The following comes from the Interpreter Foundation.

When comparing the Heartland geography to the Mesoamerican geography I use the version Jonathan Neville proposed in his book Moroni’s America.[1] I use John L. Sorenson’s map for the Mesoamerican setting. There were some small but important changes between his 1984 An Ancient American Setting of the Book of Mormon and the 2013 Mormon’s Codex: An Ancient American Book. I prefer the more recent version’s location for the Mulekite landing (east coast rather than west coast). Although other models exist for both the Heartland and Mesoamerican models, these two are well-elaborated and perhaps more widely accepted.

A major difference between Sorenson and Neville lies in the way they interpret some of the important topological terms in the Book of Mormon: up and down. Neville explains: “Brother Sorenson often infers that “up” and “down” mean an ascent or descent of mountainous terrain. While that is a plausible interpretation, my assumptions on this regard differ slightly. I think those terms more likely mean simply moving with or against a river current.”[2]

Compare Neville’s suggestion to what Sorenson states in his book Mormon’s Map: “The expressions ‘up,’ ‘down,’ and ‘over,’ when used in a geographical context, refer to elevation. It turns out that they are used consistently and make sense in terms of elevation.”[3] Neville starts off on the wrong foot by misrepresenting the comparison.

The next thing to note is that while Neville may want to refer to rivers, he cannot escape the issue of elevation and gravity. Mountains are not necessary, but elevation is, and downriver and upriver also define lower and higher elevation as that is the way rivers flow. Thus, Neville creates a very narrow difference. Why would he do this?

There are two reasons. One is that this definition allows him to insert unnamed rivers into the text. The Book of Mormon only specifically mentions the River Sidon. No stated action in the Book of Mormon occurs on or near any other named waterway. Asserting other major or even minor rivers inserts information into the text that is not explicitly there. While it is understandable that the text might not be explicit about every geographical feature, the idea of so many important but unnamed rivers contrasts with the multiplicity of otherwise named and described locations in the text.

These rivers are not necessary for the elevation concept alone. The second reason for his definition is that riverine travel allows Neville to resolve what is one of the biggest problems with the Heartland model. That problem is that the model would otherwise be simply too large to accommodate the travel information in the Book of Mormon.

It would be nice (but highly anachronistic) if the Book of Mormon gave us distances in miles. It doesn’t. It gives travel as time rather than distance. Sometimes the text speaks of traveling for days but doesn’t specify the number of days. In Mosiah 7:4 we have a specified number of days that may not be useful:

And now, they knew not the course they should travel in the wilderness to go up to the land of Lehi-Nephi; therefore they wandered many days in the wilderness, even forty days did they wander.

The “even forty days did they wander” may be related to the generic use of 40 to mean a long but indeterminate time, similar to the Old Testament having the Israelites wander 40 years in the wilderness or Christ fasting for 40 days in the desert. More useful are the occasions when we appear to get specific numbers of days’ travel:

And they fled eight days’ journey into the wilderness. (Mosiah 23:3)

So that when he had finished his work at Melek he departed thence, and traveled three days’ journey on the north of the land of Melek; and he came to a city which was called Ammonihah. (Alma 8:6)

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