We have been writing in these
posts for some time now about the importance of eliminating one’s own personal bias,
eliminating one’s pre-deterrmined beliefs, eliminating one’s prejudices, and using the
scriptural record of the Book of Mormon as the basis for views and opinions regarding
the location of the Jaredite and Nephite Land of Promise. That is, if it isn’t
in the scriptural record, it cannot be added, and if it is in the scriptural
record, it cannot be eliminated, twisted, changed or explained away.
“And so great was the faith of Enoch that he led the people
of God, and their enemies came to battle against them; and he spake the word of
the Lord, and the earth trembled, and the mountains fled, even according to his
command; and the rivers of water were turned out of their course; and the roar
of the lions was heard out of the wilderness” (Moses 7:13)
To this end, there is an
interesting passage in which Enoch, who had been directed by the Lord to preach
to the people and “went forth in the land, among the people, standing upon the
hills and the high places, and cried with a loud voice,” spoke to the people
and said, “The Lord which spake with me,
the same is the God of heaven, and he is my God, and your God and ye are my
brethren, and why counsel ye yourselves, and deny the God of heaven?”
(Moses 6:43).
Now Enoch, who had been given
insight by the Lord to see “things which were not visible to the natural eye”
(Moses 6:36), and “thenceforth came the saying abroad in the land: A seer hath
the Lord raised up unto his people.” But when Enoch “testified against their
works…all people were offended because of him” (Moses 6:37).
It is interesting, Enoch
experienced the same thing thousands of years ago that we experience today. The
Lord tells us things in the scriptural record, and people are offended by it”
and this offense takes on an interesting twist. Even brilliant scholars and men
with letters, and BYU professors find the words of Mormon “offensive,” that is,
they would rather listen to themselves and believe in their own ideas rather
than listen to the Lord’s prophets—specifically Nephi, Mormon, Moroni and
Ether, who have given us a very clear picture of the Land of Promise, its
location, descriptions, geography and makeup. So much so, that locating this land
upon which the Jaredites, Nephites, Mulekites and Lamanites spent a combined
2500 years and left behind a very noticeable history of their existence, is
clouded and confused by their inner-debates and non-scriptural claims.
Enoch preached to the people for over two hundred years, eventually
bringing many who, under Enoch’s inspired leadership, the faithful achieved an
extraordinary unity of heard and mind
The question Enoch asked of his
people, is the same question we should be asking today of all those who want to
alter, change, explain away or otherwise ignore Mormon’s words, “Why counsel ye yourself, and deny the God of
heaven?” Or, stated differently, “Why
counsel among yourselves and deny the written descriptions Mormon so clearly
states?”
It is almost a feeding frenzy in
the wild attacks that occur among those professors, scholars and writers, when
someone comes up with an idea different from their own about the location of
the Land of Promise. They all jump on the same bandwagon, shooting down other
ideas without a moment’s hesitation, looking for any twist possible to the
scriptural record to show the idea to be in error, and not just in error, but
in “serious error.”
It is almost fascinating to see,
as an example, how far John L. Sorenson went in his work, An Ancient American Setting for the Book of Mormon, when he
explained away the fact that when Mormon inserted eight (8) verses containing
568 words to give us insight of the geographical layout and directions of the different
lands in the Land of Promise, and in so doing using the term “north” or “northward”
eight (8) times, the term “south” or “southward” four (4) times, the term
“east” seven (7) times, and the term “west” nine (9) times, that Mormon really
didn’t mean those directions at all. And how silly of us to think he did.
In fact, Sorenson took the first thirty-six pages of his book
to try and convince us that Mormon really meant “west” for “north,” “westward” for
“northward,” “east” for “south,” and “eastward” for “southward,” as well as “east”
meaning “north” (as in his East Sea really being to the north), and “south” as
being “west” (as in his West Sea which is really to the “south”), as is seen on
his first introduction of his Mesoamerican Map (Map 5) on page 37. And this,
mind you after showing four maps (Maps 1-4) of a northward-southward land of
promise.
Sorenson’s map of his Land of Promise. Note the Land Northward is to
the west, his Land Southward is to the east, his East Sea is to the north, and
his West Sea is to the south. Yet, thousands have bought into his rationale
that the Nephites did not use the same compass directions as we do, despite
Nephi using them correctly in his writing, and that all the prophets of the
Book of Mormon had the liahona (being interpreted is a compass)
It seems appropriate again to
raise Enoch’s question: “and why counsel
ye yourselves, and deny the God of heaven?” That is, why discuss and take
counsel among yourselves rather than listen to God’s prophets?
Or take his 12 ½ pages (p
288-299) to explain away that the animals written about in the scriptural
record are all wrong. One example is his explanation of a “cow,” that is, an
animal translated as “cow” by Joseph Smith, who lived his entire early life on
a farm and obviously would have known what such animals were. Despite this,
Sorenson writes: “But isn’t it obvious that the “cow” of the Book of Mormon was
our familiar bovine, straight out without all this hedging?” Of course, one
would think so, but not Sorenson, who answered his own questions with: “No, it is not at all obvious.”
First of all, what makes
Sorenson think Joseph Smith did not know what a cow was or that he chose the wrong
interpretation, under the Spirit, to translate? But without rhyme or reason,
Sorenson goes on: “First, we are trying to find out what the Book of Mormon
really means by the words we have in English translation; we are not trying to
either simplify or to complicate the matter, but only to be correct.” So, the
obvious question, is what makes Sorenson think Joseph Smith’s translation is
not correct? After all, it was done, as we said, under the direction and
guidance of the Spirit.
So what does Sorenson think the
“cow” might have been? He thinks they might have been semi-domesitcated small
deer, which had been observed by the Spanish in the 16th century. So
Joseph Smith, and the Spirit, didn’t know that the word Mormon used meant
“deer,” not “cow”?
It is also interesting that
Sorenson in his footnote on this cites a “personal communication from a Gareth
Lowe, citing Anales del Museo Nacional David J. Guman 5, nos. 17-18 (1954), in
an article, he says, "by historian Jorge Larde which I have been unable to see directly.”
There is a reference to
Guzman’s, Anales del Museo Nacional 49:75-92,
San Salvador, published in 1976, but nothing in 1954; and for Jorje Lardé y
Larin (1920 to 2001), of the 19 works credited to him, none are so listed, and
nothing published in 1954, and the ten prior to 1954, none suggest a subject
matter to include domestication of deers or their being corralled as indicated,
though it could have been included. He did write a book called “El Salvador.
History of its towns and ciudades” published in 1957, and several works
in the 1970s about El Salvador (floods and fires, eruptions and terremotos
[earthquakes]).
There is a note in Fuentes y
Guzman’s Etymlogy of Maçagua as deriving from a Nahua term
meaning "the deer that flees" (Tomo II, p. 78, 1933). Thompson noted
the importance of the animal to the religion of the people in the region ('48,
pp. 9, 14), which is confirmed by the number of times its name is given to
towns. Maçagua appears four times on the 1548 tribute list for the province of
San Salvador: numbers 36, 39, 43, and 51. (It also appears twice on the tribute
list of Santiago de Guatemala). The three syllables appear again in number
42 of the San Salvador list in the name Atempamaçagua, and in number 43,
Comaçagua
It seems imprudent to use a
citing of an article one has never seen and cannot be found in the many search
engines of today, however, let’s set that aside and give benefit to the doubt. Deer
in El Salvador are the “white tailed deer” shown below:
If you can say
with a straight face that this white-tailed deer could be mistaken for a “cow”
by men who lived agrarian and pastoral lives in the 16th century,
then go ahead. However, I have been around a lot of cows, such as these below,
and none fit this description in any way
All cows are
classified into the species Bos Taurus, and into the subspecies Bos Taurus
primigenius, and Bos Taurus indicus, and range all over the world
Just to make this point clear, Ether writes: “And
they also had horses, and asses, and there were elephants and cureloms and
cumoms; all of which were useful unto man, and more especially the elephants
and cureloms and cumoms,” and Sorenson then suggests that these two unknown
animals to Joseph Smith in 1830, that were so useful to man, more so than
horses and donkeys, were the Sloth and Tapir (p 299), two of the most useless
animals in the wild one might find.
Left: Sloth;
Right: Tapir. Neither have much value to man. In fact, sloths are seldom seen
in the wild, weigh up to 17 pounds, they are weak, cannot move around much, and
spend most of their time sleeping. The Tapir, which is really indigenous to Brazil,
South America, are three feet high at the shoulder, spend a lot of time under
water where available, but do have value of meat and hides
It seems Enoch had a good handle
on people—“The Lord which spake with me, the same is the God of heaven, and he
is my God, and your God and ye are my brethren, and why counsel ye yourselves, and deny the God of heaven?”
(Moses 6:43).
Maybe we should have less
counsel among academicians, scholars and historians, and more reading and
following the scriptural record.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment