_____________ wrote:
>
> How much serious work has been done to test the plausibility of your
model? I am curious about the following ways the Book of Mormon peoples
might have fit in the areas you propose:
>
> Location of archealogical sites
>
> Dates of occupation and abandonment of sites
> Presence of evidence for Book of Mormon traits such as written language.
>
> I stumble, however, at the great distances involved in your model.
Book of Mormon statements seem to demonstrate quite well that Cumorah/Ramah
wasn't over 400 miles from Lehi-Nephi. I also thought that Bountiful was on
the east sea, though the land southward in general might be appropriately
referred to as Bountiful.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> ____________
My Response (gramer/spelling edited):
______,
How much serious work?
Plausibility of 'my' model?
The Book of Mormon lands have been left to personal interpolations and thus
the Central American Theories of today. I am a traditionalist in a general
sense. I believe that Cumorah is in New York and it is the Cumorah of the Book
of Mormon where both the Jaredites and Nephites where annihilated and
this despite the fact that there are many today who discount 'older'
authorities who also so believed it and stated it. And while I don't
believe that Lehi landed in Chili, I do believe the statement found in
the Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith that Lehi landed a little
south of the Isthmus of Darien to be very acceptable.
I find the Central America theory interesting and one can think and believe
that if they want to. To me Central America is the land of the Jaredites and
the Nephites who had traveled north who had to build buildings of stone
and cement due to the lack of timber which was their major building
material in the land of Zarahemla or Columbia. I find the country of
Columbia to be quite right for the size of the great nation of Zarahemla
and the Magadalena river to fit as Elder George Reynolds stated in his
book to be the river Sidon. Elder Maxwell seems to imply something in
his latest conference talk, which stated that Lehi's party landed in
Bountiful when they arrived in the Promised land. Bountiful was the
land of the Narrow Neck and Hagoth set sail from that land into the
western sea and thus the source of many peoples who are of the Polynesians.
The land or county of Bountiful ran from sea to sea along the narrow
neck which took a Nephite a day and a half to travel. Many large
counties are of that size today. I work at Dugway Utah which is itself
larger than the State of Rhode Island. Bountiful could be on both
coasts just as the county of Darien, Panama is on both coast today, and
it was.
[A comparison] I personally find the distance from lands of the northern
border of Utah to the lands of the Southern border of Utah (approx. 400
miles) much too confining for the distance from the great lands of
Lehi-Nephi (which is the land of their first inheritance and that is not
the land of their landing as they journeyed in the wilderness from their
landing site until they reached that second land and the details of
those journeys is only had on Nephi's large plates.), to the great
nation of Zarahemla, to the great nations past the narrow neck of the
Jaredites of 2000 years and the Nephites of 400 AD, and then to the
lands of the Annihilation of Cumorah.
Millions of people lived, fought, and died in each of those lands over the
space of years with many, many great lands and cities in each of them. The
abridged text of the Book of Mormon may make it seem lesser of time and size
than what it was, and what I believe it to be as the result of many, many
readings of that book. The size, the time, the cities, and the people are
many more than for what Central America cam provide to my mind. But this is
not according to the minds of others who today set such binding limits. And
they are allowed to do so without my contentions, yet you have asked for
an explanation of 'my' model.
I further believe the Bible which states that the land was divided in
the days of Peleg. And I believe as it states in the D&C that the lands
will be turned back to become one again. This is in spite of the
overwhelming theories of the accepted scholars of science today. The
Amazon acts in many ways as a 'River Sea' even today. At the time of
Christ the lands of the Book of Mormon where 'catastrophically' effected
as 'mountains' became valleys and 'valleys' became mountains, and as
'great cities' of thousands of people where swallowed up in the depths
of the sea and the land which was mostly solid and of one land became
broken up and appeared in 'seams' from that day forth. I believe I can
see those 'seams' in the layers of rock of the mountains of Utah. I
believe that the catastrophic effects described in the Book of Mormon
are those that effected both South America, where corn fields where
raised to elevations that prevented germination due to the increased
altitudes, and North America. I believe it left the Salt rings of the
mountains around the 'sea lake' of Peru. I believe the quote in Le
Grand Richards' book about the great sea/lake of the western states that
rushed out and vacated the land of Nevada that the Indians could still
tell the story of having happened. I believe that the events recorded
where the events caused by the great land masses broken off Africa in
the days of Peleg colliding with the Island of Jacob of the Pacific and
Nazca land plates which was a 'continental collision' like that of India
slamming into the under belly of Asia. The Andes are still rising and
crumbling today as the Amazon ('Sea East') River Sea continues to be
filled in and pinched into being only a river today. I can accept
such as having occurred despite the scientists of the world.
A few travel confining calculations which are specifically designed and
interpreted to constrain the Book of Mormon lands to just Central America
according to the minds of a select group is not going to challenge what
I have come to understand about the lands of the Book of Mormon
extending from Cumorah of New York, North America to Colombia and Peru
of South America. Neither will all the scientists of the world convenience
me that Elephants did not walk the Americas in the days of the Jaredites
as recorded in Ether 9. Some would say this is having a closed mind to
scientific fact, but what closes the mind more readily to the existence
of God and God's scriptures but the scientific theories all logically
thought out and well calculated and substantiated as they may be, which
contend against the existence of God as they go out of their way to
strive to do today, thus rejecting the words of the Bible and Book of
Mormon?
I don't believe that I have a closed mind to the Central America
theory of the Book of Mormon, I just don't accept it based on
other sources of information that I hold more accurate than the
calculations of man.
As to the peoples of the lands and how they fit, depending on who you
read and what you read, the ancient peoples of Peru through Chavin,
Moche, and so on, fit well the Nephites and Lamanites described as
living in the lands of Lehi - Nephi. The peoples and their diversities
and places of Colombia fit well the places and peoples of Zarahemla as
it was a combined nation of Mulekites and Nephites. The sites, peoples
and artifacts of Central America fit well the Jaredites and then the
Nephites and the even later Lamanites, who had populated that area
through out all the land. The cities of the Mississippi valley ancients
fit the same type of models of cities in central America, and Peru
though the limited construction material differs, there are temples on
mounts [pyramids] and communities surrounding them. I believe them to be one
people from the sources explained in the Book of Mormon from North to
South America as did the Prophet Joseph Smith.
I hope this is satisfactory, any lengthier answer would be a book of
volumes which I have not written, nor have had time to write, but which
is contained in my mind and in the many files of sources which I to
keep. I too selectively keep what supports what I believe and what I
believe may seem a bit radical in man's view, though I find it quite
traditional and aligned with the Bible's Peleg and the Elephants of the
Jaredites.
- Don Hender