Lehi in the Wilderness

As a twenty-first century resident, I had very little understanding of the Arabic culture and the travel requirements necessary to travel from Jerusalem through southwestern Arabia in 600BC. It was enlightening to discover possible answers to the question,' Why did it take Lehi and family eight years to travel such a relatively short distance?. I throughly enjoyed this book and have already recommended this book to my friends and have given copies to others interested in the travels of Lehi and his family. Geographic photos,scripture references are included.

If it were all a fraud, the Book of Mormon would have NO evidences supporting its claims. Like all works of fiction, all its unique places would be non-existent, and so forth. However, this book has demonstrated that the Book of Mormon is far from a work of 19th centiry fiction by an uneducated farmboy and/or a group of conspirators (e.g. Sidney Rigdon et al). The authors show that the detail of the Arabian Peninsula in the text, still derided by critics as impossibilities (e.g. see the book "Mormon claims answered") are strong evidences of the text's authenticity, with Shazer, Nahom, the River of Laman and Valley of Lemuel and Bountiful all being in the right location, all consistent with the detail of the first book in the volume, the First Book of Nephi. This book is a must for Book of Mormon evidences, as it shows that the only logical conclusion is that the author of First Nephi could only be an individual that made the journey described in the text - that is, the author was Nephi, not Jpsep Smith nor anyone else from 1830 America.

"Lehi in the Wilderness" is written from a Mormon perspective and with the understanding that it is a fact that Lehi was a real prophet, and that the Book of Mormon is a true history. Those outside the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints do not make that same assumption. There are many problems in the text concerning the interpretation of the Book of Mormon and applying the text to the physical locations in the Arabian Peninsula. Overall, the book contains entirely too much supposition to warrant serious consideration as "evidence" for the Book of Mormon. The dialogue is bogged down with consistent terminology such as "could have been," "might have," "should be," "if this were," and various other sundry phrases which are merely prerequisites to injecting presumptions concerning the possibility that Lehi actually existed on the Arabian Peninsula. The photographs ARE remarkable, good choices in the effort to provide supports for the Book of Mormon account, and I appreciated the amount of references provided in each chapter, making it easier to research the material. It's a "must read" for apologetics.

I have been devouring this very interesting and compelling book. The authors are credible, thorough, and humble in their discussions and conclusions. The reader is easily transported back to Lehi's time and circumstances - making the scriptural record even more fascinating. This one may be worth praying about and could easily become a fundamental adjunct to Book of Mormon studies. It would be great if this could be made into a documentary. Shalom