DOUG CHRISTENSEN 2004
transcript of presentation delivered at 2004 BMAF Conference
Doug Christensen founded the Alma Success Academy (now called FUNDET) in Guatemala. He has joined Richard Hauck, Bruce Warren, and Garth Norman on numerous archaeological field trips to Mesoamerica. He has been a tour guide in Mesoamerica and Peru. Doug has an MBA from the University of Utah. He served an LDS mission in England in 1961 and has served as a bishop and a high councilor. He is currently an adult continuing education instructor of Book of Mormon curriculum. He is a member of the BMAF board and serves as webmaster.
In 1941, Matthew Sterling and other archaeologists made the case for an ancient Mesoamerican culture that predated the Mayans. The culture was given the name Olmec, which simply means rubber men. It is a modern name; it certainly wasn’t what they called themselves. Ever since the Olmec have been talked about in scientific circles, Book of Mormon students have asked themselves the question, “Could these be our friends, the Jaredites?” They noticed that the Olmec are the mother culture of Mesoamerica. In earlier presentations we saw how the influence of the Olmecs radiated both north and south. In the Book of Mormon the Jaredites were the mother culture of the Nephites. In fact, Mormon and Moroni are both Jaredite names, so you can see that this mother culture, the Jaredites, had a tremendous influence clear through until the end of Book of Mormon times. What I would like to do for a few minutes this morning is to just talk about what connections there may or may not have been. You draw your own conclusions as to whether the Jaredites and the Olmecs are the same, related in some way or have no connection.
What criteria must we use to locate the Jaredites? Most of the references I am going to give you are found in the 15th Chapter of Ether. Both Jaredite and the Nephite cultures were destroyed in a civil war, and they were destroyed at exactly the same place. Ether 15:11 reads, “And it came to pass that the army of Coriantumr did pitch their tents by the hill Ramah; and it was that same hill where my father Mormon did hide up the records unto the Lord, which were sacred." Moroni is talking, and he tells us that the hill Ramah, where the Jaredites were destroyed, is exactly the same hill where Mormon and Moroni were in the last battle of the Nephites. And so the requirements for the Nephites need to be in the same area as the Jaredites, unless you want to postulate that one or the other of those cultures traveled thousands of miles to duke out their last battle. So, we have to have the same geographical requirements for the Jaredites as we have for the Nephites, at least the same general area. Are we looking at the correct time periods? It is very important, as Latter-day Saints, when we are talking with people who are conversant with the earth’s chronology, that we don’t talk about things that obviously happened at different time periods, like tectonic plate movement. Geology deals with very different time periods than we are dealing with here. What clues does the Book of Mormon give us for locating the Jaredites? 344-day journey from the Great Tower in the Old World to the New World (Ether 6:11) Jaredites were a large people (Ether 15:26) Jaredite civilization was in the “North Country” (Ether 1:1) Jaredites had a true civilization from about 1500 to 300 B.C. Jaredites self-destructed in a major civil war near a large hill called Ramah (Ether 15:11). South America Cordillera (primarily Peru) North American Eastern Woodlands (Great Lakes area) Mesoamerica
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(Ether 15:11, Jaredites and Nephites lived in the same general area).
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Does this area have remaining cultural traits and/or a written history, as described in the Book of Mormon?
Does the known archaeology of this area point to a true civilization as described in the Book of Mormon?
Jaredites lived near a land of many waters called Ripliancum (Ether 15:8)
There are four commonly proposed locations for the Jaredites.