Mesoamerica, Heartland, Baja, Hemispherical, Costa Rica, and even Malaysia have been suggested as models for Book of Mormon geography. What we know for certain is very little, and what we don’t know is very large when it comes to these things. There are fascinating evidences people have researched with regard to these models, but I’d just like to point out a couple things I find fascinating and make a general statement or two about it.
I grew up in a time when the Mesoamerican theory was the big thing. I remember watching one video by Paul Cheesman multiple times as a teenager. It was fascinating to see the elements of his research and imagine that I was looking at the places where the Book of Mormon took place. In more recent years I’ve become more interested in the Heartland model for a couple of the reasons below. Regardless of what model you lean toward, the important stuff is in points 1 and 2.
Core Truth
1) I know the Book of Mormon is true and the word of God as written by ancient prophets on this continent, just as the Bible is the word of God as written by prophets in the “Old World” around Israel.
2) The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints has officially stated:
“the Church’s only position is that the events the Book of Mormon describes took place in the ancient Americas.”…
Speaking of the book’s history and geography, President Russell M. Nelson taught: “Interesting as these matters may be, study of the Book of Mormon is most rewarding when one focuses on its primary purpose—to testify of Jesus Christ. By comparison, all other issues are incidental.”
This is always my personal focus. I don’t get riled up about geographic models and find it disheartening that there seems to be some real enmity between some of these geographic model camps.
This site, and the focus of the Scripture Notes program, is on studying the scriptures and looking deeper at what they say, and not a focus on trying to identify the specific locations where things took place. That said, I felt a gentle urge to write this post and perhaps someday, someone who reads it may find some peace in their heart as a result.
3) What we know for certain is that the beginning of the Book of Mormon takes place in Jerusalem and that it ends at the Hill Cumorah in New York state. We know there are a couple locations South of Israel and in Oman that appear to be the likely places Lehi and his group traveled to escape Jerusalem, build a ship, and travel to the Americas, but we do not know with certainty where he landed or really anything else in the middle.
We have models with evidence for support of certain ideas but nobody has unearthed a city with a big sign over the entrance that says, “Welcome to Zarahemla,” though I admit that would be pretty awesome and I hope we find that someday. Regardless, my testimony is in the words of the book, not in specific locations.
Book of Mormon Geography Points
4) Now, all that said, I’m going to share a couple things which I do find very fascinating. In a revelation given to the prophet Joseph Smith in Harmony, Pennsylvania, in 1828 (shown in the Doctrine & Covenants, section 10), the Lord revealed to Joseph something that should be of great interest and does, to me, give clear evidence to certain events taking place in this region.
Ancient prophets of the Nephites prayed that if their people were wiped out by wickedness (which they knew would happen), that the Lord would preserve their sacred records and someday bring the gospel to the latter-day descendants of the Lamanites. The Lord told Joseph about these prophets:
48. Yea, and this was their faith-that my gospel, which I gave unto them that they might preach in their days, might come unto their brethren the Lamanites, and also all that had become Lamanites because of their dissensions.
49. Now this is not all-their faith in their prayers was that this gospel should be made known also, if it were possible that other nations should possess this land;
50. And thus they did leave a blessing upon this land in their prayers, that whosoever should believe in this gospel in this land might have eternal life;
51. Yea, that it might be free unto all of whatsoever nation, kindred, tongue, or people they may be.
52. And now, behold, according to their faith in their prayers will I bring this part of my gospel to the knowledge of my people. Behold, I do not bring it to destroy that which they have received, but to build it up.
53. And for this cause have I said: If this generation harden not their hearts, I will establish my church among them.
And the Lord did establish his church, in this land, in Harmony, Pennsylvania, to bring a gentile nation eternal life, and then to export it through missionary work to the rest of the world in order to gather Israel.
For this reason, among others, I am partial to the Heartland model, but I have no problem if Lehi’s group landed somewhere south of North America and then through the many migrations that consistently went northward in their record, came to this area. It would be a blending of the Mesoamerica and Heartland models of Book of Mormon geography. Regardless, the Lord seems to indicate that upon the land Joseph was familiar with, the Nephites prayed.
5) The last point I’ll share is a personal experience. I grew up in Pennsylvania and as our children aged, I wanted to take them to see the Hill Cumorah pageant (it was only a year or two before it was closed) and other sites back East. On our way through Ohio, we had a fascinating experience at a site I believe was in Newark. This next photo shows an entryway into a large field area but on the left and right edges, you can see the earth is heaped up with a trench all the way around it. It is almost exactly as Captain Moroni describes the fortifications the Nephites built to protect themselves. This berm went in a continuous path around the area and if I remember right, was about three quarters of a mile in length. From the photo you can’t quite make out the berm in the far distance due to the trees. There were 3 mounds in the middle of the enclosed area which you can sort of make out in the leaves directly above the metal railing. That’s about 200 yards out so it doesn’t look very large from the picture but it was a sizeable heap of earth.
Here’s a closer shot showing my son in the foreground.
While in the visitor’s center, the national park guide asked us if we had been to another nearby location. We had not and he said they had discovered at the tops of the berms, holes the size of tree trunks which lined the top. You can imagine my excitement. I opened my scriptures on my phone to show him in the Book of Mormon in Alma 50 how Captain Moroni built structures just like these with timbers at the top. Unfortunately, he wasn’t impressed or curious to learn more. :(
It was really cool to walk among this fortification and in the visitor’s center see a diagram of another hill in Ohio with such an amazing structure. It’s called Fort Ancient and the defensive hill ran 3.5 miles long and included enclosed water for the people. I don’t know how many people could live in such an area, but that’s a pretty amazing feat of engineering for an ancient group with what we assume only had pretty primitive tools. Of course, these are described numerous times in the Book of Mormon wars which gives strong evidence to the presence of these people.
Conclusion
My point here isn’t to promote one particular Book of Mormon geography model. I just think in my simple faith, I have to trust when the Lord says “this land” and is speaking to Joseph who possessed a very provincial upbringing, that we should just take at face value the Lord is telling us that at some point, Nephites walked the region of Northeast America. Clearly from the Doctrine & Covenants we see the Lord talking about taking the gospel to the Lamanites inside the present boundaries of the United States (do a search for Lamanites filtering for only the Doctrine & Covenants). Regardless, as mentioned above, we don’t know where Lehi landed for certain and I have no problem with a migratory set of events, but it seems clear in my mind that Joseph Smith walked the lands of the Nephites and Lamanites.
There is much research that has been done to promote the various theories, but something I don’t see both sides eager to weigh in on is the Savior’s statements about other sheep he was going to visit after the Nephites (3 Nephi 16:1-3; 18:31). It is entirely possible that the Savior visited quite a few groups of people that had been led away and transformed their societies as well by his teachings. No doubt they kept records and the day will come when those records are brought forth. It’s very possible that where one group finds evidence of the Savior visiting the people, they immediately tie it into the Book of Mormon, when that people’s records have not come forth yet.
Personally, I think by cherishing the content in the Book of Mormon, the Lord may be willing to reveal more about the other sheep and start to bring forth the additional records once the church has been lifted out of the condemnation it is currently in (D&C 84:54-57).
And that’s my two cents on the matter. Feel free to post a comment but I’m not going to allow for Book of Mormon geography wars in the comments. :)
Oak, thanks for sharing and thanks for your efforts to help us search the scriptures. I just love how technology allows us to spend less time searching and more time pondering what we’re searching for.
Here are a couple of sites that I just love because you can access old books, newspapers, letters, etc. and easily find so much information and knowledge. We have to decide what is true and what is false.
https://archive.org/
https://www.jstor.org/
https://www.loc.gov/
https://www.newspapers.com/
We were all taught the Mesoamerican model. I taught it as a missionary in Canada in the early 1970s. I taught it to coworkers over the years. I had never heard of the heartland model until about 3 or 4 years ago. It makes sense to me. Everyone is entitled to believe what they want without fear of shame or retribution.
There are over 100 documented Book of Mormon Geography models. The church has taken a neutrality position, but many appendages (CES, Book of Mormon Central, BYU VirtualScriptures, ScripturePlus app, Meridian Magazine, Ensign, Friend, etc.) of the church continue to push the Mesoamerican model. Over 1/3 of the artwork in the Come Follow Me, Book of Mormon 2020 manual is promoting a Mesoamerican theme. I don’t blame the artists. They painted what they were taught.
What a great country we live in. We have freedoms and liberties to say and do many things.
You mentioned the Lamanites in this blog. As described in D&C 28, 30, and 32, we know the “Mission to the Lamanites” was a very prominent event in church history.
Searching for scattered and smitten and afflicted results in some amazing scriptures.
1 Nephi 13, 13-16 is amazing.
13 And it came to pass that I beheld the Spirit of God, that it wrought upon other Gentiles; and they went forth out of captivity, upon the many waters.
14 And it came to pass that I beheld many amultitudes of the Gentiles upon the bland of promise; and I beheld the wrath of God, that it was upon the seed of my brethren; and they were cscattered before the Gentiles and were smitten.
15 And I beheld the Spirit of the Lord, that it was upon the Gentiles, and they did prosper and aobtain the bland for their inheritance; and I beheld that they were white, and exceedingly fair and cbeautiful, like unto my people before they were dslain.
16 And it came to pass that I, Nephi, beheld that the Gentiles who had gone forth out of captivity did humble themselves before the Lord; and the power of the Lord was awith them.
In 1823, SCOTUS ruled that Indians do not own land. In May 1830, the Indian Removal Act was passed giving the president authority to move the major tribes from the eastern US to what would become Indian Territory (1834) in present day Kansas/Oklahoma/Nebraska. It didn’t end there. Disputes over Reservations and Indian Land continue to this day.
The Sioux signed the treaty of Laramie in 1868. This placed the Sioux on a Reservation in the Black Hills of South Dakota. However, when gold was discovered in South Dakota in 1874/75/76 it was on Indian land. The Battle of the Little Bighorn, fought on June 25, 1876, didn’t end well for Custer. An estimated 40 million ounces of gold were extracted from the Homestake Mine when it closed in 2002. That is 1.3 billion at $32/ounce. It was $300-400/ounce in the 1980s and 90s.
The Pawnee lost over 27 million acres. In 1905-6, the reservation boundaries were redrawn in eastern Utah and the Utes lost a million acres.
There are over 500 Indian Tribes recognized by the Government. They all have a story to tell. I’ve started to write a book on it. This history speaks volumes about being “scattered and smitten” as Nephi prophesied.
You also mention the other sheep in 3 Nephi 16:1-3 (I really like this). Surely, his other sheep are scattered all over the world. The Book of Mormon is a very narrow father to son account. More records will come forth. Mormon abridged the records and said, “and I cannot write the dhundredth part of the things of my people.” Hagoth had more than one ship and there were at least 2 trips. This fact could explain why Central American people have legends about a bearded White God (Quetzalcoatl). I hope folks get a chance to watch some of the amazing presentations from the Sep 2020 Book of Mormon Evidence Conference.
I just wish all the evidence was available to all the members and the world and then they could decide what they wanted to believe. Currently, only the Mesoamerica model is presented. I believe scholars and intellectuals are hijacking church history. Cumorah is not found in Saints Vol 1 and Oliver Cowdery’s mission to the Lamanites is called a mission to the west. Moroni’s cement and stone box (JSH 1:52 in PGP) is called only a stone box (pages 29 and 37). The June 4, 1834 letter (page 200) to Emma is mentioned but Zelph is not. See
https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/letter-to-emma-smith-4-june-1834/2
https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/history-1838-1856-volume-a-1-23-december-1805-30-august-1834/489
Parley’s 1831 description of Oliver Cowdery preaching to the Delaware Indians (about 10 miles west of Missouri) states, “This Book, which contained these things, was hid in the earth by Moroni, in a hill called by him Cumorah, which hill is now in the State of New York, near the village of Palmyra, in Ontario county.” See History of the Church, Vol 1, p184, The Deseret Book Company 1973.
In History of the Church, Page 183 (1950 Copyright, same as above), it states, “* THE MISSION TO THE LAMANITES.—As the “mission to the Lamanites” is a very prominent event in early Church history, it is proper that the labors of the brethren engaged in it should be spoken of more fully than appears anywhere in the Prophet’s narrative, and at this point, following the letter of Oliver Cowdery, seems as appropriate a place as will be found to speak of it.”
The Saints, Vol 1 (1815-1846) doesn’t think the mission to the Lamanites is very prominent. In fact, they totally remove it from the narrative! Are they trying to promote or accommodate the Mesoamerican model? On page 98, it states, “The revelation then called Oliver to go nearly a thousand miles to the western edge of the United States to preach the restored gospel to the American Indians, who were remnants of the house of Israel.” Two paragraphs later, on the same page 98, it states, “The Lord called Peter Whitmer, Jr, Ziba Peterson, and Parley Pratt to join Oliver on the mission to the West.” On page 108, it states, “After Oliver left on his mission to the West…””
My missionary Triple Combination (Copyright 1970) that I used in the Ontario Quebec Mission from Nov 1971 to Nov 1973 uses the words “mission to the Lamanites” in the section headings for Sections 28 (mentions Lamanites 3 times in the scriptural text) and 30 (Lamanites mentioned 1 time in the scriptural text). The section heading to Section 32 mentions “Lamanites” once and “Indian tribes in the west” once. The scriptural text uses the words “into the wilderness among the Lamanites.”
My 1980 Copyright Triple Combination scriptures in Section 28 in the heading doesn’t say anything about Oliver’s mission to the Lamanites and has several fewer sentences than the 1970 version. The subheading for verses 1-7 does state, “Oliver Cowdery is to preach to the Lamanites.” The scriptural text does mention Lamanites 3 times like the 1970 version.
Section 30 has different verbiage and no reference to Oliver Cowdery’s mission to the Lamanites in the heading. The subheading for versus 5-8 does state, “Peter Whitmer, Jun., is to accompany Oliver Cowdery on a mission to the Lamanites.” The scriptural text does mention Lamanites 1 time like the 1970 version.
Section 32 has different verbiage in the heading and deletes the word “yearning” from “yearning desires.” The last sentence from the 1970 version has been excluded in the 1980 version, “The missionaries admonished to confine themselves to the expounding of the written word, as they shall be given understanding thereof.” The subheading for verses 1-3 does state, “preach to the Lamanites.” The scriptural text matches the 1970 version and uses the words “into the wilderness among the Lamanites.”
As you can see, the 1980 version is drifting away from the “mission to the Lamanites” verbiage. I didn’t compare with the online version.
Missionaries didn’t arrive in Guatemala until 1947!
I love what Bruce Lloyd wrote- very comprehensive comment. I also am drawn to the Heartland model. My parents introduced me to Rod Meldrum’s work around 2006.
There have been many fascinating things that all of the Heartland modelers have shared over the years. But, the one thing that caught my attention first was how each and every one of them quoted scriptures- not just to prove a connection to an ancient people, but to testify of Joseph Smith being a true prophet and of the truthfullness of the BOM. It seems to me, at least at first, that these home-grown researchers are based in the scriptures and so I was inspired and motivated to delve into the scriptures myself.
Funny thing- I realized that my reading of the scriptures didn’t change much. I had already been reading the scriptures with the USA in mind.
¿What other country was a “land of promise”? (The USA is where the church and the priesthood keys were restored.)
¿What other country is so famously known for being a “land of liberty”? (Note that “liberty” is used in the BOM and by the Founding Fathers.)
I am not converted to the Heartland model, I am converted to Jesus Christ and to His gospel. I love the scriptures and am excited to eventually have this mystery unraveled!
Don Bradley derived a great deal of insights in his book The Lost 116 Pages. There are records of the early saints that had made comments about the contents of the Lost Pages. Such as how the Interpreters were found in the days BEFORE the City of Nephi was colonized, portable tabernacles, when the Liahona stopped functioning, actual record of Lehi and so on.
If we ever get to recover the Lost Pages, I am betting there will be a lot more information on the geography of the area between original Nephite landing and the City of Nephi. Maybe a few more of the area between City of Nephi and Zarahemla. My impression is that the original landing was on the west coast of South America and Lehites moved steadily northward ever since.
Thanks for sharing that tidbit of what’s in Don’s book. I’ve got that on my wishlist and now it’s making me want to get it even more.