Nephi In The Promised Land

I really enjoyed this book by George Potter - Nephi in the Promised Land. (I also really enjoyed his other book Lehi in the Wilderness) In this one, Mr. Potter proposes that the Nephite civilization could have been in Peru rather than Mesoamerica based off of the following criteria of 4 essential things that would have been required to compile the Book of Mormon.

1) golden plates : Metal has been worked in Peru from as early as 1900 B.C. Specifically there is evidence that they mastered the skill of hammering gold into very thin plates on which they could write.

2) a language with Semitic Roots : The Peruvian language of Quechua belongs to the three-vowel system of languages as does classic Arabic. Also, apart from the language of Cuzco which is the general Quechua language that the Incas introduced throughout their empire and was the one they used in speaking to their subjects, they knew a different language which they used only among themselves when they dealt and conversed with those of their own lineage.. Now the descendants of the Incas have forgotten this language, although they still remember some words from it. The secret language of the Inca nobility was called Callawaya. The Book of Mormon implies that the Nephite ruling class had such a private language, and it was Egyptian. Jacob recorded that a man came among the Nephites who had a perfect knowledge of the language of the people (Jacob 7:4) This could be interpreted to mean that while the Nephite royals and the prophets spoke and wrote reformed Egyptian, there was another "language of the people". (I had never thought of it that way before, I thought that was cool!)

3) a vanished written language - Oral traditions indicate that the early Incas had a written language that eventually became lost. All traces of Peru's ancient written language have vanished and is a direct fulfillment of Jacob's prophecy in Jacob 4:1-2 that "whatsoever things we write upon anything save it be upon plates must perish and vanish away".

4) a historical visit in the land by Jesus Christ - More important than gold or written records is the fact that for any nation to have written the Book of Mormon, it must have been visited by the Lord Jesus Christ. The Book of Mormon's main objective is to stand as a second witness of Jesus Christ. The traditions of Peru's Viracocha white-god appear to be consistent with the Bible and Book of Mormon's description of Jesus Christ.

The book goes into a lot more detail on the above points and there's lots of other interesting stuff, I really enjoyed this book and it gave me a lot to think about - I highly recommend it!

(and I'm not ruling out North America, since I also recently watched this youtube video which makes me open to the idea that the ancient societies of North America were simply erased...)