Has the Geographical Truth of the Book of Mormon Been Kept Hidden? – Part II

Continued from the previous post regarding the belief of theorists and their claim that there are five specific and “common misunderstandings of the text of the Book of Mormon that have kept the truth of its geography hidden for the past 185 years.” The first one was covered in the earlier two posts (“Why is There a Debate Over Where the Source of the River Sidon Was Located?” with the second “misunderstanding” mostly covered in the last post and continued below:
    Typical of theorists, they quote facts from the scriptural record, but subtly change those facts—either intentionally or accidentally—to support their views. As mentioned in the last post, while J. Theodore Brandley, along with almost all other theorists, for their own reasons, ignore the fact that Alma and his group of 450 souls (Mosiah 18:35) departed from the Waters of Mormon, near the forest of Mormon, in the land of Mormon (Alma 18:30,32,34),
    Alma and his people fled the Waters of Mormon with King Noah’s army in hot pursuit, as “they fled eight days’ journey into the wilderness” (Mosiah 23:3), where they stopped in “a very beautiful and pleasant land, a land of pure water” (Mosiah 23:4), where they pitched their tents and began to build  buildings (Mosiah 23:5). They traveled another day to a valley they named Alma (Mosiah 24:20), then another twelve days (Mosiah 24-25) and arrived, not at the city of Zarahemla, as theorists are want to claim, but “after they had been in the wilderness twelve days they arrived in the land of Zarahemla” (Mosiah 24:25, emphasis added).
    So Alma’s journey, along with his converts, from the borders of the Land of Nephi to the Land of Zarahemla, took 21 days. We don’t know in which direction from the city of Nephi were the Waters of Mormon located; nor do we know how far a distance those waters were from the city of Nephi; we don’t know where in the Land of Zarahemla Alma and his party reached at the end of that last twelve-day journey; we don’t know how far away the end of their 21-day journey to the Land of Zarahemla was from the city of Zarahemla; we don’t know if that 21 days of travel was along a straight line to Zarahemla, or zig-zagged about, or was circuitous. Most importantly, we don’t know where exactly where each of these points, including the three stops Alma’s party made were within a map of the Land of Promise.
    The point is, this is all conjecture.

• The third of the so-called “misconceptions,” is that “Alma’s party travelled only about 250 miles from the city of Lehi-Nephi to Zarahemla.”
    In addition, Brandley states that “Alma had previously fled from King Noah to the waters of Mormon, near the borders of the land (Mosiah 18:4), so it could have been another day from King Noah’s city of Lehi-Nephi. However, this again is typical speculation, but used as a fact in determining distance, travel time, and eventually claiming: “This would make a total of twenty-two days travel, or about 250 miles from Lehi-Nephi to Zarahemla at rate of 11 miles per day.”
    Brandley then claims that John L. Sorenson set the standard for the travel speed of Alma’s party from Lehi-Nephi to Zarahemla at 11 miles per day, the speed of driving a herd of fat hogs to market through mountains. (John L. Sorenson, An Ancient American Setting for the Book of Mormon, Deseret Book and FARMS, 1996, pp8-9). He further says that Alma was traveling with children and flocks but they were fleeing for their lives. In fact, he states that “the Lord did strengthen them that the people of King Noah did not overtake them to destroy them” (Mosiah 23:2). Further, he claims the war parties of King Noah and the Lamanites, in hot pursuit, would have done about 40 miles per day.
    Now, if the army was traveling 40 miles per day and Alma was traveling only 11 miles per day, one might think that Alma and his party would easily have been overtaken. If the idea of the Lord strengthening Alma and his people so they could travel faster than 11 miles per day to stay ahead of the pursuing army, then the idea of a 21-day trip cannot be estimated at all. In addition, in using Sorenson’s 11-miles per day, it should be kept in mind that his example was based on an event in Mesoamerica of farmers driving pig-herds to market. The terrain may or may not have been the same as the Land of Promise; and farmers driving herds to market are not fleeing from an enemy who threatens to destroy them. In addition, the longest stretch of Alma’s journey was 12 days, then another, perhaps months earlier, of 8 days—in both instances, Alma was fleeing with his people to escape capture and perhaps death. This is hardly comparable to a straight trip to market at what may have been a leisurely pace.
    If Alma’s party increased their pace to double the 11-miles per day, still about half the speed of their pursuers, their journey distance would be doubled to the Land of Zarahemla, from the estimated 231 miles to a 432-mile distance. If Alma’s party tripled their flight, to 33 miles per day, which would still be less than the army’s 40 miles per day, they would have covered 693 miles.
    The point is, when speculating, just about any distance you want to claim can be achieved.
    But Brandley is not finished with his speculation, when he states: “The first indication of how far the Nephites would generally travel in one day can be estimated from Lehi’s three days of travel from the tip of the Red Sea to the river Laman (1 Nephi 2:5-6). George Potter, in his article A New Candidate in Arabia for the “Valley of Lemuel” (Journal of Book of Mormon Studies: vol.8, Iss.1 Maxwell Institute, Provo, 1999, pp54-63) presents sound evidence for support of Maqna, Saudi Arabia, as the probable site where the River Laman empties into the Red Sea. This is a minimum of seventy-five miles of travel for Lehi in three days, or twenty-five miles per day,”

Makna, or Magna, is about 2/3 the way down the Gulf of Aqaba, toward the Red Sea, thus the term: “nearer the Red Sea” (1 Nephi 2:5)

First of all, the location is Makna, Saudi Arabia, also known as Magna (not Maqna) , along the east coast of the Gulf of Aqaba and the west coast of Saudi Arabia. This is where Jewish tradition claims “Bir al Saidni” is located, which is the well from which Moses rolled away the stone to draw water for the flocks of the daughters of Jethro (Reuel). It might be of interest to know that a Jewish community was settled at Makna about 1500 years after Lehi’s visit there.
    Now, the distance from Eliat, at the northern shore of the Gulf of Aqaba to Makna (Magna) is 93 miles. If that is the distance covered in the three days mentioned by Nephi, then they traveled at the rate of 31 miles per day, not 25. It should also be noted that the distance from Jerusalem to Eliat is 198 miles. At the 31-mile-per-day rate, it would have taken Lehi nearly 6½ days to reach “the borders near the shore of the Red Sea” (1 Nephi 2:5). It also might be of interest to know that at this area—the northern shore of the Gulf of Aqaba—there are three borders separating four countries that meet: 1) the Sinai border of Egypt with Israel, 2) the Israel border with Jordan, and 3) the Jordan border with Saudi Arabia.
    Since these four are ancient Old Testament countries, it seems logical that they existed at the time of Lehi and were the “borders near the shore of the Red Sea” to which Nephi referred. In fact, these are the only borders along Lehi’s path to the Red Sea that he would have been near, nor would there have been further borders along the Red Sea until Lehi reached the point where they turned east (1 Nephi 17:1), which would have been near, but not close, to the border between Suadi Arabia and Yemen.
    From the location of Eliat, Nephi said: “and he traveled in the wilderness in the borders which are nearer the Red Sea; and he did travel in the wilderness…and when he had traveled three days in the wilderness, he pitched his tent in a valley by the side of a river of water (1 Nephi 2:6).
    Another measurement that is used by Brandley and other theorists is the journey of Zion’s Camp, which was anxious to get to Illinois from Ohio, since their purpose was to help reinstate the Missouri Saints on the Jackson County lands from which mobs had driven them; however, they were not fleeing, and paused along the way for a number of purposes, including digging up the bones of Zelph on the burial mound in Illinois. It is said by George A. Smith in his journal, that they covered the 900 miles at the rate of 25 to 40 miles per day (LDS Church, Teachings of the Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith, p. 287).

To substantiate this fast travel Historian and author, formerly serving in the military during both World War II and the Korean Conflict, and Historian for the Custer Battlefield National Monument, Don Rickey of Cook County, Illinois, wrote a book about the enlisted soldiers in the U.S. Army fighting the Indian Wars in the West from 1866 to 1891, in which he claimed these soldiers traveled 40 miles a day “on beans and hay” (Don G. Rickey Jr., Forty Miles a Day on Beans and Hay, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman Oklahoma, 1963).
    Consequently, in using this higher figure, which well might have represented the speed of travel of Zion’s Camp on days when they were not diverted for other purposes, and that shown to be military movement speeds, and applying it to Alma’s 21-day flight, then the distance he and his party covered would have been 840 miles.
    Once again, the point is that this is all conjecture. Theorists who try to limit the size of distances within the geographical descriptions of the Book of Mormon are simply wasting their time—there is no way to know for certain how fast Alma and his group traveled, nor exactly where they started and where they were at the end of the 21 days of travel. Speculating on such matter lacks a true scholarly approach and certain serves no purpose other than to try and prove one geographical model or another.
(See the next post, “Has the Geographical Truth of the Book of Been Kept Hidden? – Part III,” regarding the belief of theorists and their claim that there are five specific and “common misunderstandings of the text of the Book of Mormon that have kept the truth of its geography hidden for the past 185 years”)