The Absolute Necessity of Matching Scripture – Part VIII

Continuation of the list of items regarding the matching of the scriptural record: 1 thru 23 are in the previous posts. Here we continue with 24 below:

An island with four directional seas

 

(24) Four Seas Around the Land of Promise. As has been stated in this blog many times, during a two-day conference in the Temple, Jacob told an assembly of Nephites, who feared the Lord had forgotten them since they were not in Jerusalem: “We have been driven out of the land of our inheritance; but we have been led to a better land, for the Lord has made the sea our path, and we are upon an isle of the sea” (2 Nephi 10:20, emphasis added).

Most Theorists ignore this statement, or at best, explain it away by claiming an “isle” in the Old Testament meant “coastlands,” however, the Hebrew meaning of “Isle” (אִי), used 36 times in 35 verses in the Old Testament is mainly “isles,” which is used 30 times; “island”, used 5 times” and “country,” used once.

As an example: “And the king Ahasuerus laid a tribute upon the land, and upon the isles of the sea (Esther 10:1). Obviously, in this instance, the land (coastlands, etc.) is clearly separated from the isles or islands of the sea. Also, in “and from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea” (Isaiah 11:11).

To verify this fact that the land is an island with seas all around it, we find: “And it came to pass that they did multiply and spread, and did go forth from the land southward to the land northward, and did spread insomuch that they began to cover the face of the whole earth, from the sea south to the sea north, from the sea west to the sea east” (Helaman 3:8).

"From sea to shining sea," originally used in the charters of some of the English Colonies in North America, is an American idiom meaning "from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean." In fact, as early as the original 13 colonies, the eastern border of the early colonies stretched to the Pacific Ocean. Canada’s official Moto, carried on its coat of arms, is “A Mari usque ad Mare,” meaning “From Sea to Sea” referencing the Atlantic to the Pacific oceans. In addition, the term “from sea to sea” means the entire area in between, and when four seas are mentioned, it means that land in between is obviously an island.

Anciently, seas were named for their direction—few had actual names

 

Thus, we see that the Land of Promise had seas all around it, with each cardinal compass direction having a separate name (Sea East, Seas West, Sea North and Sea South). Consequently, for a Land of Promise location, it would need to be or at some time been, an island.

As for Mesoamerica, it has only two seas, no matter what they area called—geographically they are east and west seas, though Mesoamerican Theorists call them north and south. Either way though, it is still only two seas. Also, at no time was Mesoamerica an island. The same is true of the Heartland, who claims the Great Lakes are the four seas, with Lake Michigan the Sea West, Lake Ontario he Sea East, Lake Huron the Sea North and Lake Erie the Sea South—All of which are far to the north, and the Sea West far from the Narrow Neck. Nor was the area once an island, nor are these lakes/seas around the periphery of their Land of Promise.

Peru. According to geologists, Peru was once an island, with the Atlantic Ocean breaking along the eastern shore. As an island, as Jacob called it and Nephite wrote it into the record, it has four directional seas.

(25) Metallurgy in Land of Promise. Around 2000 BC, the Jaredites developed metallurgy, and worked with gold, silver and copper (Ether 10:7,23). By the time of the Nephites, metallurgy in the Andes was well known.

In fact, while metallurgy in the Andes dates back thousands of years into BC times, people in Mesoamerica did not begin to work in metals until after 900 AD, though John L. Sorenson of BYU claims that figure should be 600 AD. In either case, Mesoamerica did not have metallurgy until long after South America

Dorothy Hosler, Professor of Archeology and Ancient Technology at MIT, who has carried out field work in the Andean zone of South America for 30 years, has prehistoric Andean metallurgy as her specialty, states that Peruvian metallurgy existed long before any other area in the Americas. As she states: “The use of melting, smelting and casting in prehistoric times in eastern North America did not occur, nor in Mesoamerica, only in South America."

Left: A hammered copper plate; Middle: A smelted and finished brass plate; Right: A smelted bronze plate (the latter being much strong, which would be important in making weapons

 

As for the Heartland, ancient peoples there did not have gold or silver, but did work in Copper, though it was only shaped from native copper, and was not smelted, meaning their work did not include what is called Metallurgy, which was also the case in the Great Lakes area.

Peru. However, in South America, the case is quite different. Indigenous South Americans had full metallurgy with smelting—a process of extractive metallurgy by heating ore in order to separate a base metal, such as gold, silver, iron, copper, and other base metals, from their ores to their purest form.

The alloying of various metals being purposely combined to create a strong, more attractive or meaningful purpose, was used in South America well into BC times. Archaeologists also claim that “The ancient Peruvians practiced a more advanced technology in the mastery of gold, silver, copper, and alloy metallurgy than others in the Americas. once other areas began to use metals, gold and silver having minimal use in the Heartland and Great Lakes because of limited existence. Even when Mesoamerica and the Heartland/Great Lakes began to extract metals, at least 200 years after the final demise of the Nephites, Peruvian metallurgy demonstrated “a very fine workmanship,” with work far superior to other in the Americas, and even rivaled that of the Old World.

The extensive use of "portable" smelting kilns in the vicinity of Puma Punku, Tiwanaku, and at three additional sites in Peru and Bolivia to manufacture, in situ, "I" beams as connectors to large stone blocks during the construction process represent a seemingly anomalous function for metal smelting. The reported chemical analysis of these metal pours is 95.15% copper, 2.05% arsenic, 1.70% nickel, .84% silicon and .26% iron. The estimated date of these pours lies between earlier than 500 BC and no later than 500 AD.
As can be seen, the South American metal working developed in the Andean region of modern Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Chile, and Argentina, with gold and copper being hammered and shaped into intricate objects, particularly ornaments. Further evidence for this type of metal work comes from the sites at Waywaka, Chavin, and Kotosh, and seems to have been spread throughout Andean societies by 1000 B.C. to 200 B.C.

 

(See the next post, “The Absolute Necessity of Matching Scripture – Part IX,” for the continuation of the list of items regarding the matching of the scriptural record)