How Did Mulek Escape Jerusalem and Where Did He Go? – Part II

As is discussed in great detail in both “Lehi Never Saw Mesoamerica” and “Who Really Settled Mesoamerica,” there was only one sealane open to the Lehi Colony for winds and currents to take them to the Western Hemisphere. And that was from the area he called Bountiful and the seashore of the Irreantum Sea (1 Nephi 17:5).

From this point, the currents and winds flow into the Arabian Sea, into the Indian Ocean, and then into the Southern Ocean moving swiftly from west to east along both the West Wind Drift current and the winds of the Prevailing Westerlies that circumnavigate the entire globe. This route would be the fastest and shortest route from Arabia to the Western Hemisphere because of the southern latitudes and the speed of the currents and winds—called today the “Roaring Forties,” the “Furious Fifties,” and the “Screaming Sixties.”

In getting from Jerusalem to Bountiful, a route that is pretty well agreed upon by most LDS scholars, the Lehi Colony moved along the border of the Red Sea (1 Nephi 2:5) in a south-southeast direction (1 Nephi 16:11,14) to a point before turning nearly east (1 Nephi 17:1) on a route covering the same as the Frankincense trail that led them across the Rub’ al Khali, or Empty Quarter—an area which Nephi said they “did travel and wade through much affliction” (1 Nephi 17:1). After eight years in the wilderness (1 Nephi 17:4) they reached Bountiful (1 Nephi 17:5) which was located in what is today the Sultanate of Oman—a land that in ancient times (300 years after Lehi) was called Majan—on the southeast coast of the Arabian Peninsula.

Two important points here need to be made:

1. This area in Oman, what Lehi called Bountiful, along the shores of the Arabian Sea, is the most suitable location from which to embark on a lengthy voyage to the Western Hemisphere, and about the only area that matches all the points spelled out in scripture.

2. The route into the sea at this point is one of the only places in the western area of the Indian Ocean that flows directly into the Southern Ocean and, thus, picks up the Prevailing Westerlies and the West Wind Drift.

No better place anywhere from the coasts of China through India, to Arabia meets the requirements of both the fruit and wild honey and direct access to the winds and currents required to send a ship “driven forth before the wind”(1 Nephi 18:8,9) to the Land of Promise in the Western Hemisphere.

Therefore, if those who took Mulek out of Jerusalem (Omni 1:15-16) traveled south to avoid detection as outlined above, then the only place within any reasonable distance of Jerusalem from which a ship could embark and travel directly to the Western Hemisphere would have to be off the coast of Oman as described above. Thus, it seems reasonable to assume that the Mulekites left the same area in Bountiful as did the Nephites.

As Nephi wrote of the area they called Bountiful, they found “much fruit and wild honey," and then added, “all these things were prepared of the Lord that we might not perish” (1 Nephi 17:5). Obviously, how the Lord prepared all these things is an important matter that is covered extensively in the book “Who Really Settled Mesoamerica,” but the point here is that the Lord prepared the area with food and water, etc., for the sustenance of the Lehi Colony. If he did that, then obviously, he would have done the same for Mulek and those who came with him.

It is possible that these were two entirely different areas of preparation, but in the economy of the Lord it makes more sense to see both these areas as the same. The area prepared for the Nephihtes was the same area for the Mulekites about ten to twelve years later.

Thus, it can be said, that the Mulekites left to cross the great waters from the same location as that of the Lehi Colony, and just as obviously, in the same manner—by ship. It seems logical then, to see that they would have had to build a ship just as the Nephites did and just as obviously, with the same help from the same master shipbuilder, the Lord.

(See the next post “How Did Mulek Get to the Land of Promise?” to see where Mulek landed in the Land of Promise)