Book of Mormon geography/Models/Limited/Meldrum 2003/Section 4:Promised Land

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Claims made in section 4: Promised Land

Page Claim Response Author's sources

DVD 4-1:29
  • Missouri is the New Jerusalem.
  • This is correct.

DVD 4-3:05
  • The narrator claims that the New Jerusalem is Zion.

Fact checking results: This claim is false

What did Joseph Smith have to say about this? The narrator attempts to equate Zion exclusively with the location of the New Jerusalem, but this contradicts the words of Joseph Smith:

...speaking of the Land of Zion, It consists of all N[orth] & S[outh] America but that any place where the Saints gather is Zion which every righteous man will build up for a place of safety for his children...The redemption of Zion is the redemption of all N[orth] & S[outh] America." (emphasis added) [1]

  • Other latter-day prophets have declared that North and South America constitute the land of Zion: see Location of Zion.

DVD 4-2:47
  • Missouri is the only "Land of Promise" in the Western Hemisphere.

Fact checking results: This claim is false

The prophets and apostles have clearly stated that Missouri is not the only land of promise, nor the only area to which Book of Mormon promises apply.
  • For example, Wilford Woodruff said:

This land, North and South America, is the land of Zion; it is a choice land-the land that was given by promise from old father Jacob to his grandson and his descendants, the land on which the Zion of God should be established in the latter days. (emphasis added) [2]

DVD 4-3:35, IBME
  • The New Jerusalem will be upon "this land," meaning exactly where the Book of Mormon prophet was standing when he made that statement.
  • The Introduction to Book of Mormon Evidences seminar offers a strict interpretation of the words "this" and "that" as used in the scriptures. The word "this" is interpreted to mean the very spot upon which the statement is made.
  • And how does the narrator know where the Book of Mormon prophet was standing when he made that statement? He simply assumes that Ether was standing in North America, and then uses Ether's own words to "prove" this!

DVD 4-4:40
  • The Land of Promise is a "choice land," interpreted by the narrator to be "a land where people would choose to live."
  • The term "land of promise" refers to whatever land the Lord has granted to His people, and upon which they are commanded to gather.
  • See also: more detail.

DVD 4-5:34
  • The choice land will be lifted up by God above all other nations because God approves of the political system ("nation") on the choice land.

DVD
  • It is claimed that the gentiles mentioned in 1 Nephi 13 are Joseph Smith's ancestors (American colonists) because he brought the book forth.

DVD
  • Where the Book of Mormon comes forth will be a land of liberty with no kings, fortified against all other nations, and God will be the King of the people of the land.

Video


Notes

  1. ↑ Martha Jane Knowlton Coray, [edited by Dean C. Jessee], "Joseph Smith's July 19, 1840 Discourse," Brigham Young University Studies 19 no. 3 (Spring 1979), 392.
  2. ↑ Wilford Woodruff, Journal of Discourses 15:279.
Heartland (Meldrum) Geography claims
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