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Reconsidering
Book of Mormon Geography David Stewart, Jr. Problems
and Preconceptions Since the 1950s, new
models of Book of Mormon geography have gained acceptance in the academic
community and popularity among the lay public. In contrast to traditional models of
Nephite and Lamanite settlement in both North and South America, these
revisionist models are based on the Wells Jakeman theory that the entire Book
of Mormon history occurred in a tiny area of Wide discrepancies exist
among the various “limited geography” models, and that none of the existing
models adequately fit textual descriptions, as scholars have
acknowledged. Nonetheless, proponents
of these new theories have claimed a logical and scholarly mandate for
current scholarship allegedly absent from prior models of more widespread
Nephite and Lamanite activity taught by early church leaders. John Sorenson,
perhaps the most prominent Book of Mormon geographer, states: “The Book of
Mormon was not an object of careful study in the early days of the Church, in
fact, it was referred to surprisingly little.”[1] He claims of the early saints: “This failure to study the Book of
Mormon with care was joined with limited knowledge of the external world to
prevent anything like the kind of careful study of geography that is possible
today.”[2] To his credit, Sorenson acknowledges that
none of the current models adequately satisfy textual descriptions, and
suggests that LDS scholars need to go back to the drawing board. He acknowledges that “the literature
reveals confusion. A great amount of
effort has gone into the work. Most of
it, probably, has been wasted.”[3]
Sorenson concludes: “The existing literature goes in so many directions that
no solution stands out as sufficiently persuasive...I conclude that the task
must start over with the basics.”[4] Sorenson goes on to acknowledge: “We need instead to use the entire scripture, without exception.
Selectivity should be avoided like the plague. We must understand, interpret
and deal successfully with every
statement in the text, not just what is convenient or interesting to us. This
can only be done, I believe, by doing our level best to approach the words of
the Book of Mormon having to do with geography without preconceptions. I admit that my own (1955) model was
tainted by preconceptions. So has
everybody else’s been. If we are to
progress in this task, we must chop away and burn the conceptual underbrush
that has afflicted the effort in the past.”[5] While the thought is
admirable, many of the “textual requirements” that Sorenson lists in his
source book in demonstrate some of the very preconceptions that Sorenson
previously chides. For instance, on the
very first page of his textual analysis (p. 217), he evaluates the reference
to the And it came to pass that the Lord did warn me, that I, Nephi,
should depart from them and flee into the wilderness, and all those who would
go with me. Wherefore, it came to pass that I, Nephi, did take
my family, and also Zoram and his family, and Sam, mine elder brother and his
family, and Jacob and Joseph, my younger brethren, and also my sisters, and
all those who would go with me. And all those who would go with me were those
who believed in the warnings and the revelations of God; wherefore, they did
hearken unto my words. And
we did take our tents and whatsoever things were possible for us, and did
journey in the wilderness for the space of many days. And after we had
journeyed for the space of many days we did pitch our tents. Sorenson analyzes this passage
as follows: To
the first settlement site – Nephi’s party fled into the wilderness “for the
space of many days.” How far was
that? Nephi’s party had only three
adult males; the rival group left behind had only five to seven. So no distant flight would be required for
safety. We know from later statements
that where they settled was “up,” which means up from the landfall. Still, “the place of their fathers’ first
inheritance” (Alma 22:28), surely the same place as the first landing spot or
Lehi’s “promised land,” was later considered to be “in” the land of Nephi
(22:28). Hence “many days” does not
indicate a great distance. Some of the
days surely were consumed just getting bearings and learning to move through
unfamiliar terrain, though near. It
seems to me that a journey of about 100 miles on the ground (airline distance
half or less that much) is all that is called for. With no map knowledge and through
vegetation, a journey of this distance would consume “many days” and at the
same time would take them to a distance they considered safe.[6] Dr. Sorenson himself
elsewhere cites references documenting that “small groups of Mohave Indians
could cover nearly 100 miles per day,”[7]
yet he comes to the curiously definite conclusion that the “many day” journey
of Nephi’s party covered an “airline” distance of not more than fifty
miles! He cites another source
documenting that “A Balinese family including two wives and two children
walked 50 miles in 10 hours (part way through steep hills).” Yet he claims that Nephi’s group took “many
days” to cover a distance of fifty miles or less distance! He cites additional references that small
groups of American Indians could reasonably travel up to 75 miles a day. It seems that to
Sorenson, Nephi’s group did not really travel many days. They muddled around attempting to figure
out how to travel and where to go, and spent little of there “many days
journey” actually traveling. Sorenson
ignores even the possibility Nephi had developed any contingency plans in
spite his brothers’ previous attempts on his life, or that he had looked
ahead by scouting or exploring the land.
We know from the text that Nephi and his group were experienced
travelers who had journeyed long distances across It seems ironic that
even after pontificating against the “preconceptions” of earlier models and
solemnly declaring our need to “chop away the conceptual underbrush,”
Sorenson is still unable to escape his deep-seated assumptions and adequately
consider the range of possibilities that various passages allow. Whatever Sorenson’s analysis may be, it is
certainly not free from assumption or preconception! Dr. Sorenson has provided
a valuable service in his source book in listing passages relevant to Book of
Mormon geography, even if citing the passages quoted would have done a better
job of “letting the text speak for itself” than the questionable commentary
accompanying many of the references.
While time and space do not allow here a definitive treatment of
Sorenson’s preconceptions that are manifest virtually every time that he
attempts to estimate distances, the perceptive reader of Sorenson’s source
book ought to be able to easily identify the problematic assumptions and
troubled logic. Sorenson’s “source
book” analysis of “textual requirements” for Book of Mormon geography is
saturated with such preconception, and fails to allow the text to adequately
speak for itself. The wide acknowledgment of this work by modern Book of
Mormon geographers as the authoritative or definitive source on the “textual
requirements” for Book of Mormon geography is concerning, as it reflects
uncritically acceptance of Sorenson’s analysis without challenge to even the
most glaring preconceptions. How Fast
Could Nephites Travel? Book of Mormon geographer
Dr. John Sorenson, professor of anthropology, wrote: The crucial
information in the record for determining dimensions is how long it took
people to get from one place to another. Consider the distance between the
city of There exists a
wide range of possibilities, depending on the terrain, how accustomed the
people were to traveling, and whether a single messenger, a whole people, or
an army was involved. If we assume that So the actual
trail or road mileage between Zarahemla and Nephi, the two dominant early
cities, must have been on the order of 250 miles, assuming an 11-mile-per-day
rate of travel. Given the twists and turns a real route would likely follow
in such terrain, the distance as the crow flies would be more like 180.[8] The FAIR
Wiki claims that Book of Mormon geography distances “distances
covered only a few hundred miles at most, and not thousands as some had
thought.” It further claims that
“Using this distance (which is established quite definitively in the text),
Sorenson is then able to use other textual evidence to build a model in which
the distances traveled in the Book of Mormon do not exceed more than a few
hundred miles.” Finally, it is claimed
that Joseph Smith and the early brethren harbored erroneous assumptions, were
careless in their reading of the text, and were unable to synthesize the
textual data in an internally and externally consistent fashion, unlike the
allegedly superior “scholarship” that we have today: “It is interesting that,
while the text is internally consistent in suggesting relatively small
distances, Joseph Smith's contemporaries did not notice this, and simply read
the Book as describing all of North and South America...Why is the text match
at all for the expectations of Joseph and his fellow 19th century
readers?” While Sorenson himself acknowledges a “wide range of
possibilities” for travel distances, the FAIR Wiki author, and other
contemporary Book of Mormon geographers have come to the strangely definite conclusion
that the distances were very small.
Sorenson’s scholarship is uncritically accepted as being superior to
that of the prophet Joseph! Let us for a moment
examine the assumptions behind Sorenson’s logic. His argument of a travel distance of 11 miles
a day for Nephites and his calculation of 180 miles between Nephi and
Zarahemla hinges on certain assumptions: 1. Dense, nearly
impassable rainforest terrain 2. No roads 3. No horses 4. A leisurely, slow pace,
with frequent stops for foraging and resting along the way. 5. A meandering, indirect
travel path Rather than being “established
quite definitively in the text,” these assumptions used to generate
speculations of distance traveled result from the indiscriminate application
of non-textual, modernist assumptions about the primitive nature of early
peoples. The limited geography authors
are unable to separate their own preconceptions from the internal data of the
text itself and thus claim a degree of evidence for their views which is not
warranted. There is little textual
evidence to support any of these assumptions. Those who claim rainforest
terrain invoke the accounts of Limhi’s scouts (Mosiah 8:8, Mosiah 21:25) and the
Lamanite armies that chased after Limhi’s people (Mosiah 22:16, Mosiah 23:30) getting
“lost in the wilderness.” Yet Christ
recounts the parable of a sheep lost in the wilderness in The text offers no
evidence that can be considered to support claims of rainforest terrain. On other points, the text offers refutation
of Sorenson’s assumptions. Textual
references to the widespread availability and use of horses will be addressed
below, as well as the eventual construction of roads between major Nephite
cities (3 Nephi 6:8). Using the 21-day journey
of The presence of women
and children is cited as evidence for slow travel, yet such arguments assume
walking speed and fail to consider the textual mention of horses. The
supporting claim that travel was very slow because of the flocks (“how fast
can flocks travel, anyway?”) is an argument from ignorance, as the text does
not even mention what animals comprised the flocks of Flocks and herds are
mentioned many times in the Book of Mormon, but only one passage gives us any
specific indication of the types of animals that comprised the Nephite
flocks: “flocks of all manner of cattle of every kind, and goats, and wild
goats, and also many horses” (Enos 1:21). The
Nephites raised a variety of types of flock animals. Knowing that their situation was tenuous
and that that they would have to leave on short notice when discovered, it is
unreasonable not to consider that Textual references,
including the widespread availability of horses and the rate of Nephite
travel across the “narrow neck of land” at the boundary between the lands of Horses As Dr. John Sorenson
noted, the Book of Mormon text as a whole must be considered when analyzing
geography. The various estimates for
distance traveled by Nephites fails to take into consideration something
mentioned in the text: that they had horses! The Jaredites had horses, and
several other beasts which appear to have become extinct by the time of the
Nephite arrival: And
they also had horses, and asses, and there were elephants and cureloms and
cumoms; all of which were useful unto man, and more especially the elephants
and cureloms and cumoms. (Ether
9:19) Horses appear to have
survived the fall of the Jaredite civilization. The prophet Nephi records that the Lehite
colony found and domesticated horses.
This appears to have occurred not long after the colony’s arrival in
the And
it came to pass that we did find upon the land of promise, as we journeyed in
the wilderness, that there were beasts in the forests of every kind, both the
cow and the ox, and the ass and the horse, and the goat and the wild goat,
and all manner of wild animals, which were for the use of men. And we did
find all manner of ore, both of gold, and of silver, and of copper. (1 Nephi 18:25) Mention of horses is made
almost immediately after the description of the arrival in the Nephi’s nephew Enos, one
of the first generation of settlers born in the New World, records that
domesticated horses were already being raised by the Nephites in large
numbers (“did raise...many horses”) in his youth: And
it came to pass that the people of Nephi did till the land, and raise all
manner of grain, and of fruit, and flocks of herds, and flocks of all manner
of cattle of every kind, and goats, and wild goats, and also many horses. (Enos 1:21) Additional passages cite
the continued presence and utilization of horses by both the Nephites and
Lamanites throughout the Book of Mormon time frame. The missionary Ammon (circa 90 BC) fed the
horses and prepared the chariots of the Lamanite king Lamoni: And
they said unto him: Behold, he is feeding thy horses. Now the king had
commanded his servants, previous to the time of the watering of their flocks,
that they should prepare his horses and chariots, and conduct him forth to
the And
it came to pass that when Ammon had made ready the horses and the chariots
for the king and his servants, he went in unto the king, and he saw that the
countenance of the king was changed; therefore he was about to return out of
his presence. (Alma
18:9,12) Now
when Lamoni had heard this he caused that his servants should make ready his
horses and his chariots. (Alma 20:6) In the seventeenth year of
the reign of the Judges (22 AD), horses, chariots, and herds are again
mentioned as the Nephites gathered together to defend themselves against the
infestation of Gadianton robbers: And
it came to pass in the seventeenth year, in the latter end of the year, the
proclamation of Lachoneus had gone forth throughout all the face of the land,
and they had taken their horses, and their chariots, and their cattle, and
all their flocks, and their herds, and their grain, and all their substance,
and did march forth by thousands and by tens of thousands, until they had all
gone forth to the place which had been appointed that they should gather
themselves together, to defend themselves against their enemies. (3 Nephi 3:22) Therefore,
there was no chance for the robbers to plunder and to obtain food, save it
were to come up in open battle against the Nephites; and the Nephites being
in one body, and having so great a number, and having reserved for themselves
provisions, and horses and cattle, and flocks of every kind, that they might
subsist for the space of seven years, in the which time they did hope to
destroy the robbers from off the face of the land; and thus the eighteenth
year did pass away. (3
Nephi 4:4) Both man and beast
survived the ordeal and dispersed again to their own lands: And now it came to pass that the people of the Nephites did all
return to their own lands in the twenty and sixth year, every man, with his
family, his flocks and his herds, his
horses and his cattle, and all things whatsoever did belong unto them. (3
Nephi 6:1) This span covers the vast
majority of the Book of Mormon text.
Only a few pages (4 Nephi chapter 1, Mormon, and Beyond the references
cited above, several additional references imply the use of horses. The apostate Korihor (circa 77 BC) perished
after being “run upon and trodden down:” And
it came to pass that as he went forth among the people, yea, among a people
who had separated themselves from the Nephites and called themselves
Zoramites, being led by a man whose name was Zoram—and as he went forth
amongst them, behold, he was run upon and trodden down, even until he was
dead. (Alma 30:59) Sorenson has estimated
that traveling Nephites journeyed 11 miles a day. If travel time is estimated at 14 hours
daily to allow generously for rest and nourishment, this works out to 0.78 miles
per hour. If we apply Sorenson’s
assumptions, we are at a complete loss to explain what occurred with
Korihor. Was he trodden down by
traveling Nephites strolling lackadaisically through town at less than one
mile per hour? Even if we invoke
Zoramite speed-walkers – let us quadruple the pace to a whopping three miles
per hour – we are still unable to account for Korihor’s mishap. Nay, even sprinting Nephites fail to
provide a reasonable explanation for this episode of trauma. Let us for a moment leave
the problematic assumption of horseless travel that virtually all Book of
Mormon geography scholars from Wells Jakeman to Sorenson to Gardner have
accepted axiomatically. Let us set
aside foolish and preconceived assumptions and consider the multiple passages
in the Book of Mormon text itself citing the widespread use of horses among
the Nephites. With this information,
the story makes sense. Korihor, being
deaf, could not hear the sound of hoofbeats, and was trodden down either by a
horse rider or by a horse-drawn chariot.
Of the two, the chariot scenario is most likely. Two additional passages
suggest the presence of horses: And
he said: Surely God shall not suffer that we, who are despised because we
take upon us the name of Christ, shall be trodden down and destroyed, until we bring it upon us by our
own transgressions. (Alma
46:18) And
it came to pass, because of the greatness of the number of the Lamanites the
Nephites were in great fear, lest they should be overpowered, and trodden down, and slain, and
destroyed. (Helaman 4:20) From the standpoint of the
“horseless travel” paradigms that have monopolized contemporary LDS
scholarship, the concern of being “trodden down” seems odd indeed. Warriors were well-armed with swords,
scimitars, bows, slings (Mosiah
10:8), and spears (Alma
17:7), and the first concern of the Nephites is not about these weapons,
but about being “trodden down” and then destroyed. Unless the Lamanites were using toxic foot
odor as a biological weapon, these passages make no sense. Unmounted fighters would kill enemies with
these weapons before treading them down, and in all likelihood would avoid
stepping on the bodies to avoid losing their own footing. Alma 3:2 records that fields of grain were trodden down by “hosts of men,” but
makes no mention of people being trodden down, only crops. If we take the novel step
of considering what the text says about the availability and use of horses
and chariots, these passages make sense.
Korihor’s case presents us with the Book of Mormon’s only historical
account of a person being “run upon and
trodden down.” Both horsemen and
chariots would often trample enemies before circling in to finish them off
with their weapons. Thus we have the
correct order of events cited in scripture – “overpowered, and trodden down,
and slain, and destroyed,” in which the trampling is a prelude to destruction
rather than an afterthought. The sight of individuals being “trodden down” by
horses or chariots would evoke the fear implied in these passages. The
Narrow Neck of Land The Book of Mormon
mentions a “narrow neck of land” between the land north and the land
south. The Jaredites had “built a great city by the narrow neck
of land, by the place where the sea divides the land” (Ether
10:20). In Nephite times, the
narrow neck of land was described as being in the land of Desolation (land
north) just north of the land of Bountiful (northern part of the land south),
and was of considerable strategic importance.
Captain Moroni’s army headed off the people of Morianton at the narrow
pass of land in 72 BC to prevent them from passing into the land northward
and beyond the reach of the Nephites: Therefore In 65 BC, Captain Moroni caused
the land And he also sent orders unto him that he should fortify the land
At the southernmost part
of this isthmus where the land Desolation joined the And it came to pass that Hagoth, he being an exceedingly curious
man, therefore he went forth and built him an exceedingly large ship, on the
borders of the land Following Lamanite wars in
350 AD, the Nephites ceded the land And the Lamanites did give unto us the land
northward, yea, even to the narrow passage which led into
the land southward. And we did give unto the Lamanites all
the land southward. (Mormon 2:29) When war was
again imminent, Mormon gathered his people at a city in the And it came to pass that I did cause my people that they should
gather themselves together at the land
Desolation, to a city which was in the borders, by the narrow
pass which led into the land southward. (Mormon 3:5) It would seem that the
geography of the “narrow neck of land” as corresponding to It
was the starting point of most of the conquest and discovery routs of the
Spaniards to In modern times, after a
failed French attempt to build a canal in the 1880s, the Americans took
control of the Isthmus of Panama and constructed the Encyclopedia descriptions
of this area use language which corresponds closely to the Book of Mormon
account. The Encyclopedia Britannica
describes this area as a “neck of land” and a “narrow crossing:” By
the Isthmus of Panama is sometimes understood the whole neck of land between
the continents of North and South America; more generally the name is
restricted to the narrow crossing from Panama to Colon, the two other
narrowest crossings being distinguished as the Isthmus of San Blas (31 miles)
and the Isthmus of Darien (46 miles).[11] Mormon’s repeated mention
of the “narrow neck of land” or “narrow passage” between the land north and
the land south in his abridged account seems calculated to provide a frame of
reference for modern readers to correlate the text’s internal geography with
the external geography of the And now, it was only the distance of a day and a half’s
journey for a Nephite, on the line Bountiful and
the land Desolation, from the east to the west sea; and thus the land of
Nephi and the land of Zarahemla were nearly surrounded by water, there being
a small neck of land between the land northward and the land southward. (Alma 22:32) Why else would Mormon and
Moroni – who saw our day (Mormon 8:35) and recognized modern readers’ lack of
familiarity – include correlating “a day and a half’s journey for a Nephite”
with an obvious geographic reference, except to provide us with both a
starting point and a scale for geography?
In view of the difficulty writing on plates and the limited space
available, they would have avoided extraneous content without specific
relevance. Mormon’s “day and a half’s
journey for a Nephite” refers not to the narrowest spot of the isthmus, but
to the “line This modified
map depicts the junction between the land north and the land south at the
line between the lands of Now for a
reality check. At this location, the
isthmus measures approximately 80 kilometers or 50 miles. Could the Nephites
have traversed this journey in a day and a half? This would represent a rate of travel of 33
miles or 53 kilometers per day – a reasonable day’s hike on foot, or a
leisurely distance on horseback. This
daily travel distance is three times Dr. Sorenson’s 11 mile per day estimate,
and supports traditional notions of eventual hemispheric spread of Book of
Mormon peoples rather than limited Central American geography. The 50 mile
distance refers to a crossing near an inlet bay. As much of the region is near sea level and
significant changes occurred to the face of the land north during the
crucifixion (3 Nephi 8:12,
3 Nephi 11:1),
including the sinking of entire cities, it is not clear whether this inlet
existed in Nephite times. It is also
not clear whether defense of this region would have been adequate, as enemies
could have traversed a short ferry just west of How much clearer could the
scriptures possibly be on this matter? Yet the geographically obvious
localization of the “narrow neck of land” at the place where “the sea divides
the land” is beyond the intellectual grasp of many modern scholars, who have
claimed that Book of Mormon civilizations were localized to a small area of Many or most modern Book
of Mormon geographers assert geographers that the narrow neck of land was in
fact the Isthmus of Tehuantepec in The problem with the The Isthmus of Tehuantepec
fails the textual description of separating the “land north” and the “land
south,” as its actual divide is east-west, and the entire Yucatan peninsula –
believed by many geographers to be the site of the Nephite civilization – is
actually north, not south, of the Isthmus.
The Isthmus divides not the “sea east” and the “sea west,” but the
“sea north” and the “sea south” from the standpoint of local geography. Nor is the Isthmus of Tehuantepec
strategically defensible: For peoples who allegedly lived in a small area of
southern In spite of the
protestations of proponents, the idea that the It is fascinating how
Sorenson and others ignore that which is perfectly obvious while representing
as definitive fact their own conclusions derived from unsupported
assumptions, convoluted logic, and dubious speculations. Thus today’s scholars fail to grasp
concepts which are which are perfectly obvious to the Sunday school
child. They reject the obvious and
consistent because of apparent inconsistencies – which are not inconsistent
with anything except their preconceptions – to demonstrate the “need” for
their conjectures, but are oblivious to the far more serious problems,
inconsistencies, and even impossibilities that their own theories
introduce! Bertrand Russell described
this phenomenon, noting: “Men are born ignorant, not stupid; they are made
stupid by education.” Two
Cumorahs? Dr. Sydney Sperry
popularized the view that the Hill Cumorah in No one doubts that the hill where Joseph Smith received the
plates is known as Cumorah, but is the hill where the final battles between
the Nephites and Lamanites took place another Cumorah? The book of Ether
tells us that Omer traveled to this place of the last battles of the
Nephites, and that the relatively short duration of this journey would not
account for the three thousand miles from Middle America to The Book of Ether in fact
does not tell us that the destruction of the Jaredite civilization occurred
in Middle America, nor that the “relatively short
duration of this journey would not account for the three thousand miles from
Middle America to New York,” nor that the duration of Limhi’s scouts
journey was short. These are problems which arise not from scripture itself,
but from an erroneous set of unchallenged assumptions. Sperry ultimately invokes circular logic,
assuming that the place of the Nephite’s destruction was in Central America
because the Jaredite King Omer journeyed near the hill where the Nephites
were destroyed in He writes: “If
the party traveled an average of twenty miles per day by primitive means for
‘many days,’ let's say an improbable sixty, they would cover only 1,200
miles.” “Many days” in
scripture can mean many things. Jacob,
who lived to be 110 years, stated: “few and evil
have the days of the years of my life been” (Genesis
47:9). There is no textual basis for Notice
that Omer and his party passed by the hill Shim, a place recognized by all
Book of Mormon students as being the hill in the land Antum where Ammoron hid
the sacred records of his people (Mormon 1:3; 4:23). No one would question
the fact that this hill and Antum were in turn in the larger By invoking the claim that
“no one would question the fact that this hill and Antum were in turn in the
larger The text never defines
Desolation as referring to Nor does the text state
anywhere that the hill Shim was located in the Anthropologist Dr. John
Clark acknowledges that “Early settlers' accounts of upstate New York
describe numerous trenched and walled fortifications, weapons, and mass
graves of disorderly bones—the latter presumably casualties of war,” yet in
spite of this evidence, he too cannot bring himself to accept Nephites in New
York.[15] Without engaging the specific data, he
concludes in sweeping terms that “When we pay attention to time and to
cultural context, it becomes clear that the events described in the Book of
Mormon did not occur in Other authors have gone
further. Robert Pate concludes that
there is only one Hill Cumorah, which is “located in the This
hill in How did the plates get
from the “real” Hill Cumorah in What
could be more clear? At some time later “these few plates” were deposited in
an obscure hill in up-state Mr. Pate has
no idea of how the plates traveled from his “real” Hill Cumorah in Pate demonstrates that
which Sperry and Clark fail to acknowledge: that theories centered on an
all-Mesoamerican geography for Book of Mormon peoples cannot rationally explain how the golden plates in a heavy stone
box and other artifacts and records were transported by Moroni from their
“second Cumorah” in Guatemala or the Yucatan to the Cumorah in upstate New
York where Joseph Smith recovered them.
If the Nephite armies could not have traveled to Thoughtful people must
then inquire what the “Two Cumorah” theories solve, or how they add any
scholarship or insight to Book of Mormon geography. By the rigid application of non-textual
assumptions, they have only replaced difficult but possible problems with
ones which are impossible! While they
will not allow Joseph Smith any degree of insight, inspiration, or
credibility in his declarations about Book of Mormon peoples, these same
scholars are all too willing to invoke divine intervention to do the
impossible when their own theories encounter logical inconsistencies! Extent of
Book of Mormon Civilizations We have previously seen
that Sorenson and other limited geography theorists have completely ignored
consideration of even the possibility of mounted travel, in spite of numerous
references to horses and chariots in the text. Numerous passages referring to
the spread of the Jaredite and Nephite civilizations, which are obviously
salient in assessing the scope and scale of Book of Mormon geography, are
also curiously omitted without being engaged or discussed. In the time of Lib, the
Jaredites “built a great city by the narrow neck of
land, by the place where the sea divides the land. And they did
preserve the land southward for a wilderness, to get game. And the whole face
of the land northward was covered with inhabitants” (Ether 10:21). In abridging the Book of
Helaman, Mormon describes the extent of the Nephite civilization between 49
and 39 BC: There
were an exceedingly great many who departed out of the Writing at the end of his
civilization, Mormon possessed all of the Nephite historical and geographical
records and would have been uniquely qualified to accurately describe the extent
of the Nephite civilization. Elsewhere
in the text, he described the journey across the “narrow neck of land” from
the sea east to the sea west as taking only a day and a half for a Nephite,
and has quantified the duration of many journeys such as the people of
Limhi’s 21 day travel from the city of Between 16 and 13 BC, the
spread of the Nephite civilization is again noted: And
thus it did come to pass that the people of Nephi began to prosper again in
the land, and began to build up their waste places, and began to multiply and
spread, even until they did cover the whole face of the land, both on the
northward and on the southward, from the sea west to the sea east. (Helaman 11:20) In 1 AD, the Nephites
reacted with astonishment to the signs of Christ’s birth: All
the people upon the face of the whole earth from the west to the east, both
in the land north and in the land south, were so exceedingly astonished that
they fell to the earth. (3
Nephi 1:17) In 322 AD, Mormon wrote: The
whole face of the land had become covered with buildings, and the people were
as numerous almost, as it were the sand of the sea. (Mormon 1:7) The scriptural description
of the people of Nephi covering “the whole face of the land...from the sea
west to the sea east” demands a scope that is inconsistent with most of the
Mesoamerican limited geography theories in Sorenson’s book, and others,
including this one here. Certainly we are aware of
the use of hyperbole in scripture, such as the decree of Caesar Augustus
recorded in Luke 1:2
that “all the world should be taxed.”
Yet the We must also recall that
Mormon and Proponents of limited
geography theories have repeatedly asserted that “careful” reading of the
text demonstrates that Book of Mormon peoples were confined to a tiny area of
The The Book of Mormon
recounts Nephi and others seeing in vision the modern-day Gentiles who would
inhabit their land, the “land of promise.”
One of the greatest messages of the Book of Mormon is that the
righteous will prosper on the land, while the wicked will be swept off. For instance, “And the Lord would not suffer that they should stop beyond the
sea in the wilderness, but he would that they should come forth even unto the
land of promise, which was choice above all other lands, which the Lord God
had preserved for a righteous people.
And he had sworn in his wrath unto the brother of Jared, that whoso
should possess this land of promise, from that time henceforth and forever,
should serve him, the true and only God, or they should be swept off when the
fulness of his wrath should come upon them. And now, we can behold the
decrees of God concerning this land, that it is a land of promise; and
whatsoever nation shall possess it shall serve God, or they shall be swept
off when the fulness of his wrath shall come upon them. And the fulness of
his wrath cometh upon them when they are ripened in iniquity.” (Ether 2:7-9) There is no difficulty in
understanding these statements with traditional hemispheric geography
models. However, limited Mesoamerican
geography theories introduce serious problems. If the Book of Mormon usage of the term
“all the land” is limited to a tiny area of Central America as Brant Gardner
and others have argued, then neither North nor South America constitute the
land of promise. By this same logic,
repeated textual statements about the blessings for obedience and curses for
disobedience upon those who inhabit the “land of promise” would therefore
have no bearing upon modern inhabitants of the External
Geographic Changes An additional reason why
modern attempts to precisely map pre-33 AD Book of Mormon geography onto a modern
map of the Americas is the lack of consideration of external changes in the
land following the crucifixion. Mormon described these events: And it came to pass in the *thirty and fourth year, in the first
month, on the fourth day of the month, there arose a great storm, such an one
as never had been known in all the land. And there was also a great and terrible tempest; and there was
terrible thunder, insomuch that it did shake the whole earth as if it was
about to divide asunder. And there were exceedingly sharp lightnings, such as never had
been known in all the land. And the city of And the city of And the earth was carried up upon the
city of And there was a great and terrible
destruction in the land southward. But behold, there was a more great and
terrible destruction in the land northward; for behold, the whole face of the
land was changed, because of the tempest and the whirlwinds, and the
thunderings and the lightnings, and the exceedingly great quaking of the
whole earth; And the highways were broken up, and
the level roads were spoiled, and many smooth places became rough. And many great and notable cities were
sunk, and many were burned, and many were shaken till the buildings thereof
had fallen to the earth, and the inhabitants thereof were slain, and the
places were left desolate. And there were some cities which
remained; but the damage thereof was exceedingly great, and there were many
in them who were slain. And there were some who were carried
away in the whirlwind; and whither they went no man knoweth, save they know
that they were carried away. And thus the face of the whole earth
became deformed, because of the tempests, and the thunderings, and the
lightnings, and the quaking of the earth. And behold, the rocks were rent in
twain; they were broken up upon the face of the whole earth, insomuch that
they were found in broken fragments, and in seams and in cracks, upon all the
face of the land. When I mentioned on the FAIR list that such changes ought to be
taken into consideration, limited geography proponents explained that the
account in 3 Nephi merely described a bad storm, which seemed quite fearsome
to the author and may have washed out a few roads, but which did not significantly
alter the surface features of the land.
Not a single person agreed that this issue ought to be
reexamined! The argument that the
changes could |
