As was extensively discussed in recent posts, the Great Lakes Theory of the location for the Land of Promise is fraught with many holes, not the least of which is how they would have traveled there.
Lehi informed his posterity before his death: “And it is wisdom that this land should be kept as yet from the knowledge of other nations; for behold many nations would overrun the land, that there would be no place for an inheritance” (2 Nephi 1:8). One can only wonder if the Lehi Colony left form the shores of the Mediterranean Sea in 600 B.C., what other peoples along the route might have thought.
According to Corinna Riva in “Mediterranean Urbanization, between the second half of the eighth and the end of the seventh centuries B.C., more than a century before Lehi set sail, movements of human groups in search of trading partners and material goods, land and resources, and new lives and opportunities increased the level of interaction between Mediterranean regions. As constant communication was established through long-distance travel and trade, the Mediterranean Sea became an open stage for the international exchange of cultural stimuli among groups.
At this time, along the eastern Mediterranean, the sea-going Greeks were developing mathematics and astronomy, and from 700 B.C. onward cities were being established in the western part of the Mediterranean Sea. The Dorians entered the mainland part of Greece, and the Ionians settled at the Eastern part, the Mycenae settled in Crete, Italy, Cyprus and Sicily.
Trade routes were established all across the Mediterranean. Banished leaders were founding colonies along the coastal regions, slaves were being acquired around the Mediterranean, and Greek colonists were spreading up and down the Mediterranean Sea. In 753 B.C., Rome was founded by Romulus, and the Greeks established a colony at Cuma, and in 600 B.C. the Forum was built.
Beginning in 1550 B.C., the Phoenicians were an enterprising maritime trading culture that spread across the Mediterranean, and having mastered the art of navigation, dominated the Mediterranean Sea trade for over 500 years in their galleys and invented biremes. Their sailing ventures carried them to Africa and Europe. The high point of Phoenician culture and sea power existed before, during, and after Lehi set sail.
It seems obvious that any different looking and differently built sailing ship (1 Nephi 18:1-2), whose timbers were worked with “curious workmanship,” and “were not worked after the manner of men,” and whose overall building “was not after the manner of men,” would have drawn curious investigators while it was being built among a thoroughly settled area of the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea, and would have certainly drawn a following as it proceeded across the Mediterranean on its voyage to the Land of Promise.
If no one else, certainly the Phoenicians, long experienced in open sea exploration, would have wanted to follow the Lehi Colony to see where they were going. How then can we say that the Lord kept his promise to keep the land hidden from other nations if the Lehi Colony left “via the Mediterranean Sea”?
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Understanding Joseph Smith’s Translation
Daniel Webster’s American Dictionary of the English Language was published in 1828, at the time Joseph Smith was translating the Gold Plates. Since both men were of New England, it is likely that they had the same basic understanding of the words and language we find in the Book of Mormon.
Webster’s dictionary was produced during the years when the American home, church and school were established upon a Biblical and patriotic basis, and made important contributions to an American educational system that kept the nation upon a Christian Constitutional course for many years.
He spearheaded the flood of educational volumes emphasizing Christian Constitutional values for more than a century. It is not surprising, therefore, that the 1828 American Dictionary should contain the greatest number of Biblical definitions given in any secular volume.
As Webster pointed out in the Preface of his dictionary, “It is not only important, but, in a degree necessary, that the people of this country, should have an American Dictionary of the English Language; for, although the body of the language is the same as in England, and it is desirable to perpetuate that sameness, yet some differences must exist. Language is the expression of ideas; and if the people of one country cannot preserve an identity of ideas, they cannot retain an identity of language.”
Following the Preface, Webster spends 48 pages in an introduction showing how words in most of the earth’s languages interact, and how they developed, and how they affect the words of other languages. He then spends a like amount of pages in outlining the grammar of the English language. His dedication, strong religious background, and firm belief in Judean/Christian ethics, principles, and Constitutional government might suggest that he was one of the Lord’s chosen emissaries to come forth at the time he did to carry out a work that would prove extremely important to the country as a whole, and to the restoration of the gospel specifically.
It would be imprudent for anyone who wants to understand the language Joseph Smith knew when translating the plates, not to recognize the placement of Noah Webster in the same general area of New England in which young Joseph grew to manhood. It would also be imprudent not to recognize the Lord’s hand in preserving the language known to the prophet and in which he translated the Book of Mormon, for later generations.
Noah Webster’s 1828 dictionary, besides being a masterpiece of religious preservation in our language, gives us the exact language known at the time the prophet, Joseph was translating and, therefore, the exact meanings Joseph would have meant regarding the English equivalent of the reformed Egyptian written on the plates. Therefore, it is expedient for us to both obtain this extremely wonderful dictionary, and to use it in conjunction with reading the Book of Mormon.
Friday, February 26, 2010
Lehi’s Manifest Destiny
According to many historical writers, Manifest Destiny is a term that was used in the 19th century to designate the belief that the United States was destined, even divinely ordained, to expand across the North American continent, from the Atlantic seaboard to the Pacific Ocean. Sometimes Manifest Destiny was interpreted so broadly as to include the eventual absorption of all North America: Canada, Mexico, Cuba and Central America. Advocates of Manifest Destiny believed that expansion was not only ethical but that it was readily apparent ("manifest") and inevitable ("destiny"). Although initially used as a catch phrase to inspire the United States' expansion across the North American continent, the 19th century phrase eventually became a standard historical term.
Interestingly enough, the idea of a divinely inspired beginning to the United States is certainly found in Nephi’s writing (1 Nephi 13:12-20). One might also suggest that the humble beginnings of the Lehi Colony of a small number of people who started a nation in Chile, South America, in the land of First Inheritance, that grew and expanded across a land, moving northward from one end to the other, as having a Manifest Destiny. This destiny moved them to migrate northward, into Central America, and eventually to spread across all of North America.
By the time the United States had its humble beginnings, the posterity of Lehi had spread throughout the Western Hemisphere. Nephi was promised that a mixture of his seed and the seed of his brethren would not entirely be destroyed (1 Nephi 13:30-31) by this new wave of people (gentiles) that appeared in Nephi’s vision, which eventually would become “one” people (1 Nephi 13:3435; 41).
The belief that Mesoamerican Theorists have of Lehi’s posterity being mostly in Central America, and the Great Lakes Theorists have of his posterity being mostly in northeast United States, or the other theories of limited expanse (Baja California, Malay Peninsula, Australia, Caribbean, etc.), miss the point of the establishment of the Western Hemisphere. Whether one wants to use the term Manifest Destiny, the point is the Lord foresaw this development and expansion and the eventual settlement of all the Western Hemisphere. This expanded, chosen land was reserved by Him for the use of his people who lived righteously and obeyed Him as the God of this Land (Ether 13:2). One could certainly call it a Manifest Destiny, much larger in scope than the United States alone, but the Manifest Destiny of the entire Western Hemisphere.
Painting Of U.S. Manifest Destiny by John Gast
Thursday, February 25, 2010
The Economy of the Lord
Contrary to popular belief among many, all three Book of Mormon groups that were led to the Land of Promise, left from the same shore in southern Arabia. First, the Jaredites, who made their way across the desert from Mesopotamia to the shore where they languished for four years before building the submersible barges that took them across the “Great Deep.” Next came the Lehi Colony, the forebears of the Nephites and Lamanites, who left from this same shore after building a ship in a place they called Bountiful. Then came the Mulekites about ten years later, who were also led across the desert to this southern Arabian shore where they obviously built a ship and sailed to the Land of Promise.
While we only know for certain the path Lehi took across the desert, moving southeast along the eastern shore of the Red Sea and then turning eastward and crossing a most inhospitable desert to the seashore. In the economy of the Lord, the other two colonies arrived at this same area from which they journeyed across the oceans to the Land of Promise. An area along the southern Arabian coast the Jaredites first prepared and the other two groups enjoyed.
When the Lehi Colony reached the shore, they found a land of “fruit and honey” and all things that were “prepared of the Lord that we might not perish” (1 Nephi 17:5), and they called it Bountiful “because of its much fruit” (1 Nephi 17:6). Now, in an area where there is little record of previous occupation after the Flood, one might ask who prepared this area with fruit and honey that the Lehi Colony might not perish? Living today among grocery stores and convenient fast food outlets, we often forget that anciently, newcomers to unoccupied areas sometimes starved for lack of food before seeds could be planted and crops harvested.
1500 years before the Lehi Colony arrived along the seashore, the Jaredites had spent four years there, planting and harvesting and feeding a colony that would have numbered around 150 people—24 couples, each with four children would be 120, and given the Jaredites tendency toward very large families (Ether 6:20; 7:2), the numbers could have been closer to 200 (with 7 children per family). In any event, the honey bees the Jaredites took with them (Ether 2:2), would have multiplied in great numbers and some left behind when loading the barges, which would suggest why there are numerous ancient honey-combed caves along this single area of the Arabian coast from which the Lehi Colony is said to have set sail. And, of course, the Jaredites would have planted from their “seeds of every kind” (Ether 2:3), which would explain the abundance of fruit in the area the Nephites called Bountiful.
This economy of the Lord is the same type of thinking that led the group Brigham Young took across the plains to Utah, to plant some seeds along the way, so that the second group, led by my great grandfather some months later, could harvest to supplement their food supplies enroute.
While we only know for certain the path Lehi took across the desert, moving southeast along the eastern shore of the Red Sea and then turning eastward and crossing a most inhospitable desert to the seashore. In the economy of the Lord, the other two colonies arrived at this same area from which they journeyed across the oceans to the Land of Promise. An area along the southern Arabian coast the Jaredites first prepared and the other two groups enjoyed.
When the Lehi Colony reached the shore, they found a land of “fruit and honey” and all things that were “prepared of the Lord that we might not perish” (1 Nephi 17:5), and they called it Bountiful “because of its much fruit” (1 Nephi 17:6). Now, in an area where there is little record of previous occupation after the Flood, one might ask who prepared this area with fruit and honey that the Lehi Colony might not perish? Living today among grocery stores and convenient fast food outlets, we often forget that anciently, newcomers to unoccupied areas sometimes starved for lack of food before seeds could be planted and crops harvested.
1500 years before the Lehi Colony arrived along the seashore, the Jaredites had spent four years there, planting and harvesting and feeding a colony that would have numbered around 150 people—24 couples, each with four children would be 120, and given the Jaredites tendency toward very large families (Ether 6:20; 7:2), the numbers could have been closer to 200 (with 7 children per family). In any event, the honey bees the Jaredites took with them (Ether 2:2), would have multiplied in great numbers and some left behind when loading the barges, which would suggest why there are numerous ancient honey-combed caves along this single area of the Arabian coast from which the Lehi Colony is said to have set sail. And, of course, the Jaredites would have planted from their “seeds of every kind” (Ether 2:3), which would explain the abundance of fruit in the area the Nephites called Bountiful.
This economy of the Lord is the same type of thinking that led the group Brigham Young took across the plains to Utah, to plant some seeds along the way, so that the second group, led by my great grandfather some months later, could harvest to supplement their food supplies enroute.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
More Than Where Cities Are Located
Book of Mormon geography, as suggested by Mesoamerican theorists, mostly entails the location of cities and where lakes and rivers of the scriptures are located in modern Central America. Little, if any, thought is given to how the Nephites could have reached their Land of Promise and, therefore, to know where it was located.
Nephi gives us a clue as to the direction they traveled when they left Bountiful and set sail into Irreantum when he said the ship he had built, which was not built after the manner of men (1 Nephi 18:2), was a sailing ship with a fixed sail designed to run before the wind (1Nephi 18:8,9). Obviously, then to find the Land of Promise, looking for cities and rivers is meaningless until we find out where the winds would have taken his ship.
A careful study of the Dominant Winds in the Arabian Sea show that from January to June they blow south by southwest from the coast of the Arabian peninsula toward Africa and Madagascar. As they pass Madagascar, they swirl to the south and southeast toward the southern portion of the Indian Ocean, where they flow into the Prevailing Westerlies and West Wind Drift that sweep to the east, passing south of New Zealand and out across the Pacific Ocean. Since the winds in the Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean blow inland, in the opposite direction from July to December, it would seem logical that the Lehi Colony could only have set sail during the first six months of the year. Later, from July to December, the winds would have driven their craft back toward the land.
In addition to the dominant winds blowing southwest in the Arabian sea from January to June, there are monsoon winds that blow to the east of the African Coast and Madagascar. These monsoon winds blow south from November to February, and north from April to September. This suggests that the Lehi Colony would have had to leave Bountiful sometime between January and April.
And once in the water, the winds would have driven them in a single direction, and that was to the Southern Ocean, then past Australia and New Zealand, and across the Pacific to the Western Hemisphere. From there, northward in the Humboldt (Peruvian) Current to the 30ยบ south latitude where the winds and currents die out completely and landfall would be essential. If the ship stayed out to sea, eventually the winds and currents pick up and would have taken the ship back across the Pacific in the gyre of the South Equatorial Current toward the west.
Before anyone picks a site for the Land of Promise, one must determine where Lehi’s ship, given Nephi’s descriptive information, would have sailed. One cannot just say a ship could have sailed anywhere in 600 B.C. “driven forth before the wind.” Not even experienced seamen could travel across the Pacific from west to east, as Mesoamerican Theorists like to claim Lehi did, as late as the 16th-Century, let alone in 600 B.C.
Nephi gives us a clue as to the direction they traveled when they left Bountiful and set sail into Irreantum when he said the ship he had built, which was not built after the manner of men (1 Nephi 18:2), was a sailing ship with a fixed sail designed to run before the wind (1Nephi 18:8,9). Obviously, then to find the Land of Promise, looking for cities and rivers is meaningless until we find out where the winds would have taken his ship.
A careful study of the Dominant Winds in the Arabian Sea show that from January to June they blow south by southwest from the coast of the Arabian peninsula toward Africa and Madagascar. As they pass Madagascar, they swirl to the south and southeast toward the southern portion of the Indian Ocean, where they flow into the Prevailing Westerlies and West Wind Drift that sweep to the east, passing south of New Zealand and out across the Pacific Ocean. Since the winds in the Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean blow inland, in the opposite direction from July to December, it would seem logical that the Lehi Colony could only have set sail during the first six months of the year. Later, from July to December, the winds would have driven their craft back toward the land.
In addition to the dominant winds blowing southwest in the Arabian sea from January to June, there are monsoon winds that blow to the east of the African Coast and Madagascar. These monsoon winds blow south from November to February, and north from April to September. This suggests that the Lehi Colony would have had to leave Bountiful sometime between January and April.
And once in the water, the winds would have driven them in a single direction, and that was to the Southern Ocean, then past Australia and New Zealand, and across the Pacific to the Western Hemisphere. From there, northward in the Humboldt (Peruvian) Current to the 30ยบ south latitude where the winds and currents die out completely and landfall would be essential. If the ship stayed out to sea, eventually the winds and currents pick up and would have taken the ship back across the Pacific in the gyre of the South Equatorial Current toward the west.
Before anyone picks a site for the Land of Promise, one must determine where Lehi’s ship, given Nephi’s descriptive information, would have sailed. One cannot just say a ship could have sailed anywhere in 600 B.C. “driven forth before the wind.” Not even experienced seamen could travel across the Pacific from west to east, as Mesoamerican Theorists like to claim Lehi did, as late as the 16th-Century, let alone in 600 B.C.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
The Anti-Deluvians
History records three separate settlements of the American continents from creation down to the present time. They are:
1. The Anti-Diluvians. These are those who occupied the land which is now the western hemisphere prior to the flood, from Adam down to Noah's time. (Doc. Sal. vol.3, p 74; Ether 13:3)
2. Middle East Immigrants in B.C. times. Three specific groups were led by the Spirit to the land of promise and who reached similar but different locations in the western hemisphere. These were: 1) the Jaredites (Ether 6:12); 2) the Lehi colony (1 Nephi 18:23); and, 3) the Mulekites (Omni 1:15).
3. The Spanish Conquistadors and European Settlers. These were the people of discovery, of conquest and of settlement who arrived in the western hemisphere between 1492 and the latter 18th century (and continuing down to the present time).
Scientists claim the only group that migrated to the Americas came across a land bridge between Siberia and Alaska in prehistoric times. However, based upon historical fact, including written histories and archaeological "hard" evidence, there is no mention, proof, or even suggestion of a Siberian/Asian people or any other peoples reaching the middle to southern western hemisphere other than the three outlined above.
It should be understood, then, that the Anti-Diluvian people of the patriarchal lineage from Adam down to Noah, who built cities (Genesis 14:17), designed musical instruments (Genesis 4:21), and worked ores of all kind (Genesis 4:22), would have left numerous signs of their existence that not even the Great Flood could have completely obliterated. Therefore, artifacts and other prehistoric signs should and have been found throughout the western hemisphere.
But since the world's professionals have always maintained that man's first existence originated in the eastern hemisphere, they have no way of explaining the evidence of people inhabiting the Americas in prehistoric times except to create a migration over a so-called Siberian/Alaskan land bridge. Yet, despite all evidence of a south to north development of early mankind from about 2000 B.C. onward, many scientists, anthropologists, archaeologists and historians maintain their belief in a north to south movement of earliest man in the western hemisphere, and discredit any Anti-Diluvian source for prehistoric findings.
Thus, these professionals claim man’s first settlements in the Western Hemisphere date to 10,000to 13,000 years B.C., and before, when we know that the current development of these areas began with the Jaredites around 2100 B.C. When scientists ignore one of the most crucial events, the Great Flood of Noah, that changed history and created a second beginning, their findings and dates are skewed far into the erroneous zone of useless dating and beliefs.
1. The Anti-Diluvians. These are those who occupied the land which is now the western hemisphere prior to the flood, from Adam down to Noah's time. (Doc. Sal. vol.3, p 74; Ether 13:3)
2. Middle East Immigrants in B.C. times. Three specific groups were led by the Spirit to the land of promise and who reached similar but different locations in the western hemisphere. These were: 1) the Jaredites (Ether 6:12); 2) the Lehi colony (1 Nephi 18:23); and, 3) the Mulekites (Omni 1:15).
3. The Spanish Conquistadors and European Settlers. These were the people of discovery, of conquest and of settlement who arrived in the western hemisphere between 1492 and the latter 18th century (and continuing down to the present time).
Scientists claim the only group that migrated to the Americas came across a land bridge between Siberia and Alaska in prehistoric times. However, based upon historical fact, including written histories and archaeological "hard" evidence, there is no mention, proof, or even suggestion of a Siberian/Asian people or any other peoples reaching the middle to southern western hemisphere other than the three outlined above.
It should be understood, then, that the Anti-Diluvian people of the patriarchal lineage from Adam down to Noah, who built cities (Genesis 14:17), designed musical instruments (Genesis 4:21), and worked ores of all kind (Genesis 4:22), would have left numerous signs of their existence that not even the Great Flood could have completely obliterated. Therefore, artifacts and other prehistoric signs should and have been found throughout the western hemisphere.
But since the world's professionals have always maintained that man's first existence originated in the eastern hemisphere, they have no way of explaining the evidence of people inhabiting the Americas in prehistoric times except to create a migration over a so-called Siberian/Alaskan land bridge. Yet, despite all evidence of a south to north development of early mankind from about 2000 B.C. onward, many scientists, anthropologists, archaeologists and historians maintain their belief in a north to south movement of earliest man in the western hemisphere, and discredit any Anti-Diluvian source for prehistoric findings.
Thus, these professionals claim man’s first settlements in the Western Hemisphere date to 10,000to 13,000 years B.C., and before, when we know that the current development of these areas began with the Jaredites around 2100 B.C. When scientists ignore one of the most crucial events, the Great Flood of Noah, that changed history and created a second beginning, their findings and dates are skewed far into the erroneous zone of useless dating and beliefs.
Monday, February 22, 2010
Ancient Peruvian Observatory
Chankillo is an ancient monumental complex about ten miles inland in the Peruvian coastal desert, found in the southern Casma River Drainage complexes of the Casma-Sechin Oasis in the Ancash Department of Peru, and the perfect place for an ancient observatory.
The ruins include the hilltop Chankillo fort, the nearby Thirteen Towers solar observatory, and residential and gathering areas. The Thirteen Towers are obviously situated as a solar observatory built in the 4th century B.C. The entire site covers about one-and-a-half square miles and is believed to be a fortified temple.
The Thirteen Towers of Chankillo run north to south along a ridge of a low hill and are regularly spaced, forming a "toothed" horizon with narrow gaps at regular intervals. To the east and west investigators found two observation points. From these vantages, the 1,000-foot-long spread of the towers along the horizon corresponds very closely to the rising and setting positions of the Sun through the year. This obviously infers that some activities of the ancient Peruvian civilization may have been regulated by a solar calendar.
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