Transoceanic Migrations

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Scripture Central

Abstract

The Book of Mormon’s three accounts of Near Eastern colonies migrating to the Americas are consistent with emerging data in support of ancient transoceanic contact.

Lehi and His People Arrive in the Promised Land. Image by Arnold Friberg.

Transoceanic Migrations in the Book of Mormon

The Book of Mormon records the migrations of three groups of people from the ancient Near East to the Americas—the Jaredites, Lehites, and Mulekites.¹ Few specifics are known about the watercrafts or specific paths of travel used in these journeys, but each of them was clearly transoceanic in nature.²

Seafaring in the Ancient Near East

Ancient Near Eastern peoples were no strangers to maritime trade and travel. The ancient Egyptians, Babylonians, and Phoenicians are known to have sailed rivers and seas alike, and the nautical accounts in legendary tales, such as those of Odysseus and Sinbad, seem to reflect real-life experiences to some extent. In regard to ancient Jewish seafaring technology, Raphael Patai has concluded that ancient Jews “in monarchic times [the time of the Solomonic kingdom] were acquainted with large seagoing vessels” and that “they prized such vessels highly.”³

Mosaic of Odysseus facing the Sirens at the Bardo Museum in Tunis, Tunisinia, circa 2nd century AD. Image via Wikipedia.

Patai noted that “even though the biblical references to ships and seafaring are extremely meager, this does not mean that sea traffic and trade played a correspondingly minor role in the life of the Hebrews in monarchic times.” Thus, Patai insisted, “we are justified in assuming that … once their control extended to the Mediterranean coastline, the Hebrews engaged in shipping and fishing to no less an extent than the other peoples whose towns and villages bordered the Great Sea.”⁴

Phoenician ship carved on the face of a sarcophagus, 2nd century AD. Image via Wikipedia.

A Shifting Paradigm

In the past, claims of pre-Columbian transoceanic contact with the Americas were often met with skepticism. With few exceptions, such as the Viking contact with coastal Canada during the 11th century AD or possible Polynesian contact with South America,⁵ many North American scholars have dismissed such claims as outlandish and lacking concrete historical or archaeological evidence.⁶ While this skeptical paradigm has persisted in many academic circles, scholars in growing numbers have argued for extensive pre-Columbian transoceanic contacts.

John L. Sorenson is one such scholar whose lifelong work on pre-Columbian transoceanic contacts has appeared in reputable Latter-day Saint and non-Latter-day Saint scholarly venues.⁷ Besides arguing for transoceanic contact himself, Sorenson and Martin H. Raish have cataloged an extensive bibliography of academic work that supports the same position.⁸

A depiction of a funeral boat found on the tomb of Menna, scribe of the king, circa 1422-1411 BC. Image via Wikipedia.

“It is clear,” Sorenson and Raish argue, “that the technological capacity for transoceanic voyaging has been available at a number of points in the Old World many times in the past. It is both plausible and probable on nautical grounds that numerous voyagers crossed the oceans at multiple points before the age of modern discovery.”⁹ To support his claims, Sorenson offers abundant biological evidence of transoceanic contacts as well as cultural parallels between peoples of the Old and New Worlds.¹⁰ Other fields, such as linguistics, are further strengthening the case for early oceanic migrations.¹¹

Conclusion

As argued by Sorenson, “The long-demanded ‘hard evidence’ … for transoceanic contact now provides overwhelming proof that ancient voyagers made numerous effective contacts across the oceans with significant consequences for the recipient societies.”¹² When viewed in light of this emerging paradigm shift, the three transoceanic migrations recorded in the Book of Mormon can be seen as part of a larger pattern of intercontinental exchange which shaped the cultures and environment of the ancient Americas.

While this recent data doesn’t prove the historical accuracy of the specific migrations mentioned in the Book of Mormon, it shows that there is no longer reason to assume that such ancient oceanic crossings were out of the question. The Book of Mormon’s accounts of transoceanic voyages are becoming increasingly plausible over time.

Book of Mormon Central, “Did Ancient People Sail the Seas? (1 Nephi 18:8),” KnoWhy 21 (January 28, 2016).

John L. Sorenson, Mormon’s Codex: An Ancient American Book (Provo: Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, 2013), 150–172.

John L. Sorenson, “Transoceanic Voyaging: How Ancient America Became Civilized,” (Springville, UT: Book of Mormon Central Archive, 2013).

John L. Sorenson and Carl L. Johannessen, “Biological Evidence for Pre-Columbian Transoceanic Voyages,” in Contact and Exchange in the Ancient World, ed. Victor H. Mair (Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai’i Press, 2006), 238–297.

John L. Sorenson, “Ancient Voyages Across the Ocean to America: From ‘Impossible’ to ‘Certain’,” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 14, no. 1 (2005): 4–17, 124–25.

John L. Sorenson and Martin H. Raish, Pre-Columbian Contact with the Americas Across the Oceans: An Annotated Bibliography, 2 volumes (Provo: FARMS, 1996).

1 Nephi 18:8–23Omni 1:15–16 Ether 2:16–25Ether 3:1–2Ether 6:2–12

¹ See 1 Nephi 18:8–23; Omni 1:15–16; Ether 2:16–25; Ether 3:1–2; Ether 6:2–12.
² For several proposals concerning ships and ocean routes, see Kirk Magleby, “Jaredites Crossed the Pacific,” Book of Mormon Resources, January 13, 2020, online at bookofmormonresources.blogspot.com; Kirk Magleby, “Where Did the Mulekites Land?” Book of Mormon Resources, January 18, 2020, online at bookofmormonresources.blogspot.com; Warren P. Aston, Lehi and Sariah in Arabia: The Old World Setting of the Book of Mormon (Bloomington, IN: Xlibris Publishing, 2015), 204–207; John L. Sorenson, Mormon’s Codex: An Ancient American Book (Provo: Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, 2013), 150–172; George Potter, Frank Linehan, Conrad Dickson, Voyages of the Book of Mormon (Springville, UT: CFI, 2011); John L. Sorenson, Images of Ancient America: Visualizing Book of Mormon Life (Provo, UT: FARMS, 1998), 224–227; John L. Sorenson, “Winds and Currents: A Look at Nephi's Ocean Crossing,” in Reexploring the Book of Mormon: A Decade of New Research, ed. by John W. Welch (Provo and Salt Lake City, UT: FARMS and Deseret Book, 1992), 53–56; John L. Sorenson, “The ‘Mulekites’,” BYU Studies Quarterly 30, no. 3 (1990): 9–11; John L. Sorenson, “Transoceanic Crossings,” in The Book of Mormon: First Nephi, The Doctrinal Foundation, ed. Monte S. Nyman and Charles D. Tate, Jr. (Provo, UT: BYU Religious Studies Center, 1988), 251–270.
³ Raphael Patai, The Children of Noah: Jewish Seafaring in Ancient Times (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998), 21.
⁴ Patai, The Children of Noah, 19. Patai, who is not a Latter-day Saint, even includes the Book of Mormon as an “unexpected outside source” that may be of “interest” to those wanting to know more about ancient Jewish seafaring. (p. 21). For a treatment of ancient Jewish seafaring in relation to the Book of Mormon, see the appendix in Patai’s book entitled “Biblical Seafaring and the Book of Mormon” (p. 171–176), written by Latter-day Saint scholar John M. Lundquist.
⁵ See, for example, Marissa Fessenden, “Ancient Easter Islanders Likely Sailed Back And Forth to South America,” online at www.smithsonianmag.com. See also Andrew Lawler, “Beyond Kon-Tiki: Did Polynesians Sail to South America?,” Science 328, no. 5984 (June 11, 2010): 1344–1347; Andrew Lawler, “Changing Time in the South Pacific,” Science 328, no. 5984 (June 11, 2010): 1346; Andrew Lawler, “Northern Exposure in Doubt,” Science 328, no. 5984 (June 11, 2010): 1347; Andrew Lawler, “Epic pre-Columbian voyage suggested by genes: South American DNA found in Easter Islanders,” Science 346, no. 6208 (October 24, 2014): 406–406.
⁶ See John L. Sorenson, “Transoceanic Voyaging: How Ancient America Became Civilized,” (Springville, UT: Book of Mormon Central Archive, 2013), 6–10.
⁷ See John L. Sorenson, “Some Mesoamerican Traditions of Immigration by Sea,” El México antiguo 8 (1955): 425–38; “The Significance of an Apparent Relationship between the Ancient Near East and Mesoamerica,” in Man Across the Sea: Problems of Pre-Columbian Contacts, ed. Carroll L. Riley et al. (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1971), 219–41; “Scientific Evidence for Pre-Columbian Transoceanic Voyages to and from the Americas,” Sino-Platonic Papers 133 (Philadelphia, PA: Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, University of Pennsylvania, 2004); “Ancient Voyages Across the Ocean to America: From ‘Impossible’ to ‘Certain’,” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 14, no. 1 (2005): 4–17, 124–25; John L. Sorenson and Carl L. Johannessen, “Biological Evidence for Pre-Columbian Transoceanic Voyages,” in Contact and Exchange in the Ancient World, ed. Victor H. Mair (Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai’i Press, 2006), 238–297; John L. Sorenson and Carl L. Johannessen, World Trade and Biological Exchanges before 1492 (New York, NY and Bloomington, IN: iUniverse, 2009); Sorenson, Mormon’s Codex, 150–172.
⁸ John L. Sorenson and Martin H. Raish, Pre-Columbian Contact with the Americas Across the Oceans: An Annotated Bibliography, 2 volumes (Provo: FARMS, 1996). For more recent publications, see Charles E.M. Pearce and Frances M. Pearce, Oceanic Migration: Paths, Sequence, Timing and Range of Prehistoric Migration in the Pacific and Indian Oceans (New York, NY: Springer, 2010); Terry L. Jones, Alice A. Storey, Elizabeth A. Matisoo-Smith, and José Miguel Ramírez-Aliaga, eds., Polynesians in America: Pre-Columbian Contact with the New World (New York, NY: AltaMira Press, 2011); Alice Beck Kehoe, ed., Traveling Prehistoric Seas: Critical Thinking on Ancient Transoceanic Voyages (Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press, 2016); Stephen C. Jett, Ancient Ocean Crossings: Reconsidering the Case for Contacts with the Pre-Columbian Americas (Tuscaloosa, AL: The University of Alabama Press, 2017); Alexander G. Ioannidis, et al., “Native American Gene Flow into Polynesia Predating Easter Island Settlement,” Nature 583 (2020): 572–577.
⁹ Sorenson and Raish, Pre-Columbian Contact with the Americas Across the Oceans, 1:xii.
¹⁰ Lest one assume that Sorenson is overstating his case, the late Michael D. Coe, an eminent authority on ancient Mesoamerican civilizations, described Sorenson’s work as “an enormously impressive piece of scholarship,” and even went so far as to say, “So much of this evidence, I think, is irrefutable.” “‘Ask the Scholar’,” John L. Sorenson edition (part 3 of 3),” Maxwell Institute Blog, February 21, 2014. In an interview with John Dehlin, Coe was similarly impressed with Sorenson’s work: “I’m not entirely against the idea of transoceanic contacts [between the Old and New Worlds]. In fact, there is beginning to be evidence for it. The leading scholar of this kind of stuff is a Mormon, a friend of mine, John Sorenson, at BYU, who has written extensively on this whole thing—very interesting stuff.” John Dehlin, “Dr. Michael Coe – An Outsider’s View of Book of Mormon Archaeology,” an interview with Michael Coe, Mormon Stories, August 12, 2011. Podcast is broken down into three parts, the quoted portion is found in part two. Quotation based on a transcript of the interview prepared by volunteers for FAIR, brackets and punctuation by Book of Mormon Central staff.
¹¹ See Brian D. Stubbs, Exploring the Explanatory Power of Semitic and Egyptian in Uto-Aztecan (Provo, UT: Grover Publications, 2015). For an overview of this research and its relevance to the Book of Mormon, see Evidence Central, “Book of Mormon Evidence: Uto-Aztecan and Book of Mormon Languages,” December 29, 2020, online at evidencecentral.org.
¹² Sorenson, “Transoceanic Voyaging,” 10.

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Evidence #221 | August 2, 2021

Transoceanic Migrations