Mexico City temple dedication

The M2C citation cartel made a point recently about the original dedication of the Mexico City temple, in which President Hinckley referred to the children of Lehi.

Of course, the modern locations of descendants of Lehi has little to do with where Book of Mormon events took place thousands of years ago. Hundreds of years after Moroni buried the plates in New York, the Mayan civilization collapsed. Some of them came north, intermarried with Lamanites in North America for several hundred years, then returned to Central America.

I blogged about this topic a while ago:

http://bookofmormonwars.blogspot.com/2016/11/confusion-about-cumorah-lamanites-and.html

If you're interested in seeing what the M2C citation cartel is trying to say, go here:

http://bookofmormonresources.blogspot.com/2018/06/father-lehi-in-mexico-city-temple.html

http://bookofmormonresources.blogspot.com/2018/06/lehite-temples.html

https://www.ldschurchnews.com/history-revisited/2018-06-22/the-most-memorable-part-of-the-mexico-city-temple-dedication-were-these-words-from-president-hinckley-47415

Eventually the right thing happens-Church History Museum

One of the most common questions people ask me is this: "Why doesn't the Church fix the problems caused by the M2C intellectuals?"

My answer is usually this: "Eventually the right thing happens."

Elder Packer liked to say that the Church moves at two speeds: slowly, and not at all. Yet I'm happy to give kudos to the Church History Museum for correcting a significant problem.

In this case, the right thing has happened. So be of good cheer. Eventually the Church will purge the M2C nonsense and get back to the teachings of the prophets.
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New Exhibit showing "Indian Mission" with Chief Anderson

A while back, I reported on a misleading display in the Church History Museum about the "Indian Mission."

See here:
https://bookofmormonwars.blogspot.com/2017/01/early-church-members-joseph-smith.html
and here:
http://mormonmesomania.blogspot.com/2016/11/visit-to-church-history-museum.html

I told some of the docents about the problem. I submitted a comment to the Museum. I blogged about it and showed this in several presentations.

Others, too, have commented about the display.

Yesterday I revisited the museum. I'm happy to say they have corrected the exhibit.

I'm not saying I had anything to do with it, but whatever motivated the change, we can be grateful. No longer will visitors to the Church History Museum be misinformed about Church history on this point.

The old sign told visitors that "Early Church members believed that these Indians were descendants of Israelites who were known as Lamanites in the Book of Mormon."

The new sign deletes the rhetoric about what "early Church members" believed and instead declares this:

In the autumn of 1830 in New York, Joseph Smith received three revelations in which the Lord called Oliver Cowdery, Peter Whitmer, Jr., Parley P. Pratt, and Ziba Peterson to preach to the Lamanites, one of three groups of people described in the Book of Mormon. Lamanites are among the ancestors of the American Indians.

Consequently, in late 1830, Oliver Cowdery and his companions preached to Seneca Indians in New York and Huron Indians in Ohio. Both nations expressed some interest in the Book of Mormon, which the missionaries shared with them as a record of their forefathers.

Oliver, Parley, and a new convert, Frederick G. Williams, journeyed into Indian Territory (present-day Kansas and Oklahoma), where the Lenape (Delaware) and Shawnee Nations showed great interest in the Book of Mormon.

This description is close to perfect. (I would have had the term "Lamanites" included in parentheses after the term "Indian" in the heading, and I would have quoted D&C 28, 30 and 32. But this is a definite step away from the M2C dogma.)

And it's cool they accompanied the display with an image of Lenape chief William Anderson.
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Now, if we could just get the Joseph Smith Papers editors to delete the misleading rhetoric on their web page, we would really be making progress.

http://www.josephsmithpapers.org/topic/lamanites

Notice how the summary still says "Early church members viewed contemporary American Indian tribes as the descendants of the Lamanites."

This is the type of rhetoric we expect from the Correlation Department. Maybe the Church History Museum is not under the thumb of the Correlation Department so the Museum can tell the truth. Or maybe this change slipped past the M2C censors at the Correlation Department.

Either way, I suspect the Correlation Department didn't catch this change.

Well done, Church History Museum!
_____

I'm very happy to see this change!

Old Exhibit showing "Indian Mission"
with Oliver Cowdery and Parley P. Pratt

New Exhibit showing "Indian Mission" with Chief Anderson

Side panel of new exhibit. Notice how the images of
Chief Anderson and Cowdery/Pratt have been swapped.

Old display that claimed "early Church members"
believed the Indians were Lamanites

New display that explains these Indians are Lamanites.

Jack Welch tells the prophets they are wrong

Book of Mormon Central is going to need a lawyer to explain to all the prophets why they were wrong about the New York Cumorah.

Brother John W. (Jack) Welch is the Chairman of Book of Mormon Central. He's also a lawyer, so he'd be the natural one to make this explanation. But there are plenty of other lawyers who promote M2C.

Come to think of it, Book of Mormon Central is only one part of the citation cartel. The entire cartel is going to need a platoon of lawyers to explain to the prophets how they were wrong.

Here's how I envision that happening.

"But you were all ignorant speculators who misled the Church,"
the lawyer insists.

This graphic shows the lawyer arguing the M2C case to a panel of the prophets, sitting as Supreme Court judges.

I could only fit a few of the prophets who have taught the New York Cumorah, but there's no need to show all of them. They have consistently and persistently taught that Cumorah is in New York. No prophet has disagreed or even questioned their teaching.

Only the M2C intellectuals have.

I wouldn't want to be the lawyer who has to try to persuade the prophets they were wrong.

Especially since the M2C case is based on illusory correspondences and strained interpretations of the text.
_____

I don't think these judges will rule in favor of Book of Mormon Central, but apparently a lot of employees at BYU/CES/COB do. The citation cartel is so confident that they censor any contrary views, especially the views of those who believe the prophets.

Book of Mormon Central will also answer to the thousands of youth in the Church whom they have taught to disbelieve the prophets, but that crowd is much, much too large to depict on the bench.
_____

Evidence: fantasy map used to repudiate the
prophets, taught by BYU/CES

Evidence: fantasy map used to repudiate
the prophets, taught by BYU Studies,
edited by Jack Welch

Take a look at all the members of the M2C citation cartel who are collaborating to teach the youth in the Church that the prophets are wrong:

https://bookofmormoncentral.org/directory

This isn't even a full list of the citation cartel. You can see more of them here:

http://interpreterfoundation.org/foundation/

and here:

https://ldsmag.com/columnists/

The M2C lawyer is going to be quite busy, no doubt. 

President Benson tried to fix BYU

The entire Mesoamerican/two-Cumorahs (M2C) theory is based on one premise:

1. The prophets are wrong.

Ask any promoter of M2C and they will tell you the prophets have been wrong about the New York Cumorah.

The core group of M2C intellectuals is at BYU-Provo. Some have retired, others are about to, but they have plenty of followers among the younger faculty, so the repudiation of the prophets will continue for the foreseeable future--unless the students (and parents) reject what these intellectuals are teaching.
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For a while now, I've pointed out that President Benson warned us about what these BYU intellectuals are doing.

"The learned may feel the prophet is only inspired when he agrees with them, otherwise the prophet is just giving his opinion—speaking as a man." 

https://www.lds.org/manual/teachings-of-presidents-of-the-church-ezra-taft-benson/chapter-11-follow-the-living-prophet?lang=eng

Notice, I've been citing the lesson manual. But actually, President Benson gave this address at BYU.

https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/ezra-taft-benson_fourteen-fundamentals-following-prophet/

This was a Devotional Address on Feb. 25, 1980. President Benson was President of the Quorum of the Twelve at the time.

I was at BYU then. I remember how many professors were telling us that the prophets were expressing their own opinions, and I remember the reaction to President Benson's was not exactly warm. That's another topic, but my point here is that President Benson was trying to fix BYU.

If anything, I think today's faculty is even worse when it comes to following the prophets than the faculty I knew back then.

Of the fourteen fundamentals President Benson articulated, the eleventh is the one BYU faculty and students should ponder:

Eleventh: The two groups who have the greatest difficulty in following the prophet are the proud who are learned and the proud who are rich.

The learned may feel the prophet is only inspired when he agrees with them; otherwise, the prophet is just giving his opinion—speaking as a man. The rich may feel they have no need to take counsel of a lowly prophet.

This was no isolated BYU devotional that we can all forget about. As I've pointed out, it's in the lesson manual, Teachings of the Presidents of the Church: Ezra Taft Benson.

In June 1981, President Benson's talk was published as the First Presidency Message in the Liahona.

https://www.lds.org/liahona/1981/06/fourteen-fundamentals-in-following-the-prophet?lang=eng

(So far as I can tell, this was the only time a First Presidency message was not written by a member of the First Presidency, although President Benson became President of the Church in November, 1985.)

In the October 2010 General Conference, President Benson's talk was cited twice.

https://www.lds.org/ensign/2010/11/saturday-afternoon-session/our-very-survival?lang=eng

https://www.lds.org/ensign/2010/11/saturday-morning-session/obedience-to-the-prophets?lang=eng
_____

In 1980, M2C was just getting started. True, President Joseph Fielding Smith had previously objected to the two-Cumorahs theory, accurately warning that it would cause members of the Church to become confused and disturbed in their faith in the Book of Mormon. That has played out even worse than President Smith could have imagined.

Now our own visitors centers are teaching M2C!

But had the BYU faculty (and students such as myself) heeded President Benson's 1980 warning, M2C would have been halted before David Palmer published In Search of Cumorah, before John Sorenson published An Ancient American Setting for the Book of Mormon, and before the Correlation Department began enforcing M2C throughout the Church.

Today, had we heeded President Benson, the Church would be united at least about the New York Cumorah, just as it was when Joseph Smith was alive.

But instead, the M2C intellectuals at BYU rejected President Benson, just as they rejected all the prophets who taught the New York Cumorah.

And that continues today, with devastating consequences.
_____

These M2C intellectuals tell their students that the prophets have been merely expressing their opinions.

No, that's too mild. Let's be clear.

BYU fantasy map that teaches LDS students
to disbelieve the prophets

The premise of M2C is that the prophets who have taught that Cumorah is in New York, including members of the First Presidency speaking in General Conference, have all been ignorant speculators who misled the Church by expressing their personal (and erroneous) opinions.

I won't name the M2C intellectuals here, but if you've taken a Book of Mormon class at BYU in recent years, you've met some of them. You know them because they teach students a fantasy map that teaches the prophets are wrong. 
_____

I'll accept blame, myself. When I was a BYU student, I bought into the narrative that our professors were smarter than the prophets. It's not just BYU geography, of course; the intellectuals assert superiority over the prophets on lots of topics.

I don't remember knowing about Letter VII when I was a BYU student. I think if I had, though, I might have bought into the narrative that our M2C intellectuals were smarter than the prophets.

Only now, decades later, do I realize how completely wrong these M2C intellectuals are.

I wish I had heeded President Benson's warning all along.

I hope that this blog post might help some students (and maybe some BYU faculty) avoid the mistake I made way back in 1980.

Good news on Preach My Gospel

Yesterday the Church announced an updated version of Preach My Gospel. I was curious about chapter 5, titled "What Is the Role of the Book of Mormon?"

You can see it here:

https://www.lds.org/manual/preach-my-gospel-a-guide-to-missionary-service/what-is-the-role-of-the-book-of-mormon?lang=eng

The first thing I noticed was the painting of Christ visiting the Nephites at Chichen Itza was gone from the top of the page. All the other artwork in the chapter is the same.

The version of Preach My Gospel on Gospel Library still features the Christ at Chichen Itza painting, though. so it's probably just a quirk of the lds.org version.

Still, at least missionaries who study Preach My Gospel aren't being taught M2C when they use the version on lds.org.

It's probably not an indication of anything significant, but at least there's one Church manual on lds.org that doesn't overtly teach M2C.

The .pdf version still has the Chichen Itza painting, and probably the printed version will as well.

Sigh...
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Sadly, the new version still doesn't quote D&C 28:8. We don't expect that to change because the Correlation Department doesn't want members of the Church--especially not missionaries--to ponder why the Lord identified the Indians in New York as Lamanites. That's why the Church History Museum has changed the narrative into a mission to the Indians, as we've discussed here:
http://bookofmormonwars.blogspot.com/2017/01/early-church-members-joseph-smith.html

"And now, behold, I say unto you that you shall go unto the Lamanites and preach my gospel unto them."

Radio Friday

I'm scheduled to be on the radio today (Friday, June 22) starting at 11:30 am.

Jonathan Neville on the radio again.KLO 1430 AM Radio Salt Lake City. Tune in on Fri June 22, 2018 – 11:30 am Visit KLO HERE!

http://www.kloradio.com/

Saints - Experience Church History like never before

"Experience Church History
like never before"

In Palmyra this week, I picked up this bookmark for the new Saints book. The book has a commendable goal to make Church history easier to understand and accessible to people around the world in 50 languages. It is written in the modern style of historical narratives, making it informative and enjoyable to read.

If not for one editorial decision that permeates the book, I would highly recommend it. Actually, I do highly recommend Saints so long as readers are aware of one problem.

The problem: Saints is agenda-driven revisionist history that is teaching people to disbelieve the prophets about an important topic.

The heading on the bookmark is deeply ironic. This book will definitely let people "experience Church history like never before" because it is changing Church history. 

Saints is revisionist history, designed to provide a framework to support the Mesoamerican/two-Cumorahs theory of Book of Mormon geography.

_____

So far, the released chapters of Saints have:

- edited out all references in early Church history that show Moroni himself taught Joseph that the hill Cumorah is in New York.

- replaced the actual sources who said the plates were "written and deposited" not far from Joseph's home, that it described the origins of the "aboriginal inhabitants of this country," etc., with the misleading assertion that Moroni told Joseph the plates related the account of people who lived "in the Americas." That term appears nowhere in the original documents. It's a concoction of the M2C intellectuals and the Church historians who are collaborating with them.

- promoted the narrative that Joseph Smith didn't really use the plates for the translation. Instead of translating the engravings on the plates, as the revelations and Oliver Cowdery said, Saints portrays Joseph as reading the stone in the hat while the plates stayed covered by a cloth on the table (or in the woods).
_____

This last point deserves more explanation. The "no need for plates" narrative helps promote M2C because it suppresses the importance of the two sets of plates.

The two sets of plates are:

(i) the Harmony plates that Joseph obtained from Moroni's stone box on the hill Cumorah. Joseph translated all of these (except the sealed portion) in Harmony, including the Title Page which was the last leaf of the plates. These plates are "this record" that the Lord referred to in D&C 9:1. These are the plates described in the Title Page (which does not mention any original plates). Joseph returned the Harmony plates to the messenger before leaving Harmony (JS-History, 1:60).

(ii) the Fayette plates that Joseph received from the messenger who brought them to Fayette from the depository in the hill Cumorah. These are the  unabridged "plates of Nephi" the Lord told him to translate, which he didn't have in Harmony (D&C 10). They were not listed on the Title Page because they were not in Moroni's stone box. These are the "other records" the Lord promised Oliver Cowdery that he would assist to translate (D&C 9:2). These are the plates that Joseph returned to the depository in the hill Cumorah, as explained by Brigham Young. They are the ones he showed to the Eight Witnesses, which we know because Lucy Mack Smith said Joseph got those plates from one of the Three Nephites; i.e., the messenger on the road to Fayette.

You can see the schematic of this here: http://bookofmormonwars.blogspot.com/p/the-two-sets-of-plates-schematic.html

It is important to realize that Joseph actually translated the engravings on the plates because otherwise, the entire effort to transport, preserve, and abridge the Nephite records was a colossal waste of time and effort. 

And yet, because of M2C, this is what some LDS intellectuals, and the Church History Department, want people to believe.
_____

Already, the M2C intellectuals cannot explain why the messenger on the road to Fayette was taking the Harmony plates to the hill Cumorah. This is the account that John W. (Jack) Welch deliberately suppressed in his detailed account of the translation timeline.
(See http://bookofmormonwars.blogspot.com/2017/12/opening-heavens-but-censoring-history.html)

Although at least one of the M2C advocates has proposed that the messenger was magically going to southern Mexico, most of them explain away the encounter with the messenger by saying that David Whitmer had a faulty recollection, or conflated different ideas, etc. This is part of their pattern of undermining the credibility and reliability of the Three Witnesses.

Here's the key: if the messenger was actually taking the Harmony plates to the hill Cumorah near Palmyra, NY, then that means Letter VII and all the prophets and apostles who have affirmed the New York location were correct. 

If that's the case, then M2C implodes.

Instead, the M2C intellectuals and their collaborators in the Church History department want people to think Joseph never actually used the plates.

I'll post more on this later.