We continue to receive comments, questions and criticisms
being sent in from readers of our blog. And since it is our policy to answer
all such, here are a few more with our responses.
Comment
#1: “I read recently that the Jaredites,
who left the great tower at the time the Lord confused the language of the
people, spoke a language that was not changed throughout their 1500 year
history in the promised land, so we may assume that they remained the only
people still speaking the original language which began with Adam. They brought
a written record with them, no doubt the Book of Remembrance. Because their
language had remained unchanged, they would have been the only ones who could
have read the Book of Remembrance. When I read that, I wondered about this Book
of Remembrance—what was it?” Archer W.
Response:
This seems taken from the Zarahemla
Research Foundation and Raymond C. Treat’s “Mesoamerican Linguistics.” To
answer your question, we are told in the Book of Moses that “A book of
remembrance was kept, in the which was recorded, in the language of Adam, for
it was given unto as many as called upon God to write by the spirit of
inspiration; and by them their children were taught to read and write, having a
language which was pure and undefiled” (Moses 6:5-6); and also “For a book of
remembrance we have written among us, according to the pattern given by the
finger of God; and it is given in our own language” (Moses 6:46).
Adam and his children kept a book of
remembrance, in which they wrote by the spirit of inspiration, and a book of
the generations, which contained a genealogy (Moses 6:5, 8). A book of
remembrance was written (Malachi 3:16-18)
Of
course, for LDS, the pattern of preserving records of past generations dated
from Adam and Eve. As Joseph Smith recorded, “for Father Adam and Mother Eve
kept a book of remembrance that was recorded in the language of Adam.” He made
it clear in his inspired translation of Genesis that “the Book of Remembrance
was the first human scripture,” a memorial scripture, a vessel to preserve the
ancient dead, their voices, and the language they spoke.” Whether this was the
record referred to by the daughter of Jared who danced before the Jaredite Akish
when she said, “Hath ye not read the record which our fathers brought across
the great deep?” (Ether 8:9), is not known, however, it does not seem likely
that this book of remembrance record would have been in the hands of Jared or
his brother at a time when the Patriarchal line was in existence in the same
area. In addition, the record the daughter of Jared referred to as it
containing “an account concerning them of old, that they by their secret plans
did obtain kingdoms and great glory?” (Ether 8:9), and also that it contained
secret “oaths that had been given them of old who also sought power, which had
been handed down even from Cain” (Ether 8:15), would not have been contained in
Adam’s book of remembrance. Consequently, the Jaredite record may well have
been some form of copied information more of a secular nature.
Comment
#2: “Alma 51:32, which involves Bountiful, the land
northward, the Sea East, and the Sea West, tells us that the borders of the
land Bountiful were in proximity to a beach by the seashore. While there
is no direct reference whether the seashore is the Sea East or the Sea West, it
could be by the Sea West, making the city of Bountiful close to the Sea West” Kody.
Response: All we need to do is
follow the events before this verse. Moroni was heading to meet Amalikiah, the Nephite
defector who had wormed his way through fraud and deceit (Alma 48:7) into
leading Lamanites and their armies. Amalikiah came down along the east coast,
capturing Nephite cities from Moroni to Mulek along the east sea
coast (Alma 51:22, 25-26). At this point, Amalickiah marched his Lamanite army
toward Bountiful that he might take possession of that land and the Land
Northward (51:30), and in the borders of the Land of Bountiful, that Amalickiah
pitched his tents in the borders on the beach by the seashore (Alm 51:32). Now,
since all this fighting was along the east coast of the Sea East, and the
following day Amalickiah retreated into the city of Mulek (Alma 52:2, which is
along the east sea coast, we can conclude that all this action took place along
the coast of the Sea East. And that the city of Bountiful was inland from the
city of Mulek, with a plain between
Mulek and the city of Bountiful (Alma 52:20).
Comment #3: “I read recently that after
the turn of the 20th century all references to Lehi landing in Chile
were withdrawn from the foot notes in the new edition of the scriptures, and subsequent theories began to
reflect the new wave of freedom on the subject of Book of Mormon geography.
Even though many Saints still embraced the two continent theory many others
began to realize, after careful study on the matter, that the distance traveled
between those lands and cities described in the Book of Mormon was not very
great. Thus, the tide was beginning to turn in favor of the more limited
geographical picture which incorporated just a few hundred miles. Several
different landing sites for Lehi were now being proposed and speculation on
where the various cities and lands were to be located became a favorite topic
of discussion among the Saints. What do you think of this?”
J. Konrad W.
Response:
“A new wave of
freedom”—an interesting term to use here. However, it is hardly a term I would
use about the scriptures. This is not a social event, debating what scriptures
mean like in the Sectarian World, and we have always been free to make up our
own minds as to how a scripture applies to us, personally. Unfortunately, what
happened was not a freedom, but a rapid increase in people’s personal
interpretation, which ultimately led to changing scriptures, their meaning, and
purpose so they fit various theories.
Look at John L. Sorenson and his
effort to claim Nephi, Lehi, Mormon, et all, did not know the true cardinal
directions of a compass and, therefore, the Land of Promise that Mormon
continually tells us ran north and south, Sorenson changed to east and west.
Mormon tells us the Land of Promise ran north and south; Sorenson
claims it ran east and west—you choose which source to believe
As a result, Sorenson has changed
the entire scriptural description of Mormon for the Land of Promise to run east
and west, and the tremendous following of those who have bought into this
fallacy and accept Mesoamerica as the Land of Promise. If there was any
“freedom” involved, it was the freedom to make mistakes, compound them, and
sell the mistakes to an unsuspecting following, first in the classroom at BYU,
then through the reading of his books and unchallenged lectures.
There is, after all, only one
place Lehi could have landed, i.e., he did not land in multiple locations. And
there is only one source of information available to us as to determine where
that landing site was located—the scriptures. And we are not free to alter,
change, re-write, or confuse their meaning.
As for the rest of the comment, undoubtedly,
this idea of where Lehi landed will never be answered to the satisfaction of
those who champion different theories. While the Book of Mormon is not open
(nor is any scripture according to Paul) for private interpretation, different
Theorists continually want to read something into the scriptural record that is
not there, eliminate things that are there, and ignore those parts of Mormon’s
writing with which they simply disagree or disagrees with their pet theory.
North
and south is, after all, north and south and no matter how much Sorenson and
others want to try and change that, it is still north and south—to make it
anything else is to change the
scriptural record. And, yes, there can be two Hill Cumorahs, like there are two
Bountifuls; as Moroni’s term “continent” in the 1800s meant both North and
South America; etc.
The
other issue here is just because people want to embrace a smaller location for
the actual Book of Mormon happenings, it does not eliminate the 30º south
latitude as Lehi’s landing site. Or, stated differently, accepting Lehi’s
landing site in Chile does not equate to thinking the Book of Mormon happenings
ranged all over the Western Hemisphere. Indeed, those happenings were in a much
smaller area, as the scriptural record bears witness, but that smaller area
could have been along the western Andean lands of South America, with the
actual events from the City of Nephi (founded soon after landing) through the
rest of the record—indeed a few hundred miles.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment