Divine Forethought—“All these things were prepared of the Lord”—Part II

When it comes to the Lord’s preparations for His work to be accomplished, there is far more insight and forethought than man usually recognizes, let alone acknowledges. When the time came to lead the Lehi Colony to the Land of Promise, before leaving the area of Jerusalem, He had them take their tents and provisions, including “we had gathered together all manner of seeds of every kind, both of grain of every kind, and also of the seeds of fruit of every kind” (1 Nephi 8:1). Once they landed in the Land of Promise, they “did begin to till the earth, and we began to plant seeds; yea, we did put all our seeds into the earth, which we had brought from the land of Jerusalem. And it came to pass that they did grow exceedingly; wherefore, we were blessed in abundance” (1 Nephi 18:24).

Almost all Book of Mormon historians and scholars overlook this simple understanding and the extreme significance of the seeds “brought from Jerusalem.” Seeds, in 600 B.C. (and for numerous centuries thereafter) did not just grow anywhere.

According to J. E. Schouw, in 1822, during the golden age of plant exploration, wrote “The plant communities of the world have geographic boundaries that are governed by climate, soil type, and separation of regions by ocean and desert barriers.” At the time, and currently, the world was divided into six floristic kingdoms, of which four include areas of Mediterranean climate vegetation. Four of the kingdoms are the 1) Antarctic Kingdom, comprising the southern part of Chile and far off New Zealand; 2) The Australian Kingdom; 3) The Cape Floral Kingdom (of Africa) that centers around a small Mediterranean vegetation area of the Western Cape Providence; and 4) The Arctic Kingdom, including both California and the Mediterranean Basin. The other two zones, without any amount of a Mediterranean climate, are: 5) The Paleotropic Kingdom, and 6) The African and Asian Tropics and the Neotropic Kingdom, which comprises the Western Hemisphere tropics.

As pointed out by Peter R. Dallman, in his book: “Plant Life in the World’s Mediterranean Climates,” that such climates only exist in California, Chile, South Africa, Australia and the Mediterranean Basin, the latter being where Jerusalem is located. According to Robert Ornduff Professor Emeritus of Botany and former Director of the Botanical Garden at UC Berkeley, Adrianna Hoffman, author of field guides for Chilean flora, and Professor Gloria Montenegro, a renowned Chilean botanist, all experts in Mediterranean Climate flora studies and comparisons of plant life in the five regions of the world with Mediterranean Climates, a Mediterranean Climate is “a climate similar to that of the borders of the Mediterranean” where Jerusalem lies, and from which Lehi brought his seeds.

The point of all this is, of course, that seeds from Jerusalem, which is a Mediterranean Climate, would only reproduce in 600 B.C. in another Mediterranean Climate, which, in the Western Hemisphere, would be coastal California and coastal Central Chile, as shown in the map below.”
The vegetation types and climates of the Western Hemisphere. The two Mediterranean Climates are shown by the arrows

For those who might think Mediterranean Climates are recent, and did not exist in the time of Lehi, the geologic understanding is that the “Start of the Mediterranean Climate was at the end of the Tertiary and the beginning of the Quatemary Period—the age of Man.”

Among the three Mediterranean Climates of the southern hemisphere, Chile is alone in having dense forests extending far to the south. In the moister southern part of this climate in Central Chile, flora from a temperate, southern origin is prominent, with southern beech, myrtle, and conifers.

Obviously, the Lord knew that when He directed Lehi to leave Jerusalem with all manner of seeds, that for these seeds to transplant in 600 B.C., they would need another like climate, soil, and precipitation. Two like climates were prepared from the beginning in the Western Hemisphere (the Land of Promise), and only one is within direct relationship to an ancient civilization dating to the time of the Nephites with building skills equal to that mentioned by Nephi.

And that area is Central Chili in South America.