- Welcome everybody,
to The Book of Mormon Metals
Map Geography, Part 3,
where we talk about evidences
in The Book of Mormon,
that support this Metals
Map interpretation.
Here's what we've talked about in Part 1
and in Part 2.
In Part 2 we established
the Metals Map and what
that actually looked like,
and now we're going to look
at what support there is
in The Book of Mormon for the Metals Map.
Again, the Metals Map yielded
really only one solution
in all of the Americas,
for where these Book of
Mormon lands, would be.
First of all, we have First Inheritance
down in the country of Ecuador.
We have the land Nephi up in Colombia.
We have the Small Neck of Land,
the Narrow Strip of Wilderness,
in the Panama area,
and then we get up into
the area where Zarahemla
should be, where there's an
abundance of gold and silver.
And then we go through
the Narrow Neck of Land
with a Narrow Pass by the West Sea,
through Desolation to the land of Moron,
which is where the Jaredite kings lived,
with their abundance, also, of metals.
The first thing we want
to talk about is climate.
The Book of Mormon tells us that the lands
Nephi through Bountiful were all hot,
as evidenced by the Lamanites being naked,
and Alma and Amulek were naked in prison
in the Hebrew month that
would correspond to February,
as talked about in Alma Chapter 14.
So where does the equator actually run
in our Metals Map?
Well, it runs right
through what we refer to
as First Inheritance, and Nephi.
There it is depicted on our
Metals Map specifically.
So all of these countries are very hot,
and very easy for
the Lamanites to live
with very little clothing.
- [Cameraman] Well, the
natives still, I've heard--
- Yes, still true, correct, thank you.
They still, to this day,
will wear very little.
Okay, now we need to talk about
the Prophet Joseph Smith.
So we've talked about Book
of Mormon constraints.
Because the Book of
Mormon is the word of God,
and it is true,
we need to understand that what's in it,
we need to accept as being truth,
and that science will find
that it's true over time.
So what about the Prophet Joseph Smith?
Well, of course, as the Lord's
prophet of the Restoration,
Joseph Smith had a tremendous
amount of knowledge.
We know that he was given enormous numbers
of visions concerning how the peoples
in The Book of Mormon lived.
He used to tell stories
of them to his family.
And so he had seen many things in vision
and in revelation.
So let's talk about Joseph Smith
because this is also
controversial in our day,
whether or not Joseph Smith
authored several editorials
that were in the First
Presidency's official publication
called The Times and Seasons,
has been questioned by
some who are suggesting
that The Book of Mormon
events all occurred
in the continental United States.
So let's look at, first of all,
what Joseph Smith said in these,
and then we'll look at
a study that was done
by Dr. Lund concerning these editorials.
First of all, in The Times and Seasons,
in the article called,
"Facts are Stubborn Things",
Joseph Smith states that
"Lehi went down by the Red Sea
"to the great Southern Ocean,
"and crossed over to this land
"and landed a little south
of the Isthmus of Darien."
Well, the Isthmus of Darien,
as depicted here on the map,
we now call the Isthmus of Panama.
So does our Metals Map match
Joseph Smith's statement in that regard?
Yes, it does, because First Inheritance
is south of, and not too far south of,
the Isthmus of Darien.
And of course, it is on the coast,
so they could have traversed
down from the Red Sea,
across the great Southern Ocean,
where he's basically
referring to the Pacific,
over to the West Coast of South America.
Another interesting thing -
I've heard about this recently,
and thought about recently,
was of Joseph's blessing that he received
from his father Israel, or Jacob.
In it he was told that his descendants
would be a branch that runs
over the wall of a well,
into the "upmost bounds
of the everlasting hills."
That prophecy is generally
referred to in the Church
as a reference to the Ring of Fire,
or the mountain region
that completely goes around
the edges of the Pacific basin,
with the highest portions of those being
in the American continent.
But it's also interesting to note
that the highest peaks
in the American continent
are not found in North America,
they are found in South America.
So if that patriarchal blessing
is precise in that regard,
the "upmost bounds" of
those "everlasting hills"
would suggest South America
and not North America.
During Joseph Smith's time,
there was a book that came out,
called Incidents of
Travel in Central America,
Chiapas and the Yucatan.
This book was the top seller
in Joseph Smith's later life
in America. It was fascinating to folks.
And Joseph Smith himself
felt that this book had,
that the Lord had blessed him,
that this book had come
forth to provide evidence
that the Book of Mormon was true,
and that this evidence had
come forth in his own day.
And so that's how he viewed it,
and in the Times and Seasons,
in articles titled
Extracts, he quotes from it
in a number of instances.
So in it, for example, he says,
"The forgoing extract has
been made to assist the
"Latter-day Saint, in
establishing The Book of Mormon
"as a revelation from God."
He considered it to be
incontrovertible testimony
of The Book of Mormon.
He says, "These wonderful
ruins of Palenque
"are among the mighty
works of the Nephites."
He says that, "The Nephites lived about
"this narrow neck of
land, which now embraces
"Central America, with all of the cities
"that can be found."
Now does that statement
constrain the Nephites
from having lived anywhere else?
No, but it certainly identifies
that they did live in this area.
Again in the article entitled,
"Facts are Stubborn
Things", he talks about
Zarahemla, in particular
in reference to a city
that have been referenced
in this aforementioned book,
called Quirigua.
The prophet says, "In Central America,
"or Guatemala, is situated
north of the Isthmus of Darien
"and once embraced several
hundred miles of territory
"from north to south."
In the top right-hand corner of the slide,
you'll notice the map there that in 1830,
Guatemala was part of what
was called at that time,
the Federal Republic of Central America.
And it comprised all those countries
down to Costa Rica.
It didn't last long, it
broke up pretty quick,
but Guatemala remained
pretty much as it was.
Then he goes on to say that,
"The city of Zarahemla,
burnt at the crucifixion
"of the Savior, and rebuilt afterwards,
"stood upon this land."
Meaning, of course, here in this context,
the land of Guatemala.
And he goes on to say, "We
are not going to declare
"positively that the ruins
of Quirigua are those
"of Zarahemla, but when
the land and the stones,
"and the books tell the story so plain,
"we are of opinion, that it would require
"more proof than the Jews could bring
"to prove the disciples
stole the body of Jesus
"from the tomb, to prove
that the ruins of the city
"in question, are not
one of those referred to
"in The Book of Mormon."
So there he's talking
specifically about Quirigua,
which is in this part of Guatemala.
Again, being a Book of
Mormon city, a Nephite city.
Now let's talk about the controversy
that surrounds these quotes.
Those of the Heartland
persuasion do not consider
that Joseph Smith was the author of these.
Despite the fact that he was the editor
of the Times and Seasons during this time.
And despite the fact that it was known
that he wrote several of them for sure,
certain editorials.
And it was also known that
the First Presidency in
their Times and Seasons
were fastidious about corrections.
Anytime there was an error,
as soon as they found it,
the next Times and Seasons
would have a correction
to what had been put in there.
And there were never any corrections made
to these editorials
regarding The Book of Mormon.
Despite that, Dr. John L. Lund,
did a study along with a team,
of Joseph Smith and the
Geography of the Book of Mormon,
which is currently
available in bookstores.
And he says there were
three possible authors,
who were the editors at the time,
Joseph Smith, John Taylor,
and Wilford Woodruff.
And then they looked at
these three editorials
and they took them in total,
and they looked at how these
sentences were constructed,
the words that were used,
and everything else,
and subjected them to
eleven author identifiers.
So here we have in the chart
to the right of the slide,
you have in the left
column, a type of identifier
that they're looking at,
and the next column is
JS, meaning Joseph Smith,
in other words, does
it match Joseph Smith,
the next one is JT, which is John Taylor,
does it match John Taylor,
the next one is Wilford Woodruff,
does it match Wilford Woodruff.
So when we look at
number one, for example,
words that were used
exclusively by one author.
Well, we find that there were 13 words
in these three articles
that are exclusive to Joseph Smith.
John Taylor and Wilford
Woodruff never used them
in their articles.
The probable first and only time use
for one of these authors with words also,
there were only about two of them matched
to Joseph Smith, the
rest would not have been
first time uses for John Taylor
and Wilford Woodruff. So you see,
the green tells you where it matches.
The vocabulary size.
John Taylor and Wilford Woodruff
both were educated in England,
and they had a much larger vocabulary
than the Prophet Joseph Smith.
And the average vocabulary
words in these three articles
was 300, which is very
close to Joseph Smith's
vocabulary size of 297.
Word use - most likely to use a specific
word or couplet or a phrase,
such as is used here, "surely",
well, 94% probability that's Joseph Smith.
Only a three percent chance
that it was John Taylor
or Wilford Woodruff using that word.
Sentence analysis, in other words,
how long were the sentences,
again, Joseph Smith matches very closely,
from 36 to his 40.
John Taylor and Wilford Woodruff,
because of their vocabulary,
were very capable of writing
very short sentences - short and concise.
Here we look at the others.
The frequency of non-contextual
stylometric words,
such as those listed there,
fit Joseph Smith very closely.
Sentences with ten words or less,
again matched Joseph Smith very closely,
another confirmation that John
Taylor and Wilford Woodruff,
they used 10 words or
less in sentences a lot -
had a very strong vocabulary.
The number of rhetorical
questions, in the writing.
Well, Joseph Smith is the one
who did that a fair amount,
and he matches the four
percent very closely,
but John Taylor did it a lot, okay.
Notice we have another match
there with Wilford Woodruff.
This is the only place in the study,
of the 11 different characteristics,
where one of the others
matches, and that's Wilford
Woodruff in this case.
The use of involved style such as sarcasm.
Joseph Smith was given to using sarcasm,
whereas the other two were not.
Syntax, such as using vital vocabulary,
and using assertiveness,
and using a "country style".
Those all match Joseph
Smith and not the others.
And so, Dr. Lund comes to the conclusion
that these articles, based on this study,
certainly were written by
the Prophet Joseph Smith,
in comparing writings by Joseph Smith,
the writings by John Taylor,
and writings by Wilford Woodruff.
So next question,
does our Metals Map match the statements
of the Prophet Joseph Smith?
Well, first of all, yes.
Number one, Lehi landed a little south
of the Isthmus of Darien.
So there we have First
Inheritance to the south
of number two, which is
the Isthmus of Darien,
or known today by the Isthmus of Panama.
Number three, the narrow neck of land,
which now embraces Central America.
Well there, of course,
is a direct reference
to Central America and
the prophet saying that,
Central America.
And number three matches
that as well as number two.
Zarahemla stood upon Guatemala,
so that would place
Zarahemla in Guatemala,
item number four,
which, again, matches our Metals Map.
So let's talk for just a little bit
about the metals and in other parts.
Surely those who advocate that
The Book of Mormon all
happened in Mesoamerica,
and in particular, they
talk about Guatemala,
has all of the metals that are shown
and talked about in The Book of Mormon.
However, they're using
spectral analysis maps
to support their claims.
These people didn't have
these advanced technologies
to detect where these metals were.
They could only, as we
mentioned talk about,
detecting metals by surface evidence
and it needed to be in abundance.
This technology, of
course, was not available
to the Lehites or the Mulekites.
Also, the fact that the west
coast, First Inheritance,
and the eastern highlands, Nephi,
relationship does not exist in Guatemala,
for the metals distribution.
So there's your reminder, again,
using the USGS map,
that Guatemala does have gold and silver,
also has copper, but
not on the west coast.
So it cannot be First Inheritance.
And it can't also be Nephi,
the highland east of First Inheritance,
because the First Inheritance
reference isn't there,
but it certainly could be Zarahemla,
with its gold and silver.
All right, so, how does Dr. Lund
deal with this issue?
So Dr. Lund is a proponent
of the Mesoamerican model.
But given that he accepts
that Joseph Smith's statement,
that Lehi landed a little
south of the Isthmus of Darien,
or the Isthmus of Panama
as we call it today,
he suggests that they did land there,
but then they proceeded north
up towards Mesoamerica.
Now he uses that and bases that
on First Nephi, chapter 18,
verse 23 to 25.
It says, "We did arrive
at the promised land,
"and we went forth upon the land,
"and did pitch our tents,
"we did begin to till the earth,
"and we began to plant
seeds, they did grow."
So clearly they were there
at least for a season.
And it goes on to say, "We did find
"as we journeyed in the wilderness,"
- and this is the key for him -
"that there were beasts
and all manner of ore,
"both of gold, and of
silver, and of copper."
Well, this is plausible
when we consider that
gold, silver, and copper
were found along the way up into
the area of Mesoamerica, or Guatemala,
and that could explain
what transpired there.
However, if this interpretation, ...
sorry, in this interpretation,
the only possible location for Nephi
is the central highlands of Guatemala.
This places First Inheritance and Nephi
too close to Zarahemla and
too close to each other
to satisfy other Book
of Mormon requirements.
Now what about metals in the Heartland?
Well, Lake Superior has gold, silver,
and copper, and iron,
but again remembering
here this relationship
between First Inheritance,
where you have gold, silver, copper,
on the western coast,
and Nephi, on the eastern highlands,
with gold, silver, copper, zinc, and iron.
So Lake Superior has gold, silver, copper,
but if you want to add zinc to that,
you've got to go over to Lake Ontario.
Missouri has gold, silver,
copper, zinc, and iron.
But, again, the relationship is not right.
Plus, where's the abundance
of gold and silver,
except, of course, for
Lake Superior and Missouri.
So the west coast, First Inheritance
and eastern highlands, Nephi,
distribution of metals is not evidenced
anywhere in the Heartland model.
That relationship of
metals, east and west,
just simply does not exist.
If you expand the Heartland out,
to include all of the U.S. and the coast
of California, Oregon, and Washington -
if you say that, perhaps, is
where First Inheritance was,
you still have a problem
because where do you find the silver
or the copper on the coast?
There is gold, but if you want silver,
you better get up into
the Rocky Mountains,
into Nevada and copper,
likewise, up into Utah.
Another question is, was
brass used in Colombia?
There's no evidence currently of brass
used anciently in Colombia.
However, there's a 600 BC shipwreck
off the coast of Sicily that was found
to contain brass ingots,
so the technology could have been known
to Lehi or to Ishmael, in 600 BC.
Nephi's steel bow is perhaps evidence
that Lehi's wealth could
have had something to do
with metals, also.
So they may have had a knowledge of brass
and how to create it.
Another metal that is mentioned
in The Book of Mormon is ziff.
It's assumed as a metal, and is found
in the record of Zeniff,
and is in reference to the land of Nephi.
It's a Hebrew word that
means splendor or brightness.
Well, chromium is found in
the same area of Colombia
that we're proposing that
the land of Nephi would be.
And it was discovered by the west in 1797
and it may not have been known
to the Prophet Joseph Smith at the time
that he translated the Book of Mormon.
It was known interestingly,
to the ancient Chinese,
and it was used on the tips
of Terra Cota warrior weapons,
as depicted here.
It fits the Hebrew description
of splendor and brightness,
but there is no evidence for its use
in Pre-Columbian America.
Dr. John L. Sorenson, who was
a Latter-Day Saint scholar
of Mesoamerican archeology,
has expressed his opinion
that the most likely possibility for ziff
is an alloy calls tumbaga,
which was composed
of gold and copper.
Now tumbaga is associated
with the Quimbaya civilization.
It was developed about 300 BC
in the Cauca River highlands of Colombia,
and migrated north into Central America.
Well that's interesting, 300 BC,
that fits in very nicely
with Mosiah's retreat
from the land Nephi northward
up into Mesoamerica.
The Spanish also used Tumbaga to transport
their metals, they used the same approach.
So what they did is they combined
gold, silver, and copper,
to ship it back to Spain, and
then they would separate it.
Tumbaga ingots of this
kind, as depicted there,
were discovered in a Spanish shipwreck.
As you can see from the picture there,
tumbaga was used a lot for decoration,
which also, perhaps,
fits The Book of Mormon
description of ziff.
So, to recap that then.
Tumbaga was developed by
the Quimbaya civilization
down in Colombia, in the
highlands of the Cauca River area,
and it migrated north
into Central America.
Well, 300 BC is mighty close to 280 BC
when Mosiah the First travels from Nephi
up into what he then
discovers is Zarahemla.
Also, it fits closely with 120 BC,
when you have Limhi recording
that as they flee Nephi with ziff,
they return up to Zarahemla.
Later, this relationship develops
between the folks in Zarahemla
and those down in Nephi.
Shortly before the Lord's coming
there's extensive trade
that develops between
the Nephite civilization up north,
and the Lamanite
civilization in the south.
There's a lot of trade that's going on,
and so the transfer of the technology
is certainly possibly there, too.
Another question that comes up
with the Metals Map interpretation is
where is the River Sidon?
Well, if you'll look at the pictograph
at the top right of the screen,
and use that as a guide,
we'll go through the
various things we know
from The Book of Mormon
about the River Sidon.
It flows from the east to the west,
to the land of Manti, from its head.
It forms a boundary for
the southern wilderness.
In the location of Zarahemla, however,
the Sidon is running north.
Zarahemla is on the west of Sidon.
Sidon River can be forded
just a little bit south
of the city.
The Hill Amnihu is on
the East side of Sidon,
and there was a significant
battle fought there,
and the Valley of Gideon is
also on the East of Sidon.
Sidon is also fordable, near Manti,
which is up in elevation,
east and south of Zarahemla,
and so it has to be fordable there, also.
There is a wilderness that's
to the west of Zarahemla,
and north of Zarahemla
called the Hermounts
with wild beasts.
The land of Minon is also up,
again interpreting as elevation,
and south from Zarahemla in the course,
or the way, to the land of Nephi,
and it's also in the vicinity
of the east west flow
of Sidon.
Exactly where it is there,
along that area from the
head waters of Sidon,
as it goes down to the land of Manti,
is a fairly large area,
exactly where, we're not sure.
Zarahemla and therefore
the flow of River Sidon
near Zarahemla is also described as being
in the center of the land,
so it is not near the
east or the west sea,
but it's also close to the
southern wilderness border,
because of the rapid
invasion that takes place
under Coriantumr, in which he takes
the city of Zarahemla by surprise
before they can raise the defense.
So it's fairly close, then,
to that southern border.
The Sidon must also, of course,
flow through a land with gold and silver,
and reach the sea.
So as you can see in the pictograph,
this is what it would
look like in rough terms.
Searching for the River
Sidon in Central America
was interesting, because there really is
only one river that fits this description.
It's the Rio Grande de Zacapa,
as it is called in Guatemala,
or, as it's called in Honduras,
where it actually starts
today, is the River Copan.
And from it's headwaters,
it flows to the west,
and then turns north,
and then east out to the ocean.
So this suggests that this
could be the River Sidon,
the relationships are correct,
there's gold and silver,
in those mountains and hills in that area.
There's also a valley and so on,
we'll look at that here real close next.
Here is a Google map,
and satellite view, also,
of the area where Zarahemla would be
if this river is the Sidon river.
What we see would probably be
in the area of the town of Estanzuela.
We see that there are a couple of hills
to the east of the river,
that could satisfy the
Hill Amnihu description.
We also see another town
and a valley to the east,
and a little bit south,
which could fit nicely into
the description of Gideon,
in the area of Zacapa.
Another one I found
interesting was in looking
at a major battle that is described
in the book of Alma in the 43rd chapter.
This is described in
quite a bit of detail,
and it involves the River Sidon,
and it also involves, it's
close to the city of Manti,
and it's also a fordable river,
because the armies are crossing the river.
So let's take a look at that
in the pictograph I've shown here.
You see that the River Sidon in this area
has to be flowing southward,
and it comes past a
hill on the north side,
north and east side,
called the Hill Riplah,
and that's also where
the South Wilderness is.
And we see that the river is flowing
down into Manti,
so the flow, in this
case, is to the south.
We see that Moroni
leaves Lehi and his army
in the eastern valley,
close to the Hill Riplah,
and Moroni puts himself
over on the western side
of the valley there.
Notice how the Lamanite
army then comes over
the north part of the Hill Riplah,
and comes down on the
eastern side of the river,
and is attacked then
by Lehi and his forces.
They then retreat across the river,
now going to the west,
they cross the river
and now they're accosted
by Moroni and his forces,
and they try to break through
and run down into Manti,
but they are stopped,
and they're defeated there.
And what was interesting
was trying to find out
if this fits our Rio de Zacapa river,
or up in the Honduras area would be called
the River Copan.
So let's take a look at that.
What we see is there is, in fact,
in the area where the
river is basically flowing
from the east to the west,
there is an area where it does turn south
for about four miles,
and it comes past the ruins of Copan.
And we can see from the (terrain) imagery
that the scenario that
we produced on the left,
is very easily,
very easily fits into this terrain,
and with the river flowing south
past Copan before it again
turns and heads to the west.
So we find, again, a plausible scenario
that fits our Metals Map
and where the River Sidon might be.
