Answers to Reader Comments - Part I

Following are some of the comments or questions we have received from readers:

Comment #1: “I find it difficult to believe that there were no diseases among the indigenous Americans when the Spanish arrived, and that these Europeans brought disease with them that killed most of the Aborigines.” Paula B.

A normal life for the indigenous Peruvian before the Spanish arrived

 

Response: It is not that indigenous Americans (Indians) did not have diseases of their own, in fact, in recent examinations of 1,000-year-old Peruvian mummies, for example, paleopathologists under the direction of Richard H. Steckel, an economist and anthropologist at Ohio State University and Jerome C. Rose, an anthropologist at the University of Arkansas, discovered clear traces of tuberculosis in their lungs, more evidence that native Americans might already have been infected with some of the diseases that were thought to have been brought to the New World by European explorers (Steckel and Rose, The Backbone of History: Health and Nutrition in the Western Hemisphere, National Science Foundation, vol.94, University of Chicago Press, 2003, p695).

The problem was in the fact that while Europeans had built up immunity to such diseases over time, intermingling with numerous cultures and nations, those in the New World had no such background of immunity development, which means that upon exposure to a foreign antigen, either the antigen is eliminated by the standard immune response (resistance), or the immune system adapts to the pathogen, promoting immune tolerance instead.

Without this immunity, new diseases (or most any disease) would have rapidly spread throughout the population with devastating results—as was the case among in the Americas of the indigenous peoples in the New World.

Comment #2: “The pressing question in my mind is why the slow rise of a continent [at the time of the crucifixion]? It is true that fault scarps will form almost instantaneously. We are not dealing with such a thing here of course since the entire block came up relatively together. There had to be movement along individual fault traces during such an event. But the big question is why the relatively slow rise over 3 hours? I think the answer is still - it was an act of God to preserve life” Ira T.

Destruction in the Land of Promise following the crucifixion

 

Response: There was obviously great destruction during this time, with many people dying (3 Nephi 8:24-25). Those who survived were those “who had not fallen” (3 Nephi 8:20), but there were many who were slain (3 Nephi 8:14-15), with many being drowned (3 Nephi 8:9), and many being burned (3 Nephi 8:14), while others were buried in the earth (3 Nephi 9:5), or carried away in whirlwinds (3 Nephi 8:16) evidently meaning in tornadoes—all of these lives lost because of their iniquity and abominations (3 Nephi 9:2) and that there were none righteous among them (3 Nephi 9:11). According to the Lord, those that were spared were more righteous than those who were killed (3 Nephi 9:13).
Obviously, the way in which the destruction took place, the way in which the land rose, the way in which the face of the whole earth was changed was meant to destroy the wicked and save the more righteous. Under what conditions some were killed and others spared is not given us, other than the Lord controlled these events as described in 3 Nephi 9.

Comment #3: “A friend shared this comment with me and I was wondering what you thought since you are so opposed to Mesoamerica. “Dr. Sorenson, in agreement with most who have given careful scholarly consideration to this question, proposes a Book of Mormon location in Mesoamerica. Most Book of Mormon readers, when they find reference to the narrow neck of land, immediately imagine this to be Panama. They then conclude that the land northward is North America and South America is the land southward. Dr. Sorenson says that this just doesn't fit the data. He has found, however, that if the narrow neck is assumed to be the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, a very close correlation with the details of Book of Mormon geography is achieved. This theory would place Lehi's landing somewhere near the coast of present day El Salvador. The Land of Nephi would then be in Guatemala. There are those who have proposed an ancient city, near the present day Guatemala City, as the location of the City of Nephi.” Brigham M.

Response: We certainly agree that North and South America, along with Central America, are not the lands North and South and the narrow neck of land in between. However, that would end an agreement with Sorenson. It is difficult to see how the Isthmus of Tehuantepec achieves any close correlation with the Book of Mormon geography. Consider:

1. Mormon tells us the narrow neck of land can be crossed in a day and a half. Tehuantepec is 144 miles across—short of some type of Iron Man, no one can cross that much land in a day and a half on foot—no one!

2. When standing along the southern shore of Tehuantepec, it cannot be determined from line of sight that the land cuts in sufficient to form a narrow neck; the same is true when standing along the northern shore. One simply does not get a perspective of an isthmus. The only reason Sorenson or anyone else knows there is an isthmus is because modern maps call it such, and satellite photos show the slight, gentle curve inward of both shores. In Nephite times, without these modern visionary aids, it would have been impossible to have known that this areas was a “narrow neck of land.”

3. Because of its width, this isthmus does not and would not have curtailed movement through it of an invading (Lamanite) or escaping (Morianton) army, nor could a defensive (Moroni/Teancum) army have sealed off this location from being entered. Thus, it does not serve the single purpose Mormon credits it to have—a way to keep the Lamanites to the South of the Nephites (Alma 22:33-34)

Mesoamerican theorists claim the sea to the north is the east sea and the sea to the south is the west sea

 

4. The two seas at Tehuantepec are: a) the Pacific Ocean to the south, and b) the Gulf of Tehuantepec to the north. There is no West Sea or East Sea as Mormon describes, thugh these north and south seas are claimed to be east and west by Mesoamerican theorists like Sorenson.

5. While the Land of Bountiful, the Land of Zarahemla, and the Land of Nephi, as well as the entire Land Southward are all described as being to the south of this narrow neck of land—Tehuantepec is to the West of all three lands Sorenson and other Mesoamerican theorists place them.

Obviously, there is not any way in which Sorenson’s map of Mesoamerica clarifies the geography of the Land of Promise, or could be considered “a very close correlation with the details of the Book of Mormon geography.”

Comment #4: “I read recently that the Jaredite word for Cumorah was Ramah, which is also a good Hebrew word meaning “height” or “high point.” I had not heard the Hebrew connection before. Is it correct?” D.G.

Response: The word Ramah רָמָה from its root word means “hill,” it also means “height” as a seat of idolatry, and also “lofty” as one consecrated to the worship of idols. It is a proper locative noun, meaning its reference is to a location. In trying to claim that a Jaredite word was Hebrew, one forgets that the Jaredites arrived in the Land of Promise around 2100 BC., and neither the term “Hebrew” nor a “Hebrew people” did not yet exist according to Biblical scholars.

The name Hebrew designates the descendants of Eber, great-grandson of Shem, who claim that the term Hebrews to designate the descendants of the patriarchs of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament)—i.e., Abraham (six generations after Eber), Isaac, and Jacob. The word ‘Eber’ means “the region beyond” and “crossing over beyond the Euphrates,” suggesting where Eber first settled (Marcuis Jastrow, A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature, London, W.C. Luzac & Co., G. P. Putnam's Sons; New York, 1903, p1039).