As stated in the last
post—we are looking at the advanced civilization of the Nephites, whose
first progenitors came from Jerusalem around 600 B.C. at a time when advanced
civilizations were developing and existing in Greece, Egypt, Asia Minor,
Mesopotamia and Sicily; when the most important center of learning was
Alexandria in Egypt, which attracted scholars from across the Hellenistic
world, mostly Greek and Egyptian, but also Jewish, Persian, Phoenician and even
Indian scholars.
At the time Lehi left
Jerusalem, the eastern world was achieving greatness in many areas—and, along
with Greece, considered the most advanced in civilization on the planet. In 600
B.C., Babylon was not only one of the greatest, if not the greatest
civilization at the time, but also led the world in advanced urban development
and construction. Historians refer to Babylon as a city of many gates
with each gate crafted with splendid architectural elegance. The hanging
gardens of Babylon according to some historical accounts, are considered one of
the wonders of the world. Historians also write about the cities of the area
that had very straight streets, multi-story buildings and a well-developed
economic system, and though having little rainfall, had abundant crops
attributed to a very sophisticated irrigation system.
The Ashurbanipal Library Project, the oldest surviving royal library in
the world is that of Ashurbanipal, 7th century B.C. King of
Assyria, where more than 30,000 cuneiform tablets and fragments were excavated
in the 1850s
Around 600 B.C., astronomy was
beginning to be well known; law and order along with an advanced form of civil
law was on the rise; libraries were well stocked with books in many cities; the
circumference of the earth was basically known; dams were being built; irrigation
channels and systems were invented; Solomon’s Temple was one of the wonders of
the world (according to a list
of seven wonders along with the Pharos of Alexandria and Noah’s Ark, by Bishop Gregory
of Tours in the 6th century A.D.); trade,
culture and colonization was on the rise; poetry was flourishing; marshes were
drained and roads built by engineers; splendid houses with many rooms arranged
around courtyards were being built; luxurious furniture was designed and built;
central governments with elected senates came into being; wheeled chariots and
mounted archers fought wars; art was flourishing, learning was advancing, and
construction techniques of building with stone for walls, public buildings, and
houses were well known.
This Egyptian building, the Temple of Karnak, dates back to 1900 B.C.,
showing an expert use of carving stone. (Note the size of the man in the left
picure in the middle background)
The civilizations of
the Mediterranean were highly developed, as were those in Mesopotamia and
Egypt. Jerusalem was at the crossroads of the world and exposed to the
development of many nations, from Mesopotamia in the north, Greece in the west,
and Egypt in the south; the king’s highway was one of the trade routes of the
ancient world over which most products from frankincense to gold to silks to
daily wares passed by Jerusalem.
The Jews of 600 B.C.,
though not as advanced in many ways as the Babylonians, Greeks or Egyptians,
had interaction with all three and were knowledgeable of these cultures and
their achievements. Solomon built his famous temple around 1000 B.C., which
stood for over 400 years before being destroyed by the Babylonians (Sir Isaac
Newton studied and wrote extensively upon the Temple of Solomon, dedicating an
entire chapter of The Chronology of
Ancient Kingdoms to his observations regarding the temple, and was intrigued
by the temple’s sacred geometry and believed that it was designed by King
Solomon with privileged eyes and divine guidance).
Left: Jerusalem in 587 B.C. being destroyed
by the Babylonians. The city was vast in size, walled in stone, with buildings,
palaces, temples, etc., all built of
stone. What burned was the wooden frames, stairs, roof supports, etc.; Right:
Ishtar Gate, City of Babylon, 600 B.C., all made of stone
Though the First
Temple was much smaller than the later one built (which stands today), it was
still considered a marvel and people came from afar to see it and others to
worship there. It was surrounded by impressive walls of stone, as was the
entire city, which housed about 25,000 people at the time of Lehi, with its
stone walls about 15-foot high (they are much higher today).
The houses inside the
walled city of Lehi’s time were mostly two-story, with the roof usually serving
as another floor where meals were often cooked and eaten and people slept
during the heat of the summer months. The houses were not large, and were light
tan in color because they were built from local stone with some mud and wood.
Inside, wood beams and joists supported the roofs, and the house itself,
typically about 900 to 1000 square feet, though some were larger, always
surrounded an inner courtyard. The houses outside the city were agrarian by
nature, though Lehi might have also had a business involving the use of
transporting donkeys, large tenets and being gone from time to time to “return
to his own house at Jerusalem.”
This is the city Lehi left, and around which
Nephi and Sam grew up and were well familiar with its construction and building
materials
In addition, Lehi knew the
Egyptian language and obviously had some contact with Egypt. At this time, the
Egyptian system of record keeping was widespread and used in numerous ways by
numerous peoples. In Lehi’s day, the court of Tiglath Pileser III found it
necessary to have an Aramaic scribe to deal with the multiple languages of
the Egyptian record keeping employed in Arabia.
Finally, we come to the Lehi
Colony in the Land of Promise. Obviously, they brought with them all their
knowledge, experiences and understanding of the city and land of Jerusalem, as
well as that of the Egyptians and Babylonian buildings of which they knew and
heard about. On the way, the Lord taught Nephi how to construct a ship, where
to find ore, and many other things in personal conversations (1 Nephi 18:2-3).
When Nephi separated from his older brothers and traveled for many days before
stopping in an area they called the Land of Nephi, he built a city, a temple,
and showed his people the knowledge he had gained, and how “to
build buildings, and to work in all manner of wood, and of iron, and of copper,
and of brass, and of steel, and of gold, and of silver, and of precious ores,
which were in great abundance” (2 Nephi 5:15).
In that group besides
Nephi was his older brother Sam, and Zoram, Laban’s keeper of his treasury, who
all knew Jerusalem intimately, and at least two sisters who might also have
been in Jerusalem. If not they, like Jacob and Joseph, were raised by their
parents, Lehi and Sariah, and would have been brought up in the civilization of
the Jews of 600 B.C.—a civilization that had at least 1000 years of development
and history before that time, and who had been in Jerusalem since the days of
King David.
This is the people
who became the Nephites, who were the people’s leaders and elder statesmen, who
carved out a nation in the Land of Promise, and who built up the City of Nephi, and whose
descendants expanded the city and built other great cities. These people would
not have built out of sticks and mud, but out of stone, brick and timber. They
would have built houses like those they had known in Jerusalem, or been told
about by their parents and grandparents. They built temples and palaces, towers
and walls, knew how to work iron and steel, and how to adorn their buildings
with gold, silver and copper, which was plentiful in the land.
Such thinking is far
beneath the abilities of the Nephite people, of their Jewish heritage, and of
their Old World knowledge. To think otherwise is simply a degrading of these
exceptional men and women who walk so uprightly through the pages of the Book of
Mormon for hundreds of years, who saw the Savior, who lived in peace and
tranquility for some 200 years, before succumbing to the evil ways that
ultimately destroyed them.
And the Jaredites
before them whose civilization built the ziggurats, palaces and a nation that
was the greatest on earth in its day. Surely, such people would leave some
significant mark behind them after some 2500 years in the Land of Promise.
(See the next post,
“The Connection Between Peru and the Book of Mormon,” for more on this subject
of the Nephite Nation and the Land of Promise)
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