Compass
The Book of Mormon also states that a "compass" or "Liahona" was used by Nephi around 600 BC. The compass is widely recognized to have been invented in China around 1100 AD, and remains of a compass have never been found in America. In the Book of Alma when Alma, speaking to his son Helaman, explains "our fathers called it Liahona, which is, being interpreted, a compass" (Alma 37:38). Alma tells his son that "it is as easy to give heed to the word of Christ ... to eternal bliss, as it was for our fathers to give heed to this compass ... to the promised land" (Alma 37:44).
Apologists counter that the compass used by Nephi (the Liahona) was, according to the narrative, created by God himself (Alma 37:38), and not by the Nephites. Also, unlike a normal compass, the Book of Mormon says that there was also writing on the ball that displayed additional instructions from God (1 Nephi 16:26-29). Apologists claim that it is possible that the compass used by the Nephites was not copied or used by the civilization, and as such archaeological evidence of compasses may not exist in the Americas. Based on this theory, Joseph Smith would have chosen the word "compass" in his translation of the golden plates as a best fit for the concept of the compass, and as such it is not necessarily an anachronism.
Read more about this topic: Anachronisms In The Book Of Mormon, Technology Anachronisms
Famous quotes containing the word compass:
“Constancy in love is a perpetual inconstancy which fixes our hearts successively to all the qualities of the person loved—sometimes admiring one and sometimes another above all the rest—so that this constancy roves as far as it can, and is no better than inconstancy, confined within the compass of one person.”
—François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680)
“Cruelty is a mystery, and the waste of pain. But if we describe a word to compass these things, a world that is a long, brute game, then we bump against another mystery: the inrush of power and delight, the canary that sings on the skull.”
—Annie Dillard (b. 1945)
“From Harmony, from heavenly Harmony
This universal Frame began:
From Harmony to Harmony
Through all the Compass of the Notes it ran,
The Diapason closing full in Man.”
—John Dryden (1631–1700)