Geography: John Sorenson pieces together the clues from the description to provide a possible Mesoamerican location for Mormon:
The waters of Mormon “in the borders of the land” of Nephi (Mosiah 18:4, 31) was [the] rendezvous [for Alma’s people]. This spot had to be far enough from the City of Nephi that reports of what they were up to would not readily get back to Noah’s court. Events demonstrated that Mormon was located on the Zarahemla side of Nephi. We know this because when the time came that Alma’s group had to flee, they got on their way to Zarahemla from Mormon with a significant head start over Noah’s army, which pursued them. Alma at Mormon got word about the approaching force after they were en route, yet the people still had time to pack up and make an unhindered escape in the direction of Zarahemla (Mosiah 18:34). Approximately two days of routine travel, or one and a half under pressure, seems satisfactory for the distance from Nephi to Mormon.
The relationship of Nephi and Mormon becomes clearer when we look at the geography of highland Guatemala. With the City of Nephi at Kaminaljuyú (Guatemala City), the only body of water in the direction of Zarahemla that could serve as the waters of Mormon was Lake Atitlan. It is about nine by four miles in dimension. Only a sizable lake would do as the Book of Mormon “waters,” for two reasons: (1) the same body of water, it appears, later rose enough to submerge the city of Jerusalem (3 Ne. 9:7), a Lamanite center built after Alma’s departure, and (2) it was “away joining the borders of Mormon” (Alma 21:1), implying that the two spots were some little distance apart. The distances and directions relating Nephi, Mormon and Jerusalem are appropriate if the latter two were on Lake Atitlan. Nephi at Kaminaljuyú would be approximately 40 air miles from Lake Atitlan.
Culture: Sorenson stresses the description of “pure water” for the waters of Mormon. The next community Alma founds is also noted for its “pure water” (Mosiah 23:4). Sorenson suggests a possible connection to the Mesoamerican reverence for waters of the underworld, which were considered sacred. The concept of waters underneath the surface of the earth is, of course, widespread, appearing in the mythology of Babylon and other Levantine civilizations. This Levantine concept of waters under the earth was also part of Israelite cosmology: “The biblical reflexes of the Ugaritic traditions of El’s dwelling are not hard to discern,” comments Richard Clifford. “… El’s residence as the source of all fertilizing waters is echoed in Genesis 2:10–14, which discusses the four rivers that rise in Eden, and in Ezekiel 47:1–12, describing the river that flows from the temple on the mountain.”
John Lundquist, the Susan and Douglas Dillon Chief Librarian of the Asian and Middle Eastern Division at the New York Public Library, expands on the connection between the temple and the waters:
The temple is often associated with the waters of life which flow from a spring within the building itself—or rather the temple is viewed as incorporating within itself such a spring or as having been built upon the spring. The reason such springs exist in temples is that they were perceived as the primeval waters of creation, Nun in Egypt, abzu in Mesopotamia, tehom in Israel. The temple is thus founded upon and stands in contact with the waters of creation. These waters carry the dual symbolism of the chaotic waters that were organized during the creation and of the life-giving, saving nature of the waters of life.
These ancient Near Eastern ideas would have blended well with general Mesoamerican water/mountain/temple symbolism. The mythic connection with the “pure” waters of the underworld persists to the Maya present. Note the nature of the water in this description of a modern Maya rite, recorded by anthropologists in 1989: “All participants brought the dough made with corn ground by their womenfolk for the sacred breads that are layered, like heaven and the underworld, on the altar, as well as the cooked meats, and the ‘wine’ made from honey and ‘virgin water’ from a deep natural well.”
The characteristic that made this modern water “virgin” was that it came from a deep natural well, not flowing on the surface. Something similar may have characterized Alma’s “pure waters.” In any case, the locations were understood as sacred. Whether drawing upon the more immediate Mesoamerican understanding or an archetypal remembrance of the Old World meanings through the brass plates makes little difference. Alma would easily have understood the sacred relationships of mountains and waters. Founding a religious community in such a sacred place would be both appropriate and powerful.