Which Wall Would You Want to Protect You from Lamanites? – Part I

Just off the top of your head, if you were trying to defend yourself and your family against crazed attackers who sought to kill you without concern and have been trying to do so for many years, would you want one of these walls to protect you that North American theorists claim represent the stone walls that the Nephites built for their defense? 

Ancient stone walls in western New York state that Great Lakes theorists claim show that the ancient residents--who they claim were Nephites--built with stone

 

    Or, what about these so-called walls, also found in the area some claim were Nephite lands in New York. Consider how you might “hunker down” behind these walls as a sword wielding Lamanite charged.

Ancient stone walls in central and northern New York state that are claimed to be from Nephite times

    Even restored walls where the stones have been piled on top of each other as they originally were show that at most, these walls were two to three feet high, which might serve a man with a rifle lying flat on the ground behind them, but would have little value in defending against sword, spear, or a charging club-wielding enemy.

Stacked rock walls in (Top LtoR):  Kansas, Connecticut, and Maryland; (Bottom LtoR): New Hampshire, Eastern New York, and Maine where some theorists claim the Land of Promise was located

    Does anyone really think these were the kinds of stone walls that Moroni built? Since the man was a military genius, always one step ahead of the Lamanites with his army, helmets, leg and arm protections that literally frightened the Lamanites into running before them, wouldn’t it be more realistic to think in terms of permanent stone walls that would have provided serious protection from Lamanites not just for one battle, but for years to come?

Wouldn’t you rather have something like these stone walls--found in Andean Peru--for your protection and that of your family? It stands to reason that Moroni, as brilliant and forward thinking as he was, would have had his army building stone walls of significance around the land, not those wimpy stones used anciently in North America

    As  obvious as this seems, that Moroni would have built his “walls of stone” to a greater extent than those found anywhere in ancient North America, we still have theorists who push their view ignoring the scriptural record and what it tells us of that ancient Land of Promise.
    One of the problem is that there is so much in print lately about the North American location for the Land of Promise, with advocates of the Heartland, Great Lakes and Eastern U.S. theories so adamantly vociferous about their beliefs, that one sometimes wonders if any of them have tried to look beyond all the hype from people like Rod L. Meldrum and Bruce H. Porter for the Heartland Theory; Delbert W. Curtis, Vernal Holley and Wayne N. May for the Great Lakes Theory; and others, like David McKane take in the entire eastern U.S.
    After all, once beyond the hype of Mound Builders, the United States as the sole area of the Land of Promise claim, or the fallacy of one hill Cumorah, we start looking at what the scriptural record actually says, which is entirely different.
    First of all, there is no suggestion of there being only one hill Cumorah anywhere—there is just one mentioned in the area of the Land of Promise in which the Jaredites and Nephites settled. But the idea of there being more than one place with a Book of Mormon name is found in several places in the scriptural record, i.e., the Land of Bountiful in both Arabia and the Western Hemisphere; there being more than one Jerusalem, more than one Sidon, etc.
    The point is, it is merely stubborn foolishness to say outright without any support whatsoever that Moroni hid the records in the hill Cumorah where the final battle took place, since no one knows where he initially hid the plates in the ground, or even if he did that in the year 401 A.D. when he wrote his last entry on the plates.

To further understand this, keep in mind that Moroni concludes his record before hiding it from the Lamanites by saying: “and I write unto my brethren, the Lamanites…” and when finished, “I seal up these records after I have spoken a few words by way of exhortation unto you” (Moroni 10:1,2). Before writing this, Moroni informs us that after the final battle at the hill Cumorah, that “I make not myself known to the Lamanites lest they should destroy me…wherefore, I wander whithersoever I can for the safety of mine own life” (Moroni 1:1,3, emphasis added), telling us that he did not stay at or near Cumorah, but wandered around trying to remain hidden from the warring Lamanites who were everywhere because of the civil war that followed the destruction of the Nephites for “the Lamanites are at war one with another; and the whole face of this land is one continual round of murder and bloodshed; and no one knoweth the end of the war” (Mormon 8:8).

After completing his father’s record (Mormon 8 and 9), he then abridged the entire Jaredite record (Moroni 1:1), he wrote a little in the book bearing his own name, Moroni. As he states: “Therefore I will write and hide up the records in the earth; and whither I go it mattereth not” (Mormon 8:4).
    Thus, we see that Moroni, after the final battle at Cumorah, was moving about, hiding, keeping away from the Lamanites who would have killed him if they found him (Moroni 1:1). During this time, he writes the final two chapters of his father’s record, then abridges the entire Jaredite record, then writes his own record, before “hiding the records in the earth.”
    At no time does he tell us where he hid them, but it should be understood that he was nowhere near the hill Cumorah at the time, for in those 16 years (385 to 401 A.D.), he was running and hiding, writing when he could, but keeping away from the Lamanites who were warring with one another all over the land. Stated differently, we simply do not know where Moroni hid up the records for he never tells us, but does tell us he had wandered far and wide from Cumorah as he endeavored to keep away from the Lamanites who would have killed him if they found him.
    With that in mind, how is it that these North American theorists all cling to the unprovable belief that there is only one hill Cumorah? After all, the hill in upstate New York bears no resemblance to the hill described by Mormon, who was there! The fact that early Church members and leaders believed the hill Cumorah was where Moroni buried the records is both understandable, but unprovable. All we know is that it was where Moroni told Joseph Smith the records were located for him so he could extract them from the hill and translate them.
    To claim more is simply making claims that are not justified by the facts as they are known. And early Church members and leaders were quick to make claims that seemed reasonable to them in their eagerness to show the world the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. In that token, early Church members and leaders also made other claims, including the location of the Land of Promise in Central (meso-) America and South America.
(See the next post, “Which Wall Would You Want to Protect You from Lamanites? – Part II,” for more information on understanding what the scriptural record tells us about the location of the Land of Promise)