Jeffrey Holland in the Ensign in 1976:
Holy scripture records that “after the waters had receded from off the face of this land it became a choice land above all other lands, a chosen land of the Lord; wherefore the Lord would have that all men should serve him who dwell upon the face thereof.” (Ether 13:2.) Such a special place needed now to be kept apart from other regions, free from the indiscriminate traveler as well as the soldier of fortune.
To guarantee such sanctity the very surface of the earth was rent. In response to God’s decree, the great continents separated and the ocean rushed in to surround them. The promised place was set apart. Without habitation it waited for the fulfillment of God’s special purposes.
This is supposedly and educated man. He claims to hold a Ph.D. from Yale for goodness sake. Yet he tells the faithful that the continents of the Western Hemisphere separated from the continents of the Eastern Hemisphere soon after the waters of a global flood of Noah receded as recounted in the Old Testament.
The break-up of the Pangaea super continent and the positioning of the present continents of the Eastern and Western Hemispheres began something like 100 million years ago. The continents of the Earth were essentially in their present positions by about 30 million years ago.
So the Atlantic basin into which the "ocean rushed" (as Holland describes it) was actually formed over more than 100 million years (not exactly a rush) and was essentially as we see it today by about 30 million years ago. It did not occur in a cataclysmic (renting of the Earth) event 4,000 or so years ago as Holland claims.
Two of my sons loved dinosaurs and paleontology when they were young and I would guess they had this basic geologic timeline in their heads by the time they were in Middle School. And Holland, as a supposedly responsible adult, does not know or believe this yet today?
This is not a matter for interpretation or discussion. This is a geological and scientific fact. And Holland must know this. If he does not then he is willfully ignorant and has no business as an apostle of the Church, or an individual to whom people look to for the truth.
If a Church leader is willing to publish well considered truth claims that any high school kid can show are false in less than 5 minutes, why should anyone believe anything he says?
This was not an off-hand comment. This was crucial to the main theme of the article.
I wonder if Holland would stand by this ridiculous made-up piece of bovine scatology today. I would love to hear what he would say if confronted with this nonsensical article in public.