Rod Meldrum's Book of Mormon Heartland Model - Mormon Stories 1497

Join John, Gerardo, and Australian geneticist Simon Southerton as we break down the "Heartland Model," which proposes that the events described in the Book of Mormon took place primarily in the heartland of North America. The main proponent of this model, Rodney Meldrum, and his followers have been described as a "movement" that could transform the LDS Church.

Simon will explain how one of the main pieces of "evidence" that the FIRM enterprise promotes is built on a single questionable claim that Meldrum has been making for over 15 years, even after being corrected by several non-Mormon scientists, Simon himself, FairMormon, and LDS scholars at BYU, including Ugo Perego.

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Show Notes:
"The fight over Book of Mormon Geography," by Michael DeGroote, Deseret News, May 27, 2010
https://www.deseret.com/2010/5/27/201...

“An Outsider’s View of Mormon Archaeology with Dr. Michael Coe” on Mormon Stories
https://www.mormonstories.org/podcast...

“LIDAR, Response to John Sorenson, and the Book of Mormon with MesoAmerican Archaeologist Dr. Michael Coe” on Mormon Stories
https://www.mormonstories.org/podcast...

Dean Sessions' Universal Model:
https://universalmodel.com/

Rod Meldrum's FIRM Foundation (Foundation for Indigenous Research and Mormonism):
https://bookofmormonevidence.org/about/

"How Heartland Began and Continues," by Rod Meldrum with input from Rian Nelson
https://www.bofm.blog/how-heartland-b...

"Civilizations Lost and Found: Fabricating History," by Deborah A. Bolnick, et.al., Book of Mormon Archeological Foundation, 2012
Part 1: http://www.bmaf.org/articles/civiliza...
Part 2: http://www.bmaf.org/articles/civiliza...
Part 3: http://www.bmaf.org/articles/civiliza...

Kennewick Man: The Scientific Investigation of an Ancient American Skeleton by Douglas W. Owsley
https://www.amazon.com/Kennewick-Man-...

Face of a Nephite: DNA Studies and the Book of Mormon by David Read
https://bookofmormonevidence.org/book...

Losing a Lost Tribe: Native Americans, DNA, and the Mormon Church by Simon G. Southerton
https://www.amazon.com/Losing-Lost-Tr...

Timecodes:
00:00:00 Introduction and opening remarks
00:04:28 The Church sponsors tours in Central and South America, where members are told they're visiting ancient Lamanite sites
00:09:19 The evolution of the "Hemispheric Model," the "MesoAmerican Model", and the "Heartland Model" to try to fit the Book of Mormon narrative into regional history and geography
00:23:19 The Heartland Model explained
00:37:07 The Heartland Model appeals to the Mormon tendencies towards anti-scientism, conspiracy theories, and American exceptionalism
00:45:25 The Heartland Model bolsters the Moundbuilder Myth, which was the basis for the Book of Mormon’s origins
00:50:46 Rod Meldrum's involvement with Young Earth creationism and "Universal Model" pseudoscience
01:01:04 The Church's doublespeak regarding evolution; Russell M. Nelson says it's false, but it's taught at BYU
01:13:59 DNA reveals human migration patterns that pose a problem for all the Book of Mormon location models
01:25:21 MesoAmerican/Limited Geography Model was adopted by apologists after DNA proved that American Indians are not descended from the Jews
01:31:52 Meldrum presents himself as a "lead researcher" on mtDNA X2a lineage; he has a marketing degree from BYU
01:44:36 Meldrum believes scientists are conspiring to hide the "real" Indigenous American history
01:53:34 Heartland Model proponents financed an archeological dig in Illinois, looking for the Temple of Zarahemla
02:02:24 Kennewick Man conclusively disproves the Heartland Model (and, yes, carbon dating is accurate!)
02:30:42 Scientists respond to the Heartland Model proponents' interpretation of Kennewick Man; the scientists are not impressed
02:36:32 Why couldn't Lamanites have come from that 1% of Indigenous DNA whose origin is unknown? Because the genetic lineage of American Indians is separated from Middle Eastern genetic lineage by more than 30,000 years.
02:49:51 Why do Heartland Model proponents cling to this explanation in spite of empirical facts?
02:56:27 Meldrum responds to a request for comment from Mormon Stories
03:00:41 Other resources and closing remarks

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