Jerry Grover on volcanoes

I posted this at the Fun with M2C blog, but since it originated at the Interpreter, it made sense to also post it here: https://funwithm2c.blogspot.com/2025/06/jerry-grover-on-volcanoes.html

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Brant Gardner is doing a series on M2C that is a lot of fun. If not for other commitments, I could write numerous posts about it, as well as the comments. 

From time to time people send me examples of the irrationality and confusion that persists among the M2Cers, such as the one below.

To be sure, Jerry Grover is an awesome guy. I like him a lot, he's smart, etc. But this is an example of how the M2C mindset generates a lot of fun rationalization.

(click to enlarge)

Jerry observes that "the word volcano is not found in Biblical Hebrew or ancient Egyptian." Maybe that's because the people who lived in the Middle-East anciently did not experience volcanoes?

No, that's not it. Volcanoes are well-known in the Middle-East and around the Mediterranean. They are even found along Lehi's journey from Jerusalem.

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Figure-1-Regional-map-showing-the-distribution-of-the-volcanic-fields-harrats-across_fig1_259043951

The Bible does not use the Hebrew word for volcano, but it describes volcanic activity, as explained here: https://biblehub.com/topical/naves/v/volcanoes--general_scriptures_concerning.htm

E.g., Nahum 1:5-6: "The mountains quake before Him, and the hills melt away; the earth trembles at His presence—the world and all its dwellers. Who can withstand His indignation? Who can endure His burning anger? His wrath is poured out like fire, and the rocks are shattered before Him."

If the Nephites had actually experienced volcanoes, they could have described it the way Nahum did. After all, Joseph Smith used biblical imagery and language throughout the text.

Jerry then proposes that "great storm" is equivalent to a volcano.

Here is how that phrase is used in the scriptures:

And there arose a great storm of wind, and the waves beat into the ship, so that it was now full. (Mark 4:37)

13 Wherefore, they knew not whither they should steer the ship, insomuch that there arose a great storm, yea, a great and terrible tempest, and we were driven back upon the waters for the space of three days; (1 Nephi 18:13)

5 And it came to pass in the thirty and fourth year, in the first month, on the fourth day of the month, there arose a great storm, such an one as never had been known in all the land. (3 Nephi 8:5)

Jerry wants us to believe that the third instance describes a volcano. Which also means that in the thousand-year history of the Nephites living in Mesoamerica, there was only a single volcanic eruption, that they didn't know the Hebrew word for volcano, and that they could only describe the event using the identical phrase they used for... for what we would normally call a storm.

Then look at the cascading assumptions Jerry makes to come up with a rationale. 

At least we're having fun with M2C.