The So-Called H38 Virus – Part IV

According to the blogger on this H38 Virus (See Parts I, II and III), he states as his third and final point:

3. The Land Northward was crossed by the Mulekites, they having first landed in the northern border then traveled south later to found Zarahemla. A true model must have a LAND NORTHWARD bordered by the SEA NORTH connecting to the "GREAT DEEP." (1 Nephi 17:17; Omni 1:16; Ether 6:3, 2:25, 7:27, 8:9; Helaman 12:16; 2 Nephi 4:20).”

In this point, an agreement certainly exists that there were four seas: Sea North, Sea South, Sea West and Sea East. However, there can be no agreement with his comment about the Mulekites, for Amaleki clearly stated in Omni 1:16 that the Mulekites landed in the area where Mosiah found them (Zaraemla) in the Land southward. As to the seas, this blogger claims the Sea South was south of the Land Northward and separated the Land Northward from the Land Southward. This is not in agreement with Mormon's account (as shown in the following model that we have presented in “Lehi Never Saw Mesoamerica.”) In addition, the blogger claims that the oceans around the Land of Promise had to be open to the “Great Deep,” which is also true according to the scriptural account. However, the Great Lakes Model, nor the Heartland Model, do not allow for this, the "Great Deep" of the Atlantic Ocean 300 miles or more away from the Land of Promise shown in their models.

Map South America: Today and in 600 B.C. The drawing to the right shows the Land of Promise is open to the "Great Deep" in all direction

As can be seen, the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Ocean at one time were connected through a passage when the area of Panama was underwater, referred to anciently as the "Gulf Straits," and not connected to South America as the Glomar Challenger undersea drilling ship found when drilling on both sides of the Isthmus of Panama. This means that both coasts of the Land of Promise, that is both the West Sea and the East Sea, connected by the North Sea, were part of the “Great Deep,” as well as Irreantum “many waters” where all these oceans flowed into one another.

As for these Great Lakes Theorists’ claims, and the H38 Virus in particular, one cannot decide to lay claim to one part of the Land of Promise and ignore all the rest of it. The H38 Virus concentrates on the Land Northward to the exclusion of the Land Southward. As an example, no Great Lakes model can substantiate the comment Mormon makes in Alma 22:29 “And also there were many Lamanites on the east by the seashore, whether the Nephites had driven them. And thus the Nephites were nearly surrounded by the Lamanites; nevertheless the Nephites had taken possession of all the northern parts of the land bordering on the wilderness, at the head of the river Sidon, from the east to the west, round about on the wilderness side; on the north even until they came to the land which they called Bountiful.”

And also, Mormon writes that the Nephites had “hemmed in the Lamanites on the south, that thereby they should have no more possession on the north” (Alma 22:33). Consequently, while the Lamanites occupied the Land of Nephi to the south, the Nephites occupied the Land of Zarahemla to the north of “a narrow strip of wilderness, which ran from the sea east even to the sea west” (Alma 22:27). While Great Lakes models sometimes show this, their delineation of these lands and this strip of wilderness in no way runs across the entire land as the scriptures state, and thus hemming the Lamanites in on the south so they could not be overrun in the north, the the Nephites “might have a country whither they might flee, according to their desires” (Alma 22:34).

In the Great Lakes Model, a Map of Lamanite Approaches to the Land Northward where the Nephites could not have stopped them in such broad areas of approach

Instead, nowhere in the Great Lakes area would a people to the south be “hemmed in” and not be able to circumvent a “round-about” route to attack from the rear. Something the Lamanites in the Land of Promise could not do according to Mormon.