To supplement my previous article, I wanted to do a look into the feasibility of Nephi's ocean voyage. Unfortunately, such a test is impossible. First of all, as pointed out in a previous post, while Nephi's ship is said to have been specially designed and constructed under divine direction, we have no idea what any of that direction is. We don't even have the most basic of dimensions for it and, while we assume it was driven by sails, we don't know this for a fact. For all we know, Nephi built a wooden jet-powered hovercraft and flew to the Americas, the text gives us that little detail.
The second problem revolves around the complete lack of knowledge we have on the journey or the route itself. While it's generally assumed that the party would have headed west, across the Indian and Pacific Oceans, they could just as easily have passed east, around the Horn of Africa and across the Atlantic. The only details we have about the journey are that it took "many days," that it was interrupted briefly by a four-day storm, and that it eventually ended somewhere in the Americas. That's literally all the text gives us. We're not told which direction they were sailing in, whether they encountered or steered around islands, nothing. The lack of detail is simply astonishing.
Compare to the Bible's famous voyage, that of Noah in the Ark. We have a fairly detailed description of the Ark, which was specially designed by God (Genesis 6:14-16). It was about 450 feet long, 75 feet wide, and 45 feet tall. It had three decks, enclosed internal holds, a side entrance, and an enclosure over its upper deck extending at least 12 inches up. It was made of wood and coated inside and out with pitch for waterproofing. It had no means of propulsion and relied solely on the currents. We further know exactly how many people were aboard the Ark (8—we have no idea how many were on Nephi's ship), for how long (370 days), and where they got off (Mount Ararat in modern day Turkey). Skeptics may take these details and try to prove the journey couldn't happen and the faithful may do the same and prove that it could have (as both sides have, and I personally find the arguments for the Ark more convincing than their opposites, which usually hinge upon requiring Noah to bring representatives of every living species aboard, ignoring the fact that many of these species can interbreed and would have been considered the same kind of animal for Noah's purposes). In other words, Noah's Ark gives us enough information that it is testable. We can see whether the information measures up, whether the story is true or not. We can verify it, and in doing so, prove that the Bible is a true book from God.
Contrast that with Nephi's ship and its journey, of which we know almost exactly nothing. While Mormon apologists and skeptics have tried to put the ship and its sea journey to the test, its impossible to do so because so little detail is given. It is simply too vague a claim to be testable. This would be downright uncharacteristic, coming from the God of the Bible who urges us to test every claim (1 Thessalonians 5:21), the same God who's given us, in the Bible, detailed designs for a ship, a tabernacle, three temples (one of which hasn't been built yet), a city (also not built yet, nor buildable in our world), and a multitude of altars and sacred furniture. For Him to suddenly become evasive about the design of something said to be as specifically and specially designed as Nephi's ship would be very out-of-character indeed. Further, it would run counter to the purpose of glorifying God—in 1 Nephi 18:4 the design and finished product of Nephi's ship is said to impress his brothers and cause them to humble themselves before god...but since the design isn't described in the slightest detail in the book, readers are prevented from sharing that experience. For all we know, Nephi's brothers were in worshipful awe of a rowboat.
However, there is one purpose that would be served by leaving out all of these important details and thus rendering the text totally unverifiable: not God's, but that of the false prophet Joseph Smith. If Smith wrote The Book of Mormon and if he was a false prophet, then he would have wanted to do everything in his power to cover his tracks. This means in his writing that he'd have to stick to two kinds of claims: claims that he could manufacture false validity for himself (which would be, by necessity, very few) and claims that he believed could never be put to the test. As seen earlier with his choice of "Reformed Egyptian" as a language rather than Hebrew or some other real language, Smith errs on the side of non-verifiability. He deliberately leaves out any details in his story that the reader might be able to verify or prove wrong, including only a few references to supernatural guidance, which can be invoked in case someone should later come along and point out that the ancient Israelites didn't have the ability to build seaworthy ships that could handle such a voyage or that normal routes to the Americas from the Arabian Peninsula wouldn't work. In such a case, Smith and his followers can always pull the "trump card" that god had Nephi do something extraordinarily special that didn't make it into the text. However, in the end, its an argument from silence, one that essentially relies on us blindly trusting Smith and The Book of Mormon and taking them at their word...which is, of course, what they want us to do anyway.
Fortunately, God's not like that.
The second problem revolves around the complete lack of knowledge we have on the journey or the route itself. While it's generally assumed that the party would have headed west, across the Indian and Pacific Oceans, they could just as easily have passed east, around the Horn of Africa and across the Atlantic. The only details we have about the journey are that it took "many days," that it was interrupted briefly by a four-day storm, and that it eventually ended somewhere in the Americas. That's literally all the text gives us. We're not told which direction they were sailing in, whether they encountered or steered around islands, nothing. The lack of detail is simply astonishing.
Compare to the Bible's famous voyage, that of Noah in the Ark. We have a fairly detailed description of the Ark, which was specially designed by God (Genesis 6:14-16). It was about 450 feet long, 75 feet wide, and 45 feet tall. It had three decks, enclosed internal holds, a side entrance, and an enclosure over its upper deck extending at least 12 inches up. It was made of wood and coated inside and out with pitch for waterproofing. It had no means of propulsion and relied solely on the currents. We further know exactly how many people were aboard the Ark (8—we have no idea how many were on Nephi's ship), for how long (370 days), and where they got off (Mount Ararat in modern day Turkey). Skeptics may take these details and try to prove the journey couldn't happen and the faithful may do the same and prove that it could have (as both sides have, and I personally find the arguments for the Ark more convincing than their opposites, which usually hinge upon requiring Noah to bring representatives of every living species aboard, ignoring the fact that many of these species can interbreed and would have been considered the same kind of animal for Noah's purposes). In other words, Noah's Ark gives us enough information that it is testable. We can see whether the information measures up, whether the story is true or not. We can verify it, and in doing so, prove that the Bible is a true book from God.
Contrast that with Nephi's ship and its journey, of which we know almost exactly nothing. While Mormon apologists and skeptics have tried to put the ship and its sea journey to the test, its impossible to do so because so little detail is given. It is simply too vague a claim to be testable. This would be downright uncharacteristic, coming from the God of the Bible who urges us to test every claim (1 Thessalonians 5:21), the same God who's given us, in the Bible, detailed designs for a ship, a tabernacle, three temples (one of which hasn't been built yet), a city (also not built yet, nor buildable in our world), and a multitude of altars and sacred furniture. For Him to suddenly become evasive about the design of something said to be as specifically and specially designed as Nephi's ship would be very out-of-character indeed. Further, it would run counter to the purpose of glorifying God—in 1 Nephi 18:4 the design and finished product of Nephi's ship is said to impress his brothers and cause them to humble themselves before god...but since the design isn't described in the slightest detail in the book, readers are prevented from sharing that experience. For all we know, Nephi's brothers were in worshipful awe of a rowboat.
However, there is one purpose that would be served by leaving out all of these important details and thus rendering the text totally unverifiable: not God's, but that of the false prophet Joseph Smith. If Smith wrote The Book of Mormon and if he was a false prophet, then he would have wanted to do everything in his power to cover his tracks. This means in his writing that he'd have to stick to two kinds of claims: claims that he could manufacture false validity for himself (which would be, by necessity, very few) and claims that he believed could never be put to the test. As seen earlier with his choice of "Reformed Egyptian" as a language rather than Hebrew or some other real language, Smith errs on the side of non-verifiability. He deliberately leaves out any details in his story that the reader might be able to verify or prove wrong, including only a few references to supernatural guidance, which can be invoked in case someone should later come along and point out that the ancient Israelites didn't have the ability to build seaworthy ships that could handle such a voyage or that normal routes to the Americas from the Arabian Peninsula wouldn't work. In such a case, Smith and his followers can always pull the "trump card" that god had Nephi do something extraordinarily special that didn't make it into the text. However, in the end, its an argument from silence, one that essentially relies on us blindly trusting Smith and The Book of Mormon and taking them at their word...which is, of course, what they want us to do anyway.
Fortunately, God's not like that.
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