When we
start thinking about where the Land of Promise might have been located, there
are three very important questions we should consider, and answer if we can:
1. How
old is the Earth, that is, when was it formed and when was man placed upon it?
2. What
did the Earth look like in that day, and specifically what did the Land of
Promise area look like?
3. After
the destruction outlined in 3 Nephi took place, what changes in the Land of
Promise occurred?
The first
question deals with the most significant problem facing anyone trying to place
the Land of Promise—the time frame of Creation. Put differently, the Earth is
either 4.55 billions years old as geologists and earth scientists claim, or it
is about 13,000 years old as the scriptures say. There is no other alternative.
Because this is such a critical issue, it was the subject of the 4th
book in the series about the Book of Mormon shown here on this website (Scientific Fallacies & Other Myths).
Since the
attitude that the Earth is 4.55 billion years old is so steeped in the American
conscience, even to LDS people, when talking about things ancient, they have a
tendency to think in terms before man. However, that tendency eliminates a
clear and accurate understanding of the way things were when Lehi set sail, and
where he landed.
As has
been pointed out in the several previous posts, the South American continent was
definitely under water at one time and emerged when the plate tectonics drove
up the mighty Andes Mountain chain, creating mountains whose “height is great.”
Only the Himalayas in Asia are taller and considered younger (mainly because geologists
consider they have not had time to weather like the Urals and the Appalachians).
Left: Peruvian Nevado Alpamayo Peak in the Cordillera Blanca mountain range of the Andes Mountain stands at 19,511 feet. Its Quechua name is Shuyturahu, meaning long and thin snowy mountain; Center: Yerupaja Peak in the Cordillera Huayhuash, stands at a staggering 21,768 feet; Right: Huantsan, a mountain in the Ancash Region and part of the Cordillera Blanca, which is a sub-range of the Andes, and stands at 20,895 feet
But what
if the Andes did rise suddenly, as Samuel the Lamanite foresaw and the Disciple Nephi
witnessed in the Land of Promise? What if this event was out of the norm of
other, slower developments science claims to have happened elsewhere? This then
brings the question of how quickly the mountains attained such
heights into a very important area—and has been a contentious question in
geological circles for quite some time. Some researchers claim the central
Andes rose abruptly to nearly their current height and others maintain the
uplift was a more gradual process.
No matter where we want to place the
Land of Promise, we know from the scriptural record that some mountain range
rose up out of the level ground to a height that the Angel told Samuel was
great. Could this have been the Andes? It certainly is the only range in the
Western Hemisphere that meets such a criteria.
So how
old are the Andes Mountains? Depending on what you are looking for, who you
want to listen to, and how you accept the basis of the different arguments,
depends entirely on your answer. First of all, the Andes are claimed to be 7 to
8 million years old—that is, when they started to rise. On a geologic scale
that covers 4.55 billion years—7 to 8 million is extremely recent. Lately,
however, science is pushing back that start date to about 25 to 30 million years
ago—still extremely young on the geologic scale.
But what
caused this revision? Actually, it is the location of sediment that has been
washed down from the mountain and accumulated in nearby lake bottoms, and the
belief that the oxygen-16 level (oxygen has two main isotopes—Oxygen-16 and
Oxygen-18) once believed to have existed in the Andes has now been determined
to be Oxygen-18, and had not risen sharply, but been based on greater rainfall.
The
problem arises, however, like it does with all of this type of science, no one
was around that long ago and consequently, the mountains could have risen
sharply, or there could have been a high increase in rain—no one can ever know
this. So what does science do? They rely upon their belief in the very slow
process of change they see about them today, thus the Andes are older than they
thought and did not rise as fast as they thought.
The
problem is enhanced when we start trying to equate science’s dating of events
with the far lesser time frame of God’s creation. It is not that these geologic
events did not happen, it is that they happened within a far shorter time frame
than science wants to believe. Which leads us to the method of dating events
that science uses, which brings the method into question.
Science
rejects that the Earth was divided in Peleg’s time; science rejects that there
was a flood; science rejects that there was a mighty change at the time of
Christ’s crucifixion. Thus, science sees only very slow change and refuses to
consider any other factors—even when they are shown to have not only happened,
but actually answer problems much more accurately.
On the
other hand, accepting the word of God causes us to realize that there has been
both slow and sudden changes that have formed the world, from the creation, to
Noah’s Flood, to the dividing of the Earth, to the changes at the crucifixion.
These instances occurred suddenly, within hours or days, or in some cases,
perhaps months or a few years—but not the millions of years science attributes
to drastic change.
All of
this lays the ground work for an understanding of the scriptural record of the
Book of Mormon regarding then location of Lehi’s Isle of Promise and the
location of the Land of Promise.
(See the
next post, “Three Very Important
Questions – Part II – The Second Question,” for a continuation of these questions and their answers)
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