The Hill Cumorah
A few months ago I did an experiment. I called the Hill Cumorah visitor’s center in Palmyra to see if that was in fact the location of the Hill Cumorah Mentioned in the Book of Mormon (BOM). According to the missionaries at the visitor’s center it is indeed the very place that is mentioned in the BOM, the place the Nephites and Lamanites had their last battle. At least 230,000 men died in the last battle at the Hill Cumorah, and previously 2 million of the Jeredites died at their last battle there. Of all places, that is an ideal location to look for evidence to support the BOM. A simple excavation would reveal a plethora of weighty evidence that would validate Joseph Smith’s claims as a true prophet.
With such hopeful prospects one would only assume that exhaustive excavations have taken place. But have there been? Nope! The fact is that there is NO evidence there for such a story, and the Church does not want to magnify that problem. To create an out, some people say that the Palmyra location isn’t really the location of the great battles. I seriously take issue with that claim because of what the Church has always taught, and still teaches, about that location. For example, check out this quote from Joseph Fielding Smith in regards to the Hill Cumorah.
This is the contact information for the visitor center.
Hill Cumorah Visitors' Center
603 State Route 21
Palmyra, New York 14522
Phone: (315) 597-5851
FAX: (315) 597-0165
With such hopeful prospects one would only assume that exhaustive excavations have taken place. But have there been? Nope! The fact is that there is NO evidence there for such a story, and the Church does not want to magnify that problem. To create an out, some people say that the Palmyra location isn’t really the location of the great battles. I seriously take issue with that claim because of what the Church has always taught, and still teaches, about that location. For example, check out this quote from Joseph Fielding Smith in regards to the Hill Cumorah.
It must be conceded that this description fits perfectly the land of CumorahYou can do this experiment too. Call the visitor’s center in NY and confirm that it is the location mentioned in the BOM, and if there have been discoveries from any excavations. You will discover that there is no evidence at all.
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...." (Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of
Salvation , Vol.3, Bookcraft, 1956, pp. 232-243)
This is the contact information for the visitor center.
Hill Cumorah Visitors' Center
603 State Route 21
Palmyra, New York 14522
Phone: (315) 597-5851
FAX: (315) 597-0165
posted by vessey at
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
11 Comments:
What you say is totally true. I decided to test your experiment.
I called the visitor center and the asked if this was the location in the Book of Mormon, where the battles took place and Nephites and Lamanites and 2 million Jeredites died. A lady said proudly,"Yep, this is the place in the Book of Mormon, so many many people battled and died here, this is the place we believe it happened."
Me, "Have there been discoveries from any excavations to prove it?"
Lady, "No. Well, the early settlers did some small diggings and found some bones with arrows through them.... But this is the place in the Book of Mormon."
Me, "Did they find evidence of there being even as as little as 300,000 bodies dead in the ground?"
Lady, "No. But this is the place where it all happened"
Me, "Oh. Thanks, bye."
Your experiment worked! The lady sounded so proud to be answering the phone at such a great monument to the Mormon religion. But when asked for any proof as to the validity of the accounts in the Book of Mormon, she could produce only the findings of small diggers, from early settlers.
Bear in mind people, if you choose to call and do the same test, don't be pushy or rude, just let them burry themselves in their own excuses, and politely excuse yourself off the phone.
By the way, you've got an excellent blog here.
HAHA this is so silly.
If your grandma is buried at a local semetary, does that mean you have to dig up her dead body to validate the truth?
:D
Anonymous...
I think your response is silly, and it confuses the issue. You argument is what we call a "strawman argument". You build up a really weak argument and knock it down. You assume that it's a widely known fact that ancient Nephites and Lamanites from the Book of Mormon ARE burried there. My beef is that they never existed and the Hill Cumorah is a perfect example of that.
Strawman...
Tell you what. Show me any Archeological proof that the Israelites did the Exodus, or that a man named Moses existed.
Until you can, I wouldn't go bashing the Mormons for any so-called "lack of archeological evidence"
Indeed, you are attacking a concept that makes no sense, the "hemispheric" conception of the book of Mormon. Most scholars agree that is incorrect.
I'm sorry that the Missonaries there at the visitors center said that, but the plain text of the Book of Mormon quite clearly leaves no room for the Hill Cumorah where the last battles were to be the same as the hill Joseph Smith found the plates in.
So please, get some new material, or at least attempt to address more recent LDS scholarship of the, oh, last 30 years. You anti-Mormons really are losing this war, and you don't even know it.
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous,
You brought up another straw man argument and you didn't even realize it! The Exodus is simply one event in thousands mentioned in the Bible. Even if there isn't evidence for it (which there is here for example), there are certainly many others that can give validity to the Bible as a reliable text. At least the Bible fits well in a historical context, unlike the BOM that doesn't have one shred of evidence. The Bible has many.
You said,
"I'm sorry that the Missonaries there at the visitors center said that, but the plain text of the Book of Mormon quite clearly leaves no room for the Hill Cumorah where the last battles were to be the same as the hill Joseph Smith found the plates in."
So do you think the prophet Joseph Fielding Smith was wrong, ignorant, or was he lying when he said that the particular hill is the same as mentioned in the BOM? Who cares about scholars when you have Mormon Prophets who have revelation straight from God, right? Would you really take a scholars view over a prophets?
Um, Moses was a prophet, and he thought bats were something they are not.
Joseph Smith also said the cities in Central America might be the cities in the Book of Mormon. Which, in fact, most scholars would agree that there is the most likely spot.
The Book of Mormon doesn't have "one shred of evidence?" I'll name a few that were not available when Joseph Smith published the book of Mormon:
Cement in America. Patterns of warfare in Central America. Baptism in America (you DID know there are multiple baptismal like structures, right?) Writing in America. Large markets, merchants, lawyers & so forth. Hierarchies of cities and kings. Wealth represented by clothing, not coinage.
And that's just archeological bulls eyes. What about the intimate knowledge of olive culture; the staggering skill in hebraic poetical structures, the absolute bulls eye in the journey through Saudi Arabia and Oman, the very accurate description of a volcanic catastrophe; the internal consistency of the book, the Nephite money system tracking old world systems detail for detail (even borrowing an akkadian name!) and many more.
There are lots of evidences, but you are too blind to see or accept them. Do they PROVE the Book of Mormon? No, but they pretty well show that the book is ancient.
Let's examine one in more detail, shall we? Olive culture! Jacob chapter 5 purports to be a copy of a work by an ancient Israeli prophet, Zenos--so this is scripture from the old world.
It tracks old world olive growing culture dramatically. For Joseph to have written it, he 1) would have had to have a very intimate knowledge of olive cultivation. How many olive groves in upper new york are you aware of in 1820's era? None.
So he must have learned it from a book, right? Yes, except in order to duplicate it, he'd have had to read 4 ancient books--all four of them. Cato, Varro, Theophrastus, and Columella. And of those books, Theorphrastus was first published in 1916 in English, and Joseph Smith knew no greek or hebrew when the BoFM was published.
Even if he HAD somehow gotten the information ( a no doubt Herculean task), he would still have had to know how to put it into proper Hebraic story structure. Just where did THAT skill come from?
And if Joseph Smith had gone to all that trouble to have actually learned so many details about olive cultivation, why is it pretty much ignored except for one chapter?
That's just one minor example you people who dismiss the Book of Mormon as having "no evidence!!!!" have to explain away. If there's no evidence, then just how can you explain this stuff that Joseph Smith couldn't have known? Nor would Sidney Rigdon or Solomon Spaulding, for that matter.
Mr. Anonymous,
You said...
"Joseph Smith also said the cities in Central America might be the cities in the Book of Mormon. Which, in fact, most scholars would agree that there is the most likely spot."
Did you not read the quote I had from JFS about the Hill? He said, "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." (Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of
Salvation , Vol.3, Bookcraft, 1956, pp. 232-243)
So are you not a "reasonable" person, or do you think all those Church leaders were wrong?
In regards to evidence you provided for the BOM, not one of those things are relevant. Ancient American history reveals brutal systems of religion. They used to sacrifice people on alters by cutting there heads off. Those aren't baptismal fonts, they're pits for human sacrifices!
So what if there is writing in America? Actually, none of the writing refers to anything in the BOM (viz., names, places, events, etc). And none of the writing is anything like Hebrew or Egyptian. All the other examples you listed can be taken from the Bible, e.g., wealthy clothing, markets, lawyers, etc. There is no evidence that is unique to the BOM, nada.
In regards to the olive culture. Was it a vineyard or an olive grove? Seems like the author was mixed up. The parable was taken from Isaiah 5 and Romans 11. Isaiah 5 uses the vineyard, and Romans 11 uses an olive tree, and it sounds like the author tried to make something sound nice and put them together. Also, those agricultural tricks have been known for centuries and they are common to the average farmer.
In regards to the "staggering skill in hebraic poetical structures." It doesn't take a rocket scientist to transfer similar structures from the Bible and stick them in the BOM.
In regards to the "internal consistency of the book." What about all the steel weaponry when steel wasn't invented yet? Is that consistent with reality? No.
In regards to the Nephite money system. We can find tons of coinage in Israel, but what about all the coinage used in the BOM? Where is it? None has been found.
You seem to think there is all sorts of evidence for the Book. Can you tell me where one new world BOM city is? One new world BOM event took place, or where one new world BOM name is inscribed?
You've got to see this documentary. It's free, check it out here
Also, see my other post here on the Facts on the BOM.
Was that Mormon with one "m" or two?
As an LDS member I often wonder myself why more extensive searches haven't been done for artifacts. The truth of the matter is the Hill Cumorah is not to be confused with the Land of Cumorah. If you read the scriptures the Hill Cumorah should presumptively lie within the Land of Cumorah and I doubt the Land of Cumorah covered more than an area of 20-30 square miles, but nowhere does it say everyone died on that exact hill. It is the hill where the plates were hid. If you read the account of Joseph Smith on how the plates and the other artifacts were hidden by Moroni it would have taken at least a day or two to complete and I doubt that would have taken place during a battle of hundreds of thousands of people. After all the Nephites were killed the Lamanites sought out anyone remaining. If you're asking my opinion. I do believe there probably are thousands of bodies somewhere within the close region of a day or so walking distance, but not all if many right on top of this hill. If you read Mormon chapter 6 in the Book of Mormon which will take you about 5 minutes, you can decide for yourself. Of course without a revelation or substantial physical evidence neither claims for or against would hold up in any court, but these are my beliefs that the Book of Mormon is real and the places talked about are not just generalizations, but real places and events. I would love the church to do some digging because I know they will find things, then again people wouldn't have to exercise much faith with a pile of knowledge thrown at them would they?
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