Zarahemla is the name of a prominent land, a capital city, and a leader in the Book of Mormon.[1] The Book of Mormon is revered by members of various Latter Day Saint churches as sacred scripture.
Some LDS speculate that the name “Zarahemla” is a compound Biblical Hebrew name זֶרַע חֶמְלָה Zéraʻ Ḥemlah meaning "seed of compassion". Others interpret the name differently.[2]
Some interpret Doctrine & Covenants 125:3 as suggesting that the Book of Mormon’s Zarahemla coincides with an 1841 Mormon settlement within the borders of the state of Iowa, west of the Mississippi River.[3] Others point out that LDS scripture does not actually state that the settlement “Zarahemla” was established on the same spot as the notable Book of Mormon city or land. Mormons have similarly given Book of Mormon names to other towns.[4]
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According to the Book of Mormon narrative, the Nephite Mosiah and his followers “discovered that the people of Zarahemla came out from Jerusalem at the time that Zedekiah king of Judah, was carried away captive into Babylon” (about 587 B.C.)[5] The Book of Mormon relates that the surviving seed of Zedekiah “journeyed in the wilderness, and were brought by the hand of the Lord across the great waters” to the Western Hemisphere.[6] The book of Omni in the Book of Mormon tells how Zarahemla and his people came to settle the land of Zarahemla in the New World. Mosiah and his refugee people presumably united with the people of Zarahemla sometime between 279 and 130 B.C. “Mosiah was appointed to be their king.”[7] Mosiah thereafter presided in the land of Zarahemla over a people called collectively “the Nephites”. The Land of Zarahemla was the Nephite capital for many years.
Notable Book of Mormon descendents of the leader Zarahemla include Ammon the venturer and Coriantumr the dissenter. Ammon led a quest in search of a colony that had left the land of Zarahemla in order to resettle a city named Lehi-Nephi.[8] The dissenter Coriantumr led the Lamanites in battle against the Nephites in the first century B.C.[9]
At some point before Mosiah discovered Zarahemla, the people of Zarahemla had discovered Coriantumr (not to be confused with the later Nephite dissenter of the same name). According to the Book of Mormon, Coriantumr was the last of a destroyed nation called the Jaredites. Coriantumr stayed with the people of Zarahemla "for the space of nine moons" (Omni 1:21) before dying and being buried by them (Ether 13:21).
Benjamin succeeded his father Mosiah as the second Nephite king of Zarahemla. King Benjamin was victorious in driving Lamanites enemies from the Zarahemla region.[10]
The Book of Mormon indicates that Nephite cites were built of timber.[11] There is no explicit reference in the Book of Mormon to any Nephite city or building made of hewn stone. At the time of the crucifixion of Christ, the Book of Mormon records that “there were exceedingly sharp lightnings, such as never had been known in all the land. And the city of Zarahemla did take fire.” [12] The Book of Mormon indicates that “the great city of Zarahemla” was rebuilt sometime in the first century A.D.[13] As his doomed nation retreated northward from their enemies, the 4th century prophet and historian Mormon recorded that Nephite “towns, and villages, and cities were burned with fire.”[14]
Some Mormon writers identify the Lamanites with the Mayans. This tradition can be traced back to two early Mormon sources: (1) the exaggerated hemispheric setting for the Book of Mormon promoted by some LDS (e.g. Orson Pratt), and (2) the later influence of John Lloyd Stephens’ 1841 bestseller, Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan.[15] Other LDS emphasize the unmistakable connection made in LDS scripture between peoples identified as “Lamanites”, and North American tribes of the Great Lakes region, including the mound builder (people).[16] The Book of Mormon does not indicate that the city of Zarahemla survived to be occupied by Lamanites after the destruction of the Nephite nation.
The Book of Mormon consistently describes the land of Zarahemla and its adjoining lands as localized. The name of only one "river" is given in the New World Book of Mormon setting. The northward flowing river Sidon, east of the city of Zarahemla, is described as originating in highlands to the southeast.[17] According to the Book of Mormon, the river Sidon ultimately flows into a “sea”.[18] The river Sidon is never mentioned in lands north of Zarahemla. Identifying the fishery river Sidon is crucial to locating the land of Zarahemla. The Book of Mormon does not indicate that the river Sidon was an impressively large or mighty river. In Book of Mormon antiquity, the river Sidon was shallow enough to cross on foot, yet deep and swift enough to carry away semi-buoyant human carcasses.[19]
The borderline between the lands of “Bountiful” and “Desolation” (north of the land of Zarahemla) is described as “only the distance of a day and a half’s journey” from east to west.[20] The Book of Mormon narrative consistently uses “up” and “down” in describing relative elevation differences between its proximal lands. The lands of Desolation, Bountiful, Zarahemla and Nephi are so localized that, elevation steadily rises as one travels southward from the land of Desolation, up to the wilderness of Bountiful.,[21] and from there, further south through the land of Zarahemla to the land of Nephi.[22] According to the Book of Mormon, a journey from the southern land of Nephi “down” to the land of Zarahemla could be covered on foot in under 21 days.[23]
The book of Alma in the Book of Mormon describes the lands of Zarahemla and Nephi as flanked on the east and on the west by bodies of water called seas.[24] Curiously, the term “lake” is never used in the Book of Mormon to describe a body of water. The use of the word “sea” in the Book of Mormon and in the Bible does not mean Ocean in every instance. One Book of Mormon verse definitely refers to an inland body of water, as a “sea”.[25] The Mediterranean Sea, Sea of Galilee and Dead Sea are essentially inland bodies of water bordering the land of Canaan. More than one author recognizes a parallel between New World seas mentioned in the Book of Mormon and the seas bordering the Promised Land of the Bible.[26]
Between the lands of Zarahemla and Nephi “a narrow strip of wilderness” runs east and west dividing Nephite territories on the north and Lamanite lands to the south.[27] This strip of wilderness is not the same as the “small” or “narrow neck of land” north of Zarahemla.[28] The “narrow pass” having water “on the west and on the east” connects with “the land northward”, that is, with lands north of Zarahemla and Bountiful.[29]
More than one LDS apologist has shown that according to the Book of Mormon, the land of Zarahemla cannot possibly be thousands, or even many hundreds of miles distant from the “land of many waters” where Cumorah resides.[30] It is pointed out that the lands of Cumorah and Zarahemla are near enough to each other, that travelers from the land of Nephi in the south could confuse the general vicinity of Cumorah for the land of Zarahemla.[31] Some interpret an LDS scripture to indicate the land of Cumorah being in the Finger Lakes region of Western New York.[32]
The name “Zarahemla” was given to a small Mormon settlement across the Mississippi River from Nauvoo.[33] In August 1841 a conference was held there during which John Smith was sustained as president of the stake in Iowa, with David Pettigrew and M. C. Nickerson as his counselors.[34] The stake was dissolved three years later; a second stake for Iowa would not be organized until 1966.[35]
In 2003, a board game, The Settlers of Zarahemla, was produced. This game was intended to be similar to The Settlers of Catan, another popular board game, but targeted at a Mormon audience and set in a Book of Mormon setting. It was published by Inspiration Games in conjunction with the German company that owns the rights to Catan.
Zarahemla was also the original name of Blanchardville, Wisconsin, founded in the 1840s by Strangite Mormons. The village received its present name after it was platted in 1857.
The name has also been adopted by Zarahemla Books, according to publisher/owner Christopher Bigelow, because it's "instantly recognizable to any Mormon insider, but it’s just an exotic-sounding name to any outsider."[36]
Passage to Zarahemla is an adventure film directed and written by Chris Heimerdinger. It tells the story of a young pair of siblings seeking to find a new life following the abrupt death of their mother. Their exploits lead them to a relative's home in Utah and eventually a thrilling confrontation with their past and the merger of time.