Since then the Heartland Theory has gained some following among members, who seem more interested in the opinions of others than the actual scriptural record and the reality of the area. In addition, we have had some wild comments from individuals who seem convinced of that location for Zarahemla. So we will address this once again.
Second, while there are many who want to claim that Zarahemla, Iowa, is the Zarahemla of the Nephite Nation in the Land of Promise, there are four features that mark the area of Zarahemla in the scriptural record that are completely missing in Iowa:
1. Mulek and his party, after leaving Jerusalem, “at the time that Zedekiah, king of Judah, was carried away captive into Babylon, journeyed in the wilderness, and were brought by the hand of the Lord across the great waters, into the land where Mosiah discovered them; and they had dwelt there from that time forth” (Omni 1:15-16); this means that the Mulekites landed in the Land Southward, in the area that is known as the Land of Zarahemla in the scriptural record, and that the city of Zarahemla would have been very close, if not along the coast itself, since they dwelt where they landed.
2. In the Land of Zarahemla, there were valleys which rose to mountains “whose height is great” (Helaman 14:23). Since Samuel the Lamanite made such an issue out of these mountains that would shoot up during the crucifixion (Helaman 14:14) when he said, “there shall be many places which are now called valleys which shall become mountains, whose height is great” (Helaman 14:23), that would have occurred all over the Land of Promise, even in the Land of Nephi from which Samuel had come, since when he fled from the Nephites after delivering that message from the Lord, “he did cast himself down from the wall, and did flee out of their lands, yea, even unto his own country, and began to preach and to prophesy among his own people” (Helaman 16:7, emphasis added), and what he preached is what the angel told him (Helaman 13:7), which would have included the mountains “whose height is great” (Helaman 14:23).
3. The River Sidon runs along to the east of the City of Zarahemla, along the borders of the Land of Zarahemla (Alma 2:15).” This means that the River Sidon would not have been very close to the city of Zarahemla since it “ran by the land of Zarahemla” (Alma 2:15) and the eastern borders of the Land of Zarahemla would have been somewhere to the east over near the seashore where the numerous coastal cities of the Nephites were built, from Moroni in the south to Mulek in the north, of the Land Southward.
4. The head of the River Sidon was up in the mountains near the Land of Nephi, within the narrow strip of wilderness that ran from the East Sea to the West Sea and ran “north” past the Land of Zarahemla. This means that the River Sidon ran from the south (from the narrow strip of wilderness that was to the south of the Land of Zarahemla and north of the Land of Nephi) northward, past the Land of Zarahemla along the east borders and eventually emptied into a sea; presumably either the Sea East or the Sea West.
The rolling, flat country of eastern and southern Iowa, where the Iowa Zarahemla
is located. Not only are there no mountains at all, there is no land forms that
could be considered of great height under any stretch of the imagination
1. In this case, “by the seashore,” does not fit the Iowa site since Zarahemla, Iowa, is on the west shore of the Mississippi River, which would not be the Sea West. The fact of the matter is that Zarahemla in Iowa is thousands of miles from a west sea.
2. There simply are no mountains anywhere around Iowa, or across the river in Illinois, or along the Mississippi River in northeastern Missouri.
As far inland from the Mississippi
River as the eye can see, even from an elevated aerial view, the land is flat,
without a hill in sight, let alone a mountain
In addition, though Brigham Young, Wilford Woodruff and Erastus Snow lived in this Montrose area only fifty some years after it was first settled by the Sauk, no mention in any of their writings shows any indication they found any ruins of walls and buildings representing a city the size and scope of ancient Book of Mormon Zarahemla, which was the capital of the Nephite Nation.
In 1837, when Fort Des Moines was built outside Montrose, there was no use of, or discovery of, rock or stone ruins to help build the fort. In fact, prior to 1780, the area of Montrose and Zarahemla was an open field showing no previous occupancy.
All of this area in Southern Iowa is part of
the Southern Iowa Drift Plain, which is the largest of the landform regions and
is composed of glacial drift (gravel, sand, or clay that is picked up and
deposited by the glacier as it moves), and basically flat. To the south, is the
Eastern Glaciated Plains of Northeastern Missouri. Across the river, where
Nauvoo sits and the entire region, is the Central Mississippi Valley, and part
of the overall Illinois Central Lowlands
Typical landscape and topography of the
Southern Iowa Drift Plain showing a flat, slightly rolling plain that stretches
over the southern half of the state of Iowa
Archaeic period, American Indians in Iowa began utilizing domesticated plants, and much later an increased dependence on agriculture. Not until around 900 A.D. did the culture in Iowa develop dependence on maize (corn) and begin to develop “nucleated” settlements; however, not until after the Europeans settled in the area did the earlier cultures develop into any semblance of sophisticated social complexes.
This can hardly be considered the background of the 1000-year history of Zarahemla in the Book of Mormon that served as the Nephite government capital as well as its spiritual base and temple. To make claims that this is where the city of Zarahemla of the scriptural record was located is simply not to understand either the record itself, the area, or its history.
Despite all the claims that this Zarahemla in Iowa was the Nephite city of Zarahemla is ill based and certainly does not qualify based on the scriptural record, and the topography surrounding Zarahemla that Mormon described. This Zarahemla in Iowa was simply named after the city of Zarahemla in the Book of Mormon, like Bountiful, Utah, was named after the city of Bountiful in the Book of Mormon.
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ReplyDeleteDel the Nephites did not live in the mountains the lamanites did.
ReplyDeleteMountains are conducive to building large earthen embankments farming and raising cattle as the Nephites did.
Notice that when the Gadianton robbers attacked that they also came down out of the mountains to attack the Nephites who farmed and raised cattle.
And it came to pass that in the latter end of the eighteenth year those armies of robbers had prepared for battle, and began to come down and to sally forth from the hills, and out of the mountains, and the wilderness, and their strongholds, and their secret places, and began to take possession of the lands, both which were in the land south and which were in the land north, and began to take possession of all the lands which had been deserted by the Nephites, and the cities which had been left desolate.
The river Sidon was by the city of Zarahemla the Nephites on the way to the city of Zarahemla dumped the bodies of Lamanites in the river Sidon.
The city Zarahemla is on the west side of Sidon when the Nephite are headed back to the City of Zarahemla on the east of Sidon they cross Sidon from the east to the west. If the city was on the east they would have not needed to cross. Gideon being North of Zarahemla since the lamanites retreat north and west from Nephites
Alma 2
15 And it came to pass that the Amlicites came upon the hill Amnihu, which was east of the river Sidon, which ran by the land of Zarahemla, and there they began to make war with the Nephites.
26 And it came to pass that the people of Nephi took their tents, and departed out of the valley of Gideon towards their city, which was the city of Zarahemla.
34 And thus he cleared the ground, or rather the bank, which was on the west of the river Sidon, throwing the bodies of the Lamanites who had been slain into the waters of Sidon, that thereby his people might have room to cross and contend with the Lamanites and the Amlicites on the west side of the river Sidon.
36 And they fled before the Nephites towards the wilderness which was west and north, away beyond the borders of the land; and the Nephites did pursue them with their might, and did slay them.
The head of the river Sidon is were another river running east to west flows into it. The head of the river at least according to the Book of Mormon is not in reference to the start of the river but the junction of two rivers.
Which makes sense since Sidon flowed north of Zarahemla but also south of Manti in the South Wilderness.
Alma 22:27
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 17:6
returned and said unto them: Behold, the Lamanites will cross the river Sidon in the south wilderness, away up beyond the borders of the land of Manti.
Samuel predicts the natural disaster are to happen in all the lands of Nephites and lamanites not just Zarahemla. Your argument is mute.
The mulekites could have traveled up the Mississippi River.
By the sea shore could mean any of the Great Lakes since Sea can also be a land locked lake such as the Sea of Galilee the Dead Sea etc
Kentucky and Tennessee have mountains and they border the Mississippi.
There are mountain ranges in North America. Mountains of great height is relative. If that was not the case then the mountains would be the Himalayas
Last but not least what do the scriptures say.
D&C54:8
8 And thus you shall take your journey into the regions westward, unto the land of Missouri, unto the borders of the Lamanites.
D&C125:3
3 Let them build up a city unto my name upon the land opposite the city of Nauvoo, and let the name of Zarahemla be named upon it.
I should also add that Zarahemla was not destroyed by a up rising of a mountain where Zarahemla was located but by their city built of timbers was burned down.
DeleteYou have used this argument for some time, but it is meaningless. Samuel the Lamanite does not say that Zarahemla would become a mountain, only that mountains in the Land of Promise would rise up from valleys and become mountains "whose height is great." Let's concentrate on very high mountains, so high they would be seen all over the Land of Promise that everyone, including those at Zarahemla, could see them and know that God brought about their rise, etc. There are no mountains anywhere in the Heartland or Great Lakes land of promise that is significantly high (whose height is great).
ReplyDeleteAs for the area directly around Zarahemla, the Land of Nephi where the Nephites lived from around 600 B.C. to around 120 B.C., or nearly 500 years, is mountainous--it is a much higher elevation, from which the Sidon River flows downward, and from which the Lamanites "came down" to battle the Nephites, and Ammon and his friends "went up" to find the cit of Nephi. It is basicallyh surrounded by high hills at that elevation upoon which Ammon and his frinds camped before entering the valley in which the city of Nephi sits.
There is no land around Zarahemla, Iowa, to the south that can be considered a much higher elevation to elicit such language and description that is so often used in the scriptural record to describe the higher elevation of the city of Nephi location and the Land of Nephi. I have driven all over that area for hundreds of miles around and it is basically flat, and falls from north to south in elevation, in order for the Mississippi Valley and River to flow to the south.
Why do you keep insisting on something that is contrary to the scriptural record? As described in considerable detail in these blogs is the fact that Iowa is an alluvial plain, as is Missouri, Illinois, and the adjoining area--it is basically flat and slopes to the south. You simply cannot make claims that run contrary to the actual terrain and topography of the area that has always been in that same condition. Your opinions on this matter, though they mirror other Heartland theorists, are simply contrary to the scriptural record, and therefore irrelevant.
David: You wrote: “There are mountain ranges in North America. Mountains of great height is relative.”
ReplyDeleteNo, mountain heights are not relative. “Whose height is great” is not relative. It is an extremely important pronoun cement the Lord stated through Samuel and means the mountains, as Samuel later describes, are so high they can be seen all over the Land of Promise and the Nephites—all of them—will see their height and know that God has done this and that the prophecy of Samuel has been fulfilled, and if they do not believe they will be cast out. We have been through this before, and each time we point out how wrong you are with facts and you keep coming back with non-factual statements showing both your ignorance (lack of knowledge) and inability to deal with the truth.
Consider this. There are only two mountain ranges in the east, and they are the Allegheny Mountains, which are in central Pennsylvania and central New York—many miles from the eastern boundary of the Heartland Land of Promise, and hundreds of miles from the Mississippi River. The second range is the Appalachians Mountains, which are in Central Pennsylvania, along the West Virginia-Virginia border, western North Carolina and a small corner of western South Carolina and north eastern Georgia—again, hundreds of miles from the Mississippi River.
There is what is called the Boston Mountains, which is a high plateau located in northern Arkansas and eastern Oklahoma, the latter is also called the Cookson Hills (note the word “hills” here used). They also include the Ozark Highlands in Arkansas (sometimes called mountains) and also the St. Francois (Francis) Mountains in southeastern Missouri and probably the closest “mountains” (they are only 1,772 feet in height) to the Mississippi, however, they are small and cover a small area, with the highest point 2,561 feet and is a drainage area into the Arkansas and Missouri rivers, and is a small area extending from the middle of Arkansas to eastern Oklahoma. All of these latter areas are known as dissected plateaus and are not folded mountains or come from magmatic activity that accompanies orogeny (mountain range), or how mountains are built.
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ReplyDeleteCalled dissected plateaus, they look more like canyon erosion (like the Grand Canyon) than hills or mountains, since they appear on the surface to be just flat areas until you get close enough to see the deep canyon erosion. It might also be added, that all the so-called mountains nearer the Mississippi are considered very old—much older than the ranges nearer the Atlantic coast, by hundreds of millions of “geologic years.”
You also wrote: “If that was not the case then the mountains would be the Himalayas.”
The Himalayas (Himalaya), as you well know, are not in the Western Hemisphere—they form a mountain range in Asia separating the plains of the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau—such a comment merely clouds the issue and is, as you also well know, irrelevant.
You also wrote: “Kentucky and Tennessee have mountains and they border the Mississippi.”
The mountains in Tennessee are the continuation of the Appalachian Mountains running south from Virginia, which extends into eastern Kentucky as the Cumberland Plateau, that are in the far north eastern part of the state, 330 miles the Mississippi, with Black Mountain at 4,145 feet, but only 2,500 feet top to bottom, or all that can be seen (actual prominence only 1906 feet), and is 360 miles from the Mississippi. In other words, the mountains here could not be seen from much of a distance at all, defeating Samuel’s prophecy. The greatest height of the Appalachian Mountains, and the highest point in the U.S. east of the Mississippi, is 6,684 feet at Mount Mitchell in North Carolina, which is over 320 miles from the Mississippi River, and nowhere within the so-called Land of Promise of the Heartland Model, and far outside the Great Lakes Model.
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ReplyDeleteYou also wrote with complete ignorance of the facts: “Samuel predicts the natural disaster are to happen in all the lands of Nephites and lamanites not just Zarahemla. Your argument is mute.”
Somehow you seem to think that only the area of Zarahemla, Iowa, is flat. My word, David, do you not read anything we write to explain to you the facts of the matter. The entire eastern United States is relatively flat from the Rocky Mountains to the Appalachian Mountains, a distance of 1200 along the line of Oklahoma and Arkansas and northern Alabama; 1400 miles on a line through Kansas, Missouri to Kentucky, and 1600 miles along a line through Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois to Pennsylvania; and between 800 and 1000 miles north to south. In all of that area, the U.S. topography is basically flat with, at the most, low lying rolling hills—that is, NO mountains. It is called the Mississippi Drainage Basin, the Great Plains, the Lowlands, etc. The entire Heartland and Great Lakes models fall within that area!
You also wrote, again in total ignorance of the historical facts which we have repeatedly documented here with enormous amounts of evidence, “The mulekites could have traveled up the Mississippi River.”
No they could not. The Mississippi River was unnavigatable north of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, until the U.S. Corps of Engineers dredged the river in the late 18th century, and even then no deep ocean vessel could pass along it until locks were built in the 18th nsd 19th centuries. Your lack of knowledge on facts is so overwhelming you discredit your ideas as soon as you open your mouth.
You also wrote: “By the sea shore could mean any of the Great Lakes since Sea can also be a land locked lake such as the Sea of Galilee the Dead Sea etc.”
However, you fail to include the comment from Jacob, a member of the original party that sailed on Nephi’s ship, that they were “led to a better land, for the Lord has made the sea our path, and we are upon an isle of the sea” (2 Nephi 10:20). Which means, obviously, that the ocean or sea they crossed from Bountiful to the Land of Promise was what they sailed upon and upon that sea was where they landed—which excludes any inland or “land locked lake.”
Having a discussion with you is like trying to discuss something with a broken record. You do not listen to anything said to you other than to try and debunk it. You simply keep spouting the same, erroneous, unfactual, ignorant statements that are taken out of context and used for your own purposes. You never debate a specific statement we make—only ideas in general which you counter with either time-worn and meaningless rhetoric, or quote scripture without trying to show how it supports your point of view.
David: You wrote "I should also add that Zarahemla was not destroyed by a up rising of a mountain where Zarahemla was located but by their city built of timbers was burned down"
ReplyDeleteNo one has said Zarahemla was destroyed by a mountain forming. However, nowhere in the scriptural record does it say Zarahemla was built of timber as you write. In addition, when Samuel the Lamanite got on the city wall of Zarahemla, he stood there and preached to the Nephites--very hard to do on a wood or timber palisade wall as you have suggested, with pikes on the end. When you write, you might want to use factual description, not your opinion.
David: You wrote "The river Sidon was by the city of Zarahemla the Nephites on the way to the city of Zarahemla dumped the bodies of Lamanites in the river Sidon.”
ReplyDeleteIn the first part of this reference, you are quoting from the record of when the Gadianton Robbers came down out of the mountains and hills to attack the Nephites, but fail to mention that the Nephites were not in their cities at the time, but were gathered in one place in the center of the land, which is why the record goes on to say, as you quote, “and began to take possession of all the lands which had been deserted by the Nephites, and the cities which had been left desolate.”
None of that has anything to do with the location of the City of Zarahemla.
Nowhere in that part of the scriptural record (which is in 3 Nephi 4:1 [which is where you quoted] does it say anything about the Sidon River (in fact, the word Sidon does not appear anywhere in 3 Nephi).
You also wrote: “The city Zarahemla is on the west side of Sidon when the Nephite are headed back to the City of Zarahemla on the east of Sidon they cross Sidon from the east to the west. If the city was on the east they would have not needed to cross. Gideon being North of Zarahemla since the lamanites retreat north and west from Nephites. Alma 2:15 And it came to pass that the Amlicites came upon the hill Amnihu, which was east of the river Sidon, which ran by the land of Zarahemla, and there they began to make war with the Nephites.”
As for the Sidon, it ran by the LAND of Zarahemla (Almas 2:15), not by the city, and indeed was to the east as we have always maintained. And at the time of the battle you refer to, which was not against the Gadianton Robbers but against the Amlicites (Alma 2:17), they were far to the east of the city of Zarahemla, beyond the border of the Land of Zarahemla and the Land of Gideon, in the valley of Gideon. As the events unfurl, we find that the Nephites, who were heading back toward the Land of Zarahemla saw Lamanites approaching and heading to the west toward the city of Zarahemla, and they give chase. After killing and throwing many Lamanite bodies into the river Sidon, they cross the river, and again fight on the west side of the river (Alma 2:34), and the Lamanites and Amlicites “began to flee before them…and they fled toward the wilderness which was west and north, away from the borders of the land, and the Nephites did pursue them” (Alma 2:35-36). They went into the wilderness in the west and north and were devoured by beasts, etc. Please note, the city of Zarahemla is not mentioned in this event other than that they were heading toward the city of Zarahemla, even after crossing the river…again, you err in claiming that the River Sidon ran past the city of Zarahemla.
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ReplyDeleteAs you wrote, quoted above: “Gideon being North of Zarahemla since the lamanites retreat north and west from Nephites.”
This is not true at all. When the Lamanites were retreating, they were on the west side of the river in the Land of Zarahemla, and to the northwest was the Wilderness of Hermounts (Alma 2:37). This is not in the Valley or land of Gidon, but north of the city of Zarahemla, to which all groups were heading when the crossed the Sidon (Alma 2:25-26). Your understanding of the very scritpures you quote is so flagrantly in error, that it is extremely difficult to give any credence to what you claim.
As for the mountains, to prove your point about where the Gadianton Robbers dwelt, you should have quoted from 3 Nephi 1:27, which states: “And it came to pass that the ninety and third year did also pass away in peace, save it were for the Gadianton robbers, who dwelt upon the mountains, who did infest the land; for so strong were their holds and their secret places that the people could not overpower them; therefore they did commit many murders, and did do much slaughter among the people.”
And if you had been reading this blog, you would know that we have stated numerous times that the Gadianton Robbers dwelt in the mountains and that Zarahemla was on the lowlands, near the shore where the Mulekites landed and where they dwelt from that time forth and until Mosiah found them (Omni 1:16).