Continuing with the understanding of the paper on which Frederick G.
Williams wrote that Lehi landed along the Chilean west coast at 30º South
Latitude. It should be noted that theorists who champion other sites, such as
Mesoamerica and the Heartland and Great Lakes, take issue with the Williams’
note, though they have no explanation what prompted it and why it was
circulated about the early Church. Some, of course, want to claim it was a
revelation, others simply want it to go away so they can promote their own
views, especially those who champion Mesoasmerica or the eastern U.S., Great
Lakes or Heartland theories.
Regarding Frederick
G. Williams statement about Lehi landing at 30º South Latitude, Carol Phyllis
Olive stated: “Yet, the easiest path to
follow is often the path of least resistance, thus, speculations about the
exotic lands to the south of them continued. New theories sprang up on a
regular basis, and even though there was no supportive evidence that Lehi
landed in Chile many of the Saints continued to lean toward a Central and South
American setting for the Book of Mormon lands.” It might be of
interest in checking out her statement before responding to it:
1. The easiest path to follow. In the
1830s and thereafter, the idea that Lehi went southeast from Arabia to the
Southern Ocean and then east to South America, landing at the 30º South
Latitude would not have been an easy thing to grasp at the time,let alone the easiest path to follow. For the
average member, they would 1) not have known where the Southern Ocean was
located since it was not on any American map until the 20th century;
2) sailing south from the Arabian Peninsula would not have made as much sense
when looking at a general map as sailing east through Indonesia and
island-hopping across the Pacific; 3) supporting an unknown area as a location
for the Book of Mormon would not have been an easy path to follow. And lastly, the average member of the Church would not have even known about Williams
writing since it was not in the public sector through 1864, when it was
presented to the Church Historian’s Office by Ezra G. Williams, son of
Frederick G. Williams—prior to that time, it was in the private collection of
the Williams’ family. When the Church made that note public is not known
specifically, but it was likely for some time after that.
2. Exotic lands to the south. Most
Americans in the 1830s had no knowledge of South America, especially the west
coast, and very little about the western Andean area. The llama and alpaca were
unknown in America, the Amazon was merely a large river, the aborigines were unknown,
and the vast Inca lands and the buildings in the region were also unknown. The
knowledge of Mesoasmerican buildings in Stevens and Catherwoods “Incidents in
Travel in Central America’ was still ten years from publication, and that of the Inca discovery
years beyond that. About the only things the average American might have known
about Latin America would have been parrots, and those were mostly in Central
America.
3. Speculation continued. What speculation?
The early members of the Church knew the Book of Mormon lands were somewhere, but
where was not even a question in most people’s minds. The formation of Brigham
Young Academy’s archaeological journey to South America was still more than 70
years away, and nothing about South America was a draw other than Williams’
written statement, which few members of the Church would have known about at
the time.
4. Even though there was no supportive evidence
that Lehi landed in Chile. There would not have been any evidence in South
America since no one in America knew anything about the country, especially
along the west coast in what is called the Andean Shelf. Much later, of course,
toward the end of the 20th century, knowledge of the Andes and the
Inca became well known and the ruins showed evidence of an even older
civilization in the Americas than Mesoamerica. Later still, it was found that
the 30º South Latitude was the ideal landing place since it matched everything Nephi
wrote about that area (1 Nepnhi 18:23-25).
5. Many of the Saints continued to lean toward a Central and
South American setting. After 1842-3 when Stevens and
Catherwood’s book Incidents in Travel in
Central America came out, and joseph Smith made comment about these ruins
showed evidence of an ancient civilization in the Americas, most members who
had opinions about and interest in a location for the Land of Promise thought
they had taken place in Central or Mesoamerica.
Olive goes on to
write that: “The theory that Lehi landed in Chile was so embedded in the minds
of so many of the Saints by 1886, that when A. H. Cannon was asked in his book Questions
and Answers on the Book of Mormon: Q: 19 - "Where does the Prophet
Joseph Smith tell us they landed?" The answer came: "On the coast of
Chile in South America” (Questions and Answers on the Book of Mormon.
Designed Especially for the use of the Sunday Schools in Zion, Salt Lake
City: Juvenile Instructor’s Office, 1886, p24).
This would have been
44 years after Joseph Smith commented so favorably about the ruins found in
Mesoamerica showing an ancient American culture settling there. It is hard to
imagine that this attitude about Chile in South America was predominant over
that of the ruins in Mexico, Yucatan and Guatemala. But it should be understood
that between the 1840s and 1950s , the later when I was a teenager in the Church, the two
continent understanding of North and South America, or the entire Western
Hemisphere was the Land of Promise. Around Salt Lake City, perhaps, and particularly
Provo, the Limited Geography Theory was gaining strong momentum, this Western
Hemisphere idea was predominant throughout the far flung regions of the Church.
It wasn’t
particularly because of Williams’ note, but because in a cursory reading of the
Book of Mormon, an understanding of two large land masses connected by a narrow
central corridor (neck) was pretty much understood as North and South and
Central America. In fact, even today, many Church leaders and some Presidents
of the Church have been vociferous in speaking in and about Latin America that
the entire Western Hemisphere is Zion, i.e., the Land of Promise (we have
written several articles on this issue in the past, quoting numerous leaders
who have made very clear statements to this fact).
After the turn of the
Century, the Church withdrew all speculative comments from the Book of Mormon
footnotes, and other sources, as to where the Land of Promise was located. After years of the First Presidency telling the Church members nothing concrete
was known about the location and everything about it was mere speculation,
serious students of the geography of the Book of Mormon began to see in the
scriptural record that the distances being described in Mormon’s abridgement
did not justify a two continent theory regarding that portion of the Land of
Promise covenanted by the Lord to Lehi and his posterity.
Eventually, this led
to the Limited Geography theory that mostly centered in Mesoamerica, because of the ruins located there.
Once that happened,
serious pursuits, especially in archaeology and anthropology, centered at BYU,
concentrated all their efforts, through an organization named FARMS, on
Mesoamerica. Theories abounded around Mesoamerica, several books were written
and tours undertaken to the so-called “Book of Mormon Lands,” and much money
was made in this concentrated speculative theory.
In 1950, John A.
Widtsoe reaffirmed the fact that the whereabouts of the Book of Mormon lands
was still considered a mystery. He stated: “As far as can be learned, the Prophet Joseph
Smith, translator of the book, did not say where, on the American continent,
Book of Mormon activities occurred. Perhaps he did not know” (John A. Widtsoe,
“Is Book of Mormon Geography Known?”
Improvement Era, 53, 7 July, 1950). Even so, numerous attempts to pin-point
the actual setting for the Book of Mormon continued. In John L. Sorenson’s
book, The Geography of Book of Mormon Events; A Source Book, he details
70 of the more popular Book of Mormon models with by far the greatest portion
of them dealing with the Mesoamerican setting. His own work has become the most
widely accepted at the present time. Now, in all these works no two are alike
and one must wonder why that is? One simple answer is that each theory is based
on a person or persons personal views and beliefs and not on Mormon’s
abridgement of the Nephite writings now found in the Book of Mormon.
Nor are we ever going
to find the location of the Land of Promise until theorists stop trying to
force their beliefs on others, and stop quoting modern-day Prophets and General Authorities whose opinions and speculation are no different than any other according to the Church's stand. Not until we start paying attention to what Nephi, Jacob,
Mormon and Moroni tell us in their writings are we going to find the location of the Land of Promise--not what we want them to say, but what they actually said. There are, at last count, some 65
different references in the scriptural record, of which at least 44 are direct
scriptural quotes, giving us the answers we seek.
It is only a matter of looking
for them and what they tell us, rather than trying to force them to tell us
what we want to here.
Until we do that, the
location of the Land of Promise will remain a mystery to most people who seek
its location.
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Del, a while back you mentioned the age of Noah. Are you aware that the Joseph Smith translation originally had different ages in some cases for the antediluvian Patriarchs?
ReplyDeletehttps://rsc.byu.edu/archived/selected-articles/ages-patriarchs-joseph-smith-translation