Limited geography model
[6] Archaeological evidence supporting the Book of Mormon's "Mound-builder" literary setting is not interpreted by mainstream academia as proving the historicity or divinity of the work.
"[11][13] Another prominent proponent of the limited geography model was LDS scholar Hugh Nibley, who argued that the assumption that there were no other people present in the New World at the time of Lehi's arrival might be incorrect.
"[15] Early in the twentieth century, RLDS (Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints) members proposed a limited Mesoamerican geography for the Book of Mormon.
[16] By the middle of the twentieth century, most LDS authors shared the belief that the Book of Mormon events took place within a limited region in Mesoamerica, and that others were present on the continent at the time of Lehi's arrival.
[20] According to a subset of LDS scholars investigating the field, the application of the Book of Mormon limited geography model to a Mesoamerican setting produces a "highly plausible match.
[22] Based on textual analysis and comparison of the Book of Mormon limited geography model to existing geographical regions, time-lines and cultures, many LDS scholars believe that the Book of Mormon geography is centered in Mesoamerica around the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, in the area of current day Guatemala and the southern Mexico States of Tabasco, Chiapas, Oaxaca, Veracruz, and the surrounding area.
[25] Some LDS scholars believe that the Tehuantapec model provides enough of a match with existing geography, ancient cultures and ruins, to propose plausible locations for certain Book of Mormon places and events.
The Isthmus of Tehuantepec, at 125 miles (201 km) wide, is considered by some LDS scholars to be "just within the range of plausibility" for the "day and a half's journey for a Nephite" indicated by the text of the Book of Mormon,[32] although critics question this association.
[33] Several proponents of the Tehuantapec model have proposed that the final battles of the Lamanites and the Nephite civilizations occurred at the Cerro El Vigia ("Lookout Hill"), a 3000 foot (800 m) tall extinct volcano located in the northwestern section of the Sierra de los Tuxtlas mountain range in Mexico.
[34] Support for the hypothesis of Mesoamerica as a plausible location for a limited Book of Mormon geography requires that the ancient inhabitants have a highly developed system of writing.
[38] Several Book of Mormon geography models conflict with the western New York location of Cumorah where Joseph Smith reported finding the golden plates.
[47] One author criticizes this theory as being "problematic" because "Moroni makes it clear that he buried the plates in the vicinity of the Nephites' destruction, not 2,000 miles (3,200 km) away in some remote region."
Historian and journalist Hampton Sides remarks, "As fantastic as it may seem, [LDS apologist John] Sorenson actually argues that there were two Cumorahs: one in Mexico where the great battle took place, and where Moroni buried a longer, unexpurgated version of the golden Nephite records; and one near Palmyra, New York, where Moroni eventually buried a condensed version of the plates after lugging them on an epic trek of several thousand miles.
[58] Favoring a setting more localized near the Great Lakes, Mormon apologist Phyllis Olive writes that Lehi's company sailed across the Gulf of Mexico and up interconnected North American rivers such as the Mississippi, Ohio and other navigable ancient water ways, to within a short distance of the Book of Mormon's "west sea" or "west sea, south" – the freshwater Great Lake Erie (according to Olive).
[59] In counties near Lake Ontario, E.G. Squier, commissioned by the Smithsonian Institution, documented the remains of numerous earth and timber "castles" and "towns" constructed by the indigenous peoples of western New York in 1849.
[61][vague][better source needed] The breadth of "Bountiful" (or the narrow neck of land discussed above), according to Olive, Coon and Hamilton, is approximately the 33 mi (53 km) distance from Batavia, New York, westward to the coast of Lake Erie – along the line of the Onondaga scarp.
Mesoamerican setting advocate John E. Clark claims that all seas that bordered New World Book of Mormon lands "had to be the Pacific and Atlantic oceans ..."[67] Clark also alleges that the designations of west and east seas in the Book of Mormon "are tied to ... original arduous journeys across oceans and the receding direction of their [the voyaging immigrant's] forfeited homeland.
"[67] Rejecting hemispheric settings and locating Cumorah in upstate New York,[68] LDS authors Olive, May and others, have concluded that the "many waters" crossed by Lehi's family involved the Atlantic Ocean.
The reference to "the many waters" in this instance, is unequivocally interpreted by LDS to mean the Atlantic Ocean[citation needed], and the implicit descriptions (in the scripture) of events in colonial American history, seems to support this conclusion.
[70] Opponents of a limited Great Lakes setting say that the cultures of the ancient inhabitants of the area (mound builder) do not match the Book of Mormon narrative, even though North American peoples associated with these cultures, are known to have been accomplished metal workers, and to have made impressive works of earth, timber, rock, and plaster,[citation needed][b] not unlike the constructions described in the Book of Mormon.
[73] Some LDS scholars reject the Great Lakes limited geographic model on the presumption that snow and cold are not mentioned in the Book of Mormon (except briefly).
Such civilizations left numerous artifacts in the form of hewn stone ruins, tombs, temples, pyramids, roads, arches, walls, frescos, statues, vases, and coins.
[85] LDS scholars point out that in the earlier document authored by Frederick G. Williams, that the words "Lehi's Travels" and "Revelation to Joseph the Seer" do not appear in this text as they do in the subsequent 1882 publication.
