Book of Mormon/Geography/Models/Hemispheric/Goble-May 2002

FAIR Answers—back to home page

Model Name	Date Proposed	Scope	Narrow Neck	Land North	Land South	Cumorah	River Sidon	Nephi's Landing	Religion	Type of model Model name: Goble-May 2002 Date proposed: 2002 Scope: LGT Narrow neck: Niagara Peninsula Land north: Upper Canada Land south: Eastern US/Midwest Cumorah: New York Sidon: Mississippi Landing: Gulf of Mexico Religion: LDS Type: External

• Edwin G. Goble and Wayne N. May, This Land, Zarahemla and the Nephite Nation: Only One Cumorah (Colfax, WI: Ancient American Archaeology Foundation, 2002). ISBN 0970398514.
• Note that while Wayne May continues to publish this book, Ed Goble has disclaimed the geography and has not profited from that work since 2002 when it was first published. He signed over the rights to that book entirely to Wayne May not long after it was published. He also disclaims the use of the fraudulent Soper-Savage (also called the "Michigan artifacts") and Burrows Cave "artifacts." May and Goble parted ways in 2002 as a result of a disagreement over Goble's retraction of the book and those artifacts.
• Goble has gone in favor of the "Two Heartland" theory (Goble-2004, published in his newer book Resurrecting Cumorah).

Reviews

• Joe V. Andersen, "A critical Review of Wayne N. May's This Land: Zarahemla and the Nephite Nation."
• Brant Gradner, "This Idea: The "This Land" Series and the U.S.-Centric Reading of the Book of Mormon (A review of "This Land: Zarahemla and the Nephite Nation; This Land: Only One Cumorah!; and This Land: They Came from the East" by: Edwin G. Goble and Wayne N. May; Wayne N. May; and Wayne N. May)," FARMS Review 20/2 (2008): 141–162. off-site wiki

Plagiarism?

In 2008, Goble charged that Meldrum's model seemed to have plagiarized elements from his first geography (Goble-May 2002) without attribution. More recently, Goble realized that his initial charge against Meldrum's model was too emotionally-based, and that excessive fault-finding about minutia is unproductive.

Conclusion of DVD uses the Michigan relics as evidence. The DVD elsewhere refers to these artifacts as "a person on a cross" which makes their identity clear (Meldrum, DVD (2007), Sect #14, 7:56.) For more details, see subheading "Michigan Relics as Evidence," in FAIR:Reviews of DNA Evidence for Book of Mormon Geography:Identifying the Nephites.

The head of the FIRM Foundation replied:

“Seek first to understand, then to be understood” would be a good idea for this last post. You have obviously not seen Meldrum’s DVD as he has no Michigan artifacts in it and he came to his DNA conclusions long before encountering Wayne May.

The former claim is false, since the Michigan forgeries are in the presentation (see screenshot image)

The head of the FIRM Foundation later told Goble:

This geography was not plagerized [sic] from you at all, as you so indicated in your rant. You called ALL of the Great Lakes ‘Sea West’, you claim the ‘Nephite North’ is a highly skewed angle nearly making Lake Ontario and Lake Erie north/south of each other (see p.75 of your book) which completely changes your geographic ideas. I do not espouse either of these arguements [sic]. If you had seen the DVD, you would have known that out geographies are substantially different, if not unrelated. Your unsubstantiated claim that I copied your geography is not true. I began to research North American geographies after I had worked on the DNA evidence. I had come to many preliminary conclusions prior to my meeting Wayne May. I found his geographic ideas were the closest to what I had found, and so went to one of his presentations to learn more. Again I am being accused without evidence in fact. I agree with you, your geography doesn’t work and I don’t blame you for abandoning it. The proposed geography of my DVD has many things that need to be addressed as well, and I am hoping for competent help in establishing a more complete understanding.

It has, however, been pointed out that Meldrum's enthusiasm for Goble's book was much greater than his statements might lead us to believe, from a testimonial posted on Wayne May's website:

“Wayne May’s book series provides the 'most comprehensive compilation of Book of Mormon background history, geography, logical research, and artifacts (complete with photographs), of any book on the subject to date….Open your mind and heart to the information contained in these books, and you will gain a renewed love for the prophet and the Book of Mormon itself. Truth will prevail.”

Goble has pointed out that one of his ideas is quite unique, and matches the Heartland model's claim:

“The idea of a confluence of rivers making up the head of the Sidon is lifted from MY book, Mr. Meldrum. That was MY idea.”

This can be compared with The FIRM Foundation's identical idea.

Notes