A Look at Phyllis Carol Olive and Her Great Lakes Model – Part VI

Continuing from the last post with Phyllis Carol Olive’s book The Lost lands of the Book of Mormon, in which she makes several comments that obviously need a scriptural reference check, since they have a lot to do with her description of the Great Lakes as the Book of Mormon Land of Promise, and not particularly what the scriptural record actually tells us.
    Resuming with her unbelievable descriptions of Hagoth and his ships and their course, Olive adds: “The fact that Hagoth himself did not travel a great distance from his homeland is made clear to us in Alma 63:7, for the first ship he built left at the end of one year and returned at the beginning of the next. This may have only been weeks or perhaps a month or two later. Hagoth then built other ships to transport the growing nujber of those who wished to lead the land southward for greener pastures.” 

Instead of sailing off in one of his ships, Hagoth, the shipwright, was busy in his shipyard building “other ships” while the first ship was gone somewhere to the north. Nowhere in the scriptural record is there any suggestion that Hagoth ever went anywhere in one of his ships 
    Response: Olive seems to add her own opinion when interpreting the scriptural record. Alma does not say at the end of one year or the beginning of the next year. What the referenced scriptures tell us: “And it came to pass that in the thirty and seventh year of the reign of the judges, there was a large company of men, even to the amount of five thousand and four hundred men, with their wives and their children, departed out of the land of Zarahemla into the land which was northward. And it came to pass that Hagoth, he being an exceedingly curious man, therefore he went forth and built him an exceedingly large ship, on the borders of the land Bountiful, by the land Desolation, and launched it forth into the west sea, by the narrow neck which led into the land northward. And behold, there were many of the Nephites who did enter therein and did sail forth with much provisions, and also many women and children; and they took their course northward. And thus ended the thirty and seventh year.” 
    Now, in the following year, it is recorded, “And in the thirty and eighth year, this man built other ships.” Interesting, during the time when the first ship was gone, Hagoth built other ships (not the plural language).  And while he was building other ships, Mormon adds, “And the first ship did also return, and many more people did enter into it; and they also took much provisions, and set out again to the land northward” (Alma 63:4-7).
    So we see that:

1. In the 37^th year of the reign of the judges there were a large number of people who traveled in Hagoth’s ship to the “land which was northward,” suggesting an area beyond the Land Northward.
2. Those immigrants went during the year in which other ships were being built by a man named Hagoth.
3. That year ended with nothing more notable for Alma to include in the record.
4. During the following year, the 38^th year of the reign of the judges, Hagoth built other ships.
5. During that year the first ship returned, was outfitted again, and sailed northward again.
6. Also during this year another ship sailed from this same area to an unknown location, i.e., did not take its course northward (Alma 63:8).
7. And in the same year many people went into the Land Northward, not by ship, but overland through the narrow neck (Alma 63:9).

In addition to many entering into ships and heading to a land which was northward, many other Nephites went overland through the narrow neck of land into the Land Northward (Alma 63:9). A few years later, even more Nephites went into the Land Northward (Helaman 3:3)
    There is no suggestion of a short time frame involved here, nor that Hagoth’s ship sailed at the close of one year, and returned at the beginning of the next year as Olive claims. Mormon, in his abridgement, is simply stating events that occurred during these two years, which he goes on in the 39^th year to list events that took place in that year, including the death of Shiblon, and Helaman conferring the records on Helaman (Alma 63:10-11). Obviously, at the close of this lengthy record and the end of Alma, Mormon is giving us a very brief compilation of events, while they are obviously by year, we have no knowledge they are chronological within the year.
    The point is that Olive’s reasoning is not consistent with Mormon’s statements and descriptions, which then makes her results questionable, if not outright erroneous.
    Olive’s preface to her book states: “(this) is a work that introduces a setting that meets all the requirements necessary to be the lands of the ancient Nephites and Jaredites.”
    Response: It is sad that Olive feels her many points satisfies all the descriptions of the land and what was in it Mormon mentioned in describing the Nephite Land of Promise and the ancient Jaredite lands. As has been pointed out here in detail, her many statements simply do not meet the requirements of Mormon’s words she actually writes about, and little is devoted to the many things that are written about in the scriptural record that helps poinpoint its location.
    It is also unfortunate that the entire basis of the Great Lakes theory espoused by her and others touting the western New York area, is its proximity to the hill Cumorah, a barrel drumline hill not even in Olive’s Land Northward, where Mormon placed it (in the land of many waters, rivers and fountains) in the Land Northward (Mormon 6:2-4). In fact, her Land of Many Waters is the Finger Lakes Region, which is far to the east of Bountiful, and even to the east of the East Sea, totally in opposition to Mormon’s description. It is even humorous that her map shows Desolation to the east and south of her Narrow Neck, with Bountiful and Desolation NOT separated by the narrow neck.
    We are repeating here the 27 points outlined in a previous series of articles (“So Where is the Land of Promise?” Part I thru XII, beginning December 26, 2013 thru January 7, 2014, complete with full explanations), to show once again that if you are going to locate the Land of Promise, according to Mormon’s description, which is the only foundation anyone can use, these points, and many others have to be within that location now, or at the time of the Nephite occupation. 
1) Mountains, “whose height is great”
2) Two unknown animals
3) Two unknown grains
4) Plants that cure fever
5) Land of promise as an island
6) The four seas surrounding the Land of Promise
7) the Climate where Lehi’s seeds grew that he brought to the Land of Promise
8) Roads and Highways
9) Driven before the wind
10) Lehi’s Course to the Land of Promise
11) Both Gold and Silver and Copper
12) Hagoth’s ships went northward
13) Forts, fortifications and resorts
14) Fortified wall
15) Narrow neck of land
16) Defendable narrow pass
17) Sea that divides the land
18) All manner of buildings
19) Great temple tower
20) Directions of the Land of Promise
21) All manner of ore
22) Land of many waters
23) Abundant crop growth
24) No other people in Land of Promise
25) Use of silks and fine-twined linen
26) Metallurgy
27) Volcanoes and earthquakes 
    To ignore any of these is to ignore Mormon’s clearly stated descriptive information, to ignore all of them is to ignore the scriptural record itself. A few of these points can be found in most Theorist models, but none outside Andean South America has all of these (and many others) now or in antiquity—certainly the correct Land of Promise not only should, but must have all of them, or why else did Mormon described them to us? And why would any serious historian, writing about the scriptural record Land of Promise, ignore any of these descriptions that Mormon left for us?