You can listen to or download the December 2 broadcast of the Interpreter Radio Show below. It will also be included in our podcast feed (https://interpreterfoundation.org/feeds/podcast). Hosts were Neal Rappleye, Jasmin Rappleye, Stephen Smoot and Hales Swift. Topics discussed include recent Interpreter articles and a revisit of the Hill Cumorah debate.

The Interpreter Radio Show can be heard Sunday evenings from 7 to 9 PM (MDT), on K-TALK, AM 1640, or you can listen live on the Internet at ktalkmedia.com. Call in to 801-254-1640 with your questions and comments during the live show.

Original air date: December 2, 2018. This recording has been edited to remove commercial breaks.

The Interpreter Radio Show is a weekly discussion of matters of interest to the hosts, guests, and callers of the show. The views expressed on the Interpreter Radio Show are those of the individuals involved and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Interpreter Foundation, nor should statements made on the show be construed as official doctrinal statements of the Church.

 

You can listen to or download the December 2 broadcast of the Interpreter Radio Show below. It will also be included in our podcast feed (https://interpreterfoundation.org/feeds/podcast). Hosts were Neal Rappleye, Jasmin Rappleye, Stephen Smoot and Hales Swift. Topics discussed include recent Interpreter articles and a revisit of the Hill Cumorah debate.

The Interpreter Radio Show can be heard Sunday evenings from 7 to 9 PM (MDT), on K-TALK, AM 1640, or you can listen live on the Internet at ktalkmedia.com. Call in to 801-254-1640 with your questions and comments during the live show.

Original air date: December 2, 2018. This recording has been edited to remove commercial breaks.

The Interpreter Radio Show is a weekly discussion of matters of interest to the hosts, guests, and callers of the show. The views expressed on the Interpreter Radio Show are those of the individuals involved and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Interpreter Foundation, nor should statements made on the show be construed as official doctrinal statements of the Church.

 

Abstract: When Orson Scott Card wrote “The Book of Mormon: Artifact or Artifice?” in 1993, he applied keen skills as an author of fiction to help readers understand how to detect the many hidden assumptions an author brings into a text. Subtle details such as the choice of what to explain or what not to explain to readers can quickly reveal the era and environment of the author. The value of Card’s analysis is reconsidered in light of extensive Book of Mormon studies since 1993 and has been found, for the most part, to have withstood the test of time well, like the Book of Mormon itself.

Twenty-five years ago — long before the founding of The Interpreter Foundation and even predating FARMS’s affiliation with BYU by half a decade — a famous name among fiction writers, Orson Scott Card, gave a speech at BYU that provided a novel way of evaluating Book of Mormon claims. In “The Book of Mormon: Artifact or Artifice?” at the 1993 BYU Symposium on Life, the Universe, and Everything,1 Card applied his literary skills to examine the artifacts of fiction we should find if the Book of Mormon had been fabricated and not merely translated by Joseph Smith.

Upon reading Card’s article today, one familiar with Book of Mormon studies may be impressed with how well Card’s analysis and conclusions have stood the test of time. Many of the points he made have become more relevant or strengthened by subsequent explorations into the text of the Book of Mormon, the details of its translation and publication, [Page 254]the scholarship into the lives of the witnesses, and many new studies relevant to evidence for the plausibility of the Book of Mormon and the meaning of the text.

When Card spoke in early 1993, he did not have the benefit of the recent discoveries related to Lehi’s Trail from the work of Warren Aston, who has highlighted the plausibility of numerous details such as the existence and location of an ancient place with a name like Nahom and the existence of a fully plausible site for Bountiful exactly where it should be. 2 He would not have seen the 1999 notice from S. Kent Brown about the discovery of ancient altars in Yemen providing hard archaeological evidence for the rare place name Nahom in the right place and time to be relevant to Lehi’s Trail.3 He did not have the benefit of the field work of George Potter examining the prospects for what was once said to be impossible, the River Laman in the Valley of Lemuel three days south of the beginning of the [Page 255]Red Sea, where Lehi preached to his sons.4 He didn’t have the massive body of evidence from John Sorenson’s Mormon’s Codex5 or the insights about the Mesoamerican perspectives in the Book of Mormon uncovered by Brant Gardner.6 He lacked the revolutionary insights from the study of the earliest Book of Mormon texts by Royal Skousen or the analysis of the language of the Book of Mormon by Stanford Carmack.

Card’s speech was also before Latter-day Saint scholars became familiar with the work of Scottish researcher Margaret Barker and before she became familiar with the Book of Mormon. Barker has sought to reconstruct the early Jewish religion before the reforms of Josiah and before the major changes of the Second Temple period.7 Barker was impressed with what she found in the Book ...

Abstract: When Orson Scott Card wrote “The Book of Mormon: Artifact or Artifice?” in 1993, he applied keen skills as an author of fiction to help readers understand how to detect the many hidden assumptions an author brings into a text. Subtle details … Continue reading →

Abstract: When Orson Scott Card wrote "The Book of Mormon: Artifact or Artifice?" in 1993, he applied keen skills as an author of fiction to help readers understand how to detect the many hidden assumptions an author brings into a text. Subtle details such as the choice of what to explain or what not to explain to readers can quickly reveal the era and environment of the author. The value of Card's analysis is reconsidered in light of extensive Book of Mormon studies since 1993 and has been found, for the most part, to have withstood the test of time well, like the Book of Mormon itself.

Twenty-five years ago — long before the founding of The Interpreter Foundation and even predating FARMS’s affiliation with BYU by half a decade — a famous name among fiction writers, Orson Scott Card, gave a speech at BYU that provided a novel way of evaluating Book of Mormon claims. In "The Book of Mormon: Artifact or Artifice?" at the 1993 BYU Symposium on Life, the Universe, and Everything,1 Card applied his literary skills to examine the artifacts of fiction we should find if the Book of Mormon had been fabricated and not merely translated by Joseph Smith.

Upon reading Card's article today, one familiar with Book of Mormon studies may be impressed with how well Card's analysis and conclusions have stood the test of time. Many of the points he made have become more relevant or strengthened by subsequent explorations into the text of the Book of Mormon, the details of its translation and publication, [Page 254]the scholarship into the lives of the witnesses, and many new studies relevant to evidence for the plausibility of the Book of Mormon and the meaning of the text.

When Card spoke in early 1993, he did not have the benefit of the recent discoveries related to Lehi's Trail from the work of Warren Aston, who has highlighted the plausibility of numerous details such as the existence and location of an ancient place with a name like Nahom and the existence of a fully plausible site for Bountiful exactly where it should be. 2 He would not have seen the 1999 notice from S. Kent Brown about the discovery of ancient altars in Yemen providing hard archaeological evidence for the rare place name Nahom in the right place and time to be relevant to Lehi's Trail.3 He did not have the benefit of the field work of George Potter examining the prospects for what was once said to be impossible, the River Laman in the Valley of Lemuel three days south of the beginning of the [Page 255]Red Sea, where Lehi preached to his sons.4 He didn't have the massive body of evidence from John Sorenson's Mormon's Codex5 or the insights about the Mesoamerican perspectives in the Book of Mormon uncovered by Brant Gardner.6 He lacked the revolutionary insights from the study of the earliest Book of Mormon texts by Royal Skousen or the analysis of the language of the Book of Mormon by Stanford Carmack.

Card's speech was also before Latter-day Saint scholars became familiar with the work of Scottish researcher Margaret Barker and before she became familiar with the Book of Mormon. Barker has sought to reconstruct the early Jewish religion before the reforms of Josiah and before the major changes of the Second Temple period.7 Barker was impressed with what she found in the Book of Mormon, for it seemed to reflect an ancient environment and anci...

You can listen to or download the November 25 broadcast of the Interpreter Radio Show below. It will also be included in our podcast feed (https://interpreterfoundation.org/feeds/podcast). Hosts were Steve Densley and Matt Bowen. Topics discussed include recent Interpreter articles and a discussion of the movie A Case for Christ.

The Interpreter Radio Show can be heard Sunday evenings from 7 to 9 PM (MDT), on K-TALK, AM 1640, or you can listen live on the Internet at ktalkmedia.com. Call in to 801-254-1640 with your questions and comments during the live show.

Original air date: November 25, 2018. This recording has been edited to remove commercial breaks.

The Interpreter Radio Show is a weekly discussion of matters of interest to the hosts, guests, and callers of the show. The views expressed on the Interpreter Radio Show are those of the individuals involved and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Interpreter Foundation, nor should statements made on the show be construed as official doctrinal statements of the Church.

 

You can listen to or download the November 25 broadcast of the Interpreter Radio Show below. It will also be included in our podcast feed (https://interpreterfoundation.org/feeds/podcast). Hosts were Steve Densley and Matt Bowen. Topics discussed include recent Interpreter articles and a discussion of the movie A Case for Christ.

The Interpreter Radio Show can be heard Sunday evenings from 7 to 9 PM (MDT), on K-TALK, AM 1640, or you can listen live on the Internet at ktalkmedia.com. Call in to 801-254-1640 with your questions and comments during the live show.

Original air date: November 25, 2018. This recording has been edited to remove commercial breaks.

The Interpreter Radio Show is a weekly discussion of matters of interest to the hosts, guests, and callers of the show. The views expressed on the Interpreter Radio Show are those of the individuals involved and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Interpreter Foundation, nor should statements made on the show be construed as official doctrinal statements of the Church.

 

Abstract: The story of Joseph Smith retrieving gold plates from a stone box on a hillside in upstate New York and translating them into the foundational text of the Restoration is well known among Latter-day Saints. While countless retellings have examined these events in considerable detail, very few have explored the geological aspects involved in this story. In particular, none have discussed in detail the geological materials that would have been required by the Nephite prophet Moroni ca. ad 421 to construct a sealed container able to protect the gold plates from the elements and from premature discovery for some fourteen centuries. This paper reports the outcomes from a field investigation into what resources would have been available to Moroni in the Palmyra area. It was conducted by the authors in New York state in October 2017.

.wp-caption .wp-caption-text {padding-left: 0 !important;"}

The hill near Palmyra,1 New York state, in which Moroni buried the plates and from which Joseph Smith retrieved them, has long been popularly known among Latter-day Saints as “Cumorah.” This unofficial practice derived from the assumption by many early Book of Mormon believers that this hill marks the location of the final battles between the Lamanite and Nephite armies. The practice remains common today among the general membership. As the Book of Mormon describes the land of Cumorah, its hill, and those wars in some detail, it is evident to [Page 234]the careful reader that the real-world setting was not — indeed could not — have been situated in New York state.2 Accordingly, for clarity throughout this paper, the New York hill where the plates were buried by Moroni is referred to as the “Palmyra hill.”

[Page 235]From Mormon’s Cumorah to Moroni’s Hill

The final, decisive battle bringing about the end of Nephite society took place about ad 385 (recounted in Mormon 6:1–15) around the Hill Cumorah, the same location formerly known as the Hill Ramah, where the Jaredite nation had earlier ended in battle (Ether 15:11). As the leader of his people, Mormon had buried the collected records of his people in the Hill Cumorah, entrusting his abridgement of them to his son Moroni (Mormon 6:6). Mormon died in the ultimate battle, leaving Moroni to protect and even add to the Nephite record while still avoiding the victorious Lamanites as he wandered.

Three and a half decades later (about ad 421; see Moroni 10:1), Moroni ends his writing and prepares to bury the sacred items in a hill. The years of travel had brought him northward to the Palmyra area of upstate New York, [Page 236]where the cooler climate would aid in the preservation of buried materials and where they would be accessible when required in the Restoration.

Realistically, for the three decades of wandering that brought him to the Palmyra area, Moroni could not have carried heavy items such as sizeable rocks in addition to the metal plates, breastplate, sword of Laban, Liahona, and the Urim and Thummim, as listed in the 1829 revelation to the Three Witnesses (Doctrine and Covenants 17:1). By his own account completely alone (Mormon 8:3, 5), we feel safe in concluding that when the time arrived to bury the plates, Moroni was restricted to local materials on hand in the Palmyra area.

A Geological Introduction to the Palmyra Setting

The Palmyra hill is a large glacial drumlin, formed during the last ice age. It belongs to a large region of drumlins that lie between Lake Ontario on the north and New York’s Finger Lakes to the south.3 Understanding how the drumlins formed is important to understanding the findin...

Abstract: The story of Joseph Smith retrieving gold plates from a stone box on a hillside in upstate New York and translating them into the foundational text of the Restoration is well known among Latter-day Saints. While countless retellings have examined these … Continue reading →

Abstract: The story of Joseph Smith retrieving gold plates from a stone box on a hillside in upstate New York and translating them into the foundational text of the Restoration is well known among Latter-day Saints. While countless retellings have examined these events in considerable detail, very few have explored the geological aspects involved in this story. In particular, none have discussed in detail the geological materials that would have been required by the Nephite prophet Moroni ca. ad 421 to construct a sealed container able to protect the gold plates from the elements and from premature discovery for some fourteen centuries. This paper reports the outcomes from a field investigation into what resources would have been available to Moroni in the Palmyra area. It was conducted by the authors in New York state in October 2017.

.wp-caption .wp-caption-text {padding-left: 0 !important;"}

The hill near Palmyra,1 New York state, in which Moroni buried the plates and from which Joseph Smith retrieved them, has long been popularly known among Latter-day Saints as "Cumorah." This unofficial practice derived from the assumption by many early Book of Mormon believers that this hill marks the location of the final battles between the Lamanite and Nephite armies. The practice remains common today among the general membership. As the Book of Mormon describes the land of Cumorah, its hill, and those wars in some detail, it is evident to [Page 234]the careful reader that the real-world setting was not — indeed could not — have been situated in New York state.2 Accordingly, for clarity throughout this paper, the New York hill where the plates were buried by Moroni is referred to as the "Palmyra hill."

[Page 235]From Mormon's Cumorah to Moroni's Hill

The final, decisive battle bringing about the end of Nephite society took place about ad 385 (recounted in Mormon 6:1–15) around the Hill Cumorah, the same location formerly known as the Hill Ramah, where the Jaredite nation had earlier ended in battle (Ether 15:11). As the leader of his people, Mormon had buried the collected records of his people in the Hill Cumorah, entrusting his abridgement of them to his son Moroni (Mormon 6:6). Mormon died in the ultimate battle, leaving Moroni to protect and even add to the Nephite record while still avoiding the victorious Lamanites as he wandered.

Three and a half decades later (about ad 421; see Moroni 10:1), Moroni ends his writing and prepares to bury the sacred items in a hill. The years of travel had brought him northward to the Palmyra area of upstate New York, [Page 236]where the cooler climate would aid in the preservation of buried materials and where they would be accessible when required in the Restoration.

Realistically, for the three decades of wandering that brought him to the Palmyra area, Moroni could not have carried heavy items such as sizeable rocks in addition to the metal plates, breastplate, sword of Laban, Liahona, and the Urim and Thummim, as listed in the 1829 revelation to the Three Witnesses (Doctrine and Covenants 17:1). By his own account completely alone (Mormon 8:3, 5), we feel safe in concluding that when the time arrived to bury the plates, Moroni was restricted to local materials on hand in the Palmyra area.

A Geological Introduction to the Palmyra Setting

The Palmyra hill is a large glacial drumlin, formed during the last ice age. It belongs to a large region of drumlins that lie between Lake Ontario on the north and New York's Finger Lakes to the south.3 Understanding how the drumlins formed is important to understanding the findings tha...