Finding Lehi’s Isle of Promise – Part XXX

Continuing this lengthy series on the scriptural record statements and descriptions that lead us to a clearer understanding of the location of the Land of Promise, for there can be no question that any Land of Promise must have all of these descriptions Mormon and other writers of the scriptural record left us.
    As obvious as it seems, it is remarkable that almost every theorist who has ever written about the location of the Land of Promise has ignored most of the descriptions Mormon and others so plainly left us, showing us how Nephi reached the Land of Promise and where it was located, and what he found there in the immediate vicinity of his landing.
    No theorist wants to deal with Jacob’s statement that they were “on an island in the midst of the sea,” since no one’s location matches an island at the time the Nephites. And while many lists of factors in the Land of Promise are shown by some theorists, they are woefully limited, and only include points that particular theory and location agree. In fact, a real list of all that Mormon and others left us is actually quite long (see the book Lehi Never Saw Mesoamerica for a full list), with most items completely ignored by those who promote one model or another.  

That critical list of descriptions is found only in the scriptural record of the Book of Mormon. While modern-day comments and descriptions may be helpful, the fact remains that the scriptural record is not only by far the most important basis, but in fact, the only one since it was written by prophets who lived upon the land their entire lives (except for Nephi and Jacob who spent most of their lives on the land), and was translated by a prophet whose translation was verified by the Spirit.
    We concluded a previous post with the statement: “As has been said by others, this list of criteria is not a cafeteria list—you can’t pick and choose. However, all Mesoamericanists and Great Lakes/Heartland, Central and North American and Baja theorists do this. They ignore those scriptural references that disagree with their points of view. So we continue to publish what those scriptural references are and show where they are not used and do not support these numerous and erroneous views of those who place the Land of Promise in areas not supported by Mormon's many descriptions and many other scriptural references.”

This chart shows that in any list of scriptural references, there is only one place in the Western Hemisphere that comes close to matching each item—all others fall far short. These are not a person’s list, they are actual descriptive statements made in the scriptural record about the appearance, layout, and nature of the Land of Promise; this list is 31 items, others could be added, found anciently only in Andean Peru in the Western Hemisphere

    Thus, to verify the location of the Land of Promise once located, it has to be an area that now and/or during the time of the Jaredites/Nephites, matched the entire list of descriptions found in the Book of Mormon. And we have to do it without changing the meaning, twisting the words around, inserting words that are not in the scriptural record, or deleting words or ideas that do not agree with one’s personal point of view, or claiming that these erstwhile prophets did not know what they were writing about, such as not knowing directions or what their land was like, or how it was laid out from north to south, or whether or not they meant sea when they said sea, etc.
    The interesting thing is, however, looking for a match of these 31 items is not the way to go about finding the location of the Land of Promise--thy just verify it. The way to find the location, as we have reported numerous times, is to begin with 1 Nephi and follow through every hint or description and meaning on a journey as Nephi took, first from Jerusalem to Bountiful, then by ship to the Land of Promise. It is all there, the winds and currents have never changed, and all that is needed is to understand how currents and winds work, where they go, and where a ship “driven forth before the wind” could have been taken by strictly winds and currents, keeping in mind that the ship was manned by a totally inexperienced crew, tacking (sailing close to [against] the wind) was unknown, maneuvering in, near, and around obstacles, such as reefs, shoals, inconsistent currents and winds, etc., would have been beyond their ability as it is even somewhat experienced mariners today.
    It is a matter of not choosing a place on a map, then figuring out how to get there—it is figuring out where the winds and currents took Nephi’s ship from Bountiful to the Western Hemisphere, and where it would have landed when the winds died down, before being swung out to sea once again in a never-ending pattern of gyres that govern the oceans. To better understand this for those who are unfamiliar with drift voyages, when a kid you put a small piece of wood in a gutter and watched the current of the gutter take it down the street. It was not a matter of the wood going somewhere else—it went where the current (drain) took it, got caught in debris in places, and if you put two in they went the exact same place if the current was strong enough and the width of the water flow wide enough.

The Kon-Tiki voyage, once caught by the Humboldt Current off the coast of Peru, the raft was sent along the course of the winds and currents out and down into Polynesia

    That is what a drift voyage is. Thor Heyerdahl in Kon-Tiki was a drift voyage, that is, they were three months on a raft at the mercy of winds and currents in 1947. Later, voyages were less drift and more steering as man learned how to steer while being driven forth by winds and currents. Such was the case with the Tangaroa in 2006, which used a Polynesian design with nine quara centerboards for navigation, a larger vessel with a much larger sail, and a centerboard to steer the craft, which resulted in a shorter, and faster journey—but the vessel was still subject to the direction of the currents and winds.
    While we have no doubt, to our regular readers, beaten this issue to death over the past nearly seven years in these blogs periodically, it is critical to understand that to find the Land of Promise, you cannot try to match geography on a map—the first step is to take Nephi’s ship and see where it would have gone being “driven forth before the wind,” i.e., a drift voyage from the south coast of the Arabian Peninsula. Until that is understood, and until one realizes that just because a coastal trading vessel can move along a coast anciently, it is not the same as a deep sea ship like Nephi built, capable of traveling across oceans and withstanding the constant hammering and pounding of waves day and night for weeks or months, and where it can sail—which is not along the coastal waters, setting in at night, and being able to effect repairs if the pounding became to great on the vessel.

Left: Early trading vessel that plied the waters off Arabia and India. They were fragile craft, easily steered in coastal waters, and typically set in at night for repairs; Right: A two-masted deep ocean ship, about the size of a 60 person crew (like Columbus ship Santa Maria). Deep ocean ships were built far more sturdy and larger than rafts and coastal trading vessels, and could handle the constant pounding and cross-movements of the ocean 

    It simply cannot be overemphasized that when some theorist decides on a location and begins writing about it, that the apparent loopholes in the design become tantamount to failure because the writer simply does not know about the factors of oceans and currents, nor the circumstances of sailing a ship in 600 B.C., and has not bothered to look beyond what he considers to be the obvious. It is like those who claim Lehi sailed either up the Mississippi to the Great Lakes or up the St. Lawrence to Lake Ontario, etc.—a factor that was impossible before these rivers were cleared, locks built, or rapids bypassed by modern engineers of the past two centuries. But lacking an interest in research and looking at their idea from the real world viewpoint, they simply write about something that could never have happened, any more than a deep ocean vessel, manned by complete maritime novices, have sailed eastward from the south Arabian coast toward Indonesia and the Pacific when the winds and currents moved in the opposite direction, nor negotiated the numerous islands, channels, etc., strewn throughout the area.
    After all, a voyage in 600 B.C. had to be realistic in 600 B.C., with a crew never having gone to sea before, taking a course matching a drift voyage (driven forth before the wind) and therefore posssible in matching the scriptural record's many statements.
(See the last post in tnis series, “Finding Lehi’s Isle of Promise – Part XXXI,” for the final installment of this series and how any Land of Promise location must match all the scriptural references)