The Case for Intellectual Study

I ran across a great article at The Times and Season's Blog. James Olsen makes an excellent case for why the average reader of The Book of Mormon should take an intellectual approach to the book. I also feel somewhat vindicated in my approach to the book, since I often do not include devotional material but focus more on scholarly approaches.

Under Intellectual Condemnation

Bored Soldiers

This is a great and funny video about the activities that bored soldiers take part in. On the surface it appears that this has no similarity to events in The Book of Mormon. We read in Alma 55 that:

7...the Nephites were guarded in the city of Gid; therefore Moroni appointed Laman and caused that a small number of men should go with him.
8 And when it was evening Laman went to the guards who were over the Nephites, and behold, they saw him coming and they hailed him; but he saith unto them: Fear not; behold, I am a Lamanite. Behold, we have escaped from the Nephites, and they sleep; and behold we have taken of their wine and brought with us.
9 Now when the Lamanites heard these words they received him with joy; and they said unto him: Give us of your wine, that we may drink; we are glad that ye have thus taken wine with you for we are weary.
10 But Laman said unto them: Let us keep of our wine till we go against the Nephites to battle. But this saying only made them more desirous to drink of the wine;
11 For, said they: We are weary, therefore let us take of the wine, and by and by we shall receive wine for our rations, which will strengthen us to go against the Nephites.
12 And Laman said unto them: You may do according to your desires.
13 And it came to pass that they did take of the wine freely; and it was pleasant to their taste, therefore they took of it more freely; and it was strong, having been prepared in its strength.
14 And it came to pass they did drink and were merry, and by and by they were all drunken.

This is an excellent description of the average soldiers life. They receive a small amount of rations and their leaders often put them on boring guard duty. Thus they try to supplement their rations with stolen goods. And they try to dull their boredom by drinking.

I'm amazed at how even the casual details included in The Book of Mormon still include wonderful bits of information.

Nephihah in Google Earth

Over at a A Choice Land you can look up a proposed model for The Book of Mormon geography. Their location of Nephihah largely matches my analysis. It protects the approach towards the city of Zarahemla and you can even see a modern road that runs through this area. There is rough terrain west of the river that could act as the "cliff" side that Moroni entered the city from. And there is more open land to the east the river where the road is. The East side of the city is where the Lamanite army was encamped facing the Nephite army outside the city. The tentative placement of this city by the authors of A Choice Land correspond to its strategic importance and tactical strength as I described in an earlier post.

This is only one of many models out there and my use of this site does not necessarily consist of an endorsement of their thesis. I do think they have one of the most visually pleasing sites and their use of google Earth adds to the study of Book of Mormon lands.

What do you think? Based on other geographic models does anybody have any other ideas?

Call for Papers

As you can see (if you click on it), the theme of the conference is pretty wide open. Please contact me if you wish to be included on a propsed panel dealing with warfare in The Book of Mormon.