A Matter of Reference

Several years ago when I retired, we moved to Southern Utah and built a large family home for us and our seven children and their small families. We lived on the main floor and the walk-out basement, containing five Bedrooms, two Baths, Kitchen, Family Room, Game Room, Living Room, etc., was for our family, which often came to visit and stay for several days over the next ten years.

When we started to build, we worked out how much wood framing, beams, supports, etc., it would take, and went to the local lumber yard and ordered it delivered, as well as bags of cement for the slab, drywall sheets, roofing, etc. Unlike the pioneers, we did not have to chop down trees, debark them and cut the boards for lumber; nor did we have to clear a forest of tree stumps, plant fields of corn, wheat, barley, etc., or plant fruit trees, grape vines, and vegetables for our food.
    The idea of already cut lumber, S4S boards (sanded four sides) all exact length, buying doors already packaged with door framing, was very appealing. Had we had to make our own lumber, our 7400-square foot home would have been maybe 1000-square foot and still taken much longer to build. And pre-mixed concrete bags, requiring only water to mix and use, pre-cut and precisely measured tile for flooring, pre-made kitchen cabinets, pre-sized and randomly-cut rock for fire places, standard-sized drywall and plywood sheets, etc., without which the labor would have been unimaginable. As it was, with all the labor-saving devices available, still took my wife and I and one part-time helper eleven months to complete the large home.
    Frankly, I cannot envision what it would have taken to build anything without power tools, nail guns, sanding machines, routers, etc., let along cut trees for all the lumber we used, by splitting the logs, then cutting, sanding and finishing the wood by hand. It would seem that modern man would not, under almost any situation considering doing by hand what can easily be done (and usually better) with machine help.
    Yet, therein lies the rub of understanding the past. Not living in a modern, convenient world is so far from the thinking of people today that when they study or think about the past, they naturally think about it from the perspective of a modern man. As an example, when Noah was instructed to build the Ark, we don’t usually think actually how long it took. In fact, it took Noah more than modern man’s entire lifetime—one hundred years, from his 500^th year to his 600^th year.

How long would it have taken him to cut enough trees, strip and slice into boards the lumber needed to build the Ark?
    When we write a journal, we take a piece of paper, a ball-point pen and start writing—or just begin typing on the keyboard or typewriter, printing out the results. We don’t have to find ore, smelt it, shape and pound it into sheets of metal. When we have to travel from one place to another, we just get in our car and drive there. We don’t have to concern ourselves with terrain, paths, canyons rivers, etc. The road is already in place and about as straight a course as possible.
    When I was a kid and mom decided on a chicken dinner, my dad caught one of the older hens in the coop our back, cut off its head, hung it on a line to drain the blood, and then my job was to pluck off the feathers—something I absolutely detested doing, and perhaps it is the reason I never liked chicken as an adult and still don’t. Today, in our society, very few people have to kill something before they can cook it for dinner.
    When Lehi traveled from Jerusalem to the Sea of Irreantum, he didn’t go in a straight line as we basically travel today. He had to travel where the wells for water had been dug and were located. Nor did he travel each day, but took several rest stops where he relaxed for several days before setting out again. This is one of the reasons an ancient Old Testament Prophet was so surprised to see a future where man could travel without unlatching his shoes.

When I was a kid, we used to travel from Los Angeles back to southern Utah to visit relatives and my dad had to hang on the bumper canvas bags for water in case the water levels in the radiator dropped too low, and we drove from gas station to gas station, and ate at strategically placed restaurants along the way—all with little concern. On the other hand, Lehi hung bags of feed on his camels and when hungry stopped and cooked a meal, typically a lengthy affair as he had to carry his food with him until it ran out, then kill game along the way.
    There is no question traveling and living is far simpler and convenient today than in Lehi’s time. We all know this! However, when we read the scriptural record, we tend to pay little attention to such things and skip over their significance. After all, when Nephi broke his bow, and the other bows lost their spring, not only was it an extremely important event—it was critical and meant the difference between life and death (how many life and death situations do we face?) for without bows they had no way to kill game to feed their party (1 Nephi 16:14,15) of upwards of 50 to 60 people, including children. To have no way to provide food for the group, they were faced with starvation (when is the last time we were faced with no way to obtain food?)
    Along this same line, when reading the scriptural record we tend to ignore the important information that should be obvious but is so often overlooking yet holds significant information meant to help us better understand what we are reading. Take as an example, the concept of terrain. If we do not take into account the terrain of the Land of Promise we often arrive at conclusions not warranted by the facts.

During their journey along the Red Sea, Nephi tells us the information written on the Liahona (from time to time) led them “in the more fertile parts of the wilderness” (1 Nephi 16:16). So what is meant by “the more fertile parts”? When Joseph Smith translated this phrase, the word “fertile” meant “fruitful, rich, producing in abundance, as fertile land, ground, soil, field or meadow. The word is rarely applied to trees or animals, but to ‘land.’ Rich, having abundant resources, able to produce abundantly.”
    So what was meant by the “more fertile parts of the wilderness”? If “wilderness” means “desert’ as Hugh Nibley claims, or “mountains” as Sorenson claims, etc., then how fertile would either place be? But since “wilderness” means an unoccupied uncultivated tract of land as Webster states in his 1828 dictionary, then we understand that Nephi is telling us that certain parts of the land along the Res Sea were more fruitful, having more natural resources for their needs and use than others. But why did they need the Liahona to point out such a simple fact since they were following a well-established route from water hole to water hole along the coast?
   This then leads us to the need to understand what was meant by a trail, such as the Frankincense Trail leading from Oman across to the Red Sea and then up the coast past Jerusalem and beyond to Syria. By explanation, this trail was not a well-marked path or road like we might think, but a wide swath in the wilderness as much as several miles wide, where caravans and groups traveled often not even in sight of one another. To know where the “more fertile parts” were located, Lehi needed the Liahona to show him.
    This also gives us a better insight as to the terrain through which they traveled, the hardships involved and the importance of minor points not always apparent in a quick reading, which often leads us into thinking along inaccurate paths.

The entire point is that our frame of reference causes us to think along certain lines when we read Lehi’s or any other event or story, and our references causes us to interpret what we read in light of our own experiences and understanding. If a person has never been along the coast of the Red Sea, they probably would not know what it was like for Lehi and his party to travel there, conversely, if a person thinks the Jaredites departed from the Pacific coast as Hugh Nibley claimed, they would be left to wonder how an isolated area like Salalah had wild honey and fruit trees when Lehi arrived after the Flood killed all living things there and no one settled there before Lehi arrived. This problem would tend to cause the reader to think Salalah and Khor Rori had been occupied before Lehi arrived, therefore the existence of the honey and fruit trees (neither of which would have existed there without the man bringing them there), which in turn leads to the erroneous belief that there were skilled boatwrights there to help Nephi build his ship. This same kind of erroneous thinking leads Mesoamericanists to insist that there were other people living in the promised land when Lehi arrived.
    As stated earlier in this article, it is all a matter of personal reference. How much of what we read is our own bias or prejudices on the subject and how much is based on knowledge and fact or on hearsay and opinion. When we read the scriptural record, we need to understand that our own personal beliefs and points of reference determine in whole or in part what we interpret and what we understand. If that is based on erroneous ideas, other material than the scriptural record, such as opinions and speculations, then the chances are quite high that our interpretation and understanding will be affected and typically in an inaccurate direction.

Take, as an example, when someone comes up with a theory that is obviously flawed, such as the recent idea of Lehi landing in Florida. If one reads the person’s ideas and because it sounds plausible (especially to the less knowledgeable), and accepts the idea without doing any due diligence of their own—such as checking out sea currents and winds, location of landing against the described terrain Nephi provides, the lack of mountains (such as Florida), then they night well start down an irreversible path toward an inaccurate assumption. This is what happened with the theories of the Heartland and the Great Lakes in the eastern United States theories as well.