Danger of Theorizing Part VI – Calendaring and Dating Systems

Another of these points has to do with a calendaring system used by the Nephites. The author of these sixteen points required calendaring to be met in order to determine a Land of Promise site. He states:

“(7) Multiple, functional Calendar and Dating Systems”

First of all, and the main point here is that, there is no mention of any calendaring in the scriptures. Thus it simply cannot be used as a criteria for a suggested Land of Promise site. Of course, Mesoamerican theorists would like to claim this, because of the famous and highly controversial Maya Calendar, and the less known Aztec Calendar—both stone carvings found in Mesoamerica.

But the fact of the matter is, there simply is no mention in scripture of calendars or anything like it.

Basically, the Book of Mormon writers reckoned their time by the number of years since an event. This is shown in the first verse in Alma: “Now it came to pass that in the first year of the reign of the judges over the people of Nephi” (Alma 1:1), and “thus ended the eleventh year of the judges” (Alma 1:9), or “in the commencement of the fortieth year of the reign of the judges over the people of Nephi” (Helaman 1:1), or “that the ninety and first year had passed away and it was six hundred years from the time that Lehi left Jerusalem” (3 Nephi 1:1). Mormon equates the years according to his age: “Therefore it came to pass that in my sixteenth year I did go forth at the head of an army of the Nephites, against the Lamanites; therefore three hundred and twenty and six years had passed away.” (Momron 2:2)

The closest we come in the Book of Mormon to a system of reckoning, is: “And now it came to pass, if there was no mistake made by this man in the reckoning of our time, the thirty and third year had passed away” (3 Nephi 8:2)

The thing is, we do not know the system of reckoning among the Nephites. We do know they had observatories to determine the time of year for such things as planting and harvesting since several have been found in the Andean area of South America as well as in Mesoamerica--in fact, almost all ancient cultures had some type of observatory for such important dates. But for a multi-functioning calendar, that is simply someone’s idea to inject the Maya Calendar into the Book of Mormon. No such concept is ever mentioned in the Book of Mormon.

The Dating System used by the Nephites is also unknown, however, it can be assumed they had such, since both years and events were of major importance, especially from the time that King Mosiah ended the kingship method of government, and instituted the government of judges (Mosiah 29:11; 26) which took place in 92-91 B.C.

In addition, Alma writes that “there were some who died with fevers, which at some seasons of the year were very frequent in the land” (Alma 46:40), which could be assumed to be in the summer months—but no mention of any calendar or reckoning system is even implied. Nor is any mention of the Jaredite or Nephi planting seasons implied—we only know they planted their seeds brought from their old homelands (1 Nephi 18:24; Mosiah 9:9; Ether 6:13).

It is disingenuous for any scholar or theorist to make adamant claims that cannot be shown to exist within the Book of Mormon record. The fact that we can assume the Nephites had some type of calendaring and dating system is probably a given, yet we do not know what that was, nor do we have any record of it in the scriptures by which to claim such a system and its “multi-functional” method having to exist.

If one is going to claim certain points must be met, they HAVE to be taken from scripture, not from something found in some location.