Meridian Magazine :: Science and Religion :: The Entrance to Zarahemla

While there are elements of the material from Enos to Omni that are also elucidated by this interpretive framework, the next strong connection to Mesoamerican culture comes with the flight of Mosiah I and his followers into the land of Zarahemla. The history of Zarahemla involves another cultural area of Mesoamerica. In the ethnohistory of Mesoamerica, the Olmec were the dominant politico-cultural influence prior to the rise of the Maya city-states. As with all generalizations, however, the transition from Olmec to Maya was not abrupt in either time or space. The land that lay between the homeland of the Olmec and Maya created a political and cultural buffer zone between the two major cultural groups. This buffer zone is precisely the area where the Limited Tehuantepec theory places the land of Zarahemla. The land of Zarahemla is a meeting place for two Book of Mormon peoples, both apparently fleeing their homelands. For the Nephites, Mosiah I and his group arrive from the land of Nephi. For the Mulekites, they have apparently recently arrived, traveling away from their more ancestral homeland.¹⁶

From the approximate time of the Mulekite landing to the founding of Zarahemla we have on the order of three hundred years ¹⁷ during which the ancestors of the Zarahemlaites were somewhere in between their landing area and the location of Zarahemla. The land through which they passed matches well with the Olmec homelands in the Gulf of Mexico. These are the same lands that match well with the homeland of the Book of Mormon Jaredites. The sojourn of the people of Zarahemla in the Olmec/Jaredite lands provides ample explanation for the corruption of their language and the loss of their God reported in Omni.¹⁸ The probable cultural and historical ties between the people of Zarahemla and the Jaredites (who appear to have been in the Olmec area) comes from both the presence of Jaredite names in Zarahemla and the presence of at least one important Jaredite, Coriantumr.¹⁹

Linguistic Evidences

The proposed location of Zarahemla in the Limited Tehuantepec theory of the Book of Mormon places Zarahemla directly in the borderlands between the Maya and Olmec. The new research on the linguistics of this area may have interesting implications for the Book of Mormon. The best candidate for the language of the Olmecs is Mixe-Zoque, a reconstructed language that fits the geographical distribution of Olmec culture, and the glottal-chronological time depth.²⁰ This was first proposed in the 1970s, and has since been widely accepted. After the time of the Olmecs, the proto-language split into two branches, the Mixe and the Zoque, each of which still occupies the greater geographic area of the Olmec homeland.

In the excitement concerning the translation of the Maya glyphs, there has been much less attention paid to other glyphic scripts. There are possible attestations of two to three separate glyphic writing systems in Mesoamerica, but none have the large number of texts that the Maya glyphs enjoy. One of the systems, however, is represented on a stela recently made public which contains over 540 glyphs. It is the largest single text of a non-Mayan writing system, and it has been termed Epi-Olmec; "Olmec" because of the geographical location of the texts, and "epi" because the texts post-date the archaeological Olmec.²¹ The stela dates to approximately 160 A.D., and it reads in Zoquean.

The implication for Book of Mormon studies is the geography and cultural associations of this separate glyphic system. A shard with the Epi-Olmec writing system was found in Chiapa de Corzo, ²² a candidate for Sidom in Sorenson's correlation. This suggests that it is also likely that Zarahemla (Santa Rosa in Sorenson's correlation) would also fall on the Epi-Olmec fringe. Of course that fits with Zarahemla as a site with Olmec/Jaredite influences. This suggests that the land of Zarahemla should have cultural associations with the Olmec area, that they would have had a writing system, and that the common spoken language by 160 A.D. would have been Zoque. The presence of widespread Zoquen in 160 A.D. also suggests that it would have been present earlier, and we may presume with reasonable probability that Zoque was the language of the people of Zarahemla when the Nephites arrived, and that it remained the dominant language thereafter. Even if we presume that Old World Hebrew survived as the language of the Nephites to the point of contact with Zarahemla around 200 years before Christ (a point that is certainly debatable) the available evidence suggests that the common language of the area after that point in time would have been a Mesoamerican language. The retention of Hebrew would have been relegated to formal situations, rather analogous to the fate of Latin.

Mesoamerican Religious Evidences

In addition to language and writing systems, the cultural heritage of Zarahemla would have included the religion of the Olmec region. We may see some of the religious clash between the Nephite gospel and the Mesoamerican religion of the Zarahemlaites in the contentions to which Mormon refers for Benjamin's political struggles.²³ One of the passages that may receive a greater explication from the Mesoamerican context is found in Words of Mormon 1:15. Mormon indicates that there had been false Christs among the people.

While we cannot be certain of the meaning of this phrase, the presence of multiple "false Christs" in a culture undergoing a conflict between a new and an old religious system at least suggests that the false Christs may be related to this religious conflict. The Nephites considered Christ as their God, and a false Christ would be a man impersonating that deity. This is the precise definition of the Mesoamerican concept of god-impersonators. We find both Olmec and Maya depicted in the garb of various deities. Among the later Aztecs, these god-impersonators were known as the ixiptla. It is not difficult to imagine the internal contentions revolving around the retention or rejection of the old religion. Whether the god-impersonators were attempting to continue the old gods, or attempting to merge the religious form of the old religion with the new, the god-impersonators of that old religion are direct conceptual matches for the false Christs Mormon describes. This particular interpretation of the false Christs as god-impersonators explains why there are multiple false Christs, why they become an issue at precisely this time (early in the merger between the Zarahemlaites and the Nephites), and why we should have false Christs appearing in a community where only the smaller number of people had a tradition of a belief in Christ at all.

This same conceptual background of the attempt to establish a new Nephite religion in a people steeped in an ancient Mesoamerican tradition also provides a richer context for the preamble to Benjamin's famous speech. One of Benjamin's first statements to his people is that: "I have not commanded you to come up hither that ye should fear me, or that ye should think that I of myself am more than a mortal man. But I am like as yourselves, subject to all manner of infirmities in body and mind..."²⁴ In the context of a people who would have believed in a king who was the embodiment of a god, as was common in Mesoamerican religions, this opening contrast to their past experience is remarkably appropriate.

Mesoamerican Political Evidences

King Benjamin's next set of remarks also fits this view of a people in conflict over the nature of religion and kings when he begins his catalog of the kind of king he has not been.²⁵ Why does Benjamin emphasize the negative side of the positive things he has done? The common context for a listing of what one has not done implies the possibility that they could have been done. The easiest suggestion is that Benjamin is continuing to differentiate himself from the other kings they may have known, either in their own past, or in the cultures with which they had contact. Above and beyond these points the cultural and archaeological confluence surrounding Benjamin's speech is impressive, including such aspects as timing, the building of the tower, and the emphasis on the evils of social segregation.

The end of the reign of Mosiah II is the conclusion of the reign of the kings among the Nephites. The transition from kings to judges had several parallels in Mesoamerican political systems. It is important to understand that the roots of the shift from a monarchic to a more communal government structure were already in place in the Book of Mormon prior to Mosiah's abolition of the monarchy. The "voice of the people" was a communal mechanism that even acted to confirm kingship.²⁶

The change from a king to a more communal system of judges was clearly seen in Chichen Itza near the end of the classic period.²⁷ While not as conclusive as the Chichen Itza case, the argument for an oligarchic political structure at Teotihuacán is very strong.²⁸ Just as with the Book of Mormon case, the structures that allowed this power shift away from single kings to a more communal rule were already in place and functioning in the monarchies. Ethnohistorical sources tell us that Maya communities had a popol nah, or a "mat house."

The "mat house" was a community location where the "lords convened, where all important community matters were discussed, and where disputes were adjudicated."²⁹ These communal locations for the convening of lords and judging disputes provide a direct parallel to the Nephite judge system. The shift from king to judges would have been as natural a change for the Nephites in Zarahemla as it was for the people of Chichen Itza, and probably Teotihuacán. For the Maya, there are tantalizing hints in some of the glyphic material that this process began even during the reign of some kings,³⁰ with some kings being required to share power, and the glory in stone, with these lordly judges.

The unique Mesoamerican political systems provide further definitions that inform our understanding of events in the Book of Mormon. One place where there is a clear consonance with Mesoamerican politics, and an equally clear dissonance with Joseph Smith's worldview, is found in the account of the Ammon's missionary efforts among the Lamanites. In Alma 20 we have the converted king Lamoni accompanying Ammon on a visit to the king of land of Middoni. On the way they meet Lamoni's father who is the king over all of the Lamanite lands. This first situation is foreign to the typical western European concept of kings. Kings might rule over lords, and emperors over kings, but we do not expect a king over kings. This concept is so engrained in our Western thinking that the title of King of Kings is immediately applied to Christ and to none other. Nevertheless, we have precisely this situation in Mesoamerica, most powerfully attested with the translation of the glyphs that outline the political over-lordship of such places as Tikal and Calakmul and many others.

On top of the dead-on accuracy of a king over kings in the Lamanite territory, we have another somewhat unusual set of circumstances for which there is a clear Mesoamerican precedent. Lamoni and Ammon are traveling together so that Lamoni could help persuade a king with whom he is friendly to release Ammon's brethren. It is very important to understand that we are not likely to be speaking here of friends in the modern sense of the word. They may certainly be friendly, but these are two kings, and rule over different cities. In the Mesoamerican context where we are placing the events of the Book of Mormon, such a "friend" is an ally. City-states in Mesoamerica were frequently at war with other cities. Alliances were forged and broken. Among the allied kings, however, there were frequently formal visits to allied cities that had strong political overtones.³¹ Thus, when Lamoni declares Antiomno as a friend, he is more probably indicating that this is an ally with whom there are some mutual expectations. The arrival of the king from one city in another was an occasion that in later years would be sufficiently significant to commission a record in stone. This is no casual meeting of friends who went bowling together every Tuesday--this was a formal exchange of state. It is in this very formal setting that we must understand the nature of the "flattery" that Lamoni suggested that he use to free Ammon's brethren. This is very much a political negotiation, and one that was to be handled with some delicacy, as Lamoni would be asking a king to reverse a decision to imprison the Nephites.

The nature of Mesoamerican inter-site visits also explains Lamoni's father's visit to Lamoni. We are told that he comes because Lamoni did not attend a designated feast in the over-king's city. Without a cultural context in which to see this event, we simply have an irritated father coming to chastise a son. In the context of the important political balance associated with Mesoamerican inter-site visits, we have the over-king investigating a possible defection from his coalition.

The last odd circumstance of this occasion is the one-to-one battle of the over-king and Ammon. This event should not happen in the canons of Western thought. It is unthinkable for a king to travel without an army to do his fighting for him. We do not know whether or not such an army was with Lamoni's father, but they certainly do not enter into this conflict. We have a man clearly old enough to have an enthroned son, and he is giving hand-to-hand battle with Ammon. It is in Mesoamerican canons of conflict that we find our most reasonable context for this event. In Mesoamerica, great emphasis was placed on the personal performance of the ruler in warfare, an emphasis sufficiently great that there are records of relatively aged kings presenting their captives.³² In a system which expects military prowess of its kings, and which exalts the captives of the kings in stone as did the Classic Maya cities, this personal confrontation has a comfortable home.

The Mesoamerican Cult of War

Mesoamerican politics and religion conjoin to provide a new backdrop for yet another story from the Book of Mormon that is problematic without such a context. One of the more famous stories from the Book of Mormon is the inspiring courage of the Anti-Nephi-Lehies who lay down their lives for the gospel rather than pick up arms against their brethren, told in Alma 24. This is a great story, but it is replete with problems. The greatest problem that the story presents is the tremendous contrast between the apparent exaltation of pacifism in this story and the very clear contradiction of that principle in the rest of the Book of Mormon. How is it that pacifism should be so important for the Anti-Nephi-Lehies, but unimportant for the Nephites, who readily take up arms in self-defense? How is it that the principle should be so strong for only a single generation of Anti-Nephi-Lehies, since their sons will take up arms in defense of their new country?

The story is further complicated by the aftermath of the slaughter of the innocents, because, according to Mormon, the Amulonites and Amalekites are still bloodthirsty and desirous to kill, so they leave the land of Nephi and attack and destroy the city of Ammonihah (this story is contained in both Alma 25 and Alma 16). The story of the sacking of Ammonihah as a result of the attack on the Anti-Nephi-Lehies in the city of Nephi makes little sense as suggested. Ammonihah lies deep in the land of Zarahemla, and only a long coastal march and a surprise attack through the mountain passes into the valley would allow the attack at all. This is an attack that appears to accomplish very little, as the Lamanites make no attempt to secure the area, nor to extract any tribute. Indeed, the only things we know for certain that the Lamanites took from Ammonihah were a sating of a possible blood-thirst and some captives. That is a very long way to go for a drink, even if it is of blood-fury.

The Mesoamerican context can supply the meaning behind each of these perplexing issues. The particular Mesoamerican feature that provides the backdrop for the events related to the Anti-Nephi Lehies is the cult of war. The recent translations of the glyphic texts serve to highlight the degree to which the cult of war permeated Maya society, even in the late Pre-Classic that is the time period for the Book of Mormon.

The cult of war glorified combat and capture. The function of warfare was multiple, with the expansion of influence being only one of the purposes. The glyphs tell of shifting political influence of major city-states as they gain or lose influence over other city-states. Combined with this territorial and economic purpose, however, was a religious one. The cult of war fed on captives, and particularly the sacrifice of captives. Mesoamerican religion was seldom far from human sacrifice, and the cult of war literally fed the sacrificial rites of the victors.

With this understanding of the politico-religious mindset of the Maya culture in which the Lamanites undoubtedly participated, we can understand the problem of the Anti-Nephi-Lehies, who were the Lamanites converted in the mission of the sons of Mosiah. Their king, himself given the throne name of Anti-Nephi-Lehi, exclaims:

And behold, I thank my great God that he has given us a portion of his Spirit to soften our hearts, that we have opened a correspondence with these brethren, the Nephites. And behold, I also thank my God, that by opening this correspondence we have been convinced of our sins, and of the many murders which we have committed. And I also thank my God, yea, my great God, that he hath granted unto us that we might repent of these things, and also that he hath forgiven us of those our many sins and murders which we have committed, and taken away the guilt from our hearts, through the merits of his Son.

And now behold, my brethren, since it has been all that we could do, (as we were the most lost of all mankind) to repent of all our sins and the many murders which we have committed, and to get God to take them away from our hearts, for it was all we could do to repent sufficiently before God that he would take away our stain--Now, my best beloved brethren, since God hath taken away our stains, and our swords have become bright, then let us stain our swords no more with the blood of our brethren.³³

Note that the particular sin is murder. It is a sin that all of the people of Anti-Nephi-Lehi apparently accept, even the women and children over a certain age. When had they committed murder? In battle, the casualties are rarely termed murder, and even should we accept that these deaths in battle constituted murder, what of the women and the older children? Why were they under the same condemnation, but the younger children were not?

The answer lies in both the Mesoamerican politico-religious context of the cult of war, and the phrase "since it has been all that we could do, (as we were the most lost of all mankind)." This was a people whose conception of the world was built around the idea that human blood was required by the gods for the continuation of the world. It is hard for modern readers to understand the depth of change that it would entail for someone with that worldview to change to an acceptance of the gospel. It required not only a change of religion, but a change of science and a change of cosmology. Their very understanding of the mechanics of the universe had to change. No wonder it was so hard for them to change. Seeing the world through the eyes of the gospel, it is no wonder that they would have seen the human sacrifices of the cult of war as murders, and that their participation in that religion and worldview would have stained all, even the women and the children old enough to have been indoctrinated into this worldview. When the Anti-Nephi-Lehies lay down their arms, it is not out of any principle of pacifism, but one of fear of rescission to their old ways. Like reformed alcoholics, their best chance to maintain their new convictions was to stay far away from the feelings and attitudes of the old way.

Not only does the cult of war explain the actions of the Anti-Nephi-Lehies, it also explains the attack on Ammonihah. To understand this attack, we need two more pieces of information. The first comes from the Book of Mormon. In Alma 24:20 we learn the reason for the Lamanite attack on the city of Nephi: "And it came to pass that their brethren, the Lamanites, made preparations for war, and came up to the land of Nephi for the purpose of destroying the king, and to place another in his stead, and also of destroying the people of Anti-Nephi-Lehi out of the land." This is not simply a battle of hatred against the converts, but a political coup. The Lamanites are part of the coalition of the over-king in the city of Nephi, and they have rebelled against their over-lord. They are now coming to overthrow that king, and to establish their own king over the conquered land and re-established hegemony.

The attempt on the city of Nephi is obviously successful, though Mormon is quite uninterested in the political ramifications of this event. With no resistance from the Anti-Nephi-Lehies, nor the king, the overthrow of the over-king was assured. Indeed, the next we see the people of Anti-Nephi-Lehi, they are seeking refuge in the land of Zarahemla. Clearly they have lost their place, and the king has been deposed. It is at this point that the story of Ammonihah becomes critical to the events. It is at this point that we need our second piece of information.

In Mesoamerica, the installation of a king was a time that specifically required the sacrifice of captives taken in battle. With the passive resistance of the Anti-Nephi-Lehies, there was no glorious battle from which to take captives, and about which to tell stories. Nevertheless, the installation of the king absolutely required captives. The glyphs frequently note the conquest of some minor city that provided the captives for a new king's installation. Needing captives, and an easy victory, the Lamanites make a lightning raid on an unsuspecting Nephite city, and take back with them the captives needed for the regal seating. The particular facets of the Mesoamerican politico-religious system provide a powerful interpretive tool for all of the problematic aspects of the story of the Anti-Nephi-Lehies. Even the burial of the Anti-Nephi-Lehies' weapons finds a parallel in the Mesoamerican practice of caching offerings to the gods. The motivation for the burial of the weapons is absolutely religious, and absolutely a gesture of dedication of to God.

Summary

To this point we have examined multiple instances in the Book of Mormon that may be illuminated by an understanding of the Mesoamerican culture that is the plausible time and place for these events. What do these incidents mean? They surely do not constitute a proof that the Book of Mormon took place in this plausible location. It is just possible that the correlations are the result of "seeing the Book of Mormon behind every corner." The precaution against such a conclusion is that each of the correlations depends upon a very specific set of controls for time, place, and complexity. These are not single instances compared to a vague cultural content. They are multiple specific instances that correlate to a complete picture of a culture that is known for that time and space.

Regardless of the plausible apologetic explanations, the presence of horses, chariots, goats and other apparent anachronisms give fine fodder to those who would declare the book to be a product of Joseph Smith's times. However, a good interpretive scheme must handle a large amount of the evidence of the text. Weak interpretive schemes will pull data at random from time and space. Weak interpretive schemes will account for one or two aspects of the text, but will be incapable of accounting for others. In the Mesoamerican cultural background, we have evidence of a productive interpretive scheme where large amounts of complex and interrelated material may be explained with a single framework.

If we take the competing interpretive frameworks for the Book of Mormon, the environmentalist and the historicist interpretations, we must admit that each has points where that scheme works. The issue is not whether or not there are some points where an interpretive framework actually work, but the quantity and quality of the explanations that framework supplies for the text. Without attempting a polemic with the environmentalist position at this point, I submit that the incidences noted in this discussion fit the category of complex and interrelated. These are not simple instances of parallels, but sets of parallels that require interlocking conditions. They are parallels that do not rely upon gross features, but upon fine details, and the parallels between socio-cultural pressures reveal similar problems in the Book of Mormon and Mesoamerican society during the same time frames.

Examples such as these suggest to me that the most powerful interpretive framework for the Book of Mormon is that it is an ancient text which took place in the area of the world we know as Mesoamerica, during the same time periods as the book itself suggests.

Notes

¹⁶ Omni 1:14 tells us that Zarahemla, probably the man for whom the city was named, was still alive when Mosiah I arrives.

¹⁷ Based on the arrival of the Nephites in Zarahemla after the events in Omni 1:5.

²⁰ Lyle Campbell and Terrence Kaufman, "A Lintuistic Look at the Olmecs," American Antiquity 41 (1976): 80-88.

²¹ The seminal article on the translation of this stela is: John Justeson and Terrence Kaufman, "Un desciframiento de la escritura jeroglifica epi-oilmeca: metodos y resultados," Antiquity 8 (1992): 15-25.

²³ See Words of Mormon 1:13-18. Note that the religious problems appear after the expulsion of the Lamanites.

²⁷ David Drew, The Lost Chronicles of the Maya Kings, (Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 1999), 356.

²⁸ George L. Cowgill, "State and Society at Teotihuacan, Mexico," The Ancient Civilizations of Mesoamerica, (Boston: Blackwell Publishers, 2000), 315.

²⁹ William L. Fash and David S. Stuart, "Dynastic History and Cultural Evolution at Copan," Classic Maya Political History (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 171. See also Schele and Mathews, The Code of Kings, 269.

³⁰ Simon Martin and Nikolai Grube, Chronicle of the Maya Kings and Queens, (New York: Thames and Hudson, 2000), 99. See the comments on K'an III.

³¹ See Linda Schele and Peter Mathews, "Royal Visits and other Intersite Relationships," Classic Maya Political History (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Cambridge University Press, 1991).

³² Arthur A. Demarest, "Ideology in Ancient Maya Cultural Evolution: The Dynamics of Galactic Polities," The Ancient Civilizations of Mesoamerica, (Boston: Blackwell Publishers, 2000), 289.