By NORMAN ANAWAT
The land where the resurrected Christ appeared, where the Book of Mormon people lived, fought and died was located in what is now the state of Delaware, according to a study conducted by a BYU student.
Luiz Meneghin, a junior from Ribeirao Preto, Brazil, majoring in nursing, said his interest in Book of Mormon geography started when he was looking at some maps and he realized how far the Nephites walked to get to Hill Cumorah.
'It did not make any sense to me that the Nephites would have walked 3,000 miles from Central America to Hill Cumorah in New York,' Meneghin said.
He focused his studies in the Book of Mormon, Another Testament of Jesus Christ, on finding scriptures that were related to geography, he said.
'I made a collection of every scripture talking about rivers, mountains, hills, and every scripture giving directions,' he said.
It was the description of the land given by Mormon in Alma 22:32 that caused Meneghin to look for a place south of New York that fitted the description as found in the Book of Mormon, he said.
'It was clearly the description of a peninsula to me, because Mormon says the land was nearly surrounded by water with a narrow neck of land that joined the land southward and northward,' he said.
The place that best fit this description is what it is now the Delmarva peninsula in the state of Delaware, Meneghin said.
'If I am right, the land of Bountiful, the land where the resurrected Christ came, is on the northern part of the state of Delaware,' he said.
As evidence of his theory, Meneghin said that many ruins found in the eastern part of the United States matched those described in the Book of Mormon.
In his book 'Antiquities of the State of New York,' archeologist E.G. Squire gives detailed information about these ruins. The drawings and sketches of his findings match the descriptions Mormon gave about the cities in the Book of Mormon, he said.
Other evidence found in these places, such as remains of grain stores, pottery, arrows and workshops with unfinished weapons, indicate that there was a state of war among those people, Meneghin said.
'Some people suggest that these people came here just to fight, but it makes no sense to walk 3,000 miles to have a battle,' Meneghin said.
Other evidences of the origin of the North American Indians are anthropological. In the book 'The Life of William Penn,' by Samuel M. Janney, he writes about the many similarities William Penn found between North American Indians and the Jewish people, Meneghin said.
The book quotes a letter William Penn wrote mentioning that these North American Indians agreed in rites, reckoned by moons, offered their first fruits, had a kind of feast of tabernacles, and laid altars upon twelve stones, he said.
Meneghin also said that it is difficult to match Central America geography with the description of the land as found in the Book of Mormon.
As it is written in the Book of Mormon, it took a day and a half for a Nephite to cross the narrow neck of land, he said.
'Try to walk 20 miles and you will see that it is not an easy task,' Meneghin said.
The narrow neck of land in the Delmarva peninsula is about 18 miles. The narrow neck of land in the Central America theory, which is the isthmus of Tehantuapec, is 135 miles in length, Meneghin said.