The Purpose of Nephi’s Temple – Part III

Continuing from the previous post, regarding an understanding of why the Nephites had temples.
    The lost 116 pages making up the original Book of Lehi were actually the earliest scripture of the Restoration, with the rest of the Book of Mormon translated after the first 116 pages were lost by Martin Harris. We also see that the first revelation we have, recorded from Joseph Smith, is Doctrine and Covenants 3, given in response to the loss of the 116 pages.
    Thus, we are missing the earliest scripture of the Restoration; however, when see some the available information surrounding these pages, it is clear that what some people considered to be a later development in the Nauvoo-era and thus not present in the Book of Mormon, actually was included. In fact, what we see from the information surrounding these lost pages is that the practices of the early Church in Nauvoo Mormonism, and the early temple ordinances and purpose was had in the days of Nephi and is the very faith propounded by Mormon in his book, beginning with its lost opening, the Book of Lehi (from Lehi through Mosiah I).

Jewish high priest and Levite in ancient Judah, along with Menorah, Table of Showbread and trumpets

The Mosaic Law, which the Nephites lived (1 Nephi 4:15; 2 Nephi 5:10;11:4), mandated that certain rituals be performed by the high priest, whom it was understood would be of the household of Aaron. However, there were no Aaronic priests among the Nephites, nor any Levites. Thus, the only way they could fulfill the requirements of the Law would have been to use a substitute, and to make it legitimate, they needed someone whose authority would greater than the usual (Aaronic priest) requirements.
    Consequently, to help us answer the more detailed questions of 1) who stood at the apex of the Nephite priesthood hierarchy, and 2) who possessed the means to inquire of God in the way the biblical high priest did; we need to know the identity of the Nephite high priest who had such authority. This is answered in the scriptural record that tells us who chose and ordained the priests, which during the Nephite monarchy, they were consecrated by the kings. Nephi, Benjamin, Mosiah II, Zeniff, and Noah are each so described.
    The only non-king who could consecrate priests in this time was Alma, the Elder. However, the record makes clear that Alma’s authority was obtained from and granted by the king. Alma was originally made a priest by King Noah. Later, as the leader of the church in the land of Zarahemla, while being a high priest that presided over other priests—he was not the highest authority, but the leader of the Church. His authority was granted to him by the king, Mosiah II, who was the greater authority. “Now king Mosiah had given Alma the authority over the church” (Mosiah 26:8). Whereas Alma’s authority was derived, Mosiah’s authority was inherent—that is, he was not only the king, but also the high priest.

Thus, in evaluating the Nephite priesthood structure shows that the king stood in its highest position, and thus to be the High Priest (or highest priest). In addition to the king’s position at the top of the Nephite priesthood structure, there is evidence of his status as high priest in his using the same or a similar instrument to the one used by the biblical high priest to inquire of God’s will for His people.
    Called the Urim and Thummim by the ancient Israelites, it was kept in the pocket of a breastplate. In the Book of Mormon the equivalent Nephite instrument, which also was attached to a breastplate, was called “the interpreters” and in revelation to Joseph Smith “the Urim and Thummim.” In addition, and most importantly, this Nephite equivalent to the Jerusalem high priest’s most important relic was the possessed by the Nephite kings.
    Mosiah II used it to interpret the twenty-four Jaredite plates (Mosiah 28:12-16), as his grandfather Mosiah I evidently used it to interpret the Jaredite stone record (Omni 1:20). This, then, puts the interpreters in the hands of the Nephite kings while the scriptural record of “the small plates” was still being kept and recorded by Jacob’s line, suggesting, as stated earlier,  that the Nephite high priestly relics and role belonged, not to the high priest, but to the kings.

    This completes the first question, or the “who,” and take us to the second question, or the “how” of Nephite temple worship. Nephi, of course, had built a temple like that of Solomon, a statement that has given much fodder to critics, who note the enormous size and grandeur of Solomon’s temple. However, as such critics fail to understand, it was not the size and splendor of the temple that Nephi was concerned about—it was the temple’s functionality, that is, its quality of being suited to serve the purpose of its design, which meant chambers constructed to serve as the Holy Place, the Holy of Holies, a Great court, Middle court, Temple court, an altar, a laver, table for showbread, and a court around the building. All of this in order to perform the rituals prescribed by the Law of Moses, which required the temple parallel Solomon’s in rooms and relics.
    When Nephi wrote: “And I, Nephi, did build a temple; and I did construct it after the manner of the temple of Solomon save it were not built of so many precious things…” he was referring to its purpose and it being capable of having the ordinances therein performed; however, it did not have the artifacts, the Ark of the Covenant and the cherubim in the Holy of Holies, for it was “not built of so many precious things for they were not to be found upon the land, wherefore, it could not be built like unto Solomon's temple.”

The Ark of the Covenantin the Holy of Holies 

After all, the Jerusalem temple was, in one sense, a house for the Ark of the Covenant, and had been structured in layers of sacredness, or degrees of glory, around the Ark. The chamber containing the Ark was the holiest place of all, the Holy of Holies, which Ark contained the stone tablets God touched with His finger on Sinai during the Exodus. In addition, the Ark served also as an altar, upon which the Aaronite high priest was required to sprinkle sacrificial blood during the all-important Day of Atonement.
    Naturally, these missing parts were critical to the temple in Jerusalem and to Israelite worship.
    However, the workmanship itself, whatever type of timber, precious stones and gold overlays were involved would have been every bit as fine as was possible to obtain in the Land of Promise. Of this work, Nephi wrote: “But the manner of the construction was like unto the temple of Solomon; and the workmanship thereof was exceedingly fine.”
    Yet, the Nephites kept and lived the Law of Moses, so what did they do about the missing Ark, tablets, and miraculous relics of the Exodus that otherwise would sufficiently sanctify their Holy of Holies to make it an appropriate dwelling place for God? First of all, whether the Nephite temple was like Solomon’s on its exterior was irrelevant, other than it  be as magnificent as they were capable of making. What did matter was the heart of the building, the Holy of Holies, was vital. In the heart, something remarkable would be needed to sit in the place of the Ark.
    While they did not have the relics of the Exodus (“they were not found in the land”), such as the Ark, the stone tablets God had touched during the Exodus, and according to the Epistle to the Hebrews, Aaron’s rod that budded, and a pot of manna, as well as the Urim and Thummim and breastplate, which attached to a garment referred to as the ephod, the Nephites had their own miraculous and sacred relics.

Joseph Smith uncovers  the stone box at Cumorah, filled with the gold plates and other Nephite relics 

These same relics were included in the stone box Joseph found in the hill Cumorah in New York, which Martin Harris repeated called an “ark.” In the box, Joseph found a set of Nephite sacred treasures that paralleled the relics associated with the Ark and its custodian, the High Priest. These included the gold plates, the breastplate and interpreters, the Liahona, and the sword of Laban.
    In comparison, the Israelites had the stone tablets, the Nephites had the gold plates; the Israelites had the breastplate, as did the Nephites; the Israelites had the Urim and Thummim and the Nephites had the Interpreters; the Israelites had Aaron’s rod, the Nephites had the Liahona; the Israelites had the pot of manna, the Nephites had a reliquary container for relics.
    In general terms, these are comparable sacred relics memorializing God’s mercy to the children of Israel in their Exodus and God’s mercy to Lehi’s family in their exodus. But the parallels are much deeper.
    The pot of manna memorialized God miraculously providing the Israelites with sustenance on their journey (Exodus 16:13-15). In comparison, it was the Liahona that showed the Nephites where to travel in the “more fertile parts” of the desert, leading them to waterholes, plants and animals for their sustenance on their journey (1 Nephi 16:16), as well as leading Nephi where to go and hunt for food (1 Nephi 16:30-31).
    The collection of sacred relics of the Nephites was more than sufficient, and at least equal in spiritual power to those in the Ark of the Covenant. Including as it did the interpreters, which had been touched by God and served as a medium of communication with Him, it made an ideal point of contact between God and man to rest at the center of the Nephite Holy of Holies. The temple, then, was a place for the revelation of higher truths that could only be understood through wisdom given by God’s Spirit.
    As for the lost 116 pages, they are still “lost.” But we have not been left without evidence of what was in them. Using the information we have been provided about this missing Book of Mormon text can deepen our study and understanding of the remarkable Book of Mormon text we do have and strengthen our testimonies of this second witness of Jesus Christ.

Why Did the Nephites Have Temples? – Part II

Continued from the previous post, regarding the use of the name Aminadi by Mormon and what Amulek said about the “writing on the wall” incident and what it tells us about the Nephite temple.
    In the incident of Aminadi interpreting the writing on the wall of the temple, Amulek’s brief description of the event, the ancient prophet Aminadi appears as a man of wisdom like the Biblical seers Joseph and Daniel, whose lives share a common storyline. In each, a king seeks the meaning of a supernatural manifestation, and after his wise men cannot interpret it, the correct interpretation is revealed to a captive Hebrew prophet, and in the case of Daniel, the comparison to Aminadi is quite clear.
    The details in Lapham’s narrative, beautifully embodies the Book of Mormon’s complex use of Exodus typology and other events of the Hebrew Bible—namely, the narrative of the Nephites finding the Jaredite interpreters.
    In Lapham’s account of the scriptural record, the story of the Nephites finding the Jaredite interpreters is definitely an Exodus typology. The fact that they suddenly appear without explanation in the narrative possessed by King Mosiah II, before Limhi’s people find the twenty-four Jaredite plates, shows a prior mentioning of the obtaining of these interpreters not currently found in the Book of Mormon. In fact, how the Nephites acquired the Jaredite interpreters is never described and raises a question among several scholars, which is not answered in the record. So how did the interpreters or Urim and Thummim given to the brother of Jared get to the Nephites?

Martin Harris took the first 116 pages translated from the Book of Lehi to show to his family (and others) to prove their authenticity to stem the tide of criticism that was levied at him by family and friends to continually criticize him 

After all, the available Book of Mormon text tells us that before the Nephites found the 24 Jaredite plates, they had already acquired the interpreters (Mosiah 8:6-14). How did they obtain them? While that is scripturally unknown, Jospeh’s father detailed to Fayette Lapham how one of the ancient Nephites was led to the Jaredite interpreters in the promised land by the Liahona, evidently taking this narrative from the lost 116 pages, for the current Book of Mormon has no such story.
    According to Lapham’s account given him by Joseph Smith, Sr., sometime after Lehi landed in what became known as the New World, they were traveling (probably during Nephi’s flight northward away from his brothers in the Land of First Inheritance—2 Nephi 5:6-7, or the later events there), being led by the Liahona. Lapham recounted that the Liahona led them to this strange object, and the person who found it did not know what it was. So they took it into the temple to inquire what it was. Immediately the voice of the Lord asks him a question, presumably from behind the veil covering the Holy of Holies where the Lord’s presence was understood to dwell.
    Lapham claims that in the Joseph Smith, Sr. narrative, the finder of the interpreters—probably Mosiah I—took the interpreters into a “tabernacle” or portable temple to inquire of the Lord how to use them. When Mosiah I entered the tabernacle, the Lord asked, “What is that in your hand?” Mosiah responded that he “did not know, but had come to inquire,” and the Lord revealed the answer. Then, as now, the temple was a place to converse with the Lord and seek to enter His holy presence.
    So the Lord tells Mosiah to take this object and put it on his face, and then to cover his face with animal skins. And when he does that, he is able to see thing supernaturally—it was the interpreters. At that point the Liahona actually stopped working, and the Liahona, which had led them to the interpreters, is actually now replaced by the interpreters.
    While Lapham’s story cannot be currently verified, if true it would explain not only how the Nephites get the interpreters, but also why the military expeditions in the book of Alma never uses the Liahona for guidance, but inquires of the Prophet for answers and guidance (Alma 16:5-6). In addition, in Joseph Smith, Sr’s account, he described a “great feast,” a religious festival, in Jerusalem at the time of Lehi’s departure and gave this as the reason for Laban’s drunkenness. This fits Nephi’s account that Laban had been “out by night” with “the elders of the Jews” (1 Nephi 4:22). Other details in Nephi’s account allow identification of the festival and its connection with the redeeming work of the Savior. Seen in this light, the first story in the Book of Mormon, that of Lehi’s temporal deliverance, is a “type” for the redemption of the world. From its very start at the beginning of the lost 116 pages, the Book of Mormon is a testament of Christ.

It should be noted that Lapham’s recounting of the incident is full of Biblical inference—the question: “What is that in your hand?” is found in the story of Moses (Exodus 4:2), where Moses is at the burning bush on Sinai where he received his prophetic calling. The veiling of his face occurred when Moses came down off the mount and his face glowed from the presence of God—whereupon he veiled his face so that the others would not encounter that glory that was reflected from him (Exodus 34:29-30,33-35).
    The animal skins, particularly badger skins, are explicitly said in the books of Moses to be needed to handle some of the sacred objects. In fact, badger (KJV) or violet (Douay) skins were used for the outer covering of the Tabernacle, the Ark of the covenant, and various items used within the Tabernacle (Numbers 4:5-15). In addition, one of the veils of the temple was actually to be made from badger skins.
    We might compare this with the story of the Brother of Jared getting the interpreters in the first place from the Lord (Ether 4:5). After the Brother of Jared melted sixteen stones from the rock on mount Shelem, a conversation ensues between him and the Lord, which resulted in the “veil” being taken from Brother of Jared (Ether 3:19-20) and he is admitted into the Lord’s presence, where he is told that he is redeemed from the Fall. This same theme of receiving the interpreters and talking with the Lord through the veil is present in both the story of the Brother of Jared and the story recounted to Fayette Lapham by Joseph Smith, Sr. That is, the talking to the Lord through the veil, testing through asking questions and man answering them, and ultimately taking on the attribute of divine sight and entering the presence of the Lord appears in both the Bible and the Book of Mormon.
    Thus, the story of Aminadi, in the temple, with the story of Joseph, Sr. apparently about Mosiah are not about sacrifice, but about the revelation of higher knowledge and learning how to come into the presence of God, accessing knowledge from Him and becoming like Him.

It might also be recounted that it has long been known that Joseph Smith’s wife, Emma Hale Smith, scribed for a portion of the translation. In fact, her son, Joseph Smith III, states that his mother told him that “She wrote for Joseph Smith during the work of translation, as did also Reuben Hale, her brother, and O. Cowdery; that the larger part of this labor was done in her presence, and where she could see and know what was being done; that during no part of it did Joseph Smith have any manuscripts or Book of any kind from which to read, or dictate, except the metallic plates, which she knew he had (Joseph Smith III, letter to James T. Cobb, 14 February 1879, Letterbook 2, pp. 85-88, Library-Archives, Community of Christ; also in Vogel, Early Mormon Documents, 1:544).
    It was apparent, too, that Joseph could see the spelling of names on the seer stone or interpreters and when he said the name, the scribe wrote it and read it back for correction. Thus, the Joseph had something with him from which he was dictating and against which he could check what his scribes had written. The witnesses are unanimous that he did not have any books, manuscripts, or papers with him during the translation process, a process that involved lengthy periods of dictation, sometimes lasting many hours.

Verifying this, a correspondent from the Chicago Times interviewed David Whitmer (left) on 14 October 1881 and got essentially the same account: "Mr. Whitmer emphatically asserts as did Harris and Cowdery, that while Smith was dictating the translation he had no manuscript notes or other means of knowledge save the seer stone and the characters as shown on the plates, he being present and cognizant how it was done” (Chicago Times, 17 October 1881, as given in Cook, David Whitmer Interviews, p76; Whitmer's reply to J. W. Chatburn, as reported in Saints' Herald vol.29, 15 June 1882, and reproduced in Cook, David Whitmer Interviews, 92).
    During her scribing, Emma states that “Joseph could not pronounce the name ‘Sariah’ and one time, where it speaks of the walls of Jerusalem, he stopped and said, 'Emma, did Jerusalem have walls surrounding it?' When I informed him it had, he replied, 'O, I thought I was deceived.'”(In the Briggs and Etzenhouser interview, Saints' Herald 31, June 21, 1884, as given in Cook, David Whitmer Interviews, pp126-27; Chicago Tribune, 17 December 117, p885, as given in Cook, David Whitmer Interviews, p174; Whitmer also mentioned the walls-of-Jerusalem incident in a conversation with M. J. Hubble, on 13 November 13, 1886, as given in Cook, David Whitmer Interviews, p211).
    Now, since both the name Sariah and Jerusalem’s walls appear early in the Book of Mormon. In fact, the handwriting when Sariah’s name is first used in 1 Nephi is not Emma’s but Oliver Cowdery’s, and the handwriting when Jerusalem’s walls are first mentioned in 1 Nephi is also not Emma’s and is likely that of one of the Whitmer brothers. Thus, since it is known from the handwriting on the original Book of Mormon manuscript that Emma did not scribe for 1 Nephi, this means that Emma assisted Joseph at the beginning of Lehi’s story in the lost 116 pages and was thus his first scribe in the work of translation.
(See the next post, “Why Did the Nephites Have Temples? – Part II, for more on the purpose of the Nephite temple beyond offering sacrifices)

Why Did the Nephites Have Temples? – Part I

Sometimes it seems we do not ask questions of things we read in the scriptural record when we should. As an example, when reading that Jacob said the Nephites were on an island (2 Nephi 10:20), or when Nephite’s ship was “driven forth before the wind towards the promised land” (1 Nephi 18:8,9), or that “some who died with fevers,” which fevers were treated by “many plants and roots which God had prepared” (Alma 46:40), etc., how often do we stop and ask questions of these things as to their deeper meanings?
    Unfortunately, these phrases just roll off the tongue or through the mind without further contemplation. This may be from familiarity because of numerous readings, or perhaps disinterest, but either way, we do not stop to ask ourselves, why was this written in the extremely condensed abridgement of the ancient record? Often, we just keep reading with the meaning and purpose of so many phrases and statements seldom considered, let alone researched to know their meaning and value, and to better understand their full import.

Solomon’s Temple, known as the First Temple, which was over 300 years old during Lehi's time

Another example is Nephi’s building of a temple like unto Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem. He stated in some detail, “And I, Nephi, did build a temple; and I did construct it after the manner of the temple of Solomon save it were not built of so many precious things; for they were not to be found upon the land, wherefore, it could not be built like unto Solomon's temple. But the manner of the construction was like unto the temple of Solomon; and the workmanship thereof was exceedingly fine” (2 Nephi 5:16).
    In all of these, certain questions ought to be asked and answers sought, such as with the first examples: “Why were the Nephites on an island and not a continent?” or “Why are we told the ship was driven forth before the wind on two repetitive verses?” or “What is the cure for fevers that occur frequently during some seasons of the year, and where are such cures (plants or herbs) found?”
    In the case of Nephi building a temple like Solomon’s, the question should be “Why did the Nephites have temples? Was it so they could render sacrifices like the Old Testament Hebrews? In such a case, there would be a tendency to see the people of the Book of Mormon like the people of the Old Testament, thinking that the temple for them was just about sacrifices. After all, the Nephites did live the law of Moses (Jacob 4:5), which points to temple sacrifice.
    However, in reality, the temple served a far greater, or at least as great a, purpose in another way than just one of sacrifice. The next question then would be, “What purpose might have existed beyond performing sacrifices?”
    The answer to this may be found in a book written that compiled documents of early Mormon history and was licensed from the Joseph Smith Papers Project, by Intellectual Reserve, Inc., in which the story told by Joseph Smith, Sr., is recounted. According to the story line of the book, this event involving a man named Fayette Lapham, may well be a key to learning the answer to the question (Larry E. Morris, A Documentary History of the Book of Mormon, Oxford University Press, New York, 2019).

It might be of interested to know that Apostle Franklin D. Richards (left) once overheard the Prophet Joseph relate information from the first 116 pages translated (Book of Lehi) and were subsequently lost by Martin Harris. Not surprisingly, the Prophet also shared such information with his father, Joseph Smith, Sr. In turn, Joseph Sr. evidently shared some of that information in an 1830 interview with 36-year-old Palmyra resident Fayette Lapham.
    Lapham was born in Coxsacki, New York, in 1794, and married Lucy Ramsdell, dying in 1872, in Egypt, New York. His  published interview gives information about the coming forth of the Book of Mormon (like the correct translation order of the small plates and Mormon’s abridgment) that it took scholars another century to discover. Joseph, Sr. also gave Lapham details of the stories of Lehi, Nephi, and Mosiah I that cannot be found in the available Book of Mormon text but have the marks of genuineness. These new details fit those stories hand-in-glove and answer questions raised by the available Book of Mormon text.
    Lapham’s article "Interview with the Father of Joseph Smith, the Mormon Prophet,” which he wrote forty years after the event, including his account of “the Finding of the Sacred Plates,” was given in 2017 to Mark Ashurst-McGee, a scholar with the Joseph Smith Papers Project, to review. Ashurst-McGee, who has given Lapham’s interview account the closest analysis, identifies some errors in Lapham’s account but concludes from his accurate reporting of many other confidential details that Lapham must have made use of contemporaneous interview notes.
    In the 1870 article, Lapham wrote: “I think it was in the year 1830, when I heard that some ancient records had been discovered that would throw some new light upon the subject of religion; being deeply interested in the matter, I concluded to go to the place with my brother-in-law, Jacob Ramsdell, and learn for myself the truth of the matter” (Fayette Lapham, The Historical Magazine and Notes and Queries concerning the Antiquities, History, and Biography of America, vol.7, no.5, May 1870, pp305-309; Dan Vogel, Early Mormon Documents, vol.1, Signature Books, Salt Lake City, 1996, pp456-466).

They then traveled to the Smith family home along the border of Palmyra and Manchester, in Wayne County, New York. Not finding Joseph at home, they inquired of his father Joseph Smith, Sr. (eft) the information they sought.
    Of this meeting, Lapham wrote: “In reply to our question, concerning the ancient records that had been found, he [Joseph Smith Sr.,] remarked that they had suffered a great deal of persecution on account of them; that many had been there for that purpose, and had made evil reports of them, intimating that perhaps we had come for a like purpose; but, becoming satisfied of our good intentions and that we only sought correct information, he gave us the following history, as near as I can repeat his words.”
    After recounting to Lapham the coming forth of the Book of Mormon Joseph, Sr. then described Lehi’s journey to the New World and related several of the book’s other narratives. According to Lapham, an occurrence took place prior to Mosiah leaving the city of Nephi (Omni 1:12-13), which was referred to by Amulek, the man that befriended Alma and ended up teaching with the prophet (Alma 8:29-30;9:1).

Amulek (left) began his preaching with Alma, saying “I am Amulek; I am the son of Giddonah, who was the son of Ishmael, who was a descendant of Aminadi; and it was the same Aminadi who interpreted the writing which was upon the wall of the temple, which was written by the finger of God” (Alma 10:2). In this incident, Amulek assumed his audience knew the name of Aminadi, and Mormon also must have assume the ancient prophet was so well-known as to be include him in his abridgement of Lehi’s record without adding any explanation of who Aminadi was for his audience, the latter-day reader.
    Evidently, Mormon could assume his audience, the latter-day reader, would know the story only if he had told it in a portion of his abridgment not currently available to us—in other words, the lost 116 pages Joseph referred to as the Book of Lehi. Obviously, Mormon did not know that those pages would be lost, nor why he found the Small Plates with a repeat of abridgement of Lehi’s record, but assumed it was “for a wise purpose” (Words of Mormon 1:6-7), which, of course, it turned out to be when Martin Harris lost the record of Lehi.
    Thus, this event, which is described as happening at least three generations, and likely more than that, by an aged Amulek, prior to 80 BC, making its occurrence prior to the time Mosiah left the city of Nephi and, evidently, sometime before that.
    The only way Mormon could assume that his future readers would be knowledgable of Aminadi was because he had written of the incident in his earlier abridgement—and that would have been in the lost 116 pages. So let us take a look at what Amulek says about the “writing on the wall” incident and what it tells us about the Nephite temple.
(See the next post, “Why Did the Nephites Have Temples? – Part II, for more on the purpose of the Nephite temple beyond offering sacrifices)

The Panama Uplift and the Closing of the Central American Seaway – Part II

Continued from the last post regarding additional information and effect of the uplift of the Isthmus of Panama and the closing of the Panama Seaway to see the reality of this event, as well as that of other effects of land mass uplift in South America.

Underwater volcanoes lifted to eventually form islands above the surface, which raising lands filled with sediment creating the isthmus now known as Panama

As stated in the last post, the shallowing and eventual closure of the Panama “gateway” and creation of the Isthmus of Panama, where both continents become connected by land, strengthened the “Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation,” a current that transports warm equatorial waters north and is responsible for Europe’s mild winters, and plays a crucial role in the shaping of our modern climate system. This uplift occurred when the sea floor was lifted up in volcanoes created from the tectonic plates colliding and the Andean Plate over riding the Nazca plate, forcing the latter downward.
    This was first suggested in 1910 by North American paleontologist Henry Fairfield Osborn, the American paleontologist and geologist, and president of the American Museum of Natural, who based his proposal on the fossil record of mammals in Central America (Osborn, The Age of Mammals in Europe, Asia and North America, Macmillan Co., New York, 1910, p80. This conclusion then provided a foundation for Alfred Wegener who proposed the theory of continental drift in 1912 (Wegener, “The Origins of Continents,” Milestones in Geosciences, Journal of Earth Science, vol.9, S4-S17.”
    What is now Panama lies on the boundaries of the South and North American, Caribbean and Cocos plates, and collisions between these huge masses led to rises in the seafloor and the formation of underwater volcanoes, which eventually emerged above the water line (Christine D. Bacon, et. al., “Biological evidence supports an early and complex emergence of the Isthmus of Panama,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, vol.112, no.19, May 12, 2015, pp6110-6115). As these volcanoes rose and grew in size, the sea became shallow enough that deep water exchange between the Pacific and Atlantic ceased, leading to a reorganization of oceanic currents.
    In fact, Cornelia Class, a geochemist at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, and Esteban Gazel, a Lamont adjunct researcher now based at Virginia Polytechnic Institute, are looking into one of the most mysterious forces at work on the natural construction site of the Galápagos Plume, a long-lived hot upwelling of material from the deep earth that melts near the surface and has formed strings of volcanoes, both underwater and as ocean islands. Geologists believe that anciently, this Plume rested below Central America, and has since migrated beneath the Galápagos.
    Coming from earth's mantle, dozens of miles down, the still-active plume is similar to hotspots of magma that percolate under Hawaii and Yellowstone. It is believed to have started with huge outpourings of lava under what is now the Caribbean, but due mainly to the movement of tectonic plates above, has since migrated some 600 miles south and west into the Pacific.
    In trying to unravel Earth’s history from the rocks, which normally are buried far below the surface or lie deep on the ocean floor, here sit on more or less dry land, offering an unusual window into the processes of the deep earth (Kevin Krajick, “The Isthmus of Panama: Out of the Deep Earth,” The Earth Institute, Columbia University, April 1, 2014).
    In fall 2012, Class and Gazel hunted for rocks created by the plume on Panama's Azuero peninsula, which juts into the Pacific Ocean.
    It is along the coast, with its constant tectonic uplift and violent erosion, where rocks are most exposed. But with lack of roads and other obstacles, few sites are accessible by land. This wind-torn islet was reachable at low tide after a hike through the woods. It was volcanic in origin, and the rocks in this part of Panama are a complicated mélange, representing the complex history of the isthmus.

Left: Picrite; Right: Olivine

From their heavily weathered exteriors, it is hard to tell one kind of rock from another until they are broken, looking the tiny crystals of Picrite—a type of igneous rock that crystallizes as magma from the mantle heads upward. Generally formed on the seafloor, Picrite contains sparkly yellowish-green crystals of Olivine, a typical mantle-derived mineral not seen in rocks formed nearer the surface.
    From these, the history of the Panama Isthmus is slowly unravelling. While scientists have known of these events and the rising of Panama and the forming of the isthmus, cutting off the seaway between North and South America, they have unfortunately automatically bought into and promoted the view that this happened millions of years ago. However, since we know this world was not formed millions of years ago, then the point of all of this is to show the time frame in its more accurate era—one which agrees with the Biblical times provided by the Lord as He dictated them to Moses, which is not a popular idea among elitist, scientists, and people who accept their views.
    This is a very difficult thing for people to do whose entire life has been inculcated with an understanding that the world is billions of years old. However, since we have been assured by the Lord that it is not anywhere near that age, we need to realize how old it is so that we can then place events, factual or speculated upon, as to when they fit within the accurate age limits.

A fossilized tree leaf found by paleontologists during a project to recover fossils during the Panama Canal expansion, is displayed in Panama City, April 26, 2013 

Recently, during a new expansion of the Panama Canal in 2007, when an eight-year construction effort to expand the canal took place, with the removal of sediment from the canal, numerous new outcrops were exposed, providing an unparalleled opportunity for additional studies on the timing and dynamics of the Isthmus formation. During this time 20-million-year-old fossilized trees were discovered, and immediately the scientists involved decided that this showed the isthmus creation was 20 million years old—but since that did not jive with their view of the isthmus forming about 3 million years ago, they decided that there must have been an earlier closing isthmus, then a reopening of it, and then a final closing.
    In fact, in the 1970s, high-resolution paleoceanographic data available from deep-sea cores began to show that an isthmus, that is “a narrow portion of land, enclosed on each side by water, and connecting two larger bodies of land,” was in place only relatively recently, around 3 million years ago” (Lloyd D. Keigwin, Jr., “Pliocene closing of the Isthmus of Panama, based on biostratigraphic evidence from nearby Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea cores,” Geology Journal, Geological Society of America,  Boulder Colorado, vol.6, 1978, pp.630–634). In addition, it is believed that the Pliocene Epoch existed as recently as 2.58 million years ago—and in Biblical time, that would be quite recent, perhaps even comparable to the time of the crucifixion and the tumult and destruction described in 3 Nephi.
    You see, nobody was around 20 million years ago, and no diagrams or history of a closure exists or could possibly be known, yet scientists still speculate and hypothesize on what the finding meant. The problem is, they never look beyond their firm, fixed belief that the world is billions of years old, therefore, the only meaning that could be attached to the fossilized trees is that they had grown where they were found and then later were drowned and fossilized there as the sea bed rose and fell through the next 15-17 million years.

Matter Unorganized

However, other explanations are possible—such as the fossils came from another extinct world; they were part of the matter unorganized used to form this world; they were destroyed not by the sinking of an earlier isthmus but by a devastating Flood, or through some other means; the dating is inaccurate, etc. Without any intention of looking further, the chances of finding what that truly meant may never be discovered and known.
    The formation of the Isthmus of Panama stands as one of the greatest natural events of geologic history, driving profound biotic transformations on land and in the oceans (Aaron O’Dea, et.al., “Formation of the Isthmus of Panama,” U.S. Geological Society, Science Advances, vol.2, no.8, American Association for the Advancement of Sciences Publishers, Washington DC, 17 August 2016).
    Note that this discovery has been widely heralded as a new set of data that “has revised our understanding of the rise of the Isthmus and its consequences,” but no thought that more than a revision, such as a brand new understanding, is ever considered. The point is, however, that the Isthmus now seen connecting North and South America, only occurred in recent history. The same is true of other areas where the Amazon Basin lifted up above the surface and the ocean was pushed back—all at the time of the crucifixion as described in 3 Nephi, not a popular belief among scientists, but nevertheless and certain answer for the many unanswered questions of the Earth’s history.
-->

The Panama Uplift and the Closing of the Central American Seaway – Part I

As discussed in the last post, most scientists, historians and scholars are conditioned by their training and the strict criteria of their profession. When that training insists that the world is 4.55 billion years old and it takes eons of time for the features of the Earth to change, then these professionals interpret all matters based on that single, and to them, unquestionable fact.
    As an example, most geologists agree that there was once a flow-through waterway between what is now Central America and South America—it was called the Central American Seaway, also known as the Panamanic Inter-American and Proto-Caribbean Seaway, or just plain Panama Seaway, was a body of water that once separated North America from South America.

The Great Panamanian Seaway, a single tropical ocean between North and South America 

At that point in time, what is now Panama and much of Central America, was then under water or, more accurately, much of this land mass was yet to form, and water flowed freely between these two climatically important ocean basins—the Pacific and Caribbean Basins.
    Naturally, the position of continents or large land masses, drifting around the Earth’s surface would have a major impact on the climate. The positioning of continents naturally affects the shape and size of the oceans, and crucially, the currents that flow within them that transport energy (in the form of heat) to different parts of the globe. It also effects the direction and manner in which wind currents flow over the lands and the oceans.
    Thus, in the shoaling (shallowing) of the flow-through ocean, or the Panama Seaway, any closure of that “gateway” that would connect the two land masses of North and South America, would obviously affect in some ways the ocean currents, winds, and climate those waters bring. In the case of the forming of the Isthmus of Panama, a warm (or tropical) current from the Caribbean flowing northeastward was established, without mixture with the colder Pacific currents, creating the Gulf Stream (North American Drift) that warmed the eastern seaboard of North America as well as western Europe.

Closing the “gate” of the Panamanian Seaway diverted Pacific Currents to flow back into the Pacific, and the Gulf Currents to flow northward

The emerging of the Central American landmass, as a result of the volcanic Isthmus of Panama rising up from the sea floor and bridging the formerly separated continents and the closing of the Central American Seaway can be divided into four categories.
1. Direct geologic observation of crustal thickening and submarine deposits in Central America.
2. The Great American Interchange, which is the interchange of vertebrates between North and South America which required a continuous land bridge across the two areas for the organisms to travel along with a climate that was very different than the climate today.
3. Different histories of the oceans on either side of the isthmus, with formation of the Isthmus of Panama is recorded by changes in the chemistry, composition, and structure of sediments and fossils in deep sea and coastal rock records across the Caribbean and eastern Pacific.
4. Development of differences in marine assemblages and their isotopic signatures in the Caribbean from those in the Pacific.
    In this last issue, the interchange is visible from observation of both biostratigraphy and nature, with its most dramatic effect seen in the zoogeography of mammals, including marsupials, but also provided opportunity for reptiles, amphibians, arthropods (insects, arachnids, myriapods and crustaceans), weak-flying or flightless birds and even freshwater fish to migrate. In fact, in the deep ocean, divergences in neodymium isotopes and benthic foraminifera (taxa) between Caribbean and Pacific sites, as well as an abrupt increase in the Pacific carbonate compensation depth, provide strong evidence that deepwater connection was shut off with the deepest part of the sill of the Panama Arc must shoaled to around  have shoaled to less than 4,000 feet.

After the Isthmus of Panama formed, animals and plants could move back and forth between continents, the Great American Biological Interchange. Smithsonian scientists are debating when this happened.                                    Image: Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute 

According to geologists and palaeoceanographic scientists, an ocean once covered the area where Panama is today. There was a gap between the continents of North and South America through which the waters of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans flowed freely. Beneath the surface, two plates of the Earth’s crust were colliding into one another, forcing the Pacific Plate to slide under the Caribbean Plate. The pressure and heat caused by this collision led to the formation of underwater volcanoes, some of which grew tall enough to break the surface of the ocean and form islands which became filled in between.
    As more volcanic islands rose to fill in the area as the movement of the two tectonic plates pushed up the sea floor, eventually forcing some areas above sea level. This created the current Panama Isthmus, enabling an interchange to occur.
    This interchange was first discussed in 1876 by the "father of biogeography,” Alfred Russel Wallace, British naturalist, explorer, geographer, anthropologist and biologist, who spent 1848-1852 exploring and collecting specimens in the amazon Basin. In addition, the fossil discoveries of Florentino Ameghino, an Argentine naturalist, paleontologist, anthropologist and zoologist, and the most important founding figure in South American paleontology also played an important role in the ancient Seaway discovery. William D. Matthew, with his work in mammal fossils; William B. Scott, a vertebrate paleontologist and professor of geology and paleontology at Princeton; Bryan Patterson, an American paleontologist at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago; and George Gaylord Simpson, the most influential paleontologist of the 20^th century, also contributed to the studies and finding of the ancient Seaway.
    It should be noted that while almost all geologists, anthropologists and paleontologists agree that the Seaway once subsisted, the controversy today is based on not whether it existed, but when it took place. Typically, it is proposed by those who have developed this theory, that the Seaway closed between 3.5 to 2.8 million years ago.

The major tectonic plates involved in the closing of the Seaway were the Cocos, Nazca, Panama, and North Andean; in addition, the microplates of Galapagos and Caribbean were also part of this tectonic activity

As for the tectonic aspect of the closing, the Southern Caribbean geology is a very complex product of three colliding tectonic plates and their interactions. These geological processes drive both the generation and movement of terrestrial landmasses of this area, which in turn control the distribution, migration and ultimately, the evolution of terrestrial biotas. The colliding and moving of these three plates resulted in the rising of the area now known as the Panama Isthmus and lower Central America.
    Even though the geological build-up of Panama occurred over a small spatial scale, it produced major palaeoceanographic, climatic, biogeographic and evolutionary changes that have attracted the attention of researchers for a long time. Before the closure, the separation of North and South America provided a tropical seaway between the Atlantic and Pacific that remained open until the Isthmus of Panama formed “in the relatively recent past.”
(See the next post, “The Panama Uplift and the Closing of the Central American Seaway – Part II,” for additional information and effect of the uplift of the Isthmus of Panama and the closing of the Panama Seaway to see the reality of this event, as well as that of other effects of land mass uplift in South America)

The Forming and Dating of Rocks on the Earth

It is always interesting how people who think of themselves as knowledgeable of history and events so often become entrapped in the current thinking during the time of man that “things were always this way.” Take as an example, the rising of the Andes Mountains and the uplift of the central South American continent and its eastward tilt that formed its current appearance; or the rising of the Panama Isthmus, blocking off what had been the Great Panama Seaway.
    While most may not even now these events took place, geologists have written much about them and there is no question among scientists of the validity of the events. The problem lies in the time frame surrounding these well documented events.

At the age of 500, the Lord told Noah to build an ark It took him 100  years, along with his three sons, to complete the task

It is also interesting that among knowledgeable people, especially members of the Church who know and understand that Noah’s Flood took place, and that the Biblical time frame of that based on the ages of the Patriarch’s and the births of their listed sons to that of Noah (Genesis 5:3-29), who had three sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth when he was 500 years old when (Genesis 5:32; 6:10), which age occurred in 2344 BC, when he was told to build the Ark. It took 100 years, and when he was 600 years old, he was told to board the Ark (Genesis 7:11). It rained for forty days and forty nights (Genesis 7:12), and at the end of that forty days, the flood upon the Earth lifted the ark above the earth (Geness 7:17), and as the waters increased greatly on the Earth and all the high hills under heaven were covered, and the waters prevailed fifteen cubits upward and the mountains were covered (Genesis 7:19-20), and every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both man, and cattle and the creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven—only Noah remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark” (Genesis 7:21-23).
    The waters prevailed upon the Earth 150 days (genesis 7:24), in which they abated, and after 9½ months, Noah opened the window of the ark and sent out a dove, though the waters still prevailed on the whole earth ((Genesis 8:9). However, it was not until the 601^st year, in the first moth and first day, the waters were nearly dried up off the earth (Genesis 8:13), and in the 27^th day of the following month, the waters were gone completely (Genesis 8:14).
    Thus, in the year 2343 BC, Shem, Ham, and Japeth went forth from the ark and the settling of the Earth commenced. This was approximately 240 years before the Jaredites built that barges and crossed the Great Deep, or oceans to the land promised to them (Ether 2:13,16-17;6:4-12) .
    The point is, we either accept the scriptures or we do not. We cannot decide which scriptures we like and accept them, and decide which we do not like and reject those. The story of Noah is both well stated with details, and time frames. We know when the flood occurred and can place it within the time frame of secular history, knowing as we do that Adam preceded Noah by approximately 1656 years when he was ejected from the Garden of Eden.

It is claimed by geologists that it take upwards of 100 million years for a mountain to completely form during the shifting of Tectonic Plates

Therefore, claims of this world being millions or billions of years old is both inaccurate and fallacious. This, of course, makes the idea of mountains taking millions of years to form, rise, or erode is also deceptive and delusive. However, so deeply ingrained in man’s mind from the early 1800s (Lamarck 1820; Darwin 1858) until now, man has been conditioned for generations to think that the scriptures must be inaccurate because science has “proven” the age of the Earth to be 4.55 billion years old. At the same time, geologists have convinced us that it takes a very long time for anything in nature to occur—millions and millions of years, therefore the age of the Earth is verified by them. 
    In addition, many cannot accept the story of Noah, because he lived to 950 years of age, building the ark at the age of 500 to 600 years of age. We are conditioned to think life ceases between 80 to 110 years under normal circumstances. Yet, the early patriarchs lived ten times as long, and Christians and LDS in particular believe in living throughout eternity in the resurrection.
    However, the Lord has told us the age of the Earth since Adam left the garden of Eden, and we can track that information in the Genesis record which the Lord dictated to Moses (Moses 1:40) so we would have the truth and not be subject to the singular belief and speculation of scientists.
    As an example, science claims that the geological period is one of the several subdivisions of geologic time enabling cross-referencing of rocks and geologic events from place to place. A “geon” (geologic eon) are large, geological units of time, to represent either the span of the average geologic period, or the thickness of the average stratigraphic equivalent, a matter of 60,000,000 years, and 50,000 feet of clastic depositions. They traditionally subdivide earth history into a hierarchy of named intervals, eons, eras, periods, etc., which divisions are of equal rank but characteristically of unequal duration primarily based on its fossils, artifacts, or cultural content
    These periods form elements of a hierarchy of divisions into which geologists have split the Earth's history. This is all well and good, except we know from the Lord that the Earth itself is not as old as geologists claim certain rocks are, thus the idea of such reference of events is inaccurate and of no value to determine the age of the actual Earth—however, it does tell us how old parts of the universe are since these rocks were used in the forming of the Earth, and therefore are far older than the Earth itself. It would be like taking wood and nails from an 18^th century barn and using them to build a new, modern barn. While the wood and nails would be much older, the barn itself as newly finished would be nowhere near as old.

Matter unorganized in the Universe

  
Thus, we also know from modern-day revelations that when the Earth was first organized, “the Lord said: let us go down. And they went down at the beginning and that they, that is the Gods, organized and formed the heaven and the earth” (Abraham 4:1). That is, the heaven and the earth were formed by those under the Lord’s direction, all things of which the Earth was formed came from existing material, reorganized into this modern world.
    We also know that in that organizing and forming, “there was matter unorganized,” which they took and organized it into “a world like unto the other worlds we have heretofore formed,”—the global world form that is now this planet.
    The reason this is so important is simply that some scriptural information is not understandable when interpreted in the terms that some scientists claim are factual, like the age of the Earth, and therefore the various ancient ages of events that took place in the Earth’s pre-history.  It might be of interest to now in these divisions, it is claimed while the Earth formed about 4550 million years ago (4.55 billion), an event that is assigned to Geon 45. Rocks formed at 1851 million (1.851 Billion) or 1800 million (1.8 Billion) both belong to Geon 18. Thus, according to the geologic scale, rocks formed in a relatively short period. However, the rocks measured on the Earth vary over a very considerable difference.

A 4.03-billion year-old sample for the small Acasta River, an obscure little drainage up near Great Bear Lake, Northwest Territories in Canada (some age-dating now claims this material is 4.2 billion years old)

Thus we find from modern measurements that the ages of felsic rocks are generally between 2.5 and 3.8 billion years. Metasedimentary rock in Greenland has been dated to 3.7 billion years old; 4.1-billion-year-old zircon rocks have been found in Western Australia; In fact, the oldest known rock on Earth, part of the Acasta Gneiss of the Slave craton in northwestern Canadian Shield, is dated to 4.03 billion years old.
    If one wasn’t so conditioned to think in a geologic time frame, one might wonder why rocks in different areas, sometimes in the same area, are of different age. One might think that if the world was created at one time from one source, such as a “Big Bang,” that its parts would be dated to the same period—like a model car built in Detroit, you don’t find a 1920 fender, a 1954 hood, a 1987 trunk and a 1999 axel—you find all parts dated to the time when the car was built. Thus, one would expect that in the forming of primordial protons and neutrons from the quark-gluon plasma of the early Universe as it cooled below two trillion degrees that the result would be somewhat similar in time measurement when the following primordial protons and neutrons formed during the process known as Big Bang nucleosynthesis.
    Yet, nothing dated on the Earth of its origin is constant according to the geologic time scale—it varies over millions and millions of years, as well as billions and billions of years.
    On the other hand, with the Earth being formed out of various pieces of unorganized matter as the Lord has told us, the material coming from different uses at different times, the ages of individual pieces, such as rocks, would vary considerably as we find that it does.

The Facts About the Zelph Mound – Part II

Continued from the previous post, regarding the events surrounding the Zelph story and what those who were there had to say about it as compared to what has been written about the event and what was added to their original journal entries later on.

In any event, the bones of Zelph were then carried in Wilford Woodruff’s wagon for the purpose of burying them in the envisioned temple site, but the later eviction of the Saints from Missouri before the temple could be built caused Wilford Woodruff to take the bones to Clay County “near the house owned by Colonel Arthur and occupied by Lyman Wight,” where he reburied the thigh bone near Liberty.

The journals of Woodruff, Heber C. Kimball, Levi W. Hancock (left), George A. Smith, Moses Martin and Reuben McBride, all recorded the incident. It was further and formally recorded in Church history from available sources in 1842 by Church historian, Willard Richards, who recorded that Joseph said, “The visions of the past being opened to my understanding by the Spirit of the Almighty, I discovered that the person whose skeleton lay before us was a white Lamanite, a large thick-set man, a white Lamanite, and a man of God…He was a warrior and chieftain under the great prophet Onandagus, who was known from the eastern sea to the Rocky Mountains” (Joseph Smith History of the Church, Vol.2, pp79–80).

(Red Line) Zion’s Camp march westward. Beyond Detroit in Pike County, some of the Elders (Yellow Dotted Line) walked about a mile northward to the large mound in which they found the bones of the skeleton

According to the Smithsonian, the mound, which was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975, was “On the right bank of the Illinois river about 300 yards below [south of] Griggsville Landing, rises a lofty bluff fully 300 feet above the level of the river. On the summit is a beautiful, oval mound, 150 long, 92 feet wide in the middle, and 25 or 30 feet high…within a radius of 5 miles from Naples there are a least fifty mounds, very few of which have ever been opened" (Smithsonian Institution, 1882, p692).
    As for the event being downplayed by our South American interests, the opposite is true. The History of the Church records the Zelph incident as factual, and we consider it likewise to be factual, so long as it is taken in its original context and not including all the changes that have been made since. That the Zelph event took place in North America is merely proof of the claim that we have always stated that all of North and South America is the Land of Promise (though only a small portion of it was the land to which the Jaredites were led and later promised to Lehi and his descendants (2 Nephi 1:5) and thus the portion of the land written about in the Book of Mormon.

According to Joseph Smith, the ancient prophet Onandagus was known from the Rocky Mountains to the Eastern Sea

Since Joseph Smith tells us that Zelph lived at the time of the ancient prophet Onandagus, a name not mentioned in any way in the scriptural record, yet we are told he was well known from the Rocky Mountains to the eastern sea—clearly, Onandagus lived after the demise of the Nephites in 385 AD, and after the Nephite record, which ended in 421 AD, for surely if such a prominent prophet was that well known, he would have been mentioned had he lived during the Nephite era. But neither he nor the name Zelph are included in the record, or are there any references suggesting such individuals in the record.
    Obviously, Onandagus (and Zelph) lived after the demise of the Nephites at Cumorah (Mormon 6:9-13) and after those few Nephites who escaped were hunted down and were all destroyed (Mormon 8:2). In fact, Moroni assures us “the Lamanites have hunted my people, the Nephites, down from city to city and from place to place, even until they are no more; and great has been their fall; yea, great and marvelous is the destruction of my people, the Nephites” (Mormon 8:7, emphasis added).
    To make sure we understand that the Nephites were all killed off, Moroni adds, “I say no more concerning them, for there are none save it be the Lamanites and robbers that do exist upon the face of the land” (Mormon 8:9, emphasis added).
    It is interesting that while North American theorists place a great deal of emphasis on Zelph’s bones being found in Illinois, they fail to mention that he and Onandagus, the prophet of Zelph’s time, are not mentioned in the scriptural record. That, alone, should suggest to even the most skeptical, that if no Nephites remained in the Land of Promise, as both Mormon and Moroni state, that Zelph and Onandagus lived elsewhere at a later time.
    That elsewhere was obviously in North America, in the area of what is now west-central Illinois. In fact, as Apostle John A. Widtsoe remarked regarding the story of Zelph, “This is not of much value in Book of Mormon geographical studies, since Zelph probably dated from a later time when Nephites and Lamanites had been somewhat dispersed and had wandered over the country” (Improvement Era, July 1950, p547).

The Movement of the Nephites and Lamanites via the exceedingly large ships that Hagoth built is recorded in Alma 63:4-7, which sailed northward

So, given that Zelph and Onandagus were not within the area referred to in the Book of Mormon as the land promised to Lehi, how did Zelph and Onandagus get to North America? The answer is plain and simple, and given us by Mormon when he abridged the record of Alma. As he stated: “the first ship did also return, and many more people did enter into it; and they also took much provisions, and set out again to the land northward. And it came to pass that they were never heard of more…and one other ship also did sail forth; and whither she did go we know not” (Alma 63:7-8).
    That one ship was believed to have sunk at sea, is only because they did not return and “were never beard of more,” but another ship also sailed, and nothing more was known of that one either. The fact that “there were many of the Nephites who did enter therein and did sail forth with much provisions, and also many women and children; and they took their course northward” (Alma 63:6, emphasis added) should suggest that when some did not return or were heard from again, that if they survived the voyage, went to “a land which was northward,” and ended up in an area separate from the island upon which the Jaredite kingdom and the Nephite nation occupied and were promised.
    Thus we see how Nephites and Lamanites ended up in lands to the north of the land promised to Lehi, of which there are ample examples of their existence in Central and Mesoamerica, and as Zelph shows, also in North America. In fact, there are the plains over which the Nephites roamed, according to Joseph Smith. Consequently, the Church leaders from Joseph Smith’s time forward until now, whose comments and speculations covered both North and South America, are both factual and consistent with the scriptural record and modern comments regarding the location of Lehi’s descendants at the time of the organization of the Church in 1830.