The Unique Places of Mormon 1-6

One of the things that stands out in Mormon 1-6 after the Nephites became wicked again is that many of the names of cities and places are very unfamiliar to the reader.  For example, Ammaron hid up the records for Mormon in the “land Antum,” a place nowhere else mentioned in the Nephite record we have (Mormon 1:3).  The Nephites fought in many places as well during this final war which are unique to these chapters in Mormon.  The Nephites took possession of “the city of Angola” and they were driven “forth out of the land of David.”  They marched northward to “the land of Joshua” which was by the western sea, and they were subsequently driven northward further to “the city of Shem” (Mormon 2:4-6, 20).  Later the army “came to the city of Boaz” where they fought against the Lamanites, and after that they “fled to the city of Jordan” where they temporarily withstood the Lamanites (Mormon 4:20, 5:3)  Angola, David, Joshua, Shem, Boaz, and Jordan are all places which are not found outside of Mormon 1-6.  At one point the Nephite army joined with the “inhabitants of the city of Teancum,” a familiar name because of the Nephite general, but a place that is not mentioned outside the context of this war.  The final place of war, Cumorah, likely is not mentioned outside of the writings of Mormon and Moroni about the people of their day.  So why are all of these places so unfamiliar—what happened to Bountiful and Zarahemla and the land of Nephi?      

               It appears that the reason for the new names of places is that most of what took place in the Book of Mormon before 4 Nephi was in the land southward, whereas what took place in Mormon 1-6 likely took place mostly in the land northward.  The land southward included the land of Nephi (where the Lamanites dwelt after the book of Omni) and the land of Zarahemla where the Nephite government was for most of the book.  All of the places mentioned in the wars of the late chapters of Alma—such as Manti and Mulek and Jershon and Moroni—were part of the land southward which was south of the “narrow neck which led into the land northward” (Alma 63:5).  The land Bountiful where the Savior came was north of Zarahemla but still in the land southward.  The Jaredites, on the other hand, dwelt mainly in the land northward (see Ether 10:21, Alma 22:30), and there were several groups of Nephites who went into the land northward during the time recorded before 4 Nephi, such as the groups who went by ship with Hagoth (see Alma 63:4-7) and many of the people of Ammon when there was contention among the Nephites (see Helaman 3:11-12).  Nephi and Lehi also went for many years into the land northward to preach (Helaman 6:6), but in none of these passing references do we have any details of the names of the places in the land northward except for the land Desolation which was just past the narrow neck of land (see Alma 22:30).  When Mormon came on the scene in Mormon 1, he mentioned that he went to the land southward with his father, implying that he was from the land northward (Mormon 1:6).  The final wars between the Nephites and Lamanites started in the land southward near Zarahemla, but soon thereafter the Nephites “began to retreat towards the north countries” (Mormon 1:10).  After the first several battles the Nephites and the Lamanites developed a truce in which “the Lamanites did give unto [the Nephites] the land northward” (Mormon 2:29).  All of the subsequent battles took place in that land northward, north of the more familiar places of Zarahemla and Bountiful. 

               Of those eight cities mentioned which are unique to the book of Mormon (i.e. the book of 9 chapters within the larger Book of Mormon), it’s interesting that five of them—David, Joshua, Shem, Boaz, and Jordan—are Biblical (i.e. from the Plates of Brass) names.  I’m not sure why that is, but I have to think that it’s a sign that the Nephites who first settled them were righteous.  Perhaps it was the group of the people of Ammon, mentioned in Helaman 3:12, who settled some of those cities and used names from their scriptures as a testament of their faith in the word.  Whatever the reason, by the time of Mormon 1-6 it is a tragedy that this faith in the word of God had been completely extinguished.  They had forgotten the meanings of the very names of the cities they fought and perished in.