Where the Jaredites Traveled

Recently, someone sent me the following from an internet site regarding the Jaredites who: “were directed by the Lord to "go forth into the wilderness, yea into that quarter where there never had man been" (Ether 2:5). They built barges on which to cross "many waters." They continued until they came to "that great sea which divideth the lands." They remained on the seashore for four years during which time they constructed eight vessels for crossing the sea. How far they traveled we can only guess. That guess places the terminus of their land journey on the Pacific shores of the Asian continent. From there the prevailing winds "never cease to blow towards the promised land."

First of all, a few comments on the above statement:

1. They did not build their barges during the four years they stayed on the seashore after reaching it. “And it came to pass at the end of four years that the Lord came again unto the brother of Jared, and stood in a cloud and talked with him (Ether 2:14) and “And the Lord said: Go to work and build, after the manner of barges which ye have hitherto built” (Ether 2:16). Obviously, they did not begin building the barges until after the four year period—which might have taken them another year to complete and ready all their supplies.

2. The “prevailing winds” do not blow out into the Pacific Ocean from the “Pacific shores of the Asian continent.” In fact, along the shore, those winds blow north into the Sea of Japan, or south into the Taiwan Straits. Out in the Pacific, they blow in toward land, moving all the way from the bulge of Peru westerly across the Pacific, then turn southward and blow toward Indonesia, then turn eastward in the Southern Ocean and blow toward South America in what is called the South Equatorial Current.

3. Winds that “never cease to blow towards the promised land” from the Pacific shores of the Asian continent would actually blow south in the South Equatorial Current gyre as mentioned in #2 above.

Nibley has the Jaredites crossing the Steppes (green) from Mesopotamia to the Pacific Ocean. Look how much more economically in time, effort, and travel it would have been to take them down the Persian Gulf shore, across the water hole trail, to where Lehi called Bountiful

4. The eastern Steppes of Asia, and down through China near present-day Beijing, which is the only way to get from the Mesopotamia to the Pacific Ocean, would not have been considered “that quarter where there never had man been” since those eastern lands along China’s eastern shore were occupied during the time of the Jaredites by Japheth's descendants.

5. By going across the Steppes, which the above would have to suggest, and the course Hugh Nibley suggested, would not have encountered “many waters” along the way. Nibley had to invent such waterways by saying that there were lakes along this route left over from the last ice age, but that is merely supposition, not provable by any modern knowledge.

6. There simply is no “sea in the wilderness” in the mid- to eastern portion of the Steppes along the path this direction would have had to go. A sea in the wilderness suggests a very large body of water, and since the word “yam” meaning sea in the Hebrew language (yamha means lake) was used specifically for salt water bodies of water, almost always attached to the ocean directly or through some narrow passage (Persian Sea, Red Sea, Mediterranean Sea—the Sea of Galilee was actually called Lake Gennesaret, and the Sea of Death (Dead Sea) was a descriptive term orginally, not a name).

7. Such a route would have taken the Jaredites over a series of mountains at the eastern end of the Steppes that separate the Steppes from the Gobi Desert and the eastern lands of China. Those mountain passes (only two existed anciently) are higher than the pass Hannibal used to cross the Alps where he lost half his experienced soldiers and most of his elephants despite having engineers to make roads for him. No Jaredite colony of men, women, and children, as well as animals, bees, and fish, could have possibly made such a crossing that even today is so dangerous that even with modern clothing, warmers, maps, etc., usually proves fatal to many in the trek.

Thus, we can see that such flippant and arbitrary routes as some claim simply because they look at a map, are actually impossible routes, especially for the Jaredites to have taken with families and animal entourage.

(See the following post “Does the Word “Sea” Mean Other than Ocean?” for a clearer understanding of the usage of the Hebrew word “yam” or sea)