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Is the Book of Mormon mention of the word "compass" an anachronism?

Questions

It is claimed that the description of the Liahona as a "compass" is anachronistic because the magnetic compass was not known in 600 B.C.

• One critical website notes that "the COMPASS which DIRECTED one's course wasn't invented yet for many centuries." Cite error: Closing </ref> missing for <ref> tag

Believing it was called a compass because it pointed the direction for Lehi to travel is a natural interpretation by the modern reader.

• As a verb, the word "compass" occurs frequently in the King James Version of the Bible^[1]; and it generally suggests the idea of surrounding or encircling something. Note the following usages:
  • Also he made a molten sea of ten cubits from brim to brim, round in compass, and five cubits the height thereof; and a line of thirty cubits did compass it round about. 2 Chronicles 4:2
  • They compassed me about; yea, they compassed me about: but in the name of the Lord I will destroy them. Psalms 118:11
  • And ye shall compass the city, all ye men of war, and go round about the city once. Thus shalt thou do six days. Joshua 6:3
  • From the wicked that oppress me, from my deadly enemies, who compass me about. Psalms 17:9

• In a few cases (e.g. Exodus 27:5; Proverbs 8:27; Isaiah 44:13) it is used as a noun, and suggests something which encircles another thing.

• A third common situation in the KJV is the use of the phrase "to fetch a compass" (e.g., Numbers 34:5; Joshua 15:3; Acts 28:13), which if not recognized as a verbal phrase could be wrongly seen as presenting "compass" as a noun.

In every case, it is clear that, at least in Jacobean England, the word was regularly treated as meaning either a round object, or something which moved in a curved fashion.

Further evidence of the archaic meaning of the word comes from a study of the rather lengthy listing for the word in the Oxford English Dictionary. It includes definition 5.b.:

"Anything circular in shape, e.g. the globe, the horizon; also, a circlet or ring."

• the clock can also be referred to as a compass, yet it points at the time.

Suggested early pre-Columbian compass

If critics insist on reading this as a "mariner's compass," even this may not be as anachronistic as they have assumed.

Naturally-occurring magnetic ore was being mined by the 7th century B.C., and its magnetic properties were first discussed by the early philosopher Thales of Miletos around 600 B.C.^[2]

Non-LDS astronomer John Carlson reported finding a Olmec hematite artifact in Mesoamerica, which was radio-dated to 1600 to 1000 B.C. If Carlson is right, this usage "predates the Chinese discovery of the geomagnetic lodestone compass by more than a millennium."^[3] Other researchers have suggested the metal is simply part of an ornament,^[4] though Mesoamericanist Michael Coe has suggested the use of such ores as floating compasses.^[5] Such examples demonstrate how a single find can radically alter what archaeology tells us is "impossible" with regard to the Book of Mormon text.

Notes

1. ↑ Biblical references to "compass" can be seen with this search of the lds.org scriptures web site.
2. ↑ Robert F. Smith, "Lodestone and the Liahona," in Reexploring the Book of Mormon, edited by John W. Welch (Provo, Utah: FARMS, 1992), Chapter 12. direct off-site
3. ↑ John B. Carlson, "Lodestone Compass: Chinese or Olmec Primacy? Multidisciplinary Analysis of an Olmec Hematite Artifact from San Lorenzo, Veracruz, Mexico," Science 189, No. 4205 (5 September 1975): 753-760. See also R. H. Fuson, "The Orientation of Mayan Ceremonial Centers," Annals of the Association of American Geographers 59 (September 1969): 508-10; E. C. Baity, "Archaeoastronomy and Ethnoastronomy So Far," Current Anthropology 14 (October 1973): 443.
4. ↑ Joseph Needham and Lu Gwei-Djen, Trans-Pacific Echoes and Resonances: Listening Once Again (Singapore: World Scientific Publishing Co., 1985), 21.
5. ↑ Smith, "Lodestone and the Liahona"; see also Michael D. Coe, America's First Civilization (New York, 1970).

Further reading and additional sources responding to these claims