Cumorah

 

As the Nephite's wars raged, they were driven ever northward until they were north of the narrow neck of land ~ what LDS scholars believe is the Isthmus of Tehuantepec.

 
It was here, in what is now the State of Veracruz, MX, that the final battle was fought on the plain near a small mountain which Mormon called Cumorah.*  The site most likely to be Mormon's Hill Cumorah is a 3,000 foot peak on the northwestern extreme of the Tuxtla Mountains.  It is known today as Cerro El Vigia.

Some of the requirements for Cumorah from the Book of Mormon text is that it had to be near a plain where armies of thousands could have fought.  It had to be high enough so that survivors could be safe and unobserved by their enemies, yet climbable enough that wounded men could make the climb.  (Mormon, himself, was an old man by the time of the final battle and the text states that he was wounded himself.)  It had to have caves and caverns such that the Nephite records could be hidden in a way as to make discovery by their enemies unlikely.  It had to be near a land of many waters, rivers, and fountains.

Rivers, waters, and fountains in Veracruz

In describing the battle, Sorenson writes: Four years of preparation had given the Nephites as good a military position as they could home for.  The finally came the awesome climax.  Since they had left God behind, there remained only their own muscles and heads to fight against the Lamanite horde that came upon them at the hill Cumorah (see Mormon 6:7) . . . the families of the soldiers were present.  So the outcome was to be genocide, not merely military defeat. Twenty-three 10,000 men armies mad up the Nephite force.  All were wiped out on that one grim day. [1]

The Nephites were impossibly outnumbered.  Hordes of Lamanite armies drove at them from the south and the west and the armies of Teotihuacan hit them from the north.  It was wholesale slaughter of men, women, and children.  Only twenty-four Nephites survived.  These made their way by night to the top of Cumorah.  At the dawn they looked down on a field strew with hundreds of thousands of casualties.

Why did the Lamanites prevail when they were at least as wicked as the Nephites?  Perhaps it is because the Lord has said where much is given, much is required (see Luke 12:48; D & C 8:23)  Think of Assyria fighting and conquering the Northern Kingdom of Israel and Babylon prevailing against Judah.  This was not the first time that God had used the wicked to destroy the wicked. 

[1] An Ancient American Setting for the Book of Mormon, John L. Sorenson, pp. 349-350

* Many Latter-day Saints believe that the final battle was fought in New York State near the hill where Joseph Smith found the golden plates.  LDS archaeologists have since pretty well debunked that idea for many reasons, primarily because that Hill Cumorah in NY doesn't fit any of the necessary criteria demanded by the Book of Mormon text itself.  In truth, Joseph Smith himself never referred to the hill in NY as Cumorah.  It was Oliver Cowdery and other followers of Smith who began calling it that.  Joseph was given a copy a book by archaeologist John Lloyd Stevens which was published in1841.  The book documented the very first archaeological "dig" in Central America.  Joseph was fascinated by the discovery of great civilizations in that part of the world.  He'd had no idea such things even existed until then. (Remember that the Book of Mormon was published in 1830.)  The Church newspaper of the day, The Times and the Seasons, did a review of the book, suggesting that the Saints would not go far wrong to look at Central America as the location of Zarahemla and other Book of Mormon lands. 

How the plates got from ancient Veracruz to ancient New York will be discussed next week when I talk about Mormon's son, Moroni.

 

Text copyright February 2014, Gebara Education

 

Pictures:

Map 1 from www.nephicode.com

Map 2 from www.heatherandscottadventures.com

Cerro El Vigia from www.mormondialogue.org

Waters of Veracruz from www.es.wikipedia.com