We are continuing with John L. Sorenson’s book An Ancient American Setting for the Book of Mormon, which is so
extensively hyped by Mesoamericanists and Land of Promise Theorists, especially
because of Sorenson’s reputation as the one-time Dean of Anthropology at BYU,
and current status as Professor Emeritus, and referred to as the “Guru of Book
of Mormon Archaeology,” that it needs a reality check every so often, to remind us of how far afield from the scriptures he wanders to try and prove his Mesoamerica model.
In discussing the way Sorenson treats
the scriptural record over the past several posts, it is also interesting how he
uses figures to satisfy his meanings, though they are in conflict with one
another. Take, for an example, how he describes a distance factor for travel on
pp 8-9 when he is trying to prove a short distance for the Land of Promise
overall.
The pioneers cross the plains in America averaged about 10 to 11 miles
per day
To do this he tries to limit the
distance from the Waters of Mormon (City of Nephi) to Zarahemla. He begins by
discussing Alma and his converts making about 10 to 11 miles per day, as did
the Mormon Pioneers. He also cites Guatemala drovers taking 11 miles a day to
drive pigs to market 90 miles away in 8 days. Or travelers on routine trading
trips on jungle trails from Cotal Valley to the Peten, 120 miles away taking 19
days or more, averaging a little more than six miles a day. He also states that
during the movements of the Toltecs described in the Mexican chronicles,
dawn-to-dusk marches, without animals along, averaged six leagues, somewhere
between 15 and 24 miles a day. He concludes by stating that “other data on
travel rates fall within these established ranges.” Thus he surmises that the
distance from the Waters of Mormon to Zarahemla would be no more than 231 miles
at 11 miles per day for the stated 21 days of travel.
However, and here is the issue. When he
needs a distance to be further than the record states, such as across the
Isthmus of Tehuantepec, which he states is 125 miles, which Mormon claims could
be covered by a Nephite in a day and a half’s journey, he talks about Mohave
Indians covering 100 miles in a day, etc., and about 75 years ago, one Indian
reportedly made a hundred mile trip, then turned around after only a few hours
rest and went back again, averaging six miles an hour, which was not
exceptional in their case. From this and other unusual circumstances, Sorenson concludes
that the narrow neck at 125 miles is plausible for a day and a half’s journey.
Sorenson concludes his discussion (p 17), “As we have already calculated the
rate for ”a Nephite,” a single individual, could potentially be up to six miles
an hour for as long as 24 hours within the ‘day and a half.’ That would amount
to 144 miles.”
The fallacy of this comment is borne
out in every marathon run in recent history. Nearly every runner trains for as
much as three to six months prior to the marathon, they have special shoes, are
assisted along the way with food and drink, and all the modern conveniences,
yet the average run is about 6 hours, averaging about 4.74 miles per hour. The world
record is a couple of minutes over two hours at the speed of 12 miles per hour.
The idea of someone covering 144 miles in 24 hours at the rate of six miles an
hour for a day and a half without stopping is beyond any sane person’s
imagination (see our recent post on this subject). If you doubt that, take a
look at the marathon runners after two to four hours running at such a
pace—you’ll get the idea how fallacious such a statement is.
The point is, when Sorenson begins
writing he does so with a blind eye to parts of the scriptural record he
doesn’t like, a willingness to make changes and alterations to the meaning of
Mormon’s descriptions when it does not agree with his theory, and a propensity
to add or delete information that meets his purposes. 11 miles a day when he wants a short distance, but 6 miles an hour for a day and a half when he needs a longer one. That is obviously not scholarship.
Take another example, that of Hagoth,
the shipbuilder. For some reason, despite no word to support this, Sorenson
writes (p269): “What about the LDS tradition that Hagoth, the Nephite
shipbuilder who failed to return home was an ancestor of the Polynesians?” Then
added, “The Book of Mormon itself of course, says only that the man and his
mates disappeared form the knowledge of the people in Zarahemla. For all they knew
he might have died at a ripe old age on the west Mexican coast without a
suitable vessel in which to make the return voyage. And neither do we know.”
It is always interesting to read
Sorenson’s writing which, at times, is more fiction than fact. One wonders if
he really ever read the Book of Mormon. As stated in the scriptural record,
Hagoth was a shipbuilder not an explorer. While Hagoth’s ships were at sea,
Mormon tells us “this man built other ships” (Alma 63:7). In fact, he was
building other ships while his first ship went north and returned, “and many
more people did enter into it; and they also took much provisions, and set out
again to the land northward” (Alma 63:7). There is absolutely no suggestion
that Hagoth ever went to sea, sailed in his ships, and certainly went anywhere
with the ships that went northward and were not heard from again. Nor is there
any suggestion his history and later life were known in any way.
Sorenson, as we have pointed out in
these past 9 posts, plays it loosely with the scriptural record, more often
than not completely in error without seeming to understand he is so far afield
from the scriptural record itself. As in the case of Hagoth, all we now from
the scriptural record of only four verses is that he was a curious man and
built exceedingly large ships (Alma 63:5-8).
Sorenson also makes rather definitive
statements where the scriptural record is silent, or suggests the opposite. He
states on p268 that “The ‘ship’ of
Hagoth, if it was like craft known later on the Pacific coast, was either a
very large dugout canoe with built-up sides or a log raft with sails Whatever
its form, it could hardly have been a complex planked vessel at all resembling
European ships.”
Dugout canoes, no matter how large are still just canoes, with limited
space and limited use. It would be hard to imagine men taking their families,
provisions and supplies to a far off land in such a canoe
However, Mormon, who had lived at the
tail end of the Nephite golden age (100 to 300 A.D.), and read their records
which showed and covered the Nephite “shipping and their building of ships”
(Helaman 3:14) and a list of their other accomplishments, would have known
something about their building ability, and even their ships, which no doubt
were still in use in his growing up years, stated: “Hagoth, he being an exceedingly curious man, therefore he went forth
and built him an exceedingly large ship” (Alma 63:5). It would be hard for
anyone to understand that a large dugout canoe would be
considered an “exceedingly large ship.” In addition, Joseph Smith knew the
different between a canoe, raft, dugout, boat and ship—and chose the word
“ship.”
In 1828, “ship” was defined as: “a vessel or building of a peculiar
structure, adapted to navigation, or floating on water by means of sails
[and] fitted for navigation, furnished with a bowsprit and three masts, a
main-mast, a fore-mast and a mizen-mast, each of which is composed a
lower-mast, a top-mast and top-gallant-mast, and square rigged.” Thus, we
can see, that Joseph Smith was not translating a word that mean canoe or
dugout, etc., but a full sized ship that could carry many emigrant passengers
along with their families, provisions and supplies to start a new life
elsewhere (Alma 63:6-7).
Phoenician ships of the Abydos fleet in 1300 B.C. were 72-feet long and
found buried in Egypt in 1991. Such ships were built in the eastern
Mediterranean 700 years before Lehi
In another example of Sorenson not
understanding the meaning of Mormon’s writing, he states (p240): “It is an
interesting commentary on Nephite conceptions of the land that the territory on
the south described as “wilderness” should be “full of the Lamanites.” Clearly
the essence of “wilderness” lay not in the absence of inhabitants but in
something else, apparently the substantial modifications of the landscape that civilization
entails.”
The problem lays in Sorenson’s
pre-determined understanding of the word “wilderness.” He states elsewhere that
wilderness means desert or mountains; however, in 1828, the word had a very
specific meaning—first, is understanding the word comes from “wild,” meaning “not tamed or domesticated, growing without
culture, not refined by culture, or cultivated, an uncultivated tract or region,”
and wilderness defined as “a tract of land or
region uncultivated and uninhabited by human beings, whether a forest or a wide
barren plain. In the United States, it is applied only to a forest. In
Scripture, it is applied frequently to the deserts of Arabia, and can mean
desert, ocean, forest, etc.”
Thus, we understand that it is an area
where people are not living in a permanent setting, with plowed fields, houses,
improvements, etc. After all, “the more idle part of the Lamanites lived in the
wilderness, and dwelt in tents” (Alma 22:28), which are not permanent
dwellings, lending to a cultivated and cultured area. Understanding this
meaning, “wilderness” is not only the correct word, but nomadic people living
in such an area does not violate the definition of “wilderness.”
(See
the next post, “More on Sorenson’s Land of Promise – Part X,” for more information on how
far Sorenson is willing to go to stretch reality and believability to prove his
Mesoamerican Theory, and how often he ignores what is in the scriptural record,
or adds things that are not there)
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