While most of our Readers are quite
knowledgeable and enlightened regarding the scriptural record, geography,
science and how the world works, we do get some really interesting and sometimes
unusual comments from readers and critics alike on issues that seemingly are
just made up, or certainly not thought out beyond the initial blush of a
thought.
One such reader recently wrote, saying:
Reader: “A major point to address here. Your theory that Book of Mormon
geography is in Northern South America came from RLDS Scholars - H.A Stebbins
and a later RLDS gentleman named Louise Edward Hills who placed it farther
north in Central America - which is what the current Book of Mormon Central, FairMormon
former F.A.R.M.S., The Mormon Interpreter and current like-minded, have also
plagiarized.”
Response: Interesting you seem to think
you know where we got our idea of South America. However, you are completely
wrong in addressing all of that to our work. When we began this journey, we
knew nothing about any of the people you mention, or even the RLDS Church at
the time other than their being a break off from the LDS Church back after
Joseph and Hyrum’s death.
Whether or not you have any interest in
the truth of this matter, it pains us to think that because you wrote this
flagrant accusation that other readers might attribute our writing, location
and maps to being plagiarized, so let us straighten this issue out.
Briefly, when we were all younger, the
majority belief among Church members was that North America was the Land
Northward, South America the Land Southward, and Central America the narrow
neck area. As a young adult this interest centered in the belief that Mesoamerica
was the area, mostly from a book given
us written by Hunter and Ferguson entitled Ancient
America and the Book of Mormon. However, when much older and seriously
studying the Book of Mormon that we developed a sincere interest in the
geographical setting of the Land of Promise.
Taking the advice of a friend, which
has ever been the standard of our study since, a search was started by first
and foremost reading Nephi’s writing. His description of his travels to
Bountiful was closely followed along the trail he had to have taken and the
only one that made any sense, and that was to Salalah (Khor Rori) in Oman,
along the Sea of Arabia (Irreantum).
At this time a friend’s copy of John L.
Sorenson’s book An Ancient American
Setting for the Book of Mormon came into our hands and we began comparing
it with the scriptural record, and found so many errors in his interpretations
and many, many changes of Mormon’s words and meaning, that we eventually wrote
down pages and pages of Sorenson’s statements and the scriptural responses he
claimed supported his view. This included an expanded study of Allen’s work and
some others regarding Mesoamerica, and overall endeavor that took nearly eight
years, and resulted in our book Inaccuracies
of Mesoamerica and Other Theories, which was strictly a comparison between
Mesoamerican statements made by these theorists and how they were mostly
contrary to the statements and descriptions found in the scriptural record.
As for a pursuit of the location, it
was a matter of following the winds and currents, which were the only avenue to
take since Nephi tells us his ship “was driven before the wind” on two
occasions (1 Nephi 18:8,9). That led to a remarkable area where the winds die
down, the currents die down, and minimal landward currents arose—taking a ship
dependent on wind and current power into the shore, which happened to be at a
place called Coquimbo Bay, Chile. Up to that point, we had never heard of
Coquimbo, La Serena, or any other place in western South America, and only
vaguely knew about Ecuador, Peru and Chile. Colombia was a little more familiar
since a nephew served a mission there, but that was in the mountains to the
north.
From there it was a matter of
scriptural study and enormous research that involved most of the best libraries
in the States because of a constant travel itinerary at the time, where there
were days available for research in the best libraries across the nation where
thousands of books in more than 100 libraries (before the internet), and a lot
of journals of explorers and adventurers and what they fund was undertaken.
One of the things that came of this was
learning how much more accurate historical documents were that had been
published before 1900, and those later were still pretty good until about 1920,
when history began to be people’s opinions and speculation, not actual facts.
The point is, this work on and in South
America was the result of our own personal study without any other person’s
involvement, books, writings, beliefs or theories. We find it both
disappointing and extremely erroneous to label our work as that of someone
else, of whom we have never heard (RLDS Scholars, Stebbins, Hills, etc. nor
know anything about their writing or beliefs).
In fact, knowledge of FARMS became
available only through the works studied regarding Mesoamerica, and through
that found their critique of other people’s writings both non-scholarly and
extremely prejudicial.
As far as believing any view we
provide, which is strictly the result of studying the scriptural record on
every single point and matching that work with available information. In fact,
we found within the scriptural record 45 specific and exact Book of Mormon
quotes and related them to Andean South America and another 20 related to
history, Jewish/Hebrew history and practices.
Regarding Henry A. Stebbins, who wrote
a book in 1901, published by the Board of Publication of the Reorganized Church
(RLDS), through the Herald Publishing House, in Lamoni, Iowa. The content of
this work was a series of nine Sermons delivered in the RLDS Church’s
Saints’ chapel, at Independence, Missouri, from February 13-21, 1894, that had
been corrected and revised for the publication. The purpose of the lectures
were “to give proper proofs from many antiquarians, historians, and scientists,
in connection with the synopsis of the story of the peoples that came to
America in ancient times.”
In “Lecture 6” of these nine
lectures, the case for a South American landing is made in articles entitled: From
the Red Sea through Arabia; the Compass; they cross the Indian and Pacific
Oceans landing in Peru; fertility of Peruvian Soil; Nephi writes their history;
a Branch of Israel; Lamanite Rebellion; division of the Colony; Nephite faith
and doctrine; and America a Land of Liberty.”
In “Lecture 9,” Stebbins states:
“Neither this story nor the traditions of the natives give us reason to believe
that it included anything more than Central America and the northern part of
South America (along the Caribbean Sea), and likely Southern Mexico, in which
lands then dwelt the main bodies of the Nephites and Lamanites. The scene of
the history, and the region into which Christ came to them, was Northern South
America, evidently, but the book says that even greater destruction took place
in the land northward. And we learn from Bancroft and other writers that
Central America was indeed the chief center of those great catastrophes, by
which much land was sunk and the waves of the sea came over the cities. The
Book of Mormon and the historians agree on this point. Neither of them locate
the scene of the great overthrow as in the United States, but further south in
Central and South America.”
He also concludes with, “As a result
of this war, wherein the Lamanites began to offer the Nephites in sacrifice
before their idols, the Nephites were driven from their homes and from their country.
Some escaped into South America, but the main body was driven north and
northeast. Others, doubtless, hid away in distant valleys and canyons.”
The point of all this is that Stebbins
(left) gave these lectures in 1894 and they were published in 1901. However,
Orson Pratt, in 1838, more than 55 years earlier, wrote a pamphlet entitled
Remarkable visions, which subsequently went through multiple editions, stating
that Lehi landed in Chile, saying: “The
remnant of Joseph were also led in a miraculous manner from Jerusalem, in the
first year of the reign of Zedekiah, king of Judah. They were first led to the
eastern borders of the Red Sea; then they journeyed for some time along the
borders thereof, nearly in a south-east direction; after which, they altered
their course nearly eastward, until they came to the great waters, where, by
the commandment of God, they built a vessel, in which they were safely brought
across the great Pacific Ocean, and
landed upon the western coast of South America” (Orson Pratt, A
Interesting Account of Several Remarkable Visions, and of the Late Discovery of
Ancient American Records, Ballantyne and Hughes, Edinburgh, 1840, pp15-21,
emphasis added).
After securing a copy of Orson Pratt’s pamphlet,
Elder Orson Hyde, another Apostle who was a close associate of Joseph smith,
verified the accuracy of this publication by translating it (with only a few
modifications) into German (Milton V. Backman, Jr., “Defender of the Faith,” in
Regional studies in Latter-day Saint Church History, BYU Department of Church
History and Doctrine, BYU, 1992, pp34-38).
In another instance of 1841, Benjamin Winchester,
an original member of the first Quorum of the Seventy who had been the youngest
adult member of Zion’s Camp, and editor of the first independent Mormon
periodical, The Gospel Reflector, and
President of a large branch of the church in Philadelphia, defended that the
American Indian belonged to the house of Israel, and also in comparing the
"History of the Ancients of America, and Also of the Book of Mormon,"
he wrote: “Six hundred years B.C. according to the Book of Mormon, Lehi fled
into the wilderness. He pitched his tent in the wilderness near the Red Sea…and
after a long and tedious journey, they came to the great waters, or the Ocean...they
set sail, and in proper time landed as we infer from their records somewhere on
the western coast of South America” (Winchester, “The Claims of the Book of Mormon Established—It Also Defended," The
Gospel Reflector 1, 15 March 1841, pp105-23).
Also, Elder John Taylor (left), in 1842, stated:
“When we read in the Book of Mormon that Jared and his brother came on to this
continent from the confusion and scattering at the Tower, and lived here more
than a thousand years, and covered the whole continent from sea to sea, with
towns and cities; and that Lehi went down by the Red Sea to the great Southern Ocean, and crossed over to this land and landed a little south of the Isthmus of
Darien, and improved the country according to the word of the Lord, as a
branch of the house of Israel” (Taylor, “Facts Are Stubborn Things,” Times and Seasons, vol.3, no.22,
September 15, 1842, pp921-922).
From these 1838 to 1879 years, the latter when
Orson Pratt died following40 years in senior Church leadership and as the
geographical “expert” on the Book of Mormon, the idea that Lehi landed in South
America was the standard point of belief among the Church and Church members.
So why is it that someone can claim anyone in the
church today is plagiarizing an RLDS leader’s lectures in 1894, and printed in
1901, about South America being the landing site of Lehi?
It seems reasonable to state that if anyone is going to
criticize our work regarding South America, which some certainly have been
doing, perhaps they would like to at least be accurate in their comments about
what is found in our work by reading the articles written and stated by the
earliest Church leaders, as well as those posted in this blog
as so many others have done and who comment regularly
on our pages.
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