Where Did Nephites Come from?

The Nephites are described as a group of people that descended from or were associated with Nephi, the son of the prophet Lehi, who left Jerusalem at the urging of God in about 600 BC and traveled with his family to the Western Hemisphere and arrived to the Americas in about 589 BC.

Are Nephites in the Bible?

"Nephi" is not found in the King James Bible but is found in the Apocrypha as a place name. The Apocrypha are part of the Catholic collection of scriptures (which was available in Joseph's day) but is not included in the Protestant scriptures such as the King James Version Bible.

Are the Mayans the Nephites?

Today it is generally acknowledged that “the Maya system had a strong phonetic-syllabic component,” much like Moroni's description of the Nephite system. It remains true, of course, that Mesoamerican writing includes many ideographic signs (standing for entire concepts or words without regard to sounds).