M2C was developed to fill a void, a lack of information that was intolerable to many believers in the Book of Mormon.
Long ago, Hugh Nibley pointed out this psychological reality:
The penalty we pay for starving our minds is a phenomenon that is only too conspicuous at the BYU: Aristotle pointed out long ago that a shortage of knowledge is an intolerable state and so the mind will do anything to escape it; in particular, it will invent knowledge if it has to.
Experimenters have found that “lack of information quickly breeds insecurity in a situation where any information is regarded as better than none.” (11) In that atmosphere, false information flourishes and subjects in tests are “eager to listen to and believe any sort of preposterous nonsense.” (12)
http://emp.byui.edu/ANDERSONKC/Zeal%20Without%20Knowledge.pdf
The early hemispheric model created by the Pratt Brothers, Benjamin Winchester, William Smith, etc., filled a gap in knowledge. Even after Joseph Smith tried to clarify the situation in the Wentworth letter, his associates insisted the ruins in Central America had to originate with the Nephites.
The anonymous articles in the 1842 Times and Seasons were absurd on their face, and in hindsight they are even worse because they describe ruins that postdated Book of Mormon time frames. Nevertheless, they constituted a “hook in the sky” upon which certain intellectuals, first in the RLDS church and then in the LDS church, could hang M2C.
By now, the M2C intellectuals have invented all kinds of knowledge about the Nephites that originated with Mesoamerican studies but not the text of the Book of Mormon. And their zeal knows no bounds; they’ll spend every penny they raise from members of the Church and the Church itself to promote M2C to the world.
Just watch what happens with ScripturePlus as it replaces Gospel Library.
Watch all the internet ads.
And watch how the 2020 Come Follow Me curriculum fits like a glove over the hand of Book of Mormon Central.
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The tragedy of all of this is a little more patience would have let the intellectuals satisfy their thirst for knowledge by focusing on all the archaeological information coming out of the Midwestern United States.
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Brother Nibley made another insightful comment:
True knowledge never shuts the door on more knowledge, but zeal often does. One thinks of the dictum: “We are not seeking for truth at the BYU; we have the truth!” So did Adam and Abraham have the truth, far greater and more truth than what we have, and yet the particular genius of each was that he was constantly “seeking for greater light and knowledge.”
Source: About Central America
2 thoughts on “Inventing M2C”
How can a position of neutrality on Book of Mormon Geography give church employees at the COB, BYU, Maxwell Institute, etc., a license to promote the Mesoamerican model through curriculum materials (Come Follow Me, Book of Mormon 2020) and Deseret Book publications? I don’t believe that is wise use of our tithing dollars. This is unconscionable.
How is Book of Mormon Central related to the church? I assume they are totally independent like “Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship (advertised as peer-reviewed). Sadly, they both use church verbiage to make unsuspecting readers and donors think they are affiliated with and in harmony with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Has anyone looked at the 2018 Maxwell Institute Study Edition of the Book of Mormon? Is it neutral or does it promote M2C?
Jonathan, you should write a book called, “A Case for the Book of Mormon in America.” Tad Callister won’t mind.
Like you and I and everyone else growing up in the 50s, 60s, 70s, and to the present, I was taught the Mesoamerican model and I passed it along as a missionary in the early 1970s and to coworkers for several decades. I never felt comfortable with that model. I never heard of the heartland model until 2 or 3 years ago.
Through my own study of the Book of Mormon, I recently realized how silly the Mesoamerican model is because it’s entire mantra and focus is on a fantasy map showing a narrow neck of land and the east and west sea (NNLEWS). Oh, the folly and foolishness of M2C! These significant landmarks were not mentioned until over 500 years after Lehi landed in the promised land after sailing through the “many waters” and not the east/west sea.
The Jaredites and Mulekites sailed through the “great waters” and not the east/west sea. NNLEWS obviously refers to the Great Lakes area and the waters of Ripliancum, which, by interpretation, is large, or to exceed all. I believe this is the Great Lakes and not Niagara Falls which is the 5th largest waterfall in the world by volume. At the very least, the waters of Ripliancum includes the Great Lakes, Niagara Falls, finger lakes and many lakes in Canada.
And they built a great city by the narrow neck of land, by the place where the sea divides the land (Ether 10:20). This one concept proves the Mesoamerican model wrong because the land divides the water. The Great Lakes clearly divides the land!
https://bookofmormonevidence.blogspot.com/ seems to understand that the Book of Mormon events happened in America.
http://www.mormondialogue.org/ has some interesting discussions.
http://www.mormondialogue.org/topic/72213-annotated-book-of-mormon/?tab=comments#comment-1209929109 has some comments on the origins of “Two Cumorah” theory. According to Burnside, Louis E. Hills (RLDS/CoC) published this in his 1924 book.
After 40+ years of indoctrination, M2C has become the default belief among most LDS. When people talk about “neutrality” they mostly mean “neutrality about where in Mesoamerica the Book of Mormon took place.” Once you realize that, you see how the employees implement M2C everywhere, all the while thinking they are “neutral.”
The most infamous example is Volume 1 of the Saints book, in which Church historians changed Church history to accommodate M2C. They justified this by claiming “neutrality.”
The Maxwell Institute Study Edition is all M2C. I discussed that here: http://www.bookofmormoncentralamerica.com/2019/07/neutrality-maxwell-institute.html
More and more members of the Church are learning about the teachings of the prophets, despite the efforts of the M2C intellectuals. Eventually the right thing will happen. I hope the intellectuals decide at some point to stop censoring and disputing the teachings of the prophets, but whether they do or not, most members of the Church, once fully informed, choose the prophets over the intellectuals.
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