In our final discussion with Bob Roylance, he’ll discuss the kings of Tikal as another evidence of the Book of Mormon on the Yucatan. We’ll also discuss a tough problem: DNA. How will Bob handle that? Check out our conversation…
Kings of Tikal
GT 00:33 I’m trying to remember what else there is. I don’t want to play too much of a critic, but I feel like I do have to ask the critical questions.
Bob 00:38 Oh, yeah, we’re here for…
GT 00:41 What else is there?
GT 00:43 You know, we could talk about the kings of Tikal, if you want to talk about that.
Bob 00:47 Okay, how do they relate to the Book of Mormon?
Bob 00:50 We have got a publication out where we identify 34 connecting periods or dates between the Tikal, the Lamanites. We figured that was a Lamanite stronghold. And the Kings, the most impressive date connection is when that final war took place, at 375. And then, when the first time that the people started to leave the church after Christ came was around 90 AD. That’s about the same time kings started up again. So, we think that that was—and then the fact that the 350 AD treaty happened the same time a new king arrived, that was very aggressive in his fighting. And then, the general from Teotihuacan, was in various cities on the west side of the land of Cumorah. It appeared like he was preparing for the battle there in Hamel, and also in Ria Azil, there just on the very edge of the land of Cumorah. And the fact that the sacrifice of children was in that area [adds to the evidence.] And we have about 35 of these things all planned out. It just is beyond any—to have all that many connections, which is pretty impressive.
GT 02:31 Do we have any Book of Mormon names in there? These are Mayan names, I’m guessing, so they probably might be hard to match them up. Lamanai perhaps.
Bob 02:46 I don’t know how that got there. But, anyway, that whole area there is just really amazing. The final Jaredite war just fits like a glove, how the waters of Ripliancum and the Hill Comnor and the route that they took, fits really well. And so, these are all things that just start to add up, keep adding up. And one of the things that I love to do when I go there, whenever I go through, there’s a narrow strip of wilderness that goes from the East Sea to the West, until it hits the Pacific Ocean. And I think that’s almost a consensus amongst the Mesoamerican people that that is the narrow strip of wilderness. Well, there’s one place where there’s a gap in that strip, where people go through. And like the Book of Mormon says, Moroni did a lot of fortifications to keep the Lamanites on the south side of the narrow strip of wilderness. Well, if you go through that gap, you can see these fortifications right there. And then I just sit there and say, okay, now just envision, the people of Ammon all going through he narrow neck. Just envision the sons of Mosiah going through that narrow neck, and you go down the list and it’s kind of fun to sit there and say, “Hey, this is where it really happened.” And that’s just a very persuasive part of the Book of Mormon. That’s where it all took place, where those things took place.
Bob 04:31 Another thing that really fits is the Hill Riplah war. Man, we’ve got a place that nails that. The Lamanites were attacking the Ammonites in Jershon. And Moroni had such an army there that they decided to go another place to fight. So, they then go to Manti. So, they went around the south wilderness, which we’ve got nailed, I think, really well to the headwaters of the Sidon river, the Pasion river. And there’s two rivers that come together at just about the right spot. And then the Lamanites went to this hill, and they had to climb the hill. Now, why didn’t they just follow the river? Because the river goes under the ground. Then it comes out on the other side of the hill. So, they go up on the north side of the hill, where Moroni is stationed with his group. Well, not on top of the hill, but down on the bottom. So, it says they go by, Moroni was on the west side, but they end up on the east side of the river where the soldiers of Lehi. Well, we have that route perfectly set up. And then Lehi drives them back across the river. And there’s a deep channel there, that describes perfectly how they had the advantage over the Lamanites. And so they’re just those kinds of things all the time that just fit just really well. And I don’t see how it could happen any other way, I mean, if you take that literally.
Bob 06:15 Then the other thing was when they had the war, where the Lamanites were in the Land of Gideon, and they were chasing the Lamanites to Zarahemla. And they met them on the banks of the Pasion or the Sidon River. And they piled up on the river and they had to throw them in the river so they could get back across and chase them again. But then it says that they went northwest. Well, the Sidon River was going north. So how do they go Northwest? Well, the Sidon River takes a turn. Then they go chase them up to what we call Hermounts, not Hermounts, the national park there of Landa Concón. And that all fits just perfectly. So it just, I mean, it just goes on and on. I could spend all day just taking every story in the Book of Mormon, Lehi’s failed attempt to find Zarahemla. That’s a perfect reason why they wouldn’t have found Zarahemla. They just followed the wrong river. And then Richard Hauck, in his studies in Salama, he came up with about 40 reasons why that is so, and I’ve came up with another 10 after all of our other things that fit in well. And so that just seemed like it just goes on and on like that. So, I agree that the Atlantic crossing is a problem. I agree with that.
Bob 07:53 But there’s 90% of the Book of Mormon guessers agree with that. {both laughing} So, I haven’t paid much attention to try and prove that I just thought well, that’s one thing that I’m just going to say, that okay, sounds okay with me. I do think that Nahom is really good evidence. In fact, that’s really the only thing that we have as pure evidence is Nahom.
GT 08:21 In the Middle East.
Bob 08:24 And then from there on, it’s pretty persuasive.
DNA
GT 08:31 Well, I feel like I have to ask you the DNA question, because it seems like to me that’s one of the biggest problems for any of the American theories: Baja, Meso, Heartland, Delmarva. It doesn’t matter. What do you have to say about DNA?
Bob 08:52 Well, the Church has come out pretty strongly that that’s a—one of the things, though, that I wanted to do while I was in Guatemala was to get some of their DNA. I tried to find DNA there. But one of them did have his DNA and he had some indication that it was from Jerusalem.
GT 09:18 It wasn’t X2A was it?
Bob 09:20 I don’t know. But I don’t know whether that makes any sense or not.
GT 09:25 So you’re not really a DNA expert?
Bob 09:29 I don’t know. I think there’s—I don’t know. When I read the stuff the Church puts out, I don’t put much stock in DNA information.
GT 09:48 Okay. So that’s not an issue for you?
Bob 09:49 But I would like to take some DNA there, just for the heck of it and see what they are. But that’s expensive, so I decided not to do that.
GT 09:57 Yeah, well, my understanding is usually it’s not Middle Eastern DNA. It’s Asian DNA.
Bob 10:07 One of the things, though, that the K’iche’ language has a real close connection with the Hebrew language. I’ve been told that several times while I was there. So, to me, there’s a pretty strong connection right there.
GT 10:23 I know Brian Stubbs and I need to get him on. Maybe this will—he lives in the Four Corners area, and I hate doing zoom interviews, but I may have to, in this case. But he says he’s found some parallels with Uto-Aztecan. But I I don’t believe that’s related to Mayan, because you’re more of, “These are Mayan peoples.” Right?
Bob 10:49 Well, yeah. And you’ve got to remember that the Olmecs assimilated into the Mayan society in a really big way. In fact, there’s…
GT 11:02 What’s the language of the Olmecs? Do you know?
Bob 11:05 I don’t know.
GT 11:07 I don’t think it’s Uto-Aztecan. {Rick chuckling}
Bob 11:10 But, that final Jaredite war? Who was that with? Was that Maya and Olmec fighting together?
GT 11:23 Against each other?
Bob 11:26 Each other?
GT 11:27 Could be. I don’t know. I mean, I thought it was Lamanites and Nephites.
Bob 11:32 Well, it’s the Jaredites.
GT 11:33 Oh, you’re talking about Jaredite war?
Bob 11:34 The Jaredite war.
GT 11:35 Okay. So you think that the Olmecs and the Mayans were fighting against each other?
Bob 11:40 I think that’s a possibility. I think that needs more research. LaVenta was destroyed. Well, not destroyed, it ceased to exist around 300 to 400 AD.
GT 12:01 The LaVenta tribe?
Bob 12:02 It is Olmec. But LeVenta is right on the edge of the Book of Mormon lands. And so they could have taken forces from LaVenta to help support the war. But that’s highly speculative, in my mind, but it’s fun to think about it. Maybe that’s the reason for the war. I know Coriantumr was moaning over the 2 million of his people that were lost. That was before the war was over with, by far. And so what about the other people? Who were the other people? Who were his people? To me, that’s a really good question. And I think the Olmecs can reveal that. But I don’t consider that as really firm evidence.
GT 13:07 All right. So, we’ve got another special guest. Tell us your name here.
Russell 13:10 I’m Russell Anderson.
GT 13:11 You’re the guy who helped me get the interview with Bob, right?
Russell 13:14 That’s right. Bob is my brother-in-law.
GT 13:15 Okay, So you wanted to hop in on the DNA issue.
Russell 13:20 Yeah. On the DNA. They say, well, the DNA is Asian DNA. Well, so is Israeli DNA, Asian DNA. We don’t really have a Jerusalem DNA. And so…
GT 13:32 Yes, we do.
Russell 13:33 Well, no, there are some DNA markers that the some of the priesthood class in Israel used. But that’s not all of the tribe that Lehi and his family came from. We don’t know that they had those particular markers. They could have easily been Asian DNA. And so the DNA is kind of a red herring.
GT 13:54 Okay. Well, let me let me just throw this out at you. Bob, I don’t think you follow my blog very much or my podcast.
Bob 14:05 I’m going too.
GT 14:05 You’re going to, that’s great! I’m glad to hear that. So the one thing I want to say, I did an episode, a couple of episodes on the Lemba tribe. Are either of you familiar with the Lemba tribe?
Russell 14:17 Only minorly.
GT 14:18 Okay, so the Lemba tribe is a black African tribe in South Africa. They claimed to be Israelites, basically. They did a DNA test. And shockingly, they have Jewish DNA. It’s called the Cohen Haplotype. In some ways, they date similarly to the time of Lehi. I mean, they’re just black as black can be. They have a lot of ancient customs from ancient Israel from that time period. And so I will say [that] I find it frustrating when people dismiss the DNA argument. Or they go, “Oh, we couldn’t find DNA, we don’t know.”
GT 15:04 I’m like, yes, the Lemba tribe is a perfect example of this. There’s actually an African theory for the Book of Mormon, but he leaves out the Lemba tribe. He doesn’t even know about it. I’m like, if you’re going to claim Africa, at least put it in South Africa, where the Lemba tribe is, because it doesn’t make any sense here. But anyway, I still think that’s a real sore spot with any Book of Mormon geography theories. We’ve never been able to tie anything [to DNA.] But the Lemba tribe has been able to tie back in there.
Russell 15:42 True.
Bob 15:43 Anyway, the head of one of the departments of BYU–I don’t want to talk any more about DNA.
GT 16:02 Well, you were going to say something about the head of BYU.
Bob 16:05 Off the record?
GT 16:06 Off the record, no. We’re on camera here. {everyone laughing}
Bob 16:13 Yeah, I won’t get my BYU friends in trouble.
GT 16:17 Okay. {Rick laughing}
Tying Yucatan to Heartland
Russell 16:21 I was just going to say, the narrow neck of land, Bob was talking about how there’s just these lakes and so forth.
GT 16:32 Let me zoom in on the map a little bit.
Russell 16:35 But there’s also, isn’t it true, Bob, that there’s no archaeological ruins in these areas where the lakes are?
Bob 16:44 Where the lakes are.
Russell 16:44 Yeah. And even all the way to the coast there’s no archaeological ruins.
GT 16:48 So that’s another question I had, I knew I should have picked up three microphones, because the South American theory, one of their big theories is basically most of South America was underwater. And so Chile becomes, basically, an island, its perfectly north south. It’s great. The problem is, if most of South America is underwater, that was true, like 2 million years ago or something. It’s not true for Book of Mormon times. And so as we’re looking at this map of the Yucatan Peninsula, what I’m curious about is these lakes, did they go all the way to the ocean? Or were they just big, like the Sea of Galilee lakes?
Bob 17:39 They didn’t go to the ocean.
GT 17:41 Okay.
Bob 17:42 So, yeah, you’re probably going to ask what about Hagoth?
GT 17:45 Okay, I wasn’t, but go ahead. {Bob laughing}
Bob 17:48 Well, Hagoth, there’s the outlet of the West Sea is the San Pedro River.
GT 17:58 Anyway, continue about Hagoth.
Bob 18:00 Yeah, so it said he went northward. And then another place, he said he went to the land northward, which is more of a place than a direction. But there are some people who think, and I like to play with this idea, that he went north to this. If he went directly north from the outlet of the Usumacinta river, you would end up with the mouth of the Mississippi. And a lot of things that happened up in Iowa…
GT 18:39 So, you’re tying this all into Heartland here.
Bob 18:40 Yeah, I am. [Everyone laughing}
GT 18:44 I didn’t expect that.
Bob 18:46 So, there’s a perfect example of why they have some of the things like those mounds.
GT 18:51 Heartland connects everybody now. {Rick laughing}
Bob 18:56 And so I’ve watched some podcasts or YouTube stuff on that area.
GT 19:03 I’m going to get your email address. I’m going to give you hours of stuff to watch. {everyone laughing}
Bob 19:11 And they are totally convinced that it has Maya influence. Some of those pyramids, they don’t have stone, so they have to build it out of dirt.
GT 19:21 Oh, you’re talking about the mounds in Iowa and everything.
Bob 19:25 Yeah.
GT 19:25 Okay.
Bob 19:26 And there’s a certain period of time in there where the Heartlanders seem to be on to something, where they were fairly advanced people.
GT 19:35 So, Hagoth started the Heartland.
Bob 19:37 I don’t know. Possibly. {Rick laughing} I don’t think it’s something you ought to just dismiss, but I’m not going to say you…
GT 19:45 Remind me when did Hagoth live? Do we know?
Bob 19:50 He was in about 80 BC, something like that.
GT 19:54 In 80 BC, okay, so right before time of Christ. Okay.
Bob 20:00 Yeah, something like that.
Russell 20:02 I thought he was after Christ.
Bob 20:04 No, no. He was before.
GT 20:05 I can’t remember either.
Bob 20:07 We can find out really quickly. But that’s a fun thing to think about. And he went northward. Well, if you look at the standard Mesoamerican model, if he were to leave at where they say the narrow neck of land is, he’d go west for 200 miles, then that turns around and goes north for a little bit. So, here again, the directions don’t add up very well, where we just go straight north. But I do think that he took some of them into the land northward, because it says so. So, who knows? Okay, what else do we need to cover? Oh, one thing.
GT 20:59 Do you have a website, by the way? I should ask that. Do you have a website or book or anything about it? What’s your website.
Bob 21:08 Bookofmormonlands.org
GT 21:09 Bookofmormonlands.org. Okay.
Bob 21:11 It’s sort of out of date. But it has a lot of good stuff in it. There’s an area that I find really fascinating in the land of Nephi. I call it the Amulon district. Amulon was one of these bad guys from King Noah and he set up a town there fairly close to Jerusalem, and he’s given the authority from the King of the Land of Nephi to supervise Shilom and Shemlon and he’s already over his own town of Amulon. And he is the one that built Jerusalem, and he is the one that has control over Helam, Alma’s group. So I call that the Amulon district and it also includes the Forest of Mormon and the baptismal area of Alma. And it all just fits like a glove. I mean, it’s just neat. And then when Ammon goes into Ishmael and has all those miraculous things happen, and there’s about six towns in that part of the area that all become Ammonites, Middoni, Shemlon, Laman. So, if you’re going through Guatemala on Highway 5, essentially everything to the west is Ammon’s country. And everything to the east is Amulon’s country or Lamanites. And it just all works out just like you’d think. The whole area was converted by Ammon and his brothers. But Amulon and Amulek, they became the Amulonites and whatever. {Rick and Bob chuckling} Sorry, my 84-year-old brain is starting to waver.
GT 23:37 Since you mentioned your age, I just want to mention this, as an observation. I want to see if you agree or disagree. It appears to me, that the top two theories right now are Mesoamerican and Heartland. It seems like and I hate to say this, the Mesoamerican are dying off. They’re getting old.
Bob 24:05 Oh, yeah.
GT 24:06 They’re dying. And the Heartlanders are young, youthful. They’re on the ascendancy. And it really feels to me like, it almost feels like there’s going to be kind of a shift to where there are going to be more Heartlanders than Meso people, and I’m going to put you in the Meso camp even though you’re not John Sorensen or anything. But, I mean, do you agree or disagree with that? I mean, you’ve got some other theories, Baja, Malay, Delmarva, South America.
Russell 24:41 I think there’s a problem with putting him in the Meso group, because the Meso has all the problems with direction and everything. This is really a different, it stands on its own type of—
GT 24:52 True, but it’s still subject to a lot of the same…
Russell 24:55 It just hasn’t had the exposure.
GT 24:57 Right.
Russell 24:58 If it had the exposure, I think it would carry the day.
GT 25:02 You need to start your own Firm Foundation Conference. The Yucatan conference or something {everyone chuckling}. I think South America kind of has the same problem. I haven’t [been able to get anyone on.] It’s been hard for me and I don’t know why. I’ve had a real hard time. I’ve been trying for eight years trying to get somebody to propose South America. Nobody will come on, so I appreciate you coming on. But it just seems like those are the top two, and the others are fringe.
Bob 25:31 When we started to merge, some of the people’s (response) “Oh, no, another model.” That was the reaction.
GT 25:37 Oh and see, I’m like, “Another model? Are you kidding me? This is great!”
Bob 25:40 Let me show you something I’m working on right now. I’ve got about 10 pages of issues that deal with geography, for a total of about 400 scriptural references.
GT 25:58 See, everybody has those scriptural references, and it always fits their model the best. Right?
Bob 26:03 Yeah.
GT 26:06 When you create your own list, it’s easy to pass. {Rick laughing}
Bob 26:09 That’s for sure. I’ve experienced that. But we did come out flying in a really good way with the Book of Mormon Central audit.
Russell 26:20 They put together a spreadsheet where it listed all these requirements. And then you could put in how you fit the requirements and your directions and do it on Google Map and everything. And you could figure out well, how many degrees are you off of North and so forth. And, their Mesoamerica would fit because they would allow north to be plus or minus 45 degrees. But if you’ve narrowed it down to like, plus or minus 10 degrees, we’re the only model that comes close to fitting.
GT 26:47 Do they have a Malay representative on there? Baja?
Bob 26:52 Well, I invited everybody to participate. And I tried to get them—I had a pretty good relationship going on with the Heartlanders, I’ve talked to them a lot. It’s really fun. I find it…
GT 27:04 They are passionate, I will say that.
Russell 27:05 But they don’t have one model.
GT 27:08 They do have multiple models, you’re right.
Russell 27:10 The cities move all over.
Bob 27:13 There are several. But I would challenge anybody to help me.
GT 27:21 Here’s a challenge listeners, right here!
Bob 27:22 Yeah, I challenge anybody to come along and fill out how they feel like their model fits. I’d say 90%, I have five as a top score. In other words, if you have…
GT 27:37 So you write each criteria one to five, is that what you’re saying?
Bob 27:40 Yeah. And if they’re totally out, it would be minus five, if it just doesn’t fit. So I challenge. But I would imagine that 80% of this 400 identify to mine. I mean, every one of them just fits, fits, fits. And so, this is about eight pages, I guess, these things right here. So, I challenge anybody to come and help. Let’s go through this. We need to, my plea is we’ve got to have a consensus. Somewhere, somebody’s got to say…
GT 28:18 We’re just creating more and more theories.
Russell 28:20 Well, there just needs to be a consensus on a criteria to evaluate.
GT 28:24 Oh, yeah.
Bob 28:24 Yeah.
GT 28:25 Well, I know John Sorenson has come up with one and he’s like you, he’s dared people to compare against that.
Russell 28:34 Well, I think his was used in this Book of Mormon Central.
GT 28:38 Oh, it was? It was the same thing?
Russell 28:39 Yeah.
GT 28:40 Okay.
Bob 28:41 Well, it was more, it was more designed, well, I will get myself in trouble.
GT 28:45 Oh come on, we like trouble. {Rick chuckling}
Bob 28:48 I would suggest that they take the BYU hypothetical model and use that as a guide to develop this. But we did really well. And we had 100% on there. We were the only ones that got everyone of them right. But we had to change a little bit because it wasn’t fitting that-
GT 29:12 Were there any geology questions in there? I think Jerry Grover would have a few. {Rick laughing}
Russell 29:18 I want to go back to your comment about the volcanoes. If you’ve got several volcanoes all exploding at the same time, you’re going to have darkness over the whole Yucatan Peninsula.
GT 29:28 Right.
Russell 29:29
So the fact that they’re down around Lake Ocelot and so forth, doesn’t really matter, because they’re going to cover the whole peninsula with a mist of darkness.
GT 29:38 I think Jerry would disagree with you on that. But he’s a geologist, so I’m going to defer to him.
Russell 29:43 Well, I don’t know if he’s discussed multiple, simultaneous (eruptions)?
GT 29:47 Yeah, he did. But even then, I mean, as big as Mount St. Helens was, I don’t remember seeing any ash.
Russell 29:58 Everybody east of it did. And we were in Portland, actually near Portland, and we got ash. It covered our yard. So, we didn’t see the mist, we didn’t see the real cloud of darkness necessarily. It was a later eruption that hit us. But it was pretty widespread as far as how far it covered, all the way across the state of Washington.
Bob 30:22 Well, there’s no doubt that part of, if you had several volcanoes erupt, there would be a good part of our model that would be under that area, not all of it. And I’m not sure that the Book of Mormon says it covered all of the lands of Mormon.
GT 30:40 You’re going to have to go back to 3rd Nephi and update your criteria. {everyone chuckling}
Bob 30:47 Because, it talks about it happening. But, when Christ came, he came a considerable time after the destruction, if you read that really close.
Russell 31:02 Like 11 months later,
Bob 31:03 Yeah, 11 months later. And so, I don’t know. I need to talk to your friend.
GT 31:13 Yeah. I’ll put you in touch. I’m sure he’ll–Jerry is a great guy. He’s fun. I’ve got him coming back on. In fact, he translated the Caracters Document. And that will be out by the time this is out.
Bob 31:30 One of the things, too, there’s the, “And it came to pass.” Those characters are within our model.
GT 31:41 And it came to pass?
Bob 31:42 You know, those characters, those glyphs on the stele.
GT 31:48 I don’t know what you’re talking about.
Russell 31:49 You’ve got the stele. It’s got those characters in “and it came to pass.”
Bob 31:52 “And it came to pass.” And they are in our proposed area.
GT 31:58 Okay.
Bob 32:00 And so there’s just lots of things that I’ve missed here.
GT 32:09 That’s okay. So your website, give it to us one more time so people can check it out.
Bob 32:19 Bookofmormonlands.org
GT 32:19 Bookofmormonlands.org. And it’s Bob Roylance…
Bob 32:24 And Richard Terry.
GT 32:26 And Richard Terry, and he’s a former BYU Professor, Ag Professor?
Bob 32:31 No, well, he was. That’s a long story.
GT 32:36 Agronomy, is that what you said?
Russell 32:37 Lib?
Bob 32:37 He’s an agronomist, but when the church moved the Agriculture Department to BYU Idaho, he stayed here and went into their Plant Sciences. And then he started doing this thing down in Guatemala and Belize/Yucatan, determining what the ancient crops did or why they did it. For instance, it talks about the fellow that built a big city in the game preserve.
Bob 32:38 Lib! He says you go into that area below where he was describing and the animals there were eating, back in those days–I mean, this sounds really strange that he could even determine that, but he’s seems to be able to do it. They were eating native stuff. Where you go out of that reserve, then the deer and the staff are eating the corn and things they’re stealing from the farmers. He says you could tell the difference, almost the line where the game reserve ended. So, those are some of these kind of fun, little things.
Bob 33:26 All the ones that were eating people food got fat. Right? Is that right? {Rick laughing}
Bob 34:06 Yeah, it talks about the highways in the Book of Mormon. Oh, man, we got highways going everywhere there and more so than any other place, by far.
Russell 34:19 And they all come together through that narrow neck.
Bob 34:22 When you start talking about numbers, now they’re anticipating there’s 20 million people that are associated with all this stuff, their new finding. That’s about the right number that’s required for Book of Mormon numbers. And other models can’t even begin to generate those kinds of numbers. If you go into the land northward on these other Mesoamerican models, there’s a few, there’s one in Oaxaca that might fit a minor village. There’s a pile of dirt between LaVenta and something else. There’s nothing there that will even come close to meeting that 20 million number. And so the 20 million number has to be, it fits the Yucatan really well, or Northern Guatemala, and Belize. And so, to me, that’s a major issue.
GT 35:33 Cool. Well, I’ve kept you a long time. And I don’t want to take up your whole afternoon, but Bob Roylance and Russell Anderson, I’d like to thank you guys, especially Russell, thank you for arranging this for me. It’s always nice when my listeners arrange interviews for me, so really appreciate you guys for being here on Gospel Tangents.
Bob 35:53 Okay, thank you. Glad to help.
