An article recently appeared on the internet
written by Ted Dee Stoddard (left), a professor emeritus of
Management Communication in the Brigham Young University Marriott School of
Management where he taught business writing throughout his academic career.
While involved in academia, he published numerous books, articles, and other
creative works. Following his retirement, he served for several years
as editor for The Religious Educator (published by
the BYU Religious Studies Center) and Mormon
Historical Studies. He is the editor of Joseph Lovell Allen and Blake
Joseph Allen's book, Exploring the Lands of the Book of Mormon, 2nd
ed.
For some reason, Stoddard felt compelled in 2008, around the time he was
working on Allen’s book, to write about his friend and companion professor
emeritus at BYU, John L. Sorenson, and defend the latter's stance of the Land of Promise
being in Mesoamerica, as Allen had also long claimed.
Stoddard begins by stating: “Perhaps no verse of scripture in the Book
of Mormon has caused more confusion than the words of Mormon in Alma 22:32.”
For
those unfamiliar with this passage, Mormon inserted a nine-verse explanation
into Alma’s writing at the conclusion of the story of Aaron’s conversion of the
Lamanite king over all the land. Now, to make certain his future reader
understood this meaning, Mormon inserts this explanation of the Land of Nephi
that was controlled by the king and to which he sent a “proclamation
throughout all the land, amongst all his people who were in the land, who were
in all the regions round about, which was bordering even to the sea, on the east
and on the west, which was divided from the land of Zarahemla by a narrow strip
of wilderness, which ran from the sea east even to the sea west, and round
about on the borders of the seashore, and the borders of the wilderness which
was on the north by the land of Zarahemla, through the borders of Manti, by the
head of the river Sidon, running from the east towards the west—and thus were
the Lamanites and the Nephites divided” (Alma 22:27).
Now,
for a point of reference, Mormon is writing this sometime around 325 A.D.,
about two years before the final series of wars destroyed the Nephite Nation that caused Mormon to lead the Nephite armies (Mormon 2:2).
Sitting
somewhere in his home at Zarahemla before these wars erupted, Mormon’s point of reference, as clearly
shown, is the Land of Zarahemla. Consequently, to the south of him was this
narrow strip of wilderness, which had divided the Lamanites and Nephites for
some 525 years, ever since Mosiah left the City of Nephi around 200 B.C.
So
from this point of view, Mormon describes the lands involved. In verses 28 and
29, he describes the fact that there were idle Lamanites living in tents in the
wilderness along the coastal areas north of the narrow strip of wilderness,
both on the east and west coasts.
At
the conclusion of verse 29, after mentioning the land the Nephites occupied, he
states, “…on the north, even until they came to the land which they called
Bountiful.” In verse 30, he then continues with a land description, “And it [Bountiful] bordered upon the land
which they called Desolation, it being so far northward that it came into the
land which had been peopled and been destroyed, of whose bones we have spoken…”
These bones, of course, were those of
the Jartedites, and Mormon is telling us that the Jaredite lands were far to
the north, in the Land Northward. After telling us that the Jaredites landed in
this far northern land, he tells us that Desolation was beyond the narrow neck
of land in the Land Northward, and Bountiful was on the south of the narrow
neck of land, in the Land Southward. And that Bountiful was the land to which
the wild animals had escaped in Jaredite times and were left alone in that
wilderness preserve by the Jaredites.
Now we commence with the verse
Stoddard claims is the problem. Mormon continues, “And now, it was only the distance of a day and a half's journey for a
Nephite, on the line Bountiful and the land Desolation, from the east to the
west sea—that is, through this area he calls the small neck of land and later
calls a narrow neck of land. “And thus the land of Nephi and the land of
Zarahemla”—the entire Land Southward, “were
nearly surrounded by water, there being a small neck of land between the land
northward and the land southward.”
So we
have the land south of the narrow neck surrounded by water except for this
narrow neck of land connecting the Land Southward to the Land Northward. And
since this narrow neck of land is a major geographical point of interest to the
Nephite defenses against the Lamanites, Mormon goes on to explain its actual
size.
“And
now, it was only the distance of a day and a half’s journey for a Nephite, on
the line Bountiful and the land Desolation, from the east to the west sea”—so a
narrow neck of land ran between these two major land masses, narrow enough for
it to be important that the East Sea and the West Sea ran along either side,
which would be comparatively narrow. But to make certain we understood its
width, he tells us a common man, a Nephite, could cross the width of the narrow
neck in a day and a half—which would
make it somewhere in the neighborhood of 25 to 30 miles in width.
He
then adds, “And thus the land of Nephi and the land of Zarahemla were nearly
surrounded by water, there being a small neck of land between the land
northward and the land southward.”
Now,
Stoddard considers this a problem and confusing, probably because in
Mesoamerica, there is no 25-30 mile width narrow neck of land. In fact, the
area they claim is this narrow neck, the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, is between 125
and 144 miles, depending on whether you are a crow flying over it or a man
walking across its topography. This is such an issue with Mesoamericanists,
that Sorenson takes pages to describe different individuals in history that
have ran a hundred miles in a short period of time to show that Mormon meant
this was a unique Nephite, with unique athletic abilities to be able to cross
a125 to 144 miles in a day and a half. On the other hand, looking at the
example map to the left, being nearly surrounded by water except for a
narrow neck leading into the Land Northward, is not confusing at all. All we
need to do is go along with Mormon’s writing without trying to make it fit something Mormon never intended.
Thus,
to Mesoamericanists, there is confusion in Mormon’s writing, since it does not
validate their own model of the narrow neck.
Stoddard
goes on to write: “Perhaps the confusion associated with Alma 22:32
would be less if the verse had been punctuated as follows from the outset and
if Orson Pratt had versified the verse as follows…” He then re-writes the
scriptural record with his own punctuation, which in truth, does not help his
case much. So, to try and make a better case, he adds, “Outgrowths of the confusion are reflected in six issues
associated with the content of Alma 22:32 and other related verses dealing with
Book of Mormon geography.”
1. What is the distance across
the narrow neck of land?
2. Should Alma 22:32 read as it
appears in the Book of Mormon, or should it read “on the line Bountiful and the
land Desolation, from the east [sea] to the west sea?”
3. For directional
purposes, did the Nephites employ the cardinal directions, or did they employ
their own directional system? What do “east” and “west” refer to in Alma 22?
4. Where are the east sea
and east wilderness of the Book of Mormon?
5. Where is the narrow pass
in relation to the narrow neck of land?
6. What is unique about the
narrow strip of wilderness in connection with Alma 22?
Because of space, we will answer
these six points in the next post.
(See the next post, Stoddard
Evaluating Sorenson – Part I – Are the Scriptures Misleading?)
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