Thank you Jeff Lindsay

Recently Jeff Lindsay published a review in the Interpreter of a book that Jim Lucas and I wrote titled By Means of the Urim and Thummim: Restoring Translation to the Restoration.

Jeff's a great guy. We met in person when we were both living in China. He has published blog posts for a long time, often with useful insights.

I appreciate his attention to the book. He apparently spent a lot of time writing his review, and even collaborated with others. He sent me his review shortly before it was published, but I was traveling and had other commitments so I didn't look at it until a few days ago.

I thank Jeff for doing the review because it brings into focus some of the key issues about the translation of the Book of Mormon. Because Jeff relied so heavily on the work of Royal Skousen, it's fair to sum up the entire review as a question of whether or not we agree with what Royal Skousen concluded:

"Joseph Smith’s claim that he used the Urim and Thummim is only partially true; and Oliver Cowdery’s statements that Joseph used the original instrument while he, Oliver, was the scribe appear to be intentionally misleading."

I disagree with Skousen. 

Jeff and the rest of the Interpreters agree with Skousen. 

And I'm fine with agreeing to disagree because I like "unity in diversity" and I think it's healthy for everyone to understand what others believe and why.

That's the pursuit of clarity, charity and understanding.

- I think that Jeff and I share the pursuit of charity; we each assume the other is acting in good faith.

- I'm less sure about the pursuit of understanding, though, because Jeff inserted his own spin in several places instead of accurately representing our reasoning. He seemed more intent on validating SITH than in understanding why we reject SITH.

- And I'm even less sure about the pursuit of clarity because Jeff muddied the waters throughout instead of making clear comparisons between our reasoning and his. He wasn't even clear about the facts, as he avoided quoting the most important sources that we discussed at length.

I hope that at some point, Jeff and the other Interpreters will join in the pursuit of clarity, charity and understanding so everyone interested can easily identify the facts, and then see how our respective assumptions, inferences and theories diverge. That's the FAITH model that apparently threatens so many LDS scholars who continue to resist the clarity of comparison.

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Because he spent so much time on it, I figured Jeff deserved careful consideration, so I did an interlinear "peer review" which you can read here. 

https://interpreterpeerreviews.blogspot.com/2024/12/review-of-jeff-lindsays-review-of-by.html

Full disclosure: I didn't even submit my review to the Interpreter because I knew they would never publish it, just like they didn't publish my rebuttal to the second review of another of my books on the same topic, A Man that Can Translate. For one thing, because my review is interlinear, it is too long (57 pages). For another, my review is too precise and detailed in showing where Jeff made errors of omission, logic, misrepresentation, etc.

Overall, I was not surprised that Jeff disagreed with our conclusions about the translation. That's to be expected. Jeff works with the Interpreter, and the stone-in-the-hat narrative (SITH) is a mandatory belief there (along with M2C, the Mesoamerican/two-Cumorahs theory).

What I was surprised about was the extent that Jeff followed the Dan Peterson school of apologetics that all the Interpreters follow: condescending rhetoric, obfuscation, "clever" quips, appeal to the authority of the citation cartel, misdirection, omission and censorship--basically the philosophies of men, mingled with scripture.

But despite all that, Jeff published a lively review that is encouraging in the sense that it is a step toward greater clarity, charity and understanding.

The question is, will he be willing to take another step and join with me in creating a clear, comprehensive comparison of our different perspectives?

Skousen's Part VII and John Clark on Cumorah

I posted the first half of my review of Royal Skousen's Part VII here:

https://interpreterpeerreviews.blogspot.com/2024/12/review-of-royal-skousens-part-vii-first.html

I'll post the second half in a few days. 

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Meanwhile, I was reminded of an article from 1994 in the FARMS Review of Books on the Book of Mormon. It was written by John Clark and titled "The Final Battle for Cumorah."

Here's the link:

https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1211&context=msr

The abstract reads:

Review of Christ in North America (1993), by Delbert W. Curtis. Clark examines the scholarship and logic involved in assuming a one-Cumorah theory for Book of Mormon geography.

It was fun reading the type of rhetoric characteristic of FARMS. For example, the title itself. It implies that John was solving the Cumorah question with finality, once and for all, but in retrospect that title was obviously much too ambitious, if not overly arrogant.

John is a great guy and a careful scholar, but when we read this article we can see how John's views were driven not by the text or any facts, but by his own interpretations and assumptions. 

Someday I'll get around to interlinear comments on this article, but anyone interested can read it and see for themselves why FARMS was so widely discredited for its demeaning rhetoric.

Not that John did not make some good points. I happen to agree with much of his criticism of the Curtis book, for many of the same reasons. But this article is a good example for what passed at FARMS as "peer-reviewed," when it was actually merely "peer-approved."

We see the same practice today at the Interpreter. Which makes sense, since it's basically the same leadership and editorial bias at work.

 

Moroni's America 2.0, The Rational Restoration, and MOBOM

Moroni's America 2.0 is now on the Amazon platform. Or you can order it direct from Digitalegend.

https://www.digitalegend.com/products/moronis-america-2nd-edition-2024

The second edition includes updates on all the new insights since the publication of the first edition. Plus there are QR codes inside for bonus content, including interviews with the author and publisher.

One of the key points in Moroni's America 2.0 is a discussion of how the Book of Mormon is for the entire world because every land is, or can be, a promised land for the people who live there. In other words, the covenants set out in the Book of Mormon have universal application.

The Kindle version is now active as well. You can download a free sample to see what you think.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DQ6K7SV9

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There's a pre-Christmas sale on the Kindle version of The Rational Restoration. 

https://www.amazon.com/Rational-Restoration-Reframes-pursuit-understanding-ebook/dp/B0CHXRY2ZJ

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The Museum of the Book of Mormon (mobom.org) continues to add new material.

There are new entries under Church History Issues:

https://www.mobom.org/church-history-issues

There are photos from Salalah, Oman.

https://www.mobom.org/salalah-oman

In the future we are adding photos from various museums around the United States.

Annotated chapters of the Book of Mormon are added regularly here:

https://www.mobom.org/jonathan-edwards

 

History of FAIR (now LDS, formerly Mormon)

In the ongoing pursuit of clarity, charity and understanding, with the objective of "no more contention" (Mosiah 1:1), I recently co-hosted a podcast about the history of FAIR, which you can see here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CH22p-pX1DY

Steve and I interviewed Kerry Shirts (the Backyard Professor) who was the original Director of Research for FAIR. He had fond memories of FAIR and the people he worked with there. He explains the editorial decisions that led him to leave, but that was not the focus of the interview. 

The interview expanded on the brief history found on the FAIR website:

FAIR was formed in late 1997 by a group of LDS defenders of the faith who frequented the America Online Mormonism message boards. There, they defended the Church against detractors. This small group realized that they had no way of sharing their information with each other, much less the rest of the Church. As a result of this, FAIR was born. FAIR incorporated as a non-profit organization in the state of New York on December 19, 1997, as The Foundation for Apologetic Information and Research, Inc. The fledgling organization put up its first website in March 1998. In 2013, the group became known as FairMormon. In 2021 the name was changed back to FAIR, which now stands for Faithful Answers, Informed Response.

Whenever people get together voluntarily to pursue laudable objectives, good things can happen.

An interesting aspect of the interview is how FAIR evolved into a tool to promote the personal beliefs and theories of its management instead of offering resources to enable Latter-day Saints and other interested people to answer questions with all the relevant information.

I hope this interview and related commentary (such as this post) will prompt FAIR to apply the FAITH model of analysis by first laying out all the facts, then specifically identifying the various assumptions, inferences and theories about those facts in an organized, accurate comparison of different faithful approaches to Church history and doctrine. 

That would enable Latter-day Saints to make fully informed decisions, which would greatly strengthen faith in the Restoration and thus in Jesus Christ.

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FAIR (https://www.fairlatterdaysaints.org/) claims it has "the world’s largest database of faithful answers to critical questions." 

Much of the content at FAIR is excellent. I've used it many times because the site is well organized and contains lots of useful links to original sources. I recommend it for many topics.

However, as we'll see below, on some topics FAIR is unreliable and even misleading.

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Scott Gordon has been President for many years. He and his team are all awesome, faithful Latter-day Saints, with the best of intentions. Plus, they're nice people. And they claim they want to use faithful scholarship in their work.

FAIR's content is mostly anonymous (like the Gospel Topics Essays), but it parallels the content at Scripture Central and the Interpreter Foundation. The organizations have considerable overlap.

Thus FAIR, like the others, is inexplicably dedicated to impugning the integrity, credibility and reliability of Oliver Cowdery and Joseph Smith regarding the origin and setting of the Book of Mormon.

People are free to disagree about the reliability and credibility of Joseph and Oliver regarding the origin and setting of the Book of Mormon. Many disagreements arise because people are simply uninformed about all the relevant facts. Or they are confused because the management of FAIR, Scripture Central, and the Interpreter Foundation conflate their respective assumptions, inferences and interpretations with the facts, to the detriment of all truth seekers.

That editorial position leads FAIR, like Scripture Central and the Interpreter Foundation, to some strange rhetorical machinations. It's a real shame that such a potentially valuable and productive resource is being manipulated by FAIR management to mislead Latter-day Saints and other interested people.

Let's look at three examples.

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FAIR is an adamant promoter of SITH (stone-in-the-hat theory of Book of Mormon translation). They have a webpage dedicated to persuade readers that: 

Joseph Smith used the same "rock in hat" seer stone for translating that he used for "money digging"

https://fairlatterdaysaints.org/answers/Joseph_Smith/Seer_stones/%22Rock_in_hat%22_used_for_Book_of_Mormon_translation

The page is a series of assumptions, inferences and theories, misleadingly stated as facts. It's impossible to have a rational, credible analysis and discussion when we don't start with the facts and then clearly state our assumptions, inferences and theories that lead to our overall hypotheses (FAITH model).

Look at this series of assumptions, inferences and theories, all stated as facts:

After the loss of the 116 pages, contemporary accounts are very clear that Joseph continued the translation using his seer stone. In later years, the term "Urim and Thummim" was retroactively applied to both the Nephite interpreters and to Joseph's seer stone. Thus the use of "Urim and Thummim" tends to obscure the fact that two different instruments were employed.

When FAIR refers to "contemporary accounts" here, they (i) completely omit what Joseph, Oliver and Lucy Mack Smith said and (ii) emphasize statements from critics, detractors, and decades-later accounts from David Whitmer and (allegedly) Martin Harris and Emma Smith.

But they don't spell that out.

They don't give us all the relevant facts.

Instead, the entire page omits what Joseph, Oliver and Lucy Mack Smith said about the translation because they know those three explicitly and repeatedly said Joseph translated the plates by means of the Urim and Thummim that came with the plates.

This is significant because Joseph and Oliver were responding to critics (such as the 1834 Mormonism Unvailed) who were making exactly the same claims that FAIR is making today.

Look specifically at FAIR's claim that "In later years, the term 'Urim and Thummim' was retroactively applied to both the Nephite interpreters and to Joseph's seer stone." What FAIR doesn't tell you is that Mormonism Unvailed (Oct 1834) clearly distinguished between the "peep stone" and the "Urim and Thummim" as two separate, competing accounts of the translation. This confusion generated by critics explains why both Joseph and Oliver specifically taught that Joseph used the Urim and Thummim (aka the Nephite interpreters, aka the spectacles) that came with the plates.

But FAIR and other SITH sayers try to confuse Latter-day Saints with this modern theory of "retroactive" application of terms. 

FAIR also doesn't tell you that in the summer of 1832, missionaries were publicly teaching that Joseph translated the plates by means of the Urim and Thummim.

There are lots of other problems with FAIR's approach to SITH, but no legitimate, faithful academic resource would purport to discuss the translation of the Book of Mormon without at least including what Joseph and Oliver taught about the translation.

It's fine that FAIR wants to persuade Latter-day Saints to agree with Royal Skousen:

"Joseph Smith’s claim that he used the Urim and Thummim is only partially true; and Oliver Cowdery’s statements that Joseph used the original instrument while he, Oliver, was the scribe appear to be intentionally misleading."

This ongoing, determined effort to undermine the credibility and reliability of what Joseph and Oliver taught is all-too pervasive among modern LDS scholars. Obviously, that effort is unappealing to most Latter-day Saints. 

And that probably explains why FAIR refuses to explicitly state their position by informing us of what Joseph, Oliver, and Lucy Mack Smith said, and then explaining clearly why they disagree.

But that editorial approach is a disservice to all Latter-day Saints, not to mention the disservice they are giving to Joseph and Oliver.

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FAIR is also an adamant promoter of M2C, again just like Scripture Central and the Interpreter Foundation.

M2C (the Mesoamerican/two-Cumorahs theory) is based on the assumption that Oliver Cowdery lied when he explicitly taught it is a fact that the hill Cumorah/Ramah is the same hill in New York where Joseph found the plates. 

See http://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/history-1834-1836/90

Readers of this blog are familiar with all the historical and extrinsic evidence that supports and corroborates what Oliver and Joseph said about the hill Cumorah.

But readers of FAIR are not so well informed.

FAIR purports to offer "Faithful Answers, Informed Response."  

Instead, FAIR offers up pages of distraction, obfuscation, misinformation and disinformation on this topic. Just look at the entries on this page, for example:

https://www.fairlatterdaysaints.org/answers/The_Hill_Cumorah

If FAIR actually sought to inform Latter-day Saints to help them make informed decisions instead of seeking to persuade them to accept M2C, FAIR would implement the FAITH model of analysis.

FAIR would start by providing all the facts from Church history. 

Then FAIR would spell out the different assumptions, inferences and theories about those facts that lead people to the various hypotheses, the two major being Heartland and M2C. This would include interpretations of the text, the teachings of the prophets, and extrinsic evidence.

The clarity of such a comparison would enlighten Latter-day Saints.

Then people would be able to make informed decisions.

But FAIR continues to refuse to do this, which makes their website on this topic unreliable and misleading and, ultimately, unusable.  

It's a shame that this potentially awesome resource is employed in such a disreputable manner. 

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The third example is more specific.

FAIR has a page that discusses the 1990 letter about Cumorah from the Office of the First Presidency.

https://www.fairlatterdaysaints.org/answers/Question:_Did_the_First_Presidency_identify_the_New_York_%22Hill_Cumorah%22_as_the_site_of_the_Nephite_final_battles%3F

Because confusion about that letter persists, Elder Watson issued a public statement in 2022 about the context. That letter was sent to FAIR, but FAIR has refused to post it on their website.

FAIR's refusal is a fundamental violation of basic ethics of journalism and scholarship. 

But it is consistent with FAIR's editorial approach to other topics, such as the two we discussed above, where FAIR's management (i) omits relevant facts and (ii) promotes their theories as facts.

Very strange.

Anyone interested can read Elder Watson's statement here:

https://www.mobom.org/1990-letter-on-cumorah

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BTW, the Museum of the Book of Mormon (MOBOM.org) offers original sources along with diverse assumptions, inferences, etc. to enable readers to make informed decisions.

Ideally, FAIR and Scripture Central would do likewise and all Latter-day Saints would find "unity in diversity."

But that apparently won't happen until and unless current management of those organizations (Scott Gordon for FAIR and Jack Welch for Scripture Central) trust their readers enough to provide all the relevant facts, along with a comparison of the various assumptions, inferences and theories. 

Instead, their divisive, dogmatic editorial approach of enforcing their personal opinions through the guise of "scholarship" continues to plague Latter-day Saints everywhere.

Modified Translation Essay comments

Thanks to Brant Gardner and Royal Skousen, there has been a renewed interest in the Gospel Topics Essay on Book of Mormon Translation.

Related to this is the revised, shorter version of the essay found here:

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/history/topics/book-of-mormon-translation?lang=eng

I provided an analysis here:

https://www.ldshistoricalnarratives.com/p/gospel-topics-essay-on-translation.html

For ease of reference, here's that analysis:

Book of Mormon Translation	My comments
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org‌‌/study/history/topics/book-of-mormon-translation?lang=eng
Joseph Smith translated an ancient text “by the gift and power of God” to produce the Book of Mormon.	This is an excerpt from what Joseph actually said. It omits his reference to the Urim and Thummim.
His early work on the translation, with Emma Smith and Martin Harris serving as the main scribes, was lost in 1828.	Neither Emma nor Martin ever said which parts, exactly, they scribed.
Almost all of the present Book of Mormon text was translated during a three-month period between April and June 1829 with Oliver Cowdery as the scribe.	Joseph said he resumed translating after he received the plates and Urim and Thummim in September 1828. David Whitmer said it took 8 months, which suggests Joseph started translation in November. The earliest extant Original Manuscript has Oliver’s handwriting starting in Alma 11, which suggests Emma and/or Martin may have scribed Mosiah and the first part of Alma before Oliver arrived in Harmony.
Much can be known about the coming forth of the English text of the Book of Mormon through a careful study of statements made by Joseph Smith, his scribes, and others closely associated with the translation of the Book of Mormon.	Particularly what Joseph and Oliver said.
The manuscript Joseph Smith dictated to Oliver Cowdery and others is known today as the original manuscript, about 28 percent of which still survives. This manuscript corroborates Joseph’s statements that he dictated the text from another language within a short time frame. For example, it includes errors that suggest the scribe heard words incorrectly rather than misread words copied from another manuscript. In addition, some grammatical constructions more characteristic of Near Eastern languages than English appear in the original manuscript, suggesting the base language of the translation was not English.1	All good points.
Joseph and his scribes wrote of two instruments used in translating the Book of Mormon.	This is misleading because of how it is written. Joseph never once “wrote of two instruments” as the article claims. Neither did Oliver. They both explained that Joseph used the Urim and Thummim as directed by Moroni. Other scribes, such as David and Emma, did write about two instruments, but they always made the distinction between the Urim and Thummim and the seer stone perfectly clear.
One instrument, called in the Book of Mormon the “interpreters,” is better known to Latter-day Saints today as the “Urim and Thummim.” Joseph found the interpreters buried in the hill with the plates.	This was better known to Latter-day Saints as the “Urim and Thummim” during Joseph’s lifetime than it is today. Modern LDS scholars have retroactively and anachronistically redefined the term “the Urim and Thummim” to apply to both the Nephite interpreters and the seer stone Joseph supposedly used to translate the plates.
The other instrument, which Joseph discovered in the ground years before he retrieved the plates, was a small oval stone, or “seer stone.” As a young man during the 1820s, Joseph, like others in his day, used a seer stone to look for lost objects and buried treasure. As he grew to understand his prophetic calling, he learned he could use this stone for the higher purpose of translating scripture.2	This is a combination of hearsay and speculative rationalization, all stated as fact.
Scribes and others who observed the translation left accounts giving insight into the process. Some accounts indicate Joseph studied the characters on the plates.	Joseph himself said he copied and translated the characters. He and Oliver said Joseph translated the engravings (D&C 10).
Most of the accounts speak of Joseph’s use of the interpreters or the seer stone. According to these accounts, Joseph placed either the interpreters or the seer stone in a hat, pressed his face into the hat to block out extraneous light, and spoke aloud the English words inspired by the instrument. The process as described brings to mind a passage from the Book of Mormon that speaks of God preparing “a stone, which shall shine forth in darkness unto light.”3	The number of accounts is irrelevant because “most” of them came from one person: David Whitmer.
The scribes who assisted with the translation unquestionably believed Joseph translated by divine power. Joseph’s wife Emma believed the text of the Book of Mormon surpassed her husband’s writing abilities.	This is a euphemism for what Emma actually wrote. She claimed that Joseph couldn’t even write a good letter at the time, but Joseph’s cursive handwriting on the Original Manuscript is clear and legible, suggesting he had practiced.
Oliver Cowdery testified under oath in 1831 that Joseph “found with the plates, from which he translated his book, two transparent stones, resembling glass, set in silver bows. That by looking through these, he was able to read in English, the reformed Egyptian characters, which were engraved on the plates.”4	This is consistent with other accounts from Oliver.
Questions raised during the translation process led to many of the earliest revelations now recorded in the Doctrine and Covenants and to significant events like the restoration of the priesthood. The translation and publication of the Book of Mormon immediately preceded the organization of the Church in the spring of 1830.	All good.
Church Resources “Book of Mormon Translation,” Gospel Topics, topics.lds.org. “The Gold Plates and the Translation of the Book of Mormon,” josephsmithpapers.org. Royal Skousen and Robin Scott Jensen, eds., Revelations and Translations, Volume 3, Part 1: Printer’s Manuscript of the Book of Mormon, 1 Nephi 1–Alma 35, facsimile ed., vol. 3 of the Revelations and Translations series of The Joseph Smith Papers, eds. Ronald K. Esplin and Matthew J. Grow (Salt Lake City: Church Historian’s Press, 2015). Royal Skousen and Robin Scott Jensen, eds., Revelations and Translations, Volume 3, Part 2: Printer’s Manuscript of the Book of Mormon, Alma 36–Moroni 10, facsimile ed., vol. 3 of the Revelations and Translations series of The Joseph Smith Papers, eds. Ronald K. Esplin and Matthew J. Grow (Salt Lake City: Church Historian’s Press, 2015).	The first reference goes to a SITH-promoting essay. The article in the JSP offers a list of all the references in the JSP, none of which state or support either SITH or M2C.   As noted previously, some of the JSP editorial content supports SITH and M2C, but none of the actual historical documents n the JSP do. They all reaffirm what Joseph and Oliver said about the origin and setting of the Book of Mormon.

Moroni 6-7, Nibley and Vogel works, Brant Gardner, etc.

For those interested in evidence that Joseph Smith actually translated the plates I've added annotations of Moroni 6 and 7 to the MOBOM page, here:

https://www.mobom.org/jonathan-edwards

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I've added some new Pages to the Letter VII blog, including links to the collected works of Hugh Nibley here:

https://www.lettervii.com/p/collected-works-of-hugh-nibley.html

And links to Dan Vogel's Early Mormon Documents series, here:

https://www.lettervii.com/p/early-mormon-documents-dan-vogel.html

Links are also at https://www.mobom.org/booksblogs

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My peer review of Brant Gardner's review of By Means of the Urim and Thummim is available here:

https://interpreterpeerreviews.blogspot.com/2024/12/review-of-brant-gardners-review-of-by.html

My peer review of Jeff Lindsay's review will be posted soon.

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Eventually we'll get back to our discussion of Scripture Central's Cumorah videos....

A podcast, a debate, and the GTE (again)

When I write about the pursuit of clarity, charity and understanding, I hope for a day in which we have LDS scholars who readily acknowledge and accommodate multiple working hypotheses. 

A day in which LDS scholars openly embrace the idea of laying out all the facts for everyone to see, and then comparing the various assumptions, inferences, and theories so that every person can make informed decisions, without being expected (or required) to delegate their gospel study to the credentialed class.

Such a robust, thriving community of informed, enlightened Latter-day Saints, all around the world, would attract the sincere in heart who desire to be disciples of Christ, a peculiar people who are zealous of good works (Titus 2:14)

But we still face obstacles to that ideal future. Today we'll discuss some reasons why.

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Yesterday I had a fun conversation with Steve Pynakker at Mormon Book Reviews. We discussed Moroni's America 2.0, Royal Skousen's Part 7, the Jonathan Edwards annotation of the Book of Mormon, and much more.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5tV3cZqyEw

There are links in the description for more information on all those topics.

Enjoy!

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Last night Ward Radio sponsored a debate: "MesoAmerican vs. Heartlander Debate (feat. Rod Meldrum and Luke Hanson!)."

We happened to be in Utah so I attended.

The audio wasn't great, unfortunately. 

Both sides made the predictable points. Luke was well-prepared (and apparently well coached), but it was a little surreal watching him make the same old arguments for M2C.

If I get time I'll go through the entire debate in more detail, but here are some key points, all in the pursuit of clarity, charity and understanding.

Luke started off listing common attributes of human society that he said were in the Book of Mormon and in Mesoamerica, but, according to him, were not in North America during Book of Mormon times, including:

cities

monetary system

written language

wars

My overall point about this line of reasoning is that these features are ubiquitous among human societies around the world and throughout time. It makes no sense to cite Mayan civilization as evidence of the Book of Mormon, any more than it would to cite Chinese or Cambodian civilization. 

(Sure, the Mayans lived in the western hemisphere, but so did lots of other cultures. Besides, the text never mentions America so we have to rely on the teachings of the prophets, but all of Joseph's successors rely on what Joseph and Oliver taught, and they both taught Cumorah was in New York, but that's a point we've discussed many times.)

While the Book of Mormon mentions these common attributes of human civilization, it is also specific about only a few things, such as:

- what language they had (Hebrew and reformed Egyptian) and 

- the size of their armies (ranging from a few thousand to the largest enumerated Nephite army of 42,000 after they had gathered in all their people (Mormon 2:7). 

People still debate over how the monetary system worked in the real world, and no one knows how big or extensive any of the cities were.

But people make lots of assumptions. So let's separate known facts from assumptions.

Written language. Rod agreed the Mayans had a written language, but pointed out that it was the wrong language. That is obvious to everyone who engages in this conversation. It's also obvious that from the beginning (Enos) to the end (Moroni), the Lamanites were intent on destroying the written records of the Nephites. It was specifically to prevent the Lamanites from destroying all the records that Mormon moved the records from Shim to Cumorah. 

IOW, if we believe the text, the only evidence of written language among the Nephites that we could expect to exist are the records in that repository in Cumorah. And in fact, these are the very records that Oliver Cowdery reported seeing, as he related to David Whitmer, Brigham Young, and others. 

The M2C argument about language has two fun aspects:

(i) M2Cers deny that Oliver (and Joseph) ever saw any repository of records in Cumorah. They claim Oliver either lied about it or related a vision he had of a repository in southern Mexico, a vision he had multiple times and described as a physical experience.

(ii) M2Cers claim that Mayan glyphs are the true language of the Book of Mormon and that the references to Hebrew and reformed Egyptian are either incorrect or restricted to the elite class of Nephites. That's why FARMS used the Mayan glyph in their logo and why John Sorenson titled his book Mormon's Codex with Mayan artwork right on the cover. 

FARMS' Mayan logo used by Book of Mormon Central

[BTW, it's fun to see this FARMS Mayan logo on the spine of Royal Skousen's books about the Text of the Book of Mormon, including the one published within the last month.]

The M2Cers even persuaded the Church to put the Mayan glyphs on Temple Square!

"Two Cumorahs" on display at the visitors center
on Temple Square

Thankfully that display is long gone with the redevelopment on Temple Square, but it was a lot of fun when it was there.

Cities. Luke kept coming back to "cities," but he never defined what is a city and Rod didn't ask, that I remember or heard. (As I said, the audio was poor and they were talking over one another often.)

Regarding cities, no city is mentioned in the text until the book of Alma, and the text gives us the population and extent of no city. 

I've pointed out before that it's useful to compare the Book of Mormon to Old Testament cities:

The Old Testament uses two words for “city” (eer and kiriah ) and one for “village” (chatsair ). The Old Testament differentiation seems to be based not on size primarily, but on the presence or absence of a defense wall. Cities had walls, while villages were unwalled. Villages, being unwalled, were usually smaller than cities, but that was not always the case.

Size of cities. Ancient cities tended to be much smaller in both size and population than our typical understanding of a city. The oldest walled city at Jericho mentioned above covered less than ten acres....

Closely related to the area of a town is its population. Recent population projections based on the density of cities from cultures similar to those of biblical times along with a count of the number of house units found in excavations suggest that most cities could support 160-200 persons per acre. Thus Shechem might have had a population of 2,000 to 2,500 during the Old Testament period...

https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/hbd/c/cities-and-urban-life.html 

The text never describes the cities in detail, but the only mention in the entire Book of Mormon of constructing anything with stone is building walls:

8 Yea, he had been strengthening the armies of the Nephites, and erecting small forts, or places of resort; throwing up banks of earth round about to enclose his armies, and also building walls of stone to encircle them about, round about their cities and the borders of their lands; yea, all round about the land. (Alma 48:8)

That's a fine description of the civilized areas in North America during Book of Mormon times.

Years ago I found a published paper describing a modern dig in Ohio where the archaeologists dug a trench through a Hopewell site. They concluded that the ancient people had built a wall around the inhabited area long after the people had already been living there and they commented that it didn't make sense. 

But the Book of Mormon explains why.

The Nephites encircled their cities with banks of earth and stone walls to protect them in time of war.

These aspects of ancient cities makes me wonder how I ever fell for the Mesoamerican (M2C) narrative. I've visited sites in Mesoamerica. They are extensive, predominantly built of stone, and involved far greater populations than the Book of Mormon describes.

Nevertheless, the M2Cers at Scripture Central are spending millions of dollars to persuade Latter-day Saints to read Mayan civilization into the text. They even promote their "ScripturePlus" app to compete with the Church's Gospel Library app because they can imprint Mayan civilization on the minds of the youth who prefer graphics and videos over actually reading the scriptures.

Scripture Central's "ScripturePlus" app

As skeptical of M2C as I became ten years ago, more recent LIDAR discoveries have moved Mayan culture far, far away from what the Book of Mormon describes.

https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/lidar-scans-reveal-maya-were-far-bigger-and-more-complex-than-thought

None of this came up during the debate. 

_____

My final comment is on the Gospel Topics Essay (GTE).

Instead of quoting scripture or the teachings of the prophets, Luke repeatedly quoted a passage from the GTE on Book of Mormon Geography.

The Church does not take a position on the specific geographic locations of Book of Mormon events in the ancient Americas....  

Individuals may have their own opinions regarding Book of Mormon geography and other such matters about which the Lord has not spoken. However, the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles urge leaders and members not to advocate those personal theories in any setting or manner that would imply either prophetic or Church support for those theories. All parties should strive to avoid contention on these matters.

It was fun to watch this after my post yesterday, when I thanked Brant Gardner for revealing the reverence the M2C/SITH scholars have for the GTE.

Brant Gardner: "The Church’s essay on the translation of the Book of Mormon is as close to canonical as the official Church gets." 

For the M2Cers, the essay on geography is equally "as close to canonical as the official Church gets."

[Full disclosure: I operate on the assumption that the GTE, as explained in the Introduction to the GTE, have not replaced the scriptures or the teachings of the prophets.]

But the M2Cers don't really follow the GTE anyway. Instead, they use it as a justification for elevating scholars above prophets under the guise of "epistemology."

In fact, during the debate, Luke started saying the GTE was President Nelson's statement, which is bizarre because the GTE actually quotes President Nelson at the end. Why would President Nelson quote himself if the entire statement was his?

At any rate, I fully agree with the GTE on Book of Mormon Geography. It reiterates what I've been saying for years, as I've explained before.

https://www.ldshistoricalnarratives.com/p/book-of-mormon-geography-essay.html

 

IIRC (watch the video), Rod suggested that President Nelson may not have all the information about what Joseph Smith taught because everything he sees is filtered through the M2C gatekeepers. 

I have no way of knowing whether that is true. I doubt it, actually. 

Inquiries to Church leaders on Book of Mormon geography matters always seem to bounce back with the form letter response that I've posted before, presumably handled by a gatekeeper preventing Church leaders from learning how concerned Church members are about the way modern scholars reject rejecting well-established teachings and authentic historical sources, particularly about Cumorah.

Nevertheless, I operate on the assumption that Church leaders are fully aware of the various interpretations of the historical and extrinsic evidence and the teachings of the prophets. Some of them are close personal friends with the leading M2C scholars, which undoubtedly influences opinions.

They know that scholars disagree among themselves. They know there are M2Cers and Heartlanders. They have plenty of more important things to do than to intervene in these controversies, particularly when they are all looking at exactly the same evidence and arguments that everyone else is. None of them are claiming new revelation on any of this.

That's why they approved the GTE.

Particularly this sentence: 

All parties should strive to avoid contention on these matters.

So let's discuss contention a moment.

_____

Scripture Central is by far the dominant organization that deals with the origin and setting of the Book of Mormon. It spends more money on these topics than the Church itself. In many ways, it competes with the Church, not only through its ScripturePlus app, but also through its Come Follow Me podcasts (which constitute a diversion from personal scripture study and contemplation for members around the world), its "Kno-Why" essays that guide readers into M2C and SITH, etc. 

We've tried to work with them, but the scholars and management at Scripture Central think the way to avoid contention is to establish and enforce a single acceptable interpretation about the origin (SITH) and setting (M2C) of the Book of Mormon.

But the way to avoid contention is not to ignore and suppress alternative faithful perspectives. 

The way to avoid contention is not to spend millions of dollars promoting M2C in the hope that, eventually, all Latter-day Saints will join them in rejecting what the prophets have said about Cumorah (which is entirely separate from the geography issue addressed in the GTE.)

Meanwhile, Scripture Central's employees and volunteers are free to use social media to criticize and ridicule those faithful Latter-day Saints who don't agree with M2C. 

In my view, Scripture Central's approach is the antithesis of avoiding contention. Insisting on enforcing one opinion is the essence of contention. 

Even the Introduction to the GTE points out that "Seeking “out of the best books” does not mean seeking only one set of opinions..."

Scripture Central flagrantly violates that guidance.

Instead, the way to avoid contention is to pursue clarity, charity and understanding. 

Employing the FAITH model of analysis would clarify the issues for everyone and enable everyone to make informed decisions, all without contention and in the spirit of "unity through diversity" as the prophets have taught.

As we saw in this debate, M2Cers constantly flaunt their academic credentials.  However, the traditional liberal approach in academia was to open journals and conferences to all points of view under the ideal that free and open inquiry and discussion would weed out poorly vetted or researched arguments. Wouldn't it be nice to revive on this subject the old academic ideals of free ad open discussion?  How about panel discussions at open conferences at BYU?

In my view, the scholars and management at Scripture Central have betrayed the positions of trust and influence conferred on them originally because of their affiliation with BYU. They have created an intellectual climate in Latter-day Saint culture that is intolerant, dictatorial, and contentious.

 

I doubt that will change because they are training LDS students in the same group-think, top-down, credential-biased methodology.

Everywhere I travel throughout the world I meet Latter-day Saints who are disturbed by what Scripture Central is doing. This includes young and old, new and seasoned Latter-day Saints.

People in today's world don't like being told what to think. They don't like censorship, or even agenda-driven omissions of relevant information.

That's why the existing editorial position of Scripture Central is so destructive.

And it would be so liberating, productive, and harmonious for them to change course.

_____

To repeat what I wrote at the outset, I hope for a day in which we have LDS scholars who readily acknowledge and accommodate multiple working hypotheses. 

A day in which LDS scholars openly embrace the idea of laying out all the facts for everyone to see, and then comparing the various assumptions, inferences, and theories so that every person can make informed decisions, without being expected (or required) to delegate their gospel study to the credentialed class.

Such a robust, thriving community of informed, enlightened Latter-day Saints, all around the world, would attract the sincere in heart who desire to be disciples of Christ, a peculiar people who are zealous of good works (Titus 2:14)