Despite the numerous scriptures to show the opposite, and evidence to support the scriptural record, there are many scholars and historians who believe in the Mesoamerican theory—to name a few: John L. Sorenson, Sidney B. Sperry, and earlier, Hugh W. Nibley (Stephen E. Robinson, “Bible Scholarship" in Daniel H. Ludlow, Encyclopedia of Mormonism, MacMillan, New York, 1992, p113). All have articulated the argument that the the Hill Cumorah/Ramah must be located relatively close to Zarahemla, which they all claim is based on several pieces of textual evidence.
Roper also stated that “Limhi’s search party was gone for “many days” not “many years” or even “many months.”
The problem with this is brought about when theorists try to place limits on an unknown factor. As an example, how long is “many days.” Nephi uses the term three times (1Nephi 16:15,17;33) in a journey that took 8 years (1 Nephi 17:4). We do not know how long their voyage to the Land of Promise was, but Nephi used the term “many days” twice to describe the time—a voyage that would have had to have taken months.
In addition, when Nephi was fleeing from his brothers with those who would go with him, he uses the term “many days” which must have been several weeks to a month or more. Ammon’s search for the city of Nephi took “many days in the wilderness, even forty days did they wander” (Mosiah 7:4). Zeniff and his people wandered “many days” in the wilderness—which is an unknown time frame (Mosiah 9:4). While Alma was concealed for “many days” he wrote all the words of Abinadi—which must have taken some time.
After Limhi and his people returned to the city of Nephi, they dwelt in peace for “many days,” before the Lamanites were stirred up against them (Mosiah 21:2)—and unknown time frame, but would seem to be a lengthy period. The point is, “many days” does not have a singular meaning—nor can it be estimated, meaning in the Book of Mormon.
To better understand this, we need to know a little bit about Hebrew. First of all, Biblical Hebrew has a limited vocabulary, with fewer words compared to other languages, such as English—which has the largest (William M. Schniedewind, A Social History of Hebrew: Its Origins Through the Rabbinic Period, Yale University Press, 2013, p10).
This means, with only 8,000 words, Hebrew often has multiple meanings, which are determined by context (Bruce K. Waltke, An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax, Eisenbrauns, Penn State University Press, 1990, p48). This, then, means that to try and provide a definition of a word or phrase, like “many days” is not possible with defining explanation. Further “Yom” יוֹם, has the root meaning “to be hot as the warm hours of a day,” and is Hebrew for a “period of time.” It also means: a “Period of light,” a “Time period of unspecified length,” a “Long, but finite span of time,” thus “Yom” in its context, is sometimes translated as: "time" in general (Genesis 4:3, Isaiah 30:8). In fact, in Genesis rabbis admit that “yom” can mean a twenty-four hour solar day, but argue that it can refer to an indefinitely long period of time as well. It is in this sense that the word is employed in Genesis 2:4, with a "day" of God's total creation taking place in the course of "days" of creation.
As an example: "year" (I Kings 1:1, 2 Chronicles 21:19, Amos 4:4); "age" (Genesis 18:11, 24:1 and 47:28; Joshua 23:1 and 23:2); "always" (Deuteronomy 5:29, 6:24 and 14:23, and in 2 Chronicles 18:7); "season" (Genesis 40:4, Joshua 24:7, 2 Chronicles 15:3); epoch or 24-hour day (Genesis 1:5,8,13,19,23,31).
She took from the fruit and ate’ and she gave also to her husband with her and he ate (Genesis 3:6)
On the other hand, it is used in Genesis 2:17 to represent nearly a thousand years, when the Lord told Adam: "But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." In this case, Adam, living 930 years after eating of the fruit, extends the period of the meaning of a day. It should also be noted that Peter made this perfectly clear, stating: “But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing: that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day” (2 Peter 3:8)
“Yom” is not just for a day, or for days, but for time in general. How “yom” is translated depends on the context of its use with other words in the sentence around it.
In addition, the Hebrew word יום (yom), means a "day," but not specifically a twenty-four hour period, but instead more generically like in "a day that something occurs." An example would be "a day of the month" (Genesis 8:4), "in that day Yahweh made a covenant" (Genesis 15:18) and "until the day" (Genesis 19:37). This word can also refer to the light part of the day in contrast to night (Genesis 1:5; Exodus 13:21), but the related word יומם (yomam) specifically means "daytime" as in Job 5:14. This word can be used for a time, age or season, but that is only when this word is in the plural form, which is ימים (yamim), and should probably be translated as "days" and not time, age or season, as this can lead to incorrect interpretations of the text. The word היום (hayom) is the word יום (yom) with the prefix ה (ha) added and it literally means "the day," but in English, we would translate it as "today."
According to John E. Clark, these many proposals of other sites, such as those in the Heartland of what is now the United States, and the Great Lakes. However, the Mesoamerican theorists claim that these other proposals have been convincingly discounted on the grounds that they fail to account for some of the more salient geographical features mentioned in the Book of Mormon like the narrow neck of land and a prominent northward-flowing river, and for the lack of an archaeological record temporally and materially consistent with evidence from the book (John E. Clark, “Evaluating the Case for a Limited Great Lakes Setting,” FARMS Review 14, no.1 2002, p9–77).
Heartland/Great Lakes model of the Land of Promise
One of the points that most Mesoasmerican theorists agree with is that the geographical descriptions provided in what they call the text itself requires that the final battles of the Jaredites and Nephites took place relatively close to both peoples’ centers of civilization near the narrow neck of land. Isn’t it interesting that according to the scriptural Record there is no mention of cities around the Hill Cumorah of the Book of Mormon. Since Mormon wants to have the final battle between the Nephites and the Lamanites at this hill, it is highly unlikely that it would have taken place close to centers of civilization near the narrow neck of land, particularly that of the Lamanites—where fresh troops could be called upon at any time, if necessary.
In fact, there are only two references of populated locations near this neck: Hagoth’s shipyards (Alma 63:5) and the city of Desolation in which Mormon states: “I did cause my people that they should gather themselves together at the land Desolation, to a city which was in the borders, by the narrow pass which led into the land southward (Mormon 3:5). In fact, in the seven instances where the narrow neck of land is referred to, there is no mention other than the city of Desolation, built by the Jaredites (Ether 10:20), with these references called variously, small neck (Alma 22:32), narrow neck (Alma 63:5; Ether 10:20), narrow pass (Alma 50:34; 52:9; Mormon 3:5) and narrow passage (Mormon 2:29).
Thus, not knowing the distance of Cumorah from the Narrow Neck we turn to Mormon and his simple explanation.
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