More Comments from Readers – Part II

Here are more comments and questions received from readers of this blog.                           
    Comment #1: “So how did Moroni walk with 60lbs of gold plates all the way from Chile to NY to put them in a hillside? I imagine you have a story for this event?” Papa K.
    Response: First of all, Moroni would not have traveled from Chile to New York. The Hill Cumorah in the Land of Promise was likely Cerro Imbabura, located in northern Ecuador in an area referred to as the “Land of Many Waters,” with that Ecuadorian land being the Land Northward and Peru and Western Bolivia being the Land Southward. Lehi landed in Chile, about 30º South Latitude, in the Bay of Coquimbo, adjacent to La Serena, where Lehi would have dwelt before his death, of which land was referred to as the Land of Lehi in the Book of Lehi (the lost 116 pages).
    Secondly, we have detailed this event, that is, Moroni and the plates, the hill Cumorah in the Land of Promise and the small, drumlin hill in New York where Joseph obtained the plates on this website blog many times.
    Thirdly, as for moving about and carrying the weight of the plates, we know Moroni had the plates at the hill Cumorah at the final battle in 385 AD (Mormon 6:6), we also know he had the plates in 400 AD (Mormon 8:6), when he abridged the Jaredite record of Ether (Moroni 1:1), and we also know he had the plates when he made his final entry in 421 AD (Moroni 1:1; 10:34)—and in all that time he was running and hiding for his life, trying to keep from being found by the Lamanites who would have killed him on the spot (Moroni 1:1). So how did he carry those plates around with him as he moved about (when one is in hiding he does not keep returning to a single place, but rarely is in the same area for very long and keeps moving into areas where there is no evidence of his prior being).
    Also, with some 300,000 or so being killed at Cumorah, who were left unburied as the Lamanites were engaged in a tremendous civil war among themselves, which ending was nowhere in sight 36 years later in 421 AD (Mormon 8:8; Moroni 1:2). it is unlikely anyone could have been around the hill Cumorah where the battle took place for many, many years, much longer than the 36 years indicated between the battle and the hiding of the plates in 421 AD or after for the stench would have been both unbearable and obviously full of wild animals for many years.

Lastly, Moroni never tells us where he hid the plates—there is no mention of Moroni burying the plates in the hill Cumorah, or anywhere else other than his final statement on the matter: "I will write and hide up the records in the earth; and whether I go it mattereth not" (Mormon 8:4).
    The problem with trying to understand or answer questions arising from the Book of Mormon is one's pre-determined interpretation of events that, themselves, are in error. We cannot assume Moroni buried the plates in the hill Cumorah of the Book of Mormon where the final battle took place. We cannot assume where Joseph Smith obtained the plates was where they were buried originally around 421 AD, and where they would have remained for nearly 1600 years—after all, they were not returned to the stone box buried in the hill in New York after Joseph completed his translation, they were placed in a cavernous room full of thousands of other plates and records of the Nephites, of which Brigham Young said it would have filled many wagon loads (Journal of Discourses 19:38)—the hill in New York was basically a gravel deposit from ancient Glaciers, called a drumlin hill, and could have not had any type of cave or cavern within it for drumlins are composed of till, significant amounts of gravels, and rock underlying the surface till. There would be nothing within the base of the hill to hold up the hill around it.
    It should also be noted that the hill in New York was unnamed at the time of these events, and after Joseph obtained the plates from that hill in New York, the hill was called “Gold Bible Hill,” “Mormon Hill,” and “Inspiration Point”—and not ever called Hill Cumorah by either Moroni or Joseph Smith. That was a name given it by early members of the Church as we have chronicled in this website.
    Comment #2 “To those who claim North America was the Land of Promise, I have one question: “Where are the large stone buildings recorded in the Book of Mormon and where is the volcanic evidence that was the cause of the three days of darkness that has to be in evidence on the North American continent? Opinions are fun but when you lack all proof of evidence to back them up, you prove your ignorance of the truth and a biased premeditation for a falsehood” J. Cameron S.

Response: Well said. By the way, in order to have volcanic evidence, you have to have mountains—other than the Rockies in the far West, and smaller ones along the East Coast, there are really no mountains in the Heartland or around the Great Lakes where North American theorists want to place their Land of Promise. In addition, those mountains in the Land of Promise were to be "mountains whose height is great" (Helaman 14:23).
    Comment #3: “The fact that none of the known archaeology, anthropology, or cultures found in MesoAmerica come close to matching the Hebrew/Christian cultures claimed in the BOM, is much more damning to the BOM than not finding any actual sites” Chrissy M.
    Response: If you intend to look for evidence about the stand at the Alamo, I would suggest you not go to Quebec, Canada, or to San Miguel, El Salvador, to look for it. Common sense alone says you would need to go to the site of the actual place for which you are looking to find evidence. Along this line of thinking, then, Mesoamerica is not the place to look for evidence of the Book of Momron, since it has nothing to do with the cities, settlements and locations described in the scriptural record. Best you look into Andean South America. On the other hand, if you are looking for some semblance of Hebrew/Christian culture in the Land of Promise more than a thousand years after it was totally wiped out, good luck. The remaining culture in the Land of Promise after 385 A.D., was Lamanite, anti-God by nature and practice. Their culture was far different than the Nephites.
    Comment #4: “You write that Mormon wrote only what the Lord told him to." While I agree that the Lord inserted Himself into the narrative at times, it doesn't mean that he exercised absolute control over the text. One simple example to be brief: "And now I, Mormon, would that ye should know..." is one phrase that indicates that Mormon himself is in control of the text” Fairly B.
    Response: We have never written that the Lord dictated to Mormon what he should write—that was done to Moses when he wrote Genesis dictated to him by the Lord. Mormon was instructed at times to include certain things, however, his assignment was to abridge the record. While that abridgement was his choice, it seems highly likely the Lord (Spirit) was more involved in it than perhaps you may think. Yet, it is certain Mormon made choices on his own, as any servant is expected to do once given a direction (and probably certain guidelines). That Mormon relied on the Spirit to direct him seems highly likely, but ultimately he did the writing.
    Comment: #5: “In 1600 years, there should be plenty of evidence of Hebrew/Christian based culture and religion, but there is none” Brad G.

Response: It has been 1600 years since the Nephite nation came to an end, and all that was Nephite being destroyed—none survived to tell the tale other than Moroni (Mormon 8:3). Those remaining in that land were hereditary enemies, who vowed to destroy everything possessed by their thousand-year war with the enemy. In addition, those who survived (Lamanites) were not an advanced people, who had fallen into savagery and a very lengthy civil war after a 60 year war that ended in the annihilation of the Nephites, their culture, their civilization, their language, their writing, and everything about them.
    Exactly what would you expect to find when everything about them was wiped out and those who survived were barely above the hunter-gatherer level of civilization. By the time these survivors’ descendants achieved the level the Spaniard conquistadors found, nearly a thousand years had passed. The fallacy that there should be some semblance of this earlier civilization would survive, other than the buildings that were left behind is a fallacy. And there are plenty of buildings left behind by the Nephite nation all over Andean South America, and lesser buildings built by the Nephites who went north in Hagoth’s ships (Alma 63:4-8), in Central and Mesoamerica, showing an advanced civilization in the Americas, dating to the right time of the Nephites, and the Jaredites before them.