Continuing from the last post on
how coincidental it is that all these scriptural references match Andean South
America, and in many cases, only
Andean South America, if that land is not the Land of Promise. It is also
interesting that very few of these scriptural references and descriptions match
anywhere else in the Western Hemisphere
The first seven of these scriptural descriptions were covered in the last post, along with the first two additional descriptions. Following is the third additional description:
3. A narrow neck of land taking one-and-a-half days to cross (Alma 22:32).
Red Arrows: show the narrow pass through the
(Yellow Arrows) Narrow Neck of Land
The narrow neck of land, located between the Gulf of Guayaquil and what was once the Pebesian Sea (Sea East) measured about 26 miles; that same corridor today, between the Bay and the Andes mountains is the same 26 miles. During the time of the Nephites, there was a Sea West and a Sea East on either side of this narrow neck. And as Mormon described, it was the only means of movement between the land to the south and the land to the north. Also, there is a narrow pass through this area, called since Inca times, the Pass of Huayna Capac, which is described in Inca battles as taking a day and a half to pass through.
4. Metallurgy (Ether 10:23; 2 Nephi 5:15, 17; Helaman 6:11)
Metallurgy in Andean South America dates to 2155 B.C. (Jaredite times), and according to Mark Aldenderfer, Nathan M. Craig, Robert J. Speakman and Rachel Popelka-Filcoff, “Four-thousand–year-old gold artifacts from the Lake Titicaca basin, southern Peru, 2008, “South America had full metallurgy with smelting and various metals being purposely alloyed.” Mesoamerica dated later, somewhere between 600 and 900 A.D.
S. R. Martin, Wonderful Power: The Story of Ancient Copper Working in the Lake Superior Basin. Wayne State University Press, 1999, “No one has found evidence that points to the use of melting, smelting and casting in prehistoric eastern North America.”
5. Roads and Highways (3 Nephi 6:8). As Mormon tells us, “there were many highways cast up, and many roads made, which led from city to city, and from land to land, and from place to place” (3 Nephi 6:8). Obviously, over these roads and highways Mormon later moved his beleaguered army from battle to battle, and in retreat from city to city and land to land. Only two places in the Western Hemisphere show evidence of ancient roadways, and that is Central and South America, though the roads in Andean South America were considered equal to Roman roads by the Spanish conquerors. Later, after the destruction in 3 Nephi, Mormon informs us those highways were broken up, suggesting not dirt roads, but some type of stone flagging or volcanic concrete as the Romans used around this time. In any event, rock filler, stone flaggings and large stones cut to fit, which made the surface smooth and seamless. To be broken up, required that the earth movement forced breaks in the seamless stone surfaces. While the roads are not mentioned in the renewal program (4 Nephi 1:7-9), it stands to reason that as they built up cities once again, (4 Nephi 1:7), that they built up the connecting roads. While the Roman road system was 50,000 miles long, the pre-Columbian road and highway system of Andean South America totalled 24,800 miles.
The Nephite roads have lasted for over 2000
years, and crisscrossed the entire Andean South America landscape
6. Forts and resorts (Alma 48:8). From the very beginning, Nephi and his people built a temple like unto Solomon’s edifice in Jerusalem (2 Nephi 5:16), of which Nephi would have been quite familiar. He also taught his people to build buildings and other structures, with numerous materials (2 Nephi 5:15) and to be industrious and labor with their hands (2 Nephi 5:17). Nephi, of course, from Jerusalem would have been completely aware of the Jewish building with cut and dressed stone and well fitted joints, and in the course of this building heritage, the Nephites would be expected to have built great edifices and worked with cut and dressed stone. Forts, of course, were a necessity in the thousand year struggle and countless battles with the Lamanites and Gadianton Robbers—it would be reasonable to believe that Nephi taught his people to build wood forts, but rather stone structures, and walls of stone for defense, which is exactly what Mormon tells us the Nephites did (Alma 48:8).
Fortresses built overlooking southern
Lamanite approaches that were nearly impregnable. As Mormon wrote: “the chief
captains of the Lamanites were astonished exceedingly, because of the wisdom of
the Nephites in preparing their places of security” (Alma 49:5)
Nowhere in the Western Hemisphere do we find fortresses built for defense and resorts (small outposts) built throughout the land, providing the Nephites with considerable safety against the invading Lamanites up until the Nephites themselves became as evil as the Lamanites (Mormon 4:11), and the grace of God left them to their own (Mormon 2:15).
Small lookout outposts, described as
“resorts” by Mormon, that gave early warnings of approaching Lamanite
incursions into their land
As impressive as the structures are in Mesoamerica, most, if not all, were built without defense in mind; few have walls, most are in open areas completely subject to attack and indefensible. Even large city complexes are spread over the land with no thought to defense in mind.
Four sites
in Mesoamerica, including Guatemala and the Yucatan where it is obvious there
are no surrounding walls to towers or other defensive structures
7. Sea that divides the land (Ether 10:20). When the Nephites spread from sea to sea, Mormon wrote: “they did multiply and spread, and did go forth from the land southward to the land northward, and did spread insomuch that they began to cover the face of the whole earth, from the sea south to the sea north, from the sea west to the sea east” (Helaman 3:8), suggesting that to some degree the entire Land of Promise was surrounded by water, or at least there was a significant sea in all four directions, marking the terminus of the Land of Promise in each of these directions. However, in Ether, we find that there was a sea that divided the land—but divided the land in what way, and divided it from what?
The answer seems clear enough. Consider:
1. There were two major land masses—the Land Southward and the Land Northward (Alma 22:31);
2. These two land masses had seas in all four directions, i.e., the north sea, south sea, east sea and west sea (Helaman 3:8);
3. These two land masses were connected by a narrow neck of land that had a passage running through it by which a person could move between these two land masses (Alma 22:32);
4. This narrow strip of land and passage had the West Sea to one side and the East Sea to the other side (Alma 50:34);
It would seem, then, that the sea that divided the land was a bay or inlet or gulf that cut in between the two land masses, creating the separation of the lands.
The shape of the promised land could vary,
but the sea that divides the land would be obvious in the division between the
Land Northward and the Land Southward
(See the next post, “Are These Just Coincidences? – Part III,” for some additional "coincidences" between the scriptural record and the Land of Promise in Andean South America)
The first seven of these scriptural descriptions were covered in the last post, along with the first two additional descriptions. Following is the third additional description:
3. A narrow neck of land taking one-and-a-half days to cross (Alma 22:32).
The narrow neck of land, located between the Gulf of Guayaquil and what was once the Pebesian Sea (Sea East) measured about 26 miles; that same corridor today, between the Bay and the Andes mountains is the same 26 miles. During the time of the Nephites, there was a Sea West and a Sea East on either side of this narrow neck. And as Mormon described, it was the only means of movement between the land to the south and the land to the north. Also, there is a narrow pass through this area, called since Inca times, the Pass of Huayna Capac, which is described in Inca battles as taking a day and a half to pass through.
4. Metallurgy (Ether 10:23; 2 Nephi 5:15, 17; Helaman 6:11)
Metallurgy in Andean South America dates to 2155 B.C. (Jaredite times), and according to Mark Aldenderfer, Nathan M. Craig, Robert J. Speakman and Rachel Popelka-Filcoff, “Four-thousand–year-old gold artifacts from the Lake Titicaca basin, southern Peru, 2008, “South America had full metallurgy with smelting and various metals being purposely alloyed.” Mesoamerica dated later, somewhere between 600 and 900 A.D.
S. R. Martin, Wonderful Power: The Story of Ancient Copper Working in the Lake Superior Basin. Wayne State University Press, 1999, “No one has found evidence that points to the use of melting, smelting and casting in prehistoric eastern North America.”
5. Roads and Highways (3 Nephi 6:8). As Mormon tells us, “there were many highways cast up, and many roads made, which led from city to city, and from land to land, and from place to place” (3 Nephi 6:8). Obviously, over these roads and highways Mormon later moved his beleaguered army from battle to battle, and in retreat from city to city and land to land. Only two places in the Western Hemisphere show evidence of ancient roadways, and that is Central and South America, though the roads in Andean South America were considered equal to Roman roads by the Spanish conquerors. Later, after the destruction in 3 Nephi, Mormon informs us those highways were broken up, suggesting not dirt roads, but some type of stone flagging or volcanic concrete as the Romans used around this time. In any event, rock filler, stone flaggings and large stones cut to fit, which made the surface smooth and seamless. To be broken up, required that the earth movement forced breaks in the seamless stone surfaces. While the roads are not mentioned in the renewal program (4 Nephi 1:7-9), it stands to reason that as they built up cities once again, (4 Nephi 1:7), that they built up the connecting roads. While the Roman road system was 50,000 miles long, the pre-Columbian road and highway system of Andean South America totalled 24,800 miles.
6. Forts and resorts (Alma 48:8). From the very beginning, Nephi and his people built a temple like unto Solomon’s edifice in Jerusalem (2 Nephi 5:16), of which Nephi would have been quite familiar. He also taught his people to build buildings and other structures, with numerous materials (2 Nephi 5:15) and to be industrious and labor with their hands (2 Nephi 5:17). Nephi, of course, from Jerusalem would have been completely aware of the Jewish building with cut and dressed stone and well fitted joints, and in the course of this building heritage, the Nephites would be expected to have built great edifices and worked with cut and dressed stone. Forts, of course, were a necessity in the thousand year struggle and countless battles with the Lamanites and Gadianton Robbers—it would be reasonable to believe that Nephi taught his people to build wood forts, but rather stone structures, and walls of stone for defense, which is exactly what Mormon tells us the Nephites did (Alma 48:8).
Nowhere in the Western Hemisphere do we find fortresses built for defense and resorts (small outposts) built throughout the land, providing the Nephites with considerable safety against the invading Lamanites up until the Nephites themselves became as evil as the Lamanites (Mormon 4:11), and the grace of God left them to their own (Mormon 2:15).
As impressive as the structures are in Mesoamerica, most, if not all, were built without defense in mind; few have walls, most are in open areas completely subject to attack and indefensible. Even large city complexes are spread over the land with no thought to defense in mind.
7. Sea that divides the land (Ether 10:20). When the Nephites spread from sea to sea, Mormon wrote: “they did multiply and spread, and did go forth from the land southward to the land northward, and did spread insomuch that they began to cover the face of the whole earth, from the sea south to the sea north, from the sea west to the sea east” (Helaman 3:8), suggesting that to some degree the entire Land of Promise was surrounded by water, or at least there was a significant sea in all four directions, marking the terminus of the Land of Promise in each of these directions. However, in Ether, we find that there was a sea that divided the land—but divided the land in what way, and divided it from what?
The answer seems clear enough. Consider:
1. There were two major land masses—the Land Southward and the Land Northward (Alma 22:31);
2. These two land masses had seas in all four directions, i.e., the north sea, south sea, east sea and west sea (Helaman 3:8);
3. These two land masses were connected by a narrow neck of land that had a passage running through it by which a person could move between these two land masses (Alma 22:32);
4. This narrow strip of land and passage had the West Sea to one side and the East Sea to the other side (Alma 50:34);
It would seem, then, that the sea that divided the land was a bay or inlet or gulf that cut in between the two land masses, creating the separation of the lands.
(See the next post, “Are These Just Coincidences? – Part III,” for some additional "coincidences" between the scriptural record and the Land of Promise in Andean South America)
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