Doctor CamNC4Me wrote: ↑Fri Oct 21, 2022 5:50 pm
Sure, if you ignore the obvious geographic details Shulem laid out
I'm not ignoring any details. So far we have a narrow neck, a land southward surrounded by water on three sides and a land of many waters in the north. All of these are found in the hemispheric model as well. So I'm looking forward to seeing the rest of Shulem's cards.
Doctor CamNC4Me wrote: ↑Fri Oct 21, 2022 5:50 pm
and mosaic plagiarism Joseph Smith used with regard to View of the Hebrews and most importantly The Late War.
I believe there's a stronger case to be made for Arabic histories and geographies as the source material for the Book of Mormon. Unless I've misunderstood Chris Johnson's research, the 1822 Koran has more n gram matches with the Book of Mormon than Late War and View of the Hebrews. From the Johnson's blog:
"After a few tests it was clear that the Book of Mormon was a product of its culture, and could not have been made before 1822 since it relied on too many phrases found only in an 1822 Koran."
According to Philetus Spear Joseph Smith had a copy of Arabian Nights, which would have included the tales of Sinbad's adventures through the Seven Seas. Sinbad's 4th voyage was to the Sea of Kalah or Kedah on the Malay Peninsula. I've already explained that Arabic annals identify Maroni as the founder of Kedah (
source). That correspondence alone should be enough to spin heads, but there are more. I won't go into detail about the Book of Mormon names lifted from Arabic maps of the Malay Peninsula and surrounding islands, because it would take time to present the variations on spelling in the different texts. Suffice it to say that Arabic maps often confused the Comoros Islands and Madagascar with Malai. So the original Comoro was the Malay Peninsula (
source). Here's just one example of three Book of Mormon toponyms found in the same limited geography.
Komor/Comoro = Cumorah
Rami/Rahma = Ramah (the name given to Cumorah in Jaredite times)
Kamrun/Kamran = Comron (a hill near Cumorah in Jaredite times)
All three toponyms are found next to each other on Al Idrisi's map:
Note that the last reference there explains how Komor or Komoro takes its name from Komr or Kamran, a grandson of Noah who built boats around the time of the tower to carry his family across the seas to the Malay Peninsula. Komr is spelled Kumr in other geographies (
source), so this Arabic narrative is clearly the source of the Jaredite narrative of Morian
cumr. Jared and Moriancumr's sealed book (
Ether 4:4-5) is even mentioned in the Akhbar al-Zaman, within a detailed description of the Seven Seas and the Kumr narrative described above:
"Mahalalel lived 895 years. His heir was his son Jared. He told him about the revealed sheets. He taught him the division of the land and the events to happen in the universe. He gave him the Book of the Secret of the Kingdom, which the angel Darâbil had written for Adam. The patriarchs were handed down this sealed book without ever seeing its content." (
source)