Interpreter apologists wrestle with Nephi’s transoceanic vessel
Posted: Sat May 28, 2022 2:21 am
https://interpreterfoundation.org/inter ... pbuilding/
I never thought I would see the day when an LDS apologist makes the identical argument that John Larsen made in a Mormon Expression episode, “How to build a transoceanic vessel.” Published in Interpreter, no less!
His central thesis throughout is that it is mistaken to assume that Nephi and his family were alone in Bountiful, isolated from external raw materials and expertise, and that without these external aids Nephi’s ocean crossing would have been essentially impossible.
To build this ship, Potter suggests that Nephi would have needed a protected harbor, with Potter seeing Nephi’s phrase “go down” as also implying entering a moored ship, and the phrase “put forth into the sea” as implying control over the ship within the protection of a natural harbor. He argues that launching such a large vessel (estimated at 100 tons) would have required building it above the tideline and lowering it into calm water with a ramp, a process which would seal the hull and allow for the building of the deck, following Hebrew and Egyptian boatbuilding methods. For Potter, Nephi would have needed to exit and enter that protected port many times to test the ship and train the crew, implying a breakwater that allowed safe passage.
In Potter’s estimation, Nephi’s youth and technical inexperience would’ve required him to receive specialized nautical and shipwright training at the hands of experts. Though Potter acknowledges that God might have provided this instruction directly, Potter contends that “while the Lord gave Nephi the instructions on how to build the ship, he did not give him the lifetime of experience that shipwrights need to perform their particular craft.” Potter provides similar arguments for the seamanship skills that Nephi would have required for the journey.
All of these arguments require extensive interaction between Nephi’s family and a local population present in or around Bountiful, a fact on which the text appears silent. But Potter suggests the text is ambivalent on that point, and that the entire region was likely to have been populated regardless of which potential Bountiful site one prefers.
I never thought I would see the day when an LDS apologist makes the identical argument that John Larsen made in a Mormon Expression episode, “How to build a transoceanic vessel.” Published in Interpreter, no less!