What Did Nephi Mean When They Reached Bountiful?

It is interesting how often theorists, with answers right before their eyes, skip over what they consider of little import on their search for bigger answers. When Lehi reached what we now call the Sea of Arabia, along the southern Arabian coast in the area of the Oman/Yemen border, several extremely important things are mentioned that so seldom get much, if any, attention by those scholars who write about such things. 

Lehi crossed these Qara Mountains and dropped down some 3,000 feet into Dhofar on his way to the Plains of Salalah along the coast of the sea he called Irreantum

The first was that Lehi, standing on the 3,000-feet high Qara Mountains and looked out over the vast ocean before him that stretched 180º from the east to the west, and visible as far as the eye could see, called the waters “Irreantum.” Unlike Western thinking and naming, the near Eastern mind applied meaning to names. Lehi had earlier named the River of Laman and the Valley of Lemuel where they spent some time, after his two oldest sons to draw their attention to the parallels of their own lives, i.e., telling Laman “O that thou mightest be like unto this river, continually running into the fountain of all righteousness!” To Lemuel, he said, “O that thou mightest be like unto this valley, firm and steadfast, and immovable in keeping the commandments of the Lord!” (1 Nephi 2:9-10).

Lehi’s view into the Sea of Irreantum. From a Prophet’s view, Lehi saw the oceans of the world connected and named the sea Irreantum (Many Waters)

When Lehi saw the great sea before him, and no doubt having seen it in a vision and perhaps the entire journey across the seas from a global standpoint, may well have understood they would travel across “many waters,” i.e., different connected waterways that would carry different names later in history. If not, he certainly saw that it was a vast ocean that seemed to stretch forever, thus naming it “many waters.” And, indeed, it was “many waters,” stretching southward into the Sea of Arabia and then the Indian Ocean and then the Southern Ocean, and to the west into the Atlantic Ocean, and to the east into the Pacific Ocean—basically the major oceans of the world.
    This area was quite impressive to Lehi and his party, having spent the past eight years in the wilderness shepherding the two families and their households through one trial and tribulation after another.

The area of (White Arrow) Salalah; Yellow Arrow: Where Lehi came over the Qara Mountains and into the coastal lands; Blue Arrow: Khor Rori, where Nephi likely built and launched his ship; Green Arrow: Wadi Dirbat in the hills above Khor Rori where several types of ship-building timbers are found, including the Babobab tree of the Jaredites 

As Nephi states: “we did come to the land which we called Bountiful, because of its much fruit and also wild honey; and all these things were prepared of the Lord that we might not perish” (1 Nephi 17:5). “And we beheld the sea, which we called Irreantum, which, being interpreted, is many waters.” The further they traveled toward the sea, the greener and more plush the sights they beheld. They saw the fruit hanging from trees, bees flitting to and fro toward their wild honey in numerous hives throughout the hillsides, and obviously other man-made arrangements left by a previous people, causing Nephi to say, “and all these things were prepared of the Lord that we might not perish” (1 Nephi 17:5).
    They reached a fresh-water river that dropped down into the Dhofar coastal area from the Wadi Darbat in the hills above and made its way to the sea, along the route and area called Khor Rori (meaning “fresh water” river). Finally, they reached the seashore where they pitched their tents (1 Nephi 17:6). This same area later would become one of the entrepôts, or port cities and center where goods were brought to import and export and for collection and distribution—a center of commercial trade for the region, with a city or fort called Sumhuram built along the fresh, sweet water (khor) that ran from Wadi Darbat above, past the ancient city to the ocean. Sumhuram was built by the Hadrami, and had extensive city walls and a monumental access gate that was identifiable for some distance, a sign of the impregnability of the fort settlement and the power of those within, meant to dissuade any mauraders or thieves bent on overcoming the Frankincense traders. Its original construction took place some 300 years after Lehi left this area and became one of the excellent examples of medieval fortified settlements in the region that furthered the Frankincense trade for several hundred years.

The ancient city of Sumhuram, which was first built around 300 B.C. and thrived around the first century A.D., becoming part of the great Roman trade enterprises that reached to the Persian Gulf, and from which the Frankincense Trail began on its long journey toward Syria 

At the entrance to the khor, where the fresh water river from Wadi Darbat once flowed uninterrupted to the ocean, two cliffs flank the access. They both serve to limit the wind flow and allow for safe harboring within the khor (along the river), and protect ships entering the ocean from the river as they embarked on or continued on their journeys—a perfect, protected area for the building of Nephi's ship and the sailing of it to get underway into the sea—something the inexperienced crew would have required to begin a successful voyage.

Looking from the Fort southward into the Sea of Arabia, the entrance to the khor is flanked by two large cliffs overlooking  the sea; between the fort and the entrance are still signs of ancient ways that were used to launch a ship built there along the shore

These entrance cliffs served to block winds and currents from hampering ships moving in and out of the khor or river and also would have provided the perfect place for Laman and Lemuel to throw Nephi into the depths of the sea as Nephi describes (1 Nephi 17:48). It would have also been an excellent place for Nephi to have used for molting ore for tools, since the winds along the shore atop these 90-feet high cliffs would have worked very well to blow the fire (1 Nephi 17:11)
    While critics have scoffed at what they consider a concocted story, ancient Hebrew scholar Rabbi Yoseph ben Yehuda points out that the name Irreantum fits the issue at hand very well, since “Ir” means “river,” “re” means “mouth,” “na” translates to “many” and “tehem” to water. So Irreantum then “sounds like a great name to give to the ocean while standing in a wadi where a large fresh water lagoon and a seasonal river meets the sea. While critics scoff at such an idea as the Book of Mormon, at the same time they must suppose that any uneducated young man, completely unfamiliar with Hebrew, could have come up with such a name.
    This can also be said of the name “Liahona,” used earlier in the events described, since Lehi’s unusual compass contained perfectly good root words in Hebrew that apply appropriately to the purpose and use of the instrument. It should be noted that Joseph Smith’s supposed fantasy story as many scholars want to dub the Book of Mormon, contains very unusual words with actual Middle Eastern roots that an uneducated New York farm boy would be highly unlikely to have understood, let alone invented, nor would any of his associates would have known.
    The other very important meaning behind this overall descriptive event, is that when Lehi arrived, the site was well supplied with everything they needed to replenish body and spirit, as well as materials for building a ship. They called the place Bountiful. After all, not just any place in Arabia or the Middle East would do. The area had to contain a tremendous natural food supply, and one can only ask that after the Flood, who would have wandered by this uninhabited region in Lehi’s time to have planted such fruit, and also begin sufficient bee colonies, since they were never indigenous to the area, to produce such abundant honey in an area where bees had never been.
    While uninformed Theorists like to claim the area was inhabited in 600 to 590 B.C. when. Lehi arrived, and that boat builders here helped Nephi construct his ship, the facts show that this area was not inhabited, nor a city or fort built until closer to 300 B.C. In fact, the museum on the spot today tells of the trade route that arrived in Sumhuram, 30 miles east of Salallah, did not begin until the 4^th century B.C. with a pre-Islamic settlement at Khor Rori, the fort known today as Sumhuram, where blacksmith and pottery shops can still be seen and identified. Soon, copper and Frankincense were traded here, and vessels stopped in from as far away as India, and later, from Rome.

It should be noted that using the monsoon winds to sail the area was unknown until around 130 B.C. when a Greek navigator who explored the Arabian Sea for Ptolemy VIII, king of the Hellenistic Ptolemaic dynasty in Egypt. According to Strabo’s encyclopedia Geographica, which he began in 20 B.C., states that it was Eudoxus of Cyzicus (an ancient town of Mysia in Anatolia, Turkey, along the shores of the Sea of Marmara at the Bosporus off the Aegean Sea), was reported by Poseidonius that “the monsoon wind system of the Indian Ocean was first sailed by Eudoxus in 118 B.C.,” and that the shipwrecked sailor from India had been rescued in the red Sea and taken to Ptolemy VIII in Alexandria, where he offered to guide Greek navigators to India.
    Ptolemy appointed Eudoxus, who made two voyages from Egypt to India, the first being guided by the sailor from India, in 118 B.C. After Eudoxus returned with a cargo of aromatics and precious stones, a second voyage was undertaken in 116 B.C., in which he navigated the voyage without the guide. During the 2nd century B.C. Greek and Indian ships met to trade at Arabian ports such as Aden (called Eudaemon by the Greeks); a coastal port about 100 miles east of the Bab al-Mandab Strait, which led into the Sea of Arabia (Indian Ocean), from the Red Sea. Attempts to sail to the east beyond Aden, a port city on a tiny peninsula surrounding the Gulf of Aden, toward India were rare, discouraged, and involved a laborious 2,200-mile-long coast-hugging voyage to Surat or Mumbai.
    Navigators had long been aware of the monsoon winds. Indian ships used them to sail to Arabia, but no Greek ship had yet done so, and for them to acquire the expertise of an Indian pilot meant the chance to bypass the Arabian ports and establish direct commercial links with India. Whether or not the story is true that was told Strabo by Posidonius, a Greek Stoic philosopher, politician, astronomer, geographer, historian and teacher native to Apamea, Syria, who was acclaimed as the greatest polymath of his age, of a shipwrecked Indian pilot teaching Eudoxus about the monsoon winds is unknown. However, Greek ships were in fact soon using the monsoon winds to sail to India. By 50 B.C., there was a marked increase in the number of Greek and Roman ships sailing the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean.  
    As to Nephi’s statement: “And we did come to the land which we called Bountiful, because of its much fruit and also wild honey; and all these things were prepared of the Lord that we might not perish” (1 Nephi 17:5), it might be understood that the Lord led some people there earlier, to plant the fruit and bring the bees in order to have fruit and honey in Bountiful, and whatever else Nephi might have meant.
    In looking at this point, let us consider the Lord’s involvement in:
1. The Jaredites were led by the Lord to a seashore where they built eight barges to take them across the Great Deep;
2. The Jaredites brought with them, among other things “deseret,” the honey bee. Not just a few, but “swarms of bees,” some of which would have been left behind—they also had “all manner of fruit” (Ether 9:17), and brought seeds of every kind (Ether 1:41; 2:3);
3. The Jaredites, Nephites and Mulekites were all brought to a point somewhere near Mesopotamia/Jerusalem where they built ships or barges—and all landed in an area close to each other.
    It seems rather obvious that Nephi’s comment: “and all these things were prepared of the Lord that we might not perish” (1 Nephi 17:5) seems like a clearly laid out plan, set in motion from the beginning, with the Jaredites preparing the coastal area with fruit and honey and, no doubt, left over camels that the Nephites would have needed to haul trees down to the coast, etc.; secondly, the Nephites left behind their building materials, ways, and excess supplies that the Mulekites would have needed. It is much like the Jaredite animals that escaped into the Land Southward from the poisonous snakes that, over time, found their way into the far reaches of the land where the Nephites landed and found "beasts of every kind."