INTERWEAVING TIME AND SPACE

DECIPHERING THE GEOGRAPHY OF THE BOOK OF MORMON

 

A Spatial Analysis 

 

 

This book sequentially relates  the  historic  events  re­corded  in the Book of Mormon,
using maps of Mesoamerica, to portray the ancient American settings of those peoples
.

 

 

 

The spatial organization of settlements, routes, and places of the Book of Mormon as presented in the chapters of this book are not as static or two dimensional as is suggested by the graphs.  In reality, the geographical models of the system are quite dynamic and can be studied through their various phases of development.
 
The graphs used to portray the system are similar to a photograph of the night sky. One comprehends the placement and association of the stars in the photograph but gains little appreciation for or understanding of the complex  operation and depth within the system.  Mankind's usage of their space upon the earth's surface  is extremely dynamic, incorporating many processes through time. This dynamic aspect of the Book of Mormon's peoples is addressed in this book as a means of furthering an understanding and appreciation of the text, and its spatial organization.

The text of the Book of Mormon  provides  an exotic  tapestry richly portraying man's  struggle with nature in a unique environment. The spatial models that Ihave extracted from this tapestry are actually an incomplete abstraction of 3,000 years of human experiences in a relatively small and isolated area. The incompleteness of the spatial models  stem  from three factors: 
 
First,  It is not a complete history  of its peoples.
 
Second, the writers of those ancient records had only marginal interest in describing their locality. Their  main purposes were  to express their faith and to convey theological information to future readers.


Finally, the data  provided in the text are  processed through our modern understanding and insights, which although greatly serviceable,  are  by no means  infallible. As J.William Fulbright once

remarked, 'There is an inevitable divergence, attributable to the imperfections of the human mind,  between the world as it is and the world  as men  perceive it."


The approximate 3,000 years of human experience contained in the Book of Mormon can be interwoven into the topography of southern Mesoamerica through the use of six overlapping stages of cultural development. These stages begin with the Ja­redite Period and include the Nephite Expansion in the Land Southward, the Nephite Wars, the Nephite expansion into the Greater Land Northward, the Intermediate Phase, and the Final War.

 

The  simple  Jaredite spatial model developed in  chapter 7 rapidly expands through the  Nephite development phase ex­tending  roughly from   590  to  87  B.C. The   period of  Nephite­ Lamanite wa rs extending from 87 to 60 B.C. was a phase ofNephite consolidation as detailed in the book of Alma. This phase provides the most detailed information available  in the text on settlement planning, fortifications, and place associations. Nephite expansion through the west sea corridor and into the ancientJaredite home­ land  extended between ca. 125-28 B.C. based  on  the fragmentary information provided in the  text. The general model expands at a much slower rate  in  the following 385 years contained in the Intermediate Phase  of Nephite history (60 B.C. to A.D.325). The final war  of the Nephites extended through the  period A.D.  325 to 385 and  was ended with the destruction of the Nephite  civlization in the lands of the earlier Jaredite people. This correlation between the two civilizations provides an im portant link between the Jaredite portions of the  model and  the  Nephite settlements in the  land southward.
 
 

THE ]AREDITE  PERIOD   (CA. 3000-? B.C.)
 

 

No  information is available in  the text concerning spatial organization of the Jaredite peoples before their arrival at Moron, the capital land.  Hugh Nibley has indicated that this migration possibly crossed the north Pacific (Nibley 1952:176).  The Model developed in this book places the Jaredite capital of Moron in closer proximity to the Gulf of
Mexico than to the Pacific shore.  This proximity indicates