Mormon,Mormonism Book of Mormon Migrations

The Book of Mormon tells of two main migrations to the American continents.

And it came to pass that the Lord spake unto me, saying: Thou shalt construct a ship, after the manner which I shall show thee, that I may carry thy people across these waters. (1 Nephi 17:8)

And the Lord said: Go to work and build, after the manner of barges which ye have hitherto built. And it came to pass that the brother of Jared did go to work, and also his brethren, and built barges after the manner which they had built, according to the instructions of the Lord. And they were small, and they were light upon the water, even like unto the lightness of a fowl upon the water. (Ether 2: 16)

Here is a brief rundown on the people in the Book of Mormon migrations. The people in Lehi's migration were of the House of Israel and were living in Jerusalem. They left Jerusalem and traveled by ship to the Americas. The Jaredite migration began after the Lord confounded the language of the people at the Tower of Babel. Since the city of Babel was in what is now southern Iraq, the people in that migration were probably Semites (I don't remember if the Book of Mormon gives a specific lineage for Jared). The people in the Jaredite migration also came to the Americas by ship. There is a third migration, known as the Mulekites, that is mentioned in the Book of Mormon but not discussed in detail. The Mulekite people were absorbed into the Nephites, and I'm not discussing them as a separate people.

In this post, I discuss the dates of migration. Scientists are concerned about the original settlers of the Americas. For many years, the Clovis people were assumed to be the earliest to come to the Americas. They were in the Americas around 11,500 years ago. However, evidence is surfacing that other groups were here earlier than the Clovis people. In either case, scientists are looking at migrations over 11,000 years ago.

In contrast, the migrations described in the Book of Mormon happened much later. Lehi's migration began in 600 BC. The Jaredite migration began after the Lord confounded the language of the people. I don't have a date for the Tower of Babel, but the Babylonian Empire existed from approximately 2,000 to 323 BC. The Tower of Babel would have been somewhere in that time-range. Because of the vast difference in the dates of the original settlers of the Americas and the Book of Mormon migrations, I would not expect to find a correlation of the scientific and religious views of the dates of migration.