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This article is a draft. FairMormon editors are currently editing it. We welcome your suggestions on improving the content.

See also: Did the First Presidency identify the New York "Hill Cumorah" as the site of the Nephite final battles?

Twentieth Century

1900s

Brigham H. (BH) Roberts (Seventy)

And let me here say a word in relation to new discoveries in our knowledge of the Book of Mormon, and for matter of that in relation to all subjects connected with the work of the Lord in the earth. We need not follow our researches in any spirit of fear and trembling. We desire only to ascertain the truth; nothing but the truth will endure; and the ascertainment of the truth and the proclamation of the truth in any given case, or upon any subject, will do no harm to the work of the Lord which is itself truth. Nor need we be surprised if now and then we find our predecessors, many of whom bear honored names and deserve our respect and gratitude for what they achieved in making clear the truth, as they conceived it to be—we need not be surprised if we sometimes find them mistaken in their conceptions and deductions; just as the generations who succeed us in unfolding in a larger way some of the yet unlearned truths of the Gospel, will find that we have had some misconceptions and made some wrong deductions in our day and time...^[1]

May 25, 1903: President Joseph F. Smith says location of Zarahemla not of vital importance

On May 25, 1903 President Joseph F. Smith attended a convention on the Book of Mormon at BYU Academy in Provo, Utah. After several individuals and expressed and presented their views on the subject, “President Smith spoke briefly and expressed the idea that the question of the situation of the city [of Zarahemla] was one of interest certainly, but if it could not be located the matter was not of vital importance, and if there were differences of opinion on he question it would not affect the salvation of the people: and he advised against students considering it of such vital importance as the principles of the Gospel . . . . [He] again cautioned the students against making the union question–the location of the cities and lands–of the equal importance with the doctrines contained in the book . . . . [President Anthony H. Lund] advised those present to study the Book of Mormon, and be guided by the advice of President Smith in their studies.^[2]

1910s

Around 1918, President Joseph F. Smith:

The present associate editor of The Instructor was one day in the office of the late President Joseph F. Smith when some brethren were asking him to 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.^[3]

1920s

April 1929: Anthony W. Ivins (First Presidency), General Conference

We must be careful in the conclusions that we reach. The Book of Mormon teaches the history of three distinct peoples, or two peoples and three different colonies of people, who came from the old world to this continent. It does not tell us that there was no one here before them. It does not tell us that people did not come after. And so if discoveries are made which suggest differences in race origins, it can very easily be accounted for, and reasonably, for we do believe that other people came to this continent...There is a great deal of talk about the geography of the Book of Mormon. Where was the land of Zarahemla? Where was the City of Zarahemla? and other geographic matters. It does not make any difference to us. There has never been anything yet set forth that definitely settles that question. So the Church says we are just waiting until we discover the truth. All kinds of theories have been advanced. I have talked with at least half a dozen men that have found the very place where the City of Zarahemla stood, and notwithstanding the fact that they profess to be Book of Mormon students, they vary a thousand miles apart in the places they have located. We do not offer any definite solution. As you study the Book of Mormon keep these things in mind and do not make definite statements concerning things that have not been proven in advance to be true.^[4]

April 1929: James E. Talmage, General Conference

I sometimes think we pay a little undue attention to technicalities, and to questions that cannot be fully answered with respect to the Book of Mormon. It matters not to me just where this city or that camp was located. I have met a few of our Book of Mormon students who claim to be able to put their finger upon the map and indicate every land and city mentioned in the Book of Mormon. The fact is, the Book of Mormon does not give us precise and definite information whereby we can locate those places with certainty. I encourage and recommend all possible investigation, comparison and research in this matter. The more thinkers, investigators, workers we have in the field the better; but our brethren who devote themselves to that kind of research should remember that they must speak with caution and not declare as demonstrated truths points that are not really proved. There is enough truth in the Book of Mormon to occupy you and me for the rest of our lives, without giving too much time and attention to these debatable matters.^[5]

1930s

LDS Department of Education Study Manual (1938)

Indian ancestry, at least in part, is attributed by the Nephite record to the Lamanites. However, the Book of Mormon deals only with the history and expansion of three small colonies which came to America and it does not deny or disprove the possibility of other immigrations, which probably would be unknown to its writers. Jewish origin may represent only a part of the total ancestry of the American Indian today.^[6]

April 1938: Joseph F. Smith states that the Lord has not revealed a Book of Mormon map

The present associate editor of The Instructor was one day in the office of the late President Joseph F. Smith when some brethren were asking him to 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.^[7]

1939: geographic analysis based on text only

Cover of Washburn and Washburn (1939) focusing attention on a Mesoamerican location.

• J.A. Washburn and J.N. Washburn, An Approach to the Study of Book of Mormon Geography (New Era Pub. Co., 1939). Note that the cover circles Mesoamerica.

1940s

LDS Department of Education Study Manual (1940)

There is a tendency to use the Book of Mormon as a complete history of all pre-Columbian peoples. The book does not claim to be such an history, and we distort its spiritual message when we use it for such a purpose. The book does not give an history of all peoples who came to America before Columbus. There may have been other people who came here, by other routes and means, of which we have no written record. If historians wish to discuss information which the Book of Mormon does not contain but which is related to it, then we should grant them that freedom. We should avoid the claim that we are familiar with all the peoples who have lived on American soil when we discuss the Book of Mormon. . . There is safety in using the book in the spirit in which it was written. Our use of poorly constructed inferences may draw us far away from the truth. In our approach to the study of the Book of Mormon let us guard against drawing historical conclusions which the book does not warrant.^[8]

1950s

Lowell T. Bennion: (Sunday School)

“The Book of Mormon itself does not purport to be a history of all pre-Columbian peoples in the Western Hemisphere. It simply tells briefly the story of these three peoples who came to this Continent. Its story ends in 421 A.D. What may have happened elsewhere on the American Continent before, during, or after the Nephite record was written (600 B.C. - 421 A.D.), we have no way of knowing.” - Lowell L. Bennion, An Introduction to the Gospel: For the Sunday Schools of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (The Deseret Sunday School Union Board, 1955), 113.

Harold B. Lee (apostle, later President)

...from the writings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, and of other inspired men, it seems all are in agreement that the followers of Lehi came to the western shores of South America....I believe we are (today) not far from the place where the history of the people of Lehi commenced in western America. (Harold B. Lee, Quarterly Historical Report for the Andes Mission, 11 November 1959. Cited in Sorenson, Sourcebook, 390.

Mark E. Peterson (Council of the Twelve)

…we all have our free agency. God doesn’t rob anyone of that. And sometimes even a General Authority has used his agency in a wrong direction…Now, a General Authority might speculate, I suppose. We have had speculation, for instance, on the part of some with respect to Book of Mormon geography, and it is plain, unadulterated speculation and not doctrine. And if a General Authority has speculated on Book of Mormon geography he did not represent the view of the Church while doing so.^[9]

Dallin H. Oaks (Council of the Twelve)

Here [BYU, 1950s] I was introduced to the idea that the Book of Mormon is not a history of all of the people who have lived on the continents of North and South America in all ages of the earth. Up to that time, I had assumed that it was. If that were the claim of the Book of Mormon, any piece of historical, archaeological, or linguistic evidence to the contrary would weigh in against the Book of Mormon, and those who rely exclusively on scholarship would have a promising position to argue.

In contrast, if the Book of Mormon only purports to be an account of a few peoples who inhabited a portion of the Americas during a few millennia in the past, the burden of argument changes drastically. It is no longer a question of all versus none; it is a question of some versus none. In other words, in the circumstance I describe, the opponents of historicity [i.e. those who argue that the Book of Mormon is not a literally true record, as it claims] must prove that the Book of Mormon has no historical validity for any peoples who lived in the Americas in a particular time frame, a notoriously difficult exercise. You do not prevail on that proposition by proving that a particular Eskimo culture represents migrations from Asia. The opponents of the historicity of the Book of Mormon must prove that the people whose religious life it records did not live anywhere in the Americas.^[10]

John A. Widtsoe (Council of the Twelve)

As far as can be learned, the Prophet Joseph Smith, translator of the book, did not say where, on the American continent, Book of Mormon activities occurred. Perhaps he did not know…. [The 1842 Times and Seasons article] seems to place many book of Mormon activities in that region. The interesting fact in this connection is that the Prophet Joseph Smith at this time was editor of the Times and Seasons, and had announced his full editorial responsibility for the paper. This seems to give the subjoined article an authority it might not otherwise possess….

They who work on the geography of the Book of Mormon have little else than the preceding approaches with which to work, viz [that is]: that Nephites found their way into what is now the state of Illinois; that the plates of the Book of Mormon were found in a hill in northwestern New York State; that a statement exists of doubtful authenticity that Lehi and his party landed on the shore of the land now known as Chile; and that under the Prophet's editorship Central America was denominated the region of Book of Mormon activities.

Out of diligent, prayerful study, we may be led to a better understanding of times and places in the history of the people who move across the pages of the divinely given Book of Mormon.^[11]

…out of the studies of faithful Latter-day Saints may yet come a unity of opinion concerning Book of Mormon geography.^[12]

1960s

March 1964: Sidney B. Sperry, "Were There Two Cumorahs?," Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 4/1 (1995). [260–268] link

Harold B. Lee in 1966

Some say the Hill Cumorah was in southern Mexico (and someone pushed it down still farther) and not in western New York. Well, if the Lord wanted us to know where it was, or where Zarahemla was, he’d have given us latitude and longitude, don’t you think? And why bother our heads trying to discover with archaeological certainty the geographical locations of the cities of the Book of Mormon like Zarahemla?^[13]

BYU Master's Thesis for an August 1968 Speech and Dramatic Arts department uses Mesoamerica as presumptive culture source for costumes destined for a Book of Mormon re-enactments.

Amanda J. Brown, "A Design Study in Costume for Projected Dramatic Productions Prescribing a Book of Mormon Setting Identified Herein as Late Preclassic Mesoamerican Culture," Master's Thesis, Department of Speech and Dramatic Arts (August 1968). off-site

Paul R. Cheesman, in a November 1968 article for The Instructor magazine

There are those who believe that there are two Hill Cumorahs. Their theory is that the hill on which Mormon fought the last battle with the Lamanites is not the same hill in which Joseph Smith found the gold plates. Advocates of this theory establish their analysis primarily from the internal evidences of the Book of Mormon. Others conclude that there is only one Hill Cumorah, and that the place where Joseph Smith and Moroni met was the same place Mormon and Moroni visited in the fifth century. There is no official Church view.^[14]

1970s

Spencer W. Kimball in 1978:

Columbus discovered America in 1492. After him came many colonizers and explorers. The Puritans and Pilgrims came from Europe . . . . For four hundred years the Lamanites were scattered throughout the Americas. Cortes came here, and Pizzaro went to South America. They had great influence upon the people. They scattered them and persecuted them.^[15]

1980s

John Sorenson, Ensign article on limited Mesoamerican geography

John Sorenson wrote, in a two-part article published in the Ensign:

As early as the turn of the century, a few Saints began to look more carefully at what the Book of Mormon itself said on this matter. They found statements there indicating that the scene for Jaredite and Nephite history was likely more limited than they had previously supposed. Then, in 1939, the Washburns published a detailed analysis of the geography in the Book of Mormon based strictly on its own statements and demonstrating the consistency of those statements. Since the publication of their work, An Approach to the Study of Book of Mormon Geography, analysts of the scripture have found still more data in the Book of Mormon’s own statements suggesting that the immediate land covered by the book’s events was probably only hundreds rather than thousands of miles long and wide.^[16]

Following the above, publication of John L. Sorenson, An Ancient American Setting for the Book of Mormon (Salt Lake City, Utah : Deseret Book Co. ; Provo, Utah : Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 1996 [1985]), 1.

Elder Neal A. Maxwell

Individuals and settings of obscurity are not unusual to the Lord's purposes. Meridian–day Christianity was initiated on a very small geographical scale and with comparatively few people. The larger, busy world paid little heed to it. Likewise with the Book of Mormon peoples. Whether located in Meso–America or elsewhere, they were one people among many peoples on this planet and perhaps even on the western hemisphere.^[17]

Selected publications from this decade:

• John E. Clark, "A Key for Evaluating Nephite Geographies (Review of Deciphering the Geography of the Book of Mormon by F. Richard Hauck)," FARMS Review of Books 1/1 (1989): 20–70. off-site
• William J. Hamblin, "A Stumble Forward? (Review of Deciphering the Geography of the Book of Mormon by F. Richard Hauck)," FARMS Review of Books 1/1 (1989): 71–77. off-site
• John L. Sorenson, "Review of Mapping the Action Found in the Book of Mormon by Harold K. Nielsen," FARMS Review of Books 1/1 (1989): 119–120. off-site
• Mark V. Withers, "Deciphering the Geography of the Book of Mormon (Review of Deciphering the Geography of the Book of Mormon by F. Richard Hauck)," FARMS Review of Books 1/1 (1989): 78–79. off-site

1990s

Fax from Senior Executive Secretary for the Office of the First Presidency, Carla Ogden, to FARMS dated April 12, 1993

Selected publications from this decade:

• John L. Sorenson, "When Lehi's Party Arrived in the Land Did They Find Others There?," Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 1/1 (1992). [1–34] link
• William J. Hamblin, "Basic Methodological Problems with the Anti-Mormon Approach to the Geography and Archaeology of the Book of Mormon," Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 2/1. (1993). [161–197] link
• David A. Palmer, "Review of American Book of Mormon Map by Paul D. Proctor," FARMS Review of Books 2/1 (1990): 205–206. off-site
• John L. Sorenson, "Viva Zapato! Hurray for the Shoe! (Review of "Does the Shoe Fit? A Critique of the Limited Tehuantepec Geography" by Deanne G. Matheny)," FARMS Review of Books 6/1 (1994): 297–361. off-site
• Matthew Roper, "On Cynics and Swords (Review of Of Cities and Swords: The Impossible Task of Mormon Apologetics)," FARMS Review of Books 9/1 (1997): 146–158. off-site

F. Michael Watson, Secretary to the First Presidency (1990) sends letter identifying New York as Cumorah site. Click for full text.

A 1993 fax sent by Senior Executive Secretary for the Office of the First Presidency, Carla Ogden, to Brent Hall of FARMS. (Sister Ogden continues to serve in this position as of 2009). In contrast to the letter sent by F. Michael Watson three years earlier, the fax clarifies that the Church holds no official position on the location of the Book of Mormon.

Encyclopedia of Mormonism: (1992)

The Church has not taken an official position with regard to location of geographical places [of the Book of Mormon].^[18]

F. Michael Watson, Secretary to the First Presidency (1993) sends revised letter, correcting his statement of the 1990 letter. Click for full text.

Questions

• Did the First Presidency identify the New York "Hill Cumorah" as the site of the Nephite final battles?

== Notes ==

1. [note]  Brigham H. Roberts, New Witnesses for God, 3 Vols., (Salt Lake City: Deseret News, 1909[1895, 1903]), 2:503–504. ISBN 0962254541.
2. [note] Deseret News, 25 May 1903.
3. [note]  George D. Pyper, "The Book of Mormon Geography," The Instructor no. 73 (April 1938), 160. Event discussed occurred in about 1918; see John L. Sorenson, Mormon's Map (Provo, Utah: FARMS, 2000), 7. ISBN 0934893489.
4. [note]  Anthony W. Ivins, Conference Report (April 1929), 16.
5. [note]  James E. Talmage, Conference Report (April 1929), 44.
6. [note]  William E. Berrett, Milton R. Hunter, Roy A. Welker, and H. Alvah Fitzgerald, A Guide to the Study of the Book of Mormon (Salt Lake City: LDS Department of Education, 1938), 47–48.
7. [note] The Instructor, April 1938, 160.
8. [note]  Roy A. West, An Introduction to the Book of Mormon: A Religious-Literary Study (Salt Lake City: LDS Department of Education, 1940), 11.
9. [note] Mark E. Petersen, “Revelation,” address to religious educators, 24 August 1954; cited in Charge to Religious Educators, 2nd ed., (Salt Lake City: Church Educational System and the Church of Jesus Christ and Latter-day Saints, 1982), 136–137; cited in Dennis B. Horne (ed.), Determining Doctrine: A Reference Guide for Evaluation Doctrinal Truth (Roy, Utah: Eborn Books, 2005), 315.
10. [note]  Dallin H. Oaks, "Historicity of the Book of Mormon," Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies Annual Dinner Provo, Utah, 29 October 1993; cited in Dallin H. Oaks, "The Historicity of the Book of Mormon," (Provo, Utah: FARMS, 1994): 2–3.
11. [note]  John A. Widtsoe, "Evidences and Reconciliations: Is Book of Mormon Geography Known?," Improvement Era 53 (July 1950), 547.
12. [note]  John A. Widtsoe, foreword to Thomas Stuart Ferguson's Cumorah—Where? (Oakland: Published by the author, 1947), cited by John L. Sorenson, Mormon's Map (Provo, Utah: FARMS, 2000), 7–8. ISBN 0934893489.
13. [note]  Harold B. Lee, “Loyalty,” address to religious educators, 8 July 1966; in Charge to Religious Educators, 2nd ed. (Salt Lake City: Church Educational System and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1982), 65; cited in Dennis B. Horne (ed.), Determining Doctrine: A Reference Guide for Evaluation Doctrinal Truth (Roy, Utah: Eborn Books, 2005), 172–173.
14. [note]  Paul R. Cheesman, "Archaeology and the Book of Mormon," The Instructor, Vol. 103, No. 11 (November 1968): 429.
15. [note]  Spencer W. Kimball, Official Reports of the Monterrey Mexico Area Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, held in Monterrey, Mexico February 19 and 20, 1977 (Salt Lake City: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1978), 2.
16. [note]  John L. Sorenson, "Digging into the Book of Mormon: Our Changing Understanding of Ancient America and Its Scripture, Part 1," Ensign (September 1984): 27.off-site For second part of the article, see off-site
17. [note] Neal A. Maxwell, But For A Small Moment (Salt Lake City, Utah: Desert Book, 1986), 18.
18. [note] John E. Clark, "Book of Mormon Geography," in Encyclopedia of Mormonism, 4 vols., edited by Daniel H. Ludlow, (New York, Macmillan Publishing, 1992), 1:178.