More Comments from Readers – Part V

Here are more comments that we have received from readers of this website blog:
Comment #1: “Lehi’s family left modern day Oman and headed southeast as you stated, but not that far south! They passed through the northern side of Australia and ended up in Guatemala area, where they mixed with other people who were already there. I don’t think they were as far south as Chile as you have stated.”
Response:  Nephi tells us his ship was “driven forth before the wind,” in two different scriptural verses: (1 Nephi 18:8,9). This obviously means that his ship was subject to the wind and ocean currents to propel it. Thus, if you knew about the winds and currents involved in your suggestion you would know that your course would be impossible for a sailing ship in 600 BC driven by the wind.

The currents around Australia move from east to west, precluding ship movement from the Indian Ocean to the Pacific Ocean 

First, when you say they turned eastward and “They passed through the northern side of Australia,” you would have Lehi turning directly into the teeth of winds and currents of the Indian Ocean Throughflow entering the Indian Ocean from the Pacific Ocean. No sailing ship reliant on the winds and currents could have sailed into those winds and currents. These currents entering the Indian Ocean via the Indian Ocean Throughflow from the South Equatorial Current of the Pacific, bring warm water into the Indian Ocean, running clear across the Indian Ocean around 10º to 30º south latitude according to NASA studies (published in the peer-reviewed scientific journal “Geophysical research Letters,” published by the American Geophysical Union, Washington DC).
    This Indian Ocean Throughflow runs between northern Australia and Indonesia, effectively blocking any entrance to the Pacific against this strong current north of Australia as you claim Lehi sailed. This is further hindered in attempting to cross the Indian Ocean from west to east, is the Holloway Current and the West Australian Current which Lehi’s ship would have had to battle to even get to north of Australia. The Eastern Gyre is also moving against a westward movement north of Australia.Image
    Second, crossing the Pacific Ocean from the north of Australia would take Lehi into numerous local westward-flowing currents and then the major South Equatorial Current which is the northern arm of the counter-clockwise South Pacific Gyre.
    All of this would make a northern sailing past Australia and across the Pacific to Guatemala an impossible route for Nephi’s driven before the wind ship. Perhaps you should study facts rather than look at a map and trace lines on it that look plausible.

Dark Red: The Indonesia Throughflow; Red: Equatorial Currents moving east to west; Green: Southern Ocean moving west to east; Blue Arrows: Lehi’s Course to the Land of Promise

Lastly, when you say “I don’t think they were as far south as Chile as you have stated” you might want to look at these currents that flow in the Indian Ocean and across the Pacific. The only way to get across the Pacific is either in the south along the Southern Ocean (southern movement of the counter-clockwise
South Pacific Gyre) as we have indicated.
    Keep in mind that ocean currents and wind flow are absolutely the determining factor and only factor where a ship “driven forth before the wind” could sail in the BC era as well as up until the Age of Sail around 1300 AD.
Comment #2 “In a Sunday School class the “Three Act Play” paradigm was used to explain that being members of the church and Americans we obviously were more valiant in the pre-mortal life. However, Abraham 3 says that, “God saw these souls that they were good,” but it doesn’t say what made them good. As Mormons, we like to think they were good because they worked hard and made good choices, but the scripture doesn’t say that. In Genesis God says everything created is good, so is the moon good because it was super obedient, or because God made it that way? I’m a middle class white male American, which grants me a lot of privileges, and it is harder to have compassion and easier to have contempt for people who don’t have those privileges when I think I earned my blessings in this life by being more righteous in the pre-mortal period. I think if we get away from this paradigm we’ll be more compassionate to others” Danny O.
Response: This is an area that has little scriptural references. On the other hand, something was involved in our placement in this world, for those who did not keep their first estate and chose to follow Satan did not earn the right to enjoy this second estate of earth-life. As for good, the meaning of the scripture is that God did not create anything that was evil, but only good. All people were first created in a positive or good state, as is the case with all living things. At the same time, we know that our performance and actions have something to do with our advancement conditions from estate to estate.

Feeling superior to others

Having said all that, there is certainly agreement that we should not, at any time, feel superior or better than anyone else. Everyone has their good points and bad points (the latter being the result of our choices and behavior), and without the grace of God, can do nothing and achieve nothing. We should also have compassion for those who have less than we do, for they need more encouragement and more assistance, not scorn or discouragement.
Comment #3: “Why did the poisonous snakes all of a sudden decide to attack the people and animals and follow them all the way to the narrow neck, then of a sudden stop and block the path?” Harmon T.
Response: First of all, in South America along the Cordillera Oriental (east) are rain soaked lands that receive as much as two hundred inches of rain a year. With the absence of the rain in what Ether/Moroni describe as a “great dearth” or drought where “there was no rain” (Ether 9:30) to such a degree that people quickly began dying. With the absence of the rain, poisonous serpents, which frequented the lowlands, moved up into the cool, high Andes in search of water. It is important to know that South America has many poisonous snakes, such as the coral (Harlequin), with its neurotoxic venom and averaging three feet in length; the pit viper cascabel (Crotalus durissus) four to nearly six foot rattlesnake of the most dangerous kind, which the Indians believe breaks its victim’s neck when it strikes, due to the effect the poison has in a progressive paralysis on the nerves and muscles of the neck; the bushmaster viper (Lachesia muta or surucucú), which measures six to eight feet, but as long as twelve feet; and the extremely poisonous fer-de-lance (barba amarilla or “yellow chin”) of the viper family, four to seven feet long, which has venom to match that of the cobra; and also the Elapids and other coral (such as the Blackback, Catamayo, and Micrurus; and viper species.

Secondly, the Lord had two reasons for these poisonous snakes to attack: 1) a call to the people to repent (Ether 9:29), and 2) to prepare the Land Southward for the eventual arrival of the Lehites and Mulekites. It was the Jaredites that brought seeds animals, birds, fresh-water fish, and many other things needful for food, while Lehi brought very little food, which seems to have included only seeds of all kinds. When Nephi wandered about after landing, “we did find upon the land of promise, as we journeyed in the wilderness, that there were beasts in the forests of every kind, both the cow and the ox, and the ass and the horse, and the goat and the wild goat, and all manner of wild animals, which were for the use of men” (21 Nephi 18:25).
    Obviously, the Jaredite herdsmen would have kept their flocks and herds under close watch, rounding up any that went astray as shepherds do. To get animals into the Land Southward through the narrow neck, the Lord caused the poisonous serpents to drive some southward and through the narrow neck. When a sufficient number and kind had passed through the narrow pass and into the Land Southward, “the Lord did cause the serpents that theyh should pursue them no more, but that they should hedge up the way that the people would not pass” (Ether 9:33) to round up their animals and drive them back into the north country, even to the point that if any man tried, “he would fall by the poisonous serpents” (Ether 9:33).
    This lasted for several hundred years (Ether 9:31; 10:19). When all was in place for the eventual arrival of the Lehites and Mulekites through the reproduction of the animals in the south country, the Lord removed the “plague of snakes” (Ether 10:19. This allowed the Jaredites to use the Land Southward as a hunting ground, passing through the narrow passage and land without being in danger of snakes, and at the same time not deplete the land of the animals the Lehites and Mulekites would need.