barrelomonkeys wrote:truth dancer wrote:
In other words, I'm rather convinced that the majority of scholars and church leaders have let go of the HGT and all that goes with this and yet, there are still believing members convinced in its truth who have never heard of the LGT.
~dancer~
What is HGT and LGT?
Joseph Smith did not understand the geography of the Book of Mormon. He was the translator, not the interpreter. For example, he did not know that Jerusalem had walls. Much of the information in the Book of Mormon was beyond his worldly knowledge. His views on geography vascillated, and there are some statements from him which seem to favour a limited setting, but he made no final, authoratitive statements on this. Some of his followers speculated that the HGT, or hemispheric model, covered the whole of the Americas, North, Central, and South, with the Panama canal as the "narrow neck of land", and these views were accepted by many. There are indications, however, going back to the 19th century, that the Book of Mormon had a limited setting. When scholars like Sorenson looked more closely at the Book of Mormon, they realised that the limited setting was more plausible, because of geographical descriptions in the Book of Mormon, and the time and distances of travels recorded in the book. So the LGT, or Limited Geographical Model, seemed more plausible. That Joseph Smith did not understand this is more reason not to believe he wrote the Book of Mormon. The internal geographical descriptions seem consistent with a limited setting, or LGT, and this is what Sorenson tried to get across in his articles to Church members.
Hope that rough outline helps.