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.
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While I have been enjoying your blog and its numerous facts, there is one opinion that use that has stuck out to me; that of a land completely devoid of human and animal settlement (of the western hemisphere) prior to the landing of the Jaredites. Just because we have no scriptural evidence of anyone else reaching these shores either before or since the Jaredites (excluding Lehi's group, Melek's group, and "modern" Europeans) doesn't preclude societies already being established. Clearly they weren't great civilizations until they followed the Lord's people, but in order for the Lord's people to multiply there needed to be sufficient genetic diversity. (And Lamanites acquiring a "dark skin" to distinguish them from the Nephites seems like the Laman's followers followed the "heathen's" way including having direct relations with them. Such reasoning actually supports your claim of there being such importance placed on being a descendent of Nephi.) Again, I am finding your blog very insightful, just this one issue I think is overlooked. Plus, we do not know who else the Lord directed to leave the land of Jerusalem, but we know there are "other sheep" out there; likely with their own records.
ReplyDeleteTyson: Jeffrey R Holland gave a talk in June 1976 and following is a portion of it which appears on the Church website: “Holy scripture records that “after the waters had receded from off the face of this land it became a choice land above all other lands, a chosen land of the Lord; wherefore the Lord would have that all men should serve him who dwell upon the face thereof” (Ether 13:2). Such a special place needed now to be kept apart from other regions, free from the indiscriminate traveler as well as the soldier of fortune. To guarantee such sanctity the very surface of the earth was rent. In response to God’s decree, the great continents separated and the ocean rushed in to surround them. The promised place was set apart. Without habitation it waited for the fulfillment of God’s special purposes.
ReplyDeleteWith care and selectivity, the Lord began almost at once to repeople the promised land. The Jaredites came first, with stories of the great flood fresh in their memories and the Lord’s solemn declaration ringing in their ears: “Whoso should possess this land of promise, from that time henceforth and forever, should serve him, the true and only God, or they should be swept off when the fulness of his wrath should come upon them” (Ether 2:8).
Despite such counsel, however, the Jaredite civilization steadily degenerated into a violent society. But even as the last light flickered on Jaredite civilization, a bold new sun rose to illuminate a thousand years of Nephite-Lamanite experience on the same soil. Despite periods of war and rebellion, these people nevertheless had great moments of power and purity, including the personal ministry of the resurrected Christ, who walked and talked and prayed with these New World inhabitants for three indescribable days. There in the meridian of time the land enjoyed three generations of peace and perfection, which it would not know again until the Master’s millennial reign.
But the lessons of history were repeated and a lone father with his son lived to see the self-destruction of these people of promise. The Nephite-Lamanite morality descended from “sorceries, and witchcrafts, and magics” (Mormon 1:19) into rape, murder, and cannibalism (see Mormon 9:7-10), creating a vision so repulsive that it was “impossible for the tongue to describe, or for man to write,” a scene of greater wickedness than had ever been seen “even among all the house of Israel” (Mormon 4:11). A thousand years after God had given such choice land to their fathers and a thousand years before he would attempt to do it again, Mormon wrote to his son Moroni about the depraved Nephites of his time.
This favored branch allowed to run over the wall had reached that forewarned “fulness of iniquity” and was dwindling into disorder, darkness, and death.
It would be a thousand years of preparation, before the Spirit of God rested upon a young Italian sailing under the flag of Spain, and, as Nephi had seen in vision, “he went forth upon the many waters, even unto the seed of my brethren, who were in the promised land” (1 Nephi 13:12). This “Christian” of almost maniacal devoutness, a man with the zeal of Galileo, Don Quixote, and John the Baptist combined, was not to be denied. “Our Lord with provident hand unlocked my mind,” said Columbus, “And sent me upon the seas, and gave me fire for the deed. Those who heard of my enterprise called it foolish, mocked me, and laughed. But who can doubt but that the Holy Ghost inspired me?” Columbus stood on the captain’s deck, but the all-seeing eye of the Lord was on the compass, and the hopes of every dispensation filled the sails. The prophet Nephi had also seen in vision what followed: colonization, war, and the birth of a new nation.
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ReplyDelete“And it came to pass that I, Nephi, beheld that the Gentiles who had gone forth out of captivity did humble themselves before the Lord; and the power of the Lord was with them.
“And I beheld that their mother Gentiles were gathered together upon the waters, and upon the land also, to battle against them.
“And I beheld that the power of God was with them, and also that the wrath of God was upon all those that were gathered together against them to battle. And I, Nephi, beheld that the Gentiles that had gone out of captivity were delivered by the power of God out of the hands of all other nations” (1 Nephi 13:16-19).
Once again, after meticulous preparation and precise timing, the Lord had begun to build on his promised land a congregation that had compacted to pursue “the glory of God and the advancement of the Christian faith.” The cultural freedom of the Renaissance and religious freedom of the Reformation underscored the strong sense of personal freedom espoused in the Enlightenment to provide the ideal attitudes and environments for the beginning of this “first new nation.” George Washington, six years before he was inaugurated as the initial president of the Grand Experiment, wrote of America’s moment in history:
“The foundation of our empire was not laid in the gloomy age of ignorance and superstition, but in an epoch when the rights of mankind were better understood and more clearly defined than at any former period. The researchers of the human mind after social happiness have been carried to a greater extent, the treasures of knowledge … are laid open for our use, and their collected wisdom may be happily applied in the establishment of our forms of government.”
Couple this with the message Lehi gave to his children in the beginning of 2 Nephi, which states several times about the future tense coming of people to America, saying at one point: “Wherefore, I, Lehi, have obtained a promise, that inasmuch as those whom the Lord God shall bring out of the land of Jerusalem shall keep his commandments, they shall prosper upon the face of this land; and they shall be kept from all other nations, that they may possess this land unto themselves. And if it so be that they shall keep his commandments they shall be blessed upon the face of this land, and there shall be none to molest them, nor to take away the land of their inheritance; and they shall dwell safely forever” (2 Nephi 1:9). And also “And behold, 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). And Moroni’s comment in the Jaredite record: “and that after the waters had receded from off the face of this land it became a choice land above all other lands, a chosen land of the Lord; wherefore the Lord would have that all men should serve him who dwell upon the face thereof” (Ether 13:2).
It seems pretty clear that this land was reserved for certain peoples and of those people we have records.
Hi, since the flood is a myth with no basis in geological evidence (except, perhaps, as a story told by peoples to account for rise in sea levels at the end of the last ice age) and the earliest settlements of Clovis peoples in the American Continent are around 1200 BC or earlier, your account does not tie in with the available evidence.
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