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I recently pointed out that JS said that Moroni told him that the events of the BOM took place on “this continent”, and I showed that this means it had to have happened somewhere on the American mainland.

But there is more, because in addition to JS’s statement that it was “this continent”, there are internal claims of the BOM itself that are meant to identify the land of the BOM, also called “the promised land”, particularly in 1 Nephi 13. Thus, we come up with the following list that will help us identify the BOM land. Or we might say, the following are requirements that any land must meet, in order to be considered as a candidate for where the BOM must have taken place, if it is to be believed as real history:

  • it must be on the mainland of the American continent, not an island
  • “many multitudes of Gentiles” must come to this place
  • the native peoples must be “scattered before the Gentiles” and “smitten”
  • since the native peoples are distinguished from “the Gentiles”, the natives must be of Israelite descent
  • the Gentiles must prosper in the land and obtain it for their inheritance
  • the Gentiles must be white, exceedingly fair and beautiful
  • these Gentiles must “humble themselves before the Lord” and have the power of God with them
  • they must fight against “their mother Gentiles” who gather against them on water and on land
  • the colonists must defeat “their mother Gentiles”, with the latter also incurring the wrath of God, so that the colonists “were delivered by the power of God out of the hands of all other nations”
  • the colonizing Gentiles must be religious and carry the Bible with them as they prosper in the land
  • the colonists must “have been lifted up by the power of God above all other nations”
  • the BOM Promised Land must also be “choice above all other lands”
  • And all of the above events must happen prior to the coming forth of the BOM (1 Nephi 13:38)

These are just the identifiers from this chapter (plus “this continent” in JS’s Testimony), but there will be even more identifiers throughout the rest of the BOM, such as certain plants and animals, as well as other geographical descriptors, as well as the BOM money system. I intend on keeping a running list of these sorts of things in this post as I read through the BOM this year, but even with the information we have from this chapter, I have a hard time coming up with any land or people group in the Americas of whom all the above can be said, except for the United States as it stood in JS’s time. If anyone thinks some other land qualifies, by all means let me know and we can discuss it.

As a separate but related issue, I will also be tracking the statements that talk about the BOM people being Israelites and the only inhabitants of the land, though that will be in another post in the future.

Identifying markers of the BOM land(s) outside of 1 Nephi 13

  • A recent episode on the Gospel Tangents podcast is an in-depth interview of a believing Mormon (I don’t think he’s LDS, but I could be mistaken), on Book of Mormon Geology. He believes that the various cataclysms that befell the land in 3 Nephi, when Jesus died in Jerusalem, can all be explained by volcanic eruptions, but that such a thing couldn’t have happened in or near present-day New York (the “Heartland Model”), so thinks the BOM must have taken place in Mesoamerica.
  • 1 Nephi 12 also says the land must have too many cities for Nephi to number them, and that at the end (e.g., around or after 400 A.D.), it must become populated by “a dark, and loathsome, and a filthy people, full of idleness and all manner of abominations.”
  • 1 Nephi 18:25 says “the land of promise”, has the following animals: “abeasts in the forests of every kind, both the cow and the ox, and the ass and the horse, and the goat and the wild goat, and all manner of wild animals, which were for the use of men”, as well as “all manner of bore, both of cgold, and of silver, and of copper.” [The previous verse also says that the people planted the seeds they had brought with them from Jerusalem / the Middle East, so we should find evidence of this, possibly including still-extant strains of plants that are remarkably similar to their ancient Midde-Eastern counterparts.]
  • 1 Nephi 22:7 says that God will raise up a “mighty nation among the Gentiles” which will scatter the descendants of Nephi & his brothers.
  • 2 Nephi 3:2 teaches that “this land” is for Joseph and his brethren forever, so this shouldn’t be a land inhabited by others — And may the Lord consecrate also unto thee this aland, which is a most precious land, for thine inheritance and the inheritance of thy seed with thy brethren, for thy security forever, if it so be that ye shall keep the commandments of the Holy One of Israel.
  • 2 Nephi 3:22-24 says that the one who brings to pass the “restoration” of the house of Israel (which is always understood as JS writing the BOM and founding Mormonism) will “rise up among” the descendants of the BOM Joseph, so this necessarily means that the Native Americans of JS’s area were at least in part descendants of the BOM people.
  • 2 Nephi 5:11 says that the Nephites planted crops and raised flocks and herds in the land, and since we were previously told that they took seeds and animals from Jerusalem and the Middle East, we should expect to find direct descendants of these plants and animals somewhere in the Americas, and/or find evidence of the past existence of those plants and animals.
  • Likewise 2 Nephi 5:15 identifies the land as having abundant iron, copper, brass, steel, gold, silver, and precious ores, and says the people built buildings, so there should be evidence of that somewhere.
  • 2 Nephi 10:11 says there will be no kings among the Gentiles — And this land shall be a land of aliberty unto the Gentiles, and there shall be no bkings upon the land, who shall raise up unto the Gentiles. — so any kingdom of the ancient Americas cannot be Gentile or at least that land cannot be considered the BOM land. (Note also that throughout the BOM, “Gentiles” are never said to be in the BOM lands, except in future prophecy of post-Columbus times.)
  • 2 Nephi 10:12 says, “And I will fortify this land against all other nations.”
  • There are many things said in 2 Nephi 10, that could be considered as identifying markers of the BOM lands, and I discuss those things more thoroughly here and here.
  • Enos describes the Lamanites and Nephites in his day, which means that any candidate for the BOM lands should have archaeological remnants demonstrating these two types of people living around 500-450 B.C.:
    • of the Lamanites: “their chatred was fixed, and they were led by their evil nature that they became wild, and ferocious, and a dblood-thirsty people, full of eidolatry and ffilthiness; feeding upon beasts of prey; dwelling in gtents, and wandering about in the wilderness with a short skin girdle about their loins and their heads shaven; and their skill was in the hbow, and in the cimeter, and the ax. And many of them did eat nothing save it was raw meat; and they were continually seeking to destroy us.“
    • of the Nephites: “the people of Nephi did till the land, and araise all manner of grain, and of fruit, and bflocks of herds, and flocks of all manner of cattle of every kind, and goats, and wild goats, and also many horses.“
    • of both, that there were “awars between the Nephites and Lamanites in the course of my days.“
  • Jarom describes his time and the Nephites of it, as well as things of the land: “8 And we multiplied exceedingly, and spread upon the face of the land, and became exceedingly rich in agold, and in silver, and in precious things, and in fine bworkmanship of wood, in buildings, and in cmachinery, and also in iron and copper, and brass and steel, making all manner of tools of every kind to till the ground, and dweapons of war—yea, the sharp pointed arrow, and the quiver, and the dart, and the javelin, and all preparations for war.“
  • Words of Mormon 1:14 says in part that the Nephites “did contend against the Lamanites, until they had driven them out of all the lands of their inheritance“. If the believing Mormon wants to say that the entire land of North & South America was “the promised land”/“the land of promise”/“the land of their inheritance”, then the Lamanites would have to be eradicated from the Western Hemisphere. So this would then limit the promised land to some portion only of the Americas, and not the entirety of the continent. Wherever it was, there should be plenty of artifacts there. But we have found none, though North America is pretty thoroughly developed, and some evidence should have been found.
  • Mosiah 8:8 describes the failed Zarahemla expedition with the people “having travelled in a land among many waters; having discovered a land which was covered with bones of men, and of beasts, &c., and was also covered with ruins of buildings of every kind; having discovered a land which had been peopled with a people, which were as numerous as the hosts of Israel.”
  • Mosiah 8 also depicts the people as living with no other peoples around, since the people can’t translate foreign languages. If they were living near other people groups, there should be somebody around who could translate into some other language.
  • Mosiah 10:5 depicts the Nephites as having “cloth of every kind, that we might clothe our nakedness” while verse 8 depicts the Lamanites as having “a leathern girdle about their loins”. In addition to the problem that the overall description of the Lamanites matching how early 1800s Americans viewed the Indians, is there any archaeological evidence of two such Native American tribes existing side by side like this about 2,000 years ago?
  • Mosiah 12
    • v6 speaks of God sending hail (rare but not impossible in tropical climates) and the “east wind” as destructive agents, so this again either points to North America as the place for the BOM or it being drawn from the Bible, most likely from the threatened plagues in Exodus (see hail and east wind)
    • v12 speaks of “the blossoms of a thistle, which, when it is fully ripe, if the wind bloweth, it is driven forth upon the face of the land.“
  • Alma 5 casually describes the people as being shepherds having many sheep, which could apply to North America but not further south, but doesn’t say anything about llamas or other animals known to the ancient Mesoamericans.
  • Alma 11 gives the Nephite monetary system, so these regular coins (?) should still be extant.
  • Alma 18 casually speaks of chariots and horses as existing around the first century B.C., which would be a problem for the very hilly areas of Mesoamerica. It was once thought that some of the ancient Americans had no knowledge of the wheel because there was no evidence of wheeled vehicles, but later research has shown that they knew about wheels, but just didn’t have much use for them, because the hills were so steep that wheels were just impractical. Of course, since there is little to no evidence of horses much less chariots in the ancient Americas, this is a big problem. For a fuller take, see Horses and Chariots (Alma 18 & 20).
  • Alma 22 also has several verses at the end (v27-35) that describe the land, including cities, travel distances, and bodies of water. However, it is important to note that this geography matches no known spot in all of the Americas, except in a very generic or vague way, and none of the locations mentioned or described have ever been found. Contrast this to the Bible which is so detailed and precise that we have actually been able to discover certain places that were previously unknown because they were exactly where the Bible said they’d be, in relation to other places.
  • Alma 24 and many other places in the BOM indicate that the people regularly used metal for swords and other things, and v19 says that the thousands of Lamanite converts to the BOM buried their swords (which were described 5x in v12-16 as “bright”, and thus requires them to be metal and certainly not wooden or anything that might disintegrate), so there should be a trove of many thousands of swords buried in the lands of the BOM, but not one has been found!
  • Alma 43 has great opportunity to talk about neighboring non-Israelites surrounding the Nephites and/or Lamanites, but there is not a hint of it, like I talk about here: BOM people the only inhabitants of the land/continent. Instead, every people group mentioned is Israelite, as I discuss here, here, and also Still only Israelites in the BOM!
  • Alma 44 says that there were innumerable people killed in battle, and their dead bodies were tossed into the River Sidon with them being washed out to sea. This has a couple of implications for the BOM location: it must be in the vicinity of a large river able to handle the bodies without clogging up the river, and the river must be close enough to the sea for the bodies to wash out there; and the sea has to be big enough that having countless dead bodies decomposing in it wouldn’t putrefy any drinking water. (See more here.)
  • Alma 46
    • 17 “And it came to pass that when he had poured out his soul to God, he named all the land which was asouth of the land bDesolation, yea, and in fine, all the land, both on the cnorth and on the south—A chosen land, and the land of dliberty.”
    • 40 And there were some who died with fevers, which at some seasons of the year were very frequent in the land—but not so much so with fevers, because of the excellent qualities of the many aplants and roots which God had prepared to remove the cause of bdiseases, to which men were subject by the nature of the climate
  • Alma 50 has many descriptive passages about the land where Moroni and Morianton lived:
    • Ridges of earth surrounding cities, with towers in or near the wall (close enough to drop stones on any advancing enemy)
    • 8 And the land of aNephi did run in a straight course from the east sea to the west.
    • v9 …into the east wilderness, even to the borders by the seashore, and possess the land.
    • 11 And thus he cut off all the strongholds of the Lamanites in the east wilderness, yea, and also on the west, fortifying the line between the Nephites and the Lamanites, between the land of Zarahemla and the land of Nephi, from the west sea, running by the head of the ariver Sidon—the Nephites possessing all the land bnorthward, yea, even all the land which was northward of the land Bountiful, according to their pleasure.
    • v13-14 — three joined cities, with one of them, Moroni, “by the east sea; and it was on the south by the line of the possessions of the Lamanites.“
    • 15 And they also began in that same year to build many cities on the north, one in a particular manner which they called aLehi, which was in the north by the borders of the seashore.
    • v29 — the people of Morianton attempt to “flee to the land which was northward, which was covered with alarge bodies of water,“
    • 34 And it came to pass that they did not ahead them until they had come to the borders of the land bDesolation; and there they did head them, by the narrow pass which led by the sea into the land northward, yea, by the sea, on the west and on the east.
  • Alma 62:19 says that Moroni wants to fight the enemy in the plains, which means that the BOM must have plains, and can’t be the hilly, mountainous regions of Mesoamerica.
  • Alma 63 has several vague descriptors that I talk about here.
  • Helaman 3 has a lot of descriptors about the BOM lands, including that they’re bounded on all four sides by seas; then in Helaman 4 we’re told that it’s a day’s journey across the land from the west sea to the east sea. I discuss this more here.
  • Helaman 11 has a few identifying passages, indicating that this land has a mountainous area between two seas, with the people of Nephi “covering” the whole area (and of necessity leaving artifacts there).
    • v20 says that the people of Nephi “did acover the whole face of the land, both on the northward and on the southward, from the sea west to the sea east.“
    • v25 says, “And they did commit murder and plunder; and then they would retreat back into the mountains, and into the wilderness and secret places,“
  • 3 Nephi 12-14 is the BOM version of the Sermon on the Mount, and while some things are changed to be more “BOM friendly” (i.e., no talk of “Pharisees”, and replacing “farthing” with “senine”), other parts are retained, as if the BOM people were familiar with them. Thus, the BOM land should have evidence of having had figs (though the only figs in the Americas were brought by the Spanish over a millennium after the close of the BOM). There should also be no “Gentiles” (i.e., there should be no non-Israelites) in the land, since that was also removed.
  • 3 Nephi 16 says that the Promised Land in the BOM will be given to the believers once the BOM comes forth, and that would be the fulfillment of “Zion”. Yet the believers tried and failed to establish a settlement in Kirtland, Ohio, and Jackson County, Missouri, as well as Nauvoo, Illinois, before finally fleeing west to Utah. JS claimed that the Temple would be built in MO, and that that is where Zion would be, which means that at a minimum, MO should be considered at least part of the Land of Promise. And if the Brighamite Mormons went to Salt Lake City to establish Zion there, then that also must be part of the Land of Promise (or did Brigham lead them astray, far away from the Land of Promise?).
  • 3 Nephi 21:4 requires that the United States is the same land as the BOM land, since it specifically talks about “this land” and the BOM coming forth from the “free people” who inhabit it, and the BOM came from JS. (See more in What is “this land” and who are the “free people”? (3 Nephi 21))
  • Ether 7:6 links the land of the Jaredites to the land of the Nephites, saying, “Now the aland of Moron, where the king dwelt, was near the land which is called Desolation by the Nephites.” This means that whatever land it is, it should have ancient archaeological artifacts showing that people lived there at the time of the Jaredites.
  • Ether 9:3 reiterates the above connection, saying that Omer “came over and passed by the hill of cShim, and came over by the place dwhere the Nephites were destroyed, and from thence eastward, and came to a place which was called Ablom, by the seashore…”
  • Ether 10:20 tells us that under Lib’s leadership, “they built a great city by the narrow neck of land, by the place where the sea divides the land” — this doesn’t fit the Isthmus of Panama, which if anything would be the land dividing the sea.
  • Ether 15:11 says that the hill where the army pitched their tents for their final battle was the same hill where Mormon originally buried the plates: “And it came to pass that the army of Coriantumr did pitch their tents by the hill Ramah; and it was that same hill where my father Mormon did ahide up the records unto the Lord, which were sacred.”
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