On the Trail of the Plates of Mormon

In my first post I said that I found a possible pattern in the Book of Mormon concerning migrations. When I first started researching the different theories about where the Nephite lands are I was getting very frustrated at all the different opinions and theories people had on this subject. I had too many questions that wasn’t being answered satisfactorily. So, I decided to get a fresh look on where these lands could possibly be located. I started by looking for possible patterns by doing a keyword search on certain words like migrations, Zarahemla, Nephites, Lamanites, etc. I then looked closer at the migrations and noticed that this was mentioned only six times in the Book of Mormon and every one went north. When I mean migrations I mean a group of people moving to new lands and establishing permanent villages and towns there. If you look in the scriptures you will also notice that only one reference was made every 3 books of people moving to new lands with two mentioned in Alma 63. Now, I need to know where Lehi landed as a place where these migrations started. I remembered a reference where Joseph Smith said in a Times and Seasons article that Lehi landed just south of the Isthmus of Darien or Panama. So, I started here and worked up. Now I needed more reference points to place my information on. There is a lot of research that says that Zarahemla was in the Yucatan/Guatemala region and that the Nephites final war was in upstate New York. These last two was enough to establish a possible route of the migrations. I made the chart below and placed each Book of Mormon section that corresponds to the above references on a New World map and everything lined up with the appropriate countries that they lived in. For example, most of the Nephite history in Zarahemla is in Mosiah and Alma, the largest book in the Book of Mormon and both books is in the middle of the Book of Mormon. And guess where Zarahemla is now generally accepted? In the Yucatan, southern Mexico and Guatemala area; right in the middle of both continents. This is the perfect location to establish the Church of Jesus Christ in this part of the world. The prophet could send missionaries in both directions, north and south, to spread the word of God throughout the New World. This could not happen until the lands in the north was prepared for the coming of the Nephite nation. There was still a war going on with the Jaredites when Lehi landed and the land need to be purged of the last corrupted nation. Also, the Church of Jesus Christ had to be strong enough and established before the Nephites could move into the new lands or else it would not survived very long. I will talk more on this later on. In short, I believe, because Mormon had so little room to put much detail on where the Nephite lands are more specifically he designed the Book of Mormon as a geographical map, placing certain information in specific places, leaving up to a future individual to figure out the clues and build the map. I am not saying this is me but I wonder if anyone else since the Book of Mormon was published has noticed this pattern. This theory would answer a lot of questions and resolve a lot of seemingly conflicting information that was written by early LDS writers. I will post more of my thoughts and research in the coming weeks.

Here is a chart I made:

On the Trail of the Plates of Mormon

Start at Bottom.

Moroni

322 -421 AD–Ether —-Lands of New England—Jaredite Lands—Final battle of both nations

Ether 6:5 And it came to pass that the Lord God caused that there should be a furious wind blow upon the face of the waters, towards the promised land; and thus they were tossed upon the waves of the sea before the wind.

Mormon

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4 Nephi

52 BC-321 AD 3 Nephi – Lands of Central USA/Missouri and surrounding lands

Helaman– 3:3. And it came to pass in the *forty and sixth, yea, there was much contention and many dissensions; in the which there were an exceedingly great many who departed out of the land of Zarahemla, and went forth unto the land northward to inherit the land. 4 And they did travel to an exceedingly great distance, insomuch that they came to large bodies of water and many rivers. 5 Yea, and even they did spread forth into all parts of the land, into whatever parts it had not been rendered desolate and without timber, because of the many inhabitants who had before inherited the land. 6 And now no part of the land was desolate, save it were for timber; but because of the greatness of the destruction of the people who had before inhabited the land it was called desolate.

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Alma– 63:4 And it came to pass that in the *thirty and seventh year of the reign of the judges, there was a large company of men, even to the amount of five thousand and four hundred men, with their wives and their children, departed out of the land of Zarahemla into the land which was northward. 5 And it came to pass that Hagoth, he being an exceedingly curious man, therefore he went forth and built him an exceedingly large ship, on the borders of the land Bountiful, by the land Desolation, and launched it forth into the west sea, by the narrow neck which led into the land northward. 6 And behold, there were many of the Nephites who did enter therein and did sail forth with much provisions, and also many women and children; and they took their course northward. And thus ended the thirty and seventh year. 7 And in the thirty and eighth year, this man built other ships. And the first ship did also return, and many more people did enter into it; and they also took much provisions, and set out again to the land northward.

30-53 BC-Mosiah —Land Of Guatemala, South Mexico, and Yucatan—Land of Zarahemla

Words of Mormon

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Omni–13 And it came to pass that he did according as the Lord had commanded him. And they departed out of the land into the wilderness, as many as would hearken unto the voice of the Lord; and they were led by many preachings and prophesyings. And they were admonished continually by the word of God; and they were led by the power of his arm, through the wilderness until they came down into the land which is called the land of Zarahemla. 14 And they discovered a people, who were called the people of Zarahemla. Now, there was great rejoicing among the people of Zarahemla; and also Zarahemla did rejoice exceedingly, because the Lord had sent the people of Mosiah with the plates of brass which contained the record of the Jews.

544-130 BC-Jarom– Lands between South America and Guatemala—Discovery of Zarahemla by Mosiah

Enos

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Jacob

600-421 BC- 2 Nephi – Columbia/Ecuador- Landing of Lehi-just south of the Isthmus of Darien (Panama)

1 Nephi 18:22 And it came to pass that I, Nephi, did guide the ship, that we sailed again towards the promised land. 23. And it came to pass that after we had sailed for the space of many days we did arrive at the promised land; and we went forth upon the land, and did pitch our tents; and we did call it the Promised Land.

Thank you for visiting.

On this blog I hope to present a strong case to show how Mormon’s Nephite record ended up in western New York. I will present my findings and insights and I will leave it up to you to draw your own conclusions. I will not compare or bash other theories concerning Book of Mormon geography with my theory. Too many sites I have come across have done this already. Everything on this site is my own conclusions and I will cite references everywhere I can. This is a somewhat complex topic to write about so I hope I can be as organized as I can. I am not a professional writer but I will do my best.

To start off with I will show you my map that I created then explain the different areas. Essentially, my theory is a combination of all the prevailing theories with some details not included that I have found. In short, my theory says that the Nephites, over a 1000 year period, migrated north in stages bringing with them and updating their history on gold plates. It seemed like whenever the Church of God was on the verge of destruction a group of Nephites moved north into a new area and settled there for a time. I have found a pattern in the Book of Mormon that shows this. There is one major migration into new lands every three books with two in Alma, Hagoath’s trips and the 5400 Nephites. I will show you later why I included the 5400 Nephites as a major migration. Based on Joseph Smith’s statements and historical documents that I have found I believe that this is the closest to how the Nephites ended up in western New York. I believe Joseph Smith new exactly where the Nephite lands are but was only allowed to talk about it in small portions. Remember, he was the only one to have spoken to the Angel Moroni and I believe he was told the whole history of the Nephites and where they lived. Here is the map I created to illustrate my theory:

I will explain each part of the map in later posts. I have also included another map on this site I created showing how and why different groups of people ended up in Central America and spread throughout the Americas. This may have been God’s master plan on how to bring back Adam’s family to the New world after the flood. More on this later.