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New Approaches to the Book of Mormon: Brent Lee Metcalfe Signature Books
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As Latter-day Saints we are urged to study the Book of Mormon and apply its teachings to our lives. In "likening the scriptures unto ourselves," however, we sometimes anachronistically ascribe modern attitudes, practices, and phenomena to Book of Mormon people. Although usually innocuous, this penchant for viewing the long ago through contemporary glasses can sometimes distort our understanding of the text. In this essay I examine one possible problem in current LDS interpretations of the Book of Mormon. In the context of today's much-publicized population explosion and from the perspective of an era accustomed to miracles in medicine, technology, nutrition, and transportation, I believe we have overlooked a fundamental difficulty in Book of Mormon population sizes. Assuming that Book of Mormon people were like us, we have accepted that the multitudes of Nephites and Lamanites reported in Mormon scripture sprang from two small bands of Palestinian emigrants, since they had hundreds of years in which to "multiply exceedingly." However, an understanding of historical demography may challenge this traditional interpretation. Internal Evidence for Nephite-Lamanite-Mulekite Populations Arriving at a reasonable estimate of Nephite-Lamanite numbers is [p.232] more art than science. The Book of Mormon favors hyperbolic generalities in this area. Terms such as "multitude," "numerous," "exceedingly great," "innumerable," and "as the sands of the sea" impress more than inform. For example, nowhere does the text explain how many Lamanites constitute a multitude. The text does provide sufficient detail to allow some feel for population levels at various points in time. Numbers of military combatants and casualties are sometimes specifically reported. Arguably enemy numbers may have been exaggerated in order to enhance victory or justify defeat. However, a number as precise as 12,532 appears to signify an actual count rather than a wild guess or inflated propaganda ploy. Thus I will treat these specific numbers as substantially accurate and use them as a frame of reference for interpreting less precise terms. Although gaps remain in the scriptural record, we have enough "snapshots" of the numbers at different times and places to permit reasonable extrapolation and interpolation. I begin with an estimate of the number of original ocean voyagers. According to LDS tradition, they were the literal ancestors of all subsequent Book of Mormon peoples and for some if not all present-day native Americans. The Book of Mormon mentions two pioneering groups as forerunners of the Nephite and Lamanite nations: the peoples of Lehi and Mulek. I do not include the Jaredites because they became extinct (except for Coriantumr) and failed to contribute to Nephite-Lamanite colonizations (Ether 15:12-34). When Lehi's group sailed from the Old World in about 591 B.C.E., it consisted of the following men: Lehi; his sons Laman, Lemuel, Sam, Nephi, Jacob, and Joseph; Zoram; and the two unnamed sons of Ishmael (1 Ne. 7:6; 16:7). Ishmael himself died before they began their ocean voyage (16:34). Because of female anonymity in the Book of Mormon, we know the name of only one of the seafaring women: Lehi's wife Sariah (1 Ne. 2:5). But we are told that Ishmael's five daughters also made the trip as the wives of Laman, Lemuel, Sam, Nephi, and Zoram. Finally, Ishmael's wife and the families of Ishmael's two sons—as well as an ambiguous reference to Nephi's "sisters"—formed Lehi's band (1 Ne. 18:9; 2 Ne. 5:6). Some of this group were relatively old with grown children of their own (Lehi, Sariah, and Ishmael's wife). Others, at least Jacob and Joseph, were born "in the wilderness" following Lehi's exodus from Jerusalem but prior to the ocean voyage and thus were very young (1 Ne. 18:7, 19; 2 Ne. 2:1; 3:1, 25). There were apparently other small children, perhaps the "family" or children of the sons of Ishmael and the children of Laman and Lemuel (1 Ne. 7:6; 2 Ne. 4:3, 8-9). It is unlikely there were other passengers on Lehi's vessel. Jacob, Joseph, and other children were too young to have wives. [p.233] Lehi's group apparently consisted of at least seventeen and as many as nineteen adults. Jacob and Joseph could not have had spouses until their nieces or the daughters of Ishmael's sons reached marriagable age. It is also important that Lehi, Sariah, and Ishmael's wife were elderly or spouseless or both and therefore probably not capable of reproduction. Thus we are told of only fourteen emigrants capable of reproduction when they arrived in the New World: Laman, Lemuel, Sam, Nephi, Zoram, the two sons of Ishmael, and the wives of each. When these colonists divided into two main groups, the Nephites included Nephi, Zoram, and Sam, and the families of each plus young Jacob and Joseph, Nephi's "sisters," and "all those who would go with [Nephi]" (a group never named) (2 Ne. 5:6-9; Alma 3:6). The Lamanites were Laman, Lemuel, Ishmael's sons, and presumably the families of each. Later dissenters from Nephites joined them (2 Ne. 4:13; Alma 3:7; 43:13; 47:35). We have little information on Mulek's colonists. They left Jerusalem a few years after Lehi's group, when Zedekiah was taken captive, and eventually became "very numerous" before joining the Nephites (Omni 1:14-19; Mosiah 25:12-13). The only specific population information is for 120 B.C.E. At that time the Mulekites reportedly outnumbered the Nephites, but both groups combined totalled less than half the size of the Lamanite population (Mosiah 25:2-30). Although Mulek's group began multiplying in the New World shortly after Lehi's, both events may be considered effectively simultaneous. If we assume a roughly equal reproductive rate for the Mulek and Lehi populations, the size of Mulek's original reproductively capable group must have been less than half that of Lehi's emigrants given the information about the comparative size of the two populations in 120 B.C.E. This means there were probably fewer than seven members of Mulek's group capable of reproduction. Certainly there may have been additional voyagers who were not producing off-spring—the elderly, young, and/or unmarried. From these two small clusters of pioneering emigrants came the population growth which resulted in the Nephite and Lamanite nations. That story comprises much of the Book of Mormon. However, for ease of reference, I have condensed the pertinent population-related information into Table 1. Table 1. Book of Mormon Population Size Information
Nowhere in the Book of Mormon is a complete census reported. We are given accounts of certain numbers of converts being baptized or warriors dying or people emigrating but no figures on total population sizes. In order to approximate such data, we need to use a conversion factor to relate known but partial numbers to the population of the entire group. John L. Sorenson, professor of anthropology at Brigham Young University, performed such analysis and concluded: "Our first numerical data come at about 90 B.C. from the battle in which Amlicite dissenters suffered 12,532 slain and the loyal Nephites 6,562 (Al. 2:19). All these people were 'Nephites' politically speaking; the account does not talk about Lamanites at all. It is reasonable that not over half the combatants were slain, which means that at least 40,000 warriors were involved, and perhaps somewhat more. Various studies of ancient warfare suggest how to translate that figure to total population. The ratio usually believed to apply is one soldier to about five total inhabitants. Using that figure, we may conclude that the total population of those 'who were called Nephites' was 20,000 or more" (1985, 183). Coupling this information with the contemporary report that the total number of Nephites was less than half the size of the Lamanite population, Sorenson estimated the Lamanite population at over 40,000 as of 90 B.C.E. He also found circumstantial evidence supporting that figure: "A decade after the Amlicite conflict we get still more data. Alma 28:2 says that 'tens of thousands of Lamanites were slain and scattered abroad.' The writer had not used the expression tens of thousands when the nearly 20,000 Amlicites and Nephites had been slain, so the term here must mean many more than that—at least 30,000 Lamanite dead. An attacking army on the order of 75,000 or more seems called for. The usual ratio of 1:5 yields a figure of 375,000 for the total population … but that figure is probably too low. (The Lamanites were operating hundreds of miles from home, which leads to the conclusion that somewhat fewer than one out of five were [p.238] mobilized. It would take more people at home to support them on a lengthy expedition such as the geography suggests for this case.) If the ratio of one in six is used instead, the total Lamanite population from which the force had been drawn would be on the order of 450,000" (1985, 193-94). Despite the lack of detailed information and the possibility Nephites inflated estimates of enemy casualties, Sorenson concludes that "the size of the Nephite and Lamanite populations we have calculated is probably of the correct order of magnitude." Sorenson's warrior/civilian ratio for Book of Mormon populations is impossible to verify, but certainly substantial numbers of people were noncombatants. For example, General Moroni complained to Pahoran that the army was being neglected while the people back home "are surrounded with thousands of those, yea, and tens of thousands, who do also sit in idleness, while there are thousands round about in the borders of the land who are falling by the sword" (Alma 60:22). And Zeniff sequestered women and children safely beyond the field of battle but sought reinforcements among old men and young men, generally non-warriors (Mosiah 10:9). LDS church president Spencer W. Kimball seemed to recognize the principle that noncombatants outnumber warriors when he wrote, "The Lamanite population of the Americas, at the greatest number, must have run into many millions, for in certain periods of Book of Mormon history, wars continued almost unabated and the soil was covered with the bodies of the slain" (Kimball 1981, 345). Sorenson's formula may actually underestimate the number of civilians necessary to support an ancient army. Even in modern times the ratio of noncombatants to combatants has usually been much higher than four or five to one. As one scholar has written, "It is essential to realize that in these [historical] examples, nothing approaching the present-day situation arose, where 10 per cent of a national population might often be on active service in a war. In Serbia in the First World War, as many as a quarter of the population may have joined the armed forces.… [In ancient times] it was not possible to absent large numbers of people from agricultural work" (Hollingsworth 1969, 230). Probably far more than four or five civilians then were needed to support a single warrior during an ancient campaign of more than a very short duration. This means Sorenson's calculations would err on the conservative side. If we apply Sorenson's ratio to other military data, we can approximate total population size for other periods in the Book of Mormon as well. In 187 B.C.E. 3,043 Lamanites and 279 of Zeniff's people were killed in just one day and night of combat. Certainly many Lamanites were left alive after this slaughter, because a "numerous host" [p.239] of them was mentioned a decade or so later (Mosiah 9:18; 10:8, 20). Even if half the Lamanite army died in that one day, Sorenson's 1:5 multiplier yields a total Lamanite population of 30,430. If the Nephite total was somewhat less than half that figure as it was sixty-seven years later (Mosiah 25:2-3), then 10,000 to 15,000 Nephites were alive in 187 B.C.E. The reader may make similar calculations for other points in time by referring to the population information suggested in the table. Various combinations of casualties, reinforcements, and civilian noncombatants can be pieced together and used to estimate total populace at several stages in Book of Mormon history. However, we have sufficient working information to place these data in perspective. To do so we must first discuss humankind's numbers throughout history and the factors that influence population growth rates. Historical Demography We in the twentieth century sometimes have difficulty comprehending the profound and fundamental changes which have occurred recently in human history. Such myopia is understandable, since most of us have never known a world without penicillin, safe drinking water, antiseptic surgery, and readily available food. But unless we recognize that things have not always been this way, we cannot appreciate the multiple revolutions which have produced our modern world. If we imagine a world without agriculture and domesticated animals, a world which depends on our ability to find, track, hunt, and kill wild game on a frequent basis and to scrounge sufficient edible vegetable matter and potable water, we can gain some insight into the precarious existence facing humanity before the agricultural revolution (see generally Peterson 1961, 343-75). Before about 8000 B.C.E. humans struggled to eke out a subsistence level of nutrients as hunters and gatherers. Such a migratory, unpredictable, catch-as-catch-can society requires a large amount of space per person, approximately one to two square miles per human being. Thus the carrying capacity of the entire world for a hunting/gathering way of life is only about five million people (Smith 1972, 67; Bates 1955, 27; see also Pearl 1939, 262; Hertlzler 1936, 12-25; and Falk 1971, 142-43). Population growth during this pre-agricultural period was virtually nonexistent, roughly .0001 percent per year or less (Parsons 1971, 33; Miller 1985, 88-91; Ehrlich and Ehrlich 1970, 6). Starvation and severe malnutrition were the rule rather than the exception. Cities were out of the question; people roamed in small bands to follow the food supply. Because our hunting/gathering ancestors had no reliable [p.240] medicines, no inoculations, no climate control, no rapid transportation, and no modern hygiene, infant mortality was extremely high. Life for those who survived infancy was difficult, dirty, and short. As a result the earth's population increased with glacier-like slowness through all but the last 1 or 2 percent of humankind's existence on the planet. With the advent of the agricultural revolution, people in effect increased the earth's carrying capacity, enabling it to support more humans. Even after the emergence of agriculture, food production was still primitive by modern standards and subject to low productivity and frequent failure. Still the food supply was more predictable and dependable, no longer dependent on the vagaries of hunting (Bogue 1969, 54). Some animals were kept in herds, and some low-yielding crops were crudely cultivated. Although pesticides, preservatives, genetically selective breeding of plants and animals, effective irrigation, and fertilizers were thousands of years in the future, life was no longer a scavenger level of subsistence. And some community members could now turn to activities other than agriculture, which further helped in improving the standard of living (Ehrlich and Ehrlich 1970, 12). Agriculture enabled people to found and maintain farming villages and eventually cities. The increased availability and constancy of food and stability in lifestyle resulted in a greatly increased population growth rate. By the time of Jesus, world population had risen to 200-400 million with an estimated annual growth rate of .04 percent (Parsons 1971, 33; Brown 1978, 72-75; Catton 1980, 18-23). Although an infinitesimal growth rate by modern standards, this increase represented a forty-fold leap from the hunting-gathering era. Unfortunately, lack of a reliable food source was only one of the problems holding down the population. The dawn of urban existence brought a whole array of new threats to human life. Increased association with herding animals introduced new diseases such as anthrax, tuberculosis, and brucellosis, and the concentration of more people into less space facilitated the spread of disease. Disposing of waste became a serious problem as did transporting food to the urban areas (Smith 1972, 67). Life expectancy was still fairly short, about thirty to forty years, and infant mortality was still very high. Famines and outbreaks of disease, when they occurred, were apt to be devastating, because modern checks against these potential killers were still many centuries away. Cities were filthy agglomerations of people and beasts. One scholar has described the situation: "The evidence of narrow streets and small rooms in houses huddled within the compass of defensible walls tells us that crowding in ancient cities was extreme. Garbage accumulated in the houses, where the dirt floors were continually being raised by the debris, and human wastes [p.241] were rarely carried further than the nearest street. The water supply, from wells, rivers, and canals, was likely to be polluted. Life expectancy was short, due in part to the high infant mortality. Flies, rodents, and cockroaches were constant pests. Even air pollution was not absent. In addition to dust and offensive odors, the atmosphere was filled with smoke on calm days. Even today, in large preindustrial cities such as Calcutta, the smoke of thousands of cooking fires, in addition to other human activities, produces a definite pall of smoke and dust which seldom dissipates for long. Under these unhealthy conditions, the death rate must have been high in Mesopotamian cities" (Hughes 1975, 31). During the thousands of years between the agricultural revolution and the next great change in human development, the industrial revolution, global populations gradually grew. From about 5 million during the hunting-gathering era, the population grew to 200-400 million in C.E. 1 and continued to increase until it reached about 470-545 million in C.E. 1650 (U.N. 1973, 10). If this increase in global population is plotted on a graph versus time, the curve is virtually flat with only an imperceptible upward slant for the vast majority of humankind's existence. Within this overall context of smooth, sluggish growth, local variations occurred. Where famine, disease, and war were absent, human numbers increased at a faster rate than the global average. Conversely, areas disproportionately stricken with natural disasters, pestilence, famine, plague, or war suffered a loss of population or experienced a much slower growth rate. The year C.E. 1650 effectively marks the beginning of the modern era and the birth of the industrial revolution. Until that time, human population was increasing at a rate dwarfed by modern figures: at .04 percent annual growth, the world's population took 1,500 years to double (Ehrlich and Ehrlich 1970, 6). The industrial revolution comprised an interrelated group of revolutions, causing an unprecedented, prolonged, and tremendous surge in growth rates and world population. Revolutions in medicine, energy production, transportation, communication, information, and food production, preservation, and distribution all hitched rides from one another to lift humanity to levels only dreamed of even in the palace of Caesar. The nature, cause, spread, and treatment of disease were discovered and infant mortality began to fall. For the first time people had a fair chance of living their biblically allotted three score and ten years. With longer life expectancies, more people lived through their reproductive years. One expert summarized the factors causing this dramatic population growth: "1. Increased productivity ushered in by the agricultural, commercial, and industrial revolutions resulting in higher levels of living—including better nutrition, better living conditions, and better [p.242] health. 2. The emergence of national governments with the elimination of internecine warfare and the emergence of national markets which permitted a more equitable distribution of the nation's produce. 3. Improvements in environmental sanitation and personal hygiene, resulting in uncontaminated food and potable water and a decrease in the probability of infection and contagion. 4. The natural disappearance of some of the agents of disease and death; for example, scarlet fever. 5. The development of modern medicine, climaxed by chemotherapy and the availability of pesticides" (Hauser 1971, 105-107). Table 2 illustrates various estimates of global annual growth rates and population sizes during these eras. These increases from the .04 percent annual growth rate of the pre-industrial period to .4 and higher beginning in the industrial age resulted primarily from decreased mortality not increased birth rate (Ehrlich and Ehrlich 1970, 9). People continued to reproduce at the same rate as before, at least for a time, but more of their offspring survived to have children of their own. These soaring growth rates translated into an "explosion" in world population. In fact world population would increase more during the second half of the twentieth century than it had done in all previous periods combined (Hauser 1971, 111). According to one scholar, the six-fold increase during the 310 years from 1650 to 1960 "is a phenomenal achievement, which stands in sharp contrast to the situation that must have existed during the many thousands of years of man's existence on the earth before this time.… In other words, the rapid increase in the world's population began only recently" (Bogue 1969, 47; see also Carr-Saunders 1936, 43, and Cox 1976,195). Table 2. Average Percent Annual Global Growth Rates
World Population (in millions)
hese global figures also mask local and regional differences, but these differences are not random. They are the predictable results of particular combinations of local factors (Hauser and Duncan 1959, 389). Greatly accelerated, explosive population growth, the "vital revolution," occurred first among nations experiencing modernization and did not reach significant proportions among the peoples of Asia, Africa, and Latin America (two-thirds of humankind) until after World War II (Hauser 1971, 105). At that point the so-called underdeveloped countries received, virtually instantaneously, the medical advances which had been evolving in the rest of the world. These included inoculation for infectious disease, reduction of malaria through DDT spraying, and the cure of infectious disease through antibiotics (Heer 1975, 13). People in these underdeveloped countries continued to maintain the high birth rate of an agrarian society but suddenly enjoyed the low death rate of the industrialized world. This "death control" produced what has been called "the most rapid, widespread change known in the history of population dynamics" (Ehrlich and Ehrlich 1970, 22). This change can be seen by comparing annual growth rates for industrialized and developing regions. From 1750 to 1920 industrialized regions as a group had far greater growth rates as mortality rates declined and birth rates remained high. Beginning in the 1920s and increasing after 1940, developing regions outpaced the industrialized areas. For example, from 1940 to 1950 and from 1950 to 1960, industrialized regions grew at .35 percent and 1.26 percent annually. Developing regions expanded at 1.44 percent and 2.07 percent. Prior to 1920 developing regions never had an annual growth rate in excess of .52 percent, but industrialized regions reached peaks of 1.05 percent from 1850 to 1900 and 1.26 percent from 1950 to 1960 (Bogue 1969, 48-49). [p.244] One researcher considering the trends described here reached "some indisputable, significant conclusions: 1. Contemporary population growth rates could not possibly have obtained for any long period in the past. 2. Contemporary population growth rates cannot possibly persist for long into the future" (Hauser 1979, 5). And another wrote: "Where formerly less than a half of all children grew to maturity, today, in the advanced countries, nine-tenths reach voting age. But the rate of population growth, which in the past only under very exceptional circumstances ever rose to 2 percent a year (on rare occasions 3 percent for short periods), has now reached the point where these percentages have become the norm for entire continents. At these rates of increase in regions such as tropical Latin America, i.e. at three percent a year or better, we could create enough human protoplasm to cover the surface of the earth in no more than three centuries" (Kaplan and Kivy-Rosenberg 1973, 44-45). Differences in growth rate exist not only between industrialized and developing regions but also, at least in the short term, between continents within each region and among nations and sub-nations within each continent. Some of these differences reflect differential rates of migration. For this reason, studies of population growth must consider both the rate of natural increase (which includes birth and death rates but excludes migration rates) and the overall growth rate (which includes migration rates). For example, the phenomenal growth rates reported for North America after 1750 are due in large part to the swarms of immigrants arriving from Europe, Africa, and Asia. The population of North America grew at 3.65 percent annually from 1750 to 1800, but the global population increased at only .50 percent and African population actually diminished at .06 percent. Understanding applicable rates of immigration and emigration is thus a key to properly evaluating data about growth (Bogne 1969, 48). Indeed industrialized nations in their entire history have rarely exceeded a natural growth rate of 1 percent annually, even in North America (Hauser 1971, 107-108). Also, high rates of natural increase have never persisted for more than a century or two. After the huge increase in growth rate spurred by the industrial revolution, more developed nations experienced a "demographic transition" to a lower birth rate and a lower death rate, thereby stabilizing their populations (Smith 1972, 68; Hauser 1971, 107; Ehrlich and Ehrlich 1970, 18-21). With more infants surviving to maturity, it was no longer necessary to bear so many children in order to perpetuate the family. Also the more industrialized and less rural the society, the greater the tendency for children to be economic drains rather than economic assets to the family. Instead of being additional field hands, they are simply more people to feed, clothe, house, and [p.245] educate. Over time developed regions thus moved from high birth rates and high death rates to high birth rates and low death rates and finally to low birth rates and low death rates. Thus far underdeveloped regions still maintain their former agrarian birth rates. Conclusions about population sizes and growth rates are based on estimates, particularly for the periods prior to 1650 (Spiegelman 1955, 417). Even today census information is of questionable accuracy in some parts of the world. Centuries ago the situation was far more uncertain. Historical demographers have pieced together evidence from many sources to arrive at reasonable approximations for various times and places, but we can never know with absolute certainty the actual figures (see Parsons 1971, 25-27; see also Hertlzler 1956, 13). This does not mean that the estimates are wildly inaccurate. They are of the correct order of magnitude and are within reasonable error limits. According to one scholar, "Population data prior to the modern era are admittedly speculative. But they provide a reasonably sound perspective and permit a very firm conclusion: Whatever his precise numbers may have been, during his habitation of this planet man has experienced a great increase in his rate of growth" (Parsons 1971, 25-27; Fraser 1971, 13-18; Bogne 1969, 47; Pearl 1939, 259; U.N. 1973, 20). Addressing the hypothesis that world population might have been much higher long ago and then decreased prior to the modern era, one authority made the following points: "[T]he combined evidence from paleontology, from the geographical distribution of plants and animals, from ecology and particularly plant ecology, from archaeology, from prehistory, and from history, masses such weight against [the postulate] as to be practically conclusive. In short, all the relevant evidence seems to indicate that there were as many (or more) human beings living on the face of the earth in 1630 as there ever had been at any prior time.… Most particularly to be counted against [the aforementioned theory] is the fact that until recent times man's culture was not of the sort to make possible the existence of large populations on the earth. Hunting, pastoral, and primitive cultures are not compatible with large total populations … because high densities cannot be supported at these cultural levels or stages.… So then we are left with … a very slow and irregular time rate of growth of world population over a very long time prior to the Middle Ages … followed by a relatively tremendous spurt of growth not yet ended" (Pearl 1939, 262-63). The evidence indicates then that the basic trends described above are accurate to the extent that recognized scientific authorities in the field are capable of determining. Based on our knowledge of the time and place in which a people lived, the type of society they had, their degree of exposure to disease, famine, and war, and their level of [p.246] technological advancement, we are prepared to estimate their growth rate with a reasonable degree of precision. Population Projections for Nephite-Lamanite-Mulekite Societies Mathematical models can simulate the population growth of a human community based on a given percent annual growth rate. Populations grow in the way that money grows in a bank account when interest is compounded. Just as the interest dollars themselves earn interest, so people added to populations reproduce and add more people (Ehrlich and Ehrlich 1970, 9). Although simplifying approximations are feasible, considering human "interest rates" as compounded continuously rather than annually, semi-annually, or quarterly is most accurate. People in any given group reproduce more or less continually throughout the year. I computed the Nephite-Lamanite population sizes in Table 3 using a commonly accepted formula.2 For the initial population size, I used thirty people for the combined populations of Lehi's and Mulek's colonizing groups capable of reproduction. As discussed earlier, a figure of twenty or so would be more in line with the information from the scriptures, but I chose thirty so as to allow for the slight possibility that there were more people in these groups than is apparent from the Book of Mormon text. Thus the population sizes in table 3 are probably too large. Readers wishing to convert any of the data in these [p.247] tables to reflect a different initial population size may easily do so.3 The numbers in the table are also slightly higher than they should be because Mulek's group did not arrive in the New World until several years after the Lehi contingent and thus got a late start. However, in the interest of simplicity, I assume Mulek's group as well as Lehi's began reproducing in the New World in the year 590 B.C.E. I selected the various percent annual growth rates for several reasons. I chose .04 percent because it is the approximate growth rate prevailing in the world between the agricultural revolution (about 8,000 years B.C.E.) and the industrial revolution (around C.E. 1650). Thus it represents the average annual global rate of natural increase during the actual period in which the Nephite-Lamanite population was reproducing. All other growth rates in table 3 are rates from the modern world. From C.E. 1750 to 1850 the world average was about .5 percent, more than ten times greater than the preindustrial rate. The remainder of the rates, from .9 percent to 2 percent, are rates known only in very recent history, primarily in the post-World War II era. They are included here to illustrate the difference between late-twentieth-century rates of population increase and the rates for all the preceding years of human history. Finally the population figures in Table 3 represent the total reproductive-age number of all Book of Mormon peoples during the years indicated. Nephites, Lamanites, Mulekites, and all other "-ites" are combined, again for sake of convenience, because they are all assumed to have descended from the Lehi and Mulek pioneers. I assume an equal rate of natural increase for all groups, although significant differences in Nephite and Lamanite cultures and lifestyles exist for much of the period in question. Demographic Ramifications The results contained in Table 3 call for a reevaluation of our approach to the Book of Mormon. When these data are compared with the population information from Table 1 and our knowledge of historical demography, it is apparent that large numbers of Book of Mormon peoples could not have been produced from the tiny Lehi-Mulek colonizing groups. No growth rate even close to the rate of increase prevalent from 590 B.C.E. to C.E. 390 would have produced the [p.250] population sizes described in the scriptures, even if there had been no wars, famine, earthquakes, or disease. Table 3. Total Population Size Years Elapsed/ (% annual growth rate)
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