Ryan Reeder
History 390R
Derr and Esplin
January 16, 2001
1. Which accounts of the first vision mention the "multitude of angels" appearing in connection with the visitation of the Father and the Son?
2. Considering the visions of Joseph Smith concerning Zelph and the cave in Cumorah, why has the two-Cumorah theory become so popular?
3. Joseph once stated that those who apostatized from the Church would turn on him and seek his blood, yet David Whitmer claims to love Joseph, despite apparently being sincerely convinced that Joseph was a fallen prophet. So what kind of apostates are there, and which category does David Whitmer fit into?
Discussion on 2: Since John Sorenson wrote his book An Ancient American Setting for the Book of Mormon, it has become popular in the Church to accept a two-Cumorah theory, where all the action in the Book of Mormon took place in Mesoamerica, Mormon likely hid the Nephite records in a Mexican Cumorah, and Moroni wandered for years, eventually winding up in present-day upstate New York, where he buried the plates that Joseph found in a second Cumorah. However, considering the several accounts of the cave in Cumorah, the Zelph story (where Omandagus was known from Cumorah to the Rocky Mountains), and Moroni's positive identification of Cumorah in David Whitmer's account, how can it be explained away that, at least in the fourth century A.D., the Nephite civilization was spread over North America?
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