Book of Mormon Catechism
Questions and Answers on the Book of Mormon

By A. H. Cannon
Published at the
Juvenile Instructor Office
Salt Lake City Utah
1886

~ Designed and Prepared Especially for
     the Use of the Sunday Schools in Zion ~
~
Cumorah Is Cumorah
presented by Don R. Hender

Produced for use in the Sunday Schools in Zion by the then ‘official publishing office’ used by the Church, the Book of Mormon Catechism has many interesting questions and the then accepted 'standard belief' answers relative to various geographic sites in respect to Book of Mormon geography.  And it is another ‘evidence’ toward the truly objective consideration of and favoring of a hemispheric model of the geography of the Book of Mormon.

Chapter 1, Question 7, Page 9:

Q.    Where was the record obtained?
A.     From the hill Cumorah, Ontario County, in the State of New York.

Chapter 2, Question 3, Page 13: (Concerning the numerous Nephite records hide by Mormon)

Q.    What was done with these numerous records?
A.     They were hide up in the hill Cumorah.

Chapter 2, Question 5, Page 13: (Concerning were Moroni hide up his set of plates)

Q.    What did Moroni do with them?
A.     He finished the record up to the time when the people of God were over come by the wicked, when he hid them also in the hill of Cumorah.

These first three questions and answers from the 'Book of Mormon Catechism' of 1886 present the 'standard belief' concerning the hill of Cumorah. The hill of Cumorah was in New York where the plates that Moroni had placed there many years previous were take from by Joseph Smith. That same hill of Cumorah also contained all of the Nephite records placed there by Mormon. And this was the same hill Cumorah that Moroni had placed the golden plates in the side of that same hill where the rest of the records were hidden deep within. This is what these Book of Mormon Catechism questions and answers convey about the hill of Cumorah in the state of New York, that it indeed was the same identical hill of Cumorah of the ancient Book of Mormon record.

Chapter 5, Question 19, Page 24: (Concerning location of Lehi’s landing)

Q.    Where does the Prophet Joseph Smith tell us they landed?
A.     On the coast of Chili in South America.

Chapter 6, Question 7, Page 26: (Concerning the Land of Nephi)

Q.    What part of South America are we led to suppose the land of Nephi embraced?
A.      The country between the southern line of Ecuador and the northern line of Chili.

Chapter 14, Question 5, Page 53: (Concerning the first Nephite migrations into the land northward.)

Q.    In the thirty-seventh and eighth year [of the reign of Judges] whither did many of the Nephites emigrate?
A.     Into the land northward, now called North America.

Chapter 15, Question 32, Page 60: (Concerning the Jaredite record (Book of Ether).)

Q.    What is said in this record concerning the lands northward and southward, or North and South America?
A.     North America was covered with inhabitants and South America was preserved as a wilderness to get game.

While there are a few other related questions, the whole of these 7 questions will do in establishing that the Church as of 1886 was of the mind that the Book of Mormon geographical model was a hemispheric model ranging from the Chilean coast of South America to the hill of Cumorah in the state of New York of North America.  And while the Church has never officially presented any actual map locating specific sights upon it, it is a 'total truth' to point out that the generalized traditional consensus of the LDS Church was that of a Hemispheric model to the Book of Mormon geography. And it is a fabrication which ignores LDS Church History, writings, statements and publications of various Church authorities and official Church materials to state that the Hemispheric model to the Book of Mormon geography was not a generally accepted model of the Church.

Today there are a number of ‘learned intellectual’ advocates of a Mesoamerican limited model who would suggest that the Church never did have such a traditional perspective upon the geography of the Book of Mormon despite much evidence to the contrary.  Even as late as the late 1940’s such noted Mormon scholars as Sydney B. Sperry and Hugh B. Nibley were called upon and wrote church lesson manuals for the Sunday School and Priesthood which both presented and defended such a Hemispheric model which transverses both North and South America as the lands of the Book of Mormon with the Hill Cumorah in the state of New York being the one and only such hill of Cumorah both in the Book of Mormon and of the days of Joseph Smith in our latter day Church History.  To pretend otherwise and to present to the world that such was not the case simply is not being of a truthful mindset.

True, Sydney B. Sperry latter reversed his 'personal opinion' and began instructing his BYU students in a manner which belittled any who would so continue to consider a hemispheric model and Dr. Sperry is the likely identifiable leading modern ‘father’ if not the originator of such generalized acceptance by many of such a limited Central American model today.  And while Dr. Sperry not only generally discouraged and frustrated his students from accepting a hemispheric model as possible, he used forceful coercive verbalization and tactics which demeaned any who would so attempt to continue to pursue such a hemispheric model, which he, himself, once also espoused in his 1947 Sunday School manuals. It is sad that his condescending, degrading and critical biased verbiage towards any of the mind of the hemispheric model included many general authorities and even presidents of the Church of his day. And it seems to continue to be this same myopic disposition that is exhibited by such modern cuprites as the FARMS organization which, do continue to subjectively cling to such a limited Mesoamerican model while supposedly touting the conceptualization that they are an objective research organization into the ancient Book of Mormon scriptures.  Just how any such truly objective research organization can so close mindedly totally spurn one such theory and merely concentrate preferably on another of their own liking without continuing to investigate any and all such possibilities is not comprehendible from a open minded and truly objective investigative perspective.

True, there are problems with the 'traditional' hemispheric model such as the realistic nature of the Chilean landing site and the feasibility of the lands of Nephi and Zarahemla spanning the entire width of today’s South America.  But there are just as many problems with the adoption of the currently proposed Mesoamerican model as well.  How can one realistically accept a hill of Cumorah which is no further north of the narrow neck of land than the narrow neck of land itself is wide?  How can one so blatantly discredit and/or out and out ignore, close their mind to and even present fabrications (lies) about the hemispheric model which so many of the Church’s authorities have set forth and the Church has even included in it published instructional works without so much as investigating such possible solutions to its 'problems' before so subjectively tossing it aside for one of their own engineering and making with such minimal historic and traditional support by those who were called and anointed to be the authorities of the Church?

Certainly for any of the now many proposed such limited models or even the more traditional hemispheric model to be actually correct, some modifications and adaptations in thinking and understanding must be undertaken.  But one cannot merely dismiss their consideration because of a fault or two.  If such an approach were maintained, then there would be no members of the true Church today, for it has modified, changed and adapted as needed to maintain its true status including major doctrinal adjustments, under the direction of God, such as the policy on plural marriage and upon who may hold the priesthood authority.

One does not just abandon the hemispheric model because the Chilean landing site is not feasible and the width of South America makes it unrealistic.  One objectively searches for possible answers, which of necessity does modify and conform such a long traditional held model to being one of possible acceptability. To so easily totally cast it aside and begin forced fits to other contrived models of personal preference is but a slap in the face of all those who have so taught and espoused such a hemispheric model. And what is worse than this slap in the face of those of this mind, past and present, is to further fabricate personal suppositions and self made conclusions which ignore those who then lived and first hand had access to the influences of the 'timely' sources of this understanding in the Prophet Joseph Smith and the peers of his day. (See Cumorah Is Cumorah) 

If one does such an objective search, one finds that Joseph Smith likely did not teach of a Chilean landing site, as he did, according to the 'Teaching of the Prophet Joseph Smith' penned by a 20^th century Prophet and kinsman, teach that Lehi landed a little south of the Isthmus of Darien according to a publication under his direction while he yet lived rather than a supposed scribbled note by someone else and attributed to him a goodly time after the deaths of both Joseph Smith and the supposed scribbler.  And if the land of Nephi and Zarahemla were likely more narrow according to the indications of the Book of Mormon, then one must consider that the Amazon basin contained the East Sea, and science does says this sea did exist but many more thousands of years ago.  For what science’s time table allows, the Bible is false in the universal flood of Noah and the dividing of the earth in the days of Peleg.  So which is to be more relied upon, science or scripture?  And if scripture which teaches the truth of the universal flood of Noah and the division of the earth in the days of Peleg, then why not also consider the timeline to include the Amazon Sea to be totally feasible within the scripturally altered time frame to place it in the days of the Book of Mormon?

The fear today is that such ‘learned intellectual’ organizations of 'letters' as FARMS is more motivated by satisfying science and the concepts and precepts of man than they are in following the brethren and accepting the scriptural word with the faith of adaptable understanding over the ‘theorized facts’ contrived by man.  So who is of the open mind?  FARMS, who considers and maintains only their own theorized limited Mesoamerican geographic model?  I at one time did too prefer the limited Central American geographical model as the problems of the hemispheric model seemed not to be over come.  By keeping an opened mind upon the matter, I can objectively state today that I currently favor a modified or ‘neo’ hemispheric model which seems to maintain a faithfulness to all which the authorities have ever truly said.

For instance, Orson Pratt is one who is known to have preached the Chilean landing site most faithfully.  Yet in his honesty, during one of his last conference messages, he did state honestly that it was but what could be determined to the best of his ability. He did not preach it as indisputable fact as does it seem about many who preach the Mesoamerican 'theory' today.  In support of Elder Pratt, it is only of resent years that science has come to understand the phenomenon, which is called El Nino.  The ocean currents and sailing trade winds just did not support a feasible voyage eastward across the Pacific, which could land a little south of the Isthmus of Darien until it was understood about El Nino.  The Chilean landing site was the scientifically most logical and best-determined site in the days of Elder Orson Pratt.  So perhaps rather than totally dismissing a possibility because it currently seems infeasible, one might more objectively search for what there is about it which must be modified to make it so.

I’ve not totally dismissed a limited Central American possibility.  I do not currently favor it because it is currently too problematic.  1) Historically the Church has taught otherwise including Joseph Smith and many of the apostles, prophets and general authorities.  2) The narrow neck is not a narrow neck but more of a prominent waist of the whole of the land, not a ‘narrow neck’.  3) The Hill Cumorah is not distant enough and is highly substantiated to be in New York. 4) North is not west, east is not north, south is not east and west is not south as the Mesoamerican model has to be turned to fit. 5) I am not able to convencingly make the geography which the Book of Mormon does state as I understand it to fit to either a Central American or Meso-American arena.  There are just too many inconsistencies.

On the other hand, while not all problems have been solved by a ‘modified’ or ‘Neo-Hemispheric’ model, it is currently more acceptable.  1)  Joseph Smith's documented landing site a little south of the Isthmus of Darien eliminates the Chilean landing site problem and I find it highly compatible with what the Book of Mormon records and with what many of the general authorities have and do teach.  2) The modified mind set that the scientific time line is off and the Biblical time line is correct, allows for an Amazon Sea as the East Sea and with the prevailing dividing of the land in the days of Peleg and the continental drift since that time to correlate to the time of upheaval, massive plate techtonics collision and vast destruction as recorded in the Book of Mormon at the death of Christ seems to geologically fit the Bible time line to the Book of Mormon geological time line consolidating the two into one and the same testimony of each other, not only of Christ but of the earth’s geological time line. 3) I can more correctly and easily fit what the Book of Mormon states to the lands of such a modified-hemispheric model than I can forcibly cram them into such a limited land that size of Utah.  All in all, today, and to me, in my truly ‘objective’ frame of reference which does not totally eliminate considering the more limited models, the hemispheric model is far less problematic.

In either case or in some such other case, whatever the truth is when so revealed and stated by those truly in authority, not by FARMS, I will forsake whatever personal dissection of the matter and fully accept the truth of the matter, which I have to suspect will be more in tune with what God's called and anointed have revealed than what the world of science, intellectualism and the precepts of men do tend to promote.