How Heartland and Great Lakes Theorists Err in their Location of the Land of Promise - Part II

Some theorists write, when evaluating someone else’s map, that it does not agree with their own map and, therefore, is in error. Since both maps are in error in not matching the scriptural record, both are of little value. In this blog, we only relate points to the scriptural record and do not include personal opinions unless so noted—which is very seldom.

The point being, which should be the point of all searches for Lehi’s Land of Promise, and that is to start with the scriptural record—and not just a single or few cherry-picked verses, but from 1 Nephi and the trip to Bountiful, the building of the ship, and the course Nephi took in guiding his ship to the promised land.

There are at least, 40, and perhaps 50 or so scriptural references of Mormon and others writings in the scriptural record, as they described the land upon which they lived. It seems inherently arrogant to set their views aside today and insert one’s own views and opinions—yet, that is what most theorists do!

Sorenson’s map of his Land of Promise, running east and west in Mesoamerica

 

Take John L. Sorenson as an example. Considered the guru of the widely-accepted Mesoamerican theory, he has turned his map nearly 90º to the west, causing an east-west Land of Promise rather than a north-south land as Mormon gives us (Alma 22:27-34), in order to provide what he called Mormon north. This means his East Sea is in the north (Gulf of Mexico), his West Sea is in the south (Pacific Ocean), his Land Northward is to the west (southern Mexico) and his Land Southward is in the east (Guatemala, Belieze, Yucatan, and Honduras).

Hardly anything in his map (or theory) is in compliance with the scriptural record without changing the meaning of Mormon’s writing to conform to his changes.

Olive’s map of her Land of Promise in the Great Lakes

 

Also, take Carol Phyllis Olive, an original leaders in the Great Lakes theory, states that one should start with the Hill Cumorah and then expand outward from there since Cumorah is the only geographic point known for certain. However, the only point known about Cumorah is the hill near Palmyra in which Joseph Smith received the plates of the Book of Mormon. We do not know, for example, that this was the same hill Cumorah as written about in the Book of Mormon—in fact, there is much in Mormon’s writing to suggest that it is not.

In addition, Olive has Lehi landing in the area north of Detroit along the St. Clair River between Lake St. Clair and Lake Huron, probably around Anchor Bay or Algonac. The question is, how did Nephi get an ocean-going ship (or any boat larger than a canoe) southwest of Montreal on the St. Lawrence River, since that three-mile part of the river was fraught with the Lachine Rapids that required even canoes to offload and be portaged the three miles past the rapids, descending from 581-feet to 92-feet (from about Lasalle to about Dorval) where they could pick up the river once again—not until the Canadian engineers dug a canal around Montreal in the late 1800s could a ship sail past Montreal. And then it was stopped by the rise in the river of several hundred feet to Lake Ontario and even higher to Lake Erie, requiring a complete lock system today to achieve.

Meldrum and Porter’s map of their Land of Promise in the vast plains of the heartland

 

In addition, one can take Rod Meldrum and Bruce H. Porter’s Heartland theory, who suggest that Book of Mormon events took place in the heartland of the United States, east of the Mississippi River from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico. Their map, however, places the sequence of the Land of Promise lands completely out of order, which enables them to use the vast plains of the United States heartland as the land of the Nephites.

Meldrum and Porter place (White Circles) the Land of Zarahemla to the west, and a little north of the Land of Bountiful, where Mormon places Bountiful to the north of Zarahemla. They also place (Yellow Circle) the “head” of the river Sidon at the confluence of the Mississippi River and the Ohio River, at Cairo, Illinois. However, according to the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System, the Ohio River is 981 miles long, starting at the confluence of the Allegheny and the Monongahela Rivers in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and ending in Cairo, Illinois, where it flows into the Mississippi River.

Consequently, there is no “head” of any river at this confluence—it is the mouth (end) of the Ohio River. The Mississippi River, which is the second longest river in North America, flowing 2,350 miles from its source (or “head”) at Lake Itasca in Minnesota, through the center of the continental United States to where it empties (mouth) into the Gulf of Mexico.

Another Heartland view from “Moroni’s America” theorist. Note the erroneous placement of the lands

 

From the theorist of Moroni’s America on the Book of Mormon Evidence website under “The North American Setting for the Book of Mormon,” comes the above map, showing the same disconnect from Mormon’s descriptions of the Land of Promise and this theorist’s view of that land.

Note (Red Circle) the erroneous widening of the Mississippi River south of Illinois to accommodate a “sea” rather than a river, which the Mississippi definitely is.

Note also that the Land of Bountiful is east (not north) of the Land of Zarahemla. Also note that the Land of Nephi (in the east) borders the Land of Bountiful, which Mormon never states. And note (White Cirlce) the tiny Land of Desolation which led into the Land Northward—not shown.

There are several disconnected seas in their map: 1) 2 Sea Wests; 2) 2 Sea Norths; 3) 2 Sea Easts; and 4) 1 Sea South—though what the Gulf of Mexico is called in this diagram is unknown. It should be noted that only four seas are mentioned in the scriptural record, and not in multiple terms: “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).

There is, of course, the Jaredite “Sea that divided the land,” which was connected to the Narrow Neck of Land, as well as their Ripliancum, a water area in the north.

However, Mormon makes it clear that the Land of Promise began in the south where Lehi landed (Alma 22:28)—not in North America as Meldrum and Porter claim, or in Mesoamerica as Sorenson and others claim. This is seen in their various Land of Promise maps which shows an attempt to place various lands in the space each has suggested that do not fit properly, nor agree with Mormon’s description.

From this landing location, Mormon tells us that the Nephites moved northward when Nephi was told by the Lord to flee into the wilderness and take as many as would go with him (2  Nephi 5:5). Now to the south were the Lamanites, to the west was the Sea West, and to the east was the Sea East—that left only northward.

Nephi was led by the Liahona and settled in a location the Lord had chosen for them, the area later known as the City of Nephi within the Land of Nephi. There the Nephites stayed about 400 years until they became so wicked, that the Lord told Mosiah to “flee out of the Land of Nephi with as many as would hearken unto the voice of the Lord should also depart out of the land with him, into the wilderness” (Omni 1:12).

Nephi traveled northward in search of a settlement area far distant from his older brothers who sought his life, which when settled, called it the Land of Nephi

 

They traveled northward, since the Land of Zarahemla and the city of Zarahemla, which Mosiah discovered, was in that direction (Alma 22:27). As Mormon inserts: “The king sent a proclamation throughout all the land, amongst all his people who were in all his land, who were in all the regions round about, which was bordering even to the sea, on the east and on the west, and which was divided from the land of Zarahemla by a narrow strip of wilderness” (the Land of Nephi was to the south and the Land of Zarahemla was to the north of this narrow strip of wilderness), which ran from the sea east even to the sea west, and round about on the borders of the seashore, and the borders of the wilderness which was on the north by the land of Zarahemla, (north of the king’s Land of Nephi) through the borders of Manti, by the head of the river Sidon, running from the east towards the west -- and thus were the Lamanites and the Nephites divided” (Alma 22:27, emphasis added).

Northward from the Land of Zarahemla was the Land of Bountiful (Alma22:29) and northward, beyond that, Bountiful bordered upon the land which they called Desolation, it being so far northward that it came into the land which had been peopled and been destroyed—thus the land on the northward was called Desolation, and the land on the southward was called Bountiful” (Alma 22:30-31). And northward of this area was the Land of Cumorah within a Land of Many Waters (Mormon 6:4).

It seems inarguable that if one is going to located the Land of Promise that these scriptural reference points, locations and directions need to be considered, and more specifically, the descriptions of all this written and described by Mormon.