Pacific Winds and Currents

Poorly informed people sometimes claim that the winds and currents in the Pacific Ocean run only from east to west, which would preclude either the Jaredite barges or the Lehite ship crossing the Pacific. This gross oversimplification distorts the truth. 6 major wind-driven currents in the Pacific Ocean flow from west to east, eventually landing a vessel somewhere on the Pacific coast of the Americas:

1. North Pacific Current
2. Kuroshio Current
3. Equatorial Counter Current
4. East Australia Current
5. South Pacific Current
6. Antarctic Circumpolar Current

Map of Major Ocean Currents

K =Kuroshio Current

NP = North Pacific Current

EC = Equatorial Counter Current

ACC = Antarctic Circumpolar Current

Ocean Motion Map from NASA

and the American Meteorological Association

This map shows all 6 of the major west to east currents in the Pacific.

Map from Science Education through Earth Observation (SEOS)

These maps show mean wind-driven current paths. Seasonal variations exist. Patterns are sometimes disrupted in El Niño years.

From 1565 to 1815 Spanish traders sailed the "Manila Galleons" from the Philippines to Acapulco, Mexico. Transit time for them averaged about 4 months to cross the Pacific from west to east.

Explaining seasonality, Philip Beale, captain of the remarkable Phoenicia, told me that sailing his replica vessel from Oman he could have gone west to Africa or east to India depending on the season of the year.

For reasons why the Jaredites almost certainly crossed the Pacific, see the blog articles "Tracking the Jaredites" and "Jaredites Crossed the Pacific."

Christians by Continent and Country

 The Book of Mormon contains a powerful prophecy about the relationship between freedom and religiosity. "Behold, this is a choice land, and whatsoever nation shall possess it shall be free from bondage, and from captivity, and from all other nations under heaven, if they will but serve the God of the land, who is Jesus Christ." Ether 2:12. The 6 inhabited continents vary greatly in their adherence to Christianity:

1. South America 83%
2. North America 77%
3. Oceania 65%
4. Europe 64%
5. Africa 49%
6. Asia 12%

This Christ Statue in Cochabamba, Bolivia

is 40 meters (132 feet) high

The 10 contiguous countries in North America also vary considerably in their adherence to Christianity: 

1. Mexico 91%
2. Panama 90%
3. Guatemala 85%
4. Honduras 82%
5. Nicaragua 82%
6. El Salvador 78%
7. Belize 73%
8. Costa Rica 70%
9. US 68%
10. Canada 53%

North America

 Many people believe the Book of Mormon took place in North America and they may be right. North America is a continent in the western and northern hemispheres. It is bounded by the Arctic, Pacific, and Atlantic Oceans and the Caribbean Sea.

North America in Orthographic Projection

North America consists of 23 sovereign nations and 23 dependent territories. Modern contiguous countries in North America include (moving in a general north to south direction):

• Canada
• United States
• Mexico
• Belize
• Guatemala
• Honduras
• El Salvador
• Nicaragua
• Costa Rica
• Panama

Modern island countries in North America include (in alphabetical order):

• Anguilla
• Antigua and Barbuda
• The Bahamas
• Barbados
• British Virgin Islands
• Cayman Islands
• Cuba
• Dominica
• Dominican Republic
• Greenland
• Grenada
• Guadeloupe
• Haiti
• Jamaica
• Martinique
• Montserrat
• Puerto Rico
• Saint Barthelemy
• Saint Kitts and Nevis
• Saint Lucia
• Saint Pierre and Miquelon
• Saint Martin
• Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
• Sint Maarten
• Turks and Caicos Islands
• US Minor Outlying Islands (8 in the Pacific, 1 in the Caribbean)
• US Virgin Islands

There are 7 continents on the planet recognized by the International Standards Organization and the International Geographical Union. They are: Asia, Europe, Africa, North America, South America, Oceania, and Antarctica.

North America is the third largest continent with 24.2 million square kilometers which is 16.2% of the land surface of the earth. 

North America is the fourth most populous continent with 600 million inhabitants which is 7.5% of the population of the earth.

Volcanoes

 Geologists who analyze the destruction described in 3 Nephi 8 generally conclude that it was caused by a combination of seismic and volcanic activity. See for example Bart J. Kowallis, "In the Thirty and Fourth Year: A Geologist's View of the Great Destruction in 3 Nephi" in BYU Studies 37:3 (1997-98) and Jerry D. Grover, Jr. Geology of the Book of Mormon Provo: Grover Publishing (2015). This explanation of the cataclysms described in the text works well with a Mesoamerican setting for the Book of Mormon since southern Mexico and Central America have dozens of volcanoes, many of them active in Nephite times.

Some of the Many Volcanoes in Mesoamerica

These verses in the Bible seem to be referring to volcanoes:

• Exodus 19:18 "and the smoke thereof (Mt. Sinai) ascended as the smoke of a furnace..."
• Deuteronomy 4:11 "the mountain burned with fire...with darkness, clouds, and thick darkness."
• Deuteronomy 5:23 "the mountain did burn with fire."
• Psalms 97:5 "the hills melted like wax."
• Psalms 104:32 "he toucheth the hills and they smoke."
• Micah 1:4 "and the mountains shall be molten under him...as the waters that are poured down a steep place."
• Revelation 8:8 "a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea."

And these verses in the Book of Mormon likewise seem to be referring to volcanoes:

• 1 Nephi 19:11 "mountains which shall be carried up."
• 2 Nephi 26:5 "mountains shall cover them."
• Helaman 14:23 "many places which are now called valleys which shall become mountains, whose height is great."
• 3 Nephi 8:10 "the earth was carried up upon the city of Moronihah, and in the place of the city there became a great mountain."

The term "volcano" does not appear in the Book of Mormon, but it is highly likely that volcanoes were present in the Nephite and Lamanite area.

Paricutin Volcano in Michoacan, Mexico

Paricutin achieved global fame in 1943 when it erupted in what had been a corn field and quickly formed a cinder cone. The volcanic explosion spread ash over an area of 200 square kilometers.

Heap Mounds and Tower Pyramids

People ask "If the Book of Mormon happened in Mesoamerica, why does the text not contain the word 'pyramid' since stepped pyramids were ubiquitous anciently in the region?" Actually, the text does describe stepped pyramids. It calls them 'towers.' The term 'tower' appears 30 times in the Book of Mormon. How do we know that a tower in Nephite and Jaredite parlance was a stepped pyramid? Because 9 of the 30 instances of 'tower' in the text refer to the famous Tower of Babel (Genesis 11:3-5) which almost everyone recognizes was based on a Mesopotamian ziggurat or stepped pyramid.

Great Ziggurat of Ur, Southern Iraq

Stepped pyramids were built in many places around the world. Some of the more famous that can be visited today include:

• Calakmul, Campeche, Mexico
• Candi Sukuh, Mount Lawu, Indonesia
• Caracol, Belize
• Chogha Zanbil, Iran
• Djosser, Saqqara, Egypt
• El Castillo, Yucatan, Mexico
• Great Ziggurat of Ur, Iraq
• Pyramid of the Sun, Teotihuacan, Mexico
• Tikal, Guatemala

Tikal Temple 1, Guatemala

Since the Bible and the Book of Mormon both call a Mesopotamian stepped pyramid a "tower" as in Mosiah 28:17 we can be quite certain that Nephites and Lamanites would have called the very similar Mesoamerican stepped pyramids "towers" as in Alma 48:1. In this verse, Lamanite towers were clearly dominant urban structures.

--

Does the term 'mound' appear in the Book of Mormon? No. But the word 'heap' or a variant does 7 times in contexts that precisely match what we know of mortuary tumuli or surface earthworks worldwide. See for example, Alma 2:38, Alma 16:11, Alma 28:11, Alma 50:1, Mormon 2:15, Ether 10:23 and Ether 11:6. See the blog article "Mounds" for additional information on the global distribution of the simple structures the Book of Mormon text calls "heaps."

--

We would expect to find Book of Mormon lands in a region such as Mesoamerica that has both towers and heaps.

El Pital, Veracruz, Mexico

Coastal El Pital is one of many sites in Mesoamerica that combine stepped stone pyramids with earthen burial mounds. 

Tamtoc, San Luis Potosi, Mexico

Huastec Tamtoc is another.

Stairs or Ramp

Exodus 20:25 says Israelite altars made of stone should use natural, uncut stones so as not to defile the natural building material with iron tools. Deuteronomy 27:5-6 and Joshua 8:31 reinforce this idea of using unworked stones in altar construction to avoid polluting them with iron.

Exodus 20:26 goes on to say that steps should not be used to access a high altar to avoid a priest inadvertently exposing his private parts to those below. During the exodus from Egypt, priests wore flowing robes with no undergarments so immodest public displays were possible.

Zealous but poorly informed students of the Book of Mormon sometimes use these verses to claim that the Nephites (Jarom 1:5) and Lamanites (Helaman 13:1), both following the law of Moses, would never have built buildings with hewn stones and steps. Voila! their argument goes, Mesoamerica could not be the place where the Book of Mormon happened because it is full of worked stone architecture and elaborate staircases.

--

The truth is that soon after the instructions in Exodus 20 were given, God revealed Exodus 28:42 which instituted a new dress code for priests that included modest linen undergarments. This eliminated the problem with steps as Torah commentaries have noted for millenia. By the time Solomon's Temple was constructed, both hewn stones and stairs were used in the architecture. 1 Kings 6:7 specifies the use of stones shaped at the quarry or a remote workshop, while 1 Kings 6:8 specifies stairs. An image of Solomon's Temple on display at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem depicts both worked stones and steps.

Solomon's Temple per the Israel Museum

An image informed by good biblical and historical/archaeological scholarship shows the high altar from Solomon's Temple with both worked stones and stairs. 1 Kings 5:17-18 could hardly be more clear. Solomon's temple was built with hewn stones and timber.

Image of Solomon's Temple Altar per 1 Kings

Nehemiah 9:4 talks about the stairs of the Levites. Ezekiel 40:42 describes a temple with a hewn stone altar. Ezekiel 40:49 mentions steps. Ezekiel 41:7 in many versions (such as the NIV) mentions a winding stairway. Ezekiel 43:17 explicitly mentions stairs.

The Scripture Central YouTube channel, Messages of Christ, has a beautiful 3D model of Solomon's Temple that shows the best current thinking about its architecture. Solomon's Temple had at least 3 sets of stone stairs.

Self-credentialed "experts" on the law of Moses who denigrate Mesoamerican architecture are simply naive.

For another take on this subject from bright young Hebrew scholar, Spencer Kraus, see his blog article "A Note on Temples, Stairs, and Mesoamerica."

For information on similarities between Mesoamerican and ancient Hebrew temple architecture, see the Scripture Central Evidence Summary #257 entitled Mesoamerican Temples.

Free Nations

The Book of Mormon prophesies that as part of the gathering of Israel in the latter days the Gentiles who have scattered the remnant of the seed of Jacob will be established in the Americas as a free people (3 Nephi 21:2-4). In Ether we read the words of a covenant the Lord makes with nations who will inhabit the Americas: "whatsoever nation shall possess it shall be free from bondage and from captivity and from all other nations under heaven if they will but serve the God of the land, which is Jesus Christ." (Ether 2:12). These passages say we should find free people and free nations in the Americas, and we do.

The generally accepted source for data on global freedom is Freedom House. Their annual rankings of countries by the degree of freedom their citizens enjoy is a respected source because it takes into account:

• political rights
• civil liberties
• voting
• individual expression
• equality before the law

Freedom House analyzes the effect of both state and non-state actors in a country and ranks nations with a freedom index number ranging from 1 (South Sudan, Syria, Tibet) where citizens enjoy almost no freedom to 100 (Finland, Norway, Sweden) where citizens are extraordinarily free. It turns out the Americas, Western Europe, East Asia, and former British colonies are the regions on earth with the most freedom.

Freedom House Map Green = Free, Purple = Not Free

Here are the Freedom House rankings of free countries in the New World:

1. Canada (98)
2. Uruguay (96)
3. Barbados (94)
4. Chile (94)
5. Dominica (93)
6. St. Lucia (92)
7. Costa Rica (91)
8. St. Vincent and the Grenadines (91)
9. The Bahamas (91)
10. Grenada (89)
11. St. Kitts and Nevis (89)
12. Belize (87)
13. Argentina (85)
14. Panama (83)
15. US (83)
16. Trinidad and Tobago (82)
17. Jamaica (80)
18. Suriname (79)
19. Guyana (73)
20. Brazil (72)
21. Colombia (70)
22. Ecuador (70)

US patriots sometimes portray "the land of the free and the home of the brave" as the only free nation in the Americas. That oversimplifies reality.