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The Liahona

Miracles by Small Means

Chapter 8b

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CHAPTER 8b

Was Knowledge of Magnetic Navigation

“Lost”?

Chapter 8b: Could knowledge of magnetic navigation have been "lost"? If so, what were some of

the factors that might have caused this loss? A few factors are worth discussing here.

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Factor #4

Secrecy

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Phoenician Ships were sunk

Some items of history are never passed down because of secrecy or sacredness. For example, the

story is told of the Phoenician ship captain, who when overwhelmingly pursued by enemy ships,

chose to wreck and sink his ship rather than reveal his secrets of navigation.

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Hanno’s Settlements from Carthage

Another example of Phoenician secrecy comes from Carthage, a Phoenician colony at the

western end of the Mediterranean. About 500 BC Hanno sailed from Carthage with sixty ships

and 30,000 men and women to found cities along the western coast of Africa.

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Inscription of Hanno

Hanno's feats were inscribed in stone in the temple of Kronos. When the Romans conquered

Carthage in 146 BC, they destroyed everything else except this stone inscription, which they

translated. Modern scholars now note that this record of Hanno is mostly correct as far as

navigation is concerned, but there are certain parts missing so as to preserve those maritime

secrets of the Phoenicians that allowed them to maintain control of the worldwide trade of the

Mediterranean into the Atlantic for hundreds of years.

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The Hill Cumorah in New York

Sacredness plays a part in the secret location not only of the Liahona, but all of the Nephite

records. Interestingly, there are a number of second and third hand stories that have circulated

among LDS members, in which the Nephite records and sacred items are said to be located in a

cave in the New York Hill Cumorah. One such story states that W. W. Phelps was told by Hyrum

Smith that Hyrum, Joseph, Oliver Cowdery and David Whitmer went to the Hill Cumorah, and as

they were walking up the hill, a door opened and they walked into a room about 16 square feet in

size. In that room was an angel and a multitude of records and sacred items kept and passed

down by Nephite prophets and kings. Unfortunately, this cave has never been found, the Liahona

remains lost and unexamined, and the truth of these stories has never been verified.

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Ark of the Covenant Hid

A similar example of sacredness and secrecy can be found in the unknown location of the Ark of

the Covenant. According to the Book of Exodus, chapter 30, during Moses's 40-day stay upon

Mount Sinai, Jehovah not only gave Moses the Law, but also the pattern for the temple in the

wilderness and the Ark of the Covenant. The Ark contained the tablets of the lower law, and

other sacred items, and was ultimately placed in the Holy of Holies of Solomon's Temple in 950

BC.

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Moving the Ark of the Covenant

About 600 BC, or at the time of Lehi, Jerusalem was threatened with destruction by the

Babylonians. According to 2 Maccabees, Chapter 2, the Lord ordered Jeremiah to remove the

Ark of the Covenant from the temple in Jerusalem, which had become unholy, and move it to the

Mountain of the Lord, where it was sealed up in a cave--not to come forth until the last days when

Israel would be gathered again (Rev. 11). While the Ark of the Covenant is now considered lost,

there is considerable debate over just where this Mountain of the Lord was because all involved

were sworn to secrecy, plus the fact that the Ark is sacred to the Lord.

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Theory #1: Mt. Sinai

Some have proposed the Ark of the Covenant was taken to Mount Sinai, which had been declared

holy ground by the Lord, and where Moses, Elijah, and possibly Nephi had visited.

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Theory #2: Mt. Nebo

Some have proposed Mount Nebo, just across the river Jordan from Jerusalem, where Moses

overlooked the Promised Land. But as with the proposed Mount Sinai location, critics have

wondered how Jeremiah would have got the Ark of the Covenant past the Babylonians, who were

besieging Jerusalem.

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Theory #3: Mount Moriah

A third proposed location for the Ark of the Covenant is Mount Moriah, the mount on which the

Jerusalem temple was located.

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Mount Moriah (The Temple Mount)

Recently, it has been proposed that Jeremiah tunneled from inside the city under the northern city

wall of Jerusalem to a location under the northern extension and highest point of Mount Moriah.

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Location of the Garden Tomb

Intriguingly, this Mount Moriah location corresponds with one proposed present-day site for

Golgotha, close to the Garden Tomb, and just outside the northern city wall of Old Jerusalem.

According to Catholic tradition, another proposed site for Christ's crucifixion and burial is the

Church of the Holy Sepulchre on the west of the city.

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Proposed Location for Golgotha (The Place of the Skull)

Golgotha is the Aramaic name for the place where Christ was crucified and where his blood was

spilled. It means "a skull." Near the Garden Tomb is a place where a skull face is naturally

carved into the mountainside. This location might be significant in a number of ways.

Interestingly, on the Day of Atonement a goat without spot would be slain on the north side of

the altar, while another goat with a scarlet ribbon tied around it (representing the sins of Israel)

would be guided out the east gate of the temple, and across the Kidron Valley to the Mount of

Olives, where symbolically the sins of the House of Israel would be set free. This would

symbolically imply that Christ was crucified on the north of the Temple Mount, and that

Gethsemane (or where Christ suffered for the sins of the world) was located east of the Kidron

valley on the Mount of Olives.

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High Priest on the Day of Atonement (Sprinkling Blood)

The Mosiac Law was loaded with symbolism of Christ's role as Savior of the World. On the Day

of Atonement, the High Priest would enter the Holy of Holies and sprinkle blood on the Altar, or

the Ark of the Covenant. This represented the sanctity and validity of the Law and Covenant. If

at the time of Christ, the Ark of the Covenant had been moved to a location on the temple mount

directly under where the blood of Christ was spilled, then this would symbolically validate the

fulfillment of the Law and Covenant by his crucifixion. Yet sadly, the Ark of the Covenant is

still considered lost, and thus these perspectives cannot be verified.

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Sacrifice of the Red Heifer

Another example of lost sacred knowledge, similar to the Liahona, involves the location of the

ashes of the Red Heifer. The Jews are anticipating the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem, yet

according to their tradition, before they can do this they need to sanctify the temple mount with

ashes from a rare previous Mosaic ritual--the sacrifice of a red heifer (a young female cow)

without spot. According to tradition, this heifer should not even have one follicle producing a hair

of a different color. This sacrifice is said to have taken place at a specific spot on the Mount of

Olives that was astronomically aligned with the eastern Golden Gate and the doors of the Temple.

It was the only temple ritual that took place away from the temple mount. Some have proposed

that the red heifer was led out the east gate, across a bridge spanning the Kidron Valley to the

Mount of Olives. Yet the location of the Red Heifer ashes and the location of the temple both

remain lost to the Jews.

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Christ Suffering in the Garden of Gethsemane

As Latter-day Saints, we believe that Christ's greatest agony occurred in the Garden of

Gethsemane, where he made expiation for the entrance of sin into the world through the

transgression of Eve. The Book of Mosiah chapter 3 tells us that when Christ suffered in the

Garden of Gethsemane on the Mount of Olives, he bled from every pore, rendering his garments

red. Section 133 of the Doctrine & Covenants also tells us that red will be the color of Christ's

robes when he returns at his second coming Intriguingly, among the interested religious groups

in this subject matter, there is a group of Latter-day saint scholars that have investigated the

archaeology and astronomical alignments associated with the Red Heifer ritual. They feel that

they have located where the Garden of Gethsemane was on the Mount of Olives. They have also

intriguingly proposed a location for the Temple that would allow the temple to be rebuilt without

the need to destroy the Dome of the Rock.

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Factor #5

Limited Communication between the East and West

Factor #5: Limited Communication between the East and the West

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Silk Road

Stopped by Wars & Tribal contentions

I have already brought up the story of the Confucian scholars in China during the time of Cheng

Ho in the early 1400s, who did their best to eliminate all outside cultural influences and to isolate

China from the rest of the world. Another network of overland linkages between China and the

Western world of the Mediterranean has been termed the Silk Road. This trade was stopped at

various times because of wars and tribal contentions. One notable period was the Islamic rise to

power during the 7th Century AD and the subsequent crusades. One has to wonder the affect this

had on the knowledge of a magnetic compass.

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Factor #6

Connections of Magnetism with Divination

Factor #6: Connections of magnetism with divination. Anciently, magnetism was associated with

divination, and because of that, those written texts dealing with magnetism were destroyed

because of religious and superstitious reasons. Additionally, some scholars have theorized that

the mariners compass took a long time to come into wide use because superstitious seamen

associated its operation with black magic. In fact, sea captains had a special compartment termed

by some a binnacle, in which they would hide their compasses from the eyes of the superstitious

crew.

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Mayan Religious Images and Books Burned

When the Catholic Jesuits asserted control in China, they enforced the policy of QUOTE "holy

ignorance" by burning a huge number of books. It is said that it took three days to burn all of the

books in the great personal library of Li Ying-shih.

When the Catholic Fathers came to the Americas with the conquistadors, they destroyed the

written records and images of the Native American Indians, viewing the codices as an avenue of

superstitions and lies of the devil. That destruction QUOTE "reduced to ashes the scientific

backbone of a highly civilized people."

I might note that with the devastating principle of "holy ignorance" came the rejection of

additional truth. This concept is reflected in the book of second Nephi, chapter 29 of the Book of

Mormon, noting that some will say QUOTE "A Bible, a Bible, we have got a Bible, and there

cannot be any more Bible."

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Factor #7

Western Bias

Factor #7: Western bias.

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Joseph Needham (1900-1995)

The acclaimed British scientist Joseph Needham, who spent years bringing to light the history of

Chinese science, lamented that QUOTE: "there has been the tendency [in the West] to

presuppose that nothing of real importance could have started outside Europe. Chinese accounts

describing a compass were commonly referred to by European scholars as "legends." While

European accounts referring to the compass were considered part of "science." Yet people in

China were studying magnetic declination long before Europeans even spoke of magnetic

polarity.

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Magnetic Declination

Just so you will know, magnetic declination is the difference between the direction that a

magnetic needle points to and where true north is, and this difference varies at different locations

on the earth. For example, in Maine the compass will point a few degrees west of true north,

while in Alaska, the compass will point a few degrees east of true north.

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Cyrus Gordon

“Collective Amnesia”

According to Cyrus Gordon, head of Mediterranean Studies at Brandies University, travel across

the oceans was taking place thousands of years ago. He referred to the tendency of people to lose

or dismiss the knowledge of the great cultures of our ancestors as QUOTE "collective amnesia."

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When we talk about "collective amnesia," we might tend to fault other people, but to this day

don't we celebrate Columbus Day for the discovery of America, even though the Vikings arrived

at least 500 to 700 years before Columbus? What's more, the Vikings used a lodestone compass

to help them in navigating the foggy oceans of the north.

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Chinese Palace of Chin Shi Huang Ti (806 BC)

Gate built of lodestone – prevented iron weapons

It might be interesting here to note another bit of collective amnesia relative to the use of

magnetic lodestone. In 806 BC the Chinese ruler Chin Shi Huang Ti built a grand royal palace.

The massive main gate, similar to the one shown here, was built entirely of lodestone so as to

prevent any iron weapons from being taken inside. So the idea of having us pass through security

arches at the airport is apparently not new.