Brandley’s Map – Another Useless Shot in the Dark, Part III

Continuing with Theodore Brandley’s North American setting for his Land of Promise, we revisit his map to show the relationship errors according to the scriptural record:

He quotes Ether: “And they built a great city by the narrow neck of land, by the place where the sea divides the land” (Ether 10:20).

Brandley then shows two cities built in the general area described, one called the city of Desolation, which is scripturally based, and the other he calls the Great City (above), which is only mentioned once in scripture, and only as a description, not a name.

Brandley’s Map: 1) Great City (Ether 10:20); 2) City of Desolation – in the scriptures the Great City and the City of Desolation are the same city; 3) Narrow Neck of Land – the Delmarva Peninsula; 4) the Narrow Pass

Narrow Pass:

On the one hand, Brandley quotes the scripture: “And it came to pass that they did not head them until they had come to the borders of the land Desolation; and there they did head them, by the narrow pass which led by the sea into the land northward, yea, by the sea, on the west and on the east” (Alma 50:34). Then he follows this with his own statement which says: “Mormon described a narrow pass which led from the sea into the land northward, which was the land of Desolation.”

And herein lies the problem with historians who have their own agenda to promote. Alma said, “by the narrow pass which led by the sea into the land northward,” but Brandley says: “Mormon described a narrow pass which led from the sea into the land northward.”

These two statements do not convey the same meaning. First, Alma tells us the narrow pass led by the sea—“by the sea” means “along by the sea,” that is, in direct relationship to the sea, or stated differently, the sea ran past the area being mentioned, i.e., the narrow pass. So much so, that the sea was on either side of the pass, on the east and on the west.

However, Brandley, to prove his point of location—Note the parts of his statement that we have underlined: “This pass was near a place where there was a sea on the west and a sea on the east. Fifty miles from the Potomac River Corridor through the Blue Ridge Mountains, the Potomac flows into the Atlantic across the bay from “The Peninsula,” that has a sea on the west, and a sea on the east.”

Let us look at this one point at a time:  1) Alma describes a pass direcly adjacent to the sea; not 50 miles away; 2) Alma says the sea flows by the pass, Brandley claims the pass leads away from the sea [50 miles away]; 3) However, Brandley is inaccurate when he claimes there was a Sea 50 miles away on both sides of a peninsulas—the Delmarva Peninsula has the Atlantic Ocean to the east, but to the west is the Chesapeake Bay, not an ocean; 4) the Atlantic Ocean is actually 200 miles (not 50) from the eastern beginning of his pass; 5) His pass is 120 miles long; and 6) his actual pass runs north and south through the Blue Ridge Mountains—paralleling the Potomac River--with no Sea to the west and to the east.

Once again because this discrepancy in Brandley's map is important, his Narrow Pass area is the Potomac Water Gap, a double water gap in the Blue Ridge Mountains located at the intersection of the States of Virginia, West Virginia and Maryland, near Harpers Ferry. At 256 feet, it is the lowest crossing of the Blue Ridge Mountains. However, this is a river pass—not a pass with the sea on either side as the scriptural record points out.

As stated earlier, Alma describes this narrow pass as: “they did not head them until they had come to the borders of the land Desolation; and there they did head them, by the narrow pass which led by the sea into the land northward, yea, by the sea, on the west and on the east” (Alma 50:34). Thus, the narrow pass ran between two seas—the sea on the west and the sea on the east. There is no sea connected to Brandley’s narrow pass—just the Potomac River.

Lastly, Moroni instructed Teancum “that he should fortify the land Bountiful, and secure the narrow pass which led into the land northward, lest the Lamanites should obtain that point and should have power to harass them on every side” (Alma 52:9). Now, in Brandley’s map, these two points are 750 miles apart, which is not only impractical from a military stand point, but from Bountiful, this entire area could be circumvented by moving up the western side of the Blue Ridge Mountains and not the east.

City of Desolation:

“And it came to pass that I did cause my people that they should gather themselves together at the land Desolation, to a city which was in the borders, by the narrow pass which led into the land southward; And there we did place our armies, that we might stop the armies of the Lamanites, that they might not get possession of any of our lands; therefore we did fortify against them with all our force. And it came to pass that in the three hundred and sixty and first year the Lamanites did come down to the city of Desolation to battle against us; and it came to pass that in that year we did beat them, insomuch that they did return to their own lands again (Mormon 3:5-7).

Obviously, the City of Desolation is the only city of any size near the Narrow Neck of Land, and that the Great City built there is the City of Desolation.

In simple terms, Brandley’s map simply does not fit any scriptural references what-so-ever!

(See the next post, “Brandley’s Map – Another Useless Shot in the Dark, Part IV,” to see the problem of sailing from the Atlantic to the Gulf of the Mississippi River, then up it to the area of Poverty Point)