Commenting
on the Liahona being described as a “compass” in 1 Nephi 16, Janne M. Sjodahl
and George Reynolds in volume 1 of their Commentary
on the Book of Mormon wrote the following against the charge it was a mariner’s compass:
The
"compass" (vv. 12 and 21) is the round ball of curious workmanship
described in 1 Ne. 16:10. Some have assumed that the term was meant to convey
the idea that Lehi, more than 500 years B. C. had the mariners' instrument
which is supposed to have been unknown in the western world until the 12th
century A. D., and that "compass" therefore, is an anachronism which
furnishes evidence of the very human origin of the Book of Mormon. But that
reasoning disregards two facts: First that the "compass" in question
was not the magnetic instrument of the mariner, but a special contrivance which
pointed the way they were to go, and that only in response to the faith of the
sailor; secondly, that the word "compass" is a good English word,
meaning not only the mariners' instrument but a circle or a globe in general, a
round, a circuit. In Num. 34:5 and Joshua 15:13 it refers to the bend in the
southern boundary line of the land of Israel, "from Azmon unto the river
of Egypt" and from there to the sea. Luke, in Acts 28:13 uses the term for
the course steered by the ship from Syracuse to Rhegium. In Ex. 27:5 and 38:4
it means the inside rim of the altar to which a metal net, or grate, was
fastened, evidently in order to protect the wood work of the altar. In 2 Sam.
5:23 and 2 Kings 3:9, to "fetch a compass" means to surround a
portion of the army of an enemy. In prov. 8:23, "compass" refers to
the circular horizon, and in Isaiah 44:13 to the compasses of a sculptor. It is
clear from these references that the term as applied in the Book of Mormon to
the little round ball of Lehi is correct. It is not an anachronism.