This week in Come Follow Me, millions of Latter-day Saints read Mormon 1-6, which includes the passages in Mormon 6 about the hill Cumorah.
Directly referring to this chapter, President Oliver Cowdery wrote about the hill where Joseph found the plates and the hill a mile to the west, explaining
"the fact that here, between these hills, the entire power and national strength of both the Jaredites and Nephites were destroyed. By turning to the 529th and 530th pages of the book of Mormon [Mormon 6 in today's edition] you will read Mormon’s account of the last great struggle of his people, as they were encamped round this hill Cumorah. In this valley fell the remaining strength and pride of a once powerful people, the Nephites....From the top of this hill, Mormon, with a few others, after the battle, gazed with horror upon the mangled remains of those who, the day before, were filled with anxiety, hope or doubt.... This hill, by the Jaredites, was called Ramah: by it, or around it pitched the famous army of Coriantumr their tents."
https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/history-1834-1836/90
While this passage is fresh on the minds of Latter-day Saints around the world, look at what Scripture Central is doing.
Scripture Central is trying to persuade not only Latter-day Saints, but the entire world, to disbelieve the teachings of the prophets about Cumorah.
They are doing their best to saturate social media with the message that the prophets were wrong about Cumorah, directly attacking the credibility and reliability of Joseph Smith, Oliver Cowdery, and their successors in Church leadership.
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Here's the script from their instagram post (in
blue) with my commentary (in
red):
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DBxBxVLM7DO/?igsh=MWh3cThoMGR6Mmlyag%3D%3D
There’s a good chance this is not the Hill Cumorah of the Book of Mormon.
Oliver Cowdery, as Assistant President of the Church, explained it is a fact that this is the Hill Cumorah/Ramah of the Book of Mormon. Joseph Smith and every other prophet/apostle who has ever addressed the topic has reiterated what Oliver explained.
Yet Scripture Central wants to persuade Latter-day Saints that the prophets are wrong because, according to the scholars at Scripture Central, "there's a good chance" they were wrong.
Yes, we call it the Hill Cumorah today, and yes, that’s where Joseph Smith found the gold plates, but no, it does not necessarily mean that New York is where the Book of Mormon final battle took place and here’s why.
This is a straw man fallacy because no one says Cumorah is in New York solely because we call it that today or because that's where Joseph found the gold plates.
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To understand this, we have to carefully distinguish what the Book of Mormon says about the Hill Cumorah and what church history says about the hill in New York.
There's no need to "carefully distinguish" between the text and Church history because they are perfectly consistent. What we should do is "carefully distinguish" between the teachings of the prophets and the teachings of the scholars at Scripture Central.
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The Book of Mormon’s Hill Cumorah is where the final Nephite battle took place. It’s also where a larger repository of Nephite plates were located, but the Book of Mormon says that after the battle, Moroni fled and wandered for another 30 years before depositing the plates for Joseph Smith to find in New York in the 1820s.
The text does not say Moroni fled. It says he wandered and continued to write on the plates.
"And I, Moroni, will not deny the Christ; wherefore, I wander whithersoever I can for the safety of mine own life. Wherefore, I write a few more things, contrary to that which I had supposed..."
(Moroni 1:3–4)
The definition of "wander" is not to undergo a long journey to a specific destination. Instead, the word means "To move about without a definite destination or purpose," :To rove; to ramble here and there without any certain course or object in view."
Moroni naturally evaded the Lamanites, but he never said or implied that he traveled a great distance. Instead, when he appeared to Joseph Smith, Moroni told Joseph "this record was written and deposited not far from" Joseph's home near Palmyra. https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/history-1834-1836/69
Moroni did not say the record was written thousands of miles away and then transported to New York to be deposited in the hill near Joseph's home.
In the first sentence in Ether Moroni explained "And now I, Moroni, proceed to give an account of those ancient inhabitants who were destroyed by the hand of the Lord upon the face of this north country." (Ether 1:1) He was writing "in this north country."
Lucy Mack Smith reported that during his first meeting with Joseph, Moroni told him "the record is on a side hill on the Hill of Cumorah 3 miles from this place remove the Grass and moss and you will find a large flat stone pry that up and you will find the record under it laying on 4 pillars."
https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/lucy-mack-smith-history-1844-1845/41
So in theory, Moroni could have traveled quite a distance over the course of the years before depositing the plates elsewhere.
"In theory," sure. In the imagination of the scholars at Scripture Central, any theory is possible. But the direct statements of Moroni don't support their theory that Moroni traveled thousands of miles from their supposed "real Cumorah" in Mexico to western New York.
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What most people don’t realize, is that Latter-day Saints didn’t start calling the site in New York “Cumorah” until 10 years after Joseph first learned of the plates.
This is patently false. During their mission to the Lamanites in 1830, Oliver explained to the Indians that it was Moroni himself who called the hill Cumorah. Lucy Mack Smith reported that it was Moroni himself who called the hill Cumorah the first time he met Joseph in 1823, and that Joseph referred to the hill as Cumorah in early 1827 before he even got the plates. David Whitmer first heard the word Cumorah in 1829 from the messenger who was taking the abridged plates to Cumorah. This was when David was taking Joseph and Oliver to Fayette, before Joseph translated the plates of Nephi in Fayette.
Here's a key point. Scripture Central wants people to believe that because there are no contemporaneous records from 1823 referring to Cumorah, we can't believe any of the later recollections. But there are zero contemporaneous records of any of the early events, including the First Vision, Moroni's visits, the recovery of the plates, or even the restoration of the Priesthood. We have to rely on the credibility and reliability of the recollections of the participants for all of these events.
By casting doubt on the reliability and credibility of the recollections and statements of Oliver Cowdery, Lucy Mack Smith, David Whitmer, and others, Scripture Central casts doubt on all of the early events of the Restoration.
The scholars at Scripture Central are so enamored with their theories of Book of Mormon geography that they eagerly undermine the Restoration itself to shift the focus from the prophets to their own theories.
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Beginning in the mid-1830s, early Latter-day Saints such as William W. Phelps and Oliver Cowdery started calling the place where the plates had been found the “Hill Cumorah.”
False again. Oliver taught about Cumorah during his mission to the Lamanites in 1830. What began in the mid-1830s was the formal published history of the Restoration, written by Oliver Cowdery with the assistance of Joseph Smith, in which Oliver declared it was a fact that Cumorah was in New York in response to critics who claimed the Book of Mormon was fiction.
After this, the name “Hill Cumorah” stuck and soon became a convenient name among the Saints for this location.
If the name "stuck" it was because Joseph Smith reaffirmed it. Joseph recognized the importance of this published account by having it copied into his personal journal as part of his life story and by having it republished in the Gospel Reflector, the Millennial Star, the Times and Seasons, and The Prophet (the New York newspaper edited by his brother William). Oliver's explanation of early Church history, including the fact of Cumorah, was more frequently published during Joseph's lifetime than any other account.
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As far as we know, “the Prophet Joseph Smith himself only associated the hill in New York with the Cumorah in the Book of Mormon towards the end of his life,” such as in the 1842 revelation now known as Doctrine and Covenants 128.
In D&C 128, Joseph explained that he learned the name Cumorah before he received and translated the plates, just as his mother related. "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)
Scripture Central's "theory" insists that Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer, Lucy Mack Smith, Joseph Smith himself, and all of Joseph's contemporaries and successors misled the Church, the Latter-day Saints, and the world as a whole about the hill Cumorah/Ramah.
It’s unclear “whether the Prophet…came to use the name “Cumorah” by revelation or by conveniently accepting a common usage circulating among early Church members.”
The historical record is clear and unambiguous that Joseph learned the name Cumorah directly from Moroni the first time they met. Joseph reaffirmed this in D&C 128:20 and his mother quoted what Moroni told him, which she could have learned only from Joseph himself.
As we see in this Instagram post, Scripture Central resorts to censorship and misdirection to confuse and mislead Latter-day Saints by rejecting the historical record and the teachings of the prophets.
Scripture Central constantly seeks to exalt the theories of their scholars above the teachings of the prophets.
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Well-informed Latter-day Saints are able to see for themselves what these scholars are doing. Fortunately, more and more Latter-day Saints are learning about the teachings of the prophets and are choosing those teachings instead of the musings and theories of the scholars at Scripture Central who directly and proudly repudiate the teachings of the prophets in favor of their own theories.
