Setting the Stage, 600 B.C.
43 One thing we’ve got to make just a short remark about here is the evidence for the Book of Mormon. They talk so much about archaeological evidence; that always comes up where the Book of Mormon is mentioned. If you want proof of the Book of Mormon, you must go to the Old World. You won’t find it in the New World. You can see why. In the Old World we have massive, legible sources. Remember, the vitally important first book of Nephi all takes place in the Old World; it doesn’t take place in Central America or anywhere else, except in the Old World. Of course, New World archaeology won’t cut anything because it covers this vast area of the Western Hemisphere, and we have only an infinitesimal sampling. Nobody knows what was going on a thousand years ago in this hemisphere; they haven’t the vaguest idea. Moreover, archaeology gives no specific answers anyway; you have to speculate about them. The greatest archaeological progress and programs for centuries were in Egypt. That’s where they started digging already in the Middle Ages because it fascinated them. So for hundreds of years archaeology has been at work in Egypt. Twenty years ago everything we had found out about it was thrown away. Through the years they had built up a standard, accepted account (the approved school solution) of what happened in Egypt—how the kingdoms of the North and the South conflicted, then came together and were united in the crowns. That isn’t so at all. The things we regarded as the most basic Egyptian history (the result of ages of archaeology and immense expense) don’t hold up at all anymore.
43,44 Well, we must get on here, but not until we have looked more curiously at a few things that the authors of the Book of Mormon want us to see. A syllabus is a list of things that should be studied. Usually, you end up by studying the syllabus. You study the things you have to, and you are eager to get on from one point to the next, etc. But how do you study these things in the Book of Mormon? The teacher has just one purpose: to save the students time. I can save you a lot of time (here’s where we get the books on the shelf). You could have discovered these things for yourselves, but it would take you much more time. We are constantly reminded in the Book of Mormon that they have cut things down, that things have been very carefully edited and reduced to only the things most vital that the authors want us to have. It is a digest of a vast amount of records that they have gone through and edited for our benefit. They are going to save us time, so I invite you to look up the things that interest you. There will be books on reserve for this class. It’s foolish, but most of the things for the time being will be mine because they are the things I’ve been talking about. That’s where you find them. Oh, there are others, but the Book of Mormon itself is what you need to learn. This is a strange class on a strange subject. It’s not like anything else; this is the point. It’s a crash course, an emergency course. It’s what they call a “quickie course” in the army. We haven’t got long to learn; we haven’t got long to go. If you had seen the newspaper this morning, you might say, “Great guns, what’s happening now!” This is so. The situation is very urgent today. It’s not like it has been at other times.
44 Where do you research in the Book of Mormon? This is the point: you must research in yourself. I’m not talking in the abstract sense; I’m talking in the historical sense here. Actually, you must see yourself in the book. That’s one thing students have always been able to do very easily. They can find themselves in the book. The Arab students always identified themselves with Nephi. Boy, he was their man. The Book of Mormon was their book, and Nephi was their hero. They were all for him. But you do find it in yourself. The Book of Mormon is unique, and it has been a great converter. It has been irresistible. It has done more than all the missionaries put together because it involves the reader like no other book. You do identify with it; it grabs you if you read it carefully. You don’t even have to read it carefully. So many people are impressed on first reading it.
45,46 Consider the circumstances under which the Book of Mormon was composed—the tremendous work that has gone into it over centuries. Then an angel bothered to bring it down and personally hand it over. Then Joseph Smith risked life and limb right from the beginning because of the Book of Mormon. Since we are told how carefully it has been edited, with a particular audience in mind, we must assume that every sentence in it has significance for us. They couldn’t afford to waste anything. So, we get going. Here’s a saying of Joseph Smith that I like (two of them): “The things of God are of deep import, and time and experience and careful, ponderous, solemn thoughts can only find them out.” Who is engaging today in careful, ponderous, and solemn thoughts?. “Thy mind, oh man, must stretch as high as the utmost heaven. The Saints ought to lay hold of every door, obtain a foothold on earth, and make all preparations within their power for the terrible storms that are now gathering in the heavens. The angels of heaven have taken council together. They have passed some decisions. These decisions will be made known in their time.”
46 So the Book of Mormon is our guide for these particular times, and it is essential to know, for example, that this was Jerusalem where it began. It was the first year of King Zedekiah when it began. There we have a specific time and place. As soon as we get to the New World, it is wide open. Anybody’s Book of Mormon geography will go, and they just argue forever about Book of Mormon geography, which is worthless. I wouldn’t touch that—never have touched Book of Mormon geography. There’s no point to it whatever— except they move north, they move south, they meet somebody, etc. But we do know specifically where this was (it was Jerusalem) and when it was (the first year of Zedekiah). This launches us on a sure footing. We know who installed Zedekiah.
47 As we mentioned before, in the year 600 B.C., the pivotal year, everything turned on its hinges and there was an entirely new world. The sacral kingship went out of the window, and there was revolution everywhere. Suddenly, the founders of most of the world’s great religions appeared. They are all strictly contemporary with Lehi. This book is An Approach to the Book of Mormon, and it has a chapter on this. We can read some things from here, “Lehi counted among his contemporaries not only the greatest first names in science, politics and business, but also the most illustrious religious founders known to history: Gautama Buddha, Confucius, Laotze, Vardhaman Mahavira (the founder of Jainism), [we had a Jainist in the class a while back], Zarathustra, and Pythagoras were all of Lehi’s day.” The top men, they were never exceeded, and they founded these religions. So you can see it was going to be a new world. They were all contemporary with Lehi (did they know Lehi?). This reminds us of another situation. In Lehi’s day was when the Seven Wise Men lived. The Greeks talk about them, and they were all contemporaries of Lehi. These were wise men who had been rich and successful in the manner of Lehi and all left their homes to wander in the world, looking for wisdom. There are all sorts of stories about them. Once a year they would come together at a banquet feast and share their ideas and discoveries. They were seeking only for wisdom. They were the Sophoi, the wise men. They were succeeded by the Sophists, phony wise men who completely took over the scene a little while after by cultivating the art of rhetoric (that’s something else). But the wise men were contemporary with Lehi.
50 Since we mentioned that idea of evidence in archaeology, one thing is very important here in this particular regard—the general nature of the ruins found in Central America and elsewhere. Robert Heine-Geldern started out studying the archaeology of Southeast Asia— the great temples, Angkor Wat, etc. Then he saw the great resemblance to those in Central America, and he became an American archaeologist. He started comparing them. Then he went back to the Near East and compared them. He calls attention to the often stunning resemblance (you’ve noticed this yourself) between the exotic remains of Cambodia, India, Mexico, and Guatemala. They look very much alike.
51 “But there is something seriously wrong here for the whole Southeast Asian complex doesn’t arise until the ninth and tenth centuries after Christ [that’s a thousand years after the Nephites disappeared; what are we going to get here?] so they could not have inspired the American cult centers, built a thousand years earlier.” Krickenberg says on page 572, “The only explanation is to look for a common source somewhere, [they look alike because they came from the same place] which Heine-Geldern finds in the Near East [at a much earlier time, of course, both in its American and Asiatic forms].” They were both brought from the Near East; that’s why they look alike. They came from the same center, and it was the Near East. That happens to be where the Book of Mormon people came from.
51 Now, this is the thing I was getting at about the culture, religion, etc. “If the people came from Asia, there’s a puzzling lack in the New World of Asiatic cultivated plants and domestic animals from the Old World. There is the absence of the plow, the potter’s wheel, the bellows [all the essential implements of culture they should have brought with them] glass, iron, stringed instruments, the true arts.” They didn’t bring any of that with them. What is wrong? Well, they did bring something entirely different with them, and this is why these places look so much like ceremonial centers. There is a religious center in everything. “This is more than outbalanced by the more important cultural items, such as political patterns, cosmology, art, religion, symbolism, and ceremonial architecture. They are alike, far too much alike in the two hemispheres to be explained by the recent and farfetched theory of convergence. How to explain a super-abundance of one type of cultural accoutrements, along with a complete deficiency in the other kind of stuff.” Well, it’s the kind of people who made the migration; that’s it. So this is what Heine-Geldern concludes here: “The solution is the type of migration indicated. The people who crossed the sea were not artisans or technicians ... [the kind that were spreading all around the Mediterranean at that time].” We have their poems, their diaries, etc. from Lehi’s time—the great time of colonization and business expansion. No, these were people of a religious and intellectual, a priestly persuasion. What is indicated, according to Heine-Geldern is “a carefully planned and prepared undertaking, primarily with missionary goals, a religious group of people that fled across the sea.” That’s what their centers are. What was the first thing Lehi did when he landed? He built a replica of the temple. It was small and didn’t have as much expensive stuff in it, but it was a temple. They planted that Near Eastern culture right here as soon as they got here and made a replica of Solomon’s Temple, as the Jews were doing. So it’s an interesting cultural pattern we have here in the Book of Mormon.
52 In Lehi’s day, as I said, the barriers broke down. It was wide open; it was another swarming time. Samuel N. Kramer has written the best study of that subject, a monograph on “The Swarming Time.” In the year 3,000, in 1,700, in 1,200, and 700 B.C. everything turned. Also in 300, 800 (the Vikings), and A.D. 1,200 it happened again. I’ve written a number of articles on that. When we get to the Jaredites (as we surely shall in a couple of weeks), we will talk about that sort of thing. This is what happens when society breaks down. It’s a matter of survival, and everybody scatters. They move as tribes and as individuals; things break up. It’s a heroic age.
52,53 So things are stirred up in Palestine all the time, and they are mixed and blended. Now, the point is, where is security? Who is in charge around here? We talked about tyrants. If anyone could get the power, it was his. But who wasn’t corruptible; who didn’t have a price? Who could you count on? There are just two great men we think of whom you could count on. They probably knew each other, and they were Solon and Lehi (the immortal Solon). Solon left Athens in 595 B.C., five years after Lehi left Jerusalem, for the same reason. We talked about the Seven Wise Men. Well, Solon was always considered to be wisest of the Seven Wise Men. He became archon of Athens in 600 B.C., so this puts him in the same bracket with Lehi. Moreover, his family had lost their wealth. He was too honest. He went into the business of trading in olive oil and pottery. He would sail back to the Levant and visit places like Sidon (he loved to travel). It used to be common in the newspapers to designate members of Congress as Solons (there’s real irony in that). We mustn’t forget this: he is the father of modern democracy. He gave us the first democratic state, and it stuck. The great Solon, the wisest of the Greeks, gets the credit for founding Western democracy. So we have Solon and Lehi, and what a man this Solon was.
54,55 Now here we are in Lehi’s world. [Quoting Professor Linforth]”The general character of the seventh and sixth centuries is well known. It was an age of colonization.” This is just the time, you see, for Lehi to set out. He would have in his baggage the whole equipment of the culture. Right at the beginning, Nephi reminds us he was well educated. His parents insisted that he learn Egyptian and all this. So they were in a position to take with them across the ocean all they would need to get a new culture launched. And other people were doing the same thing. One single, concrete thing had an incalculable influence, the invention of coined money [right at Lehi’s time; it has the same influence in the Book of Mormon]. The fundamental transformation in human society wrought by the invention of money is sufficiently well known. With these general characteristics of the age in mind, we can see what probably took place.”
57 So the Book of Mormon starts out one hundred percent with a completely authentic ring to the situation and the setting. If you were composing it, is that how you would have started it out? Would you have put all those nice little details in it? Where are we now—the fourth verse of the first chapter? Oh, we are just moving right along here.