Calling the Kettle Black

It always amazes us when we get information or comments that are so far outside reality or take such license with available factual data that it boggles the mind.

The first-ever drawn map of a separate Asia, by Sebastian Münster in 1550 A.D., taken in part from the travels of Marco Polo in 1275 A.D., whivh changed Europe’s ideas and views of Asia—like all maps of its time, the cartographer extends the continent off the eastern edge of the map, so as not to commit on whether Asia was or was not connected with North America, despite his own map of America showing it as a separate land mass. Note the large island in red, which is Sumatra, and to its right, the Peninsula of Malay (Malaqua);Java to the right of Sumatra is shown separate, as are numerous other islands in Indonesia

One of our readers in a long running  debate that has been going on for many weeks wrote: “This is what I don't understand about you. You can look at something that is one thing and say it is another…What puzzles me is how you can look at one thing and say it is another, and then claim that your skewed view is proof that others are wrong.”
    Now, when I was young, my mother used to tell me, “That’s the pot calling the kettle black,” meaning of course that someone was guilty themself of what they were accusing another of doing. It is beyond belief that this reader can make this statement with a straight face—twice—when, in fact, he has ignored just about every point we have shown to him and yet act like they don’t even exist, and then counter with information from theorists rather than non-involved researchers and experts.
    Most of what has been sent us, which we always check out, is information, drawings, etc., from the very people who promote his ideas. One might wonder if he can tell the difference between information from people who have an axe to grind or irons in the same fire, and those who are not involved with the Book of Mormon, LDS Church, or any of this type of philosophy, but who research, study, and perform in a strictly academic world--it is hard to know since almost no checkable references or support data is included in his speculative statements.
    And despite these absolute denials (without any support at all), that Madagascar, as we outlined once in a rebuttal to a point of the Malay Peninsula being an island, was anciently referred to by historians as the Island of Malay, not the peninsula, and also throughout history, to separate the peninsular Malay from the Malay on the island of Borneo, the latter was referred to as the Island of Malay.

Reader’s submitted site showing an unreadable and unverified map as his proof the Malay Peninsula was once an island

In addition, in checking out the recent reference he sent (above), it typically does not provide any useful information toward any type of discussion. The sight, (https://cldup.com/hUIIcoLluB-3000x3000.png), is simply a cloud storage/deposit/sharing site and as such, has no credibility toward any source material placed on it, such as the image the reader submitted, which is merely an enlarged triangular island in the midst of the sea (shown above) without a single word readable in all five written blocks and on the land mass itself. A lot of good such a link is to send.

An actual map of this island, shown with south at the top, and located off the coast of Indiae Pars, that is, the country of India. The island is clearly labeled “Taprobana,” which is the name often given to ancient Sri Lanka. Note the clarity of the map available—one can only wonder why a map of this island was sent to us (referred internet address) that was unreadable (Mare Indicum is the term for the Indian Ocean, and Mare Di India means Sea of India and Indiae Pars means Part of India) 

In fact, there are good maps available showing this “claimed” island in the Arabian Sea or Indian Ocean, however, there is a lot of controversy over it, but when taken as a whole, it first appeared on Ptolemy’s map from 150 A.D. in which it is, according to the vast majority of historians, etc., a mis-drawing of the island of Sri Lanka, referred to by Ptolemy as Taprobane, a name first reported to Europeans by the Greek geographer Megasthenes around 290 BC., and first appears on a map by Eratosthenes (276 to 196 BC) and was later adopted by Ptolemy (139 AD) in his geographical treatise to identify a relatively large island south of continental Asia.
    To be complete, on this, there are those who claim Taprobane was a large island that collided with India around 690 A.D. to become the sub-continent’s lower section. There are also those, like Javan hydro engineer Dhani Irwanto, who claims that the ancient island was really Kalimantan, known today as Borneo, an island upon which the main part of Malay is located (not peninsular Malay, which is on the Malay Peninsula). But despite all the hyped confusion about this ancient island, none have claimed it was the Malay Peninsula unconnected to the mainland.
    Also there are far better maps showing this particular separation.

Ptolemy’s 150 A.D. map; Top: Yellow Circle around the Malay Peninsula; Bottom: Blow-up of the area, showing not only the Malay Peninsula (called Aurea Chersonesus by Ptolemy) but also the famed island our reader claims is the Malay Island, when in fact, it is Sri Lanka (what used to be called Ceylon, and by Ptolomy, called Taprobane—printed above the lower orange line). Note that India (printed above top orange line) is clearly listed on the map above Taprobane, which distorts considerably Sri Lanka’s size and placement, but is that island in Ptolemy’s map

On Claudius Ptolemy’s world map (above) shown in Ptolemy's Geography (circa 150 A.D.) indicating "Sinae" (China) at the extreme right, beyond the island of "Taprobane," which is Ceylon (oversized) and the "Aurea Chersonesus" (Southeast Asian peninsula), which is the Malay Peninsula. This term Χρυσῆ Χερσόνησος, Chrysḗ Chersónēsos; Latin: Chersonesus Aurea, means the Golden Peninsula, the name anciently used for the Malay Peninsula by Greek and Roman geographers in classical antiquity, including Ptolemy’s famed Geography (Geographical Guidance), also known by its Latin names as the Geographia and the Cosmographia, which is a gazetteer, or atlas, and a treatise on cartography, compiling the geographical knowledge of the 2^nd Century Roman Empire. It was originally compiled by Ptolemy in Greek at Alexandria around 150 A.D., and was a revision of a now-lost atlas by Marinus of Tyre (a Hellenized Greek geographer, cartographer and mathematician who founded mathematical geography; and in addition to Ptolemy, was cited by the Arab geographer al-Mas’ūdī) and using additional Roman and Persian gazetteers and new principles, including his careful study of the works of his predecessors and the diaries of travelers.

In fact, there are several maps of the area available from ancient sources—not modern claims, and they all show not only the peninsula of Malay connected to the mainland, but also geological maps show that the land beneath the surface extends out several miles in all directions and that this ancient land area was much larger! Ptolemy’s map (the earliest actual map found in any ancient atlas (or set of world maps drawn anciently) of around 150 A.D. shows the Malay peninsula connected to the mainland as do all the others including those claimed to overlap the Nephite period.

As we stated above, it is interesting that theorists love to point the finger at other people’s opinions and ideas and dismiss them as not knowledgeable or uninformed, when in reality they forget the other three fingers are pointing back at themselves. Theories based on supposition, speculation, opinion, belief is rarely going to trump ideas based on independent facts that are supported by numerous people who study, research and write in the fields under discussion. It is one of the reasons we try to give sources to most of what we write to show the backing such ideas have in the scientific communities under discussion. As an example, one might want to check out J. T. “Han” van Gorsel, Bibliography of the Geology of Indonesia and Surrounding Areas, 5^th Edition, 2013, The first chapter of the bibliography contains 212 pages with over 2100 titles of papers on the regional geology of Indonesia and adjacent southeast Asia-Pacific, including Indonesia Regional Geology, SE Asia Tectonics, Paleobiogeography, Volcanism, Volcanic rocks geochemistry, Modern environments, Oceanography, Carbonates, Coral Reefs, and Indonesia Regional Geology)