Has the Geographical Truth of the Book of Mormon Been Kept Hidden? – Part I

In the previous two posts, we outlined one of the so-called misunderstandings claimed by J. Theodore Brandley, that he states have kept the truth of the Book of Mormon geography hidden for the past 185 years. Below begins a response to his other four, which include:
• The city of Lehi-Nephi is the original city of Nephi;
• Alma’s party traveled only about 250 miles from the city of Lehi-Nephi to Zarahemla;
• Directional geographical names in the Book of Mormon are absolute and always refer to the same location;
• The land of Nephi and the land of Zarahemla were divided by a narrow neck of land.
    The fifth one, covered in the previous post, was about the River Sidon flowing to the north.
    So let’s look at these points one at a time.

It is amazing for someone to claim a city identified only in one event (Zeniff’s return to the Land of Nephi), in light of 35 cities referenced in 130 entries in the scriptural record and never being mentioned again, despite even the smallest cities were so distinguished in later writing

• First, the so-called “misconception” that “the city of Lehi-Nephi is the original city of Nephi,” meaning that the author claims these two names applied to different cities. That is, there was both a City of Nephi, and another city called “City of Lehi-Nephi.”
    According to J. Theodore Brandley, “It has generally been assumed that the city of Lehi-Nephi, from which the Nephites fled under the leadership of King Mosiah I, was the original city of Nephi established by Nephi,” he then goes on to state that there were about 400 years of wars with the Lamanites prior to Mosiah leaving with those who would go with him.
    Two hundred years after Lehi left Jerusalem, Jarom records that the wars had continued and that the Nephites and the Lamanites were scattered upon much of the face of the land (Jarom 1:5-9). By 280 BC the more wicked part of the Nephites had been destroyed. To this, Brandley states: “The record does not indicate where the more righteous Nephite survivors were living at that time but with the pattern of them fleeing their persecutors they certainly would have been driven from their original city of Nephi (Omni 1:4-7).”
    The problem with this is that the Nephites, until the time of the wars in which Mormon was involved (4^th century AD), were never driven out of their cities. They might have lost some in battle for a time, but they were almost always won back. In fact, before Mormon’s time, the Nephites were not known to flee before the Lamanites or willingly vacate a city. To think that the Nephites would vacate their City of Nephi, the capitol and main city of their kingdom because of attack is simply not in keeping with their recorded history. To make such a bald-faced claim during the 400 years before Mosiah, without any support or evidence, is both fallacious and unscholarly.
    Brandley goes on to state: “With the passage of another hundred years the more righteous Nephites were living in a city called Lehi-Nephi (Mosiah 7:1). After 400 years of war and persecution the city of Nephi and the city of Lehi-Nephi could have been a great distance apart.”

Sometime around 200 BC, when Mosiah I fled the city of Nephi, to discover the people, land and city of Zarahemla, there was never any mention of a city or land called Lehi-Nephi—that name does not appear for at least two generations after this time when Zeniff had gone to reclaim that city of his fathers’ inheritance

First, this is a flat-out statement made without the slightest support of the scriptural record. It is just another erroneous comment made by Brandley, evidently without bothering to understand previous and later information. As an example, we know that when Nephi settled down after fleeing from his brothers (2 Nephi 5:7), and the people called the name of the place they settled “Nephi” (2 Nephi 5:8), and we know that “it was the custom of the people of Nephi to call their lands, and their cities, and their villages, yea, even all their small villages, after the name of him who first possessed them” (Alma 8:7), therefore it should be understood that the people who came northward with Nephi, when fleeing his brothers, who wanted to call the place they settled Nephi, would have named the city the city of Nephi, and the land around it the Land of Nephi.
    It was not until after Mosiah and the more righteous Nephites left and ended up discovering and settling in Zarahemla, that we learn of the name “city of Lehi-Nephi” (Mosiah 7:1), after the Lamanites had occupied the city for a generation or two. We also find that this name is found in only three instances, all between Mosiah y:1 and Mosiah 9:8). Seven verses after this last entry of Lehi-Nephi, the name is used as City of Nephi (Mosiah 9:15), which it is continued to be called the City of Nephi through the time of Amalickiah—where, by the way, the City of Nephi is called “the chief city” (Alma 47:20).

In addition, we know that after being in Zarahemla, there were several families who went with Zeniff back to “inherit the land, which was the land of their fathers” (Mosiah 7:9). First of all, the “land of their fathers” always refers to the land that their first fathers (in this case Nephi and those who founded the City of Nephi) occupied. Secondly, the Lamanites occupied the city at the time that Zeniff returned to the land of their fathers. Now the Lamanties were not interested in Nephi, for their concern was Lehi, their first father—they did not descend through Nephi, Sam, Zoram or any others that were Nephites. Thus, they probably named the city as the City of Lehi, but Mormon referred to it as the city of Lehi-Nephi. What it was called by the Lamanite is not recorded. In fact, we do not even know if the Nephites of that time called it Lehi-Nephi or just Nephi.
    However, Brandley goes on: “The city that Mosiah I had fled is called Lehi-Nephi from chapter 7 of Mosiah through chapter 9 verse 8. In verse 15 of the same chapter the name of the city suddenly changes to the city of Nephi with no apparent reason. This is what has generated the confusion but there is no indication in the text that this city could be the original city of Nephi.”
    First of all, Mosiah I was of the lineage of Jacob, and was a prophet. He became king by appointment, not by heredity, such as the Nephite kings before him, Nephi, Nephi I, Nephi II, Nephi III, etc. (Jacob 1:11). The fact that there is no mention of Mosiah being king before being appointed in Zarahemla after fleeing the Land of Nephi (Omni 1:12), verified his status as a Prophet, which lineage came through Jacob.
    Secondly, we do not know what city Mosiah fled from, and we certainly don’t know any Nephite city was named Lehi-Nephi prior to it first being named in Mosiah 7:1-2,4)—which was two generations after Mosiah I. Therefore, it cannot be said that Mosiah I fled the city of Lehi-Nephi. He could have (and likely did) flee the city of Nephi, but that is not stated. However, the case for both cities to be the same is far more likely than their being two separate cities.
    However, the fact that they were the same city, is borne out by the statement: “Yea, and it came to pass that they fled, all that were not overtaken, even into the city of Nephi, and did call upon me for protection” (Mosiah 9:15) referring to the fact that the city of Nephi was the city near the land of Shilom (Mosiah 9:14), which was the location of the city of Lehi-Nephi (Mosiah 7:5-7,21; 9:6,8). And the connection of Shemlon and the city of Nephi is also made in Mosiah 20:1-3). That Zeniff, Noah and Limhi all lived in the city of Nephi is also borne out by the comment in Mosiah 21:1,12).

The Nephites drew their lineage through Nephi; the Lamanties through Lehi, avoiding the hated name of Nephi

What Brandley thinks is “a curious point” in the switch of names from city of Nephi to the city of Lehi-Nephi and then back to the city of Nephi, is merely the point that Mormon is making, and is especially understandable if the Lamanites, once taking over the Land of Nephi and the city of Nephi, called both the Land and city of Lehi. Mormon simply placed both names together for a short period of his writing ot make sure we understood the city under the Lamnites was changed to the city of Lehi, but when Zeniff returned, to him it was the city of Nephi, and later was so written. The curious problem only exists when one tries to separate these names into two different cities, as Brandley does.
    Brandley then changes his subject away from the locations of what he considers two cities, Nephi and Lehi-Nephi, to a consistent theme pf so many theorists who attempt to place mileage and time in the Book of Mormon geography and events that is based on erroneous judgment—Alma’s 21-day interrupted journey. He claims the importance of the city of Lehi-Nephi is critical because “the travel time between Lehi-Nephi and the city of Zarahemla is known and is the only distance in America that can be calculated with any accuracy from the text.”
    However, again, like so many people, he is placing his own interpretation on factors not stated in the scriptural text. As an example, Alma’s travel itinerary did not begin at the city of Lehi-Nephi—it began at the “Waters of Mormon, the Forest of Mormon, the land called Mormon” (Alma 18:30), which were “in the borders of the land having been infested, by times or at seasons, by wild beasts” (Mosiah 18:4), which would hardly be close to the large city of Nephi. Evidently, this area was distant enough and therefore secluded enough that Alma could hide himself there from daytime searches by the king’s men (Mosiah 18:8).
    Unfortunately, when thinking of distances, we have no idea how far this land of Mormon and the forest and waters within the land, was from the city of Nephi; however, we know it was in the borders of the Land (of Nephi). We also know it was far enough away from the city to warrant traveling there with tents (Mosiah 18:34), which might mean a distance of a day or two, or three or four.
    Thus, any measurement from where Alma began his journey “when they took their tents and their families and departed into the wilderness” (Mosiah 18:34) to escape from king Noah when “he sent his army to destroy them” (Mosiah 18:33).
(See the next post, “Has the Geographical Truth of the Book of Been Kept Hidden? – Part II,” regarding the belief of theorists and their claim that there are five specific and “common misunderstandings of the text of the Book of Mormon that have kept the truth of its geography hidden for the past 185 years”)