The Mulekite Homeland in the Land of Promise – Part XVI

Continued from the previous post regarding the Mulekite homeland, where they landed, where they settled, and who they were, and how numerous theorists have treated this subject erroneously; and continuing below with the list of 14 erroneous points by theorists,and picking up with the last part of item #12.
    Since the people of Babel were “scattered abroad upon the face of all the earth” (Genesis 11:9) by the Lord, it has been assumed that the earth was divided after this time. If that is true, then the tower dispersion occurred sometime between 2247 and 2008 B.C. On the other hand, it seems more likely that the earth was divided before the dispersion, since the Jaredites were driven across many waters and the great ocean to the promised land (Ether 6:5-11). If the land was not yet divided, there would seem little purpose in an ocean voyage, especially in light of the lengthy overland trip taken by the Jaredites (Ether 2:4-13) to get to the “great sea that divided the lands.”

Four generations after Noah, Peleg was born. Peleg means “division), “for in his days was the earth divided” (Genesis 10:25). Evidently, Peleg was born in 2247, about a hundred years after the Flood

Assuming the earth had already been divided, that would place the tower dispersion sometime between the flood (2343 B.C.) and the end of Peleg’s time, at 1993 B.C. Using the scripturally stated time frame of the flood—1656 years from Adam to the flood (Genesis 5:3- 32; 7:6; 8:14), then following Noah’s descendants: Ham’s son Cush (Genesis 10:6) who probably was born before the flood and Cush’s son Nimrod (Genesis 10:8), who was born after the flood. As an adult, Nimrod and the people in the valley of Shinar built a tower (Genesis 11:4). From this it can be assumed that the tower dispersion took place in the second century following the flood, which would put the Jaredite migration sometime between about 2200 and 2100 B.C. Considering the time it must have taken to build the tower and for the dispersion to actually take place, we arrive at 2116 B.C., which is far from the scholar’s date of 3100 B.C. and consistent with the date stated in the “outdated biblical commentaries some Latter- day Saints continue to believe” (for a complete description of these dates and further references, see the book Who Really Settled Mesoamerica; chapters 8 and 11).
    In addition, it might be noted that the reason “some Latter-day Saints continue to believe these dates” is that they consider them scripture in nature, and stated by Moses who received them directly from the Lord; whereas they do not believe in dates submitted as a result of questionable carbon dating, archaeological claims, and anthropological fusion beliefs
    One can only wonder what “contrary data abounds” that would disprove Moses’ history as he recorded it in Genesis and again in the Book of Moses. Perhaps the Mesoamerican Theorists can find no sound evidence in the scriptural record, but it seems more worthwhile to accept Moses’ record than the scholar’s contrary data, whatever it might be.
13 The Jaredites were in the Land of Promise for approximately 2800 years
This figure, depending on which theorist one follows, varies from a low of 1850, to 2500, 2700, 3000, and Sorenson’s 3113 from his Maya Calendar.
Joseph Smith teaching the Second Lesson regarding the birth of the ancient patriarchs at the School of the Prophets

However, following the Biblical dates that Joseph Smith taught in the school of the Prophets, the actual landing date was very close to 2100 B.C. For Sorenson’s 2800 years in the Land of Promise, that means they were not annihilated through their Civil Wars until about 700 AD, which is obviously out of the question.
(See a later post “The Chronology of the Jaredites,” for specific detailed information about this)
14. The Nephite prophet/recorders wrote from the narrow perspective of their besieged little colony, thus they did not either know about the Jaredites among the Lamanites, or did not care to mention it
In order to validate their own Mesoamerican models, the Mesoamerican Theorists try to disparage the prophets by suggesting they had narrow interests and were only paying attention to their own little corner of the land of promise. Thus, other cultures, peoples, and Jaredite survivors paraded back and forth across the scope of their land of promise without a single hint, suggestion, or word to indicate their existence in the scriptural record.
    Sorenson put it this way: “Consider for a moment those historians’ position as they tell us about the early Lamanites. They wrote from the narrow perspective of their besieged little colony. Their understandable frame of mind would have seen all people with whom they came in contact out there as Lamanites, for in the Nephite scheme of thought at the time, who else could those dark-skinned lurkers in the forest have  been?" (Sorenson p84).been?” 
    Perhaps the best way to deal with such a ludicrous thought is to take it one piece at a time.
• The recorders were more than historians. They were prophets of the highest caliber. Consider the greatness of Nephi, Jacob and Enos, representing the first two generations in the land of promise. Then consider Mosiah, Alma and Helaman, who spread across the middle to late years leading up to the resurrected Savior’s arrival in the new world. Or Nephi, a disciple of the Lord. Or the abridgers Mormon and Moroni. Regarding all of this, Mormon himself says about his abridgment of the entire record:  “I make it according to the knowledge and the understanding which God has given me” (WofM 1:9, italics added)
It is hard to imagine anyone having enough gall to suggest that these great men of God wrote from a narrow perspective of their besieged little colony.

• The prophets wrote from a broad perspective, having seen visions of the entire history of the inhabitants of the promised land. Both Lehi and Nephi had a vision of the entire history of the land of promise as their guide. Is it possible to describe such a vision stretching across the panorama of 2,000 years—from first landing, about 600 B.C., to the coming of the Europeans in the 15th century is approximately 2000 year. Across the breadth of the land, including all the events that would take place as a narrow perspective of their besieged little colony?
• The Jaredite record was known to all the prophets from Mosiah (Mosiah 28:11) on down to Moroni (Ether 15:33). This was hardly a “narrow perspective of their besieged little colony.”
• The Nephites knew who the Lamanites were. They lived in one colony until Lehi’s death, had numerous wars and contentions throughout the first century and beyond. It is doubtful they would have mistaken another people mingled with them “lurking behind every tree.”
• Ether describes the Jaredites as large and mighty men as to the strength of men (Ether 15:26). Mosiah describes the Lamanites as having their heads shaved, were naked except for a leather girdle about their loins (Mosiah 10:8), and had red in their foreheads (Alma 3:4) They were a dark, loathsome, and filthy people (1 Nephi 12:23). This hardly sounds like someone you would get mixed up with anyone else.
• The Lamanites were cursed with a dark (Alma 3:6) or black (2 Nephi 5:21) skin. Obviously, the Lord intended for the Nephites to be able to easily distinguish the Lamanites. “that they might not be enticing unto my people” (2 Nephi 5:21).
    Mesoamerican Theorist Robert A. Pate, goes so far afield as to claim that “The reason for the Lamanites’ darker skin may have been because they mixed with the other native groups” which he claims may have been “Phoenicians...Pacific Rim sea traders, including some from Japan and China...the potential exists for a mix of considerable cultural diversity” (Pate, Mapping the Book of Mormon, Cornerstone Publishing, Salt Lake City UT, 2002, p18)
• Since the Jaredites were not dark skinned and the Lamanites were, anyone “lurking in the forest” with a dark skin had to be Lamanite.
    It is also interesting that on the one hand Mesoamerican Theorists try to tell us that the Nephites were “strongly influenced” by the Jaredites, then turn around in the same breath and suggest that the Nephites did not know who the Jaredites were “lurking in the forests” and considered them Lamanites.
    No matter how hard these Mesoamerican Theorists try, they simply cannot change the record to fit their Central America beliefs. There is absolutely no mention, and no credible hints that the Mulekites were influenced by, or mingled with, Jaredites—or that these Jaredites were involved with the Nephites or Lamanites. Or, for that matter, any other peoples these Theorists like to parade across the landscape of the land of promise. Nor is there any credible theorizing as to why the prophet-recorders of the text mention many divergent peoples who walked the land of promise, from the Jaredites, Nephites, Lamanites, Mulekites, and Gentiles of a later prophesied period, to tribal groups such as Lemuelites, Ishmaelites, Josephites, Jacobites, Zoramites, Amlicites, Amalekites, Amulonites, and Ammonihahites—without one mention of “any other people”!

In addition, these records explained in great detail how the Jaredites and Nephites crossed the oceans to reach the land of promise. As a result, one would think that if there was anything noteworthy about the Mulek party crossing the oceans, it would have been mentioned—especially if some other group not already known were with them, or brought them. We know that Mulek, a son of Zedekiah, and his friends, were driven out of the land of Jerusalem (Helaman 8:21) at the time Zedekiah, king of Judah, was carried away captive into Babylon (Omni 1:15), and that the Lord brought them into the land north (Helaman 6:10). Perhaps, and this is a thought that seems not to have occurred to these Mesoamerican Theorists, because no other people, groups, races, civilizations or survivors are ever mentioned in the record is because there were no other people than those described.
    Thus, when the Mulekites arrived, some time shortly after the arrival of Lehi and his party, and about 350 years before they were discovered by Mosiah I, around 250 BC. It should be noted that the Lord was teling Lehi about the Mulekites when he told that erstwhile prophet, “there shall none come into this land save they shall be brought by the hand of the Lord” (2 Nephi 1:6), and also “those whom the Lord God shall bring out of the land of Jerusalem shall keep his commandments, they shall prosper upon the face of this land; and they shall be kept from all other nations, that they may possess this land unto themselves” (2 Nephi 1:9).
    It should also be noted that the Lord told Lehi: “Wherefore, I, Lehi, prophesy according to the workings of the Spirit which is in me, that there shall none come into this land save they shall be brought by the hand of the Lord. Wherefore, this land is consecrated unto him whom he shall bring” (2 Nephi 1:6-7).