More Nauvoo area Heartland Model evidence on the Mississippi, the only spot fitting scripture description.

[kirtland r.m.]

The Prophet Joseph named the area west across the Mississippi from Nauvoo, with the name Zarahemla! It appears that area had an ancient temple site there as well, which I will be glad to post on later.

The index in the Book of Mormon used to state that the Sidon River is the “most prominent river in Nephite territory, runs north to sea“. That has now changed.

Significant Change Made in New Book of Mormon Index Regarding River Sidon (March 2013)

Church leadership recently changed (March 2013) the description of the River Sidon in the Book of Mormon Index to reflect what is scripturally demonstrable. It now states simply, “Sidon, River – most prominent river in Nephite territory” removing the speculative assumption that it “runs north to a sea” (see official Church website NEW definition of the River Sidon HERE). That the river empties into a sea is not in question ( see Alma 3:3, 44:22 ), which indicates that the cause of the removal of the claimed direction of flow of the river from the index is the result of having no scripturally explicit text so indicating. Nowhere does the text of the Book of Mormon definitively state the direction of flow of the Sidon River, therefore it was simply deduced from alternative sources of information. Church leadership has now rectified this situation. There is no textual demand for the River Sidon to have been a north flowing river as now acknowledged officially by the Church.

The previous index was written in 1981, and the study helps are not considered holy writ, as evidenced by the 2007 correcting of the introduction page of The Book of Mormon to indicate the Lamanites are “among” the ancestry of the American Indians, rather than the “principal‘” ancestors of them. Church curriculum noticed the inaccuracy and corrected it. They have done so again in this instance.

Now the description of Book of Mormon area around Nauvoo makes perfect sense, including the only spot on the Mississippi which also matches Book of Mormon description of Sidon being shallow enough to wade across, when you factor in the following as well.

Remember that the Mississippi today is much wider and deeper than it was in the days before dams, locks and levies, making it still a large river, but much more shallow. In fact, the river at Nauvoo was actually shallow enough to cross on foot! This area was called the Des Moines rapids and riverboats had to off-load their cargo to pass these rapids prior to the building of locks/dams across the river. The Des Moines Rapids are known historically to have been less than 2.4 feet deep, making this the first location upstream from the Gulf of Mexico where the mighty Mississippi could be crossed on foot! Certainly this would make this area a strategic location for any ancient civilization, as access to both sides of the river was easily attainable. This location also had broad river banks from seasonal floods that would subsequently return back into its channel that would allow mighty battles to be fought literally on the banks of the river as stated in the Book of Mormon. It is interesting to note that the bluff north of Nauvoo, IL is littered with ancient burial mounds, some 80 or more in extent. That this was the site of ancient battles of the Hopewell mound builders is unquestionable. Zelph, the “white Lamanite” warrior, was buried in a mound little more than an hour away to the southeast, along the Illinois River. Thanks bookofmormonevidence.orghttps://bookofmormonevidence.org/the-mi ... ver-sidon/

[A Disciple]

I like the concept of the Heartland model but I have a difficult time making sense of the distances involved. I prefer a more compact geography and lean towards a Chesapeake / Mid-Atlantic answer. But I have only a notion and so I greatly appreciate those who make an effort to use the Book of Mormon text to build geographic models and to apply those models to actual geography.

[larsenb]

I like the concept of the Heartland model but I have a difficult time making sense of the distances involved. I prefer a more compact geography and lean towards a Chesapeake / Mid-Atlantic answer. But I have only a notion and so I greatly appreciate those who make an effort to use the Book of Mormon text to build geographic models and to apply those models to actual geography.

You have a difficult time making sense of the distances involved in the Heartland model, for the simple reason they don't make sense. Nor do other considerations taken directly from the Book of Mormon. Heartlanders start out with an almost iron-clad belief in their model, then try to force-fit Book of Mormon statements/verses about its own geography to their model. This approach is exactly backward.

Making an effort to use the Book of Mormon text to build geography models and then trying to match the models up with actual geography is the correct and potentially fruitful approach to illuminating the real geography of the Book of Mormon. Try not to limit yourself to just the continental US area, if you are able.

[oneClimbs]

“The face of whole earth became deformed.”
- 3 Nephi 8:17

[larsenb]

“The face of whole earth became deformed.”
- 3 Nephi 8:17

So, what limits, if any, do you put on the area you think his statement applies to??

[Atrasado]

I like the concept of the Heartland model but I have a difficult time making sense of the distances involved. I prefer a more compact geography and lean towards a Chesapeake / Mid-Atlantic answer. But I have only a notion and so I greatly appreciate those who make an effort to use the Book of Mormon text to build geographic models and to apply those models to actual geography.

You have a difficult time making sense of the distances involved in the Heartland model, for the simple reason they don't make sense. Nor do other considerations taken directly from the Book of Mormon. Heartlanders start out with an almost iron-clad belief in their model, then try to force-fit Book of Mormon statements/verses about its own geography to their model. This approach is exactly backward.

Making an effort to use the Book of Mormon text to build geography models and then trying to match the models up with actual geography is the correct and potentially fruitful approach to illuminating the real geography of the Book of Mormon. Try not to limit yourself to just the continental US area, if you are able.

I disagree. To me, it's the only model that makes sense, given the parameters in the Book of Mormon and the archeology of North America.

You just have to see things the way the ancients saw them. The Great Lakes are seas and the narrow neck of land is between Lake Erie and Lake Ontario which are the east and west seas. Ireantum is the Atlantic Ocean. The Lamanite were to the south and east of the Nephites.

Hagoth settled lands in the north, possibly Michigan, Wisconsin, or Canada, not islands in the Pacific.

This fits with the archeology quite well. The Hopewell people appeared in North America around 600 BC and disappeared sometime around 400 AD. They migrated north several times from Alabama to Tennessee/Kentucky to Illinois/Indiana/Ohio. The archeologists who say this are not LDS. I first learned of this by reading 1491 by Charles Mann (this is a fascinating book).

Among the native people in the Great Lakes area there is a haplotype that indicates a Near Eastern origin with corresponding haplotypes found among the Druze in southern Lebanon.

What seems impossible to me is the idea that during a long, drawn out war for survival an entire nation, whose economy, and thus their supply chain, is already strained beyond the breaking point could retreat to the land of Cumorah in alien territory 3000 miles (5000 km) away. The logistics of such a retreat are basically impossible for a variety of reasons. Look at the Cherokee Removal for comparison. It was only 1000 miles (~1670 km) and the armies accompanying the Cherokee were usually not shooting at them and yet a quarter to a third of the Cherokee died along the way. Because of the length of the journey and the near impossibility of supply trains or resupply via foraging, such a retreat probably would have killed off the entire Nephite nation well before they would have gotten to New York. There would have been no final battle as recorded in Mormon.

Those are some of the reasons the Heartland model works well for me.

[kirtland r.m.]

I like the concept of the Heartland model but I have a difficult time making sense of the distances involved. I prefer a more compact geography and lean towards a Chesapeake / Mid-Atlantic answer. But I have only a notion and so I greatly appreciate those who make an effort to use the Book of Mormon text to build geographic models and to apply those models to actual geography.

You have a difficult time making sense of the distances involved in the Heartland model, for the simple reason they don't make sense. Nor do other considerations taken directly from the Book of Mormon. Heartlanders start out with an almost iron-clad belief in their model, then try to force-fit Book of Mormon statements/verses about its own geography to their model. This approach is exactly backward.

Making an effort to use the Book of Mormon text to build geography models and then trying to match the models up with actual geography is the correct and potentially fruitful approach to illuminating the real geography of the Book of Mormon. Try not to limit yourself to just the continental US area, if you are able.

The heartland model had significant evidence surrounding it's conception. I keep posting it week after week. In addition it is a wide area in the eastern U.S. now being supported by D.N.A. evidence as well as other middle eastern Hebrew evidence. One problem with academia though, is their continued calling of every Hebrew evidence "faked", as it goes against what they have chosen to formulate.

Now I have begun to post on direct beliefs of those Native Americans from the Heartland Model area. They in their own words, are telling about the visit of Jesus Christ anciently, the great flood, one ancient civilization being completely wiped out by the other, and sacred information being passed down in medicine lodges which is to remain sacred, including new names, signs, hand grips ect.. They are also watching for the ancient record to come forth of their people, and I have gotten even more specific than this in some of my posts.

Buffalo Tiger claims this record was buried in the N. Y. area, and that they buried Mormon (he calls him the Leader of the army that his people had destroyed) there, and the spot is very close to Cumorah. Some of the Cheyenne claim Joseph Smith was "all sewn up" man (from an ancient vision and they were given an accurate description of him) who would be a latter day prophet. It goes on and on. I will continuing posting on this subject.

[kirtland r.m.]

I like the concept of the Heartland model but I have a difficult time making sense of the distances involved. I prefer a more compact geography and lean towards a Chesapeake / Mid-Atlantic answer. But I have only a notion and so I greatly appreciate those who make an effort to use the Book of Mormon text to build geographic models and to apply those models to actual geography.

You have a difficult time making sense of the distances involved in the Heartland model, for the simple reason they don't make sense. Nor do other considerations taken directly from the Book of Mormon. Heartlanders start out with an almost iron-clad belief in their model, then try to force-fit Book of Mormon statements/verses about its own geography to their model. This approach is exactly backward.

Making an effort to use the Book of Mormon text to build geography models and then trying to match the models up with actual geography is the correct and potentially fruitful approach to illuminating the real geography of the Book of Mormon. Try not to limit yourself to just the continental US area, if you are able.

I disagree. To me, it's the only model that makes sense, given the parameters in the Book of Mormon and the archeology of North America.

You just have to see things the way the ancients saw them. The Great Lakes are seas and the narrow neck of land is between Lake Erie and Lake Ontario which are the east and west seas. Ireantum is the Atlantic Ocean. The Lamanite were to the south and east of the Nephites.

Hagoth settled lands in the north, possibly Michigan, Wisconsin, or Canada, not islands in the Pacific.

This fits with the archeology quite well. The Hopewell people appeared in North America around 600 BC and disappeared sometime around 400 AD. They migrated north several times from Alabama to Tennessee/Kentucky to Illinois/Indiana/Ohio. The archeologists who say this are not LDS. I first learned of this by reading 1491 by Charles Mann (this is a fascinating book).

Among the native people in the Great Lakes area there is a haplotype that indicates a Near Eastern origin with corresponding haplotypes found among the Druze in southern Lebanon.

What seems impossible to me is the idea that during a long, drawn out war for survival an entire nation, whose economy, and thus their supply chain, is already strained beyond the breaking point could retreat to the land of Cumorah in alien territory 3000 miles (5000 km) away. The logistics of such a retreat are basically impossible for a variety of reasons. Because of that, the retreat probably would have killed off the entire Nephite nation well before they would have gotten to New York.

Those are some of the reasons the Heartland model works well for me.

Hi, and thanks for posting. Your description of the heartland model was very generous. I wouldn't believe the Nephites were pushed 3,000 in a continuing group of battles either. Here is your quote. "could retreat to the land of Cumorah in alien territory 3000 miles (5000 km) away".

From a hand-written letter to his wife Emma Smith while on Zion’s camp march of June 4th, 1834 Joseph wrote “The whole of our journey, in the midst of so large a company of social honest and sincere men, wandering over the plains of the Nephites, recounting occasionally the history of the Book of Mormon, roving over the mounds of that once beloved people of the Lord, picking up their skulls and bones, as proof of its divine authenticity..”

Now let's just for the sake of argument say that this event happened right smack in the center area of the Zions Camp March, this would have been only about 400 miles. When an army much larger is perusing you to murder you, your wives and children as well, this is very believable.

In addition, here is even more information. Joseph Fielding Smith, Jr., stated that "When the Prophet Joseph Smith first visited Spring Hill he called it 'Tower Hill, a name I gave the place in consequence of the remains of an old Nephite altar or tower that stood there,' he wrote in his journal." Joseph Fielding Smith, Jr., The Way to Perfection, p. 287.

According to Journal accounts, the Prophet Joseph taught the location of the ancient City of Manti, mentioned in the Book of Mormon during the march of Kirtland Camp: On September 25, 1838, having passed through Huntsville, Randolph County, Missouri the Prophet stated that this place was where “the ancient site of the city of Manti.”
Andrew Jensen, The Historical Record, Vol. 7, 601.

Additional interesting information: Samuel D. Tyler writes the following dated September 25, 1838:
We passed through Huntsville, Co, seat of Randolph Co, Pop. 450, and three miles further we bought 32 bu, of corn off one of the brethren who resides in this place. There are several of the brethren round about here and this is the ancient site of the City of Manti, which is spoken of in the Book of Mormon and this is appointed one of the Stakes of Zion, and it is in Randolph County, Missouri, three miles west of the county seat.
Journal of Samuel D. Tyler, Sept. 25, 1838, filed in Church Historian’s Office

Again, from the records of Kirtland Camp: The camp passed through Huntsville, in Randolph County, which has been appointed as one of the stakes of Zion, and is the ancient site of the City of Manti, and pitched tents at Dark Creek, Salt Licks. Millennial Star, vol. 16, 296.

Mormon claims that when he was eleven years old, he "was carried by my father into the land southward, even to the land of Zarahemla. The whole face of the land had become covered with buildings, and the people were as numerous almost, as it were the sand of the sea." Mormon 1:6-7. One non-Mormon observer in the 1800s claimed that anciently, there were 5,000 cities at once full of people in eastern North America. Another reported over 3,000 tumuli, or mounds, along the Ohio River alone. Today there are 170,000 known "Indian" archaeological sites in Illinois alone. Artifact collectors in Iowa, directly across the Mississippi from Nauvoo, have found tens of thousands of arrowheads in the vicinity. More wash up whenever the rivers flood.

D&;C 125:3 named the area in Iowa across from Nauvoo as "Zarahemla" and that location fits the proposed ancient Zarahemla when an abstract internal map based on the Book of Mormon text is overlaid on North America. https://bookofmormonevidence.org/the-sm ... ography-2/

[silverado]

I like the concept of the Heartland model but I have a difficult time making sense of the distances involved. I prefer a more compact geography and lean towards a Chesapeake / Mid-Atlantic answer. But I have only a notion and so I greatly appreciate those who make an effort to use the Book of Mormon text to build geographic models and to apply those models to actual geography.

You have a difficult time making sense of the distances involved in the Heartland model, for the simple reason they don't make sense. Nor do other considerations taken directly from the Book of Mormon. Heartlanders start out with an almost iron-clad belief in their model, then try to force-fit Book of Mormon statements/verses about its own geography to their model. This approach is exactly backward.

Making an effort to use the Book of Mormon text to build geography models and then trying to match the models up with actual geography is the correct and potentially fruitful approach to illuminating the real geography of the Book of Mormon. Try not to limit yourself to just the continental US area, if you are able.

"Use Book of Mormon text to build geography models" is what I did. I read the Book of Mormon and listed all the verses and what they said about the geography, plants, minerals, animals, anything that might be a clue, etc. I decided where I thought it probably took place based on that. When I then learned about the heartland model it closely matched where I already thought.

[kirtland r.m.]

A lady by the name of Lisa Mills did her doctoral thesis on the Hopewell. She sampled 49 Hopewell burials from Mound City in Chillicothe, Ohio. They were originally excavated by Shetrone in the mid-20th century. Of the 49 she extracted Mt/DNA from 64% of them. What is significant is she found Haplogroup X in several remains. Haplogroup X is a marker that originated in Galilee. This in my opinion strongly suggests contact by the Hebrews with Hopewell. Richard D. Moats, Avocational Archaeologist, Archaeoastronomer

[larsenb]

I like the concept of the Heartland model but I have a difficult time making sense of the distances involved. I prefer a more compact geography and lean towards a Chesapeake / Mid-Atlantic answer. But I have only a notion and so I greatly appreciate those who make an effort to use the Book of Mormon text to build geographic models and to apply those models to actual geography.

You have a difficult time making sense of the distances involved in the Heartland model, for the simple reason they don't make sense. Nor do other considerations taken directly from the Book of Mormon. Heartlanders start out with an almost iron-clad belief in their model, then try to force-fit Book of Mormon statements/verses about its own geography to their model. This approach is exactly backward.

Making an effort to use the Book of Mormon text to build geography models and then trying to match the models up with actual geography is the correct and potentially fruitful approach to illuminating the real geography of the Book of Mormon. Try not to limit yourself to just the continental US area, if you are able.

I disagree. To me, it's the only model that makes sense, given the parameters in the Book of Mormon and the archeology of North America.

You just have to see things the way the ancients saw them. The Great Lakes are seas and the narrow neck of land is between Lake Erie and Lake Ontario which are the east and west seas. Ireantum is the Atlantic Ocean. The Lamanite were to the south and east of the Nephites.

Hagoth settled lands in the north, possibly Michigan, Wisconsin, or Canada, not islands in the Pacific.

This fits with the archeology quite well. The Hopewell people appeared in North America around 600 BC and disappeared sometime around 400 AD. They migrated north several times from Alabama to Tennessee/Kentucky to Illinois/Indiana/Ohio. The archeologists who say this are not LDS. I first learned of this by reading 1491 by Charles Mann (this is a fascinating book).

Among the native people in the Great Lakes area there is a haplotype that indicates a Near Eastern origin with corresponding haplotypes found among the Druze in southern Lebanon.

What seems impossible to me is the idea that during a long, drawn out war for survival an entire nation, whose economy, and thus their supply chain, is already strained beyond the breaking point could retreat to the land of Cumorah in alien territory 3000 miles (5000 km) away. The logistics of such a retreat are basically impossible for a variety of reasons. Look at the Cherokee Removal for comparison. It was only 1000 miles (~1670 km) and the armies accompanying the Cherokee were usually not shooting at them and yet a quarter to a third of the Cherokee died along the way. Because of the length of the journey and the near impossibility of supply trains or resupply via foraging, such a retreat probably would have killed off the entire Nephite nation well before they would have gotten to New York. There would have been no final battle as recorded in Mormon.

Those are some of the reasons the Heartland model works well for me.

It’s clear that the Heartland model is the only one that makes sense . . . to you. But the model actually does a poor job in using actual Book of Mormon “parameters” to bolster its claims.

I’ve already posted on how it can’t accommodate BofM passages describing the “first inheritance” of the Nephites/Lamanites. I’ve already posted on how the logical analysis of passages dealing with the Sidon has it running north. Can you rebut the analyses presented? Citing the Des Moines Rapids as any proof of anything doesn’t quite cut it. Nor does claiming the head of the river Sidon was the confluence of the Mississippi and the Ohio Rivers.

In the rest of your post, you make some major assumptions and claims that are merely conjecture. And Heartlanders never seem to be able to deal with what the genetic experts say about haplotype X and its variations, yet keep repeating the same Meldrum,etc., claims for it. Have fun with that.

Further, I’m not aware of any model that claims Hagoth ended up in some Pacific Island. People have speculated about it. But the Book of Mormon says they don’t know where he went, except that he sailed north from the west sea, returned, built more ships, and left again; and as far as they knew, he drowned in the sea. Period.

And there is absolutely no evidence from the Book of Mormon that Irreantum is or could be the Atlantic Ocean. None. Quite the opposite. I can outline the logical analysis for this, if you care to see it.

Plus, I’m not quite sure where you get a 3,000 mile trek of the Nephites retreat to Cumorah/Ramah in New York. Your first assumption is that the Jaredite and Nephite/Lamanite battles took place there. But what if they didn’t? Granted, early Brethren believed that, but were they correct? I don’t think so, personally, and for good reasons mainly from the Book of Mormon itself.

[larsenb]

A lady by the name of Lisa Mills did her doctoral thesis on the Hopewell. She sampled 49 Hopewell burials from Mound City in Chillicothe, Ohio. They were originally excavated by Shetrone in the mid-20th century. Of the 49 she extracted Mt/DNA from 64% of them. What is significant is she found Haplogroup X in several remains. Haplogroup X is a marker that originated in Galilee. This in my opinion strongly suggests contact by the Hebrews with Hopewell. Richard D. Moats, Avocational Archaeologist, Archaeoastronomer

Once again, ignoring expert geneticist analysis of the origins and dispersion of the variations of Haplogroup X. One of the 'broken record' topics promulgated by Heartlanders.

[larsenb]

I like the concept of the Heartland model but I have a difficult time making sense of the distances involved. I prefer a more compact geography and lean towards a Chesapeake / Mid-Atlantic answer. But I have only a notion and so I greatly appreciate those who make an effort to use the Book of Mormon text to build geographic models and to apply those models to actual geography.

You have a difficult time making sense of the distances involved in the Heartland model, for the simple reason they don't make sense. Nor do other considerations taken directly from the Book of Mormon. Heartlanders start out with an almost iron-clad belief in their model, then try to force-fit Book of Mormon statements/verses about its own geography to their model. This approach is exactly backward.

Making an effort to use the Book of Mormon text to build geography models and then trying to match the models up with actual geography is the correct and potentially fruitful approach to illuminating the real geography of the Book of Mormon. Try not to limit yourself to just the continental US area, if you are able.

"Use Book of Mormon text to build geography models" is what I did. I read the Book of Mormon and listed all the verses and what they said about the geography, plants, minerals, animals, anything that might be a clue, etc. I decided where I thought it probably took place based on that. When I then learned about the heartland model it closely matched where I already thought.

I did the same thing decades ago and came to no such conclusion. So there you go.

[Atrasado]

You have a difficult time making sense of the distances involved in the Heartland model, for the simple reason they don't make sense. Nor do other considerations taken directly from the Book of Mormon. Heartlanders start out with an almost iron-clad belief in their model, then try to force-fit Book of Mormon statements/verses about its own geography to their model. This approach is exactly backward.

Making an effort to use the Book of Mormon text to build geography models and then trying to match the models up with actual geography is the correct and potentially fruitful approach to illuminating the real geography of the Book of Mormon. Try not to limit yourself to just the continental US area, if you are able.

I disagree. To me, it's the only model that makes sense, given the parameters in the Book of Mormon and the archeology of North America.

You just have to see things the way the ancients saw them. The Great Lakes are seas and the narrow neck of land is between Lake Erie and Lake Ontario which are the east and west seas. Ireantum is the Atlantic Ocean. The Lamanite were to the south and east of the Nephites.

Hagoth settled lands in the north, possibly Michigan, Wisconsin, or Canada, not islands in the Pacific.

This fits with the archeology quite well. The Hopewell people appeared in North America around 600 BC and disappeared sometime around 400 AD. They migrated north several times from Alabama to Tennessee/Kentucky to Illinois/Indiana/Ohio. The archeologists who say this are not LDS. I first learned of this by reading 1491 by Charles Mann (this is a fascinating book).

Among the native people in the Great Lakes area there is a haplotype that indicates a Near Eastern origin with corresponding haplotypes found among the Druze in southern Lebanon.

What seems impossible to me is the idea that during a long, drawn out war for survival an entire nation, whose economy, and thus their supply chain, is already strained beyond the breaking point could retreat to the land of Cumorah in alien territory 3000 miles (5000 km) away. The logistics of such a retreat are basically impossible for a variety of reasons. Look at the Cherokee Removal for comparison. It was only 1000 miles (~1670 km) and the armies accompanying the Cherokee were usually not shooting at them and yet a quarter to a third of the Cherokee died along the way. Because of the length of the journey and the near impossibility of supply trains or resupply via foraging, such a retreat probably would have killed off the entire Nephite nation well before they would have gotten to New York. There would have been no final battle as recorded in Mormon.

Those are some of the reasons the Heartland model works well for me.

It’s clear that the Heartland model is the only one that makes sense . . . to you. But the model actually does a poor job in using actual Book of Mormon “parameters” to bolster its claims.

I’ve already posted on how it can’t accommodate BofM passages describing the “first inheritance” of the Nephites/Lamanites. I’ve already posted on how the logical analysis of passages dealing with the Sidon has it running north. Can you rebut the analyses presented? Citing the Des Moines Rapids as any proof of anything doesn’t quite cut it. Nor does claiming the head of the river Sidon was the confluence of the Mississippi and the Ohio Rivers.

In the rest of your post, you make some major assumptions and claims that are merely conjecture. And Heartlanders never seem to be able to deal with what the genetic experts say about haplotype X and its variations, yet keep repeating the same Meldrum,etc., claims for it. Have fun with that.

Further, I’m not aware of any model that claims Hagoth ended up in some Pacific Island. People have speculated about it. But the Book of Mormon says they don’t know where he went, except that he sailed north from the west sea, returned, built more ships, and left again; and as far as they knew, he drowned in the sea. Period.

And there is absolutely no evidence from the Book of Mormon that Irreantum is or could be the Atlantic Ocean. None. Quite the opposite. I can outline the logical analysis for this, if you care to see it.

Plus, I’m not quite sure where you get a 3,000 mile trek of the Nephites retreat to Cumorah/Ramah in New York. Your first assumption is that the Jaredite and Nephite/Lamanite battles took place there. But what if they didn’t? Granted, early Brethren believed that, but were they correct? I don’t think so, personally, and for good reasons mainly from the Book of Mormon itself.

I detect an air of pride and hostility from you. Care to explain why?

I wouldn't care to address your statements although I really could because it's obvious that you aren't willing to bend. It's funny how blanket accusations are nearly always a mirror.

[kirtland r.m.]

A lady by the name of Lisa Mills did her doctoral thesis on the Hopewell. She sampled 49 Hopewell burials from Mound City in Chillicothe, Ohio. They were originally excavated by Shetrone in the mid-20th century. Of the 49 she extracted Mt/DNA from 64% of them. What is significant is she found Haplogroup X in several remains. Haplogroup X is a marker that originated in Galilee. This in my opinion strongly suggests contact by the Hebrews with Hopewell. Richard D. Moats, Avocational Archaeologist, Archaeoastronomer

Once again, ignoring expert geneticist analysis of the origins and dispersion of the variations of Haplogroup X. One of the 'broken record' topics promulgated by Heartlanders.

Not quite getting your point here. The heartland model area is full of D.N.A. evidence, your meso theory has Zero. I am not just using one source, but a number of them and more recent ones.

[Subcomandante]

If I were to make a conjecture on where the Book of Mormon events took place, the Heartland would probably be the LAST place to look.

The Book of Mormon describes civilizations of hundreds of thousands if not millions of people. We don't see anything remotely close to that anywhere in precolumbian USA. We DO see it in Mesoamerica and in Andean South America.

The narrow neck of land cannot possibly be Niagara Falls because that would place Cumorah SOUTH of the narrow neck. In addition, strategically, it makes little sense to call that a narrow neck when people could simply bypass that route on the south side or on the north side.

You can't really do that in southern Ecuador because you have ocean on one side and high mountains (5-6km amsl) on the other.
You can't get around Panama too easily either; to this day the Darien Gap is pretty much impassible to large groups of people and people find themselves trying to go around it rather than through it.
The Isthmus of Tehanatepec is also fairly narrow, especially in the rainy season when the region north of the mountains near Juchitan and Salina Cruz becomes impassible. No one is getting around those areas without a navy, and the Book of Mormon does not speak of naval battles.

There are linguistic similarities between the Quechua tribes of South America and the Purepecha tribes of Mexico. Also many crops present in South America made themselves all the way to Polynesia. I'm thinking Hagoth would have left South America, traveled north, ran into Mexico, and then ran into Polynesia.

There's no northerly route for Hagoth in the Heartland model unless you have him going up through the Hudson Bay and then the NW passage. Keep in mind that after Nephi's mention of snow, snow isn't even mentioned a single time after that. We have lots of references of warm to hot weather. There's also conditions consistent with volcanism in 3 Nephi 8 and the Midwest simply does not have the vulcanism that Mesoamerica , Central America, and South America has. Not to mention the earthquakes down there are far larger than anything conjured up in the NMSZ.

[Atrasado]

If I were to make a conjecture on where the Book of Mormon events took place, the Heartland would probably be the LAST place to look.

The Book of Mormon describes civilizations of hundreds of thousands if not millions of people. We don't see anything remotely close to that anywhere in precolumbian USA. We DO see it in Mesoamerica and in Andean South America.

The narrow neck of land cannot possibly be Niagara Falls because that would place Cumorah SOUTH of the narrow neck. In addition, strategically, it makes little sense to call that a narrow neck when people could simply bypass that route on the south side or on the north side.

You can't really do that in southern Ecuador because you have ocean on one side and high mountains (5-6km amsl) on the other.
You can't get around Panama too easily either; to this day the Darien Gap is pretty much impassible to large groups of people and people find themselves trying to go around it rather than through it.
The Isthmus of Tehanatepec is also fairly narrow, especially in the rainy season when the region north of the mountains near Juchitan and Salina Cruz becomes impassible. No one is getting around those areas without a navy, and the Book of Mormon does not speak of naval battles.

There are linguistic similarities between the Quechua tribes of South America and the Purepecha tribes of Mexico. Also many crops present in South America made themselves all the way to Polynesia. I'm thinking Hagoth would have left South America, traveled north, ran into Mexico, and then ran into Polynesia.

There's no northerly route for Hagoth in the Heartland model unless you have him going up through the Hudson Bay and then the NW passage. Keep in mind that after Nephi's mention of snow, snow isn't even mentioned a single time after that. We have lots of references of warm to hot weather. There's also conditions consistent with volcanism in 3 Nephi 8 and the Midwest simply does not have the vulcanism that Mesoamerica , Central America, and South America has. Not to mention the earthquakes down there are far larger than anything conjured up in the NMSZ.

The Hopewell, for whatever reason, have been mostly ignored. However, at their height they easily had the numbers the Nephites had. They were a huge civilization for the ancient world.

[larsenb]

A lady by the name of Lisa Mills did her doctoral thesis on the Hopewell. She sampled 49 Hopewell burials from Mound City in Chillicothe, Ohio. They were originally excavated by Shetrone in the mid-20th century. Of the 49 she extracted Mt/DNA from 64% of them. What is significant is she found Haplogroup X in several remains. Haplogroup X is a marker that originated in Galilee. This in my opinion strongly suggests contact by the Hebrews with Hopewell. Richard D. Moats, Avocational Archaeologist, Archaeoastronomer

Once again, ignoring expert geneticist analysis of the origins and dispersion of the variations of Haplogroup X. One of the 'broken record' topics promulgated by Heartlanders.

Not quite getting your point here. The heartland model area is full of D.N.A. evidence, your meso theory has Zero. I am not just using one source, but a number of them and more recent ones.

When I get the time, I'll post genetic experts analyses of the X haplogroup, when and where it appears in populations and when and where it dispersed.

[larsenb]

. . . . There's no northerly route for Hagoth in the Heartland model unless you have him going up through the Hudson Bay and then the NW passage. Keep in mind that after Nephi's mention of snow, snow isn't even mentioned a single time after that. We have lots of references of warm to hot weather. There's also conditions consistent with volcanism in 3 Nephi 8 and the Midwest simply does not have the vulcanism that Mesoamerica , Central America, and South America has. Not to mention the earthquakes down there are far larger than anything conjured up in the NMSZ.

But the big problem with Hagoth, is that the BofM says he built ships and launched them into the west sea. Later it elaborates and says he was heading north after launching into the west sea.

The west sea is also identified as bordering the Nephite/Lamanite land of their first inheritance. I.e., they first landed coming from the west sea.

Neither of these descriptions fit the Heartland model, except with extreme twisting.

[larsenb]

I disagree. To me, it's the only model that makes sense, given the parameters in the Book of Mormon and the archeology of North America.

You just have to see things the way the ancients saw them. The Great Lakes are seas and the narrow neck of land is between Lake Erie and Lake Ontario which are the east and west seas. Ireantum is the Atlantic Ocean. The Lamanite were to the south and east of the Nephites.

Hagoth settled lands in the north, possibly Michigan, Wisconsin, or Canada, not islands in the Pacific.

This fits with the archeology quite well. The Hopewell people appeared in North America around 600 BC and disappeared sometime around 400 AD. They migrated north several times from Alabama to Tennessee/Kentucky to Illinois/Indiana/Ohio. The archeologists who say this are not LDS. I first learned of this by reading 1491 by Charles Mann (this is a fascinating book).

Among the native people in the Great Lakes area there is a haplotype that indicates a Near Eastern origin with corresponding haplotypes found among the Druze in southern Lebanon.

What seems impossible to me is the idea that during a long, drawn out war for survival an entire nation, whose economy, and thus their supply chain, is already strained beyond the breaking point could retreat to the land of Cumorah in alien territory 3000 miles (5000 km) away. The logistics of such a retreat are basically impossible for a variety of reasons. Look at the Cherokee Removal for comparison. It was only 1000 miles (~1670 km) and the armies accompanying the Cherokee were usually not shooting at them and yet a quarter to a third of the Cherokee died along the way. Because of the length of the journey and the near impossibility of supply trains or resupply via foraging, such a retreat probably would have killed off the entire Nephite nation well before they would have gotten to New York. There would have been no final battle as recorded in Mormon.

Those are some of the reasons the Heartland model works well for me.

It’s clear that the Heartland model is the only one that makes sense . . . to you. But the model actually does a poor job in using actual Book of Mormon “parameters” to bolster its claims.

I’ve already posted on how it can’t accommodate BofM passages describing the “first inheritance” of the Nephites/Lamanites. I’ve already posted on how the logical analysis of passages dealing with the Sidon has it running north. Can you rebut the analyses presented? Citing the Des Moines Rapids as any proof of anything doesn’t quite cut it. Nor does claiming the head of the river Sidon was the confluence of the Mississippi and the Ohio Rivers.

In the rest of your post, you make some major assumptions and claims that are merely conjecture. And Heartlanders never seem to be able to deal with what the genetic experts say about haplotype X and its variations, yet keep repeating the same Meldrum,etc., claims for it. Have fun with that.

Further, I’m not aware of any model that claims Hagoth ended up in some Pacific Island. People have speculated about it. But the Book of Mormon says they don’t know where he went, except that he sailed north from the west sea, returned, built more ships, and left again; and as far as they knew, he drowned in the sea. Period.

And there is absolutely no evidence from the Book of Mormon that Irreantum is or could be the Atlantic Ocean. None. Quite the opposite. I can outline the logical analysis for this, if you care to see it.

Plus, I’m not quite sure where you get a 3,000 mile trek of the Nephites retreat to Cumorah/Ramah in New York. Your first assumption is that the Jaredite and Nephite/Lamanite battles took place there. But what if they didn’t? Granted, early Brethren believed that, but were they correct? I don’t think so, personally, and for good reasons mainly from the Book of Mormon itself.

I detect an air of pride and hostility from you. Care to explain why?

I wouldn't care to address your statements although I really could because it's obvious that you aren't willing to bend. It's funny how blanket accusations are nearly always a mirror.

I detect an air of pride from you, certainly. And yes, I've never experienced a heartlander yet who bends an inch on anything or concedes any argument against their model. So, who is projecting?? Yes, I do get frustrated with them because of this attitude . . . whenever I engage with them.

Here's a challenge for you, if you care to engage. Show me any evidence from the Book of Mormon that Irreantum could possibly be the Atlantic, then I will show direct passages from 1st Nephi why this can't be true.

[larsenb]

. . . .

The Hopewell, for whatever reason, have been mostly ignored. However, at their height they easily had the numbers the Nephites had. They were a huge civilization for the ancient world.

Here is a description of the Hopewell 'culture' from the first paragraph in the Wikipedia article dealing with them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hopewell_tradition "The Hopewell tradition, also called the Hopewell culture and Hopewellian exchange, describes a network of precontact Native American cultures that flourished in settlements along rivers in the northeastern and midwestern Eastern Woodlands from 100 BCE to 500 CE, in the Middle Woodland period. The Hopewell tradition was not a single culture or society but a widely dispersed set of populations connected by a common network of trade routes."

Below is an image of their various centers, according to archaeological surveys. Notice that they were settlements along rivers, which were their primary trade routes (elaborated on in the article). They were also mound builders. Notice that they constituted a number of populations, not being a single culture.

Ask yourself, how many rivers are named in the Book of Mormon? Only one; the Sidon. Ask yourself, are you aware of the Nephites/Lamanites or the Israelite/Jewish population they came from being "mound builders"? I'm not. Etc.

[Atrasado]

It’s clear that the Heartland model is the only one that makes sense . . . to you. But the model actually does a poor job in using actual Book of Mormon “parameters” to bolster its claims.

I’ve already posted on how it can’t accommodate BofM passages describing the “first inheritance” of the Nephites/Lamanites. I’ve already posted on how the logical analysis of passages dealing with the Sidon has it running north. Can you rebut the analyses presented? Citing the Des Moines Rapids as any proof of anything doesn’t quite cut it. Nor does claiming the head of the river Sidon was the confluence of the Mississippi and the Ohio Rivers.

In the rest of your post, you make some major assumptions and claims that are merely conjecture. And Heartlanders never seem to be able to deal with what the genetic experts say about haplotype X and its variations, yet keep repeating the same Meldrum,etc., claims for it. Have fun with that.

Further, I’m not aware of any model that claims Hagoth ended up in some Pacific Island. People have speculated about it. But the Book of Mormon says they don’t know where he went, except that he sailed north from the west sea, returned, built more ships, and left again; and as far as they knew, he drowned in the sea. Period.

And there is absolutely no evidence from the Book of Mormon that Irreantum is or could be the Atlantic Ocean. None. Quite the opposite. I can outline the logical analysis for this, if you care to see it.

Plus, I’m not quite sure where you get a 3,000 mile trek of the Nephites retreat to Cumorah/Ramah in New York. Your first assumption is that the Jaredite and Nephite/Lamanite battles took place there. But what if they didn’t? Granted, early Brethren believed that, but were they correct? I don’t think so, personally, and for good reasons mainly from the Book of Mormon itself.

I detect an air of pride and hostility from you. Care to explain why?

I wouldn't care to address your statements although I really could because it's obvious that you aren't willing to bend. It's funny how blanket accusations are nearly always a mirror.

I detect an air of pride from you, certainly. And yes, I've never experienced a heartlander yet who bends an inch on anything or concedes any argument against their model. So, who is projecting?? Yes, I do get frustrated with them because of this attitude . . . whenever I engage with them.

Here's a challenge for you, if you care to engage. Show me any evidence from the Book of Mormon that Irreantum could possibly be the Atlantic, then I will show direct passages from 1st Nephi why this can't be true.

Maybe, I'm prideful. But here's two things: I don't care or think about this very much; and I'm just calling it like I see it. Show me good evidence and I'll change my mind.

However, I've yet to see what seems to me like good evidence to support the meso-America theory or contradict the Heartland model. You cite evidence calling the Hopewell a loose confederation of people. Fine. That's how they actually seem to me in the Book of Mormon, for the most part. That's really not evidence against the Heartland model, especially when you take into account the inaccuracies inherent in archeology.

But in any case, I'm not willing to engage in hostilities. Come on a thread and start throwing insults and challenges and I'll question why and then disengage.

[kirtland r.m.]

If I were to make a conjecture on where the Book of Mormon events took place, the Heartland would probably be the LAST place to look.

The Book of Mormon describes civilizations of hundreds of thousands if not millions of people. We don't see anything remotely close to that anywhere in precolumbian USA. We DO see it in Mesoamerica and in Andean South America.

The narrow neck of land cannot possibly be Niagara Falls because that would place Cumorah SOUTH of the narrow neck. In addition, strategically, it makes little sense to call that a narrow neck when people could simply bypass that route on the south side or on the north side.

You can't really do that in southern Ecuador because you have ocean on one side and high mountains (5-6km amsl) on the other.
You can't get around Panama too easily either; to this day the Darien Gap is pretty much impassible to large groups of people and people find themselves trying to go around it rather than through it.
The Isthmus of Tehanatepec is also fairly narrow, especially in the rainy season when the region north of the mountains near Juchitan and Salina Cruz becomes impassible. No one is getting around those areas without a navy, and the Book of Mormon does not speak of naval battles.

There are linguistic similarities between the Quechua tribes of South America and the Purepecha tribes of Mexico. Also many crops present in South America made themselves all the way to Polynesia. I'm thinking Hagoth would have left South America, traveled north, ran into Mexico, and then ran into Polynesia.

There's no northerly route for Hagoth in the Heartland model unless you have him going up through the Hudson Bay and then the NW passage. Keep in mind that after Nephi's mention of snow, snow isn't even mentioned a single time after that. We have lots of references of warm to hot weather. There's also conditions consistent with volcanism in 3 Nephi 8 and the Midwest simply does not have the vulcanism that Mesoamerica , Central America, and South America has. Not to mention the earthquakes down there are far larger than anything conjured up in the NMSZ.

The Hopewell, for whatever reason, have been mostly ignored. However, at their height they easily had the numbers the Nephites had. They were a huge civilization for the ancient world.

“Mormonism sprang from the mounds,” wrote Roger Kennedy, former director of the Smithsonian National Museum of American History.

[kirtland r.m.]

If I were to make a conjecture on where the Book of Mormon events took place, the Heartland would probably be the LAST place to look.

The Book of Mormon describes civilizations of hundreds of thousands if not millions of people. We don't see anything remotely close to that anywhere in precolumbian USA. We DO see it in Mesoamerica and in Andean South America.

The narrow neck of land cannot possibly be Niagara Falls because that would place Cumorah SOUTH of the narrow neck. In addition, strategically, it makes little sense to call that a narrow neck when people could simply bypass that route on the south side or on the north side.

You can't really do that in southern Ecuador because you have ocean on one side and high mountains (5-6km amsl) on the other.
You can't get around Panama too easily either; to this day the Darien Gap is pretty much impassible to large groups of people and people find themselves trying to go around it rather than through it.
The Isthmus of Tehanatepec is also fairly narrow, especially in the rainy season when the region north of the mountains near Juchitan and Salina Cruz becomes impassible. No one is getting around those areas without a navy, and the Book of Mormon does not speak of naval battles.

There are linguistic similarities between the Quechua tribes of South America and the Purepecha tribes of Mexico. Also many crops present in South America made themselves all the way to Polynesia. I'm thinking Hagoth would have left South America, traveled north, ran into Mexico, and then ran into Polynesia.

There's no northerly route for Hagoth in the Heartland model unless you have him going up through the Hudson Bay and then the NW passage. Keep in mind that after Nephi's mention of snow, snow isn't even mentioned a single time after that. We have lots of references of warm to hot weather. There's also conditions consistent with volcanism in 3 Nephi 8 and the Midwest simply does not have the vulcanism that Mesoamerica , Central America, and South America has. Not to mention the earthquakes down there are far larger than anything conjured up in the NMSZ.

I can post some more interesting evidence about the Great Lakes area fitting H.M.. In addition, here is a great comment on populations.
 
After visiting several thousand mounds and reviewing the literature, I am fairly certain that over 1,000,000 mounds once existed and that perhaps 100,000 still exist. Oddly, some new mound sites are discovered each year by archaeological surveys in remote areas. But in truth, a large majority of America’s mounds have been completely destroyed by farming, construction, looting, and deliberate total excavations” – Gregory L. Little, Ed.D., The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Native American Mounds & Earthworks, Eagle Wing Books, Inc., Memphis, TN [2009].

[Bronco73idi]

I like the concept of the Heartland model but I have a difficult time making sense of the distances involved. I prefer a more compact geography and lean towards a Chesapeake / Mid-Atlantic answer. But I have only a notion and so I greatly appreciate those who make an effort to use the Book of Mormon text to build geographic models and to apply those models to actual geography.

You have a difficult time making sense of the distances involved in the Heartland model, for the simple reason they don't make sense. Nor do other considerations taken directly from the Book of Mormon. Heartlanders start out with an almost iron-clad belief in their model, then try to force-fit Book of Mormon statements/verses about its own geography to their model. This approach is exactly backward.

Making an effort to use the Book of Mormon text to build geography models and then trying to match the models up with actual geography is the correct and potentially fruitful approach to illuminating the real geography of the Book of Mormon. Try not to limit yourself to just the continental US area, if you are able.

I use to believe the central America concept.

Until I realized that it doesn’t fit the mosaic law.