marriage, (no this is not being cursed with dark skin), scarring, jaguar helmets, copper bells, shells, flutes, limestone structures, tapirs, the unique Mayan number system to twenty, etc., etc., etc.,and.... the ballgame.

LOL!

But Darth... where is the Hill Cumorah? Not the one in NY, but the one where the plates were hidden, and from where the angel removed them?

I'm thinking of a few other things... money system? Complex polity? Huge wars? Millions dead? Temple like Solomon's? Domesticated farm animals?

~td~

[_MCB]

No, TD. triplepost. It is a marvelous work and a wonder. No wonder you were so impatient for it to register. Don't forget the llamas.

Somewhere I read a piece of European history that as armies were gathered for a major battle, bubonic plague struck so quickly that the battle between people never took place. I'll have to do a bit of research on that.

I think this is what I was thinking of:

According to Thucydides, at first enthusiasm for the war was high. Large numbers of young men on both sides who had no experience of war saw it as an adventure and a potential source of profit. But even the first year of the war brought losses and hardship to the Athenians, much of it caused by the radical strategy advocated by the Athenians' current political leader, Pericles, to rely mainly on Athenian naval supremacy: bring all the people in Attica into the city and abandon the outlying countryside to destruction by the Spartans, relying upon the navy to supply the city with food and other necessities that would be carried through the fortified corridor from the port of the Pireus into the city itself (the Long Walls).

In the winter following the first year of the war, morale had fallen considerably in Athens. It was at the year's public funeral (held annually for men who had fallen in battle in the course of the year) that Pericles pronounced the famous funeral oration that is so often quoted as summing up the greatness of Periclean Athens (Thuc.2.34-46). Pericles' speech was an encomium on Athenian democracy and it provided the high point of Thucydides' account of the war. It is immediately and dramatically followed in his account by the description of the plague which struck the city in the following summer, as the Spartans again invaded Attica. Crowded together in the city as the result of Pericles' strategy, the Athenians fell victim to the virulent sickness that was spreading throughout the eastern Mediterranean. People died in large numbers, and no preventive measures or remedies were of any avail. It has been estimated that a quarter, and perhaps even a third, of the population was lost. The plague returned twice more, in 429 and 427/6, and Pericles himself died during this time, probably as a result of the disease.

http://www.indiana.edu/~ancmed/plague.htm

[Guest]

There has been much speculation about "cureloms and cumoms" in the Book of Mormon.

And they also had horses, and asses, and there were elephants and cureloms and cumoms; all of which were useful unto man, and more especially the elephants and cureloms and cumoms.

Ether 9:19

Apologists trying to make the Book of Mormon fit a Mesoamerican model must try to make cureloms and cumoms fit their theory, as they do with specified animals like "horses" and "elephants" (i.e., that a horse is a tapir or some other animal in that region). The Italian model for the Book of Mormon does not suffer from this problem, and also offers additional compelling parallels to an ancient Italian setting.

The Latin word "carrus" means "vehicle." Just say it out loud, and the similarity between "carrus" and "curelom" is clear. Thus, in describing animals useful to man, we find a word for vehicle, suggesting a beast of burden or an animal that pulled a vehicle of some kind---and carts, wagons, and chariots were all present in ancient Italy.

The Latin word "commodus" means "proper, fit...useful." Notice the similarity between "commodus" and "cumom." We find a word similar to the Latin for "useful" exactly where it should be: in a passage describing useful animals!

A careful reading of the Book of Mormon suggests that the words "curelom" and "cumom" were not describing what the animals were, but what they did. Since the Lord corrupted languages at the Tower of Babel, and the Jaredites had their language remain (per the prayers of the brother of Jared), it is not by any means a stretch to infer that Jaredite words were modified by their Latin-speaking neighbors and descendants.

As for the "om" ending on "curelom" and "cumom," this also corresponds to the Latin suffix "-um," which is the nominative form of Latin second declension neuter nouns. In Latin, nouns are either masculine, feminine, or neuter. The fact that "-um" is singular neuter is consistent with "curelom" and "cumom" being descriptive terms, not actual animal names. The actual name of an animal would be masculine; such as, for example, equus (horse) or asinus (ass), which both have a masculine ending. "Horse" and "ass" are both specifically translated in the Book of Mormon, whereas "curelom" and "cumom" are not, further suggesting that the latter two are neuter descriptive terms, rather than actual animal names. Notice also that the words are rendered "cureloms and cumoms," further indicating that we are dealing with a singular neuter nominative word (as the ending "s" indicates plural in English writing).

"Vehicle" and "useful" fit the narrative of the Book of Ether perfectly, at the exact point where animals that are useful to man are being described. It is difficult to imagine Joseph Smith coming up with this coincidence on his own. Thus, we seem to have another bull's eye for the Book of Mormon's relationship with the land in which its people dwelt: the ancient Italian penninsula.

[_MCB]

Dangit!!! Excellent!! You just outshone the best of them!!!

[_madeleine]

Zelph was short for Zelphinius Antonius Lucius Maximus.

[_Darth J]

In the Celestial Forum, our friend Rumpole asks what the "anti-" explanation is for chiasmus in the Book of Mormon.

Unfortunately for these "anti's", chiasmus is very strong proof of the ancient Italian model of the Book of Mormon. Chiasmus was a common literary device in ancient Greek and Roman writing, as has been explained by John Welch at the Maxwell Institute.

Here are some examples of chiasmus from Cicero:

flebat uterque non de suo supplicio, sed pater de filii morte, de patris filius. "each wept, not for his own punishment, but the father for the death of the son, the son for the death of his father."

vehementius odio libidinis tuae quam legationis metur moverentur.
"they were more powerfully influenced by loathing for your licentiousness than by the awe in which they held the office of legate."

Some well-meaning defenders of the Book of Mormon have noted chiastic phrases in certain parts of the Book of Mormon, but have not attempted to link this chiasmus to a physical and historical location. The Ancient Italian Model (AIM) resolves that issue.

Could Joseph Smith have merely made a lucky guess that the very people living where the Book of Mormon took place were known for the popularity of chiasmus as a literary device in their culture? No, he could not. Unfortunately for the critics, we must conclude that chiasmus is yet another bull's eye for the Ancient Italian Model.