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Book of Mormon Lands & Skeptics

Book of Mormon Lands & Skeptics

The search in Central America is on... Check out this article from Deseret News:

Skeptics and Lands Mormon Book

This article just goes to show how intent and dedicated many are in making regions of Meso and South America the BOM lands and How little attention is paid to Phyllis Olive's work whch is full of the evidence so lacking in others' research so far.  The Nephi project has not taken an official stand on this issue yet. We are open to all locations.  It is my personal opinion that Phyllis Olive has it right in her books and an accompanying map.

Book of Mormon Lands & Skeptics Studies Doctrine Mormon

[quote]It is my personal opinion that Phyllis Olive has it right in her books and an accompanying map. [/quote]
Have you ever submitted your opinion to the relevant 'people' FARMS, SHIELD, BYU, whomever else? If so, are they following up?

[offtopic]What is the average cost of advertising in the deseret news email as you did?[/offtopic]

Skeptics and Lands Mormon Book

Since this is my personal assessment of Sister Olive's work, my opinion really has no place at FARMS or Shield or BYU.  I am impressed with her work (and I'm not easily impressed).  Other accounts and descriptions and hypotheses on the whereabouts of the Lands of the BOM fall far short of evidence requirements and logic - nothwithstanding a couple of GAs whose opinions have never been considered official LDS positions.  Much more is needed to convince skeptics that the 'Land of Promise' was Meso or S. America.  This is not to rule out speculation that migrations southward from the US did not occur and influence cultures south of the United States.

Skeptics and Lands Mormon Book

[quote]Since this is my personal assessment of Sister Olive's work, my opinion really has no place at FARMS or Shield or BYU.  I am impressed with her work (and I'm not easily impressed).  [/quote]
Being a researcher, and having such a strong feeling about her work, I thought you might bring it up.

[quote]nothwithstanding a couple of GAs whose opinions have never been considered official LDS positions[/quote]
Anyone in particular? Where did they believe the landing point was?

Book of Mormon Lands & Skeptics

As far as I am aware, no one connected with the Nephiproject ever paid for advertising in the Deseret E-mail newsletter so I really can't answer that off-topic question.  George Potter remarked to me yesterday that he had met with Carrie at Deseret last August  but never knew if she would include his findings in any of her newsletters etc.

President Kimball remarked once that he believed Nephi and his family could have landed in Concepcion, Chile and
Orson Pratt in a personal observation noted it might have been in Valparaiso, Chile.  Both of these observations seem to have been based on Frederick G. Williams erroneous scribbled note on a paper on which he had also scribbled notes concerning a real revelation by JS. By the time these two men had made their remarks, Frederick William's thought had been widely circulated amongst the rumor mill as being from Joseph Smith Jr himself. Thus in keeping with previous revelation, both Orson Pratt and Pres. Spencer Kimball were simply parroting what they had heard from their colleagues.  It's funny how things get started and unfortunate that they get perniciously sticky and overgeneralized making it much harder to re-direct attention to more accurate facts. Oh well. So be it.

Book Mormon Lands & Skeptics

[quote]As far as I am aware, no one connected with the Nephiproject ever paid for advertising in the Deseret E-mail newsletter so I really can't answer that off-topic question.  George Potter remarked to me yesterday that he had met with Carrie at Deseret last August  but never knew if she would include his findings in any of her newsletters etc. [/quote]
Thanks. I sent them an email.

[quote]It's funny how things get started and unfortunate that they get perniciously sticky and overgeneralized making it much harder to re-direct attention to more accurate facts. Oh well. So be it.
[/quote]
Many Antis use this kind of information to disprove the Church. They fail to realise that there are some things revealed in totality and others that is left up to us to figure out. A good example of this is Christ's own apostles, if you read some of the questions they asked Jesus you will wonder what they even knew about the Gospel.

Book Mormon Lands & Skeptics Mormon Doctrine Studies

There has been a lot of dicussion in recent years regarding the location of Book of Mormon lands. Early church leaders were under the impression that South America was the land southward and North America was the land nortward. However, a more detailed reading of the book seems to indicate a much smaller geographical area. The debate now seems to focus on what region of the Americas was the home of the Lehites.

A fellow High Priest in my ward is certain that New York and the northeastern U.S. was the setting. The Great Lakes were the seas mentioned and the Hill Cumorah where Joseph found the plates is the same Hill Cumorah mentioned in the Book of Mormon.

However, most who have studied the book for geography feel southern Mexico and Guatemala is where they lived. Everything seems to fit this location including the narrow neck of land, hourglass shape, approximate travel distances etc. Additionally, the majority of wars took place between November and April. The Lamanites were usually described as almost naked when in battle other than a loincloth. Hard to visualize them dressed for battle like this in temperatures near zero with 2 feet of snow on the ground.

I tend to believe the latter theory. Any other ideas?