North America and the Land of Promise

Once again, partially because of Rod L. Meldrum’s extensive work, which doesn’t always follow the scriptural record, and that of other North American Theorists, such as those of the Great Lakes area, over the last three years there has been a growing interest in promoting the United States specifically and North America generally as the Book of Mormon Land of Promise lands to the complete exclsion of the rest of the  Western Hemisphere.

In delineating this area to Meldrum’s Heartland, the Great Lakes, and the general eastern U.S. area to bring into focus all the theorists involved in this area, we present here a list of items that should show the most liberal of these thinkers that this area simply does not meet the criteria of the scriptural record for the Land of Promise. Following are just ten items,but still, ten areas that do not match should cause anyone to think twice of such a theory.
1. No mountains. In a vision of the Land of Promise, Nephi was shown mountains tumbling into pieces (1 Nephi 12:4), suggesting that prior to the crucifixion of the Savior (34 A.D.) the Land of Promise contained mountains. Nephi also saw during the crucifixion vision that “mountains shall be carried up” (1 Nephi 19:1), a fact which Samuel the Lamanite verified when he prophesied what the Lord put in his heart to say, “there shall be many mountains laid low, like unto a valley, and there shall be many places which are now called valleys which shall become mountains, whose height is great” (Helaman 14:23), and also by Nephi who described the destruction by saying: “the earth was carried up upon the city of Moronihah that in the place of the city there became a great mountain” (3 Nephi 8:10).

Comment: There are no mountains around the Mississippi River area (Heartland), nor are there any in western New York (Great Lakes). As can be seen from these general pictures of the area, it is quite flat, hardly a hill to be seen,
2. No Buildings or Evidence of Advanced Civilization. The Land of Promise was settled first, by the Jaredites who came from Mesopotamia at the time of the building of the great tower, where monumentous building with stone was practiced, and known by the Jaredites. The second group were the Nephites, where Lehi, Nephi, Sam and Zoram knew and lived in an advanced civilization nearly a thousand years after the Temple of Solomon was built, and where the city of Jerusalem was already large, built with cut and dressed stone. Yet, archaeology and related studies have found not a single place in all of North America, especially in the claimed areas of the Book of Mormon Land of Promise lands, in the period of  the Jaredite and Nephite histories contained any cultures at the level of “civilization,” specifically that of the Babylonians and the Hebrew/Jews.
3. Iron, Copper, Brass, Steel, Gold and Silver Weapons, Tools and Machinery. While a wide range of weapons and tools are known to have been used by the Nephites, for Nephi “did teach my people 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) and Jarom added, “we multiplied exceedingly, and spread upon the face of the land, and became exceedingly rich in gold, and in silver, and in precious things, and in fine workmanship of wood, in buildings, and in machinery, and also in iron and copper, and brass and steel, making all manner of tools of every kind to till the ground, and weapons of war—yea, the sharp pointed arrow, and the quiver, and the dart, and the javelin, and all preparations for war” (Jarom 1:8). The Jaredites “did make gold, and silver, and iron, and brass, and all manner of metals; and they did dig it out of the earth; wherefore they did cast up mighty heaps of earth to get ore, of gold, and of silver, and of iron, and of copper. And they did work all manner of fine work” (Ether 10:23).

Gold quantities in Mississippi are slim to none; in Aarkansas very limited to none; Tennessee has very limited gold; Missouri very limited quantities and no reports of any significant amounts of gold ever being recovered; Illinois, not sizeable quantities, limited amounts of placer gold; Iowa, limited amount of gold deposits scattered about; Indiana, limited amounts of gold, with no commercial gold mining in the state; Kentucky, very limited to none gold found; Michigan, “like most states on the eastern side of the U.S. has a small amount of placer gold, no substantial quantities; Wisconsin, like its neighboring states, does not have enough naturally occurring gold to interest gold mining endeavors; Ohio, some placer gold, but not enough to interest gold mining efforts; Alabama, one of the few gold producing states east of the Mississippi with most of the state’s gold coming from the east, along the border with Georgia--this area hardly matches the descriptions above of the Jaredites and Nephites gold endeavors, building buildings, etc.

    Yet, there is no archeological evidence of any type of advanced civilization anywhere in the areas of the claimed book of Mormon lands.
4. Public Buildings, Cities, Temples. Nephi built a temple like unto Solomon’s (2 Nephi 5:16); king Noah built numerous public buildings, palaces, temples, and synagogues (Mosiah 11:8-9,11), and these buildings were of such stature that they were significant enough to later searchers for Zarahemla to comment upon them to king Limhi (Mosiah 8:8). Yet, archaeology has uncovered no such buildings, foundations of buildings, or any type of momentous structures or cities built during Jaredite or Nephite times in North America.
5. Large-scale fortifications. These are described being built and used during Moroni’s time specifically, with stone walls (Alma 48:8) all around them, the cities, and the land (Alma 50:10; 51:23,27; 52:2,17; 53:7; 55:25. Yet, there are no such fortifications anywhere in North America in claimed Book of Mormon lands.
6. Roads and Highways. These roads and highways went from city to city, and from land to land, and from place to place” (3 Nephi 6:8), suggesting a rather large and extensive roadway system, yet no such roads have ever been found in ancient North America.
7. Large Populations. Throughout the Book of Mormon, large populations and largely populated areas, cities, battles and death of larges amounts of people are described. At least two million Jaredites were killed at one time (Ether 15:2), and at least 230,000 Nephites plus an untold number of Lamanites, but a much larger number, suggesting somewhere around 600,000 or more (battle at Cumorah, Mormon ch 6), yet in the areas of North America claimed to be Book of Mormon lands, no such population numbers can be shown. In fact, most occupied areas in North America during Jaredite and Nephite times are very small numbers, and in North America during Jaredite and Nephite times, there is no evidence of warfare on any significant scale.

8. Landing on West seashore. Lehi and his party landed in Nephi’s ship on the shore of the Sea West in the “land of first inheritance” (Alma 22: 28). It is impossible to claim they landed anywhere else other than along the Pacific ocean requires twisting of the scriptural record, ignoring of the factual base of numerous scriptures, and recognition of large bodies of water that either do not exist or do not qualify as seas that are far inland and would have been too far for Lehi and Sariah, sick at the time of their landing (1 Nephi 18:18), to have negotiated, and violates the statement of landing and pitching their tents (1 Nephi 18:23).
9. Surrounded by Water. Jacob, stated in the temple during a two-day conference, with Nephi recording his words on the plates, that the Lord had led them to an isle of the sea (2 Nephi 10:20). Mormon claimed that the Land Southward was nearly surrounded by water except for a narrow or small neck of land leading into the Land Northward (Alma 22:32). And Mormon stated that the Nephites “did multiply and spread, and did go forth from the land southward to the land northward, and did spread insomuch that they began to cover the face of the whole earth, from the sea south to the sea north, from the sea west to the sea east“ (Helaman 3:8), suggesting four seas in each of the four cardinal points of the Land of Promise. There is no place in North America that can be claimed to have four seas like described without calling lakes and rivers "seas."
10. Narrow Passage within Narrow Neck of Land. The scriptural record places a “narrow pass” or “narrow passage” between the lands northward and southward and that it was within the narrow neck of land, making it the only or sole feasible way to go northward or southward between the two major land masses of the Land Northward and the Land Southward. No North American geographical arrangement comes close to such an arrangement.
There are many more differences between the North American Heartland, Great Lakes, and Eastern U.S. theories; however, these ten are enough to show that North America is simply not the Land of Promise of the Book of Mormon lands, though it is part of the overall Land of Promise of the Western Hemisphere.