The Word Sea—What Did it Mean? Part II

Why spend so much time on the meaning of the word “sea”? Because Great Lake Theorists limit the scope of the word’s usage in their Great Lakes and Heartland models to enable them to use some of the smaller Great Lakes as the Land of Promise Sea West and Sea East. But when the word is properly understood as it was used in the record and as Joseph Smith translated it, the word cannot be used for a lake and the Great Lakes model loses its basis of seas.

First of all, the word sea is a smaller portion of an ocean. It might also help to know that the word ocean, from the Greek Okeanos (Oceanus), is defined as a large body of saline water, and a principal component of the hydrosphere. Approximately 75% of the Earth's surface is covered by ocean, a continuous body of water, the world’s ocean, which is the interconnected system of the earth's oceanic waters that is customarily divided into several principal oceans and smaller seas. That is, the word sea means a designated part of the ocean, such as the Caribbean Sea, the Norwegian Sea, the Greenland Sea, the Mediterranean Sea and the North Sea are all parts of the Atlantic Ocean; the Barents Sea, the Kara Sea, the Laptev Sea and the Chukchi Sea are all parts of the Arctic Ocean; the Bering Sea, the Sea of Okhotsk, Sea of Japan, Yellow Sea, the East and South China Seas, the Philippine Sea and the Coral Sea are all parts of the Pacific Ocean; the Andaman Sea and the Arabian Sea are parts of the Indian Ocean—the list can go on and on. In addition, much smaller divisions of the ocean are called gulfs, bays, straits and other names.

It would appear, then, that when Joseph translated the Reformed Egyptian word as “sea,” and the spirit verified it, he was thinking of an ocean—not a lake. It is really as simple as that. As Jacob said of the Book of Mormon, that it was written “according to the plainness of the word of God” (Jacob 2:11), and Nephi said, “in plainness, even as plain as a word can be” (2 Nephi 32:7) and that “I glory in plainness” (2 Nephi 33:6) and also “for my soul delighteth in plainness; for after this manner doth the Lord God work, for he speaketh unto men according to their language, unto their understanding” (2 Nephi 31:3).

An ocean or sea is not a lake

The mistake we make is in trying to use a word as it is understood today to understand the word used by Joseph Smith in 1830. When Great Lake Theorists claim the Lake Ontario was the East Sea, and Lake Erie was the West Sea, they are working against the plain and simple language of the Book of Mormon in which a sea has always been part of an ocean.

Nor can we refer to the Hebrew or Jewish use of the word sea in Sea of Galilee, as many Theorists try. First of all, the Sea of Galilee, also called Lake Galilee, Lake of Gennesaret, Lake Kinneret, Lake Kinnereth, Sea of Tiberias or Tiberias Lake is referred to by Luke as the Lake of Gennesaret (Luke 5:1). Throughout history it has been known variously as the "Sea of Chinneroth" and "Kinnereth" (Old Testament), "Water of Gennesar" (in accounts of the Hasmonean revolt), the "Lake of Gennesaret" the "Sea of Tiberias" and the familiar "Sea of Galilee" (New Testament), and the "Lake of Gennesareth" (in The Wars of the Jews, Josephus' record of the First Jewish Revolt against Rome). Christian religious texts call it the Lake of Gennesaret, and the name in Arabic is Lake Tabariyya (Lake Tiberias). The Old Testament has no specific word for lake. The Hebrew yam is generally used of oceans and divided bodies of salt water, like the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea. The Greek words thalassa and limne are used for lakes, though thalassa in the New Testament is used as a sea in relation to the Mediterranean and Red Seas like the Hebrew yam. Matthew 4:18 was written in Greek as Lake Galilee, but ended up sea in English translations. First century historian Flavius Josephus referred to it as a lake, and today it is appropriately called Lake Kinneret by the International LEC. In the Christian era, the word yam was translated into Greek as Sea, and today in Israel the lake is known by its ancient name—Yam Kinneret. In Hebrew, the word 'yam' means 'sea' and in ancient times it was used to describe both large and small bodies of water. That is why it was translated 'sea' in European languages by those who never saw the lake nor stood on its shores.

The Arabian Sea is a smaller area of the Indian Ocean

Since the word sea even in the Jewish language and record can mean several things, and has been translated mostly as an ocean or portion of an ocean, one cannot rely upon that argument to try and prove Lake Erie and Lake Ontario were the Sea West and Sea East. Taken as a whole, one cannot escape the fact that the word Sea, as Joseph Smith knew it, and the Reformed Egyptian word representing “sea,” were well understood by the spirit who verified to Joseph that the correct word and usage of “sea” as translated refers to a portion of an ocean.