Great Lakes Book of Mormon geography

Beginning in the early 1990s, several Latter-day Saints jumped on the Great Lakes Book of Mormon geography bandwagon.

Because the Great Lakes and Mesoamerican models are by far the two most popular, I plan to spend the next several issues discussing them.

The first Latter-day Saint to publish a Great Lakes model appears to be Delbert Curtis, who in 1988 published the booklet “The Land of the Nephites.” In 1993, he expanded his argument in his book "Christ in North America."

Since 1988, other Latter-day Saint authors have also promoted their version of the Great Lakes model. These include Duane Aston, "Return to Cumorah" (1998) and "The Other Side of Cumorah" (2003); Paul Hedengren, "The Land of Lehi" (1995); Phyllis Olive, "Lost Lands of the Book of Mormon" (2000); Ed Goble with Wayne May, "This Land, Zarahemla and the Nephite Nation: Only One Cumorah" (2002); Rodney Meldrum, "DNA Evidence for Book of Mormon Geography" (DVD, 2003) and "Rediscovering the Book of Mormon Remnant through DNA" (2009); and Meldrum with Burce Porter, "Prophecies and Promises: The Book of Mormon & The United States of America" (2009).

Tangentially (unrelated to the strength or weakness of any model) there are some interesting dynamics among some of these authors. Duane Aston was once a supporter of a Mesoamerican model but shifted his focus to the Great Lakes region. Conversely, Ed Goble once believed that Book of Mormon events happened in the Great Lakes vicinity but now leans in favor of a Mesoamerican model.

May, Meldrum, Porter and LDS Travel Agency President Brian Mickelsen were all partners in a Book of Mormon geography group that formed a website and sponsored seminars, but Meldrum eventually left the group for financial reasons. According to Michael De Groote’s Deseret News article, due to disputes in the sharing of profits, Meldrum decided to host his own conference.

"(I)t’s what Rod does for a living,” Porter told the Deseret News, “and everybody has a right to earn a living …”

The quality of arguments for a Great Lakes model varies from proponent to proponent and ranges from scholarly and informed to naïve and uninformed. Common arguments that can be found in the works of several advocates include the following:

1. The word “lake” is never used in the Book of Mormon (other than metaphorically). The word “sea” could easily refer to “lakes” just as the Dead Sea doesn’t denote an actual sea, therefore the Great Lakes could be the Book of Mormon “seas.”