Book of Mormon Plagiarism: The Hawaiian Connection
by Jeff Lindsay
Some
of the town names in New York State and surrounding regions resemble
some names in The Book of Mormon. For example, there is the town of
St. Agathe in Quebec (Ville de Sainte-Agathe-des-Monts, to be
precise), and in Ether in the Book of Mormon, there is a passing
reference to a place called "Ogath." Coincidence?
(If
this challenges your delicate religious beliefs, it might be good to
quit reading now. Toward the end of this post, I'll present new
evidence pertaining to Book of Mormon plagiarism could blow your
testimony to shreds. But first, I'll discuss the much weaker evidence
for plagiarism of names from Joseph's rather vast
surroundings.)
Names of towns in
the vicinity of Joseph at the time he wrote The Book of Mormon (and
their BofM counterparts)
Actual Town
BofM Town
Tecumseh
Teancum
Rama
Ramah
Morin
Moron
St. Agathe
Ogath
Moravian
Moriancum
Angola
Angola
Oneida
Onidah
Kiskiminetas
Kishkumen
Jacobsburg
Jacobugath
Jerusalem
Jerusalem
Alma
Alma
Lehigh
Land of Lehi-Nephi
Shiloh
Shilom
Also note that the
towns of Ramah, Moron, Ogath were in the land northward where Rama,
Ste Agathe, and Morin are in Canada,
And Teancum and
Moriancum were near the border of the Land Northward, where Tecumesh
and Moravian are near the Canadian border.
Am I the only one
that sees an incredible bit of plausibility here?
Several
anti-Mormon Web pages make much of these parallels, and even suggest
that the locations can be fit onto a Book of Mormon map, as if Joseph
Smith thought The Book of Mormon took place in Canada and the
northeastern US and was simply copying names from his knowledge of
the area (the critics sometimes recognize that he probably didn't
have access to detailed maps).
The
efforts to fit these few Book of Mormon place names onto a map of the
US and Canada requires, in my opinion, vast amounts of stretching or
ignoring Book of Mormon data to obtain the desired result. However, I
recognize that the results can appear impressive, at least at first
glance.
To obtain this list of parallels, a huge geographical
area has been scanned to obtain names like Rama, Ontario (more than
100 miles north of Toronto, Canada); St. Agathe, Quebec (north of
Montreal and Ottawa); Shiloh, New Jersey; Jerusalem and Jacobsburg,
Ohio; and Alma, West Virginia. Five states and two Canadian provinces
yield this little list of strained parallels.
Let's start with
Tecumseh, the supposed origin of Teancum. Hmmm. Oh, I see it now:
take off the last syllable, add "an" after the "Te,"
and there you have it. Tecumseh = Teancum. Kind of like John =
Joshua, see?
But
could Joseph have known about Tecumseh, Ontario? As a prophet of God,
yes, but as a plagiarizer, probably not. You see, there's a slight
problem with Tecumseh, Ontario in this context: it didn't get that
name until 1912.
As
Wikipedia
explains,
"Originally known as Ryegate Postal Station when it was first
settled in 1792, Tecumseh was renamed in 1912 after the Shawnee tribe
leader of the same name. It was officially incorporated as a town in
1921" (as viewed July 30, 2007). I've noticed some anti-Mormon
sites speak of Tecumseh, Michigan instead of the Tecumseh, Ontario,
replacing a ridiculous candidate with one that is merely silly (and
even further from Joseph Smith than its later Canadian cousin).
A
quick Wiki-check of the history
of the Michigan township
indicates that this tiny Western suburb of Detroit had just barely
been settled by a tiny handful of people in the late 1820s, but at
least there was a village of Tecumseh in 1824. Insignificant and
remote for those in Joseph Smith's area, it's hard to imagine Joseph
being aware of that village and feeling some need to stick it on a
mental map of The Book of Mormon. And while he may well have heard of
the Indian warrior Tecumseh, it's still quite a stretch to get
Teancum from that name.
Turning our attention to the second
name given in the list of parallels above, let's consider Rama,
Ontario. Yes, Rama is similar to an important name in The Book of
Mormon, the Hill Ramah of the Jaredites.
But
was Joseph aware of Rama, Ontario? Google Rama, look at it on the
satellite maps, read the
minute entry on Rama in Wikipedia
(and the article on the small Native
American group that lives there),
and tell me why Joseph would know of this tiny place. There's almost
nothing there. It's far away on the other side of Lake Huron, home to
about 500 members of an Indian tribe. It has a large casino, granted,
but that probably wasn't much of a draw in Joseph's day. I see no
evidence that it was any more significant in Joseph's day. Correct me
if I'm missing something here.
Actually, Ramah is a Biblical
place name, but it's such a simple name that it should be easy to
find in many languages and cultures — even Roma in Italy is
close enough. Its occurrence among the Jaredites doesn't require
plagiarizing, especially not from tiny distant towns that Joseph
probably never heard of. Not to mention the fact that Rama is another
name for Cumorah in The Book of Mormon, not far to the north (the
"two Cumorahs theory" does nothing to simplify the problem
for critics).
Most of the closest parallels in the Americas
are actually based on Biblical names, so Joseph would have no need to
turn to North American locations to come up with names like
Jerusalem, Shiloh, or Jacob.
The most interesting parallel to
me is Angola, New York. And it's in the same state. OK, here's a
place that Joseph Smith might have known about — except
that the town wasn't named Angola in his day.
Yes, some antis are seriously claiming Angola as a point in their
favor, but if they would just let their guard down and give in to "a
brief moment of Wikiness" (hey, I like that phrase!), they would
discover this from Wikipedia's
entry on Angola, New York:
Angola
is a village in Erie County, New York, USA. The population was 2,266
at the 2000 census. The name is reportedly derived from the nation of
Angola. . . .
The community was previously called "Evans
Station." The name was changed to "Angola" supposedly
because of local residents (primarily, Quakers) supporting missionary
efforts in that African country. The economy of the village improved
with the arrival of a railroad line in 1852. The Village of Angola
was incorporated in 1873.
Following
Wikipedia's link to a "Partial
History of Angola,"
one learns that there are rumors of an "Angola" post office
elsewhere opening in 1822 to accommodate some Quakers doing
missionary work in Angola (I am not sure if this name was actually in
use for that African colony at the time, though), but it wasn't until
1855, supposedly, that a request was made to move the Angola
post-office to Evans Station, which was still almost 20 years before
the Village of Angola become incorporated.
There's
a chance Joseph could have heard of the little Angola post office, or
of the territory of Angola in Africa, but it seems far-fetched to
think that modern Angola, New York, could have any direct bearing on
The Book of Mormon.
Alma, West Virginia, is another
interesting name. Unfortunately, the town is so small that there is
almost no information about it on the Web — not even a stub in
Wikipedia. The satellite image of the town suggests that there might
be a couple of businesses in the area, but there's almost nothing
there from what I can see.
With
so many other sources of "Alma" to choose from — like
Alma Mater, or the female Latin name, Alma — why do we have to
drop down to West Virginia to find this "incredible"
parallel? Alma isn't a city in The Book of Mormon — it's a
prominent name for a couple of prophets.
True,
there was a valley that Alma's group encounters in Mosiah 24 that his
people briefly called the valley of Alma on their way back to the
main land of the Nephites, but this is nowhere close to a notable
landmark in Book of Mormon geography. The reality is that nothing
available to Joseph Smith would have informed him that Alma was not a
predominantly female name [note: among the few New Englanders bearing
the originally female Latin name "Alma" in his day, some
were men], but was actually an authentic male Jewish name in Nephi's
day, a name that could have been brought to the New World by Nephi's
group. This impressive fact from modern archeaology is discussed at
MormonEvidence.com.
The Morin/Moron connection puzzles me. I've seen anti-Mormon
Websites claiming there is a Morin, Ontario, but I can find no such
place on the map. Google and Wikipedia don't seem to know of this
important town that so influenced Joseph Smith. But there is a
Morin-Heights in Quebec, almost a suburb of Sainte Agathe (north of
Montreal). Very small resort community with a golf course. How
influential was this on young Joseph Smith? The first question to ask
is whether it was actually on the map in his day. The answer is found
in A
Brief History of Morin Heights
by Sandra Stock:
Before
the mid nineteenth century, there were only the occasional seasonal
aboriginal hunters passing through the Morin Heights region, most
likely Mohawk. Although some settlement had begun in the 1840’s,
coming from the direction of Mille Isles, it was in 1850 that
Augustin-Norbert Morin, with his guide, Simon, from Oka, came to
survey the area. Morin later was the government minister for Lower
Canada in charge of the colonization of our entire district and
oversaw the organization of Morin into a township in 1855.
Some
of the anti-Mormon sites, recognizing how easy it might be to show
that these town names weren't on the map in Joseph's day, suggest
that the names must have been known locally years before the towns
were incorporated, and that Joseph could easily have known of them
from others. But it's not like Morin was a major name of the land or
river for decades before it became a town. The name comes from a man
who arrived in the area in 1850.
Chances
of plagiarism from Morin Heights, Quebec seem remote — unless
Joseph were using his prophetic skills again. But surely Joseph could
find plenty of morons in his own area without having to scan the
remote and sparsely populated hills of Quebec. In fact, if Joseph
were making up names or plagiarizing them, I would think that he
would naturally avoid common English words like "Moron" or
"Grapefruit" (the latter not being in The Book of Mormon,
by the way), to avoid raising unnecessary questions.
Kiskiminetas
is somewhat similar to the name of a person in The Book of Mormon,
Kishkumen. But a town of that name could not have been known to
Joseph Smith before 1830, for as a
history of Armstrong County, Pennsylvania
explains, a "petition of sundry inhabitants of Allegheny
township was presented December 22, 1831, to the court of quarter
sessions of this county, asking that a new township be formed out of
the upper end of Allegheny township, to be called Kiskiminetas."
But
the new town of Kiskiminetas was named for a short nearby river (27
miles long) that had long had that name in southwestern Pennsylvania.
Did Joseph know about that little river, roughly 200 miles away from
Palmyra? Think of all the short rivers you know of from regions 200
miles away from you and then decide. Sure, it's possible. But the
case for Book of Mormon plagiarism from local place names becomes
increasingly tenuous once you look into the details.
Frankly,
I'm not very impressed by someone's ability to find a handful of
strained parallels after scanning over townships spanning many
thousands of square miles. Cognates and similar names occur easily by
chance and can readily be found anywhere you look.
A
Luau of Place Names: The Shocking Case for Plagiarism from Hawaii!
To
demonstrate the ease with which one can find names similar to The
Book of Mormon, let's explore an area that anti-Mormons, shockingly,
have failed to consider: the case for Book of Mormon plagiarism from
Hawaii. Now it's true that Hawaii was not yet a state in Joseph
Smith's day, and obtaining good geographical information about those
islands may have been almost as difficult for Joseph as obtaining
detailed information about the Arabian Peninsula. But with Joseph's
vast international network of frontier farmer-scholars at his side,
surely he could have gleaned a few tidbits from the tiny islands of
Hawaii.
As I scan the ridiculously small list of Hawaiian
place names, behold, I find rich parallels to The Book of Mormon with
a far greater density of "incredible finds per square mile"
than any anti-Mormons have crafted by their scanning of Canada and
the United States. In fact, I fear to list the parallels lest I shake
the testimonies of some of the more gullible Latter-day Saints out
there with the shocking theory of Joseph
Smith and the Hawaiian Connection to The Book of Mormon.
But, recognizing that momentarily entertaining my readers is far more
important than rescuing the dozens of souls I'm about to destroy,
here goes.
Below are name pairs, showing the Hawaiian place
name first, followed by the Book of Mormon name that may have been
plagiarized via Joseph's Hawaiian connection (perhaps drawing upon
traders who used a little-known extreme westward extension of the
Erie Canal). Some of the names are not exact matches, I admit, but
educated readers will readily recognize that they are still within
the acceptable limits of scholarship and do a much better job of
establishing Joseph Smith's guilt as a plagiarizer than any previous
critiques.
Hawaiian Place Name
Book of Mormon Name
Lahaina
Liahona
(virtually a direct hit — the first plausible non-Semitic
explanation of this strange name!)
Molokai
Muloki, Mulek (a
direct hit for Muloki! Another first!)
Lihue
Lehi (as direct
as a direct hit can be, minus a clumsy vowel shift)
Halawa
Helaman
(note Joseph's clumsy inversion of the "w" to "m",
as if we wouldn't notice — damning evidence indeed! Or could
this just be poor penmanship on Oliver Cowdery's
part?)
Lanai
Laman, Lamoni
Kihei
Kish (adding an
"s" or "sh" is another of Joseph's amateurish
tricks)
Hilo
Helam, Helaman, Helorum
Haleiwa
Helaman
("w" to "m" again), Helorum
Laie
Laish
(there's that telltale added "sh")
Lanai
Laman
Lawai
Laman
(the familiar "w" to "m" shift is at play again -
such a lack of imagination on Joseph's part)
Mililani
Moroni
(a characteristic "l" to "r" shift, no doubt
influenced by Joseph's exposure to Far Eastern
scholars)
Pahala
Pahoran (again, a clumsy repeat of the "l"
to "r" shift that scarcely covers Joseph's tracks, being
ever stuck in the same rut)
Pahoa
Pahoran
Pukalani
Pacumeni, Paanchi
Manoa
Manti
Nihoa
Nephi (note that the "h"
in Nihoa may have a more fricative nature than in English, readily
suggestive of the "ph" sound in Nephi)
Na Pali, Napili
Nephi (one can readily see how Joseph would conglomerate
Nihoa and Napili into the shorter "Nephi"
name)
Kohala
Cohor (the old "l" to "r"
shift again!), Korihor
Kaumana
Cumora
Kemoo
Chemish
(following the recipe of "just add
'sh'")
Maili
Melek
Anini
Ammon, Ammonihah
Plus many more, no doubt!
There
you have it: in a territory vastly smaller than any one of the seven
states or provinces that former anti-Mormon scholars have scanned to
find place name parallels to The Book of Mormon, I have found an
approximately equal number of parallels — with outstanding
"direct hits" — in the microscopic islands of Hawaii.
Surely this presents a vastly better case for plagiarism.
Further,
Hawaii also offers the advantages of having a sea to the west, a sea
to the east, several narrow necks of land to choose from, abundant
hills, ancient native cultures, seafaring peoples, a history of wars,
and, above all, ample evidence of volcanic activity consistent with
the dramatic inferred volcanism in 3 Nephi. Plus, guess where the
Spaulding Manuscript was eventually found? HAWAII! It's all coming
together now.
Book of Mormon critics, take a deep breath,
ponder for a moment as you sip an alcohol-free pineapple cocktail,
recognize the significance of these finds, and join me in saying
"Aloha" to the most plausible non-divine explanation for
The Book of Mormon so far: Joseph
Smith and the Hawaiian Connection.
Jeff Lindsay has been defending the Church on the Internet since 1994, when he launched his
LDSFAQ website under JeffLindsay.com. He has also long been blogging about LDS matters on
the blog Mormanity (mormanity.blogspot.com). Jeff is a longtime resident of Appleton,
Wisconsin, who recently moved to Shanghai, China, with his wife, Kendra.
He works for an Asian corporation as head of intellectual property. Jeff and Kendra are the parents of 4 boys, 3 married and the the youngest on a mission.
He is a former innovation and IP consultant, a former professor, and former Corporate Patent
Strategist and Senior Research Fellow for a multinational corporation.
Jeff Lindsay, Cheryl Perkins and Mukund Karanjikar are authors of the book Conquering
Innovation Fatigue (John Wiley & Sons, 2009).
Jeff has a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Brigham Young University and is a registered US
patent agent. He has more than 100 granted US patents and is author of numerous publications.
Jeff's hobbies include photography, amateur magic, writing, and Mandarin Chinese.