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

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

Comment: “Readers wouldn’t care about his intention; they would want to know where he actually buried the plates.”

Response: Unfortunately, he did not say where he hid up the records. And no matter how many theorists claim otherwise, he simply did not say he buried the plates in the Hill Cumorah. The fact that Joseph Smith obtained them from the stone box buried in the hill in Manchester does not mean that Moroni hid them up there toward the end of his mortal life.

Joseph Smith being instructed by Moroni—no doubt much instruction was given to Joseph by Moroni over the years before he received the plates

 

Comment: “If Moroni had not tutored Joseph or mentioned the name Cumorah to David Whitmer, and if Joseph never had any revelation about the Nephites, then everyone would be on an equal basis, interpreting the text however they want.”

Response: First of all, there is no disagreement with the last part of the comment that people would be “interpreting the text however they want.” It seems obvious that theorists are continually doing this—interpreting the scriptural record the way they want—in order to force an agreement between the scriptural record and their opinions and beliefs.

In fact, despite theorists forcing the idea that Moroni told David Whitmer (and Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery) that he was going to the hill Cumorah, there is no record of his doing so in any of Whitmer’s subsequent writings or statements, even to the Quorum of the Twelve. In fact, in Whitmer’s own words, Joseph Smith said Moroni was heading to Fayette where he was going to give the records (plates) back to Joseph—he made no comment about Cumorah, though if Joseph knew he would likely have said so. Nor did Oliver Cowdery, who waxed so eloquently in his expansive discussion about the hill in Manchester later, he said not a single word about the name even when Whitmer demanded to know what or where Cumorah was.

Theorists mistakenly claim that Moroni mentioned “Cumorah” in relationship to the hill in Manchester. But Moroni never said that. His only comment we know of is that Whitmer claimed Moroni said “I am going to Cumorah.” The problem is, Cumorah could be anything and cannot be attributed to the specific hill in Manchester because: 1) he was not going to the hill Cumorah, but to Fayette to deliver the plates to Joseph Smith, according to Joseph’s own testimony; and 2) Did he mention Cumorah in relationship to the Hill Cumorah, or the Land Cumorah, or some other meaning associated with the Cumorah that we do not know about?

Joseph Smith speaking to a group of members about the Book of Mormon

 

Comment: “There seems to be that everything Joseph Smith wrote or said or incorporated into his history had no prophetic insight; i.e., a person reading the Book of Mormon today knows as much about it as Joseph Smith.”

Response: This contradicts not only the historical record but the very purpose for having a prophet. Obviously, Joseph Smith knew a lot more than any of us; however, that does not give us carte blanche to guess or speculate on what Joseph knew. All we have is his writings to go by and the various journals of the time and since he never wrote about the two Cumorah’s being one, we cannot assume he thought that.

Comment: “As the Book of Mormon claims, there was a city around the Hill Cumorah anciently, and evidence of this is found around the Hill Cumorah in New York.”

Response: When making such claims, it is always wise to check and see what the scriptural record actually states. As an example, Mormon uses the word “Cumorah” eight times in the scriptural record, all in his own book, and Moroni uses the word once, in his continuation of his father’s writings. In all nine occasions, there is not a single reference to a nearby city or any people around Cumorah other than those Nephites who were left from the wars, that Mormon gathered in for a final battle with the Lamanites.

Mormon writing to the Lamanite king

 

As Mormon stated: “I, Mormon, wrote an epistle unto the king of the Lamanites, and desired of him that he would grant unto us that we might gather together our people unto the land of Cumorah, by a hill which was called Cumorah, and there we could give them battle (Mormon 6:2); “We did march forth to the land of Cumorah, and we did pitch our tents around about the hill Cumorah; and it was in a land of many waters, rivers, and fountains; and here we had hope to gain advantage over the Lamanites” (Mormon 6:4); “When three hundred and eighty and four years had passed away, we had gathered in all the remainder of our people unto the land of Cumorah” (Mormon 6:5); “That when we had gathered in all our people in one to the land of Cumorah, behold I, Mormon, began to be old; and knowing it to be the last struggle of my people, and having been commanded of the Lord that I should not suffer the records which had been handed down by our fathers, which were sacred, to fall into the hands of the Lamanites, (for the Lamanites would destroy them) therefore 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); “And when they had gone through and hewn down all my people save it were twenty and four of us, (among whom was my son Moroni) and we having survived the dead of our people, did behold on the morrow, when the Lamanites had returned unto their camps, from the top of the hill Cumorah, the ten thousand of my people who were hewn down, being led in the front by me” (Mormon 6:11); “After the great and tremendous battle at Cumorah, behold, the Nephites who had escaped into the country southward were hunted by the Lamanites, until they were all destroyed” (Mormon 8:2).

As can be seen, there is no mention of a city near Cumorah. It is true that the Jaredites built a large city near the Narrow Neck of Land: “And they built a great city by the narrow neck of land, by the place where the sea divides the land” (Ether 10:20). and when Nephites and Lamanites agreed to a treaty: “In the three hundred and fiftieth year we made a treaty with the Lamanites and the robbers of Gadianton, in which we did get the lands of our inheritance divided” (Mormon 2:28). Evidently, Mormon used this ancient city as the location for his army after the truce was achieved: “I did cause my people that they should gather themselves together at the land Desolation, to a city which was in the borders, by the narrow pass which led into the land southward” (Mormon 3:5). However, this city was not near the Land of Cumorah, nor the Hill Cumorah—there is simply no city mentioned around the Hill Cumorah!

Comment: “Although Joseph Smith was in a perfect position to know a different name of the hill in New York from Moroni, and to correct the Saints when they called it the hill Cumorah, he didn’t, show that he knew it by that name.

The fact that Joseph did not correct people is likely the same reason he did not correct other statements, based on the right of an individual to his own opinion, i.e., the right to express his own opinion. An attitude Joseph Fielding Smith had when he told Sidney Sperry as we have earlier stated about Sperry having a contrary opinion than Joseph Fielding Smith: “You are as entitled to your opinion as I am to mine," Joseph Fielding Smith told Sperry. "You go ahead and publish it.”

(See the next post, “Who Said What, and What Did They Mean? – Part III,” for more of the comments made by theorists regarding their interpretation of the statements made and writing given)