The current issue of Sunstone has a number of essays on issues dealing with Book of Mormon geography. Brent Metcalfe contributed an essay (PDF) outlining some of the difficulties with the limited geography interpretation. The limited geography interpretation points out the difficulties with the hemispheric interpretation. Trent Stephens explains the difficulties with recent DNA-based criticisms (PDF). Ralph Olsen proposes a Malay setting for the Book of Mormon (PDF). (But in that case, what are we to make of the prophesied Columbus figure, etc.?)
It seems that no matter how you slice it, there are difficulties in trying to place where the Book of Mormon events happened. So here is the Book of Mormon geo challenge: Does the text of the Book of Mormon itself give enough information to know, even generally, where the "promised land" was? Asia? Africa? Malaysia? Mesoamerica? New York? Australia? Greenland? If someone picked up the Book of Mormon without knowing anything about it, without knowing any of the prophetic statements about it or the story of its origin, would they have any idea where it took place?
This is a hot topic, Kim, nice links. I put a trackback in my post on the Malaysian article, but it's not showing on your post yet.
ReplyDelete[Comment originally posted by: Dave | Homepage | 04.30.04 - 4:59 pm]
Did you do the trackback to Kim's blog or to Let Us Reason?
ReplyDelete[Comment originally posted by: Grasshopper | Homepage | 04.30.04 - 5:36 pm]