LDS Freedom Forum

Thanks for all of you for the discussion. I have no idea where the ten tribes are, I have some more recent quotes I could add that differ with the spread all over the world theory. In fact is disclaims that theory directly. When I get some more time I will find and post it. I just posted the thought to generate discussion and prick our minds a little.

(Doctrine and Covenants 133:24-33.)

24 And the land of Jerusalem and the land of Zion shall be turned back into their own place, and the earth shall be like as it was in the days before it was divided.

25 And the Lord, even the Savior, shall stand in the midst of his people, and shall reign over all flesh.

26 And they who are in the north countries shall come in remembrance before the Lord; and their prophets shall hear his voice, and shall no longer stay themselves; and they shall smite the rocks, and the ice shall flow down at their presence.

27 And an highway shall be cast up in the midst of the great deep.

28 Their enemies shall become a prey unto them,

29 And in the barren deserts there shall come forth pools of living water; and the parched ground shall no longer be a thirsty land.

30 And they shall bring forth their rich treasures unto the children of Ephraim, my servants.

31 And the boundaries of the everlasting hills shall tremble at their presence.

32 And there shall they fall down and be crowned with glory, even in Zion, by the hands of the servants of the Lord, even the children of Ephraim.

33 And they shall be filled with songs of everlasting joy.

In both of the general conferences in 1916, Elder James E. Talmage warned against trying to water down the prophecies concerning the ten tribes by interpreting them figuratively. In April conference he said:

There is a tendency among men to explain away what they don't wish to understand in literal simplicity, and we, as Latter-day Saints are not entirely free from the taint of that tendency .... Some people say that prediction is to be explained in this way: A gathering is in progress, and has been in progress from the early days of this Church; and thus the "Lost Tribes" are now being gathered; but that we are not to look for the return of any body of people now unknown as to their whereabouts. True, the gathering is in progress, this is a gathering dispensation; but the prophecy stands that the tribes shall be brought forth from their hiding place bringing their scriptures with them, which scriptures shall become one with the scriptures of the Jews, the holy Bible, and with the scriptures of the Nephites, the Book of Mormon, and with the scriptures of the Latter-day Saints as embodied in the volumes of modern revelation.44

In the October conference Elder Talmage added a startling and marvelous promise:

The tribes shall come; they are not lost unto the Lord; they shall be brought forth as hath been predicted; and I say unto you, there are those now living-aye, some here present-who shall live to read the records of the Lost Tribes of Israel, which shall be made one with the record of the Jews, or the Holy Bible, and the record of the Nephites, or the Book of Mormon, even as the Lord hath predicted. 45

President Joseph Fielding Smith also explained that the gathering of Israel from among the Gentiles was not the same as the gathering of the lost tribes.

We discover from the declaration by the Prophet to the people of the world, that the cleansing of the earth of much of its iniquity, by blood, fire, earthquake, pestilence and the display of angry elements, was to assist in preparing the way for the return of the lost tribes of Israel. We should not be confused. The call for the gathering of scattered Israel had been proclaimed three years earlier and the missionaries had been hard at work gathering into the fold those of Israel who had scattered themselves among the Gentiles. The great day of the coming of the lost tribes would be alter the preparatory work had been accomplished in the destruction of the wickedness in very great measure, and the way prepared in part for the coming of the Lord also and the building of his Holy City and Temple.46

Elder Orson Pratt described their coming as being after the building of the New Jerusalem, also, and explained that it would be such a marvelous event that even the mountains would tremble at their coming.

After Zion is built in Jackson County, and after the Temple is built upon that spot of ground where the corner stone was laid in 1831; after the glory of God in the form of a cloud by day shall rest upon that Temple, and by night the shining of a flaming fire that will fill the whole heavens round about; after every, dwelling place upon Mount Zion shall be clothed upon as with a pillar of fire by night, and a cloud by day, about that period of time, the ten tribes will be heard of, away in the north, a great company, as Jeremiah says, coming down from the northern regions, coming to sing in the height of the latter-day Zion. Their souls will be as a watered garden, and they will not sorrow any more at all, as they have been doing during the twenty-five hundred long years they have dwelt in the Arctic regions. They will come, and the Lord will be before their camp, he will utter his voice before that great army, and he will lead them forth as he led Israel in ancient days. This long chain of Rocky Mountains, that extends from the cold regions of the north away into South America, will feel the power of God, and will tremble before the hosts of Israel as they come to sing on the heights of Zion. In that day the trees of the field will clap like hands, says the Prophet, and in that day the Lord will open waters in the wilderness, and streams in the desert, to give drink to his chosen, his people Israel. And when they come to the height of Zion they shall be crowned with glory under the hands of the servants of God living in those days, the children of Ephraim, crowned with certain blessings that pertain to the Priesthood, that they could not receive in their own lands.47(Gerald N. Lund, The Coming of the Lord [Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1971], 164.)

3. "They who are in the north countries shall come into remembrance before the Lord; and their prophets shall hear his voice, and shall no longer stay themselves; and they shall smite the rocks and the ice shall flow down at their presence. And an highway shall be cast up in the midst of the great deep. Their enemies shall become a prey unto them, and in the barren deserts there shall come forth pools of living water; and the parched ground shall no longer be a thirsty land." In the scattering of Israel the descendants of Jacob were driven into all lands and climes and have mingled among all nations. There is, however, a body of these tribes hidden away, where they are we do not know, but the Lord says they shall come from the North. Isaiah has spoken of them (Ch. 43:15-21), and Jeremiah speaking of their return has said: "Therefore behold, the days come saith the Lord, that it shall no more be said, The Lord liveth that brought up the children of Israel from the land of the north, and from all the lands whither he had driven them: and I will bring them again into their land that I gave unto their father." (Jeremiah 16:14.) Here the Lord says that these people have prophets among them, and Joseph Smith at a conference of the Church held in June, 1831, said: "John the Revelator was then among the ten tribes of Israel who had been led away by Shalmaneser, King of Assyria, to prepare them for their return from their long dispersion." This is the mission given to John portrayed in the symbol of the little book which he was given to eat, in the tenth chapter of Revelation. (See Sec. 77:14.)
(Joseph Fielding Smith, Church History and Modern Revelation, 4 vols. [Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1946-1949], 2: 35 - 36.)

Ten Tribes to Come from the North

"Whether these tribes are in the north or not, I am not prepared to say. As I said before, they are 'lost' and until the Lord wishes it, they will not be found. All that I know about it is what the Lord has revealed, and He declares that they will come from the North. He has also made it very clear and definite that these lost people are separate and apart from the scattered Israelites now being gathered out. If this be not true, then the commission of Moses to the Prophet Joseph Smith is without meaning. [Quoted D&C 110:11.] The statement that the tribes are to be led from the north harmonizes perfectly with the words of Jeremiah (Jer. 16:14-15) and Section 133, verses 26 to 34. Surely there must be a time when this great body of people will come to the children of Ephraim to receive their blessings." (Joseph Fielding Smith, ST, p. 186.)
(Daniel H. Ludlow, A Companion to Your Study of the Old Testament [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1981], 46.)

Dr. Talmage referred to other information on these tribes in a footnote on this subject:

Esdras, whose books, as stated in the text, are classed among the Apocrypha, describes a vision, in the course of which the ten tribes are noticed in this way: "Those are the tribes which were carried away captives out of their own land in the time of Oseas (Hosea) the king, whom Shalmanezer, the king of the Assyrians, took captive, and crossed them beyond the river; so were they brought into another land.

"But they took counsel to themselves, that they would leave the multitude of the heathen, and go forth unto a further country where never man dwelt, that they there might keep their statutes, which they never kept in their own land. And they entered in at the narrow passage of the river Euphrates.

"For the Most High then showed them signs, and stayed the springs of the flood till they were passed over. For through the country there was a great journey, even of a year and a half, and the same region is called Arsareth (or Ararah). Then dwelt they there until the latter time, and when they come forth again, the Most high shall hold still the springs of the river again, that they may go through."

Concerning the journeyings of the tribes toward the north, Elder George Reynolds, in his little work Are We of Israel? says:

"They determined to go to a country `where never man dwelt,' that they might be free from all contaminating influences. That country could only be found in the north. Southern Asia was already the seat of a comparatively ancient civilization; Egypt flourished in northern Africa; and southern Europe was rapidly filling with the future rulers of the world. They had therefore no choice but to turn their faces northward.

"The first portion of their journey was not however north; according to the account of Esdras, they appear to have at first moved in the direction of their old home; and it is possible that they originally started with the intention of returning thereto; or probably, in order to deceive the Assyrians, they started as if to return to Canaan, and when they crossed the Euphrates and were out of danger from the hosts of Medes and Persians, then they turned their journeying feet toward the polar star.

"Esdras states that they entered in at the narrow passage of the river Euphrates, the Lord staying the springs of the flood until they were passed over. The point on the river Euphrates at which they crossed would necessarily be in its upper portion, as lower down would be too far south for their purpose.

"The upper course of the Euphrates lies among lofty mountains; near the village of Pastash it plunges through a gorge formed by precipices more than a thousand feet in height, and so narrow that it is bridged at the top; it shortly afterward enters the plain of Mesopotamia. How accurately this portion of the river answers to the description of Esdras of the `Narrows' where the Israelites crossed!" (Articles of Faith, pp. 512-13.)

(Mark E. Petersen, Joseph of Egypt [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1981], 83.)

It is interesting that the waters were stayed that they may cross over and will be stayed again. Could this land be beneath what we know as the mantle? Did they go underground, so to speak using the river as the way to get there?

How in the world did Joseph McConkie miss all that good stuff? Just goes to show he is definitely entitled to his "opinion."

Great posts NGL

Original_Intent wrote:

NoGreaterLove wrote:http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37617538/ns ... e-science/

"What the pictures reveal, Bell said, is spectacular: a dramatic landscape of rocky summits, deep river valleys, and liquid, not frozen, lakes, all hidden beneath the ice."

It is going to be really cool of we find out the 10 tribes have been living beneath the ice all this time!

Umm. I like you too much to comment, because anything I said in sincerity would be construed as ridicule.

And I am not. And I am sure if God wanted them under a mile of ice, He could find a way to keep them alive down there.

But in my opinion it would take constant divine intervention to maintain human life there.

In my opinion, it takes constant divine intervention to maintain human life here on the surface. It might be the wrong pole, but the fact is that if there are mountains under there, there might be something under the North Pole, too. Seriously, though, if you want to know whether or not the ten tribes are hidden in the earth, above it, or mixed in with the people on it, why don't you guys just pray and ask?

I was going to be a little disappointed if someone did not raise the point that it takes constant divine intervention to maintain life at all. And that's the only reason I don't write the OP off as completely silly. With God anything truly is possible.

That being said, I think the possibility that the ten tribes are under 1 mile thick ice in Antartica is about the same probability that Jimmy Hoffa is buried in my back yard.