 |
| Hill Cumorah, NY |
And I hope no one gets into arguments or contention about the setting of the Book of Mormon.
See http://nomorecontention.com/
Instead, on this blog we pursue (i) clarity, (ii) charity and (iii) understanding. We encourage people to make informed decisions for themselves.
_____
In reverse order, on this blog we seek to understand others and we assume they all act in good faith.
Clarity is usually the hard part. Instead of seeking clarity and separating facts from assumptions, inferences and theories (the FAITH model), people usually seek to confirm their biases, which means they (i) ignore/reject evidence that contradicts their biases and (ii) welcome/fantasize about evidence that confirms their biases.
Starting with clarity, the entire M2C edifice was built upon three layers of a sandy foundation:
(i) The 1842 Times and Seasons articles attributed (wrongly) to Joseph Smith;
(ii) the conviction that all the prophets who taught Cumorah was in New York were wrong; and
(iii) deference to scholars who promoted M2C with dubious "correspondences" to Mayan culture, censorship and even ridicule of the teachings of the prophets, and numerous fallacies of fact and logic.
At this point, it's just a matter of time before M2C itself disappears.
Latter-day Saints everywhere are becoming better educated about Church history, the teachings of the prophets, and the relevant extrinsic evidence, all of which combine to corroborate the teachings of the prophets about the origin and setting of the Book of Mormon.
Apart from legal technicalities, the following organizations that promoted M2C have vanished:
BMAF (Book of Mormon Archaeological Foundation)
FARMS (Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies)
Book of Mormon Central
NOTE: One legacy holdout is the Interpreter Foundation, but they mostly talk among themselves (citation cartel) and few outside their organization take them seriously, anyway, because it's obvious to everyone outside their bubble that they are merely confirming their biases. Most Latter-day Saints reject the Interpreters' biases once they realize that the Interpreters forthrightly reject and repudiate the teachings of the prophets on the origin and setting of the Book of Mormon.
So what is left of M2C?
_____
We won't take the time here to review all the evidence. There are innumerable podcasts, blogs, books, articles, and websites that cover all of that. For example, see https://www.mobom.org/church-history-issues
The bottom line for M2C is this table:
|
New York
Cumorah |
M2C (Cumorah
in Mexico) |
|
Moroni called
the hill Cumorah during his first visit to Joseph Smith |
Joseph Smith,
Lucy Mack Smith, and Oliver Cowdery were all wrong |
|
Joseph
referred to the hill as Cumorah even before he translated the plates |
Lucy Mack
Smith was wrong |
|
The messenger
took the abridged plates from Harmony to Cumorah |
David Whitmer
was wrong |
|
Joseph and
Oliver visited the repository in Cumorah multiple times |
Oliver
Cowdery, David Whitmer, Brigham Young, Wilford Woodruff, Heber C. Kimball
were all wrong |
|
Joseph’s
contemporaries and successors in Church leadership, including members of the
First Presidency speaking in General Conference, reaffirmed that Cumorah is
in New York |
They were all
wrong because a few RLDS and LDS scholars figured out that the “real” Cumorah
must be in Mexico to make their maps of the Book of Mormon fit |
To clarify, faithful Latter-day Saints are free to believe M2C. There is no test for faithfulness that requires them to believe the teachings of the prophets about Cumorah, nor do they need to believe the authentic Church history accounts.
But every faithful Latter-day Saint should at least make an informed decision about Cumorah. And M2C survives mainly by keeping Latter-day Saints ignorant of what the prophets have taught and the evidence that corroborates their teachings.
_____
Recently I had a conversation with yet another M2Cer who claimed he "knows" the Book of Mormon took place in Mesoamerica. I asked how he knew. He said "I was convinced by a book by [author's name withheld.]"
Not surprisingly, he hadn't read any books from another point of view. And he had no idea what the prophets taught about Cumorah.
This is a fine example of the "documentary effect," which occurs when someone watches a documentary and believes what was presented.
Few documentaries show more than one side of an issue, and even when they do so, they slant the presentation to persuade viewers to adopt the views of the documentary filmmakers. Documentaries are designed to make people think they are educated about a topic. But viewers are often unaware that the documentaries they watch usually employ sophisticated persuasion tactics.
This is not to say that all M2Cers are uninformed and/or misinformed--but most of them are. And most of them are satisfied with that, like the M2C friend I just mentioned.
Which is fine with me. We can't expect everyone, or even most people, to seek to make informed decisions.
Nevertheless, Latter-day Saints are encouraged to make informed decisions.
One reason why the organizations listed above no longer exist is that they were the antithesis of openness, transparency, and even normal academic discourse. They obsessed with M2C to the point where they would not tolerate, let alone host, honest and civil dialog and comparisons between M2C and alternatives.
I forgot to mention another legacy holdout: FAIRLDS. They have some good information, but regarding the origin and setting of the Book of Mormon, that site is a collection of anonymous articles and excerpts that are transparent bias confirmation. They make no effort to present multiple perspectives and thus lack credibility.
As it became apparent that these M2C-promoting organizations were not only uninterested in educating the Saints, but actively opposed people making informed decisions, the organizations naturally vanished.
_____
Based on the innumerable anecdotes such as the one above, many Latter-day Saints are going through the process I went through.
Decades ago I, too, believed the M2C theory. I thought John Sorenson's theories were scholarly and persuasive. Everyone I knew in the Church had adopted the "limited geography" model set in Mesoamerica, with Cumorah in southern Mexico.
But, like most Latter-day Saints, I was busy and simply deferred to Sorenson and the other "Book of Mormon scholars."
When I began seriously investigating M2C a few years ago, it became apparent that M2C survives mainly on ignorance; i.e., people believed M2C because
(i) they didn't know what the prophets have taught and
(ii) they didn't know about alternative interpretations that corroborated the teachings of the prophets.
Once I educated myself, it became obvious that the prophets were correct all along and that the M2C scholars were promoting their own ideas.
It wasn't easy for me to change my mind, but apparently it was much easier for me than it is for the long-time, committed M2Cers.
For that reason, we all need to be patient and pursue clarity, charity and understanding.
Eventually most, if not all, Latter-day Saints will accept the teachings of the prophets and we'll have even greater unity and understanding of the Book of Mormon.
