I’ve discovered a new Book of Mormon geography Theory: The Delmarva Peninsula! Where is that exactly? Well it turns out to be the Chesapeake Bay area near our nation’s capital, Washington, DC. Laura Hathaway tells us more about this theory. Check out our conversation…

GT  01:08  Well, this was funny because I was [thinking] “Delmarva? What the heck is that?” So, tell us why it’s called Delmarva.

Laura  01:15  So Delmarva is taking Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia and combining it because it has all three states in that Peninsula. And my theory is a little bit different than the regular Delmarva theory that’s been out since the 1990s at least. Because I’m encompassing some extra land that makes everything make sense. It makes everything flow perfectly. So it’s the Delmarva extended version theory,

GT  01:37  The Extended Delmarva [Theory.] So you’re the second go of this. I didn’t know.

Laura  01:41  There’s at least two people ahead of me. There was a student at BYU. He was a nursing student in 1996, I believe. There was an article in BYU newspaper. And he proposed it there. And then Franklin Read has a book out and you can find it on Amazon. And he says it’s the Delmarva Peninsula, just the Delmarva Peninsula. It’s not exactly my theory.

GT  02:06  This is funny, because I feel like I’m kind of the Book of Mormon geography expert, but I never heard about it until a month or two ago when you emailed me and said, “Hey, I got a theory.” And I was like, “What?” I’ve never heard of this one. And I love it because it’s a peninsula. It’s in the United States.

Laura  02:22  Yes.

GT  02:23  And so tell us. So Delaware, Maryland, Virginia. It’s kind of that area. It’s a little north of Florida.

Laura  02:30  Yep.

GT  02:30  So tell us more about it. How did you decide that that was the Book of Mormon lands?

Laura  02:35  So, it was actually my dad and my brother. My brother looked at a map. My dad and I were both looking at Book of Mormon geography. And we were leaning towards Mesoamerica. And I just had my twins. And so I was reading the Book of Mormon. I wasn’t on Facebook yet. I didn’t know what to do with my fancy new phone. And so I was reading the Book of Mormon a lot. And I just started wondering, “Well, how does this fit in?” I want to see it on a map. And so we started looking at Meso places, and I discussed it with my dad.

Laura  03:02  And then my brother one day just looked at the map. And he’s like, “Huh!” What about right there? That fits. It’s surrounded by water.” He looked at the Delmarva [Peninsula.] And so, we started looking at it. The problem with Delmarva, and why you probably haven’t heard of it is because people dismiss it. There’s not the mountains. It’s a very flat Peninsula. And so we have hills in the Book of Mormon, and there has to be a river Sidon. There’s rivers but they’re not really going north/south direction. And just the size of it, how would you not see Zarahemla when if you’re going from the land of Nephi? How do they miss it completely. So it’s been dismissed so fast. That’s probably why a lot of people don’t know about Delmarva theory. And my dad, he just thinks outside the box. And he just started looking around. And he saw on the other side of the Chesapeake Bay, that that land fits. And so he just has a different mind. And he started reading the scriptures, assuming that this is the land and started pinpointing where the towns would be. And things just started falling into place. And so eight years later, here we are. We have our wonderful theory.

GT  04:10  Well, let me ask you quickly, because I’m sure some people are going to be interested in it and want to check it out. Do you have a website?

Laura  04:15  I do have a blog that I started a year ago and I’m not a blogger. I think it’s https://Bomland.blogspot.com  

GT  04:23  Okay.

Laura  04:23  That’s my blog so far.

GT  04:24  So, people can check it out.

Laura  04:25  Yeah, and I’ve got I think two months’ worth of posts. I think I had maybe 10 posts on there that gives you a feel for what it is.

GT  04:34  Okay.

Laura  04:34  Ask me questions after you’ve read that.

Taking the Skeptics Questions

GT  00:23  All the questions I have are more skeptical type questions.

Laura  00:26  Good. That’s what I want to hear.

GT  00:27  Okay, so silk; have you got [evidence for] silk [in Delmarva Peninsula?]

Laura  00:31  I don’t know. I haven’t really studied the silk part. But they did have things that the colonists said looked like lace. They were so intricate. So they had something that’s [similar.] I don’t think it was silk, but I’m just saying they definitely took their attire. But yeah, you’re right. You’re silks per se, I don’t know. I haven’t really found that one. Sorry.

GT  00:52  Okay, [is there evidence of] elephants and horses?

Laura  00:54  Same thing. It is like any Heartland theory. They’re finding more and more.

GT  01:01  So the jury is still out on that kind of stuff?

Laura  01:03  Well, I mean, the native people believe they [used] horses. There’s articles that people dismiss. The natives believe that they had horses before. I’ve seen more and more things being posted about that in North America, especially Canada. I think there’s a little horse that still, they say is one of the originals. Jerry Grover is can deny that because we had a discussion on that on Facebook. But the natives believes that they had horses before Columbus. So, it’s just the same as any Heartland people, I guess. But yeah, the mastodons, they are finding more and more closer to Jaredite time.

GT  01:50  Because I know there are some horses and some elephants in Baja. But the problem is they date to like 20,000 years ago. They are in the wrong time period.

Laura  01:58  Yeah. It’s just finding when it’s closer.

Have you heard of this theory before? What are your impressions?