Problems with Map Making – Part I

The Mesoamerican Theorists and the Great Lakes Theorists, both suffer from the same mistake—taking a current map of known sites in the case of the former, and taking a current map of known cities in the case of the latter, and trying to fit the Book of Mormon cities into them.

Mesoamerican Theorists:

In 1935, Dr. M. Wells Jakeman first developed a belief that the Book of Mormon had taken place in the Mesoamerican area of Central America. A decade later, as a doctorate graduate of the University of California-Berkeley, he was appointed the first chairman of a newly established Archaeology Department at Brigham Young University. He
remained chairman of this department for fifteen years until 1960. Three years after this appointment, the new Department of Archaeology sponsored its first field work in southeastern Mexico. At no time did Jakeman, or his students, look elsewhere for Book of Mormon geography.

As work on sites developed, and the fantastic ruins found in Guatemala and southern Mexico were uncovered, later scholars like John L. Sorenson, Joseph Allen, Hauck, etc., decided to determine matches between these sites and those cities mentioned in the Book of Mormon. Without any physical evidence other than the ruins, and a firm belief that certain sites must be these cities, location maps of sites were created based on their beliefs in distances and directions established by these scholars, and not necessarily by the scriptures. Today, those sites are pretty well determined to be as claimed, such as the Olmec being the Jaredites, and the Olmec civiliztions being the same and therefore, the Jaredite beginnings centered along the east coast of Mexico on the western edge of the Gulf of Mexico.

Great Lake Theorists:

In more recent times, some LDS writers and scholars have decided there could be only one Hill Cumorah and, therefore, the Book of Mormon lands had to be in upstate New York and the Great Lakes area. Several different maps have been developed, each a little different as the individual author’s beliefs were expressed. Ignoring scripture for the most part, or bending scripture to fit their desires, these theorists tended to place cities, rivers, seas, etc., in a willy nilly fashion—almost as if anything would be right as long as the Hill Cumorah was kept in place.

One of the most blatantly inaccurate map of the Great Lakes was shown in our last post “Another Great Lakes Theory.” In that map, it is as though someone took a current map of New England, found some amazing similarities between existing modern cities or towns and some of those mentioned in the Book of Mormon, and decided those were the ancient sites. Unfortunately, none of those cities so labeled in the map are accurately placed according to the Book of Mormon scriptural text. Yet, that did not deter the person from creating the map and trying to convince others that was where the Nephites lived.

The Problem with Theories:

Obviously, the problem with both these theories and their numerous variants is that people start with a location in mind, then try to find some way to make the Book of Mormon descriptions match. Unfortunately, in ALL cases, there are so many discrepancies, one has to almost completely ignore the scriptures in order to maintain a model’s reality. From John L. Sorenson’s skewing the land of promise by 90º from the scriptural directions, to others placing cities where there is absolutely no way to prove their location from scripture, and claiming “history and tradition” shows this to be true. Imagine believing in a 2,000 year old history where there is no written record during the time the Nephites existed over what is written in the Book of Mormon.

One look at any of these Great Lake maps shows conclusively that they do not match the geographical scriptural account of the Land of Promise. In this map, we find Zarahemal to the west of Bountiful, the Narrow Pass is to the east of the Land of Desolation, and to the north of the city of Desolation, the Waters of Mormon far, far to the north of the City of Nephi and the Small Neck of Land to the south of the Lehi landing site. None of these match scripture (see Alma 22).

No, maps, no matter how well designed, do not prove anything. And nobody can show where cities were in the Land of Promise other than perhaps, the city of Nephi and the city of Zarahemla of which we have sufficient information, along with the general area of Bountiful and Desolation. Beyond that, it is merely someone’s belief that a particular site of ruins is actually a city named in the record.

(Next Post: See how the Peruvian or Andean map and model was developed in “Problems with Map Making – Part II”)