{"id":3755,"date":"2016-04-09T08:00:05","date_gmt":"2016-04-09T14:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/?p=3755"},"modified":"2016-04-06T20:05:05","modified_gmt":"2016-04-07T02:05:05","slug":"ces-reply-book-of-mormon-geography","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/ces-reply-book-of-mormon-geography\/","title":{"rendered":"CES Reply: Book of Mormon geography"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>This is an excerpt from &#8220;A Reply from a Former CES Employee.&#8221; The entire document can be downloaded for free.<\/em><\/p>\n<div class=\"\"><a href=\"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/CESReply.pdf\" target=\"_self\" class=\"emd_dl_red_darker\" download>Download CES Reply<\/a><\/div>    <style>            \r\n    .emd_dl_red_darker {\r\n        -moz-box-shadow:inset 0px 1px 0px 0px #f5978e;\r\n        -webkit-box-shadow:inset 0px 1px 0px 0px #f5978e;\r\n        box-shadow:inset 0px 1px 0px 0px #f5978e;\r\n        background:-webkit-gradient( linear, left top, left bottom, color-stop(0.05, #f24537), color-stop(1, #c62d1f) );\r\n        background:-moz-linear-gradient( center top, #f24537 5%, #c62d1f 100% );\r\n        filter:progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.gradient(startColorstr='#f24537', endColorstr='#c62d1f');\r\n        background-color:#f24537;\r\n        -webkit-border-top-left-radius:0px;\r\n        -moz-border-radius-topleft:0px;\r\n        border-top-left-radius:0px;\r\n        -webkit-border-top-right-radius:0px;\r\n        -moz-border-radius-topright:0px;\r\n        border-top-right-radius:0px;\r\n        -webkit-border-bottom-right-radius:0px;\r\n        -moz-border-radius-bottomright:0px;\r\n        border-bottom-right-radius:0px;\r\n        -webkit-border-bottom-left-radius:0px;\r\n        -moz-border-radius-bottomleft:0px;\r\n        border-bottom-left-radius:0px;\r\n        text-indent:0;\r\n        border:1px solid #d02718;\r\n        display:inline-block;\r\n        color:#ffffff !important;\r\n        font-family:Georgia;\r\n        font-size:15px;\r\n        font-weight:bold;\r\n        font-style:normal;\r\n        height:41px;\r\n        line-height:41px;\r\n        width:200px;\r\n        text-decoration:none;\r\n        text-align:center;\r\n        text-shadow:1px 1px 0px #810e05;\r\n    }\r\n    .emd_dl_red_darker:hover {\r\n        background:-webkit-gradient( linear, left top, left bottom, color-stop(0.05, #c62d1f), color-stop(1, #f24537) );\r\n        background:-moz-linear-gradient( center top, #c62d1f 5%, #f24537 100% );\r\n        filter:progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.gradient(startColorstr='#c62d1f', endColorstr='#f24537');\r\n        background-color:#c62d1f;\r\n    }.emd_dl_red_darker:active {\r\n        position:relative;\r\n        top:1px;\r\n    }<\/style>\n<p>This is a line-by-line response to Jeremy Runnells&#8217; &#8220;Letter to a CES Director: Why I Lost My Testimony.&#8221;\u00a0<span style=\"color: #008000;\">Jeremy&#8217;s words are in green, the color of life,<\/span>\u00a0while mine are in black, the color of darkness.<\/p>\n<p>_______<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #008000;\">7. \u00a0Book of Mormon Geography: Many Book of Mormon names and places are strikingly similar to many local names and places of the region Joseph Smith lived. \u2028\u2028<\/span><\/p>\n<p>No, not really, but we\u2019ll get to that later on when you address this point at length. \u2028\u2028The following two maps show Book of Mormon geography compared to Joseph Smith&#8217;s geography:<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #008000;\">The first map is the &#8220;proposed map,&#8221; constructed from internal comparisons in the Book of Mormon.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Book of Mormon Geography:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/?attachment_id=3756\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-3756\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-3756 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/Picture1.png\" alt=\"Picture1\" width=\"590\" height=\"410\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #008000;\">Joseph Smith\u2019s Geography\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #008000;\"> (Northeast United States &amp; Southeast Canada)<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/?attachment_id=3757\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-3757\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-3757 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/Picture2.png\" alt=\"Picture2\" width=\"600\" height=\"415\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #008000;\">The first map is the &#8220;proposed map,&#8221; constructed from internal comparisons in the Book of Mormon.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>No, the first map was constructed from comparison with the second map. Or, rather, the first map <i>is<\/i> the second map, only with Book of Mormon names placed in substitution for real-world locations that have similar-sounding names. The problem is that many of the \u201cproposed\u201d first-map Book of Mormon sites directly contradict their actual geographical references in the Book of Mormon, making the first map pretty much worthless.<\/p>\n<p>For example, there\u2019s Jacobsburg down near the southwest corner of the second map. (Everybody wave. Hi, Jacobsburg!)\u00a0 But 3 Nephi 7:12 describes Jacob, a wicked man appointed as the king of a secret combination, as he commands his followers \u201cthat they should take their flight into the northernmost part of the land, and there build up unto themselves a kingdom,\u201d a kingdom which is identified as Jacobugath in 3 Nephi 9:9. (\u201cAnd behold, that great city Jacobugath, which was inhabited by the people of king Jacob, have I caused to be burned with fire because of their sins and their wickedness\u2026\u201d)<\/p>\n<p>In what universe can the lower southwest be considered the \u201cnorthernmost part of the land?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Alma 22:28 describes the land of Lehi-Nephi as being \u201con the west of the land of Zarahemla, in the borders by the seashore.\u201d\u00a0 Yet there\u2019s Lehigh County, PA, inconveniently on the eastern, not western, seashore, and not really \u201con the west\u201d of anything.<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps the most brazen error in Map #1 is the proposed location of \u201cRamah,\u201d which this map equates with a Canadian town using the same name without an H. But Ether 15:11 identifies Ramah as the Jaredite name for \u201cCumorah,\u201d a location this map pins in Joseph Smith\u2019s hometown of Palmyra. (\u201cPalmyra\u201d sounds very different from \u201cCumorah,\u201d but we\u2019ll let it slide for now.) How can Ramah\/Cumorah be both in Canada and New York at the same time? And weren\u2019t you previously upset about the possibility of two Cumorahs?<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #008000;\">Throughout the Book of Mormon we read of such features as &#8220;The Narrow Neck of Land&#8221; which was a day and a half&#8217;s journey (roughly 30 miles) separating two great seas. We read much of the Hill Onidah and the Hill Ramah \u2013 all place names in the land of Joseph Smith&#8217;s youth.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>We \u201cread much of the Hill Onidah and the Hill Ramah?\u201d Where? Onidah is mentioned three times, and only once as a hill, in two verses totaling 122 words. Ramah gets even shorter shrift \u2013 one mention in a single 39-word verse. Combined, all verses referencing the Hill Onidah and the Hill Ramah constitute .006% of the Book of Mormon text, which is not \u201cmuch\u201d at all. There are ironically more references to the Hill Ramah and the Hill Onidah in your letter than there are in the entire Book of Mormon.<\/p>\n<p>And, incidentally, why does the \u201cland of Joseph Smith\u2019s youth\u201d somehow include a remote Canadian village 1,811 miles away from his hometown that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ourroots.ca\/e\/page.aspx?id=1037713\">didn\u2019t exist at all in 1830 and wasn\u2019t named \u201cRama\u201d until six years after the Book of Mormon was published?<br \/>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #008000;\">We read in the Book of Mormon of the Land of Desolation named for a warrior named Teancum who helped General Moroni fight in the Land of Desolation. In Smith&#8217;s era, an Indian Chief named Tecumseh fought and died near the narrow neck of land helping the British in the War of 1812. Today, the city Tecumseh (near the narrow neck of land) is named after him.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Today it is, yes. But not when the Book of Mormon was published. It wasn\u2019t named\u00a0<\/span>Tecumseh <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Tecumseh,_Ontario\">until 1912.<\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #008000;\">We see the Book of Mormon city Kishkumen located near an area named, on modern maps, as Kiskiminetas.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>On modern maps, yes. But not any map Joseph Smith could have seen. This area wasn\u2019t named Kiskiminetas <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Kiskiminetas_Township,_Armstrong_County,_Pennsylvania\">until a year after the Book of Mormon was published.<\/a> And, as demonstrated above, the supposed Book of Mormon locations in the map you provided are highly speculative and often demonstrably incorrect.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #008000;\">There are more than a dozen Book of Mormon names that are the same as or nearly the same as modern geographical locations.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Wow. \u201cMore than a dozen.\u201d Out of 337 total proper names in the text, <a href=\"http:\/\/eom.byu.edu\/index.php\/Book_of_Mormon_Names\">188 of which are unique to the Book of Mormon.<\/a> And given that you consider things like \u201cJacobsburg\u201d and \u201cJacobugath\u201d to be \u201cnearly the same,\u201d I\u2019m surprised you could only come up with forced parallels for less than 5% of the names in total.<\/p>\n<p>Still, let\u2019s take a look at the \u201cmore than a dozen.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-block-pdfemb-pdf-embedder-viewer\"><a href=\"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/Workbook3.pdf\" class=\"pdfemb-viewer\" style=\"\" data-width=\"max\" data-height=\"max\" data-toolbar=\"bottom\" data-toolbar-fixed=\"off\">Workbook3<\/a><\/div>\n<p>Yep, that\u2019s more than a dozen, all right. 18, to be precise. Although why do you cite \u201cOneida\u201d twice? Did Joseph really name the \u201cland\u201d of Onidah after the city and the hill after \u201cOneida Castle?\u201d And since the Book of Mormon never refers to the \u201cLand of Onidah,\u201d why do you get to stick that one in there?<\/p>\n<p>So, really, we\u2019re down to 17.<\/p>\n<p>So allow me to reproduce this list with my comments in a third column. (Most of my comments come from information provided by the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.fairmormon.org\/Book_of_Mormon\/Plagiarism_accusations\/Place_names_from_North_America\">unofficial apologists at FAIR you so despise<\/a>, but since the info seems to be accurate on this subject, I see no reason to avoid using it.)<\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-block-pdfemb-pdf-embedder-viewer\"><a href=\"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/Workbook2.pdf\" class=\"pdfemb-viewer\" style=\"\" data-width=\"max\" data-height=\"max\" data-toolbar=\"bottom\" data-toolbar-fixed=\"off\">Workbook2<\/a><\/div>\n<p>So, to sum up, out of the Book of Mormon\u2019s 337 total proper names, you cite 17 that you believe were lifted from locales within a 2,000-mile radius of Joseph\u2019s home, yet 8 of those names didn\u2019t apply to locations in 1830, and Joseph\u2019s knowledge of an additional 5 would have been unlikely, leaving 4 geographical names that are similar, but not identical, to Book of Mormon names.<\/p>\n<p>And thus it is that 1.2% of all Book of Mormon names may or may not have been adapted from precisely four place names out of thousands in a geographical area roughly the size of half of the United States, a tenuous correlation at best that still requires you to think \u201cAni-Anti\u201d is a clear derivative of \u201cAntioch.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #008000;\">This is all just a coincidence?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Pretty much, yeah.<\/p>\n<p><em>Tomorrow: Cumorah, Moroni, and Captain Kidd!<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<em>Thisis an excerpt from \"A Reply from a Former CES Employee.\" The entire document can be downloaded for free.<\/em>This is a line-by-line response to Jeremy Runnells' \"Letter to a CES Director: Why I Lost My Testimony.\"\u00a0<span style=\"color: #008000;\">Jeremy's words are in green, the color of life,<\/span>\u00a0while mine are in black, the color of darkness._______ ... <a title=\"CES Reply: Book of Mormon geography\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/ces-reply-book-of-mormon-geography\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about CES Reply: Book of Mormon geography\">Read more<\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3755","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3755","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3755"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3755\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3764,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3755\/revisions\/3764"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}