John Sorenson has accumulated a collection of scientific articles which advocate, with increasing substantiation, that there were trans-Pacific journeys from East Asia to Mesoamerica during the times of the Book of Mormon. [See John L. Sorenson and Martin H. Raish, editors, Pre-Columbian Contacts with the Americas across the Oceans: An Annotated Bibliography, F.A.R.M.S., second edition, revised]
“They Were Driven Forth Upon the Water and They Did Land Upon the Shore of the Promised Land”
According to Richardson, Richardson and Bentley, Book of Mormon critics often refer to a few scientists who have held to the theory that all migrations to America originated from Asia via the Bering Strait. However, these critics are facing increasing difficulty in finding support for their weakening position. Such a position is rapidly losing credibility in light of the mountain of evidence to the contrary. [Allen H. Richardson, David E. Richardson and Anthony E. Bentley, 1000 Evidences for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: Part Two-A Voice from the Dust: 500 Evidences in Support of the Book of Mormon, p. 174]
“They Did Land Upon the Shore of the Promised Land”
According to Warren and Palmer, the ancient Mexican historian Ixtlilxochitl states that his distant ancestors traveled a great distance, living in caves, suffering many hardships, and going through the "Great Tartary" (the steppes of central Asia). Then they crossed the Great Ocean and arrived in America in the area of present day Mexico (Ixtlilxochitl I:16). Most of the early Jaredite history involves either the highlands, now thought to be the valley of Oaxaca, or the lowland Gulf Coast. Ixtlilxochitl appears to state that 104 years after landing, his ancient ancestors were led by their great king, Chichimecatl, to settle by the Gulf of Mexico. That was an area they called "Huehuetlapallan" (Ibid. 41). We know from various documents from ancient Mesoamerica that Huehuetlapallan is located in the area of Central and Southern Veracruz. In time the area was expanded to include the Gulf Coast states of Tabasco and Campeche. [Bruce W. Warren and David A. Palmer, The Jaredite Saga, ch. 6, 7, unpublished]
“They Did Land Upon the Shore of the Promised Land”
According to Joy Osborn, while some scholars have sought to prove that America was settled by peoples who came from Asia, across the Bering Strait, into Alaska and southward--evidence is to the contrary. While a few groups probably came that way, and intermarried into some of the northwestern Indian tribes--the major civilizations on the American continents were established in south and Central America--then moved northward. According to the Book of Mormon, all three of the great civilizations that developed in the Americas were established by people who crossed the seas. Modern-day scholars verify this fact.
Bradford, in American Antiquities, states:
There is one circumstance, which, as respects the civilized nations of Mexico and Central America, seems to be decisive of the question. In the maps of the migrations of these nations, the first journey is generally represented as having been made over some body of water; and indeed there does not appear to be a single well-authenticated tradition among any aboriginal tribes, civilized or barbarous, of a passage by land, while many have preserved a clear account of a prior event, the great deluge, which, in Mexico and Peru at least, is manifestly the same as recorded by Moses. (pp. 227-228)
[Joy M. Osborn, The Book of Mormon -- The Stick of Joseph, pp. 164-165]
“And They Did Land Upon the Shore of the Promised Land”
According to Andrew Skinner, even those modern-day skeptics who most disbelieve maritime theories concerning the ancient peopling of the Americas admit that some early transoceanic voyages are probable due to oceanic currents and prevailing winds. From the work of one writer we read:
The winds and current of the North Pacific trend eastward. Any craft caught helpless in their embrace can easily be carried across the ocean; in fact, there are records to show that, for example, between 1775 and 1875 about twenty Japanese junks were blown, against their will, to the west coast of America and deposited at various points between Alaska and Mexico. If Japanese vessels in the last century, why not Chinese or Indian or Malaysian during all the long centuries that preceded the arrival of Columbus? There must have been a certain number that ended a storm-tossed journey on this side of the Pacific. Perhaps a few of the hardier spirits among their crews risked the long sail back home, but most must have chosen to live on where they landed. Eventually they either died out or became wholly absorbed, leaving behind only tantalizing indirect reminiscences of their presence such as art motifs, pottery shapes, and the like. (Jamake Highwater, Native Land, Sagas of the Indian Americas. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1986, p. 16.)
[Andrew C. Skinner, "Promises Fulfilled," in Studies in Scripture: Book of Mormon, Part 2, p. 264]
Geographical [Theory Map]: Ether 6:12 Jared Lands upon the Shore of the Promised Land (Year )
“They Did Land Upon the Shore of the Promised Land”
According to Randall Spackman, when Jared, his brother, and their families and friends "did land upon the shore of the promised land" (Ether 6:12), they had come to the end of a journey of immense hardship and length. They had trekked and barged more than 5,000 miles across Asia. And then from their temporary home on the East Asian seashore, they had voyaged over 8,000 miles at sea, across an ocean infamous for its typhoons, freezing winter storms, and hurricanes. Finally, they arrived in America, their promised land, full of faith in the goodness of the Lord. [Randall P. Spackman, The Jaredite Journey to America, p. 163, unpublished]
According to Glenn Scott, we do not know what part of the long Pacific coast of the American continent that the Jaredites first sighted, but after 344 days at sea, they must have been desperate to stand on dry ground again.
Charles and Ellen Brush found the earliest evidence (so far) of Mesoamerican civilization in middens (refuse heaps) at Puerto Marques, near Acapulco in the state of Guerrero, on the Pacific coast of Mexico. The evidence is an early type of fiber-tempered ceramic, called Pox pottery. Richard Adams says, "A date on material from the shell midden has been read as about 2900 B.C." . . . Thus, evidence indicates that perhaps the Jaredites "did land upon the shore of the promised land" (Ether 6:12) in the vicinity of Puerto Marques at the southeastern corner of the Bay of Acapulco, a natural bay, one of the few on the west coast of Mexico. In fact this very bay was used as a harbor for Spanish galleons sailing to and from the Far East from A.D. 1531 and for more than 200 years. [Glenn A. Scott, Voices from the Dust, p. 43]
“And They Did Land Upon the Shore of the Promised Land”
Vine Deloria Jr. is an outspoken Native American activist. He is a member of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe of North Dakota, a former executive director of the National Congress of American Indians, and a professor of history at the University of Colorado at Boulder. In a 1992 paper in the academic journal American Antiquity, Deloria chastised the archaeological and anthropological establishment for embracing the monocultural implications of the Bering Strait hypothesis. "This migration from Siberia," he wrote, "is regarded as doctrine, but basically it is a fictional doctrine that places American Indians outside the realm of planetary human experiences." . . . "There's no effort to ask the tribes what they remember of things that happened." . . . "Numerous tribes do say that strange people doing this or that came through our land, visited us, and so on. Or they remember that we came across the Atlantic as refugees from some struggle . . . and so forth. There's a great reluctance among archaeologists and anthropologists to break centuries-old doctrine and to take a look at something new." . . . "There's the Stephen Jay Gould attitude out there . . . that believes science can do whatever it wants unless it comforts religion--because religion is considered a mere superstition. But if you look at it, most things that they're calling religious are not really religious. They're oral traditions; they're ancient memory." If mainstream archaeologists and anthropologists are unwilling or unable to consider evidence of this type, Deloria suggests, perhaps they're not the right ones for the job. . . ."As for the history of this hemisphere from, say, five thousand B.C. forward to our time, the mainstream scholars just don't want to deal with that at all." [Marc K. Stengel, "The Diffusionists Have Landed" in Atlantic Monthly, January 2000, 35-48. Reprinted with permission by FARMS]
“They Did Land Upon the Shore of the Promised Land”
Moroni writes that the Jaredites "did land upon the shore of the promised land" (Ether 6:12), but what was the date of that momentous event? According to Glenn Scott, there is substantial evidence that the date was August 13, 3114 B.C. Why August 13, 3114 B.C.? This was the zero date of the Olmec/Maya Long-count calendar. Pottery has been found in the very area in which the Jaredites must have landed (near Acapulco in the state of Guerrero, Mexico). This pottery is the earliest evidence of Mesomamerican civilization found so far, dated within 200+ years of that zero date. It closely fits the chronology table (see illustration). What could have been more appropriate than for them to commemorate the first day of a new life, in a new land, than by making it the first day of a new calendar? Michael Coe has written:
The Long-count calendar was a refinement, by the Maya, of a much older Calendar Round of 52 years, used by all Mesoamerican peoples and undeniably of very great age. It is generally agreed that the Long-count calendar was developed after the inception of the Calendar Round, but by how many centuries of millennia archaeologists are not sure. Since the oldest Long-count dates appear on monuments outside the Maya area it can be concluded that it had reached its final form by the first century B.C., among people who were under powerful Olmec influence . . . probably not the Maya.
[Glenn A. Scott, Voices from the Dust: New Light on an Ancient American Record, pp. 43-44]
Ether 6:12 They did land upon the shore of the promised land (Chronology) [[Illustration]]: Projected Schedule of Dates from the Flood to the New World. [Glenn A. Scott, Voices from the Dust: New Light on an Ancient American Record, p. 14]
Geographical [Theory Map]: Ether 6:13 Jared Goes Forth Upon the Face of the Land (Year )