Summary for new readers

There are a lot of new readers coming here. Maybe it’s because of the new semester at the BYU campuses or at the CES Institutes. Students are especially welcome because I know from experience you’ve been exposed to the Mesoamerican theory your entire lives. You may have never heard an alternative.

On this blog, I discuss issues related to Book of Mormon geography and historicity.

In my view, there is one fundamental choice that everyone interested in the Book of Mormon needs to make:

Is the Hill Cumorah (Mormon 6:6) in New York or elsewhere?

It’s a simple choice.

What do you think?
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I take the position that the Book of Mormon events took place in North America (north of Central America) and that Cumorah is in New York. If these concepts seem obvious to you, great. You haven’t been persuaded by the handful of LDS scholars who are now spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to promote their insistence that the Book of Mormon took place in Mesoamerica.

I’ve made over 300 posts on this topic on this blog alone. I’ve looked at the issue from many perspectives. I’ve examined 1) what the scholars have published, 2) relevant archaeology, anthropology, geology, geography, and most importantly, 3) the text itself.

From every perspective–save one–the evidence supports the North American setting.

The sole exception is the Mesomania perspective. Mesomania is seeing Mesoamerica in the text and not being able to unsee it.

If you think Cumorah is not in New York, then you have been persuaded by the LDS scholars who don’t even want you to know about alternative ideas–or what Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery said about the subject.
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Here’s another way to look at it:

If you think Cumorah is in New York, then you agree with Oliver Cowdery, Joseph Smith, David Whitmer, and everyone who knew those men personally. You agree with Joseph F. Smith, George Albert Smith, and Joseph Fielding Smith.

If you think Cumorah is not in New York, then you agree with most LDS Book of Mormon scholars today.

It’s that simple.

That’s why I say if you don’t think Cumorah is in New York, it really doesn’t matter where you think it is.
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Feel free to look around and comment. Most readers email me instead of commenting, but comments are welcome.

I especially like to hear from people who disagree. My objective here is to focus on facts and logic, so I’m eager to correct any errors.