Shulem Cracked the Book of Mormon Code, the Land of Nephi is now revealed! See for yourself! The Golden Key!

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

Wow.

Do think young Joseph might have got some ideas about how battles were fought from Late War? How about it, Doctor CamNC4Me?

Hath not the king a thousand ships of war? and wherefore should we be hemmed in?

Near unto this place a few vessels of Columbia, commanded by the gallant Cassin, were hemmed in by about a score of the mighty ships of the king.

That Harrison, the chief captain, from the west the brave warrior, who had entrenched himself In the strong hold of Miami, nigh unto the river Miami, sallied forth against the savages and the men of Britain, that hemmed him in.

Nevertheless, Chauncey followed after Yeo, and hemmed him in for a time.

Lo ! now ye can neither move to the right nor to the left, to escape, for we have hemmed you in;

About this time, the whole land of Columbia was ordered to be hemmed in by Cochrane, a servant of the king, and a chief captain of the navy of Britain.

Hrm. I’m not sure. Let’s check Alma, which is heavily modeled off the Late War:

And it came to pass that the Nephites had inhabited the land Bountiful, even from the east unto the west sea, and thus the Nephites in their wisdom, with their guards and their armies, had hemmed in the Lamanites on the south, that thereby they should have no more possession on the north, that they might not overrun the land northward.

Here’s the lynch pin. The Lamanites couldn’t go south. There was nowhere to go. They were hemmed in and literally cut off “even from east to west”, and anywhere south there was water, hence they couldn’t go anywhere..

Crazy how obvious this is now.

by the way, as a side note, “And it came to pass” is used liberally throughout the Great War.

- Doc

[Shulem]

Here’s the lynch pin. The Lamanites couldn’t go south. There was nowhere to go. They were hemmed in and literally cut off “even from east to west”, and anywhere south there was water, hence they couldn’t go anywhere..

Crazy how obvious this is now.

by the way, as a side note, “And it came to pass” is used liberally throughout the Great War.

Well, I tossed the "hemmed in" out there like a piece of red meat to see what you thought. It being mentioned half a dozen times in Late War is an indicator that it may well have stuck in Smith's mind and so he used it in his own story at the perfect place. But oh well.

I love the Late War comparisons with the Book of Mormon here:

A Comparison of The Book of Mormon and The Late War Between the United States and Great Britain

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

Here’s the lynch pin. The Lamanites couldn’t go south. There was nowhere to go. They were hemmed in and literally cut off “even from east to west”, and anywhere south there was water, hence they couldn’t go anywhere..

Crazy how obvious this is now.

by the way, as a side note, “And it came to pass” is used liberally throughout the Great War.

Well, I tossed the "hemmed in" out there like a piece of red meat to see what you thought. It being mentioned half a dozen times in Late War is an indicator that it may well have stuck in Smith's mind and so he used it in his own story at the perfect place. But oh well.

I love the Late War comparisons with the Book of Mormon here:

A Comparison of The Book of Mormon and The Late War Between the United States and Great Britain

Oh, yeah. For sure. I totally caught that and searched the Book of Mormon off the cult’s website to find if it was used, and it was! That’s another bingo, brother. You’re en fuego right now.

- Doc

[John Hamer]

I think you should reach out to Dan Vogel, maybe John Hamer, the guy who posts here occasionally - good guy, left the church and then went back to it - I’m having a massive brain fart right now - DON BRADLEY, got it, and maaaaybe Brent Metcalf. I’d suggest maybe drafting a paper and contacting the Mormon History Association ref some possible mentors to help put together a peer reviewed paper. I’m serious. I think you’re onto something even more profound and groundbreaking than the Anubis discovery.

As someone who has loved maps all my life — a professional map-maker and a student of the history of maps — I have long been intrigued by the idea of drawing a map for the Book of Mormon. Indeed, as a kid in 1976 (age 6) while my family and I were reading the Book of Mormon together regularly, we actually made our own Book of Mormon map. This is a clever and fun idea.

However, I subsequently reviewed all of the "limited geography theories" that arose in the 20th century and went through the entire text to consider the Book of Mormon's geography. I have all the various pop-books on the subject. I considered Delmarva some twenty years ago. I drew dozens of maps, looking at various potential ideas.

None of these theories have any explanatory value. Joseph Smith did not have any limited geography theory in mind while composing the Book of Mormon. He was attempting to connect the Americas into the Biblical worldview. But he had a very limited worldview and he was very ignorant of geography. He was effectively living a pre-cartographic worldview. We now think of everything mapped. Even fictional universes, thanks to J.R.R. Tolkien, we imagine there had to be a map. But prior to Tolkien, there wasn't a map.

Joseph Smith was not working from a map. He was composing in a pre-cartographic, itinerary worldview. The only actual physical locations that can be connected to Book of Mormon locations are the Hill Cumorah (in upstate New York), the Land Northward (North America), the Land Southward (South America), and the narrow neck of land (Panama). The fact that the time it takes to walk across Panama is wrong is the same as all other Book of Mormon anachronisms (steel, horses, etc) — because Joseph Smith was ignorant of geography. (By the way — Joseph Smith was every bit as ignorant of how long it takes to walk across Panama as how he was to walk across the Delmarva isthmus. The only difference is, he probably had no idea that there even was a Delmarva peninsula.)

Trying to make a map of Joseph Smith's Book of Mormon and complaining that actual geographical details are wrong is like trying to make a map of Edgar Rice Burrough's "Barsoom" and complaining that it doesn't relate to what we know of Martian geography. Burroughs and Smith are simply ignorant of the geography in question. Later data (things the Times and Seasons said about Mayans or things Joseph Smith said about Zelph) is totally irrelevant. Those are ideas introduced after the fact.

As fun as they are, none of the limited geography theories have any value for explaining the Book of Mormon.

[Physics Guy]

Joseph Smith was not working from a map. He was composing in a pre-cartographic, itinerary worldview. ... Joseph Smith was ignorant of geography. ...

Trying to make a map of Joseph Smith's Book of Mormon and complaining that actual geographical details are wrong is like trying to make a map of Edgar Rice Burrough's "Barsoom" and complaining that it doesn't relate to what we know of Martian geography. Burroughs and Smith are simply ignorant of the geography in question. ...

As fun as they are, none of the limited geography theories have any value for explaining the Book of Mormon.

I certainly haven't spent any 45 years thinking about Book of Mormon geography, but from my naïve outsider perspective: couldn't that all be true, only not so much?

Maps did exist in Smith's time and place. In connection with NHM (I know, I know) I once did some google sleuthing and tracked down an old record of the public library collection in Rochester in 1835 or something. In the list there was a set of old accounts of travels in the Middle East, and in one of those volumes there was a map. The book was popular enough in its day to have a bit of historical importance itself, I guess, because I was also able to track down a scan of the book and look at the map (to check for Nahom-like place names in Arabia for Smith to have cribbed—there weren't any). The search seemed worthwhile, mainly because I was amazed that it could be done, but also because in principle Smith could have looked over that very map on a day trip. He may not have had a "vast frontier library" but he wasn't necessarily as remote from all learning as one might think.

As Shulem and I have discussed in this thread, we shouldn't really imagine that Smith was faithfully copying any real-world geography, just that he may well have had some rough model in mind. As I suggested, it might not be one unique place. He might have had the initial notion that his narrow neck of land was Panama, but then also gradually let his imagination morph more into something smaller and nearer, like Delmarva.

Even for fantasy worlds that are explicitly presented as such, it's not uncommon for critics to look for real-world models known to the author in order to explain why things are laid out as they are. Making up geography is as tricky as any other part of creative writing, and authors tend to cheat by imitating real places they've known, in the same way that they base characters on people they've known.

Sometimes a character is a hybrid of two or more real people, taking details from each. That leaves a lot of options open, it's true, so past a certain point it becomes arbitrary to associate the fictions with snippets of reality. But sometimes the connections are striking enough that they really seem significant for the story. It can even happen that you notice an interpretation of the story, that fits well once you see it, but wasn't obvious until you connected characters A and B with real author acquaintances X and Y.

In a story like the Book of Mormon, in which the geography is itself an important part of the story, I think the same principle could apply. One just has to make ample allowance for ignorance and apathy on Smith's part.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

PG makes an excellent point. Taking Dr. Hamer’s GRRM example, I’d like to point out that GRRM used the British Isles as a loose map. He simply stuck an inverted Ireland on top of it, and it was off to the races. Heck, I believe he even said that Southoros is loosely related to Africa and Yi Ti (I think that’s more or less what it’s called) is based off China. I think it’s pretty clear that Joseph Smith is using delmarva, loosely, as the region to hang the Book of Mormon narrative or framework over. The delmarva regional model, or the DRM as I like to call it as of this very moment, closely aligns with Joseph Smith’s plagiarism of the Late War. Just as GRRM used the War of the Roses for inspiration, Joseph Smith used the Late War for the same.

- Doc

[Shulem]

The only difference is, he probably had no idea that there even was a Delmarva peninsula.

Thanks for chiming in, John. I hope you read this entire thread, carefully.

Of course, you know, the Smith family did some traveling. They moved more than once. Joseph traveled to Harmony where he worked and met Emma. Traveling involves following roads and having a map of the region. Maps were key to knowledge and maps were key to understanding the world around you. Without maps there is only chaos. Without maps, nobody can know where to go. Joseph Smith was a man who wanted to know where to go! Joseph Smith read the Bible and he looked at maps. He owned books and sought books.

As mentioned earlier in this thread, the great Chesapeake canal project was ongoing when Joseph was a lad and at the time he defined the Indians and their civilization as mother Smith explained. The canal was a major national undertaking in which the entire Smith family would have known about it and probably seen some kind of map showing what the project entailed. Thousands of people worked on the canal.

Next, I will take you on a journey from A,B,C and prove by the evidence that we see as evidence that Smith chose Delmarva from the very map in which he saw. Without an A you cannot get to C. I will explain that.

[Shulem]

I certainly haven't spent any 45 years thinking about Book of Mormon geography, but from my naïve outsider perspective: couldn't that all be true, only not so much?

Great comments and I agree with your explanations!

When I was a boy my father used to read the Book of Mormon on Sundays and I can honestly say it bored me to tears but it was part of the upbringing. I always assumed or figured the narrow neck was Panama because a simple glance of the globe proved that to my satisfaction.

But here we are today, there is more to it than meets the eye. What was Joseph Smith's intent? His intent was to tell a story and include details in that story and allow his readers to reach their own conclusions about those details. Smith gave his book and pretty much left it at that. He didn't really talk about it much after the fact like he did the Bible.

The Bible is ground zero *at* Jerusalem which is POINT A. Smith had an excellent grasp of the Bible, both Testaments. He understood basic geography as given in the text and undoubtedly was familiar with Bible maps available to him in his own day. So, Jerusalem was POINT A. Smith knew there was a north, east, south, and a Mediterranean sea to the west. He knew Lebanon was to the north and Egypt, Red Sea, and Arabia were to the south and Asia to include Babylon and Persia to the east -- and lest we forget about St. Paul and his travels outlined in the epistles, Greece. The world around Jerusalem was vast. All this is basic biblical text that one can visualize without a map.

Smith's story begins with Lehi leaving Jerusalem, POINT A. They traveled in a "south-southeast direction" which tends to indicate that Smith was using a biblical map available to him because it became necessary for his story to leave the wilderness and come to the coast and that is where a map comes into play. The coast, coastal Arabia is POINT B. You can be sure that Smith had a map when he told that part of the story.

[John Hamer]

I certainly haven't spent any 45 years thinking about Book of Mormon geography, but from my naïve outsider perspective: couldn't that all be true, only not so much?

No. Like all "limited geography theories" of the Book of Mormon, this idea has zero historical merit.

[Shulem]

Whether one accepts the idea that Smith consulted a map in getting Lehi from Jerusalem to the Arabian coast, let's look at the facts which take Lehi from point A to point B as Smith can only tell the story as he sees it in his mind's eye which is imagination.

• Smith visualized in his mind's eye Lehi *AT* Jerusalem

• Smith visualized in his mind's eye Lehi fleeing into a wilderness

• Smith visualized in his mind's eye Lehi traveling in a "south-southeast direction"

• Smith visualized in his mind's eye Nephi building a ship on the coast

• Smith visualized in his mind's eye Lehi set sail and leaving the Arabian coast

The last point is critical and is just as important as Lehi being *at* Jerusalem. Lehi is *at* the coast and sets sail into the great ocean. Joseph Smith visualized points A and B in his mind's eye when he told the story. Being on the Arabian coast was just as important in the reality of the story as being in Jerusalem. We know and can be sure that it was the Arabian coast in which Lehi set sail because the story gives us all the clues we need to make that positive determination.