Continuing from the last eight posts, listing actual
descriptions in the Book of Mormon and how any Land of Promise model should
match all of those listed in that scriptural
record.
Earlier posts in this series have covered 1)
Mountains, “whose height is great”;
2) Two unknown animals; 3) Two unknown grains; 4) Plants that cure fever; 5)
Land of promise as an island; 6) The four seas surrounding the Land of Promise;
7) the Climate where Lehi’s seeds grew that he brought to the Land of Promise
from Jerusalem; 8) Roads and Highways; 9) Driven before the wind; 10) Lehi’s
Course to the Land of Promise; 11) Both Gold and Silver and Copper; 12)
Hagoth’s ships went northward; 13) Forts, fortifications and resorts; 14) Fortified
wall; 15) Narrow neck of land; and 16) Defendable narrow pass or passage, 17)
the sea that divides the land, 8) All manner of buildings, 19) Great temple
tower, 20) Directions of the Land of Promise, and 21) All manner of ore.
Another scriptural description is that of the Land
Northward having an area far to the north called the “Land of Many Waters.” Mormon describes this area as “containing many waters,
lakes and fountains” (Mormon 6:4). Many have merely
interpreted this statement as being a place full of lakes and rivers, such as the
Great Lakes.
However, the Great Lakes area is an overall water
shed or drainage basin—one of the largest in the world—but is not a source
of water. That is, it is not a
provider of water, but a recipient of water from numerous rivers and
drainage
waters around it as the bottom map (below) shows. In fact, the lakes
themselves contain
about 5,500 cubic miles of water, covering a total area of 94,000 square
miles,
and are the largest system of fresh, surface water on Earth, containing
roughly 21 percent of the world supply and 84 percent of North America's
supply. These lakes are home to over 33 million people, and only the polar ice
caps contain more fresh water.
Top: The Great Lakes, which are many
waters; Bottom: The Great Lakes Water Shed or Draining Basin. Note that each
lake, rather than being a source of water, is in fact fed by numerous rivers
and waterways within its water shed. There are no fountains here
There is obviously no question that this is a land
of many waters—several thousands of small inland lakes. Interestingly, though, the
outflow from these great lakes is very small, less than 1 percent a year, in
comparison with the total volume of water, which is just the opposite of what
Mormon tells us.
Or, stated differently, this is not a land of fountains!
We need to keep in
mind that Mormon described his land of
many waters as having fountains,
which in Joseph Smith’s time meant “a spring or source of water; the source or
head of a stream; the source or origin, genesis or wellspring (a bountiful
source of water).”
A spring is a source of water issuing from
the earth, a fountainhead, or wellhead—a place where a spring comes out of the
ground from groundwater at, or below, the local water table, below which the
subsurface material is saturated with water
Such springs, or fountains, are a water resource formed when
the side of a hill, a valley bottom or other excavation intersects a flowing
body of groundwater. It is the result of an aquifer being filled to the point
that the water overflows onto the land surface, and range in size from
intermittent seeps, which flow only after much rain, to huge pools flowing
hundreds of millions of gallons daily.
These “fountains” may be formed
in any sort of rock or soil when geologic or hydrologic
forces cut into the underground layers where water is in movement (blue arrows above), which, in
turn, discharges back onto the surface at the spring vent. The original source
of this water, typically rains, can be many miles away, but the vent is where
the “fountain” exists, which discharges the water, and forms pools, lakes and
rivers—which Mormon called “many waters.”
Thus, any Land of
Promise must have a “land of many waters,” within the northern extremity of its
northern region (Land Northward), that contains such fountains, which are the origin of the “many waters” within the
area. While many claim an area of "many waters" for their model, none show the
“fountains” Mormon describes except for the area in northern Ecuador, which has
been written about many times in this blog over the past three years.
Still another description
of the Land of Promise is the crop growth described. Nephi begins by telling us
after landing in the promised land, “we
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), then adds sometime later, after separating from
his brothers and founding the land of and city of Nephi, states: “we did prosper exceedingly; for we did sow
seed, and we did reap again in abundance” (2 Nephi 5:11).
More than 350 years
later, Zeniff leaves Zarahemla and returns with a large group of Nephites to
the City of Nephi to resettle the land. After arriving, he states: “we began to till the ground, yea, even with
all manner of seeds, with seeds of corn, and of wheat, and of barley, and with
neas, and with sheum, and with seeds of all manner of fruits; and we did begin
to multiply and prosper in the land” (Mosiah 9:9). The Jaredites brought
“the seed of the earth of every kind” (Ether 1:41; 2:3) from Mesopotamia, and
built tools in the promised land to plow and sow and to reap and hoe and thrash
(Ether 10:25).
Obviously, the Land
of Promise was an area where “seeds of every kind” would grow exceedingly and
produce abundant crops. This is not the case in Mesoamerica where wheat and
barley simply do not grow and, in fact, are not found among the top 28 food plants
grown in Mesoamerica, nor are those other seeds brought from the land of Jerusalem
found.
The Andean
area of South America is rich in grain production, including vast amounts of
wheat and barley as compared to Mesoamerica
In fact, it is
claimed that: “One of the greatest challenges in Mesoamerica for farmers is the
lack of usable land, and the poor condition of the soil. Several different
methods have been used to combat these problems. The two main ways to combat
poor soil quality, or lack of nutrients in the soil, are to leave fields fallow
for a period and to use slash-and-burn techniques. However, in the jungle
environment, no matter how careful a farmer is, nutrients are often hard to
retain.”
As an example, today
all of Mesoamerica (including that part of southern Mexico considered part of Mesoamerica) have but 480 hectares of planted wheat, compared to the Andean
area with 5446 hectares. Mesoameria produce 2000 tons of wheat annually, with
Andean area producing nearly six times as much at 11,461 tons. As for barley,
all of Mexico and Guatemala produces 338,500 tons; with the Andean area
producing about ten times as much at 3,370,796 tons. The soils of Mesoamerica are simply not conducive for wheat and barley while the soils of the Mediterranean Climate of Lehi's landing sight in Chile produce abundant crops and even today feed much of the western U.S. with their imports (see the earlier post in this series).
Obviously, then, any true Land of Promise must match
all of the descriptions listed in the Book of Mormon—it is not a pick and
choose arrangement in selecting those that agree with your point of view, but
must match all of the descriptions,
beginning with these first 23 covered in these nine posts.
(See the next post,
“So Where is the Land of Promise? –
Part IX,” for more of these descriptions as listed in the scriptural record of
the Book of Mormon)
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