Response to a Reader – Part II

Continuing our response to a reader relating to one of our articles, printed here because of its length.

Comment: “Look up Ramah in your quad index. It says Hill Cumorah. There are many 'cumorahs', The cumorah for the United States would be Denali (or the former Mt. McKinley) in Alaska. The high hill (or cumorah) near Palmyra is called the Hill Cumorah. (Which is really rather redundant if you think about it) The 'cumorah' in Israel/Palestine would be the Golan Heights called in Hebrew "Golan de Rama."
Response: The word “Raamah” or “Rama” is a name found in the Bible (Hebrew: רעמה, Ra‛mâh), means "lofty" or "exalted" and also "thunder." It is used as the name of a person (fourth son of Cush, son of Ham [Gen 10:7]), as well as a country (which traded with Tyre [Ezekiel 27:11]), and the name for an Israelite city close to Tyre.
    It should be kept in mind that the quad index, which is not scripture, is no doubt using the name Ramah in the context of a hill by the Jaredites, who did not know Hebrew. What the Jaredite meaning for “Rama” might have been is unknown, no matter any similarity.
    Homophones are common in the English language where a word sounds alike and have different meanings, and also have different spellings. There are also homonyms and homographs. As an example: Crane is a bird; an object to lift; and a movement of the neck for better angle or sight; Date is a fruit, an event between boy and girl date, dating an object; and date of birth.
Whether words sound alike or are spelled the same, it does not mean they have the same meaning, such as engaged, foil, leaves, net, point, right, rose, and type. Or those spelled differently but sound the same, such as: dew, due; die, dye; discreet, discrete; doe, doh, dough; done, dun; douse, dowse; draft, draught; dual, duel.

The same is true in Hebrew to English, where words sound alike, but have very different meanings such as: The Hebrew word for a rod sounds like moat.  The word for "between" sounds like bane.  The word for capital (in the financial sense) sounds like hone. The word for “light” sounds like or; the word for “they” (masculine) sounds like hem, and (feminine) sounds like hen.
    As for Cumorah’s etymology in the East Semitic lexeme, the word’s etymology may be found, such as in the Akkadian verb kamāru in the G-stem means “to heap up, to layer” including corpses, and in the N-stem it is applied to ruin mounds and piled up corpses (Alessia Prioletta, Inscriptions from the Southern Highlands of Yemen, Bretschneider, Rome, 2013, p243-244).
Comment: Jaredite prophets prophesied that “there was great calamity in all the land, for they had testified that a great curse should come upon the land, and also upon the people, and that there should be a great destruction among them, such as the one in Ether 11:6.
Response: Ether states: “there was great calamity in all the land, for they had testified that a great curse should come upon the land, and also upon the people, and that there should be a great destruction among them, such a one as never had been upon the face of the earth, and their bones should become as heaps of earth upon the face of the land except they should repent of their wickedness” (Ether 11:6, emphasis added). An appropriate description of the destruction of both the Jaredites and the Nephites at the hill Ramah.
    Also note that the word or name Cumorah does not appear in Ether, for Moroni stated: “Coriantumr did pitch their tents by the hill Ramah; and it was that same hill where my father Mormon did hide up the records unto the Lord, which were sacred” (Ether 15:11, emphasis added). Mormon hid the records in Cumorah, but not the records he gave to his son, which are the records Joseph Smith was given and translated (Mormon 6:6). Moroni, himself only stated that “I will write and hide up the records in the earth; and whither I go it mattereth not” (Mormon 8:4).
Comment: “Why would Moroni hang around 350,000 Nephi dead bodies of men. women and children just to bury the abridged copy in the same hill as Mormon hid the un abridged copy? The stench of the rotting dead would have been unbearable! It doesn't make sense, and if it doesn't make sense it is not true.”
Response: Obviously, he would not, as we have repeatedly stated in this blog.
Comment: “Why is it that a convert to the Church (me) can easily identify the lands down to the narrow neck of land (which by the way doesn't exist anymore) and the East Sea (which doesn't exist anymore either) and even the Land of Desolation (called that because of volcanic activity and the hardened pumice [cooled lava rock] which would be on top of the ground preventing the planting of crops).”
Response: First, unless you state an area, such a question cannot be answered. In the case of South America, which we have also repeatedly written about, the location of the narrow neck of land is easily shown, and is still now narrow, though the East Sea no longer exists, the central part, the Amazon Draining Basin has risen up to sea level, slightly above in some areas, and slightly below in others.

A land devoid of trees and location of the destruction of the Jaredites

Second, the Land of Desolation was not so called because it was desolate, no matter from what cause. It was called Desolation because “And now no part of the land was desolate, save it were for timber; but because of the greatness of the destruction of the people who had before inhabited the land it was called desolate (Helaman 3:6, emphasis added). This is also seen in Alma where it is said, “after many days their dead bodies were heaped up upon the face of the earth, and they were covered with a shallow covering. And now so great was the scent thereof that the people did not go in to possess the land of Ammonihah for many years. And it was called Desolation of Nehors; for they were of the profession of Nehor, who were slain; and their lands remained desolate” (Alma 16:11, emphasis added).
Comment: “Now 2000+ years later that pumice would be under several feet of dirt making that area very agricultural today (hidden in plain sight). Think volcanic geography of Hawaii. Lots of volcanos in its past but yet now very lush and green.”
Response: Whether or not the land was covered with volcanic activity and hardened pumice is unknown. On the other hand, the scriptural record tells us it was called Desolation because of the destruction of the people there. In addition, we are also told that the land itself was not barren in any way, except for their being no trees.
Comment: “What about Zelph? The great white warrior…huh? Huh? Easy. If you know your scriptures, you'll know Hogarth made rafts and set sail. Hogarth & Co., were Nephites. They sailed North eventually up through the Mississippi River (Bat Stone) eventually colonizing what is now known as the United States. Zelph and that whole bunch were probably decedents of those sailors”
Response: First of all, the name is Hagoth, and secondly, Hagoth did not make rafts. Alma tells us: “Hagoth, he being an exceedingly curious man, therefore he went forth and built him an exceedingly large ship, on the borders of the land Bountiful, by the land Desolation, and launched it forth into the west sea, by the narrow neck which led into the land northward” (Alma 63:5).
    It would require “rafts” to have sailed up the Mississippi anciently, but Hagoth did not build rafts—he built exceedingly large ships.