A River in the Promised Land

For more than a decade the Scriptures Committee made hundreds of changes to the Book of Mormon Index that was finally published in 2013 that made significant changes to about 15 index references. A notable change was made to “Sidon, River.” 

Around 1981, certain LDS scholars promoted the theory that the Sidon River was one or the other of two rivers in Mesoamerica that ran from south to north. This theory made it into the Index. The post-1981, pre-2013 editions of the Index entry for "Sidon, River" say: “most prominent river in Nephite territory, runs north to sea.” 

However, the 2013 edition of the Index changed the entry to read simply: “most prominent river in Nephite territory.”

This change reflects a more careful reading of the text, which actually never says or implies that the Siden river runs north. Many scholars and advocates of two Cumorahs and a non-America Promised Land have ignored this change.

The river Sidon plays a unique role in the Book of Mormon record. The period of time and activity centered around the river is a brief 22 years and principally a period of intense war and conflict between the Nephites and the Lamanites.  However, the record reveals one other very significant fact about the waters of Sidon noted below.  The missionary and military labors of Alma the Younger are conducted during this significant history in the sacred annals of this book of scripture. This same period is also a time of unique fortification of the cities in the land by a military leader named Captain Moroni. There was a close proximity among the land and city of Zarahemla, the city of Manti, the city of Bountiful, and the river Sidon.

Flowing North or South?

A common objection to the North American setting relies on the theory that the River Sidon flows north like the major rivers in Central America. Because the Mississippi flows south, goes the argument, North America cannot be the setting.[i]

The following analysis by one of the most thoughtful and careful advocates of the Mesoamerican theory, Kirk Magleby.[ii] He summarizes the history of the issue and identifies his proposed location in Mesoamerica.

The northerly flow of the Sidon has been well-understood by Book of Mormon students for over a century. In his notes to the 1879 edition of the Book of Mormon, Orson Pratt said the river flowed northward, an observation that persisted in the indices to the 1920 edition prepared under the direction of James E. Talmage and the 1980 edition prepared under the direction of Bruce R. McConkie. In his magnum opus published in 1899 (A Complete Concordance of the Book of Mormon), George Reynolds correlated the Sidon with the north-flowing Magdalena in modern Colombia. In his 1917 work Geography of Mexico and Central America from 2234 BC to 421 AD Louis Edward Hills correlated the Sidon with the north-flowing Usumacinta. The New World Archaeological Foundation's first season of field work in 1953 was near Huimanguillo, Tabasco west of the north-flowing Grijalva. Daniel H. Ludlow's internal reconstruction of Book of Mormon geography, distributed throughout the Church Educational System for decades, shows the Sidon flowing north to the sea. John E. Clark's article "Book of Mormon Geography" in the 1992 semi-official Encyclopedia of Mormonism includes the north-flowing Sidon as one of the few tenets of Book of Mormon geography unambiguously attested in the text. We established previously that the Usumacinta River is the viable candidate for The Book of Mormon's river Sidon… As we would expect, the Usumacinta flows generally from south to north.

Despite that impressive history, the most recent editions of the Book of Mormon deleted the description of Sidon as a north-flowing river. The text simply does not say that the river flows north.

The argument for a north-flowing Sidon is well presented in the following seven answers to the initial question.[iii] Jonathan Neville offered his own analysis (designated JN1, JN2, etc.) after the answers provided by the original author (A1, A2, etc.)

Q. How do we know the river Sidon flowed south to north?

A1. Near the land of Zarahemla, the hill Amnihu Alma 2:15, 17 and the valley of Gideon Alma 6:7 were both east of the river Sidon. Near the city of Zarahemla, the river Sidon had a west bank Alma 2:34. These data points all imply a general north/south orientation for the river in that part of its course.

JN1: I agree.

A2. Beyond (south of) the land of Manti, a south wilderness Alma 16:6, 7 lay east of the river Sidon. This implies a general north/south orientation for the river in that part of its course.

JN2: I agree, except for the parenthetical (south of). The text doesn’t say south of Manti, it says beyond Manti. Beyond the land of Manti can be on the east side of the river, with the wilderness still designated as south in relation to Zarahemla and other sites to the north.

A3. Upstream from (south of) the land of Manti Alma 43:32, Captain Moroni placed part of the Nephite army west of the river Sidon Alma 43:27 and another part east of the river Sidon Alma 43:53. These data points imply a general north/south orientation for the river in that part of its course.

JN3: The first part of this answer—upstream from—simply assumes the conclusion. The text never says which way the river is flowing. Moroni concealed part of his army in the valley that was on the west of the river Sidon and part into the valley on the east “and so down into the borders of the land Manti.” The text doesn’t say whether Moroni started out north or south of Manti, but Manti was on or near the border. It wouldn’t make sense to have Moroni crossing the border into Lamanite territory and fortifying northward; instead, he would be fortifying the Nephite side of the border, from the north toward the south. That he went “down into the borders” shows the river flowed from the north to the south.

A4. One verse in the text has been interpreted to mean that the river Sidon flowed from east to west in part of its course. Alma 22:27 is ambiguous. It could mean that the river Sidon flowed from east to west at that point. Given the repetitive nature of Mormon's phrasing, though, it is more likely that all the east to west references in Alma 22:27-29 refer to the narrow strip of wilderness that separated Nephite lands on the north from Lamanite lands on the south. The text mentions several geographic entities or human activities either east or west of the river Sidon. The text never mentions entities or activities directly north or south of the Sidon. All of these data points reinforce the notion that the Sidon flowed in a general north/south direction over most of its length.

JN4: I agree with this, and add that my chiastic analysis explains it in more detail. Nothing here speaks to the direction of flow, however.

A5. The land of Manti was south of the land of Zarahemla Alma 17:1. The land of Manti was also near the head of the river Sidon Alma 43:22. From the head of the river Sidon, one went down in elevation to Zarahemla Alma 56:25. These data points indicate that the river Sidon flowed generally northward from Manti to Zarahemla.

JN5: I agree with the first two sentences, but the third one is not what the text says, and the fourth is a faulty inference. Alma 56:25 says the Lamanites had a choice to “march down against the city of Zarahemla” or they could “cross the head of Sidon.” It doesn’t say they were at the head of Sidon. Instead, in 56:29, it says the Lamanites, who had decided neither to march against Zarahemla nor to cross the head of Sidon, “began to sally forth,” a concept that is repeated in 3 Nephi 4:1 when the Gadianton robbers began to “sally forth” out of the mountains and hills. The text indicates that the Lamanites in Alma 56 were in a highland area, from which they could either march against Zarahemla or cross the head of Sidon. The area around the head of Sidon in Missouri and Illinois has many high areas that the river flows through—from the north to the south—even though the elevations are higher in the south than in the north. It’s the elevation of the riverbed that determines flow, not the elevation of the surrounding areas, as I’ll show below.

A6. The greater land of Nephi was south of the greater land of Zarahemla Alma 50:7. An east/west dividing line separating the two lands ran by the head of the river Sidon Alma 50:11. To go from Zarahemla to Nephi, one went up in elevation Alma 2:24. Therefore, the river Sidon which bordered the land of Zarahemla Alma 2:15 flowed generally from south to north.

JN6: The error here is easy to see. The argument would make sense if all terrain followed the river, meaning it drops in elevation along with the flow of the river. However, that is true only of the riverbed itself, not the surrounding area. In Egypt, the Nile flows north through some wide valleys at low elevation before cutting through higher elevation mountains to the north. Similarly, the Rhine River flows through a low elevation through central Germany before carving its way through the mountains between Bingen and Koblenz. In the U.S., the Mississippi River flows south, but on its way south it passes by higher elevations in Missouri on the west and in Tennessee and Alabama on the east. The banks of the Mississippi south of St. Louis rise over 650 feet above sea level. Montrose, Iowa—260 miles north of Arcadia—is at 531 feet. So even though the river is flowing south, it is flowing through terrain that is higher in elevation.

The other major error here is that the text never says the River Sidon leads up to the land of Nephi. While I agree people had to travel upstream—and south—to get to the land of Nephi, it wasn’t along the River Sidon that they did so. The text says only that the River Sidon flowed next to Zarahemla, not next to the city of Nephi. So how did people travel upstream to get to Nephi? They would travel from the head of Sidon up the Ohio River to the Tennessee River, and then up that river to Nephi. The Tennessee River flows north from the land of Nephi.

A7. The Mulekites made landfall in the land northward Alma 22:30, then founded their capital, Zarahemla, in the land southward Mormon 1:6 along the Sidon Mormon 1:10. As the Mulekites traveled south from the seacoast they went up in elevation Alma 22:31. This means the Sidon flowed downhill toward the north.

JN7: This is a common misunderstanding, based on an erroneous conflation of two different accounts that referred to two entirely different events. I note that the account in Alma 22:30-31 was not referring to the people of Zarahemla who came from Jerusalem, but to the 43 scouts—people of Zarahemla—sent by King Limhi to find Zarahemla (Mosiah 8 and 22). This becomes evident when the text is carefully examined.

Mormon correctly described the land of Zarahemla as southward from where he was at the time. Throughout the text, the phrase “the land southward” is not a proper noun but a relative designation. Mormon’s use of the term in Mormon 1:6 does not equate to the land southward as defined in Alma 22.

Zarahemla was located along the river Sidon. However, the conclusion that the river flowed south does not follow. Even if someone traveled south and went up in elevation, a river in that area could still flow north or south. It is the elevation in the river bed that matters, not the elevation of surrounding terrain, as I’ve shown in the examples from Egypt, Germany, and North America.

Conclusion.

The text describes the River Sidon as having a north/south orientation, but it does not specify the direction of flow. One must infer direction of flow from other information about proximate locations, but these show the river flowing south, not north—just like the Mississippi River. Passages in the text that refer to going “up” to the land of Nephi and “down” to the land of Zarahemla are explained by the Tennessee River, which did flow down—northward—through the Land of Nephi to the land of Zarahemla.

So the notion that there is a north-flowing river is correct, but it’s not the Sidon River. Translated into the modern world, the Sidon is the Mississippi, and the river flowing up and south to the land of Nephi is the Tennessee River.

[i] There are some small rivers in North America that flow north, which is the basis for some proposed geographies in limited areas such as western New York, but these models have other problems. Besides, a north-flowing river contradicts the text.

[ii] The discussion of the River Sidon in this section is a response to a blog entry titled “River Sidon South to North,” dated November 8, 2011, by Kirk Magleby. It is located online here: https://bookofmormonresources.blogspot.com/2011/11/river-sidon-south-to-north.html. Magleby is the "Chief Evangelist" for Scripture Central, one of the founders of FARMS, and is an outstanding scholar of the Book of Mormon. His posts on his blog are thoughtful and detailed. 

[iii] Ibid. The original answers are designated by A1, A2, etc.

Example of contemporary usage - Jonathan Edwards

Jonathan Edwards spent a decade with the Stockbridge Indians before accepting the position of Princeton University. His second son (and ninth child), Jonathan Edwards Jr. (1746-1801), went to school with the Stockbridge Indians, learned their Mohican language, and, at the age of 16, left home to train as a missionary among the Iroquois.

Edwards Jr. served near what his father Jonathan referred to as the “head of the Susquehanna river,” which was not the source of the river but the confluence between the Susquehanna and the Chenango rivers in present-day Binghamton. The site is about 20 miles downstream from Harmony, Pennsylvania, where Joseph and Emma lived when Joseph translated the abridged plates.

This relates to the Book of Mormon because the River Sidon flows past the city of Zarahemla. Scholars debate whether the river runs north or south. One determinant is the meaning of the term “head of the river” (Alma 22), which the text says was south of Zarahemla. If the term means “headwaters,” then Sidon flows south to north. If the term means “confluence,” then Sidon could flow in either direction.

Edwards’ designation of the Binghamton area as the “head of the river” reflects the confluence connotation. The proximity of the site to Harmony suggests that connotation was common knowledge at the time and place where Joseph translated the plates.  

Sidon in the text.

The Book of Mormon record covers hundreds of years of epic challenges between many peoples in the Promised Land. The river Sidon is mentioned in the account between the years 87 to 65 B.C .and once in A.D. 322, a crucial reference to Sidon which ties the centuries of time and events to the same locations in the Book of Mormon.  Further, the context of events occurring in the proximity of the river Sidon are extremely one sided: war; war preparations, armies at war, battles between armies on the banks of the river Sidon, and deaths of people who fought in war on the banks of the river Sidon and in the waters of the river Sidon. Of the 38 references to the river or waters of Sidon in the record, one speaks of baptism and four refer to missionary travels by Alma.

Alma lived most of his life in the city of Zarahemla, but after completing his work among the people, “departs out of the land of Zarahemla, as if to go into the land of Melek, and he was never heard of more” (Alma 45:18). Captain Moroni returns to the city of Zarahemla, retires from military service and dies there in 56 BC. The work and service of these two men centers in and around Zarahemla. The fortification of all the cities in the Nephite lands, a monumental labor by Captain Moroni, is in proximity to the land of Zarahemla and the land of Bountiful throughout an intense period of building and construction of approximately three years. Centuries later, the young Prophet Mormon lived in the land of Zarahemla and near the waters of Sidon some 387 years after Captain Moroni!  Between A.D. 322 and 385, Mormon and Moroni live in war and conflict and prepare the people to gather in the land of Cumorah to the Hill Cumorah for the final and epic battles between the Nephites and Lamanites.

It is readily apparent from the internal evidence in the Book of Mormon itself that there is a location within the Promised Land of North America that accommodates the uniquely-described events cited above. It lies within the boundaries prescribed by the New Jerusalem and Adam-ondi-Ahman on the west and the Hill Cumorah on the east of this favored land. In these latter days, the Lord named the location of Zarahemla and Joseph Smith named the city of Manti. Surely these inspired pronouncements would cause us to seek further light and knowledge about ancient history in the eastern United States of America.

The tables below provide references to Sidon and related passages.