Shazer on Lehi's Trail: Perhaps More Interesting Than You Thought
by Jeff Lindsay
Book
of Mormon critics and skeptics strive to downplay the significance of
evidence from the Arabian Peninsula that appears to weigh strongly in
favor of the plausibility of Nephi's account. Those things that are
most impressive are said to be either lucky guesses or something that
could be easily done with resources that were theoretically
available to Joseph.
Some
claim that the Arabian Peninsula evidence can be accounted for by
simply looking at a map of Arabia made before 1830, such as the
map of D'Anville that does indeed show the name Nehem. So far, my requests to explain
how that could be done, even with the best available map in hand,
have resulted in extremely weak responses.
Apparently
all Joseph had to do was find Nehem on the map, send Nephi there,
have him turn east, and voila, the voyage is done. Piece of cake. But
even with a top-notch map that Joseph probably never saw and with all
the advantages of hindsight, it's still hard for me to see how anyone
could look at the available maps and come up with the many plausible,
evidence-laden details we can extract from First Nephi 16-17.
Those
details include the finding of plausible
candidates for the River of Laman and the Valley of Lemuel,
the ability to turn east near Nahom and survive (that's the only
place where the south-southeast trails do offer an eastward turn —
who would you know that from the map that people imagine Joseph must
have had?), and outstanding candidates for Bountiful that are, as
Nephi described, nearly due east of Nahom.
For
some of the details related to Bountiful, you can see a
list in Warren Aston's 1998 article at
the Maxwell Institute, but please see the
PDF version of that article to see some images as well (6.3 Mb). Few of the evidences for
authenticity related to Bountiful can be extrapolated from any map in
Joseph's day, and even modern maps won't help much.
One
more detail involves the place Shazer along Lehi's trail. There's
more to Shazer than just a name. The Book of Mormon provides details
that are usually overlooked by critics. Shazer is introduced as
Nephi's group leaves the Valley of Lemuel (1 Nephi 16:11–14):
11 And it came to pass that we did gather together whatsoever things we
should carry into the wilderness, and all the remainder of our
provisions which the Lord had given unto us; and we did take seed of
every kind that we might carry into the wilderness. 12 And it came
to pass that we did take our tents and depart into the wilderness,
across the river Laman. 13 And it came to pass that we traveled
for the space of four days, nearly a south-southeast direction, and
we did pitch our tents again; and we did call the name of the place
Shazer. 14 And it came to pass that we did take our bows and our
arrows, and go forth into the wilderness to slay food for our
families; and after we had slain food for our families we did return
again to our families in the wilderness, to the place of Shazer. And
we did go forth again in the wilderness, following the same
direction, keeping in the most fertile parts of the wilderness, which
were in the borders near the Red Sea.
Nephi's
use of borders, as had been pointed out by Kent Brown, may refer to mountains in the
area. See S. Kent Brown, "New
Light from Arabia on Lehi's Trail,"
in Echoes and Evidences of the Book of Mormon, edited by Donald W. Parry, Daniel C. Peterson, and John W. Welch,
(Provo, Utah: FARMS, 2002).
George
Potter and Richard Wellington in Lehi in the Wilderness says
that he learned from local Arabs that the name of the mountains in
northwest Arabia, the Hejaz, means "borders." He
notes that the Hebrew word for borders, gebul,
is cognate with Arabic jabal (jebel, djebel)
meaning mountain (p. 3). So references to the borders near the Red
Sea could logically refer to mountains. Strong's
Concordance for gebul also notes that one meaning can be a concrete object marking a
limit.
Starting with the proposed location of the Valley of
Lemuel, the place Shazer needs to be within a four-day journey along
a south-southeast direction.
Regarding the place name Shazer,
Nigel Groom's Dictionary of Arabic Topography and Placenames
(Beirut: Libraire du Liban; London: Longman, 1983; cited by Potter
and Wellington, p. 73) provides an entry for a similar word, shajir:
"A valley or area abounding with trees and shrubs."
Regarding Shazer, Hugh Nibley wrote:
The
first important stop after Lehi's party had left their base camp was
at a place they called Shazer. The name is intriguing. The
combination shajer is quite common in Palestinian place names;
it is a collective meaning "trees," and many Arabs
(especially in Egypt) pronounce it shazher.
It
appears in Thoghret-as-Sajur (the Pass of Trees), which is the
ancient Shaghur, written Segor in the sixth century. It
may be confused with Shaghur "seepage," which is
held to be identical with Shihor, the "black water"
of Josh. 19:36.
This
last takes in western Palestine the form Sozura, suggesting
the name of a famous water hole in South Arabia, called Shisur
by Thomas and Shisar by Philby. ... So we have Shihor,
Shaghur, Sajur, Saghir, Segor (even
Zoar), Shajar, Sozura, Shisur, and
Shisar, all connected somehow or other and denoting either
seepage — a weak but reliable water supply — or a clump
of trees.
Whichever
one prefers, Lehi's people could hardly have picked a better name for
their first suitable stopping place than Shazer. (Lehi in the
Desert [Salt Lake City, Utah: Bookcraft, 1952], p. 90.)
In
a brief article in the 1992 Encyclopedia of Mormonism, Nibley
simply suggested that Shazer is derived from the Arabic shajer,
meaning trees or place of trees ("Book of Mormon Near Eastern
Background," Encyclopedia of Mormonism, ed. Daniel Ludlow
(New York: Macmillan, 1992), p. 188).
The
Book of Mormon description of Shazer as a place where Lehi's group
would stop and go hunting — obviously a place with water and
wildlife where one could stay for a while on a long journey —
agrees well with the meaning of the word Shazer.
Again,
the Book of Mormon text provides a highly plausible name that
accurately corresponds to the place described. But is there such a
place in the area required by the Book of Mormon?
Before
going any further, let us note that Shazer is introduced in a classic
Hebraism: "we did call the name of the place Shazer" (1
Nephi 16:13). In normal English we would say that we called the place
Shazer or named the place Shazer, but in Hebrew one would say that he
called the name of the place, for it is the name that is
called, not the place itself.
This
point is made by John L. Sorenson and Melvin J. Thorne, eds.,
Rediscovering the Book of Mormon (Salt Lake City and Provo:
Deseret Book Co., Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies,
1991), p. 89.
But what of the place itself?
It turns
out that there is a reasonable fit for Shazer, a large, extensive
oasis region with what is said to be the best hunting in all of
Arabia, and it is in the right location to have been a four-days'
journey south-southeast of the established location for the Valley of
Lemuel, near a branch of the ancient frankincense trail and in the
region of Arabia near the Red Sea called the Hijaz. This oasis is in
the wadi Agharr. It's in the right place.
But
my guess is that you aren't going to come up with this location and
its context by glancing at an old map of Arabia.
In Lehi in the Wilderness,
Potter and Wellington explain that they initially thought it would be
easy to find Shazer, knowing that Nephi's group traveled 75 miles
(almost certainly with camels) from the Gulf of Aqaba to the proposed
site of the Valley of Lemuel in three days (p. 73). They concluded
that the four-day journey from the Valley of Lemuel to Shazer
required simply finding an oasis within 100 miles south-southeast of
the Valley of Lemuel.
However,
many challenges stood in their way, and it would require three more
field trips in their spare time over the next two years before they
knew for sure that they had found Shazer. The following passage from
Potter and Wellington describes how they located a candidate for
Shazer (pages 74,76-78):
Our
first attempts at finding Shazer took us to the wells of Bani Murr
and an-na'mi, to the east of the valley. Our second trip through the
Khuraybah pass proved no more successful. These sites did not fit the
description of a valley with trees. In fact, they were downright
inhospitable. . . .
It wasn't until the summer of 2000 that
the whereabouts of Shazer became apparent. We realized that Lehi's
first camp after the valley had to have been at an authorized halt
along the Gaza branch of the Frankincense Trail [the Valley of Lemuel
was along this branch]. He would not have been allowed to stop
anywhere else, and it had to be at a well site.
That
spring Richard had been reading the works of Alois Musil, a Bohemian
academic and explorer who doubled up as a German spy before World War
I.... One piece of his record stood out to Richard. Musil recorded,
"We ... crossed the old Pilgrim Road of ar-Rasifijje leading
southward to the hills of Kos al-Hnane, where spirits abide. Date
palms were still growing in parts of the valley, so that the oasis of
Sarma could be extended a full twenty-five kilometers to the east."
Musil described a fertile valley with an oasis over fifteen
miles long which was approximately south-southeast from the Valley of
Lemuel and was crossed by the old pilgrim route that followed the
Gaza arm of the old Frankincense Trail that was an active trade route
in Nephi's time.
We
found Musil's description of Agharr most interesting because on a
prior trip to Midian we had been told by the Police General at
al-Bada that the best hunting in the entire area was in the mountains
of Agharr.
Here at last was the solid clue we had been
looking for....
[The authors then discuss evidence from old
Arab geographers that the first rest stop after al-Bada'a, also known
as Midian, was Al-Aghra', which appears to be the wadi Agharr.] Nephi
recorded that their first halting place after leaving the Valley of
Lemuel was a place of trees where they stopped to hunt.
Now
we had evidence from independent sources that the first rest stop
after Midian on the ancient Gaza branch of the Frankincense Trail was
in a fertile valley with trees, wadi Agharr, and the surrounding
mountains presented the best hunting opportunities along the trail.
The next step was to visit Al-Agharr....
From al Bada'a we
headed the sixty miles south southeast to wadi Agharr and our
potential location for Shazer. To our right the Red Sea glittered in
the bright noon light, to our left the mountains of the Hijaz towered
over us, purple in the midday sun. Between al Bada'a and wadi Agharr
we found a few small scattered farms and a few old wells.
Here,
where the water table was higher, there may well have been halts
anciently where the families could have rested each evening as they
headed southeast. As we reached wadi Agharr ... [t]here was a gap in
the mountains where the trail led.
Through
the gap we could see some palm trees in the wadi. Entering the wadi
we were amazed to find an oasis that ran as far as the eye could see
both to our left and to our right.
Wadi Agharr was exactly as
Musil had described--fields of vegetables and plantations of palms
stretching for miles. It is a narrow valley, perhaps one hundred
yards across, bounded on each side by high walls stretching up a few
hundred feet.
"Shazer"
was certainly an apt description for this location — a valley
with trees, set amid the barren landscape of Midian. Here, after
three years of fruitless searching, systematically visiting all the
wells in a seventy-five mile radius of wadi Tayyab al Ism, we had
finally found Shazer.
[The authors then discuss the presence
of "Midianite" archaeological sites in the region, dating
to the late second to mid-first millennium B.C., suggesting that the
valley was fertile anciently.]
On a later expedition we
returned to Shazer and drove up into the mountains in the area we
thought the men of Lehi's party would have gone to hunt. We spoke
with Bedouins who lived in the upper end of wadi Agharr who told us
that Ibex lived in the mountains and they still hunted them there.
We
were reminded of the words of the Greek Agatharkides of Cnidos who
called this area anciently the territory of Bythemani. According to
Agatharkides, "The country is full of wild camels, as well as of
flocks of deer, gazelles, sheep, mules, and oxen ... and by it dwell
the Batmizomaneis who hunt land animals." [Alois Musil, Northern
Hijaz — A Topographical Itinerary, published under the
patronage of the Czech Academy of Arts and Sciences and of Charles R.
Crane, 1926, p. 303]
It
may have been these very animals that Lehi and his sons went out to
hunt.
Here at wadi Agharr is a site that perfectly matches
Nephi's Shazer. It probably has the best hunting along the entire
Frankincense Trail. It is the first place travelers would have been
allowed to stop and pitch tents south of Midian, and as the Book of
Mormon states, it is a four days' journey from the Valley of Lemuel
(1 Ne. 16:13).
Their
candidate for Shazer is a plausible four days' journey away from
their stunning candidate for the Valley Lemuel and River Laman. One
skeptic, on the other hand, proposes that Joseph got the name Shazer
from a tiny town called Hazire along the incense trail, but it is
located far too far south to fit the Book of Mormon.
And
if Joseph's purpose was to add "local color" and evidence,
as he implies, why make the name relatively unrecognizable, why pick
a tiny town whose name nobody will ever hear of, why not use any
major names and features from the map, and why did Joseph and his
peers never bring up the potential evidences obtained from the map to
buttress Book of Mormon credibility?
The
many evidences from Arabia were unknown to members in the first 150
years of the Church. The "Joseph used a map to create Book of
Mormon evidence" theory makes no sense.
To
better appreciate Shazer, a few small photos of the candidate for
Shazer are available on the photo
page at NephiProject.com,
but a much more impressive photo of the many palm trees at Shazer is
on page 77 of Potter's and Wellington's book, which I urge you to see
for yourself.
Potter and Wellington offer much more as they
retrace Nephi's journey. For example, after Shazer, Nephi writes that
they traveled through the "most fertile parts" (1 Nephi
16:14) and then subsequently through "more fertile parts"
that can be understood to be less fertile than the "most
fertile" parts.
These
fertile regions were encountered before they turned due east, which
began the most difficult part of their journey. Along the ancient
incense trail, continuing just after Shazer until Medina, one
encounters a region of the Hijaz called Qura Arabiyyah or "the
Arab Villages" which are described by Arabs as the "fertile
parts" of the land.
It
is the part of the trail with the highest concentration of farms and
rest stops for caravans, and truly fits the Book of Mormon
description. After Medina, there are fewer farms, but still enough
fertile places to be called "the more fertile parts." (See
pages 82-92 of Potter and Wellington, including excellent photos and
a satellite map.)
Knowledge
of these many fertile regions in the midst of the barren Arabian
Peninsula was largely hidden from the west until recently. These are
rare and unusual places in the Arabian Peninsula, and Joseph simply
could not have known of them.
Consider what we have here,
with the finding of a plausible candidate for Shazer, and the many
other "direct hits" regarding the Arabian Peninsula. Now
take a look at a map of Arabia and tell me how young Joseph Smith,
even with the aid of mystery scholars, would have placed Shazer so
plausibly.
Is
it just luck that the "most fertile parts" come right after
Shazer, followed by the "more fertile parts," after which
things become much more difficult and presumably a lot less fertile?
"Fertile
parts" in Arabia is not part of basic common knowledge. If
Joseph understood what "Arabia Foelix" meant on the map and
knew of reports of that fertile region, he would have placed the most
fertile parts way south on the journey, but those fertile parts were
not along Nephi's route.
Nothing available to Joseph in 1829,
in my opinion, could have guided him in providing so many correct
details of Nephi's voyage to the sea through the Arabian Peninsula.
Nothing would have enabled him to describe the Valley of Lemuel, the
River of Laman, or the place Shazer, a four-day journey (by camel)
south-southeast of the Valley of Lemuel, with the best hunting in the
entire area and an abundance of trees, corresponding well with the
Semitic meaning of the name Shazer.
Joseph
knew nothing of Hebrew or Arabic at the time, and the western world
knew precious little about the Arabian Peninsula. Attempting to
describe details of the voyage would have been foolhardy in the
extreme.
If Joseph or anyone else had made up the story, it
would have been important to be as vague as possible, not giving
specific directions, distances, and descriptions. The only way such
an account could be done with any hope of being plausible would be if
the account were written by someone who actually made the trip.
To
me, a more reasonable explanation is that whoever wrote First Nephi
16 and 17 had firsthand knowledge of the region, knowledge going far
beyond what anyone in the States could glean from a map. So the real
mystery here is not whether or not Joseph sneaked off to a remote
library to gaze at a map, only to not use any of the detailed "local
color" he could pull from it to impress people in his day (only
to wait for over a century to be noticed).
The real question
we need to be asking, if we are looking for answers, is who knew of
these places, apparently from firsthand observation, and how that
information was transmitted to Joseph. Better questions lead to
better answers.
Jeff Lindsay has been defending the Church on the Internet since 1994, when he launched his
LDSFAQ website under JeffLindsay.com. He has also long been blogging about LDS matters on
the blog Mormanity (mormanity.blogspot.com). Jeff is a longtime resident of Appleton,
Wisconsin, who recently moved to Shanghai, China, with his wife, Kendra.
He works for an Asian corporation as head of intellectual property. Jeff and Kendra are the parents of 4 boys, 3 married and the the youngest on a mission.
He is a former innovation and IP consultant, a former professor, and former Corporate Patent
Strategist and Senior Research Fellow for a multinational corporation.
Jeff Lindsay, Cheryl Perkins and Mukund Karanjikar are authors of the book Conquering
Innovation Fatigue (John Wiley & Sons, 2009).
Jeff has a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Brigham Young University and is a registered US
patent agent. He has more than 100 granted US patents and is author of numerous publications.
Jeff's hobbies include photography, amateur magic, writing, and Mandarin Chinese.