Many people believe the Book of Mormon took place in Mesoamerica, but Robert Roylance believes it took place on the Yucatan Peninsula. How does he come to that conclusion? Where is the narrow neck of land? Bob tells more! Check out our conversation…
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Gospel Tangents
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Intro to Yucatan
Interview
GT 00:40 Welcome to Gospel Tangents. I’m excited to continue our Book of Mormon geography theories. I’m trying to remember. So you have a brother-in-law…Well, actually, why don’t you go ahead and tell us who you are and what Book of Mormon theory do you promote?
Bob 00:57 Okay, I’m Bob Roylance, we’re promoting a Book of Mormon theory called the Pasion River Model.
GT 01:03 Okay.
Bob 01:03 And this particular model is a pretty accurate description of the geography of Book of Mormon lands, primarily in Guatemala, Belize and Yucatan.
GT 01:14 Okay, so it’s kind of the Yucatan Peninsula. So, I think it was your brother-in-law, contacted me a month or two ago and said, “Hey, I’ve got a Mesoamerica that’s actually north south, instead of East West, like a lot of things.” So, it’s kind of the Yucatan Peninsula?
Bob 01:31 Well, the southern end of the Yucatan.
GT 01:33 Okay, the southern end. So, tell us. I always like to ask people their educational background. What’s your educational background?
Bob 01:42 I have a bachelor’s degree in agricultural economics and agronomy.
GT 01:47 Oh, wow.
Bob 01:49 And I’ve been involved in a lot of very large international farming projects. And it’s been a very incredible opportunity for me.
GT 02:00 So you’re like Ezra Taft Benson. You’re a farmer. Right?
Bob 02:03 I am a farmer.
GT 02:04 And agricultural economics means you’re a statistician, too. Right?
Bob 02:07 Oh, yeah, that’s very important, statistics.
GT 02:11 I have to tell you, I met a guy for my master’s degree. I was getting my oil changed. And this guy came in and saw me studying my statistics book. He was like you. And he was telling about this. They were actually studying marijuana, believe it or not. And they were like, “We’re done with it. Should we just burn it?” And he’s like, “No, you’re going to make the whole city high? Why don’t you just bury it? Plow it under.” { both laughing}
Bob 02:43 Oh, I’ve got a lot of stories about agriculture, but I don’t think you want to go into all of those.
GT 02:49 Well, it was funny. It was such a good story. We actually had him speak at our senior seminar. So, it was great.
Bob 02:54 I spent four years in Africa helping farmers there and about 20 other countries and just lately in Guatemala.
GT 03:02 Well, great. What got you into thinking that the Yucatan Peninsula was where the Book of Mormon lands took place? Because I’m sure that the Meso guys aren’t real happy with you. Is that right?
Bob 03:12 Right. The thing that’s driving me is that when I read the Book of Mormon now, it becomes alive, because we really nailed the locations. So, I just feel like I can just walk down the streets almost. And the other thing is that I’ve been very disappointed in the fact that there’s no consensus by anybody on where the Book of Mormon lands are, in fact it’s getting worse every day.
GT 03:35 All the theories are multiplying, I can tell you that. I think I’m up to at least a dozen now.
Bob 03:40 And so back when I got interested, I had no particular interest in doing it. But all of a sudden, a bunch of things fell my way. And I thought, “Wow! This thing makes sense. I guess I’d better pursue it just because there might be a chance we could reach consensus, that it’s just so important that we reach this consensus of this church because it’s just tearing people apart.
GT 04:03 So agriculture economics, is that a PhD?
Bob 04:06 No, it’s a bachelors.
GT 04:07 Oh, really? Just a bachelor’s? Okay, that’s interesting.
Bob 04:12 Yeah, I’ve worked with a lot of Ph.D’s and they kind of look down on me. {both laughing}
GT 04:16 That can happen sometimes
Bob 04:17 I’ve served on Washington State Research Board for agriculture projects. I’ve done a lot of high level research. So even though I’ve only got a bachelor’s degree. You can cut some of this out, I guess. {both laughing}
GT 04:32 This is good. This is good. So all right. How did you get into this, then? Because you used to be a Meso-guy didn’t you? Or not?
Bob 04:42 No, well, sort of.
GT 04:44 Because everybody starts out with Meso, and then…
Bob 04:46 But I never felt comfortable with it.
GT 04:48 Yeah, that’s what everybody says.
Bob 04:49 I looked at that map and I thought, there’s got to be a North Sea and South Sea and a West sea. And none of those have it. There’s got to be other things they don’t have. So I said [that] there’s got to be another way.
GT 04:58 Okay.
Bob 05:00 And so all of a sudden, things just fell in my lap. And I said, Yeah, there is a better way.”
GT 05:04 I’m trying to remember, it seems like there was a discovery on the Yucatan Peninsula, if I remember right. And Joseph Smith said, “Yeah, that’s where the Book of Mormon lands are.” Are you familiar with that?
Bob 05:15 Well, he did say that in Guatemala, that could be the land of Zarahemla. At least the editor of the newspaper at that time, it came out in the newspaper article.
GT 05:30 Oh, okay.
Bob 05:30 So, in fact, that’s what drove me. I went there in 1980 with my wife’s family, and I was hoping to verify the fact that Joseph Smith said that Zarahemla was in Guatemala, but I left very disappointed, because the dates didn’t line up. But shortly thereafter, they recalibrated the dates, and it all fit. So, from then on, it just kind of multiplied and mushroomed.
GT 05:58 Okay.
Bob 05:59 Then I had the opportunity of just accidentally visiting a city that was described to me as a Book of Mormon city by a tour guide. And after I got through with that visit, I was just astounded on the amount of information that came out of that. In fact, I wrote a letter to FARMS[1] saying, “Hey, there’s a hundred reasons why this city should be considered as a legitimate city of Zarahemla. And they were going off in another direction at the time, so I don’t think they paid much attention to it.
Bob 06:40 Anyway, as the years went on, I had an opportunity of working with Dr. Hauk in Salama. After a couple of years, his work there solidified my belief that Seibal was the actual city of Zarahemla. And then things just started multiplying after that. But those are the first two things that drove me were those two sites.
GT 07:02 Okay.
Bob 07:03 And then after that, we asked ourselves the question, where’s the narrow neck? The narrow neck is not in this model.
GT 07:11 That’s what everybody wants to know.
Bob 07:13 Yeah, that’s the main thing. And so we thought, well, if we could find the land of Cumorah, then we could know that the land of Cumorah, that the narrow neck is between the land of Cumorah and the land of Zarahemla. And so we found an outstanding candidate for the Hill Cumorah. And all of the sudden gave us a target area for the narrow neck of land. And there’s about 20 pieces or locations or places that are required to verify the narrow neck.
GT 07:50 Okay.
Bob 07:50 And we have fit every one of those in a very excellent way, except for one. Our lakes are ancient lakes.
GT 08:00 Okay, because that’s what I was going to say. The Yucatan Peninsula doesn’t [match.] If you look at a map today, it doesn’t look very narrow. It is quite wide.
Bob 08:07 Yeah
GT 08:07 But you’re saying it was more narrow back then?
Bob 08:10 Well, what I’m saying is that the other people like Sorenson and others that have led the way on Book of Mormon geography, they have assumed that the isthmus of Tehuantepec was the narrow neck land.
Bob 08:29 And that has carried on until today in a big way. But the fact of the matter is that when Lehi came over, he came from a country where they called their inland lakes seas, the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea. The Book of Mormon does not have the word lake in it. So, I would have to conclude that it’s more likely there in the lakes than they are in the oceans. And so we jumped on that idea, and started looking for the West Sea and the East Sea. And the thing that really sold us was a nine-kilometer fortification, that is described very thoroughly in the Book of Mormon as it being necessarily between the two lakes. And my companion, Richard Terry has spent 20 years with his students in primarily Guatemala and Belize, studying these things. He knows everything that we needed to know. He has been an incredible partner in this.
GT 09:34 So he teaches at BYU? He’s a Botany Professor or something?
Bob 09:48 He’s retired now.
GT 09:49 Oh, he’s retired. Okay.
Bob 09:50 Yeah. But he has been down there many times and when we got together, I was thinking that maybe I needed to bore some holes there to find out whether it was silted in so that we can create a scenario for the oceans. So I googled, boreholes in Guatemala and his name come up. And he’s an old friend of mine, actually. And he takes his students down there and bores holes in the ground to find the ancient crops that they were growing there. And then he writes with other scientists on technical articles. But he has been just an incredible asset because he’s very scientific, what we are doing.
GT 10:32 Is he a botanist? Is that what he is?
Bob 10:34 He’s an agronomist.
GT 10:35 Okay.
Bob 10:36 And so he has access to all the technical articles. And so we have that, which is very unique. So, every time new information comes out, we’re on top of it, and thoroughly looking for new clues.
GT 10:51 Yes.
Bob 10:55 So, one thing that really started this, is I had a chance to go take my missionary son to Seibal, but we got distracted by going in another direction. And we went up a dirt road for three hours and up a river for two hours. We climbed up a big hill. And this tour guy says, “This is very, definitely a Book of Mormon city.” And he wasn’t a member, but he studied it and knew what it was all about. So, it turns out everything he said was true. When I came back, I looked, I checked out a bunch of stuff at the BYU library. And it turns out that the people at that particular site, it was started about 600 BC, there was an influx of people about 150 BC.
GT 11:48 Is this Tikal or some other city?
Bob 11:48 This is Seibal.
GT 11:49 Seibal.
Bob 11:54 And then there was a societal change around the time of Christ. And then it was abandoned about 420 A.D., the exact date in the Book of Mormon. And so this is, in my view, this was just much more than a coincidence. And so, this is what got me going. Then I spent a couple of years with Dr. Hauk in Salama. And then we just went on from there. The one thing that was so amazing about our model is, it’s so predictable. For instance, I knew there had to be a landslide on a river in a certain place because that’s how Jerusalem would have been carried with water.
GT 12:33 Jerusalem in the New World.
Bob 12:34 In the New World, yeah. And I just put my finger on a map and said, “Well, there’s got to be a landslide there, because that’s where it has to be.” And sure enough, there was a big old landslide right there, with a lake behind it. And so, this is typical of how our things unfolded is that just time after time, we would say, “Well, the city of Bountiful has to be here. The city of Mulek has to be here.” And they’re there. And they not only are there, but the dates correspond perfectly with Book of Mormon, the sizes and everything to go along with it and triangulation and the coordinates fit well. And so, we’re very confident that we have found a great deal about Book of Mormon geography. I’m sure there’s some things that are maybe questionable, but very few. And maybe after we get through with all our studies, that we will have it pretty well nailed down.
GT 12:34 Okay. The land northward is the top of the Yucatan Peninsula, the land southward is at the bottom of the Yucatan Peninsula. Is that right?
Bob 13:52 The land southward starts at the narrow neck, which is just 10 miles north of Tikal.
GT 13:58 Okay
Bob 14:00 And so that’s the major dividing line. And there’s a passageway. I think that passageway is described three times in the Book of Mormon, and it’s right there, where it’s supposed to be.
GT 14:10 Let me ask you, I think you’ve got a PowerPoint presentation. Do you have a map that you could kind of show our audience? I’m going to zoom over here onto the screen.
Bob 14:24 Let me go through this thing, just for a minute. I think this is very important. There’s, over 27 hypothetical maps of the Book of Mormon, and I think there’s more like 35, actually. And they all have about three things in common. They have a narrow neck. They have a land southward, northward, they are north and south oriented. And so, we do have a consensus amongst the scholars…
GT 14:53 Not the Heartlanders, though. {both laughing}
Bob 14:56 Well, on hypotheticals, I don’t think they put the hypotheticals.
GT 15:00 Well, they don’t like the narrow neck. They think it’s all messed up, an hourglass shape.
Bob 15:04 But we do have a consensus on, pretty much a consensus, on the mainline geographers.
GT 15:12 Okay.
Bob 15:13 And it looks it has a West Sea, South Sea, the land southward and land northward. It does not have a North Sea or a South Sea. And that’s a big problem because the Scriptures are clear on that. So it’s not compatible the way it is. So, we add that North Sea and South Sea, and well, it’s close to compatible, but we still have the narrow neck to worry about.
GT 15:33 Right. And that doesn’t look very narrow at the moment, but you’re going to fix that.
Bob 15:37 Yeah, the existing narrow neck is 120-some miles long. And it’s impossible.
GT 15:45 Impossibly wide.
Bob 15:46 Impossibly wide, yeah. And so if we take the narrow neck out for the time being, and put it on the map, it fits perfectly. And so now that we have the chore of finding the narrow neck. This is where a lot of people get a little bit skeptical because it’s so far from what people are used to. And this is actually a LIDAR of the West Sea. And we do have an aerial I should show you. I don’t have it handy. But this sea is an ancient sea and there is scientific proof that there was a lot more rainfall back in the Book of Mormon times, and these actually fill up with water. Even today, they fill up with water when there’s a heavy rainstorm. And so this is an interesting development. So, the West Sea and the East Sea are two of the 20 things that are necessary for the narrow neck. You’ve got to have the City of Desolation, which is to the north, which is Yucatan. You’ve got to have the North Country, the city, the Land of Desolation, you’ve got to have the land of Bountiful, which is right south of the narrow neck. You need to have Lib City where he used [it] as a game reserve, headquarters where they gathered game. We believe that was Tikal was Lib City. And then we have several other things that tie it all together, that make it just a perfect match for the narrow neck of land. Oh! The long fortification, the nine-kilometer fortification and the narrow passageway, it’s all there. And so, when we realized that this really existed, we were very, very certain that we really had it figured out.
GT 17:46 Okay, so as we look here, because you’ve got a note there. It says Richard Hansen had said these areas were filled with water during the pre-Classic period.
Bob 17:58 That is the Book of Mormon times.
GT 18:00 Do we have approximate years on that?
Bob 18:02 Oh, 300 BC, 200 to 300 BC, as well as the center of it.
GT 18:10 Okay, and then does it have a name? I know the Great Salt Lake is a lot smaller than the original Lake Bonneville. Does this have a name that geographers would call it?
Bob 18:24 Yeah. Let me skip to that.
GT 18:28 Okay.
Bob 18:30 Sorry.
GT 18:32 We’re skipping fast.
Bob 18:34 It’s the Bajo de Santa Fe and Bajo Bejucal.
GT 18:40 Okay. Bajo de Santa Fe is the sea east and then Bajo Bejucal; how do you say that?
Bob 18:49 I don’t know. {both laughing}
GT 18:52 Okay, and so that’s the sea West. And do those stretch all the way to the ocean or are they just giant lakes?
Bob 19:00 No.
GT 19:00 They are just giant lake.
Bob 19:01 Yeah, they have outlets.
GT 19:03 Okay.
Bob 19:04 Water, it’s like the Continental Divide in the United States. This is the Continental Divide in the Yucatan and northern Guatemala. Water goes both directions.
GT 19:13 Okay. And so you’ve got a 12-mile narrow neck of land.
Bob 19:21 Yeah. Something like that. Yeah. Close.
GT 19:24 And so 12 miles, you could walk across that in a day. That would make a lot of sense.
Bob 19:28 About a day’s journey. But that’s jungle. You’re walking through a jungle.
GT 19:34 Right.
Bob 19:34 It’s pretty thick. So it’s not…
GT 19:37 It’s not for the faint of heart.
GT 19:38 Okay.
Bob 19:38 Actually, it started out, the first time it mentioned it’s a day and a half. And several years later, when they mentioned it the second [time,] there’s only two times they’re mentioned in the Book of Mormon as being lakes. The second time, they probably built a trail and that was only a day. They could do it in a day.
Bob 19:39 The first time it was a day and a half.
GT 20:00 Okay, and so do we know what time period, roughly, those lakes disappeared? I guess it wouldn’t have to necessarily be in the Book of Mormon times.
Bob 20:08 Around the time of Christ, probably.
GT 20:09 Oh, you think? Okay, so they just dried up because of a drought or something or what?
Bob 20:16 Yeah, it was a major–the rainfall, scientific data shows that the rainfall was much less. In fact, some scientists believe that was reason (for) the demise of the Maya, or why all those major cities became vacant, because they just never had the water.
GT 20:35 Okay.
Bob 20:35 That’s just one theory.
GT 20:36 Okay. So it was around roughly from 300 BC to 1 AD, basically.
Bob 20:43 And it may be, there may be times when they were full, and other times they weren’t, but his description was that they were full of water for decades.
GT 20:54 Whose description?
Bob 20:55 That’s Hanson’s description.
GT 20:58 Oh, okay.
Bob 20:58 He called it decades.
GT 21:01 So, not centuries, that would be…
Bob 21:03 Yeah, I don’t know. It’s probably a guess on his part.
GT 21:07 So, it’s kind of fleeting. The lake is here one day. It’s not here the next decade.
Bob 21:11 Something like that. But if it’s decades, that’s 10 or 20 years, probably 30 years?
GT 21:17 Would they identify that as a landmark if it’s just there for decades? So remind people, where does it talk about the narrow neck of land in the Book of Mormon?
Bob 21:28 It’s just north of the land of Bountiful.
GT 21:32 No, I mean, what book? Alma, Nephi?
Bob 21:34 Mainly Alma, Helaman.
GT 21:36 Alma and Helaman, okay. So that would have been 100 BC.
{voice of Russell, off camera.}
Bob 21:48 Well, let me get the exact [date] here. This one is between 80 and 60 BC.
GT 21:59 Okay, and that’s in Helaman 4, where it mentions that?
Bob 22:03 Okay, I’ll give you the exact.
GT 22:05 Oh, Alma 22:50 and 52. Okay, so 80 to 60 BC.
Bob 22:12 It’s interesting that the last time they mentioned the narrow neck, they don’t mention the seas. I’ll show you this, right there. There’s no seas. That’s what’s mentioned in that scripture. That would imply that there’s not water there. But maybe they just didn’t…
GT 22:31 So Mormon didn’t notice it in 350 A. There was no sea there.
Bob 22:35 Yeah.
GT 22:36 The sea would have disappeared. Hmmm, interesting. Would it have been narrow then? {Rick laughing}
Bob 22:45 Well, there would have been swamps, bajos.
GT 22:49 Okay.
Bob 22:50 So that might have been more of a deterrent than even a lake.
GT 22:55 Oh, okay. Because it would be hard to get through.
Bob 22:57 Really hard to get through and there are snakes and things in there. That would be a problem.
GT 23:01 Okay.
Bob 23:02 So the narrow neck is still very valid at that point.
GT 23:09 Okay, because yeah, you’re not going to want to walk through a bunch of swamps. You’re going to want to stay on dry land.
Bob 23:14 Yeah.
GT 23:15 Okay, that makes sense.
Bob 23:16 The City of Desolation, which is currently Aguacatán. It’s just a neat place. The dates line up; the time that the Lamanites started their major war against the Nephites, where they swept them off, like dew before the sun. Before that, the Nephites had won one time and then the Lamanites. But all of a sudden, they had gotten the forces together to sweep them off like that. That date was 375 AD, in the Book of Mormon. It’s 375 AD in Aguacatán, and that lines up perfectly. In fact, that whole period of time from Christ, until they were annihilated in 385 A.D, there’s just a series of dates that just line up perfectly with the kings of Tikal, primarily. And then when we get into the actual war, there’s a site about maybe five miles, maybe less, from the Book of Mormon, where there’s a stone that tells about the demise of a nation. And the timeframe is basically the same as the final Nephite war. So that really does put a cherry on the top. And the Book of Mormon talks about sacrificing children and women in that war. Well, there’s a cave nearby that has skeletons of children that have been sacrificed and they date back to that war. So that, to me, that really comes to bear.
GT 23:25 The Aztecs were very [cruel.] Well, I guess this is more the Mayans than the Aztecs though. Right?
Bob 25:10 Mayans, yeah.
GT 25:12 Because it seems like the Aztecs were more warrior-like, more sacrificing of children, than Mayans? Or am I getting that wrong?
Bob 25:19 Well, actually, what happened is that one of the reasons why the Nephites lost the war, is a warrior from Teotihuacan, which may be Aztec people, I’m not sure about that. But I think some people believe they were Aztec. They were a major part of winning that war. There’s a lot of commentary and scientific study about the fact that when the Teotihuacanys came in, that they did go north into the land of Nephi, or the land of Desolation, or the land northward.
GT 26:02 So do you have any idea? I mean, I’ve talked to Brant Gardner. And he said, the Nephites and Lamanites, were of the Mayans. but we can’t say that Mayans were Lamanites. But it’s kind of like, well, I’m a Utahn, I’m an American. But not all Americans are Utahns.
Bob 26:24 Well, that’s very interesting, because to me, it’s very clear when the Jaredites arrived in about 2200 BC, that the Olmecs arrived around 1500 BC. So they missed. I don’t think it could be the Olmecs because it was much later. But apparently the Olmecs did assimilate into the Maya culture in a very big way. I mean, when you go visit those places and talk to the people there and the historical people, they say, “Oh, yeah, there’s all kinds of evidences of Olmecs living with the Mayan people.” But I think that the Maya people, they arrived there in 2200 BC. And they had hundreds and hundreds of years to disseminate around all over in southern Guatemala, and in Honduras, and Mexico. Some claim they even got into the United States. They were very active people. So after the war, there were remnants of the Mayan people that weren’t involved in the war. And we think that the problems that the Nephites had with the Lamanites are remnants of the Jaredites. Now, that’s pretty interesting information, I will admit. But it just makes so much sense to me. {Bob chuckling}
GT 27:58 Okay, so Lamanites and Nephites are more Mayan, is that [what you’re saying?]
Bob 28:03 The Lamanites. In fact, we got to spend a couple of years in Guatemala. And they claim themselves to be the children of Lamanitos. They believe that with all their heart. Leaders have told them that, too. {chucking} And I believe that, myself.
GT 28:23 Well, and I’ve been to Belize, which is on the Yucatan Peninsula, and we visited a place called Lamanai, which sounds a lot Lamanite.
Bob 28:31 Yeah, that’s Jordan for us, for the Book of Mormon.
GT 28:36 So, Belize would be part of your theory.
Bob 28:40 Oh, it’s a major part. Yeah. Belize is a major part.
GT 28:44 Okay.
Bob 28:46 I love to go to Belize, because you’re right in the middle of it all.
GT 28:49 Plus they speak English. That’s what I like. {both laughing}
Bob 28:53 The Hill Cumorah is just on the line, the line between Belize and Yucatan.
GT 28:59 Okay.
Bob 29:00 And it’s just an incredible sight to see that hill, and to see how it fits so perfectly with all the things described in the Book of Mormon. It talks about the fountains. There’s over 30 fountains around that, and three rivers. It talks about the rivers, talks about the fact that you can see, there appears to be a military headquarters on top of the mountain. And there’s a big places where there’s evidence of building a lot of weapons. And then there’s this site where it talks about this big war that ended the nation. And so that fits really well in this whole scheme of things. But to drive up on that Hill Cumorah, is inspiring, just people in the cars. Wow.
{End of Part 1}
[1] FARMS stands for the Foundation of Ancient Research and Mormon Studies. It morphed into several organizations. Those that support Book of Mormon geography are generally affiliated with The Interpreter foundation at https://interpreterfoundation.org/
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Except for book reviews, no content may be reproduced without written permission
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