Lehi’s Seed in the Americas – Part III

Continued from the previous post regarding the seed of Lehi in the Americas, from Canada to Chile, and the importance of the comments of Presidents and Church Leaders to support the idea that Lehi’s descendants filled the Americas, showing that the seed of Nephi ended up in South America, Central America, Mesoamerica and North America, showing that all these various theories are not isolated, non-connected models, but a single model that covered the entire Americas.

Israel’s Land of Promise is part of an overall land area, set apart by certain parameters, but not isolated from other lands surrounding it

While in the last post we showed how the concept of a “land of promise” did not necessarily depict such a land isolated from other lands in its physical or geographical setting, in the case of Lehi’s land of promise, it was isolated in the beginning on an island as Jacob pointed out in his talk in the Temple” “We are not cast off; nevertheless, we have been driven out of the land of our inheritance; but we have been 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, emphasis added).
    We also need to understand from the scriptural account of this covenanted land the Lord promised to Lehi and his posterity that the land was not occupied by another group at the time of Lehi and his landing, at least in that area that became known as the land Southward and the Land Northward. Of this land, Lehi prophesied according to the working of the Spirit (2 Nephi 1:6), in which he said to his family: “And behold, it is wisdom that this land should be kept as yet from the knowledge of other nations; for behold, many nations would overrun the land, that there would be no place for an inheritance” (2 Nephi 1:8, emphasis added).
    Of course, “should be kept as yet” is clear and simple language that no one had yet been brought into Lehi’s Land of Promise and thus, there could be no other peoples in the land other than those yet to be  brought there.
    In addition, Lehi also stated about those that were and should be brought out of Jerusalem, “they shall be kept from all other nations, that they may possess this land unto themselves…they shall be blessed upon the face of this land, and there shall be none to molest them, nor to take away the land of their inheritance” (2 Nephi 1:9).
    Thus, once again, in clear and simple language, Lehi is telling his children and household that when others are brought, they would come from Jerusalem, and be part of the isolated Land of Promise where no other people would be allowed to come and molest Lehi’s family and posterity at that time—in fact, that did not happen until the early 16^th century, when the Spanish conquistadors invaded Mexico, Central America, and Andean South America.
    Therefore, at least the island Jacob said they were on, that land in the Book of Mormon described as the Land Southward and the Land Northward, where all events in the scriptural record take place, was isolated from other people unless they had been brought out of Jerusalem—and the only other people who had been brought out of Jerusalem in Lehi’s time besides himself and his family and that of Ishmael, that were within Lehi’s Land of Promise, were the Mulekites, of whom Lehi had no knowledge at the time he was speaking to his family, and the Nephites would not encounter for another almost 400 years.
    Consequently, any proposed land of promise and model that includes other groups, indigenous peoples, migrants, shipwrecked people, etc., simply cannot be Lehi’s Land of Promise. This does not rule out, however, other occupants of the broader area of land beyond the confines of the Land Southward and the Land Northward as that land expanded as a result of the cataclysmic events of the crucifixion, and likely no longer remained an island, as the “whole face of the land was changed” (3 Nephi 8:12,18), where mountains became valleys and valleys rose to become mountains “whose height was great” (Helaman 14:23)…”And thus far were the scriptures fulfilled which had been spoken by the prophets” (3 Nephi 8:11).

Yellow dots: General location of stone ruins dating to Nephite period or later; Red dot: Early development area; Green dots: non-solid evidence, such as burial mounds; and blue dots where we know Nephites/Lamanites existed through modern-day revelation (dedicatory prayers, etc.)

With this in mind, let us trace the movement of the Nephites within Lehi’s Land of Promise, to see how and when they expanded into other areas within the great promised or “choice” land the Lord prepared for his people, and has led to modern Church Leaders to speak in terms of Zion and the land of promise as being the Americas (both North and South) and basically the Western Hemisphere.
    Thus, by at least the last century B.C. the Nephites were involved in building ships (Alma 63:5) and in the business of shipping (Helaman 3:14,10).  We know for certain that by 53 B.C., there “were many of the Nephites who did enter therein and did sail forth with much provisions, and also many women and children; and they took their course northward” (Alma 63:6,7), and at least one other ship sailed toward an unknown destination (Alma 63:8).
    Mormon particularly singled out the shipbuilder Hagoth (Alma 63:5) and the “exceedingly large ships” (Alma 63:5) he built, but there might have been other ship builders since the Nephites were involved in shipping at least by that time (Helaman 3:10,14). In fact, in this period of the last half of the last century B.C., following a devastating war conducted by the Lamanite king Tubaloth, who sent Coriantumr at the head of a large Lamanite army to invade the Land of Zarahemla and much of the land almost to Bountiful in 51 B.C., “an exceeding great many [Nephites] departed out of the land of Zarahemla and went forth unto the Land Northward to inherit the land” (Helaman 3:3).
    Obviously, fed up with the wars, and a renewal of contention and dissensions following a short peace (Helaman 3:1-2), these Nephites that went overland into the north “did travel to an exceedingly great distance, insomuch that they came to large bodies of water and many rivers…and spread forth into all parts of the land, into whatever parts it had not been rendered desolate and without timber, because of the many inhabitants [Jaredites] who had before inherited the land” (Helaman 3:4-5).
    Not quite ten years before this, a preceding migration northward took place when “there was a large company of men, even to the amount of five thousand and four hundred men, with their wives and their children, departed out of the land of Zarahemla into the land which was northward” (Alma 63:4). Following this, more Nephites migrated into the Land Northward when “in this year there were many people who went forth into the land northward” (Alma 63:9). Still others took their journey northward in ships Hagoth built, some to unknown destinations (Alma 63:5-8).
    Where these immigrants went is a point of debate among scholars and theorists, however, in most cases we know they went northward (Alma 63:6), and in a few cases we know they went into the Land Northward (Alma 63:7b) to inherit the land (Helaman 3:3) that had been promised to them through the Lord’s covenant with Lehi (2 Nephi 1:5).
    Therefore, wherever Lehi landed, and wherever Nephi went after escaping from his brothers, and founded the city of Nephi, and wherever later Nephites went in the ships Hagoth built, had to be to the north of the Land of Promise—they did not go south! Thus, any settlements elsewhere that were founded by Nephites and Lamanites, had to be in the north, and/or to the north of the land Lehi was promised.

Lehi landed in central Chili, Nephi fled northward into Peru, the Nephites occupied the Land Northward in Ecuador, Hagoth’s ships took immigrants into Central and Mesoamerica, where some eventually migrated into Mexico and the United States

Through archaeology, we can easily see that an advanced civilization existed far to the south in Andean Peru (Ecuador, Peru, western Bolivia and central and northern Chile), which is dated to be the oldest settlements and city structures in all of the Western Hemisphere (Harald Franzen, Scientific American, April 27, 2001; Smithsonian Magazine, August 2002).
    North of the Andes we find additional evidence of ancient ruins of an advanced civilization in Central America (Panama, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras) and also in Mesoamerica (Belize, Guatemala, Yucatan), including central and southern Mexico.

Anasazi ruins in southwestern United States

And finally, north of Mexico we find evidence of an ancient civilization among the ruins of those known today as the Anasazi (the “Ancient Ones”) in the “Four Corners” area of New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado and Utah, who left behind vast evidence of their buildings, homes and plazas carved out of existing rock structures beneath overhanging cliffs, some such villages had 150 rooms, as well as their free-standing settlement structures (“Great Houses”) where several rooms were connected in one large edifice.
    These include: Blythe Intaglios, California (similar to Nazca Lines in Peru); Cliff Dwellings Mesa Verde, Colorado; Meadowcroft Rockshelter Pennsylvania; Chaco Canyon, New Mexico; Archaeological Park, Alabama; Poverty Point, Louisiana; Cahokia, Illinois; and numerous others.

Left: Anaszi/Pueblo Settlement, structured and laid out like many of the ancient settlements in Andean South America; Right: The doorway structures, resembling those found in Andean Peru

It should be noted that not only did the Nephites sail northward and also immigrate into the Land Northward, but also the children of Ammon, the converted Lamanites, went northward also. As it is stated: “And it came to pass that many of the Lamanites did go into the land northward” (Helaman 6:6). The point is, the work of Nephites and later Lamanites with their lesser building abilities, have been found all over the Western Hemisphere with the oldest in western South America (along the Andean shelf), and then Meso- and Central America, and finally North America, as Lehi’s seed continued to spread out over the “land which I have prepared for you; yea, a land which is choice above all other lands” (1 Nephi 2:20).
    It should therefore be understood that all the comments made by Prophets and Church Leaders, such as Joseph Smith regarding the white Lamanite Zelph, the prophet Onandagus who was known from the Rocky Mountains to the Atlantic (or eastern) ocean, traveling over the plains of the Nephites (a location never mentioned in the scriptural record), to his comments regarding the building edifices discovered in Mesoamerica as being built by an ancient civilization like the Nephites, and so many other remarks, all bear truth in that wherever you go in the Americas, there were likely some Nephites or Lamanites in that area at some former time.
    However, the land where Lehi landed, where Nephi built the City of Nephi, where Mosiah discovered the people of Zarahemla, where the many recorded wars were fought between the Nephites and Lamanites, where the Lord visited around the Bountiful temple those who survived  the cataclysmic events following the crucifixion, and the Land Northward where the Lamanite once lived, and the Nephites later inherited and the final battles of both the Jaredites and the Nephites took place, were on that long, narrow Andean shelf, now seen in that area between the eastern mountains and the Pacific Ocean, including Ecuador, Peru, western Bolivia, and central and northern Chile.
    Thus, the seed of Lehi not only inherited that area promised to Lehi, but over time spread into the vast lands to the north, reaching there both by ship and overland, leaving behind their cities, settlements and accomplishments that archaeologists have so abundantly been uncovering.
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