Cumorah
Or
Cumora
Or
“A HILL,
A HILL
WE HAVE A
HILL!”
Oh – do you?
Joseph Smith wrote:
"And again, what do we hear? Glad tidings from
Cumorah! Moroni, and angel from heaven, declaring the
fulfilment of the prophets—the book to be revealed. A voice of the Lord in the wilderness of Fayette, Seneca County, declaring the three witnesses to bear record of the book. The voice of Michael on the banks of the Susquehanna, detecting the devil when he appeared as an angel of light. The voice of Peter, James and John in the wilderness between Harmony, Susquehanna county, and Colesville, Broome county, on the Susquehanna river, declaring themselves as possessing the keys of the kingdom, and of the dispensation of the fullness of times. (Doctrine & Covenants, 128:20)
In this psalm-like exultation, Joseph does not say “Hill Cumorah,” but ”Cumorah.” It is not positively declared that the Hill Cumorah is the place where the plates were obtained.
Cumorah refers to the land of Cumorah, and to the Hill Cumorah
And I, Mormon, wrote an epistle unto the king of the Lamanites, and desired of him that he would grant unto us that we might gather together our people unto the land of Cumorah by a hill which was called Cumorah, and there we could give them battle.
The locations of the land and the hill are not known, but it is suggested that they are in Mesoamerica.
How, then, did the hill in New York get the name Cumorah attached to it? Joseph Smith did not so name it.
Mormon 6:4
And it came to pass that we did march forth to the land of Cumorah, and we did pitch our tents around about the hill Cumorah; and it was in a land of many waters, rivers, and fountains; and here we had hope to gain advantage over the Lamanites.
This is not a geographical description of the Palmyra area, where the modern Hill Cumorah is located.
Brigham Young wrote, When Joseph first received the knowledge of the plates that were in the hill Cumorah …
John Taylor wrote, I have conversed with several of those men who say they have seen the plates that Joseph Smith took out of the Hill Cumorah;
Heber J Grant wrote, The wonderful record of the ancient people of this continent, the Book of Mormon, was brought forth from its hiding place in the Hill Cumorah …
George Albert Smith wrote, It was by faith that he was able to go to the hill Cumorah and receive from the hands of the Angel those sacred records that he later translated by the gift and power of God….
Joseph Fielding Smith wrote, Then when Moroni came to Joseph Smith, he told him that in the hill Cumorah there were certain records of the ancient people of this land, and that he was going to turn them over to him.
It is known that the Hill Cumorah where the Nephites were destroyed is the hill where the Jaredites were also destroyed. This hill was known to the Jaredites as Ramah. It was approximately near to the waters of Ripliancum, which the Book of Ether says, "by interpretation, is large,
or to exceed all."
Although other brethren called the eminence from which Moroni gave the plates to Joseph Smith, neither Moroni or Joseph ever called it Cumorah. Oliver Cowdery was the
first to call that hill ‘The Hill Cumorah.’ The first reference of this kind is found in the Messenger and Advocate, a paper published by the Church in 1834-5, in an article describing a brief history of the rise of the Church.
Why didn’t Joseph Smith correct Cowdery’s cognomen for the hill at which he received the plates from the hands of the angel Moroni? It is only possible to speculate why he did not correct the impression given by Cowdery – if indeed that was what he was intending to convey.
Smith might have thought the name to be appropriate because of its connection with the ancient Hill Cumorah as a place connected with the Book of Mormon records. But, because Smith has left no record of his thinking on this matter, we must refrain from settling on an answer that sounds as if we had all the necessary facts before us. Any conclusion is speculative and, therefore, unsafe.
Hank said that it was Smith that said Moroni told him to go to the Hill Cumorah. However, this is not accurate. The quote posted by Hank is not from the lips or pen of Smith, but from the pen of another.
A testimony of interest is that of David Whitmer given to Elders Orson Pratt and Joseph F. Smith in September 1878,
when they paid him a visit at his home in Richmond. To these brethren he said:
"When I was returning to Fayette, with Joseph and Oliver, all of us riding in the wagon. Oliver and I on an old-fashioned wooden spring seat and Joseph behind us— while travelling along in a clear open space, a very pleasant, nice-looking old man suddenly appeared by the side of our wagon and saluted us with, 'Good morning, it is very warm,' at the same time wiping his face or forehead with his hand. We returned the salutation, and, by a sign from Joseph, I invited him to ride if he was going our way; but he said very pleasantly, 'No, I am going to Cumorah.' This name was something new to me; I did not know what Cumorah meant.
If Smith did not tell two of the Three Witnesses – Cowdery and Whitmer - that the hill was called Cumorah, it can be fairly concluded that Smith did not call it by that name.
Spencer W. Kimball, wrote,”And remember that there were no heavenly beings in Palmyra, on the Susquehanna, or on Cumorah when the soul-hungry Joseph slipped quietly into the grove, knelt in prayer on the river bank, and climbed the slopes of the sacred hill.”
What can we learn from these leaders? Only this: that although Moroni did not give a name for the hill containing the Nephite record, it was later named as ‘Cumorah’ by Oliver Cowdery, and was apparently accepted widely without too much questioning.
Some early members identified the Hill Cumorah in New York as the Hill Cumorah, or Ramah, in the Book of Mormon. This seems to have been an understandable mistake.
For example, “The writings of these prophets, compiled
and abridged by Mormon, the father of Moroni, had been buried in a hill anciently called Cumorah, in which place of deposit the youthful prophet, directed by the angel, discovered them.” (Published by the First Presidency in
Deseret News, Nov. 4, 1911)
Some writers, for whatever reasons, try to make Joseph Smith responsible for what has been called the Hemispheric Geography Model of the Book of Mormon by claiming that he "located the Hill Cumorah in Palmyra, New York," assertions for which they provide no evidence, or else manufacture supporting evidence themselves by putting the words of other men into the mouth of Joseph Smith.
In fact, the earliest explicit correlation of the hill in New York where Joseph Smith found the golden plates and the Hill Cumorah mentioned in the Book of Mormon comes not from Joseph Smith, but from Oliver Cowdery.
Joseph Smith simply describes "a hill of considerable size"; no name is given. But even though Joseph Smith may have accepted Cowdery’s later identification of it as Cumorah, it was never put forward as revelation, and, as will be discussed below, Joseph also supported a version of what may be termed a Limited Geography Model.
It is interesting to note that this identification contradicts a statement in the Book of Mormon itself. Mormon wrote, "having been commanded of the Lord that I should not suffer the records which had been handed down by our fathers, which were sacred, to fall into the hands of the Lamanites (for the Lamanites would destroy them) therefore I made this record [the Book of Mormon] out of the plates of Nephi, and hid up in the hill Cumorah all the records which had been entrusted to me by the hand of the Lord, save it were these few plates [the set from a part of which the Book of Mormon was translated] which I gave unto my son Moroni" (Mormon 6:6).
In other words, the Book of Mormon explicitly states that the records hidden in the Mesoamerican Cumorah were not
the plates of the Book of Mormon, but were the other records of the Nephites. The Book of Mormon itself provides no name for the hill in which the golden plates found by Joseph Smith were buried.
This issue poses an interesting dilemma for critics of the Book of Mormon. We are expected to believe that, on the one hand, Joseph consciously forged the Book of Mormon, while, on the other hand, he personally identified the hill in which the golden plates were buried as the Hill Cumorah, which is the only hill in the world in which the Book of Mormon explicitly states the plates were not buried!
This is another manifestation of the "Idiot Savant" theory of the origin of the Book of Mormon. Anti-Mormons typically hold that Joseph was an incompetent country bumpkin who was so illiterate regarding the Bible that he was unaware that Christ was born in Bethlehem, and yet at the same time he is supposed to be capable of forging a complex document exhibiting hundreds of intricate and significant parallels with the ancient Near East and Mesoamerica.
But, critics of the Book of Mormon simply can't have it both ways. They must be able to construct a consistent model that can explain all of the known data concerning the origin and text of the Book of Mormon. It is not sufficient simply to invent a haphazard collection of
contradictory and inconsistent explanations for individual features of the text. As has been demonstrated in detail, the Book of Mormon is completely consistent internally in presenting a limited geography.
Such a discontinuity between what the text of the Book of Mormon actually says and what Joseph personally may have believed about the geography and antiquities of the Book of Mormon is very illuminating. If Joseph Smith is the originator of, or a believer in, the Hemispheric Geography Model as some less functionally illiterate anti-Mormons claim, he could not consistently be the author of the Book of Mormon.
In the same spirit that critics have leaped on the idea that Smith identified the NY hill as Cumorah, others, notably Wilson, claim that "Joseph Smith identified the coast of Chile as the place where Lehi's party arrived in the New World." In fact, this statement is based not on the writings of Joseph Smith, but on Frederick G. Williams's interpretation of an anonymous manuscript, which Williams believed derived from Joseph Smith; this statement did not appear in print until 1882.
Much of the subsequent attribution of the Hemispheric Geography Model to Joseph Smith, and thereby the acceptance of that model by Latter-day Saints, comes from the mistaken assumption that the Chile interpretation
represents a revelation to Joseph Smith. A careful examination of the manuscripts and development of this idea, however, has demonstrated that there is no reason to attribute this idea to Joseph Smith, and it certainly was never put forward as a revelation. Indeed, questions concerning the authenticity of the attribution of this statement to Joseph Smith were raised by B. H. Roberts and others as early as 1909.46
The "Zelph" story is another piece of evidence that is frequently used to associate Joseph Smith with the Hemispheric Geography Model. It is claimed that Joseph Smith had a revelation concerning the discovery of some bones in Illinois during the Zion's Camp march in 1834.47 However, the version of the story that appeared in the Documentary History of the Church, although editorially couched in the first person, does not in fact represent Joseph Smith's own written account of the event, nor a revelation, nor was it editorially approved by Joseph Smith. Rather, it is an editorial compilation by Willard Richards written in manuscript between 1842 and 1843. It was not published until 1846, after the death of Joseph Smith, and so could not have had his final editorial approval. In the printed version, editorial deletions and changes in the original manuscript (which might have represented Joseph Smith's work) were mistakenly ignored.
The complex textual history of the story is fully documented by Kenneth Godfrey and need not be repeated here. What is important is that many significant qualifiers were left out of the printed version. Thus, whereas Wilford Woodruff's journal account mentions that the ruins and bones were "probably [related to] the Nephites and
Lamanites," the printed version left out the "probably,"
and implied that it was a certainty. Godfrey examines several similar shifts in meaning from the original manuscripts to the printed version.
The mere 'arrow' of the three earliest accounts became an
'Indian Arrow' (as in Kimball), and finally a 'Lamanitish Arrow.' The phrase 'known from the Atlantic to the Rocky Mountain,' as in the McBride diary, became 'known from the Hill Cumorah' (stricken out) or 'eastern sea to the Rocky Mountains.'"
The point here is that there are many difficulties that make it nearly impossible for us to know exactly what Joseph Smith said in 1834 as he reflected on the ruins his group encountered in Illinois.
Within recent years there has arisen among certain students of the Book of Mormon a theory to the effect that within the period covered by the Book of Mormon, the Nephites and Lamanites were confined almost entirely within the borders of the territory comprising Central America and
the southern portion of Mexico—the isthmus of Tehauntepec probably being the "narrow neck" of land spoken of in the Book of Mormon rather than the isthmus of Panama.
It is unfortunate that Anti-Mormon critics are unwilling (or unable) to come to grips with the reality of current Latter-day Saint thought on the subject, relying instead on old discredited anti-Mormon arguments. Actually, the Limited Geography Model does not insist that there were two Cumorahs. Rather, there was one Cumorah in Mesoamerica, which is always the hill referred to in the Book of Mormon.
Thereafter, beginning with Oliver Cowdery (possibly based on a misreading of Mormon 6:6), early Mormons began to associate the Book of Mormon Cumorah with the hill in New York where Joseph Smith found the plates.
The Book of Mormon itself is internally consistent on the issue. It seems to have been early nineteenth-century Latter-day Saint interpretation of the text of the Book of Mormon, which has caused the confusion on this point. Thus, advocates of the Limited Geography Model are required only to show that their interpretations are consistent with the text of the Book of Mormon itself, not with any nineteenth-century interpretation of the Book of Mormon.
But here is the crunch – the sticking point, if you will. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has never taken an official position on issues of Book of Mormon geography. Some unofficial books, written before modern archaeological methods were applied, assumed that
Mormon’s Cumorah and the New York hill were the same.
This tradition, begun by Oliver Cowdery, has continued to the present. The New York hill came to be known as the one Book of Mormon location known with certainty. However, it was generally believed that Mesoamerica was the cradle of those cultures.
Similarly, stories of a cave full of plates inside the Hill Cumorah in New York is often given as evidence that it is, indeed, the hill where Mormon hid the plates.
Dr Yorgason in addressing this issue, quotes one version of the story from Brigham Young and alludes to six others collected by Paul T. Smith. Unfortunately, none of the accounts is firsthand.
“The New York Hill Cumorah is a moraine laid down anciently by a glacier in motion. It is comprised of gravel and earth. Geologically, it is impossible for the hill to
have a cave, and all those who have gone in search of the cave have come back empty-handed.”
If, therefore, the story attributed to Oliver Cowdery (by others) is true, then the visits to the cave perhaps represent visions, perhaps of some far distant hill, not physical events.
Joseph Smith wrote,
Joseph Smith History 1:30-54
While I was thus in the act of calling upon God, I discovered a light appearing in my room, which continued to increase until the room was lighter than at noonday, when immediately a personage appeared at my bedside, standing in the air, for his feet did not touch the floor.
He had on a loose robe of most exquisite whiteness. It was a whiteness beyond anything earthly I had ever seen; nor do I believe that any earthly thing could be made to appear so exceedingly white and brilliant. His hands were naked, and his arms also, a little above the wrist; so, also, were his feet naked, as were his legs, a little above the ankles. His head and neck were also bare.
I could discover that he had no other clothing on but this robe, as it was open, so that I could see into his bosom.
Not only was his robe exceedingly white, but his whole person was glorious beyond description, and his countenance truly like lightning. The room was exceedingly light, but not so very bright as immediately around his person. When I first looked upon him, I was afraid; but the fear soon left me.
He called me by name, and said unto me that he was a messenger sent from the presence of God to me, and that his name was Moroni; that God had a work for me to do; and that my name should be had for good and evil among all nations, kindreds, and tongues, or that it should be both good and evil spoken of among all people.
He said there was a book deposited, written upon gold plates, giving an account of the former inhabitants of this continent, and the source from whence they sprang. He also said that the fullness of the everlasting Gospel was contained in it, as delivered by the Saviour to the ancient inhabitants;
Also, that there were two stones in silver bows--and these stones, fastened to a breastplate, constituted what is called the Urim and Thummim--deposited with the plates; and the possession and use of these stones were what constituted
"seers" in ancient or former times; and that God had prepared them for the purpose of translating the book.
After telling me these things, he commenced quoting the prophecies of the Old Testament. He first quoted part of the third chapter of Malachi; and he quoted also the fourth or last chapter of the same prophecy, though with a little variation from the way it reads in our Bibles. Instead of quoting the first verse as it reads in our books, he quoted it thus:
For behold, the day cometh that shall burn as an oven, and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly shall burn as stubble; for they that come shall burn them, saith the Lord of Hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch. And again, he quoted the fifth verse thus: Behold, I will reveal unto you the Priesthood, by the hand of Elijah the prophet, before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.
He also quoted the next verse differently: And he shall plant in the hearts of the children the promises made to the fathers, and the hearts of the children shall turn to their fathers. If it were not so, the whole earth would be utterly wasted at his coming.
In addition to these, he quoted the eleventh chapter of Isaiah, saying that it was about to be fulfilled. He quoted also the third chapter of Acts, second and twenty-third verses, precisely as they stand in our New Testament. He said that that prophet was Christ; but the day had not yet come when "they who would not hear his voice should be cut off from among the people," but soon would come. He also quoted the second chapter of Joel, from the twenty-eighth verse to the last. He also said that this was not yet fulfilled, but was soon to be. And he further stated that the fullness of the Gentiles was soon to come in. He quoted many other passages of scripture, and offered many explanations, which cannot be mentioned here.
Again, he told me, that when I got those plates of which he had spoken--for the time that they should be obtained was not yet fulfilled--I should not show them to any person; neither the breastplate with the Urim and Thummim; only to those to whom I should be commanded to show them; if I did I should be destroyed. While he was conversing with me about the plates, the vision was opened to my mind that I could see the place where the plates were deposited, and that so clearly and distinctly that I knew the place again when I visited it.
After this communication, I saw the light in the room begin to gather immediately around the person of him who had
been speaking to me, and it continued to do so until the room was again left dark, except just around him; when, instantly I saw, as it were, a conduit open right up into heaven, and he ascended till he entirely disappeared, and the room was left as it had been before this heavenly light had made its appearance.
I lay musing on the singularity of the scene, and marvelling greatly at what had been told to me by this extraordinary messenger; when, in the midst of my meditation, I suddenly discovered that my room was again beginning to get lighted, and in an instant, as it were, the same heavenly messenger was again by my bedside.
He commenced, and again related the very same things which he had done at his first visit, without the least variation; which having done, he informed me of great judgements which were coming upon the earth, with great desolations by famine, sword, and pestilence; and that these grievous judgements would come on the earth in this generation. Having related these things, he again ascended as he had done before.
By this time, so deep were the impressions made on my mind, that sleep had fled from my eyes, and I lay overwhelmed in astonishment at what I had both seen and heard. But what was my surprise when again I beheld the same messenger at my bedside, and heard him rehearse or
repeat over again to me the same things as before; and added a caution to me, telling me that Satan would try to tempt me (in consequence of the indigent circumstances of my father's family), to get the plates for the purpose of getting rich. This he forbade me, saying that I must have no other object in view in getting the plates but to glorify God, and must not be influenced by any other motive than that of building his kingdom; otherwise I could not get them. After this third visit, he again ascended into heaven as before, and I was again left to ponder on the strangeness of what I had just experienced; when almost immediately after the heavenly messenger had ascended from me for the third time, the cock crowed, and I found that day was approaching, so that our interviews must have occupied the whole of that night.
I shortly after arose from my bed, and, as usual, went to the necessary labours of the day; but, in attempting to work as at other times, I found my strength so exhausted as to render me entirely unable. My father, who was labouring along with me, discovered something to be wrong with me, and told me to go home. I started with the intention of going to the house; but, in attempting to cross the fence out of the field where we were, my strength entirely failed me, and I fell helpless on the ground, and for a time was quite unconscious of anything.
The first thing that I can recollect was a voice speaking unto me, calling me by name. I looked up, and beheld the same messenger standing over my head, surrounded by light as before. He then again related unto me all that he had related to me the previous night, and commanded me to go to my father and tell him of the vision and commandments that I had received.
I obeyed; I returned to my father in the field, and rehearsed the whole matter to him. He replied to me that it was of God, and told me to go and do as commanded by the messenger. I left the field, and went to the place where the messenger had told me the plates were deposited; and owing to the distinctness of the vision which I had had concerning it, I knew the place the instant that I arrived there.
Convenient to the village of Manchester, Ontario County, New York, stands a hill of considerable size, and the most elevated of any in the neighbourhood. On the west side of this hill, not far from the top, under a stone of considerable size, lay the plates, deposited in a stone box. This stone was thick and rounding in the middle on the upper side, and thinner towards the edges, so that the middle part of it was visible above the ground, but the edge all around was covered with earth.
Having removed the earth, I obtained a lever, which I got fixed under the edge of the stone, and with a little exertion raised it up. I looked in, and there indeed did I behold the plates, the Urim and Thummim, and the breastplate, as stated by the messenger. The box in which they lay was formed by laying stones together in some kind of cement. In the bottom of the box were laid two stones crossways of the box, and on these stones lay the plates and the other things with them.
I made an attempt to take them out, but was forbidden by the messenger, and was again informed that the time for bringing them forth had not yet arrived, neither would it, until four years from that time; but he told me that I should come to that place precisely in one year from that time, and that he would there meet with me, and that I should continue to do so until the time should come for obtaining the plates.
Accordingly, as I had been commanded, I went at the end of each year, and at each time I found the same messenger there, and received instruction and intelligence from him at each of our interviews, respecting what the Lord was going to do, and how and in what manner his kingdom was to be conducted in the last days.
Moroni didn’t mention a hill, any hill, and Smith did not call the hill he had been shown in vision, that he afterwards visited several times, by any name at all.
Quote by Anti-Mormons are, therefore, incorrect if they are intended to represent any statement by Joseph Smith that the hill is identical with the Book of Mormon’s Cumorah.
“Ye Shall Know The Truth Ministry” © Reverend Rokka Veygezz
