{"id":3765,"date":"2016-04-10T08:00:57","date_gmt":"2016-04-10T14:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/?p=3765"},"modified":"2026-07-01T12:40:03","modified_gmt":"2026-07-01T18:40:03","slug":"ces-reply-moroni-cumorah-and-captain-kidd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/ces-reply-moroni-cumorah-and-captain-kidd\/","title":{"rendered":"CES Reply: Moroni, Cumorah, and Captain Kidd"},"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><span style=\"color: #008000;\">Hill Cumorah:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #008000;\">Off the eastern coast of Mozambique in Africa is an island country called \u201cComoros.\u201d Prior to its French occupation in 1841, the islands were known by its Arabic name, \u201cCamora.\u201d There is an 1808 map of Africa that refers to the islands as \u201cCamora.\u201d<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #008000;\"> Camora is near center in the above 1808 Map of Africa.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/?attachment_id=3766\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-3766\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-3766 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/comoras.png\" alt=\"comoras\" width=\"284\" height=\"201\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The largest city and capital of Comoros (formerly \u201cCamora\u201d)? Moroni.<\/p>\n<p>Now we\u2019re getting somewhere. This is much more interesting than Jacobugathian weak sauce you\u2019ve offered up until now.<\/p>\n<p>Certainly Moroni and Cumorah are far more central to the Book of Mormon narrative than the tiny Canadian town of Rama that didn\u2019t yet exist but was still somehow part of the \u201clands of Joseph\u2019s youth.\u201d Furthermore, Moroni (the man) and Cumorah are linked together, as are Moroni (the town) and Comoros (the island.) So the possible correlation here is far stronger and far more noteworthy than the stuff about the hill Onidah that we\u2019ve all heard so much about.<\/p>\n<p>So before I dive into some of the apologetics on this subject which you\u2019ve probably seen ad nauseum anyway, I want to take a step back and hypothetically concede your point. That is to say, I want to imagine for a moment that Joseph found a contemporary reference to Comoros and Moroni and then decided to make one a hill and one a warrior\/writer\/nomad\/angel in a fictional magnum religious opus about ancient Americans.<\/p>\n<p>How does that explain anything about how the Book of Mormon came to be?<\/p>\n<p>So much of your criticism of the Book of Mormon strains at gnats and swallows camels. Even if Joseph had lifted all these names, or carelessly copied biblical mistakes, or faked having a bunch of plates and spectacles, there\u2019s still the issue of the Book of Mormon itself.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s here. It exists. It had to come from somewhere.<\/p>\n<p>A handful of plagiarized names and a sampling of Isaiah excerpts aren\u2019t nearly enough to account for more than 265,000 words of an intergenerational and internally consistent thousand-year history that has endured over a century of scrutiny and still confounds critics and defies easy explanation. You pick two names off a map, and you still have 264,998 words to go.<\/p>\n<p>Elder Jeffrey R. Holland said it better than I could:<\/p>\n<p><i>If anyone is foolish enough or misled enough to reject 531 pages of a heretofore unknown text teeming with literary and Semitic complexity without honestly attempting to account for the origin of those pages\u2014especially without accounting for their powerful witness of Jesus Christ and the profound spiritual impact that witness has had on what is now tens of millions of readers\u2014if that is the case, then such a person, elect or otherwise, has been deceived; and if he or she leaves this Church, it must be done by crawling over or under or around the Book of Mormon to make that exit.<\/i><\/p>\n<p>But all right, fine. Comoros and Moroni. You asked, so let\u2019s see if we can find some answers together.<\/p>\n<p>Maybe those answers are in Lamanai, Belize.<\/p>\n<p>What? A city in central America named Lamanai? Certainly some Mormon named it relatively recently. Wait, no &#8211; the non-Mormon <a href=\"http:\/\/mormanity.blogspot.com\/2004\/09\/joseph-smith-and-comoros-islands.html\">Journal of Field Archaeology<\/a> says \u201cLamanai is in fact one of the very few Maya sites for which the ancient name is recorded.\u201d So Lamanai is an ancient name? Like Laman? Lamanite? Or King Lamoni? The name of an ancient king passed down for centuries\u2026<\/p>\n<p>Gasp! Surely this proves that the Book of Mormon is true!<\/p>\n<p>If your eyes aren\u2019t rolling yet, they should be. This, of course, proves nothing whatsoever. But those who think Comoros and Moroni are solid evidence that Joseph is a fraud are also likely to dismiss Lamanai without a second thought. The fact is that language is weird, and similar stuff shows up in very odd places. Jeff Lindsay, the unofficial apologist guy I linked to above who discovered the non-Mormon Lamanai reference, also recalls meeting Italians with the surname \u201cMoroni.\u201d Why would Italians share the same name as the capital of a small African island? No good answer for that other than coincidence.<\/p>\n<p>As for Comoros, you\u2019re likely well aware that back then, Moroni was a tiny settlement that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.lightplanet.com\/mormons\/response\/qa\/bom_plagerize_moronicumorah.htm#footnote\">wasn\u2019t on maps in 1830<\/a> and didn\u2019t become the capital of Comoros until 1876. So even though this coincidence is far more striking than the vague similarities between Sherbrooke and Shurr, there\u2019s really no way that Joseph would have known about Moroni the village at the time he was engaged in the history of Moroni the warrior\/writer\/nomad\/angel. He could have known about Comoros if he was digging through obscure African maps in libraries far removed from Palmyra, but, really, that\u2019s highly unlikely. What would be the point? Especially if he\u2019s so lazy as to lift 1.2% of the names from the \u201clands of his youth\u201d within a 2,000 mile radius. And if he was combing African maps to mine Book of Mormon names, why did he choose only Comoros and no other African geography? His critics are giving him far too much credit.<\/p>\n<p>I offer up an additional theory that may or may not be helpful. Doubters won\u2019t be impressed, but believers don\u2019t necessarily have to chalk up the name of the village of Moroni solely to coincidence. According to the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Moroni,_Comoros\">infallible Wikipedia<\/a>, the village was \u201cfounded by Arabic settlers, possibly during the 10th century.\u201d Any chance that Arabic and reformed Egyptian have some vocabulary in common? Why not? In addition, Comoros was settled by a <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Anjouan\">large Polynesian contingent<\/a>, too, and many leaders have taught that the Polynesians have ancestral connections to the Book of Mormon. (Not trying to open a can of worms here \u2013 those leaders are not infallible, and <a href=\"http:\/\/eom.byu.edu\/index.php\/Polynesians\">BYU has conceded<\/a> that there\u2019s no scientific proof of this.) My point is that the evolution of language is a strange and wonderful thing, and it\u2019s certainly possible that the Nephite name \u201cMoroni\u201d could very well have wormed its way into international lexicons and landing in a tiny island in Africa.<\/p>\n<p>Or not. This isn\u2019t anything more than a fun tidbit to think about.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #008000;\">\u201cCamora\u201d and settlement \u201cMoroni\u201d were common names in pirate and treasure hunting stories involving Captain William Kidd (a pirate and treasure hunter) which many 19th century New Englanders \u2013 especially treasure hunters \u2013 were familiar with.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>No, they weren\u2019t. If they were, those like Grant Palmer and others who lean heavily on the Captain Kidd theory for Moroni and Cumorah\u2019s origins would be able to provide actual references from such stories to back this up, particularly if they were \u201ccommon names,\u201d which, given the miniscule 1830 size of the Moroni settlement, they clearly were not. Near as I can tell, no such citations exist. (You certainly don\u2019t provide any.) And if these really were common names in popular stories, then why do none of Joseph\u2019s legion of critics notice supposedly obvious Kidd\/Cumorah\/Moroni connection during Joseph\u2019s lifetime? Why do we have to wait until Grant Palmer comes along in the 21<sup>st<\/sup> Century before anyone notices it at all?<\/p>\n<p>In his letters, Kidd himself makes reference to the nearby islands of Madagascar, Johanna, and Mahala, but says nothing of Camora or Moroni. The best that Palmer can do to tie these names to Kidd and then to Joseph is to point out that Kidd operated <a href=\"http:\/\/mormonthink.com\/grant11.htm\">\u201cin the vicinity\u201d<\/a> of these two places, because Kidd makes no direct mention of them. Making the leap from being \u201cin the vicinity\u201d of locations Kidd never mentions to a presumption that the unmentioned locales constituted \u201ccommon names\u201d in stories about Kidd strains credulity to the breaking point. If Kidd\u2019s exploits truly were the linguistic inspiration for the place the plates were buried, we\u2019d be much more likely to be reading about the Hill Mahala than the Hill Cumorah.<\/p>\n<p>Another thought \u2013 if we are to presume that Moroni in the Book of Mormon was inspired by the exploits of a glamorous pirate like Captain Kidd, then why is Moroni as un-Kidd-like a figure as it is possible to be? Where\u2019s Moroni\u2019s ship? Where\u2019s his merry band of fellow brigands? Where are all his death-defying scrapes, dashing romances, and fantastical adventures? Moroni is a gloomy loner who wanders the empty landscape for decades without any companions at all and no enemies to face. He\u2019s a great prophet, sure, but he makes for a pretty lousy pirate story.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #008000;\">In fact, the uniform spelling for Hill Cumorah in the 1830 edition of the Book of Mormon is spelled as \u201cCamorah.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Which, just to nitpick, is different from \u201cCamora,\u201d which is the spelling of the location on the map you provide.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #008000;\">Pomeroy Tucker was born in Palmyra, New York in 1802, three years before Joseph Smith. He is considered to be a contemporary source. This is what he said about Joseph Smith:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #008000;\">&#8220;Joseph &#8230; had learned to read comprehensively &#8230; [reading] works of fiction and records of criminality, such for instance as would be classed with the &#8216;dime novels&#8217; of the present day. The stories of Stephen Buroughs and Captain Kidd, and the like, presented the highest charms for his expanding mental perceptions.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #008000;\"><a style=\"color: #008000;\" href=\"https:\/\/ia600404.us.archive.org\/15\/items\/originriseprogre00tuck\/originriseprogre00tuck.pdf\">\u2013 Mormonism: Its Origin, Rise, and Progress, p.17\u00a0<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p>You feel it necessary to point out that Tucker was born in Palmyra three years before Joseph Smith, but you neglect to mention that \u201cMormonism: Its Origin, Rise, and Progress\u201d was published in 1867, twenty-three years after the prophet\u2019s death and roughly fifty years after Joseph was allegedly poring through \u201cworks of fiction and records of criminality\u201d with special emphasis on the stories of Buroughs and Kidd. I\u2019m left to wonder how many people from my own childhood about whom I could confidently describe their reading habits with any degree of specificity half a century after the fact.<\/p>\n<p>This would be a challenge for me if I were asked to provide such information about my closest friends, let alone someone like Tucker, who makes it clear that he had nothing but contempt for Joseph. (More on that later.) There\u2019s no plausible reason for Tucker to take such a keen interest in Joseph\u2019s early reading habits.<\/p>\n<p>And, of course, Tucker\u2019s opinion on this subject contradicts the entirety of contemporaneous testimony about Joseph\u2019s literary tastes. His enemies unanimously dismissed him as illiterate and ignorant at the time \u2013 as does Tucker elsewhere in his book, despite the obvious contradiction with the tidbit you quote &#8211;\u00a0 while even his own mother described him as the one of her children least inclined to reading. If Joseph truly were devouring all the dime novels he could get his hands on in order to accommodate his \u201cexpanding mental perceptions,\u201d why did it take nearly five decades for anyone to notice?<\/p>\n<p>Oh, and by the way, why doesn\u2019t <i>Mormonism: Its Origin, Rise, and Progress<\/i> say a single word about Kidd\u2019s and Joseph\u2019s supposed connection to the Island of Camora and the settlement of Moroni? If these were, indeed, \u201ccommon names,\u201d you\u2019d think Tucker, of all people, would be the first to cry foul.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #008000;\">Some apologists say that Tucker\u2019s Mormonism: Its Origin, Rise, and Progress is anti-Mormon and thus anything in the book cannot be trusted.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\u201cSome apologists?\u201d Who?<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #008000;\">The problem with this premise is that LDS scholar and Church history compiler B.H. Roberts quoted Tucker for background information on Joseph and FairMormon has an <a style=\"color: #008000;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.fairmormon.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/ray-joseph-smiths-history-confirmed.pdf\">article<\/a> where they quoted Tucker 4 times from his book as support for Joseph and even referred to Tucker as an \u201ceye witness\u201d to Joseph and his family. Is Tucker\u2019s peripheral information only useful and accurate when it shows Joseph and the Church in a positive and favorable light?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>No, because Tucker\u2019s overall credibility is essentially nil for reasons that have nothing to do with his being pro or anti on any given topic. While I can\u2019t speak for B.H. Roberts or FAIR, who should have known better than to rely on such a spurious source, I once again invoke the Official Grand Poobah of Unofficial Mormon Apologists, none other than the late, great Hugh Nibley himself. I refer you to his penetrating and remarkably funny book <i>The Myth Makers<\/i>, which was reprinted as part of his collection <a href=\"http:\/\/publications.mi.byu.edu\/book\/tinkling-cymbals-and-sounding-brass\/\"><i>Tinkling Cymbals and Sounding Brass<\/i><\/a><i>, <\/i>available to be read in its entirety online at no charge.<\/p>\n<p><i>The Myth Makers<\/i> is written as the transcript of a mock trial, in which a \u201cChairman\u201d directly questions witnesses against Joseph Smith using their published words as testimony. <a href=\"http:\/\/publications.mi.byu.edu\/fullscreen\/?pub=1116&amp;index=6\">In the excerpts I quote here<\/a>, Pomeroy Tucker is coming under withering cross examination. Once again, to distinguish Nibley\u2019s words from yours and mine, I will put them in dark red, the color of fire.<\/p>\n<p>_______________<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #800000;\"><i>Chairman:<\/i> Now Mr. Tucker, I would like to ask you, first of all, just how well you knew Joseph Smith.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #800000;\"><i>Tucker:<\/i> Very well indeed: \u201che is distinctly remembered by me . . . from the age of twelve to twenty years.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #800000;\"><i>Chairman:<\/i> And Smith was an important figure in Palmyra from the age of twelve to twenty years?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #800000;\"><i>Tucker:<\/i> Don\u2019t make me laugh, sir. \u201cFrom the age of twelve to twenty years he is distinctly remembered as a dull-eyed, flaxen haired, prevaricating boy\u2014noted only for his indolent and vagabondish character.\u201d<a style=\"color: #800000;\" href=\"http:\/\/publications.mi.byu.edu\/fullscreen\/?pub=1116&amp;index=6#_edn10\"><sup>10<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #800000;\"><i>Chairman:<\/i> So during all the time you knew him, Smith was noted for one thing <i>only<\/i>\u2014being a lazy tramp. Was he much of a public figure?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #800000;\"><i>Tucker:<\/i> On the contrary, \u201ctaciturnity was among his characteristic idiosyncrasies, and he seldom spoke to anyone outside of his immediate associates. . . . He nevertheless evidenced the rapid development of a thinking, plodding, evil-brewing mental composition\u2014largely given to inventions of low cunning, schemes of mischief and deception, and false and mysterious pretensions. He . . . was never known to laugh.\u201d<a style=\"color: #800000;\" href=\"http:\/\/publications.mi.byu.edu\/fullscreen\/?pub=1116&amp;index=6#_edn11\"><sup>11<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #800000;\"><i>Chairman:<\/i> From what you say, Mr. Tucker, it is clear that you not only remember Joseph Smith distinctly, but that you knew him very well indeed\u2014perhaps better than anyone else. It is plain that Smith was exceedingly hard to get acquainted with and that he was devilishly secretive, but even if he had been frank and open, the intimate knowledge you profess of his mental composition could only come from the closest association. Now, what was it that induced you, a very hard-working and ambitious young man, to spend your time with a perfectly worthless vagabond four and a half years your junior? You were no child when you first met Smith.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #800000;\"><i>Tucker:<\/i> You don\u2019t have to be a man\u2019s close friend to observe his character.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #800000;\"><i>Chairman:<\/i> According to you, you had to get close to Smith to observe him at all, since he wouldn\u2019t even speak to anyone \u201coutside of his associates.\u201d And to say immediately what any man \u201clargely\u201d devoted his time and energy to, and what things he \u201cwas never known\u201d to do, requires spending a good deal of time with him\u2014unless, of course, your famous firsthand report is only hearsay. Did you think associating with Smith could contribute to your career? Did you perhaps find him an interesting person\u2014even in a bad way?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #800000;\"><i>Tucker:<\/i> Of course not. As I told you, he was \u201cnoted only for his indolent and vagabondish character.\u201d He was \u201ca dull-eyed, flaxen-haired, prevaricating boy\u201d who never spoke to anybody and \u201cwas never known to laugh.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #800000;\"><i>Chairman:<\/i> That answers my question. It would be hard to imagine duller company.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>_______________<\/p>\n<p>The whole exchange is well worth reading. It also turns out Tucker left Palmyra and lived thirty miles away for nearly four of the eight years during which he supposedly knew Joseph Smith, a fact he conveniently omits from his own dubiously detailed history.<\/p>\n<p>In his book, he invents a great deal of patently false nonsense, including a massive cave on the outskirts of town in which Joseph hunkered down to translate the Book of Mormon as a cadre of armed guards stood watch, which somehow went unnoticed by anyone else, a fact Tucker attributes to the idea that this bizarre and fascinating spectacle was paradoxically boring and \u201cscarcely attracted the curiosity of outsiders.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As for your Tucker citations, how can one have an insatiable literary appetite and \u201cexpanding mental perceptions\u201d when one is \u201cindolent,\u201d \u201cvagabondish,\u201d \u201cdull-eyed,\u201d and \u201cnever known to laugh,\u201d as well as taciturn to the point of complete withdrawal from the community at large?<\/p>\n<p>Nibley, 1; Tucker, 0.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #008000;\">&#8220;We are sorry to observe, even in this enlightened age, so prevalent a disposition to credit the accounts of the marvellous. Even the frightful stories of money being hid under the surface of the earth, and enchanted by the Devil or Robert Kidd\u00a0 (Captain Kidd), are received by many of our respectable fellow citizens as truths.&#8221; \u2013 <a style=\"color: #008000;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.sidneyrigdon.com\/dbroadhu\/NY\/miscNYSg.htm#021625\">Wayne Sentinel, Palmyra, New York, February 16, 1825\u00a0<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p>I don\u2019t understand why you think this quote adds anything to your point. It comes from an article that is unsigned and may or may not have been written by Tucker, and, more importantly, makes no reference to Joseph Smith whatsoever. It was not written about him. Rather, it\u2019s criticism of an unnamed \u201crespectable gentleman in Tunbridge\u201d who had a dream about where Captain Kidd had buried his treasure.<\/p>\n<p>I guess it proves that people knew who Captain Kidd was in 1825, but it tells us nothing about Joseph Smith, and, curiously, it doesn\u2019t seem to mention the supposedly \u201ccommon names\u201d of Camora or Moroni at all.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #008000;\">Notice that this is considered \u201cprevalent\u201d and \u201creceived by many of our respectable fellow citizens as truths.\u201d The above contemporary 1825 Palmyra, New York newspaper quote was not tainted by any desire to damage Joseph Smith. This article provides a snapshot of the worldview of 1825 New England.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Glad it wasn\u2019t tainted by any desire to damage Joseph Smith, because it does absolutely no damage to Joseph Smith. If anything, it points out that Joseph Smith wasn\u2019t nearly as notorious in 1825 as Tucker and others later claimed. If he were, surely his name would have been all over this, as he would sell far more papers than just another respectable gentleman in Tunbridge.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #008000;\">Hill Cumorah and Moroni have absolutely nothing to do with Camora and Moroni from Captain Kidd stories?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Correct. Camora and Moroni cannot be found in any Captain Kidd stories or even in any of Captain Kidd\u2019s factual accounts.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #008000;\">Stories that Joseph and his treasure hunting family and buddies were familiar with?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>We only have Pomeroy Tucker\u2019s highly suspect word on the matter that Joseph was a Captain Kidd fan, but, regardless, familiarity with Captain Kidd stories that contain no references to Camora or Moroni could not have provided fodder for plagiarism and have no bearing whatsoever on the authenticity of the Book of Mormon.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #008000;\">The original 1830 Book of Mormon uniform \u201cCamorah\u201d spelling?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Which, again, is different from the spelling on the 1808 map you provide.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #008000;\">This is all just a mere coincidence?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Not at all. To have coincidence, you first need incidence. As there\u2019s no incidence with regard to Camora or Moroni in connection to Captain Kidd, there\u2019s not enough happening here to rise to the level of coincidence.<\/p>\n<p><em>Tomorrow: View of the Hebrews &#8211; Part I<\/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: Moroni, Cumorah, and Captain Kidd\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/ces-reply-moroni-cumorah-and-captain-kidd\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about CES Reply: Moroni, Cumorah, and Captain Kidd\">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-3765","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3765","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=3765"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3765\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5146,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3765\/revisions\/5146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}