Book of Mormon Geography

Fregramis · Senior Member

Book of Mormon Geography

LEVE · Veteran Member

Wane was a Branch President in a the St. Paul Stake when I lived in north western Wisconsin. He lived about 50 miles to the east. I've met, and talked with him several times about his theories. His thoughts are very, very convincing, and well thought out. We always enjoyed his firesides.

If you don't know about his web-site it is:

Cat Herder · Understander of unimportant things

I'll buy it if his theory includes the Nephites were Buckeye football fans!

We don't know. I think it is fair to assume that either or both Jaredite and Nephite / Lamanite civilizations could have spread across much of the continents. And, there is also the possibility that there was some sort of civilization on these continents prior to the flood.

North America today has really only been populated by old world immigration for about 400 years. Look at what we've done in that time? I don't think it is implausible to assume that an isolated culture could have split up numerous times and ended up having multiple population centers in ancient times over anywhere from 400 to 1000 or more years...

TitusTodd · Senior Member

North America today has really only been populated by old world immigration for about 400 years.

That immigration, however, has been continuous for many of those years. Not in 2-3 small groups.

There are a lot of mysteries regarding Book of Mormon Geography and the theories make for good reading. I suppose if a very compelling theory came out, I might pick it as my favorite but there are still too many missing pieces in the existing theories to call any as possible fact.

-- Edited by TitusTodd at 10:18, 2007-01-16

Cat Herder · Understander of unimportant things

TitusTodd wrote:

That immigration, however, has been continuous for many of those years. Not in 2-3 small groups.

There are a lot of mysteries regarding Book of Mormon Geography and the theories make for good reading. I suppose if a very compelling theory came out, I might pick it as my favorite but there are still too many missing pieces in the existing theories to call it as possibly fact.

No it hasn't been continuous. Everyone came over on the Mayflower or during the Irish potato famine.

Please, don't confuse things with mundane things like details here... I guess I shouldn't have been too surprised that someone pointed this difference out so early.

But you're right, we just don't know. In all things scientific, be it natural or social, we build upon the concept of the theory of uniformitarianism... or in other words the rates at which natural processes occur today have always occured at the same rate in the past. But, I like to remember that ultimately, The Lord is the one in charge of those rates. I think he has the power to control them (speed up or slow down) as opposed to being subject to them, if that makes sense.

I think a lot of the details were purposely left out in abridgement by Mormon and Moroni. They had a couple reasons to do so. They were writing under commandment from The Lord, and hence the purpose was to convince future people that Jesus is The Christ. Giving the details of how they developed and spread out and waned and imploded as a civilization was not the main thrust of how to provide this witness. And, as they were around as the implosion took place, it must have been awful as the years went by. I don't think any sane person would want to burden others with the constant talk of the carnage going on. Contrast that with today's media outlets...

arbilad · Head Chef

I've always had no problem believing that the Nephites and Lamanites eventually spread to cover all available space. People have no problem believing that in the thousand years from the fall of the Nephites to Columbus discovering America that the lamanites spread everywhere, because we have examples of indian civilization everywhere across both continents. But, for some reason, they have a hard time believing that from the time Lehi and his children landing to the fall of the Nephites (about a thousand years) they could have spread out. Why, in a thousan years, would an intelligent, industrious people, confine themselves to a tightly constricted geographic area?

salesortonscom · Wise and Revered Master

It all makes for interesting reading and such. I know that there has been some speculation that the native peoples in California may not be related to the children of Lehi at all due to desert and mountain barriers. Historically, geography has been a real hurdle for any people to deal with when migration is considered.

I got into this a bit back when I was a stake missionary. Our elders were very fustrated in trying to do work with one of the local tribes in central California. The elders were working very hard and were fustrated that the promises to the children of Lehi were not forthcoming. There was no blossoming as a rose happening. In fact the descriptions of idolotry, laziness, etc of the lamanites in the BOM is probably a better description. I told the elders that maybe they aren't decendents of Lehi after all. Perhaps this group did come of the land bridge. I had read some books with similar theories that perhaps some of the peoples of the western hemisphere actually did come over the old land bridge and perhaps their contact with the decendents of lehi. Perhaps another ship from somewhere else made it to California.

Since that time, other elders have tried along with other priesthood leaders. The only difference now is that the casinos are bigger and the tribal members drive Hummers and Escalades instead of Pintos with bald tires. Or as one local also pointed out, the drug use has gone from sniffing paint to Heroine, Cocaine, and Meth because they can afford it.

Of interest in my continued studies though was a book I was recently reading on the ghosts, bandits, and other history of Monterey California. I was reading this book and came upon a story about the early padres that built Mission San Antonio De Padua. For those unfamiliar with California history. Mission San Antonio was the third california mission founded by Father Junipero Serra in 1771. According to the story, the first padres to occupy the area had an indian girl come to them and ask them to baptize her. She told them how a story had been passed down in her family of a flying padre who came from the sky and taught them about baptism and that the story had been passed down in their family for many years. When the padres questioned other indians in the area many told them they were also familiar with the flying padre that visited them.

Also of note is how the padres had to send a group of padres down to New Mexico to baptize a tribe that already knew about Jesus Christ and had been waiting for someone to come and baptize them for many generations. The padres could not figure out where this knowlege came from since none of their faith had ever visited these indians but yet they did not have to teach them anything because they already knew about the gospel.

Now there had been speculation for years about the flying padre (who was described as being dressed in robes similar to the catholic padres) and how these people were taught. The author of the book said the only theory he knew about was that there was an order of nuns in Spain who had been trying something similar to astral projection so that they could travel the world teaching the natives the faith. Obviously he never read the BOM!

The guy is an interesting writer having written several books on the area covering everything from the history of the shipwrecks off the Monterey coast, to bandits that frequented the area, to ghosts that haunted certain places. They are an interesting read but became even more so after he related that story. The author is named Randall A. Reinstedt and you can see some of his book titles at http://www.amazon.ca/s?ie=UTF8&search-type=ss&index=books-ca&field-author=Randall%20A.%20Reinstedt&page=1

arbilad · Head Chef

Geographical boundaries did not necessarily exist in those times where they are today. Remember, after Christ died, some level places became mountains, some mountains became valleys or seas.