The Problems With Zelph – Part I

One of the problems with Mesoamerican and other Theorists is that they have their minds made up before hand and when they read something of the early Church, they try to fit it into their own model without concern for the scriptural record of a long ago dead past.

These Theorists often do this in connection with something about Joseph Smith or the Brethren, which makes their view seem quite reasonable and true. However, with further analysis, it becomes apparent that how they are interpreting the comment or statement is not based upon an understanding of the overall picture the Book of Mormon paints for us.

Take the case of the comment Joseph Smith made, and faithfully recorded by others, about the Lamanite Zelph.
On June 3rd, 1834, Joseph Smith Jr. with several brethren (8 of whom wrote in their personal journals as having witnessed this account, and three of these men became future prophets of the church) visited a prominent mound on top of the bluffs overlooking the area around Valley City, Illinois. Joseph procured a shovel and dug down about a foot where he unearthed some bones. He continued until a ribcage could be distinguished wherein they found an arrowhead. Their combined, highly corroborated accounts were recorded as follows: “the visions of the past being opened to my understanding by the Spirit of the Almighty, I discovered that the person whose skeleton was before us was a white Lamanite, a large, thick-set man, and a man of God. His name was Zelph. He was a warrior and chieftain under the great prophet Onandugus, who was known from the hill Cumorah or eastern sea to the Rocky Mountains… He was killed in battle by the arrow found among his ribs during the last great struggle with the Lamanites and Nephites.” (History of the Church Vol. 2:79-80, 1948 edition)

Joseph here refers to the Hill Cumorah as an eastern landmark (eastern sea—the Atlantic Ocean), to the western landmark (Rocky Mountains), to refer the reader to the land in between. In this land in between, the reputation of a Nephite or Lamanite prophet was widely known. Joseph is definitely not referring to the Hill Cumorah as the original Book of Mormon hill Cumorah—only the one that existed in his present time as a landmark to the east and the well-known Rocky Mountains to the west. Nor do we know if his comment about the “last great struggle with the Lamanites and Nephites” refer to the last battle recorded in the Book of Mormon, or a last battle between the two groups later on, long after the Book of Mormon pages were finished—that is, Hagoth’s ships carried Nephites and Lamanites “to a land which was northward” and their descendants spread all over Central and North America. A last battle in the northeastern U.S. would be from those who were in the “land which was northward” and not in the Land of Promise of the Book of Mormon.

It should also be kept in mind that the terms “eastern sea” and “Rocky Mountains” are not mentioned in the Book of Mormon at all. There is mention of a Sea East and East Sea, but not an eastern sea. And since Joseph interpreted those terms into English as he translated from the plates, we should understand that he knew the terminology of the Book of Mormon. In Joseph’s day, the term “eastern sea” referred to the area of North America, or what is called the Atlantic Ocean—the continent lying between the eastern and western sea, or between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. The Rocky Mountains has no correlation in the Book of Mormon at all. It should also be kept in mind that terms like continent in Joseph Smith’s day was not clearly understood in the way we do today. That is, when speaking of continent, the term then applied to the entire Western Hemisphere—not just North America or South America.

We need to be careful in applying today’s terminology to the era of the Nephites. The Book of Mormon is as accurate as a book could be on the subject and teaches us the correct terminology. All that is left for us to do, is understand it in the context it was written.