GEOGRAPHY OF THE NEPHIHAH CAMPAIGN

I’ve spoken in an earlier post here about the importance to the Restoration movement (and specifically to the Community of Christ) of continuing to address the historicity of the Book of Mormon. I’ve also noted here that such a task is best served by applying as many different disciplinary specialties as possible to it. This especially includes military science because the major editor of an historically-based BofM would be a military leader who saw events through at least partially a military lens. A Patton looks at a river differently than a painter.

Morgan Deane is a young Mormon scholar who brings both a graduate degree focused on military history and experience as an infantry squad leader to his appreciation of the Book of Mormon. I am an avid reader of his blog Warfare and the Book of Mormon, which you can link to any time from my own homepage under the Science and Theology section of the blogroll.

Morgan recently posted a tactical analysis of the recapture of the city of Nephihah described in Alma for information about its geographical location. He suggested that one could examine potential geographical settings of the Book of Mormon with these tactical details in mind. I was so intrigued by this suggestion that I spent time last week trying to extend Morgan’s thoughts about Nephihah to the operational level and strategic goals of the campaign that led up to the recapture.

When I finished, I e-mailed Morgan a comment too lengthy to successfully post on his comments page. Morgan graciously decided to publish it as a guest post on his blog. I hope you’ll check it out, and take the time to follow Morgan’s work in general.

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