Continuing from the last posts
showing the fallacy of the Mesoamerican Theorists’ view of the Isthmus of
Tehuantepec in being the narrow neck of land—it becomes clear that this isthmus
is the real Achilles heel of every Mesoamerican model. In pursuing this, the
following is from John E. Clark, himself a Mesoamericanist and follower of John
L. Sorenson’s model, in which he defends the Mesoamerican Theory.
Clark’s arguments continue:
18. “It is worth
noticing that Book of Mormon geographies positing restricted lands and the
presence of different peoples on American soil ignore the killing flood of
Noah's day.”
Response: Clark is absolutely correct here, and there is no
way to explain this away, ignore it, or try to get around this issue in some
way. However, this also means that we need to follow the time frame of the
Flood as recorded in both Genesis and the Book of Moses. When taking all the
birth information from Adam to Noah (Genesis 5:3 to 5:32), and the age of Noah
when he finished the Ark and the Flood began (Genesis 7:6,11), brings us to
2444 B.C.. The waters receded a year later (Genesis 8:13-14), bringing us to
2343 when “the waters were dried up from off the earth” and the “earth was
dried.” The Book of Moses in the Pearl of Great Price gives us these exact same
dates for the Patriarchs from Adam to Noah (Moses 6:10-6:22; 6:24-25; 8:1-12).
In addition, Joseph Smith, in his 2nd session of the School of the
Prophets, used these dates, teaching them to those attending, and quizzing them
on the dates when finished. Thus, anyone who wants to tell us that the Flood
occurred at any other time simply is ignoring, or changing, the scriptures.
That, of course, includes Sorenson, and other Mesoamericanists, who feel the
date of 3100 B.C. (start of the Maya calendar) was the accurate date for the
Flood.
19. “Some authors
appear not to realize the implications of their claims. [Joseph] Allen, for
example, seems unaware that some of his proposals rest on the proposition that
Noah's flood was not universal (in a literal, physical sense), and others on
the proposition that it was. He writes about the Jaredites as if they came to
empty land after the flood, as in the traditional view of Book of Mormon
geography, and he discusses the Nephites as if the flood never happened and
that Book of Mormon lands were full of strangers. He cannot have it both ways.”
Response: That is true—you can’t have both of two
conflicting points. However not just about Allen, but other Mesoamericanists,
and theorists claiming North America, Malay, etc., who do like to have it both
ways, ignoring some scriptures and choosing to highlight others. And on this
issue, it appears from his writing that Clark is as guilty as most other
theorists. This is because they have chosen a Land of Promise model that does
not and cannot match all scripture, so they are forced to explain away, ignore,
or try and get around the difficult scriptural descriptions (see the book Inaccuracies of Mesoamerican & Other
Theorists).
20. In speaking of Sorenson’s response to the problem with
some Olmec sites were in the Land Southward of Mesoamerica, and claiming the
Olmec were Jaredites, Clark writes: “First,
Sorenson avoids the blanket equation of Jaredites with Olmecs. Rather, he
argues that some Olmecs may have been Jaredites, but not all of them…Claims in
the Book of Mormon that Jaredites did not occupy a land, therefore, are not
equivalent to claiming that the lands were unoccupied.”
There are several points here. First, because Mesoamerica is
thought by anthropologists and archaeologists to have been occupied by numerous
peoples before and after the Jaredites arrived, they have to make room for them
in the Book of Mormon Land of Promise. Despite the fact that the scriptural
record not only does not suggest any other people in any way, Sorenson and
other Mesoaemrican theorists goes out of their way to try and convince us it
does; however, the record actually provides suggestive information that it was
held in reserve for Lehi’s posterity and that no one else was there and it
would be kept from the knowledge of other nations (2 Nephi 1:8). Second, in
Clark’s argument against Joseph Allen that he could not have it both ways,
perhaps we should say that Sorenson cannot have it both ways—either the Olmecs
were Jaredites or they were not. But never willing to accept the scriptural
record when it shows him wrong, Sorenson tries to hedge his bets when we
learned that the Olmec settled south of his narrow neck of land.
This leads us to consider the Jaredite condition. For some
1500 years, they were at constant war with one another, and over the last
generations, there was a war that stretched all across the land, with millions
being killed and left to rot and stink upon the land. Do we really believe
other people were in the land and made no effort to stop, fight, or try and
control these events? And do we really think that the Jaredite writers, and
Ether, would be so arrogantly superior to not even consider anyone else in the
land, or to indicate in some way that there were others there? The entire
concept is ridiculous.
21. “All parts of
North, South, and Middle America have been occupied since at least 3000 BC.
Presumably non-Jaredites occupied
most of these places for millennia, including the land southward, before
Jaredites ever got there. So, as with all Nephite/Lamanite questions, one must
sort out time, place, and culture in making an archaeological identification of
Jaredites.”
First of all, it is not possible that any of the Western
Hemisphere was occupied continually from about 3000 B.C. There is no way anyone
can speak differently (and accurately) in opposition to the scriptural record,
nor can they invent people living both before and after the Flood other than those
on the Ark. Any attempt to do so is to place oneself above the word of God and
his prophets. The Flood occurred between 2444 and 2344 B.C. and destroyed
(killed) every living thing on the earth except those in the Ark (Genesis 7:21-23). The Ark settled in
Mesopotamia area in 2344 B.C. The Jaredites came to what is now the Americas
about 2100 B.C. That means there was about 250 years between the end of the
Flood and the time of the Jaredite arrival. Now, tell me, who on earth could
have been in the Western Hemisphere prior to the Jaredites?
The point is, to get from Mesopotamia where the Ark landed,
one would have to build a ship and sail across the Atlantic. However, such
development would have been beyond the first survivors of the Flood and for
many generations after that. In fact, the earliest known reference to the
development of ships was on the Nile sometime after the 25th century B.C. (left) and hardly capable of sailing into deep water. The first Chinese dynasty did not
commence until around 2100 B.C., and the first explorer of whom there is any knowledge
was Hannu, an ancient Egyptian traveler around 21st or 20th
century B.C. Around the 6th century B.C., the Greeks had a fleet of
ships, and Aristotle claimed Alexander the Great had developed a primitive
submersible for reconnaissance missions by 323 B.C.
Let’s be reasonable about this, and not just spout academic
or scientific trivia espoused by people who do not believe in God or in the
Bible! We cannot just make wild statements that cannot even be supported by
historical factors. What we need are people writing about the Book of Mormon
that believe in what the Prophets wrote, what Mormon described, what Joseph
Smith translated, and the spirit acknowledged.
(See the next post,
“The Narrow Neck of Land One More Time – Part XIV—Mesoaermicanists’ Achilles
Heel,” for more on this difficult area for the Mesoamerican Theorist model to
reconcile with the scripture)
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