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Book of Mormon/Geography/Statements/Nineteenth century/Joseph Smith's lifetime 1829-1840/Joseph Smith/Zelph
< Book of Mormon | Geography | Statements | Nineteenth century | Joseph Smith's lifetime 1829-1840 | Joseph Smith
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Contents
Question
Joseph Smith reportedly found the bones of an individual named "Zelph," during the Zion's camp march. Does this have implications for Book of Mormon geography?
Answer
William Hamblin described some of the difficulties with this story:
- many significant qualifiers were left out of the printed version [of this account]. 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. [There are] 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.[1]
Endnotes
Further reading
FAIR wiki articles
FAIR web site
- FAIR Topical Guide:
External links
Kenneth W. Godfrey, "The Zelph Story," Brigham Young University Studies 29 no. 2 (1989), 32–56. (needs URL / links)