Continuing with a
reader’s comments regarding our earlier posts on answering the ones regarding
the destruction listed in 3 Nephi.
3i. “It tells us that Moroni was sunk in the East
Sea and that it remained under water at least 26 years later. The point being
that the East Sea was still there, at least in some form (a large lake?).”
Three cordilleras run vertically up and down
the western South America, these are shown through Peru with (white arrow)
being the Cordillera Occidental (west), the (green arrow) Cordillera Central,
and (yellow arrow) Cordillera Oriental (east). It is the latter, or eastern
cordillera and probably the cordillera Central that came up during the
crucifixion event with the Cordillera in the west already in place, if only at
a lower height
Response: This is yet
another assumption—there is no mention of any water, sea, ocean, river or lake to the east after 3 Nephi. Since
the Sea East was never again mentioned after this time, even though the final
battles of the Nephite and Lamanites began and would have taken place to some
degree in that area, no sea is again mentioned in the east. What happened to
the Sea East, if anything, is simply not stated. The point is, we don’t know any of this. We simply find it of
interest that the Sea East is mentioned and referred to over twenty times before
3 Nephi, and then never again after the destruction outlined.
A couple of bonus
questions that I am interested in your thoughts on:
4) “There is no mention after the destruction of
a change of climate. We know that they lived in a very fertile area with wild
animals and forest. A quick satellite view of South America shows that the west
coast of South America (west of the Andes, particularly Peru) does not fit that
description. It is quite brown and barren in many places. I would think that
would have been mentioned as their way of life would have changed.”
Response: You are
making a lot of assumptions. First of all, we know nothing of the climate of
the Land of Promise except a few instances like: “heat of the day” (Alma
51:33), but then, almost anywhere has a time when the day is hotter than other
times; speaking of fevers and diseases “by the nature of the climate” (Alma
46:40), but malaria, though often thought of as a tropical disease, is rampant
anywhere mosquitoes nest in still and stagnant water (Minnesota has an enormous
mosquito problem because of its 10,000 lakes, etc.
Secondly, the brown
you see on satellite photos is in part from the desert lands that stretch from
northern Ecuador clear to Atacama, the driest non-polar desert in the world, covering
41,000 square miles along a 600-mile strip of desert around the
Peruvian-Chilean border and into Chile. All of this desert land along the Pacific
coast is due to the Andes Cordillera Occidental, the western or coastal Andean
range that creates a “rain shadow,” and the Pacific anticyclone flows across
here that blows dry air into the Atacama, also with the Walker Circulation,
which is a difference between surface pressure and temperature over the
tropical western Pacific blows warm air and
creates a pressure gradient from east to west and causes surface air to move
east to west, from high pressure in the eastern Pacific to low pressure in the
western, with higher, atmospheric west-to-east winds completing the circulation
with the descending air very dry. In addition, the Humboldt (Peruvian) Current carries
cold water northward along the western coast of South America which cools the
air above it, which can’t hold as much water vapor as warm air so it dries out
any water left in the air. This mix of mountains, winds, and ocean currents
combines to make the Atacama incredibly dry, and effects all the coastal desert
plains.
This means that this
coastal climate would have existed with or without the eastern cordillera
rising.
Third, again by the
time Mormon is writing about this, it is 300 years past the change and he would
not have been particularly interested in what the temperature and climate was
like three centuries earlier. Do you know what the temperatures in your state
was like 300 years ago? In 1716, here in the state of Utah, the Navajos were
just moving into the San Juan River drainage area in search of pasture for
their herds of Spanish sheep and goats. Obviously, the climate was better then
than 100 years or more later when Jim Bridger thought that Utah area not worth
a nickel and said the Mormons could have it.
It is highly unlikely
that Mormon in 350 A.D. would have been concerned about the climate of the land
300 years earlier. What you and I might be interested in knowing today
evidently held little interest to the prophet when he abridged the record in
that early century.
Again, we do not know
how many mountains existed in the Land of Promise prior to 3 Nephi’s
destruction and mountain raising. Samuel the Lamanite tells us that “there
shall be many mountains laid low, like unto a valley” (Helaman 14:23), and
Nephi wrote about his vision of the event: “I saw mountains tumbling into
pieces” (1 Nephi 12:4).
300 Years ago in the U.S. What is the
interest in unrelated details?
In addition, our only
knowledge of the Land of Promise after the destruction was written by Mormon
who was born almost 300 years after this event into the Land Northward, likely
far north since he lived near enough to the hill Shim to know about it (Mormon
1:3).
5. “Do you consider the "vapor of
darkness" to be ash from a volcano? I haven't seen anything about the part
that volcanoes may have played in the destruction, which could also cause
mountains to rise up and bury cities and block out the sun. What are your
thoughts?”
Response: We all know
about the eruption of Mount St. Helens, whose eruption column rose 80,000 feet,
depositing ash in 11 States, and caused a series of large lahars (volcanic
mudslides) fifty miles. Hundreds of square miles were reduced to wasteland.
During a two day period, 174 earthquake aftershocks occurred, with one ash cloud
shooting 7,000 feet into the air and another 11,000 feet upward, which fell
between 3 and 12 miles away, though some fell as far away as 150 miles.
But even worse was
the eruption of El Chichón
in Mexico in 1982 when the
eruption began with a pyroclastic flow that ran out over 4 miles from the
volcano. The deposits produced by this pyroclastic flow were 328 feet wide and
10 feet thick at its far end. The flow moved at 400 feet per second and destroyed the village of Francisco Leon, killing
as many as 1,000 people. The pyroclastic flow was followed by two plinian
eruptions that produced plumes that reached at least 18 miles, releasing 1.1
cubic miles of material, and destroying nine villages. The total eruptions
released almost a cubic mile of material, and near the volcano, the landscape
was covered by 10 to 16 inches of airfall and villages over 4 miles from the
volcano had roofs destroyed by 20-24 inch diameter bombs. Over 15,000 square miles
of countryside were covered with ash as a majority of the material erupted and came
in the form of airfall. Almost 7 to 10 million tons sulfur dioxide (a toxic
gas), or roughly seven times that of the equivalently sized St. Helens
eruption. The andesite magma from El Chichón was many times more than most
magmas. The ash plumes circled the globe in a few weeks and reduced visibility
to a few kilometers as far as 450 miles from the volcano.
Ash
clouds around Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines in 1815 dimmed the sun for
several years. If a giant volcanic eruption occurred where the amount of
sulphur particles were concentrated in one area and not blown away, sun would
be masked entirely
The point is, that with every such eruption in modern times,
the ash clouds fell all over surrounding areas up to scores of miles distance. Exactly
what happened during 3 Nephi to limit visions and create the darkness is not stated. Obviously, the Lord has the power to handle such things in numerous
ways—whether or not it was ash, etc., I don’t know, but think that would be the
the most common method of which we have first-hand knowledge.
“Thanks again for your time. I apologize
if the questions seem a little combative. That's why I didn't want to post them
directly on the blog. I am not trying to fight. That doesn't do anyone any
good. I am trying to take in different view points as I consider my own
studies. Thanks.”
No problem. Your
questions cause me to think along a wider or deeper line sometimes and I use
this time and study for my blog articles such as this one.
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