long ago ideas

“When we are tired, we are attacked by ideas we conquered long ago." - Friedrich Nietzsche. Long ago, Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery conquered false claims that the Book of Mormon was fiction or that it came through a stone in a hat. But these old claims have resurfaced in recent years. To conquer them again, we have to return to what Joseph and Oliver taught.

Monday, September 1, 2025

Church History conference, Jonathan Edwards, etc.

The evidence that Joseph translated the plates continues to accumulate. I uploaded an annotation of 1 Nephi 1 to Mobom, here:

https://www.mobom.org/bm-kjv-and-je-1-nephi-1

_____

In somewhat related news, this week (5-6 Sept) there is a Church History Conference in SLC. The list of speakers is here.

https://churchhistory.cventevents.com/event/2025conference/speakers

I'm sure it will be interesting, informative, and inspirational. I encourage everyone to watch and/or attend.

I say that with two caveats, both of whom are great guys, faithful Latter-day Saints, smart, etc., but both of whom promote the SITH/M2C narratives.

_____

One of the speakers, Anthony Sweat, created the infamous illustration of Mormonism Unvailed's translation narrative. This widely distributed illustration has normalized E.D. Howe's anti-Mormon narrative that Joseph and Oliver successfully refuted--until a handful of LDS scholars revived it in recent years. 


For anyone not familiar with Mormonism Unvailed, here is the narrative that book set out, which Brother Sweat illustrated and teaches:

The translation finally commenced. They were found to contain a language not now known upon the earth, which they termed "reformed Egyptian characters." The plates, therefore, which had been so much talked of, were found to be of no manner of use. After all, the Lord showed and communicated to him every word and letter of the Book. Instead of looking at the characters inscribed upon the plates, the prophet was obliged to resort to the old ''pecp stone," which he formerly used in money-digging. This he placed in a hat, or box, into which he also thrust his face. Through the stone he could then discover a single word at a time, which he repeated aloud to his amanuensis, who committed it to paper, when another word would immediately appear, and thus the performance continued to the end of the book.

https://archive.org/details/mormonismunvaile00howe/page/18/mode/2up?q=Urim

It continues to amaze me that Brother Sweat and other LDS scholars have embraced the Mormonism Unvailed narrative. They simply reject what Joseph and Oliver consistently and repeatedly taught. I discussed that here:

https://www.ldshistoricalnarratives.com/p/the-sith-problem-1829-2024.html 

_____

Another speaker, Keith Erekson, famously teaches that the sword of Laban was in Moroni's stone box, contrary to the explicit descriptions from Joseph and Oliver. 

He relies on a late recollection by Joseph's sister, who did not even say the sword was in the stone box. But Keith seems obsessed with supporting M2C (and SITH), which requires people to teach and convince Latter-day Saints that the sword could not have been in the repository in the Hill Cumorah in New York (again, contrary to all the historical accounts) because, according to M2C, the "real Cumorah" is yet to be found in southern Mexico.

https://www.ldshistoricalnarratives.com/p/real-vs-rumor-keith-ereksons-failed.html

People can believe whatever they want, of course. 

But it is not cool when historians promote their private theories by suppressing and even censoring authentic, faithful historical accounts by the principals, in this case Joseph and Oliver, solely to promote the private theories of a handful of scholars, in this case the advocated of M2C (the Mesoamerican/two-Cumorahs theory.)

Wednesday, August 20, 2025

M2C to NYC and SITH in the SLTrib


It's cool to see people learning about what Joseph and Oliver said, as opposed to what certain historians and other intellectuals teach.

On social media, more and more people are posting about changing their minds from M2C to the New York Cumorah. 

On a related topic, I posted comments about an article in the SLTrib regarding SITH (the stone-in-the-hat narrative).

https://www.ldshistoricalnarratives.com/2025/08/sltrib-repeats-sith-narrative.html

For those new to this blog, relevant historical sources about the origin and setting of the Book of Mormon are collected here:

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



Monday, August 11, 2025

X2a haplogroup post

This post below has made lots of guest appearances on X. It presents some facts, along with some theories. Every explanation of this I've seen so far mingles the two; i.e., no one spells out the actual Facts and then separates the facts from the various Assumptions, Inferences and Theories that lead to the overall Hypothesis. 

This is the FAITH model that few people follow because they prefer to portray their theories as facts. 

In my view, the actual facts support multiple working hypotheses, including the one described in the Book of Mormon.

But as anyone can see, the facts don't support the theory that Lehi's descendants were centered in Mesoamerica. Which is what Joseph said all along, such as in the Wentworth letter when he deleted Orson Pratt's theories about Central America. 

But many (maybe most) modern LDS scholars don't care what Joseph (or Oliver) had to say if what they said contradicts the pet theories of these LDS scholars.


_____

A DNA lineage in ancient North America has no trail through Siberia or East Asia. Its closest relatives are in the Near East and Mediterranean. If it didn’t come through Siberia, how did it get here? Haplogroup X: the genetic breadcrumb still rewriting the map. 🧵

The post points out that the scientific consensus claims

Genetics show X2a split from its Old World relatives over 12,000 years ago….before the last glacial melt. That means it was already separate long before the migrations we’ve been taught as the whole story.

The genetics don't "show" this, except based on certain assumptions that scientists make. Different assumptions lead to different dating time frames.




The post also points out that X2a presents a gap in traditional migration stories.

Haplogroup X doesn’t prove one migration theory. But it leaves a gap: Why is a Near Eastern Mediterranean lineage in the earliest North Americans, yet absent in the regions we thought they came from? Every answer raises a harder question. What’s yours?



One comment asked Grok:

Haplogroup X2a in Native Americans is intriguing, with no modern Siberian/East Asian trail, but evidence from Altaians and coalescence dates (~18,000 years ago) points to a Beringian migration from ancient West Eurasian roots. Trans-Atlantic theories are debunked by genomes like Kennewick Man's, showing no European ties. It likely diverged early in the Americas. Fascinating puzzle!

_____

The Kennewick Man point is based on the assumption that Kennewick Man inhabited the area near the modern border between Washington and Oregon. If instead he was an explorer (such as Lewis and Clark) from eastern America, his DNA would be normal and not an exception.