 |
| Thumb on the scale of justice outweighs everything else |
Here’s a fun example of how “neutrality” on Book of Mormon geography is actually implemented.
In 2013, LDS chaplains attended a seminar. One session was titled “Finding Mesoamerica in the Book of Mormon.”
[The video itself is titled “Book of Mormon and Mesoamerican Archaeology.”]
The seminar was presented by a BYU professor of Ancient Scripture. He has all kinds of credentials and was introduced to the audience with a strong endorsement.
(This professor is a great guy and I like him a lot, so I’m not posting this to be critical of him. He’s just doing his job, and he really believes M2C. There’s no problem with that. It’s the non-neutral neutrality I’m focusing on here.)
You can still see the video on the Church’s website, here:
Needless to say, the chaplains were never told about the New York Cumorah or any theories other than M2C.
What do you suppose they’ll believe and teach for the rest of their lives?
This type of indoctrination at an official Church function, made available on the Church’s web page for future instruction, teaches all these chaplains to disbelieve the prophets when they (eventually) discover what the prophets have taught about the New York Cumorah.
_____
 |
| Title slide |
Here are some great stills from the presentation, all teaching the typical M2C ideas.
 |
| LDS chaplains learning M2C |
 |
| Citing anonymous editorials to support M2C by claiming Joseph Smith wrote them |
 |
| The 1929 Ivins quotation, avoiding the 1928 Ivins quotation in which Pres. Ivins reaffirmed the New York Cumorah |
 |
| Using Mayan artwork to illustration the scriptures |
 |
| Claiming the single large stone mentioned in the Book of Mormon was one of the thousands of Mayan stelas |
The chaplains learned it all, including the claim that Joseph Smith wrote the anonymous 1842 Times and Seasons articles that show he learned Book of Mormon geography from a travel book and supposedly changed his mind about the New York Cumorah.
Here they learned about Pres. Ivins’ 1929 talk, the one that was in the original version of the Gospel Topics Essay on Book of Mormon Geography.
After I pointed out that in 1928 Pres. Ivins had re-affirmed the New York Cumorah, the committee removed the 1929 statement from the Gospel Topics Essay instead of providing both of his statements.
Here, the chaplains learned that the Mayans were illustrating the Book of Mormon.
Who needs Arnold Friberg?
Here, the chaplains learned that the one large stone with a story written on it that is mentioned in 1,000 years of Nephite history was actually just one of thousands of such Mayan stelas.
Source: About Central America
2 thoughts on “Neutrality-Teaching M2C to LDS chaplains”
Confirmation bias is alive and well. Neutrality can’t promote one model over another. Over 150 Book of Mormon location theories have been documented. How many thousands of others have not been documented? In the Sep 1972 Ensign, two of the major theories were presented. Paul Chessman presented the Mesoamerican model and Hugh Nibley presented the heartland model. See https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/1972/09. This may have been the last time fairness and neutrality was demonstrated in spite of the fact that the entire issue of the Sep 1972 Ensign was about the church in Central America.
Hugh Nibley nailed it when he said, “The Book of Mormon is a history of a related primitive church, and one may well ask what kind of remains the Nephites would leave us from their more virtuous days. A closer approximation to the Book of Mormon picture of Nephite culture is seen in the earth and palisade structures of the Hopewell and Adena culture areas than in the later stately piles of stone in Mesoamerica.” Read the entire article for more Nibley zingers…
Paul Chessman published about a dozen books on Mesoamerica. His last book was published after his death by his wife. It was about some of the American Indian tribes. I think he finally saw the light.
If Joseph got it wrong about sending some of the first missionaries to the Lamanites in New York, Ohio, and Indian Territory (12 miles west of the Missouri boarder) in 1830-31, why did it take 117 years to get the first missionaries to Guatemala? Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act on 28 May 1830. In 1823, the Supreme Court ruled that Indians could occupy and control lands within the United States but could not hold title to those lands. These actions sound a lot like Heleman 15:12 (sorry I can’t paste it here). The bottom line is at least 5 major Indian tribes were relocated from the eastern US to Indian Territority.
The church operated the Indian Placement program from 1954 to 1996. About 50,000 participated. I attended school with some of them–mostly Navajo. Criticism eventually won out and the Infamous Judge Robert Shelby ruled against the church. I believe it was a huge benefit in spite of a few bad apples. Sounds like Heleman 15:12. How many of those 50,000 participants came from Mesoamerica? I don’t know of any.
I watched the 50-minute video of the 2013 Chaplin Seminar by the BYU Ancient Scripture and Archeology professor. He seems very sincere and his statements about chiasmus was on track. Unfortunately, I can’t paste my detailed 1.25-page Word document rebuttal here, so here is the short version.
I will just say there were several speculative and false statements about how the verbiage in the Book of Mormon matches Mesoamerican archeology. At the 15:30 mark, he finally admits that there is a lot of debate about Book of Mormon Geography and the church takes no official position. If so, why is he so zealous promoting Mesoamerican myths at the expense of what the Book of Mormon actually states and what the prophets have taught without mentioning the validity of other models. Sadly, intellectuals have hijacked church history and Book of Mormon truths.
At the 3:56 mark, he praises John Sorenson for promoting the Mesoamerican model.
At the 3:24 mark, he states that less than 1% of the cities have been excavated–thousands of cities in just one area. Why does the book of Mormon always talk about living in tents and building with wood? The more grandeur and embellishment added to the Mesoamerican model, the farther it distances itself from actual Nephite culture and civilization.
At the 12:30 mark, he says Coriantumr wandered into the land of the Mulekites. Actually, Omni 1:21 states that Coriantumr was discovered by the people of Zarahemla. I seriously doubt that Coriantumur travelled very far after he beheaded Shiz.
At the 12:53 mark, he states that up was always south to Nephi. No, that is not true. 1 Nephi 3:9 states “to go up to the land of Jerusalem.” They obviously went north and up in elevation.
At the 20:34 mark, he says Moroni buried the plates in a stone box in a hill in New York. He chose his words very carefully so he didn’t say hill Cumorah. His pictures of 2 stone boxes in some museum don’t look at all like the stone box Joseph Smith described in the hill Cumorah. They look more like small carved stone jewelry boxes.
At 22.35, he describes cimeters and weapons made of flint or stone (and later he talks of jade and obsidian–Mesoamerican favorites). We know the sword of Laban was used as a model to make other weapons. The Book of Mormon talks about copper weapons and head plates and armor.
At 40:12, he mentions the large stone or carved monument (Omni 1:20) that was brought to Mosiah for translation. His photographs depict a stone monument weighing several tons. The large stone was brought to Mosiah. Mosiah wasn’t taken to the large stone. There is a big difference between carvings and engravings.
To his credit, he does talk about Chiasmus throughout the Book of Mormon. He also mentions Moroni 10:4-5 to get a testimony. In 1972-73, the church changed the missionary editions of the Book of Mormon to include pondering in verse 3, a very powerful and critical step to gaining a testimony.
Based on the looks on their faces, I don’t think the chaplains were impressed by most of the presentation. I wonder what they are teaching the troops?
Comments are closed.