A video posted on Sunday, February 1, 2026 entitled "Can The River Sidon Help Solve the Book of Mormon Geography Debate?" walks through the passages in the text that require a north flowing Sidon.
This is the first in a planned series of videos that will eventually allow us to locate Book of Mormon lands in the Americas. The transcript:
Welcome friends to this new episode of Discover the Book of Mormon. We're coming to you today from the CA and Emma Savage family studio in Springville, Utah. I'm Kirk Magleby, vice president of operations for Ancient America Foundation, and I'm pleased to welcome my friend Dan Johnson from the Atlanta area.
Hello again. Hey, always a pleasure to have you here. Same here. So, what would you like to talk about today? Well, since we don't have any physical expedition planned. You mean we can't put on our hats and go somewhere? You've got your Guatemala shirt on. I do. Brings back good memories. [laughter] All right. So, we're not going to go on a trip today somewhere. What would you like to talk about? Well, maybe another textual expedition into the words in the Book of Mormon and looking for a a place - the river Sidon. Trying to figure that out because that's one of the major features there. And what does that river do? Which direction does it go? Could we kind of figure out the you know what the Book of Mormon says around that?
Well, in the first place, if you take a look at river Sidon, in the Book of Mormon text, you'll find that there are all kinds of places where we have things east or west of Sidon. There is nothing north or south of Sidon. So it seems obvious, tells us it must go that direction. The corridor is a north south corridor. Right now which direction does it flow in that corridor is it flowing north or is it flowing south? Well that's a different story right so hopefully the text has enough information that we can figure that out. Well I believe it does okay. In fact in the Encyclopedia of Mormonism published in 1992 in the article Book of Mormon geography John Clark who's one of our brilliant Book of Mormon scholars actually goes so far as to say that the direction of flow of the Sidon, the fact that Sidon flowed from south to north is one of the few unambiguously attested tenets of Book of Mormon geography. He says it's unambiguous. What he means by that is that Orson Pratt in 1879 includes in his edition of the Book of Mormon the Sidon river has to flow north. In 1920 the James E. Talmage edition says the river Sidon is flowing north. In 1981 the Bruce R. McConkie edition says the river Sidon is flowing north. In the 1890s the George Reynolds masterpieces on the book are saying you know what the river is probably the Magdalena River down in Colombia which flows north.
In fact, it was so well established around the church in that latter part of the 1800s in the turn of the century that we had a famous expedition that left from BYU on horseback and they go to Colombia, cross what they thought was the narrow neck of land at the isthmus of Panama, get into Colombia because they're going to go to the Magdalena River and find Zarahemla on the west bank of the north flowing Magdalena River. Okay. When the New World Archaeological Foundation mounts it's very first expedition in 1953, they're at Huimanguillo, Tabasco which is west of the north flowing Grijalva River. We pretty much have everybody up until John Clark writes this article in the 1992 edition of the Encyclopedia of Mormonism. We pretty much have everybody who seriously looked at this thing, including the Reorganites, the folks who've been doing this kind of work from independence. They all have a north flowing Sidon. And so why is that?
Well, it's because the text is pretty clear, right? So should we go through the text? What more would you like? Yeah, sounds like that's what we should do. If it's that clear, we should be able to find it in the text of the Book of Mormon itself. Okay. So let's dig in then.
Let's start with scenario number one. All right. Now I appreciate these maps that you've put together. Okay. Yeah, we're going to try and visualize what we're talking about with some maps here. And these aren't trying to be any particular place. They're just general all based on what the text of the Book of Mormon says. Well, the church has come out and told us in the Gospel Topics essays, we don't know where the Book of Mormon took place. Right. And the best we can do is say it's somewhere in the Americas. Yeah. That's right. Officially from the church. And so, these are what we would call a theoretical map. Exactly. Or some kind of just a relative positioning because we do know that certain things are north, certain things are south and and east and west, up and down. We know that kind of thing right now. How do we know that up is up and down is down? So that is a really good question. Is it literal? Is it figurative? Is there a place in the text that might tell us that? Well, that's an interesting question and the answer is yes.
Okay. If we go to Alma chapter 43:34, that will tell us what the Lamanites meant when they use the word up in a spatial context. Alma 43:34. Okay. And it came to pass the Lamonites came up on the north of the hill. Okay. Bingo. There it is. As I go up a hill, I'm going up. Exactly. All right. Now, 3 Nephi 4:1. And this will disambiguate for us what the Nephites meant by the word down. All right. So we have the robbers here, right? Okay. These are the Gadianton robbers. They prepared for battle and began to come down and to sally forth from the hills. So as I come from their redoubts at the top of the hills, they're coming down into the valleys. Yeah. Down the hills. Yeah. All right. So up and down in the world of the Nephites meant what up and down mean to us today. Rise in elevation, down in elevation. That certainly seems to be the case.
What about east, north, southeast, west? Well, is there any place we know the geography we could maybe check that? We know the geography in the old world, right? When we have Lehi leaving Jerusalem and going to the valley of Lemuel, which is south of Jerusalem and he's then going to the head of the Red Sea. We are going to the fountain of the Red Sea. We're going along the Red Sea and we then get to Nahom which we know where Nahom is and we then turn directly east. We know where that eastward turn is of the frankincense trail. The directionality is so precise in that part of First Nephi where it's talking about the the Arabian trail through the Arabian Peninsula that it's got to help us or cause us to believe the Nephites understood north south east west in the very same sorts of cardinal directionality that we use today where east is where the sun rises, west is where the sun sets. And if I stand with my arm to the east and my arm to the west, my head is facing to the north and my back is facing to the south. And indeed, it seems like all ancient cultures seem to understand those same four cardinal directions.
Well, directional cardality is pretty much universal across the world because the sun rises at least in the mid latitudes. The sun rises in the east and sets in the west, right? You've got to go to the extreme Arctic or Antarctic to get some weirdness and no one lives there. And that's not where civilization took place. So, yeah, it's pretty much a generality that the same sort of a compass rose that you've got right here has been used by cultures throughout the entire known history of the earth. Certainly, we have some very good examples from the Americas that we can point to. We may get to that in a future episode. Well, so let's dive into the text. Let's kind of see what it might tell us about where these places are and if we can figure out where the up is, where the down is and well there are seven different textual scenarios. Okay, so seven different places where we can look in the text to find out what direction is the Sidon flowing and if all seven of these point to the very same direction then we can probably say with some certainty this is what the text says if the text is consistent. If the text is consistent. Okay. All right.
1st Scenario
So let's go to find out where Gideon is first of all. All right. Alma 6 verse7 and it says that Alma is leaving the city of Zerahemla and he went over upon the east of the river Sidon and into the valley of Gideon. So Gideon is east of Sidon and he crosses the river. He crosses the river. Okay. Zerahemla is west of Sidon. That would make sense. How far is Gideon from Sidon? Well, we know from the battle scenario in Alma chapter 2 that the army of the Nephites can get from Gideon to Zerahemla in less than one day. So, it's got to be close. So, it's got to be close. Okay. So, on your map, you're showing Zerahemla west of Sidon, Gideon east of Sidon, but pretty close to each other and in the center of the land. The text explicitly says Zarahemla is in the center of the land of Zarahemla. The Nephite capital. The Nephite capital right there. Yeah. Okay. So, we go to Alma chapter 17 verse 1. And here's where it starts to get interesting. Okay. So, 17:1. Would you mind reading that, Daniel? Yeah, I've got that. So, Alma was journeying from the land of Gideon southward away to the land of Manti. Okay. So, what direction is Manti from this Zerahemla Gideon area? Obviously south. Obviously south. Yeah. Now the fact that it doesn't mention crossing the river. That leads some people to think that well maybe Manti's east of the river just like Gideon's east of the river. So he wouldn't have to cross it because he wouldn't have to cross the river at that point. But nonetheless we've got Manti to the south, Zerhemla and Gideon to the north. Okay.
Now what do we have that separates Zerahemla from Nephi? Because the Lamanites are in Nephi. The Nephites are in Zerahemla, right? What separates those two? Well, let's go to Alma chapter 22. Let's do that. This is that famous excursus on geography that has been debated ad infinitum. Okay. So, we're talking about verse 27. Yes. And there's a narrow strip of wilderness that's being talked about. And that narrow strip of wilderness runs from the sea east even the sea west. So, it's a continental feature. Interesting. It goes all the way from one sea to the to the other sea. But it divides the Nephites on the north from the Lamanites on the south. Okay. So, and thus were the Lamanites and Nephites divided. So, almost like a political buffer zone. It's like a boundary line. A major boundary line, but a naturally occurring boundary line. Yeah. They didn't have to make it. It's already there. Okay. So, where's the head of Sidon now?
First of all, what's the head? That's a good question because I've read that and I've thought, what exactly does that mean? So, is there any clue we could get from the text what the head is? Well, we go to the editor of this particular Yale 2009 edition of the text, our friend Royal Skousen, and take a look at what he and Stan Carmack have put together, and they've made a very compelling case. And this is called the earliest text. Well, he called it the earliest text because this is Royal's 40 year labor of love, life's work, magnum opus, to reconstruct the text of the Book of Mormon as it fell from the lips of the prophet Joseph at the moment of translation. He's done that by going back to the original text the actual 27% of the original text that is still extant. And the printer's manuscript which the church recently purchased from the Community of Christ which is pretty much complete and then all published editions of the text and take into account the fact that we know that there was one section of the 1830 that was typeset from the original manuscript as opposed to from the printer's manuscript because that was during the time that we had Oliver Cowdery taking the printer's manuscript to Canada to try to get a British Commonwealth copyright for the Book of Mormon. They were unsuccessful, but nonetheless, the printer's manuscript was gone from the Grandin print shop during that time period, but the printers were continuing to work and they were typesetting from the original text. So, Skousen knew all this and that's where this is coming from. So, this text is really important. Well, the Yale 2009 is the go-to text for serious very precise kinds of textual analysis. Okay? And that's what we need right now.
So we go to here in 22:27 and we find several things going on. There's this narrow strip of wilderness as you've indicated on your map. We've got the head of Sidon which is in the narrow strip of wilderness or very adjacent to the narrow strip of wilderness. The idea then what is meant by this head of Sidon? Well, what we learn from the work of Skousen and Carmack is that the language in this text as it fell from the lips of the prophet Joseph is most likely to be early modern English. Very interesting. Which predates even the King James that comes out in 1611. Okay, so we're talking when Shakespeare was a youth wandering the streets of Stratford on Avon. Okay, that's the English that we're finding is the vernacular of this particular text. So that means that in order for me to understand what do they mean by head of Sidon, I've got to go to the Oxford English dictionary. Okay, because it has a history of the English language over time. And what we find in the OED is that the head can be the source like the headwaters like we would think of it today or it can also be the confluence of two tributaries. Okay? Because very often you've got these little streamlets or rivulets or brooks or whatever you want to call them that are not quite full river size yet. They come together form at that point of confluence. They now become a big enough stream that we're gonna call this a river from now on. Okay? And so it then flows from there to the sea. All right? And so as I understand rivers, these tributaries come together. They they get bigger, but they also have to flow from high to lower elevation. Well, everywhere on earth, stuff goes from the mountains to the sea. Exactly. I mean that's where we go through the Piedmont. We then go to the coastal plain and then eventually we get to the delta. Okay. So we might understand then the head of Sidon as being perhaps the source or the origin. Well, it's where the river begins. Yes. Okay. And whether or not there's stream flow upstream from that is not necessarily explained because they didn't consider that the river Sidon.
The river Sidon the point in the river that we call it the river Sidon. It begins here and that's the head of Sidon. And we know it's in the narrow strip wilderness. Okay. Which in a highland area. So can we read about some of those passages there? Well Alma 22:27 says the head of Sidon is by the narrow strip wilderness. But there's also this Manti south of Zerahemla in 17:1. And then we have the borders of Manti. So 22:27 Alma 22:27 also talks about the borders of Manti. And the borders of Manti are beyond Manti. They're further upstream. They're further south from Manti towards the narrow strip of wilderness. That would be sort of like the edge of the land of Manti. It's like the edge of the of the land of Manti. Absolutely. Yes. All right. And then we get into the fact that the land of Manti is by the head of Sidon. So we go to Alma 43:22 and it says they durst not come against the Nephites in the borders of Jershon. Therefore they departed out of out of Antionum and they took their journey round about in the wilderness by the head of Sidon that they might come into the land of Nephi. So to get to Manti, the Lamanite army is going by the head of Sidon. Okay. So that tells us that Manti and and head of Sidon are not too far distant. But from the head of Sidon which direction is it or or rather do I go up or down in elevation to get from the head of Sidon to Zerahemla? Well, let's go to Alma 56:25.
All right, I've got that. Go. Neither durst they march down against the city of Zerahemla. So they're at the head of Sidon. Okay. And they would have to go down. They're going to have to go down to Zerahemla, right? Well, if they're at the source of the river and they're heading to where further, I guess downstream where Zarahemla is, they've got to be going down. Okay. So we've established that Zerahemla is to the north. Head of Sidon is to the south and we're going to go down from head of Sidon to Zarahemla. Okay. What does that tell us about the direction flow of the river? Well, so far it's got to flow to the north, right? Okay. So this particular scenario tells us unambiguously the river Sidon is flowing towards the north. Okay.
2nd Scenario
Number two we know that on the map now we've got greater Nephi south of the narrow strip of wilderness. We've got Zarahemla north of the narrow strip of wilderness. The head of Sidon is more or less in the narrow strip of wilderness or very proximate to it. And that's attested in Alma chapter 50 verse7 and then 50 verse 11. So we go over to 57 right and it says that their own lands which is the lands of the Lamanites right were south of the land of Zarahemla. So that would be the land of of Nephi. Right. That's correct. So that's how we know Nephi is south of Zerahemla. South of the narrow strip. We then find in Alma 51:1 that there's a dividing line between the two major lands. So there's the chapter where Moroni fortifies the line between the Nephites and the Lamanites between the land of Zerahemla and the land of Nephi. Okay. And this dividing line would be that narrow strip of wilderness again. Okay. That natural barrier. That natural barrier. Okay. And it is from the west running by the head of the river Sidon. So this line, this narrow strip of wilderness that runs east to west from the east to the west sea, separates Nephites on the north from Lamanites on the south. It also goes right by the head of Sidon. We can kind of see that on the map here, it's all kind of happening in that same area there. So what that tells us is if we can tell the direction of or rather the inclination of travel up or down from Zerahemla to Nephi, we're going to know what direction this river is flowing. And that tells us that in Alma chapter 2 verse 24. So go back here to the Amlicite battle scenario and Alma chapter 2 verse 24. Behold we followed the camp of the Amlicites and to our great astonishment in the land of Minon above the land of Zerahemla. Okay. In the course of the land of Nephi. So as I go from Zerahemla to Minon, I go up because it's above, right? And then as I go from Minon to Nephi, I continue to go up. In fact, there are probably half a dozen places in the text where it's always up to Nephi, down to Zerahemla, never the other direction. Yeah, I recall that's very consistent with that. Very, very consistent.
So, that's how we know that as I go from Nephi to Zerahemla, I'm going to follow the course of the river Sidon and it's got to go down because I'm going to the lowlands from the highlands. Okay? As I go from Zarahemla to Nephi, I'm going from the lowlands to the highlands. So, that's up. Okay? And I go from the highlands down to Zerahemla, that's down. All right. And that's the way the river's got to flow. That's the way the river's got to flow. All right. So therefore the the Sidon river is flowing towards the north from the narrow strip of wilderness towards Zarahemla. Okay.
3rd Scenario
Now there's another scenario here about the Mulekites. Okay. So what does that tell us? Well, who are the Mulekites? So these were people who escaped from Jerusalem supposedly with Mulek, the son of the king. The son of the king Zedekiah. Right. All right. How did they get to the Americas? Good question. They probably came with the Phoenicians. Okay. That's been sort of general consensus among LDS scholars now for decades. If they came with the Phoenicians, they're going to come, they're going to check out some places to settle and then they're going to go up river. Okay. But it's got to be a big enough river that oceangoing craft can sail up it because that's how the Phoenecians did their settlements. We know that all throughout the entire Mediterranean basin and even into the the coast of of northern Africa on the Atlantic coast of north Africa, we have Phoenician settlements all through there. They're always on rivers. So, is there any clue in the Book of Mormon about these Mulikites and where they landed or where they settled? Well, we go to 22:30. We're back again now in this section on Book of Mormon geography here. Okay. And 22:30 tells us that in the the land northward, bordered upon the land they called desolation well, the land bountiful, which is in the land northward. Yes. Bordered upon the land they called desolation. It being so far northward, it came to the land which had been peopled and been destroyed. So desolation is where the Jaredites were destroyed in the land northward. Right. Of whose bones we have spoken discovered by the people of Zarahemla. That was the Limhi expedition. And then before that it was the Mulekites. The people of Zarahemla are the Mulekites basically. Exactly. It being the place of their first landing. So these people with Mulek the place of their first landing was the land northward. The land northward near where the Jaredites have been destroyed. Okay. All right. Now, where do they go from there? Well, they founded their capital, their Zarahemla, but it was in the land southward. We learned that in the Book of Mormon.
So, Mormon chapter 1:6 tells us what's the relationship between land northward, land southward, and Zerahemla. Okay? So, it says it came to pass at 11 years old. So, this is Mormon now as a young man, right? He's grown up in the land northward. Okay? And he says, "I was carried by my father into the land southward, even to the land of Zerahemla." So he was north of Zerahemla. So he grew up north of Zerahemla, Yes. In the land northward to the south where Zerahemla is in the land southward. Right. So there's the relative relationship. And what happens to the the Mulikites they found Zerahemla. And so it would make sense that if they landed in that area, they find the river, they go up the river to find a good place to settle. Well, that's what appears to happen because we read in verse 10 that the borders of Zerahemla were by the waters of Sidon. So the Sidon flows right past. We saw that now in Alma chapter 2 as well. The Sidon flows right past Zerahemla. Yeah. It's going to be a major feature there. And so the Mulekites are going to come into the land of Zerahemla to found their capital by going up a river. And we go to Alma chapter 22:31 and it tells us they came from there up into the south wilderness. Okay. So as they're going south what what direction are they going? So it's interesting according to the Book of Mormon, you go up to go south.
Okay. In this particular case, Alma 22:31, it says up to go south. That's right. And then you would go down to go north. So you go up to go south, down to go north. And that tells us that from the textual description of the Nephi, I'm sorry, the Mulekites founding Zerahemla that the river Sidon is having to flow towards the north because it's going to be down since it's up to the south, it's got to be down to the north. Okay. And down to the sea. Bingo. Okay. So far, we've had three scenarios. Are we consistent? Certainly sounds like it. Yeah. We've got the river going from the highlands in the south to the lowlands in the north and then to the sea. We'll get to the sea in a minute. Okay. All right.
4th Scenario.
We've got Alma 16 6. So this is a very important chapter. Would you mind Daniel just walking us through this? Okay. So what we have here is that Alma is inquiring of the Lord. And so he's asking about captive Nephite soldiers. Is that right? The Lamanites have come into the land of Noah and they have captured a whole bunch of Nephites. Mhm. And they've taken these Nephi's captives captive and they're now taking them towards the land of Nephi. Okay. And Captain Zoram goes to Alma and says, "Where do I go?" Right? And the prophet gives him explicit directions and says, "You go here and you will find the captive Lamanites, I'm sorry, the captive Nephites, and you'll be able to rescue them." So he says, "Alma inquired of the Lord, behold, the Lamanites will cross the river Sidon in the south wilderness, away up beyond the borders of the land of Manti." Okay, so we've got Manti, the borders of Manti, the wilderness, and then the narrow strip of wilderness beyond that. Right? So there's a wilderness that's beyond the borders of Manti, south of Manti, because the borders of Manti are south of Manti, of course. And behold, there shall ye meet them on the east of the river Sidon. So there's that east bank. Yeah. All right. So we've established that there's a wilderness south of Manti. It's beyond the borders of Manti and it's east of the Sidon River, right, in this wilderness. And what direction do we go to go into this wilderness south of the borders south of Manti which is right there in verse six. Let's see. And so we have a way up beyond the borders. Okay. They're going up. Okay. So once again I go south. I'm going up. Exactly. Once again up river is south in this particular scenario. Okay. So there in one verse Alma 16:6 it pretty much just nails the the whole thing. The River Sidon is flowing at this particular point in its course is flowing from south to north.
5th Scenario
All right, let's go to Alma 16:6. It says that there's a wilderness south of the borders of Manti. We then go to Alma 43:32 and it gives us the inclination. Alma 43:32. Okay, so that would be the remainder he concealed in the west valley on the west of the river Sidon. and so down into the borders of the land Manti. So this wilderness which is the scene of a number of military encounters that the text describes which is south of the borders of Manti. The borders of Manti being south of Manti itself, right? To go from this wilderness into the borders of Manti, I go down into the borders. So as I go north, I'm going down. Yep. And that just seems to be so consistent over and over. We're seeing this all through the text. Okay. And we already talked about how we know that up is up is a rise in elevation. Down is decline in elevation because of those references that we talked about earlier. Yes. Going uphill and downhill. All right. So, we've now had five scenarios, all of which are painting a consistent picture that this river is going from the highlands in the south to the lowlands in the north.
6th Scenario
And we read about a land called Minon. Well, let's go find out about Minon. Okay. Let's go to Alma chapter 2 verse 24. And this is the Amlicite war. We learn a lot about geography in this Amlicite war. So 2 verse 24 in the land of Minon above the land of Zerahemla in the course of the land of Nephi. So it goes Zarahemla Minon Nephi. Right. And so Nephi is obviously south and higher than Zerahemla. Well, yes. I always go up to Nephi. Yes. And Alma 22:29, 22:33-34, and 50:7, Alma chapter 50 verse 7 all say Nephi is south of Zarahemla. All right. So that's unambiguous and it sort of Minon appears to be kind of on the way. It's on the way. I go Zarahemla to Minon and then eventually I get to Nephi. Right. All right.
Minon was on the west of Sidon. We learned that from Alma chapter 2 verses 27 and 34. Right. So just like Zarahemla's west of Sidon, Minon is west of Sidon. But what is the inclination? Am I going up or down from Zerahemla to Minon? Well, 24 told us above the land of Zerahemla. Yeah. And so there's probably no other way to think about that. Above it's higher. It's got to be higher. I've got to go up to Minon from Zerahemla. And yet Minon's right on the river. And so the river has got to be flowing downhill from Minon towards Zerahemla. Okay. So as I go from Minon, which is south of Zerahemla, I'm flowing north. Right. So the river is going down to the north to get from Minon to Zerahemla. All right. There's the sixth of our scenarios in the text.
7th Scenario
Okay. Now the seventh scenario gives us a big broad brush brush picture and we begin to talk about where is the sea. Yes. Because we certainly have heard of it. So we've got to go from the highlands to the piedmont to the coastal plain to the sea coast somehow. So what can we find out about the sea here? Well the sea is talked about in Alma chapter 3:3 as well as 2:15 and Mormon chapter 1 verse 10. And what's happening here as I go past Zarahemla, I'm going downstream from Zarahemla, I eventually encounter the sea. Okay? And we find that out because we've got bodies being thrown into the river. Those bodies are flowing past Zarahemla and eventually ending up in the sea. All right. So, what can we read about the about that? Well, I just mentioned Alma 2:15, Mormon 1:10, and Alma 3:3. Those are the passages that talk about the river Sidon going through Zerahemla, and from there to the sea. But here's here's how the whole logic chain works.
Okay, first of all, you go to to where your map shows the head of Sidon, and that's near the narrow strip of wilderness. We found that out from Alma 22:27. Yes. The head of Sidon is in the general vicinity of the narrow strip of wilderness. Narrow strip of wilderness being some kind of a mountain barrier between the Nephites on the north and the Lamanites on the south. And we have Nephi on the south which is Alma 22:33 and Alma 57 and Zarahemla's on the north. And we find that out from 22:29 and from 50:11. So we've already gone through those passages which talk about the Nephites on the north, the Lamanites on the south. To go from Nephi to Zerahemla I'm going north. Right? And then of course the idea with after the battle the bodies are thrown to the river. It mentions that they are flowing out to the sea. Right? So Alma 2:15 let's go through and and just talk about this.
Okay. And the Amlicites came up upon the hill Amnihu which is east of the river Sidon which ran by the land of Zarahemla. So there's the Sidon river that's going right past Zarahemla and there's this little hill area where they're having the battle. And then we go into Mormon chapter 1 verse 10 and that tells us there began to be a war in the borders of Zerahemla by the waters of Sidon. So here again this is demonstrating that the Sidon river is going right past Zarahemla right and then we get Alma 3:3 and this is where the bodies of many of the Lamanites and the Amlicites that had been slain upon the bank of the river Sidon were cast into the waters of Sidon and their bones are in the depths of the sea. Okay. So that would tell us that the river Sidon has to flow to the sea. It's got to flow from Zerahemla to the sea. And therefore it's going to go downhill towards the sea. And what direction is downhill from head of Sidon and from Nephi? It's to the north. Right. So this series of passages again establishes that the direction of flow of the river Siodn is from south to north going from the highlands through the area south of Zarahemla which is is where this Amlicite battle took place. It's on the borders of of the the lesser land of Zerahelma and then we get into Zerahemla itself and then it goes from there and eventually ends up at the sea. So it seems like there are a lot of things that we can look at in the Book of Mormon with geography and debate. We're not quite sure but the course of the river Sidon as you said John Clark said it's unambiguous. Every serious person who pays attention to the text.
Now I will tell you this. There are some people who attempt to support a south flowing Sidon and they purposely intentionally knowingly misinterpret the text. Really, they have to fiddle with the text in order to make that work. And we've tried to read it and figure out exactly what it says. Anyone who's going to read this text, letting the text speak for itself, not forcing the readings, not superimposing some sort of preconceived notion upon the text, but letting the text tell us what it wants to comes to the conclusion that the river Sidon flows north. And the Book of Mormon text should be our ultimate authority in these kinds of matters. Well, if we can't trust the text, what can we trust? Good question. Basically, this is one thing in the text that I think we can hang our hat on. So, should we go find the river Sidon one of these days? I'd love to do that. All right. Someday. Someday. But right now, as we're looking across all the Americas, we're going to look for a river that flows north. Right. Well, that should narrow down the search quite a bit. Okay. Thank you, my friend. Thank you.
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