Geography

[notHagoth7]

The recent Meldrum, Priddis, and MesoAmerican threads got me thinking.

Has anyone done an analysis of the various geographical clues (and prophetic promises) within the Nephite text, parsed out into where the Nephites were (in generic terms) when each clue or promise was given?

For example:

A ) Original landfall.

B ) Region where Nephi and his followers retreated shortly afterwards

C ) Land of Zarahemla/Bountiful

The more I think about Meldrum's assumptions and some of the MesoAmerican assumptions, contrasted by the text's claims that the Nephites at times migrated en masse, the more I'm beginning to think that we may be engendering conflict by jumbling all such statements into the assumption of any one single region. We might do the text (and the promises associated with it) better justice by more clearly delineating each such statement with the generic lands the Nephites were in when each promise/clue was given.

I'm not talking about trying to pin the tail on modern geography. Just on the generic terms the Nephites used for each of their temporary homelands. Such a study might allow for the various geographic models to tolerate one another's claims more peacefully. (If not eventually help reconcile them.)

So can someone recommend publications/websites/studies that have already parsed the relevant passages into the various homelands?

Or is this something that would have to be started from scratch?

(I'd prefer to avoid reinventing the wheel, if possible.)

[dsrt loon]

I would be interested too, and I might even try to do some of the analysis myself if I feel like I have the time. I might as well, since I've been making a newbie-ish flurry of posts. I started a commentary years ago that was supposed to examine the relationship between the narrated events in the Book of Mormon and the prophecies for today, and the locations for them. Maybe I'll go and dust it off.

I'm fascinated by how badly some want to locate the Book of Mormon events in North America - "the U.S.-Centric Reading of the Book of Mormon". To my mind it has a lot to do with unexamined nationalistic and even racial pride, but maybe I'm judging unfairly.

[notHagoth7]

I would be interested too, and I might even try to do some of the analysis myself if I feel like I have the time. I might as well, since I've been making a newbie-ish flurry of posts. I started a commentary years ago that was supposed to examine the relationship between the narrated events in the Book of Mormon and the prophecies for today, and the locations for them. Maybe I'll go and dust it off.

I'd love to see it.

I'm fascinated by how badly some want to locate the Book of Mormon events in North America - "the U.S.-Centric Reading of the Book of Mormon". To my mind it has a lot to do with unexamined nationalistic and even racial pride, but maybe I'm judging unfairly.

As a Canadian, I also take frothing umbrage over a US-Centric Reading.

Especially because, as the findings in Nova Scotia demonstrated, the Norse discoverer foretold in 1 Nephi clearly made landfall in Canada.

[poulsenll]

The recent Meldrum, Priddis, and MesoAmerican threads got me thinking.

Has anyone done an analysis of the various geographical clues (and prophetic promises) within the Nephite text, parsed out into where the Nephites were (in generic terms) when each clue or promise was given?

For example:

A ) Original landfall.

B ) Region where Nephi and his followers retreated shortly afterwards

C ) Land of Zarahemla/Bountiful

I'm not talking about trying to pin the tail on modern geography. Just on the generic terms the Nephites used for each of their temporary homelands. Such a study might allow for the various geographic models to tolerate one another's claims more peacefully. (If not eventually help reconcile them.)

So can someone recommend publications/websites/studies that have already parsed the relevant passages into the various homelands?

Or is this something that would have to be started from scratch?

(I'd prefer to avoid reinventing the wheel, if possible.)

Years ago John Clark published an article calling for just that.

http://mi.byu.edu/publications/review/?vol=19&num=2&id=655

He said that it is impossible to postulate a geography for the BofM culture without first making a map based on what the text says about geography.

Before doing that however, it is important to understand how the BofM culture viewed directions and what they meant by north, south,east and west as opposed to northward, southward, eastward and westword. Modern thought based on our geocentric view of directions tends to lump them together as though there is no difference between north and northward or any of the other pairs. Ancient cultures viewed directions referenced to the way that they were facing with respect to the position of the sun rather than based on a printed map with rectangular coordinates as most of us do today.

They were particularly fixed on where the sun rose each day and although they were aware that the point of sunrise moved along the eastern horizon during the course of the year, they always considered sunrise as east even though it was not a fixed point. They even laid out their land based on the position of the sun at the solstices and used the sun's travel along the horizon as a calendar to determine the seasons and days of the year. Such a calendar is quite accurate to within a precision of a single day. The shadow of a verical stick moves about 1/3 of a degree each day except near the solstice, at which time the sun appears to stand still. The term solstice means literally sun standing still. Even our word for east originates from an ancient anglo saxon word meaning sunrise or dawn.

Internal evidence from the BofM text suggests that Mormon used this ancient view of directions when writing his abridgement of the Nephite history.

See

http://mi.byu.edu/publications/review/?vol=19&num=2&id=655

for a more detailed discussion of this issue.

Larry P

[cinepro]

I'd prefer to avoid reinventing the wheel, if possible.

Or the dragged chariot, as it where.

[Anijen]

IMO Meldrum's theories are fanatical and out there like Pluto and like Pluto was his ideas needs to be demoted.

[erichard]

...

Has anyone done an analysis of the various geographical clues (and prophetic promises) within the Nephite text, parsed out into where the Nephites were (in generic terms) when each clue or promise was given?

...

So can someone recommend publications/websites/studies that have already parsed the relevant passages into the various homelands?

Or is this something that would have to be started from scratch?

Hi not,

What you say sounds interesting, but I do not understand your example and idea very well.

The BoM account mentions many cities. There is no reason to think that these cities were not always the same city. But maybe I am not fully following you.

Have you seen this: The Zarahemla Puzzle by Patrick L. Simiskey (3.88 MB Pdf file)

In this he examines BoM geographical clues and tries to find a site in the Americas that fit the clues. He determines the land of the Nephites was in Panama. Even though I disagree, his study is quite interesting. It may have information you are talking about.

Richard

[notHagoth7]

Years ago John Clark published an article calling for just that.

If I understand, his work is about geography for the lands of Zarahemla/Bountiful, correct?

That's a bit too myopic for my needs. I'm looking for more than just geography. And more than just one of their homelands.

I'm looking instead for a broader view of Nephite travels, aligned with the prophecies attached to each land during each sojourn.

Hi not,

Hi e.

What you say sounds interesting, but I do not understand your example and idea very well.

Does the explanation above clarify?

The BoM account mentions many cities. There is no reason to think that these cities were not always the same city.

I haven't been clear. That's not my meaning.

They lived in different places over time.

1) Their initial landing point, where Lehi was buried.

2) The land where Nephi led those who would follow him shortly after arriving (where they built a temple).

3) The regions of Bountiful/Zarahemla - where Mosiah led those who would follow him to encounter/join the Mulekites.

3a) A settlement back in the Land of Nephi, where some of the Nephites from Bountiful/Zarahemla returned to settle. (i.e. Limhi/Noah)

4) "The land northward"

5) Lands unknown (fx. Alma 63 "whither it went, we know not")

At this juncture, I'm not trying to pin each Nephite land to a modern map. That's a distraction at this point.

Instead, I'm looking to clear some of the underbrush. I'm interested in looking at the prophecies tied to each Nephite homeland. (Instead of assuming the prophecies associated with the Land of Nephi have to apply to Bountiful/Zarahemla. Or to "the land northward".)

Apparently at least two people are working on things with at least some overlap to this.

So I'll probably hold off until those items are ready for a reading before deciding whether it's something I need to research/write.

(Does that help clarify what I'm looking for?)

It **might** someday help to serve as a bridge between some of the competing geographic models.

Have you seen this: The Zarahemla Puzzle by Patrick L. Simiskey (3.88 MB Pdf file)

No, I haven't. But I intend to now. Thx!

[dsrt loon]

Some preliminary thoughts and observations:

Nephi's vision (1 Ne 13) happened before the family set sail, before they even reached "old" Bountiful. If he saw Columbus, that supports the view of the "Promised Land" as all of the Americas, since Columbus never actually set foot on either main continent. As for Leif Eirikson, if that's who Nephi meant it still supports the view of all of the Americas as the scope of Nephi's vision.

Nephi's description of a war of independence is obviously applicable to the U.S. revolutionary war, but there have been other wars of independence in the Americas too. Note that 13:14 mentions "many multitudes of the Gentiles upon the land of promise". At least one author has tried to interpret going "forth out of captivity" as only applying to the Protestant colonizers, I agree with John E. Clark in rejecting this.

When Lehi makes his prophecies about the land of promise in 2 Ne 1, the family is either still at the landing site or wherever they settled after they have "journeyed in the wilderness" (1 Ne 18:25) for who knows how long or how far.

Captain Moroni names

[Pappy Fiddle]

This whole subject is intriguing to me, on a number of dimensions.

As an exercise, open a drawing program such as MS Paint and draw some doodles. Let's say you go thru

this series:

1. Draw some medium sized solid-fill blue ovals. (see figures below)

2. Draw some red horizontal bars, running from "east to west", thickness about half the size of the ovals.

3. Draw some green diagonal bars, NW to SE, similar to the red bars.

4. Cut vertical sections out of the whole and move them up or down a short distance.

5. Select a large area in the middle of the whole and warp it a few degrees one way or another.

6. Select two areas of green that look fairly well connected and turn them purple.

The result is a fairly complex mishmash. Now show this to a friend and see if they can figure out how it was constructed.

The problem is that later steps tend to obscure earlier ones.

For instance, your guinea pig will probably recognize step 5 right away. They may realize that the green stripes overlay the red ones. Steps 4 and 5, tho, will probably throw them - even after they've figured out step 5. If someone realizes that the blue areas were ovals, and they went down first, give them a shiny paper star on their forehead, and marry them - they are one smart cookie.

In my studies, I'm interested in puzzles like this - from the standpoint of how the various steps obscure each other, and also, how they can be detected and unraveled.

Geologists often see patterns somewhat like this, where faults and magma fills intersect with sedimentary layers and erosion. They have the fun of trying to reason out what happened over time.

The Book of Mormon gives us a running series of descriptions of the geography, always limited, and these descriptions occur down thru time, something like 2000 years or more in total span.

Some of these descriptions overlay others. For instance, after the great destruction, some cities were rebuilt - others were done and gone. And when the Nephites began to be driven out of the south country, the pass city after city which we've never heard of before, and cities we're familiar with are not mentioned.

The puzzle thus has multiple dimensions and is thus far more difficult and thus far more interesting.

Pappy

[notHagoth7]

The problem is that later steps tend to obscure earlier ones.

Yep. Which is why examining what the text itself says becomes way more important than leaning on what any secondary source or lecture posits.

And I think the fog of war kicks up too when various camps are anxious to disprove competing arguments - so that occasionally more time is spent focusing on what the other camp supposedly said than on what the text itself says.

...In my studies, I'm interested in puzzles like this - from the standpoint of how the various steps obscure each other, and also, how they can be detected and unraveled.

What typical topics do you enjoy studying?

The Book of Mormon gives us a running series of descriptions....Some of these descriptions overlay others....The puzzle thus has multiple dimensions and is thus far more difficult and thus far more interesting.

Yep. It looks like a fun puzzle. I don't know if I'll have anything of concrete value to contribute to the overall discussion when I'm done with this.

[notHagoth7]

IMO Meldrum's theories are fanatical and out there like Pluto and like Pluto was his ideas needs to be demoted.

Although this isn't a thread about any one geographic model, your responses might be helpful with some of the framework I'm attempting to sound out:

1) Specifically which elements of his various theories do you find "out there"?

2) And why?

[notHagoth7]

Some preliminary thoughts and observations:

Nephi's vision (1 Ne 13) happened before the family set sail, before they even reached "old" Bountiful. If he saw Columbus, that supports the view of the "Promised Land" as all of the Americas, since Columbus never actually set foot on either main continent. As for Leif Eirikson, if that's who Nephi meant it still supports the view of all of the Americas as the scope of Nephi's vision.

Nephi's description of a war of independence is obviously applicable to the U.S. revolutionary war, but there have been other wars of independence in the Americas too. Note that 13:14 mentions "many multitudes of the Gentiles upon the land of promise". At least one author has tried to interpret going "forth out of captivity" as only applying to the Protestant colonizers, I agree with John E. Clark in rejecting this.

When Lehi makes his prophecies about the land of promise in 2 Ne 1, the family is either still at the landing site or wherever they settled after they have "journeyed in the wilderness" (1 Ne 18:25) for who knows how long or how far.

Captain Moroni names

[John T]

Years ago John Clark published an article calling for just that. http://mi.byu.edu/pu...19&num=2&id=655 He said that it is impossible to postulate a geography for the BofM culture without first making a map based on what the text says about geography.

I believe that some have done that, and I saw some when I googled "mormon geography" The problem is that each looked different, and there were no common things between them, excepting the names of the places.

Before doing that however, it is important to understand how the BofM culture viewed directions and what they meant by north, south,east and west as opposed to northward, southward, eastward and westword. Modern thought based on our geocentric view of directions tends to lump them together as though there is no difference between north and northward or any of the other pairs. Ancient cultures viewed directions referenced to the way that they were facing with respect to the position of the sun rather than based on a printed map with rectangular coordinates as most of us do today.

What you are essentially saying is that the sun rose and set differently than it does now. Even without the knowledge of magnetism, people knew how to tell direction. they had the sun to show the east-west direction and the North Star to show the north-south direction. That was a matter of observation. If things like the Mayan pyramids were built so that on one special day of the year, the sun lit up one certain part of the pyramid, that presupposes a certain level of sophisticated engineering. That level of engineering also dictates that the civilizations were not as rudimentary as some might like them to be.

They were particularly fixed on where the sun rose each day and although they were aware that the point of sunrise moved along the eastern horizon during the course of the year, they always considered sunrise as east even though it was not a fixed point. They even laid out their land based on the position of the sun at the solstices and used the sun's travel along the horizon as a calendar to determine the seasons and days of the year. Such a calendar is quite accurate to within a precision of a single day. The shadow of a verical (sIc) stick moves about 1/3 of a degree each day except near the solstice, at which time the sun appears to stand still. The term solstice means literally sun standing still. Even our word for east originates from an ancient anglo saxon word meaning sunrise or dawn.

Internal evidence from the BofM text suggests that Mormon used this ancient view of directions when writing his abridgement (sic ) of the Nephite history.

See http://mi.byu.edu/pu...19&num=2&id=655 for a more detailed discussion of this issue. Larry P

In this paragraph, we agree--somewhat. However that does not address the issue at hand. That being internal consistency of the BoM and its congruity with known world geography. Until that is done, everyone who wants to talk about Mormon geography will be sharing uninformed conjecture. Therefore, I am agreeing with what you posted about John Clark's article.

[poulsenll]

I believe that some have done that, and I saw some when I googled "mormon geography" The problem is that each looked different, and there were no common things between them, excepting the names of the places.

What you are essentially saying is that the sun rose and set differently than it does now. Even without the knowledge of magnetism, people knew how to tell direction. they had the sun to show the east-west direction and the North Star to show the north-south direction. That was a matter of observation. If things like the Mayan pyramids were built so that on one special day of the year, the sun lit up one certain part of the pyramid, that presupposes a certain level of sophisticated engineering. That level of engineering also dictates that the civilizations were not as rudimentary as some might like them to be.

No

There is no evidence in recorded history and geology that the sun has ever rose and set different from now. There is some evidence that the magnetic poles have changed in the distant past but the earth has always spun in the same relationship to the sun as it does today.

All I was saying is that ancient cultures based there directions on where the sun rose and set. The difference between that and our system is that east was always where the sun rose even though that point on the horizon moved about 50 degrees in Mesoamerica and almost 90 degrees in New York during the course of the year. Although they may have used the north star for navigation, they depended primarily on local geographic features. A quick look at the few maps we have available supports this conclusion. To them, north was just where the sun never visited and south was the abode of the sun during the course of the day. The actual meaning of mayan direction words even today when correctly translated still have these meanings.

http://mi.byu.edu/publications/review/?vol=19&num=2&id=655

Classic Maya: hok' k'in "sunrise, east" and *k'ah k'in "sunset, west"4

Nahuatl: "As Nahuatl did not adopt Spanish terms for cardinal directions until the mid-seventeenth century, bills of sale initially used such indigenous phrases as iquiçayampa tonatiuh itzticac, 'facing east [literally where the sun rises].'"5

Quiche Maya: relibal q'ij (n) east ("its coming out sun")6

5. Rebecca Horn, "Nahuatl and Spanish Sources for Coyoacan." Available at http://whp.uoregon.edu/Lockhart/Horn.pdf (accessed 8 November 2008).

6. Allen J. Christenson, "K'iche'-English Dictionary," s.v. "relibal q'ij." Available at www.famsi.org/mayawriting/dictionary/christenson/index.html (accessed 8 November 2008).

There is no doubt in my mind that these civilizations were not rudimentary but were highly advanced in there knowledge of astronomy and other sciences. The way they applied this knowledge was just different from they way we do today. This confuses us and we try to resolve this by ignoring what they knew and not taking time to look at things from their point of view.

Larry P

[poulsenll]

In this paragraph, we agree--somewhat. However that does not address the issue at hand. That being internal consistency of the BoM and its congruity with known world geography. Until that is done, everyone who wants to talk about Mormon geography will be sharing uninformed conjecture. Therefore, I am agreeing with what you posted about John Clark's article.

The internal consistency of the BofM geography is highly dependent on a correct interpretation of the directional elements that go into a correct view of the described geography. It is also necesary in order to construct an internal map ,see Clark, that might have some degree of success in demonstrating congruity with our modern view of world geography. It is also important to understand that ancient cultures did not view themselves as part of a global culture even though they may have known of the nature of the global structure of the world. They viewed themselves as at the center of a local rectangular three dimensional cube and saw everything else relative to where they were located.

For example, they did not think of seas as global oceans but as large local bodies of water bordering on the seashores.

Larry P

[John T]

]

The internal consistency of the BofM geography is highly dependent on a correct interpretation of the directional elements that go into a correct view of the described geography.

Are you saying that this is the reason for the second Cumorah theory? The reason being that the modern man reading the BoM can not adequately interpret the directions that JS gave, or are you saying that the directions given in the translation, and penned by Smith are not correctly understood?

It is also necesary in order to construct an internal map ,see Clark, that might have some degree of success in demonstrating congruity with our modern view of world geography.

This is indeed the fly in the ointment. In order for Mormonism to be legitimate in the eyes of many, artifacts need to be discovered. The absence of this sort of evidence construes a good case that is evidnece of absence for all the things mentioned in the BoM. That is why the first step in becoming credible to others should be the development of a geography that is congruent with the present world. The tome from 600 BC to now is a very short time, speaking geologically. The plates do not move that much in 3000 years, and if they did, surely there would be records of that in correlating histories of other nations and civilizations.

It is also important to understand that ancient cultures did not view themselves as part of a global culture even though they may have known of the nature of the global structure of the world. They viewed themselves as at the center of a local rectangular three dimensional cube and saw everything else relative to where they were located.

CFR

Hadrian, in building his wall to protect England from the Scots certainly had knowledge of the entire Mediterranean, and the eastern Atlantic. Alexander also had knowledge of the eastern Mediterrannean, and the other civilizations of the middle east had knowledge of those on the areas above, below and to the east or west of them. If that were not so, then the Silk road and the Spice road would not converge in the land we now call Israel.

For example, they did not think of seas as global oceans but as large local bodies of water bordering on the seashores. Larry P

That would be the case, as I understand it, for we both know that the major civilizations from Ezekiel to Alexander were in the Middle East. Alexander changed all that

Yet that also begs the question of the ability for the Hebrews to build sea-faring ships strong enough to round the Cape of Africa while sailing contrary to the current of the Antartic Sea, then navigating through the Sputh and North Atlantic seas to a landing spot somewhere. That is why it is imperative for Mormons to develop an accurate geography.

Heck, even Jeff Lindsay waffles on the exact location of Bountiful!