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   Number 1: BoM: South America, Heartland, Meso (Part 3 of 6)

   We’re into part 3 of our look at Book of Mormon geography theories. This time, we’ll cover 3 of the more popular theories: South America, the Heartland, and Mesoamerica. https://youtu.be/YUXUt6imZco GT: I will tell you what. This was one of the first Book of Mormon geography models that I had ever heard. About 20 years ago, my girlfriend, at the time, who is now my wife, we went on a trip to Hawaii. We went to a branch in Hawaii and the branch president was a big proponent of this model. It was kind of funny, because he was really a big fan of Venice Priddis. George Potter has kind of some variations on this model, as well. His website is http://nephiproject.com. There's another guy by the name of Del Dowdell at http://nephicode.blogspot.com. I don't want to say all three of these theories are the same, but they're, as far as locationally, they're very similar. The idea is the Incas were the Lehites or the Lamanites and Nephites. I know that Venice Priddis spent a lot of time, similar with the Baja theory. They brought seeds and the seeds grew in the Americas. GT: The problem with Venice's map here is that this was true about 18 million years ago. So, your timeline is a bit off. Of course, I've got a link to the Smithsonian Magazine there. So, that's a big problem, being off 18 million years. So, it's kind of hard to argue that that's what the land was like when Lehi landed here. So, some pros of the South American theory, if you believe that the Amazon Basin River was flooded, then you do have a north/south Peninsula. It's at the wrong time period, though. It's got a similar climate to the Mediterranean. The peninsula matches. The distances are an okay match. Church leaders actually embrace North and South America as land of the Nephites. ... GT: The Heartland theory, I don't know if Jonathan Neville is here. He'll probably correct me on a few things. I know that Meldrum, May and Neville kind of all have slightly different takes on this theory, but this is the one that I found. It kind of gives you an idea of where Zarahemla, Lehi and Nephi--places are, Cumorah. One of the benefits of this theory is, this is kind of where Joseph Smith grew up. He was familiar with the legends of the Indians or the Native Americans. So, you can see that a lot of this would have been incorporated with Joseph Smith's thinking. Once again, this looks like a really large section of area. I don't think it fits the limited geography theory. Whether you believe Sorenson or not, you've got to say a lot of the work he's done on distances, makes a lot of sense. So, this seems a bit more spread out than it probably should be. We're talking thousands of miles, when we probably should be in the hundreds of miles as far as differences. GT: Once again, it's not a north/south peninsula. It has several candidates for your narrow neck of land. Mississippi or Missouri rivers are plausible for a river Sidon. Lakes could be reasonably construed as seas. It's very near the Hill Cumorah, so you've got your one Cumorah theory. I know Rod has spent a lot of time, and I'm going to talk about this in a couple of slides here, claiming that he solved the Middle East problem with the X lineage. He's going to call that a pro. I'm actually going to call that a con, but I left it in the pros here for now. GT: The Mound Builder culture likely influenced Joseph Smith. Cons: you've got the elephants, horses, plants problem. The Mound Builders just don't have the technology to build a temple like unto Solomon. There were no chariots. There were no wheeled vehicles. Technologically, the Mound Builders were more kind of Stone Age technologically.

   January 08, 2022·20min
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   Number 2: Rick’s Family History (Part 4 of 6)

   Back in Nov 2019, I sat down over Zoom with Richie T Steadman of The Cultural Hall Podcast. He asked about my background. https://youtu.be/Io-hdPrf8Hk Richie: Rick Bennett is one of those names that I'm like, I feel like I know 10 Rick Bennetts. Right? Like it's a common name or like, you know, like, you could say out loud. Hey, you know, Rick Bennett? And I could affirmatively say yes, knowing that somewhere in the combination of people that I know, there has been a Rick Bennett, but this particular Rick Bennett, he is the host of the Gospel Tangents podcast, so I'm sure we'll talk a little bit about that. He's a church history nerd. So we'll try and avoid getting really deep into that stuff. He and I but I also want to get a chance to get to know him. Welcome to the Cultural Hall. Rick, GT: I'm glad to be on the show. This is great. By the way, I'm the second Rick Bennett in my family. I am not unique. Richie: Are you a junior? Is that how that works? GT: I am a junior. Yep, that's right. Richie: So, is there a third? GT: By the way, there's a BYU professor named Richard E. Bennett. So, I call him my much shorter twin. He's a lot shorter than I am. He's from Canada, though. My dad's from New Jersey. Richie: Born in the USA, that's what you are. Now let me ask you this. Is the Richard E. Bennett at BYU, is he a history or religion professor? Does it get crowded or complicated as far as that goes? GT: Oh, yes, he's actually--I've interviewed him on my podcast, believe it or not. He's a big time church history nerd, like me. Even more of a history nerd than me, probably. Richie: I hope that that episode was called Richard E. Bennett squared. If it wasn't, you missed a great opportunity on that. GT: I need to have you helped me title my stuff. Richie: You can call me anytime, people know that. Now, let's get to you. You said Jersey-born. So, how do we get from New Jersey to here? GT: Well, you're talking about my dad. So my dad grew up in New Jersey, non-Mormon, really rough life. He joined the Air Force at 17, forged his dad's signature to get in. He met a Hawaiian girl in South Dakota, believe it or not. Richie: Oh, that's how you do it. GT: She introduced him to the Church. Then, after he got on the Air Force, they said, "Well, where do you want to live?" He said, "Well, now that I'm a Mormon, I'll live in Utah." So, that's where he met my mom, and that's how we got to Utah. I grew up in mostly in Utah. I lived about four years in New Hampshire. My dad took a job back East. So, I got to see the east coast a little bit, and then South Carolina on my mission. So, I've been kind of on both coasts, but mostly Utah. Check out our conversation…. Rick sat down with Richie T Steadman over Zoom in The Cultural Hall Podcast.

   January 11, 2022·25min
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   Number 3: BoM: Malay, Baja, New York (Part 2 of 6)

   We’re continuing our series on Book of Mormon geography theories. This time we’ll hit Malay, Baja, and New York geography theories. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rE7H5icbK8 GT: The next theory that's definitely different is the Malay theory by Dr. Ralph Olsen. Ralph passed away about five years ago, unfortunately. I actually spoke with Ralph before he passed away. This is a really fun theory. I know a lot of people will look at this theory and say, "Asia? Southeast Asia? How can this be?" But, one of the nice things about this is, number one, you've got a north/south orientation on a peninsula here. So, it kind of matches Mormon's Map that we mentioned a few slides ago with Dr. [Sorensen]. The word Thailand means land of the free. We talk about the Book of Mormon being--or in the Book of Mormon, it mentions that America will be, or the Promised Land; I shouldn't say America. It never says America. The Promised Land is a land of liberty. This area has never been colonized by any of the Western powers, so that could be a case where you could say, "Oh, I did not know Thailand means land of the free," but that's kind of interesting. GT: K.C. Kern did a four part review of this theory on Wheat and Tares [blog]. I've got a link there, if you'd like to see. So, this could include modern day Thailand, Malaysia and Burma. I've actually got an interview with K.C. coming up in about a month, and we're going to go into a lot more detail than I'm going in this presentation. But, the thing that I like about this is a lot of the anachronisms that the Book of Mormon critics complain about [including] gold, horses, elephants, that sort of thing, disappear completely with this theory. So wheat, barley, has been used in the right time period. Dr. Olsen's first manuscript is called The Malay Peninsula. I've actually got it on my website. Voni Rivas is Ralph’s daughter. She's on the call here tonight. She gave me permission to put this on my website. So, if you're interested, this is a kind of the free version of the book here. You can purchase the book there, but the free version is now on my website. That link there. The website is down right now. Voni is trying to get it back up. ... GT 22:24 The Baja theory: I interviewed David Rosenvall, him and his dad. His dad was a geographer. I think he was at BYU, if I remember right. You can see his website there. http://achoiceland.com. I've got the interviews. I interviewed him a while back. He basically believes the Baja Peninsula [theory,] which is, of course, just below Southern California, and across the bay there from mainland Mexico. Once again, it has a north/south orientation. So, that seems to be a benefit. It's got a similar climate to the Mediterranean, a lot of times. Nephi says that they took seeds with them, and the seeds grew. They probably wouldn't grow very well in New York. But, being a Mediterranean climate, theoretically, these seeds would have grown. David also says this is compatible with the Mesoamerican theory. He says that maybe they started in Baja and then perhaps migrated over to mainland Mexico. The peninsula matches, the distances match. He says there are no anachronisms. I take a little bit of issue with that. I'll talk about that in just a moment. GT: The Book of Mormon and early church leaders said the Book of Mormon was about the inhabitants of this continent. So, that would be another advantage there. One of the things that David has done is he says that there are some similarities between Uto-Aztecan language and Semitic languages,

   January 05, 2022·17min
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   Number 4: BoM Geography: From Middle East to Africa (Part 1 of 6)

   Where did the Book of Mormon take place? There are probably more theories out there than you know. I’m going to share a Zoom presentation I gave May 10, 2021 to a Community of Christ group. In part 1, we’ll talk about internal maps, the Middle East, and an African Theory of the Book of Mormon. https://youtu.be/4UKKXosEnQU GT: I thought we could kind of start out a little bit with Middle Eastern geography. Most of this comes from a film put out by, mainly by BYU, called Journey of Faith. I've got the DVD there. They seem to think that the Frankincense Trail seems to be the likely route that Lehi and his family proposed. I've got a link there, if you want to watch that. It's pretty good. It's definitely a well-done video. There's a link there. What proponents would call a bull's eye, is where in First Nephi 16:34, "And it came to pass that Ishmael died and was buried in a place which was called Nahom." So, basically, that's one of the best spots that we have for Book of Mormon geography, and it talks about it. There are several quotes in there that this Nahom is on the Frankincense Trail. I might go out of order here, I wanted to show a little bit on the map here. On that left map, you can see, basically, they left Jerusalem headed mostly south, down to the wadi, well, actually, where it crosses--that word Timna there, they kind of crossed that river there, and they're on the western side of the Red Sea. That's where they probably joined up with the Frankincense Trail. GT: If you look at the middle map there, you can see that the Frankincense Trail goes into the Sinai Peninsula, but that's really where Lehi and his family probably joined that, into Arabia and then took a left turn there on that third map, at the bottom there and headed [west.] There are a few different sites there for different potential harbors for Nephi's harbor. Of course, in the interest of giving all perspectives--of course not everybody believes Nahom is a bull's eye. John Hamer left a comment and said, "It should come as no surprise or no shock to us that Nahum, which is spelled with a U instead of an O, a Hebrew prophet in the Bible has a Semitic name. It should, therefore, come as no shock that there are places in Semitic speaking countries that share that name, or at least the consonants N, H, M." Of course, Hebrew, a lot of times, leaves out a lot of the vowels. GT: John says, "When I first wrote about Nahum on a board, I did a quick test. I said to myself, 'they speak Arabic in Iraq. Let's see if there's a Nahum in Iraq, and a quick Google search picked up a place called Nahum in the Mason province, immediately south of Al Amarah.' In other words, the Book of Mormon had said that Lehi and his party traveled past Babylon, there was another potential Nahum bull's eye, waiting in Mesopotamia. Another Google search shows that historically there was a town called Nahem, in Lebanon, halfway between Tyre and Acre. If Joseph Smith had sent Lehi to America via Phoenicia, there would have been another bull's eye!" GT: So, he basically goes on to say “[NHM] is not really a bull's eye. He questions whether it's even noteworthy, given that the entire volume of a large Semitic country in which to find a Semitic route. There's a Nihm in Arabia, which is not precisely matched to the Nahom, but, the three letters match. Not everybody is convinced. In Journey of Faith, this is, of course, where Ishmael died and was buried in the place of Nahom on the Frankincense Trail. So, that's the most likely route and probably the best archaeological evidence for the Book of Mormon. There are a couple of possible ports in Yemen. ... GT: I would first start off with a very different theory,

   January 02, 2022·18min
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   Number 5: What’s in Sealed Book of Mormon? (Part 7 of 9)

   What’s in the sealed Book of Mormon? The late Dr. John Pratt tells us what is in the sealed portion of the Book of Mormon that Mauricio Berger translated. https://youtu.be/tP2WMBnuSYU John: I'll tell you what's in the part that it has been published. There's three main books in it. The first is called the Words of Moroni, and like the Words of Mormon in the Book of Mormon, which explains a little bit what's going on, the Words of Moroni explains what's going on. Basically, it explains that there's some books in the first, the plates that Mauricio is going to translate. Some of them will be in the first part, edition, and some will be in the second. He says that most people will not accept it, in this generation. In a couple more generations, most of the LDS Church will have accepted this as true, but not at first. [It says] that we don't get the second half until we learn what's in the first half. So, that's just his words, explaining. John: The two main books in it are the sealed Book of Moses, and the Acts of the Three Nephites. I can do them both just in a sentence or so. ... John: That was the short sentence that said [that] the whole sealed Book of Moses is the history of the world of a high priests' manual, and also how Satan will mimic it with his priesthood. It shows how Satan will have these academic universities where they join the skull and crossbones in these orders, to gain the secret knowledge, the Rosicrucian’s, and all. Satan will have his parallels, and this is shown: Nimrod, and what's going on, all through history. So, in one sentence, it's a high priests' manual. John: The church has never needed a high priests manual, because they haven't had any real high priests. It's sad, but true. Then, the book after that is the Acts of the Three Nephites. When you hear that name, you think, "Oh, boy, this is going to be about turning rivers out of their courses and moving mountains, and great healings." I mean, Three Nephites, they're going to be amazing.” If somebody were faking the book, I think that might be what they would do. But this is a book written to prepare for the Second Coming, to prepare what is needed. What is it we need? There's a lot of things in the Acts of the Three Nephites. But one of the main things is, it's the instructions on how to successfully start the United order. I read that and I thought, "If anybody's faking a book, they're not going to say, 'Well, you know what? Joseph Smith tried to start the United order and failed. Then Brigham Young really tried.'" What are your thoughts on the Brazil Plates? Check out our conversation…. John Pratt tells more about what was written on the Brazil Plates. Don't miss our previous conversations with John. 591: Hofmann Question of Brazil Plates 590: Brazil Golden Plates 589: John Pratt's Spiritual Journey 588: Dating Problems with First Vision 587: Dating First Vision 586: Dating Christ's Birth

   December 13, 2021·14min
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