Revisiting Book of Mormon Geography -- Again . . .

I re-read some of my posts last night on Book of Mormon geography, and that rekindled my interest in it.  I know that there are some individuals that are heavily invested in both time and resources to develop a Book of Mormon map that will gain widespread acceptance among the members of the Church.  But each of them have serious problems.  And perhaps the biggest problem for them all is the fact that at the time of Christ's death, there was a lot of destruction over the whole face of the land.  Some landmarks simply will not be the same as they were described in the Book of Mormon.  We know a number of cities were destroyed -- some buried by earth and some by water.  Some high places were made low and low places made high.  Undoubtedly some rivers changed courses.

So is it even practical to try and identify a Book of Mormon map?  Instinctively, I think it is.  Mormon wrote most of the Book of Mormon, and my feeling is that as he wrote about a West Sea and East Sea, a river Sidon, and a narrow neck of land separating two major land areas, he knew the current-day locations would bear enough resemblance to be recognizable.

Let me state up front that I am not claiming any secret agreement by someone in authority in the Church, or some revelation given to me, or that it's my special calling to educate the rest of the membership of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on this subject.  I'm simply relating my own common sense interpretation of the text of the Book of Mormon.  All proposed maps have to be confirmed by the text itself.  There are multiple references to the frequently mentioned sites, and all of those references have to work.

I think the best way to start building a map is to start with the macro -- the big picture.  We know that Lehi's family left Jerusalem, travelled across the ocean, and landed somewhere in the Western Hemisphere.  The next fact we can work with is that we know where the Hill Cumorah is -- in New York State.  In fact, we know it's exact location.

But the Hill Cumorah is not where the Nephites started -- it's where they ended after several extensive migrations north.  The Nephite population movement is always North or Northward.  So the Nephites began their 1000 history somewhere South of the Hill Cumorah.  If you don't accept that there is only one Hill Cumorah, then you obviously won't agree with this map.  I can only say that everything ever said about the Hill Cumorah, in the Book of Mormon and in early Church History, signifies that there is only one.  And there has never been any public announcement from any current Prophet or Member of the Twelve Apostles that has ever said anything different.  That may change, but until and unless it does, any map model that requires two Hill Cumorah's is not totally correct.  They may have some locations correctly identified, but they end up being too restrictive in their population movements and thus fail to see the big picture.

The next big help, I think, comes when we recognize the territorial designations.  The Book of Mormon tells of two peoples -- the Jaredites who came over after the Great Flood, and the Nephites and Mulekites that came over during the reign of Zedekiah, King of Israel, just before and during the Babylonian Captivity.  These two societies did not mix, but remained separate.  That alone requires quite a bit of land acreage because the Jaredites were probably in the Americas for even longer than the Nephites.  The Book of Mormon does not give us national boundaries, but it does give us relationships.

And it came to pass that they became exceedingly rich, both the Lamanites and the Nephites; and they did have an exceeding plenty of gold, and of silver, and of all manner of precious metals, both in the land south and in the land north. Now the land south was called Lehi and the land north was called Mulek, which was after the son of Zedekiah; for the Lord did bring Mulek into the land north, and Lehi into the land south. (Helaman 6:9-10)

So we have two very large land masses that are called Mulek-Land North, and Lehi-Land South.   The Mulekites and Nephites didn't know about each other until they had each been in America about 500 years.  I previously thought that Mormon's distinctions of Mulek-Land North and Lehi-Land South were different from his frequent usages of land northward and land southward.  But after reflection, I changed my mind, as seen by the crossed out paragraph that follows.  Mormon uses the terms Mulek-Land North and Lehi-Land South only once in the whole Book of Mormon, and never at the same time that he uses land northward and land southward.  It's now my opinion that he used the terms Mulek-Land North and Lehi-Land South so as to make it clear where their points of landing were -- Mulek in the land north, and Lehi in the land south.

The Book of Mormon further tells us that the Mulekites inherited the Jaredite possessions.  But when the Mulekites landed in Mulek-Land North, they found so much destruction that they moved farther south (Alma 22:30-31).  That began the distinction between the land northward and the land southward.  The land northward was inhabited by the Jaredites, and the land southward by the Mulekites.  The land northward and the land southward are the two identifiable parts of Mulek-Land North.  If that seems strange to you, just consider the reginal distinctions in the United States.  We have the North and the South.  We have the Midwest and the Southwest.  We don't have any problem knowing what area of the country is being talked about when we use those terms.  And they have some pretty specific boundaries, even though they include multiple states.

The Book of Mormon is wholly consistent in locating the Jaredite colonies in the land northward. The Jaredites had access to all of Mulek-Land North, or the land northward, but they reserved the Lehi-Land South, or land southward as a wilderness for hunting (Ether 10:21) and did not colonize it. The southernmost Jaredite inhabited land is Desolation, which is in the land northward.

The Desolation/Bountiful line is the dividing line between the land northward, or Mulek-Land North, and the land southward, or Lehi-Land South. The Book of Mormon is wholly consistent in locating the land of Zarahemla in the land southward and identifying the Desolation/Bountiful line as the dividing line between the land northward and the land southward.  The reason this it is important to know that the largest land references are indeed land northward and land southward because it allows for Lehi to have landed in Central America, and puts the whole of the Nephite history on the North American continent.  However, that does not preclude the Lamanites, and even the Nephites, from having colonized to the south, into South America, as Mormon also uses the distinctive from the Sea North to the Sea South, and from the Sea West to the Sea East to describe the totality of the Nephite/Lamanite colonization's.  That wording to me is just another way to say, the whole of the Western Hemisphere.  

Helaman 3:8 And it came to pass that they did multiply and spread, and did go forth from the land southward to the land northward, and did spread insomuch that they began to cover the face of the whole earth, from the sea south to the sea north, from the sea west to the sea east.

We have to remember, as we read about geography in the Book of Mormon, that 1/100th part was not written, and the focus when talking about a very large population is to talk about the portions where the conflict is taking place and where the center of government is.  And that was always Mormon's focus, but occasionally he would give us the big picture.  Unfortunately, those who have developed maps for the lands inhabited in the Book of Mormon narrowly constrict those lands to fit only one particular part of the Book of Mormon.  

We'll talk more about the peculiar characteristics of the dividing line between the land northward and the land southward a bit later.

Going back to Helaman 9:10, Lehi's family was brought into Lehi-Land South.  Lehi-Land South is not to be confused with land southward, they are two entirely different areas.

Obviously, Lehi-Land South is south of Mulek-Land North, and also south of the land southward.
We don't know the original landing site of the Nephites.  We do know that Nephi and whosoever would follow him relocated to the North after Lehi's death.  We don't know exactly how far they went, but their obvious intention was to put some distance between them and the Lamanites for protection against the Lamanites.  They may have moved over some natural barrier, such as a mountain range, or used a great distance for the barrier.  We simply don't know.

The second location of the Nephites came to be known as the Land of Nephi.  The Book of Mormon is unclear whether the Land of Nephi is in Lehi-Land South or in the land southward.  Eventually the Lamanites caught up with them, making a 2nd major migration necessary after a couple hundred years.  This was led by King Mosiah I.  They ended up in the Land of Zarahemla, which was in the land southward and occupied by the Mulekites.  We don't know how large the Land of Zarahemla was, but there appears to have been a smaller land of Zarahemla with a city Zarahemla included in it.  The Nephites are now occupying the southern part of Mulek-Land North.

So we have these major geographic areas for the first half of the Book of Mormon, arranged in North to South orientation.  That's because the population movement is always North or Northward.

Mulek-Land North
land northward, including the Hill Cumorah and with land Desolation as its southernmost 
    settlement 
land southward, including land Zarahemla and with land Bountiful as its northernmost     
    settlement
?Land of Nephi, the second settlement of the Nephites after Lehi's death

Lehi-Land South
 ?Land of Nephi, the second settlement of the Nephites after Lehi's death
 Their First Landing, the original settlement of Lehi's family