Are there metals for making plates found in Yucatan Peninsula? How does it compare with other models like South America? Bob Roylance will answer these and other questions. Check out our conversation…
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Comparing with South America
GT 00:26 Well since you’re an agriculture guy, you didn’t go to Utah State did you, by the way?
Bob 00:30 No, I went to BYU.
GT 00:31 You went to BYU. Okay. The reason why I ask that, I know the South America—have you followed the South America Book of Mormon theory very closely?
Bob 00:40 Not very closely, I’ve just sort of glanced at it.
GT 00:42 One of their big things is that Nephi grew up in a Mediterranean climate and it said that they took seeds with them and that when they got to the promised land, wherever that is, the seeds grew. And so South American proponents, and Baja to some extent, say that those two areas are a Mediterranean climate. Would you consider the Yucatan Peninsula to be a Mediterranean climate as well?
Bob 01:13 Pretty close.
GT 01:14 Pretty close?
Bob 01:17 The equator goes into Kenya. It’s north, probably through the southern Sahara Desert. So, yeah, it’s Mediterranean. Yeah.
GT 01:36 Okay.
Bob 01:37 Maybe more so. It’s Mediterranean. But corn or maize is the big deal in Central America.
GT 01:49 Right. It’s funny because the Book of Mormon doesn’t really mention corn that much, does it?
Bob 01:55 No
GT 01:56 Because barley and wheat is what it mentions. But those were not really common in the Yucatan? Or were they?
Bob 02:03 No, they grow it, but it’s not like corn.
GT 02:09 Yeah, corn is everything.
Bob 02:10 There’s a lot of tradition about corn, a lot of sacred—when we planted our corn there, we had to have the seeds. We had to bring it in early, so that the people could put the candles above it with Mary there. And then they’d wave their smoky things over the seeds, making sure it was blessed. We had to adhere to their traditions, or we would be probably shunned. So, it’s fun trying to work with their traditions, to be right honest.
GT 02:10 Yeah.
Bob 02:47 Now, I’m working over in Senahu, which is an LDS community, and those traditions are no longer there. So, it was really fun working with them, because then we can move ahead and do these things really the way I think it ought to be done, rather than trying to be held up by tradition. It’s really been a fun experience.
GT 03:06 You’re talking about with some of the trips you’ve been on to help with farming and that kind of thing?
Bob 03:11 Yeah. I’ve been in about 20 countries, a lot of the developing countries, trying to help them with overcoming their poverty and their starvation situations, and it’s quite a ride.
GT 03:24 Okay.
Bob 03:24 And then I spent several months in the Sahara trying to help them rehabilitate a multimillion dollar failure in their big canal, and they just couldn’t raise the crops. So, I went over there to help them on that. And I think I helped a little bit. But it’s, as far as I can tell, it’s still pretty much a failure. There are some things that they can’t overcome. There are parts that we were able to overcome.
GT 03:54 All right, well, tell us more about Yucatan, why that’s a good place for Book of Mormon lands?
Bob 04:03 Well, we could spend days and maybe months, going over all the stuff that we’ve put together. We do a worksheet on every location, where we look at all the scriptural references to that location, and we look at all the other things that may apply. And so, we just dig really deep in our model to make sure everything is taken into consideration. In order for us to decide with a high level of confidence, it has to be a city that has the date right, the location right in relationship to other sites, triangulation. It has to have the size that you’d expect on a Book of Mormon site. And then there’s also usually–something else will fall out that will make it look like it’s real. But [if it has] those three things, we will classify it as highly likely.
GT 05:12 Okay.
Bob 05:16 Yeah. So I think we’ve been very thorough. I don’t know of anybody else. And the thing that’s so neat about ours is everything is predictable. Well, if a city is here and another city is here, then there’s should be a city here. When you go there, there’s the city. You’re not putting cities in just blank places so it’ll meet a map requirement. There’s got to be an actual site that meets those requirements, or it’ll fail on our criteria. And I find that to be very thorough, a thorough way of looking at it.
Geology & Metals
GT 05:50 Let me ask you this. I was talking with Jerry Grover. Are you familiar with him? {Bob nods no.} So, he’s a geologist. He wrote a book called Geology of the Book of Mormon. And I’ve asked him specifically. It seems like Heartland and Meso are the top two. And there’s a bunch of other theories, Yucatan, Baja and some other ones. But one of the things that he said, when there’s the destruction in Third Nephi, he feels like you need to have some fault lines in your map that explain the destruction of different cities. It talks about the mists of darkness and the sounds and the quakings. And it was so dark, they couldn’t even light fire, which, the Hebrews didn’t have a word for volcanoes, but he says it really sounds a lot like volcanoes. But one of the things that was surprising to me that he said, and I was just listening to it this morning, because I wanted to make sure; he said, Guatemala, Mesoamerica, you’ve got volcanoes that fit that pretty well. But he said seismically, the Yucatan Peninsula, there’s the fewest faults there. He says it’s the most seismically sound place. And so how would you describe the destructions of those cities?
Bob 07:22 Well, the Polochic faultline runs right through the line between Zarahemla and Nephi, the land of Nephi and the land of Zarahemla. And there is a lot of evidence of earthquake damage, and landslides caused by seismic activity there. And that’s going on today even. But it appears like, if you want to look at the map and see a major landslide, where La Tinta is built on today, I think that was the place where possibly Mocum or Ammonihah could be covered up. We think we know where Jerusalem was carried because of a major landslide. That’s right on a fault line. So, anyway, yeah.
Bob 08:21 Then there’s Anaguatecha, which is where I think the Land of Melek is, a very defensive type place for the people of Ammon. And that’s just directly west of Zarahemla. There’s a huge crack in the earth there. A huge crack. When that happened, I don’t know. But it’s amazing. I don’t think you’ll find anything like that anywhere in Mesoamerica. So somewhere, there has been some seismic activity. But we do have the volcanoes. There’s no other country that has volcanoes like Guatemala. And so that part of it is pretty accurate.
GT 09:06 Are there other volcanoes on the Yucatan? Because it sounds like on the southern end, there are, but not so much on the northern end.
Bob 09:12 Yeah. Yeah. But, if you have several volcanoes going off at the same time, that can really carry a few miles away. So, there’s no doubt that part of the Book of Mormon of my model would be impacted in a very big way.
GT 09:31 But would it impact the correct cities? That’s what Jerry would say. I’m channeling Jerry Grover here. {Rick chuckling)
Bob 09:38 Well, it would impact some of them. I don’t know, I’d have to study. I would think that those eruptions would be much more severe than normal. It could be.
GT 09:54 Okay.
Bob 09:55 And so then if that’s the case, then what would happen. What does that really mean in terms of how far it carries? So, I don’t know, I think that’s a good question.
GT 10:14 Okay.
Bob 10:15 But I do think we’re much more in a position to have that happen than the Heartlanders.
GT 10:25 Yeah, the Heartlanders were saying, “Well it doesn’t say the word volcano in there, in the Book of Mormon.” But still, I mean, okay, good point. But how do you explain the mists of darkness? Because an earthquake isn’t just going to create mists of darkness.
Bob 10:44 Yes but the volcanoes go off, and everything, in my view, I’m trying to read that. It’s like you had a perfect storm, volcanoes and earthquakes.
GT 10:55 And Jerry’s point is, if you go back to Mount St. Helens, I mean, the immediate area around there, it was dark. It was at noon, and it looked like it was pitch black. But that’s a relatively small area. Granted, the dust cloud is going to go up, maybe up to the Yucatan Peninsula, let’s say. But is it going to create those conditions that far away? Probably not.
Bob 11:22 I’ve thought about that. I haven’t totally, but I thought, well, that was an unusual event, and unusual things happen.
GT 11:30 Because the volcano is going to be really important, nearby where the volcano is, like Pompeii or wherever. It’s going to be catastrophic. But farther away, where those cities need to be, it’s probably, I mean, it’ll affect the weather or whatever, but it’s not going to block out the sun as much.
Bob 11:55 The other thing, if you went to the land of Nephi, I think that’s very probable, that you’d get, if you had a major (event), several of them went off at the same time. I mean, we’re just really speculating here, but then they’d be definitely affected in my mind. But you go over the narrow strip of wilderness, then that becomes less [impacted.] So, who knows where they were referring to? Who knows which area of the Book of Mormon lands was that impacting? Was it all of the Book of Mormon lands or just a part of the Book of Mormon lands?
GT 12:35 Yeah.
Bob 12:38 Because I think we can definitely say that part of the Book of Mormon lands was affected that way.
GT 12:42 Yeah, and Jerry seems to say ]that] well, you’ve got to make sure, if you say this city is destroyed, is there a volcano nearby or whatever? And he didn’t seem to think that was the case with Yucatan, but…
Bob 12:53 I’d like to talk to him.
GT 12:57 Yeah, definitely. I’ll put you in contact with him.
Bob 12:59 Yeah, we need to look at all sides of that. {both chuckling}
GT 13:02 Because I don’t know, one of my favorite theories is the Malay theory. Have you heard about that?
Bob 13:07 No.
GT 13:08 It’s a peninsula, basically in Malaysia. So number one, you’re going to be like, well, that’s kind of far-fetched. But it has seismic activity. It’s got gold, it’s got silver. It’s got—it’s been inhabited the whole time. Thailand means land of the free, apparently, Land of liberty.
Bob 13:28 There’s some traditions in Thailand that are pretty interesting.
GT 13:30 Yeah. So if you ignore where it is, it fits the Book of Mormon really well. {both laughing}
Bob 13:39 Yeah. Well, actually, in Burma, there’s a lot of tradition out of there…
GT 13:42 Yeah.
Bob 13:44 …that makes us stop and think that.
GT 13:45 That’s right there on the Malay Peninsula. And this gets into where the—because I’ve asked them the same question. Well, I haven’t because the guy who wrote it died. But the hardest question is the two Cumorah theory, which Heartlanders, they eat that for lunch because they’re like, there’s only one Cumorah and it’s in New York. Because the question is, well, how did they get the plates from Malay to New York or Yucatan to New York, or Meso to New York? I mean, that’s a tough answer. If you say that it was a limited geography, I mean, you did say you can go anywhere in forty years. Well, that’s what the Malay people say. {both laughing} And why, if it’s doing it for 40 years, why isn’t he writing something down?
Bob 14:41 Well, he did for a while. He did for a while, every once in awhile. He ran out of ore, and then he found some more and then he started writing again. But I think the last, at least the last 10 years, I don’t think he wrote much.
GT 14:52 Do we have record of gold plates or copper plates or any kind of plates in Yucatan?
Bob 15:01 Well, I went through a museum in Merida, that’s on the northern part. And they had a lot of metal, different kinds of metal.
GT 15:08 It’s mostly copper kind of stuff?
Bob 15:10 Yeah, it seemed like there’s a variety of metal. I was having a hard time deciphering that. I couldn’t find anybody that I could ask. But there were different kinds of metal there, especially in Guatemala. In the middle of Guatemala, there’s lots of metals, different metals.
GT 15:33 I mean, I’m going to play the role of critic here for just a minute. Because the sons of Lamoni, they buried their weapons of war, and they rusted. And I know, that’s been one of the big knocks against Meso. But I think it’s a similar knock against Yucatan probably, because, I mean, you guys are pretty, kind of in the same area. I do like the north/south orientation. But, anyway, they had these clubs that had a bunch of flint, and they were basically wooden clubs with a bunch of very sharp flint. Well flint doesn’t rust. I’m sure it’s deadly. I’m sure it would cause a lot of damage, but it’s not really a sword and so you are really playing semantics with the sword there.
Bob 16:26 Well, the fact that they’re, in the museum, they’re displaying the metals up there, to me was quite clear.
GT 16:31 But did they have steel? Because it says steel swords.
Bob 16:34 I don’t know.
GT 16:36 Yeah. Because I’ve asked us about Baja, too. They didn’t really use, I mean, even ore in South America was used for paint, like face paint and things like that. It wasn’t really used to make metal plates, or steel swords. Do you see that as a weakness with either Yucatan or Meso?
Bob 17:04 Oh, I don’t know. There was an awful lot of gold and a lot of stuff there when the Spaniards arrived.
GT 17:11 Well, they kept saying, “Oh, if you go to the next town, there’s some gold.” Well, they never found any the gold. It was always the next town. Go check out the next town.
Bob 17:22 Yeah, I don’t know. Kirk Magleby in his site has a lot on metals. And if you want to read something that’s very extensive on the metal, that’s pretty impressive.
GT 17:45 I’m going to play Book of Mormon critic here, once again, here for a minute. Because the gold plates are pretty unique. I talked to Brant Gardner about this. Because you will find the copper scroll with the Dead Sea Scroll, but it’s really small. I mean, it’s just a small scroll. It’s not like a 500-page book, like that has never really—you can find some little small writing on some copper here and there. But it’s usually like a personal thing, almost like you’d wear it as a necklace kind of a thing. Not like a three- or 500-page Book of Mormon. That’s never been found anywhere. And so, a critic of the Book of Mormon is going to say, “Where’s the plates?”
Bob 18:27 Well, you go into that museum in Guatemala City, and there’s some boxes there. There’s some boxes there that are portrayed as holy, as storage for metal plates. That’s how they portray it. They may be after LDS visitors to get them excited; I don’t know. But there’s some interesting stuff there in that regard.
GT 18:55 Because I’ve heard that happens a lot. “Oh, you’re Mormon. We’ll give you the Mormon tour.” {both laughing}
Bob 19:01 Yeah, that’s interesting. Yeah.
GT 19:03 I mean, because I went to Lamanai, [Belize] and we even heard there was like, “Well, this is like a baptismal font.” I’m like, is that true? Is that really true? Or are you just playing up for the Mormons?
Bob 19:12 You were on a Book of Mormon tour?
GT 19:15 It wasn’t a Book of Mormon tour. We just went to Tulum and Lamanai. I went to Lamanai in Belize. And I thought that was a lot of fun. But it’s hard.
Bob 19:28 My Hill Cumorah is only 10 miles north of Lamanai.
GT 19:33 Oh, it is yeah. Oh, wow.
Bob 19:36 So that, to me, that whole area there where the Hutterites are would be the Nephite land where they had villages and cities.
GT 19:48 I think Belize is great. Belize, you need to hire me to be on your tours.
Bob 19:54 Talks about a choice land above all others, a promised land. Boy, I’ll tell you that’s a promised land, I think. I mean, there’s some beautiful I mean, it’s tropical and beautiful cattle ranches.
GT 20:06 I would have picked Hawaii. That’s my promised land.
{End of Part 3}
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