Mayan Jungles or Hidden Cities of North America? Personal Revelation, or Blind Obedience!

As you see the featured picture of this blog called, “BofM- Jungles of Mayans or Plains of Nephites”, I ask you, how can the cities of Nephites in North America be hidden in plain sight, as many people have said? Yes in plain sight, just not to me and millions of others. In North America there are many open spaces and plains and prairie locations for cities without clearing land much at all. There are hundreds of thousands of Indian Mounds in North America, (Map left) that I never even knew about, until 53 years of age. Yet, the mounds, and cities and cultures of the Native Americans in North America were hidden, so to speak from the world in open spaces with thousands of artifacts in museums all over the land? Here is what a Historian said about this map left: “The most common question that is asked about mounds is, “How many exist?” In the 1800’s the Smithsonian sponsored many expeditions to identify mound sites across America. A map (shown below) was produced by Cyrus Thomas in 1894 in a Bureau of Ethnology book. They found approximately 100,000 mound sites, many with complexes containing 2 to 100 mounds. The figure of 100,000 mounds once existing— based on Cyrus Thomas map revealing 100,000 sites—is often cited by others, but that estimate is far, far too low. After visiting several thousand mounds and reviewing the literature, I am fairly certain that over 1,000,000 mounds once existed and that perhaps 100,000 still exist. Oddly, some new mound sites are discovered each year by archaeological surveys in remote areas. But in truth, a large majority of America’s mounds have been completely destroyed by farming, construction, looting, and deliberate total excavations” – Gregory L. Little, Ed.D., The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Native American Mounds & Earthworks, Eagle Wing Books, Inc., Memphis, TN [2009]. This map has been hidden in plain site since 1894, WOW!

Now I realize there are many historians and intellectuals who love the Native Americans as I do, and there are many who love the culture of Mesoamerica and the beautiful ruins of South America. I just believe political correctness is such, that many wonderful so-called Christians, atheists and ornery Americans just think too much of themselves. As I say, truth is hidden and hard to find evil is not, in other words it is easy to follow Satan and not to follow the Savior. In a simplistic way I believe the truth of North America as the Promised Land of the Book of Mormon has been hidden by evil, and the incorrectness of the Mesoamerican setting has been in full display as the way the world should see it. I sincerely believe our wonderful Prophet Joseph Fielding Smith who spoke truth about USA vs Mesoamerica, for the correct location of the Book of Mormon, who said the following.

“…This modernistic theory of necessity, in order to be consistent, must place the waters of Ripliancum and the Hill Cumorah some place within the restricted territory of Central America, notwithstanding the teachings of the Church to the contrary for upwards of 100 years. Because of this theory some members of the Church have become confused and greatly disturbed in their faith in the Book of Mormon. It is for this reason that evidence is here presented to show that it is not only possible that these places could be located as the Church has held during the past century, but that in very deed such is the case… It is known that the Hill Cumorah where the Nephites were destroyed is the hill where the Jaredites were also destroyed. This hill was known to the Jaredites as Ramah. It was approximately near to the waters of Ripliancum, which the Book of Ether says, “by interpretation, is large, or to exceed all…

It must be conceded that this description fits perfectly the land of Cumorah in New York, as it has been known since the visitation of Moroni to the Prophet Joseph Smith, for the hill is in the proximity of the Great Lakes and also in the land of many rivers and fountains. Moreover, the Prophet Joseph Smith himself is on record, definitely declaring the present hill called Cumorah to be the exact hill spoken of in the Book of Mormon. Further, the fact that all of his associates from the beginning down have spoken of it as the identical hill where Mormon and Moroni hid the records, must carry some weight. It is difficult for a reasonable person to believe that such men as Oliver Cowdery. Brigham Young, Parley P. Pratt, Orson Pratt, David Whitmer, and many others, could speak frequently of the Spot where the Prophet Joseph Smith obtained the plates as the Hill Cumorah, and not be corrected by the Prophet, if that were not the fact. That they did speak of this hill in the days of the Prophet in this definite manner is an established record of history.” Doctrines of Salvation Joseph Fielding Smith Chapter 12

Is this man lying? Is he pretending? Is he misquoted? Is this just an opinion or is it his personal revelation? I have read and studied a lot, but not even close to the amount of time Elder Smith did, but I have to come to the same conclusion as he and Elder Perry who said, “The United States is the promised land foretold in the Book of Mormon—a place where divine guidance directed inspired men to create the conditions necessary for the Restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ.” Elder L. Tom Perry Ensign Dec. 2012

The Book of Mormon indeed speaks of the land of the United States of America. Not Russia, not Guatemala, not England, not Canada or Mexico, but the choice land of the United States of America where Adam was placed and the same place the New Jerusalem will be built. I cannot and will not doubt the hundreds (list here) of prophets and apostles that have agreed that the Book of Mormon began in the Heartland. I can’t find one quote where Joseph Smith said the Book of Mormon began in Mesoamerica. Not even the quote in the Times and Seasons found in the Gospel Essay’s, (Linked below) is proven to be Joseph’s words. But the quote in the letter from Joseph to his wife Emma on June 2, 1834 when he said, “a proof of its divine authenticity“, also quoted later, says it all.

The cities of the Mayans were mostly brought to light in 1841 with a book called Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan, by Stephens and Catherwood 

Stephens and Catherwood were not the first explorers of the ancient Mayan sites (though they are routinely designated so). They were, however, the first to visit so many sites and, more importantly, to document what they found there with precision and accuracy.

“A detailed description of Stephens and Catherwood treacherous journey, along with their amazing discoveries, appeared in their joint two-volume book, Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan, published in 1841. Their travel book became an instant best seller with 12 editions printed in only three months which was unheard of at that time. Stephen’s first-person account and lively text revealed the scoop and complexity of the Maya cities; Catherwood’s colorful artworks illustrated the variety of buildings, the precise details of their carvings and the intricacy of hieroglyphic writings. These ruins were indeed created by a totally unknown culture. Stephens and Catherwood uncovered not merely new architectural wonders and buried cities but an entire unknown civilization, buried in the tropical jungles for over 1,000 years.” Source

Many members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints became enamored with these Mayan pictures and many began (inaccurately as I feel), associating the newly found civilization with the Book of Mormon cities, especially Benjamin Winchester and Joseph Smith’s brother William. To them it was proof that the Book of Mormon really existed and that it was probably in Central America.

It seems more likely that hidden cities of Mayan Nephites would be hidden in the vast and deep jungles, more than hidden cities of the Heartland Nephites in their open spaces and plains, correct? The reasoning is not as much about “hidden” as it is about “unique”, “new”, “never before seen”, and “beautiful design” of the newly found Mayan structures. The dull drab and ugly mounds of dirt in North American were unimpressive and just a “mound of dirt” to most people. Yet, inside the Mayan structures were just nice designs and concrete walls and rooms with not much personality in them. Maybe you would find hidden gold and treasures but they were things of the world and not things of the spirit necessarily.

Whereas, the inside of the uncovered mounds was excavated, copper, head plates, and pearls, and iron and brass, and ornaments, and arrowheads, and animal teeth, and skeletons of all types of animals and people, as if the North America mounds held treasures of respect and honor and prized possessions of a spiritual people of the Nephite cultures, not prized possessions of wealth and power as in many ancient pyramids.

Hugh Nibley insightfully said, “The Book of Mormon is a history of a related primitive church, and one may well ask what kind of remains the Nephites would leave us from their more virtuous days. A closer approximation to the Book of Mormon picture of Nephite culture is seen in the earth and palisade structures of the Hopewell and Adena culture areas than in the later stately piles of stone in Mesoamerica.

C. Northcote Parkinson has demonstrated with withering insight how throughout history really ornate, tasteless, and pompous building programs have tended to come as the aftermath of civilization. After the vital powers are spent, then is the time for the super-buildings, the piling of stone upon stone for monuments of staggering mass and proportion. It was after the disciples of the early church decided to give up waiting for the Messiah and to go out for satisfaction here and now that the Christians of the fourth century took to staging festivals and erecting monuments in the grand manner, covering the whole Near East with structures of theatrical magnificence and questionable taste.

How unlike the building program of the Church today which can barely erect enough of our very functional, almost plain chapels to keep abreast of the growing needs of the Latter-day Saints. Though such piles as the great pyramid-temple of Chichén Itzá yield to few buildings in the world in beauty of proportion and grandeur of conception, there is something disturbing about most of these overpowering ruins. Writers describing them through the years have ever confessed to feelings of sadness and oppression as they contemplate the moldy magnificence—the futility of it all: “They have all gone away from the house on the hill,” and today we don’t even know who they were. [It makes sense that Nibley could mean, we don’t know who the Mayan are like we do the Nephites of North America, as we know through the spirit the Native Americans were most likely those spiritual Lamanites and Nephites we read about in the Book of Mormon].

Nibley continues, “The great monuments do not represent what the Nephites stood for; rather, they stand for what their descendants, “mixed with the blood of their brethren,” descended to. But seen in the newer and wider perspective of comparative religious studies, they suggest to us not only the vanity of mankind and the futility of man’s unaided efforts, but also something nobler; the constant search of men to recapture a time when the powers of heaven were truly at the disposal of a righteous people.” Ancient Temples: What Do They Signify? By Hugh Nibley September 1972

In Feb. 2018 Lidar images in Mesoamerica have caused many Mesoamericanists to say how this new archeological information corroborates the Book of Mormon in Mesoamerica, since it shows the abundance of people who lived in Central America. I believe it shows just the opposite. (Note: Before Mesoamericanists tell you the featured picture of North America for proof of the Nephites in North America is Cahokia (picture below), [which isn’t a city in the time-frame of the Book of Mormon], let me tell you for them the following:

The featured picture of Cahokia was an ancient Mississippian Earthwork near St. Louis, MO dated from 1050 to 1200 AD), and has little to do with the correct time frame of the Nephites in North America and has more to do with the type of civilization the Nephites may have had in North America. 

Many Mesoamericanist’s say, “These new LiDAR images have revealed 60,000 previously unknown structures, leading experts to new population estimates as high as 15–20 million for the lowland Maya during the Classic period. This means Maya civilization was much more dense, complex and advanced than previously thought. This is consistent with the situation described by Mormon: “The whole face of the land had become covered with buildings, and the people were as numerous almost, as it were the sand of the sea” (Mormon 1:7). Early Book of Mormon authors made similar descriptions” (Mosiah 27:6; Jarom 1:8).” 4 Ways the New Maya Discoveries May Relate to the Book of Mormon This post is based on an article by Kirk Magleby of Book of Mormon Central who believes in the Mesoamerican Theory of the Book of Mormon. View the original article at the Book of Mormon Resources blog

In the BofM quote above that says, “The whole face of the land had become covered with buildings, and the people were as numerous almost, as it were the sand of the sea” (Mormon 1:7), I feel my art by Ken Corbett of Mormon with young Mormon on the Ohio River near Grave Creek Mound in Moundsville, WV (below), is a better representation of Nephite Mounds “covered with buildings”, than the Lidar showing millions of people and buildings for the Nephites in Mayan country as Magleby says above.

Jonathan Neville

“Now that we are learning from LiDAR that the Mayan civilization was even larger, more densely populated, and more sophisticated than we previously realized, the Book of Mormon seems even less plausible in that setting. IOW, the grander the Mayan civilization, the less likely it is that Lehi landed anywhere near that civilization.

The Mesoamericanists say that Lehi landed on the west coast of Mesoamerica and they found a large indigenous population already living there which describes what the Book of Mormon says. They also say that this population was large enough that the DNA of Lehi basically was absorbed and had become extinct.”

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To me it is not credible about absorbing and DNA becoming extinct. Why would the DNA of the Lord’s chosen people disappear? Why would so-called DNA remain today in Central and South America and even in the Western USA of just Asian people and not of Hebrew people through the Savior’s lineage. Not credible at all would you say?]. We will explain these ideas in this blog and we will discuss the ancient cities of North America that did exist. These cities in North America are being searched for and discovered regularly.

As bold as these above statements are, I stand by them as my relationship with the Savior is very personal and enlightening. I saw our Prophet and Apostles take a shot during what I call a fake pandemic, and our leaders understandably said, “Vaccinations administered by competent medical professionals protect health and preserve life. The Church urges its members, employees and missionaries to be good global citizens and help quell the pandemic by safeguarding themselves and others through immunization. Individuals are responsible to make their own decisions about vaccination.” (Underline and bold are my own). Source

I believe and trust our Prophet and Apostles and what they said above. On this personal decision however, I made the decision to not take this particular shot, which I believed would quell the pandemic for myself and others by not taking it. I evaluated and listened to many medical professionals, and read scientific information and watched many videos, and I determined there were possible deadly ingredients inside certain shots, that I did not want to take the chance of injecting. I have never been anti-vaccine, but with this one I was. Personal revelation, not disobedience on my part. I agree with what our Prophet said,  “In coming days, it will not be possible to survive spiritually without the guiding, directing, comforting, and constant influence of the Holy Ghost.” Russell M. Nelson https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/church/news/heed-warnings-from-president-nelson-a-modern-day-watchman-on-the-tower?lang=eng

“Belief in prophets and apostles at the head of the Church does not mean that members blindly follow their leaders. While the prophet of God receives revelation and inspiration to guide the Church as a whole, revelation flows at every level, including to the leaders of congregations and to individual families and members. In fact, individual members are expected to seek that kind of divine guidance to help them in their own lives, in their responsibilities in the Church and even in temporal pursuits, including their occupations. Members are also expected to prayerfully seek their own “testimony” or conviction of the principles their leaders teach them. https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/modern-prophets-and-continuing-revelation?fbclid=IwAR3PcuLglKsRNLIqfWeHiD3e3WZ9_cQxyJMZ5nRoVRISLpcBIyR6uADDw

Ka-Boom> This is HUGE to me. Personal Revelation, not blind obedience!

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“…When…first commanded to testify of these things they [The Three Witness] demurred and told the Lord the people would not believe them for the book concerning which they were to bear record told of a people who were educated and refined, dwelling in large cities; whereas all that was then known of the early inhabitants of this country was the filthy, lazy, degraded and ignorant savages that were roaming over the land. The Lord told us, in reply that he would make it known to the people that the early inhabitants of this land had been just such a people as they were described in the book, and he would lead them to discover the ruins of great cities, and they should have abundant evidence of the truth of that which is written in the book…” – David Whitmer, Interview with James H. Hart (Richmond, Mo., 21 August 1883), as printed in Deseret Evening News, Salt Lake City, Utah as published in Annotated Book of Mormon by David Hocking and Rod Meldrum page 560.

Roger G. Kennedy, Director Emeritus, Smithsonian National Museum of American History, author, “Hidden Cities, The Discovery and Loss of Ancient North American Civilization,” The Free Press, New York, [1995], stated, “Very, very few of us were conscious of these immense cities of a place like Monk’s Mound and Cahokia, opposite St. Louis, which is bigger in its footprint than the Great Pyramid at Giza [city in Egypt]. We didn’t know that.” Dr. Kennedy coined the phrase, “Hidden Cities,” because he states, “I use the term because these were very big places. There were more people, that we now know, in Cahokia, across from St. Louis, than there were in London or Rome. There were major population centers in what is now Nashville and Cincinnati and Pittsburgh and St. Louis. Few realize that some of the most complex structures of ancient archaeology were built in North America, home of some of the most highly advanced and well organized civilizations in the world.”

In his book, Hidden Cities, he writes: “Eighteenth century pioneers passing over the Appalachians into the Ohio Valley wrote often of [the] feeling of being freed of encumbrances, of fresh beginnings. Judging from what they said, and from what has been said of them subsequently, most of them shared the misconception that they were entering an ample emptiness intended to be theirs alone. “In fact… [t]he western vastness was not empty. Several hundred thousand people were already there, and determined to resist invasion….Even along the headwaters of the Ohio, on the banks of mountain brooks, there were signs of ancient habitation…As the streams grew larger, so did the buildings. “In the Ohio and Mississippi
valleys, tens of thousands of structures were built between six and sixty-six centuries ago. Some, as large
as twenty-five miles in extant, required over three million person hours of labor” – Roger G. Kennedy, Hidden Cities,  page 560 Annotated Book of Mormon

Few realize that some of the oldest, largest, and most complex structures of ancient archaeology were built of earth, clay, and stone right here in America, in the Ohio and Mississippi valleys. From 6,000 years ago until quite recently, North America was home to some of the most highly advanced and well organized civilizations in the world – complete with cities, roads, and commerce. From the lost city of Balbantsha, near New Orleans, to the Great Hopewell Road, a causeway for religious pilgrims along the Ohio River in the thirteenth century, these cultures built hundreds of thousands of structures, of which a small but tantalizing portion still remain. Like the Druids of Salisbury Plain, they patterned extraordinarily precise geometry according to the rising and setting of the moon. Like the ancient Egyptians, they organized millions of hours of human labor to construct pyramids, platforms, and plazas. In Hidden Cities, Roger G. Kennedy sets out on a bold quest of recovery – a recovery of the rich heritage of the North American peoples, and a reimagination of the true relations of their modern-day successors and neighbors. From the Spanish and French explorers to the present, very few Euro-Americans have paid attention to the evidence and meaning of this heritage.

Building on recent work of many archaeologists and historians, Roger Kennedy presents a fascinating picture of these American antiquities as well as their reception among leading citizens of the young United States. On missions of exploration, politics, and even piracy, men such as George Rogers Clark, George Washington, Albert Gallatin, and Thomas Jefferson frequently chanced upon the architecture of the past. As Kennedy shows us the magnificence of the mound-building cultures through the sometimes-prejudiced eyes of the Founding generation, he reveals not only the astounding history of our continent, but also the reasons why we have refused to credit Native American predecessors with the greatness. Roger G. Kennedy, Director Emeritus, Smithsonian National Museum of American History, author, “Hidden Cities, The Discovery and Loss of Ancient North American Civilization,” The Free Press, New York, [1995]

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“Wichita State archaeologist and anthropologist Donald Blakeslee points out man-made depressions on a boulder in what would have been the lost city of Etzanoa, a home to ancestors of the Wichita tribe. Researchers like Blakeslee believe that the area was a sprawling city of 20,000 people… ” TRAVIS HEYING THE WICHITA EAGLE

“Etzanoa has remained a mystery for 400 years. Archaeologists could not find it. Historians thought reports of a permanent settlement with 20,000 Native Americans in it were exaggerated. But here in Arkansas City, at the confluence of the Walnut and Arkansas Rivers, Blakeslee, an anthropologist and archaeologist at Wichita State University, has found evidence of a massive town stretching across thousands of acres of bluffs and rich bottomland along two rivers. What clinched it was the discovery, by a high school kid, of a half-inch iron cannon ball. He even found a still-functional water shrine, depicting communication with the spirit world, carved into a limestone boulder in Tami and Greg Norwood’s backyard.

It’s a good story, all true, Blakeslee said: A lost city, a forgotten mythology — and the story of the once-great Wichita Nation, decimated by European diseases, then pushed aside by American settlers and the United States Army. With the discovery, Arkansas City leaders are hoping to turn their town into a tourist destination.

“We always knew we once had a whole bunch of Indians living around here, because we had found way too many artifacts to think otherwise,” said Jay Warren, an Arkansas City council member. “But we had no idea until Dr. Blakeslee came along about how big it was.” Etzanoa might have been comparable in size to Cahokia, Blakeslee said. That alone should bring world attention…

Video here https://www.kansas.com/news/state/article144613064.html

“The Spaniards were amazed by the size of Etzanoa,” Blakeslee said. “They counted 2,000 houses that could hold 10 people each. They said it would take two or three days to walk through it all.” But for four centuries, the story of a big Native American town in Kansas made no sense to historians…. Onate sent armed patrols into the empty town.

What his soldiers saw unnerved them. They told Onate they’d counted 2,000 big beehive-shaped homes — clusters of these homes surrounded by cornfields. Nervous about the size of the place, they turned around. Indians told them later that the settlement extended for miles past where the Spaniards stopped, meaning the true population might have been higher than the 20,000 Spanish estimate.”  Source: Its location a mystery for centuries, huge Indian city may have been found in Kansas By Roy Wenzl Kansas city Star Full Article Here: Etzanoa

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“…the bodies of many thousands are moldering in heaps upon the face of the earth…” (Alma 28:11). See Annotated Book of Mormon page 260

As I quoted above, I think it is important enough to quote again. “The most common question that is asked about mounds is, “How many exist?” In the 1800’s the Smithsonian sponsored many expeditions to identify mound sites across America. A map (shown left) was produced by Cyrus Thomas in 1894 in a Bureau of Ethnology book. They found approximately 100,000 mound sites, many with complexes containing 2 to 100 mounds. The figure of 100,000 mounds once existing— based on Cyrus Thomas map revealing 100,000 sites—is often cited by others, but that estimate is far, far too low. After visiting several thousand mounds and reviewing the literature, I am fairly certain that over 1,000,000 mounds once existed and that perhaps 100,000 still exist. Oddly, some new mound sites are discovered each year by archaeological surveys in remote areas. But in truth, a large majority of America’s mounds have been completely destroyed by farming, construction, looting, and deliberate total excavations” – Gregory L. Little, Ed.D., The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Native American Mounds & Earthworks, Eagle Wing Books, Inc., Memphis, TN [2009].

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New Discoveries about Mayans and bias confirmation
Jonathan Neville Blog below

“We have an outstanding new example of how confirmation bias works in the arena of Book of Mormon geography and historicity.

Last week, researchers announced a major discovery about Mayan civilization based on LiDAR scanning of jungles in Central America. This discovery will probably confirm your bias no matter what you believe; i.e., it will support your position whether: 

1. You accept the New York Cumorah as taught in President Cowdery’s Letter VII and reaffirmed by the prophets and apostles, which I refer to as Moroni’s America (MA);

2. You accept the Mesoamerican/two-Cumorahs (M2C) theory taught by BYU/CES intellectuals, which repudiates Letter VII and the prophets and apostles.

Another way to say this:

M2C seeks to repudiate Letter VII and the prophets and apostles.

MA seeks to support Letter VII and the prophets and apostles.

You decide which bias you share and then interpret the scriptures accordingly.

I’ll have lots more to say about bias confirmation in upcoming posts because it fascinates me that two groups can derive such dramatically different expectations from the same text.

Because this news about the Mayans is so fresh, let’s start by looking at the discovery. Then we’ll look at how the scriptures are interpreted to confirm the respective biases.
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Here’s one report, along with an image from the article:

https://phys.org/news/2018-02-laser-technology-reveals-secrets-ancient.html

A comparison of LiDAR data showing the ancient Maya site of El Zotz covered in trees (left), and with the trees digitally removed. Credit: Ithaca College

The image on the left shows what the area looks like with tree coverage. On the right, the trees are removed, showing a complex of buildings and roads that are not visible naturally.

The new data revealed a much more extensive, sophisticated, and densely-populated civilization than was previously known or estimated.

One of the researchers, Thomas Garrison, will appear in a documentary on the National Geographic channel tomorrow (Feb 6). The article notes this: “Especially telling to Garrison are newly revealed agricultural features that would be necessary to support the lowland Maya population during their centuries of civilization—population estimates have now expanded from a few million to 10-20 million—and defensive structures that suggest warfare was far more prevalent than previously known.”

National Geographic has more photos here: https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/02/maya-laser-lidar-guatemala-pacunam/
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Next, let’s look at the respective biases.

As an MA supporter, my bias is this: 
I accept the New York Cumorah as taught by Letter VII and the prophets and apostles. I interpret the text and relevant scientific and historical evidence in a manner that corroborates and confirms my bias.

M2C supporters (those affiliated with BYU Studies, BookofMormonCentral, FairMormon, the Interpreter, Meridian Magazine, BMAF, etc.) have a bias expressed candidly by BMAF: 
“to increase understanding of the Book of Mormon as an ancient Mesoamerican codex.” They interpret the text and relevant scientific and historical evidence in a manner that corroborates and confirms their bias.

After I started writing this post, Meridian Magazine posted an article about this finding titled “How an Incredible New Archaeological Discovery Corroborates the Book of Mormon.” Now I don’t have to infer what M2C intellectuals would think about this discovery: I can use their actual words. You can see why I’ve referred to this source as Meridian Mesoamerican Magazine. They will never, ever tell their readers about President Cowdery’s Letter VII because their owners don’t want their readers to know what the prophets and apostles have taught. I consider this deceitful, of course, and you can decide for yourself whether you agree, but I don’t blame them for seeking to confirm their biases because everyone does it–even when, in this case, they are trying to persuade members of the Church to disbelieve the prophets and apostles.

You can see the bias confirmation in the very title of this article!
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There is nothing inherently right or wrong about bias. Everyone has biases. It’s a question of whether we honestly recognize our own and those of others, and then recognize that we interpret the world (and the scriptures) to confirm our biases.

Once we recognize the biases of the various players, the rest is easy.

Here’s an example. My first job out of law school was as a law clerk to the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of New Mexico. After oral argument on a case, the Justices would vote on the outcome they wanted. Whichever outcome the majority voted for became the Court’s position, and the Justices assigned us, as the law clerks, to write the opinions accordingly.

Any of us law clerks could have written the opinion to reach whichever conclusion the Justices wanted. In close cases, it’s not a question of what the law is, but rather what the Justices want it to be. Then we write the opinion to make it look like the desired outcome was obvious all along. You always want the Court’s opinion frame the issue as a pursuit of the “correct law,” but everyone knows these opinions are anything but that. They are always a reflection of the personal philosophies of the judges. That’s why it makes such a big difference whether a conservative or a liberal is appointed to a court.

The reason lawyers charge clients so much money is not because they know what the law is, but because they know how to use the law to get what the clients want. 

BYU fantasy map designed to teach students that the apostles and prophets are wrong about the New York Cumorah

It’s really no different in scholarly work. The idea that one side or the other is pursuing “the truth” is a ruse. Everyone is seeking purely to confirm his/her biases. When you look at the fantasy map currently being taught at BYU, for example, it has nothing to do with seeking the truth, and everything to do with teaching the students that the prophets and apostles are wrong about the New York Cumorah. Otherwise, the BYU map would show Cumorah in New York.

The same thing is going on in the Church History department, btw, which I’ll be demonstrating in upcoming posts. The scholars there are colluding with the M2C proponents to portray Joseph Smith as a confused speculator who was wrong about the New York Cumorah.

This is why the semantic arguments about interpreting the Book of Mormon are pointless. LDS literature on this topic is full of subjective interpretations about such topics as what constitutes a “narrow neck,” and whether that is different from a “narrow neck of land.” You will agree or disagree with a particular interpretation depending on whether you agree or disagree with the bias of the person proposing that interpretation.

Actually, this is why the M2C proponents oppose Letter VII so vehemently. You can’t mistake President Cowdery’s meaning when he states it is a fact that the final battles of the Jaredites and Nephites took place in the mile-wide valley west of Cumorah. There’s no wiggle room there.

To reiterate this again:

MA proponents seek interpretations of the text and relevant science, history, etc. that corroborate Letter VII and the prophets and apostles because they want to demonstrate their teachings are correct.

M2C proponents seek interpretations of the text and relevant science, history, etc. that refute Letter VII and the prophets and apostles because they want to demonstrate their teachings are false.

Everything you read about this topic reflects these respective biases.

Meridian Magazine has an agenda of teaching members of the Church that the prophets and apostles are wrong about Cumorah, so they published this article to reinforce that agenda.

My agenda is to teach members of the Church that the prophets and apostles are correct about Cumorah, so I publish this blog to reinforce that agenda.

This is all very basic, but it is usually overlooked.

Now, let’s look at how the new data about the Mayans confirms these respective biases.

Key Information

MY position. If you believe in the New York Cumorah, you will likely view this LiDAR discovery as additional evidence that the Nephites could not possibly have lived among the Mayans.

I think the text shows Lehi’s colony landing in the promised land, planting their own seeds, finding animals and ore in the wilderness, all while completely unimpeded by any existing civilization. (1 Ne. 18:23-5).  ; i.e., that there were no “other nations” in the promised land where they landed, “for behold, many nations would overrun the land, that there would be no place for an inheritance” (2 Nephi 1:8). I do think there were some indigenous people who went with Nephi when he fled (2 Nephi 5:6), but I infer they were unorganized hunter/gatherers that did not qualify as any sort of “nation” and were impressed by the Jewish immigrants’ technology, language, etc.

In my view, it is difficult enough to believe that Lehi’s family, a relative handful of immigrants from a distant culture speaking a different language, could have arrived and started planting crops on unclaimed land in Mesoamerica, encountering no resistance, but it is even more difficult to believe Lehi’s descendants could have managed to rule as kings and chief judges over even a part of a Mayan civilization, and that in the midst of this Mayan civilization, King Mosiah could have escaped with the Nephites into the wilderness and found a much larger group of illiterate people (the people of Zarahemla) who possessed exactly one engraven stone.

Now that we are learning from LiDAR that the Mayan civilization was even larger, more densely populated, and more sophisticated than we previously realized, the Book of Mormon seems even less plausible in that setting. IOW, the grander the Mayan civilization, the less likely it is that Lehi landed anywhere near that civilization.

This view is based on the text and has nothing directly to do with the New York Cumorah, but it does confirm my bias in favor of the New York Cumorah.
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M2C position. If you believe the M2C position that Cumorah is not in New York and that the entire Book of Mormon took place in Mesoamerica, you will likely view this LiDAR discovery as additional evidence that the Nephites must have lived among the Mayans.

The basic M2C concept is described in the Meridian Magazine article. It is the idea that the Nephites were absorbed into Mayan culture. That’s why there is no Israelite DNA in Central America, no traces of Nephite languages or the law of Moses or Christian beliefs and practices, etc. M2C proponents believe there were bottlenecks (both DNA-related and cultural) that screened out Nephite cultural influence.

Let’s look at some of the verses cited in the Meridian Magazine article to demonstrate how the respective interpretation confirm the respective biases.

M2C proponents generally believe the Nephites lived among a much larger culture (i.e., Mayan culture in Mesoamerica). The Meridian article cites Mormon 1:7 as evidence of a huge Nephite population, possibly in the millions, with intensive agriculture, etc.

6 And it came to pass that I, being eleven years old, was carried by my father into the land southward, even to the land of Zarahemla.

7 The whole face of the land had become covered with buildings, and the people were as numerous almost, as it were the sand of the sea.

If you look at the published LiDAR images, and you want to confirm your M2C bias of a large, dense civilization, you will eagerly conclude that (i) Mayan buildings literally “covered” the land, and (ii) Mormon somehow knew this without the benefit of satellite images.

But if you’re not seeking to confirm your M2C bias, you look at the selected LiDAR images and notice they do not show the land to be “covered with buildings.” There are more structures than archaeologists realized, for sure, but most of the terrain remains uninhabited, just like in the much more heavily populated modern world.

The National Geographic article points out that “The results suggest that Central America supported an advanced civilization that was, at its peak some 1,200 years ago, more comparable to sophisticated cultures such as ancient Greece or China than to the scattered and sparsely populated city states that ground-based research had long suggested.”

No ancient civilizations in Greece, China, Mesoamerica, or anywhere else, covered the land with buildings. The LiDAR articles themselves don’t make any such claim. Instead, they note that “Complex irrigation and terracing systems supported intensive agriculture capable of feeding masses of workers who dramatically reshaped the landscape.”

LiDAR shows us that the “face of the land” was mainly covered with agricultural activities and wilderness, with some areas containing a concentration of buildings, just as the land today is throughout the world, even in densely populated countries such as Taiwan, South Korea, Lebanon, and Israel.

Only a bias-confirming M2C proponent would delude himself/herself into thinking that these LiDAR images show “the whole face of the land covered with buildings.”

Am I saying Mormon was wrong?

Not at all.

Let’s look at the scripture. He says he was 11 years old when his father took him on this trip. Why would he say the face of the land was “covered with buildings,” when such a description, if taken literally, is impossible as we just saw.

1. First, we have to consider this from the perspective of an 11-year-old boy.
2. Second, we have to consider what someone on the ground would see, without the benefit of satellite images.
3. Third, we have to consider what the term “building” means.

I’ve addressed all of this before in my book, Moroni’s America, but I’ll quickly summarize it here.

1. The perception of an 11-year-old differs from the perception of an adult. Think of Mormon as a Cub Scout. He wasn’t even old enough to be a Deacon. How would a Cub Scout perceive the world? To children, everything looks bigger. Who hasn’t revisited a childhood home and been surprised at how small it was compared with what you remembered?

Tikal viewed from the air

2. Without the benefit of satellite or aerial imagery, how would ancient people know what “the face of the land” was like? If you’ve climbed to the top of the Mayan ruins in Yucatan as I have, you know you can look over the relatively flat terrain and see the peaks of other ruins, many of them still covered with jungle. Let’s assume that in Mormon’s day the jungle was cut back so you could see the structures clearly.

What would Mormon see from the top of one of these temples?

He would see mostly agricultural land, just as the LiDAR images show.

The Meridian Magazine article, paradoxically, recognizes the inconsistency of its own argument. Look at these two applications of Mormon 1:7:

“Maya lowland population at apogee could have reached 15 million Mormon 1:7” (we can all see that Mormon 1:7 gives no population numbers).

“land use was intensive – nearing 100% utilization is some areas Mormon 1:7” (we can all read that Mormon 1:7 describes buildings covering the whole face of the earth, not “intensive land use”).

Besides reading into the text the M2C bias, these two claims are inconsistent. Which is it? “The whole face of the earth is covered with buildings” (Mormon’s description)” or “intensive land use in some areas” for agriculture (Meridian Magazine’s M2C description)? Do you see how bias confirmation can lead to absurd interpretations of the text?
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So what could Mormon have meant in these verses?

He could only have reported what he saw (or was told). I think this means that on his way to Zarahemla, he traveled in heavily populated areas.

I think everyone can agree that he did not have an aerial view.

So let’s think. How would an 11-year-old boy taking what was essentially a long field trip travel through a heavily populated area that was “covered with buildings” with so many people that it seemed to him like “the people were as numerous almost, as it were the sand of the sea?”

One thing is for sure; Mormon either did not describe his experience accurately, or he could not have been traveling through the areas captured in these LiDAR images, because most of the land he would have traveled through was agricultural or wilderness.

National Geographic is going to show the most spectacular LiDAR images of stone structures, including temples and roads. They will show indicia of irrigation, including canals, dykes and reservoirs (none of which are mentioned in the text, btw). But by far, most of the land even in this “densely populated” ancient Mayan world captured by LiDAR is not covered by buildings.

Again, I’m not saying Mormon reported his observations inaccurately. I’m saying just the opposite.

Distribution of mounds and earthworks in the eastern United States. Red dots indicate relative occurrence and comparative distribution rather than individual major remains.

I think Mormon was traveling along the Allegheny and Ohio rivers on his way to the land of Zarahemla (Illinois and Iowa). In ancient North America, people lived along these rivers.

This map shows how the ancient moundbuilders in North America located mostly along rivers. This makes sense; rivers provided water, fish, and other wildlife. They were transportation corridors. They also served as boundaries between competing groups.

If, as I have proposed, Mormon was traveling along these rivers, he would have seen little more than buildings and people. (One non-LDS experts reports there were over a million mounds in ancient North America.)

Had Mormon instead been walking through Mesoamerica, he would have seen mostly agricultural and wilderness areas, occasionally interspersed with the Mayan structures.

From my perspective, confirming my bias in favor of Letter VII and the New York Cumorah, young Mormon was describing a long-distance journey through a heavily populated area where the “face of the land” (as opposed to the rivers he was on) appeared to be “covered with buildings” along with lots and lots of people.

From my perspective, a person traveling through the lands depicted in the Mayan LiDAR photos would never have described the land as “covered with buildings” because most of it was agricultural and wilderness.

3. What does the term “building” mean in the first place?

First, we have to recognize that not a verse in the Book of Mormon says any “buildings” were made of stone. We are told they were made of wood and, for one brief period in one location, of wood and cement (Helaman 3). But the only stone buildings in the text are in the imagination of the reader. 

If you want to confirm an M2C bias, then you can read “stone” into the text wherever you want. People who share your bias will undoubtedly agree with you.

But because I don’t share the M2C bias, I don’t see any stone buildings.

However, I do see “their shipping and building of ships,” which Mormon didn’t take the time to describe in detail but was just as much a part of Nephite society as “their building of temples, and of synagogues and their sanctuaries” (Helaman 3:14). I take this to mean they lived along rivers.

So what could Mormon have meant by “buildings” in verse 7?

In my presentation at the 2017 Mormon History Association in St. Louis (you can read it here), I pointed out that Dr. Roger Kennedy, the former director of the Smithsonian’s American History Museum, addressed a misperception about earth mounds, noting that earth mounds are actually buildings. “Build and building are also very old words, often used in this text [his book] as they were when the English language was being invented, to denote earthen structures. About 1150, when the word build was first employed in English, it referred to the construction of an earthen grave. 350 years later, an early use of the term to build up was the description of the process by which King Priam of Troy constructed a “big down to bare earth.” So when we refer to the earthworks of the Ohio and Mississippi Valleys as buildings no one should be surprised.”

Even today when you drive along the Ohio River you see lots of ancient mounds that have been preserved. I’ve taken photos of many of these. By far, most have been destroyed and replaced by modern roads and structures. But as the map above shows, in ancient times if you traveled along these rivers, there were mound cities and defensive positions along the banks.

Most of the modern depictions of the moundbuilder sites illustrate Mississippian or later culture because these were built over earlier settlements that dated to Book of Mormon times, but they give a rough idea of what Mormon would have seen during his field trip.

[This painting again shows young Mormon on his way to Zarahemla. [They are traveling south west on the Ohio River at Moundsville, WV, and you can see Grave Creek Mound].

A Cub Scout seeing this would definitely conclude that the “whole face of the land” was “covered with buildings.”

Nevertheless, if your bias is that Letter VII and the prophets and apostles are wrong, then you cannot accept my interpretation of the text because it would contradict your bias. It would generate cognitive dissonance you seek to avoid.

Instead, you must persuade yourself that traveling through agricultural and wilderness land, by foot, occasionally passing through areas of dense human habitation, would lead you to write that the “whole face of the land had become covered with buildings, and the people were as numerous almost, as it were the sand of the sea.”
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You can also pretend that you don’t have a bias; i.e., you don’t have an opinion on whether or not Letter VII and the prophets and apostles are correct. You just want to look at the “facts” and decide.

If so, I’m interested in an explanation of how these Mayan LiDAR images show anything like the “whole face of the land covered with buildings.”
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There’s one more aspect of this passage we should examine.

The M2C proponents claim the Book of Mormon describes a Nephite civilization numbering in the millions (or at least in the midst of millions of Mayans). The LiDAR discoveries have increased population estimates to as high as 15 million, which confirms the M2C bias.

The MA bias sees it differently. I read the text as describing a Nephite civilization of tens of thousands, not millions, of people. (I’m not discussing the Jaredites here.) Because of my bias, when I read LiDAR discoveries that there were many millions more Mayan than previously believed, that takes the Mayan civilization even further away from the descriptions in the text.

I keep reading in Mormon 1. During the same year as Mormon’s field trip, he says there began to be a war (verse 8).

8 And it came to pass in this year there began to be a war between the Nephites, who consisted of the Nephites and the Jacobites and the Josephites and the Zoramites; and this war was between the Nephites, and the Lamanites and the Lemuelites and the Ishmaelites.
9 Now the Lamanites and the Lemuelites and the Ishmaelites were called Lamanites, and the two parties were Nephites and Lamanites.
10 And it came to pass that the war began to be among them in the borders of Zarahemla, by the waters of Sidon.

Sounds like a lot of people involved, doesn’t it? Seven separate groups, allied into two camps: the Nephites and the Lamanites.

In fact, Mormon says “the Nephites had gathered together a great number of men” for this war. They had a number of battles during which the Nephite “did slay many of” the Lamanites.

Now, how many men did Mormon consider to be a “great number?”

30,000.

Well, “even to exceed the number of thirty thousand.”

Look at how that is phrased. Mormon seeks to impress the reader with the size of this Nephite army by calling it “a great number of men, even to exceed the number of thirty thousand.”As if the reader can hardly imagine a number as great as 30,000.

In the context of a civilization of 15 million people, how would this be at all impressive?

Do you see why, in my interpretation of the text, a Nephite civilization in the midst of 15 million people makes no sense?

Later, Mormon tells us that after he gathered in his people “together in one body” he was able to recruit an army of 42,000. (Mormon 2:7-9). That’s even more impressive than the 30,000, but still insignificant in the midst of 15 million people.

For these and similar reasons, the larger the Mayan civilization turns out to be, the less likely it has anything to do with the Book of Mormon.
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So far, I’ve only addressed Mormon 1:7 to show how confirmation bias drives one’s interpretation of the text. I could do the same with the rest of the Meridian Magazine article.

I freely admit my bias: I seek to corroborate and support President Cowdery’s Letter VII and the prophets and apostles who have consistently affirmed it.

M2C proponents also freely admit their bias: they seek “to increase understanding of the Book of Mormon as an ancient Mesoamerican codex,” which requires them to refute and reject President Cowdery’s Letter VII and the prophets and apostles who have consistently affirmed it.

In my view, the intellectuals who push M2C don’t really care what the text actually says, so long as they can construe it–or make stuff up–up to confirm their biases.

They are so obsessed with proving the prophets and apostles wrong that they resort to strained interpretations of the text and seeing terms and concepts that don’t appear in the text anywhere. That’s how they come up with the 3 Js (Jaguars, Jungles and Jade) and the three Ms (Mayans, Mountains and Massive stone temples) that are characteristic of Mesoamerica but not the Book of Mormon. (Not to mention volcanoes…).
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Every time you read Meridian Magazine (or BYU Studies, or anything produced by any other members of the citation cartel), you need to recognize that the authors are confirming their biases.

If you share their biases, then you will probably accept what they write, no problem.

If you don’t share their biases, you will see right through their rhetoric.

http://www.moronisamerica.com/new-discoveries-about-mayans-and-bias-confirmation/