![\"Volcanic](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2018\/02\/Rinjani_1994_cropped1.png\")
<\/a>(Wikimedia Commons public domain photograph)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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I\u2019m halfway through a period of temporary bachelorhood: My wife is babysitting one of our granddaughters out in Virginia, assisted by my middle son.\u00a0 I couldn\u2019t go because of some obligations here at home.\u00a0 But it now appears that I may actually survive.\u00a0 And, someday, I\u2019ll do the dishes and do the wash.\u00a0 Certainly before she comes home!<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n A while back, I posted a number of entries here about the destruction in the New World that accompanied the death of Christ in the Old World, according to the account given in the Book of Mormon.\u00a0 Based on the work of others who are cited in these entries, I\u2019m inclined to believe that 3 Nephi recounts not only a cataclysmic seismic event but a volcanic one:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cGeology and Third Nephi (1): The Time of Darkness (A)\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cGeology and Third Nephi (2): Santorini and the Land of the Pharaoh\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cGeology and Third Nephi (3): The Time of Darkness (B)\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cGeology and Third Nephi (4): An Explosive Volcanic Eruption?\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cGeology and Third Nephi (5): Evidence from Ice Cores?\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cGeology and Third Nephi (6): Storms and Tempests\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cGeology and Third Nephi (7): \u201cShaking and Quaking\u201d\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cGeology and Third Nephi (8): An Interim Update\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cGeology and Third Nephi (9): Cities Burned, Buried, and Drowned (Part One)\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cGeology and Third Nephi (10): Cities Burned, Buried, and Drowned (Part Two)\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cGeology and Third Nephi (11): Cities Burned, Buried, and Drowned (Part Three)\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cGeology and Third Nephi (12): \u201cWhole Face of Land Changed\u201d (Part One)\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cGeology and Third Nephi (13): \u201cWhole Face of Land Changed\u201d (Part Two)\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cGeology and Third Nephi (14): \u201cBroken and Scattered Rocks\u201d (Part One)\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cGeology and Third Nephi (15): \u201cBroken and Scattered Rocks\u201d (Part Two)\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cGeology and Third Nephi (16): \u201cThick Darkness\u201d (Part One)\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cGeology and Third Nephi (17): \u201cThick Darkness\u201d (Part Two)\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cGeology and Third Nephi (18): Finis\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u201c\u201cSturm und Drang\u201d in 3 Nephi\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u201c3 Nephi: Another Volcanological Perspective (1)\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u201c3 Nephi: Another Volcanological Perspective (2)\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cHas the volcano responsible for the destruction in 3 Nephi been located?\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n My interest in the topic was rekindled this morning by an article that I read in the New York Times<\/em>:\u00a0\u00a0\u201cLightning in the \u2018cataclysmic\u2019 Tonga volcano eruption shattered \u2018all records\u2019\u201d<\/a>\u00a0 Here are the directly relevant passages from the Book of Mormon.\u00a0 The first narrates the actual events:<\/p>\n And there were exceedingly sharp lightnings, such as never had been known in all the land. . . .<\/p>\n And thus the face of the whole earth became deformed, because of the tempests, and the thunderings, and the lightnings, and the quaking of the earth. . . .<\/p>\n And it came to pass that when the thunderings, and the lightnings, and the storm, and the tempest, and the quakings of the earth did cease\u2014for behold, they did last for about the space of three hours; and it was said by some that the time was greater; nevertheless, all these great and terrible things were done in about the space of three hours\u2014and then behold, there was darkness upon the face of the land.\u00a0 (3 Nephi 8:7, 17. 19)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n The next two passages, which actually come earlier in the chronology of the Book of Mormon, constitute specific and detailed prophecies of those coming events:<\/p>\n And it came to pass that I saw a mist of darkness on the face of the land of promise; and I saw lightnings, and I heard thunderings, and earthquakes, and all manner of tumultuous noises; and I saw the earth and the rocks, that they rent; and I saw mountains tumbling into pieces; and I saw the plains of the earth, that they were broken up; and I saw many cities that they were sunk; and I saw many that they were burned with fire; and I saw many that did tumble to the earth, because of the quaking thereof.\u00a0 (1 Nephi 12:4)<\/p>\n Yea, at the time that he shall yield up the ghost there shall be thunderings and lightnings for the space of many hours, and the earth shall shake and tremble; and the rocks which are upon the face of this earth, which are both above the earth and beneath, which ye know at this time are solid, or the more part of it is one solid mass, shall be broken up.\u00a0 (Helaman 14:21)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Please note the prominence of lightning in both the prophecies and the actual narrative.<\/p>\n I may be wrong, maybe it\u2019s just me, but I doubt that the typical uninformed person \u2014 think here of the poorly educated early nineteenth-century frontier farm youth Joseph Smith, who spent his life in a seismically quiescent area utterly devoid of volcanos \u2014 would immediately associate volcanic eruptions, let alone simple earthquakes, with lightning.\u00a0 And yet volcanic eruptions are<\/em> associated with lightning, and if, as I and others think, 3 Nephi depicts an instance of catastrophic volcanism, the Book of Mormon is clearly correct in this regard.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a>\n
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