Eryj Ben Sassi is the Founder & President of Association Didon of Carthage in Tunisia. In February she came to Washington, DC for a diplomatic reception to strengthen ties with the Heartland Research Group. Both groups believe that ancient Phoenicians came from North Africa to North America in 600 BC. We’ll discuss more about her group and why she believes that. Check out our conversation….
Based on Philip Beale’s 2 travels in a 600 BC Phoenician ship, Eryj seems convinced that ancient Phoenicians likely traveled to the Americas, following a similar route that Christopher Columbus used. Carthage was such an important city at this time, and the ancient Phoenicians were great sailors, dominating the seas until Rome sacked Carthage the 17-year long Second Punic War between 218 and 201 BC.
Tunisia is 98% Muslim, but has a long history of welcoming other peoples. Tunisia has the oldest synagogue outside Israel. Does it have Book of Mormon ties? Eryj Ben Sassi discusses the Book of Mormon character Mulek and how he may have come to Tunisia on his way to North America.
I was also surprised to hear Tunisia is one of America’s oldest friends, dating back to George Washington. Eryj Ben Sassi tells more about Tunisia’s diplomatic relations with America and her future plans with the Heartland Research Group. She would like to strengthen tourist ties between America and Tunisia.
Have you been to Tunisia? Were you aware of the history? What do you make of Eryj’s acceptance of the Book of Mormon narrative about ancient Phoenicians coming to America?
Wheat & Tares 
Admittedly, this hypothesis is much more plausible than the explanations for Jaredite or Lehite trans-oceanic voyages, since the Phoenicians were experienced boatbuilders and seafarers, while the others were not. But like other BofM diasporas, this one runs into the same problem of lack of any credible archaeological evidence. That, and the BofM narratives that connect these groups are extremely fragile, and involve the rise and fall of major civilizations that would have left archaeological traces. There is plenty of surviving evidence of the Phoenicians, but nothing that points to them venturing very far beyond the Pillars of Hercules (aka the Strait of Gibraltar). Sailing and trading all around the sunny Mediterranean on well-established sea routes is one thing; sailing blindly across the then-uncharted Atlantic is something else entirely. Show me evidence to the contrary and I will be happy to change my mind.
There seem to be quite a number of hypotheses of pre-Columbian migrations to the Americas. The ancient Greeks, the Chinese in the 1400s, the Malians in the 1300s or 1400s, and now the Phoenicians. I do not subscribe to any of these theories since they seem to lack evidence. However, they all seem plausible. Even if new evidence emerged that showed that one of these migrations did indeed happen, there is a long ways to go in showing the historicity of the Book of Mormon. For it talks of pre-Columbian Christians in the America who wrote prose that was oddly similar to passages in the New Testament, over 100 years before The NT was written.