Continuing from the
last post regarding the placement of these three areas within the Land of
Promise. In the last post, we ended in the midst of a discussion about Shemlon.
“Now there was a place in Shemlon,
where the daughters of the Lamanites did gather themselves together to sing,
and to dance, and to make themselves merry” (Mosiah 20:1)
Based on research by
Robert Smith, John Welch, and Gordon Thomasson, just as the month of February
means Valentine's Day (and sometimes Bachelors' Leap Year Day) to many
Americans, the fifteenth of Av had significance to the ancient Israelites. On
that day in the fifth month of the Israelite calendar (which fell originally on
midsummer's day), the maidens of Israel would gather to dance. This was, among
other things, a "matrimonial holiday for youth."
Lamanite daughters dancing in Shemlon.
Evidently this place in which they gathered was a customary one at an outlying
shrine or sacred spot, and probably was on the outskirts of the settlement
where it could be observed from the wilderness where the priests hid, since
they took the women from there and carried them directly into the wilderness
(Mosiah 20:5) to make their escape
The
ancient holiday is described by Abraham P. Bloch, who concludes that this
unnamed holiday was of very early origin, dating back to Moses according to one
rabbi. In those days, the festival was primarily a matrimonial holiday, very
much like the Jewish Lag Ba'Omer of springtime. Following the conclusion
of their summer chores in the fields, youths would turn their attention to
"bride-hunting," and the dance of the maidens was "designed to
meet that end." The dancing took place outside a temple city—during the period
of the Judges, the dances were in the fields outside Shiloh. During later times
they were at Jerusalem. After the return of the Jews from their captivity in
Babylon, the holiday took on a much different character. It became the festival
of wood-gathering and of offerings of wood for the altar of the temple.
There the
priests found the young women, hid themselves and watched, and sprang out of
their hiding places, taking the young women into the wilderness (Mosiah
20:2-5). The Hebrew idiom translated "lying in wait" usually connotes
premeditation and planning, implying that the priests may well have known of
this place and the custom for young women to be there. Indeed, the young women
apparently became the priests' wives willingly enough; at least we find no
indication that any of them tried to escape, and all of them later pled with
their brothers and fathers not to kill their husbands (see Mosiah 23:33) when a Lamanite war party stumbled on them.
This
suggests that the Lamanite daughters had gathered to dance in celebration of a
vestige of the preexilic Israelite festival of the fifteenth of Av. Is that how
the priests of Noah knew where to go and when to be there? Is that why the
young women accepted the priests as husbands? After all, they would have been
dancing to attract husbands. (Robert F. Smith, John W. Welch, and Gordon C.
Thomasson, "Dancing Maidens and the Fifteenth of Av," in Reexploring
the Book of Mormon, pp. 139-141).
Now that
they had women for wives, the priests needed a place to hide and build themselves
a city. So which way did the priests of Noah go when they carried the Lamanite
maidens "into the wilderness" (Mosiah 20:5)? And how far would they
have to go before they felt safe enough from both the Nephites and the
Lamanites? A good guess is that they would have had to travel beyond the
borders of the general land of Nephi, yet not into the land of Zarahemla—this
means that they problem went a little north into the narrow strip of wilderness.,
which divided the two lands (Alma 22:27). Possibly beyond the land of Helam
because the priests of Amulon and the Lamanites were trying to return to
Shemlon when they stumbled upon Alma and his followers in the land of Helam
(Mosiah 23:35). The priests of Noah might have been located away from the route
of both Ammon and Limhi, who traveled the route from Zarahemla to Lehi-Nephi
without any mention of encountering the priests of Noah (also known as the
brethren of Amulon—Mosiah 24:4).
If the
priests of Noah traveled any significant distance from Lehi-Nephi, we are faced
with a chronological and geographical problem. At the time of Ammon's arrival
in the year 480, at the very end of Limhi's reign, Mormon makes the following
commentary: "Now the people of Limhi kept together in a body as much as it
was possible, and secured their grain and their flocks; and the king himself
did not trust his person without the walls of the city, unless he took his
guards with him.
"And he
caused that his people should watch the land round about, that by some means
they might take those priests that fled into the wilderness, who had stolen
the daughters of the Lamanites, and that had caused such a great
destruction to come upon them. For they were desirous to take them that they
might punish them; for they had come into the land of Nephi by night, and
carried off their grain and many of their precious things; therefore they laid
wait for them.” (Mosiah 21:18-21)
So what
were the priests after?
To build
a city, they would need equipment, tools, metal, etc. To subsist on their own,
they would need seeds, grain, food, and domesticated animals. Obviously, the
priests entered the Nephite city at night for “they had come into the land of
Nephi by night, and carried off their grain and many of their precious things”
(Mosiah 21:21). Evidently this went on for the two years of peace (Mosiah 19:29) between the Lamanites and the
people of Limhi.
Where
were the priests during those two years? Evidently, seeking out a place to live
and trying to build a place to settle down and make it comfortable and livable for their future wives and famiies. Evidently, finding such an area, they came into the Nephite
lands at night, stole seeds and grain, and many of their precious things, which
evidently included stone-cutting equipment and other building tools, for we do
not hear again of them except later when they are in their city of Amulon,
which they had to have built in some back, out of the way area for their
safety and isolation.
This
leads us to Machu Picchu. It is obviously isolated—the Spanish never found it; In
1911 Hiram Bigham stumbled on it looking for something else; the standard trail
trip of today takes four or five days from Ollantaytambo (the closest ancient
site); and it takes three hours to hike up the mountain to Machu Picchu from its
base. Obviously, in Nephite times it would have been about as isolated an area as the priests could have found where they were not actually in either Nephite or Lamanite territory and not likely to encounter people from either group.
First of
all, it is over desolate, mountainous areas that did not have paths or roads in
the time of kings Noah and Limhi.
Mostly
straight up, requiring walking up the mountain without aid of steps (the later
roads that were built), just from the base of the mountain at Machu Picchu is
three hours, and more without steps.
1905 elevation map showing Cuzco,
Ollantaytambo, and Machu Picchu; from Aguas Calientes to Machu Picchu is a
three hour climb on foot over the ancient stepped road—4 or more hours without aid of
the steps
(See the next post,
“Where Are the Cities of Shemlon, Amulon and Shilom?—Part III,” to continue
with the daughters of the Lamanites and where the priests of Noah took them)
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I have a Book of Mormon commentary written by Robert J. Smith. Not the Robert F. of BYU fame but a different Robert Smith and a Hebrew scholar. In commenting about Machu Picchu he wrote the follow:
ReplyDelete"The priests of Noah and their captured Lamanite wives could not return to Nephi so they traveled almost directly north from Shemlon. About fifty miles north of Cuzco and above the Urubamba River, there is a now famous ruin called Machu Picchu. This city was discovered in 1911 by Hiram Bingham, whose work I cited earlier. When he discovered it he thought it was the lost Inca City which all historians had referred to as Vilcabamba the Old, and some historians and archaeologists still believe it is. One tradition says that Vilcabamba the Old was the place where teachers of idolatry and the masters of evil lived. (Blair Niles, Peruvian Pageant, p. 192). This tradition certainly fits this place as the city established by these evil priests."
Ira
Very interesting. I am not familiar with this but intend to look into it. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteIra. Perhaps you could give me some additional information about the book, complete title, publisher, year published, etc. I cannot find anything on a Robert J.Smith. Thank you.
ReplyDelete