Friday, April 23, 2021

Who Said What, and What Did They Mean? – Part IV

Continued from the previous post, regarding the different opinions and attitudes theorists have about correlating their beliefs with the scriptural record.

Moroni “hiding the plates up in the earth”

 

Comment: “Nowhere does the text state that “Cumorah was not the resting place of the plates that Mormon gave to Moroni. The text is silent about the matter.”

Response: Exactly! We do not know where Moroni hid up the plates in 421 AD. It is always interesting when theorists claim the scriptural record does not say something, then go on to say that it means it could just the same did take place.

They never seem to think in terms of the opposite—if the scriptural record does not state something took place or existed, then it was not or did not happen! Unless there is other evidence that it did take place or exist. Thus, nowhere in the scriptural record does it state that the burial place of the plates was in the same place or hill that they were later disclosed to Joseph Smith and where he obtained them. The scriptural record and Joseph Smith’s writings are both silent about the matter. Thus, we must conclude that such was and is unknown!

After all, how could Moroni record the burial place of the plates before he buried them? Theoretically, he could have written, “I intend to bury these plates in the hill Cumorah,” but under the dangerous circumstances he was in, running and hiding from the Lamanites, writing such an intention would be pointless since he could not say where he might be at the time he intended to hide up the records.

This is not rocket science—he could not have said with certainty before the hiding, and afterward he would be unable since he no longer had the plates to write on. Thus, we simply do not know. For theorists to keep saying Moroni said where he was going to hide the places, other than in the ground (Mormon 8:4), is merely speculation and not proof of, or support for, burial in the Hill Cumorah of the Book of Mormon—just in the earth.

Second, to recount this, Mormon tells us that: “I made this record out of the plates of Nephi, and hid up in the hill Cumorah all the records which had been entrusted to me by the hand of the Lord, save it were these few plates which I gave unto my son Moroni” (Mormon 6:6). 

Mormon hid the records in the Hill Cumorah save the few he gave to his son, Moroni, which few were the records Moroni gave to Joseph Smith

 

What “few plates” Mormon gave to Moroni were those upon which Moroni completed his father’s record, abridged his translation of Ether, and then compiled his own work. So at least we know that those “few plates” contained the record from Mormon to the end. And since Mormon states “I made this record out of the plates of Nephi,” referring to one record, then stated, “and hid up in the hill Cumorah all the records which had been entrusted to me by the hand of the Lord,” evidently referring not only to second set of records, but those from which he abridged his record (stated as “this record” in Mormon 6:6). Then he added, “except these few plates I gave unto my son Moroni,” thus explaining that his record was the record he gave to his son in which he called them “these few plates.” These, of course, are the same plates that Mormon much earlier stated that he had to deliver to his son when he wrote him a letter, which Moroni included in his own work, “And if it so be that they perish, we know that many of our brethren have deserted over unto the Lamanites, and many more will also desert over unto them; wherefore, write somewhat a few things, if thou art spared and I shall perish and not see thee; but I trust that I may see thee soon; for I have sacred records that I would deliver up unto thee” (Moroni 9:24, emphasis added).

Of these plates, Moroni only says, “Therefore I will write and hide up the records in the earth; and whither I go it mattereth not” (Mormon 8:4), later he added, “And I seal up these records, after I have spoken a few words by way of exhortation unto you” (Moroni 10:2). However, at no time does Moroni say where he “buried in the Earth” or hid up the records upon which he was writing, the records (the few plates) his father gave to him.

Theorists have speculated and members assumed, that they were buried in the Hill Cumorah by Moroni at that time, around 421 AD. However, we do not know what Moroni did with the plates in 421 AD, or at any time prior to Joseph Smith obtained them where Moroni directed him to—in the hill in Manchester, in upstate western New York. 

Did Moroni bury them in the hill Cumorah stated in the scriptural record, in the Land of Many Waters, Rivers and Fountains, in the Land Northward? We do not know that. Nor do we know that he buried the plates in what was known to him in his mortal life as the Land of Promise. We only know that the records ended up in a nondescript hill near the area where Joseph Smith, Sr., moved his family to Palmyra Village in 1817, and then out into the log house on the farm along the Palmyra-Manchester border in 1819, which was a year before Joseph had his First Vision in the Sacred Grove in 1820.

When the plates were buried in the stone box on side of the hill in New York is not known and cannot be determined from the written record of Moroni. Nor does he tell Joseph Smith when the plates were buried in the hill where Joseph obtained them. To say that this is the one and only hill the plates were buried in solves no problem, because Moroni could have transported them over any distance and in any direction from where he lived out his life—and it could have been done while he still lived, or it could have been done as a translated being.

Comment: “Lettter VII should prove to anyone with half a brain that the hill Cumorah was in New York, not Central America.”

Response: First, you are right—the Hill Cumorah of the scriptural record was not in Central or Mesoamerica. However, that does not mean it was the same as the hill in Manchester, New York, where Joseph Smith obtained the plates. Second, as for Letter VII, the Editorial Note in Joseph Smith History 1834-1836, Joseph Smith Papers, published by the Church, which preceds the eight letters is meaningful: 

The following section includes transcripts of eight letters, written in 1834 and 1835 regarding Joseph Smith visions of an angel and his discovery of the gold plates of the Book of Mormon. Cowdery addressed the letters to William W. Phelps, and published them as a series in the Latter Day Saints’ Messenger and Advocate between October 1834 and October 1835. The titles and formatting employed in this history are similar to those in the published series of articles, indicating that the Cowdery letters were copied into the history from the Messenger and Advocate, not from a manuscript version of the letters.

“Oliver Cowdery composed the letters to inform the Latter-day Saints of the history of their church, but he also wrote for the non-Mormon public. Employing florid (elaborately or excessively intricate or complicated) romantic language (such as in a novel), frequent scriptural allusions (brief reference), and much dramatic detail (meant to stir the imagination and emotions deeply), he clearly intended to present a rhetorically (intended to impress or persuade) impressive account of early Mormon history. He placed the rise of the church in a dispensational framework, characterizing the time between the end of the New Testament and Joseph Smith’s early visions as a period of universal apostasy. He included the revivalism of various denominations during the Second Great Awakening, which Joseph Smith experienced in his youth, as an example of the doctrinal confusion and social disharmony present in Christendom (italics: added definitions for better understanding). The eight letters follow.

Latter Day Saints' Messenger and Advocate, often shortened to Messenger and Advocate, was an early Latter-day Saint monthly newspaper published in Kirtland, Ohio, from October 1834 to September 1837. It was the successor to The Evening and the Morning Star, and the predecessor to the Elders’ Journal. In it, Cowdery’s eight letters to Phelps were published over the length of a year.

The point is, that theorists often state inaccurate information or make it up, in an effort to support their point of view and model of the location of the Land of Promise. As these theorists evidently believe, to make a claim is sufficient to proving a point. However, no matter how many times one makes the claim, there is no evidence from professionals of the area whose livelihood is involved in the finding, cataloguing and displaying of such arrowheads or other such artifacts in, on, or around the hill Cumorah in New York!


 


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