Continuing from the graph of 31 scripturally-based descriptions of the Land of Promise (graph shown in the first of these articles and here at the end). 30 of these descriptions are listed in the previous posts. Here we conclude with 31 below:
The sea cutting into the land in a wide inlet or deep bay
(31) Sea Divides the Land. The scriptural record states: “And they built a great city by the narrow neck of land, by the place where the sea divides the land (Ether 10:20, emphasis added). Note that it doesn’t say “a sea,” but “the sea.”
• The word “a” preceding a noun means that the noun is being introduced for the first time.
• The word “the” preceding a noun means that the noun has already been introduced.
This is seen earlier in Moroni’s abridgement where he introduced the great sea that divided the continents, in which he called it “that [introduction] great sea [larger than any sea yet seen], which dividedeth the lands [continents]” –note that it didn’t divide the land [singular] but the lands [plural—meaning more than one land was divided. With this great sea now introduced, Moroni goes on to state of it as the sea, since the reader knows which sea is being discussed:
“When they had done all these things they got aboard of their vessels or barges, and set forth into the sea, commending themselves unto the Lord their God” (Ether 6:4); and they were “tossed upon the waves of the sea before the wind” (Ether 6:5); as well as “and no monster of the sea could break them” (Ether 6:10). The next time this sea was mentioned is found in the case of Omer who fled northward, then eastward to a place “which was called Ablom, by the seashore, and there he pitched his tent” (Ether 9:3), emphasis added in these scriptures).
Finally, Moroni states of this sea: “by the place where the sea divides the land. Consequently, we can see where this sea, upon which Jacob told the Nephites was their island, is the same sea over which the Jaredites had journeyed—and the same sea that divided the land. So what does it mean to divide land? In the 1830 dictionary, it means “to part,” “to separate,” “to part into two or more parts.”
Mormon obviously describes two specific land masses in the Land of Promise. One he referred to as the "Land Northward" (Alma 22:31; Mormon 2:29), which contained a land called "Desolation" (Alma 22:30) and also the "Land of Cumorah," which was in a land of many waters, rivers, and fountains (Mormon 6:4). The other or second land mass Mormon called the "Land Southward" (Alma 22:32; Mormon 2:29), where "Bountiful" was located in the far north to the Land of Nephi in the far south.
Between these two lands Mormon says there was a small (Alma 22:32) or narrow (Alma 63:5) neck of land—it being the only land keeping the entire Land Southward from being surrounded by water (Alma 22:32). Thus, this narrow neck was the only land between the Land Northward and the Land Southward, and within it was a narrow pass or passage, which ran between the Land Northward (Alma 52:9) and the Land Southward (Mormon 2:29; 3:5), and ran by the sea that was on the east and on the west (Alma 50:34).
Now this narrow neck of land was by the sea that divided the land (Ether 10:20). In addition, there were seas to the north and south, and to the east and west (Helaman 3:8) of the entire Land of Promise, from the Land Southward to the Land Northward (Helaman 3:8), and these seas surrounded the entire Land of Promise since Jacob tells us, and Nephi confirms it, that their land was an island (2 Nephi 10:20).
So what sea divided the land?
Since we are dealing here with an island that has two major land masses, one to the north and one to the south, with a narrow neck of land in between, and the sea that divided the land was by this narrow neck of land, the only option is that this land’s division was some type of bay, gulf or inlet where the sea separated the Land Northward from the Land Southward.
Thus, the Land of Promise was separated into two parts, the Land Northward and the Land Southward, connected by a small neck of land (Alma 22:32).
In looking at Mesoamerica, the theorists claim the Isthmus of Tuantepec was the narrow neck of land; however, there is no sea of any type creating separate or an extension of the sea near this isthmus that divides or could have divided the land. There is only a sea to the north that they call the Sea East and a sea to the south they call the Sea West. There is no division of the land of any type.
As for the Heartland or Great Lakes models, there is no Sea that divides the land around their Narrow Necks of Land, that divided their Sea East from their Sea South—hardly consistent with Mormon’s description.
Peru. Between the Land Northward and the Land Southward is the Gulf of Guayaquil, with an eastern boundary between the east coast of the Gulf and the western edge of the steep Andes Mountains, forming a narrow Pass or Passage between the Land of Desolation to the North and the Land of Bountiful to the South—referred to by Mormon, which existed in his day, about 350 years after the crucifixion (Mormon 2:29; 3:5).
Anciently these mountains did not exist, with the area they now cover below the sea, which was called the Sea East, forming a Narrow Neck or Land Bridge between the Land to the north and the land to the south (Alma 22:32). This Gulf was the “sea that divides the land” (Ether 10:20), creating a land bridge between the two major land masses, and all that separated the Land Southward from the Land Northward.
As can be seen from the references above there are at least 31 descriptions found in the Book of Mormon regarding the Land of Promise. It would seem that any claim to the location of this Land of Promise would at least have to match these 31 descriptions, which are not opinions but statements of fact by ancient writers, i.e., Nephi, Jacob, Mormon and Moroni, who all wrote about this land in which they spent their entire or almost entire lives. Thus, any attempt to locate the Land of Promise should include references to these 31 points, as well as others, such as the fevers that Mormon described as “there were some who died with fevers, which at some seasons of the year were very frequent in the land,” and the cure “but not so much so with fevers, because of the excellent qualities of the many plants and roots which God had prepared to remove the cause of diseases, to which men were subject by the nature of the climate” (Alma 46:40). That disease, of course, being malaria, which is still a major killer in certain parts of the world because of the climate at certain times of the year—but not so much anymore because of a plant indigenous to Andean Peru in South America called the cinchona tree, the only place in the world where this plant grows that produces quinine from its bark—the treatment and cure for malaria.
No comments:
Post a Comment