Informed Saints invite Matt Roper

The pursuit of clarity, charity and understanding continues.

People told me that Informed Saints invited Matt Roper on the podcast and asked for my response. 

Matt is an awesome guy, a faithful Latter-day Saint, smart, educated, etc. He's an expert on the history of theories of Book of Mormon geography. I embrace all the facts Matt cites, but I also encourage him to inform his audiences about the facts he omits. If everyone would just lay out all the facts, we could all start from a place of complete agreement; i.e., no more contention.

The closer we all follow the FAITH model of analysis, the better.

Unfortunately, Matt doesn't start with all the facts. Instead, he jumps to his assumptions, inferences and theories to support his hypothesis, which of course confirms the biases of the Informed Saints. 

It's pretty easy to understand Matt's perspective, worldview, and bias. And we have no interest in trying to persuade him or anyone else to think different. People can believe whatever they want.

But we do focus on clarity, and this podcast generated more confusion than clarity.

As usual, the M2Cers at Informed Saints conflate the issue of Book of Mormon geography, which is entirely speculative, with the issue of Cumorah/Ramah, which is clear and unambiguous. 

The only reason people reject the teachings of the prophets about Cumorah/Ramah is because they think the New York setting contradicts their own subjective interpretations of the text of the Book of Mormon.

Here's the link to the podcast.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhjHpUL-aW8

Here's the annotated transcript. Most of it is not annotated because, to the extent it is factual, I completely agree, and to the extent it relates assumptions and inferences, they are useful to help us understand Matt and the Informed Saints, but are irrelevant to the Cumorah issue.

Transcript – 00:00

Host:

Has Book of Mormon geography been divinely revealed? A lot of people will stake their Book of Mormon geography model based on the fact that, "Oh, I believe Joseph Smith said it took place here." or "This church leader said it took place here."

Right off the bat they start with a straw man argument. No one claims "Book of Mormon geography" has been divinely revealed.

Presumably they are referring here to people who still believe the teachings of the prophets about Cumorah/Ramah in New York, but that site does not resolve the geography issue. People have a wide range of speculative views about the geography even when they accept the unambiguous New York Cumorah/Ramah.

So, what's the truth of it? 

It would be awesome to have the Informed Saints seek the truth some day. They make a start here by having Matt lay out a few facts, but instead of presenting all the relevant facts, he (and they) quickly shift to assumptions and inferences. 

Well, we've brought on a Book of Mormon geography history expert, Matt Roper.

Welcome to the show.

Matt Roper:

Oh, thank you for letting me come on the

Host:

So, Matt, you are a veteran Book of Mormon researcher. You started off your career at FARMS and then the Maxwell Institute at BYU and now you're a researcher of the Book of Mormon at Scripture Central. So, you've got a depth of experience here.

And you've done a lot of research specifically on the history of Book of Mormon geography statements, geography theories. And so, if there's someone who knows what the prophets and apostles have said about geography, it's it's definitely you.

Matt has no special knowledge he hasn't shared (hopefully). Everything the prophets and apostles have said is public knowledge. But it’s good that they seem to want to start with Facts pursuant to the FAITH model.

Now, before we we dive into that, we probably should just preface that the church's current position, they have an essay where they talk about Book of Mormon geography and they say that the church does not take an official position on any location in the Book of Mormon.

That essay on geography is excellent, but it says nothing about Cumorah, which is a separate issue from geography, as I’ve explained here: https://www.ldshistoricalnarratives.com/p/book-of-mormon-geography-essay.html

As I indicated in that post, “People who interpret the term "Book of Mormon Geography" to include Cumorah unnecessarily infer that the essay implicitly repudiates the past teachings of prophets and apostles, including Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery, regarding the location of the Hill Cumorah/Ramah. Such an inference would contradict the plain purpose of the essay, which is to separate the known from the speculative and encourage all parties to avoid contention.”

The Informed Saints constantly try to persuade Latter-day Saints to disbelieve Oliver Cowdery by conflating the Cumorah issue with the geography issue.

To his credit, Matt doesn't seem to do that, at least not in this interview. The entire interview ignores Cumorah, just like the geography entry does. 

And so, we're we're sticking to that um but people have had a lot of opinions over the years of where the Book of Mormon could have taken place, whether it was revealed, whether Joseph Smith said this is where the Book of Mormon took place, and how what the what the scope of is of the Book of Mormon. Did it take place all over the Americas or did it happen in a smaller location? That also has been talked about a lot throughout the years of church history by prophets and apostles and church leaders.

So, tell us, where did the Book of Mormon take place? Or rather, not

Matt Roper:

Settle it for us right now, Matt. We need to know.

Host:

Not where did it take place, but like, has it been revealed divinely? What is kind of our intellectual history of Book of Mormon geography here?

Matt Roper:

Well, I want to talk a little bit about kind of the history of Book of Mormon geography and I've written a little bit about this in uh a couple of articles and that's been my my main focus. You know, I started out um I was growing up and I I read the history stuff in the history of the church that uh there were different things that that it talked about were the story of Zelf was in the history of the as it was in the history of the church.

I've and I you know I I gained a testimony of the Book of Mormon from a young age and I believe it happened somewhere. I I I know it happened somewhere today. I I it's just I I had this idea that somehow and I didn't understand exactly how that you know North America is land northward.

You got a narrow neck of land in Central America. You see it's narrow, you know, that's something is down there somewhere and then South America maybe that's where the land of Nephi was in land southward. Um and it wasn't until I got older and and started paying a little more more attention to what the Book of Mormon actually says that I started um looking at some of these ideas and I'd heard some of these things in church history that we talk about.

So I want to talk a little bit about um first of all you have this this hemispheric view of Book of Mormon's geography. It's kind of the traditional

Host:

That it took place in North America, South America, all all everywhere

Matt Roper:

land northward, North America, Central America's narrow neck of land somewhere in there and then you've got South America's land southward. And so this was a an idea that developed early on and just to give you an idea um you know, we didn't have a church newspaper until Missouri in 1832. Um and so what we do have are newspaper reports that describe what early missionaries and early Latter-day Saints were doing.

And um as you know uh in the early days of the church um in 1830 uh we had Oliver Cowdery, Parley P. Pratt, Ziba Peterson, and was it Peter Whitmer Jr.?

Host:

Um who are called there on a mission to go preach to the Lamanites. So they're joined together and then while they're in Ohio though and they're preaching about the Book of Mormon, there are some wonderful things in church history we won't go into that happened there. You should learn more about church history in Kirtland.

There's wonderful wonderful stories there. But they're preaching about the Book of Mormon and and many people were deeply impressed by what they were talking about. Oliver Cowdery was one of the witnesses of the Book of Mormon.

He talked about this. And so Oliver, who's kind of the leader of this preaching about the Book of Mormon. They talked to different congregations and there are newspaper reporters who describe what these missionaries are doing.

And this is from a newspaper in the Ohio Observer and Telegraph these missionaries who are passing through Oliver Cowdery, Parley P. Pratt and and their companions. And this is how based on the discussion of these missionaries, this is how their description of the Book of Mormon and its geography is described.

This new revelation, they say is especially designed for the benefit of the aborigines of America who is the firm are a part of the tribe of Manasseh whose ancestors landed on the coast of Chile 600 years before the coming of Okay, so this is interesting that how these earliest missionaries as they interpret the Book of Mormon as and they're again they're doing the best they can based of our understanding they landed somewhere in Chile 600 years ago.

This is the typical M2C/B2C narrative where they try to pin the Chile landing on Oliver Cowdery, but the article does not say Oliver told the writer this. The newspaper article was not written by a newspaper reporter and is not an interview. Instead, it is a hearsay paraphrase by an unknown contributor of what “they” (the missionaries) said. 

Among the missionaries was Parley P. Pratt, who, with his brother Orson, repeatedly taught the Chile landing and the hemispheric model (even after Joseph refuted it in the Wentworth letter).

We can all read the article here: https://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/digital/collection/BOMP/id/244/

A separate part of the article specifically identifies Oliver as the source for the origin of the Book of Mormon:

According to the narrative given by one of these disciples—Oliver Cowdery—at their late exhibition in Kirtland, this pretended Revelation was written on golden plates, or something resembling golden plates, of the thickness of tin—7 inches in length, 6 inches in breadth, and a pile about 6 inches deep. None among the most learned in the United States could read, and interpret the hand-writing, (save one, and he could decipher but a few lines correctly,) excepting this ignoramus, Joseph Smith, Jr. To him, they say, was given the spirit of interpretation; but he was ignorant of the art of writing, he employed this Oliver Cowdery and others to write, while he read, interpreted, and translated this mighty Revelation.

The rest of the article refers to “them” generally, leaving it a matter of pure speculation of who spoke about the Chile landing.

Two other points.

First, speculation about a Chile landing is irrelevant to the Cumorah issue. The distinction between Cumorah (fact) and Chile landing (speculation) was always apparent. Even when Orson Pratt created the footnotes in the 1879 edition, he preserved that distinction. Anyone can see these footnotes here:

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

Second, Matt as the expert should have informed his audience of all the relevant facts about the mission to the Lamanites, but he did not. What he omitted is more significant than what he included.

Parley P. Pratt, in his Autobiography, quoted Oliver’s teachings to the Lamanites: “"This Book, which contained these things, was hid in the earth by Moroni, in a hill called by him, Cumorah, which hill is now in the State of New York, near the village of Palmyra, in Ontario County.”

Autobiography of Parley P. Pratt, page 58 of Chapter VIII. 

https://archive.org/details/autobiographyofp00prat/page/58/mode/2up 

also here: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/44896/44896-h/44896-h.htm

That statement corroborates the accounts that have Moroni naming the hill Cumorah the first time he met Joseph. IOW, it is Moroni who started the “tradition” of calling the hill Cumorah. (BTW, this is one justification for Oliver later stating that it is a fact that Cumorah/Ramah is the hill in New York.)

The Informed Saints audience should ask themselves why Matt didn’t mention this (and why the Informed Saints hosts never discuss it).

That's where it occurred. Here is about a year two years later. This is Parley P. Pratt and Lyman Johnson who are passing through Pennsylvania on a mission and they are reported in in this newspaper, the Catholic Telegraph. And they're giving a a discussion in Mercer County, Pennsylvania on the way back east. He says Lehigh, this is the report came across the water into South America.

This is more evidence that the Chile narrative came from Pratt, not Oliver.

The last battle that was fought among these parties was on the very ground where the plates were found, but it had been a running battle, for they commenced at the Isthmus of Darien and ended at Manchester.

Matt Roper:

That is quite the run.

Host:

What a marathon. So, you've got you've got if you look at this isn't a great map, but but you've got them landing in Look down there is south of the equator and it's that's there's in Peru, I think right now. And and you got them landing there and then you got them going up Isthmus of Darien just

Matt Roper:

Just north of Colombia, right?

Host:

Yeah, that's yeah, I mean that's and then it's a running battle, you know, and they so they flee all the way to New York. So, this is the general hemispheric view, North America, South America, Central America and this is as missionaries understand as I mean they just got the Book of Mormon they're understanding that they believe it's And um and this is kind of where it is and this is how it's being reported and it's interesting that people like Oliver Cowdery and Parley P. Pratt and Orson Pratt and other early missionaries, this is their understanding of this we call it a hemispheric view

See how they attribute this to Oliver even though their source does not do so?

Matt Roper:

on the American Hemisphere Book of Mormon geography.

Host:

And and I think it's worth noting that this is like the overlay behind which a lot of other statements that sometimes get picked out of context by by people who want to promote promote them as like revelatory or whatever on Book of Mormon geography. This is the this is the context in which those

Matt Roper:

is the paradigm.

Transcript – 05:00

Host:

It's yeah, this is the paradigm.

Matt Roper:

map that these guys had.

Obviously, the hemispheric theory has nothing to do with the Cumorah issue, especially because even the Pratt brothers recognized the difference between the fact of Cumorah and the theory of Chile/hemispheric setting.

Host:

about the Zelf story for instance, like yeah, they think Zelf is part of the Book of Mormon picture because they think the whole thing

Actually, Joseph said Zelph was part of the Book of Mormon picture because he said he had a revelation about that.

Matt Roper:

Literally the entire hemisphere is in the picture for them.

This line of argument is a red herring fallacy.

Host:

And there's even one of the sources on Zelf says that this is the land of desolation, which in a hemispheric

Matt Roper:

is North America.

Host:

sense, right? You're

Matt Roper:

or parts of North America at least.

Host:

You're in the land of desolation, right? And that's where the final battles happen and all of that, right?

The “land of desolation” argument assumes there is only one “land of desolation” because that’s a proper noun instead of a term for any area where a great battle occurs.

Matt Roper:

So, I I I I would like to also point out because occasionally I've heard people say, "Yeah, but we can't believe these accounts cuz these are coming from hostile non-Mormon newspapers, right?" And and the claim is that well, they're they're somehow trying to undermine people's belief in the Book of Mormon or something. No, guys. They're they're just reporting what they're hearing the missionary say.

That’s Matt’s assumption, not a fact. As mentioned above, the source was an anonymous letter to the newspaper. Does Matt also think the rest of the article is accurate, such as the following excerpt?

Some among us, however, are led to believe that they are nothing more than men, and impostors. They are preaching and teaching a species of Religion we are not all prepared to embrace; for we are convinced it does not accord with our old-fashioned Bible.

Compare Matt's framing of the newspaper as merely reporting facts with the newspaper's own editorial bias. The editorial commenting on the anonymous letter begins this way: "We should be slow to believe that any set of men would accept to play off upon the community, so barefaced a deception as that which our correspondent speaks; and equally slow to believe, that any could be found so credulous as to be duped and led astray by it..."

You can read the rest at the link above.

At any rate, we all know the Pratt brothers promoted the Chile landing and the hemispheric model. But Matt’s entire argument on this is irrelevant on the topic of Cumorah.

There there's no incentive to try to like, well, we're going to stop people from believing in this gold Bible by saying Lehi landed in Chile. That make That makes no sense.

Host:

There's no motive they're trying to get people. They're just honestly reporting what they appear to be hearing from the missionaries at the time. Okay.

Matt Roper:

And it's not it's not just non-LDS newspapers that are reporting this. When Latter-day Saints are start publishing things, they're talking they talk about it in these same terms. And so and and in the article I that I published I I talk about this in document where where they're talking about it.

They're they're looking at it broadly in terms of North, Central, and South America. I want to correct one misunderstanding that I think that we that we see. Sometimes people look at that they say these statements by Joseph Smith where it says it's the inhabitants of this continent that are spoken of in in the Book of Mormon or this country or this land or this country.

Presumably here he is referring to the Wentworth letter. There, Joseph replaced Orson Pratt’s extensive speculation about Central America with the simple declaration that "The remnant are the Indians that now inhabit this country.”

The detailed comparison is here: https://www.mobom.org/wentworth-orson-pratt

And a lot of times they people will read those statements and they'll think, "Oh, see, he's talking about the United States region of the Eastern United States or Central United States here." Or he's talking about uh America meaning North America meaning Canada and United States. And but if you look at how the language is used sometimes we talk about continent in terms of North America as a continent.

Matt is confusing the audience here, deliberately or otherwise. Joseph wrote the Wentworth letter from Nauvoo IL to Mr. Wentworth in Chicago IL. Readers can decide whether it is more plausible that Joseph was referring to the country (region, state or nation) where they lived, or if he was referring to the western hemisphere.

but there is a another usage in terms of they talk about the the American continent. There is usage in the early 19th century where they're talking about North and South America including Central America or the American continent. Or

Host:

they talk about the old world me meaning Europe and Africa or or or Asia

Matt Roper:

The Eurasian continent.

Host:

old world versus the new world or they talk about the old country in in England or Europe as opposed to the new country. And so terms like country and continent they're not definitive in identifying

Matt Roper:

the Eastern United States

Transcript – 10:00

Host:

States or the Western United States basically. They're they're talking about this is it's new world as opposed to old

Matt Roper:

Yeah, I have multiple examples we can throw up here on the screen and in the show notes. When I reviewed the Heartlander annotated Book of Mormon, I made this big point. Guys, there are so many examples of this contemporary usage of including they'll be they'll be talking about stuff down in Mexico or Guatemala.

Everyone agrees there is ambiguity about the term “continent” but the fallacy here is to claim “country” is a synonym for continent or hemisphere. Webster’s makes the distinction clear. https://webstersdictionary1828.com/Dictionary/country

But again, theories about the extent of BofM geography are all irrelevant to the question of Cumorah.

The antiquities of this country, you know, or this continent and they're referring to stuff from Central America. So today our nice little mental map of North America and South America as two distinct continents. Um that's they're starting to think about it in those terms in Joseph Smith's day but it doesn't become solidified till after

Host:

I would I would contend that even today you'll still have people who will conceptualize and and use language of like the Eurasian continent as if it's all one continent and and the Western Hemisphere as one kind of thing. I mean I don't think that's totally it's maybe not as common but it's not totally foreign I think to even

Matt Roper:

So that's not that's not a proof text for us in other words ladies and gentlemen, right?

Host:

Uh you you you look at this today and I I I I don't think and and this is not I don't this is not a fault but I think that even today I don't think we fully the distance in terms of North, Central, and South America.

Matt Roper:

that this city is

Host:

We we we are talking about thousands of miles here.

Matt Roper:

I mean playing society.

Host:

I mean I remember the first time when I went on a on a mission and I I flew on a from Los Angeles all the way down to to Buenos Aires. And it was a take hours. I mean, was it 14 hours or something?

I I I don't know. I was it was a long time. That was that was flying.

Can you imagine walking

Matt Roper:

that kind of a distance. So, you be people in Joseph Smith's day like today, I mean I mean less so in Joseph Smith's day, didn't really have a understanding

Host:

of other countries the way that we

Matt Roper:

And I do think actually John Sorenson I points this out. He has a little brief history of Book of Mormon geography in geog- a geography of Book of Mormon events a source book. 

The Source Book shows that L.E. Hills was the first to put Cumorah in Mexico.

And he kind of points out that like the early Saints knew just they understood so little the the actual natural geography and environments and everything of the American continent or of the Western Hemisphere and its size and scale and scope.

To project this degree of ignorance on people who crossed the Atlantic Ocean in ships is ahistorical and irrational. They understood the distances involved.

Like they just they really didn't totally grasp that. And I think you have around the turn of the century you have the Book of Mormon Academy has this expedition that they they have they're really ambitious. They're like, we're going to go down to Colombia and we're going to we're going to go find Zarahemla.

And

Host:

It was a disaster.

Matt Roper:

a disaster. But one of the things that I think comes out of that is what who was it? Benjamin Cluff or Cuff was it?

Who leads it? He he leads this expedition and one of the things that comes out of that is I think he's sobered to holy cow, this is a massive distance that we're talking about here. And he kind of comes back and one of his letters he says, yeah, I think maybe like a limited model around the Isthmus of Tehuantepec might actually make more

Cluff concluded that major Maya sites like Palenque did not date to or represent Nephite civilization

Host:

It's it's it's really it's really interesting. So, it's good to keep that in mind. And and I I think that's not a fault.

It's just it it shows that there's a lot that the early Saints didn't understand. And and today there's a lot of things we don't understand, too.

Matt Roper:

of the Saints then pretty much accepted a hemispheric model and when did this idea that maybe it took place in a smaller area start to take shape.

Transcript – 15:00

Host:

Well, there are a couple of things. So, first one other point I want to make about the in Joseph Smith's day in the early days of the church, um there was a tendency everybody's excited about the Book of Mormon because, you know, this is this is wonderful. Here we got this record and it's important and and there's a lot of people that don't believe the Book of Mormon.

And so, there's a tendency see anything that looks like evidence

Matt Roper:

from anywhere

Host:

anywhere in the Americas that would support the Book of Mormon, they're going to point this out. And look,

Matt Roper:

incorporate it in.

Host:

And look, I mean, and we have descriptions of some of the missionaries when they encounter people and the people would say, "They didn't have any kind of any kind of a real civilization in pre-Columbian times. This is ridiculous." And and so, when when they would see newspaper reports of things in Central America or maybe reports of ruins down in in Tennessee or or the Southwest or something like that, Latter-day Saints who were interested in the Book of Mormon would often cite these things as evidence for the Book of Mormon to show, "Here, there is evidence of civilization in pre-Columbian times."

Matt Roper:

And and within the context of the time, that made perfect sense, right? We we look at this kind of grab bag approach from all over the continent now and we're like,

Host:

It's not very responsible

Matt Roper:

very but like

Host:

everyone was kind of It was the 19th century. People knew so little about the pre-Columbian history still.

Matt Roper:

archaeology, even the biblical world was still very young

Host:

And and they hadn't scrutinized the text enough to realize again and the scale and scope and be like, "Ah, this probably doesn't work." So, it made sense. It made sense in their world view and in their time.

Matt Roper:

One of the early one of the early revelations in the I think section 88 of the Doctrine and Covenants where the Lord tells the early elders, and it's almost like he's really patient with us. He's He guys need to learn more about other kingdoms and other countries, and you need to gain a knowledge of things above, things in the earth beneath, things that are under the earth. There's a lot you need to know, guys.

And um it's taken a long time for as Latter-day Saints for us to to follow that admonition and to really to learn. And And And in fact, there was a lot of been a lot of knowledge that we didn't have that wasn't even available back then. And so so the Lord wanted his saints to to understand more about other countries, their relationships to each other, where they are, what their cultures, their history was like.

And so that was that was really important. But I think it would be a again, I think it's a mistake for some to argue that that Joseph Smith or the other saints held that the Book of Mormon events only occurred in one particular location, or that they only occurred within the United States, or that that Joseph Smith, when he says the inhabitants of this continent, he was only referring to native American peoples within within what were then the then borders of the United States.

They keep repeating the same logical and factual fallacies.

First, the discussion of the extent of BofM geography is irrelevant to the conversation about Cumorah.

Second, in the Wentworth letter, Joseph explicitly referred to “this country,” not “this continent.” In Letter IV, Oliver explained what Moroni told Joseph that first night: “He [Moroni] then proceeded and gave a general account of the promises made to the fathers, and also gave a history of the aborigenes of this country.”

All this discussion of “continent” appears designed to confuse the audience and keep them ignorant of these sources.

So again, so this this perspective it's important to understand where they see things or just a general kind of a vague idea of things happening. They're interested in any kind of evidence that shows evidence of ancient civilization uh that can support the Book of Mormon. And uh but they have they have a lot to learn.

And so this is the situation. It's kind of a traditional interpretation that was there and that most saints held to. It you have to keep that in mind when they talk about evidence for the Book of Mormon and you see these things that were published in the Times and Seasons, the Evening and Morning Star, and so uh we're talking about just Joseph Smith and Book of Mormon geography for just a minute.

Um in Nauvoo, and again, remember what we're saying about they're looking they're anything that's evidence is is good. One of the problems is these early reports of evidence, a lot of these things were very vague. The reports were very unclear.

There were reports of cities that were like a mile long in in Central America somewhere. There were There were these reports and they didn't have much, but but they're trying to cite these things. But something really changed.

Uh it was very significant. There were these two explorers named John Lloyd Stephens and Frederick

Host:

Catherwood was an artist and they had published a a book previously uh published on a book on uh their visits and travels to Egypt and they drew the the pyramids and a lot of the sites. I don't know if you've seen some of these

Matt Roper:

Yeah. Yep. I've got a copy of that.

Host:

appreciate in a pre-photography world cuz we can just like see all of this stuff and we just take it for granted,

Matt Roper:

These guys

Transcript – 20:00

Host:

Maps to find it, yeah.

Matt Roper:

pyramids in some cases

Host:

And one of the things that was remarkable about this is is that uh with Catherwood was a very talented artist.

Matt Roper:

And it's pre-photography. Um And he he was remarkable. Both of them, you know, they all both of them died just a few years after they published their their books.

And Stephens and Catherwood, they traveled I think it was Uh they went down to uh to Yucatan, to Central America. And there are a lot of things that are happening there and if you read their book, I really recommend if you like a travel story. It was really quite interesting and and exciting as they describe these things that some people, at least in the Western world, have never seen before.

And Catherwood, because he's such a good uh and so careful, he is able to to draw things like the ruins of Quirigua or or Copan in Central America and to to where people like Mike Coe, late Mike Coe was a Mayanist, he says, you know, it's just like he he shows it here and and he says these these He so far ahead of his time in terms of documenting these ruins that you find in Central America. Well, what happens is they they you know, they come back they and they publish their their description of their journey and with Catherwood's pictures and and they display these in New York and and then they publish their book and they have some of these pictures they're in these And it's published in New York in 1841.

This is two volume set and then the next year they publish another another couple volumes and and again five or six years later both of them are But these books

Host:

some kind of curse.

Matt Roper:

These books I don't know I don't know about that but these books were very um they were a huge hit in in England and in the United States. And um back in New York when these books are published there is a brother who's a convert to the church and his name is John Bernhisel.

Host:

You know that name from church history.

Matt Roper:

And um he he picks up a copy of this book and he sends it back to Wilford Woodruff who's coming back from his mission and Wilford Woodruff is just he writes about it in his journal says I'm reading this this is fantastic stuff. So he brings it back and with a letter from John Bernhisel and this is a book as a gift to the prophet Joseph Smith. And so he brings Wilford Woodruff brings it back gives it to Joseph Smith and John Bernhisel had a letter that accompanied the book saying this is a gift to you for my respect for you as a prophet.

I thought you'd find these interesting and Joseph Smith writes him And um in this letter Joseph Smith writes back the following says I received your kind present by the hand of Elder Woodruff and feel myself under many obligations for this mark of your esteem and friendship which is the more interesting as it unfolds this book as it unfolds and develops many things that are of great importance to this generation and corresponds with and supports the testimony of the Book of Mormon.

I've read the volumes with greatest interest and pleasure and must say that of all the histories that have been written pertaining to the antiquities of this country, it is the most correct, luminous, and

Host:

Mhm. High praise.

Matt Roper:

By the way, did you guys catch that? The antiquities of this country. What country is Joseph Smith talking about, ladies and gentlemen?

He's not talking about the United

Two problems here. First, the Stephens books do mention antiquities in North America. Second, “this country” refers directly to the books, not to the place Joseph lives.

Host:

And so it's it's very interesting. Now now this letter, it's written in the hand of John Taylor. So either Joseph Smith is dictating this to John Taylor or um Now he's telling him what to what what to write.

Matt Roper:

Which which which which which by the way, super common at this point in Joseph Smith's life. Go to the Joseph Smith Papers and they will tell you like at this point especially in Navu, it is routinely yeah, he's having clerks take care of this. Either he dictates the letter or they write it for him and he says, yep, this looks good, send it off, right, or things like that.

We can’t even be sure he approved the letter. As I discussed at length, this Bernhisel letter differs from his other correspondence with Bernhisel and reflects the thought of Woodruff. Plus, Joseph did not have time to read these books between the first time Woodruff met him in Nauvoo and the date of this letter.

So just because it's not in his own hand does not mean it's it's not a Joseph Smith document.

Host:

most most of the letters from Joseph Smith are written by other people. He dictates it to him or asks somebody to do it for him including some of the that he wrote from Zion's Camp where he where he talks about they're they're they're not written in Joseph Smith's hand. They're written in other people's hand.

We don’t have the original of Joseph’s letter to Emma, if this is what he was referring to.

You know, you can almost sense the excitement of the prophet here as he as he's writing this. And and the mission and the other church leaders and missionaries who knew about Stephens and Catherwood's discoveries were excited too and they're talking about it in the mission field. It's mentioned in pamphlets that they're publishing.

It's being reported in debates that they're having with people who are criticizing the Book of Mormon. And and so everybody's excited about this and now the prophet has a copy of the book and he says that he's read it and he finds it is interesting and and it really was it is a remarkable book for its time because it has such accurate information comparatively speaking.

Matt Roper:

the ruins in Mesoamerica

Host:

compared to other things

Matt Roper:

This this book kind of single-handedly blows the lid off of the whole like the savages and their teepees kind of narrative, right? Like uh You have the mound builder stuff in North America that people are sort of debating but like this like definitively settles this question of like

The illustrations were popular, but long before then the existence of these massive ancient ruins was well known. The English translation of Humboldt’s books, published in 1811 and 1814, included the engraved plates of sites such as Mitla, Cholula, and other pre-Columbian remains..

Transcript – 25:00

Host:

Yeah and in terms of of people taking interest in this, we do have the story from David Whitmer decades later mind you but he tells the story at yeah when when they were first when the three witnesses were first told to sign this you know this statement they were like well yeah we had the experience and and it's true but do we really have to tell the world this because you know the Book of Mormon has all these cities and civilizations and nobody thinks that existed in the Americas but then he says the Lord promised that the evidence would come forth and in David Whitmer's mind at least this is when that happened when Stevens and Cowdery came with all of these cities

Except when David said the Lord promised the evidence would come forth, it had already come forth in the Humboldt books. What had not yet come forth was the evidence of sophisticated civilizations among the Adena and Hopewell people.

Matt Roper:

I used to appreciate how like enchanting this would have been Latter-day Saints aside like just even American society in the 19th century pre-photography and we're not building massive skyscrapers at this point and yet you like read this book and you see these images of these pyramids and all of the cool ruins in Mesoamerica and those might have been like the biggest buildings you'd ever seen thinking that is here on this continent like how mind-blowing that is to see these images to see the descriptions of what this ancient society could have been like and then you add the element of the Latter-day Saints that they're like well we believe that God covenanted with his people here and now we're seeing it like unfold before us like how cool would that have been to experience that?

Host:

It had a it had a tremendous influence on on Latter-day Saints at the time at least those that were literate or were

Matt Roper:

Those who were reading.

Host:

Um I want one of the things that that occurred is you know it's 1841 the apostles are coming back from their mission to Great Britain. And when they come back uh toward the end of 1841, uh they they buy the newspaper that they were using there in Nauvoo. Uh they take over the editorship with Joseph Smith and the apostles in charge of this.

And um and so the prophet's getting ready, he's going to publish the translations from the Book of Abraham. He's going to um he's going to publish

Matt Roper:

articles. Joseph Smith is concerned that that they're publishing things that are accurate and reliable that will help build the faith of the saints and help them to understand the revelations that he's been giving given. And um and understand the doctrines of the church.

And so he puts the he even has a a short revelation that you know about this, Steven, that putting these Lord's calling that the the 12 apostles to be in charge of the publication of the Times and Seasons. They're going to take that over. And Joseph Smith is going to be come editor in charge of of all of that.

And during this time, while Joseph Smith is is is actually serving as the official editor from early 1842 down to about end of mid-October of 1842, there are three articles that are published that draw upon these new discoveries in Central America from Stephens and Catherwood. And there's a lot happening in Nauvoo. But again, can't have all the apostles there in in the Times and Seasons office.

So he they have John Taylor who is the person who's usually in the office there with Wilford Woodruff. And um Wilford Woodruff indicates that John Taylor helps sometimes with some of the writing and he's doing some of the other business Wilford Woodruff's doing some of the other business stuff. But Joseph Smith and he states he's taking responsibility for what is published.

He isn't responsible for what was published before we took this over, but I'm responsible for it now. And so you have these three articles and and it's talking about evidence for the Book of Mormon from Central America based on Stephens and Catherwood. And um and then later on end of 1842, Joseph Smith starts doing some other things and the apostles continue to publish and there are other things published as well.

Now some people have wondered, well, these are published in uh was Joseph Smith what did Joseph Smith think of these articles? Uh were they written by Joseph Smith? Were they uh Did somebody else write them?

There have even been some who said there must have been some kind of conspiracy to put all this heretical stuff about Central America

Host:

undermine faith in the Book of Mormon.

Matt Roper:

No, there actually but strangely enough, there have been some uh even some Latter-day Saints that have kind of bought into the kind of conspiracy theories about who who is responsible for these articles. And they weren't really written by Joseph Smith or This is what was asserted.

I don’t know who thought of a conspiracy theory, but there was the overzealous Benjamin Winchester who saw these as missionary opportunities, just as Matt explained.

Host:

written by two apostles.

Matt Roper:

So a number of years ago

Host:

They both became presidents of the church later.

Matt Roper:

And the people that Joseph Smith turns the paper over to

Host:

them to run the paper.

Matt Roper:

I think I think that it's argued that there were others uh of less favorable character that were

Host:

that were somehow inserted that into the publication of

Matt Roper:

Under right under the nose of Joseph, John Taylor, and Wilford Woodruff.

Transcript – 30:00

Host:

Uh so a number of years ago uh I have several colleagues that are statisticians and

Matt Roper:

I was looking at the church history and say, well, you know, these are interesting articles here. Is I wonder if Joseph Smith actually wrote them or did somebody else write them? And so um we did a study and and then in in uh in we did an expanded study where we included other potential candidate authors of these articles.

Including These included uh People we looked at were um Joseph Smith, uh Wilford Woodruff, John Benjamin Winchester, who was a missionary later left the church. There were William Smith. There were other people and we tried to include people who had actually published on Central American or pre-Columbian And we included all of those in into the mix.

Because these these particular articles, they were not signed and so people have wondered, well, who really wrote it? So we looked at all these potential candidate authors. These were people that were that were around, that were interested in this subject, and that were writing about this.

And based on the stylometric analysis and our expanded stylometric analysis, which we did, um we found some interesting things. And it turns out that um that the style of the articles, if you combine them together and there's a method that you do this that's a solid way of doing this analysis that we've And um we find that uh the style of these articles is consistent it's most consistent among all the candidate potential candidate authors.

They only considered JS, Woodruff and Taylor in their original article, which showed that these articles were unlike an of them. Then they added Winchester, but they didn't reveal which corpus of writings they used so their results could not be reproduced.

It's most consistent with Joseph Smith's personal writing style in his other

They never explained the JS corpus they used.

But there is also evidence it's next closest to John Taylor's writing style and Wilford Woodruff's writing style. It's likely based on this evidence from the stylometric analysis that this was a these articles were a collaborative effort between Joseph Smith, John Taylor, and Wilford So you can't So we're reading Stephen Zinser in the review.

Again, crazy, right? Which isn't but it but it's it's it's it's consistent with with the other historical evidence. And so you can't really argue.

It's just not sound to argue that somehow someone surreptitiously inserted these articles about Central America to to lead people astray from what Joseph Smith really believed.

No one argues that so far as I know. This is a straw man fallacy.

They don't say how they know what Joseph Smith really believed, but it's just not a They were there. They were involved.

They're responsible for

Host:

So, let let's let's just be clear because we do want to make it clear we're not arguing here that because these articles were most likely written by a prophet and two apostles that this that these were a doctrinal statement or an authoritative revelation uh that the that the ruins that Stephen and Catherwood had discovered were Book of Mormon ruins. That's not the point.

Matt Roper:

So, let's talk They were just excited

Host:

What are the implications of these articles? We talked about this hemisphere hemispheric model. What are the implications of these these articles Book of Mormon geography and and and how people think about it.

Matt Roper:

Yeah, Neil makes a good point and and it's a point that others have made that Joseph Smith or the author uh the writers of these articles they they do are not claiming that this is a revelation of where Book of Mormon took place.

Yes, no one claims there was any revelation involved with the Mesoamerican setting. But we can all see that Joseph deleted Orson Pratt’s Meso speculation from the Wentworth letter.

It is interesting though that they do the parts of the Book of Mormon, some geographical locations with some of the evidence that is mentioned by Stephen and Catherwood. But then they qualify, they say we're not going to say that this is exactly where Zarahemla is,

Host:

Can you prove it's not?

Matt Roper:

When the land and the books and the stones tell the story so plain.

Host:

But again, it's not it's not revelation, but they're they're really excited about the evidence for the Book of Mormon and they didn't see anything regards to Central America that detracted from the Book of Mormon as far as as they were concerned. So, I think that that's that's really interesting, but but it also kind of signals the Latter-day Saints like, "Hey, there's a lot of cool stuff happening in Central America." So, so it's exciting.

And so, what this kind of did is it signaled to Latter-day Saints that, "Hey, there really is evidence for the Book of Mormon that's out there. Um, you know, writing on stone monuments, evidence of And they even Stephens and Catherwood even speculated about that there was actually writing about histories in there. And and, you know, Latter-day Saints who read about this and read the Book of Mormon said they're just eating it up.

You look at this.

Matt Roper:

And they were able to refute some of the arguments against the Book of Mormon based on these new discoveries. Now, over the 19th century as things kind of kind of developed, you know, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and they're moved to Utah and as they moved west and and the church is expanding into other places like Mexico, Canada, and other places. Parley P.

goes on a mission to to South America for a little while. It's really hard, but he they're learning things and they're learning more. And um, this well, one of the things that they're that you see in the the history of the literature on this is that um, there is an effort, even though they're still thinking in terms of hemispheric um, they're seeing an increased of Central America in in terms of Book of Mormon history.

This is a key point. Even after Parley’s mission to South America, the Pratt brothers still promoted the hemispheric model.

And again, nobody's presenting this as as revelation, they're seeing it as a significant. You got George Q. Cannon who's writing in California.

This is before he's an You know, he says, "Well, everybody knows now that the uh, based on Stephens and Catherwood's discoveries that that Central Central America must have been principal residence of one of the colonies in the Book of Mormon. The principal residence, you know? Um, here's Brigham Young in a letter a year before his death talks about the land where the Nephites flourished in the golden era of their history being down in Mexico and Central America.

Host:

Um you've got John Taylor the same year talks about uh the church is expanding the missionary work to the Lamanites. He says we're going to go to the ancient centers of the Nephites where God dwelt among his ancient people where Jesus manifested himself in their midst.

Matt Roper:

And so this this is not revelation but it's surely indicating an interest in this part of the world. They're seeing that it's got stronger relevance than maybe they first thought.

None of this is revelation and none of it is relevant to the issue of Cumorah.

Host:

That's right and they're excited, you know, and so in the latter part of the 19th century at the Saints are going into Mexico people like Moses Thatcher who go down there and there's other missionaries. They're starting to get established in some of these other other places and so uh so there's an increased importance in the thinking of Latter-day Saints for Central America as it relates to the Book of Mormon, okay?

Largely based upon Stephens and Catherwood's discoveries. And they they also learn things about South America and they're starting to talk about those things as well but but that's important now. there as another thing that you find in the history of the literature on Book of Mormon geography in the 19th century is there's a whole wide variety of interpretations and and in my article I I I go through and about every major point of Book of Mormon geography, land uh or um where was the river Sidon?

Where did the land highland? Where was the city of Zarahemla? Where's the river Sidon?

Where were was the land of desolation? Uh where is the narrow neck of land? About on all these things you you have a variety of opinions

Matt Roper:

in the literature. It's not just one hemispheric geography. They're they're looking at from different different angles and and some of the arguments most of the arguments are pretty you know, they're not that great but but there's a wide variety of opinion And uh so much so that by 1890, people like George Q.

Cannon had said, you know, there's a lot of maps that are out there. I wish we could find more of these maps because they're But But But apparently, there were a lot of Latter-day Saints who were interested in the subject of the Book of Mormon and in its geography. And um

Host:

If I could before we go on, I actually listed out in in my notes here all of the places you for different candidates in 19th-century sources. Just give people an idea of the diversity of thought. Lehi's landing, we we talk all the time about the Chile statement.

Well, 19th-century sources have Lehi landing in Chile, Co- Cobega. Bolivia, Lima, Peru, um just south of the Isthmus of Darien, that's in those Times and Seasons articles. They realized that oh, these ruins are actually up in Central America.

That makes this like a landing way far south kind of weird, so they move up the the landing to just south of the Isthmus of Darien, which is um Land of Nephi is in Ecuador, Bolivia, uh Guatemala, uh Zarahemla is in Colombia, Honduras, the Magdalena is the Sidon or the Usumacinta. The Usumacinta shows up in the 19th century already

Matt Roper:

I think it was Jorge Garces, I think.

Transcript – 35:00

Host:

Yeah, as a as a candidate for the Sidon. Anyway, we could go on. The point is the there's a very wide variety of opinions about the location of pretty central features of Book of Mormon geography, um going back very early.

Matt Roper:

And so, with with this with this going on, and you get the impression that there was maybe there were some serious disagreements among some Latter-day Saints who talked about Book of Mormon geography. And And some people wanted to say, "Look, we need to help people, members of the church. We've got a lot of converts coming into the church.

Can Can the church produce a map where we can get some general idea where these things And church leaders were very reluctant to do do In when Orson Pratt is there's doing this what's it the 1879 edition of of the Book of Mormon he puts in some footnotes. But even these are kind of

Host:

Believed to be this river.

Matt Roper:

Believed for example yeah yeah for example Sidon River believed to be the Magdalena River or or you know and so so you have these uh these references that you in the 1879 edition of the Book of Mormon uh Hill Cumorah uh talk about being in New York. Um so there's there's all of these different ideas and Orson Pratt talks about expresses some of his ideas and talks that he's given and and we document those in the article.

Here’s where they mislead their audience. Orson Pratt’s footnotes distinguished between his speculation about Chile, Colombia, Sidon, etc. and his statement of fact about the Hill Cumorah in New York.

But um uh church so you have this in the 1879 edition of the Book of Mormon which was an important edition of the Book of but uh some people disagreed with some of the extra the uh the non-canonical the non-textual items that were in in the Book of Mormon. Some people disagreed that these about the content of some of these footnotes. You know people some people look at that oh the church says this is must be so other people when they would disagree with it.

Um and so the church is very reluctant in the 1890 George Q. Cannon publishes a brief uh article on Book of Mormon where he gives some counsel. He says no we've been asked to uh prepare a map and he says but I don't know uh uh the church doesn't want to do so and I don't know anybody in the First Presidency who feels competent to do that.

Now remember the First Presidency included Wilford Woodruff who was in

Host:

that would go in the Book of Mormon or

Matt Roper:

Yeah some kind of an official map of Book of Mormon land. Yeah that was endorsed by the church. And this is what some people wanted them to do and George Q.

Cannon says no First Presidency said no and remember this is they don't feel like they can speak authoritatively on Book of Mormon geography. And this is Wilford Woodruff and he had been in Zion's Camp during the so-called Zelph episode. So, if there were things about Book of Mormon's geography in the Zelph episode, why wouldn't Wilford Woodruff, as president of the church,

Host:

who was in Zion's Camp, feel competent to go out on the subject of Book of Mormon's geography?

The Zelph account does not resolve Book of Mormon geography issues.

Matt Roper:

a revelation as some have

Host:

Or at least if it if it pertained if

Matt Roper:

the revelation

Host:

specifics of Book of Mormon's geography. Okay, so that's I think the issue. It's not to say Joseph Smith didn't have some kind of revelation or revelatory experience in in in the Zelph episode.

Matt Roper:

to Book of Mormon geography, as a revealed pin in the map.

Host:

on Wilford Woodruff. It's actually interesting to look at his journal entry on that because he hedges on he's talking about like we're we're we're going through the mounds that were thrown up by the inhabitants of this country and he says, "Probably the Nephites and the Lamanites."

“Probably” is a good description because there were 1400 years of post-Book of Mormon history in that area.

Matt Roper:

in his journal entry.

Host:

He's not even confident in his own journal to

Matt Roper:

Years later he he makes more declarative assertions about that, but in the moment in in his journal he writes within a few weeks of the event, he says, "Probably thrown up by the Nephites and the

Transcript – 40:00

Host:

And even so, George Q. Cannon says the First Presidency, none of them were

Matt Roper:

They're not willing to endorse a map.

Host:

And but they do give some good advice and we'll talk about that toward the end here, but they advise careful study of the Book of Mormon text. Members should read it and of course there's no harm in studying Book of Mormon geography. It's not heretical to try to understand those things.

Um but they should uh just not understand that the church is not going to give you an official map

Matt Roper:

for these these various regions. Now, uh here are four examples of some of the some I think these are significant examples of limited geography, some of which were published, some which were not, that we know about from in the

Host:

various sources.

Matt Roper:

various sources, but uh one of the earliest comes from 1886 from a fellow named Olivos I Oi. I hope I'm pronouncing that right. This was a brother who was a convert who's originally from Spain.

I think at one point he'd studied to become a Catholic priest and decided not to move to the United States and where he learned of the church and came to Utah. And he became one of joined the committee for the first complete translation of the Book of Mormon into Spanish. I think they were up in Logan, Utah with one of the apostles and there were several other brothers that were that were helping with that.

And and because he came from Spain, he was he was very fluent. It was his native language and so he was able to to be of a lot of help in translating the Book of Mormon into Spanish. They want the Book of Mormon a complete Book of Mormon in Spanish so cuz they're going into Mexico, they're going to want to go to South America eventually and do other things.

Do you have another one from Colonel Willard Young who was a son of Brigham Young. He was actually the first man to serve at West Point. He's a great guy.

He even defends the Book of Abraham in the 1912-1913

Host:

Oh, yeah.

Matt Roper:

controversy with Franklin Spalding. So he but his stuff was never published but he shares his ideas in 1920. There there's a church kind of sponsors a private meeting about people expressing different views of Book of Mormon geography.

So it's So his ideas were developed before 1920. We don't know how You got Jean Driggs published a little booklet called The Palestine of America in 1928 which I would love to get a I've seen copies of. I'd love to have my own copy.

That would be really cool. Where he has some maps and and some Very very good and then J. A.

and J. N. Washburn 1939 published a little book on approach approaching Book of Mormon geography which I which I still think is an extremely important book in terms of the history of discussion of Book of Mormon geography.

That one is entirely internal. He's not trying to really place it in any particular place in the Americas. He's just looking at what the text says, and these are the conclusions based upon what the text says.

And all of these brethren come up with limited Book of Mormon geographies. Some of which actually place the destruction of the Nephites or the destruction of the Jaredites within Central America. Which are which are kind of interesting.

Now now some people who've looked at the history of Book of Mormon geography, they've they've suggested that well, maybe people like John Sorenson later on and and other people they must have borrowed this idea. There was an RLDS fellow uh last name of Hills. I can't remember.

Host:

L.E. Hills.

Matt Roper:

L.E. Hills. And and that's

Host:

And he published several booklets that had his ideas about Book of Mormon uh geography, where he's placing it in in Mexico for the most part. And um he was a member of the RLDS Church. Um but the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ.

And um some people have said, well, Latter Day Saints who developed limited geographies, they got this all from L.E. Hills. It was from the RLDS Church, and they were not from our church, and so that must be bad somehow.

And uh and

Matt Roper:

just being RLDS automatically disqualifies you or something.

Another straw man argument. The problem with L.E. Hills (and Stebbins) was not that they were RLDS, but that they rejected Oliver Cowdery’s statement of fact, just like the M2Cers do today.

Host:

who believe in the Book of Mormon.

Matt Roper:

It's it's not a very good idea. And and I actually have an article that I'm working on. I hope to get published here in the near future.

Um where I talk about some of these early geographies. If you compare what these early writers, these four that I mentioned, if you look at their ideas and where they're suggesting Book of Mormon places are.

Host:

Um you find that they don't they rarely match up with what L.E. Hills is

Matt Roper:

Oh, okay.

Transcript – 45:00

Host:

They're in different locations. Uh, they got the narrow neck of land in a different place than L.E. Hills does.

They've And another interesting thing that you find

Matt Roper:

It's maybe just worth noting that uh, your Olivos uh, away?

Host:

He predates L.E. Hills.

Matt Roper:

That's right.

Host:

And and uh, and RLDS publications about about their their geography, too. So, yeah, and he's he's way before Hills.

Matt Roper:

So, kind of turning around the 20th century, we really start to see people coalesce around, okay, the Book of Mormon had to have taken place in a smaller area than just the entire

Host:

among among some some people. Um, but it

Matt Roper:

the hemispheric view still kind of prevails there.

Host:

it's but it starts in the late 19th century. And I think that that's that's significant. Now, now this I want to talk about this first brother cuz most people don't know about him.

Matt Roper:

So, brother So, brother A.O.E.

Host:

Um, he's he's up in Logan, Utah in 1886. And he's been helping with the translation of the Book of Mormon. And in the course of their translation, he's nearly done, he writes a letter to President John Taylor in the first presidency of the church, which is in the church archives.

And uh, he it's received by the first presidency on November 19th, 1886. And in this letter, you see on the right there, this is a map that he kind of in the contents of letter trying to explain, "This is just my take on Book of Mormon geography." And he says some interesting things here. And uh, and I think this is this is very important when we talk about Book of Mormon geography.

At about the end of every page, its contents are translated in trying to assimilate as much as possible the expression of both language, you know, he's quite trying to translate from English to Spanish. I I reconstruct the sentences anew whenever necessary from English into Spanish or vice versa, thus avoiding many uncouth discrepancies which otherwise might occur. When engaged in the last translation of the unabridged edition already mentioned, I was inevitably induced to pause and ponder upon it many ungrammatical and even doubtful and obscure sentences to say the least.

And this chiefly on account of the very conscientious and scrupulous way in which said translation was conducted by its director Elder J. J. Stewart.

So it happened that my mind was naturally led forced, I must say, to compare, reflect, deduct upon many topics which otherwise would have been possibly overlooked and therefore might have passed over utterly He and uh here's another statement in his letter. Compare the imposing architecture of the temples in Yucatan with the mounds and rough constructions of the north continent. And the end developed rough mounds of the northern Lamanites is plainly seen.

So the footnotes are wrong. The book is right. I misspelled that.

Matt Roper:

good mic drop moment.

Host:

Yeah. The book is The book is right, okay? So he's he's he's questioning some of the non non-textual parts.

It's It's like, you know, the introduction or the to the Book of Mormon which is not part of the translation. You know, that's not what's essential here. He's just looking at it from the standpoint translator which has forced him to go and to go carefully word by word, verse by verse to try to understand these things and then he's thinking, "Okay, well, where would this be?

You know, what does this mean?" Um here's another He says in an an an a little He writes a little footnote in his letter. He's talking about Helaman 3.

Matt Roper:

He's specifically calling out the footnote here.

Host:

He Helaman 3 where they the the people that go in the land northward and that's where they built some they used they know cement and there's a sea north east west south okay well he's he says it cannot be the great continent of North America as is advertised in the

Matt Roper:

And so I mean you had a you had that map up there.

Transcript – 50:00

Host:

Well he puts it

Matt Roper:

It looks like it's in the Yucatan.

Host:

thinks the hill in three is in the Yucatan.

Matt Roper:

And he has the the sea west he puts over in the Gulf of Mexico sea east you got the Caribbean the ocean north of the Yucatan is the sea north and then he has the Pacific Ocean as the sea south. So I'm not saying again we're not saying that he was right okay but he's thinking about that and and that's what some of these early Latter-day Saints are trying to do they're trying to make make sense of these things.

This is the map he about the same time he has this little map that he made based on some other map and this is his limited geography and and the land southward most of it is rarely it's it's the very north part of South America you've got Panama with he thinks that's where the city of Lib was with that pass where they got blocked off in the Book of Ether okay and then he has but he has the he doesn't have anything relating to the Book of Mormon although he may have thought in terms of you know they call the hill in New York Cumorah there's nothing north of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec in Mexico that relates to the Book of Mormon everything else is putting

Host:

Well and and if I remember correctly uh he does put the Jaredite destruction there in Central Mexico.

Matt Roper:

Yes and he and here he is here's some

Host:

And so that by implication would put you know Cumorah

Matt Roper:

So if you take his yeah so you take his letter and his little brochure that he put together this is where he has these different things like the hill Shim and the land Anthem between Nicaragua and Honduras, you got the Jaredites being destroyed, you know, the land of desolation, he's got that down southeast of Yucatan near El

Host:

I was too far north even with Central Mexico then.

Matt Roper:

He says the Jaredites' first inheritance was the land of in about Guatemala or Chiapas. Uh these are just his his his his

Host:

Morona and his father Mormon, the son of Mormon, had lived near this land of Mormon or were born in it. which is kind of interesting. You know that's not impossible.

Matt Roper:

Uh the destruction of the Jaredites had happened not by the Hill Cumorah as is generally reported, but over 1,500 mi southward not far from the Hill Shim. So, he's he's got this idea that uh that these most of the events of the Book of Mormon are happening in this limited model. So, anyway, there just as some key points here to kind of sum up some LDS models uh limited geography models predate those of uh the 20th century and and are LDS models.

And when you compare these with uh people like L. E. Hills, it's clear that there was no borrowing.

Not that there would be anything wrong with that. Just as but if you look at them, it's not they're not the same. LDS models were formulated in a context of intensive scrutiny of the Book of Mormon text.

Each of those four guys I talk about, they say, "You know, I've come to this conclusion based on the text." Just very intense study of the text. And this is this is what I've come to the to decide.

Host:

saying like, "Oh, Joseph Smith found Zelf in this area, therefore I have to put it there." They're saying, "Well, what does the Book of Mormon say about

Matt Roper:

Yeah, and they're and they're um and then you have people later, people like Johnny Lingo, who says, "Well, you know, Zelf may have happened, you know, after the time the Nephites and the Lamanites people become dispersed all over, you know, so we really don't know the details there." But here I think it's significant that intensive study of the text, which is what people like George Q. Cannon and others, church leaders had advocated, had counselled the Saints to do, lead it to led to this idea of a limited And um and some of these these early geographies were entirely internal.

So, it's not some [snorts] of them they're not even trying to put it in Central America. They're They're just trying to understand what the text says and then and then make sense of that. So, I I think it's That's That's really significant that if you go through this process since Joseph Smith's day, you have this general idea of a hemispheric view, but then as they learn more and there's new discoveries in Central America and other places, uh the Saints start to pay more attention to these things.

And and then you got people like uh uh Willard Young, who's who was an engineer, I think.

Host:

Yeah, he was an engineer and he went and worked in Panama.

Matt Roper:

That's right. And so, he's familiar with a lot of these places and they're suggesting possible correlations in Central America. And um and and again, none of these things uh were presented as as revelation and the church decides not to take that position today.

Can I have my own views about where the Book of Mormon took place? Sure. It's It's a It's a problem that anybody can fall into about We all have our favorite ideas and things.

It's It's part of human nature. Okay?

Transcript – 55:00

Host:

Let's Let's face it. I mean, we're all We're all We all think that what what we're individually doing is the most important thing that could be done. We wonder why everybody else isn't as excited about it as as as I am, you know.

Um Boyd K. Packer, a few years ago, he offered this counsel and I'm not trying to pick out any particular person. This is a warning for everybody.

He says, "Some members of the church, who should know better, pick out a hobby key or two and tap them incessantly to the irritation of those around them. They can dull their own spiritual sensitivities. They lose track that there is a fullness of the gospel.

Definitely good advice. Consider how many people have made a living writing and podcasting about this topic, for example.

They may reject the fullness in preference for a favorite note. This becomes distorted, leading them away into So, you know, that can happen

Matt Roper:

to anybody, okay? On anything. And it And it's good counsel.

You know, again, Book of Mormon geography, frankly, it's brain candy, which is not to say it doesn't have its place. It's

Host:

It's my

Matt Roper:

It's an interesting piece area of knowledge, but there are limitations. We have limitations, and the church today says that we do not claim revelation on where the events took place other than that they were somewhere in the Americas. 

Absolutely. But this is separate from the Cumorah issue.

And And

Host:

I It's just worth noting.

Matt Roper:

Because that that includes everything, right? The Hill Cumorah, the final battles.

Cumorah is entirely a separate issue from the geography. Even Orson Pratt made that distinction. No Church leader has ever repudiated what President Oliver Cowdery said was a fact.

Um it's worth noting we we didn't get a chance to to highlight some of the other statements uh that have been made over time, but that is a consistent position that that the church or church leaders have have issued over time.

Host:

decided this our new thing.

Matt Roper:

Going going at least back to the the George Q. Cannon comments that we've mentioned before, right? So, 1890 at least onward, it's been this consistent position that we don't know, there isn't a revelation.

Host:

But it is so important that we follow the current counsel of the leaders of the church.

Matt Roper:

And that we don't spend all of our time quoting dead prophets who lived faithfully and did the very best with what they had, the knowledge that they had, and had some revelations. But the problem is a lot of church history and things like the Zelf episode, they require interpretation. Uh the sources aren't exactly as we first learned about them, what they were based on.

The sources regarding Cumorah could not be more explicit and clear. It takes a lot of sophistry to turn them into something that needs "interpretation."

And so, we have to be careful not to uh not to base our on these things that are outside of the text of the Book of Mormon and outside of the current council of the leaders of the church like we see in this recent statement that they have endorsed that that about the church's position. Yes, there's nothing wrong with studying Book of Mormon geography. It can be fascinating.

It can be rewarding. You discover many things in the text of the Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon is is is wondrous, it's marvelous, it's it's beautiful.

How is it Kirk Magleby likes to talk about it?

Host:

It's miraculous, beautiful, and true.

Matt Roper:

Miraculous, beautiful, and true. It is. but don't forget there is a whole symphony out there.

Don't don't forget that the little pieces that we learn they're going to be part of a bigger picture, but we don't have everything

Host:

Well well said. Thank you so much for sharing all of this history of Book of Mormon geography. For those who want to dive in, Matt Roper has written an article about the history of Book of Mormon geography and what church leaders have said in the FARMS Review.

We're going to link to it in the description below. And remember, you can study deeply, believe boldly, and we'll see you next time.