On Tuesday, August 18, 2020, Dan Peterson spoke at a Fireside for the Stanford institute via Zoom about the Witnesses film. Both audio and video recordings of the fireside are available below. The video is also available on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lTuAQ29J_s.
Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:02:40 — 57.4MB)
I firmly believe that Moroni buried the plates in the glacial drumlin in modern upstate New York.
Brother Dan,
Both Oliver Cowdery and David Whitmer, two of the three witnesses, both testified that Moroni told Joseph Smith that the hill in Ontario County NY was called by him, Cumorah. If you do not believe that it undermines your entire project and their testimonies of the Book of Mormon itself.
Brother Dan,
The movie looks like it will be wonderful, and may God bless you and all involved in this endeavor. I look forward to seeing it. I also enjoyed your testimony of the witnesses and particularly of the Three. May I assume that your confidence in the accuracy of their witness also extends to their witness of the ancient hill Cumorah in the state of New York?
Oliver Cowdery stated the following in 1831:
“This Book, which contained these things, was hid in the earth by Moroni, in a hill called by him Cumorah, which hill is now in the state of New York, near the village of Palmyra, in Ontario County.” (Autobiography of P.P. Pratt p 56-61)
David Whitmer confirmed this in an interview in his later years when he stated:
“[Joseph Smith] told me…he had a vision, an angel appearing to him three times in one night and telling him that there was a record of an ancient people deposited in a hill near his fathers house called by the ancients “Cumorah” situated in the township of Manchester, Ontario county N.Y…” (Milton V. Backman, Jr., “Eyewitness Accounts of the Restoration,” p. 233)
That was so good to listen to. Thank you.