Continued from the Previous post regarding the sea that” divideth the land” and how theorists either ignore this statement, or completely misunderstand it, a further comment along this line by theorist Ralph A. Olsen states: “There are currents going past Arabia and as far east as the Malay Peninsula. These would have been crucial to the sail-less, drifting Jaredite barges. Getting through the Indonesian isles alone (past Mala) would require skilled guidance and some means of propulsion.”
Note the currents (small arrows) especially within the white circle where currents are moving out of the Malacca Strait northward, against any sailing ship ”driven forth before the wind” or barge floating with the current
Currents in Indonesia come off the Pacific Ocean, through Indonesia, and into the Indian Ocean. For six months of the year, currents past Arabia flow from the northeast to southwest, down through the Sea of Arabia and toward and past the Horn of Africa and along the northeast coast of Africa. For the other six months, currents flow in the opposite direction, from the southwest to the northeast, past Arabia, and drive into land along India and across it, blocking currents, and anything—such as the Jaredite barges—reliant on the wind and currents and into the west shore of the peninsula.
It may look simple on a map, but in reality, in the age when fixed sails and being “driven forth before the wind” were prevalent, or earlier in Jaredite times, when “a furious wind blow upon the face of the waters, towards the promised land; and thus they were tossed upon the waves of the sea before the wind” (Ether 6:5), simply would not have been possible along the Malay coast, through the Indonesia archipelago, or anywhere else in an area with more than 17,000 islands, and 25,000 islands overall in the entire Malay archipelago.
It may also seem easy to get from Arabia to Malaysia, but the currents flowing through the archipelago create conflicting eddies, currents, undertides and rip currents. Anciently, in dhows or small boats with lateen (triangular) sails easily maneuvered by a single, expert seamen, hugging the coast in coastal waters were sailed that often were not seriously affected by the monsoons.
Hugging the coast of India from the Gulf of Oman, the currents circled around the Lakshadweep islands in the Laccadive Sea west of Kochi, India, and around Sri Lanka (Ceylon), then up and around the coast of the Bay of Bengal, past Bengal (Bangladesh), Burma (Myammar), and Thailand in the Andaman Sea, and through to the Malay Peninsula. However, sailing down through the narrow Malacca Strait between Malay and Sumatra, barges and sailing ships would have encountered enormous conflicting currents, full of eddies and cross and upwelling currents.
While the previous “sea that divides the land,” had to do with the area of Oman, the Persian Gulf, and the Sea of Arabia in the “Old World,” the one we need to consider is in the Land of Promise (“New World”), and to better understand that “Sea that divides the land” mentioned in Ether 10:20, we need to look at the information prior to that statement:
The Land Southward to the Jaredites was reserved for a hunting ground
“And in the days of Lib the poisonous serpents were destroyed. Wherefore they did go into the land southward, to hunt food for the people of the land, for the land was covered with animals of the forest. And they built a great city by the narrow neck of land, by the place where the sea divides the land” (Ether 10:19-20, emphasis added).
It should also be understood that in the case of the Jaredites, they did not use terms or names for seas, like we do today, such as the Atlantic Ocean, and Lake Erie. The only name we know of applied to a body of water by the Jaredites is Ripliancum, “which by interpretation is large or to exceed all” (Ether 15:8), meaning that in their language they called this northern body of water the “Largest Sea.” Consider that we call the western ocean the Pacific Ocean. The name originated with the Explorer Ferdinand Magellan who named the Pacific Ocean in the 16th Century, calling it “pacific,”—from the Latin pācificus, meaning “peacemaking.” Its ultimate root, the Latin pāx (meaning “peace”), is also the basis of peace. Magellan named the ocean that because it was calm when he and his crew entered it for the first time after their long journey. Thus Magellan named the Pacific Ocean was named by navigator Ferdinand Magellan in Portuguese as Mar Pacifico, which in Portuguese “Mar Pacifico” meaning “peaceful sea.”
At the same time, the name Atlantic for the Atlantic Ocean, was named by the Greeks, which in their language, atlantic (Ἀτλαντὶς) roughly translates as “the sea of Atlas.” It was so named because it was, to the Greeks, in the far west where they imagined the Titan stood. We call it the Atlantic Ocean, but the Hellenistic world called it “the sea of Atlas.”
Obviously, then, if we were being accurate in mentioning the Pacific Ocean, we would call it the “peaceful ocean,” and the Atlantic, “the sea of Atlas.”
The same can be said of the Nephites who used terms like East Sea, West Sea, North Sea, and South Sea. Lehi called the ocean upon first seeing it “Irreantum,” meaning “many waters.” Again, not specifically a name, but a description. Thus, when we look at “the sea that divides the land, we need to ask ourselves “what sea” is being inferred.
First of all, we can look at some descriptions regarding it given by Mormon and others.
• “that Hagoth, he being an exceedingly curious man, therefore he went forth and built him an exceedingly large ship, on the borders of the land Bountiful, by the land Desolation, and launched it forth into the west sea, by the narrow neck which led into the land northward” (Alma 63:5, emphasis added);
So the West Sea was along the West coast of the Land of Promise and associated by Mormon with the narrow neck of land.
The Narrow Neck of Land that runs between the Land Southward and the Land Northward
• “thus the land of Nephi and the land of Zarahemla were nearly surrounded by water, there being a small neck of land between the land northward and the land southward” (Alma 22:32, emphasis added);
This neck of land ran between the Land Southward and the Land Northward, and was the only land mass mentioned by Mormon as keeping the Land Southward from being completely surrounded by water—thus, the only land connection between the Land Southward and the Land Northward.
• “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);
Jacob said and Nephi wrote it onto the sacred plates that they were on an island. So the island was completely surrounded by the sea.
• “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, emphasis added);
When Jacob says they are on an island in the midst of the sea, and Helaman confirms this by saying the Nephites called this sea by directional names (East Sea, West Sea, North Sea and South Sea), it confirms that the West Sea at the narrow or small neck of land where it cut into the land sufficiently to form a Bay or Gulf, for the Jaredites to call it “the Sea that divides the land.”
(See the next post for the final discussion on the “Sea that divides the land” as it its location and inarguable placement in the Land of Promise)
No comments:
Post a Comment