Did Lehi land in Chile?

[anticool]

A document attributed to Joseph Smith as a revelation, the exact date of revelation is not given.

"The course that Lehi traveled from the city of Jerusalem to the place where he and his family took ship. They traveled nearly a South-Southeast direction until they came to the nineteenth degree of North Latitude, then nearly East to the Sea of Arabia then sailed in a Southeast direction, and landed on the continent of South America

in Chile thirty degrees South Latitude." The Bernhisel Manuscript p. 135 (see also BYU  Studies, spring 1972, Vol. 12 no. 3 pp. 312-14).

 

So lets say they landed around the area of Vina del Mar, Chile. Google 33 deggees latitutde to get a good view.  But we know that Nephi was warned to leave his brothers..

 

2 Nephi 5

5 And it came to pass that the Lord did warn me, that I, Nephi, should depart from them and flee into the wilderness, and all those who would go with me.

6 Wherefore, it came to pass that I, Nephi, did take my family, and also Zoram and his family, and Sam, mine elder brother and his family, and Jacob and Joseph, my younger brethren, and also my sisters, and all those who would go with me. And all those who would go with me were those who believed in the warnings and the revelations of God; wherefore, they did hearken unto my words.

7 And we did take our tents and whatsoever things were possible for us, and did journey in the wilderness for the space of many days. And after we had journeyed for the space of many days we did pitch our tents.

8 And my people would that we should call the name of the place Nephi; wherefore, we did call it Nephi.

9 And all those who were with me did take upon them to call themselves the people of Nephi.

10 And we did observe to keep the judgments, and the statutes, and the commandments of the Lord in all things, according to the law of Moses.

11 And the Lord was with us; and we did prosper exceedingly; for we did sow seed, and we did reap again in abundance. And we began to raise flocks, and herds, and animals of every kind.

12 And I, Nephi, had also brought the records which were engraven upon the plates of brass; and also the ball, or compass, which was prepared for my father by the hand of the Lord, according to that which is written.

13 And it came to pass that we began to prosper exceedingly, and to multiply in the land.

14 And I, Nephi, did take the sword of Laban, and after the manner of it did make many swords, lest by any means the people who were now called Lamanites should come upon us and destroy us; for I knew their hatred towards me and my children and those who were called my people.

15 And I did teach my people to build buildings, and to work in all manner of wood, and of iron, and of copper, and of brass, and of steel, and of gold, and of silver, and of precious ores, which were in great abundance.

16 And I, Nephi, did build a temple; and I did construct it after the manner of the temple of Solomon save it were not built of so many precious things; for they were not to be found upon the land, wherefore, it could not be built like unto Solomon’s temple. But the manner of the construction was like unto the temple of Solomon; and the workmanship thereof was exceedingly fine.

17 And it came to pass that I, Nephi, did cause my people to be industrious, and to labor with their hands.

So lets say they landed around the area of Vina del Mar, Chile. But we know that Nephi was warned to leave his brothers..

 

Where did Nephi leave if he started from the 33 degrees South Latitude? We know that he went north right, his Lamanite brothers were in the land south of course.

So I did some research on the area in Chile....

 

Here is the first paragraph of the link below- The mining sector in Chile is one of the pillars of Chilean economy and copper exports alone stands for more than one third of government income. Most mining in Chile is concentrated to the Norte Grande region spanning most of the Atacama Desert. Mining products of Chile includes copper, gold, silver, molybdenum, iron and coal.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mining_in_Chile

So basically, every ore Nephi mentions ...And some he does not mention by name but as precious basically account for 1/3 of the governemtn revenues directly from Northern Chile. Kind of a remarkable coincidence?

So my question is....Is the Bernhisel Manuscript true and does this support it in some way? I personally think Nephi and his people did some good mining in the Great North of Chile. Any comments?

 

 

 

 

 

[strappinglad]

Now find all the other geographical places mentioned in the BoM . Find them in the correct position and correspondence with each other. Then we'll talk. You have a good start.

[nuclearfuels]

Wayne May and the Heartland Theory are convincing as well but since so many people in the BoM came to the Americas, which had tons of native populations whom Bom peoples mixed with, they probably spread all over middle and north America. Jaredites - 420AD + mixing with all the Natives and Hagoth and other sailing all over....not sure any one place is the place where Lehi et al. dwelt

[mrmarklin]

I personally like South America as the location for the BoM experiences. Although there are problems. There was a book by an author named Priddy sorry, can’t remember the title that makes a geographical case for this. 

The single biggest problem is that the Darien strait is impassable. So how did Moroni get the plates to North America ?

Nephite culture in North America can be explained by Hagoths voyages, presumably landing north of the Darien strait. 

[MDalby]

Orson Pratt also stated Chile...

Quote

They [Lehi's company] were commanded by the Almighty to build a vessel"¦On board this vessel they embarked"¦ As near as we can judge from the description of the country contained in this record the first landing place was in Chili [Chile], not far from where the city of Valparaiso now stands [as far south of the equator as Jerusalem is north]." 
(Orson Pratt, Journal of Discourses, Vol. 14, pg 325)

 

[Calm]

On 2017-11-08 at 8:14 AM, nuclearfuels said:

Wayne May and the Heartland Theory are convincing as well but since so many people in the BoM came to the Americas, which had tons of native populations whom Bom peoples mixed with, they probably spread all over middle and north America. Jaredites - 420AD + mixing with all the Natives and Hagoth and other sailing all over....not sure any one place is the place where Lehi et al. dwelt

Wayne May uses fraudulent artifacts.  I would be careful with any claims he makes.

Edited November 10, 2017 by Calm