This book contains a nice summary of Book of Mormon geography issues that also reveals why the M2C scholars got so far off track.James E. Smith wrote an article in the book titled "How Many Nephites?: The Book of Mormon at the Bar of Demography."
You can read it here: https://publications.mi.byu.edu/fullscreen/?pub=1099&index=13
Smith does a great job summarizing the traditional interpretations, and in so doing, he shows why M2C is constructed on a faulty premise.
The entire M2C citation cartel relied on mistakes in Church history that led them astray, but they can get back on track if they'll just follow the prophets and accept the New York Cumorah.
Original in blue, my comments in red.
Traditional Interpretations
From Joseph Smith’s day to now, there have been historical interpretations of the Book of Mormon that have tried to situate its peoples in actual historical settings. Almost as soon as the plates were out of the ground, it was assumed that the hill in New York where Joseph Smith found Moroni’s buried record was the ancient Hill Cumorah of Mormon’s day.17
Note 17: Joseph Smith apparently never explicitly identified the hill in New York where he obtained the plates as ” Cumorah,” but others in the early Church certainly did make this inference. See Rex C. Reeve Jr. and Richard O. Cowan, “The Hill Called Cumorah,” in Regional Studies in Latter-day Saint History, New York, ed. Larry C. Porter, Milton V. Backman Jr., and Susan Easton Black (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Department of Church History and Doctrine, 1992), 73—4.
This is the traditional M2C explanation, but everyone knows Joseph identified the hill as Cumorah even before he got the plates, according to his mother. The M2C scholars accept most of what Lucy Mack Smith wrote, except when she contradicts their theories. Plus, they ignore Letter VII, part of a series of 8 essays President Cowdery wrote with the assistance of Joseph Smith. Joseph had them copied into his own history and had them republished multiple times during his lifetime.
Believers applied the term Lamanite to American Indians generally, implying that the Israelite Lehi was the ancestor of all Native Americans.18
Note 18. For example, see Doctrine and Covenants 3:18—20; 19:27; 28:8; 54:8; 57.
http://mormonmesomania.blogspot.com/2016/11/visit-to-church-history-museum.html There are some LDS who still believe the D&C consists of revelations from God, but D&C 28, 30 and 32 contradict the M2C narrative so the intellectuals frame them as "the beliefs of early Church members." Notice that these revelations refer to Native American Indians living in New York, Ohio, and Missouri. They don't state or imply that Lehi was the ancestor of all Native Americans. That's a bogus claim made by M2C intellectuals to confuse members of the Church.
In addition, the Book of Mormon “land southward,” “land northward,” and “narrow neck of land” were interpreted to mean South America, North America, and the Isthmus of Darian (Panama), respectively, implying a hemispheric scope for Book of Mormon geography and history.
The use of the passive voice here suggests this was a universal interpretation, but it was not.
And amidst popular nineteenth-century speculations and so little scientific knowledge about the origin and fate of former New World civilizations like the Mound Builders and the Maya, believers at one time or another identified Book of Mormon peoples with most, if not all, ancient American civilizations and archaeological artifacts.19
19. For example, Charles Thompson, Evidences in Proof of the Book of Mormon (Batavia, N.Y.: Charles Thompson, 1841); and Orson Pratt, Interesting Account of Several Remarkable Visions and of the Late Discovery of Ancient American Records (Edinburgh: Ballantyne and Hughes, 1840); for a good example of numerous loose popular speculations about ancient American peoples around the time the Book of Mormon was published, see Josiah Priest, American Antiquities and Discoveries in the West . . . (Albany, N.Y.: Hoffman and White, 1837), and also William H. Stiebing Jr., Uncovering the Past: A History of Archaeology (Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1993), 167—97.
These are good examples, along with Benjamin Winchester's work, which is usually overlooked. Priest's book was cited in anonymous articles in the Times and Seasons. Priest focused on North American archaeology.
Throughout the nineteenth century the most influential view of Book of Mormon history was expressed by Orson Pratt. In an 1840 British missionary tract, he wrote matter-of-factly that Lehi crossed the “Pacific Ocean and landed on the western coast of South America.”20 The Nephites colonized the “northern parts of South America” and expanded into North America as well, while the Lamanites possessed the “middle and southern parts” of South America. After Jesus visited the Nephites, “the Nephites and Lamanites were all converted unto the Lord, both in South and North America.”21
Recall that the Wentworth letter was one of the few articles in the 1842 Times and Seasons that Joseph Smith signed. Yet the M2C intellectuals ignore it and instead rely on anonymous articles instead, falsely attributing them to Joseph Smith.
By the fourth century, the Nephites were in North America and the Lamanites in South America, with wars between them at the Isthmus of Darian. These wars pushed the Nephites northward until they were finally exterminated at a great battle in what is now New York State. Some thirty years after he first published them, Pratt was still preaching these views in the Salt Lake Tabernacle, and they became incorporated into his footnotes for the 1879 LDS edition of the Book of Mormon.22
The M2C intellectuals never explain that these footnotes were expressly speculative ("it is believed") for all locations except the hill Cumorah, which was identified unequivocally as being in New York.
Although the historical footnotes were not an official Church interpretation of the book, they represented and reinforced what had become the prevalent hemispheric view of Book of Mormon history.
This may have been the "prevalent" view, but it wasn't Joseph's, as he showed in the Wentworth letter. Joseph expressed frustration that his people would not accept his teachings, and this was one example. Even after he edited out Pratt's hemispheric model from the Wentworth letter, and even after he had Letter VII republished so many times, his own followers ignored him. And that continues today with the M2C intellectuals and the employees at BYU, CES, and COB (the Church Office Building). Here's what Joseph had to say about the futility of teaching the Saints:
“There has been a great difficulty in getting anything into the heads of this generation. It has been like splitting hemlock knots with a corn-dodger [a piece of corn bread] for a wedge, and a pumpkin for a beetle [a wooden mallet]. Even the Saints are slow to understand.
“I have tried for a number of years to get the minds of the Saints prepared to receive the things of God; but we frequently see some of them, after suffering all they have for the work of God, will fly to pieces like glass as soon as anything comes that is contrary to their traditions: they cannot stand the fire at all. How many will be able to abide a celestial law, and go through and receive their exaltation, I am unable to say, as many are called, but few are chosen."
“Some people say I am a fallen Prophet, because I do not bring forth more of the word of the Lord. Why do I not do it? Are we able to receive it? No! not one in this room."
In the decade after the 1879 edition was published, there were lively discussions about Book of Mormon geography, but the Church did not offer any official interpretation.23
23. For a useful summary of this topic and its history, see John L. Sorenson, The Geography of Book of Mormon Events: A Source Book (Provo, Utah: FARMS, 1992).
https://publications.mi.byu.edu/publications/bookchapters/Geography_of_Book_of_Mormon_Events/Sorenson-%20The%20Geography%20of%20Book%20of%20Mormon%20Events,%20A%20Source%20Book,%20lo-res.pdf
Brother Sorenson's spin is fascinating. It's astonishing to read a "source book" that does not address Letter VII, the most detailed account of Book of Mormon geography ever produced by the First Presidency (written by President Cowdery with the assistance of President Joseph Smith and explicitly approved by President's Rigdon and Williams, then published in the official Church newspaper, copied into Joseph's personal history, and republished in at least 4 official Church publications). In the Appendix, p. 372, Brother Sorenson does note Letter VII and shows it was published in the Messenger and Advocate and republished in the Times and Seasons and Improvement Era, but he says nothing about Joseph's personal history, the Gospel Reflector, the Millennial Star, or the Prophet (the New York City newspaper edited by Joseph's brother William).
To his credit, Brother Sorenson cites D&C 128:20, which was published in the September 15, 1842, Times and Seasons, and writes, "It is clear that by the date of this revelation, Joseph Smith, and seemingly his readers generally, commonly recognized the term Cumorah to refer to the hill in New York." But notice, he does not indicate that Joseph and his readers also understood that "hill in New York" to be the Cumorah of Mormon 6:6. Letter VII had been republished in the Times and Seasons just a year previously.
Brother Sorenson also attributes the anonymous 1842 Times and Seasons articles to John Taylor or Joseph Smith, neither of whom were working at the paper in September when the articles were published.
However, in 1890 George Q. Cannon, then a counselor in the First Presidency, wrote in a Church periodical that the First Presidency would not issue an official statement on Book of Mormon geography since “the word of the Lord or the translation of other ancient records is required to clear up many points now so obscure.”24
In the Appendix of his source book, Brother Sorenson notes that Letter VII was republished in the Improvement Era in 1899, but here Smith does not point that out. Nor does he doesn't mention that Pres. Cannon's fellow counselor in the First Presidency, Joseph F. Smith, was the editor at the time. This is part of the consistent pattern from Church leaders; i.e., Cumorah is in New York, but we don't know for sure where the other events took place. The M2C intellectuals always conflate these two separate teachings because they want members of the Church to believe the New York Cumorah was merely speculative opinions expressed by the prophets.
In preparing for the next edition of the Book of Mormon, a Church committee heard different views on Book of Mormon geography but apparently did not find any position so compelling as to warrant inclusion in the book.25 When the new edition of the Book of Mormon was published in 1920, it omitted historical and geographical footnotes—a practice that has continued since.
Although never adopted as an official Church interpretation of Book of Mormon history, the hemispheric interpretation seems to remain the most commonly held view among the general readership of the book. One implication of this view is that all pre-Columbian inhabitants of the Americas, including all of the populations of the Olmec, Maya, Inca, Aztec, and all other North and South American native populations, must have arisen from one or more of the three immigrant groups identified in the Book of Mormon. However, it is doubtful whether most Book of Mormon readers give careful thought to all of the historical and archaeological implications of this view, since the central religious message of the book in no way depends upon this historical interpretation.
I don't know how to determine what most Church members believe, but it is obvious that the employees at BYU/CES/COB now adhere to M2C.
Later in his article, Smith writes this:I don't know how to determine what most Church members believe, but it is obvious that the employees at BYU/CES/COB now adhere to M2C.
John Sorenson has summarized more than fifty published statements on Book of Mormon geography from the 1830s to the present.34 He shows that until the early twentieth century, the traditional hemispheric interpretation dominated, but by the mid—twentieth century, most authors believed Book of Mormon history took place primarily within the more limited confines of Central America. Today almost all writers on Book of Mormon geography agree that Lehi’s landing place, the narrow neck of land, the lands northward and southward, and Mormon’s Hill Cumorah were situated somewhere in Central America. Recently Sorenson has proposed a fairly specific Mesoamerican setting that puts most Book of Mormon history in a geographic area reaching only a few hundred miles in each direction.35
The M2C argument is that most early LDS were wrong about the geography; i.e., the consensus was wrong. But no M2C intellectuals cite the consensus as a reason why everyone should accept it. I don't know if they're self-aware enough to see the inconsistency, but it doesn't matter because LDS who know all the facts--including what the prophets have taught and what archaeology tells us about North America--reject the M2C consensus.
