In the Book of Mormon, the Nephites are a people descended from or associated with Nephi, a prophet who, according to the text, left Jerusalem at the urging of God in 600 BC, The Book of Mormon, (Salt Lake City: Corporation of the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1985). and traveled with his family to the Western Hemisphere, arriving in the Americas circa 589 BC., Ibid. The book describes the Nephites as an initially righteous people, who eventually fell into wickedness and were utterly destroyed by their rivals the Lamanites circa A.D. 385., Ibid. It is believed that they settled some where in Central America after fleeing from their homeland.