End of M2C - Daniel Peterson edition

Daniel Peterson is the well-known editor of the FARMS journals (33 volumes from 1989-2011) and the Interpreter (66 volumes from 2012-2025). He is also a regular and popular speaker at FAIRLDS. Dan is a thoughtful scholar, a great guy, and a faithful Latter-day Saint. 

To his credit, his newfound openness suggests he may be jumping on the "end of M2C" train.

M2Cers jumping onto the "end of M2C" train

[Note: to understand what "end of M2C" means, see 

https://www.bookofmormoncentralamerica.com/2025/06/end-of-m2c-what-we-mean.html]

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(click to enlarge)

As editor, Dan has promoted M2C (the Mesoamerican/two-Cumorahs theory) adamantly and exclusively in all of these journals. 

The FARMS journals he edited featured the infamous M2C logo that portrays the Book of Mormon with a Mayan glyph. 

(If you enlarge the image, you can see the explanation that the Hebrew character represents the Old Testament, the Greek character represents the New Testament, and the Egyptian represents the Pearl of Great Price.)

Of course, we all know that the actual language of the Book of Mormon is English. To represent the plates, maybe Egyptian could represent "Reformed Egyptian," but using a Mayan glyph is a not-at-all-subtle declaration about geography.

For decades, the FARMS M2C logo imprinted M2C on the minds of LDS students, scholars, and everyone else. That contributed to the wide-spread assumption that the M2C paradigm was quasi-official, having been the "consensus" among faithful LDS scholars, having been published in the Ensign, and having been depicted throughout Church-produced media.

The M2C logo made its way to Book of Mormon Central for several years until recently, when it was replaced by its much-improved starburst logo.

Amazingly, the M2C logo is still featured on Royal Skousen's books, including the one published in 2024.

On the other hand, that makes sense. Royal Skousen famously teaches that Joseph and Oliver intentionally misled everyone about the translation by claiming Joseph used the Urim and Thummim. M2C teaches that they intentionally misled everyone about the New York Cumorah. So what better logo to feature on Skousen's books than the M2C logo?

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Back to Dan.

Recently Dan wrote "Am I myself fundamentally committed to a Mesoamerican geographical model for the Nephites and the Jaredites?  I am not.  I’m open to alternative proposals."

After his decades of promoting M2C, this is a welcome change. I discussed it here: 

https://interpreterpeerreviews.blogspot.com/2025/07/dan-and-m2c-blowin-in-wind.html

Then, Dan wrote a piece about applying Ockham's Razor, which I discussed here:

https://interpreterpeerreviews.blogspot.com/2025/07/dan-and-occams-razor.html

That one is particularly interesting because my post about Ockham's Razor is one of the most popular on this very blog. 

https://www.bookofmormoncentralamerica.com/2016/05/simplicity.html

In my view, Ockham's Razor is a solid argument in favor of accepting what Joseph and Oliver taught about the origin and setting of the Book of Mormon.

Reasonable people can disagree, of course. People can believe whatever they want. 

But it is nice to see Dan attract attention to the Occam's Razor principle.

Let's all encourage Dan and other M2Cers to join the pursuit of clarity, charity and understanding, all with the objective of encouraging people to make informed decisions.

This is a big step forward in achieving "no more contention" and establishing Zion...