Another Evidence for the Book of Mormon

EDITORIAL

ANOTHER EVIDENCE FOR THE BOOK OF MORMON

The Great Migration is a recent, much reviewed book, which unwittingly testifies to the truth of the Book of Mormon. J. Fitzgerald Lee, the author, has written the volume in support of his hypothesis that the Hebrew race originated in America and migrated therefrom to Asia. In defense of this thesis he has assembled many evidences of the racial relationship between the Hebrew nation and the inhabitants of ancient America. An excellent bibliography indicates the wide research of the author, and the text itself is couched in simple, but scholarly, temperate language. The most striking thing about the work is the concurrent testimony of the many men, of different lands and periods of time, who have observed the relationship between the Hebrews and ancient Americans.

The author says: “During the last century a great number of travellers, explorers, archaeologists, and ethnologists, have noted and put forward various explanations to account for very striking similarities between the ancient architecture, culture, customs, folk-lore and legends which are common to the valley of the Nile and tropical America,. The flood of evidence for such close likeness and perfect resemblances as have been found to exist, even the very identity of the legends, is irresistible, irrefutable, and challenging.”

The similarity between the buildings and other monuments of ancient America and Egypt is well known, but in this volume many things are pointed out which are not of common knowledge, as, for instance, that in the Egyptian and in American pyramids the relation between the height and base of the pyramid is the ratio between the circumference and area of a circle.

The prehistoric Americans had many customs in common with the Hebrews. The ancient Mexican calendar was that used in several Asiatic countries. In ancient America, a man was to marry his dead brother’s widow; an ark was kept in the holy place, and an annual celebration was nearly identical in procedure with the feast of the passover.

The legends of the people of ancient America are so much like the stories of the Old Testament that Father Duran, an explorer of long residence among American aborigines, was impelled to write, “I verily believe that the evil spirit himself must have somehow supplied these poor people with a spurious edition of the Bible.” Adam, the Garden of Eden, the Fall, the Flood, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the plagues of Egypt, Moses, Joshua, Samson, and numerous other Bible events and individuals have been found to be current among the early inhabitants of America.

The languages of early America also point to a Hebrew origin or relationship, as the author demonstrates by a number of well chosen examples. It is interesting to note that a pyramid was called in an ancient American tongue Teo Kalli; and that a house of God is called Theo Kalia in Greek. Latter-day Saints will recognize the ancient American word Nephiq, also used in the Samaritan Pentateuch, which is much like the Egyptian word Nefika, the land of going forth.

These themes are clearly elaborated by Mr. Lee. His argument for the original identity of the Hebrews and the people of ancient America is well supported by striking facts. His hypothesis that the Hebrews originated in America and migrated to Asia is not convincing, for the observed facts quoted by him may all be explained on the assumption that the Hebrews migrated from Asia to America, and there built up a civilization. Nevertheless, no one can deny the possibility of people migrating at some early period from America, to Asia.

The Book of Mormon records the brief histories of three migrations from Asia to America; one at the time of the building of the Tower of Babel; the other two from Jerusalem about 600 years B. C., at the time of King Zedekiah. These travellers brought with them to America the traditions of widely separated periods; the last migration brought distinctively Hebrew culture and literature.

As the volume of knowledge concerning the ancient world increases, notably of Israel and America, the evidence for the truth of the Book of Mormon increases. The book, The Great Migration, is but another witness to the integrity of the Book of Mormon, and of the man who, under divine inspiration, translated it and gave it to the world as a witness for the Lord.—W.