Did Lehi cross the Atlantic or Pacific Ocean to come to the Promised Land? We’ll talk about Philip Beale, the man who did the voyage in a 600 BC ship, and discuss possible routes of the Jaredites! We’ll also discuss Middle Eastern routes for Lehi. Check out our conversation…
Old World Geography
GT 00:23 Let’s jump into Old World Geography. And this is one area that, I think, for the most part, most people who believe in the Book of Mormon, pretty much agree with, and that’s Middle Eastern geography. It seems like the frankincense route out of Israel and into the Arabian Peninsula, I don’t know anybody that really disagrees with that, per se. You’ve probably heard of Nahom. Proponents of this theory call it a bullseye. That was where Ishmael was buried. it was the land called Nahom. There’s a Journey of Faith DVD[1] that documents this middle eastern geography very well. I’ve got a picture there, and there’s a link, as well. And I’ve got it as some screenshots. You can see for those of you–[they] start out at Jerusalem, go down to the Sinai Peninsula and then into the Arabian Peninsula. And then, on that third map there, you can see, they basically take a left and end up in Yemen or Oman. For Book of Mormon proponents, I don’t think this is controversial at all. I think pretty much everybody agrees that this is probably likely the route that Lehi traveled, and his family, and ended up in Yemen/Oman area. We’ll talk about a couple of ports here.
GT 01:53 But in the interest of full disclosure, I’m always somebody who likes to listen to pro arguments as well as con arguments. This is a photo of John Hamer.[2] He’s a Seventy in the Community of Christ. He left a comment on a blog, and he said, “It should come as no shock to us that Nahom, a Hebrew prophet in the Bible, has a Semitic name. It should, therefore, also come as no shock that there are places in Semitic speaking countries that share that name, or at least its consonants, NHM.” Of course, Hebrew wasn’t big on vowels. And so, you could take NHM and refer it to different places. John continues, “When I first wrote about NHM on a bulletin board, I did a quick test. I said to myself, they speak Arabic in Iraq. Let’s see if there is a NHM in Iraq. A quick google search picks up on a place called Nahum in the Maysan province, immediately south of Al-Amarah.
GT 02:52 In other words, if the Book of Mormon had said Lehi and his party traveled past Babylon, there was another potential Nahum Bullseye waiting in Mesopotamia. Another Google search shows there’s historically a town called Nahem in Lebanon, halfway between Tyre and Acre. If Joseph Smith had sent Lehi to America via Phoenicia, that would have been another bullseye. John continues, he says Nahum, NHM, is not a bull’s eye. John says it’s not even noteworthy, given one has the entire volume of a large Semitic country in which to find common Semitic route, we would be surprised not to find a place name that is somehow similar to NHM. So, anyway, there’s the con to that argument as well.
GT 03:39 Now there’s a couple of ports in Yemen. Warren P. Aston has promoted Khor Khofut as a port. He has a book called, In the Footsteps of Lehi: New Evidences of Lehi’s Journey Across Arabia to Bountiful.[3] You can see that lush, green shore there. It seems to match a lot of places with the Book of Mormon. There’s another proposed port called Khor Rori. George Potter[4] has done a lot of work on that. He has a website at www.Nephiproject.com. And I interviewed him a while back. His book is called Lehi in the Wilderness.[5] And I’ve got a link there, as well. I would say both of these are really good. I actually asked Brant Gardner which port he preferred. I was surprised. He preferred George Potter’s over Warren Aston. I think the BYU folks like Warren Aston’s a little bit better, but they’re both really, really good, plausible places for where Nephi built a ship.
GT 04:52 So let’s jump into some of the internal theories. I know this is going to be something that Heartlanders are not a fan of, but I think it’s still important to talk about when we’re talking about all the theories. And most everyone bases their theory on John Sorensen’s book, Mormon’s Map.[6] He’s probably the most respected expert on Book of Mormon theories. He talks about historical theories, as well. There’s his book there. It’s actually a really short book. You can jam through it pretty quickly. And I’ve got a link there that you can see. I know Heartlanders aren’t fans of that. I have to tell you; this is where I became a little bit of a convert to the Atlantic crossing of the ocean. John Lefgren[7] is a good friend of mine. I just found out he’s in the hospital and I’m sad to hear that so. God bless you, John, if you’re watching, get well soon. We love you and miss you. But John helped me arrange an interview with Philip Beale.[8]
GT 06:00 And Philip is a modern day Columbus. Some of you, many of you are probably familiar with Philip. I will tell you; I went into this interview quite skeptical. And Philip made me a believer. So, the interesting thing about Philip, he’s not Mormon. He didn’t know anything about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He was just a sailor. He joined the UK navy to learn how to sail and he loves to sail ancient ships. His first voyage was from Indonesia to Africa. People said he couldn’t do it. That was recreating a voyage. I think it was 300 AD or 400 AD. And then he found out that the ancient Greek philosopher, Herodotus, had said that the Greeks had, or the Phoenicians had circumnavigated Africa, and it was in 600 BC, which is, for Book of Mormon believers, a very interesting year. They actually found a Phoenician ship buried in a port in France. So, he used that as his model and decided that he was going to do this. This was back in 2009. The interesting thing about this is, you’ve probably heard of the movie with Tom Hanks called Captain Phillips.[9] It’s not Philip Beale. It’s another fellow, Captain Phillips, who, unfortunately got captured by Somali pirates. That was the same year that Phillip Beale, in his wooden sailboat, decided he was going to circumnavigate Africa. Now, unlike Lehi, Phillip had a satellite phone and a few things. But basically, his idea was he wanted to circumnavigate Africa. When he got down to Cape Town, [they] had a really bad storm, just like happens in 2nd Nephi. It blew him back about 18 miles. But as he turned to the Cape of Good Hope there, the winds just naturally blew him. He was trying to circumnavigate Africa. He’s trying to recreate this old voyage. It blew him only 300 miles away from Florida. Well, that wasn’t his goal. His goal was to circumnavigate Africa. So, he turned around, turned the ship around and went back. Now the interesting thing is it took Philip, two years and two months. It took the ancient Phoenicians three years to circumnavigate Africa. So, this is not a short voyage. It’s amazing. I did ask Philip, well, I’ll talk about the Pacific crossing in just a minute. But one of the things he says, when you’re talking about 600 BC, nobody has diesel engines. Nobody has nuclear submarine power. You’re relying on wind and when you’re doing wind power, “west is best.” And so, anyway, I’ve got a couple of links there to the transcript of the interview. I became a big believer in Phillip Beale.
GT 09:10 The funniest thing about Philip is he didn’t just do this once. He decided, “No, I want to do it again.” The second way, a lot of you believe that the Mulekites may have taken a Mediterranean route. Well, the interesting thing about this, Philip recreated this voyage, as well. It only took him nine months. Once you get through the Mediterranean Sea around to Spain, he basically followed Christopher Columbus’ route, once again, he ended up in Florida. Of course this was a lot shorter trip, a lot easier trip, in the sense that it only took nine months. So, it was a lot more straightforward way to go. And I did ask him also, because I’m always interested in all the theories, not just one. Could you take that to Guatemala? And he said, “Well, if you knew where you were going, yeah. But it’s going to take you right to the Caribbean and Florida naturally.” And that’s what it did with Christopher Columbus. Anyway, I really respect Philip Beale a lot. I think what he is did is amazing. The sad thing was, he landed in Florida, right as COVID hit. I will encourage you guys to visit Betty and Mike LaFontaine[10] here. They’re helping build a Phoenician Museum and they’re trying to get Philip’s ship and they’re rebuilding it across the river from the Nauvoo Temple in Iowa. So, visit him for sure.
GT 10:44 Let’s talk about the Jaredite crossing. This was something I just found out on Monday. I just added this slide this morning, literally, this morning. And there’s a guy named Blair Bryant. I believe he’s a Community of Christ member. He might not be, but I’m pretty sure he is. He was talking about the Jaredites with their barges. And, basically, he proposes that the Jaredites came across China. Of course, one of the benefits of that is a lot of the DNA experts believe the Book of Mormon has Asian DNA. And so, this would explain why they have Asian DNA. But they’re just bobbing around in the ocean. And it took the Jaredites 344 days to cross the ocean. And basically, they weren’t sailing. They were just following the currents. Now, if you remember, a couple years ago, there was that big earthquake in Fukushima, Japan. The nuclear power plant melted down. We were worried about nuclear radiation. But it was caused by a massive earthquake. One of the amazing things about that earthquake was that a lot of ships, and soccer balls and personal items, followed this red route here that you can see on the map. And about a year after the Fukushima earthquake, you’re finding boats and soccer balls and personal items that are ending up in California. Well, the currents do take you up along the Beringia, Alaska straits. This is me, and you can tell I don’t have really good Photoshop skills drawing the basic current there. But this is another way to go. And it took about a year. You don’t need wind power. The one thing I did mention to Phillip Beale about this was, anytime you go closer to the North Pole or closer to the South Pole, those seas are incredibly rough. And he said it’s very tough sailing. So, if this is what the Jaredites did, it would have been very [difficult], especially as you get up around Alaska, those seas are going to be very rough. Remember the thing about the two holes, one on the top, one the bottom. And so, it’s an interesting theory. Like I said, I only learned about it on Monday, so I don’t have a lot of information on it. I think I probably could get a little bit more information on that, because I think he presented it a couple of months ago, but I just found out about it on Monday. So anyway, I thought that was an interesting theory, as well.
GT 13:24 Now, this is the theory that the Mesoamerican proponents propose. Basically, once again, you can see they start off in Yemen, Oman, that area, Khor Khofut or Khor Rori. They got go around India. Once again, my drawing skills aren’t that great. But this is basically the idea. The problem with a Pacific crossing: it’s twice the distance of an Atlantic crossing. We already know it took Philip two years to go around Africa. So, if it’s twice the distance, what’s that going to take? Four years? You’re against the wind. I asked Philip, specifically, because there is an equatorial countercurrent. And when you look at it, it ends up right in Guatemala. So, if you’re a Meso expert, in one sense, that’s really appealing. And I asked Philip about that. He says, “Here’s the problem. That equatorial countercurrent goes about one mile an hour, and the wind is going to blow you in the opposite direction. And so, it’s going to over overcome that countercurrent. You have to rely on wind power.” And so, this equatorial crossing just isn’t feasible. This is the one that you see on the Journey of Faith DVD. And so, I think, if you’re going to cross the oceans on a 600 BC ship, you’re going to take the Atlantic Ocean I just, personally, don’t believe Pacific Ocean is a plausible way to go.
GT 00:28 I will just mention a couple of other things here on this map. You’ll notice here around India, there’s a little island there. That’s the island of Sri Lanka, just keep that in mind. As we continue on the second map, you can see that it goes down the Malay Peninsula.[11] Those are two other geography theories that we’re going to discuss now. So, it is interesting, if you’re a Meso proponent, and you think they went west, here are some interesting things. This is a Sri Lanka map. I didn’t even know where Sri Lanka was, but it’s off the southern tip of India. My friend, KC Kern,[12] I’ll be talking about him in a second. Me and KC, we are birds of a feather. We love to talk about all the different geography theories. We’re not a proponent of any specific one. We just like learning about them. And I asked KC where he got Sri Lanka and it was a comment on a blog. You can see the link[13] up at the top. And basically, the commenter wrote that Ceylon which is today known as Sri Lanka, is just southeast of the Arabian Sea, the north part of the Indian Ocean. And if the Lehites traveled along the coast, which is what most people think the ancient sailors did, they could not have missed it. By looking at Google Earth, one can see a narrow bridge of islands between Sri Lanka and India. That bridge is called Rama’s bridge, like Cumorah, Rama. It kind of sounds the same.
GT 01:59 So on this next slide here, there’s another quote there from Wikipedia. KC actually has a website that I highly recommend, because it’s not just Book of Mormon geography theories. It’s all about the Book of Mormon. And he’s got some really wonderful note taking. So, it’s BookofMormon.online. So there’s no .com or.org, or anything. It’s BookofMormon.online. And he’s created a better map than I did with Google. You can see there he’s got a narrow neck of land in between India and Sri Lanka. So, Sri Lanka is kind of the Land of Zarahemla. India is the land Bountiful and the Land of Desolation. So those are the pros. The cons: the only reference I know about is on a blog. There are no known proponents, except for the person who wrote that comment. There are very few details. But if you want to learn a little bit more, I’ve got a link to KC Kern’s website. And you can learn a little bit more there.
GT 03:02 The Malay theory, this is number four, this is my personal favorite. Dr. Ralph Olsen, unfortunately, he has passed away. He taught at Montana State University, I believe. And one of the things that’s interesting about the Malay Peninsula, I’m going to show you what it looks like. It’s a north/south peninsula. So, if you’re looking at an internal theory, it’s great for that. Casey Kern actually did a four part review the Wheat and Tares blog. I’ve got a link there.[14] And so the Malay Peninsula could include lands of modern day Thailand, Malaysia, Burma. Now, I know a lot of people think this one’s really far-fetched, and I would agree. It is very far-fetched. But when you look at things like anachronisms, gold, barley, horses, elephants, swords, they’ve got it all. Now, of course, the big question is, well, how did it get to America? If you look at what Moroni says, he traveled for 30 years after the final battle. Well, in 30 years, you can go pretty much anywhere in the world. Now the question would be, well, if he did that, maybe he’s a sailor. He’s on a boat. He doesn’t have time to write on plates. But, anyway, so as far as a lot of the anachronisms that critics like to point out about the Book of Mormon, Malay, really fits it, I would say, better than any other theory. It’s not America. I will tell you that Thailand, apparently, does mean land of the free. Ralph says that it’s never been conquered by a European nation. Anyway, I know it’s far-fetched, but it’s a fun theory for those who like to look at these things. And I love to look at these things. You can download his first version of the theory at my website, I’ve got a link there.[15] Brett Gardner did a rebuttal of this.[16] Of course, he doesn’t like it. So, I’ll just let you know that right off the bat. An interesting thing, it supports both a boat migration and land migration. I’ve mentioned some of these already.
GT 05:23 There’s a there’s a movie or a documentary called Quest For the Lost Tribes.[17] It’s by a man who likes to call himself an atheist Jew named Simcha Jacobovici. He actually believes that the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh ended up in the Malay Peninsula, completely unrelated to Ralph Olson. I actually called Ralph on the phone. I was like, “Ralph, can you believe this?” I don’t know that they’ve done a lot of DNA tests yet to confirm that. But that’s really interesting. Cons, it’s definitely unusual. Book of Mormon and early Church leaders said that it was about the inhabitants of this continent, meaning the American continent. Olsen encounters with, “And from the source from whence they came.” So that’s interesting. Then there’s little support among scholars. So, I’ll chalk that up as another con.
GT 06:18 The African theory, this one’s really funny. I just got an email from KC a day or two, ago. And he said, “I don’t even like to consider this an actual theory, because where’s the land Bountiful? Where’s the narrow neck of land?” Basically, it’s a guy named Embaye Melekin. He’s not even a member of the Church. He claimed that he took the missionary discussions in the temple. So, that explains to you his knowledge of Mormonism. Clearly, that didn’t happen. But he has a couple of books out. One called The African Bible.[18] I think this shows the first and second edition. And basically, what he’s done is he’s marked up the Book of Mormon. And then he’s been like, “Oh, and this represents Ethiopia. And this is Eritrea,” or whatever. KC promised me he was going to put on his website, because he actually just found another comment that had a few more details. There is a preview of his book 80 Reasons Why the Book of Mormon is an African Bible. I’ve got a link there to the preview.[19] You can also buy it at Amazon. And there is a rebuttal from BYU, and I’ve got a link there. Pros: Eritrea and Ethiopia, certainly much closer to Egypt. Obviously, the trip would have been a lot easier to go to Africa. There is a tradition in Ethiopia about the Queen of Sheba being from there. They actually say that they have the Ark of the Covenant. They won’t let anybody look at it. So, there is a little bit of plausibility there. This is both a pro and a con. I put it in the pros. There is a DNA link to a Lemba tribe in South Africa that dates to about 600 BC. But they’ve actually done a link. It’s called the Lemba tribe, they have the Jewish gene, for lack of a better word. It’s called the Cohen Haplotype. They did a DNA test. These people, they still wear the Yamakas and they practice an old-style Jewish religion. They are as black as black can be. It does explain the skin of blackness. It makes much more sense that the Lamanites mingled with Africans. The cons of this theory: Embaye Melekin is not a scholar, not even a Latter-day Saint. He seems completely unaware of LDS scholarship on geography. The language connections are specious. Once again, the same with Malay, how did the plates get to America? It doesn’t really have a good answer for that.
[1] Can be purchased at https://amzn.to/3h9FVGX
[2] See https://gospeltangents.com/people/john-hamer
[3] Can be purchased at https://amzn.to/3ZzbGxp
[4] See https://gospeltangents.com/people/george-potter
[5] Can be purchased at https://amzn.to/3ZS3qKm
[6] Can be purchased at https://amzn.to/3jl3z4m
[7] See https://gospeltangents.com/people/john-lefgren
[8] See https://gospeltangents.com/people/philip-beale
[9] Can be rented or purchased at https://amzn.to/4gRFc8X
[10] See our interview at https://gospeltangents.com/2022/11/buying-lehis-ship-lafontaine/
[11] See https://gospeltangents.com/science/malay/
[12] See https://gospeltangents.com/people/kc-kern
[13] See https://mormonheretic.org/2009/04/09/a-radically-different-book-of-mormon-geography-theory/comment-page-3/#comment-28173
[14] See https://wheatandtares.org/author/kckern/
[15] See https://gospeltangents.com/2021/05/malay-theory-of-book-of-mormon/
[16] See https://interpreterfoundation.org/blog-testing-a-methodology-a-malaysian-setting-for-the-book-of-mormon/
[17] Can be purchased at https://amzn.to/3ufvBR4
[18] Can be purchased at https://amzn.to/3Bi1b9V
[19] See https://www.google.com/books/edition/80_Reasons_Why_the_Book_of_Mormon_Is_an/WCD3DwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&printsec=frontcover