Light from CDMX

From Monday, June 19 to Wednesday, June 21, 2023, Scripture Central convened a Book of Mormon geography workshop in Mexico City. Participants included:

• Luis Castillo, Quintana Roo, Mexico. Luis is the author of several interesting articles about possible Book of Mormon connections with ancient Maya culture.
• Agricol Lozano, Mexico City. Agricol is a serious lifelong student of the Nephite text. 
• Kirk Magleby, American Fork, UT. I author this blog.
• Alexandro Martinez, Puebla, Mexico. Alejandro maintains the website Geografia del Libro de Mormon.
• Anna Lillia Mendez, Mexico City. Anna Lillia has been a careful student of the Book of Mormon and ancient Mesoamerican culture for decades.
• Alan Miner, Springville, UT. Alan authored Step by Step through the Book of Mormon which is a comprehensive history of thought on Book of Mormon geography.
• Estefanía Morlett, Mexico City. Estefanía took notes and kept us organized.
• Daniel Muñoz, Quintana Roo, Mexico. Daniel is a native Yucatec Mayan speaker with a degree in anthropology.
• Felipe Olguin, Hidalgo, Mexico. Felipe is a long-time student of the Book of Mormon. 
• Braulio Sánchez, Mexico City. Braulio was our videographer and audio recorder.
• Javier Tovar, Hidalgo, Mexico. Javier is an archaeologist accredited with INAH. For the last several years, he has been ground-truthing possible Book of Mormon sites.
• Gabriela Valdez, Estado de Mexico. Gaby is a professional genealogist and historian. 
• Pepe Valle, originally from Veracruz, Mexico, now living in Spanish Fork, UT. Pepe is the most watched "Come Follow Me" video presenter in Spanish and is one of the Spanish voices of the Tabernacle Choir.

We went over methodology, assumptions about the text, interpretive apparatus, the exegesis of key passages, proposed real-world locations, and the degree of fit to the text for various proposals. Any participant was free to suggest alternative locations and some of those locations were accepted by the group and incorporated into the working compendium model.

We had two main goals for the workshop: A) Empower a group of capable Mexican Saints with the tools and knowledge necessary to move Book of Mormon geography forward, and B) achieve consensus, if possible, on the most likely location of key Book of Mormon places. We successfully achieved both goals. The "Lamanite Consensus Model" of Book of Mormon geography is now reality. 

Interesting insights that came out of our discussions included:

1. Today in Yucatec Mayan, a class of "dignatarios Mayas" that deal with laws and the administration of justice are called "alma kan." The title carries military, commercial, and religious connotations. Luis and Daniel are convinced this honorific title, attested in epigraphic inscriptions from the early classic era, is a legacy from Alma, first Nephite Chief Judge per Mosiah 29:42.

2. The large bodies of water mentioned in Alma 50:29 and Helaman 3:4 were likely in the Trans-Volcanic Belt in Central Mexico. High peaks in this region result in abundant rainfall.

Trans-Volcanic Belt in Central Mexico - Land of Lakes

3. "Desierto" in the Spanish Book of Mormon as the translation for "wilderness" would be better rendered "silvestre."

4. "Manantiales" in the Spanish Book of Mormon as the translation for "head of river" would be better rendered "cabeza de rio."

5. The city of Mulek which we have previously correlated with the site of Cerros, Belize, we now correlate with the site of Santa Rita aka Hok' ol K'in in Corozal, Belize. Cerros is too easy to isolate by positioning troops at the base of the peninsula. Cerros has a 2,000 year old dock.

6. Temperatures often reach 40 degrees centigrade (104 degrees fahrenheit) in the Chetumal area, giving context to the phrase "heat of the day" in Alma 51:33.

7. The city of Bountiful which we have previously correlated with the site of Bugambilias, Quintana Roo, we now correlate with the site of Oxtankah a few kilometers northward along the coast. Beginning about 500 BC, Oxtankah was the dominant site in the Chetumal area north of the Rio Hondo.

Proposed Book of Mormon Cities Around Bay of Chetumal

8. The Lamanai - Jershon correlation held up under scrutiny. Luis and Daniel are convinced Lamanai meaning "submerged crocodile" could be a legacy from "Laman" whom the text likens unto a river in 1 Nephi 2:8, 16:12.

9. Many parts of the coasts of Belize and Quintana Roo are lined with mangrove trees which makes them practically inaccessible from the ocean. Mangroves also grow along rivers.

10. As you head north along the Belizean coast from Corozal, you come to a lookout point (mirador) that gives you a good view of Chetumal across the mouth of Rio Hondo. Luis and Daniel believe this is the point where the Lamanite army turned back towards Corozal as described in Alma 52:28.

11. One of the murals from Santa Rita published in Arqueología Mexicana shows a decapitated sacrificial victim with a beard. This could be another example of intentional ethnic cleansing. The drawing is from Thomas Gann in 1900.

Santa Rita Mural with Bearded Sacrificial Victim

For an image of bearded sacrificial victims from Bilbao, Guatemala, see the blog article "Light from Guatemala."

12. The earliest architecture at Santa Rita and Oxtankah was plain and fairly simple. Later classic era construction was more elaborate and complex in line with Maya structures elsewhere. Hugh Nibley thought Nephite golden age architecture would likely be plain and fairly simple.

13. The Mexican saints are convinced Jesus Christ visited their lands anciently. They point to several glyphic depictions of hands with perforations from sites such as Palenque, Yaxchilán, Copan, and Tulum as evidence that the crucified Savior was known among their ancestors.

Glyphs Depicting Perforated Hands

In Erik Boot's 2003 article "The Human Hand in Classic Maya Hieroglyphic Writing" published on Mesoweb, 21 of 45 signs show a perforation (agujero).

 

14. The Mexican saints love Izapa Stela 5. They envision a boat with 6 passengers sitting on deck and a cuadrangular sail outlined by geometric lines drawn between key points in the scene.

Stela 5 as Depiction of a Boat
per Mario A. Popoca

15. There are 14 water scrolls along the bottom and right-hand edges of Stela 5. This image taken by Matthew W. Stirling in 1941 shows all 14. 10 along the bottom crest to the right. 1 at the bend is larger than the others. It also crests to the right. The top 3 along the right-hand side crest to the left.

14 Water Scrolls on Stela 5, 3 Cresting to the Left

Anna Lillia interprets the 3 water scrolls as depicting the 3 days described in 1 Nephi 18:13-14 when the voyaging Lehites were driven backwards by a storm. The large water scroll at the elbow she interprets as the 4th day when the storm increased in intensity, then eventually subsided when Nephi was finally released after being tied to the mast.

16. Stela 5 shows a tree with 8 branches. 7 of the branches bear fruit. The 8th branch on the right-hand side has no fruit, but it does have 2 grafts hanging from it. This is an image taken in the early 1960's.

7 Tree Branches with Fruit, 1 with Grafts

The 7 branches bearing fruit the Mexican saints correlate with the 7 lineages mentioned in Jacob 1:13, 4 Nephi 37-38, and Mormon 1:8-9.

17. Gaby likes the correlation first proposed by John L. Sorenson that the El Chayal obsidian outcrop north of Guatemala City is probably Oneidah (critical text orthography), the place of arms mentioned in Alma 47:5.

18. Luis and Daniel believe there may be a linguistic correlation between the Lamanite king "Aaron" mentioned in Mormon 2:9 and the Maya honorific title "Ahau."

19. The land of Joshua which we have previously placed in the general vicinity of Pijijiapan, Chiapas, has been moved slightly. After ground-truthing, Javier Tovar believes the site of Lluvia Dulce, 15 air kilometers NW of the site of Pijijiapan (which is about 2 air kilometers S of the city of Pijijiapan), is a viable candidate for Joshua. Lluvia Dulce was occupied in the late preclassic - early classic time period when Mormon describes the Nephites in the land of Joshua.

20. We have previously correlated the city of Nephihah with Cancuen. Luis expressed concern that perhaps Nephihah should be closer to Moroni. Cancuen is 133 air kilometers W of Tiger Mound (Moroni) and 57 kilometers S of Ceibal (Aaron). The site of Poptun is one possibility that sits just about midway between Tiger Mound and Ceibal. The group did not act on this suggestion, so the correlation for Nephihah remains Cancuen pending further study.

21. Agricol suggested that just as Palestine is centrally located to spread the good news of the Gospel to the four corners of the Old World, Mesoamerica is centrally located to do the same in the New World.

Norman, Sorenson, and Allen

Vernal Garth Norman (June 30, 1934 - December 1, 2021) passed away in American Fork, Utah. John Leon Sorenson (April 8, 1924 - December 8, 2021) passed away in Provo, Utah. Joseph Lovell Allen (May 29, 1935 - May 29, 2023) passed away in  Cedar Hills, Utah. All made significant contributions to Book of Mormon studies. All were awarded the Father Lehi and Mother Sariah award by Book of Mormon Archaeological Forum, now Book of Mormon Central. John and Helen Sorenson received the award in 2009, Joe and Rhoda Allen in 2011, and Garth and Cheryl Norman in 2013.

Garth Norman (1934-2021)

Garth's obituary.

John Sorenson (1924-2021)

John's tributes.

Joe Allen (1935-2023)

Joe's obituary.

A major Book of Mormon geography workshop will be held in Mexico City on June 19-21, 2023. Bright and capable Lamanite scholars such as Javier Tovar and Alejandro Martinez will help a dozen serious students of the Nephite text from Honduras, Guatemala, and Mexico work through the complex association between canonical verbiage, science, and geographic information systems. The names Sorenson, Norman, and Allen will come up frequently during the 3 days of the conclave. The workshop will continue the life's work of these 3 scholars and if any good results, it will be partly to the credit of this trio.

I have known these 3 most of my adult life. I have been in their homes, their offices, in academic settings with them, and in the field with them exploring potential Book of Mormon lands. I have learned from and in some cases contributed to their publications. When the Book of Mormon geography puzzle is finally solved, the work of Sorenson, Norman, and Allen will prove to have been foundational.

Ancient Treaty AD 353

Abstract: An alliance celebrated on February 26, AD 353 at the Maya site of Tortuguero in modern Tabasco may be the same treaty the Nephites entered into with the Lamanites and the Gadianton robbers ca. AD 350 as recorded in Mormon 2:28.

Tortuguero is one of the westernmost Maya sites, about 20 km SE of Macuspana, Tabasco. It is 46 km NW of Palenque, Chiapas, and 94 km NW of Tonina, Chiapas. It is 107 km SE of Comalcalco, Tabasco, which is generally regarded as the westernmost Maya site. As with all images on this blog, click to enlarge.

Tortuguero and Environs

Tortuguero Monument 6 is a well-known stela from the site. Most of the stone carving is housed today in the Carlos Pellicer Museum in Villahermosa. One fragment from the stela is housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Monument 6 gained notoriety in the years leading up to 2012 because it references the 13-Baktun period ending event on 13.0.0.0.0 (Winter Solstice, December 21, 2012). Maya long count dates in this article are shown in standard baktun (144,000 days), katun (7,200 days), tun (360 days), uinal (20 days), kin (1 day) format. Gregorian dates are from the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of the American Indian Maya Calendar Converter. 

Monument 6 celebrates a structure dedication event held on January 11, 669 in the latter part of the reign of Balaam Ajaw who ruled Tortuguero from AD 644 - 679. Key early events in Balaam Ajaw's reign as recorded on Monument 6 include:

• 9.10.11.3.9 (2/06/644) An alliance facilitated by a marriage.
• 9.10.11.3.10 (2/07/644) Balaam Ajaw's accession to the throne.
• 9.10.11.9.6 (5/30/644) First war against a rival kingdom.
• 9.10.17.2.14 (12/18/649) Major war against Comalcalco that resulted in "blood became a lake, skulls became a mountain".

This information is from Sven Gronemeyer and Barbara MacLeod, "What Could Happen in 2012: A Re-analysis of the 13-Bak'tun Prophecy on Tortuguero Monument 6," Wayeb Notes, No. 34, 2010.

One of Balaam Ajaw's objectives in erecting Monument 6 was to legitimize his lineage and power over a large expanse of time. Thus, the monument contemplates a far-off event more than a millennium in the future. The Maya also observed cycles in the passage of time. In that vein, the AD 644 alliance recalled another treaty (literally "bound the word") reached long-ago on 8.15.16.0.5 (2/26/353) that Gronemeyer and MacLeod describe as "a great political accord both worthy of distant recall, yet impersonal, and a milestone in the collective memory of the Baakiil lineage."

In Mormon 2:28-29 the Nephites negotiated a treaty with 1) the Lamanites and 2) the robbers of Gadianton which ended Nephite presence in the land southward and bought the doomed nation 10 years of temporary peace. This treaty was finalized ca. AD 350. Mormon's Codex (John L. Sorenson's apt name for the Book of Mormon) and Tortuguero Monument 6 may be describing the same political agreement. A few reasons this makes some sense:

1. Mormon gathered the Nephites into the city of Desolation on the extreme southern border of the land northward (Mormon 3:5-7). The Book of Mormon map with the highest degree of fit to the text (100% satisfaction of 247 basic criteria) correlates the city of Desolation with El Paredon on the shores of Mar Muerto in Chiapas. If Paredon is Desolation, then the western Maya in Tonina (216 km distant) or Tortuguero (230 km distant) could have been part of the Lamanites.

2. Numerous lines of reasoning support the idea that the Gadianton Robbers could have been Teotihuacanos. See the blog articles "Robbers and Lamanites" and "Notes on the Maya and Teotihuacan." Right at the time Tortuguero Monument 6 reports a political agreement (AD 353), Teotihuacan influence was spreading throughout the Maya area. Close to AD 350 Maya elites living in Teotihuacan suffered persecution and death. Then in AD 378 (near the time of the Nephite demise at Cumorah) military emissaries allied with Teotihuacan forced regime change in Tikal. Teotihuacan influence is known from Palenque and Panhale which are geographically close to Tortuguero. See the lecture David Stuart gave at Dumbarton Oaks on December 1, 2022 entitled Rulers from the West: Teotihuacan in Maya History and Politics.  See also Armando Anaya H., Peter Mathews, and Stanley Guenter, "A New Inscribed Wooden Box from Southern Mexico" in Mesoweb Reports, August 27, 2001. If the Gadiantons were Teotihuacanos, then the AD 353 treaty ratified at Tortuguero could have involved them.

3. The Tortuguero AD 644 alliance was followed by war, then a few years later by a decisive war that inflicted heavy casualties on Comalcalco. In the cyclical way the Maya viewed time, the AD 353 alliance could also have presaged war. Monument 6 does not explicitly mention war following the AD 353 accord, but the text has many allusions to war as Gronemeyer and MacLeod point out. So, if the AD 353 alliance did involve the Nephites, the massive destruction at Ramah/Cumorah ca. AD 385 could be implied. The Book of Mormon map with the highest degree of fit to the text correlates Ramah/Cumorah with Cerro San Martin Pajapan in the eastern Tuxtlas of southern Veracruz. Pajapan is 160 straight line kilometers due west of Comalcalco. See the blog article Ramah/Cumorah.

There are enough if/then conditionals in this logic chain to make this correlation tentative, but the ca. AD 350 treaty mentioned in Mormon 2:28-29 is thoroughly plausible. Its in a time and place when far-flung projections of military force were creating new alignments of power between allies and enemies. At minimum the Book of Mormon treaty has a known contemporaneous parallel in the historical record of the Tortuguero royal dynasty.

Nineteenth Century English in and around Palmyra New York

 In 2014 I published a blog article entitled "Early Modern English."

The next year I published another article entitled "English in the Book of Mormon."

Both articles support the idea from Royal Skousen and Stanford Carmack that the language Joseph Smith dictated to his scribes in 1829 was primarily Early Modern English. Nothing I have encountered in the intervening years has convinced me otherwise. But, I have run across people who wonder if an archaic form of English may have been spoken by rural people in the Palmyra, New York frontier area during Joseph's lifetime. After all, we know that Appalachian English aka Smoky Mountain English aka Southern Mountain English is an oral linguistic phenomenon known to science that persists today in the mountainous area from southern New York to northern Mississippi and Alabama.

Point #1: Appalachian English is not a fossilized form of Early Modern English preserved in isolation in the hills and hollers of the region. It has much stronger affinities with 18th century American Colonial English which is generally considered Modern English. Scotch Irish influences from northern Ireland are widely recognized. See A Handbook of Varieties of English (Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 2004) and  Michael Montgomery, "How Scotch-Irish is your English?" in The Journal of East Tennessee History, Vol. 67 (2005).

Point #2: English in most parts of colonial North America was surprisingly uniform. Historical linguists such as Paul K. Longmore and Joey L. Dillard discuss "linguistic levelling" and the "American koiné" that they attribute to extensive travel and migration and the rapid assimilation of immigrants speaking Dutch, French, German, Swedish, and other western European tongues. "By the early to mid-eighteenth century, varieties of English emerged that many observers perceived as both homogenous and matching metropolitan (London) standard English." Paul K. Longmore, "Good English without Idiom or Tone: The Colonial Origins of American Speech" in Journal of Interdisciplinary History Vol. 37:4 (Spring, 2007). The nation building that accompanied the American Revolutionary War (1775 - 1783) further standardized a language that was already much more normalized than the regional dialects prevalent in Britain at the time. John Witherspoon, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, was born in Scotland. He observed that Americans had geographic, occupational, and social mobility so they were "not so liable to local peculiarities either of accent or phraseology." Very high American birth rates added to the linguistic levelling effect since native born colonials quickly came to vastly outnumber immigrants. Intercontinental travelers and long-term settlers such as Hugh Jones, William Eddis, Jonathan Boucher, and many others were impressed with the homogeneity they found in American speech patterns. See "They Speak Better English than the English Do: Colonialism and the Origins of National Linguistic Standardization in America" in Early American Literature Vol. 40 No. 2 (2005). Eighteenth century British visitors marveled at the "striking uniformity" of the English spoken by American colonists. "The American Koine - Origin, Rise, and Plateau Stage" in Kansas Journal of Sociology, Vol. 9 No. 2 (1973),

Point #3. Joseph Smith, Emma Hale Smith, Martin Harris, Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer, and others associated with the coming forth of the Book of Mormon precisely matched the demographic profile described above: geographically, occupationally, and socially mobile.

Point #4. The Erie Canal was under construction from 1817 - 1825. It runs right through Palmyra, New York. Construction was a polyglot enterprise employing thousands. Once it began operation, people from around the world traveled on it routinely. It connected Buffalo on Lake Erie to Albany on the Hudson River to New York City on the Atlantic. Palmyra was not a bucolic backwater. After 1825 it was highly integrated into the global economy of the time. Click to enlarge the map below.

1825 Map of the Erie Canal. The Red Arrow Indicates Palmyra.

Point #5. Beginning about 1760 there was a conscious effort among American nationalists to further standardize language throughout the colonies. This was considered a social, economic, and military good. Luminaries such as Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) and Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) fostered the movement. Noah Webster (1758-1843) eventually became a leader in the cause which culminated in his celebrated 1828 dictionary of American English.

Point #6. Methodism was the fastest growing faith community in North America from 1766 through the 1820's, largely due to circuit riders. These itinerant preachers traveled widely and their far-flung influence helped standardize linguistic patterns throughout the country. See William A. Powell, Jr. "Methodist circuit-riders in America, 1766 - 1844." Master's thesis, Paper 813, University of Richmond (1977). 

So, the notion that the archaic language in the earliest Book of Mormon text originated in or was intended to communicate colloquially with upstate New York seems far-fetched. We have a fair sampling of Joseph's personal words and a larger sampling of his mother's words. Both spoke Modern English as we would expect given their cultural origins in 1805 Vermont and 1775 New Hampshire respectively.   

Church Growth in 2022

For the second year in a row, the Church annual growth rate increased and in 2022 the Church growth rate once again exceeded the world population growth rate after 2 years of falling behind the world number. Clearly some of the missionary techniques perfected during the worldwide COVID pandemic are proving effective for the global missionary force of 62,544. The new missionary mantra "love, share, invite" introduced in June 2021 (Elders Quentin L. Cook, David A. Bednar, Dieter F. Uchtdorf, and Sister Bonnie H. Cordon in global missionary fireside) publicized by Elder Gary E. Stevenson in April 2022 General Conference, and repeated in October 2022 (Elder Denelson Silva) and April 2023 (Elders Quentin L. Cook and Ahmad S. Corbitt) General Conferences appears to be working. 

Blue Line = Church Annual Growth Rate

Red Line = World Population Annual Growth Rate

Church annual growth rate was 1.54% in 2019, .60% at the height of the COVID pandemic in 2020, .85% in 2021, and 1.17% in war-ravaged 2022. World annual population growth rate was 1.08% in 2019, 1.05% in 2020, 1.03% in 2021, and .84% in 2022. Some demographers expect world annual population growth to go negative by 2050.

As of 12/31/2022 total Church membership stood at 17,002,461, a net increase of 197,061 from 2021's year end number of 16,805,400. Most informed estimates put active, tithe paying, temple recommend holding, mission serving, Sacrament Meeting attending Latter-day Saints at about 6 million or approximately 35% of global membership.

Elder Quentin L Cook on Lehi's Descendants

 In the Saturday morning session of April 2023 General Conference, Elder Quentin L. Cook described the scattering and the gathering of Israel. As part of that talk, he said "Descendants of Father Lehi are spread throughout the Americas." 

Elder Quentin L. Cook on Location of Lehi's Descendants
April 1, 2023

This is yet another witness from modern revelation that Book of Mormon peoples (Lamanites) are not found in just one region of the Western Hemisphere, but reside in all parts of the New World.

Jeff Bezos on Writing Great Prose

 Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, said a well-crafted six-page document cannot be written in a day or two. A week or more is typically the time it will take to author an effective memorandum according to this titan of industry, one of the most successful businessmen in the world today.

Jeff Bezos, Amazon Chairman

This statement from the famous business mogul comes from an article written by Harvard instructor Carmine Gallo for Business Insider.

Historians generally agree Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon in about 65 - 70 working days. The Book of Mormon as published by the Church today has 531 pages. This means the young prophet Joseph in 1829 dictated text to his scribes at the torrid pace of 7.5 to 8.1 pages per day. What Joseph accomplished is superhuman by Bezos' standard, "a marvellous work and a wonder" according to the ancient prophet, Isaiah (Isaiah 29:14).

The Book of Mormon, 531 pages in about 70 days

Is the Book of Mormon a well-crafted, effective document? Originally published on March 26, 1830, it has stood the test of time and more than 5 million copies are printed annually in dozens of languages.