The Problem with Theories

One of the major problem with Book of Mormon Land of Promise theories is that the scholar and theorists almost always try to limit what God can or cannot do. Nor do they take the time to really and truly understand the scriptural reference they use to prove their points. Scripture, whether doctrinal or geographical, is almost always much deeper than the reader initially understands. And when a theorist is trying to prove his theory, he quite often uses a very surface level understanding of the scripture’s true meaning—or, as in the case of trying to prove the Doctrine & Covenants describes that present-day northeastern United States was the location of the Land of Promise, to limit that ability beyond man’s thinking.

Because in the recent Post, “Was There Only One Cumorah?” and in an earlier Post, “The Problem with Zarahemla – Part II—Significance in a Name,” in which the claim that these scriptures in Doctrine and Covenants prove that the Land of Promise was in the northeastern states, is thoroughly answered, the information will not be repeated here again. However, a reading of those two posts should show that the scriptures used do not relate to the Land of Promise, but to events in the early days of the Church.

But, perhaps the most significant understanding of how scholars and theorists limit God’s power is shown in the discussion of the Hill Cumorah. On June 17, 1877, Brigham Young related a story at conference in which he commented on what was found within the hill Cumorah. He said, in part, “I tell these things to you, and I have a motive for doing so. I want to carry them to the ears of my brethren and sisters, and to the children also, that they may grow to an understanding of some things that seem to be entirely hidden from the human family.” With that reasoning, Pres. Young went on to tell the story: “Oliver says that when Joseph and Oliver went there, the hill opened, and they walked into a cave, in which there was a large and spacious room. He says he did not think, at the time, whether they had the light of the sun or artificial light; but that it was just as light as day. They laid the plates on a table; it was a large table that stood in the room. Under this table there was a pile of plates as much as two feet high, and there were altogether in this room more plates than probably many wagon loads; they were piled up in the corners and along the walls.”

A cave beneath the Hill Cumorah in upstate New York? There are at least ten second-hand accounts describing the story of the cave in Cumorah, however, Joseph Smith himself did not record the incident. And none of the accounts with us today are first hand. But the story of the cave full of plates inside the Hill Cumorah in New York is often given as evidence that it is, indeed, the hill where Mormon hid the plates. Unfortunately, the New York Hill Cumorah is a moraine, that is, it is a drumlin—a pile of gravel scraped together and laid down anciently by a glacier in motion. It is comprised of gravel and earth. Geologically, it is impossible for the hill to have a cave, and all those who have gone in search of the cave have come back empty-handed.

If, therefore, the story attributed to Oliver Cowdery is true, then the visits to the cave perhaps represent visions, perhaps of some far distant hill, or a divine transportation to another locale. However, few scholars or theorits are likely to think of such a thing, for their tendency is to limit God’s power, Yet, Nephi himself describes being “caught away in the Spirit of the Lord into an exceedingly high mountain which I never had before seen, and upon which I never had before set foot” (1 Nephi 11:1), and many other incidents are recorded where individuals are swept up in the Spirit to see and be places they had never been as recorded both in scripture like Lehi who saw many visions (1 Nephi 1:8,16), and in modern times.

The point is, we cannot limit the placement or movement of the gold plates in one single physical area and say they could not be moved by the Lord, by Moroni, or through God’s power. Yet, those who claim there is only one Cumorah deny the possibility that God could have seen to the transportation of those plates from one part of the Land of Promise to another for His own purposes. Whether He did or did not, we are not told—but to claim it could not have happened, and that there could not be another Cumorah, and that the Land of Promise could not be elsewhere but in the northeastern United States, is rather an arrogant attitude fostered by men who desire, for whatever reason, to deny God’s power to bring about His purpose differently than man assumes.