Fixing Cumorah, one step at a time

We are always happy to see improvements in the historic sites and visitors centers. A good example now is the Hill Cumorah Visitors Center.

For many years, the Visitors Center at Temple Square taught visitors that there were "two Cumorahs." They showed Mormon's Cumorah (Mormon 6:6), which they depicted as being in Mexico in a room covered with Mayan glyphs.

And down the hall they showed Moroni's Cumorah in New York.

Millions of visitors saw this display, including impressionable kids.

This was a true travesty. It did not merely misrepresent the scriptures and the historical record, but it repudiated the express teachings of the prophets.

To compound the error, the display of "Moroni's hill" showed Moroni putting the plates in his stone box, along with the sword of Laban and the Liahona. They duplicated this part of the exhibit even at the Hill Cumorah Visitors Center!

Why would they show Moroni putting the sword and Liahona in the box?

This was the only way the M2Cers could explain D&C 17:1. Because they insisted that the "real" Cumorah was in Mexico, M2C requires that the sword of Laban and the Liahona be in the stone box.

Among others, Keith Erekson, as director of the Church History Library, explicitly taught this to visitors. He even memorialized his "sword in the box" theory in his book, Real vs. Rumor.

To support his "sword in the box" theory, Erekson did not cite (or even mention) what Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery said in their detailed descriptions and explanations of Moroni's stone box. Nir did he cite what their contemporaries said at the time.

Instead he reached out to an 1886 statement by Joseph's sister Katherine (which he misspelled because he apparently didn't even read the original source). Katherine did not even mention the stone box.

We've discussed this in detail here: 

https://www.ldshistoricalnarratives.com/p/real-vs-rumor-keith-ereksons-failed.html

Fortunately, that M2C display was removed both at Temple Square and at the Hill Cumorah.

Today, the Hill Cumorah Visitors Center explains the accurate historical record about the stone box.

There are no M2C exhibits at the current Hill Cumorah Visitors Center.

We can all hope that Keith Erekson will issue a second edition of his book to correct the error, but he probably won't.

Meanwhile, the Hill Cumorah Visitors Center still doesn't explain why it is called the Hill Cumorah. Let's hope that someday, the center will include a display of authentic Church historical sources, including Letter VII, so visitors will know why the hill is called Cumorah.

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The historical record is clear, obvious, and straightforward. The first time he visited Joseph Smith in September 1823, Moroni explained that the record was written and deposited not far from Joseph's home in the hill Cumorah. Oliver Cowdery explained that it is a fact that the hill in New York is the same hill called Cumorah/Ramah in the Book of Mormon.