   |
| Sorenson, John L. An Ancient American Setting for the Book of Mormon. Farms, 1985. |
|
|
The important premise of Sorenson's work is that it is not designed to prove the Book of Mormon, but to provide a plausible context in a real world location and time in which the Book of Mormon could have taken place. Along the way Sorenson deals with some of the problematic areas of such a correlation, but his concentration is on elucidating the ways in which such a context can enhance our understanding of the Book of Mormon. This is a very refreshing change from standard aplogetic fare. Sorenson's work begins with a geography of the Book of Mormon. To construct the geography, he suggests that the Book itself is the first guide to any reconstruction, and that any location in the real world will need to match the book's description of its internal geography. The internal geography is build from statements in the Book of Mormon, and relay on two interpretive principles that Sorenson suggests. The first is that distance is measured in time in the Book of Mormon ("a day's journey" - not an unfamiliar concept). He assesses the anthropological information on how far people might travel in a day, and settles on an 11 mile per day correlation (and notes that it could have been somewhat more or less). Having a rough distance measurement, Sorenson constructs distance models from city to city. The second interpretive principle deals with terrain. Sorenson suggests that up and down are related to topography since the up=north correlation is an artifact of moder mapping conventions. With distances set, the up/down information creates a rough topographical map with certain cities being at higher elevations that others. After the internal reconstruction, Sorenson carefully lays the map onto the real world, and claims a fit in the region known as Mesoamerica. Not only can the internal map fit the dimensions, but the topography fits, and there are archaeological sites that fit the topography that both carbon 14 and Maya long count date to a time when a Book of Mormon population could have existed at that spot. With that much of a correlation, Sorenson describes what Nephit life might have been in the different periods of the Book of Mormon. He uses his knowledge of Mesoamerican cultures and other anthroplogically known societies to deal with issues of kin groups, political complexity, and economy. Along the way he provides suggestions for understanding such things as horses, cows, barley, swords, etc. Sorenson will not be the last word on this subject. There are others working on the same general area of the world to match a real world geography (Allen and Hauck). My own research suggests that his attempts to correlate Quetzalcoatl and Jesus Christ (while less adamant than many others) are based on incorrect analysis of the sources. Nevertheless, while it isn't the last word, it certainly is the best currently available, and should be the first such work read by anyone interested in the question of archaeology and the Book of Mormon. |
||
| by Brant Gardner. Copyright 1998 |
In some ways, this
could be the shortest possible review. If anyone is interested in the way the Book of Mormon might fit
into the real world, this book is an essential starting place. This is not to say that I agree with everything
in the book, but it is by far the most carefully documented and though out examination of the topic. It is the
work by which any other book should be judged.
|
|
|
|
 |