Handy links: Alma 20 in the 1830 version of the BOM and on LDS.org (I point out significant differences between the two, if there are any), follow my YouTube channel and read along with the Facebook group.

Companion video to this blog post:

Chapter overview: King Lamoni now wants to show Ammon to his father, but God tells Ammon not to, saying the king will try to kill him, and telling him to go to “the land of Middoni” where his brother Aaron and two others are in prison. Because the king is friendly with the king of that land, he wants to go with Ammon, so has his servants prepare horses and chariots. As they’re going, Lamoni’s father comes up and is mad that Lamoni didn’t come to a feast he had prepared then is mad that he’s in the company of a Nephite. Even after Lamoni explains, his father is still angry and orders him to kill Ammon; Lamoni refuses so the elder king tries to kill his own son. Ammon stops him, so Lamoni’s father tries to kill Ammon but can’t, then Ammon disables the elder king who then pleads for his life. Ammon forces him on point of death to command the release of his brethren, then the king does that and even allows his son to rule independently of himself. Ammon and Lamoni go to Ammon’s brethren who are in prison, and are sad to see them bound and naked, and to learn that they have been so for many days.

Verse 6 — now in addition to the anachronous use of horses, we have the even worse problem of “chariots”. Again, there’s not a shred of evidence of anything remotely like a chariot anywhere in the ancient Americas — not only no direct artifacts (such as an actual chariot or remnant of one), but no indirect artifacts (such as images on pottery, tapestries, etc.).

Much focus has been made on ancient Mesoamericans and whether they had and used the wheel, with many saying that they never had wheels. That is not true; there have been many ancient children’s toys with wheels that have been found. This article says that the likely reason why Mayan wheels existed only in toys is that the terrain was incompatible with chariots, and/or that they had no suitable animals.

Think about this in view of the BOM, its peoples and its geography. I remain convinced that JS intended for the BOM to take place in the area of the early United States, or perhaps the entire North American continent. However, there is no evidence of anything of or in the BOM in North America (or anywhere else) and you may have noticed that the United States and Canada are rather populated and full of cities. This means that there has also been a lot of digging, and while we’ve found things like Indian burial mounds and untold numbers of arrowheads and such, we’ve found nothing that would indicate the BOM peoples, cities, or geography. Certainly no ancient cities, no evidence of the sort of metal work described in the BOM, etc.

The typical Mormon response has been to push the lands of the BOM “somewhere out there” — usually in the jungle regions of Central or South America. But remember that the terrain of these regions is not suitable for chariots. Chariots would work wonderfully well on the great plains of the United States, and would be fine even on the gently rolling hills or small mountains of the East; they don’t work well in rugged areas — and this would include most if not all of the land that any Mormon would suggest as being possible locations for the BOM lands (the reason being, since no evidence of ancient BOM cities or anything else has been uncovered despite great population and archaeology and construction in populated areas, they generally look to the unpopulated areas for where the BOM might have taken place; but the unpopulated areas are unpopulated because it is so difficult if not outright unfit for humans to live there; so why would the BOM peoples live in such unfit areas?).

Verse 17 doesn’t really make sense, in the light of modern Mormonism which teaches that people can repent in the afterlife. For context, the king ordered his son to kill Ammon, but Lamoni refused so the king drew his sword to kill his son, and Ammon intervenes. He says, “it were better that he should fall than thee: for behold, he hath repented of his sins; but if thou shouldst fall at this time, in thine anger, thy soul could not be saved“. It doesn’t say, “if you should fall at this time, you’ll spend a period of time in spirit prison and be given multiple chances to repent and believe, and ultimately your soul will be saved”; rather, it says, “if you die unrepentant, you can’t be saved”.

The king then says that Ammon is the guilty one, tries to kill him but can’t, and Ammon disables him so that the king fears for his life and promises he’ll do whatever Ammon wants. Why didn’t his guards intervene? It makes no sense for the high king over all the land to be traveling alone or with only a small retinue that would have been unable to have stopped Ammon or to have leaped to their king’s defense.

Leave a comment