More on Baja: highways "cast up"

The Baja advocates recently gave us a good example of how bias confirmation works. In this case, the Stick of Joseph podcast made a video about "highways" in Baja that supposedly match the Book of Mormon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTbk0domTs8

The Baja advocates had an obvious problem in Baja. The rudimentary roads throughout the peninsula are basically ruts through the desert, in some cases cleared of large rocks. 

The Book of Mormon refers to highways in one verse:

And there were many highways cast up, and many roads made, which led from city to city, and from land to land, and from place to place. (3 Nephi 6:8)

How do they reconcile the reality in Baja with this verse?

By employing an innovative interpretation to confirm their bias.

_____

Before reading the transcript, let's review bias confirmation again.

The Baja theory is a good example of multiple working hypotheses, which is great. I encourage everyone to propose new ideas, pending more information.

At the same time, the pursuit of clarity, charity and understanding requires us to start with clarity.

In this case, we start with the underlying premise of the Baja theory, which, like M2C, is that Oliver Cowdery lied about Cumorah/Ramah in New York. 

We can all read Letter VII, as well as Letter IV, Lucy Mack Smith's history, Parley P. Pratt's account, David Whitmer's account, Brigham Young's account, and all the rest. As well as D&C 128:20.

The FAITH model starts with "Facts." 

The existence of these sources are facts that everyone who knows about them accepts as authentic. Most Latter-day Saints don't know about them because the popular scholars and those who promote them avoid these sources. 

As we will see in the video below.

The second step in the FAITH model is "Assumptions."

For these step, we make assumptions about the historical facts. We can assume either that 

(i) Oliver et al told the truth, or 

(ii) Oliver et al did not tell the truth.

The Baja advocates, like the M2C advocates, assume that Oliver did not tell the truth. Instead, they claim all of these sources related a false narrative, and that Joseph Smith himself adopted this false narrative.

Which is why we have this divergence, right from the outset.

_____

Here's the transcript.

2.5 min.

Hayden Paul: But there is one thing I have to point out. You know, in that scripture, it talks about uh the roads being cast up.

Rosenvall: Yeah.

Right. And I've always thought of it this way. That that means taking rocks and putting them on top. So the road is elevated and that's not what we're seeing here. What we're seeing is rocks cleared off to the side and kind of almost creating a barrier. 

That's right.

To go on the road. So explain where does that come from?

Where does that come from?

Cuz it doesn't seem to match.

Yeah. So our normal modern day lens is that casting up on top of each other.

Biblically, especially in Isaiah, there's a couple of references that talk about this, but what it meant is to remove obstacles, to put the stones to the side that you can create. They use the word standard. This is where you can follow to get somewhere. In fact, they used it spiritually. Remove the sins from your life.

Here's this. Here's the path to get back to God. So, it's clearly removing, not adding.

What are these references? Cuz we got to fact check here. So, in Isaiah, there's a couple. There's one in Isaiah 62:10.

Pull, let me pull that up. Okay, I've got it. Verse 10, it says, "Go through, go through the gates. Prepare ye the way of the people. Cast up. Cast up the highway, gather out the stones, lift up a standard for the people.

Okay. All right. I'm seeing that. Yeah.

So, to cast up the highway means lift off the stones. That's right. Okay. What's the next one?

57:14. Isaiah 57:14. It says, "And shall say, cast ye up." Cast ye up. Prepare the way. Take up the stumbling block out of the way of my people. So, right there, it's even more clear. It's saying, "Cast up. Cast up. remove the stumbling block from the people, make the path clear. And what's so curious, oh, that's way different.

Zoom out and we'll splice in some drone footage here, but you zoom out and basically what you see is just rocks lining these roads for miles and miles and miles. And obviously today we see a lot of rain wash through these through these ancient roads. But it doesn't take away the fact that for miles you just see these straight roads cast up, meaning all the rocks. aside.

So now, to make Baja confirm their bias, the Rosenvalls have to say "cast up" doesn't mean "build up," which is the literal Hebrew terminology. https://biblehub.com/interlinear/isaiah/62-10.htm

Anyone reading these verses in Isaiah might think they refer to two-step process. First, build up the road. Second, remove any stones that hinder passage.

I asked AI about it.

In Isaiah 62:10, the text gives us a remarkably vivid, accurate snapshot of exactly how ancient Middle Eastern road crews prepared a highway for a king or a massive caravan.

The verse reads:

"Pass through, pass through the gates! Prepare the way for the people. Build up, build up the highway! Remove the stones. Raise a banner for the nations."

When you unpack the specific phrases used in this verse, it aligns perfectly with the archaeological reality of how dirt and gravel roads were constructed and maintained in the region.

The Three Steps of Ancient Road Building

The verse breaks down the three core tasks required to make a rugged desert track usable for a massive crowd:

1. "Build up, build up the highway!" Ancient roads outside of major cities were rarely dug deep into the earth; instead, they were elevated. Road builders would pile up earth, clay, and gravel to create an embankment (often called a causeway). This achieved two vital engineering goals: it created a relatively flat surface over uneven, dip-filled terrain, and it ensured that during flash floods, water would drain off to the sides rather than washing the road away.

2. "Remove the stones." The terrain of the Levant and broader Middle East is notoriously rocky, littered with limestone and flint boulders. For a smooth journey—especially for people traveling on foot, in sandals, or leading pack animals and wheeled carts—the track had to be meticulously cleared. Workers physically cast aside large rocks to the edges of the path, which often served a dual purpose as crude boundary markers for the road itself. 

3. "Raise a banner for the nations." Because the vast desert and wilderness landscapes could easily disorient travelers, ancient highways used landmarks, stone cairns (piles of rocks), or literal flags and banners at high points. These served as ancient GPS markers, guiding travelers from afar and signaling that they were on the official, safe, and maintained imperial route.

In short, Isaiah 62:10 isn't just using poetic imagery; it is using the literal language of an ancient public works project to describe a path being cleared of all obstacles.

That seems obvious enough, but let's also look at how the Book of Mormon uses the term "cast up."

2 And behold, the city had been rebuilt, and Moroni had stationed an army by the borders of the city, and they had cast up dirt round about to shield them from the arrows and the stones of the Lamanites; for behold, they fought with stones and with arrows. (Alma 49:2)

If "cast up" meant "clearing" here, the dirt would not have shielded them from arrows and stones. To the contrary, the ordinary meaning of "cast up" meant piling dirt to create an embankment.

And he caused that they should build a breastwork of timbers upon the inner bank of the ditch; and they cast up dirt out of the ditch against the breastwork of timbers; and thus they did cause the Lamanites to labor until they had encircled the city of Bountiful round about with a strong wall of timbers and earth, to an exceeding height. (Alma 53:4)

We see the same use of the term here. 

(BTW, this is all exactly what the Hopewell civilization did to protect their habitations. And notice the emphasis on timbers and earth instead of stones. The only structure in the text made of stones consisted of defensive walls in Alma 48:8, which is also documented in Ohio.)

Imagine trying to cast up dirt and earth against timbers
in such a rocky, barren terrain as Baja.

when they heard this they cast up their eyes as if to behold from whence the voice came;

(Helaman 5:48)

This is a different context but also connotes looking upward.

23 And they did work in all manner of ore, and they did make gold, and silver, and iron, and brass, and all manner of metals; and they did dig it out of the earth; wherefore, they did cast up mighty heaps of earth to get ore, of gold, and of silver, and of iron, and of copper. And they did work all manner of fine work. (Ether 10:23)

Heaps of earth are created by piling earth high; i.e., casting it up. 

The sole anomaly is the highway passage in 3 Nephi 6:8 where "cast up," according to the Rosenvalls, does not mean to create an embankment but to clear stones. And yet, that anomaly is contradicted even by the Isaiah passages they cite.

Plus, the highway described in 3 Nephi 6:8 fits the Great Hopewell Road, contrary to the tracks in the Baja desert. 

None of this was brought up in the video.

But it should have been.