No matter where the BoM setting is supposed to be, Joe Smith got it wrong, though he lived in what we would consider the “backwoods”, he was a product of European culture, values, and outlook; so that when he wrote the BoM, it reflected those values. Case in point; origin of the Native Peoples in the Western Hemisphere, people in the 1820’s didn’t know, so they speculated, Joe Smith wrote down one theory as “holy scrit”, so now that DNA & genetic evidence has reared up it ugly head, they are hemming & hawing, trying to fit BoM ‘facts’ with real-world ‘facts’. That is not easy, so they try to “limit” the geography, problem is, they place BoM lands right in the middle of southern Mexico, a place teeming with culture, flora & fauna that were so diff from Europe & the Middle East, that the fact that the BoM misses it, speaks volumes about it & Joe. Namely, that the BoM is a quasi-historical novel, written by an amateur antiquarian in a semi-biblical guise. The BoM is so alien to the Americas, that no amount of re-writing would place it anywhere near the Western Hemisphere, unless of course by wishful thinking. See here, if the BoM were set in these areas there would be these problems: East coast: passenger pigeons (covered the sky before extinct), Hill Cumorah had to be in New York, that’s what Joe Smith said, thought throughout his life, can’t be in s. Mexico as in the LGT, war-like Indians Gulf coast: hurricanes, humidity, war-like Indians Mid-West: buffalos (covered the ground before almost killed off by the white man), Mound builders Culture (check out the local museums for Jewish/Israelish artifacts, if any), war-like Indians The West: buffalos into Texas, deserts, giant mountains, (like the Rocky, Grand Teton, Wasatch & Sierra Nevada’s Mts), Grand Canyon, war-like Indians N. Mexico: deserts, Copper Canyon, war-like Indians C. Mexico: Teotihuacán, Toltecs, war-like Indians S. Mexico: Olmecs, Maya, jungle, jaguars, Foods: chocolate, corn & chili Names: no buffaloes mentioned (why is there “cullums & corms” but no buffaloes?), no corn, no Native People ever named, if tapirs were “horses”, why weren’t they named “culloms”? When the Spanish came to these shores, why were there no names for them in BoMish, like Nephites or Lamities. They came with horses, armor & swords, that should have brought out old oral histories of the ‘ancient ones’, their wars & follies, their return (not just the Quetzalcoatl one man (the LDS Jesus), but the multitudes mentioned in the BoM). Adieu: what’s up with the French, no English word for “goodbye”? Kosher: Jews raising pigs? Alien culture: the BoM culture is so alien; that no where has it left an imprint on the Native Peoples of this hemisphere; no tech, flora, fauna, DNA, language or stories, why?
