I’m sorry for the late posting, especially at a time when I’m seriously trying to get Keepa going again. I was slammed yesterday with the bug that’s been going around, and am moving terrrrrrribly slowly today.

The geography of the Book of Mormon is a perennially favorite puzzle for Latter-day Saints. If or Because (depending on your acceptance of the historicity of the Book of Mormon narrative – and I fall in the believing camp) the events narrated in the Book of Mormon took place in real time and real space, we should be able to work out the geography. Some are satisfied with the internal logic of a geography: This city, according to such-and-such verse, was north of that river. Others won’t be happy until they can transfer the internal geography to an external point: Not only was this city north of that river, but here are the GPS coordinates for that very city, located in Central America/the Great Lakes region/wherever your model places it.

A number of years ago, Keepa posted an 1890 editorial by George Q. Cannon concerning the “tendency, strongly manifested at the present time among some of the brethren, to study the geography of the Book of Mormon.” You can find that editorial in full here. Today’s post summarizes key points from that editorial and goes a little farther to indicate a few additional official or semi-official encouragements and cautions regarding our fascination with Book of Mormon geography.

First Cannon was pleased that this study suggested a growing interest in the Book of Mormon. “But valuable as is the Book of Mormon both in doctrine and history,” he said, “yet it is possible to put this sacred volume to uses for which it was never intended.” those uses could be “detrimental rather than advantageous to the cause of truth.”

He noted that no two “geographers” produced the same maps, “and in many cases the variations amount to thousands of miles. These differences of views lead to discussion, contention and perplexity, and we believe more confusion is caused by these divergences than good is done by the truths elicited.”

And why was this inability to agree so prevalent? “Simply because the Book of Mormon is not a geographical primer … What is told us of the situation of the various lands or cities of the ancient Jaredites, Nephites and Lamanites is usually simply an incidental remark connected with the doctrinal or historical portions of the work. … [It] nowhere gives us the exact situations or boundaries so that it can be definitely located without fear of error.

So determined are the “geographers” to wring out every geographical clue that they sometimes seize on routine English metaphorical language as if it were geographical data: When Alma 28:1 says that “the armies of the Nephites were set round about the land of Jershon,” for instance, some scour the map for bowl-shaped valleys in which to locate the “round” land of Jershon.

Cannon said that Church leaders had been asked to prepare a map for Latter-day Saint use; they declined: “Without further information they are not prepared even to suggest” an arrangement of geographical features. “We see no necessity for maps of the character.” Cannon did not mean to discourage thoughtful investigation, however. “There can be no harm result from the study of the geography of this continent at the time it was settled by the Nephites” – although “evils may result therefrom” when differences of opinion led to “division of sentiment” among Latter-day Saints.

It was only 18 years later, however, when the Brethren did approve such a map for use in Church classes. The map, designed by Joel Ricks, Jr. (1858-1944) of Logan, whose fascination with Book of Mormon geography led him to make multiple trips to South America seeking evidence of Book of Mormon civilizations. While his map prepared for use in Church classes is “suggestive” – meaning it is largely based on internal clues provided by the text and does not generally attempt to identify Book of Mormon features with specific points on the map, it does demonstrate his fixed belief that the general location for the Book of Mormon was in the northern parts of South America, rather than in Central or North America.

The Juvenile Instructor published its endorsement of the Ricks map in September, 1908:

Everyone who has ever taught Book of Mormon history has felt the need of a good suggestive map of Book of Mormon lands. For a long time, the making of such a map was discouraged. And since we have not had one such map, each teacher has made his own, and we have had a hundred.

Such a condition is almost worse than having no map at all. It leads to endless dispute; and it leaves the pupil with a far worse impression than one map alone, though wrong, or than no map whatever. We are very glad to note, therefore, that at last a Book of Mormon map may be had for use in all classes making a study of that sacred book. The map is prepared by Joel Ricks. Elder Ricks spent considerable time in South America for the sole purpose of locating Nephite historical points. The map is, therefore, prepared by one who has made a special study of Book of Mormon geography. And the map comes endorsed. That is, it is published with the approval and sanction of the presidency of the Church. Of course, the map is not correct in every detail. Indeed, such a thing is impossible without special revelation. But this map of Bro. Ricks’ is suggestive and helpful. We cannot see how the Book of Mormon can now be successfully studied without it.

The Juvenile Instructor advertised the map beyond its editorial.

This endorsement – which may have been short-lived, because I don’t see further  promotion beyond the first few months – surprises me, but there it is. Nothing more was known of authentic Book of Mormon geography in 1908 than in 1890; the adoption of one man’s map could hardly reconcile the views of makers of competing maps; and, frankly, the assertion that “one map alone, though wrong” greatly disturbs my sense of both faith and intellectual honesty. But there it is.

I’m also surprised that the promotion of such a map came during the administration of Joseph F. Smith. George D. Pyper, long a member of the highest Sunday School circles and for more than 30 years editor of the Juvenile Instructor/Instructor, remembered a time

… in the office of the late President Joseph F. Smith when some brethren were asking him to officially approve a map showing the exact landing place of Lehi and his company. President Smith declined to officially approve of the map, saying that the Lord had not yet revealed it, and that if it were officially approved and afterwards found to be in error, it would affect the faith of the people.

That was written in 1938; while it’s possible that Pyper did not recall Pres. Smith’s precise words, it is unlikely that he would have mistaken the general tenor of conversation. That insight into the inadvisability of teaching something that might later need to be untaught is valuable in so many ways.

It’s also interesting to note that that story arose in the context of Lehi’s landing place. For several generations, Latter-day Saints claimed to know exactly where Lehi landed. You find it in old writings all the time, and every once in a while, somebody rediscovers it and announces the find as though he were uncovering lost truth.

Here is a useful explanation of that issue, written by Frederick J. Pack, then chairman of the Sunday School’s Gospel Doctrine Committee, in 1938:

Route Traveled by Lehi and His Company

The Compendium, a little book by Franklin D. Richards and James A. Little, was originally published in England, 1857. This edition makes no reference to the route followed by Lehi and his company. All American editions, however, beginning with 1882, contain the following:

“Lehi’s Travels—Revelation to Joseph The Seer. The course that Lehi and his company traveled from Jerusalem to the place of their destination:

“They traveled nearly a south, southeast direction until they came to the nineteenth degree of north latitude; then, nearly east to the Sea of Arabia, then sailed in a southeast direction, and landed on the continent of South America, in Chile, thirty degrees south latitude.”

This statement has gained wide acceptance throughout the Church, and has even been copied by various writers. its authenticity, however, is subject to grave doubt, as witness the following:

The only known source of authority upon which it rests is a single sheet of manuscript presented to the Church Historian’s office, in 1864, by Ezra G. Williams, son of Frederick G. Williams, at one time counselor to Joseph Smith in the First Presidency. On one page of the manuscript are some supposedly Book of Mormon characters, and on the other a faulty copy of the revelation printed as section seven of the Doctrine and Covenants, together with the statement that appears in the Compendium, with the exception that it lays no claim to being a revelation, neither does it mention the name of the Prophet as its author. Thus the following caption, as it appears in the Compendium, “Lehi’s Travels—Revelation to Joseph the Seer,” is not present in the original manuscript.

In summary, the most that can be said with certainty of the manuscript statement is that it bears good evidence of having been written by the hand of Frederick B. Williams. He himself, however, gives no indication of the identity of its author, neither does he claim it to be of divine origin.

The Church has issued no information concerning the route followed by Lehi and his company. Until this is done, teachers of the gospel Doctrine department should refrain from expressing definite opinions.

There’s so much good in that brief statement – first, in a way that strongly recalls the strange story of Moroni’s Purported Rambles, with a mysterious document, poorly sourced, deposited in the Church Historian’s office, a document the significance of which grows over time until it is published with a claim of revelation – and second with the teacher’s warning that the claim should no longer be taught by the Sunday School. The statement is a model of debunking that has largely been successful.

Book of Mormon geography continues to be a hot button issue in some circles, conducted in good faith and with the conviction that solving the physical puzzle will lead more people to a deeper faith in the doctrines taught by scripture. But the same issues remain in the 21st century as were articulated in the 19th: The Book of Mormon was not written with the view of including sufficient, accurate geographical cues to enable geographers to map events. Controversy sometimes arises which is detrimental to the purposes for which the Book of Mormon was written. Identifying points in the Book with points on the ground to any degree of confidence will almost certainly have to await further revelation. But, as Cannon noted, “there can be no harm result from the study of the geography of this continent at the time it was settled by the Nephites” – harm comes only when Latter-day Saints make unsupportable claims about their findings.