Thursday, March 7, 2013

The Advanced Civilization of the Nephites

As stated in the last post—we are looking at the advanced civilization of the Nephites, whose first progenitors came from Jerusalem around 600 B.C. at a time when advanced civilizations were developing and existing in Greece, Egypt, Asia Minor, Mesopotamia and Sicily; when the most important center of learning was Alexandria in Egypt, which attracted scholars from across the Hellenistic world, mostly Greek and Egyptian, but also Jewish, Persian, Phoenician and even Indian scholars.
At the time Lehi left Jerusalem, the eastern world was achieving greatness in many areas—and, along with Greece, considered the most advanced in civilization on the planet. In 600 B.C., Babylon was not only one of the greatest, if not the greatest civilization at the time, but also led the world in advanced urban development and construction. Historians refer to Babylon as a city of many gates with each gate crafted with splendid architectural elegance. The hanging gardens of Babylon according to some historical accounts, are considered one of the wonders of the world. Historians also write about the cities of the area that had very straight streets, multi-story buildings and a well-developed economic system, and though having little rainfall, had abundant crops attributed to a very sophisticated irrigation system.
The Ashurbanipal Library Project, the oldest surviving royal library in the world is that of Ashurbanipal, 7th century B.C. King of Assyria, where more than 30,000 cuneiform tablets and fragments were excavated in the 1850s
Around 600 B.C., astronomy was beginning to be well known; law and order along with an advanced form of civil law was on the rise; libraries were well stocked with books in many cities; the circumference of the earth was basically known; dams were being built; irrigation channels and systems were invented; Solomon’s Temple was one of the wonders of the world (according to a list of seven wonders along with the Pharos of Alexandria and Noah’s Ark, by Bishop Gregory of Tours in the 6th century A.D.); trade, culture and colonization was on the rise; poetry was flourishing; marshes were drained and roads built by engineers; splendid houses with many rooms arranged around courtyards were being built; luxurious furniture was designed and built; central governments with elected senates came into being; wheeled chariots and mounted archers fought wars; art was flourishing, learning was advancing, and construction techniques of building with stone for walls, public buildings, and houses were well known.
This Egyptian building, the Temple of Karnak, dates back to 1900 B.C., showing an expert use of carving stone. (Note the size of the man in the left picure in the middle background)
The civilizations of the Mediterranean were highly developed, as were those in Mesopotamia and Egypt. Jerusalem was at the crossroads of the world and exposed to the development of many nations, from Mesopotamia in the north, Greece in the west, and Egypt in the south; the king’s highway was one of the trade routes of the ancient world over which most products from frankincense to gold to silks to daily wares passed by Jerusalem.
The Jews of 600 B.C., though not as advanced in many ways as the Babylonians, Greeks or Egyptians, had interaction with all three and were knowledgeable of these cultures and their achievements. Solomon built his famous temple around 1000 B.C., which stood for over 400 years before being destroyed by the Babylonians (Sir Isaac Newton studied and wrote extensively upon the Temple of Solomon, dedicating an entire chapter of The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms to his observations regarding the temple, and was intrigued by the temple’s sacred geometry and believed that it was designed by King Solomon with privileged eyes and divine guidance).
Left: Jerusalem in 587 B.C. being destroyed by the Babylonians. The city was vast in size, walled in stone, with buildings, palaces, temples, etc., all  built of stone. What burned was the wooden frames, stairs, roof supports, etc.; Right: Ishtar Gate, City of Babylon, 600 B.C., all made of stone
Though the First Temple was much smaller than the later one built (which stands today), it was still considered a marvel and people came from afar to see it and others to worship there. It was surrounded by impressive walls of stone, as was the entire city, which housed about 25,000 people at the time of Lehi, with its stone walls about 15-foot high (they are much higher today).
The houses inside the walled city of Lehi’s time were mostly two-story, with the roof usually serving as another floor where meals were often cooked and eaten and people slept during the heat of the summer months. The houses were not large, and were light tan in color because they were built from local stone with some mud and wood. Inside, wood beams and joists supported the roofs, and the house itself, typically about 900 to 1000 square feet, though some were larger, always surrounded an inner courtyard. The houses outside the city were agrarian by nature, though Lehi might have also had a business involving the use of transporting donkeys, large tenets and being gone from time to time to “return to his own house at Jerusalem.”
This is the city Lehi left, and around which Nephi and Sam grew up and were well familiar with its construction and building materials
In addition, Lehi knew the Egyptian language and obviously had some contact with Egypt. At this time, the Egyptian system of record keeping was widespread and used in numerous ways by numerous peoples. In Lehi’s day, the court of Tiglath Pileser III found it necessary to have an Aramaic scribe to deal with the multiple languages of the Egyptian record keeping employed in Arabia.
Finally, we come to the Lehi Colony in the Land of Promise. Obviously, they brought with them all their knowledge, experiences and understanding of the city and land of Jerusalem, as well as that of the Egyptians and Babylonian buildings of which they knew and heard about. On the way, the Lord taught Nephi how to construct a ship, where to find ore, and many other things in personal conversations (1 Nephi 18:2-3). When Nephi separated from his older brothers and traveled for many days before stopping in an area they called the Land of Nephi, he built a city, a temple, and showed his people the knowledge he had gained, and how “to build buildings, and to work in all manner of wood, and of iron, and of copper, and of brass, and of steel, and of gold, and of silver, and of precious ores, which were in great abundance” (2 Nephi 5:15).
In that group besides Nephi was his older brother Sam, and Zoram, Laban’s keeper of his treasury, who all knew Jerusalem intimately, and at least two sisters who might also have been in Jerusalem. If not they, like Jacob and Joseph, were raised by their parents, Lehi and Sariah, and would have been brought up in the civilization of the Jews of 600 B.C.—a civilization that had at least 1000 years of development and history before that time, and who had been in Jerusalem since the days of King David.
This is the people who became the Nephites, who were the people’s leaders and elder statesmen, who carved out a nation in the Land of Promise, and who  built up the City of Nephi, and whose descendants expanded the city and built other great cities. These people would not have built out of sticks and mud, but out of stone, brick and timber. They would have built houses like those they had known in Jerusalem, or been told about by their parents and grandparents. They built temples and palaces, towers and walls, knew how to work iron and steel, and how to adorn their buildings with gold, silver and copper, which was plentiful in the land.
Nephi, Sam and Zoram, at least, had personal knowledge of the great civilizations of their day, knew the history of their people, and the heritage of the Jewish nation. How can anyone assume they came to the Land of Promise and settled into making houses of sticks and straw, piled dirt into mounds for no apparent reason (not a Jewish tradition), and left no mark of their passing on the land that can easily be identified.
Such thinking is far beneath the abilities of the Nephite people, of their Jewish heritage, and of their Old World knowledge. To think otherwise is simply a degrading of these exceptional men and women who walk so uprightly through the pages of the Book of Mormon for hundreds of years, who saw the Savior, who lived in peace and tranquility for some 200 years, before succumbing to the evil ways that ultimately destroyed them.
And the Jaredites before them whose civilization built the ziggurats, palaces and a nation that was the greatest on earth in its day. Surely, such people would leave some significant mark behind them after some 2500 years in the Land of Promise.
(See the next post, “The Connection Between Peru and the Book of Mormon,” for more on this subject of the Nephite Nation and the Land of Promise)

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