Mormon Heretic

I came across this article at the Mormon Times (part of the Deseret News) about an all day forum discussion the Central American theory of the Book of Mormon.  It sounds like an interesting lineup of speakers.

I would really like to go, but I will be working that day, and can’t go.  Is there anyone who wants to take notes for me and update me?  I’d be willing to pay half your $25 conference fee for good notes, or if you can get a fair recording, I’d be willing to pay the whole thing.  Here’s the details.

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I just finished a book called “DNA & Tradition”, by Rabbi Yaakov Kleiman.  The book discusses evidence of Hebrew DNA, and talks about the science and religion of Judaism.  As part of the discussion, I learned these interesting facts.

The oldest diaspora communities are in Assyria, later conquered by Babylonia (now modern-day Iraq) and Persia (now modern day Iran). They have been there for 2000-2500 years.

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As I mentioned before, I have been learning about Ancient and Medieval Church history from the Covenant Theological Seminary.  What has been so interesting to me is that Turkey is a real center for Christianity.

Paul spoke to the Ephesians in Ephesus (and his letter is in our bible now.)  He also travelled to many other cities such as Perge, Derbe, Lystra, Antioch. John died in Ephesus.  Peter built the first Christian church there in Antioch.  Philip lived in Heirapolis, and was killed with him family there.

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Ok, I’m ready to lay this to rest.  It doesn’t seem to generate much interest, so here is my final post about my review of http://www.bookofmormongeography.info

I thought I’d post the more egregious errors here, instead of going section by section as I had originally intended to do.  I just checked the site, and got a chuckle out of this little exchange:

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I need a change of pace, so I thought I’d do a little pop culture for a post.

My wife and I went to see the new Indy movie the Friday morning after it came out.  I’m a big Indy fan.  I liked the movie, but it wasn’t as good as #1 or #3, but better than #2.

Anyway, I don’t want any plot spoilers, and I don’t think this is, so if you haven’t seen the movie, you may want to stop reading here, but if you don’t care, read on.

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Here is Part 4 of a review of http://www.bookofmormongeography.info

“Amazing” is a new section, which didn’t exist a few months ago when I began researching this theory.  The author tries to make the Book of Mormon match NY geography, instead of first coming up with an internal model, and seeing if NY fits.  He makes the following claim:

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This is part 3 of a review of http://www.bookofmormongeography.info/

The author has a Welcome section which we reviewed earlier, and this is the second section (called Errors), detailing what the author finds as Errors many other have made.  (I am going to refer to the author as “he” from now on–I’m not sure if the author is a he or she, and he so far prefers to stay anonymous, except has posted here as BOMC.)

This section has both parts that I agree with, and parts I disagree with.  Let me quote: Read more…

Here’s part 2 of my review of the website http://www.bookofmormongeography.info/. I thought I’d go over the “Welcome” section.

First of all, there is a very interesting perspective, mentioned in bold on the website. **The doctrine of the Mormon Church has no basis in The Book of Mormon, and the two should be held separate.**

That got my attention.

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I’m certainly no DNA expert.

But here’s some thoughts anyway. First of all, finding any sort of Hebrew DNA anywhere in the Americas certainly gives critics of the Book of Mormon pause, as it directly refutes some of their arguments. But how important is this discovery?

Let’s talk about the name Cohen first. As I learned from Quest for the Lost Tribes, the name Cohen represents the Tribe of Levi. This is the priesthood tribe. As we go back to the 12 Tribes of Israel, remember that the Tribe of Levi was given no land of inheritance, but was instead granted the priesthood to administer among the other tribes.

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Ok, for those who follow my blog (both of you ), you’ll notice that I have an interest in Book of Mormon Geography.  While I am open to many theories, so far the only one that has generated any interest is a theory placing the Book of Mormon lands in the New York area.  The website is found at http://www.bookofmormongeography.info/, and is self-titled, “True Book of Mormon Geography.”

My first disclaimers are that I am certainly no expert on the subject of Book of Mormon geography, so I may come to good or bad conclusions.  I will say that I study the subject more than the average person, and I am  familiar with the various theories.  We discussed them here, if you would like to review them.

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Ok, I probably won’t get too many comments on this, but it is an interesting topic for me. For some quick background, I previously posted on this topic. I recently purchased a copy of “Quest for the Lost Tribes” by Simcha Jacobovichi. In this documentary, he tries to make a case where he identifies most of the lost tribes, and their possible locations throughout the world. He comes up with some startling conclusions.

What is interesting to me about these lost tribes is the connection to the Book of Mormon. The BOM claims that the Nephites were descendants to the Tribe of Manasseh. So I was interested to see what insights the movie might have on this tribe in particular.

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I am on an email list for the Nephi Project, and I get some interesting information. This is a group that does most research in Saudi Arabia, and has uncovered some interesting discoveries supporting the Book of Mormon. They also release information that others might find interesting for new world sites.

In the latest email they sent, is a link where they discovered a stone box, similar to the one that Joseph Smith described when he discovered the Golden Plates. The link is a Word doc, and shows some pictures.

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