Sheum in Ancient Times, Part III

“With seeds of corn, and of wheat, and of barley, and with neas, and with sheum, and with seeds of all manner of fruits” (Mosiah 9:9).

While John L. Sorenson claims that sheum was an Akkadian word for barley, it has been pointed out in the last two posts that this is not correct. If it were it would alter the entire understanding of how the plates were translated. For Joseph used the words in his language that he understood the Reformed Egyptian character to be, and once saying it, the Spirit either acknowledged its accuracy, or the process began again.

In addition, Robert R. Bennett in an article in the Maxwell Institute website entitled “Barley and Wheat in the Book Mormon,” wrote “It is worth noting that sheum is also mentioned in the Book of Mormon in an agricultural context (see Mosiah 9:9). It apparently refers to a New World crop cultivated in the land of Nephi that was designated by an Old World term. Use of this term in the Book of Mormon is itself significant, since Akkadian could not be read (and hence the term sheum was not known) until decades after the Book of Mormon was published.”

While there is agreement that the term could not be Akkadian, the idea that Joseph used a familiar word to name an unknown crop is inconsistent with other areas of translation. As an example, why did he not give some familiar animal names to the cureloms and cumoms? After all, he named the elephant, horse, ass, cow and the classifications of cattle, oxen, sheep, swine and goats. It makes little sense to consider that Joseph used “an unknown name for New World crop cultivated in the land of Nephi that was designated by an Old World term.”

Nor would it be consistent to think that plant and animal terms Joseph applied to the translation of the Reformed Egyptian characters on the plates were given familiar names known to him though the actual plants and animals were not the ones he named. To think this way is to believe that the Lord and the Spirit were party to inaccurate and disingenuous translation of the record.

But undaunted by this understanding of how the plates were translated, Bennett goes on to write: “In the New World many Spanish names were applied to American plants following the Conquest, because of the plants' apparent similarity to European ones, even though the New World plants were, from a botanical perspective, often a different species or variety. For example, the Spanish called the fruit of the prickly pear cactus a "fig," and emigrants from England called maize "corn," an English term referring to grains in general. A similar practice may have been employed when Book of Mormon people encountered New World plant species for the first time.”

Somewhere, somehow, people like Sorenson and Bennett seem to have forgotten that there was a Flood. A complete covering of the earth with the oceans 15 cubits (about 22 feet) higher than the highest mountain peak (Genesis 7:19-20). This lasted for 150 days (Genesis 7:24), in which all living things were destroyed (Genesis 7:21-23). During this time, seeds, plants, trees, and all things died. From a botanical point of view, seeds may have remained dormant in the earth, however, the idea of millions upon millions of square miles of water rushing back into sea areas over time, carrying untold tons of earth with them to settle in the oceans, etc., it is hard to depict that seeds, dormant or otherwise, might have survived—and if any did, certainly not in the same location they had once been. However, from the scriptural point of view, the Lord said, “everything that is IN the earth shall die,” which would include seeds, plants, etc.

“And take thou unto thee of all food that is eaten, and thou shalt gather it to thee; and it shall be for food for thee, and for them” (Genesis l6:21), thus we might assume that Noah brought seeds with him for the future planting (replanting) of all plants, grains, fruits, and other flora. This would mean that when Noah left the Ark in the area of Mespotamia, he had with him tons of seeds to plant for the growth of food—grains, fruits, and vegetables—for the use of man.

When the Jaredites were told to leave Mesopotamia, they were told to take “all manner of that which was upon the face of the land, seeds of every kind” (Ether 2:3). These seeds would have been planted in the Land Northward by the Jaredites 1600 years before the arrival of the Nephites to the far south and the Mulekites in Zarahemla. The seeds they planted would have produced more seeds which might well have been borne on the wind to the Land Southward—not far in distance—or carried by birds and animals. These seeds would have been both Old World seeds, and obviously of the kind known to Noah in his time.

In addition, the Nephites brought with them seeds of every kind that were know in and around Jerusalem. When we combined these two plantings, we find that the Jaredite and Nephite seeds would have brought most of the known plants to the Land of Promise.

So what happened to them by the time the Spanish arrived 2000 years after the demise of the Jaredites, and one thousand years after the demise of the Nephites?

(See the next post, “Sheum in Ancient Times—Part IV,” for an answer to that question)