More Comments from Readers-Part I

Here are more comments and questions from readers of this blog:

 Brigham Young described a room that was filled with Nephite records

“With what little study I’ve done, I believe that Moroni buried the plates in 421 in the Hill Cumorah where Joseph found them. What is your take on this?” Ed M.
Response: Actually, to understand things of this nature, it is helpful to stop thinking as a mortal with finite knowledge, but to realize the Lord works on an infinite scale of time and circumstances. We know that the plates were returned to a room (no doubt in a vision) that has been described as full of plates and records, of which Brigham Young said there were enough plates to fill several wagons. There are evidently, within the spiritual sphere, areas where Earth records are kept for some future purpose. To think that Moroni’s plates spent 1500 years buried in the ground seems unrealistic.

    The Lord can obscure matters from mortals merely by taking them within the veil where he exists (Ether 3:6-20), or into a different sphere than exists in mortality. It would seem that Moroni either 1) buried the plates somewhere before his death, which Joseph Smith said he met in a fight with the Lamanites, who killed him, or 2) the records were brought into that spiritual sphere at the time of, just before, or after his death. And there they rested until needed to be brought forth again into the mortal sphere for Joseph Smith of obtain.
    The idea that Moroni walked 4500 miles from Ecuador to New York is a mortal idea, one most mortals cannot see beyond. However, the Lord does not work in the mortal world, all things are spiritual to him; his existence transcends such mundane spheres as being limited to just mortal abilities.
    The fact that the hill in western New York along the then Palmyra-Manchester border was because that was where Joseph Smith was located, and that hill, though quite small and insignificant, was the largest and highest hill in the vicinity and the place the Lord’s Plan called for, and from which the Restoration was to issue forth.
Comment #2: “This is all very interesting. However, I am having difficulty in understanding the approximate distances from Land of First inheritance, to land of Nephi, to Zarahemla, to Bountiful and to the land Northward and Desolation.
    On the world map it seems like the distances between them are a thousand miles or more. Is that correct or am I mistaken? Help! (Alan).

The relative distances of the Land of Promise in Andean Chile and Peru. Most of the activity in the Book of Mormon took place in the 300-mile area between the city of Nephi and the city of Zarahemla

Response: The distance from the area of First Landing (or Land of First Inheritance) would have been quite a distance from where Nephi first settled, since he was running for his life from his brothers who wanted to kill him. The distance is not as great as the distance Lehi traveled from Jerusalem to Bountiful. However, from the city of Nephi to the city of Zarahemla is less, but still considerable since when the Lamanites came down to attack Zarahemla or other Nephite cities or lands, it took them long enough that the Nephites were aware of their coming long enough in advance to prepare for their attacks.
    In addition, when the battles were over, in most cases where the Lamanites had been defeated, they returned back to their land and homes, suggesting a distance and time and the reason they waited for the following year to attack again.
    After all, it took Alma and his followers 21 days to make the journey from the Waters of Mormon (adjacent to the Land of Nephi) to the Land of Zarahemla (not the city). That distance can be estimated, but only assumed. The distances in all these cases is not given and we cannot be certain of them in the Book of Mormon.
Comment #3: “The Book of Mormon took place in about a thousand year period of history, and were constantly warring. The final battle in the Book of Mormon, mentions about 230,000 Nephites were killed and the remnants were killed shortly afterwards. Completely wiped out. Assuming the Lamanites were at least twice that, maybe a little more, you are talking about 1 million people or so. Can that amount of people cover two continents and interact often enough to have large scale warfare constantly?”

Most of the events in the Book of Mormon Land of Promise took place in a relative small area before they moved northward in the last century BC to inherit the Land Northward, part of the land promised to Lehi

Response: The Nephites and Lamanites of the Book of Mormon in Lehi’s “isle of promise,” is a small area, actually was an island until the crucifixion, of a much larger land that stretched from the tip of South America to northern Canada—the Land of Promise, Zion, the land  that was the land “that after the waters had receded from off the face of this land it became a choice land above all other lands, a chosen land of the Lord; wherefore the Lord would have that all men should serve him who dwell upon the face thereof” (Ether 13:2).
Comment #4 – “And you know winds and currents have been the same forever how? And no changes at Christ's death when the whole of the land was changed (only above water, I guess)? Vendingdudes.
Response: When one does not understand the workings of the planet, gravity, earth rotation and general physical laws involved, one can easily ask your question; however, the answers to your question are understood by what we call the laws of science today.
    Land adjustments, such as mountains rising and mountains falling have no effect on the course of ocean currents and winds. When the whole land was changed, talks about land movement—unless that movement shut down or opened up current lanes, which would alter things minimally if at all, then there would be no change to ocean currents or the winds that drive them.
    In the oceans of the world, all have north and south gyres, or circular currents, clockwise in the northern hemisphere and counter-clockwise in the southern hemisphere. These do not and never have changed, since they occur based on the forces that drive them, i.e., gravity, earth rotation, etc. For these to change, you would have to alter the laws of physics.
    This includes both the ocean currents and the atmospheric winds. We know this from the experimental fields of science that have proven these facts beyond reproach—like the law of gravity. It cannot be reversed except through artificial means, like leaving the atmosphere in a rocket ship.
Comment #5 – “What makes you think the Nephites would have built out of stone when anciently, North America has no stone edifices of the past? Yet there are evidences of ditches, moats, etc.” Karl D.

All of Jerusalem and surrounding settlements throughout Palestine were made of stone—none were made of wood. Nephi and his brothers and the sons of Ishmael only knew about building with stone

Response: The entire city of Jerusalem was built of stone beginning in David’s time and extending to Solomon’s reign. You might want to acquaint yourself with the type of house construction the Jews built in and around Jerusalem in 600 B.C. and before—they were stone buildings (dating back to before Solomon’s time) with an inner courtyard and roofs upon which they spent much time in the warm evenings. Hard to do on a wood house with a thatched roof, which never appeared in or around Jerusalem, nor did they built on raised mounds or piles of rock. In addition, the word “adobe” comes from the Arabic (al tub, meaning “the bricks”) to “at tub” and to “adobar” in Spanish, meaning “plaster,” to “adobe” as early as 1739. While Joseph Smith may not have known “adobe,” he would have known “mud bricks,” either in Arabic, or from the Egyptian (where it was known in Demotic “tb” [tube] and Coptic “to:o:be,” and hieroglyphic “dbt”), which was making mud bricks in the time of ancient Israel and Joseph, long before Lehi. Adobe, or sun-dried earth bricks, by the way, are among the earliest building materials, and was used throughout the world, with adobe bricks were used in Spain from the 8^th century B.C. onwards).
    As for the building of moats, there is no comment anywhere in the scriptural record of such an occurrence. When the Nephites threw up banks of earth, it was to enclose their armies, not their cities or towns. This is what Mormon writes: “Yea, he had been strengthening the armies of the Nephites, and erecting small forts, or places of resort; throwing up banks of earth round about to enclose his armies, and also building walls of stone to encircle them about, round about their cities and the borders of their lands; yea, all round about the land” (Alma 48:8). As can be seen, it was the stone walls built around the cities throughout the lands that protected the cities themselves.