Daniel Peterson discusses the possibility of Joseph Smith using a map to aid in producing Book of Mormon geography and stumbles upon the truth that ultimately leads to the peninsula of Delmarva:
Daniel C. Peterson, 5/11/2023, Evidence for the Book of Mormon with Dan Peterson, Mormonism with the Murph wrote:
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There are so many places you can trip up by messing up a reference flubbing the geography -- you got all these place names and descriptors that you’ve got to keep straight.
You have to have some sort of internal map in your mind, OR HAVE IT BE A REAL MAP! I mean I could talk real consistently about the geography of the western United States and am not going to mess it up because it’s real and exists subjectively outside of me, I know that Montana is
north of Utah, Arizona is to the
south and I’m not likely to mess that up but if it’s an entirely imaginary map I’m going to forget what was north of what? And where was this river? And even without thinking about it I’ll put the river somewhere where it simply can’t be or I’ll put a town to the
west where it should be to the
east or something like that.
Dan,
I agree, in order for one to keep all that information straight and in good working order one would need some sort of
internal map in their mind or have it be a
real map. And remember, north is always north and south is always south! Likewise, west is west and east is east! So, in that vein, suppose Joseph was looking at a map of Mexico and evaluated the geography of the Tehuantepec neck. Do you suppose he would label the Pacific ocean as
sea south or
sea west? Which one, Dan? Do recall that in the Book of Mormon the narrow neck was in-between sea west & sea east, respectfully, therefore
sea south would have no bearing along the narrow neck of the Book of Mormon! Right?