Continued from the previous article regarding the differences between theorists’ beliefs and Mormon’s facts. Items #1 through #6 are in the previous post, below we continue with #7:
7. The overall Land of Zarahemla stretched from the Sea East to the Sea West, however the actual land around Zarahemla stretched from the east to the Sea West—there were other lands on the east between the Land of Zarahemla and the Sea East, such as the Land of Gideon, and the lands of Moroni, Nephihah, Lehi, Morianton and others along the Sea East. The Land of Nephi stretched from the Sea East to the Sea West and any Land of Promise model that doesn’t have such configurations cannot be said to match the descriptions in the Book of Mormon.
Nor is there any mention, suggestion, or indication that the east coast of the Land Southward stretched far out from the rest of the east coast as does the Yucatan in the Mesoamerican model.
8. The narrow strip of wilderness ran from the Sea East to the Sea West and was the division line between the Land of Zarahemla and the Land of Nephi, and also the division line between the Nephites on the north and the Lamanites on the south (Alma 22:27).
In 1828 when Joseph Smith was translating the plates, Noah Webster’s American Dictionary of the English Language defined “wilderness” as: “A desert; a tract of land or region uncultivated and uninhabited by human beings, whether a forest or a wide barren plain. In the United States, it is applied only to a forest. In Scripture, it is applied frequently to the deserts of Arabia. The Israelites wandered in the wilderness forty years.”
Today, the definition is generally the same, being any “uncultivated, uninhabited, and inhospitable region.” Either way, this narrow strip could not have been a river or lake since a water way cannot be cultivated or inhabited. Yet, Heartland maps show the Ohio River as their Narrow Strip of Wilderness; or use the Appalachian Mountains. However, that correlation cannot be correct since the Appalachian Mountains do not run and cannot be described as running “from the Sea East even to the Sea West” as Mormon states.
9. The Land Southward was longer north to south than it was wide, from east to west. This is attested to from several inferences, not the least of which was when the Nephites had two armies, one on the east border and one on the west boarder (Helaman 26), when Coriantumr attacked and defeated the city of Zarahemla, then took off up the center of the land (Helaman 1:24-25) for the Land of Bountiful, “marching through the most capital parts of the land” (Helaman 1:27). Captain Lehi, who had been by the seashore, raced to intercept Coriantumr’s march northward, and Moronihah raced from the west coast to cut off Coriantumr’s retreat, who ended up surrounding the Lamanites and cutting them off from any flight (Helaman 1:30-31). Had the land been the same width or wider than its length at this point, such maneuvering would not have been possible. And in this sense, it could be said that Mesoamerica, with its Yucatan Peninsula, makes their Land Southward wider than it is long. Both the Heartland and Great Lakes models are wider than they are long, and cover extended distances within their borders.
10. Plants and herbs used for medicinal purposes, specifically one that cured fever and kept people from dying with fever (Alma 46:40). Fever deaths, of course, are the result of malaria, simply called “fever” anciently, and only one place in the entire world where an indigenous plant grows that produces a cure for malaria and that is the cinchona tree in Andean South America, which produces quinine from its bark. Obviously, no other model anywhere—not in Mesoamerica, nor in North America—in the world outside of Andean South America could meet this requirement.
11. Walls of stone. As found in Alma: “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). Since these were defensive walls that were built to defend the country against Lamanite attacks, they would have been built well, and not merely stacked rocks which could be knocked over, but sturdy construction to withstand an army’s concentrated assaults. Such walls would be found even today, certainly intact and obviously showing their sturdy and defensive use as are the walls in Andean Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador. There are no such rock walls found in all of North America, and the few walls in Mesoamerica are not so built—most of their construction was in platform pyramids, which do not provide any defense at all.
12. A major river. At the time of Alma in the last century B.C., a major river ran from the south to the north, from the narrow strip of wilderness between the Land of Zarahemla and the Land of Nephi, past to the east of the city of Zarahemla, and emptied into the sea. This river was wide enough and had enough downward flow to carry hundreds of bodies along and deposit them in the sea (Alma 44:22). Such a river exists in Peru that actually runs north, while those in Mesoamerica run contrary to their model's north.
13. The Land of Promise had to be reached from the southern Arabian coast in 600 B.C. in a weather ship, that is, a vessel pushed forward by the wind. As Nephi put it, his ship was “driven forth before the wind” (1 Nephi 18:8-9), that is, the currents and winds had to drive the ship from the Arabian coast to the final location of the Land of Promise. According to the scriptural record, this was a non-stop voyage (1 Nephi 18:21-23). Unlike ships of the Age of Sail that could sail partially into the wind, called tacking, which is a sailing maneuver by which a sailing vessel, whose desired course is into the wind, turns its bow toward the wind—a maneuver where the bow of the boat rotates through the wind direction, causing the boat to go from pointing diagonally upwind with the wind on one side of the ship and then to the other side of the ship allowing progress in the desired direction. It is critically important for a sailing ship to keep the sails full from the wind, which takes considerable expertise since a wrong move can luff the sails and beginners can lose control of the vessel.
Mesoamerican theorists, who claim Lehi island-hopped across the Pacific against the wind either do not understand sailing, or not understand the expertise it would take to island hop, i.e., sail into an island without running into underwater reefs, or a rising sand bar, or rising ground several hundred feet from the visible shore.
Heartland theorists who use the Mississippi River fail to understand that this river has never been very deep, and until the Corps of Engineers dredged it and dug deeper channels and built locks, no deep water ship could ever sail up the Mississippi. The Great Lakes theorists who use the St. Lawrence River had several miles of rapids around Montreal and this was not passable until the Canadian Engineers built a channel around the rapids.
(See the next post, ”When Are We Going to Rely on Fact Rather than Theory – Part III,” for item #14 in the differences between theorists’ beliefs and Mormon’s facts)
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