Why was the Liahona a Sphere? A New Perspective on Its Form and Function

There is one thought on “Why was the Liahona a Sphere? A New Perspective on Its Form and Function”.

1. This is certainly an interesting proposal.
   A good quality pathfinder compass has a round housing marked with compass directions and degree markings, containing the magnetic needle that points toward magnetic north, but the housing is mounted on a clear, transparent plastic rectangular base with a fixed arrow pointing from the base of the housing to one end of the base. The combination compass is set down on a map with the base arrow pointed in the intended direction of travel, and the housing rotated to match North to the magnetic north line marked on the map. At more northern latitudes, the magnetic force lines are skewed to the east or west depending on where the mapped area sits relative to the magnetic north pole. In the middle latitudes around Arabia, there is very little skewing of the magnetic north line from the geographic north line.

   Once the travel direction arrow is set using the map, and the circular housing is rotated to match the local magnetic north line, you raise the compass off the map and rotate the entire assembly until the magnetic needle matches the North point on the circumference of the circular housing. The large arrow on the base then points in the direction of travel, and you look toward the horizon to mark two landmarks, one nearer and the other more distant, that you keep lined up while you walk across the terrain. When you arrive at the near landmark, which has been marked on the map, you repeat the process.
   My personal view is that the simplest way to envision the “two needles” in the Liahona is to match the “two arrows” in a modern pathfinder compass, one pointing to magnetic north, the other pointing to the inspired direction of travel. The magnetic needle keeps you (literally) “Oriented” to the landscape, helping you identify where you are within the landscape you are crossing, and thus giving Nephi the directions parallel to the Red Sea, and eastward from Nahom to Bountiful.
   The original meaning of the word “compass” in English was a pair of needles joined with a hinge near their connection point. The angle between the needles could be adjusted to set the radius of a circle to be drawn. One point would be inserted into the center of the circle, while the other would be drawn around that center to form a circle on a map. In the famous drawing by William Blake showing God reaching down to create the earth, he is spanning the disk of the earth with such an open drawing compass. The land was “compassed about” with the seas. The circle representing the earth would be marked with the cardinal directions, North, South, East and West, and intermediate directions NNE, etc., and a magnetic needle placed on a spindle at the center and able to spin freely. With a map and a scale matching inches on the map to miles on the land, a two pointer compass could span a distance, and the pointers then compared to a distance key on the side of the map, allowing you to estimate the distance traveled.
   Just as the Interpreters/Urim & Thummim and seer stones displayed writing, it appears that the surface of the Liahona sphere and the two needles were able to display some limited writing. Perhaps the direction pointer showed a term like “Food” or “Journey”, that would tell the user what the arrow was pointing TO. Hunting down an antelope would be a different question than where you go after your tent is taken down and loaded on your pack animals.
   Nevertheless, I wonder if one of the ways that the Liahona showed “writing” was simply by having the letters of the Hebrew alphabet, which also were used for numbers, arrayed around the rim of the compass, and letters pointed to one at a time by the direction pointer. In the same way that the astronaut stranded on Mars in the movie “The Martian” spells out words by pointing a camera at successive letters written on signs that are arrayed around a circle, and transmitting the series of images to earth with a robot’s camera, long sentences could be spelled out by a moving arrow pointing at letters, with motions among the letters to show when words or sentences begin or end. It was not until the era when movable type printing was invented that breaks between words and punctuation were added to written text in English and its ancestors. The pointer could spin two circles first, then stop at letters in turn, repeating the message several times. Like a modern Ouija Board, seeing the words spelled out repeatedly would be pretty miraculous to Lehi and his family.
   As to the spherical ball enclosing the magnetic and directional arrows, I have wondered whether the sphere displayed a map of the world, with their path of travel inscribed across Arabia and the Indian and Pacific Oceans, reassuring Lehi’s party that they had a definite destination in mind, and there were places en route where they could stop and replenish their food.

   Reply ↓

Close this window