Friday, June 29, 2018

Letter VII published in New York on June 29, 1844

Joseph Smith wanted everyone in the world to know about Letter VII.

It was published to the world in New York City on June 29, 1844, just two days after the martyrdom.

But today's M2C intellectuals and their followers at BYU/CES/COB don't want members of the Church to even know about Letter VII.

Think about that for a minute or two.

M2C can only survive as long as members of the Church are kept in ignorance, with the complicity of employees at the Church History Department, the Correlation Department, BYU, CES, etc.

Your typical BYU and CES instructors are not going to tell you about Letter VII because it contradicts their M2C ideology. 

Just ask them. You'll see. 

Maybe you'll get lucky and find a BYU/CES teacher who is teaching the truth. There are more and more of them, but the employees who run these organizations still include fantasy maps that repudiate the teachings of the prophets.
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William Smith, Joseph's brother, was the editor of The Prophet, a Mormon newspaper based in New York City. William republished Letter VII in the June 29, 1844, edition. 

This was two days after Joseph and Hyrum were martyred at the Carthage jail in Illinois.  You can see it for yourself here:


The timing is purely coincidental, but it is an interesting historical fact that people in New York were reading Letter VII *which explains that the Hill Cumorah is in New York) right about the time that Joseph was sealing his testimony with his blood in Carthage.

News traveled slowly in those days. On June 29, 1844, L.O. Littlefield wrote a letter from Nauvoo describing what had happened in Carthage. He sent it to the Editor of The Prophet, but it wasn't published until the July 27, 1844, issue. 

The June 29th issue also announced that William Smith was the editor of The Prophet.
__________________

It's interesting that the first issue of The Prophet, published in May 18, 1844, included Oliver's Letter I. The paper showed how significant these letters were to members of the Church in Joseph's day by introducing the letters with this statement:

"As the important particulars, and incidents, connected with the coming forth of the Book of Mormon, have ever been, and are now, subjects of enquiry, we shall insert, for the benefit of those who are not acquainted with the coming forth of the above named work, one of the following letters, each week until we are published." 

Each subsequent issue published another of his letters.

My point here is that although Oliver's letters had been published four times already (1835 - Kirtland, 1841 - Nauvoo, 1841 - Philadelphia, and 1844 - England), the editor of The Prophetthought they were so important that he republished them yet again, this time in New York.

The June 29th issue happened to be issue no. 7, which is why it contained Letter VII.

A fascinating coincidence, isn't it?
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Some readers may not be familiar with The Prophet. Here is an explanation from the DVD that accompanies Susan Easton Black's excellent book titled The Best of the Prophet.


The Latter-day Saint Experience in the East, 1844–1845
Susan Easton Black
The Prophet is the key to understanding the Latter-day Saint experience in the East from 1844 to 1845. Although only one volume of newsprint, the newspaper contains fifty-two issues, spanning four pages in length, with each page divided into five columns. This translates into approximately twenty-five hundred single-spaced pages on 8½" x 11" paper. And the masthead of the first weekly issue1 on Saturday, May 18, 1844, proudly proclaimed, "We Contend for the Truth." From the eighth issue on Saturday, July 6, 1844, to the final issue on Saturday, May 24, 1845, the proclamation was revised to include "Devoted to the Dissemination of Truth, Moral, Religious, Political, and Scientific."2
Editors of The Prophet printed an unrelenting defense of Mormonism to counteract exaggerated reports and slanderous claims stemming from Hancock County, Illinois, and printed in eastern newspapers. Editors George T. Leach, William Smith, Samuel Brannan, and Parley P. Pratt confronted politicians, newspaper columnists, and even the governor of Illinois on statements that misrepresented Mormon faith and vilified discipleship. In contrast, they wrote in glowing terms of Joseph Smith and the thousands of Mormons gathered on the banks of the Mississippi in the Zion-like society of Nauvoo. They wrote words of encouragement to fellow believers in the East who were planning to migrate to the Illinois capital of Mormonism.

Here is an excerpt from the book, pages 7-8
[William] Smith wrote to Leach (the founder of The Prophet) on June 3, 1844, "I mentioned to them [Church leaders in Nauvoo] concerning your publishing a paper in New York, and the Prophet bid it God speed: the council also sanctioned it by a loud and general vote, so 'go ahead' and do the best you can--which I have no doubt you will do--and the rest I will tell you when I get there."
...
With John Taylor and Wilford Woodruff engaged in publishing the Times and Seasons [in Nauvoo], Church leaders believed that a man equal to their apostolic status was needed to fill the editorship of The Prophet. Since William Smith was already serving a mission in the East, having been called on April 19, 1843, the choice seemed obvious. Church leaders met with Smith in May 1844 to ascertain his interest in being named editor of The Prophet. With the approbation of his brother Joseph and fellow members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, Smith agreed to take the helm of The Prophet.
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1Two weekly printings of The Prophet were missed—October 26, 1844, and May 17, 1845.
2"Masthead," The Prophet 1, no. 1 (May 18, 1844): p. 1, col. 1. Editors William Smith and Samuel Brannan added a scriptural caveat to the masthead: "Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the Prophets” (Amos 3:7). See "Surely the Lord God . . ." The Prophet 1, no. 8 (July 6, 1844): p. 1, col. 1.
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Wednesday, June 6, 2018

Authority of a thousand...

Observations are worth more than
academic sophistry
"In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual."
-  Galileo Galilei


With Letter VII, we're not dealing with science or humble reasoning, but the concept is the same.

The authority of a thousand intellectuals is not worth the humble statements of fact of a single individual who has actually observed what the intellectuals merely speculate about.

President Oliver Cowdery actually visited Mormon's depository of records in the hill Cumorah in New York. That's why he declared in Letter VII that is was a fact that the final battles took place there.
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Someone told me that an acquaintance of his said he believed the Mesoamerican/two-Cumorahs theory because John Sorenson's book, Mormon's Codex, was over 800 pages long.


Apparently he was serious.

I've heard similar comments about all the "peer-reviewed" work done by the citation cartel (BYU Studies, Interpreter, FARMS, Maxwell Institute, etc.), but of course none of it is "peer-reviewed" in any meaningful sense.

They don't seek or even allow reviews by peers who don't subscribe to M2C.

It's peer approval, not peer review, driven by confirmation bias. 



By comparison, Letter VII is only about 5 pages long (in the Messenger and Advocate), or about 10 handwritten pages in Joseph Smith's history.
http://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/history-1834-1836/83)


When you know the truth, you can simply declare it. Especially when you're an ordained prophet, seer and revelator.

President Cowdery's statements of fact about the New York Cumorah are more valuable than thousands of pages of rhetoric from latter-day intellectuals who insist that, because of their own reasoning, President Cowdery and all the other prophets and apostles were wrong about the New York Cumorah.
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Here are some more random observations that relate to Letter VII.

"With regard to matters requiring thought: the less people know and understand about them, the more positively they attempt to argue concerning them."
– Galileo Galilei

"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use."
– Galileo Galilei

"You should, in science, believe logic and arguments, carefully drawn, and not authorities."
– Richard Feynman

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it."
- Upton Sinclair

"The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present — and is gravely to be regarded.

Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite."

President Eisenhower   January 17, 1961
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Tuesday, May 29, 2018

Bias in reading history

Excerpt from Chapter 2 of my book, Letter VII: Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery Explain the Hill Cumorah.

 President Cowdery wrote Letter VII with the assistance of Joseph Smith and published it in 1835. Joseph had it copied into his personal history and saw that it was republished in Church publications during his lifetime so every member of the Church could learn the truth.

 Letter VII was published in New York City just two days after Joseph was murdered in Carthage.

 Here is the text from Chapter 2:
Each of us views the world through our own filters. We have biases. Think about your own biases as you read this (or any other) book. Consider the biases of the author.
Here is my bias. You can agree or disagree, but you should know that this is the filter I use to assess the facts.
I think Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery were credible and reliable witnesses. I think they were truthful. I don’t think they would say something was a fact unless they knew it was. (Later in this chapter I’ll explain how they knew Cumorah was in New York.)
Because Joseph and Oliver worked together on these letters, and because Joseph endorsed them repeatedly after they were published, I consider these letters, including Letter VII, as the testimony of two witnesses.
Their dual witness is the foundation of our beliefs about the restoration of Priesthood keys, the translation of the Book of Mormon, and more. Letter VII is no different.
My bias extends to all the prophets and apostles who have affirmed Letter VII’s teaching about Cumorah in New York, including members of the First Presidency speaking in General Conference.
Scholars and educators who reject Letter VII have a different bias. Because they believe Joseph and Oliver were wrong, they think Letter VII deserves no deference. They think every prophet and apostle who has taught that Cumorah is in New York was perpetrating a false tradition.
Keep these distinct biases in mind as you read the rest of this book, as well as any book on the topic. Ask which bias more closely reflects your own bias.

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Tuesday, May 15, 2018

Cumorah in the Joseph Smith Papers

I just returned from nearly 3 weeks in Europe, which is why I haven't posted anything for a while. Now there's a huge backlog of material to cover.

Because I encourage people to use the Joseph Smith Papers as much as possible (these original documents are a tremendously important resource), there are some quirks you need to know about when you use the web page.

One is when you look up the term "Cumorah."

There are 3 issues:
1. Only a few results appear.
2. Additional results are difficult to find.
3. The editorial notes promote the M2C narrative and obscure key points about Cumorah being an ancient name for the hill in New York where Moroni buried the plates.
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Few results.

If you do a search on the Joseph Smith Papers for "Cumorah," you get only 11 references to original documents and 5 to commentary. Here's a link to the results I got when I did the search. (The references are listed below in section 2 of this post).

Eleven references are not very many. Plus, many of these are duplicates. Five of the eleven are all to the same letter Joseph wrote, which is now D&C 128. Another reference is to the Book of Mormon itself. Yet another is to the hymn by W.W. Phelps that was dropped from LDS hymnals in 1930. 

This leaves only 4 original references to Cumorah: (i) the reference to the 1834 Zelph account that was compiled from several sources; (ii) Orson Pratt's 1840 pamphlet; (iii) a reference to Lucy Mack Smith's 1845 history that was later crossed out; and (iv) a reference to President Cowdery's 1835 Letter VIII.

This small number of references may lead readers and researchers to the conclusion that Cumorah was barely mentioned and not until "late" (to use the phrase favored by the M2C* citation cartel). At first glance, this seems to support the M2C argument that the "New York hill" was not really the ancient hill Cumorah of Mormon 6:6, and that some early members merely applied the name to the hill, thereby establishing a false tradition that Joseph himself adopted because he was an ignorant speculator. Seriously, that's what the M2C proponents are teaching their students.

The employees working for the Joseph Smith Papers and the Church History Department were mostly educated at BYU/CES and have close relationships with the M2C proponents at BYU/CES. Consequently, most of them favor M2C, and this editorial preference shows up repeatedly throughout the notes in the Joseph Smith Papers and the publications of the Church History Department. It even influences their treatment of Cumorah, as I'll show below.

Additional results hard to find.

Your search for "Cumorah" does not produce alternate spellings or even hyphenated versions. This means that a key link doesn't show up in the search, which I'll explain in the section of this post below that discusses Lucy Mack Smith.

Another difficulty is that multiple references in one document don't show up, except as a sort of footnote to the latest search result from that reference, like this:


This search result is listed as "History, 1834-1836, page 101." This looks like a reference to some historian's version of events.

99% of readers would never know that this link goes to a copy of President Cowdery's Letter VIII that was also republished multiple times during Joseph Smith's lifetime, at least twice at his direction.

Worse, most readers do not notice the additional references at the bottom. The link is worded as "Show only results from this document (7)." If you click on it, the link takes you to another page (this one).

This is not a user-friendly approach. First, the language is confusing because it implies that the default is to show all results from all documents, but that is not the case. We are looking at one result from the specified document.

A user-friendly link would allow you to expand the results, not replace all the other references you're looking at. This is normal practice for hyperlinks. The note should say something such as "Show additional results (7) from this document." Then readers could click on that and see how many more references to "Cumorah" there are in the Joseph Smith Papers.

Consequently, not only do readers not learn that this reference is to President Cowdery's Letter VIII, they don't learn the additional references are from Letter VII. You have to be well-versed in President Cowdery's letters to understand what you're looking at here.

Of course, the editors of the Joseph Smith Papers could easily fix this, but their M2C bias makes sure that won't happen.

They don't even include "Cumorah" in the glossary of terms. 
http://www.josephsmithpapers.org/reference/topics?filter=c

I'll discuss additional problems with the notes in the section below.
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Search results.

Here is the list of search results. The duplicates in the search results are marked in red below. These all involve the letter that became D&C 128.

1. Printer’s Manuscript of the Book of Mormon, circa August 1829–circa January 1830, Page 421

[text of the Book of Mormon]

2. Collection of Sacred Hymns, 1835, Page 22

[discontinued hymn by W.W. Phelps]


[compilation of Zelph accounts]


[Pratt pamphlet that quoted from Letter VII. This pamphlet includes this statement that is omitted from the search results because it was one of two references, so we only see the second. "At length, the Nephites were driven before their enemies, a great distance to the north, and north-east; and having gathered their whole nation together, both men, women, and children, they encamped on, and round about the hill Cumorah, where the records were found, which is in the State of New York, about two hundred miles west of the city of Albany."
In this same pamphlet, Orson Pratt claimed the Lamanites lived in South America while the Nephites lived in North America. He claimed the final battles started at "the Isthmus of Darien" and proceeded north to New York. This is the so-called "hemispheric model."
M2C proponents like to reject Pratt's comments about Cumorah in New York because they also reject his comments about the hemispheric model. The obvious logical fallacy of the M2C approach has two elements. First, Orson Pratt included some reliable information in the pamphlet; we don't reject all of it just because some of it doesn't work. Second, and more importantly, Joseph Smith used this pamphlet as a source for the Wentworth letter, but in doing so, he completely deleted all of Pratt's hemispheric rhetoric and stated simply that the descendants of Lehi are the Indians in this country. This is consistent with D&C 28, 30 and 32, wherein the Lord designates the Indians in New York and Ohio as Lamanites.]


[discussed in a separate section below]

[President Cowdery's Letter VIII. Here's where unsuspecting readers and researches don't see that it was President Cowdery who wrote this reference to Cumorah. We also don't know see the references in Letter VII unless we click on the link below this reference, and then search through the original source until we find where Letter VII begins. 

After describing the "hill in New York" from which Joseph obtained the plates, President Cowdery writes, "By turning to the 529th and 530th pages of the book of Mormon120 you will read Mormon’s account of the last great struggle of his people, as they were encamped round this hill Cumorah. (it is printed Camorah, which is an error.) In this vally fell the remaining strength and pride of a once powerful people, the Nephites." 

The editorial comments in the Joseph Smith Papers don't give any guidance to readers about the significance of the Letter VII explanations of Cumorah. Click on the "Historical Introduction" to see how they try to frame the inclusion of these letters as the work of Oliver Cowdery. Here's the link: http://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/history-1834-1836/90

In their Editorial Note prior to the letters, the editors don't even mention Letter VII or the significance of what it contains. See it here: http://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/history-1834-1836/48]



[NOTE: the search results below all involve editorial notes.]


[The note reads: "JS identified this angel as Moroni. Corrill named Moroni in chapter I as the person who buried the gold plates in the hill named Cumorah. ([JS], Editorial, Elders’ Journal, July 1838, 42–43.)"  This page in the Elders' Journal is found here: http://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/elders-journal-july-1838/11. Joseph didn't name the hill here. 

However, Corrill mentioned Cumorah here: http://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/john-corrill-a-brief-history-of-the-church-of-christ-of-latter-day-saints-1839/5. In that passage, Corrill wrote, "They [Oliver Cowdery, Parley P. Pratt, Peter Whitmer Jr., and Ziba Peterson] had with them a new revelation, which they said had been translated from certain golden plates that had been deposited in a hill, (anciently called Camorah,) in the township of Manchester, Ontario county, New York." This reference doesn't show up directly in the Cumorah search results because of the phonetic spelling, but it is a very important reference because it indicates that Corrill remembered Cowdery and the others saying the hill was called Cumorah anciently.]

[The note (20) reads, "Various individuals, some of whom personally knew JS, recounted decades later having been shown, either in vision or in literal experience, buried Nephite records. (See Packer, “Cumorah’s Cave,” 50–57.) " 

It is standard M2C dogma to characterize these accounts as relating merely a "vision" of a hill in Mexico. However, Brigham Young and others placed the experience directly in New York. 

This patriarchal blessing by Oliver to Joseph Smith to which this note pertains says, "The records of past ages and generations, and the histories of ancient days shall he bring forth: even the record of the Nephites shall he again obtain,19 with all those hid up by Mormon,20 and others who were righteous, and many others, till he is overwhelmed with knowledge." Oliver said Joseph would "again obtain" the record of the Nephites together with those records hid up by Mormon. I infer that Joseph and Oliver had previously obtained all these records when the moved them from the Hill Cumorah, probably back to the Hill Shim. I also infer that Joseph and Oliver intended one day to return and get those records but never could before Joseph was killed.]


[The note reads, "The plates were buried in present-day Manchester, Ontario County, New York, in what is now known as the Hill Cumorah." Notice the M2C editorial slant here. We just saw that Corrill said the hill was called Cumorah anciently, but the editors of the Joseph Smith Papers ignore that. Instead, they refer to the hill by labeling it as "what is now known as the Hill Cumorah." This supports the M2C narrative that the hill in New York was not the ancient Cumorah of Mormon 6:6 but merely a hill that some early LDS mistakenly named Cumorah.

[The note reads, "JS reported learning of gold plates buried in hill in township and visited site, now known as Hill Cumorah, annually, 1823–1827." Again, the editors of the Joseph Smith Papers repeat the M2C revision of history by framing the name as a modern invention.]
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Lucy Mack Smith.

Joseph's mother, Lucy Mack Smith, provided some very important references to Cumorah. The one that shows up in the search results says this: "up to the time when he took <​it​> out of the stone <​cement​> b0x in the hill of cumorah which took place the mor[n]ing that Mr Knight [Joseph Knight Sr.] missed his horse and waggon"

http://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/lucy-mack-smith-history-1844-1845/69

If you read just this one, it doesn't specify when Cumorah was named. It could have been named later, as a false tradition, the way the M2C intellectuals want us to think.

But look at the other reference to Lucy Mack Smith's book (which you have to click on the link below the first one to read). Lucy says Moroni said this to Joseph:

"you must tell your father of this for he will believe every word you say the record is on a side hill on the Hill of Cumorah 3 miles from this place remove the Grass and moss and you will find a large flat stone pry that up and you will find the record under it laying on 4 pillars <​of cement​>— then the angel left him"

http://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/lucy-mack-smith-history-1844-1845/41

Now we have Moroni himself calling the hill Cumorah.

The M2C intellectuals and the editors of the Joseph Smith Papers don't tell readers about this reference. I've seen explanations from them that this passage came late and reflects Lucy's later adoption of the false tradition about the New York Cumorah.

As I've shown in other places, the M2C intellectuals often cite Lucy's work with approval when they think it confirms their biases, but they never cite it when it contradicts their biases--as it usually does.

Here's another reference to Lucy's book that doesn't come up in the search results because of the spelling issue. In this one, she actually quotes Joseph with quotation marks. The incident Lucy is relating occurred before Joseph even obtained the plates, so long before he translated the term Cumorah in 1829.

“Stop, father, Stop.” said Joseph, “it was the angel of the Lord— as I passed by the hill of Cumorah, where the plates are, the angel of the Lord met me and said, that I had not been engaged enough in the work of the Lord; that the time had come for the record to <​be​> brought forth."

http://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/lucy-mack-smith-history-1845/111
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Of course, the M2C intellectuals and the editors of the Joseph Smith Papers disregard this account, even though it's in quotation marks, because it is "late" and reflects Lucy's adoption of the false tradition of the New York Cumorah.

 But those of us who accept the teachings of the prophets about the New York Cumorah find these examples from Lucy's history to be highly credible and reliable. 

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*M2C is the acronym for the Mesoamerican/two-Cumorahs theory promoted by intellectuals at BYU, CES and the Correlation Departement, as well as the citation cartel that suppresses information that contradicts M2C.

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Monday, April 23, 2018

Church History Department and Letter VII

Some people are uncomfortable with my observations about the way employees in Church departments (Correlation, Curriculum History and Missionary Departments) are promoting the Mesoamerican/two-Cumorahs theory (M2C).

I wish these employees were not promoting M2C. But we have to get real about this problem. The prophets (referring to all the prophets and apostles collectively) have consistently and repeatedly taught that Cumorah is in New York. No prophet has ever questioned or repudiated that teaching. But some LDS intellectuals have, and so have employees in these Church Departments.

The prophets always tell us to study the scriptures and the teachings of the prophets. They don't tell us to reject those teachings just because LDS scholars and Church employees do.

Just because CES and BYU reject what the prophets have taught doesn't mean we have to follow them instead of the prophets.

Today we'll look more closely at one example that I've briefly discussed before. The Church History Department doesn't want people to read Letter VII because the staff is promoting M2C. M2C influences everything they do, including the notes in the Joseph Smith Papers and the upcoming book titled Saints that has been excerpted in the Ensign.

This is a very serious issue because Saints will become the standard book on Church history for the entire world and it is misrepresenting Church history to promote M2C.

The April Ensign includes chapter 3 from the book. They can't censor Letter VII completely because it contains historical details available nowhere else, but they don't want anyone to know what Letter VII says about the Hill Cumorah. Consequently, they make it difficult to find.

Today's example is from the online version of Chapter 3. Go to this link and click on note 13:

https://lds.org/languages/eng/content/history/saints-v1/03-plates-of-gold?lang=eng

Here is a screenshot of the page. The left column is a table of contents, the center column is the text, and the right column shows the footnotes. It's an excellent format:

















Here is a close up that shows what they are doing.



Comment 1. You see how they cite Letter VII, but they give the reference only as the July 1835 Messenger and Advocate, with no hyperlink. As a reader of this blog, you know what the Messenger and Advocate is, but probably fewer than 5% of Church members have ever heard of it. No one knows how to find it.

Comment 2. Notice how they give references to the JSP for these two references, but they do not give the JSP reference for Letter VII. This is intentional. They could easily have referred to JSP, H1:72-79, where we can read Letter VII in Joseph's own history. But they don't want people to even know about that.

Comment 3. This is supposed to be Letter VII, but instead they label it as Letter IV again.

If you click on the link, it doesn't even go to Letter VII. Instead, it goes to the first page of the Messenger and Advocate on archive.org. From there, you can navigate to p. 155, where Letter VII starts, but because of the way archive.org works, it shows up as page 160 in the scroll bar. Plus, on archive.org it is difficult to read, copy, etc.

Instead, the Church History Department could have given a link to the Joseph Smith Papers.
Letter VII is right here:
http://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/history-1834-1836/83

Why wouldn't the Church History Department give this obvious link to readers?

They could argue that the Messenger and Advocate was the first publication. That sounds like a legitimate argument, but note 113 at the top of Letter VII in the JSP already explains that it came from the Messenger and Advocate. (BTW, the JSP notes don't tell readers that Letter VII was also republished in the Times and Seasons, the Gospel Reflector, the Millennial Star, and the Prophet.)

The Church History Department knows full well that Joseph's history contains Letter VII, but they don't want Church members to know that because of what Letter VII says about the hill Cumorah in New York. (those passages begin here: http://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/history-1834-1836/89).

You will see in upcoming chapters that Saints never tells readers what Joseph and Oliver actually taught about the Hill Cumorah in New York.

In fact, Saints is already deliberately misleading readers about early Church history, as I'll explain in an upcoming post. They are doing this solely to promote M2C.
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BTW, I've told the Church History Department about these errors, but they couldn't care less about what I say, so they haven't even corrected the obvious error of listing Letter IV twice.

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Tuesday, April 17, 2018

Why is there a visitors center at the Hill Cumorah in New York?

Hill Cumorah Visitors Center, April 2018
Because the exhibits in the Hill Cumorah Visitors Center teach that Cumorah is in Mexico (M2C, or the Mesoamerican/two-Cumorahs theory), it's a bit of a puzzle why the Church even has a Visitors Center at the Hill Cumorah in New York.

Site missionaries are allowed to tell visitors only that this is the location where Joseph Smith got the plates from Moroni. They cannot mention Letter VII or the teachings of the prophets about Cumorah and the Book of Mormon.

They cannot even read Mormon 6:6 with visitors, let alone Ether 13.

Any discussion of the hill Cumorah as the site of Mormon's depository of Nephite records or the location of the final battles of the Jaredites and Nephites is forbidden.

Maybe someday they'll transfer the building to the "real Cumorah" in Mexico. Just as soon as Book of Mormon Central America, or Fairly Mormon, find that location.
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But at least there is a consensus that Joseph Smith got the plates from the "hill in New York" where the Visitors Center is located. I was curious how we even know that this hill is the one from which Joseph obtained the plates.

It turns out, it's all because of Letter VII.
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Joseph Smith-History says this about the hill:

51 Convenient to the village of Manchester, Ontario county, New York, stands a hill of considerable size, and the most elevated of any in the neighborhood. On the west side of this hill, not far from the top, under a stone of considerable size, lay the plates, deposited in a stone box. 

Hills in the village of Manchester, Ontario County
There are lots of hills in the area, and it's not easy to tell which is the highest. Joseph referred to a "neighborhood," but how extensive was this neighborhood?

In Joseph Smith's day, one distinguishing feature of the hill Cumorah was the embankments around it. These have been leveled and farmed now for nearly two centuries, but after Heber C. Kimball joined the Church in April 1832, he visited the site.

He wrote, "The hill Cumorah is a high hill for that country, and had the appearance of a fortification or entrenchment around it."

When he was 14 years old, Kimball worked in his father's blacksmith shop in the Bloomfield area west of Canandaigua and east of Avon. His observations of the area are quoted in his biography, Life of Heber C. Kimball, on p. 25:

"From the time Father Bosley located near Avon, he found and plowed up axes and irons, and had sufficient to make his mill irons, and had always abundance of iron on hand without purchasing. 

"In the towns of Bloomfield, Victor, Manchester, and in the regions round about, there were hills upon the tops of which were entrenchments and fortifications, and in them were human bones, axes, tomahawks, points of arrows, beads and pipes, which were frequently found; and it was a common occurrence in the country to plow up axes, which I have done many times myself.

"I have visited the fortifications on the tops of those hills frequently, and the one near Bloomfield I have crossed hundreds of times, which is on the bluff of Honeyoye River, and the outlet of Honeyoye Lake....

"The hill Cumorah is a high hill for that country, and had the appearance of a fortification or entrenchment around it. In the State of New York, probably there are hundreds of these fortifications which are now visible, and I have seen them in many other parts of the United States."

Heber's biographer, Elder Orson F. Whitney of the Quorum of the Twelve, commented "Readers of the Book of Mormon will remember that in this very region, according to that sacred record, the final battles were fought between the Nephites and Lamanites. At the hill Cumorah, the Nephites made their last stand prior to their utter extermination, A.D., 385.

"Thus was Heber preaching the Gospel to the Gentiles, above the graves of the ancients of Israel, whose records with the fullness of that Gospel, and the relics of their prowess and civilization, were now 'whispering from the dust.'"

But still, this description gives us no specifics about which of the hills was the actual hill Cumorah.

For that, we must refer to President Cowdery's description in Letter VII:

You are acquainted with the mail road from Palmyra, Wayne Co. to Canandaigua, Ontario Co. N.Y. and also, as you pass from the former to the latter place, before arriving at the little village of Manchester, say from three to four, or about four miles from Palmyra, you pass a large hill on the east side of the road. Why I say large, is because it is as large perhaps, as any in that country. To a person acquainted with this road, a description would be unnecessary, as it is the largest and rises the highest of any on that rout. The north end rises quite sudden until it assumes a level with the more southerly extremity, and I think I may say an elevation higher than at the south a short distance, say half or three fourths of a mile. As you pass toward canandaigua it lessens gradually until the surface assumes its common level, or is broken by other smaller hills or ridges, water courses and ravines. I think I am justified in saying that this is the highest hill for some distance round, and I am certain that its appearance, as it rises so suddenly from a plain on the north, must attract the notice of the traveller as he passes by.

 At about one mile west rises another ridge of less height, running parallel with the former, leaving a beautiful vale between. The soil is of the first quality for the country, and under a state of cultivation, which gives a prospect at once imposing, when one reflects on the fact, that here, between these hills, the entire power and national strength of both the Jaredites and Nephites were destroyed.

 http://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/history-1834-1836/89

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We find it fascinating that the Church built the Visitors Center at this location by relying on President Cowdery's Letter VII, but the displays and literature in the Visitors Center never mention Letter VII today. 

Members of the Church have to dig hard to find out what President Cowdery and the other prophets and apostles have taught about the New York hill Cumorah.








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Saturday, March 17, 2018

New Oliver Cowdery Memorial - Palmyra

Many readers know we bought property near Palmyra which is becoming the "Oliver Cowdery Memorial" site.

I'm going to discuss it at the Book of Mormon conference on April 6th, so I'm not going to discuss the details on this blog, but so many people have asked about it I wanted to at least explain where it is.

When he described the Hill  Cumorah in Letter VII, President Cowdery wrote:

You are acquainted with the mail road from Palmyra, Wayne Co. to Canandaigua, Ontario Co. N.Y. and also, as you pass from the former to the latter place, before arriving at the little village of Manchester, say from three to four, or about four miles from Palmyra, you pass a large hill on the east side of the road.

 Quotation from the Joseph Smith Papers, History, 1834-1836,
http://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/history-1834-1836/89
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The new Oliver Cowdery Memorial is on this very mail road. It's the perfect location to explain President Cowdery's role in the Restoration, his connections with Palmyra and the Hill Cumorah, and the importance of Cumorah in Church history and the Book of Mormon.

Here's the map of the area, showing the location of the memorial.


This map is adapted from lds.org, here:

https://history.lds.org/site/historic-sites/new-york/palmyra/interactive-map?lang=eng

Someday, I hope the exhibits are on display on top of the Hill Cumorah, where people should be learning about the importance of this site.

Eventually that will happen.

But until then, the thousands of annual visitors to Palmyra will be driving between the Hill Cumorah and the Sacred Grove. They will all drive by the Oliver Cowdery Memorial in both directions.

Now they can stop learn all about Letter VII, the words of the prophets, the 3 reasons to visit Cumorah, and how Cumorah fits with the North American setting.

 This is going to be an epic summer of education about Church history and the Book of Mormon.
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