On the 600-year prophecy (1 Nephi 10:4) and the work of Randal Spackman et al.:
The Mesoamerican 360-day tuun year
may hold the answer, but it is not a simplistic answer, because the evidence
from Mesoamerica suggests that the 360-day year postdated the Nephite nation by
perhaps four hundred years. It simply was not available as a means of
calculating the years until the creation and acceptance of the Long Count. We
suggest that there was a unique convergence of events that accompanied the end
of Mosiah2’s reign. Mosiah2 set the stage for the
introduction of the reign of the judges of government. The Book of Mormon makes
it clear that along with the new type of government, a new way of keeping
records was also instituted. Where the small plates and the book of Mosiah both
give only sporadic indications of how man years had passed since Lehi left
Jerusalem, the book of Alma begins a much more structured use of years to outline
history. From the beginning of the book of Alma to the end of the Nephite
nation, history was kept according to the years. Mormon marks almost every year
that passes, even if nothing of note happened in them. Historical records kept
in this format are called annals. Examples of annals are found in later Maya
and Aztec histories.
With a new government and a
demonstrable change to record-keeping, we suggest that the Nephites also began
using the time units associated with the Long Count at this time, even though
they did not adopt the Long Count’s mythical beginning date. The Long Count had
its origins around 100-200 BC. The earliest Long Count discovered to date
records a date correlating to 37 BC. It was found in the archaeological site
called Chiapa de Corzo, a settlement in the Grijalva River valley. For those
who believe that the Grijalva River was known to the Nephites as the River
Sidon, this places the earliest known Long Count record firmly in Nephite
territory and only around forty years after the beginning of the book of Alma.
If the hypothesis is correct, it
would mean that while the lunar calendar may have been used to count years up
until the first year of the reign of the judges, from the first year of the
reign of the judges it would have been based on the 360-day tuun year.
There is no direct evidence that this change was made. However, the two known
changes suggest at least the willingness to innovate. The way that the time
units associated with the Long Count are used in Mormon’s text (the use of the
five-year hotun, twenty-year k’atun, and four-hundred-year baktun)
shows that Mormon was well aware of them. The second is the abrupt shift in the
way years are treated between the books of Mosiah and Alma. The circumstantial
evidence is strong though clearly not probative.
Using this hypothesis to
recalibrate the Nephite count of six hundred years, we begin with the total
number of years that would have used the lunar calendar. This comes from the
end of the book of Mosiah, which comes 509 Nephite years following Lehi’s departure
from Jerusalem (Mosiah 29:46). Then, at the beginning of the reign of the
judges, we suggest that the Nephites shifted to a tuun year for the next
ninety-one complete years that passed before the birth of Christ in the ninety-second
year of the reign of the judges.
Thus the recalibration would be:
·
509 years calculated at 354 days per year.
Converting to days and dividing by 365 solar days (uncorrected) gives 493.6,
round to an even 494 years.
·
Ninety-one years calculated at 360 days per
year. Converting to days and dividing by 365 solar days (uncorrected) gives 89.7,
rounded to an even 90 years.
·
Combining the two total changes the Nephite
600-year count to 584 years. Using a 4 BC birth year for the Savior places Lehi’s
departure in 588 BC.
This method of calculating the
years only increases Spackman’s year count by a single year, but that single
year allows for a more reasonable departure during the time when the siege of
Jerusalem was temporarily lifted in 588 BC. Although it places the departure
about a year earlier than the destruction, it is still close enough that Nephi’s
description that Jerusalem fell “immediately” after they left (2 Nephi 25:10)
is still plausible.
There is no way to reconcile six
hundred solar years from the first year of the reign of Zedekiah. Spackman’s
suggestion of lunar years comes much closer, as long as the departure from Jerusalem
is delayed nearly a decade. Six hundred lunar years translates to 582 solar
years and that would suggest a departure in 587 BC (assuming 5 BC as the date
for Christ’s birth). The 587 BC departure date is so close to the destruction
of Jerusalem that the Babylonian siege was in place and would have made the
departure difficult, not to mention the return for the brass plates and for
Ishmael’s family. The combination of lunar years and tuun years provides
the 583 years to yield a departure in 588 BC, which allows for a more plausible
departure since the siege was temporarily lifted. (Mark Alan Wright and Brant A.
Gardner, “Numbers Behaving Strangely: Decoding Sacred Time in the Book of
Mormon,” in In the Eyes of the Ancients: Historical Perspectives on the Book
of Mormon [Provo, Utah: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University;
Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2026], 131-33)
