How many died at Cumorah?

This is a legacy post that I realized I never published.

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One of the reasons why M2Cers reject the New York Cumorah is their belief that the Book of Mormon describes massive battles that are not evident in the archaeological record around Cumorah/Ramah. 

Their belief is based on assumptions and inferences, not facts. I've discussed FAITH model before as a method for separating Facts from Assumptions, Inferences and Theories.

One example of assumptions and inferences is the number of people who died at Cumorah/Ramah during the Jaredite and Nephite battles. I've discussed the topic here:

https://www.lettervii.com/p/cumorah-and-population-numbers.html

Many people have proposed that 2 million Jaredites died at Ramah and that 230,000 Nephites died at the same hill, called by them Cumorah. For example, the chart at BYU Studies claims this:

https://byustudies.byu.edu/further-study-chart/138-the-two-final-battles/

Let's examine the assumptions behind those estimates.

First, the extrinsic evidence corroborates what Joseph and Oliver taught about the New York Cumorah/Ramah. For example, when Heber C. Kimball visited Cumorah after he was baptized in 1832 he said he could see the embankments around the hill. He was familiar with other hilltop fortifications in the area.

There are many Hopewell sites in western New York, most of which were rudimentary fortifications, as if the people coming from Ohio were in retreat. I've visited several myself along with an archaeologist who gave me a list of such sites. Museums and private collectors (and farmers) have numerous artifacts from the area.

Second, I agree with the M2Cers that there is not evidence of millions of people dying at Cumorah/Ramah in New York, nor even of hundreds of thousands. But these numbers are mere assumptions not required by the text.

Third, in Letter VII, Oliver Cowdery explained that there were thousands of Jaredites killed (not even 10,000) and tens of thousands of Nephites/Lamanites (not even 100,000). That is consistent with the archaeology of the area.

And Oliver's explanation is also consistent with the text.

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Nephites. 

We can all read Mormon 6, which refers to "my ten thousand," the "ten thousand of Gidgiddonah," etc. Some people think those are literal numbers, as if Mormon would have written "my nine-thousand nine-hundred and ninety-seven" if he had lost 3 men before they reached Cumorah. 

Maybe so.

But a more plausible reading treats "ten thousand" as a military unit, as discussed in the Page linked to above. A military unit designated as "ten thousand" would retain the designation no matter how many casualties they suffered. There could have been only a few thousand left by the time they reached Cumorah.

Oliver Cowdery said there were tens of thousands of dead, not more than 100,000 and possibly as few as 20,000. The bodies were left unburied, so there would be little evidence remaining after a few years.

"their flesh, and bones, and blood lay upon the face of the earth, being left by the hands of those who slew them to molder upon the land, and to crumble and to return to their mother earth." (Mormon 6:15)

Separate from the common usage of "ten thousand" as a military unit instead of specific number of people, there's another interesting detail regarding the number 10.

In the 1808 edition of the works of Jonathan Edwards, on sale in the Palmyra bookshop that Joseph frequented in the 1820s, Edwards made this comment:

Mr. Lowman, in the preface to his Paraphrase on the Revelation, page viii, observes as follows: "Prophetic numbers do not always express a determinate duration or space of time, any more than they always express a certain number. Prophecy, I acknowledge, uses numbers sometimes as other expressions, in a figurative meaning, as symbols and hieroglyphics. Thus the number 'seven,' sometimes does not denote the precise number seven: but figuratively denotes perfection, or a full and complete number: and the number 'ten,' sometimes does not mean precisely ten in number, but many in general, or a considerable number."

This suggests that Joseph may have used the term "ten thousand" to represent "a considerable," but not precise, number.

(For more information on the influence of Jonathan Edwards, see https://www.mobom.org/jonathan-edwards)

Footnote 7 in the Yale online collection, here:

http://edwards.yale.edu/archive?path=aHR0cDovL2Vkd2FyZHMueWFsZS5lZHUvY2dpLWJpbi9uZXdwaGlsby9nZXRvYmplY3QucGw/Yy40OjUud2plby4xMjM4NTg5LjEyMzg1OTMuMTIzODYwMQ== 

This note is found in Volume 3 of the 1808 Edwards' collection on page 446.

(click to enlarge)

Jaredites. The BYU Studies chart doesn't give a citation, but the number "two millions" shows up only in Ether 15:2.

1 And it came to pass when Coriantumr had recovered of his wounds, he began to remember the words which Ether had spoken unto him.

2 He saw that there had been slain by the sword already nearly two millions of his people, and he began to sorrow in his heart; yea, there had been slain two millions of mighty men, and also their wives and their children.

3 He began to repent of the evil which he had done; he began to remember the words which had been spoken by the mouth of all the prophets, and he saw them that they were fulfilled thus far, every whit; and his soul mourned and refused to be comforted.

(Ether 15:1–3)

I've wondered why anyone ever thought two million people were killed at Ramah/Cumorah.

The text is crystal clear that Coriantumr's reflection took place four years prior to the final conflict at Ramah. 

[Note: the chapter heading is misleading when it says "millions of the Jaredites are slain in battle." The text tells us specifically that "millions of the Jaredites had been slain" well before the battle at Ramah.]

In the interim, Coriantumr "began to repent," he wrote to Shiz, he was wounded in another battle, and  his armies prevailed against the armies of Shiz. Coriantumr and his armies pitched their tents at Ramah (Ether 15:11) and then spent 4 years gathering together the people (verse 14) 

In verse 2, Coriantumr was not prophesying that "two millions" would be killed at Ramah; to the contrary, he remembered that two millions "had been slain" long before the final battle at Ramah.

The scriptures do not explain how far back Coriantumr was counting, but presumably he was familiar with the history of his people. As a military man, he also would be familiar with the history of wars, which suggests he was thinking back over the centuries since his ancestors arrived. Ether's enumerated pedigree goes back 32+ generations. 

This would be roughly 1,000 years, given the gaps in Ether's genealogy. Two million deaths in battle over that long a time frame is 2,000 deaths/year. Presumably that would have varied considerably during times of peace and war, but it indicates a much smaller Jaredite population than some have assumed.

Working backward from the casualties enumerated in the text (verses 15-29), we can reasonably infer that the final week-long battle involved no more than 10,000 people. 

Which is how Oliver Cowdery described it in Letter VII; i.e., only "thousands" of Jaredites died at Ramah. Not even ten thousand.

That is still a large number, given the archaeological record in the area, but it is not inconsistent with that record.

IOW, it would be highly unlikely to find evidence of such battles that occurred over 2,000 years ago for the Jaredites, and 1600 years ago for the Nephites, apart from the stone weapons that are abundant in western New York.