We continue to have comments, questions and criticisms being
sent in from readers of our blog. Here are a few more with our responses.
Comment #1: “There was no duplication of place names
in the Book of Mormon unless there was information in the record that confirmed
two different places had the same name. This means that the same place
name could not appear in two different locations, thus there could not have
been two hill cumorahs!” Flint F.
Response: The Book of
Mormon shows us there was an area called Bountiful (1 Nephi 17;5) in Arabia
along the coast of Irreantum, both names were given by Lehi. There is also a
land of Bountiful and a city of Bountiful (Alma 22:19) in the scriptural record
in the Land of Promise. On the other hand there is a city of Jerusalem (Alma
21:4) and land of Jerusalem (Alma 24:1), though we also know there was a land and
city of Jerusalem in Israel, in fact it is also mentioned in the Book of Mormon
(Alma 22:9); however, the land of Ishmael (Alma 17:18) is also the name of the
Land of Ishmael (Arabian Peninsula) in the Old World; the place called
Moriancumer (Ether 2:13) is also the name of the coastal region of Mesopotamia;
however, the point, no doubt, of this comment in the article is to say that there
is only one land or hill Cumorah mentioned in the Book of Mormon, which is
true—on the other hand, the hill Cumorah in upstate New York is not mentioned
directly in the scriptural record, is a name that early members of the Church
gave the drumlin hill, and cannot be included in a duality of names in this
comment, neither does it exclude a second name that occurred outside the
writings of the scriptural record.
Comment #2: “I have read various reports, some from
journals of Prophets of the Church, that give information about the Lamanite
named Zelph during Zion’s Camp. When comparing these, they do not agree and
leave one with a confusing view. Do you have an opinion?” Ellis F.
Response: I can well
imagine your confusion. As any policeman today will tell you, if you have nine
eye-witnesses of an event, you will have nine different accounts of the it. Perhaps
the best way to answer your question is simply to repeat the information the
Church has presented. The Church historian Willard Richards, who joined the
Church in 1836 and was not part of Zion’s Camp or an eye-witness to the events
surrounding the discovery of Zelp, was given the assignment to produce a church
history from a large number of documents in 1842. He spent a little over three
months between December 1842 and March 1843 combining the sources given
him. He drafted the story as though he were Joseph Smith, which appears in Book
A-1 of the Manuscript History of the
Church, June 3, 1834, LDS Church archives, which at one point states,
“Zelph was a white Lamanite, a man of God who was a warrior and chieftain under
the great prophet Onandagus who was known from the (hill Cumorah is
crossed out in the manuscript) eastern Sea, to the Rocky Mountains. He was
killed in battle, by the arrow found among his ribs, during a (last
crossed out) great struggle with the Lamanites" (and Nephites
crossed out). At the time this was done, Joseph Smith was still alive, as were
the writers of the journals Richards obviously used. So were many members of
Zion’s Camp that he may have interviewed.
The area called Zelph’s Mound, about 300 feet up from the river. On June 2, 1834 Joseph Smith and about
150 men camped here as they were on their way to Missouri with "Zions
Camp." While there, Joseph had a vision of a short history of a Lamanite
warrior that was killed in this spot in one of the final battles of the
Lamanites in this area. His name was Zelph and in an earlier battle he had his
thigh bone broken and then in this last battle he had become so righteous that
the "curse" was lifted from him and he had become a white Lamanite. The
Lord "allowed" him to die in this battle so he could "return
home.” Joseph told the men where to dig and when they dug about two feet
deep they uncovered a skeleton with arrowhead in his spine and a thigh bone
that was broken but healed with an osseous callous
After the prophet Joseph Smith’s
death, the History of Joseph Smith was
serially published in the Times and
Season, and when the story of Zelph appeared in the January 1, 1846 issue,
most of the words that were crossed out in the Willard Richards manuscript were
reinserted into the story and the name of the prophet was listed as Omandagus.
In addition, Wilford Woodruff’s unamended journal was still included in the
narrative along with the phrase, “during the last great struggle of the
Lamanites and Nephites,” which had been crossed out by Richards during Joseph
Smith’s lifetime.
However, Richards’ account
reappeared in the 1904 first edition of the seven-volume History of the Church,
edited by B.H. Roberts, though after Joseph Fielding Smith became Church
historian in 1948, explicit references to the hill Cumorah and the Nephites
were reintroduced—a phrasing that has continued to the present in each
subsequent printing.
Comment #3: “Among
the most significant cultural anachronisms in the Book of Mormon is the depiction of Nephite civilization as
having iron and other metal industries; we read of metal swords and
breastplates, gold and silver coinage, and even machinery (2 Nephi 5:15; Jarom
1:8; Mosiah 11:3,8; Ether 7:9;10:23). However, there is no evidence that any
New World civilization attained any such industry during Book of Mormon times (600 B. C. - 421
A. D.)”
Jedd V.
Metellurgy in Peru dating to as early as 900
to 500 B.C. among the Chavin
Response: Granted
that there is no evidence of metallurgy in Mesoamerica before 900 A.D., though
some argue for an earlier date of 600 A.D. However, you might want to read the
numerous reports and articles that have been written about ancient Andean South
America, where metallurgy dates back into the B.C. times, and is considered to
have been excellently done by experienced metallurgists. Or just read the book Lehi Never Saw Mesoamerica, and other posts
in the blog.
Comment
#4: “According to your Book
of Mormon, at least 230,000 men died in battle at the Hill Cumorah.
Also, this battle was about 1/10 the size of the battle which took place at the
same location approximately 1,000 years earlier when, according to Ether 15:2
"nearly two millions" of the Jaredites had their last great battle.
However, there is literally not a trace of archaeological evidence to support
the claim that so many men died in battle at the tiny hill now owned by the LDS
Church in the State of New York called Cumorah”
Flint R.
Response: First of all, you are absolutely right. There is
no evidence that any battle was fought around the drumlin hill in upstate New
York known today as the Hill Cumroah. The reason for this is because that hill
Cumorah is not the one mentioned in the scriptural record—it was given that
name, among others, by early members of the Church, because it was where the
plates were found that were buried there at an earlier time.
However, any unbiased evaluation of the hill would show even
the most cursory investigator that the hill does not meet the numerous
requirements shown in the scriptural record of the Hill Cumorah in the Land of
Cumorah, of the Book of Mormon. I do need to disagree with you on one point in
your comment. While some 230,000 Nephites died at the last battle with the
Lamanites, certainly there would have been numerous Lamanites who died there
also—the count would at least be over 300,000. But the point of disagreement is
about the two million Jaredites. Four years before that last battle, two
million Jaredites had been killed in the running war of many years; however,
the final battle that took place contained an equally large number, but we do
not know how many, nor can it be said that those Jaredites who fought there
were the two million mentioned earlier.
Comment #5: “Dr. John L. Sorenson proposed that the
Nephites were really referring to either a species of deer or tapir, but since
they did not have names for these animals, they called them horses. This seems
a weak response, but even if it were true it doesn't account for the many other
animals and crops for which there is absolutely no archeological evidence”
A.J.
Left: Tapir; Right: Horse. It is difficult
to imagine how anyone could mistake these two animals
Response: Indeed it
is a weak argument. In fact, Sorenson makes numerous weak arguments in trying
to defend his Mesoamerican setting for the Book of Mormon. However, as has been
reported here in these posts, horse bones and remains have been found in Andean
South America dating to before the
Spanish arrival, and after the
so-called extinction of the horse in the Americas. There is also evidence of
elephants, of barley grains, etc. Perhaps you should look into more modern
evidences rather than repeating old understandings.
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