HAMBLIN

The errors are of William J. Hamblin:

Two Cumorahs?

This issue has been dealt with by Latter-day Saint writers; it is unfortunate that Wilson is 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 (William J. Hamblin, “Basic Methodological Problems with the Anti-Mormon Approach To the Geography and Archaeology of the Book of Mormon,” FARMS Journal of Book of Mormon Studies, vol. 2, no. 1 (Spring 1993), p. 177).

As stated in D&C 128:20, Joseph identified the hill where he met the angel as “Cumorah.” Likewise, he oversaw the Church history published by Cowdery in which the FINAL BATTLES were identified to have occurred near the same hill.