Ups and Downs

 

Lehi’s group landed from the “west sea,” thus they landed on the west side of the Delmarva Peninsula. After Lehi's death, Nephi, and those willing to go with him, fled to a higher elevation a sufficient distance away from his brothers and there built a city called “Nephi.” A distance of 50-60 miles would be sufficient given the population size of his brothers search party and that this was an unknown area. It most likely wouldn’t be much greater distance than this since there were wars among the Nephites and Lamanites in the first generation from landing in the new world.   

 

Near the city of Nephi are the lands of Shemlon and Shilom. These lands could be seen from a tower that Noah had built near the Temple in the city of Nephi. There are multiple references to a hill north of Shilom. Often, hills are given names and the fact that this one is only referred to as “the hill” suggests there are not many hills nearby. This is a mostly flat peninsula, which makes it possible for King Noah to build another tower on this “hill north of Shilom” and be able to see many lands from there. The city of Nephi is almost everywhere referred to as going “up,” thus higher in elevation. The one exception is when they go down to the city of Nephi from the hill north of Shilom. This suggests that even though there is an increase in elevation to get to Nephi, it’s still lower than the “hill” north of Shilom. Ups and downs do not need to be extreme changes in elevations, but do need to be noticeable as one travels.



The City of Nephi would be in the red, higher elevation area. The land of Shilom would be south of the hill and within viewing distance of the City of Nephi.

 

Glass Hill is a good candidate for the "hill north of Shilom." 

The oval area is the Patuxent Valley where Zarahemla in the north and Manti in the south would be located since one goes "down" to those places. 








Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Land of the Book of Mormon

Image
"It has been my experience that most members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, when confronted with a Book of Mormon geography, worry about the wrong things. Almost invariably the first question that arises is whether the geography fits the archaeology of the proposed area. This should be our second question, the first being whether the geography fits the facts of the Book of Mormon- a question we all can answer without being versed in American archaeology. Only after a given geography reconciles all of the significant geographic details given in the Book of Mormon does the question of archaeological and historical detail merit attention. The Book of Mormon must be the final and most important arbiter in deciding the correctness of a given geography; otherwise, we will be forever hostage to the shifting sands of expert opinion."                      -John E. Clark(1)   The goal of this...
Read more

River Sidon

Image
  I n 1608, Captain John Smith explored the Chesapeake Bay and sailed up the Patuxent River. His claim that "Heaven and Earth never agreed better to frame a place for Man's habitation” lured many English colonist to America. (1) Another major geographical feature that must be reconciled in the land southward is the river Sidon. We propose the Patuxent River as the river Sidon. Near the Patuxent River are hills and valleys on both the east and west side of the river, consistent with the text in the Book of Mormon and large enough to hide armies (Alma 43).  One common conclusion is that the river Sidon must flow south to north because the “head” is near Manti and we know that the river Sidon also flows past Zarahemla, which is north of Manti. This is assuming “head” means the beginning of the river. Another definition of “head” found in the 1828 Noah Webster’s Dictionary is “conflux.” In the same dictionary “conflux” is defined as “ a flowing together; a meeting of two or more c...
Read more