Answering a Reader’s Eastern U.S. Model – Part I: The Map Without Error – Part I

In answering David Mckane’s numerous comments he has left on our blog over the past few weeks in an effort to dominate this blog and convince us that his model of the Great Lakes-Heartland, Eastern U.S. area is the correct Land of Promise. 

First of all, David, this site was intended from the beginning to mirror the scriptural references left us by which we can not only learn the gospel and doctrines of the Lord, but also learn a little about a people that lived in this Western Hemisphere anciently, led here by the Lord to a Land of Promise. It was not meant, and still is not meant, to mirror my opinions, your opinions, or any of our readers’ opinions, but exactly what Mormon and the others wrote. While I’m sure most theorists would claim the same, their writing does not reflect what this blog was established to accomplish—follow what the scriptural record states without changing, altering, ignoring or adding anything to it.
    As it turned out, we have also used this site to correct misunderstandings of the clear and precise language used in the scriptural record by Mormon, Nephi and others. Far too often, theorists have gone far astray from the actual wordage of the scriptural record to insert and involve their opinions and personal interpretations of Mormon’s writing, causing language to appear one way when it was clearly stated differently. A case in point is that of John L. Sorenson and his skewing of the directions of the Land of Promise.
    The main point here is that this site was not intended to be a battle ground or a place to incite controversy. Obviously, you have a strong attitude toward your point of view—almost one of arrogance and stubbornness. Now, while there is nothing wrong with a person being committed to their beliefs, when it comes to the Book of Mormon, those beliefs must match the scriptures and that is what we have always devoted this site to achieve.
    While you think you know the answers, most of your ideas are not based on scriptural references as much as your unique approach to interpreting what is written in a manner that is not consistent with the overall scriptural record.

(Map A) David McKane’s map from his website of the Narrow Neck of Land, Narrow Passage (which he separates) and his Land of Bountifiul, around the Great Lakes area
    To begin with in our response, you state quite emphatically on our blog that your map of your Land of Promise location in the Eastern United States is completely accurate. You even arrogantly state that: “no one has ever found a discrepancy” in your maps. Below, we will take a couple of your maps and comment about the more than a dozen errors that are quite obvious:
1. The City of Bountiful and Land of Bountiful are to the west of the Narrow Neck of land.
    Response: “on the north, even until they came to the land which they called Bountiful. And it bordered upon the land which they called Desolation, it being so far northward” (Alma 22:29-30).
2. Land of Desolation and Land Northward is to the West of the Land of Bountiful.
    Response: “Thus the land on the northward was called Desolation, and the land on the southward was called Bountiful” (Alma 22:30).
    Since Mormon is the final judge as to where these lands were located and his descriptions are completely clear and precise, those are two unarguable and uncontestable errors in your map. It simply doesn't matter that you have an answer, and I'm sure you do or you wouldn't have placed them where you did; however, that is not what Mormon wrote!
3. The Sea West is north of the Sea East.
    Response: Common sense alone would tell any sane person that West is not north of East! There is not a single suggestion in the entire book of Mormon that would lead anyone to think that this was the distribution and location of these two seas and certainly not within keeping of the Hebrew way of naming directional locations.
4. There are two ways into the Land Northward, a narrow neck and a narrow passage.
    Response: The Narrow Neck was the only thing that kept the Land Southward from being completely surrounded by water, thus the Narrow Pass or Passage had to be within the Narrow Neck of Land: “the land of Nephi and the land of Zarahemla were nearly surrounded by water, there being a small neck of land between the land northward and the land southward” (Alma 22:32).

5. The Land of Zarahemla is land-locked and at least half or more of the Land of Nephi has a land border.
    Response: The Land of Zarahemla and the Land of Nephi are not completely surrounded by water except for the Small (Narrow) Neck of Land: “the land of Nephi and the land of Zarahemla were nearly surrounded by water, there being a small neck of land between the land northward and the land southward” (Alma 22:32).
6. The Narrow Neck runs east and west.
    Response: Obviously, the Land Northward is north of the Land Southward, but McKane’s map shows it to the east of the Land of Bountiful, and thus his narrow neck is east of the Land Southward at that point, and west of the Land Northward
7. The Land of Desolation is north of both the East Sea and Sea East.
    Response: Again, common sense would tell any sane person that a sea to the south would not be called an East Sea! Again, there is not a single suggestion in the entire book of Mormon that would lead anyone to think that this was the distributional location this sea and land from Mormon's writing, and certainly not within keeping of the Hebrew way of naming directional locations.
8. Hill Cumorah is located in the Land Southward.
    Response: Moroni tells us that the Hill Shim is the same as the Hill Cumorah (Ether 9:3) and that the Hill Shim was where the Lamanite were destroyed which was “so far northward” (Alma 22:30) beyond the Land of Desolation, i.e., in the Land Northward, where the people of Zartahemla found the Lamanite bones (Mosiah 21:26).
9. Hill Cumorah is located south of the East Sea and east of the Sea East.
    Response: Hill Cumorah was in the Land Northward where Mormon tells us it was located: “so far northward,”
10. Sea West is north and east of the Land of Bountiful.

Response: Bountiful was in the north (22:29), and north of Bountiful was the Land of Desolation (Alma 22:29-30).
    By the way, McKane places his City of Bountiful around about where N. Tallman Road is located in Michigan in an area about a mile or two north of the Maple River State Game Area, which the Grand River runs through, and is wide open farmland with no cities, or large towns or even sizable settlements there to disturb any ancient buildings and ruins—yet, there are no ruins of a major Nephite city, let alone a temple, which the Nephites, as followers of the Ten Commandments, who built a temple in the City of Nephi like unto Solomon’s Temple, would have built, i.e., one out of stone—certainly not a disrespectable one out of wood. In this area, there is a very small town, Carson City, two tiny settlements, Middleton and Perrington, a tiny four-square-block village called Pompeii, and a large farm house (Fitzpatrick Farms), plus a handful of houses and other farms in a very huge area of open land. Any ruins would be well known and obviously undisturbed.
    In these ten areas of McKane’s map, there are several errors, of which he would not agree; however, which Mormon makes quite clear, especially some of them that are outright clear indications of ignoring what the scriptural record clearly states.
(See the next post, “Answering a Reader’s Eastern U.S. Model – Part II,” for a continuation of these maps differences 11-18)
David, as an afterthought, why don’t you wait until all is said here in this series of responding to your so numerous comments on our blog; if you start firing away questions as you like to do, many if not all will be answered in the course of this series—you’ve had your say, now it’s our turn. So instead of jumping to computer keyboard to spout your opinion, why not let the information we’ve compiled have a change.