I received an email
recently that stated: “I noted that under
the heading of ‘What was the Nature of the Narrow Neck of Land?’ by John L.
Sorenson, he stated: “Because there
were oceans on either side of the isthmus, a continental divide passed through
it along its northward-southward axis. The land of Bountiful stretched across
the isthmus. Its chief city, Bountiful, was virtually at sea level (shown by
the adjacent beach reported in Alma 51:28, 32), which suggests that the entire
isthmus was relatively low-lying as well.” Is this true? I have never heard of
a description of the narrow neck like this before” Haran.
The problem is, you have
to be careful when reading anything written by John L. Sorenson because he is so
convinced, beyond even any scriptural reference to the opposite, that Mesoamerica is the Land
of Promise, that he writes about the conditions of Mesoamerica rather than what
the scriptural record tells us of the Land of Promise. First of all, a
continental divide is a drainage divide on a continent such that the drainage
basin on one side of the divide feeds into one ocean or sea, and the basin on
the other side either feeds into a different ocean or sea, or else is endorheic (a closed drainage basin) and
not connected to the open sea. The Continental Divide of North America runs
from Cape Prince of Wales, Alaska, to Chiapas in Mexico, then on through
southern Guatemala, southwestern Honduras, western Nicaragua, and Costa Rica to
Panama. The Divide then continues on into South America where it follows the
peaks of the Andes Mountains to the southern end of Patagonia and Tierra del
Fuego. Where the continental divide passes through the Isthmus of Tehuantepec,
it does so close to the western coast (Pacific Ocean), leaving some 2/3 of the
distance across (about 100 miles) to the Gulf of Mexico.
Left: The red line is the Great Continental
Divide, the other lines are additional hydrological divides; Right: Grays Peak,
the apex of the Continental Divide in North America
There is no mention
of anything resembling a continental divide in the Book of Mormon—not a single
reference, suggestions, inference, or hint of such. Yet, typically, that
doesn’t deter Sorenson from telling us that a continental divide passed through
the narrow neck of land. Nor do we know from any scriptural reference that the
city of Bountiful was at sea level. Certainly Alma 51 does not say that—it
mentions a beach, but either on the borders of the Land of Bountiful (Alma
51:28), or beyond that since Teancum pitched his tents “in the borders of the
land Bountiful” and Amalickiah “pitched his tents in the borders on the beach
by the seashore” which would have been further east of Teancum (Alma 51:32).
Even by Sorenson’s comments, the land of Bountiful “stretched across the
isthmus,” the borders are not said to be near the city. Thus it cannot be said
that the city of Bountiful was at sea level because the borders of the land had
a beach along the east sea (Alma 51:26). We simply do not know how far the city
of Bountiful was from the sea. As an example, the Sierra Madre mountains to the
west of the Isthmus breaks down into a broad, plateau-like ridge across the
Isthmus, whose elevation, at the highest point is 735 feet—if Sorenson's city of
Bountiful was near this point, it would not be at sea level.
According to
Sorenson, this makes “the entire isthmus or narrow neck, low-lying.” However,
again, there is no way to verify this by any scriptural reference—Sorenson, as
usual, is simply using his Mesoamerican model and inserting its topography into
the scriptural record as though Mormon is telling us all this, which runs
contrary to the scriptural record and the narrow pass or passage through the
narrow neck. It might also be noted that Sorenson continually uses the term
“isthmus” for the narrow neck of land, since his narrow neck is the Isthmus of
Tehuantepec, he inserts the term into his scriptural record references, though
the term “isthmus” never appears in the Book of Mormon. In addition, according
to the 1828 American Dictionary of the English Language, an isthmus is only
applied to a strip of land “of considerable extent between the seas.” So an
isthmus is of considerable size, while the narrow neck is by definition,
"small" and “narrow.”
The top three show a narrow land compared to
that around each of these isthmuses or narrow necks; however, Tehuantepec is not narrow compared to that
land on either side of the isthmus
Now let’s take a
scriptural look at this narrow neck, what Alma calls a “small neck of land” (Alma 22:32), and a “narrow neck” (Alma 63:5). This narrow neck “led into the
northward” between the land Bountiful and land Desolation (Alma 63:5). In
addition, Mormon tells us that a “narrow pass” led by the sea into the land
northward, yea, by the sea, on the west and on the east” (Alma 50:34), and then
repeats that this narrow pass led into the Land Northward (Alma 52:9) from the
land of Bountiful. Mormon also tells us that this narrow pass (Alma 2:29; 3:5), which he also calls a passage, “led into the land southward" (Mormon
2:29) from the land Desolation (Mormon 3:5).
Consequently, we see
that not only was there a “small neck” or “narrow neck” of land between the
Land Northward and the Land Southward (Alma 22:32), but that within this narrow
neck, which ran from sea to sea across the Land of Promise (Alma 22:32; 59:34) ran
a narrow pass or passage. Now it is difficult to envision a narrow pass, which
the 1828 dictionary defines as “a pass between mountains,” obviously suggesting
the pass ran between two higher levels, such as hills or mountains, much like a
canyon, as existing within a low-lying area as Sorenson describes. After all,
if it was merely a solid roadway or footpath on higher ground across swampy
terrain, as Sorenson also claims, surely Mormon would not have used the term
“narrow pass,” but rather a path or road.
It is not possible to describe movement
across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec as moving from the south to the north—the
land is configured almost due east and west
As for there being a
“northward-southward axis” through the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, as Sorenson
describes above, we need to keep in mind that this Isthmus, and all of
Mesoamerica, is in a land area that runs east and west, not north and south,
despite Sorenson’s many attempts to confuse this directional problem he has
with his model. Take for example, even with modern maps and satellite photos of
today, current descriptions of this area state that “The states of Tabasco and
Chiapas are on the east of the
isthmus, with Veracruz and Oaxaca on the west”
(emphasis mine), showing us that modern man considers that the Isthmus of
Tehuantepec runs north and south between the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific
Ocean and adjacent lands are to the west
and east! Thus, as can be seen,
there is simply no agreement between Sorenson’s Mesoamerican model and Mormon’s
descriptions of the narrow neck of land and adjacent area.
Sorenson also wrote
following the above, “How wide was this narrow neck? One historical anecdote
makes clear that it was wide enough that a party passing through it could not
detect seas on either side. Limhi’s explorers traveled northward from the land
of Nephi trying to locate Zarahemla but wandered on through the narrow neck.
When they returned home they thought they had been in the land southward the
whole time. Actually, they had journeyed all the way through the neck to the
zone of the Jaredites’ final battles (see Mosiah 8:8; 21:25).”
Nephites traveling through any one of these "narrow
passes" would not have been able to see to the right or left beyond the
hill, cliff, or mountain through which they traveled. One would not need to be
passing through a wide neck of land not to see the seas on either side since
vision would not allow much line-of-site from side to side
It
should also be kept in mind, that while we know there was a Land Southward and
a Land Northward, separated by a narrow neck, Limhi's people traveling in both
lands did not, for the Nephites had never been that far north according to the
scriptural record. Thus, they would obviously have thought they were in the
Land Southward the entire time--what other land would they have thought they
were in? This also would have caused them to think they found the Land of
Zarahemla and that the people had all been killed. What other land and people
would they have thought they found? After all, prior to 121 B.C.,
the Nephites had no idea there was another portion to the Land of Promise—that
is, a Land Northward. These expedition members never knew there was such a
place, and even having been there, didn’t know they had been in such a land,
only that they thought they had discovered the remains of Zarahemla, and when
Ammon reached the city of Lehi-Nephi around 121 B.C., Limhi "was
exceedingly glad" when he learned that his "brethren who were in the
land of Zarahemla are yet alive." (Mosiah 7:14).
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