Lehi's land of inheritance

I grew up in a time when the LDS Church was saying that the Nephites and Lamanites once lived throughout North and South America. North America was "the land northward," South America was "the land southward," and the isthmus of Panama was "the narrow neck of land" spoken of in The Book of Mormon. By the time I got to seminary discussions about Book of Mormon geography was a little more vague. We were shown an unbiased rendering of the geography described that looked like this:

So pretty much the Church was still teaching that The Book of Mormon characters were living just north and south of the isthmus of Panama. Latin Americans were Lamanites to us then.

Currently this North/Central America-South America configuration (a.k.a. the hemispheric models) have fallen out of favor and have been replaced by limited geography models. The most popular camp has set its sights on the pyramid-building peoples of Mesoamerica and are proposing maps such as this one:

Far less popular but still a notable second are the theories placing the main events of The Book of Mormon in the American heartland.

Not too far from those theories are the ones who look to the Great Lakes area where Joseph lived and where the gold plates were discovered.

One advantage to this last map is that it actually corresponds nicely with a number of towns Joseph Smith would have heard about or potentially seen on a map.

Hey, if the shoe fits...

The fact is we have no facts other than the claims Joseph made. Now, as time buries brother Joseph ever deeper and people seek facts through science rather than visions, our knowledge of where this whole "ancient history" might be sinks farther and farther into speculation.

Book of Mormon - absence of archeological evidence

People, there is zero physical evidence for The Book of Mormon. Not a chariot, no temple fashioned after Solomon's, no weapons as described in the text, no DNA. Nothing whatsoever. We're going off a dream here and that fact had better make you doubt more than a little.

Bad news, folks, this is not Lehi's dream.

I doubted the absence of evidence proving the historicity of The Book of Mormon my whole life. It just had to be out there. We totally have Lehi's dream about the Tree of Life, for crying out loud! And I remember seeing a video of a BYU professor down in South American standing in a baptismal font! And let's not forget that tour package that will take you to the Waters of Mormon in Guatemala... The Book of Mormon just has to be true. It has to be!