Monday, February 3, 2025

2025 improvements - JSP on Cumorah

The Joseph Smith Papers (JSP) site inexplicably omits Cumorah from important resources and downplays it in others. In this post we'll propose improvements in the JSP regarding Cumorah.

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Places and Glossary

The JSP includes references for Places and a Glossary. These are awesome reference materials that provide lots of useful details and links. The Places page is so comprehensive that it includes such obscure sites as "Cook’s Mills tavern stand, Cookstown, New Jersey."

Inexplicably, neither Places nor Glossary mention "Cumorah," or "Hill Cumorah." 

Both should. 

After all, Cumorah played a critical role in the coming forth of the Book of Mormon. There are numerous references to Cumorah throughout the JSP, as well as in the Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants. 

To improve the JSP, readers need a Places reference for Cumorah, which I propose below. A similar reference should be included in the Glossary to explain what Cumorah refers to. 

Here is the JSP page for Places "C." Notice the "Cooks' Mills tavern stand," and then notice the omission of Cumorah.

(click to enlarge)

https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/reference/places?filter=c

It's interesting also that if you click on the maps for the area around Cumorah, such as Manchester or Palmyra, you can scroll around and see that the JSP map doesn't even show Cumorah. But the default Google map does.

JSP map (scrolled up from Manchester), which omits Cumorah.

Basic Google map, which shows Cumorah.

We all realize there are different settings in Google, but the JSP inexplicably elected to omit Cumorah from the maps of early Church history it includes in its Places site.

Below I'll offer a proposed improvement for JSP in the form of an entry they can use for "Cumorah" on the Places site.

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If the JSP editors decline to include "Cumorah" among the "Places" in Church History, they should at least include "Cumorah" in the Glossary so readers can learn what the term means. Like David Whitmer, who didn't know what "Cumorah" meant when he heard the term from the messenger who was taking the abridged plates from Harmony to Cumorah, readers of the JSP will not know what Cumorah means unless someone tells them.

Actually, "Cumorah" should be on both the Places page and in the Glossary. JSP can use the same entry for both, except the Places page for Cumorah should include a map.

JSP page for Glossary "C" which omits Cumorah.

(click to enlarge)

https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/reference/topics?filter=c

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Here's my proposed entry for Cumorah which should be in both Places and Glossary.

The Hill Cumorah

Insert the same Google map that is used as for other locations, except adding Cumorah to the map.

Summary

Located in western New York between Palmyra and Manchester, about 3 miles southeast of the Smith home. Mentioned in Mormon 6:2-6. Identified by Moroni during his first visit to Joseph Smith. "Glad tidings from Cumorah! Moroni, an angel from heaven, declaring the fulfilment of the prophets—the book to be revealed. (Doctrine and Covenants 128:20) Moroni told JS "the record is on a side hill on the Hill of Cumorah 3 miles from this place remove the Grass and moss and you will find a large flat stone pry that up and you will find the record." 1 Moroni also "said this history was written and deposited not far from that place," referring to the Smith home. 2 During the first mission to the Lamanites, Oliver Cowdery related Moroni's identification of the hill. "This Book, which contained these things, was hid in the earth by Moroni, in a hill called by him, Cumorah, which hill is now in the State of New York, near the village of Palmyra, in Ontario County." 3 In early 1827 JS related an encounter with the angel: “it was the angel of the Lord— as I passed by the hill of Cumorah, where the plates are, the angel of the Lord met me and said, that I had not been engaged enough in the work of the Lord." 4 In June 1829, David Whitmer first heard the name Cumorah from the divine messenger who had taken the plates from JS in Harmony. When the messenger declined a ride, "he said very pleasantly, “No, I am going to Cumorah.’ This name was something new to me, I did not know what Cumorah meant." 5  As Assistant President of the Church, Oliver Cowdery described the hill as along "the mail road from Palmyra, Wayne Co. to Canandaigua, Ontario Co. N.Y. and also, as you pass from the former to the latter place, before arriving at the little village of Manchester, say from three to four, or about four miles from Palmyra, you pass a large hill on the east side of the road. Why I say large, is because it is as large perhaps, as any in that country. To a person acquainted with this road, a description would be unnecessary, as it is the largest and rises the highest of any on that rout.... At about one mile west rises another ridge of less height, running parallel with the former, leaving a beautiful vale between. The soil is of the first quality for the country, and under a state of cultivation, which gives a prospect at once imposing, when one reflects on the fact, that here, between these hills, the entire power and national strength of both the Jaredites and Nephites were destroyed." 6 Cowdery also explained that "This hill, by the Jaredites, was called Ramah: by it, or around it pitched the famous army of Coriantumr their tents." 7  

Links

1. https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/lucy-mack-smith-history-1844-1845/41

2. https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/history-1834-1836/68

3. Autobiography of Parley P. Pratt, 

https://archive.org/details/autobiographyofp00prat/page/58/mode/2up

4. https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/lucy-mack-smith-history-1845/111

5. REPORT OF ELDERS ORSON PRATT AND JOSEPH F. SMITH to President John Taylor and Council of the Twelve. https://catalog.churchofjesuschrist.org/assets/dca15baa-a0ac-4fc1-b2ec-7f3cd75e4906/0/44

6. http://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/history-1834-1836/90 

7. https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/history-1834-1836/91

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Another area for improvement is the search function.

Inexplicably, a search for "Cumorah" in the JSP search bar produces 26 results, but omits the one from Lucy Mack Smith, History, 1845. This reference should be included in the results for a search for "Cumorah."

 https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/lucy-mack-smith-history-1845/111

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The Events section includes following entry at https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/event/jss-visit-to-hill-cumorah. However, neither the entry nor the footnote explains Cumorah. The footnote should include a reference to Cumorah.

JS’s Visit to Hill Cumorah

22 September 1823

JS visited hill and attempted to obtain plates three times, but failed, Manchester Township, New York. The angel instructed him to return the following year. 1

Proposed revision of note 1:

JS History, ca. Summer 1832, 4; Lucy Mack Smith, History, 1844–1845, Page [11], bk. 3History, 1834–1836, Page 93-9

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The Glossary includes an entry on "Gold Plates" that contains a misleading sentence and lack of explanation. The bolded sentence implies that the name Cumorah is a modern invention, contrary to the historical record that shows it was Moroni who identified the hill as Cumorah both anciently and in modern times when he first visited JS.

https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/topic/gold-plates

Gold plates

Summary

A record engraved on gold plates, which JS translated and published as the Book of Mormon. 1 The text explained that the plates were an abridgment of other ancient records and were written by an American prophet named Mormon and his son Moroni. 2 The plates were buried in present-day Manchester, Ontario County, New York, in what is now known as the Hill Cumorah. 3 JS’s history explained that JS received the plates in September 1827. 4 According to signed statements published in the Book of Mormon, in June 1829 three witnesses were shown the plates by an angel, and an additional eight witnesses were shown the plates by JS. 5

JS History, ca. Summer 1832, 4; “The Book of Mormon,” The Evening and the Morning Star, Jan. 1833, [1]–[3].

Proposed improvement: replace the bolded sentence and accompanying note with this:

Moroni explained that the record was written and deposited not far from JS home in the hill Moroni referred to as Cumorah. 

JS History, ca. Summer 1832, 4; Lucy Mack Smith, History, 1844–1845, Page [11], bk. 3History, 1834–1836, Page 65


 






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