New interview about Cumorah and other topics

My first post-mission interview was with Mormon Book Reviews. Among other things, we discussed the recently renewed interest in the Hill Cumorah by the M2Cers and B2Cers. 

One key point is the distinction between (i) the New York Cumorah/Ramah, which has long been taught as a fact, and (ii) speculation about the setting of other Book of Mormon events.

M2Cers (and B2Cers) try to conflate these two issues to support their respective "Two Cumorahs" theories (i.e., Meso and Baja). 

For me, discussions about the setting of the Book of Mormon are always fun and amicable, with no need for contention. But these discussion are ultimately futile so long as most LDS scholars and their followers, such as the podcasters at Informed Saints, reject what the prophets have taught about Cumorah. If we don't accept what the prophets have taught about Cumorah, there is no reason for the Lord to reveal anything more about the setting of the Book of Mormon.

Lots of scriptures explain this principle.

You can watch the interview here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n68KQyv2nWM

Enjoy!

9 And now Alma began to expound these things unto him, saying: It is given unto many to know the mysteries of God; nevertheless they are laid under a strict command that they shall not impart only according to the portion of his word which he doth grant unto the children of men, according to the heed and diligence which they give unto him.

10 And therefore, he that will harden his heart, the same receiveth the lesser portion of the word;

16 This much did the Father command me, that I should tell unto them:

17 That other sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd.

18 And now, because of stiffneckedness and unbelief they understood not my word; therefore I was commanded to say no more of the Father concerning this thing unto them.

And let my servant Oliver Cowdery assist him, even as I have commanded, in whatsoever place I shall appoint unto him, to copy, and to correct, and select, that all things may be right before me, as it shall be proved by the Spirit through him.

10 Wherefore it behooveth me that he should be ordained by you, Oliver Cowdery mine apostle;

11 This being an ordinance unto you, that you are an elder under his hand, he being the first unto you, that you might be an elder unto this church of Christ, bearing my name—

12 And the first preacher of this church unto the church, and before the world, yea, before the Gentiles; yea, and thus saith the Lord God, lo, lo! to the Jews also. Amen.

10 And thy brother Oliver shall continue in bearing my name before the world, and also to the church. And he shall not suppose that he can say enough in my cause; and lo, I am with him to the end.

11 In me he shall have glory, and not of himself, whether in weakness or in strength, whether in bonds or free;

12 And at all times, and in all places, he shall open his mouth and declare my gospel as with the voice of a trump, both day and night. And I will give unto him strength such as is not known among men.

The Humble Seeker

Those interested in the language of the Book of Mormon will be interested in this new book:

Because the print edition is 600 pages in color, it is expensive. The Kindle edition is inexpensive and easier to carry around.

:)

Just go to Amazon and search for "The Humble Seeker."

Informed Saints: My lowest priority is the prophetic evidence

Recently the Stick of Joseph and Informed Saints joined up to persuade Latter-day Saints to reject what President Oliver Cowdery taught about the New York Cumorah.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUI80ccJ9wc

As I frequently reiterate, I pursue clarity, charity and understanding with the objective of no more contention (Mosiah 1:1). 

I also embrace the concept of multiple working hypotheses, pending more information. I don't exclude any hypothesis on its face, and I'm always interested to see what ideas people come up with.

Charity means we assume everyone is acting in good faith. Understanding means we seek first to understand, then to be understood, but we have no compulsion to have others agree or even to develop a consensus. People will believe whatever they want and that's all good. We just want people to make informed decisions.

And that leads to the first element, clarity.

Neither charity nor understanding requires us to ignore factual and logical fallacies; to the contrary, clarity requires us all to point them out when we see them.

With all that in mind, let's look at this podcast.

_____

They described different ways to approach the setting of the Book of Mormon.

(click to enlarge)

They frame it as "geographic priority," "anthropological priority," and "prophetic priority." Conceptually, that's a rational way to look at the issues.

At 19:28, Neal Rappleye explains that "kind of my lowest priority is the prophetic evidence." 

(click to enlarge)

Here's what he lists as "prophetic evidence."

Each of those three categories is subject to a variety of interpretations depending on one's own assumptions, inferences and theories. That's why he listed those. And I completely agree with his point that these are matters of bias confirmation; i.e., whatever you want to believe, you can interpret these three categories to confirm your bias.

What Neal omitted is what is not a matter of interpretation: the teachings of the prophets about the New York Cumorah, which is an explicit, unambiguous fact.

The Gospel Topics entry on Book of Mormon Geography does not mention Cumorah because it focuses on the speculative elements of that topic. But the M2Cers always ignore that point.

Because the fact of Cumorah makes Neal's theory untenable, he ignores the fact completely in his list of priorities. 

Now, look at what Neal describes as "Geographic evidence."

Geography and geology are facts of science that everyone agrees upon. But they are only "evidence" of the setting of the Book of Mormon in the sense of bias confirmation.

IOW, whatever you want to believe about the setting of the Book of Mormon, you can cite geography and geology to confirm your bias.

This is axiomatic. 

The "geographical evidence" is purely a matter of interpretation (assumption and inferences), not of fact, as you'll see if you watch the entire podcast.

That's what I refer to as the "delusion of basing beliefs on "evidence" and/or "the text."

https://www.bookofmormoncentralamerica.com/p/delusion-of-basing-beliefs-on-evidence.html

At one point, the podcasters address their Cumorah problem.

20:14 So, one thing one thing that uh David did on our last episode I think we did with him is um because he got attacked heavily by the uh the Heartlander crew in regard like you disregard the prophets. 

Which David did, explicitly. He not only rejected what the prophets have said about Cumorah, he created a false quotation and edited out what President Cowdery actually taught.

Here, David inserted Oliver's name in the reference to Chile because the original did not attribute this statement to Oliver:

In this slide, David replaced Oliver's statement of fact about Cumorah with ellipses so his audience would not know what Oliver actually taught:

We discussed this here:

https://www.lettervii.com/2026/08/baja-sophistry-cumorah-and-baja_0524624390.html

And so what David did, which I really appreciated in that last episode we did on on Cumorah, the idea of of Cumorah, is he he took all of the um statements from prophets and apostles that he could find on Book of Mormon geography and he categorized them all and then he put them on maps. 

First, David did not include all the statements about Cumorah. Instead he ignored those and even edited out what President Cowdery said, as we can see above.

Second, David and the Stick of Joseph used a sleight of hand maneuver to change the subject to overall geography without the audience realizing what happened. 

Speculation about overall geography has nothing to do with the fact of the New York Cumorah. Even Orson Pratt's footnotes in the 1879 Book of Mormon made the distinction clear, as anyone can see.

https://www.mobom.org/orson-pratts-1879-footnotes

Having fooled their audience into thinking the fact of Cumorah is part of the speculation about the overall geography, they continue.

And he once you see that like visually you realize that the the model that is has been put forth uh starts in New York and goes all the way down to down to Chile. You know what I mean? Big diversity actually said about geography. 

And all speculative, as Orson Pratt and other Church leaders have emphasized. And I'm fully on board with framing the overall geography issue as speculative.

And so I think I don't think the prophets ever would hold it over your head like, "Hey, your membership and your faithfulness depends on our opinion of where Book of Mormon geography happens." 

An obvious straw man logical fallacy because literally no one says this.

But a corollary can be true. Why would the Lord reveal anything more about the setting of the Book of Mormon when so many leading LDS scholars and their followers (such as these podcasters) have rejected the teachings of the prophets about Cumorah?

If we sincerely want more information about the setting, we ought to at least accept what the prophets have already given us. But instead these podcasters (and their mentors and others) work hard to persuade Latter-day Saints to reject the teachings of the prophets, even when they have been set before us as plain as word can be.

And and often times people will they'll cherrypick and everyone cherry picks to a certain degree. You know what I mean? Because you have to make decisions.

If people applied the FAITH model of analysis, there would be no cherry picking. Everyone could see all the facts, and then discern the difference between fact and speculation, assumption, inference, opinion, etc. But these podcasters continue to refuse to start with facts. Instead, they conflate fact with opinion and pretend everyone is cherry picking.

But what they'll say is like, "Look at letter seven. Oliver Cowdery says that hill that the plates were taken out of is Cumorah. That has to be Cumorah."

This is the opposite of cherry picking. This is looking at a statement of fact by the Assistant President of the Church, endorsed multiple times by Joseph Smith, and corroborated by other historical documents and subsequent statements by Church leaders, including members of the First Presidency speaking in General Conference. 

The speculative statements about geography share none of these attributes. 

And remember, no Church leader has ever repudiated what President Cowdery taught. Instead, they have consistently made the distinction between Cumorah and speculative geography. Only certain scholars and podcasters, including the ones on this show, have rejected the teachings of the prophets about Cumorah.

You're like, "Okay, so you're going to take Oliver's statement on that. What about where he said Lehi landed, right?

This is the fabricated quotation David showed as we can all see in the image above. Which, by the way, as an unattributed hearsay quotation printed in an antagonistic newspaper hardly rises to the level of official declarations in the Church newspaper by the Assistant President of the Church, which was republished in every Church publication during Joseph's lifetime. 

Where he says he landed in Chile and and so but they'll disregard that one." And so it's like, but the South America guys, they love that. They love that one. [laughter] Maybe not so much. Letter seven.

And so I think the way and the reason why I like the order of precedents that you have here is because if that's the case, then let's start somewhere where there isn't opinion. 

Where is the place "where there isn't opinion" if not Letter VII and the related teachings?

This looks like they are going to finally employ the FAITH model, where they start with facts, which everyone by definition agrees with, and then move on to assumptions, inferences, theories, etc.

But instead, here is the second sleight of hand.

They completely ignore that President Cowdery said the New York Cumorah was a fact. Maybe because they trusted David and the Stick of Joseph when they edited out what President Cowdery said?

Whether they relied on David's deceptive editing or just decided on their own to recategorize a statement of fact as opinion, look at what they do next.

Let's just look at the text and let's just start with the text first and and go there and recognize that people have had opinions on where exactly it's taken place and and and my assumption is that Mormon understands Book of Mormon lands better than Joseph Smith. 

Recall that in the previous sentence, they said "let's start somewhere where there isn't opinion." But now they shift into full opinion and assumption! 

Everyone agrees (I hope) that the existence of the text is a fact. In that sense, we are starting here with the FAITH model. We can all look at the text itself and agree that the words in the text are the words in the text. 

But instead of explaining the difference between fact and opinion, they immediately jump into assumptions, inferences, etc. 

Even if Joseph Smith had a revelation on Book of Mormon geography, I think Mormon probably knew the Book of Mormon lands better. Y and we don't think that Joseph Smith had any revelation. 

The rest of the podcast is nothing but opinion!

They speculate about how certain passages should be interpreted (opinion) and then speculate about which of the various opinions is "better" than others (more opinion).

The entire balance of the podcast is a discussion about various opinions, dressed up to look like an analytical model.

But this analytical model is merely a house of confusion, a strife of words and a contest about opinions.

This is exactly the problem that President Cowdery sought to avoid when he explained it is a fact that Cumorah/Ramah is in New York. 

Because these podcasters and their mentors have repudiated what the prophets have taught about Cumorah, they continue to lead to widespread confusion and doubt about the historicity of the Book of Mormon, just as Joseph Fielding Smith and other warned. 

___

To their credit, the podcasters indicated they consulted a variety of books.

But they don't seem to have considered my book on Cumorah (Between these Hills) or on the two sets of plates (Whatever Happened to the Golden Plates?).

In Moroni's America, I emphasized that I was doing an experiment. I take the New York Cumorah as a fact, but the Zarahemla location in D&C 125 is more equivocal. The most literal and plausible reading (IMO) treats the location across from Nauvoo as the site of ancient Zarahemla because the Lord says:

3 Let them build up a city unto my name upon the land opposite the city of Nauvoo, and let the name of Zarahemla be named upon it.

(Doctrine and Covenants 125:3)

The Nephites named their cities after the name of the first settler (or leader of the settlers), so it is consistent that this site be named after Zarahemla if it was the site of ancient Zarahemla. But I recognize that as an interpretation, not a fact.

In Moroni's America, I expressly stated that I wanted to see if the geography fit if that was the site of ancient Zarahemla. I concluded that it does fit. But I never said or implied that this was the only or even best interpretation of the geography passages, given the fact of the New York Cumorah.

As I said at the outset, I endorse the concept of multiple working hypotheses. 

And I'm fine with these podcasters or anyone else believing whatever they want.

I'm just not fine with the rhetorical tricks and sleight of hand they resort to when they realize they need to mislead their audience instead of trusting their audience to make informed decisions.

Let's all hope in the future that these podcasters, and everyone else interested in this topic, will finally set out all the facts and then compare the various assumptions, inferences, etc.

Informed vs uninformed Saints

It is helpful to have the Internet so we know who is more trustworthy about the origin and setting of the Book of Mormon.

We have "Informed Saints" and "Uninformed Saints" that we can clearly distinguish between them.

Informed Saints, who know the truth about the origin and setting of the Book of Mormon because their mentors told them so and now they make money by teaching it on their podcasts, persuading Latter-day Saints that the "uninformed Saints" botched their history, intentionally misled everyone about the translation, and merely speculated about Cumorah:

Uninformed Saints, who, despite claiming their experiences were factual, actually misled everyone about the origin and setting of the Book of Mormon because they didn't have the credentials and mentors that the Informed Saints have.

Informed Saints and Matt Roper's legacy

Matt Roper appeared on the Informed Saints podcast recently. 

Matt's a great guy. He helped me a lot when he gave constructive criticism of my first book on Church history, The Lost City of Zarahemla. 

I incorporated his suggestions and released a second edition of that book, which is available here:

https://www.amazon.com/Lost-City-Zarahemla-Guatemala-Again/dp/1515337995

You can download a preview on Kindle here:

https://www.amazon.com/Lost-City-Zarahemla-Jonathan-Neville-ebook/dp/B015O4QLSG

I wrote that book because I was interested in the origin of the Mesoamerican/Two-Cumorahs theory (M2C), and everyone told me it started because of these articles in the 1842 Times and Seasons that were attributed to Joseph Smith. 

The first obvious point is that even if Joseph wrote these articles, they are clearly speculative, unlike the New York Cumorah/Ramah which was declared a fact in the Times and Seasons itself both before and after these Mesoamerican articles. The hemispheric model advocated by some early LDS was an attempt to reconcile the known site of Cumorah in New York with speculation about sites in South and Central America, a distinction that was always clear at the time, as we can see in Orson Pratt's footnotes in the 1879 Book of Mormon.

It is bizarre to see the M2Cers continue to conflate these two separate issues when the distinction between fact and speculation has always been well established. Now even the Stick of Joseph podcast has joined the anti-Cowdery crowd of M2Cers (and B2Cers). 

At any rate, the second obvious point is that Joseph did not write the articles anyway, and they contradicted what he did write in the Wentworth letter, published just a few months before these Mesoamerican articles.

The articles themselves were anonymous, signed by "Ed." meaning "Editor." People attributed them to Joseph because he was listed as the Editor, but as I showed in the book, he was merely the nominal editor (editor in name only), just as he was the nominal printer. The boilerplate at the end of the Times and Seasons says:

"The Times and Seasons, Is edited, printed and published about the first and fifteenth of every month, on the corner of Water and Bain Streets, Nauvoo, Hancock, County, Illinois, by JOSEPH SMITH" (Times and Seasons III.18:862 ¶13)

Despite the boilerplate, no one believes Joseph set type and operated the printing press. He was merely the nominal printer. Likewise, there is plenty of evidence that he did not actually edit the paper, including instances when he did not know what was in the paper until after it was printed.

_____

On Informed Saints, Matt mentioned his use of "stylometry" to show Joseph was the author. I discussed his work several times on this blog, which you can see if you search for "Roper." 

For example, here's a discussion of the "stylometry" claim: 

https://www.bookofmormoncentralamerica.com/2015/09/jwha-report-roper-and-fields.html

The Meso articles in the Times and Seasons contain about 900 words (apart from the extensive quotations). The only texts we can specifically attribute to Joseph Smith are the brief journal entries and letters collected by the Joseph Smith Papers, here:

https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/site/documents-in-joseph-smiths-handwriting

Everything else was recorded by scribes. Even articles "signed" by Joseph, such as the Wentworth letter in the Times and Seasons, were not completely written by him. The Wentworth letter is mostly copied from an Orson Pratt pamphlet, as discussed here:

https://www.mobom.org/wentworth-orson-pratt

All of this leads to the problem with "stylometry." We have a small corpus to analyze, and few samples of Joseph's own writing (which mostly date to nearly a decade before the T&S articles). 

I had thought that Matt would be happy to share the sources he used for his stylometry so his results could be repeated, but so far as I know, he has never done so.

Maybe he will do so now?

_____

BTW, I had so much material about the Times and Seasons that I ended up writing two additional books on the topic, Brought to Light and The Editors, both available at https://digitalegend.com/

Why some people fight against Oliver Cowdery

In recent weeks we've seen renewed efforts by M2Cers, B2Cers, and critics to persuade Latter-day Saints to disbelieve Oliver Cowdery.

Why do they fight against him?

I'm referring of course to Informed Saints, Stick of Joseph, Mormon Stories, and other podcasts who promote the idea that Oliver Cowdery lied about the New York Cumorah.

This topic has nothing to do with Book of Mormon geography, which is at most an appendage of an appendage. People are free to speculate all they want about Book of Mormon geography and none of that speculation matters. Certainly that topic does not justify any contention.

Instead, the Cumorah issue goes directly to the credibility of President Cowdery making official statements as Assistant President of the Church, statements corroborated by many other of his contemporaries and successors in Church leadership.

In a day when President Oaks explains that "A major source of concern to your prophet leaders are those members of diminishing faith in Jesus Christ," prominent LDS podcasters are joining with critics to undermine the credibility of numerous witnesses of Jesus Christ, including not only President Cowdery, but Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, and many others.

It's easy to see why nonbelieving podcasters reject what Oliver and his contemporaries and successors have taught about Cumorah/Ramah. They want their audiences to believe that Oliver collaborated with Joseph Smith to invent a fictitious narrative (the Book of Mormon). 

It's less easy to see why believing podcasters reject what Oliver and the others taught. So let's consider what they've been saying. 

The only reason these anti-Cowdery LDS podcasters have given for rejecting what he wrote about Cumorah is because the New York Cumorah contradicts their own personal interpretations of the geography passages in the Book of Mormon.

____

These same podcasters/influencers want Latter-day Saints to believe that Joseph Smith adopted a false tradition when he wrote "Glad tidings from Cumorah! Moroni, an angel from heaven, declaring the fulfilment of the prophets—the book to be revealed." (Doctrine and Covenants 128:20)

They want Latter-day Saints to believe that Lucy Mack Smith fabricated her memories of Joseph referring to the hill as Cumorah before he got the plates, as well as her memory that Moroni told Joseph the name of the hill the first time they met.

They want Latter-day Saints to believe that all of Joseph's contemporaries and successors in Church leadership who have ever addressed the topic of Cumorah, including members of the First Presidency speaking in General Conference, collaborated to mislead us about the New York Cumorah.

To consider their rationales, let's look at the post below which is adapted from my lettervii.com blog.

_____

Why some people reject Letter VII

Since I published my commentary on Letter VII (Letter VII: Oliver Cowdery's Message to the World about the Hill Cumorah, here), there have been several efforts to persuade members of the Church to disbelieve what Oliver Cowdery wrote about the Hill Cumorah being in New York.

Before I get to the objections, consider these aspects of Oliver's letters. Part of Letter I is included in the Pearl of Great Price. Oliver's letters give us the first quotations of what Moroni told Joseph. They give us the first account of John the Baptist conferring the Priesthood. They give us the first detailed accounts of most of what happened when Joseph found the plates. They were written with Joseph's assistance and reproduced multiple times in Joseph's day at his personal direction.

Until I started encouraging people to read Letter VII, the main objection to these letters came from anti-Mormons who said Joseph and Oliver made up everything so we shouldn't believe these letters or anything else Joseph and Oliver wrote. Some anti-Mormons used the letters to show how LDS scholars themselves repudiate Joseph and Oliver (and their successors).

Now, we have LDS scholars and educators telling us not to believe the letters because of the New York Cumorah statements in Letter VII. They even reject Oliver's report of what Moroni told Joseph Smith.

We've actually reached the point where the anti-Mormons and LDS scholars promoting M2C and B2C agree that Oliver and Joseph didn't know what they were talking about with respect to these letters. 

Remember that as you read these objections related by M2Cers.

The Objections to Letter VII.

1. The first objection is that Joseph and Oliver never had a revelation about the Hill Cumorah. This one relies on a couple of logical fallacies, but at its heart is the idea that Joseph and Oliver were merely speculating about the location of Cumorah, that they were wrong, and that they thereby misled the Church for a century, so much so that every one of their contemporaries, including all of Joseph's successors as Presidents of the Church in the 19th century at least, were misled by Letter VII. I don't find that persuasive in the least. But the logical fallacies show why the argument doesn't hold up.

First is the self-evident fact that we don't have records of everything Joseph and Oliver said and did. The most we can say is that we do not have a record of a specific revelation that the Cumorah of Mormon 6:6 (the site of the Nephite records repository) was in New York. But because we don't have a record doesn't mean it didn't happen. We do have Letter VII; what we don't have is a separate document specifically explaining the factual background for what Oliver wrote about Cumorah.

Second, even better than a revelation is personal experience. For example, Joseph didn't dictate a revelation that God and Christ were two separate beings; he had a personal experience with them. Joseph and Oliver didn't record a revelation about the restoration of the Aaronic priesthood by John the Baptist; they related a personal experience with him. In the same way, they didn't record a revelation about the Nephite repository in the New York Hill Cumorah; they related personal experiences with that repository. (On this point, those who reject Letter VII say Brigham Young and the others who related this account are not trustworthy, or are reporting a vision of a hill somewhere in Mexico. Think of those two explanations a moment. Brigham Young is now making stuff up? Or Oliver related a vision of a hill in Mexico that he visited multiple times, with physical artifacts described in terms of how many men it would take to carry them or what kinds of wagons?)

2. The next objection is that it is impossible to have a cave or room in the New York Hill Cumorah because it is a glacial moraine; i.e., a pile of rocks. It may be unlikely to have a natural cave there, even though western New York is riddled with caves. But when you read the accounts of the repository, several terms are used, not just "cave." It was a space inside the hill that had a rock shelf, a table, and plates piled everywhere. There is no reason why a man-made room could not be built into the hill Cumorah. 

3. Another objection is that Letter VII has not been quoted in General Conference. I haven't taken the time to verify that, but I've pointed out on this blog that as recently as 1975, President Romney of the First Presidency, in General Conference, spoke about Cumorah (in New York) as the scene of the final battles. Three years later, Elder Petersen of the Quorum of the Twelve did likewise. So the follow-up objection is that none of the current members of the Twelve and none of the current First Presidency have quoted Letter VII in General Conference, and no Presidents of the Church have done so in General Conference while they were President. (Being President of the Quorum of the Twelve doesn't count, if you're Joseph Fielding Smith; you have to restate it a third time during the 18 months you are actually President of the Church for you to be credible and reliable, even though you quoted it specifically as a 20-year Apostle and Church Historian, and repeated it 20 years later as President of the Quorum of the Twelve, because those two times don't count.) Therefore, we can't rely on Letter VII or any prior statements about Cumorah being in New York. This is a fascinating objection. It would mean that we should not be reading, let alone relying on, anything said in General Conference prior to the current Q12 and 1P, except for talks given by Presidents of the Church. No more Neal A. Maxwell. No more J. Reuben Clark. No more... well, you get the idea. If people want to take that position, fine. But I can't make sense of it. This is not a one-off oddball theory, but a frequently published and discussed teaching that, according to at least two historical sources, originated with Moroni when he first visited Joseph Smith. 

4. Another objection is that there was a typo in Letter III that Oliver corrected in Letter IV. In Letter III, Oliver had referred to Joseph's age as being in the 15th year. In Letter IV, he wrote, "You will recollect that I mentioned the time of a religious excitement, in Palmyra and vicinity to have been in the 15th year of our brother J. Smith Jr's, age-that was an error in the type-it should have been in the 17th.-"

It's difficult to imagine how correcting a typo in one letter means we should disregard the letter that contained the typo, let alone all the rest of the letters. If anything, the correction of this typo shows Oliver's attention to detail and his desire to be as accurate as possible.

Besides, when Winchester reprinted the letters in the Gospel Reflector, he corrected the obvious typo in Letter III and omitted Oliver's reference to the correction in Letter IV. Don Carlos Smith, who republished the letters in the Times and Seasons in 1840-41, changed Letter III to read "the thirteenth year" but left the correction in Letter IV the same as I've shown above, an odd detail for sure. The Prophet followed the Winchester versions of both Letter III (June 1, 1844) and Letter IV (June 8, 1844).

Related to this objection is the alleged problem that Oliver seemed to be referring to the circumstances leading up to the First Vision when he was actually describing the circumstances of Moroni's visit, and that Oliver gave a different reason for Martin Harris' visit to New York with the so-called Anthon Transcript.

In the first place, Joseph's well-known accounts of the circumstances leading up to the First Vision postdated these letters. (He did write a preliminary version in 1832 that barely touches on the circumstances.) IOW, this is the earliest account of those circumstances. In the second place, Oliver learned about these circumstances from Joseph; if there are mistakes, they can hardly be attributed to Oliver who expressly relied on what Joseph told him (and on other documents we don't have today). Historians who claim the dating is wrong rely on an incomplete record anyway; Dr. Lamb may have made unrecorded visits to the area.

Oliver was aware of the difference between fact and conjecture, as he explained throughout the letters. He was also aware of the difficulty of relating details exactly.

In Letter VI, Oliver wrote, "I may have missed in arrangement in some instances, but the principle is preserved, and you will be able to bring forward abundance of corroborating scripture upon the subject of the gospel and of the gathering. You are aware of the fact, that to give a minute rehearsal of a lengthy interview with a heavenly messenger, is very difficult, unless one is assisted immediately with the gift of inspiration." IOW, Oliver was relying on Joseph's memory, or possibly documents we don't have now (as Oliver claimed he did).

Some parts of these letters involve events that occurred before Oliver got involved, for which he had to rely on what Joseph told him. But the parts of the letters that relate Oliver's own experiences he characterizes as fact. This includes the Letter VII descriptions of Cumorah, which Oliver knew from his own experience was in New York, as related by Brigham Young.

Another related observation involves Letters I and II. Historians note that Letter I seems to be introducing the First Vision, while Letter II skips that vision and goes right to the visit of Moroni. One author proposes that Joseph Smith asked Oliver not to discuss the First Vision, which seems reasonable to me. Here's the link. The point is not that Oliver was loose with the facts, but that (according to critics) he changed course for an unexplained reason. I think this shows how closely Joseph and Oliver worked together, especially when Joseph's eventual explanation of the First Vision adopted some of Oliver's commentary.

5. Yet another objection is that you can't resolve Book of Mormon geography by referring to a single anecdote in Church history. That is axiomatic, and no one I know of claims otherwise, certainly not me. However, an extensive, detailed discussion of the final battles at Cumorah is hardly an anecdote. This is an explicit statement, officially republished many times for nearly 100 years. Second, I don't think Letter VII resolves anything because people are free to believe it or not. Third, Letter VII only establishes the New York location of Cumorah for those who trust Oliver (and Joseph, who helped write it and endorsed it multiple times). It says nothing about a limited or hemispheric geography. People are still free to believe whatever they want about geography.

6. Another objection is that Joseph let mistakes go without correcting them, such as the statement in the April 15, 1842 Times and Seasons that it was Nephi instead of Moroni who visited Joseph Smith. Maybe Joseph didn't care about the error, or maybe he didn't notice it. (I think this is evidence that Joseph wasn't editing the Times and Seasons by this point, so it has nothing to do with his oversight.) There was another error in the Book of Commandments regarding a date on one of the revelations that Joseph supposedly reviewed but didn't bother to change. Again, maybe he didn't care about such details, or maybe he didn't notice, or maybe he forgot the original date. But those one-word details hardly compare with Letter VII's extensive and detailed description of the Hill Cumorah and the final battles, especially when Joseph specifically endorsed the letter multiple times and mentioned Cumorah in D&C 128 in connection with other events that took place in New York.

7. An objection related to the first one is that Joseph adopted a false tradition started by unknown persons at an early date. True, there were things that Joseph believed at one time that he later changed his mind about, such as phrenology. He didn't object to smoking tobacco until he received the Word of Wisdom. He may have given bad medical advice. But these are peripheral matters compared with the location of Cumorah, and there are no accounts of him changing his views on Cumorah. Nor did any of his contemporaries, all the way through the 1879 footnotes in the Book of Mormon. In Feb. 1844, Oliver's letters were published as a pamphlet in England. Later that year they were published in New York in The Prophet. There is no hint of opposition by Joseph to the contents of Letter VII or the other letters; instead, portions of Letter I were canonized in the Pearl of Great Price. It's true that Letter VII was not canonized, but that does not make it a false tradition. We have lesson manuals full of the teachings of Joseph Smith that were never canonized.

8. The final objection I'll address here is the idea that maybe this was Oliver's statement on his own, without input from Joseph. People forget that Oliver was the Assistant President of the Church when he wrote Letter VII. I've gone through his qualifications before. A few months after writing Letter VII, he and Joseph received the Priesthood keys from Moses, Elias and Elijah in the Kirtland temple, along with the visitation of the Lord Himself. Even assuming Joseph didn't tell Oliver to write about Cumorah, Oliver is independently a credible, reliable and personal witness of these events, which is why Brigham Young and others relied on what he said about the repository. Not to mention, we all rely on Oliver's credibility and reliability as one of the Three Witnesses (and the translation, and John the Baptist, Peter, James and John, and so much more). When people choose to single out Letter VII as Oliver's one big falsehood, a statement of fact that was not actually a fact, and they do so purely because they disagree with Oliver, I don't find that a persuasive argument.
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To review: there are two basic reasons to reject what Oliver Cowdery wrote about Cumorah in Letter VII.

First is the basic anti-Mormon reason, that Oliver made the whole thing up, conspiring with Joseph to deceive people, so everything in his letters is false.

Second is the position of those who object to Letter VII because they object to the New York Cumorah because they believe a theory of Book of Mormon geography that is inconsistent with the New York Cumorah; i.e., they disagree with what Oliver wrote, and isolate the Cumorah issue as the one falsehood he wrote because it contradicts what they prefer to believe about Cumorah.

Of course, people can believe whatever they want. I'm perfectly fine with that. I just want to clarify the issues for those who read Letter VII so people can make informed decisions about whether or not to accept what Oliver wrote.

When the only reason a person rejects Letter VII is because he/she disagrees with Oliver Cowdery's statement about Cumorah, I find that puzzling to say the least.

For me, it's an easy choice.

On one hand, we have people living in the 21st century who think they know more about Cumorah, the plates, and all the circumstances of the translation and interaction with angels in New York than Oliver did because of what they've read.

On the other hand, we have Oliver, who was there when Joseph translated, who handled the plates, who saw the angels, who had been in the repository of Nephite records in the hill in New York, and who collaborated with Joseph on these letters.  I think I'll go with that guy.