{"id":108265,"date":"2024-12-13T15:10:58","date_gmt":"2024-12-13T22:10:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=108265"},"modified":"2024-12-13T19:45:42","modified_gmt":"2024-12-14T02:45:42","slug":"finding-nephis-ore","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2024\/12\/finding-nephis-ore.html","title":{"rendered":"“Finding Nephi’s Ore”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

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\"A<\/a>
The Islamic Center of Southern California, at 434 Vermont Avenue in downtown Los Angeles, not far from the University of Southern California \u00a0(Wikimedia Commons public domain photograph)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Last night, at the Islamic Center of Southern California<\/a>, I participated in a dinner that was followed by a discussion and a Q&A that involved me and Salam al-Marayati,<\/a> the president and co-founder of the Muslim Public Affairs Council<\/a>. \u00a0Our conversation and our responses to questions went well, I think, and they were recorded for eventual future posting. \u00a0(I noticed three cameras.) \u00a0The audience was made up of both Muslim and Latter-day Saint young people, in what seemed to me to be equal proportions. \u00a0Maybe around fifty or sixty of them? \u00a0Seventy, perhaps? \u00a0For such a balance to have been achieved they must have been invited, and there was obviously no intent to attract a larger crowd; their numbers exactly corresponded to the number of chairs that had been set up. \u00a0The meeting was opened, called to order, and closed by Larry Eastland<\/a>, who serves as chairman of the board of the John A. Widtsoe Foundation<\/a>. \u00a0Salam al-Marayati recited the Fatiha<\/a> at the beginning of our discussion \u2014 effectively (and commonly) the Muslim analogue to a Latter-day Saint invocation or opening prayer \u2014 while, having been requested to offer the benediction, I gave a thoroughly Latter-day Saint closing prayer, thanking the Lord for the spirit and amiability and generosity of the evening and asking, among other things, for blessings and peace to rest upon the Islamic Center and those associated with it.<\/p>\n

\"Khor<\/a>
Khor Rori and Khor Kharfot have both been suggested as possible locations for Lehi\u2019s Old World Bountiful. I lean strongly toward the latter.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This article has been newly published in Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship<\/em>: \u00a0\u201cFinding Nephi\u2019s Ore,\u201d<\/a> written by Bradley R. Larsen<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Abstract:<\/strong> Khor Kharfot and Wadi Sayq are in the region that has become the premiere candidate for Nephi\u2019s Old-World Bountiful. Out of the several matching criteria that has led to this opinion, the one that may be the weakest has been the identification of readily available ore in the area that Nephi could have used to manufacture the tools necessary to build his ship. This investigation found several distinct examples of iron ores suitable for \u201dsmelting\u201d in the form of float, all pointing to deposits yet to be located. Additionally, I review the investigation of Dr. Revell Phillips, who headed a group from BYU in 2000, that found two locations north of Khor Kharfot apparently containing significant deposits of iron ore. However, one site turned out to be problematic and the other site is too distant for Nephi to have been able to access it. Nonetheless, their efforts are reviewed as a backdrop for this current study. Also presented are findings regarding heretofore unrecognized features of Wadi Sayq and Khor Kharfot and the likely conditions that produced them, going back into the Pleistocene era.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

See also \u201cInterpreting Interpreter<\/em>: Some Bountiful Iron,\u201d<\/a> written by Kyler Rasmussen<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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This post is a summary of the article \u201cFinding Nephi\u2019s Ore<\/a>\u201d by Bradley R. Larsen in Volume 63 of Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship<\/em>. All of the Interpreting Interpreter<\/em>articles may be seen at https:\/\/interpreterfoundation.org\/category\/summaries\/<\/a>. An introduction to the Interpreting Interpreter<\/em> series is available at https:\/\/interpreterfoundation.org\/interpreting-interpreter-on-abstracting-thought\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A video introduction to this Interpreter article is now available on all of our social media channels, including on YouTube at https:\/\/youtube.com\/shorts\/bPuXDj70KB4<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Takeaway: \u00a0<\/strong>Larsen provides some additional insights into the potential Bountiful site at Khor Kharfot and Wadi Sayq, based on an extensive expedition to the area in 2016-17. He details evidence that the area had a deeper lagoon and greater access to usable iron deposits than previously thought, making the area more suitable for shipbuilding.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

\"Muslim<\/a>
I think it might plausibly be argued that the Muslim man shown praying in a mosque in this photograph, which was kindly sent to me by Matthew Wheeler, neither hates Christians nor despises Christmas.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Not long after the launch of what is now called Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship<\/em> in August 2012, we conceived the idea of running special holiday essays on the Friday immediately prior to Christmas and on Good Friday, which, of course, immediately precedes Easter Sunday. \u00a0Worthwhile though it is and would be, it seemed wrong, somehow \u2014 it just didn\u2019t seem seasonally appropriate \u2014 for Interpreter<\/em> to publish an essay, on Good Friday or even on Christmas Day itself, that was devoted, say, to Semitic etymologies in Uto-Aztecan, or to EModE syntax in the Original Manuscript of the Book of Mormon, or to the precise GPS coordinates of the Jaredite city of Lib.<\/p>\n

Accordingly, we resolved to invite submissions specifically for those holiday seasons. \u00a0We didn\u2019t dictate the approach that authors could or should take, but we said that, if their authors chose, the holiday essays could be more personal or inspirational or devotional than our articles typically are. \u00a0Or they could be academic, if an author chose, but specifically relevant to the holiday for which they were written.<\/p>\n

In the hope that at least some of the readers here might find them interesting and helpful for this Christmas season, I\u2019m providing a list of the Christmas articles that we\u2019ve published thus far (though not of the Easter articles), with links:<\/p>\n