"And the earth shall be like as it was in the days before it was divided..."

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.

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

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.

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

-- D&C 133:24-27

There is a lot going on in D&C 133 that I don't even pretend to understand, but I have included the above excerpt to launch into some thoughts that I think will ultimately build into that original thought on the 'new and old way' that I introduced but have not yet really dived into.

In a post from several months ago, I wrote about the idea of the earth being joined together in what would be at least 3 planets or worlds (maybe more), and mapping these 'kingdoms' to the worlds of Tolkien's 1st and 2nd ages.  In doing so, I basically stated that what Joseph and Sidney were reporting (I believe Sidney actually wrote down or conveyed much of what is now D&C 76) was not only a future vision of what is yet to be, but that future state is a reflection of type of what has been before.

In this scenario, the future establishment of a Celestial, Terrestrial, and Telestial series of Kingdoms mapped very well to older way of things in which Aman, Numenor, and Middle Earth were at one point connected or linked in some fashion.  I also referenced Philo Dibble's drawing, which he said was based on Joseph's teaching (again, we are relying on multiple levels of hearsay here), showing a stacked series of planets or worlds.

With all of this in mind, I would like to expand the definition of what we call 'Earth', and in so doing, perhaps add a different perspective, and maybe even some clarity, to past and future events.

In my story, what we call Earth is only but a part or one piece of what other Beings would call Earth.  As in, this is one land of many other lands.  Perhaps even 'islands' in a great sea might be a better way of describing these worlds. 

In Tolkien's writings, Arda is often confused with or limited to our present planet or globe.  But the word itself as well as Tolkien's own writing and thoughts on the matter indicated that this is not so.  Arda means "Realm", and that realm, I believe, has remained a consistent definition of lands or places, even as their relation to each other has changed.

For example, Tolkien's lands include such places as Aman-Valinor, Eressea, and Numenor.  Three distinct places from Middle-Earth that used to be part of our 'world' or earth, but are no longer present.  They still exist, in my opinion, and still fall under this definition of Realm.  In other words they are no less a part of 'Arda' than they were in an earlier age, despite potentially vast distances now lying between these lands.

In Tolkien's stories, these lands were divided from our world, with Pharazon's assault on both Eressea and Aman being the primary catalyst.  Eru himself intervened in this event, and those worlds, along with their inhabitants, were separated from our own.  Arda became divided.

Joseph Smith also taught that this earth used to be much 'larger' than it had been, but pieces had been broken off.  These teachings are mostly captured through the recollections and journal entries of early Mormons.  We even have a hymn that goes into this.  So, as with other things, hearsay, but we see in these recobut we see and read echoes of his thoughts in the words (and even a hymn!) of other early Mormons.

Eliza Snow, who would claim to be one of Joseph's wives and would go on to be Brigham Young's plural wife and supercede Emma as the 2nd Relief Society President, wrote a hymn that illustrates my point.  It was first published in the Times and Seasons in 1852, and later in the 1891 Mormon hymnal.  I am inserting all of its verses below, because it is fairly fascinating (not something you will see in modern correlated LDS doctrinal discussions):

Thou, Earth, wast once a glorious sphere
Of noble magnitude
And didst with majesty appear
Among the worlds of God.

Thy dimensions have been torn
Asunder, piece by piece;
And each dismembered fragment borne
Abroad to distant space.

When Enoch could no longer stay,
Amid corruption here;
Part of thyself was borne away,
To form another sphere.

That portion where his city stood,
He gained by right approved;
And nearer to the throne of God
His planet upward moved.

And when the Lord saw fit to hide
The ten lost tribes away;
Thou, Earth, was severed to provide
The orb on which they stay.

And thus from time to time thy size
Has been diminished till,
Thou seemest the law of sacrifice
Created to fulfil.

The curse of God on man was placed;
That curse thou didst partake,
And thou hast been by turns disgraced
And honored for his sake.

The vilest wretches hell will claim,
Now breathe thy atmosphere;
The noblest spirits heaven can name,
Have been embodied here.

Lord Jesus Christ, thy surface graced;
He fell a sacrifice;
And now within thy cold embrace
Thy martyred Joseph lies.

When Satan's hosts are overcome,
The martyred princely race
Will claim thee, their celestial home -
Their royal dwelling-place.

A “Restitution” yet must come
That will to thee restore,
By that grand law of worlds thy sum
Of matter here-to-fore.

And thou, O Earth! will leave thy track
Thou hast been doomed to trace -
The Gods with shouts will bring thee back
To fill thy native place.

To summarize some interesting concepts in Snow's hymn, we have an Earth that has had pieces broken off of it, sent to 'distant space', and are currently worlds or 'orbs' on which people like Enoch's city, the lost tribes of Israel, and others now presently reside.  At some point, there will be a 'restitution', and the Earth will be joined back with these worlds.

There are several other statements and journal entries that I won't post here (but you can do a quick online search and should stumble across them, if interested), where Joseph is said to teach that the Earth had pieces separated from it, and that these pieces would be joined back together.

It is in this light, both in view of Joseph's (hearsay) teachings, and Tolkien's Arda, that I would interpret the passage that I opened this post with, which includes also the title of this post.  Meaning, specifically, that when we talk about the earth being as it was before it was 'divided' we are talking about distinct worlds, globes, orbs, whatever it is you want to call them, re-joining with each other.

I think many Mormons (and I would have considered myself among them for a long time) interpreted lands being brought together as something like Pangaea - all of the continents of of our world becoming one giant land mass, with South America joining up with Africa, for example.

But, I am directly refuting this notion by suggesting that, again, our scope of imagination is too small, and we have defined what is meant by "earth" too narrowly in reaching that view.  We need to expand what we consider Earth, basically.

There are two major implications of this thinking, the first which I have kind of already covered:

1. The Earth is a series of worlds separated by space, and the restoration of the Earth to its glory of the past will include those worlds rejoining with each other.
2. Both historical accounts of things happening on 'the Earth' and prophecies of future things may be discussing different parts or lands of the Earth than the globe we presently inhabit.

This second implication is important, and has been touched on just a bit with some of my past topics.   For example, the idea and location of a Promised Land (which in Mormon belief has traditionally been on the North American continent) I would place as part of our 'Earth" or my broader definition of what that is, and yet have nothing to do with our world, let alone America.

Based on this background, I will conclude by introducing a concept that I will hope to go into more detail in a future post.  That concept has to do with Jerusalem and the New Jerusalem.  Ether, in the Book of Mormon, saw both of these cities, and their founding or restoration as part of what Moroni called "the days of Christ" and which would be part of  the creation of a new Heaven and new Earth.  I also view both of these cities as the Holy Places where many will stand in the Last Days and not be moved.

In my view, at least one, if not both, of these cities can be placed on worlds that are not our own (i.e., a Jerusalem not in Israel, for example, and a New Jerusalem not in America).  I am fairly confident (as one can be with this type of speculation) that the New Jerusalem will not be on this Earth, and this is consistent with my other guesses on the Promised Land being elsewhere.  Thoughts on Jerusalem itself, however, are a bit more fuzzy in my mind, and so it will be an interesting thing to explore.

12/6/2023 Update (Next Day):

A comment from WJT made me realize that I had left something out.  I even have a memory of typing it, or at least I thought I did, but I went back through the post and nothing here.

So, to be clear, I don't subscribe to what Eliza Snow implies in at least some of her words that Earth was once just one big sphere, and pieces of it were broken off to form new globes.  While it is possible, I suppose, even my imagination has trouble stretching that far.

The analogy that I remember writing, but apparently didn't, was that of the planet Alderaan from Star Wars.  Alderaan was destroyed by the Death Star, and as Obi Wan sensed, the inhabitants were all toast.  I think in a cataclysm of sufficient scale to break off a piece of a world, it would be fairly tough to imagine life surviving on either the original planet or the newly formed asteroid or whatever it would be.  So, I think, unless there is something I am missing, the inhabitants of a world that has pieces broken off of it have as much chance as surviving that event as did the folks on Alderaan.

Rather, that is why I have written about this 'stacked world' model, or planets that are linked or joined in some way.  In that 'Earth' was a grouping of linked worlds, and that these worlds were removed from connection with each other.

My current mental model has this actually being worlds that were close in proximity to each other, and the separation actually involved these planets relocating.  But even this requires significant imagination, as I am not sure just how that would have happened, and it seems like there would be almost as much risk to life in such an event.  Who knows.

In a previous post, I used the Cyan logo from the video game Myst to illustrate this stacking of worlds.  However, WJT has posted a picture on his blog as another way this could look:

I like this view, because you can also imagine why a world might also be called a 'mountain'  (see my post on the Mountain of the Lord here).  Only standing in the area of the globe that links with the other planet would the planet look directly overhead... in all other areas (I think) where the planet is visible, it would look like it sat on the horizon like a giant, domed mountain.

Per WJTs comment, you could also imagine the separation and reuniting of worlds to mean instead include realites or dimensions, or even that the planets themselves have remained in the same places, but our ability to either see them or link with them has been broken.  My current picture is still with planets moving, but again, hard to imagine how that would work (but easier than imagining pieces of a giant sphere breaking off, and then rejoining somehow).

One of the journal entries containing Joseph's alleged views on the matter seems to support the view that the worlds would not be able to come squarely together without destroying everything:

“When the world was first made it was a tremendous big thing. The Lord concluded it was too big. We read in the scriptures that in the days of Peleg the earth was divided so the Lord divided the earth. When the ten tribes of the children of Israel went into the north country he divided it again, so the earth has been divided and subdivided. We also read in the scriptures that the earth shall reel to and fro like a drunken man. What shall cause this earth to reel to and fro like a drunken man? We read that the stars shall fall to the earth like a fig falling from a fig tree. When these stars return to the place where they were taken from, it will cause the earth to reel to and fro. Not that the planets will come squarely against one another, in such case both planets would be broken to pieces. But in their rolling motion they will come together where they were taken from which will cause the earth to reel to and fro.

-- Samuel Rogers journal entry of Joseph Smith words at Vincent Knight home, 1840