Knowing How to Learn the Truth – Part IV

Continued from the previous post regarding the manner of discovering truth amidst the oddball ideas man comes up with that literally require our research and understanding to know the truth—which is especially true of the geography of the Land of Promise in the Book of Mormon. There seem to be many theorists, more as time goes on, who think they know something about the scriptural record, but make glaring mistakes that are critically important and show how inaccurate are their theories.

The shallow entrance channel to Crystal River is a marked channel with dredged sections leading from the Gulf through the coves of Crystal Bay and Crystal River to Kings Bay and the town of Crystal River at the river head six miles above the entrance

One of those is Rod Meldrum’s landing site along the Gulf Coast of Florida, which has over 10,000 islands along the coast, where he claims Lehi came ashore at Crystal River, about 90 miles north of Tampa. That area, other than being almost impossible for a novice sailor to land, evidently unbeknown to Meldrum, is rated in the Köppen Climate Classification System as “Humid Subtropical,” or as a “Cfa” region that includes all of Florida. Now a humid subtropical climate is quite different from the Subtropical Dry Summer climate of the Mediterranean classification of Jerusalem from which Lehi brought his seeds that he planted upon landing. The natural growth of the Mediterranean Climate, which is very similar to that of Southern and Central California, has plants that are able to survive long dry summers, which humid plants cannot. 
    In this Mediterranean Climate, evergreens such as Pine and Cypress trees are mixed with deciduous trees such as several Oaks, Jujube, Dracaena and Argania, with the climate good for cereal and vegetable crops, including wheat, hard winter wheat, grains, barley and pulse. It grows almonds, hazelnuts, pistachios, chestnut, pomegranates, apricots, kumquat and citrus as well as grapes, figs and olives.  There are Gala apples, Bartlett pear, Methley plum, apricots, nectarine, Oriental persimmon, grape, blackberry, blueberry, artichoke, asparagus, and an assortment of annual vegetables and herbs. There are also broad-leaf evergreen shrubs, bushes, and small trees, as well as opuntia cactus and the large Agaves.
    On the other hand, the humid subtropical climates of the Western Hemisphere are almost exclusively located in the northeastern area of Argentina and southern Brazil in South America, and in the Gulf and south Atlantic states of the U.S., including the eastern half of Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arkansas, Alabama, Mississippi, Kentucky, North and South Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, and Florida. There they grow mango, papaya, pineapple, and foods such as avocado, banana, razzleberry_, oranges, tangerines, and other citrus fruits, persimmons, feijoa, Litchis, kiwi, granadillas, medlars, dates, pecans, pistachios, carob, cashew, macadamia, pecan, walnuts, as well as growing magnolias and live oak.
    In 600 B.C., these plants and seeds were not interchangeable, and did not grow in both areas. Consequently, when Nephi tells us that upon landing they pitched their tents and tilled the ground, planting all their seeds brought from Jerusalem and “they did grow exceedingly; wherefore, we were blessed in abundance” (1 Nephi 18:24), he was referring to his seeds being planted in a like climate as that from which they came.
    There is no way seeds brought from the Mediterranean Climate of Jerusalem (Csa) would have grown in a Humid Subtropical Climate of Florida (Cfa) exceedingly and provided an abundant crop in 600 B.C. Meldrum, as well as other theorists, seem to forget such fundamental requirements as this one that the scriptural record points out. Nephi’s seeds would have required a like Mediterranean Climate in 600 B.C. for his seeds to grow and such a climate is only found in Southern/Central California and in Coquimbo/La Serena, Chile, in the entire Western Hemisphere.

Rod Meldrum’s landing site for Lehi is located along the west coast of Florida; however, the Gulf of Florida would not be the Sea West where Mormon places Lehi’s landing, since the Gulf is located to the South of Meldrum’s Land of Nephi and the overall Land of Promise

Meldrum also has the Land of First Inheritance located along the northern Gulf Coast in the region of Pennsacola and Mobile, Alabama, also a Humid Subtropical Climate area. In that, he would have Lehi walking nearly 400 miles at a time Nephi describes him as being infirmed and near his death bed (1 Nephi 18:18), before settling down, pitching tents, and planting their seeds. This area he labels the “Land of First Inheritance.”
    Now, the “land of First Inheritance,” mentioned by Mormon (Alma 22:28), has to do with the land within the Land of Promise that the Lord covenanted to Lehi: ”We have obtained a land of promise, a land which is choice above all other lands; a land which the Lord God hath covenanted with me should be a land for the inheritance of my seed. Yea, the Lord hath covenanted this land unto me, and to my children forever, and also all those who should be led out of other countries by the hand of the Lord” (2 Nephi 1:5). And the area of first landing and their subsequent settlement there (1 Nephi 18:23-24), where they:
1) landed, went upon the land, pitched their tents and “called it the promised land” (vs23),
2) then tilled and planted seed and harvested an abundant crop (vs24).

Meldrum has his first landing site at Crystal River, Florida, and the Land of First Inheritance around Mobile, Alabama—a distance of 390 miles away; yet Nephi tells us they landed, went upon the land, pitched their tents and tilled the ground and planted their seed (1 Nephi 18:23-24). These two areas are the same according to Nephi

It should be noted that in the original manuscript, before Orson Pratt divided the Book of Mormon into chapters and verses in 1879, these events, indeed the entire events from Nephi speaking hard words to his brethren (1 Nephi 16:1) to when Nephi describes their landing on the land of promise and what they found there (1 Nephi 18:25) is all contained in one chapter (Chapter V). The above two verses, and the next (vs 25) are contained in three paragraphs, each with a different theme, but in run-on fashion:
1. Landed and pitched tents
2. Planted and harvested seed
3. Journeyed about and discovered animals, forest and ore (gold, silver and copper)
    This chapter of the original manuscript continues through Nephi being commanded to make the large plates and what he is to write on them, beginning with the Book of Lehi and continues on with Nephi’s record. It continues to where Nephi begins reading to his brethren from the brass plates (1 Nephi 19:22 ).
    Typically, a chapter is a means of segmenting, that is, dividing two separate thoughts, a change in time or events, or a transition to another subject entirely—it has become a way of dividing time and, therefore, of dividing experience or information. Just as typically, a chapter contains information pertaining to a certain idea, process, event, or time.
    It is important to keep in mind that chapters both in the Bible (added 1227 A.D.) and in the Book of Mormon (added 1879), are man-made and arbitrary—they sometimes even interfere with the sense of the passage. One of the first steps in Bible or Book of Mormon interpretation is to ignore the modern chapter and verse divisions and follow a continuing thought to its end. The same is true with the breakup of writing into verses.
    Take as an example, the statement Nephi makes: “And it came to pass that we did find upon the land of promise, as we journeyed in the wilderness, that there were beasts in the forests of every kind, both the cow and the ox, and the ass and the horse, and the goat and the wild goat, and all manner of wild animals, which were for the use of men. And we did find all manner of ore, both of gold, and of silver, and of copper” (1 Nephi 18:25).
    This makes it sound like a separate thought and has given rise to some theorists to claim that after landing, Lehi and his party traveled elsewhere and during their journeying, came across animals, a forest, and precious metal ores, with one theorist even claiming the ore was found through digging for it and/or smelting it.
    However, short of additional explanatory information now not available, we cannot assume that more was intended in this passage—and when we compare it with the previous passages, find a different meaning. After all, Nephi is writing the events of their reaching the promised land and makes it quite clear—they landed, they went up onto the land, they pitched their tents, they tilled the ground and planted their seeds, and they looked around the area and discovered a large forest full of animals, and precious metals scattered about.

Nephi tells us (1 Nephi 18:23-24) he landed on the Land of Promise, pitched tents, tilled the ground and planted their seeds—all in the area where they landed; not until Nephi flees (2 Nephi 5:5-7) from his brothers after Lehi’s death is there a change in location mentioned

At no time does Nephi suggest that they left one area of settlement and traveled to another. Nor can we discern from Nephi’s described events, that they landed and then traveled some distance before reaching an area where they settled down, pitched their tents, and planted their seeds.
    While what really happened may not fit some theorists narrative and model, that is no excuse to make up scenarios that do fit the scriptural record and ignore the meaning of of Nephi, Jacob, Mormon and Moroni’s writings they left us.
(See the next post, “Knowing How to Learn the Truth – Part V,” regarding how theorists misstate the obvious when comparing or referring to the scriptural record and how it relates to understanding a specific meaning of Mormon’s description and narrative.