Dan and M2C: Blowin' in the wind?

Dan Peterson posted some thoughts recently on his Patheos blog that were called to my attention. It's a short piece that promotes Brant Gardner's series. We'll discuss it below.

In the ongoing pursuit of clarity, charity and understanding, I did a peer review of Brant Gardner's Part 13 here: 

https://interpreterpeerreviews.blogspot.com/2025/07/brants-part-13.html

[Editorial aside: Does anyone know of another purportedly "academic" journal for which the webmaster (Brant Gardner) who controls online comments is also the author (Brant Gardner) of the articles that elicited the comments?

For the Interpreter, that's just more of the same. But if anyone knows of another such situation, I'd love to hear about it.]

In his post, Dan expresses a new-found openness in 2025. 

Which makes of think of Bob Dylan: "Yes, and how many times can a man turn his head and pretend that he just doesn't see?"

As always, we charitably assume Dan has the best of intentions. We seek to understand, not to persuade.

But clarity requires us to consider Dan's post in context.

Throughout his career, Dan has adamantly promoted M2C. (See the review at the end of this post.)

the FARMS M2C logo

Now, 

after editing 38 journals at the FARMS Review of Books on the Book of Mormon from 1989-2011 

(FARMS not only promoted M2C exclusively but even used a Mayan glyph in its logo to represent the Book of Mormon as a Mayan "codex"), 

after founding and managing the Interpreter, which also heavily promotes M2C and criticizes Heartlanders, and 

even here on his Patheos blog where he continually promotes M2C and criticizes Heartlanders, he has finally professed an element of objectivity, haha.

Nevertheless, hope springs eternal. 

Let's see how he did. 

_____

Here is the link to Dan's post, illustrated with the predicable M2C map adapted from L.E. Hills' 1917 map, showing Cumorah in southern Mexico:

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2025/07/heartland-or-mesoamerica.html

Book of Mormon lands?  An image from Utto at the English-language Wikipedia.

It is important to distinguish between Dan's M2C (the Mesoamerican/two-Cumorahs theory) and other theories that include Mesoamerica in connection with the New York  Cumorah. As Dan's map here shows, the M2Cers reject what the prophets have taught about Cumorah/Ramah in New York. That is their underlying premise.

Everything else is bias confirmation, albeit dressed up as academic analysis in the FARMS Review, the Interpreter, etc.

(click to enlarge)

On to Dan's article.

_____

Newly posted today on the website of the Interpreter Foundation:  The Heartland Versus Mesoamerica Part 13: Some Final Comments , written by Brant A. Gardner.  I regard this series as a very important contribution to studies of the Book of Mormon, and a useful corrective.

"Corrective" is an interesting word choice. As our peer review noted, Brant's series was a full-fledged defense of M2C that avoided and misrepresented counterpoints to M2C.

But Dan considers that a "useful corrective." 

Corrective of what? All Brant has done is repeat the M2C talking points while offering a mere caricature of Heartland ideas and supporting evidence. 

Worse, Brant Gardner published over a dozen articles and reviews in Dan's FARMS Review from as early as 2001. After 25 years of collaboration and groupthink, no one should be surprised that Dan happens to agree with Brant. That's why Dan owes it to his readers to explain what "corrective" Brant's latest work offers. 

One thing is for sure: Brant is not offering a "corrective" to his 25 years of collaboration with Dan to promote M2C. 

Is the Interpreter Foundation officially pledged to a limited-geography for the Book of Mormon that is centered in southern Mexico, Guatemala, and (perhaps) adjacent areas?  No, it is not.  

As a rhetorical question, this might work to deflect from the widespread criticism of the Interpreter's well-established editorial M2C bias, a carryover from the FARMS Review. Presumably Dan finally recognizes that many Interpreter readers want the Interpreter to be transparent, open, and considerate of a range of faithful views.

But we can all see that since its inception, the Interpreter has consistently promoted M2C and attacked Heartland. After all, Brant Gardner not only wrote the series of articles Dan is praising, but Brant is also the webmaster who controls comments online.

Besides, no one has claimed that the Interpreter Foundation has "official pledged" to anything, let alone a specific Book of Mormon setting. Dan's suggestion otherwise is just a straw man. 

We can all see that everyone who works for and contributes to the Interpreter shares the M2C belief and bias. No "Heartlander" is allowed anywhere near the editorial decisions, not even for pre-publication peer review purposes.  

Am I myself fundamentally committed to a Mesoamerican geographical model for the Nephites and the Jaredites?  I am not.  I’m open to alternative proposals.  

It's cool that Dan at least purports to be "open to alternative proposals." That rhetorical shift may reflect an underlying recognition that the Interpreter's reputation as an academic journal is compromised by editorial "consensus" on this and other points. 

But readers can decide for themselves how credible Dan's claim is, given his decades of promoting M2C and attacking other faithful interpretations.

To this point, though, and at least since my first reading of John L. Sorenson’s seminal 1984 book An Ancient American Setting for the Book of Mormon, the “limited Tehuantepec” model has struck me as plausible and, in fact, as the best proposal (or family of proposals) on the market. 

This confession of his "anchoring bias" (see below) is useful to understand his worldview. I once shared that bias, not by reading the book but by reading John's pre-publication manuscript he sent out for peer review. Like Dan, I was convinced. 

The difference is, I wasn't content to simply adopt John's views. Nor was I content to join the groupthink on display in the FARMS Review. I was actually open to different ideas and evidence. Once I carefully evaluated them, I changed my mind and concluded that Heartland was a far better explanation than M2C.

But I'm focused on clarity, charity and understanding, not persuasion. Clarity leads us to notice that Dan doesn't mention any other proposals he is familiar with. In fact, his next sentence implies he hasn't studied anything else.

However, if advocates of “Heartland models” can present solid evidence and rigorous arguments in support of their positions, I will listen. 

Obviously, what constitutes "solid evidence and rigorous arguments" is a subjective question. Brant's series is replete with fallacies and omissions, but because they confirm Brant's (and Dan's) biases, Dan deems them "solid" and "rigorous."

Whether Dan would actually listen is a separate question, but the real question is whether he would allow such arguments to be presented to Interpreter readers. Presumably not.

But maybe that will change?

Other than having been a friend of John Sorenson’s and counting other Mesoamericanists among my friends, I have no personal investment in a Mesoamerican setting for the Book of Mormon.  

"No personal investment" is another fun word choice. Maybe Dan means he has not personally invested money into M2C? But we can all see that he has invested considerable time and energy to promote M2C. He has written, edited and published content that promotes M2C for at least 36 years. Even today, Brant Gardner, one of the most strident M2Cers alive, is both the author Dan promotes and the webmaster of Dan's Interpreter.

I have to honestly confess, though, I haven’t found Heartlander arguments persuasive thus far.

"Honestly confess" should be redundant, but people write that way to emphasize their sincerity and build trust, usually to mitigate guilt or offset suspicion. Dan could have demonstrated (instead of merely professing) an honest confession by offering at least one Heartland book or resource he has actually read.

No one questions his honesty, but even in this short piece Dan demonstrates his bias. 

Nevertheless, we can hope that Dan will follow up with his shift toward transparency and openness. We will see what, if anything, changes in the Interpreter or Patheos.

_____

Dan's short piece demonstrates several thinking errors. Which of the following do you think is the most prominent on display? 

I'd vote for anchoring bias, but it's a close call because they all apply.

_____

Finally, let's take a quick look at Dan's history with M2C.

The FARMS Review at its current location includes this ironic Abstract: "The principal purpose of the Review is to help serious readers make informed choices and judgments about books published primarily on the Book of Mormon. The evaluations are intended to encourage reliable scholarship on the Book of Mormon."

Rather than help readers make informed choices, the FARMS Review was characterized by sarcastic, arrogant editorial attacks on even faithful viewpoints that diverge from the views of Dan Peterson and his collaborators. Pick up any copy of the FARMS Review for multiple examples. The Interpreter has continued this tradition through the present.

In the last issue of the FARMS Review, Dan wrote a retrospective on his 22 years at the journal.

I wanted the Review of Books on the Book of Mormon to be something that would have value in itself, that would be worth buying and reading in its own right. 

Fortunately, that goal was achieved right from the start. 

I’ll use as my illustration of that fact John Clark’s review of F. Richard Hauck’s Deciphering the Geography of the Book of Mormon. When I first approached Professor Clark, already a very experienced Mesoamerican archaeologist, with the proposal that he review the Hauck book, he was— to put it mildly—reluctant. He was busy, often on the road, preoccupied with digs in Chiapas, Mexico. He wasn’t particularly eager to wade into the squabbles over Book of Mormon geography. 

Frankly, I did not expect to receive anything from him. But then he came through, in spectacular fashion, with a marvelous review essay entitled “A Key for Evaluating Nephite Geographies.”2 It eventually yielded fifty-one pages in the printed edition, complete with maps, tables, and figures. Going beyond simply reviewing a specific book, it set forth ten fundamental requirements that had to be met by any aspiring geographical model for the Book of Mormon. It was precisely the kind of thing that, just as I had hoped, would have value in itself and would be worth buying and reading in its own right.

Clark's article thus bookends the FARMS Review, appearing in the first and last issues. That is fitting, because every article published by Dan on the topic accepts Clark's approach as a given.

Unsurprisingly, Clark's "Key" and his "ten fundamental requirements" were designed to confirm the M2C bias. His first "fundamental requirement" involves the "narrow neck of land," thereby conflating the different terms in the text.

I am convinced that the narrow neck of land was an isthmus flanked by an east sea and a west sea. It separated the land northward from the land southward.

https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1829&context=msr 

https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/msr/vol1/iss1/7

While we can all see that Clark, like Dan Peterson, was "convinced" about his interpretation of the "narrow neck of land," we can also all read the text for ourselves and see this interpretation is not required and is not even likely, given the different terminology used to describe narrow and small places.

Despite his 36+ years promoting M2C, Dan's latest post professing openness is a step in the right direction.

We can all hope that maybe, eventually, Dan will transform the Interpreter into a resource that actually does "help serious readers make informed choices.'

_____

Brant's part 13

Brant Gardner finished his series of blog posts comparing M2C with the Heartland. Brant is a fine scholar, a great guy, and a faithful Latter-day Saint. 

The series is a good candidate for a FAITH model analysis if/when I get the time. Hopefully someone else will take the opportunity to separate the facts we all know from the various assumptions, inferences and theories that lead to the multiple working hypotheses found throughout the community of Latter-day Saints.

So in that sense, kudos to Brant.

But hopefully in the future he will consider employing the FAITH model.

_____ 

Certainly we can't expect the Interpreter (or the M2C-driven Meridian Magazine) to do a serious peer review of anything that promotes M2C (although I've offered to do so many times). Nor can we expect them to publish an explanation of the Heartland model by anyone who is not a critic.

Consequently, we'll do a peer review of his conclusion here, all in the spirit of offering suggestions for improvement in the pursuit of clarity, charity and undesrtanding. 

Original in blue, my comment in red.

https://interpreterfoundation.org/the-heartland-versus-mesoamerica-part-13-some-final-comments/

This series of blog posts has been a comparison between two possible real-world locations for the Book of Mormon: The Heartland and Mesoamerica. 

For the Heartland model, it is clear that the most important facet of the proposal is the declaration that the hill in upstate New York, from which Joseph Smith retrieved the plates, was the very hill Cumorah of the Nephite final battles. 

Yes, it seems obvious that the unambiguous, clear, and specific teachings of the prophets should prevail over private interpretations of the text, especially when those interpretations themselves are ambiguous, contorted, and outcome-driven.

But to say this is "the most important facet" ignores the reality that different aspects of the question have more importance than others for different people. Some people focus on the extrinsic evidence, some on the prophetic promises and covenants, some on the historical accounts, and some on other issues. 

In my view, the teachings of the prophets are a solid starting place, but I'm also interested in, and consider to be important, the extrinsic evidence and the text itself.

This is the point most vehemently argued for and it is supported by long tradition and statements by leading Church authorities from the past. It is by far the strongest aspect of the Heartland model.

No objective, rational or even fair author would use "vehemently" here. An actual peer reviewer would have deleted it. But we're dealing with the Interpreter, so it's just normal rhetoric.

Nevertheless, this is a pejorative framing for purely rhetorical purposes. But Brent doesn't acknowledge that the New York Cumorah is also supported by the text itself, as well as extrinsic evidence.

As discussed in the second post on the “Heartland Pins in the Map,” the adamant declarations of previous generations of General Authorities hasve [sic] not continued to the present. The current statements and instructions are much more cautious. 

Shortly before his death, Brigham Young warned about exactly the problem Brant points to here: "I take this liberty of referring to those things so that they will not be forgotten and lost." Few Latter-day Saints today know what Brigham Young said. Unlike Joseph's contemporaries, they have never read Oliver's letters (including Letter IV and VII), which Joseph had republished repeatedly. References to Cumorah have been removed from lesson manuals and other curriculum that many of us grew up with. But no General Authorities have ever repudiated the New York Cumorah the way scholars such as Brent have. Church leaders have noted the problem of contention about this issue (such as Brent's rhetoric) which may explain why they simply avoid it. Even the Gospel Topics entry on Book of Mormon geography doesn't mention Cumorah. https://www.ldshistoricalnarratives.com/p/book-of-mormon-geography-essay.html

In particular, the historians cannot find any mention of the NY hill being called Cumorah in the earliest documents, . It cannot be found in Joseph’s descriptions until the 1840s, despite its fairly common use prior to that among others.

This is a persistent argument by M2Cers, based on an outcome-driven approach to history. We have virtually no documents prior to 1829. The first known written account of the First Vision is Joseph's 1832 history--12 years after the fact--and it doesn't mention two beings or the other details we all accept because of the 1842 account. The earliest published account was in 1840 by Orson Pratt--20 years after the fact.

By contrast, the earliest published account of Cumorah was in Jan 1833 (Phelps, E&MS 1), making it closer in proximity to Moroni's visit than Joseph's earliest account of the First Vision was to that experience. Oliver's detailed Letter VII in 1835--12 years after Moroni's first visit--declares it is a fact that the hill Cumorah/Ramah is in New York.    

Historians rely extensively on Lucy Mack Smith's history for information about the pre-1830 era. Lucy recalled that it was Moroni who identified the hill as Cumorah the first time he met Joseph, and that Joseph referred to the hill as Cumorah before he even obtained the plates. That recollection is corroborated by David Whitmer's experience in 1829 with the messenger who had the abridged plates and said he was going to Cumorah before giving Joseph the plates of Nephi in Fayette. Lucy's recollection is also corroborated by Parley Pratt's Autobiography, in which Oliver explained to the Indians in 1830 that Moroni called the hill Cumorah anciently.

Joseph's letter in 1842 (D&C 128:20) corroborates and affirms these earlier accounts. "Glad tidings from Cumorah! Moroni, an angel from heaven, declaring the fulfilment of the prophets—the book to be revealed." (Doctrine and Covenants 128:20) As Lucy explained, Joseph knew the name Cumorah before he ever saw the plates.

One argument that is often suggested is that if Joseph didn’t believe that the NY hill was Cumorah, he would have corrected those who used that term. 

This sentence uses another rhetorical tactic to obfuscate the issue. It's not a question of whether Joseph "believed" the NY hill was Cumorah; it's a question of whether we believe what Joseph, Oliver, and the others said. As Oliver explained, the New York Cumorah/Ramah was not a question of belief--it was a fact.

Consequently, Brant's argument is a logical fallacy. But he uses that to set up his next argument.

[Note: it is true that some have made the argument that if Cumorah was not in New York, Joseph would have corrected those who claimed it was. But that would have been based on Joseph's knowledge, not someone's speculation.]

That same argument could be made about the early excitement of the discovery of the ruins in Mexico and Guatemala that were discovered by Stephens and Catherwood. If Joseph thought that those ruins of cities and temples couldn’t be part of the Book of Mormon, he should have corrected those who connected them with the text. 

While this argument "could be made," it's not a rational argument for several reasons, of which I'll mention two here. First, the Book of Mormon relates less than 1% of the history of the Nephites and Lamanites. And it ends around 420 AD. This leaves 1400 years of history unaccounted for (up to 1830) over an unknown extent of land. Several LDS authors at the time advocated a hemispheric model as well. Even today, no one knows how many of Lehi's descendants lived in Central America during or after Book of Mormon time frames, but it seems likely that at least some did. There is no reason to suppose that Joseph "should have" corrected such speculation. 

Second, in the Wentworth letter ("Church History," March 1, 1842) Joseph had already edited out Orson Pratt's prior speculation (1840) about Central America. See https://www.mobom.org/wentworth-orson-pratt 

Speaking of the remnant of Book of Mormon peoples, Joseph declared that "The remnant are the Indians that now inhabit this country." 

[Note: although that statement was censored from the Joseph Smith manual, we can all still read it in the Joseph Smith Papers and other published versions of the Wentworth letter.]

It is also relevant that Letter VII had been published in the Times and Seasons in 1841. The letter now canonized as D&C 128 was published in October 1842, such that the New York Cumorah bookends the Meso articles.

If the lack of correction is supposed to bolster the NY hill as Cumorah, it equally supports at least the possibility of Mesoamerica. 

Although Brant is still comparing the lack of correction of a fact (Cumorah) with the lack of correction about speculation (Mesoamerica) so the two are not equal, he has a good point here. The possibility of Mesoamerica has always been on the table.

The pretty clear fact from the absence of any correction from Joseph, is that the ideas of where the Book of Mormon events occurred were quite open. If any model dominated in the early years of the Church, it was the hemispheric model.

Now Brant has switched gears without alerting his readers. He has conflated the location of Cumorah/Ramah, which was never in doubt or "open," with the question of where other Book of Mormon sites could be located. The distinction between Cumorah and other locations has always been clear. Even Orson Pratt's 1879 footnotes distinguished between the fact of Cumorah and sites such as Zarahamla and Bountiful which he identified as "it is believed." 

https://www.mobom.org/orson-pratts-1879-footnotes

The multiple examinations I have done in this series of posts rarely suggest that the Heartland model works on any level. 

Naturally they would not, because Brant does not want the Heartland model to work on any level. But everyone who reads his series of posts can see that plain as day.

For example, the strongest Heartland model “pin” is the traditional association of the NY hill with Cumorah. The Heartland model completely ignores the Book of Mormon internal geography, which clearly indicates that the Nephites did not come to Cumorah until long after they had been forced north of the narrow neck. 

This is an excellent example of how Brant's interpretation of the text merely conforms to his predetermined model. By referring to "the narrow neck" he conflates all the Book of Mormon terms that involve "narrow" or "small," contrary to normal usage of the language, as we've discussed many times. 

E.g., https://www.lettervii.com/2025/06/narrow-necks-etc.html 

To assume that even in a limited Mesoamerican geography there can be only one "narrow neck" is purely an outcome-driven assumption.

The typical Heartland model narrow neck is between the Great Lakes. It is indeed narrow, but it is north of the NY Cumorah whereas the Book of Mormon narrow neck is south.

Same "narrow neck" assumption we just discussed, but I don't know how any particular "narrow neck" is "typical." There are numerous Heartland models. Brant's approach is to find one that doesn't fit his interpretation of the text and then say that's the one that is "typical." 

I assume everyone who reads his series can see this, but the job of a peer reviewer is to point out rhetorical and logical problems with the material so they can be corrected before publication.

There is a very important reason that these posts are so lopsided in favor of the Mesoamerican model, and why the Heartland theory isn’t my stated preference for the events of the Book of Mormon. 

The primary reason is it wouldn't have been published by the Interpreter otherwise. But secondarily, we all know Brant is fully invested in M2C. 

The posts have looked at issues that belong to anthropology, archaeology, history, and geology. Those are all disciplines which are open to evidentiary inquiry. That is the kind of analysis I have provided. 

We all agree that Brant actually thinks this, but we can all see that his analysis is superficial because it relies on his subjective interpretation of the text. His familiarity with Mesoamerica and his long history of promoting M2C drive everything he writes on the topic. His analysis is a classic example of confirmation bias. 

The unknown question is why he is so determined to repudiate the teachings of the prophets. We can only infer that he closely identifies with the M2C theory he has spent so much of his life defending that he either cannot, or refuses to, objectively assess other perspectives.

I can only speak for myself, but I know lots of other former M2Cers who were once convinced that Sorenson, Welch, Gardner and others had made a convincing case for M2C. I once thought arguments by these fine LDS scholars were solid. Maybe even irrefutable.

But then I learned better and now their logical and factual fallacies are obvious to me.

I assume most of their students and followers agree with them that the prophets were wrong about Cumorah. And that's all fine. People can believe whatever they want.

But as we've seen in this simple, quick peer review, the M2Cers resort to logical fallacies and omit relevant facts every time they write about this subject. And apparently they don't even realize it.

It is important to understand that the arguments of the Heartland model– the ones that appear to have been the most persuasive – are not evidentiary but rather personal and related to faith. 

Brant's arguments in this piece, as well as his argument in the many volumes of commentary he has published, are entirely "personal and related to faith." That's why Mesoamerican scholars find the attempt to place Book of Mormon events in Mesoamerica to be foolish and contrary to all evidence. 

But because Brant believes the Book of Mormon is a true history (albeit mistranslated in several respects), and because he also believes the events took place in Mesoamerica, his confirmation bias leads him to find all kinds of correspondences and parallels between what he considers the evidence and his interpretation of the text.

And that's great. Everyone who has come up with a model of Book of Mormon geography has done exactly the same thing. 

But Brant's bias prevents him from recognizing that others are making evidentiary arguments to support their views.

When the argument is based on the way one reads particular prophecies and promises of the Book of Mormon, evidence is the wrong measuring stick. One can explain how one sees those prophecies and promises, but they are not subject to the kind of analysis that can be based on objective evidence.

Now Brant is shifting gears again. First, he claimed it was Cumorah that mattered. Now it is "prophecies and promises." But even those who start with "prophecies and promises" support their views with objective evidence. 

In the end, even the strongest points of the Heartland model cannot be compared to the strength of the Mesoamerican model. There is simply no common ground where the two can meet. The weakest of the Mesoamerican evidences are still a better textual fit than the strongest of the Heartland arguments.

It may be true that there is no common ground because of the fundamental difference about Cumorah. M2Cers think the prophets were wrong and work to confirm that bias. Heartlanders think the prophets were correct and work to confirm that bias. 

But that doesn't mean the two sides have any reason to contend. We can all see the same facts. From there, our respective assumptions, inferences, and theories diverge, but by seeking to understand one another, we can avoid contention and continue to live in peace as we all work to establish Zion.

by Brant A. Gardner | Jul 9, 2025

Review: Anachronisms: Accidental Evidence in Book of Mormon Criticisms

Humboldt, 1814

In the pursuit of clarity, charity and understanding, we're offering a peer review of another Interpreter article. This article is the preface to a serialized book, so we'll look at each installment as time allows.

As always, we offer this peer review in the spirit of understanding and improvement, not in any effort to persuade. And in the spirit of charity, we recognize the author is an awesome fellow Latter-day Saint, sincere, smart, careful, etc. We hope this review helps improve his work going forward.

In the pursuit of clarity, we point out some useful facts to be considered by everyone interested in the origin and setting of the Book of Mormon.

My bias: to be clear, I believe Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery told the truth about what they experienced and learned about the origin and setting of the Book of Mormon. Among other things, that means Joseph translated the plates by means of the Urim and Thummim that came with the plates, and the hill Cumorah/Ramah is in western New York.

Note: I updated this post to provide specific quotations and links.

I consider SITH (the stone-in-the-hat theory) and M2C (the Mesoamerican/two-Cumorahs theory), both of which are heavily and repeatedly promoted by the Interpreter, to be specific repudiations of what Joseph and Oliver claimed. Promoters of M2C and SITH claim that Joseph and Oliver deliberately misled everyone about the origin and setting of the Book of Mormon.

Which is fine. People can believe whatever they want.

Naturally, and as expected, this Interpreter article continues the tradition of promoting M2C. But M2C (and SITH) advocates should not mislead their readers by omitting relevant information. Hence my suggestions here.

Original in blue, my comments in red, other quotations in green.

[Editor’s Note: We are pleased to present the preface from a book entitled Anachronisms: Accidental Evidence in Book of Mormon Criticisms. It is presented in serialized form in this volume of Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship.]

We'll offer peer reviews of the installments as time allows.

Anachronisms: Accidental Evidence in Book of Mormon Criticisms

Preface

Wade Ardern

Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 65 (2025): vii-x

Table of Contents

 
 

Preface

When the Book of Mormon came off the press on 27 March 1830, it opened itself to textual scrutiny. Was evidence of the amazing world of the Book of Mormon—with highways, written language, cement buildings, towers, temples, elephants, and kingdoms—observable in what the 1830 reader knew about the ancient American world? 

This rhetorical question is awkward grammatically, but it also ignores the reality that these attributes of ancient America were well known in 1830 regarding Central America, but they were unknown at the time in North America.

For many, it wasn’t. 

Many even in our day may be unaware of these attributes of ancient America, but more relevant, many in our day are apparently unaware that these attributes were already well known even in 1830. (Humboldt discussed this in his 1814 book referenced below.*)

The prevailing prejudice in nineteenth-century America was that Amerindian peoples were rude savages, so the historical and cultural assumptions evident in the Book of Mormon seemed too fantastic. 

The generality of this sentence makes it both true and false, depending on which "Amerindian peoples" the author refers to. The sophisticated civilizations in Central and South America were well known in 1830, but the peoples in North America were considered "rude savages," so in that sense the sentence is accurate.

Obvious anachronisms abounded. In 1830, everybody knew there were no swords or cement buildings in ancient America, and the ancient inhabitants certainly did not know how to read and write.

Again, this was true for North America (which corroborates the New York Cumorah) but not for Central and South America, where ancient ruins of stone and cement, as well as manuscripts of writing, were well known well before 1830.

In 1841 John Lloyd Stephens and Frederick Catherwood published Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan1 and, suddenly, some presumed “facts” about the ancient Americas changed.2 

This is a fictitious straw man argument, at least regarding Central and South America. Now we've gone from the ignorance of "many" to "presumed 'facts'" that were not presumed at all. 

The Spanish described their discoveries when they first arrived in the Americas. Here's just one example from Hernán Cortés (1519–1521). In his Letters from Mexico (Cartas de Relación), Cortés described Tenochtitlán, the Aztec capital (modern Mexico City): “The city is as large as Seville or Córdoba… The streets are very wide and straight… There are many temples and towers, all very beautiful.”  

Note 2 refers to Juan Galindo's 1831 book. That implies nothing was known prior to 1830.

However, Stephens himself referred to the work of Humboldt, which motivated Stephens do embark on his expedition in the first place ("roused our curiosity"):

The first new light thrown upon this subject as regards Mexico was by the great Humboldt, who visited that country at a time when, by the jealous policy of the government, it was almost as much closed against strangers as China is now. No man could have better deserved such fortune. At that time the monuments of the country were not a leading object of research ; but Humboldt collected from various sources information and drawings, particularly of Mitla, or the Vale of — the Dead; Xoxichaleo, a mountain hewed down and. terraced, and called the Hill of Flowers; and the great pyramid or Temple of Cholula he visited himself, of all which his own eloquent account is within reach of the reader. 

[These plates are shown at the end of this post.]

Unfortunately, of the great cities beyond the Vale of Mexico, buried in forests, ruined, desolate, and without a name, Humboldt never heard, or, at least, he never visited them. It is but lately that accounts of their existence reached Europe and our own country. These accounts, however vague and unsatisfactory, had roused our curiosity; though I ought perhaps to say that both Mr. C. and I were somewhat skeptical, and when we arrived at Copan, it was with the hope, rather than the expectation, of finding wonders.

https://archive.org/details/incidentsoftrave11841step/page/98/mode/2up?q=Humboldt

Notice that Stephens assumed Humboldt's work "is within the reach of the reader." Any LDS scholar writing about Stephens and Catherwood owes it to readers to explain this. 

Furthermore, Humboldt's 2-volume set titled Political Essay on the Kingdom of New Spain, published in 1811, was on sale in the Palmyra book store that Joseph visited weekly (although Researches is not listed). 

Volume 1 discusses the geography, including the isthmus of Tehuantepec: 

"The isthmus of Tehuantepec, to the S. E. of the port of Vera Cruz, is the point of New Spain in which the continent is narrowest."

https://archive.org/details/b32887036_0001/page/14/mode/2up?q=Tehuantepec 

Volume 2 mentions ruins, calendars, Aztec manuscripts, and monuments, and explains that the Olmecs were more ancient than the Toltecs.

"The only ancient monuments in the Mexican valley, which from their size or their masses can strike the eyes of a European, are the remains of the two pyramids of San Juan de Teotihuacan, situated to the north-east of the lake of Tezcueo, consecrated to the sun and moon, which the Indians called Tonatiuh Ytzaqual, house of the sun, and Metzli Ytzaqual, house of the moon.... The nations whom the Spaniards found settled in New Spain attributed the pyramids of Teotihuacan to the Toultec nation ;* consequently their construction goes as far back as the eighth or ninth century ; for the kingdom of Tolula, lasted from 667 to 1031."

* Siguenza, however, in his manuscript notes, believes them to be the work of the Olmec nation, which dwelt round the Sierra de Tlascala, called Matlacueje. If this hypothesis, of which we are unacquainted with the historical foundations, be true, these monuments would be still more ancient. For the Olmecs belong to the first nations mentioned in the Aztec chronology as existing in New Spain.. It is even pretended that the Olmecs are the only nation of which the migration took place, not from the north and north-west (Mongol Asia ?) but from the east (Europe ?).

https://archive.org/details/b32887036_0002/page/40/mode/2up

Humboldt famously met with President Thomas Jefferson in 1804 and showed him a map of North America, including the Isthmus of Tehuantepec.

https://www.visitthecapitol.gov/artifact/general-map-kingdom-new-spain-16deg-38deg-north-latitude-alexander-von-humboldt-1804 

All of this was well known before 1828, even in Palmyra, New York.

Humboldt’s accounts of Mesoamerican ruins were included in his Vues des Cordillères et monumens des peuples indigènes de l’Amérique (1810–1813) or its English translation Researches, concerning the institutions & monuments of the ancient inhabitants of America, with descriptions and views of some of the most striking scenes in the Cordilleras! (1814).

The French volume contained dozens of illustrated plates similar to those later created by Catherwood. The English volume contained fewer, apparently because of the cost of printing, but still had some of the monuments and hieroglyphics from Central America. I included some of these at the end of this post.

Catherwood’s engravings in the Incidents of Travel books (including Palenque’s temples) continue the tradition of illustrating antiquities that Humboldt employed in Vues des Cordillères (with 69 plates).

Back to the Interpreter article:

This record of their expedition offered detailed descriptions and illustrations of forty-four sites and showed that at least some ancient Amerindians were sophisticated, contrary to popular opinion. [Page viii]

Again, vague "popular opinion" could be anything one imagines, but the existence of sophisticated ancient cites in Central America was not only well-known, but prompted Stephens' own expedition in the first place.

By 1842 excerpts from Incidents of Travel were being published in the Church’s newspaper, Times and Seasons, and the editor noted that “It will not be a bad plan to compare Mr. Stephens’ ruined cities with those in the Book of Mormon: light cleaves to light, and facts are supported by facts.”3

We've discussed these articles in detail elsewhere (e.g., The Lost City of Zarahemla, 2nd edition), but the 1842 articles are obviously speculative and say nothing to contradict the fact that Cumorah'Ramah is in New York, as was also stated in the Times and Seasons.

As expeditions, archaeological discoveries, and the field of anthropology progressed, more became known about the ancient Americas and her peoples. 

This is axiomatic in every field of research.

Slowly, what were previously judged as anachronisms in the Book of Mormon became evidences, supported by what was learned about the past—the book was right about cement buildings, towers, kingdoms, and many other things.

These were anachronisms for North America, and maybe a few for Central or South America, but most of these things were known before the Stephens book was published. That's why the argument doesn't work for Central and South America, and why it is another evidence that corroborates the Cumorah (New York)-centric settings.

In May 2005 the Library of Congress hosted a symposium on “The Worlds of Joseph Smith,”4 timed to commemorate the bicentennial anniversary of Joseph’s birth. 

I discussed the symposium here:

https://www.bookofmormoncentralamerica.com/2021/06/the-worlds-of-joseph-smith-updated.html

here:

https://www.bookofmormoncentralamerica.com/2024/04/joseph-smith-conference-2005.html

here:

https://www.bookofmormoncentralamerica.com/2019/06/does-book-of-mormon-matter.html

and here:

https://www.bookofmormoncentralamerica.com/2015/02/peer-review-of-farms-review-222-2010.html

I had recently completed a master’s degree in anthropology at Brigham Young University, chaired by Professor John E. Clark. He was asked to speak at the symposium and took me on as a research associate. Part of his focus was to demonstrate that the list of anachronisms claimed for the Book of Mormon in 1830 was dwindling as more of the past was revealed. I went to work reading and annotating everything I could find, published between 1830 and 1900, that criticized the Book of Mormon. My task was to identify every criticism that could be tested archaeologically. Matthew Roper already had a handle on all of this material and graceously [sic] opened his trove of research to me.

This is all useful in the sense of understanding the intellectual ancestry of M2C (the Mesoamerican/two-Cumorahs theory). It is also useful to see how confirmation bias operates psychologically.

Research continued after the Library of Congress symposium in preparation for the 2005 FAIR Conference. Professor Clark invited Matt and me to work with him and present at the conference together.5 That was an exciting time for me, and I felt I was the proverbial mule at the Kentucky Derby—I had no place being there, but I enjoyed the company it let me keep.6

Of course, Matt’s research in this area began long before the 2005 FAIR Conference and has continued in the twenty years since. His meticulous work has yielded a bounty of correlations, gleaned from both the dustiest books and the latest scientific research. It is that bounty that he shares in this book.

We'll see what is in the rest of the book. However, in the past, Matt's "correlations" have involved a combination of (i) retranslating the text (the so-called Sorenson translation) to substitute words that Joseph did not use (e.g., horses are tapirs, towers are Mayan pyramids, the "narrow strip of mountainous wilderness," etc.), (ii) finding "correlations" common to most, if not all, human civilizations, (iii) rejecting the teachings of the prophets about Cumorah (e.g., President Cowdery's declaration that the New York Cumorah/Ramah is a fact), (iv) ignoring the actual experts on Mesoamerica who find zero correlations between Mesoamerican culture and the Book of Mormon, and (v) attenuated speculation based on tenuous interpretation of the text (e.g., only one "neck of land" in the entire text, albeit described by different terms).

Matt would be the first to tell you that the real and intended purpose of the Book of Mormon is to convince the world that Jesus is the Christ. 

The first to tell us is the Title Page, but every believer accepts this as axiomatic.

While the work presented in this book substantiates historical, geographical, and cultural claims of the Book of Mormon, the author [Page ix]is, in fact, converted to the truth of the Book of Mormon by the power of the Holy Ghost.

Great!

—Wade Ardern
May 2025

_____

*To be sure, Humboldt himself discussed the history of knowledge about ancient America.

In the beginning of the conquest of America, the attention of Europe was chiefly directed toward the gigantic constructions of Couzco, the high roads carried along the centre of the Cordilleras, the pyramids with steps, and the worship and symbolical writings of the Mexicans.

But then he noted that 

The ardour, with which America had been the object of investigation, diminished from the beginning of the seventeenth century....Some distinguished writers, more struck with the contrasts than the harmony

of nature, have described the whole of America as a marshy country, unfavourable to the increase of animals, and newly inhabited by hordes as savage as the people of the South Sea. In the historical researches respecting the Americans, candid examination had given place to absolute scepticism.

This appears to be the era that the Interpreter article refers to. But Humboldt went on to explain that this era had already passed when he published his book in 1814.

Since the end of the last century, a happy revolution has taken place in the manner of examining the civilization of nations, and the causes which impede or favour its progress.... my own recent investigations on the natives of America appear at an epocha, in which we no longer deem unworthy of attention whatever is not conformable to that style, of which the Greeks have left such inimitable models.

_____

Some of Humboldt's plates from 1814 are shown below. On the first page of his book, Humboldt explained that 

I have collected, in the following work whatever relates to the origin and first progress of the arts among the natives of America. Two thirds of the plates which it contains present specimens of the remains of their architecture, sculpture, historical paintings, and hieroglyphics relative to

their division of time, and the system of their calendar.

https://archive.org/details/researchesconcer01humb/page/146/mode/2up

As mentioned above, Stephens assumed his readers were familiar with Humboldt's work.

Yet the Interpreter article claims otherwise:

The prevailing prejudice in nineteenth-century America was that Amerindian peoples were rude savages, so the historical and cultural assumptions evident in the Book of Mormon seemed too fantastic. 

I'll assume everyone can see the disconnect here.

_____

The plates can be seen here:

https://archive.org/details/vuesdescordille2humb/page/n45/mode/2up