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A limited geography model for the Book of Mormon is one of several proposals by Latter Day Saint scholars that the book's narrative was a historical record of people in a limited geographical region, rather than of the entire Western Hemisphere.
These models, developed in an effort to reconcile claims in the Book of Mormon with archaeology and geography, have situated the book's events in South America, Mesoamerica, and/or the Great Lakes area. One popular LDS theory places the setting for the Book of Mormon in the vicinity of Mexico and Central America surrounding the Isthmus of Tehuantepec.[1][2] Others recognize a setting among the mound builders as the book's original setting.[3] The mound builder setting parallels traditional settings of the Book of Mormon accepted during the 19th century, but is still a minority view in LDS academia.[4][unreliable source?] The limited geography models are the result of a school of thought among Latter Day Saint scholars that for the text of the Book of Mormon to realistically be interpreted as a historical document, the events described therein must be limited to an area of several hundred square miles.[5]
However, narrowing the discussion to only one geographic model has proven problematic. Each of these models has sustained harsh criticisms, often from fellow LDS researchers, as they attempt to reconcile known archeological (and geographic) locations with claimed Book of Mormon lands and peoples, and to untangle other apparent contradictions and problems with each model in its turn.
These models have not changed the academic consensus outside the Latter Day Saint movement that the Book of Mormon is not an accurate description of ancient American history.[6] Archaeological evidence supporting the Book of Mormon's "Mound-builder" literary setting is not interpreted by mainstream academia as proving the historicity or divinity of the work.[7] The Book of Mormon is regarded by mainstream historians and literary experts as a work of 19th century American literature, in the "Mound-builder" genre[8] but not as history.
- ^ (Southerton 2004, p. 157)
- ^ Southerton claims that "[t]here is only one serious contender accepted by most Mormon academics, which proposes that most Book of Mormon events took place in a restricted part of Mesoamerica. Only in Mesoamerica are there ruins of civilizations of the magnitude evident in the Book of Mormon."
- ^ Olive The Lost Empires and Vanished Races of Prehistoric America; Coon, Choice Above All Other Lands – Book of Mormon Covenant Lands According to the Best Sources
- ^ Coon, for instance, ("How Exaggerated Settings for the Book of Mormon Came to Pass") cites literary historian Robert Silverberg.
- ^ (Sorenson 1985, pp. 1–48)
- ^ Duffy (2004, p. 37).
- ^ Coon, "Olive's Near Cumorah Setting by Deduction and Best Fit"
- ^ Roger G. Kennedy, HIDDEN CITIES – THE DISCOVERY AND LOSS OF ANCIENT NORTH AMERICAN CIVILIZATION, 1994, pp. 228-231; Robert Silverberg, "and the mound-builders vanished from the earth",American Heritage Magazine, June 1969, Volume 20, Issue 4