A New Landing Site for Lehi – Part IV

Continued from the previous post regarding additional coverage of the Heartland Theorists claim that the Chattanooga area of Tennessee being the city of Nephi and the area of Montrose, Iowa, being Zarahemla. In the list of reasons why these theorists believe that Chattanooga was the city of Nephi, they list several points—the first six (along with our responses) were covered in the previous posts:
7. “Should have archaeological evidence.”
Response: While it is certainly true that the Land of Promise should have such evidence, it cannot be claimed that the Heartland location has any type of archaeological evidence that matches the vast cities, roads, temples, palaces, and synagogues described in the scriptural record. In all of the Western Hemisphere, the only places that can claim such matches, would be Andean Peru, and to a lesser extent, Mesoamerica. The idea that people from Jerusalem would have built homes and synagogues out of perishable sticks and thatch is not in keeping with the nature of those conditions at Jerusalem, and certainly not in keeping with a temple built and dedicated to the Lord.

The John Carter Brown Library, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island

On the other hand, according to Dennis Landis in his exhibition of Jews and the Americans at the Brown University library, there is ample evidence of Jews settling South America in antiquity. In addition, Paolo Bernardini and Norman Fiering, as organizers of the landmark conference at Brown in 2001, displayed evidences of: “The Jews and the Expansion of Europe to the West to the Revolutions for Independence in the Americas.”
    16^th century Benedictus Arias, called Montanus, was one of those referring to the descendants of Ophir, a son of Noah, that settled in Peru. The Jesuit, José de Acosta’s careful study of the New World began with De natura Novi Orbis libro duo, published in Salamanca in 1588, which he expanded with further chapters in 1590 as The Natural and Moral History of the Indies.  Acosta made extensive observations of the Native Americans he sought to convert to catholicism and noted, as others had, the numerous traits and customs they seemed to hold in common with the Jews.
    Manannasseh ben Israel’s famed Mikveh Yisra’el] Esto es, Esperança de Israel, or the “Hope of Israel,” published in Amsterdam in 1650 (also published in English and Latin), endeavored to prove that the Hebrews came to America—a prominent part of the text is the narrative of Aharon Levi, alias Antonio de Montezinos, who reported on contact with Ecuadorian and South American Indians who continued the practices of ancient Judaism. In addition, Diego Andrés Rocha provides extensive evidence that the rites, fashions, and ceremonies of the Indians of South America are in many ways akin to those of the Jews in both secular and sacred aspects of their life. He even cites Jewish names in use among the indigenous Peruvians.
8. “There should be signs of Hebrew writing or relics. (Holy Stones, Bat Creek Stones, Los Lunas, etc.)”
Response: First of all, the Bat Creek Stone was completely debunked as a fraud as stated in the Tennessee Anthropologist journal, which stated in an apology regarding J. Huston McCulloch’s claim of the Bat Creek Stone markings: “Debate over the so-called Bat Creek stone and related issues has monopolized a substantial amount of journal space that could have more profitably been used for scholarly articles in the field of anthropology, rather than fantasy. Unfortunately, the Tennessee Anthropologist now has the dubious distinction of catapulting the stone into some degree of national notoriety. We regret imposing again upon the editor and readers, but the recent attack on us in this journal leaves little choice” (Tennessee Anthropologist, vol.18, no.1, Spring, 1993, pp97-103).
    While the stone was first found in 1889 in a burial mound on the lower Little Tennessee River by a technician working for the Smithsonian Bureau of Ethnology, many professional archaeologist and Semitists have looked dubious on McCulloch’s interpretation over the years.

The controversial Bat Creek Stone Inscription

This Hebrew-oriented translation of a hand full of characters by McCulloch, a Professor of Economics and Finance at Ohio State University, has triggered strong reaction—those who believe in the Heartland Theory, defend it with unparalleled abandon; however, the professionals, like the scholarly authorities of paleo-Hebrew Semitism and Semitist experts, Robert C. Mainfort, Jr., and Mary L. Kwas, as well as Semitist P. Kyle McCarter, Jr., of Johns Hopkins University, have all shown that the proposed paleo-Hebrew prototypes of the Bat Creek Stone do not resemble ancient Hebrew characters closely enough to be considered authentic. In fact, some claim they were Cherokee, yet this, too, is in question.
    As McCarter stated: “Here we have an economist [McCulloch], lacking professional credentials in paleography and ancient languages, accusing a highly regarded professional Semitist of making "elementary errors" and worse. We feel that, particularly in this context, such remarks have no place in a scholarly publication” (Manifort and Kwas, "The Bat Creek Fraud: A Final Statement, "Tennessee Anthropologist Vol. XVIII, No. 2, Fall 1993).
    It is interesting to note that when Mainfort and Kwas rebutted McCulloch’s article and interpretation, McCulloch recommended that readers of his article "seek out the views of qualified Semitic scholars" concerning the Bat Creek stone.” In response one Frank Moore Cross, a recognized authority on paleo-Hebrew, was contacted. He also debunked McCulloch’s translation. In response McCulloch claimed Cross “made no less than three elementary and readily documentable errors of Hebrew paleography,” and went on to accuse Cross of "shooting from the hip" in his assessment of McCulloch’s interpretation of the inscription.
    In 1967, the Tennessee Valley Authority announced plans to build Tellico Dam at the mouth of the Little Tennessee River, and asked the University of Tennessee Department of Anthropology to conduct salvage excavations in the Little Tennessee Valley. Mound 1 of the Bat Creek Site was excavated in 1975. Investigators concluded that the mound was a "platform" mound typical of the Mississippian period. Pre-Mississippian artifacts dating to the Archaic and Woodland periods were also found.
    While Mound 2 and Mound 3, no longer existed, neither the University of Tennessee's excavation of the Bat Creek Site nor any other excavations in the Little Tennessee Valley uncovered any evidence that would indicate Pre-Columbian contact with Old World civilizations (Jefferson Chapman, Tellico Archaeology: 12,000 Years of Native American Histor,y Norris, Tennessee, Tennessee Valley Authority, 1985, pp91-103). 

The sacred records were hid in the ground to keep the Lamanites from discovering them since the Lamanite would have destroyed anything Nephite

Secondly, it should always be kept in mind that the Lord had warned Ammoran and later Mormon in no uncertain terms that “having been commanded of the Lord that I should not suffer the records which had been handed down by our fathers, which were sacred, to fall into the hands of the Lamanites, (for the Lamanites would destroy them) therefore I made this record out of the plates of Nephi, and hid up in the hill Cumorah all the records which had been entrusted to me by the hand of the Lord, save it were these few plates which I gave unto my son Moroni” (Mormon 6:6). Enos made it even clearer, for the Lamanites would destroy more than just the records: “For at the present our strugglings were vain in restoring them to the true faith. And they swore in their wrath that, if it were possible, they would destroy our records and us, and also all the traditions of our fathers” (Enos 1:14).Nephi saw this in his vision of the last days and the final destruction of his people, “for they seek to destroy the things of God (2 Nephi 26:17). Therefore, it can be understood that the Lamanites destroyed all things Nephite that they could, which would have included their writing, engravings, records, etc. Thus, we cannot expect to find anything remaining to the Nephite Nation that would point directly to the Nephites and their history, other than buildings, roads, etc., which the Lamanites then used.
(See the next post, “A New Landing Site for Lehi – Part II,” regarding additional coverage of the Heartland Theorists claims of the Chattanooga area of Tennessee being the city of Nephi and the area of Montrose, Iowa, being Zarahemla
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