Kept from the knowledge of other nations–except the Mayans

6 thoughts on “Kept from the knowledge of other nations–except the Mayans”

1. President Anthony W. Ivins of the First Presidency cautioned: “We must be careful in the conclusions that we reach. The Book of Mormon … does not tell us that there was no one here before them [the peoples it describes]. It does not tell us that people did not come after.”

   I’d be *very* careful in what you post. I’d hate to see you repudiate the teachings of the prophets.

   1. It’s fun to see people such as “someguy1830” quote one of the Brethren out of context and then ask me to be “very careful” in what I post.

      This is the type of comment people post when they rely on FairMormon, Book of Mormon Central, and other promoters of M2C. It’s a quotation from Pres. Ivins’ April 1829 General Conference address. The first version of the Gospel Topics Essay on Book of Mormon Geography (GTE-BOMG) included the same quotation.

      What the M2C believers don’t know is that the year before, Pres. Ivins gave an entire discourse on the Hill Cumorah in New York. The Church had just purchased the Hill Cumorah. What Pres. Ivins said in 1929 pertained to settings other than the Hill Cumorah in New York. You can read about it here: http://www.lettervii.com/2017/01/the-hill-cumorah-by-president-anthony-w.html

      When I pointed this out in my comments about the GTE-BOMG and suggested they add Pres. Ivins’ 1928 comments to provide context, what did the committee do? They simply deleted their 1929 quotations from Pres. Ivins.

      I discussed that here: https://presidentnelsonspeaks.blogspot.com/2019/01/gospel-topics-essay-on-book-of-mormon.html
      and here: https://presidentnelsonspeaks.blogspot.com/2019/02/revisions-to-gospel-topics-essay-on.html

      The New York Cumorah directly contradicts M2C. That’s why the M2C intellectuals don’t tell their followers about Pres. Ivins’ 1928 sermon. Sadly, that’s also apparently why the committee deleted Pres. Ivins’ 1929 quotation instead of adding the 1928 quotation for context.

      1. Not sure why you include my email handle instead of my name. (It’s James) But no biggie. I’ll let it slide.

         Look, I’ve followed this debate for some time now. I’m well aware of what Pres. Ivins and other church leaders taught about their understanding based on traditions in the church. And while we could curtail this into a whole other thing about where the Hill Cumorah really is like you’re trying to do, I will stick to the original point I brought up that you seem to be forgetting and would appreciate it if you did the same. I am not debating geography, but the quote above compared to what you have written.

         You wrote: “Either the Lord didn’t tell Lehi about the Mayans, or Lehi forgot about the Mayans who already inhabited Mesoamerica long before he and his family arrived.”

         President Ivins said be careful about the notions and ideas you juxtapose onto the text, because who’s to say no matter where they landed there weren’t people already there? Or did the Lord just forget to tell Lehi about the Hopewell, Adena, and other native tribes you relate to the Nephites?

         What about the Jaredites? There are hints of some Jaredite survivors joining up with the main Nephite body at some point. Why else do Jaredite names appear among them? Did the Lord just “forget” to tell Lehi about them? Pretty sure he didn’t tell anyone about the Mulekites either – as Mosiah travelled north there are no explicit statements that they were told the Mulekites were a thing. They just found them. What’s interesting too is how fast the Mulekite language had changed and why they were glad to have the records from Mosiah. That is a linguistic hint that other forces were at play, such as an introduction to a larger culture as a whole.

         Other scholars have pointed this out, but the reason we dont explicitly hear about other tribes is because it is outside the scope of the text. The Book of Mormon is a familial record and history and deals primarily with just one family. That is the same reason we dont hear about the history of other cultures in the Bible, even when they were believers like Jethro and the Midianites who barely appear in it. It is beyond the scope if the text since it was mostly written for the Israelite nation at the time.

         Even then, a 3,000 year old temple wouldn’t be shocking. That actually fits with the Jaredite timetable if it was built in 1000 BC, since the Jaredites fonal wars were around 600 BC.

         Now as a final thought. You claim M2C peopke are trying to hide President Ivins’ quotes from the Gospel Topics Essays. While I do not know if that quote ever was in the Geography essay, I do know it is currently proudly in the Genetics essay and not hidden in the slightest.

         I don’t expect to respond further. I have a busy day ahead of me and honestly this doesn’t seem like the kind of activity to seek out since I do not want to have this curtail a hundred different directions. Have a nice day

         1. Hi James. Thanks for your comment. It’s always good to clarify any misunderstandings.

            What you frame as “traditions in the church” were taught as fact by Oliver Cowdery and established in D&C 128:20. There are still a few LDS who don’t believe the M2C teaching that Joseph Smith simply adopted a false tradition in the church when he wrote D&C 128:20. It’s really very simple. Either you accept what the prophets taught about the NY Cumorah or you repudiate those teachings as false traditions. You can believe whatever you want, of course. I just like people to be clear about what they believe.

            I agree with Pres. Ivins 100%. It’s not juxtaposing anything onto the text to quote Lehi saying the land he inherited was kept from the knowledge of other nations and then pointing out that the Mayans were a well-established nation long before Lehi landed. By contrast, in the southeastern U.S. around 600 B.C., there were at most a few scattered hunter-gatherer groups. No nations at all. Nephi’s descendants didn’t encounter the people of Zarahemla until hundreds of years later, an encounter we read about in the text.

            You can infer that Jaredite survivors joined up with the “main Nephite body” if you want. I infer they joined up with the people of Zarahemla before the Nephites arrived in Zarahemla because the first civilization the Nephites encountered, according to what we have in the text, was the people of Zarahemla. And, we know Coriantumr did join up with them.

            Your comparison to the Bible doesn’t work. The Bible tells about lots of other cultures that interacted with the Israelites, including the Egyptians. It tells us the Midianites descended from Abraham, that Moses fled to the land of Midian, etc. The Jaredites and the people of Zarahemla are the only other cultures mentioned in the Book of Mormon, and they hardly qualify as Mayans. The Israelites in the Bible were surrounded by other civilizations that the text mentions all the time. The Book of Mormon mentions only the people of Zarahemla and the Lamanites as other civilizations. It’s reasonable to infer there were other people, such as the non family members who accompanied Nephi when he fled from his brothers, but if the Book of Mormon followed the Biblical pattern, it should have at least mentioned other civilizations that the Nephites encountered. To infer that the Nephites lived among the extensive Mayan civilization that was unnamed in the text is as implausible as inferring the Nephites lived among unmentioned volcanoes, not to mention jungles, jaguars and jade.

            I agree that a 3,000 year old temple could be Jaredite. Moroni said the book of Ether describes only the Jaredites “in this north country,” which excludes the descendants of others who came with Jared and who lived outside “this north country.” We should expect to find plenty of evidence of the other “-ites” that came with Jared.

            Regarding the Ivins quotations, you are confused. You would know the 1929 quotation was in the original geography GTE if you clicked on the link I provided. The GTE are modified from time to time without notice or documentation (which is bizarre, but a separate topic). The DNA GTE includes an edited version of the 1929 Ivins quotation you provided, not what he said about Cumorah in 1928 (which is the quotation M2C followers don’t know about). Here is the 1929 quotation in full:

            We must be careful in the conclusions that we reach. The Book of Mormon teaches the history of three distinct peoples, or two peoples and three different colonies of people, who came from the old world to this continent. It does not tell us that there was no one here before them. It does not tell us that people did not come after.
            (1929, April, 1st Session, President Anthony W. Ivins, ¶61 • CR90)

            That’s an accurate statement. But so is Lehi’s.

            When we consider them together, along with archaeology and anthropology, we see that there were well-established civilizations in North, Central and South America long before Lehi arrived. Presumably the Jaredites (and other -ites that accompanied them) were among those ancient civilizations.

            By the time Lehi landed, the civilizations in Mesoamerica were extensive (a “nation” by any definition), as the article showed, but the people in the southeastern U.S. were merely small tribal clusters. The point of my blog post was that it strains credulity to assert that the Nephites would claim territory, start farming, migrate and claim more territory, establish a king, etc. among the Mayans in Mesoamerica, and that his descendants ruled thereafter among the Mayans. I think it’s more consistent with the text that Lehi landed in a place unknown to other nations with plenty of unclaimed land for an inheritance.

            No need to respond. I think the exchange has clarified the positions and the relevant evidence. Thanks again for commenting.

         2. The Mulekites language changed because of the larger Mayan culture? Given the time that elapsed before Mosiah encountered the people of Zarahemla and the size of the Mayan culture and their sophisticated and highly developed writing system (as well as art, architecture, mathematics, calendar, and astronomical systems), I am surprised that the Mulekites remained in language chaos until Mosiah arrived with their records.

            To me, the idea that Lehi and his family and the Mulekites occupied a limited geography already in possession by the Mayans raises more questions than it answers.

2. The Book of Mormon itself tells us why the Nephites didn’t have anything to say about the Mayans. In 2 Nephi 1:9 it says:

   “And if it so be that they shall keep his commandments they shall be blessed upon the face of this land, and there shall be none to molest them . . .”

   The Book of Mormon could not be any more clear in saying why the Nephites had nothing to say about the Mayans. It specifically says that there was none to molest them when they arrived in the promised land. The Mayans can be included in the “none to molest” category because they were somewhere else. Insisting that a major civilization was there to greet the Nephites is a complete rejection of what Nephi said.

   Had they been there, the Mayans would have been the first in line to molest the Nephites, even before the Lamanites. They would have certainly put up a fight when the Nephites arrived. We know they warred amongst themselves. Would the Mayan let a nation like the Nephites take over their land without a fight? I think not.

   We also have Mayan records dating back to Nephite times. Would the Mayans let any encounter with a civilization like the Nephites go unrecorded? For that matter, would the Nephites let any encounter with a civilization like the Mayans go unrecorded? I think not.

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