THE PROBLEMS WITH IDENTIFYING BOOK OF MORMON LANDS (1)

THE PROBLEMS WITH IDENTIFYING BOOK OF MORMON LANDS

1. Is there any value in attempting to locate Book of Mormon Lands? 

The First Presidency (highest leaders) of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, have never had, and do not currently have, any official position on where most events mentioned in the Book of Mormon took place, other than somewhere in the Americas. The only endorsed locations are Jerusalem and surrounding landscape in ancient Israel (mentioned in 1st Nephi in the first part of the Book of Mormon), and upstate New York, where Joseph Smith claimed he received the ancient record of the Book of Mormon from an angel in 1820 A.D. This angel, named Moroni, had deposited the book, written on metal plates that had the appearance of gold, in a stone box under a large rock or small boulder on a hill near Palmyra, New York. Similarly, other than these two positions, I have no final opinion on any exact geographic location mentioned in the Book of Mormon, nor will I until the First Presidency of The Church offers an official position. At present I only examine candidates for such locations.

Thin gold plate found in the cenote, or “sacred well” at the Maya ruins of Chichen Itza. This plate shows “Maya” looking warriors confronting warriors dressed like those of central Mexico. One of a set of at least three. Date likely between 800-1000 A.D. Mexico National Museum of Anthropology, Mexico City (photograph by the author).
Chichen Itza, where the above gold plate was found.

The first question that should be addressed is whether or not there is any value in identifying Book of Mormon locations. This question deals with two different groups of people, or two different audiences. The first audience are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints who already have that conviction, that testimony I described earlier in the preface of this book. For this audience, I write from the perspective and assumption that the Book of Mormon is an authentic and true record of a colony of Christians (and offshoots from that colony), that lived somewhere in the ancient Americas. I start by asking the question, Why? Why study where Book of Mormon lands may have been located? For this group, the purpose of this series is not to provide testimony. True testimony can only come in one way, through the Holy Spirit of God, after carefully reading the Book of Mormon, and praying to God to know if it is true (as is instructed in Moroni 10:3-5), and receiving a witness of the Holy Ghost in one’s mind and soul (see Galatians 5:22, John 14:26, Doctrine and Covenants 6:23, 9:8-9). For those who already believe, what is this series for then? President of The Church, Russell M. Nelson stated that “study of the Book of Mormon is most rewarding when one focuses on its primary purpose—to testify of Jesus Christ.” and that “its stories, its people, or its vignettes of history. . . its language structure or its records of weapons, geography, animal life, techniques of building, or systems of weights and measures” by comparison are issues that are “incidental” (Russell M. Nelson, Conference Report, Ensign Magazine, October 1999 issue). 

Jerusalem

What would be the value then in such studies? President Nelson in a later year went on to describe visiting the Holy Land with his family as “life changing” (October 2002 General Conference address, Ensign Magazine). While visiting Israel, Neal Armstrong is reported to have said that stepping on the temple steps where Jesus walked was more thrilling than stepping on the moon. I have heard those who have journeyed to Israel state to me that the Bible literally comes to life for a person after such a journey. You see shepherds on the roadside herding sheep in much the same way their ancestors did 2000 years ago. You walk on pathways and steps that Jesus himself walked on. Sites, smells, a boat ride on the sea of Galilee, readings of scripture stories at probable locations, all bring the Bible to life in indescribable ways for people of faith.

Sea of Galilee

Without it, reading the Bible is like watching a movie where there is no set, no costumes, just actors on an empty stage, sitting on stools and reading a script. But with such a trip, Bible stories spring to life, like watching a large budget Hollywood movie, replete with actors, costumes, and scenery with an authentic appearance. Similarly, the value in identifying Book of Mormon Lands would be in enhancing one’s reading experience and study of the Book of Mormon. This is of secondary importance to the Book of Mormon’s principal purpose, to testify of Jesus Christ. But it can be a valuable and rewarding exercise for those who believe in the book. For those of The Church of Jesus Christ, my aim here is a similar literary journey with the Book of Mormon: to show plausible locations (if not prime candidate locations) for the Book of Mormon, and to paint vistas of ancient landscapes, cultures, and peoples that Book of Mormon groups may have lived among, thus helping the serious student of the Book of Mormon be more able to visualize what it could have been like. My intent is to present the best “candidates” from the archaeological record (described below). I hope this will result in bringing the Book of Mormon to life a little bit more, like a trip to Israel does for the Bible, for the believing member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. 

Western Wall at the Temple Mount
Old Jerusalem

A second reason for writing a book series like this are for those people who are not members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, who may have an interest in the Book of Mormon and The Church. This audience could include people of other faiths, beliefs, or persuasions, including those investigating The Church, those curious about the Book of Mormon, and even perhaps academics and scholars, that have some interest in this subject. I often wonder what people in general think of when they hear about the Book of Mormon. Do they immediately write it off as fiction? Likely so for many of them. Innocent as it may be, this is mostly the fault of members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. We as members of The Restored Church of Jesus Christ don’t have a firm reference point in the Americas for the Book of Mormon. So we have come up with anything and everything as we describe the Book of Mormon to our friends and people we interact with. It seems that, for members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, the Book of Mormon happened where ever someone served as a missionary, or where their sons or daughters served as missionaries. If you talk to former missionaries who served their missions in Peru, they will tell you with conviction, almost testimony like conviction, that the Book of Mormon happened there. The same will be true for many missionaries who served in Brazil, Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, or Missouri or Florida for that matter. I served as a missionary in the New England area. By this “rule” I should be firmly entrenched in the idea that the Book of Mormon happened in the Eastern United States. I have even heard a former missionary who served in Alaska wonder if it happened up there.    

The problem for those not of the The Restored Church of Jesus Christ, who talk to members of that church about the Book of Mormon, or who encounter modern cultural productions on the Book of Mormon, is the unbelievability of the book because of how the members of The Church have portrayed it. I do not believe this has been intentional or malicious in any way, but it has had its consequences. I grew up on the artwork of Arnold Friberg, famous Latter Day Saint artist most known outside of Mormon circles for his 15 pre-visualization paintings for Cecille DeMille’s The Ten Commandments with Charlton Heston and Yul Brynner, for which he received an Academy Award nomination, and his painting of George Washington kneeling in prayer.

Friberg’s Book of Mormon paintings fascinated me as a child when I was first learning about the Book of Mormon. As a young missionary, I bought Friberg prints of my favorite Book of Mormon stories and hung them on my apartment walls. I still cherish and love these pictures today. But these paintings seem to mostly portray white European Caucasians dressed as Old World type citizens and soldiers of classical civilizations like Greece and Rome, or even red headed[1] or blond haired Scandinavian-looking Vikings, whose men could pass for WWE wrestlers on steroids (to be fair, Friberg did attempt to incorporate some ancient American looks in these paintings, such as jaguar skins, quetzal feathers, and obsidian spiked war clubs common among the ancient cultures of Mexico and Central America). Since Friberg, Book of Mormon stories have been portrayed similarly, or in any number of other ways. My son told me of a film on a Book of Mormon story that he saw in a religion class for high schoolers in 2018. His statement was that it looked to him “like Roman Legionaries chasing around a bunch of Comanches” (as portrayed by Hollywood John Wayne movies). In my opinion, the way various members of the community of The Church of Jesus Christ have portrayed the Book of Mormon has been a large stumbling block to those not of that faith, leading many people to quickly dismiss the Book of Mormon as inauthentic fiction. 

We live in an age of information and unprecedented educational opportunities. Many of those who are not members of The Church of Jesus Christ that are inquiring about it are highly educated and deserve something better than the naive and poor portrayals that our pop culture seems to regularly produce. Such portrayals are quite unbelievable. And we can, and ought to do a better job with the information that is out there. The second reason to write this series is to help those honestly investigating the Book of Mormon overcome the inadvertent and unintentional messages that we have portrayed about the Book of Mormon that make it seem immediately unbelievable, based on current knowledge about the ancient Americas and its peoples, to show what the Book of Mormon requires and does not require (which has also been frequently misinterpreted), and to show that it is not only possible, but indeed plausible that Book of Mormon peoples lived in the ancient Americas. 

This book is not intended to attempt to convince anyone, including academics and archaeologists, that there is undeniable archaeological proof out there for the Book of Mormon. As of yet, there is not any undeniable evidence that would do so. If I were writing to an academic audience, this book would be very different. But such an exercise would likely prove unfruitful anyway for a number of reasons. LDS Archaeologist John E. Clark puts it best in an article published at fairmormon.org. In this article, he states that “(1) archaeological evidence will never prove or disprove the truth or falsity of the Book of Mormon, (2) the amount of physical evidence that potentially corroborates claims in the Book of Mormon has increased as a function of more and better archaeology, and (3) evidence gets interpreted according to one’s prior belief or disbelief in the book.” On locating Book of Mormon lands, I highly recommend anyone interested in this subject to read Dr. Clark’s full article, published in 2011, at the following website address: https://www.fairmormon.org/testimonies/scholars/john-e-clark 

In summary, this book series is intended to enrich the study of the Book of Mormon for members of The Church in a visual way, in the same way that a tour to Israel does for students of the bible. Second, this book series is intended for those that are not members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints who have interest in the Book of Mormon, to show them the very real possibility that the Book of Mormon could be what it claims to be. But after that, the next step, and the only sure way to know of the truthfulness of the Book is to read it, ponder it, and pray to know of its truthfulness. Even if the Book of Mormon were proven to be a true record of ancient peoples who lived in the Americas, it is the power of Christ in the words of the book that will truly affect one’s life.  

 [1] Red hair is a cultural marker of the Norse and Vikings, and occurs practically anywhere that Viking trade routes were found, not something that would be associated in any obvious way with The Book of Mormon.