Joseph Allen discusses these verses:
And now, it was only the distance of a day and a half’s journey for a Nephite, on the line Bountiful and the land Desolation, from the east to the west sea (Alma 22.32; emphasis added).
This verse represents the central point of the chiastic structure of this section on geography. It is also one of the most controversial geographical statements in the Book of Mormon because it is so often misread by readers. For the exercise in this chapter, we will render the following interpretation: “It was only the distance of a day and a half’s journey for a Nephite from the [boundary] line [of] Bountiful and [Desolation] to the west sea.
Since the initial publication of the Book of Mormon in 1830, many of its readers have routinely wanted a Nephite to cross from ocean to ocean in a day and a half. This verse does not say that. It does not say from the east sea to the west sea. It says “from the east to the west sea.” It simply states that the east orientation is the dividing line between Bountiful and Desolation. The west orientation is the west sea, which we believe is the Pacific Ocean by the Gulf of Tehuantepec. According to our model, the day-and-a-half marker begins near the archaeological site of Tonala (candidate for the city of Melek) on the east and ends at the ocean fishing village of Paredon on the west. The distance is twelve miles, which is consistent with Maya travel distance of eight miles a day- or twelve miles in a day and a half. “For a Nephite,” from our perspective, is simply Mormon’s way of saying that in the Nephite measuring system, a day-and-a-half’s travel time is equal to about twelve miles.
Also of interest is the name of the village located on the ocean’s front (west sea). It is Paredon. Pared is a Spanish word that means “wall,” and Paredon means a “big wall.” The local people tell of an ancient wall that was built beginning at the ocean, by the cemetery, and that extended directly east toward the mountain twelve miles away. This historical fact is very important because to this very day, an immigration checkpoint is located in the same area near Tonala. This is a crucial landmark because the high, rugged mountains on the east and the Gulf of Tehuantepec on the west proved a natural defensive area to inhibit or prohibit people from entering into the central depression of Chiapas or to travel through the Isthmus of Tehuantepec into areas of Mexico that are west (and “northward”) of the isthmus.
Whether guards were posted or whether a wall was built along the defensive line, the results would be the same. The motive was to keep the Lamanites from traveling into the land of Zarahemla or into the land northward. Prior to the military checkpoint, a Lamanite army had entered into the city of Ammonihah unimpeded and had destroyed the city: “The [Lamanites] took their armies and went over into the borders of the land of Zarahemla, and fell upon the people who were in the land of Ammonihah and destroyed them” (Alma 25.2; see also Alma 10.23; 16.9).
Ammonihah was located three days’ travel time (twenty-four miles) north of Mulek (Tonala), which would place it, according to our calculations, north of the city of Arriaga near the archaeological mound of El Mirador (not to be confused with El Mirador in northern Peten; see Alma 8.3-6).
The above concept is extremely important because it not only provides us with the location, distance, direction, and a name correlation but also provides us with the motive for this being the area of the fortification line, which is a distance of a day and a half’s journey for a Nephite defender. The purpose of the fortification wall or line was to keep the Lamanites from coming along the coast from Guatemala toward Mexico – or from the land of Nephi to the land of Zarahemla: “Thus the Nephites in their wisdom, with their guards and their armies, had hemmed in the Lamanites on the south, that thereby they should have no more possession on the north, that they might not overrun the land northward” (Alma 22.33, emphasis added).
As mentioned above, prior to the time the Nephites built the day-and-a-half fortification barrier, the city of Ammonihah was vulnerable to an attack from the Lamanites. You will remember that seven years after the sons of Mosiah went up to the land of Nephi to preach the gospel to the Lamanites, Alma resigned his political position as chief judge and began to preach the gospel among the Nephites. He started in the city of Zarahemla and then went “over upon the east of the river Sidon, into the valley of Gideon” (Alma 6.7). He returned to Zarahemla for a time and then went to the west mountains to Melek. From there, he traveled north three days to the land of Ammonihah (see Alma 8.6-9).
His missionary companion, Amulek, made it clear to the people of Ammonihah that their city had been spared only because of the prayers of the righteous. He proclaimed, “If ye will cast out the righteous from among you then will not the Lord stay his hand; but in his fierce anger he will come out against you; then ye shall be smitten by famine, and by pestilence, and by the sword; and the time is soon at hand except ye repent” (Alma 10.23; emphasis added)…
The converts of the sons of Mosiah, who had buried both their sins and their weapons of war, were being persecuted and killed in the land of Nephi during the same time that the Nephite Christians who were taught by Alma and Amulek were being tortured and burned in the land of Ammonihah. Hence, the Lamanites in the land of Nephi determined that their anger was greater against the Nephites in the land of Zarahemla than against the people of Anti-Nephi-Lehi. Therefore, the Lamanites “took their armies and went over into the borders of the land of Zarahemla, and fell upon the people who were in the land of Ammoniha and destroyed them” (Alma 25.2; emphasis added).
Although it is true that wicked people destroy righteous people, it is also true that wicked people destroy wicked people. Most of the Lamanites of this time period never gave up their hatred toward the Nephites, and although the military leader Moroni developed a massive defensive program, the Lamanites continued to attack the Nephites in the land of Zarahemla.
But again, as stated in Alma 22.23, the Nephites were wise to keep the Lamanites from going in the back door of Zarahemla and to keep them from going into the land northward via the narrow pass through the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, not far from Paredon, “the big wall.”
Alma 22.32
… and thus the land of Nephi and the land of Zarahemla were nearly surrounded by water, there being a small neck of land between the land northward and the land southward (emphasis added).
The Isthmus of Tehuantepec (“small neck of land”) is a natural dividing line between Mexico and Yucatan-Central America (“between the land northward and the land southward”). The land southward is the same geographical area that constituted the Maya boundaries from the Classic Period (AD 350) to the Spanish conquest (AD 1521). Both the land of Nephi and the land of Zarahemla were in the land southward and, as such, were nearly surrounded by water.
Alma 22.33
And it came to pass that the Nephites had inhabited the land Bountiful, even from the east unto the west sea, and thus the Nephites in their wisdom, with their guards and their armies, had hemmed in the Lamanites on the south, that thereby they should have no more possession on the north, that they might not overrun the land northward (emphasis added).
In Mormon’s mind, the land of Zarahemla and the land Bountiful/land southward were apparently in the same specific area. The land of Zarahemla was probably included in the larger land of Bountiful (similar to the way Chiapas is included in the country of Mexico today). By using the above guidelines, we can place Nephite territory during the first century BC as running from the Peten jungle (on the east) to the Gulf of Tehuantepec (by the west sea). You will remember that Lamanites were also living in the borders of the east sea (see Alma 22.29).
As explained above, the Nephites could hem off the Lamanites along the Pacific Ocean coast (west sea), thus preventing them from traveling through the Isthmus of Tehuantepec (narrow pass) into the Gulf of Mexico/Veracruz are (land northward).
Notes
This text is from Joseph and Blake Allen, Exploring the Lands of the Book of Mormon, Covenant Communications, 2011, p. 411- 416.