What Exactly is a Narrow and Small Neck of Land?- Part II

Continued from the previous post, regarding the Heartland theory of a Narrow Neck of Land and the numerous theorists’ views as to how their models are correct even when they do not match Mormon’s descriptions, such as John L. Sorenson changing the directions of his east-west model from that of Mormon’s north-south direction.
    Now further regarding the Narrow Neck of Land, another factor is the size, length and width of the small or narrow neck itself, which varies considerably among various theorists. Sorenson, as an example, states that after ruling out potential sites to the south of the Yucatan Peninsula, he concludes that “the only ‘narrow neck’ potentially acceptable in terms of the Book of Mormon requirements is the Isthmus of Tehuantepec in southern Mexico,” whose 120- to 140-mile breadth “is just within the range of plausibility” (Sorenson, An Ancient American Setting for the Book of Mormon,” Deseret Book, 1985, pp29,36).
    Various sources place the width of this isthmus at between 125 miles (Lonely Planet)  to 137 miles (Encyclopedia Britannica) and a railroad built across the isthmus in 1907 is 192 miles long.
    Even at 120 miles, this means that the average Nephite would have to keep up an average pace of 6.6 mph to cross in an 18-hour period of daylight travel; at a 140 miles, a pace of 7.7 mph would be needed, both of which are well beyond the ability of almost any person, past or present. In addition, if we figure a five-minute break per hour of travel, then a 120 mile distance would require a 7.3 mph pace, and 140 miles distance an 8.5 mph pace.

Pheidippides run to Athens from the Battle of Marathon. After delivering his message of victory, he promptly died from exhaustion

The average person (a Nephite) is not capable of such a fete, except under the most dire of circumstances, and then only rarely accomplished (the run of Greek dispatch-messenger Pheidippides from Marathon to Athens to inform the Greeks of their victory in the battle at Marathon).
    In fact, in 1982 three highly fit British RAF officers ran from Athens to Sparta, the distance of 153 miles, to see if it could be done. The three finished, covering the distance in 34.30, 37.37 and 39 hours—or averaging 4.46 mph, 4.10 mph, and 3.92 mph.
    It is not that it cannot be done, it is that a common man, a Nephite (not a Lamanite, a runner, an athlete or a warrior, etc.) would not be able to keep up such a pace, and it would not be called a “journey” (Alma 22:32) but a race, in Hebrew “ritza” רִיצָה which means "race" as in running a race. Mormon makes no such distinction in his statement.
    However, as is always the case when having to fit descriptions in the scriptural record to existing land forms, Sorenson chooses a narrow neck, which he calls and Isthmus throughout his work, that is 1) too wide at 140 miles; 2) in the wrong direction, running from north to south instead of “running by the seas on the west and the east”; 3) too many possible ways to gain egress from one land to another; and 4) an implausible narrow pass area, being a ford over a river, instead of a Pass, allowing egress from one land to the other in numerous occasions.
    While the definition of “Isthmus” today is “a narrow strip of land with sea on either side, forming a link between two larger areas of land,” the word “isthmus” is never used in the scriptural record. However, the description of isthmus, including “a narrow piece of land connecting two larger areas across an expanse of water by which they are otherwise separated” is descriptive of how Mormon describes the small or narrow neck. Thus, if we take this understanding, there was a body of water, either the East Sea or the West Sea that cut into the land, separating these two larger bodes (Land Northward and Land Southward) from one another, then Moroni’s description of the “sea that divides the land” fits this location.

It cannot be over-stressed that for a sea to divide the land, it needs to cut into the land from the sea (ocean) effectively dividing the land except for a small and narrow neck, as shown here  

Now, for a neck of land to be and isthmus, the land on either side needs to be noticeably and obviously much larger than the neck itself. In addition, that narrower appearance has to be such that for someone on the ground, either inland or on both shores, to perceive that it is quite a bit narrower in such a way as to constitute from the ground a “small” and “narrow” strip of land. In other words, what a satellite or aerial photo shows today is not sufficient to claim such a place is a narrow neck if that narrowness cannot be seen, interpreted and understood to be a narrow neck in 600 BC, then it would have not been so called by Mormon or Moroni.
    In 1828, the definition of an isthmus or neck of land was: “A neck or narrow slip of land by which two continents are connected, or by which a peninsula is united to the mainland. Such is the Neck, so called, which connects Boston with the main land at Roxbury.” Or the word “isthmus,” which is applied to a much larger area such “as the isthmus between the Euxine and Caspian seas.”

Top: Narrow neck between Boston and Roxbury Euxine and Caspian seas; Bottom: Isthmus between the Caspian sea and the Euxine Sea (Black Sea)

It might also help to understand the meaning of “small” and “narrow” to see if the Isthmus of Tehuantepec in Mesoamerica would fit Mormon’s description. In the 1828 American Dictionary of the English Language that was available to Joseph Smith and representative of the language the prophet knew and used:
• Small: Slender; thin; fine; of little diameter; hence in general, little in size; not great; as a small house; a small horse; a small farm; a small body; minute; short; the small or slender part of a thing; little or less.
• Narrow: Of little breadth; not wide or broad; having little distance from side to side, as a narrow board, narrow street, or narrow sea; of little extent; very limited; as a narrow space; near, within a small distance; a straight; a narrow passage through a mountain; or a narrow channel.
    Now, taking those meanings of these words, how do we apply them to Mormon’s statement, “A small neck,” “a narrow neck” as used in his insert and Alma 63?
    For a neck of land to be small, it could not cover much distance, which is why the Isthmus of Darien (Panama) is called an isthmus and not a neck, being 400 miles long; the same is true of the isthmus between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, which is about 500 miles long. The Isthmus is about 100 miles long, east-to west, making it both wide and long for a small or narrow neck.

Black: Old (or original) Boston; Grey: Land fill areas, creating the New Boston. There is no longer a neck of land between Boston and Roxbury—the latter is now part of Larger Boston 

As an example, the size of the Boston Neck was 120–feet wide by a couple three miles long, all of which existed before the various land-fill reclamation projects in which hills in the city were cut down and used to fill in the bays, ponds and swamp lands between 1857 when the Back Bay was filled in to 1890 when the Mill Pond was filled in, with the fills completed by 100. By 1903, the old Boston Neck was gone and the city of Boston land area was nearly twice of its original size.
    Obviously, what was once a “narrow” and “small” neck had disappeared, but in Noah Webster’s day, it appeared as the example of a Neck of Land in his 1828 dictionary. So by comparison, when Mormon wrote and Joseph translated the words “small” and “narrow,” these words had specific and understandable meaning. However, over the years, those two words have been first supplemented and then replaced by the word “isthmus,” which is the only description used by Mesoamerican theorists, since “small” and “narrow” descriptions do not fit their narrative of Mesoamerica as the Land of Promise.