http://mormonmatters.org/2009/06/01/a-south-american-setting-for-book-of-mormon/

Do you know anyone at FARMS who might be willing to look at Malay? I’ve studied it more than most, but I don’t consider myself a scholar of this sort of information.

I don’t know of any reviews by FAIR. Perhaps you can develop it more thoroughly.

Frankly, the only reason we got involved in possible Book of Mormon geographies is because Rod Meldrum had blurred pseudo-revelation with pseudo-scholarship in an attempt to undermine REAL revelation and scholarship.

My own contribution was comparing and contrasting Rod Meldrum’s approach with that of Theodore Brandley–who is “playing by the rules.”

I’m not sure that we’ll ever find out definitive Book of Mormon geography, but if we do, I suspect that it will be NOT QUITE what everyone suspects!

I’ve always said that my biggest problem with the Malay theory is “how did the plates get to NY?” We’ve batted some ideas around here, and I agree that none of them are very scientific. It seems to me that while we read the BoM and assume Lehi and family had no help, but the FAIR DVD, “Journey of Faith” discounts that idea pretty heavily. Potter also makes the claim that Khor Rhori is an ancient shipbuilding harbor, and that Nephi may have received help and guidance for shipbuilding from the locals there. So, I think a reasonable case could be made that Moroni wasn’t entirely alone in his travels.

Has anyone at FAIR done a review of the Malay Theory? I’d be really interested to read it.

If I may, I am the guy who postulated a Florida setting on the FAIR Blog: http://www.fairblog.org/2009/03/31/a-look-at-meldrums-revised-dvda-look-at-meldrums-revised-dvd/

and
http://www.fairblog.org/2008/10/05/usingand-misusing-scholarship-and-revelation/

While the Florida theory isn’t a joke, neither is it a full-blown, serious theory (I am not an advocate at this time). Rather, it was a “run it up the flagpole and see who salutes” kind of thing. I must admit, though, the more I look at it, the more a Florida setting seems apt.

What I did was to take the geographic texts in the Book of Mormon, and look to where they might apply. For one thing, having grown up in the Great Lakes region, I can tell you that there are several problems: 1. It lacks a northward-flowing river, 2. There is no “Land Southward” that is “nearly surrounded by water”–to me, the Mississippi (or Wabash), Ohio, and Susquehannah Rivers simply do not qualify as “seas,” and 3. The climate is WAY too cold. We are told in the Book of Mormon that the Lamanites wore loincloths during the first month of the year–the same month that Jesus Christ was crucified. That would be late March to early April. While high temperatures average in the 80′s in July, NOAA also tells us that the last freeze in northern Indiana (Meldrum’s narrow neck) is in the middle of May. See http://cdo.ncdc.noaa.gov/climatenormals/clim60/states/Clim_IN_01.pdf. Moreover, average highs and lows for South Bend during that period is 47 and 28, respectively, for March, and 59 and 38, respectively, for April. See http://www.crh.noaa.gov/iwx/CLI/SBN/normals/normssbn.php.

Of all the developed theoretical settings, Mesoamerica seems best, but it, too has problems–namely the lack of an acceptable “Land Southward”–depending on how tightly the phrase “nearly surrounded by water” is defined.

As for the Maylay peninsula, the narrow neck is right, the peninsula is right, and the climate is right. However, I am unaware of any northward-flowing river, and I have similar problems that Ed Gobel and others have regarding Moroni building a sea-worthy ship (while evading Lamanites!) and travelling to the northeastern USA. I can imagine Lehi and family doing it–especially since they were isolated in the southeastern Arabian Peninsula, but for one man–on the run–well, that is a harder sell.

well of course no skeletons were found. I lived in Tombstone, Az while stationed at Ft. Huachuca in the Army, and have seen bones disappear in just a few weeks. I now live in SW Utah and have watched entire cow skeletons fall apart in just three or four years, what with the mice, squirrels, and coyotes working on them. I’ve also butchered deer one year, leaving bones,etc. and found absolutely nothing there the next year. And all these examples are in areas of very little rain. Imagine how long it would take for bodies to disappear in an area of more rain and wildlife than the US Southwest!

And steel? In a wet environment? Have you looked at our steel bridges almost anywhere in the US? Even here in southern Utah, they are starting to go already after being around not even 50 years! I can tell you’ve probably never done any blacksmithing, have you? It’s a constant struggle to keep steel from reverting back to it’s natural form…iron dust. And while Nephi says he made steel swords for his people, I don’t remember anything that says they were in common use for everyone a thousand years later. So what’s the big deal about not finding steel anywhere in central or south America.

And why would the plates have to be buried near where the final battles took place? 35 years is a long time to get anywhere, as has been mentioned above.

theGregory, I’ll have to check out the book. Are you sure the cement dates to the BoM period? Even if cement was found, it has to be properly dated. Just as the Iroquois date to the wrong time period, I am wondering about this cement. If it dates to the proper time period, then that is a wonderful thing for proponents of Meso.

yes, there is cement and even concrete in Mesoamerica…check out a book called Ancient Sun Kingdoms of the Americas by Von Hagen. He quotes the Spanish soldiers as being amazed at the great cement cities, the roads. etc. I remember reading several books some 40 years ago on BoM archeology, and there are literally 100′s of findings that indicate that the Americas would seem to fit the geography of the BoM. By the way, is there a great road system and cement buildings in Malaysia?

The idea is that the Indonesian islands during the Ice Age were a continent because of lower sea level. There’s a pretty compelling argument that this was the location of all the traditional (Egyptian, Greek, Celtic, Hindu) understandings of the lands of the civilization destroyed by the flood, paradise lost.

So, that gives the Malaysian location a little more ‘big picture’ relevance if adam-ondi-ahman was really there.

But there are a lot of assumptions and holes and things. Still, worth checking out.

Joseph Smith and the Iroquois

Among the indigenous peoples of America is a story of a pale prophet who visited from the Great Lakes all the way to the South Sea Islands. One such similar story is among the Haudenosaunee or Iroquois.. they called him The Peacemaker although no description is given of him. The ancient history takes place in what is now New York State.

This Peacemaker came to power during a time of great sorrow for the people. War was everywhere. The people were so fearful that they were afraid to leave their stockaded villages to even find food. No one could be trusted. Cannibalism was part of the Ancient cult of the Snake Priests of the Mound Builders, and these priests, because of supernatural powers, Ruled in Fear. Everyone had lost loved ones, and all hearts were on the ground in sorrow. The last Little Ice Age had also depleted the hunting grounds so that Humans were now the easiest of prey. Having been conditioned toward this by Snake Priests of the Old Ways, Cannibalism became common.

The Peacemaker befriended a woman, The Great Peace Woman of the Antiwandarronks (Neutral Hurons). In her village, he saw something different. He saw Peace through Negotiations. He saw abundance through agriculture. The Corn Clan Yagowaneh and her women had acres of corn, beans, squash potatoes, and orchards. And they had parleyed this into a relatively stable Peace so that the Great Peace Woman had become a councilor to as many as 14 Nations.

She became the first to accept the Peacemaker’s message of Peace and so he made women the proprietors of the Great Law.. and renamed her “Mother of Nations”. She left her homeland and village at Tonawanda, and took up residence at a place known as Ganondagan in Seneca territory.. Here she presided over the Peace, and her name Jikohnsaseh became the office for all presiding head clan mothers who followed in her footsteps. Her word was Law. The last known Jikohnsaseh was Caroline Parker, sister of the notable Ely Parker, Last Grand Sachem of the Seneca. The office has not been filled since then which was the early 1800′s.

The Peacemakers taught Love one another, Peace, Justice, and Reason. They set up a government that greeted the European Boat People. This government had complete individual freedom while at the same time, created a society of no poor, no orphans, and no jails. It created a two part house to govern, and it used diplomacy to spread its influence. And they practiced looking forward to the Seventh Generation and the impact their today decisions would make on all future generations that would arrive. The Peacemakers taught compassion, creating condolence ceremonies for the healing of the people after great loss.

Now in 1830, a religious phenomena started just 15 miles from the House of Peace, Ganondagan. A young man named Joseph Smith was acquainted with the Iroquois in his vicinity. He helped to forge at least three of the treaties with the Seneca Indians. Here in this friendship, Joe learned of this prophet called the Peacemaker among the Indians there, and he learned many other things from the Indians that he began to teach and share with his wife in the attic of their log home. Before long other women were coming to hear what Joe had learned. This was the beginning of the church’s Relief Society, an organization for women as Joseph shared what he had learned from the local Indians. However two of the women were married to preachers Oliver Cowdry and Martin Harris respectively. With the Religious Fervor of the times and Common Theories that the Indians were the lost tribe of Israel, before long, these teachings took hold of them and they realized a new religion if they only combined the Indian stories of the Peacemaker Prophet with the religious fervor that was going on at that time… And so they wrote a book based on the story of the Peacemaker but in similar linguistics of the Bible. Just who is the exact author is up for speculations. Supposedly Joe wrote it at 40 pages a day, a phenomenal accomplishment IF he truly had no help from others or from Spirit.

The story of the Peacemaker is true and many of the stories in what would be come known as the Book of Mormon are similar to Haudenosaunee stories and could easily be based on the oral history of the Haudenosaunee. In 1830, the idea of the internet, and DNA had not occurred to them that their fraud could one day be discovered.

The book they wrote had some serious fallacies but to those who know nothing about Indian ways, they would not be privy. They wrote about Indians domesticating horses, cattle, sheep and elephants, when in truth none of these animals made an appearance on this continent until the Europeans arrived. It is a total fabrication. Native Peoples did not domesticate animals. Other than lamas in the mountains of Peru, there is no record of domestic animals in the sense of Euro tradition. Native Peoples fenced in their homes, not the animals.

There is much discussion about the Book of Mormon Geography however. Joe receives his plates from Hill Commorah, a mound in upstate NY. Supposedly, Moroni witnesses the demise of his people and so finishes up the writings before burying them in the ground for safe keeping. The assumption HAS to be made that the ending history takes place right at the present day Hill Cummorah,,,, which presents problematic scientific proof for a number of reasons including that supposedly this is where great battles ensued and much of the history is right there in Joe’s back yard. Supposedly, the civilizations wiped themselves out.

And yet among the present day Iroquois is the legend of the Peacemaker, a man of Peace, born of a virgin.. who brought Peace to the warring nations. Could these people be the descendants of the Book of Mormon… or is the Book of Mormon a novel written by the inspiration of stories from the history of the living legacy of the Peacemaker????? Each will have to decide.

In the Book of Mormon, women are a matter of support for the men, there being no woman of valiancy. The book is about the men with women as mere supporting actors of the tale keeping women in 18th Century appropriate custody of Male Supremacy. Even the Bible did better than this with many stories of women who are the central figures with names like Esther, Rachel, Abigail, Mary. Perhaps Joe is not totally to blame for this oversight, as undoubtedly he listened to the stories told by men, and had no chance to hear the Keepings of the Women.

In the 1800’s all male ethnographers and anthropologists made the same mistake. And for all that was written, chauvinism kept any from asking the women for their stories, and because the Keepings are held separate, men adjusted the story to leave the Women’s Keepings out. Therefore male oriented versions became the “truth” which fit perfectly into the White Male Domination of the times… Remember that it took 150 years AFTER our Constitution was ratified for American Women to gain rights that Native Women had held since the beginning of time.

Let’s take a look at the teachings left by the Peacemaker to the Haudenosaunee and compare. I would think they should be similar if not exact. The Native American had perfected oral history to science something they were instructed to do by the Peacemaker and told to hide up their records when the Turtle Men (Spanish) began to appear, for these Turtles would destroy their Keepings. So the history says they had records and hid them… this fits.

Haudenosaunee had created a society where all were taken care of. Joe tried to institute their ways by commanding that the Law of Consecration was necessary to enter Heaven. This Law was for the well being of the Saints where all money and physical wealth was given to the Church so that new converts could be taken care of and the missionary effort could push forward. This Law of Consecration was based on the Teachings of the Corn Clan Mother which he saw evident in the living legacy of the Peacemakers, The Haudenosaunee.

The Haudenosaunee are a Matriarchal Society and has been since before the Peacemaker set up the Great Laws. This matriarchal rule is set up in the Haudenosaunee Origin Stories. This Prophet recognized women as the Proprietors of the Law. Women owned the political and spiritual positions, choosing the men to lead for the people to sustain. (All leaders of the Church must be sustained.) And the women removed them if they proved unworthy. (the priesthood removes if leader is unworthy.) Women were the sole deciders on War or Peace. Only they could declare war. Only they could veto war. Women owned their own bodies. No Haudenosaunee man would think of abusing or raping a woman and often stepped between white men who were beating their women. Women ran the economics of the villages. It was women who negotiated prices for products. It was the women who negotiated proper treaties. Treaties without them are bogus. In fact, of the three Seneca Treaties Joe was a witness to, the first was signed by Caroline Parker, Head Clan Mother of the People. It was women who owned the homes. It was women who were the lineage line for children. It was women who were recognized as the most powerful healers. Women!! WOMEN!!!

Compare that with Mormonism… Women hold no such place. Women must even wait at the veil of Heaven for a man to pull her through. If the Book of Mormon were true, should it not follow the same teachings the Peacemaker gave to the People anciently? I would think so.

Modern day information tells us that in the time of Jesus, it was Mary Magdalene who was the leader of Christ’s Church, not Peter. And it tells us also that there were women Apostles. Where ever Jesus went Women were made equal with the men. They enjoyed a higher status than other women. It is consistent. Then the Catholic Church took women out of the equation, and all reformation followed suit with 1500 years of degradation, denial, and burning at the stake ensueing any woman foolish enough not to subjugate herself. A mentality brought from Europe. A mentality that pervaded the 19th Century even to our day, as women are abused, raped, violated, unprecedented even on Reservations.

But there is still more:

JS wrote of steel swords, none of which have ever been found, nor anything made of steel. They wrote of two massive battles where as many as 250,000 were killed…entire nations; first the Jaredites and then the Nephites wiped out… with no one left to bury the dead! And yet no skeletons nor even one of the 500,000 steel swords or even any evidence at all of major battles can be found on Hill Cummorah (or anywhere else in the “New World”) when battles in the Old World, even minor skirmishes have left battle marks and artifacts yet today. In fact Hill Cummorah is little more than a knoll in JS back yard, while 15 miles away where real battles were fought, Ganondagan commands a view of the valley

They contrived a civilization that expanded hugely in just 30 years to include labors in economics that there just could not be enough people to actually function in so many job opportunities ….unless they drafted inhabitants already here into their work force. In 30 years there could not have been enough wealth or labor to build a temple the size of Solomon’s in the old world.. The logistics are totally against it.unless indigenous inhabitants joined with them.

And they have propagated the story of the Indians being the descendants of Nephi and Laman, … descendants of Israel… New technology known as DNA testing has brought forth the information that 94% of the Indians came from the land bridge, while 6% do have other DNA but none of it from Israelites as of yet. I hear the Church is investing heavily in DNA science, and I hear they have found pockets of a different lineage. They hope someday to compare it to the DNA of Joseph of Egypt. Remember they took the body of Joseph home with them when they left Egypt. It is their hope to prove this linkage. I hear the Reformed Sanhedrin has issued a proclamation for the children of Rachel to come home. That would be Joseph and Ben. But even if DNA might some day prove Joseph’s descendants, it still would not prove the Book of Mormon. Many Jews believe in the return of the 12 tribes. They had to go somewhere. The future America could easily be one of the places.

Add to this that the Haudenosaunee have a neumatic divise called a “Condlence Cane”. This divice records all the original founders of the Great Law, that came to gehter under one roof.. and in the center over the house of Onondaga, is a symbol that looks like a seven candle stick. Possibly a Menorah. No one seems to know or are telling if they do know what this represents.

Joseph took a true story of the Haudenosaunee and put his own twist on it… just put “proof of Book of Mormon Archeology” into google and see all the Mormon sites trying to provide proof they can not find… Besides a lot more info than I have listed here. It is quite a situation for Mormon archeologists. They can not find one shred of proof for their Faith. Much of what they point to does NOT support the Book of Mormon if you realize that this info existed PRIOR to JS and he simple learned about it from the Native Americans that he lived among.

Yes a Great Teacher (Messiah) came here. Yes he taught the people. Yes he left a legacy here on this continent…and yes there were light skinned (X DNA) and dark skinned people here on this continent. Both lived in the area of Joe Smith’s home but these truths do not support the Book of Mormon. The truths were here first and these truths inspired the fraud that has been perpetrated on the world.

You’re welcome, MH.

Tell you what. The issue you raise is kind of off-topic for the subject of this post. Can I offer a new post to more fully address the theology/history debate? I promise to check your youtube links and post something where the issues you raise are better addressed. I really like to listen to Ehrmann–I find his insights on the Bible are very interesting. (I keep promising topics–my Spaulding topic is set to go for Monday.) Anyway, I’ll address it as soon as I can.

I was hoping to have this post hit 300 comments, so thanks for pushing it over the top!

My comment

“you cannot apply a theological argument (your position) to a historical argument (my position). Miracles, by their very definition defy natural laws. Historians cannot rely upon events that defy natural laws unless they want to be laughed off the stage. Miraculous events are a theological argument.”

Did this not clarify my position?

If I am reading you correctly, JTJ, you are saying that

You said,

“If I do a poor job explaining my position, call me on it.”

That’s what I tried to do. Don’t dismiss the entire thing by calling it a straw man, just because I didn’t phrase it as a question. It was meant that way – as a sincere comment about how I read your comment. If that reading is wrong, fine; explain why. If not, fine; explain why it doesn’t matter.