Thursday, May 10, 2012

A Reader’s Exception to Baja Critique—Part IV

Continuing with the reader who identifies himself only as Elbeau, who took several exceptions to a previous series of posts about Baja California not qualifying for the site of the Book of Mormon Land of Promise (The Fallacy of Extremist Theories--the Baja California Theory). His critiques of our posts, along with current answering responses, are listed below:

7. Our post said, "The images of inland Baja are stark, forbidding, and extremely rugged, and the coast is often no less rugged and inhospitable."

Elbeau's comment: "Simply wrong. The higher elevation inland areas that the Baja model proposes are green and pleasant, while the "wilderness" areas...particularly the "wilderness" areas by seashore are dry and desolate. The Book of Mormon consistently describes the areas by the seashore as being "wilderness" and describing inland areas to be the desirable places to live. This is especially true when you look at everywhere south of what the Baja model shows as the Land of Desolation. The description given in this article presumes that the "choice land" means all of the peninsula, when the Book of Mormon clearly says otherwise."

Response:  Pictures belay that point. Inland areas are generally desert, with cacti and desert plants as shown below in the two bottom images; while the sea area or coastal area are shown as green in the northern Pacific area. Of course, not all coastal areas are green, and where man has had a hand in the agriculture, inland valley areas are green, as are the mountains after a heavy rainfall--however, rainfall is scarce and desert plant life abounds inland. Along the coast, especially on the Pacific side, moisture is more abundant, but the mountains running down the length of the Peninsula keep moisture from the east coast and it is, like almost all the land, a dry desert--actually it is part of the Sonora Desert.
Top LtoR: Coastal areas of Valley de Guadalupe, just north of Ensenada, just off the coast; Coastal area in Baja California Sur along the Pacific Ocean; Bottom LtoR: Central peninsula, inland from Loreto, about midway north and south in the proposed Land Southward; Central peninsula, inland from San Felipe, in the proposed Land Northward

It should also be noted, that about 95%of the population in Baja California (proposed Land Northward), is found in the three city areas of Tijuana, Mexicali and Ensenada--two cities along the U.S. border, and one a few miles down the Pacific Coast seashore. There are few towns inland in the central areas.

8. Our post said, "Baja is not only a desert, and the topography considered extremely rugged as well as dry and hot, it is a difficult land to journey across or through. The early Spanish who searched for an overland trail to San Diego, ended up thinking it would be more profitable and much faster to go by sea."

Elbeau's comment centered on only a portion of this statement when  he singled out: "it is a difficult land to journey across or through." He then went on to criticize it by writing: "not because it is wrong, but because it is right, and by being right it describes exactly what the Book of Mormon describes: A land where groups of people frequently get lost for "many days" and where the northern border of the land is called "Desolation"...which is so desolate that it's not until the book of Helaman that it is successfully crossed by the Nephites. The book CLEARLY DESCRIBES a land that is difficult to travel around."

Response:  It is always interesting to see how frequently such critiques show an ignorance of the scriptural record. It is also interesting to see how modern man thinks--after all, we  have street signs, maps, compasses, satellite photos, road directions, well-marked trails off road, etc. However, in the Nephite era being discussed, much of the land of Zarahemla and northward, was unexplored or even known when the incidents Elbeau describes took plac, such as:

1) The 43-man expedition that King Limhi sent to find Zarahemla.  When this group traveled northward, no one in that group knew where Zarahemla was located--they were third generation Nephites away from Zarahemla, and as far as known, no one had ever even traveled into the north country since Zeniff brought the Nephites into the Land of Nephi to reacquire their ancient homeland. Limhi reports his men "were lost in the wilderness for many days"--why? Because they could not find their destination (Mosiah 8:8). As he said, "yet they were diligent, and found not the land of Zarahemla" but found instead a land far to the north. The reason they were lost was because they  had no idea where their destination lie--the City of Zarahemla was only a distant memory among the Nephites in Lehi-Nephi, none still living had ever been there.

2) When Ammon was sent to find the city of Lehi-Nephi and ascertain what happened to those Nephites who left Zarahemla three generations earlier. No one in Zarahemla had been to Lehi-Nephi since Mosiah I left there and discovered Zarahemla, perhaps four or even five generations earlier--nor had there been any intercourse between these two cities, one held by the Nephites, the other by the Lamanites, since the time of Mosiah I. Ammon reported that "when they had wandered forty days they came to a hill, which is north of the land of Shilom" (Mosiah 7:5).

In both these cases, the distance was between the City of Zarahemla and the City of Lehi-Nephi, which obviously did not have roads, trails, or even known directions. This problem was due to not knowing where one was going rather than the topography of the land covered. After all, when Ammon led Limhi and his people back to Zarahemla, he did so without incident (Mosiah 22:12-13), since he then knew the way.

None of this suggests that "The book CLEARLY DESCRIBES a land that is difficult to travel around" as Elbeau so adamantly states. Nor does the scriptural record suggest the Land of Promise was "A land where groups of people frequently get lost for "many days." Nor do we find anywhere in the record any description of a land that is difficult to travel around or through. In fact, the dissident Nephite, Coriantumr, who became king of the Lamanites and led his army to attack Zarahemla, then later raced northward to attack Bountiful, shows us how easy it was to move through this land from the southern border of Zarahemla to nearly the border of Bountiful (Helaman 1:19, 24, 27-29). In fact, this center of the Land of Promise is referred to as "the most capital parts of the land" (Helaman 1:27), meaning the most important or best parts of the land. In addition, Alma, in his missionary journeys, seems to make it from city to city or land to land, without difficulty. And certainly, the sons of Mosiah had no difficulty in traveling all around the Land of Nephi. Nor do we find any difficulty for Mormon, carrying his son, Mormon, from far to the north in the Land Northward clear down to the City of Zarahemla.

Nor is Eldeau's statement correct when he claims, "and where the northern border of the land is called "Desolation"...which is so desolate that it's not until the book of Helaman that it is successfully crossed by the Nephites." The fact of the matter is, the Nephites began their occupation of this Land of Promise after landing in the far south, were then driven northward by Laman and Lemuel threatening to kill Nephi, were then driven further northward when Mosiah was told to get out of the city, and then, once occupying the Land of Zarahemla around 200 B.C., continued to expand as they grew in size and number until, abut a hundred years later move into what they called the Land of Bountiful. They did not reach the narrow neck of land until about 50 years later when Hagoth is building ships in his shipyard there. Finally, they moved further northward to get away from the wars and evil happenings in Bountiful-Zarahemla to "inherit" the land in the Land Northward as Helaman describes.

As for the "Land of Desolation," it was not called that because it was barren and unlivable or desolate, but because it was the place of the Jaredite defeat (Helaman 3:6). It seems one should actually read the scriptural record before trying to discuss it.

(See the next post, "A Reader's Exception to Baja Critique--Part V," for more of Elbeau's disagreements to our earlier series of posts)

4 comments:

  1. As I mentioned in my recent response to your article:

    http://nephicode.blogspot.com/2011/01/fallacy-of-extremist-theoriesthe-baja.html

    I only recently realized that more than a year after my comments you wrote these responses, so please excuse my delay in responding.

    Point #7 above references my comments regarding your statement that says:

    "The images of inland Baja are stark, forbidding, and extremely rugged, and the coast is often no less rugged and inhospitable."

    My response that it was "simply false" is out of context now that you've quoted it in a post that doesn't show "The images" that your quote was referencing. Your reference to the images was presented as a caption right below four images. Two of those images were of coastal areas, and unless I'm mistaken, the other two appear to be from the low-lying areas of the desert wildernesses north of the traditional Nephite lands in the model.

    On the other hand, you present completely different images in this response article. I find your choice of images in this article to be a little ironic. You chose them because you wanted to give examples for your statement that "Inland areas are generally desert, with cacti and desert plants as shown below in the two bottom images". What you fail to realize is that those two bottom images are images of wonderful terrestrial food resources.

    The image of desert plants inland from San Felipe (a location far to the north of the areas we present as Nephite agricultural areas) shows abundant agave, an important staple food for hunter-gatherer cultures (ie: Lamanites) in the peninsula.

    According to your caption, the other image was taken just south of the areas we present as the traditional Nephite lands and is representative of the vegetation found in inland areas that are not near any oasis. This image shows a beautiful growth of Pitahaya. The modern common name of the fruit produced by this cacti is "Dragon Fruit", and it was without question the favorite of all foods for the natives of the peninsula when the Spanish arrived. Dragon Fruit is often available in local supermarkets in the US and it has a wonderful flavor. I think it tastes somewhat like apple juice, smooth and sugary.

    I honestly understand why you and others would look at photos like these and think that food resources must indeed be very scarce in the peninsula since it is, like you say, generally a desert. Growing up in the church I was surrounded by imagery like Samuel the Lamanite standing on a huge masonry wall and Jesus appearing to the Nephites with Mayan pyramids all around. Baja doesn't have Mayan pyramids or huge, ancient masonry walls.

    Likewise, Baja is an environment where hunter-gatherer groups thrived, despite the fact that they had cultural contact and trade relations with advanced agricultural tribes bordering them just outside the peninsula to the north.


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  2. ...continued from above:

    Understanding a Baja model requires us to replace a lot of misconceptions in our minds regarding the culture and lifestyles that we should expect to find in the lands of the Book of Mormon. We don't need to disregard anything that the Book of Mormon says, just the traditional interpretations that we derive from LDS culture.

    For instance, when we think about the food resources identified in the Book of Mormon, the things that might come to mind first might be Nephite staples like corn, wheat, barley, and fruit (see Mosiah 9:9). While it's true that the Nephites practiced agriculture, what is strange is that it didn't result in a massive population expansion compared to the contemporary Lamanites and Mulekites in the promised land. The Book of Mormon tells us:

    "Now there were not so many of the children of Nephi, or so many of those who were descendants of Nephi, as there were of the people of Zarahemla, who was a descendant of Mulek, and those who came with him into the wilderness. And there were not so many of the people of Nephi and of the people of Zarahemla as there were of the Lamanites; yea, they were not half so numerous." (Mosiah 25:2-3)

    Although models of the lands of the Book of Mormon should do their best to account for the references to agriculture in the text, explaining the success of the non-agricultural Lamanites should warrant at least as much consideration.

    The Baja peninsula is a place where agriculture can be successfully practiced. The Spanish missionaries proved it and you said it yourself:

    "where man has had a hand in the agriculture, inland valley areas are green"

    ...but it is also a place where hunter-gatherer societies like the Lamanites could outnumber the agricultural Nephites.

    We need to break our minds out old mindsets in order to understand the Baja model. The model matches the Book of Mormon, but it does not match the imagery we have painted around the Book of Mormon during the last 180 years.

    A Lamanite would look at the pictures that you posted on this page showing the "desert, with cacti and desert plants" and would say "Yummy, I'm eating there tonight!".

    There's more to be said about the Lamanite diet, but you mentioned the shell middens on another page so I'll discuss it there.

    There's also more to be said about the Nephite diet. I've touched on that subject somewhat on one of your previous pages:

    http://nephicode.blogspot.com/2012/05/readers-exception-to-baja-critiquepart_08.html


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  3. ...continued from above:

    Point #8 in your post is a rebuttal to my statements regarding the difficulty experienced by groups traveling through the lands.

    The Book of Mormon describes a land that is small enough for Alma's party to travel from the Land of Nephi to the Land of Zarahemla, without directions, in just 21 days. The distance covered by Alma's group during that trip was the distance separating the Nephites from the Mulekites for roughly 400 years, yet the two cultures never came into contact with each other. This begs the question "why?".

    You mention Ammon's round-trip from Zarahemla to the city of Nephi and back where they got lost and wandered for 40 days, experiencing famine on their journey from Zarahemla to Nephi, then you say:

    "This problem was due to not knowing where one was going rather than the topography of the land covered. After all, when Ammon led Limhi and his people back to Zarahemla, he did so without incident (Mosiah 22:12-13), since he then knew the way."

    You seem to learn a lot more from those verses than I do. All I see is that:

    "they pursued their journey. And after being many days in the wilderness they arrived in the land of Zarahemla"

    Where does it tell us how easy it was for them?

    On the other hand, Ammon's party was pursued by an army of Lamanites. This army got lost on the return journey, not on the initial journey. After the army got lost, they wandered around and found king Noah's priests. Those priests also came from the land of Nephi originally, but they could not help the Lamanites find the way back either.

    The book CLEARLY DESCRIBES a land that is difficult to travel around...even for groups that are just trying to retrace their own steps.

    You reference Coriantumr's march through the "most capital parts of the land" saying that the story of how his army "raced northward to attack Bountiful, shows us how easy it was to move through this land from the southern border of Zarahemla to nearly the border of Bountiful"

    The says that "he did march forth, giving them no time to assemble themselves together save it were in small bodies" ...but the fact that his army advanced faster than the speed at which the Nephites could gather together is only a measure of comparative speed between groups of people in the same terrain, whether that was rough or smooth. There is another measure of comparative speed given as well. We learn that:

    "this march of Coriantumr through the center of the land gave Moronihah great advantage over them" and that Moronihah "immediately sent forth Lehi with an army round about to head them before they should come to the land Bountiful. And thus he did; and he did head them before they came to the land Bountiful". (Helaman 1:25-29)

    Lehi's army traveled "round about" rather than through "the center of the land" and it resulted in him getting ahead of Coriantumr's army, despite the fact that Coriantumr's army had a head start. The text is vague about why Lehi's army traveled faster. It might have been because Coriantumr's army was engaged in combat which slowed them down, it might have been because of the terrain, or maybe Lehi's army might have just been faster. In any case, there is no measure of the actual speed of Coriantumr's army through those lands and the only indication we have about their speed is that they were slower than the army traveling "round about".


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  4. ...continued from above:

    You also say that:

    "Alma, in his missionary journeys, seems to make it from city to city or land to land, without difficulty"

    I'm unaware of any references to the ease of his journeys other than the fact that he was hungry when he reached Ammonihah due to fasting. Please elaborate if I am missing something here.

    Next you say that:

    "Nor do we find any difficulty for Mormon, carrying his son, Mormon, from far to the north in the Land Northward clear down to the City of Zarahemla."

    I fail to see why you think the relevant verses teach us anything about the nature of their journey. Again, please provide more details if you would like to discuss this point further.

    You next address my comments about the land Desolation. I addressed many things relevant to this in my comments yesterday on the page:

    http://nephicode.blogspot.com/2012/05/readers-exception-to-baja-critiquepart_09.html

    I hope that addresses your comments on this page as well. If not, please let me know so we can discuss the subject further.

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