Foundation of Understanding
by Don R. Hender
When one considers the geography of the Book of Mormon most all begin with what the Book of Mormon states about its own geography. And while that is most important to consider, that is not the foundation to the matter. Whatever the geography of the lands of the Book of Mormon is or is not, there is one thing for certain. And that is that the lands of the Book of Mormon are a part of the world’s geography, localized as it may be.
The point is that there are more generalized matters concerning world geography which may well be considered which may tend to have fundamental implications upon the geography of the Book of Mormon. And what those matters are, are of utmost importance. For it is important to lay a foundation of basic understanding as to what is and what is not the fundamental truth concerning this world in terms of its geography.
Many Book of Mormon scholars, though not apparent to their students, by default already follow and possess a biased view of such world geography, which inherently affects their judgments as to Book of Mormon geography. Particularly those with a scholarly and intellectual background tend to favor one set of supposed scientific positions in which they have been schooled after the wisdom of men. And it should be made know other than by default that there is a great distinction between what the wisdom of men teaches concerning the origins of civilization and the geography of the world and what the source of religious knowledge and understanding reveals.
For example, the tools of interpretation used to build the theories of men will state that the human civilizations from whence man evolved continue back for tens of thousands of years. They will develop time lines and patterns, which take the origins of man and the related civilizations back into Africa. They will set out that the ancient inhabitants of the lands of the Americas came across the Baring Straits about 13,000 years ago and populated the Americas from the north to the south in a continuous migratory pattern. And their theories will preclude any possible belief in there being a set parental pair placed upon the earth by the hand of God who where the mother and father of all of mankind. Rather they will put forth what there own minds of imagination have contrived as an evolutionary process of man descending may natural selection from some form of lower primate species rather than designed and formed by the hand of God.
And when one has been so schooled in the ‘Anthropology’, scientifically acceptable ‘History’ and such evolutionary school of the Origins of Man and geographic theorized history of the planet, it is difficult to separate it out from the religious truth of God’s word upon the matter. The scientifically trained will tend to discount God’s revealed account of the earth’s creation, pushing it back into a fuzzy realm of millions of years. The scientifically trained will not accept that during the time frame of Noah the earth was covered by the great Biblical flood. The scientifically trained while admitting that the lands of the earth where once one land, they will push such occasion thousands upon thousands of years prior to the time and days of Peleg. Thus the scientifically trained will never be able to take full advantage of the revealed truth in the scriptures as they will continually tend to reform them into something which messes with their ‘scientific understanding’ as learn by them from the precepts of men.
For example, one might conclude that there indeed was a flood of Noah, but they will attempt to localize the flood to the Fertile Crescent regions about the mountains of Ararat. And they will not accept that the entire earth was totally covered by the waters of the flood. And thus they immediately will tend to lose connection to the fact that the original land of Adam has been revealed to be centered about the land of Adam-ondi-Ahman in Missouri. And that Noah’s immediate ancestors would have lived in such regions and Noah’s ark would have lifted from this land and traveled over a years time to set aground upon the mountains of Ararat.
Thus it is needful to set out a set of related scriptural truths in obtaining a true understanding about the nature of the world and its lands in respect to the lands of the Book of Mormon. For God’s truth found in the scriptures and in his revelations to man is much more correct and reliable than that so formulated according to the wisdom of men. And though it is good to be learned, it only good to the extent that one is so guided by God’s word and direction.
Adam and Eve are the father and mother to all living. All of this world’s humanity and all of this world’s civilizations from which we descend has but this one universal source and parentage.
Adam and Eve had a written language and they kept records. Such levels of civilization have always existed and did not evolve. While certain aspects of mans civilization may have retrogressed from such higher levels of this pure language of Adam, they did not develop over thousands upon thousands of years from grunts and scribbles.
Adam’s land in which God made covenant with Adam concerning his posterity and the promise of a Savior and Redeemer centered upon the lands of the Americas about the land of Adam-ondi-Ahman in Missouri of the United States of America. Thus the ‘covenant promises of the fathers’ upon which the Covenant of Abraham is based is more correctly closely associated with this land than any other land upon the face of the earth. This is God’s land of promise or the Promised Land which is most favored above all other lands.
Though the land was all one land in the days of Adam and Noah, Noah’s general local would understandably be more closely related to Adam’s center of the land of Adam-ondi-Ahman than with the lands of the mountains of Ararat or the middle and far east of today.
Noah’s flood was a universal flood, which would have drained off somewhat gradually over a space of time and would have had earth-forming effects. This effect would have been climatic as well as geographic in their natures as the lands would gradually reappear and the waters further subside over the space of time. And any lakes and water levels so associated with the shaping and earth formations and their water levels would be more properly associated with post flood rather than pre flood as a year under oceanic currents would have swept that lands clean of many such prior features.
Until the days of Peleg the earth remained as one land. And the divisions of the lands, which would form the various hemispheres and continents, as we know them today, would have first begun in the days of Peleg. And while it is understandable that these great land plate movements did not all happen at once in the space of a few years, we must understand that over the centuries the lands of the earth have come to be as we know them today. Such motion which has left the great land bodies of the western hemisphere half the world parted from those of the eastern hemisphere certainly would have evolved over great periods of time and have great and grand world and continent shaping effects.
In the days of the tower of Babel, the Lord set apart a people and brought them over the great waters to dwell once again in the land regions of the original land of promise of Father Adam. A study of the relevance of these people know as the Jaredites has a great bearing upon the geography of the Book of Mormon from their voyages upon the tempest tossed seas of the unsettled lands of Peleg’s division, to their great city by the narrow neck of land, and thence on to their final demise and total self annihilation.
Peleg’s land division has confirmation in latter-day scripture which states that the lands will be turned back by the hand of the Lord and once again become one land. And centered in time between when the lands where divided and when they will be turned again and become one land is a great catastrophic and relevant event as recorded upon the pages of the Book of Mormon. That this great destruction as record in the Book of Mormon is related to the great plate movements of the earth which began during the days of Peleg, cannot be ignored. And the shaping of the lands of the Book of Mormon must consider such in understanding the book’s geography.