long ago ideas

“When we are tired, we are attacked by ideas we conquered long ago." - Friedrich Nietzsche Long ago, Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery conquered false claims that the Book of Mormon was fiction or that it came through a stone in a hat. But these old claims have resurfaced in recent years. To conquer them again, we have to return to what Joseph and Oliver taught.

Friday, March 11, 2022

Lehi's Land Bountiful in Oman

Two weeks ago I was in Salalah, Oman, to take a look at one of the candidates for Lehi's land Bountiful in Arabia. 

The discussion on wikipedia is an excellent summary:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bountiful_(Book_of_Mormon)

I discussed this on the Mormon Book Reviews youtube channel, here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCR4n8jie1E

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I think Khor Rori makes the most sense, but reasonable people can reach different conclusions. The area around Salalah and Khor Rori has plenty of water and abundant honey, fruit, etc. Even when we visited in February, well into the dry season, waterfalls were running. 

Nephi explained that "Now I, Nephi, did not work the timbers after the manner which was learned by men, neither did I build the ship after the manner of men; but I did build it after the manner which the Lord had shown unto me; wherefore, it was not after the manner of men." (1 Nephi 18:2)

As I read this, I picture Nephi employing people to help build the ship, people who kept saying "this isn't how we build ships." But Nephi did not emulate their work. That's why his ship was able to cross the Atlantic to America. 

It's also interesting that, ss the wikipedia page on Khor Rori explains, the site was not known to the western world until it was discovered in 1895.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khor_Rori

The explanation at the visitor's center is a nice depiction of how I see Lehi's ship departing:

(click to enlarge photos)

The cliffs on both sides of the harbor are natural, as you can see in some of the other photos I showed in the video on Mormon Book Reviews:

Wadi Darbat in the mountains north of Khor Rori, the source for the river the flows out to the sea.

Khor Rori viewed from the mountains

The ruins at Khor Rori

Ruins in the foreground

Display of ship


Our guide


The ancient trade routes.


It's easy to see how Lehi would have sailed south
along the east coast of Africa before sailing west to America,
as Isaiah described in Isaiah 18:1.

Overview of location of Oman

Seaside cliffs

Our guide





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