NOM

This is hilarious. Apparently the heartland model believers have been criticizing the Saints book saying the church has a conspiracy to bury the heartland model. So much so that Matt Grow and team had to respond.

https://history.lds.org/content/saints- ... SWfnLpyR0o

I just don't understand how people don't see all of this and realize what a mess it is.

Look at the quotes from Joseph until just a few decades ago and tell me where the church has ALWAYS believed Hill Cumorah to be. There is no wiggle room there... they have left NO doubt as to where it was.... until science and geography and knowledge forced them to move away.

I need to compile all of the Cumorah quotes there are - it's overwhelming what they taught vs what they have to teach now.

I'm really impressed with admission that they have no idea of the actual 19th century geography...which was settled, absolute knowledge.

WAIT are they cancelling the Comurah pageant because they're admitting they have no idea where it really was?

Brent wrote:I'm really impressed with admission that they have no idea of the actual 19th century geography...which was settled, absolute knowledge.

WAIT are they cancelling the Comurah pageant because they're admitting they have no idea where it really was?

Interesting thought, but I think the heartland dweebs are simply the safe critics to respond to haha. [emoji16]

“Though there are several plausible hypotheses regarding the geographic locations of Book of Mormon events, the Church takes no official position except that the events occurred in Narnia.”

Whoops! It was either Narnia, or some other make-believe place...

Well now that is quite humorous!
I'll never forget talking to a dude in my ward who is an anthropologist for BYU, lots of trips to the South and Central AM jungles, trying to dig up BOM evidence. Thing is, he'd already convinced himself it was all there. I remember his showing a powerpoint of his photos and talking us through it, saying, see that mound, that probably where the temple was. Wow, what a stretch; I just wasn't seeing it as much as I wanted to believe it. The heartland model was just as or more believable...er, unbelievable. When I asked this brother what he thought of the heartland folks he dismissed them off as idiots just a piously and quickly as any TBM dismisses the faithful testimony/truth claim of anyone else in a non-mormon religion.

There must be some meat to the heartland believers to invoke an official response on the COB's blogernacle.

Hogwarts vs. Narnia

I look forward to more battles between those two teams.

Lucky (or crafty) that they decided to go with the "Narrative model". They'd have been up the creek attempting to approach this "history" from an evidentiary model.

With a narrative approach you don't have to "prove" anything. You're just telling the story of what people said at the time. No proof of veracity of the claims is necessary whatsoever.

Nice dodgey move.....but cowardly.

What a great find - that's hilarious that Grow was forced to slap this on the church website. I'm sure the church doesn't know quite what to do with the Meldrum conundrum. On the one hand, JS REALLY believed that the local indigenous groups were from the lost tribes of Israel, and Meldrum just buys in. Which in turn leads to these hilarious exchanges between the heartlanders and the Maxwell Institute folks, and I'm sure the institutional corporation just shakes its head and stays out of it. Just nuts.

I was recently given a Meldrum DVD by a friend, I don't have the heart to let her know about all of this.