More Comments from Readers – Part I

Here are more comments that we have received from readers of this website blog:
    Comment #1: “The Heartland is what I believe, and that is what all the prophets have said. Nothing else matters cause they are men ordained from God. So who do you believe? Men? Nah I don't think so, its God, so really all these statements about, facts and scholars are not important cause its men who stated them, not our prophets, not our God.” Robert W.

Response: We do not base our statements about the Land of Promise in the Book of Mormon based on attitudes or beliefs of men. We use the scriptural record of the Book of Mormon and nothing else. To support that work, sometimes man’s knowledge is used to back up the scriptural references to show the reality of the statements, claims, and descriptions in the Book of Mormon, but we get all our direction, location, etc., by following the statements of prophets like Nephi, Jacob, Mormon and Moroni. In regard to what all the prophets have said, there is no agreement among their opinions and beliefs regarding the location of the Land of Promise. Various attitudes among leaders and members have existed throughout the years since 1829. However, all the prophets agree that there is no official position of location of Lehi’s landing, other than it took place in the Western Hemisphere, though many have offered their opinions. It is the scriptural record of the Book of Mormon that should be the basis for any current attitude or belief regarding that location.
    Comment #2: “I am a Floridian and have lived here my whole life. With that being said. I do not believe in the Heartland " theory ". I believe in my heart that mesoamerica is where the Book of Mormon took place. Loads of proof backs it up.” Bill B.
    Response: If you think so many things in Mesoamerica are proof of that location for Lehi’s landing, perhaps you can start with a ship leaving the southern coast of the Arabian Peninsula and how it got to Mesoamerica since Nephi twice tells us it “was driven forth before the wind,” which means the ship was moved forward by winds and currents pushing it forward. If you can show through existing currents and winds (since they have always been the same), then we can proceed with the differences between Mesoamerica and Mormon’s account.
    Comment #4: “You wrote in your article: ‘It is hard to imagine these three men, whom the Lord talked to, in whom was entrusted the prophetic callings to the Nephites, were prejudiced against the Lamanites who they sought 'diligently to convert.’ However, Jacob 3:5 is not indicating that the speaking prophet is prejudice but he is indicating that the Nephite people are. Prejudice is a widely applicable term regardless of our position, time or culture. We all, including prophets, have had prejudices at time because it is part of the societies in which we live. Luckily as we gain knowledge and perspective from God the outlooks we have are ever changing. The author's words may not be agreeable to you, and may even turn out to be erroneous but they are hardly "outlandish statements"  Trent.

Khor Kharfot is located west along the coast from Salalah and Khor Rori

Response: There is no question that Khor Kharfot is a more difficult area than Khor Rori in which to place Lehi's Bountiful. You are one of many that has stated a compelling case against Khor Kharfot. Thank you for your insightful comment.

    Comment #3: “Your article very well stated that Kharfot is not the site. Just try to ride a camel into that forsaken defile, which is an impossible feat. The goat herders shelter and corral is definitely not Solomon's Temple and pales in comparison with the temple cult at Khor Rori complete with washing rooms and an altar. I have followed the path from the Wadi Darbat down to Khor Rori and large timber felled in the Wadi can easily be floated. The transport of timber has never been addressed by those who support Kharfot nor the fact that Kharfot is such a difficult place to access that no successive settlers ever desired it. If Lehi's Bountiful was as spectacular as the later Book of Mormon people remembered it to be when they used the name, then Kharfot doesn't meet that criteria. Kohr Rori is a spectacular location not easily forgotten.”

    Response: Based on your answer, to our article “Were Nephites Prejudiced Against the Lamanites?” evidently we did not convey the thought very well. Sorenson, in his writing, said that the “Nephite recorders were prejudiced against the Lamanites, and thus made them out to be much worse than they actually were.” Neither we nor Sorenson were referring to the Nephites in general, only the Nephite prophets, who he insists on calling “recorders.” The word “outlandish” which means “rude (unpolished, awkward, poor manners), vulgar (means, rude, low), rustic (unpolished, rough, coarse, artless),” seems to fit when a character of high moral plain (a prophet) is dealt with in such a summarily low or ignoble (low character) manner. Perhaps we should have simply said, “unscholarly,” which means “not showing the learning, reasoning, and attention to detail characteristic of a scholar,” however, much of what the BYU “scholar” and guru of Mesoamerican theory for the Land of Promise, writes is unscholarly—we look for something a little bit further beneath the academic level, which “outlandish” did seem to serve then as well as now—it certainly lacks honor and character to assassinate a person’s character in such a dishonorable manner.
    At the same time, we are not sure one can point to the Nephite people in general and call them prejudiced toward the Lamanites, either, since “prejudice” means “having a preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience.” However, it certainly suggests that the Lamanites were prejudiced against the Nephites, as seen in their dedicated effort, which was eventually successful, to wipe them out.
    Comment #3: “Thank you. I had previously wondered about cultures on that part of the continent, but didn't do much checking on it. I did come across one thing about the layout of a city and roads being revealed when the "jungle" was cleared in an area, but I can't remember the location or proposed time frame of the city. A quick internet search brought up some mounds found in Brazil (different story than the one in the back of my mind), but the earliest appears to date to 200 AD.” Michael R.
    Response: Actually, there have been several discoveries of ancient cities uncovered beneath the Amazon jungles on the eastern slopes of Ecuador and Peru, as well as some uncovered in the jungles of Guatemala. And no doubt there will be more. This all began back in 1925 with a British explorer named Percy Harrison Fawcett who, against the ridicule of the entire archaeological world, claimed there were lost cities in the jungles. However, he, his son, Jack, and his entire party disappeared in the jungle never to be heard from again. Not until this century has he been vindicated, as one city after another has been uncovered by both satellite imagery and “boots on the ground” discoveries, some of which made news when Michael Heckenberger in 2005 discovered more than twenty pre-Columbian settlements, dating between 800 and 1600 A.D.

The newly uncovered La Maná Pyramid made of huge cut and dressed stones, along with 17 other ancient monumental buildings, with a 60º sloping wall 265-foot long in Ecuador that had been buried beneath clay beds in the jungle high in the Andes in the Lianganates Mountains not far from the Pastaza River

We do not know which one of these many discoveries you might be referring to, but the most recent one was about Lianganates National Park in Ecuador, 20 miles from the town of Banos de Agua Santa, and almost due south of Quito. Bruce Fenton found at the discovered site one extremely large pyramidal type structure of approximately 262 feet square base and 262 feet in height, with steeply inclined walls. This structure is made up of irregular shaped large cut stone blocks, each is currently calculated to be approximately 2 ton of weight, many hundreds of such blocks make up the walls of the building.