Although The Compass Maker is fictional, some elements are surprisingly real.

Did you know that Thales of Miletus was an actual person who was about the same age as Nephi?



He is considered by historians to be the world's first scientist and is the actual discoverer of naturally-occurring magnetic ore (lodestone).



While I was writing this book, I had no idea that some LDS scholars had postulated (like me) that the mysterious second spindle of the Liahona might have been magnetic. It seems an intriguing coincidence that the pioneer of magnetism was a young man in the year 600 BC and lived 800 miles from Jerusalem in what is now western Turkey.



You may have noticed that I never used the word Liahona in a book that centers around this mysterious brass compass and its origins. My reason for this is because the term (according to Hugh Nibley) was likely invented by Lehi and/or Nephi by combining existing words together. In Nibley’s research into ancient Hebrew he found a combination of words that would have sounded strikingly like liahona (lower case).



The modern translation of this combination of words is God will be your guide. Remember when Ezra asks Jonas, "How shall I know where to go?" (referring to where the Liahona should be taken and delivered). To which Jonas replies, "God will be your guide." And thus, leaning upon Hugh Nibley’s research and with a bit of literary license, we could plausibly assume that when Jonas made that statement, he had actually uttered the word(s) liahona, and Ezra would have understood what he meant!

When Ezra saw a vision of the future of the sword of Laban, he saw the sword in a cave at the time of Joseph Smith, and it was engraved with these words: "This sword will never be sheathed again until the kingdoms of this world become the Kingdom of our God and his Christ."



The cave and the engraving on the sword of Laban are not fictional. It is likely this was first made known by Oliver Cowdery, and later mentioned by Brigham Young in a talk (Journal of Discourses - June 17, 1877).



The character Pashur was a real person mentioned in the biblical book of Jeremiah. Just as described in the book, he actually had Jeremiah the prophet beaten and placed in the stocks in the gate of Benjamin, and then thrown into prison. See Jeremiah 20:2.



I had always thought that the Valley of Lemuel (where Lehi found the Liahona outside the door of his tent) was only a few days' journey from Jerusalem.



I think perhaps many readers of the Book of Mormon got that impression from 1 Nephi 2:6. But the fact is the Red Sea is 180 miles from Jerusalem, and according to LDS scholars, the Valley of Lemuel (modern-day Wadi Tayyib al-Ism or "The Valley Of Moses") is well over 200 miles from Jerusalem! Scholars also believe that the place that Lehi's family journeyed three days from to reach the Valley of Lemuel was none other than Aquaba!



This is the reason why, in The Compass Maker, Ezra and Jethro’s roundtrip journey to deliver the Liahona took a month.



When I began writing the outline for The Compass Maker and doing some research, I came across writings by LDS scholars that explored the question why was Laban out amongst the elders of the Jews at night wearing his armor? Their speculation: political conspiracy! That was the plausible morsel I needed to build an entire thriller-political-conspiracy narrative around Laban, which was very convenient for my story.