This article will analyze all 17 occurrences of the word "narrow," all 10 occurrences of the word "strait" and all 50 occurrences of the word "small" in the Book of Mormon text in an attempt to deduce the meanings of those terms in Nephite usage.
1. 1 Nephi 8:20, 2 Nephi 31:18, and 2 Nephi 31:19 all describe a strait and narrow path that leads by a rod of iron along a river of water toward the tree of life. People press forward along this path, holding on to the rod of iron 1 Nephi 8:24, 1 Nephi 8:30. In this context, the words "narrow" and "strait" connote a distance probably less than 5 meters wide.
2, Helaman 3:29 employs similar wording to describe a strait and narrow course leading across an awful gulf. The scriptural imagery suggests a foot bridge crossing a canyon, wide enough for a single pedestrian. In this context, the words "narrow" and "strait" connote a distance probably less than 5 meters wide.
3. 2 Nephi 9:41 introduces the idea of a gate one must go through to access a narrow way or path leading to the Lord and life. 2 Nephi 31:9 and 2 Nephi 33:9 use the words "narrowness" and "narrow" to describe the gate and the words "straitness" and "strait" to describe the path. The more common Book of Mormon usage reverses the word order so the gate is "strait" and the way is "narrow" Jacob 6:11, 3 Nephi 14:14, 3 Nephi 27:33. The gate and the way are restrictive enough that few people find them. In this context, the words "narrow" and "strait" connote a distance probably less than 5 meters wide.
4. 3 Nephi 14:13 and 3 Nephi 27:33 further clarify that "strait" is an antonym of "wide" and "narrow" is an antonym of "broad." A wide gate and a broad way can accommodate many people while a strait gate and a narrow way admit only a few. These texts are straightforward. The word "narrow" describes a distance on a human scale, something on the order of a few meters in width.

Other passages, though, expand our view. 1 Nephi 21:19-20 comes from the 49th chapter of Isaiah which describes the future gathering of the House of Israel following the Assyrian destruction of the northern kingdom ca. 720 B.C. When Joshua (from the tribe of Ephraim 1 Chronicles 7:27) allocated territory to the tribes following the Israelite conquest of Palestine, the house of Joseph (Ephraim and Manasseh) complained that their lands west of Jordan were too small for their large populations Joshua 17:14. Joshua gave them the opportunity to acquire additional territory through military conquest Joshua 17:15. In this text the word "narrow" describes the trans-Jordan land originally allotted to the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh. This map of Palestine will help quantify the Josephites' complaint.

Map of Palestine with distances noted

Dan to Beersheba was the Biblical transect representing the entire north to south extension of the Israelite nation Judges 20:1 (and 9 other Old Testament references). This is a straight line (air) distance of 235 kilometers. The land originally granted to the tribes of Ephraim and one-half of Manasseh extended from Bethel in the south to the Plains (or Valley) of Jezreel in the north. This is a distance of 65 kilometers. The original land grant to this portion of the house of Joseph was west of Jordan, so a reasonable approximation of the size of their territory would be 70 kilometers X 70 kilometers or approximately 4,900 square kilometers. This is larger than the state of Rhode Island (4,002 square kilometers) and slightly smaller than Utah County, Utah (5,188 square kilometers). The sense of Joshua 17:15, then, is that the house of Joseph considered a land area of approximately 4,900 square kilometers insufficient ("too narrow") for 2 (actually 1.5) of the largest tribes of Israel. Isaiah 49 (1 Nephi 21) describes the glorious future return of the dispersed tribes of Israel. They will "inherit the desolate heritages" 1 Nephi 21:8 or in other words, re-inhabit the lands originally granted to them. Their numbers will be so great that like Ephraim and Manasseh of old, they will complain that their allotted lands are "too narrow" and "too strait" 1 Nephi 21:19-20 for their large populations. The original territory assigned by Joshua to all 13 (Joseph received a double portion Joshua 14:4) of the tribes of Israel on both sides of Jordan was on the order of 25,000 square kilometers. This is approximately the size of the state of Vermont (24,901 square kilometers) and somewhat larger than San Juan County, Utah (20,254 square kilometers). So, the sense of 1 Nephi 21:91-20 is that the returning house of Israel in the last days will find even the entire original land of Israel inadequate ("too narrow," "too strait") for their numbers.

There is a fundamental difference between the "narrow" and "strait" things discussed in points 1-4 above and the use of those terms in Isaiah 49 (1 Nephi 21) and Joshua 17. When the scriptures call a gate, path, way or course "narrow" or "strait" the words are simple adjectives describing an intrinsic characteristic of the nouns "gate", "path", "way" or "course." When the scriptures describe a geographic region as "too narrow" for a given large population, the word "too" is an adverb modifying the adjective "narrow" under a certain condition "by reason of the inhabitants" 1 Nephi 21:19. The same pattern holds in the next verse where the word "too" is an adverb modifying the adjective "strait" under a certain condition "for me" 1 Nephi 21:20 meaning for the entire returning house of Israel in the last days. Does the Book of Mormon or the Old Testament ever use the terms "narrow" or "strait" to describe an intrinsic characteristic of an extension of territory as large as the Holy Land or some region within it? No. On the contrary, after Joshua had destroyed dozens of the kingdoms whose lands the Israelites inherited, the Lord spoke to his prophet and described the regions still unconquered as "very much land" Joshua 13:1. The entire territory divided among the tribes of Israel is called variously:

• "the country" Joshua 19:51 (and dozens of other references, variant reading "this country")
• "all the land" Joshua 21:43 (and many other references, variant reading "all this land")
• "the good land" Joshua 23:16 (and many other references, variant reading "this good land")
• "the land" Judges 2:1 (and dozens of other references, variant reading "this land")

When the tribe of Dan conquered Laish and established their eponymous city in its place, they described the surrounding region as "a large land" Judges 18:10.

So, the sense of 1 Nephi 21:19-20 does not imply that the Israelites considered any portion of their territory in Palestine inherently "narrow" or "strait."

This concludes our analysis of the word "strait" in the Book of Mormon. We are ready to examine some very interesting things that are "narrow."

5. A narrow strip of wilderness Alma 22:27 ran from the sea east by the head of Sidon to the sea west dividing the greater land of Zarahemla on the north from the greater land of Nephi on the south. In a parallel text Alma 50:11, Mormon described this Nephite/Lamanite boundary as a "line" running from the west sea by the head of Sidon with the greater land of Nephi on the south and the greater land of Zarahemla on the north. In ca. 72 B.C., the Nephite city of Moroni was built just north of this line Alma 50:13. How wide might this narrow strip or line of wilderness have been? Wilderness by its very nature would be wider than any man-made feature such as a road or wall. A few kilometers seems reasonable. Could anything much wider than 5 kilometers qualify as intrinsically narrow? It could hardly be considered a line. The demilitarized zone (DMZ) separating North and South Korea is generally considered a "strip" rather than a "narrow strip." It is 4 kilometers wide running 250 kilometers from sea to sea with a line, the military demarcation line (MDL), running right down the middle. In the article "Land Southward Travel Times" in this blog, we analyze a number of known historical journeys to deduce a reasonable distance in straight line (air) kilometers for the standard Nephite measure one day's travel. Our resulting rule of thumb is 15 kilometers. If the narrow strip of wilderness averaged 5 kilometers in width a typical Nephite could cross it in one third of a day. That seems reasonable for a physio-graphic feature continental in scope. In this context, the  narrow strip of wilderness probably did not exceed 5 kilometers in width.          
6. A strategic narrow pass Alma 50:34; Alma 52:9; Mormon 3:5 led between the land southward and the land northward, at the border between the lands of Bountiful on the south and Desolation on the north. This pass led by the seacoast. It had salt water to the west and more salt water to the east. It was a small enough place that a Nephite army numbering in the hundreds, perhaps thousands, certainly not tens of thousands could secure it against Lamanite attack. When major battles were fought there near the end of the Nephite era, enemy dead were cast into the sea. It sounds like a place with saltwater lagoons or tidal flats where a spur from a coastal mountain range reaches almost to the water's edge. In order to fit these criteria, the narrow pass could not have been more than 1 or 2 kilometers wide at most, with a few dozen or hundreds of meters more likely.
7. A narrow neck of land Alma 63:5; Ether 10:20 led between the land southward and the land northward, at the border between the lands of Bountiful on the south and Desolation on the north. This narrow neck was on the west seacoast at a point where salt water created a division between stretches of dry land. Ocean-going vessels launched nearby. It sounds like a sand bar running along a seacoast fronting an inter-coastal waterway or a series of saltwater lagoons. How large are known necks of land? A cemetery in Taunton, Bristol County, Massachusetts, established in 1687, is called the "Neck of Land Cemetery." The neck refers to land between the Taunton and Mill (aka Little) Rivers. On this 1858 map, the cemetery is circled in red.

Neck of Land Cemetery, Taunton, Massachusetts

Locating the same area on Google Earth allows us to measure the width of this neck of land.

Closeup of Neck of Land Cemetery, Taunton, Massachusetts

Setting a ruler in Google Earth, we see that the distance between rivers across this neck is .22 kilometers or 220 meters.

North east of Joplin, Missouri is a small town named Neck City. Located near the point where Duval Creek and the North Fork of Spring River come close enough to form a neck of land, Neck City was once a mining boom town called "Hell's Neck."

Neck City, Missouri

The neck of land between 2 streams that gives Neck City its name is .62 kilometers or 620 meters wide.

A single river can also form a neck of land. In Halifax County, North Carolina, the Roanoke River makes a loop known locally as "the neck." The town of Scotland Neck derives its name from a group of Scottish immigrants who in 1722 settled near the neck of the Roanoke.

Scotland Neck, North Carolina

At the points indicated on the map, the neck of the Roanoke River is 8.29 kilometers wide.

In Herefordshire, UK, a meander in the Wye River creates a landform the British call a "neck of land."

Wye River Neck of Land, Herefordshire, UK

The distance across the base of this neck is .49 kilometers or 490 meters.

Neck-o-Land Road, Williamsburg, Virginia

We have looked at every occurrence of the terms "narrow," "strait," and "small" in the text of the Book of Mormon in an attempt to deduce meaning based on Nephite usage. See the article "Narrow and Small Things" in this blog. Our overarching purpose in this rather laborious exercise was to shed light on the enigmatic narrow (small) neck of land referenced in Alma 22:32, Alma 63:5 and Ether 10:20. There is, however, one other use of the term "neck" in a geographic context in the text of the Book of Mormon that we should analyze. The relevant passage is 2 Nephi 18:8 quoting Isaiah 8:8. "And he shall pass through Judah; he shall overflow and go over, he shall reach even to the neck; and the stretching out of his wings shall fill the breadth of thy land, O Immanuel." This passage refers to the Assyrian destruction of the Northern Kingdom ca. 720 B.C. and the subsequent destruction of most of the Southern Kingdom ca. 701 B.C. "He" refers to the king of Assyria, Sargon and then Sennacherib. A gentle brook represents good government, while an overflowing torrent symbolizes conquest and tyranny. That is the sense of 2 Nephi 18:7 where the Assyrian juggernaut is characterized as a flood raging through Israel. The Assyrian invasion is also represented as a bird of prey whose large wings cover the entire breadth of the land of Israel. Josephus (De Bello, lib. iii, ch. ii) describing Jerusalem, says "Jerusalem, eminent above all the surrounding region, as the head of the body." This image from Google Maps with the terrain layer turned on shows Jerusalem in the Judean hill country. The Temple Mount, as a benchmark, sits at an elevation of 740 meters.

Jerusalem Among the Judean Hills

Isaiah referenced the same metaphor Josephus recorded - Jerusalem was the head of the body and the Assyrian invasion reached almost to the head like a flood whose waters rose up to a man's neck.This idea of the conquerors reaching the neck, but not the head, is also found in Isaiah 30:28 and Habakkuk 3:13. We know from many sources that ca. 701 B.C. Sennacherib and his Assyrian army laid siege to Jerusalem. This was the origin of Hezekiah's Tunnel, famous with modern tourists visiting Jerusalem. After laying waste to 46 cities throughout the kingdom of Judah (Sennacherib Prism, currently in the Oriental Institute, Chicago) the formidable Assyrian war machine encamped around Jerusalem and was destroyed by divine intervention as recorded in Isaiah 37:36 and 2 Kings 19:35. This awesome display of divine protection gave rise to the tradition of Jerusalem's invincibility evident in 1 Nephi 2:13.

This Google Earth image shows Jerusalem's old city, the approximately 90 hectares (.9 square kilometers) that comprise the UNESCO World Heritage site. The Temple Mount itself is a model superimposed over Google Earth's base satellite imagery. Vertical exaggeration is 3X to highlight the topography.

Modern Old City Jerusalem with Temple Mount Model

Archaeological sources tell us that Jerusalem in 598 B.C. when Nebuchadnezzar invaded Jerusalem and installed Zedekiah as a puppet ruler was about 50 hectares in size, or about one-half the size of the modern old city. See Margreet Steiner, Excavations in Jerusalem by K M Kenyon 1961 - 1967, Vol. III: The Settlement in the Bronze and Iron Ages (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001).

Visualization of the "Neck" around Jerusalem

A "neck" of land 2 kilometers wide is clearly in line with the results we found by analyzing all occurrences of the words "narrow," "strait," and "small" in the text of the Book of Mormon. See the blog article "Narrow and Small Things."

The 3 most recent articles in this blog:

• "Another Geographic Neck"
• "Narrow and Small Things"
• "Isthmuses"

have laid important groundwork that will now allow us to establish the textual requirements and identify a viable candidate for the narrow (small) neck of land referenced in Alma 22:31-33, Alma 63:5-8 and Ether 10:19-21. For reasons why we believe all 3 passages refer to the same geographic feature, see point #18 at the end of the article "Narrow and Small Things."

Careful exegesis of the relevant texts allows us to identify fifteen criteria the narrow (small) neck must satisfy, enumerated as 1 - 15 with aqua shading.

• These texts reference the land northward and the land southward. The lay of the land in this part of Nephite territory should be explicitly southward to northward 1, not south to north or east to west Alma 22:32, Alma 63:5, Ether 10:21.
• The narrow (small) neck was by the west sea 2Alma 22:32, Alma 63:5.
• It was near a border between the land Desolation on the north and the land Bountiful on the south 3 Alma 22:31-32, Alma 63:5. This Bountiful/Desolation line was also the border between the land northward and the land southward.
• The Bountiful/Desolation line was oriented east-west 4Alma 22:32-33.
• The Bountiful/Desolation line terminated at the west sea 5Alma 22:32.
• The Bountiful/Desolation line was a natural strategic line of defense 6. If the Nephite military could hold this line, they could prevent hostile incursions coming up from the land southward into the land northward Alma 22:33.
• The east-west Bountiful/Desolation line was approximately 22.5 kilometers 7 long Alma 22:32. For a data-driven derivation of the standard Nephite unit of measure "one day's travel," see the article "Land Southward Travel Times" in this blog. 
• The narrow (small) neck was a natural travel corridor 8 for people moving both northward and southward Alma 63:5, Ether 10:19.
• The greater land of Zarahemla combined with the greater land of Nephi were nearly surrounded by water Alma 22:32. The narrow (small) neck on the west seacoast was part of this perimeter 9 of water.
• The narrow (small) neck lay between 10 the land northward and the land southward Alma 22:32. Coming up from the land southward, the neck led into the land northward Alma 63:5. The actual boundary between the  lands northward and southward was a line Alma 22:32 so part of the neck lay northward of the line and part lay southward.
• Near the narrow (small) neck was a harbor 11 suitable for berthing and launching ocean-going vessels. This harbor was just south of (on the Bountiful side of) the Bountiful/Desolation line Alma 63:5.
• Near the narrow (small) neck the Jaredites in the days of King Lib built a great city 12Ether 10:20. See the blog article "Great Cities" for context behind that term. This city should be located northward of the Bountiful/Desolation line since the Jaredites reserved the land southward for hunting game Ether 10:21. 
• Near the narrow (small) neck is a dramatic natural feature where the sea divides the land 13Ether 10:20. This means we will find a land-salt water-land pattern in the topography.
• At times, large portions of the land southward were a game preserve Ether 10:21filled with wild animals 14Alma 22:31.
• In order to qualify as narrow and small, the neck of land should not exceed 5 kilometers in width 15. See the blog article "Narrow and Small Things" for a comprehensive analysis of the meaning of the terms "narrow" and "small" in Nephite usage.

Our candidate for the narrow (small) neck of land is the coastal sand bar running between the Mexican states of Oaxaca on the northward and Chiapas on the southward.

Possible Narrow (Small) Neck of Land

Zooming in, we find that this part of the Mexican Pacific coast has a vast network of salt water lagoons, tidal flats and estuaries.

Possible Narrow (Small) Neck of Land Closeup

This sandbar is known locally as Barra San Marcos in Chiapas and Barra de Tonala in Oaxaca.

The criteria:
1. The lay of the land in this part of Middle America is decidedly southeast to northwest.

316 Degree Heading of  Coastal Chiapas

The vector in the map above is on a heading of 316.02 degrees. 360 would be due north. 270 would be due west. 315 would be due North West. The terms "southward" and "northward" fit precisely. Criterion 1 satisfied.

2. Our candidate narrow (small) neck is on the west seacoast, just as the text requires.

Proposed North, South, West and East Seas

Criterion 2 satisfied.

Mulek, Lehi, Desolation & Bountiful

Key points: The land Bountiful (in green) was the northern tier of the land southward. The land Desolation (in brown)  was the southern tier of the land northward. The Bountiful/Desolation boundary was also the land southward/land northward boundary. Mulek first made landfall in the land Desolation, but did not remain there long. The Mulek colony eventually ended up in a wilderness area within the land southward. On the west seacoast, the Bountiful/Desolation boundary was an east-west line terminating at the west sea. This Bountiful/Desolation line was a strategic defensive littoral. Nephites populated this area to prevent Lamanites coming up from the land southward from invading the land northward. The Nephites valued the land northward as a potential safety valve in the event their land southward territory were overrun. A plausible Bountiful/Desolation border is very close to our proposed narrow (small) neck of land. Criterion 3 satisfied.

Modern Travel Routes

The Barra San Marcos, our proposed southward leg of the narrow (small) neck of land, is indeed a travel corridor today as it was anciently. Criterion 8 satisfied.

Proposed Narrow (Small) Neck of Land

If our candidate for the Bountiful/Desolation line is near the right place, our proposed narrow (small) neck of land is clearly between the land northward and the land southward Alma 22:32. Coming northward from the land southward, our proposed narrow (small) neck of land clearly leads one into the land northward Alma 63:5. Criterion 10 satisfied.

Closeup of Proposed Hagoth's Port

On the southward (land Bountiful) side of our proposed Bountiful/Desolation line, near our proposed narrow (small) neck of land, harbors do exist where ocean-going vessels could have been built, launched and berthed in Nephite times. Criterion 11 satisfied.

Olmec Site of Tzutzuculi near Tonala, Chiapas

Tzutzuculi was excavated by Andrew J. McDonald under the auspices of the BYUNew World Archaeological Foundation. The archaeological field report is Andrew J. McDonald, Papers of the New World Archaeological Foundation, Number 47, Provo: Brigham Young University, 1983. This 35 hectare site dates to the middle preclassic, about 1,000 B.C. It is best known for its Olmec sculpture. Rebeca B. Gonzalez Lauck, INAH's principal investigator at the site of La Venta for many years, says Tzutzuculi was contemporaneous with La Venta, a planned regional center with impressive public architecture. Rebeca B. Gonzalez Lauck, "La Zona del Golfo en el Preclasico: la etapa olmeca; Lo Olmeco mas alla de la costa del Golfo" in Historia Antigua de Mexico, Vol. 1, Mexico City: INAH and UNAM, 2001. Tzutzuculi is just across the Zanatenco River (in yellow) from Tonala, 12 kilometers from salt water, 15 kilometers from Barra San Marcos, our proposed narrow (small) neck of land, and 6.5 kilometers north of our Bountiful/Desolation line (in red). Ether 10:20 calls Lib's city a "great city." See the blog article "Great Cities" for background on this term. Compare Tzutzuculi at 35 hectares with Jerusalem ca. 598 B.C. at 50 hectares and the site of Santa Rosa, Chiapas at 54 hectares (documentation in the blog article "Site Sizes.") Many informed people (John L. Sorenson chief among them) consider Santa Rosa a viable candidate for the city of Zarahemla.

Proposed Place Where the Sea Divides the Land

We are looking for a topographic pattern terra firma || salt water || terra firma in close proximity. In all Mesoamerica we are unlikely to find a place more apt to Moroni's description than this. Criterion 13 satisfied.

14. Southward from our Bountiful/Desolation line, the Mexican state of Chiapas is rich in biodiversity. This  is how the government of Chiapas divides their state into administrative regions.

Administrative Regions in the State of Chiapas

We will focus on the Itsmo-Costa, Frailesca, Soconusco and Sierra regions as most likely to have been exploited by the Jaredites for wild game. These regions are in 3 of the major physio graphic areas in Chiapas - the Pacific Coastal Plain, Sierra Madre and Central Depression. According to authoritative local sources, 30 mammalian species are hunted for  meat or hides in this part of Chiapas. The most important species for subsistence hunting include:

Width of Proposed Narrow (Small) Neck of Land

Placing a ruler on Barra San Marcos at Cabeza de Toro, we find a width of 1.93 kilometers. Voilà. We are right in the sweet spot. Criterion 15 satisfied.

The last post entitled The Narrow (Small) Neck of Land showed why many Book of Mormon students think a) the narrow (small) neck of land, b) Lib's city, c) the east-west Bountiful/Desolation line, d) Hagoth's port and e) the place where the sea divides the land are all clustered near each other along f) the Nephite west coast. We showed plausible correlates on the modern map for all 6 of these geographic referents and demonstrated with satellite imagery how our candidates are a good fit to the text. That is a lot going on in a relatively compact area (the Municipio of Tonala, Chiapas) but there is more. In this post we analyze in-depth the narrow pass mentioned in Alma 50:34, Alma 52:9 and Mormon 3:5-8 as well as the narrow passage referenced in Mormon 2:29. We also look at the fortified defensive line described in Helaman 4:6-8.

A natural question: Do all 3 references to the "narrow pass" refer to the same topographic feature? Yes. Common textual motifs such as borders of the lands Bountiful & Desolation, movement into the lands northward and southward, fortifications, military activity and proximity to the sea assure us that we are dealing with the same place on the Nephite map.

A second question: Are the "narrow pass" and the "narrow passage" the same thing? Probably not. The text in Mormon 2:29 lacks most of the motifs mentioned above, so we will assume the narrow pass and narrow passage are two different topographic features.

A third question: Is the narrow pass near the narrow neck of land? Yes. In point #18 of the article "Narrow and Small Things" we identified three textual motifs common to the passages (Alma 22:32, Alma 63:5 and Ether 10:20) describing the narrow (small) neck of land: a) the narrow or small neck of land was located near the land southward/land northward border which was also the land Bountiful/Desolation border, b) the narrow (small) neck of land was on the seacoast, with 2 of the 3 relevant texts identifying the sea as the west sea, and c) the narrow (small) neck was a travel corridor for people going northward or southward. We find all 3 textual motifs in the passages (Alma 50:34, Alma 52:9, and Mormon 3:5-8) describing the narrow pass: a) the land southward/land northward border which was also the land Bountiful/Desolation border appears prominently in these passages, b) the narrow pass was near the seacoast, with 1 of the relevant texts specifically mentioning the west sea, and c) the narrow pass was in a travel corridor for people going northward or southward. There is also a fourth textual motif that further links the narrow neck and narrow pass together geographically: Alma 22:33 describes Nephite guards and armies who prevented the Lamanites from moving through the narrow neck of land area into the land northward. Denying Lamanite access to the land northward at this particular point was a strategic Nephite military objective. We find the same thing in Alma 50:34-35. Teancum militarily engaged Morianton to prevent the Nephite dissenters from moving into the land northward. In Alma 52:9 Captain Moroni ordered Teancum to militarily fortify and secure the narrow pass area to prevent Lamanite incursions into the land northward. Over 400 years later Mormon did the same thing. Mormon 3:5-6 talks about armies and fortifications attempting to prevent the Lamanites from breaching a Nephite defensive line established by the narrow pass. The conclusion is unmistakable. All 6 texts are describing the same locale using similar words and concepts. The narrow neck of land and the narrow pass are very near each other.

This means the 15 textual criteria we established for the narrow (small) neck of land (see the blog article "The Narrow (Small) Neck of Land") are directly relevant to the narrow pass as well.           

Careful exegesis allows us to identify sixteen additional criteria the narrow pass must satisfy, enumerated as 1 - 16 with aqua shading.

Morianton and his people were moving northward but had not yet reached the land northward Alma 50:33 when they encountered Teancum and his army. Teancum was moving southward, coming to the battle from the Desolation (northward) side of the Bountiful/Desolation line Alma 50:34. Both groups were in a hurry and would have traveled via efficient routes. Teancum had the advantage that he could travel through Nephite controlled areas while Morianton, with the Nephite equivalent of an all points bulletin and a warrant out for his arrest, would have avoided places with a strong Nephite presence. Where did Teancum come from? Alma 50:35 tells us that Teancum had been with Captain Moroni in the fortified city of Moroni. So, Teancum traveled from the extreme south eastern corner of Nephite lands to the west coast and arrived at the east-west Bountiful/Desolation border ahead of Morianton. We should find 2 logical travel routes 1 into the narrow pass. One route should come from the northward (Desolation) side of the Bountiful/Desolation line and the other should come from the southward (Bountiful) side.

Coming up from the southward, the narrow pass led a) by the sea 2 and b) into the land northward 3Alma 50:34. The next textual phrase has perplexed many Book of Mormon students: "yea, by the sea on the west and on the east" Alma 50:34. Were there 2 seas here? No. Royal Skouson has taught us that "yea clauses" in the Book of Mormon expand on an immediately prior phrase. There was only one sea, the one the narrow pass was adjacent to. But, at this place in Nephite geography, the one sea whose primary direction was west also had an eastern extension. We will find a salt water || dry land || salt water topographic pattern 4 by the narrow pass. It sounds like a coastal sandbar fronting a salt water lagoon.

Teancum and his troops fought a battle, killed Morianton and repatriated the Nephite dissenters who followed him by the narrow pass in the 24th year of the reign of the judges, ca. 68 B.C. There must be land immediately adjacent to the narrow pass large enough for two armies 5 to engage in battle. We are not told the size of the armies. No adjectives such as "small" or "large" modify the singular noun "army."  Based on our analysis of the term "small" in the article "Narrow and Small Things" we estimate an army to have been at minimum 3,000 troops. Our analysis of troop strengths elsewhere in the text (see the article "Population Sizes and Casualty Counts") reinforces this number as reasonable for the size of a militia from a newly-planted land (Morianton) on the Nephite settlement frontier ca. 68 B.C.

Two years after defeating Morianton by the narrow pass, Teancum received orders from his commanding officer, Captain Moroni, to militarily fortify the land Bountiful and secure the narrow pass Alma 52:9 with a portion of his troops. The remainder of Teancum's forces and Teancum himself remained in the general vicinity of the city Bountiful on the extreme northern edge of the Nephite east coast. The term "fortify" is not a great deal of help. 6 years earlier, Captain Moroni had his troops busily digging up "heaps" and "ridges" of earth around every city throughout "all the land" under Nephite control Alma 50:1. Securing the narrow pass, though, gives us a quantifiable textual requirement to consider. The narrow pass had to be small enough that an army probably not exceeding 5,000 men 6 could prevent movement along it. The narrow pass was clearly a natural choke point in the terrain 7 because Lamanite control of this strategic west coast area would bottle up the Nephites and deny them access to their land northward escape route Alma 52:9. It is important to note that at the precise time Teancum received these orders, the Lamanites already controlled most of the Nephite east coast from Moroni on the south to Mulek on the north.

Over 400 years later, ca. A.D. 360, Mormon was the supreme commander of Nephite military forces. He gathered much of the Nephite nation together in the area around the city Desolation 8 just north of the east-west Bountiful/Desolation line Mormon 3:5 by the narrow pass. This means the area northward of the narrow pass opens up into an expanse wide enough 9 to accommodate at minimum several hundred thousand people. This also means the area just north of the narrow pass had a high carrying capacity 10. In other words, enough food could be produced in this area to feed the large Nephite population gathered there.

We saw in Alma 50:34 and Alma 52:9 that when coming from the southward, the narrow pass led into the land northward. From Mormon's perspective already in the land northward, the narrow pass led into the land southward Mormon 3:5. This means a portion of the narrow pass was northward of the east-west Bountiful/Desolation line and another portion was southward 11.

Mormon caused the Nephites to fortify their lands around the city Desolation against Lamanite invasion "with all our force" Mormon 3:6. Mormon knew this was the Nephite's last real chance to hold sizable contiguous territory for a substantial period of time. The fortifications he directed were extraordinary 12. Captain Moroni, one of Mormon's heroes (see Alma 48:17), directed extensive fortification efforts throughout the entire Nephite nation which ranged from the sea east to the sea west. Mormon's fortifications were more intensive in a limited area. Early in his career, Mormon had directed the fortifications around Angola that ultimately proved ineffective Mormon 2:4. Late in his career, Mormon's military engineering was so effective that not only did the Nephites win two decisive battles around the city of Desolation Mormon 3:7-8, they could have remained in and around their fortified city indefinitely Mormon 4:4 had they not arrogantly gone on the offensive and mounted a disastrous invasion of Lamanite lands which decimated their ranks.

The Lamanites came down to the city of Desolation to battle their ancient foes Mormon 3:7. This means the city of Desolation was lower in elevation 13 than the Lamanite homelands. The city of Desolation was on the seacoast 14 because after a battle large numbers of Lamanite dead were cast into the sea Mormon 3:8.

The narrow pass crossed the Bountiful/Desolation border which was also the land southward/land northward border. "Bountiful" was a political entity in Nephite times, but the name also had ecological connotations. See the article "Bountiful Context" in this blog. We should find observable differences 15 between the lands Bountiful and Desolation that justify the ecological implications of the term "Bountiful."

The narrow pass must be narrow 16. Anything over 5 kilometers wide would be inconsistent with Nephite usage of the term "narrow" as we found in the article "Narrow and Small Things."

Our candidate for the narrow pass is the route the Isthmian Railroad follows today as it winds around the southern flank of Cerro Bernal and the northern shore of Laguna de la Joya. This map shows our narrow  pass in green in its Mesoamerican context. The Mezcalapa-Grijalva River in blue is shown as it flowed in early Nephite times (See the blog article "Wandering River").

Proposed Narrow Pass in Green on the Pacific Coast of Chiapas

This map shows a closeup of the narrow coastal plain between the mountains and the sea. The magenta line represents the modern railroad, with the section we are designating the narrow pass in green.

Isthmian Railroad in Magenta, Proposed Narrow Pass in Green

And this map shows the narrow pass in context with the other six geographic features (narrow (small) neck of land, Bountiful/Desolation line, city of Lib, Hagoth's port, place where the sea divides the land, and sea west) we discussed in the prior article "The Narrow (Small) Neck of Land." The white line is the continental divide running along the ridge line of the Sierra Madre Mountains. The blue line is a tributary of the Mezcalapa-Grijalva river, and the yellow lines are small rivers emptying into the Pacific Ocean. As before, the magenta line shows the route of the Trans Isthmian Railroad with the section we call the narrow pass shown in green.

Proposed Narrow Pass, Narrow Neck and Nearby Features

Let's see how our proposed narrow pass fits the sixteen textual requirements outlined above.

Northward Pass Through the Sierra Madre Mountains into Arriaga

The southward route into Tonala goes from Motozintla over a natural pass in the Sierra Madre Mountains (highlighted as a green circle) into Huixtla, and from there along the coastal route northward into Mapastepec and beyond.

Southward Pass Through the Sierra Madrea Mountains into Huixtla

This map shows the Narrow Pass area with the two major routes over the Sierra Madre Mountains highlighted as green circles.

Northward and Southward Routes into the Tonala Area

We do find 2 logical travel routes into our proposed narrow pass, one coming in from the northward (Desolation) side and the other from the southward (Bountiful) side. Criterion 1 satisfied.

Proposed Narrow Pass Area in Shaded Relief

Cerro Bernal is a spur of the Sierra Madre nearly 1,000 meters in elevation. It is the place along the entire Chiapas coast where the mountains come closest to the sea. This creates a natural choke point in the topography where movement northward or southward is channeled in three narrow travel corridors. The Trans Isthmian Railroad, a portion of which we have designated the narrow pass, follows the middle of these corridors. Criterion 7 satisfied.

8, 9. The following map shows our concept of the land Bountiful in green overlay and the land Desolation in brown overlay with the east west Bountiful/Desolation line in red between them.

Proposed City of Desolation Area North of the East West Bountiful/Desolation Line

Two things are readily apparent on the map above. 1) A poorly studied ancient site known to archaeologists as Paredon lies on the coast of Mar Muerto just north of our Bountiful/Desolation line. Paredon could have been the city of Desolation. The surveyed ruins are engulfed by the modern city of Paredon which had a population of 6,126 in the 2010 Mexican Census. So, we find a candidate for the city of Desolation in the precise place where our model predicted it should be. 2) The coastal plain which is less than 1 kilometer wide along most of our narrow pass broadens out to 12 kilometers between the cities of Paredon and Tonala as the yellow ruler on the map above indicates. Assuming that the greater city of Desolation area where Mormon concentrated the Nephites ran from our east west Bountiful/Desolation line to the Tiltepec River and was bounded on the west by the Mar Muerto and on the east by our proposed border of the land Desolation, the area would have looked like the yellow-shaded polygon on the map below.

Proposed Greater City of Desolation in Yellow

The area in yellow is 278 square kilometers. As a point of comparison, Washington D.C. has a surface area of 177 square kilometers. Is this Tonala, Chiapas area large enough to have been the Nephite capital from ca. A.D. 360 to ca. A.D. 363? Yes. 278 square kilometers should have been adequate space for the events being described in Mormon chapters 3 & 4. Criteria 8 & 9 satisfied.

Municipio of Tonala, Chiapas, Mexico

Among the 122 municipios in the state of Chiapas, Tonala is the leading producer of fish and shrimp. The large Mar Muerto is one of the most productive fisheries in all of Mexico, and the city of Paredon is the leading fishing port on the Mar Muerto coast. Tonala also exports large quantities of beef. It is the third most important cattle ranching area in Chiapas. Other important agricultural exports include corn and mangoes. See production statistics published by SAGARPA, Secretaria de Agricultura, Ganaderia, Desarrollo Rural, Pesca y Alimentacion. As a large net exporter of foodstuffs, the Tonala area has a high carrying capacity. Criterion 10 satisfied.

Granite Outcroppings in the Tonala, Chiapas Area

The red oval on the map above highlights the location of the kind of granite used anciently as building material. The stone came from the Cerro Bernal and a small area immediately north of the modern city of Tonala. This particular type of architectural grade granite is quite rare in Mexico, but abundant in the precise location we have identified as the narrow neck of land - narrow pass area.

4 Ancient Megalithic Granite Architecture Sites

And this map shows 13 of the 20+ archaeological sites currently known to science in the Municipio of Tonala, Chiapas.

13 Known Archaeological Sites in and around Tonala

So, unique in all Mesoamerica, we do find extraordinary defensive fortifications made of granite sitting atop natural hills in the precise area where we have sited the narrow neck of land and the narrow pass. Criterion 12 satisfied.

Megalithic Architecture in Mesoamerica

The Maya sites all used some form of limestone which averages a hardness of 3 on the mohs scale. The granite used in the Tonala sites was orders of magnitude more difficult to work, but also much more effective as a defensive building material.

The Ancient Site of Paredon by the Sea

Criterion 14 satisfied.

Bountiful/Desolation Line near the  Chiapas/Oaxaca Border

Part of the meaning of "Desolation" in Nephite parlance was cultural, derived from the presence of Jaredite ruins in the land Alma 22:30. This is a map of known Olmec and Olmec-influenced sites northward from our Bountiful/Desolation line in red.

Bountiful/Desolation Line Relative to the Olmec Heartland

The orange line surrounds Olmec heartland sites in southern Veracruz and western Tabasco. The magenta line represents the Trans Isthmian Railroad that follows the ancient communication route between the Chiapas coast and the Gulf of Mexico. The yellow line is our representation of the route Mulek and his colony took landing first in the Papaloapan River Basin, coasting by the Coatzacoalcos and Mezcalapa-Grijalva River Basins and finally settling in the Usumacinta River Basin. Northward from our Bountiful/Desolation line in red, the ancient route to the Veracruz coast passed by the Olmec sites Tzutzuculi, Tiltepec, Laguna Zope, and Tepalcate before crossing the center of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec and entering the Olmec heartland via the site of Las Limas. This direct connection between the Tzutzuculi/Tiltepec area and the Olmec heartland supports our use of the term "Desolation" near Tonala.

Another part of the meaning of "Desolation" in Nephite usage was ecological. Desolation had far fewer trees than Bountiful Helaman 3:6-7, Helaman 3:9. This map based on satellite imagery from NASA shows land cover with denser vegetation darker shades of green.

NASA Land Cover Classification

The red line is our east west Bountiful/Desolation line referenced in Alma 22:32. The yellow line is our proposed boundary between the entire lands of Bountiful and Desolation. It is clear that vegetation is much denser on the Bountiful side of the border.

NASA Forest Canopy Heights

It is obvious that there are more trees and taller trees on the Bountiful side of the border.

NASA Blue Marble Image - Dry Season

Clearly, the earth is much greener on the Bountiful side of the border.

Areas of Dense Vegetation per INEGI

Desolation has fewer areas of dense vegetation than Bountiful.

Areas Receiving more than 1,500 Millimeters of Average Annual Precipitation per INEGI

In the southern part of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, our Bountiful/Desolation border is a pretty stark line. All points immediately on the Bountiful side of the boundary receive at least 1,500 millimeters of precipitation annually. Almost all points immediately on the Desolation side of the border are drier.

Streams Emptying into the Pacific

As you move northward across the east west Bountiful/Desolation line and travel across our land Desolation,  the streams become fewer and further between.

Proposed Narrow Pass around Cerro Bernal

At the point indicated by the yellow ruler in the image above, the coastal plain flanking Cerro Bernal is .29 kilometers wide. This is narrow enough to fit the definition we have established based on Nephite usage of the term. Criterion 16 satisfied.

Our candidate for the narrow pass, the route of the Trans Isthmian Railroad around Cerro Bernal and Laguna de la Joya, is a decidedly good fit to the text. It comfortably meets all 16 criteria we developed through careful reading.

A single verse, Mormon 2:29, refers to a geographic feature called the narrow  passage which led into the land southward. The context was ca. A.D. 350 when the Nephites negotiated a treaty with the Lamanites and Gadianton Robbers. The Nephites got the entire land northward, their enemies the entire land southward. There are 3 reasons we believe the narrow passage was in the same locality as the narrow (small) neck of land and the narrow pass:

• The language Mormon used to describe the narrow passage (which led into the land southward) is identical to his description of both the narrow (small) neck of land (which led into the land northward) Alma 63:5 and the narrow pass (which led into the land southward) Mormon 3:5.
• The narrow passage was clearly at the border between the lands northward and southward. All other references in the text to this border can be shown in context to refer to the area near the narrow (small) neck of land and the narrow pass.
• Events in the text after A.D. 350 (Mormon 3:5) show that the Nephites were in the area near the narrow (small) neck of land and the narrow pass.

This means there were 3 different land routes to move between the lands northward and southward:

• via the narrow (small) neck of land
• via the narrow pass
• via the narrow passage

Our candidate for the narrow passage is the route followed by Mexican Federal Highway 200 as it passes between Cerro Bernal and the Sierra Madre Mountains. This  map shows our proposal as an aqua colored line.

Proposed Narrow Passage in Aqua

This map shows the 3 different land routes to move between the lands northward and southward. The narrow (small) neck of land route is shown in purple, the narrow pass route in green, and the narrow passage route in aqua.

3 Routes Across the Bountiful/Desolation Line

The known archaeological sites in the Municipio of Tonala, Chiapas correlate remarkably well with the 3 land routes we have identified. Cabeza de Toro and Las Animas are on Barra San Marcos which we correlate with the narrow (small) neck of land. Estacion Mojarras guards our narrow pass. And, Ocuilapa, La Polca and Los Horcones all straddle our proposed narrow passage. Fraccion Mujular and Ciudad Perdida overlook our narrow passage from the heights of Cerro Bernal, while Perseverancia is just down the road following the same trajectory. So, the locations of the ancient sites in the area support our 3 proposed travel routes through the constricted Cerro Bernal area.

Ancient Sites Correlated with our 3 Routes across the Bountiful/Desolation Line

The Book of Mormon makes a single reference to the narrow strip of wilderness Alma 22:27 but this natural feature on the Nephite/Lamanite landscape looms large in any attempt to correlate the text with the modern map. Actually, there are other references to the narrow strip of wilderness, but under different names. For example:

• Alma 22:29 calls it the wilderness at the head of the river Sidon
• Alma 27:14 calls it the wilderness which divided the land of Nephi from the land of Zarahemla
• Alma 50:11 calls it the line between the Nephites and the Lamanites, as well as (the line) between the land of Zarahemla and the land of Nephi
• Alma 50:13 calls it the line of the possessions of the Lamanites

Detailed exegesis of these texts yields 32 criteria that will help us identify the narrow strip of wilderness on modern maps. These requirements are enumerated 1 - 32 below in aqua.

North American Caribbean Tectonic Plate Boundary Shown in NASA Blue Marble Imagery (October)

Another image shows our narrow strip of wilderness, marked with a small red arrow, on a shaded relief map. Notice how clearly the circularity shows up as the North American Caribbean Tectonic Plate Boundary goes through a major mountain pass in the Sierra Madre and then down to the Pacific coast. This is the area between Motozintla and Huixtla, Chiapas where Mexican Federal Highway 211 runs today.

North American Caribbean Tectonic Plate Boundary Shown on Shaded Relief Map

And, a final image shows the northern edge of our narrow strip of wilderness in white with a map of major rivers. The Usumacinta network is in red. The Mezcalapa-Grijalva system is in blue. All other drainage basins are in yellow.

Proposed Narrow Strip of Wilderness with Major River Systems

Clicking to enlarge this image, you will notice a nearly unbroken string of rivers (Lake Izabal is part of the Polochic drainage system) immediately south of the white line. These rivers flow at the base of the long line of cliffs we correlate with the narrow strip of wilderness.

Focus on Our Correlation of Eastern Nephite Lands ca. 90 B.C.

First, the narrow strip of wilderness passed south of wilderness inhabited by idle Lamanites. The white lines enclose territory we believe was settled by Nephites ca. 90 B.C. The black line encloses territory (the Mirador Basin) we don't think was ever part of the Nephite nation. The green polygon represents our view of the large east wilderness prior to the establishment of the lands of Sidom, Noah or Jershon (or the city of Aaron). Those were the first places settled by the Nephites east of the central Sidon corridor.

Chixoy River System Flowing East, then West, and Finally North

Zooming out still further to a continental scale, we see that our proposed head of Sidon is on the extreme southern edge of our greater land of Zarahemla, represented in white overlay on the map below.

Proposed Greater Land of Zarahemla in White North of the Head of Sidon

Putting a ruler on the map, we compute the straight line distance from our head of Sidon to both coasts.

Air Distance from the Pacific to the Head of the Chixoy

The results: Pacific Ocean to the head of the Chixoy = 231 kilometers. Caribbean Ocean to the  head of the Chixoy = 196 kilometers. Our candidate for the head of Sidon is a considerable distance inland from both coasts. Criteria 16, 17 & 18 satisfied.

Proposed Zerahemnah Route with Shaded Relief

There is a logical route Zerahemnah could have traveled from our proposed land of Antionum to the head of Sidon. This route does go "round about in the wilderness away by the head of the river Sidon" Alma 43:22 as the text requires. Criterion 19 satisfied.

20. We correlate the city of Manti with the site of Chama, a large trading center at the confluence of the Chixoy with the Sachichaj. See the blog article "Manti." On the map below, the white line represents Zerahemnah's likely line of march around Hill Riplah and down to a crossing of the Chixoy. The concentric circle symbols represent battle grounds. Z12 represents Captain Lehi's victory over Zerahemnah east of Sidon. Z13 represents Captain Moroni's final victory over Zerahemnah west of Sidon. (See the article "Sidon East then West" for a list of 35 battles fought in the greater land of Zarahemla enumerated Z1 - Z35). By crossing Sidon from east to west, Zerahemnah hoped to take the city of Manti by surprise.

Likely Zerahemnah Battles East and West of Sidon South of Manti

As the map above makes clear, the level ground around our city of Manti is east of Sidon. By crossing over to the thinly populated mountainous terrain west of the river, Zerahemnah's forces could approach the city undetected. The Lamanites never executed their plan. For an extended treatment of Captain Moroni's brilliant battle tactic that led to the decisive defeat of a much larger enemy force, see the articles "Manti" and "Captain Moroni in Space and Time." The point is that had Zerahemnah been able to cross the river with his troops and invade Manti from the west (crossing the river a second time from west to east), he could have surprised Manti with little advance warning. Criterion 20 satisfied.

Note: How did the ancients cross a large river such as the Chixoy with an army? They lashed a long string of canoes together several abreast and lashed planks on top, creating a crude pontoon bridge. When Hernan Cortes traveled across northern Tabasco and through the Peten in 1524 on his way to quell a rebellion in Honduras, he and the other Europeans were amazed at the natives' skill building these portable pontoon bridges that were so sturdy they allowed even Spanish horses and cannon to easily cross wide rivers.

2122. Zerahemnah came from the Antionum Jershon border far to the north east of the head of Sidon. He passed by (about 11 air kilometers away in our correlation) the head of Sidon without ever crossing over it, then crossed Sidon from east to west further downstream. This map shows his likely route in white.

Probable Route of Zerahemnah Passing by the  Head of Sidon

The lay of the land in this area allows travel precisely as the text in Alma 43:22 and Alma 43:40 describe.

Probable Route Antiparah to Nephihah Crossing the Head of Sidon

"Cross the head of Sidon" probably meant cross over the Salama and possibly the Carchela at their  confluence with the Chixoy-Negro. The lay of the land in this area supports travel precisely as the text in Alma 56:25 describes. Criterion 23 satisfied.

24. Some students of the Book of Mormon interpret Alma 22:27 to mean the river Sidon itself rather than the narrow strip of wilderness ran east to west in the immediate vicinity of the head of Sidon. Downstream from the Salama confluence, the Chixoy does flow westward for about 25 kilometers before turning generally northward. The region within the green circle on the map below highlights this westward flowing section of the river.

Chixoy Flowing Westward Downstream from the Salama Confluence

Our candidate for the river Sidon (Chixoy - Salinas - Usumacinta) does flow westward just downstream from our head of Sidon. Criterion 24 satisfied.

The Confluence of 4 Streams that Form the Chixoy

This meeting of the waters precisely fits one of the standard English definitions of a "head" of a river. Geographers pinpoint this very place (the confluence of the Chixoy-Negro with the Salama) as the head of the Chixoy. Criterion 25 satisfied.

Typical Ancient Route From Kaminaljuyu (Proposed Nephi) to Chama (Proposed Manti) via Salama and Coban

Notice how similar the ancient trail shown above was to the modern highway route between Guatemala City and Coban.

Google Maps Route Guatemala City (A) to Coban (B) via Salama

Alma 27:14 tells us the people of Ammon waited in the narrow strip of wilderness while Ammon and his brethren consulted with their fellow Nephites about a homeland for the Lamanite converts. How large a group were the people of Ammon? The text does not specify, but we have some demographic indicators that will help us derive an informed estimate.

Proposed Narrow Strip of Wilderness near Head of Sidon

Our narrow strip of wilderness is in green. Our Sidon (the Chixoy) is in red. The river shown in yellow is the Cahabon. The white line represents the ancient travel route between Salama and Coban. The modern town of Coban is clearly visible near the top of the image. The surface area of our narrow strip of wilderness between the Chixoy and the Cahabon is close to 80 square kilometers. 40,000 people camping in this area would result in a temporary population density of 500 per square kilometer, about the same as the Netherlands or South Korea and considerably less than Taiwan. The current population density of Guatemala is 142 per square kilometer. The population of the city of Coban in 2005 was just over 86,000. So, our proposed narrow strip of wilderness was large enough to temporarily accommodate the estimated population of the people of Ammon. Criterion 26 satisfied.

Nephi set a high standard for clarity and precision in his oral communication "I have spoken plainly that ye cannot err" 2 Nephi 25:20. He wanted his words to communicate effectively "my soul delighteth in plainness unto my people that they may learn" 2 Nephi 25:4. "I glory in plainness; I glory in truth; I glory in my Jesus" 2 Nephi 33:6. Nephi taught that deity values this same standard of lucidity "[The Lord] doeth nothing save it be plain unto the children of men" 2 Nephi 26:33. Father Lehi, quoting Joseph son of Jacob (Israel), said the words of the Book of Mormon itself would be "simpleness" 2 Nephi 3:20. With this tradition of unambiguity in Nephite culture, it is little wonder that King Benjamin spoke "plainly unto you that ye might understand" Mosiah 2:40. Alma reprised Nephi when he taught that the Nephites had received divine communication "in plain terms, that we may understand, that we cannot err" Alma 13:23.

Nephi said it best "For my soul delighteth in plainness; for after this manner doth the Lord God work among the children of men. For the Lord God giveth light unto the understanding; for he speaketh unto men according to their language, unto their understanding" 2 Nephi 31:3.

If this kind of clear and understandable prose works for unshaken faith 2 Nephi 31:19, repenting of our sins 2 Nephi 31:13, baptism by water 2 Nephi 31:17, receiving the Holy Ghost 2 Nephi 31:18, and enduring to the end 2 Nephi 31:20 it also works for the sea east Helaman 11:20, the narrow (small) neck of land Alma 22:32 and the narrow strip of wilderness Alma 22:27.

Motive
We pray the Book of Mormon becomes a much more significant force for good worldwide. We consider the degree of market penetration it has achieved since 1830 modest. We believe a verifiable ancient setting will help many more people take this inspired masterpiece seriously.

Modus Operandi
We use the 2009 Yale University Press edition of the Book of Mormon to take advantage of Royal Skousen's decades of painstaking work piecing together the text that fell from the lips of the Prophet Joseph as he had the Nephite plates open in front of him. We link to the lds.org 2013 edition of the text whenever possible as a convenience to readers and to keep ourselves honest. If we cite a scriptural passage, we go to some effort to ensure the text at that point really says what we claim it says. We take the text at face value assuming the words that fell from the Prophet's lips meant the same thing they would have in Elizabethan (King James) English.

• We assume consistency in the text. If we find a pattern where a phrase carried a discernible meaning in Nephite usage, we assume similar exegesis for all occurrences of that phrase.

We use Google Earth as our repository of geographic information and we periodically update our complete Book of Mormon model so students of the text worldwide can reproduce our results.

• If the text says a place is up or down relative to another place, we calculate vertical rise or fall. We have built two versions of a terrain plane that allow us to set an absolute altitude and quickly see what features rise above that elevation like volcanoes rising through the clouds.
• We follow the rivers. Rivers were the highways of the ancient world. We have invested several thousand hours plotting major river systems in southern Mesoamerica, but much more remains to be done before our watershed map is reasonably complete. The Olmec typically sited settlements on streams. The Maya did the same. Ditto the Zoque. We assume the Nephites were no different.
• If the text says round about, we look for circularity in a path or movement.
• If the text cites a cardinal direction, we let Google Earth calculate a heading where 360 is due north, 90 is due east, 180 is due south, and 270 is due west.

We assume Mesoamerica. We find the correlation between the Book of Mormon text and Mesoamerica compelling, growing deeper and richer over time.

I was in north central Tennessee years ago looking for a gravel pit operated by one of my customers. Slightly disoriented, I stopped by a farmhouse where an older couple sat on the front porch. I asked them to please direct me to the mining operation. The fellow pointed down the road and said it was in that direction "a fur piece." His wife protested. "No," she insisted, "it ain't a fur piece, it's a short piece." When I finally found the quarry, it was about five miles down the road from the friendly farmhouse. To this day, I am unsure whether five road miles is generally considered "a fur piece" or "a short piece" in the vernacular of the Tennessee hills.

The Book of Mormon uses the terms "near" and "far" to describe comparative spatial relationships. This article will attempt to quantify what the Nephites meant when they used these terms in a geographic context.
1. After Lehi left Jerusalem, he and his family traveled near the shore of the Red Sea 1 Nephi 2:5. The Old World portion of the Lehite's journey has been studied many times by capable researchers (Aston, Brown, England, Hilton, Phillips, Potter, Wellington). Virtually all agree that the first leg of the eight year odyssey took the family from Jerusalem down the Great Rift Valley to the Gulf of Aqaba. That route is shown in white on the map below.

Lehite's Journey in White from Jerusalem to the Red Sea

4 Transects Measuring the Width of the Gulf of Aqaba Coastal Plain as it Rises to 100 Meters Elevation

Testing the Directionality of Shazer From the Valley of Lemuel

Nephi was spot on as they say in Britain. Do we have any reason to mistrust the Book of Mormon when it says north, south, east or west? No. Google Earth confirms the accuracy of the Nephite text 100% of the time. See the article "Plainness" for perspective.

Proposed Shazer 10 Kilometers North of Duba, Saudi Arabia

This image shows the location of ibex habitat near Duba.

Nubian Ibex Habitat near Duba, Saudi Arabia

From their camp at Shazer, Nephi and his brothers would have traveled about 20 kilometers inland from the coast to reach herds of ibex. Continuing on their journey south southeast from Shazer, they stayed near the Red Sea and followed the directions on the Liahona to find the most fertile parts of the wilderness. They probably passed through some of the sites indicated on the map below. These are modern population centers, most of which were also ancient oases along the coastal caravan route. The base map is NASA's land cover classification system where urban areas show red.

Modern Cities and Ancient Oases Along Lehi's Coastal Route

Showing the same area with a shaded relief base map, the Red Sea coastal plain is obvious.

Lehi's Coastal Route Showing Red Sea Coastal Plain

In the case of 1 Nephi 16:14, near the Red Sea probably meant within 5 kilometers of the coast. Almost all population centers along this coastal plain are right on the water.

It is sometimes hard to keep everyone straight in the Book of Mormon. This article is a chronological outline of key people in the Nephite portion of the text whose names are often sub scripted. It will serve as an online repository for copying and pasting into other more substantive articles.

My friend, John W. (Jack) Welch, is fond of quoting the German proverb "a good question is half an answer." This proverb harks back to Socrates (ca. 469 B.C. - 399 B.C.) "understanding a question is half an answer" and Solomon ibn Gabirol ben Judah (A.D. 1021 - 1058) "A wise man's question contains half the answer." If we ask the right questions we will discover the best fit correlation between the Book of Mormon text and the modern map. In September, 2011, we asked a series of 18 questions designed to discover whether the Mezcalapa-Grijalva or the Usumacinta better fit the textual requirements for the river Sidon. See the article "Asking the Right Questions." The results were conclusive in favor of the Usumacinta. See the article "The Usumacinta Sidon Correlation." We now address the larger issue of a comprehensive correlation with Nephite lands, cities and places in the land southward by asking a series of questions and positing one interpretive rule. First, the rule.

Candidate Seas North, South, East and West

2. Some correlations suggest there was a "Nephite" north, south, east and west different from the cardinal directions we use today. Following our rule of consistency, we illustrate the "nearly eastward" of 1 Nephi 17:1 and the "east" of Alma 51:26 using the same Google Earth directionality tools where a heading of 360 degrees = due north, 180 degrees = due south, 90 degrees = due east and 270 degrees = due west.

Bountiful in Oman Nearly Eastward from Nahom in Yemen

Cities on the East Borders by the Seashore

Note that Alma 51:26 in the 2013 LDS edition of the Book of Mormon contains one of only a handful of known errors in the text. In that verse, the city "Nephihah" should be "Moroni." See the article "Scribal Error." For more information about cardinal directions in the Book of Mormon, see point #10 in the article "The Usumacinta Sidon Correlation" and the article "Water Fight on the River - Round Ten."

3. Some correlations are content with a travel distance of approximately 12 air kilometers per day when Alma₁ led his followers with their flocks and herds from the city of Nephi to the local land of Zarahemla Mosiah 23:3 + Mosiah 24:20 + Mosiah 24:25. Those same correlations often then increase that daily travel distance by more than one order of magnitude so a superstar ultra marathoner could have crossed the Isthmus of Tehuantepec (216 kilometers from sea to sea) in a day and a half Alma 22:32. Following our rule of consistency, we take the Nephite phrase "a day's journey" as a standard unit of measure and derive an estimated value based on known historical journeys in southern Mesoamerica. See the article "Land Southward Travel Times." We then apply that derived distance (15 straight line kilometers per day) everywhere the text mentions a day's journey. Thus, Alma₁'s 21 day journey comes out at 320 air kilometers (including 5 extra kilometers for the long day between the land of Helam and the valley of Alma Mosiah 24:20) and the day and a half across the east west Bountiful/Desolation boundary line comes out at 23 air kilometers.

Land Southward Nearly Surrounded by Fresh + Salt Water

In the  map above, we have included sections of the large Coatzacoalcos and Ulua Rivers. Total circumference (because of river meanders) = 4,249 kilometers. 698 kilometers or 16.43% is fresh water. 3,415 kilometers or 80.37% is salt water. 136 kilometers or 3.20% is land. In this correlation, water = 96.8% and land = 3.2%.

Greater Land of Nephi in White Overlay Running from the Sea East Past the Head of Sidon to the Sea West

Greater Land of Nephi in White Overlay Running in a Straight Course from the East Sea to the West

Proposed Greater Land of Nephi and Narrow Strip of Wilderness

Alma 22:27 So far in this verse, Mormon has taken us twice from the sea east to the sea west, first in his description of the greater land of Nephi and second in his description of the narrow strip of wilderness. He is about to take us a third time on a continental sweep from the east to the west, noting features the narrow strip of wilderness passed by in its course. Beginning at the sea east and moving west, the narrow strip of wilderness passed by a wilderness on the north (the Zarahemla side) of the Nephite/Lamanite boundary. This wilderness goes by various names in the text depending on the author's point of view at the time.

Proposed Greater Land of Zarahemla & East Wilderness ca. 90 B.C.

Prior to the establishment of the land of Manti, groups routinely got lost travelling in either direction between Zarahemla and Nephi. See the article "Asking the Right Questions" Point #5. After Manti was incorporated into the Nephite sphere sometime between ca. 120 and 90 B.C., the text never again mentions any groups getting lost along this travel route.

The 1981 LDS edition of the Book of Mormon in English contains 268,158 words if you count only content from the plates and ignore modern accretions such as chapter summaries. The word count comes from Microsoft Word. See the article "Some Questions and a Rule," Rule of Book of Mormon Interpretation, point #4 for a link to download the word document. Most of these words are easy enough to understand that Aymara saints around Lake Titicaca and Kekchi saints around Lake Izabal draw profound personal meaning from the Nephite text. Some of these words, though, have proven difficult for serious students to interpret. This article lists some phrases bearing on the New World setting of the Book of Mormon whose ambiguous interpretation has created division among readers.

Alma 22:27 "running from the east towards the west" has been interpreted as:

• the river Sidon was running from the east towards the west
• the narrow strip of wilderness was running from the east towards the west

Alma 22:32 "from the east to the west sea" has been interpreted as:

• from the east sea to the west sea
• from an unspecified point in the east to the west sea

Alma 22:33 "even from the east unto the west sea" has been interpreted as:

John L. Sorenson, Mormon's Codex: An Ancient American Book, Salt Lake City: The Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship & Deseret Book Company, arrived on bookstore shelves along the Wasatch Front today, September 11, 2013. 826 pages in length, this is Sorenson's magnum opus, the result of more than 60 years of disciplined research into the Book of Mormon text and things Mesoamerican.

Mormon's Codex: An Ancient American Book by John L. Sorenson

This handsomely illustrated weighty volume, suggested retail price $59.99, significantly extends John's earlier works "The Book of Mormon as a Mesoamerican Codex,"Newsletter and Proceedings of the S.E.H.A. (Society for Early Historic Archaeology) No. 139, December, 1976 and An Ancient American Setting for the Book of Mormon, Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company and F.A.R.M.S. (Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies), 1985.

The ancient American prophet Moroni (ca. AD 350 - ca. AD 420), now a glorified being, visited the boy prophet Joseph Smith, Jr. on the evening of Sunday, September 21, 1823, on the Smith farm just outside Palmyra, New York. It was the autumnal equinox, mid-point in the sun's annual cycle between summer and winter solstices. 17 year old Joseph was instructed to meet angel Moroni on that same day for annual training sessions until the time was right for him to take possession of the plates & interpreters. Four years later, on Friday, September 21, 1827, Joseph, now a married man of 21, was entrusted with the precious Nephite artifacts.

Angel Moroni statue atop the Mt. Timpanogos Temple aligned with the summit of Mt. Timpanogos on the morning of September 21, 2013

My wife, Shannon, and I took our summer holiday this year in France. It was her seventh or eighth trip to the place, my second (she teaches high school French). We traveled for 17 days in a grand circle around the periphery of the country, celebrating our 37th wedding anniversary on the Riviera. Dining on bread, cheese and produce from farmer's markets was a treat. Wandering around the Clos Luce manor house in Amboise where Leonardo da Vinci spent the last three years of his life was sublime. A number of things we saw helped me understand the Book of Mormon in a more intimate and profound way.

Major Roman centers in ancient Gaul

Tongeren is near the Geer which flows into the Maastricht canal system. Metz is at the confluence of the Moselle and the Seille. Autun is on the Arroux, tributary of the Loire. Vaison-la-Romaine, Orange, Glanum, Nimes and Arles are all part of the lower Rhone system. Narbonne anciently was a port on the Aude, until the river changed course, landlocking the city.

Augustinian Coin

This is a representation of the Nimes emblem one sees frequently in the modern city.

Crocodile chained to a palm tree

And this is a modern, stylized version.

Nimes municipal symbol

6. On the north coast of Brittany lies the picturesque walled port city Saint-Malo, home to the notorious corsairs (privateers, pirates) that preyed on Spanish and British shipping. Even though Saint-Malo was a thorn in Britain's side for centuries, the town never fell to enemy action. Many other ports along the French coast were captured by the British from time to time, but never Saint-Malo which maintained a certain autonomy even among other Bretons. What was the secret to Saint-Malo's incredible defenses? While most cities in France were built of limestone, Saint Malo was built of much harder granite found along that part of the Breton coast. It was not until the high explosive aerial bombardments of World War II that Saint Malo's granite ramparts were breached. You won't find the gothic splendor of Notre Dame or Chartres in Saint-Malo. Granite is much too hard to work for filigree or extensive statuary. What you will find are massive fortifications that stood for centuries against the most powerful military force on earth at the time.

Granite defensive walls of Saint-Malo

--
So, what do these French observations have to do with the Book of Mormon?

1. Rivers determined settlement patterns in Mesoamerica. The Olmec and their successors tended to locate major cities on rivers. The confluence of 2 streams and the headwaters of 2 streams (continental divide) created strategic areas. The coastal plain upstream from the flood-prone delta but downstream from the head of navigation (fall line) was highly favorable for settlement.Plotting the largest ancient population centers in the area occupied by the Jaredites, Mulekites, Nephites and Lamanites, we find San Lorenzo on the Coatzacoalcos at an elevation of approximately 20 meters 58 air kilometers from the mouth. La Venta was anciently at the confluence of the Tonala with the Mezcalapa-Grijalva (see the article "Wandering River" in this blog) at an elevation of approximately 30 meters 15 air kilometers from the mouth of the Mezcalapa-Grijalva. Comalcalco was also anciently on the Mezcalapa-Grijalva (after it shifted course - see the article "Wandering River" referenced above) at an elevation of approximately 12 meters 18 air kilometers from the mouth. Palenque was built between the headwaters of the Chacamay which flowed eastward to the Usumacinta and the Michol which flowed westward to the Chilapa and eventually to the Usumacinta at an elevation of approximately 150 meters 141 air kilometers from the mouth of the Usumacinta. Piedras Negras was on the Usumacinta at an elevation of approximately 130 meters 220 air kilometers from the mouth. Its rival, Yaxchilan, was in an oxbow bend of the Usumacinta at an elevation of approximately160 meters 262 air kilometers from the mouth. Kaminaljuyu was located strategically on the continental, divide between the La Canada flowing to the Pacific and the Platanos, tributary of the Motagua flowing to the Caribbean at an elevation of approximately 1,540 meters 80 air kilometers from the mouth of the La Canada. Copan was on the Copan, tributary of the Rio Grande de Zacapa, which itself is a tributary of the Motagua at an elevation of approximately 600 meters 137 air kilometers from the mouth of the Motagua. Caracol was on a tributary of the Ceibo Grande which itself is tributary to the Belize at an elevation of approximately 525 meters 127 air kilometers from the mouth of the Belize. Tikal was situated on the continental divide between the headwaters of the Rio Azul - Rio Hondo which forms the border between Mexico and Belize and the headwaters of the San Pedro, major tributary of the Usumacinta, at an elevation of approximately 310 meters 197 air kilometers from the mouth of the Rio Azul - Rio Hondo at Chetumal Bay. Nakbe, on the other hand, was on the continental divide between the Candelaria drainage to the north and the San Pedro drainage to the south, at an elevation of approximately 290 meters 186 air kilometers from the mouth of the Candelaria at Laguna de Terminos. El Mirador was on a tributary of the Candelaria at an elevation of approximately 290 meters 174 air kilometers from the mouth. Calakmul was on another tributary of the Candelaria at an elevation of approximately 230 meters 167 air kilometers from the mouth. These 13 cities had a mean elevation of approximately 330 meters and were situated at a mean distance of 137 kilometers from the coast. Book of Mormon lands occupied approximately 387,730 square kilometers of surface area with 2,370 kilometers of coastline on 3 major bodies of water (Gulf of Mexico, Caribbean, Pacific). The highest point, Volcano Tajumulco in Guatemala, has an elevation of 4,220 meters.

13 Most Populous Cities in Ancient Southern Mesoamerica with Elevations

1a. Plotting Nephite cities (and in a few instances, lands where no city is attested in the text) in the greater land of Zarahemla according to our correlation shows very similar results. Rivers determined settlement patterns among the Nephites who tended to build cities on rivers. The confluence of 2 streams and the headwaters between 2 streams were strategic areas. The area upstream from the delta but downstream from the head of navigation (fall line) was a favorable location. Note in the map below that not all correlated sites have labels. At this viewing altitude, some of the sites appear very close together, and Google Earth only renders one label to avoid superimposition. As with all images on this blog, click to enlarge.

31 Proposed Book of Mormon Correlates with Elevations Google Earth Has Rendered Labels for 28

On the map above, the Usumacinta (Sidon) system is in red, the Mezcalapa-Grijalva system is in blue and all other river systems are in yellow. We will analyze our Nephite Book of Mormon correlates by drainage which will permit more detailed closeup maps.

Likely Wilderness of Hermounts (green) as part of the larger Usumacinta river delta (white overlay)

Conclusion #5. The popular image of crocodiles amid palm trees in a large, north-flowing river may link upper Egypt and the lower Usumacinta via the text of Alma 2:37.

A new version of the Book of Mormon Model is available for download from Google Drive. This is a 10 MB kmz (Google Earth) file with several thousand geo-coded data points and many external linkages. See the blog article entitled "Book of Mormon Model" for more details.

Image rendered with the October 2, 2013 edition of the Google Earth Book of Mormon Model

Several Book of Mormon maps, advocated by impassioned proponents, currently circulate in LDS and Restoration Branch circles. John L. Sorenson has just made a major contribution to this effort with his massive 826 page Mormon's Codex: An Ancient American Book, Salt Lake City: Deseret Book and Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, 2013 which was generally available in bookstores along the Wasatch Front by September 11, 2013.

Yesterday we published the latest edition of our Book of Mormon Model that runs on Google Earth. We believe this model, in progress since 2011, is the most empirically rigorous and sophisticated attempt to date to correlate the text of the Book of Mormon with the modern map. We are now going to up the ante. What follows is the first of several tests that demonstrate our correlation may be correct, that at minimum it fits the text precisely and consistently. We submit that any correlation, in order to be taken seriously, should pass these same tests.

The first version of this article used the word "proof" rather than "test." Some very bright people such as Mark Wright (BYU) and Bill Dever (University of Arizona) convinced me the word "proof" is radioactive and entirely unattainable. The best we can hope for is a point along the balance of probability that is beyond reasonable doubt.

Test #1. The LDS 2013 text of the Book of Mormon uses the word "up" 613 times and the word "down" 361 times. The word "up" appears 71 times in a topographical context with identifiable from and to points. The word "down" appears 74 times in a topographical context with identifiable from and  to points. Many of the 71 and 74 instances of elevational "up" and "down" refer to the same from and to couplets. For example, Mormon 3:10 says there was a rise in elevation between the then Nephite capital, the city of Desolation, and the then Lamanite stronghold (unnamed). This same relationship, from Desolation up to the Lamanite stronghold, gets repeated in Mormon 3:14, 3:16, 4:1 and 4:4. The text also describes a corridor of temporary defensive camps between the local land of Zarahemla and the west coast Bountiful/Desolation line 3 Nephi 3:23. Gadianton robbers both north and south 3 Nephi 4:1 of this corridor came down from multiple mountain wilderness retreats 3 Nephi 4:1 and got very hungry occupying empty Nephite settlements. The Gadiantons' mountain strongholds were higher in elevation than the corresponding portions of the Nephite defensive corridor 3 Nephi 3:25. The defensive corridor in turn was higher in elevation than the recently-abandoned permanent Nephite settlements 3 Nephi 4:4-7, 4:16. This Gadianton wilderness down to defensive corridor down to abandoned settlement pattern existed at multiple points along the corridor. For purposes of this test, we have limited our sample data to 4 representative locations that lie on both sides of the corridor. The same 4 representative locations illustrate the relationship of multiple Gadianton wilderness strongholds down to the local land of Zarahemla 3 Nephi 3:3-4, 3:8, 3:12, 3:17, 3:20-21.

Netting out duplicates and using 4 likely locations to represent what may have been dozens of Nephite refugee camps and robber hideouts, we end up with 37 discrete point a up to point b relationships and 41 separate point a down to point b relationships attested in the text. We plot each of these points with Google Earth, note Google Earth's elevation metric for that place, and calculate the elevation difference in an Excel spreadsheet. If we see 37 positive numbers on the "up" sheet and 41 negative numbers on the "down" sheet, our correlation has passed the test. As with all images on this blog, click to enlarge. The "up" sheet:

Spreadsheet showing 37 vertical rises

And, the associated "down" sheet:

Spreadsheet showing 41 vertical drops

The spreadsheet xlsx file is available for download here.

Parts of modern Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria, and Israel

Likely location of the land Bountiful:

Wadi Sayq along the coast of Oman

If the Jaredites crossed the Pacific Ocean, as their 344 days of drift time Ether 6:11 imply, then this coastal peak near Pingyang, China is a striking candidate for Mount Shelem.

Proposed Book of Mormon correlates along the Chinese coast

Our Mesoamerican correlates with up or down relationships attested in the text:

Places marked on this map of southern Mesoamerica represent points on the elevational spreadsheets

Local land of Nephi and environs in the greater Guatemala City area:

Proposed Book of Mormon sites in Kaminaljuyu (city of Nephi) area

City of Manti and environs in Quiche and Alta Verapaz:

Proposed Book of Mormon sites in Chama (city of Manti) area

Nephite culture core in north eastern Chiapas, Tabasco, and the north western Peten:

Proposed Book of Mormon sites in the local land of Zarahmela and the lands of Gideon and Ammonihah

Nephite defensive corridor shown in light blue overlay in the San Cristobal de Las Casas - Ocosingo, Chiapas area:

Proposed Nephite sites in and around the land between Zarahemla and the land Bountiful (defensive corridor)

Test #1 conclusion. If the Book of Mormon text says "up" we calculate vertical rise. If the text says "down" we calculate vertical drop. Plotting 75 discrete points and calculating the elevational differences between 78 different from and to relationships attested in the text, our correlation fits the text 100%. There are no discrepancies. We believe any viable text to map correlation will show similar results.

We believe this rigorous empiricism accomplishes a number of important things:

• It evidences a viable geographic setting exists for the Book of Mormon.
• It demonstrates precision in the text.
• It shows consistent word usage between the Old World and New World portions of the text.
• It establishes a high standard of evidence any proposed correlation should meet.
• It is based on results easily reproduced by anyone who uses Google Earth.

Helaman chapters 4 and 5 describe a curious situation ca. 31 B.C. in which the greater land of Zarahemla was partitioned into 2 roughly equal halves Helaman 4:10, 4:16 with Nephites re-establishing sovereignty over the northern half and Lamanites maintaining control in the south.

The setting. As early as ca. 90 B.C. the Nephites claimed the narrow strip of wilderness Alma 22:27 shown in green on the map below as their southern border, although at that early date they did not effectively control very much of that vast territory Alma 22:28-29. 18 years alter, ca. 72 B.C., Captain Moroni established Nephite control over the lands north of the narrow strip of wilderness, aka the line between the Nephites and the Lamanites Alma 50:11. This was the first time Nephite sovereignty in the greater land of Zarahemla extended from coast to coast. The narrow strip of wilderness boundary was breached between ca. 67 B.C. Alma 51:22 and ca. 61 B.C. Alma 62:38 during the disastrous seven years' war. The line was breached again 10 years later when Tubaloth sent Coriantumr north ca. 51 B.C. on an unsuccessful invasion into the heart of the Nephite culture core Helaman 1:19-33. The line then held for another 17 years until the massive Lamanite invasion/homesteading settlement of ca. 35 - 34 B.C. Helaman 4:5. At that time, the former Nephite/Lamanite boundary line became irrelevant and it is never again mentioned in the text. For more details about this strategic boundary, see the blog article "The Narrow Strip of Wilderness."

The greater land of Zarahemla in the land southward was bounded on the north by the land Bountiful Alma 22:29, Helaman 1:23. Ca. 90 B.C. the Nephites occupied territory along the central Sidon corridor up to but not yet in the land Bountiful Alma 22:29. Ca. 90 B.C. the Nephites did maintain a defensive military presence in that strategic portion of the land Bountiful along the west coast Alma 22:32-33. 18 years later, ca. 72 B.C., the Nephites had begun to settle not only the greater land Bountiful but beyond Alma 50:11.

So, prior to the unprecedented and permanent Lamanite incursion ca. 35 - 34 B.C., the greater land of Zarahemla claimed by the Nephites extended from the narrow strip of wilderness on the south to the east sea to the land Bountiful on the north to the land Bountiful/west sea on the west. By ca. 34 B.C. all of the greater land of Zarahemla was in Lamanite hands Helaman 4:5 and the Nephites under General Moronoihah had fled into the land Bountiful Helaman 4:6. Here the Nephites established a second west to east fortified defensive line along the west coast Helaman 4:7 south of the one that was in place 55 years earlier Alma 22:32. How do we know the line mentioned in Helaman was south of the line described in Alma? Because the line in Alma 22:32 was the Bountiful/Desolation border. North of this line was the land northward Alma 22:30. The line in Helaman 4:7 on the other hand was entirely contained within that portion of the land Bountiful itself that ran along the west coast in the land southward.

After 2 years of regrouping in the land Bountiful, Captain Moronihah ca. 32 B.C. began his reconquest of the greater land of Zarahemla Helaman 4:9. A year later, the Nephites had regained control of one half their former territory Helaman 4:10. That was as far as they could go, though, militarily Helaman 4:18-19. An uneasy detente prevailed with the Nephites limited to their northern half of the greater land of Zarhahemla and the numerically superior Lamanites Helaman 4:20, 4:25 securely established in their southern half.

What Captain Moronihah was unable to accomplish through military force, Nephi₂ and Lehi₃ (sons of Helaman₂₎ set out to do ca. 30 B.C. through powerful missionary work. The companion brothers began their preaching in the city of Bountiful, followed by Gid and then Mulek Helaman 5:14-15. We know that Gid and Mulek at this time were Nephite cities because the missionaries went first to the Nephites Helaman 5:16, then to the Lamanites in the other half of the greater land of Zarahemla Helaman 5:16, and finally to the Lamanites in the greater land of Nephi Helaman 5:20.

This means the Nephite-controlled half of the greater land of Zarahemla ca. 30 B.C. included at minimum the city of Gid on the east coast and the west to east fortified defensive line in the land Bountiful on the west coast. That gives us 2 known points to work with.

Test #2a. Draw a line between Gid Helaman 5:15 on the east coast and the west to east fortified defensive line Helaman 4:7 on the west coast. Calculate the land area between this partition line and the land Bountiful to the north. Then calculate the land area between this partition line and the narrow strip of wilderness to the south. The surface areas of the two territories should be roughly equal.

Proposed Nephite/Lamanite partition line ca. 31 B.C. that divided the formerly Nephite greater land of Zarahemla in half

In our correlation, the northern territory regained through Nephite military action, shown in white, has a surface area of 89,449 square kilometers. This is an area larger than the state of South Carolina (82,932 square kilometers) but smaller than the state of Maine (91,646 square kilometers).

Proposed Nephite lands regained by Moronihah ca. 31 B.C.

The southern territory still under Lamanite control, shown in white, has a surface area of 89,465 square kilometers.

Proposed Lamanite-controlled territory in the greater land of Zarahemla a. 31 B.C.

The river Sidon was the principal north south feature in the greater land of  Zarahemla. Furthermore, it was near the center Helaman 1:25 or heart Helaman 1:18 of the land. The midpoint of the section of river between the land Bountiful on the north and the narrow strip of wilderness on the south will be the approximate geographic center of the greater land of Zarahemla.

The intersection of our midpoint line with the river Sidon is the approximate geographic center of the greater land of Zarahemla

Since the river Sidon runs from south to north through the center Helaman 1:24-27 or heart Helaman 1:18 of Nephite lands, then the size of the land southward area occupied by the Nephites west of the river should roughly equal the area east of the river. At the time period referenced by Helaman chapter 1, ca. 51 B.C., the Nephites occupied both the greater land of Zarahemla and the land Bountiful.

Eastern half of Nephite lands ca. 51 B.C.

The text mentions one other geographic midpoint. 3 Nephi 3:21 describes the extraordinary measures the Nephites employed to starve out and destroy the Gadianton robbers. They appointed a defensive corridor between the local land of  Zarahemla and the the east west Bountiful/Desolation line 3 Nephi 3:23 along the west coast. This means the corridor was west of river Sidon. The corridor was oriented generally east west because abandoned Nephite lands and Gadianton robbers were both north and south of it 3 Nephi 4:1, 6:2. Our correlation of this defensive land between Zarahemla and Bountiful is shown in light blue on the map below.

Proposed Nephite defensive corridor between the local land of Zarahemla and the land Bountiful on the west coast

Test #2d. 3 Nephi 3:21 explicitly says the defensive corridor between the local land of Zarahemla and the Bountiful/Desolation line on the west coast was in the center of Nephite lands in the land southward ca. A.D. 17. Calculate the surface area of Nephite settled territory north and south of this corridor. The two area should be approximately equal in size.On this map, the white overlay represents lands with Nephite settlements in the land southward, north of the defensive corridor and west of Sidon. This area measures 52,251 square kilometers.

Nephite lands north of defensive corridor ca. A.D. 17

This map shows lands with Nephite settlements in the land southward, south of the defensive corridor and west of Sidon. This area measures 52,333 square kilometers.

Nephite lands south of defensive corridor ca. A.D. 17

The Nephite greater land of Zarahemla was bounded on the east by the sea Alma 50:13, 51:26. Its west boundary was also the seacoast Alma 52:11, 53:22, On the south, the boundary was the narrow strip of wilderness that ran from the sea east to the sea west with some curvature on the western side Alma 22:27. Alma 22:27 confirms this wilderness separated the greater land of Zarahemla on the north from the greater land of Nephi on the south. This fortified line Alma 50:11, 50:13 was a major cultural boundary separating the Nephites from the Lamanites. North of Zarahemla lay the land Bountiful which was also a significant boundary Alma 22:29, Helaman 1:23 in Book of Mormon times. Part of the land Bountiful had a coastline along the sea west Alma 22:32-33, 63:5. This map shows our proposed relationships. The Mezcalapa-Grijalva River is shown as it flowed in early Nephite times (see the blog article "Wandering River").

Proposed greater land of Zarahemla bounded by 2 seas, the narrow strip of wilderness and the land Bountiful

The sea east and sea west borders are intuitive and clear. Seacoasts serve as polity boundaries in every culture on the planet. Does any evidence exist that our narrow strip of wilderness and Zarahemla/Bountiful border were major ethnic and cultural boundaries in antiquity? The answer is yes when we examine the Maya world. This map shows the extent of Maya territory as a white overlay in what the Nephites called the land southward. Except for outliers such as Cacaxtla in Tlaxcala and the Huastec region in northern Veracruz and surrounding areas, Mayan speakers lived in this part of southern Mesoamerica. The Maya, though, were a heterogeneous group. They were divided into the highland and lowland Maya, with the lowland peoples further sub-divided into northern and southern zones.

The Maya world in white with major boundaries in orange

Test #3a. Our narrow strip of wilderness is the Polochic Fault, a thin line of  cliffs with rivers running east west at the base of the escarpments (See the blog article entitled "The Narrow Strip of Wilderness". One of those rivers is the Polochic that runs for 100 air kilometers eastward to empty into Lake Izabal. The Polochic and its sister river, the Cahabon, were part of a very important ethnic and cultural boundary from Book of Mormon times to the present. The boundary between the highland Maya to the south and the southern lowland Maya to the north ran along the Polochic over part of its length, precisely where we have plotted the narrow strip of wilderness. In the map below, major Maya boundaries are in orange, the narrow strip of wilderness in green and the area immediately north of the local land of Nephi where the two boundaries coincide is obvious.

Major  Maya boundaries, including a section along the Polochic River that parallels the Polochic Fault, our narrow strip of wilderness

Test #3b. Our greater land of Zarahemla/land Bountiful boundary is the northern fork of the Candelaria River in Campeche and the Rio Azul - Rio Hondo on the Mexico/Belize border. The head of Rio Hondo is the confluence of the Rio Azul with the Rio Bravo near Blue Creek, Belize. The boundary between the southern lowland Maya and the northern lowland Maya follows essentially this same path. In the map below, major Maya boundaries are in orange. Rivers that drain to the Usumacinta are in red. Rivers that drain to the Mezcalapa-Grijalva are in blue. All other rivers are in yellow.

Major Maya boundaries, including a section along the Candelaria and Hondo Rivers that parallels our Zarahemla/Bountiful line

Test #3 Conclusion. The Book of Mormon says the line separating the Nephites on the north from the Lamanites on the south was an important ancient boundary. In our text to map correlation, a significant portion of that boundary is still recognized today as the line between the highland and lowland Maya. The Book of Mormon further describes a boundary between the greater land of Zarahemla on the south and the land Bountiful on the north. According to our correlation, much of that boundary is recognized today as the line between the southern lowland and northern lowland Maya. We believe any viable text to map correlation will show correspondence between major Book of Mormon boundaries and ethnic/cultural boundaries known from antiquity.

The 11th Annual Book of Mormon Archaeological Form (BMAF) Book of Mormon Lands Conference was held on Saturday, October 19th, 2013 at the Utah Valley Convention Center in Provo, Utah. Approximately 200 people attended. The keynote speaker was Dan Peterson who discussed similarities between the Book of Mormon and the Quran, two books from angels. He was followed by Mark Alan Wright who elaborated a vision of future Book of Mormon Studies from his perspective as a member of the BYU Religion faculty and the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship.Then F. Richard Hauck gave a fascinating analysis of the chiastic structure behind Alma 22:27 - Alma 23:1 (first reported by Shirley Heater in the 1990's). V. Garth & Cheryl Norman received the Father Lehi and Mother Sariah awards for lifetime achievement serving the Book of Mormon and its peoples. Elder Clate W. Mask, recently released as President of the Guatemala City Temple, presented insights from the Cakchiquel Maya and the life of Pablo Choc, Branch President in Patzicia, Guatemala when the 1976 earthquake struck. Royal Skousen identified areas where he has had to change his mind after making new historical or documentary discoveries in or about the Book of Mormon text. Last year, as part of BMAF 2012 in Salt Lake City, John W. Welch and Kirk Magleby presented an overview of Book of Mormon studies from the time of Joseph Smith to the middle of the 20th century. That 2012 presentation can be viewed on YouTube here. This year they presented a run through of Book of Mormon Studies from 1951 to the present. Their 115 slide (107 MB) Powerpoint can be downloaded here.

Past BMAF Father Lehi Award Recipients
2003 Dale T. Tingey
2005 Juan O'Donnell
2006 Bruce W. Warren

Past BMAF Father Lehi & Mother Sariah Award Recipients
2007 Robert E. & Helen Wells
2008 Ted E. & Dorothy Brewerton
2009 John L. & Helen Sorenson
2010 Hugh W. (posthumous) & Phyllis Nibley
2011 Joseph L. & Rhoda Allen
2012 F. Richard & Laura Hauck
2013 V. Garth & Cheryl Norman

Notes from Dan Peterson
Both Joseph Smith and Muhammad are regarded by their respective faith communities as post-Biblical prophets. Islam considers Muhammad the final prophet. Latter-day Saints believe Joseph Smith began a prophetic line that continues today with Thomas S. Monson. The LDS/RLDS split over the rightful successor to Joseph Smith. The Sunni/Shia split over the rightful successor to Muhammad. The Sunni accept a line of caliphs with varied backgrounds. The Shia insist that only caliphs directly descended from Muhammad or his close family are acceptable. The Shia position was complicated from the beginning because Muhammad had no male children who lived to maturity. Both Mormonism and Islam have accepted polygamy. The Book of Mormon and the Quran are both post-Biblical scripture. Islam shares a great deal of common ground with Christianity. Muhammad restored truth during an age of barbarism. Joseph Smith restored truth following centuries of apostasy. Both faiths have a dispensational view of history. Muhammad wondered which religion to embrace and was dissatisfied with his then-available options. 7th century Arabia expected a uniquely Arabian revelation. The Quran calls Muhammad the "seal of the prophets" commonly interpreted as the final prophet in a line going back to Adam. Abraham is particularly reverenced within Islam. LDS leaders in the 19th century showed sympathy for Islam and spoke about it favorably in general conference sermons. Muhammad was visited by the Angel Gabriel while he was meditating in a cave on Mount Hira above Mecca. Gabriel asked Muhammad to read some writing on fabric. Gabriel approached Muhammad three different times. Muhammad had a throne theophany vision. 1 Nephi 1:8 begins the finest throne theopany account recorded in any ancient literature. Lehi's version is the quintessential throne theophany. No artifacts back up the  Quran. The Quran is not translation literature. All translations are considered deficient interpretations. The true Quran only exists in its original Arabic. The Book of Mormon was produced through a translation process that required over 2 intense months to complete. The Quran was revealed over the 23 year span from A.D. 610 to A.D. 632. Its 116 revelations are more like the Doctrine & Covenants than the Book of Mormon. No grand narrative underlies the Quran. The story of Joesph sold into Egypt is the most extensive narrative in the text. Islam believes all ancient prophets were given books. Moses received the Torah, David the Psalms. Christ received the Gospel. Muhammad received the Quran and both are considered supreme, Muhammad the final and most glorious prophet, the Quran the final and most glorious book. The mother (original text) of the Quran resides in heaven. Muslims believe in a strong doctrine of pre-destination. The inlibration of divinity in the Quran is roughly equivalent to the incarnation of divinity in Jesus Christ. See John 1:1. Muslims believe in apocalypse, resurrection and judgment. They are rigorous monotheists, uncomfortable with Christian trinitarianism. Islam has no priesthood and no ordinances, but demanding expectations of adherents. When Muslim students attend BYU, they are scandalized to see LDS students putting their scriptures on the floor and marking them up with colored pencils and highlighters.

Notes from Mark Wright
Some of the excellent Book of Mormon scholars currently at BYU include Brian Hauglid, Thomas Wayment, John Hilton III, Robert Millet, Paul Hoskisson, Royal Skousen and Kerry Hull. Others are Adam Miller, David Bokovoy and Joseph Spencer. Claremont and the University of Virginia now have Mormon Studies programs. The University of Utah has a course studying the Book of Mormon as literature. The Maxwell Institute recently assembled a "Book of Mormon Think Tank." They want to consider the world behind the text (Old World, New World, 19th Century); the world of the text (critical text, literary analysis, comparative texts); the world in front of the text (canonicity) and the Book of Mormon in the academy (Book of Mormon studies, religious studies). Robert Millet is focused on the doctrines within the Book of Mormon, Joe Spencer on the theology. Mark really likes Spencer's 2012 book An Other Testament: On Typology. We need to know who the speakers (authors) are, the types of literature. There are blessings, sermons, letters. A recent article that came across Mark's desk shows a preponderance of Book of Mormon chiasms in sermons, for instance, and a paucity in other types of literature. We need to study the structure of the text. Why is there a 2nd Nephi but only one Alma even though Helaman wrote Alma chapters 45 - 62? Types of criticism that can be productively applied to the Book of Mormon: text, historical, grammatical, literary, form, tradition, redaction, structuralist and canonical. A mesoamerican image shows a bound captive being tortured to death by multiple pokes with fiery torches. This sounds much more like Mosiah 17:13 (the critical text replaces "scourged" with "scorched") than the traditional European image of burning a victim at the stake. David Bokovoy is studying intertextuality between the Bible and the Book of Mormon. We need to know the reasons and contexts behind New Testament passages that appear in the text prior to the time of Christ. John Hilton III is using wordcruncher to study instances where the Book of Mormon cites itself. We need a better chronology and a historical geography tied to chronology. Kirk Magleby has done some good work in this regard. The Maxwell Institute has recently put up a website dedicated to the Book of Mormon onomasticon that includes the ability to search by suffix. Only 5% of the 6,000 known Maya sites have been studied, although the pace of exploration is accelerating. Kerry Hull is now the second mesoamericanist (Mark Wright being the first) to be hired by the BYU Department of Religious Education. Hull has done work on hydrology which shows that the Peten and parts of Veracruz were wetter anciently than they are today. Bruce Warren's suggestion that the Kix glyph (stingray spine) might be related to the name "Kish" in the Book of Mormon Ether 1:18 we now know is invalid. The word "Peten," in use since at least classic Maya times, means "island" which has significant implications for our exegesis of 2 Nephi 10:20. Brian Hauglid, Joe Spencer and Mark Wright edit the Journal of Book of Mormon Studies which will recommence under the original name in 2014. James Faulconer, on the Philosophy faculty at BYU, says richness is the new proof. Wright wishes to demonstrate the Book of Mormon interesting, not necessarily true. Proof is an unattainable standard. Archaeology is an imprecise science and most interpretations are highly subjective. The joke in the profession is that if you don't know what an item was used for, you call it a "ritual object." The Maya conceived the world resting on the back of an enormous turtle. Turtle carapaces have 13 sections, which helps explain Maya reverence for the number 13. Why the sudden interest in things Mormon by academic presses? A typical academic title sells 1,000 to 2,000 copies. LDS academic books typically sell 10,000 copies.Kerry Hull is a linguist and mayanist with a Ph.D. from the University of Texas, Austin. He is an expert on the Chorti Maya of eastern Guatemala and Honduras.

An Historical Observation from Kirk Magleby
I was thrilled to hear the BYU Department of Religious Education now has two credentialed mesoamericanists on its faculty: Mark A. Wright (PhD U.C. Riverside 2011) and Kerry M. Hull (PhD U.T. Austin 2004). When Jack Welch, John Sorenson & I were putting FARMS together in the early 1980's, we encountered thinly-veiled and sometimes open hostility from the BYU religion faculty. Joseph Fielding McConkie (1941 - 2013) expressed his disdain saying "I don't care what color the buttons were on Nephi's coat, and I don't think God cares." John Fugal was one of our few allies within the department in those early years. We have come a long way.

Notes from F. Richard (Ric) Hauck
The 10 verses from Alma 22:27 through Alma 23:1 are a complex chiasm bracketed with the Lamanite king sending a proclamation throughout all his land to all his people (Stanza 1). The passage divides into 4 additional stanzas with key words:
Stanza II borders, sea, east, west, wilderness, land of zarahemla, river Sidon.
Stanza III Lamanittes, wilderness, borders, seashore, west, land of Nephi, land of Zarahemla.
Stanza IV Nephites nearly surrounded by Lamanites, lands of Nephi and Zarahemla nearly surrounded by water, wilderness head of Sidon, borders, Bountiful, Desolation, northward, southward. This fourth stanza documents several major movements - Jaredites into the land northward, Mulekites into the land northward and then from there into the land southward, and animals from the land northward into the land southward.
Stanza V Nephites, Bountiful, country whither they might flee, wisdom, Lamanites south, suffer their afflictions, no more possessions.
These 10 verses employ the word "borders" or a variant 10 times. These borders include the narrow strip of wilderness, the line Bountiful and the land Desolation, and the small neck of land. The narrow neck Alma 63:5 is not an isthmus. It is part of the border between Bountiful on the south and Desolation on the north.

Comments from Kirk Magleby
I'm not sure how many people in the audience picked up on the significance of Ric's last point. The narrow or small neck Alma 22:32, Alma 64:5, Ether 10:20 could not have been the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. It was not an isthmus at all. It was associated with one and only one sea, the west sea, near the Bountiful/Desolation border. See the blog article "The Narrow (Small) Neck of Land." Ric and his colleage, Joe V. Andersen, were the first to point out the importance of the east to west, Pacific to Sierra Madre fortified wall running through the site of Los Horcones, Chiapas and associate it with the Bountiful/Desolation line in Alma 22:32 and 3 Nephi 3:23.

Notes from Elder Clate W. Mask
Elder Mask was Pablo Choc's missionary companion in the Central American Mission. Pablo was the Branch President in Patzicia when the February 4, 1976 earthquake struck, killing his wife and 2 of their children. Pres. Choc was the one who extricated Elder Randall Ellsworth from under a concrete beam that had crushed his back. Here is a short synopsis of the remarkable Randall Ellsworth story. Elder Mask was President of the Guatemala City Temple when Pablo Choc, just prior to his death, was sealed to his own parents. The Cakchiquel had traditions that they came from across the sea, from the west. Elder Mask's assumptions for reconstructing Book of Mormon geography: up = rise in elevation, down = drop in elevation, north = north, water flows downhill. He begins with the 4 seas, correlating the north sea with the Gulf of Campeche (Gulf of Mexico) coast of Veracruz and Tabasco, the east sea with the Caribbean coast of Quintana Roo, Belize and Guatemala, the south sea with the Pacific coast of Guatemala, and the west sea with the Pacific coast of Chiapas. He correlates the head of Sidon with the head (nacimiento) of the San Juan River labelled "Nacimiento del rio San Juan" on the map below.

Nacimiento (Head) of the San Juan River in Aguacatan, Huehuetenango

In his October, 1954 General Conference address, Elder Milton R. Hunter associated Tulan with Bountiful. Monument 21 at Bilbao shows the 7 tribes motif, 3 + 4. Totems of the 7 tribes are shown within a womb. The Cakchiquel claim to descend from the group of 4. One of the totems on Monument 21 is a bat, widely used among the Cakchiquel today. Another totem is the flint. Other sculptures of interest include Kaminaljuyu stela 10 and Tres Zapotes monument C. Elder Mask was President of the Guatemala City Temple from 2009 - 2012. Faithful saints from all over Central America flock to the Guatemala City Temple in such numbers that there is not room in the parking lot to accommodate all the buses and families have to set up picnic lunches on the grounds while they wait their turn to go inside.

Notes from Royal Skousen
Evidence shows the text was revealed to the Prophet Joseph word for word, even letter for letter. The printer's manuscript was taken to Canada in January, 1830 in an attempt to secure a Canadian (and hence, British Empire) copyright. When Skousen learned this (by reading Stephen Ehat's 2011 article in BYU Studies) he revised a notion he had been suggesting in print for 20 years - the reason the original manuscript was used to typeset Helaman 13:17 to the end of Mormon was because the copyists preparing the printer's manuscript fell behind in their work. They did not fall behind. The printer's manuscript was already finished. It was simply in Canada so the original manuscript was used as the copytext in setting type for one-sixth of the first edition. The text uses early modern English from the 1540 - 1730 period. In some cases, the vocabulary in the Book of Mormon is earlier than that used in the King James Bible (begun in 1604 and completed in 1611). The vocabulary is at least 100 years older than Joseph Smith's 1830 milieu. The original manuscript is 100% consistent in its use of words and phrases in context. Skousen found this quite remarkable early in his research and it has now become axiomatic with him.   

On Wednesday, October 23, 2013, an all-day conference was held in the Eccles Event Center on the Utah State University campus. Co-sponsored by the Academy for Temple Studies and the Utah State University Department of History Religious Studies Program, the morning presenters included the renowned Margaret Barker and William G. Dever. In the afternoon we got to hear from LDS egyptologist John S. Thompson and LDS female scholars Alyson Von Feldt and Valerie Hudson. The conference theme was "The Lady of the Temple: Examining the Divine Feminine in the Judeo-Christian Tradition." The conference was largely about two books: Margaret Barker, The Mother of the Lord, volume 1: The Lady in the Temple, London: Bloomsbury, 2012 and William G. Dever, Did God Have a Wife?: Archaeology and Folk Religion in Ancient Israel, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005. Barker's work has been reviewed for an LDS audience here and Dever's here.

Barker described her background: "I was classically trained at Cambridge, U.K. During the nappy (diaper) washing years I read the Septuagint." Females in the audience were noticeably impressed when Dever, trained as a Biblical archaeologist at Harvard, gallantly said, "I call my wife my Lady."

I attended the conference with V. Garth Norman who is keenly interested in the subject because one of the two divine figures attending the tree of life on Izapa Stela 5 is female. We took notes of motifs, images and symbols associated with the divine lady in near Eastern texts, artifacts & iconography so we could compare them with what Garth has found on the Izapa monuments. Norman is convinced Izapa was a Nephite (and Lamanite) temple center. If that is true, one would reasonably expect to find similar motifs, images and symbols on Stela 5 and the other Izapa stelae.

My notes on motifs, images & symbols associated with the Lady of the Temple.
Barker 49 motifs in alphabetic order: altar, angels, animals, ark of the covenant, army, baptism by water, being hidden which could also mean remote or eternal, bovine with horns & hooves, bread, bride, cherubim, childbirth, cloud, crown, dragon, earthquake, fire, fish, garments, hail, healing, holy of holies, incense, Jerusalem, lightning, lioness, Melchizedek, moon, pools of water, rod of iron, shields, stars, storm, sun, sunrise, table, the Holy Spirit, the number 12, throne, thunder, tower, tree, virgin, water, wilderness, wine, winged sun, wings, wisdom. Barker's sources were ancient Judeo-Christian texts.

Dever 13 additional motifs in alphabetic order: anthropomorphic trees, courtyards, death, doves, four horned altars, gates, goats, life, lions, olive oil, Pleiades, sustenance, winged lion. Dever's sources came from Levantine archaeology.

Thompson 12 additional motifs in alphabetic order: ascent, cleanliness or purity, east, guide, horizon, journey to the netherworld, lamp, light, path, sunset, tree branches, west. Thompson's sources came from Egyptian archaeology.

Book of Mormon passages referencing these same motifs, images & symbols, although some are in dissimilar contexts compared with their Near Eastern counterparts:

• altar 2 Nephi 16:6 (referenciing Isaiah 6:6) 
• angels 1 Nephi 1:8
• animals 1 Nephi 18:25
• anthropomorphic trees Alma 33:23
• ark of the covenant (phrase not attested in the Book of Mormon)
• army 1 Nephi 4:2
• ascent Mosiah 15:19
• baptism by water 1 Nephi 10:9
• being hidden, remote or eternal Alma 26:36 (Ammon's words are "lost ... in a strange land")
• bovine with horns & hooves 3 Nephi 25:2 (referencing Malachi 4:2)
• bread Alma 5:34
• bride 1 Nephi 21:18 (referencing Isaiah 49:18)
• cherubim Alma 12:21
• childbirth 1 Nephi 11:20
• cleanliness or purity 2 Nephi 25:16
• cloud 2 Nephi 14:5 (referencing Isaiah 4:5)
• courtyards (word not attested in the Book of Mormon) The text does say the Nephites constructed a temple patterned after the tripartite Temple of Solomon 2 Nephi 5:16 which would have included a courtyard
• crown 2 Nephi 13:17 (referencing Isaiah 3:17)
• death 1 Nephi 15:31
• doves 1 Nephi 11:27
• dragon 2 Nephi 8:9 (referencing Isaiah 51:9)
• earthquake 2 Nephi 27:2 (referencing Isaiah 29:6)
• east 1 Nephi 21:13 (referencing Isaiah 49:13)
• fire 2 Nephi 27:2 (referencing Isaiah 29:6)
• fish 2 Nephi 7:2 (referencing Isaiah 50:2)
• four horned altars (phrase not attested in the Book of Mormon)
• garments 1 Nephi 12:10
• gates 2 Nephi 9:41
• goats 1 Nephi 18:25
• guide Mosiah 2:36
• hail Mosiah 12:6
• healing Mosiah 3:5
• holy of holies (phrase not attested in the Book of Mormon) The text does say the Nephites constructed a temple patterned after the tripartite Temple of Solomon 2 Nephi 5:16 which would have included a holy of holies
• horizon (word not attested in the Book of Mormon)
• incense 2 Nephi 13:24 (referencing Isaiah 3:24) (Isaiah's words are "sweet smell")
• Jerusalem 1 Nephi 11:13
• journey to the netherworld 2 Nephi 1:14 (Lehi's words are "traveler" and "go the way")
• lamp (word not attested in the Book of Mormon)
• life 1 Nephi 14:7
• light 1 Nephi 17:13
• lightning 1 Nephi 19:11
• lioness (word not attested in the Book of Mormon)
• lions 2 Nephi 15:29 (referencing Isaiah 5:29)
• Melchizedek Alma 13:14
• moon 2 Nephi 23:10 (referencing Isaiah 13:10)
• olive oil (phrase not attested in the Book of Mormon) The text does mention olive trees & fruit e.g. Jacob 5:17
• path 1 Nephi 8:20
• Pleiades (aka Seven Sisters) (word not attested in the Book of Mormon) The text does mention "stars of heaven and the constellations thereof" in 2 Nephi 23:10 (referencing Isaiah 13:10)
• pools of water 2 Nephi 24:23 (referencing Isaiah 14:23)
• rod of iron 1 Nephi 8:19
• shields Alma 46:13
• stars 1 Nephi 1:10
• storm 2 Nephi 27:2 (referencing Isaiah 29:6)
• sun 1 Nephi 1:9
• sunrise Helaman 14:4 (Samuel's words are "rising of the sun")
• sunset Helaman 14:4 (Samuel's words are "its setting")
• sustenance Mosiah 2:21 (Benjamin's words are "preserving you from day to day"
• table (word not attested in the Book of Mormon)
• the Holy Spirit Jacob 6:8
• the number 12 1 Nephi 11:29
• throne 1 Nephi 1:8
• thunder 2 Nephi 27:2 (referencing Isaiah 29:6)
• tower Helaman 7:14
• tree 1 Nephi 8:10
• tree branches1 Nephi 10:12
• virgin 1 Nephi 11:15
• water 1 Nephi 11:25
• west 2 Nephi 29:11
• wilderness 1 Nephi 2:2
• wine Moroni 5:2
• winged lion (phrase not attested in the Book of Mormon)
• winged sun (phrase not attested in the Book of Mormon) The text does include 3 Nephi 25:2 (referencing Malachi 4:2) where the risen Lord invokes winged solar imagery 
• wings 2 Nephi 25:13
• wisdom 2 Nephi 2:24

Most of these motifs, images and symbols appear multiple times in the Book of Mormon text. We only reference a single typical passage for each to demonstrate they were extant in the Nephite scribal world. Daniel C. Peterson explored the possibility of a Nephite female goddess in his article "Nephi and His Asherah: A Note on 1 Nephi 11:8-23" which was published in Mormons, Scripture, and the Ancient World: Essays in Honor of John L. Sorenson, Davis Bitton editor, Provo, UT: Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 1998. Alyson von Feldt found evidence of the Wisdom (generally regarded as a divine female based on passages such as Proverbs 8:22-30) literature tradition in the Book of Mormon. See her article "His Secret is with the Righteous: Instructional Wisdom in the Book of Mormon."

The Book of Mormon text describes at least three abrupt boundaries between different ecological zones. The first is the border between the populated local land of Zarahemla to the south and east and the wilderness of Hermounts to the north and west Alma 2:37. Gravely wounded men staggered across this border and died from their battle injuries, their flesh promptly consumed by ravenous beasts and vultures Alma 2:38. On the Zarahemla side of this border we would expect to find settled agricultural lands. On the Hermounts side we would expect wild, undomesticated country. This kind of stark border is discernible using modern geographic information systems technology such as Google Earth.

We find another obvious ecological border between the city of Ammonihah and its wilderness side Alma 16:2. The Lamanite armies invaded Ammonihah in a lightning strike, completely destroyed the city before its inhabitants could escape, marauded around the city of Noah, and retreated back toward the greater land of Nephi with captives before the Nephites could even begin to assemble a defensive army Alma 16:3. The line between Ammonihah and its wilderness side, which must have been very close to the city, is a feature that should show up on satellite imagery.

Another life zone boundary in the text is the line along the west coast Alma 22:32, Alma 63:5 separating the land Bountiful on the south and east from the land Desolation on the north and west. The text paints a picture of a wetter, more verdant Alma 22:31 Bountiful fronting a drier Mosiah 21:26, more sparsely vegetated Helaman 3:5-11 Desolation. Again, this is a border we should be able to detect using specialized data sets in Google Earth.

Test #4a Our local land of Zarahemla is shown in red overlay on the map below, our candidate for Hermounts (Pantanos de Centla) in light green. The border between them is in white. For a more detailed discussion of the wilderness of Hermounts, see the blog article entitled "Hermounts."

Proposed Local Land of Zarahemla with Wilderness of Hermounts to the North and West

Zooming in on this border region we set a terrain plane at an altitude of 15 meters. Everything lower than that altitude appears in white.

15 meter terrain plane showing higher ground on the Zarahemla side of the Hermounts border

At an average elevation of about 15 meters, our border between Zarahemla on the south and east and the wilderness of Hermounts on the north and west is the line between arable piedmont and the permanent flood plain of the Usumacinta River Delta. North and west of this line the land is a huge swamp, the largest wetlands in Mexico. The dramatic image below was taken by NASA's Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) satellite on October 10, 2010. The blue-black areas are standing water. The white puffs are clouds. There is near total inundation on the Hermounts side of our line, virtually no standing water on the Zarahemla side.

NASA image of our Zarahemla Hermounts border region at the height of the rainy season

NASA's land cover imagery (LANDSAT) confirms a similar pattern. We have changed the color of the Hermounts/Zarahemla line to black so it stands out on the image below. Land on the Zarahemla side is almost all planted in crops. On the Hermounts side we see standing water, wetlands, grasslands and various forest types in addition to scattered cropland. Much of the farming taking place in this very wet area is recent. As Mexico's population has continued to increase, more and more marginal land is being brought under cultivation, even in legally protected areas such as Pantanos de Centla which is a UNESCO biosphere reserve.

NASA image of our Zarahemla Hermounts border region showing land use

Test #4b We correlate the city of Ammonihah with the site of El Hormiguero II in the San Pedro River Valley just east of the Mexico/Guatemala line. For more details about this correlation, see the blog article "Ammonihah." Turning on a shaded relief layer, it is obvious that a sizable mountain lies immediately south of the city.

Proposed Ammonihah (El Hormiguero II) at the foot of a mountain that rises to an elevation of 450 meters

100 meter terrain plane showing our proposed Ammonihah immediately north of a heavily forested mountain

Test #4c We place the Bountiful/Desolation line on an east - west transect (shown in red on the map below) fronting Mar Muerto and rising to an elevation of 522 meters in the Sierra Madre. From that point, we follow rivers and other terrain features in a general NW direction to the great southern bend of the Coatzacoalcos. From then on, we postulate the Bountiful/Desolation line followed the big river to the sea.

Proposed border between the land Bountiful (shown in green) and the land Desolation (shown in brown)

We turn off all other details except the Bountiful/Desolation line shown in white and overlay that with isobars from INEGI showing average annual precipitation.

INEGI rainfall map

There is a great deal of detail in the map above. The dark blue areas receive more than 4,000 millimeters of rain annually, making them among the wettest places on the planet. The light blue areas receive more than 3,000 millimeters of rain each year, still very wet. The green areas receive more than 2,000 millimeters of annual precipitation, still wet. The orange areas only receive 1,500 millimeters of rain annually, which makes them significantly drier. The tan areas receive from 1,000 to 1,200 millimeters of rainfall each year, making them quite dry. And, the brown areas receive less than 800 millimeters of annual precipitation which creates very dry conditions, particularly during the dry season (November to April). The black areas (further north in Mexico beyond the range of the map above) receive less than 500 millimeters of rainfall annually, making them deserts or nearly so.

The white line on the map above is our proposed Bountiful/Desolation line from the west sea to the mouth of the Coatzacoalcos. It is 505 kilometers long following the meandering river, 246 kilometers long in air (straight line) distance. Along that vast distance, four distinct ecological zones show up clearly, marked by black transect lines. During the first segment of the border, from the Mar Muerto outlet to Santa Maria Chimalapa, land on the Bountiful side of the line is generally much wetter than land on the Desolation side, receiving as much as 2X or even 3X more annual precipitation. From Santa Maria Chimalapa through the center of the isthmus of Tehuantepec to the area just south of the ancient Olmec site of San Lorenzo, there is no distinguishable difference between annual precipitation on either side of the Bountiful/Desolation line. From the area upstream from San Lorenzo to the area just south of Minatitlan, again we see land on the Bountiful side of the line is generally much wetter than land on the Desolation side. Then from the area upstream from Minatitlan to the mouth of the Coatzacoalcos, there is no discernible difference between average annual rainfall on either side of the Bountiful/Desolation line.

Another way to look at the differences on either side of the Bountiful/Desolation border is through vegetation density. INEGI publishes a map of areas within Mexico with very dense foliage. We use it as a base map and place our Bountiful/Desolation line on top.

Areas of dense vegetation in green according to INEGI

It is obvious in the border region there is a great deal more dense foliage on the Bountiful side of our line, precisely as we would expect from the text.

Test #4 Conclusion In all three cases examined above, the distinct ecological boundaries described in the text are obvious when viewed through satellite imagery or specialized data sets rendered in Google Earth. Our proposed local land of Zarahemla/wilderness of Hermounts boundary is the edge of the largest swamp in Mexico and Central America. Our proposed city of Ammonihah/wilderness side boundary is the foothill line of a mountain with 400 meters of vertical rise immediately south of the city. Our proposed Bountiful/Desolation line precisely aligns with major annual rainfall boundaries along much of its length. These three examples corroborate our text to map correlation. We believe any viable correlation will show similar results.