I learned in church today

[creekster]

I guess I keep getting stuck on the word 'dish'. But even if it was more like a canoe, that makes the trip even more problematic. It would certainly be less stable and prone to flipping.

WHat does it mean to be tight like a dish? Maybe that was just like saying tight as a drum. You could say a ship was tight as a drum without ever suggesting the ship looked like a drum. Maybe dish was just the way to say it held/kept out water.

[Northwestcoug]

WHat does it mean to be tight like a dish? Maybe that was just like saying tight as a drum. You could say a ship was tight as a drum without ever suggesting the ship looked like a drum. Maybe dish was just the way to say it held/kept out water.

OK, I conceed the point that dish might not entirely describe the shape of the barges. But when you read the part about them being 'peaked' at the ends, you have to assume that there was some curvaceous aspect to the shape, no?

Again, small potatoes when compared to the other problems of the journey.

[falafel]

OK, I conceed the point that dish might not entirely describe the shape of the barges. But when you read the part about them being 'peaked' at the ends, you have to assume that there was some curvaceous aspect to the shape, no?

Again, small potatoes when compared to the other problems of the journey.

Aren't most boats peaked at at least one end? Seems like lots of boats from the ancient world were peaked at both ends.

[byu71]

Wow, you guys are deep thinkers. I always thought it was an ancient version of the Nautilus. I am content with that.

[Pheidippides]

OK, I conceed the point that dish might not entirely describe the shape of the barges. But when you read the part about them being 'peaked' at the ends, you have to assume that there was some curvaceous aspect to the shape, no?

Again, small potatoes when compared to the other problems of the journey.

Until Earl Tupper got his jollies in 1945, in what way were the dishes of 3000BC, 400AD, 1830AD, or any other time tight? Mistake of man, indeed, although which man is up for discussion depending on your location on the belief spectrum.

[Northwestcoug]

Aren't most boats peaked at at least one end? Seems like lots of boats from the ancient world were peaked at both ends.

That to me looks like a normal ancient boat. Peaked at the ends, yes. But it only resembles half of a supposed jaredite barge.

[falafel]

That to me looks like a normal ancient boat. Peaked at the ends, yes. But it only resembles half of a supposed jaredite barge.

Hmm. What does the top of a supposed jaredite barge look like again? Tight, like a dish, I think. Maybe they just roll down a pool cover like covering when it rains.

[Northwestcoug]

Hmm. What does the top of a supposed jaredite barge look like again? Tight, like a dish, I think. Maybe they just roll down a pool cover like covering when it rains.

Sure, if you think they were able to make a watertight hole in that pool cover:

thou shalt make a hole in the top, and also in the bottom:

[Indy Coug]

Sure, if you think they were able to make a watertight hole in that pool cover:

How else were they going to drain out the water? As an aside, here is a couple of late 18th, early 19th century submarines:

[shoganai]

Sounds like a UFO-shaped boat to me.

It may very well have been UFO-shaped. But it doesn't take a great deal of imagination to think of plenty of other alterations or iterations that could match that the description in Ether just as well as the UFO model. Personally, I'm just mentally biased to the UFO model because it's what my primary teachers told me. I doubt I'm the only one. The description in Ether gives some detail, but it's hardly enough to give us a conclusive picture.

I think your comments about stopping along the way certainly are plausible, but it's not in the record. At any rate, these issues really are small potatoes. The logistics of the trip, as written in the supposedly historical record, are simply too incredible to be plausible.

What exactly is in the record? Practically nothing. In terms of the 344-day journey, Moroni sums it all up in about two verses. I couldn't even describe my last week at work with any real detail in the number of words he uses. Nephi never mentioned anyone peeing off the side of his boat either, but I bet at least his rebellious brothers Laman and Lemuel did...

I understand that people can invoke God to make it all work, because of nothing short of continuous miraculous intervention would make that type of trip happen.

I appreciate and respect your opinion on the BOM's historical veracity, but if taken at face value, this was clearly a case of God inspiring someone with technological knowledge beyond his time, and then ensuring that natural forces didn't doom the journey. There really is no other explanation, and the Book of Mormon itself says as much...

And behold, I prepare you against these things; for ye cannot cross this great deep save I prepare you against the waves of the sea, and the winds which have gone forth, and the floods which shall come.

And it came to pass that the Lord God caused that there should be a furious wind blow upon the face of the waters, towards the promised land... therefore when they were encompassed about by many waters the did cry unto the Lord, and he did bring them forth again upon the top of the waters.

[RC Vikings]

Has everybody forgotten about Thor Heyerdahl?

Kon-Tiki demonstrated that it was possible for a primitive raft to sail the Pacific with relative ease and safety, especially to the west (with the wind). The raft proved to be highly maneuverable, and fish congregated between the nine balsa logs in such numbers that ancient sailors could have possibly relied on fish for hydration in the absence of other sources of fresh water. Inspired by Kon-Tiki, other rafts have repeated the voyage. Heyerdahl's book about the expedition, The Kon-Tiki Expedition: By Raft Across the South Seas, has been translated into over 67 languages. The documentary film of the expedition, itself entitled Kon-Tiki, won an Academy Award in 1951.

[Seldom Seen Smith]

As someone who has played the odds and concluded that the BofM is not historical, I appreciate that people like PAC can find useful allegories from the scriptures. However, I think you're playing loose with Ether:



Sounds like a UFO-shaped boat to me.

I think your comments about stopping along the way certainly are plausible, but it's not in the record. At any rate, these issues really are small potatoes. The logistics of the trip, as written in the supposedly historical record, are simply too incredible to be plausible. I understand that people can invoke God to make it all work, because of nothing short of continuous miraculous intervention would make that type of trip happen.

Yep

[Goatnapper'96]

Yep

Do you break out in hives and have your sunday ruined whenever the story comes up about Ammon taking care of the King's horses after he severed hundreds if not thousands of limbs singlehandedly?

Without the Brother of Jared story Brother Joseph would have been prevented his coolest trolling story of all time....."uh your son's name is Maronhi-Moreancumr...uh that was what the birth certificate for the Brother of Jared said just that his name was lost when the tower of babel came crashing down" and Wuap suddenly found gainful employment!

[Uncle Ted]

I was not looking forward to presenting this week’s Gospel Doctrine lesson (Ether 1-6). Even as a teenager, I thought the Jaredite story was filled with absurdities. Among them, the notion that many people, livestock, a year’s supply of food and water, a swarm of freakin’ bees, among other things, travel in a sealed up boat with only a hole at the top (or bottom as the case may be) for nearly a year struck me as impossible. Add to that the ferocious winds and monstrous waves that turn everything upside (or submerge the whole boat), and you’ve got a rather intolerable sanitation problem I reckon. And why a year? Forget the ferocious winds—a gentle breeze of, say, 10 mph would be enough to push a boat back and forth across any ocean multiple times in the course of 344 days. I could go on, but you get the idea.

There are some Mexican fishermen that claimed to be adrift in the ocean for nine months. I believe they were only planned out being out fishing for a few days so they were not as well prepared as the Jaredites.

The bible, IMHO, has a lot more absurdities than the BoM. For example, how does one live in the belly of a whale or how does the entire earth get completely covered in water?

Maybe it is like the book/movie The Life of Pi (which is a good book but with a poor title). Toward the end of the book when he relates the story but no one believes him so he tells them another story and asks which tale they found to be more interesting. In the case of the bible/BoW there may have been many "Paul H. Dunn"-like story tellers.

[Harry Tic]

Nephi never mentioned anyone peeing off the side of his boat either, but I bet at least his rebellious brothers Laman and Lemuel did...

If they really wanted to be rebellious, they WOULDN'T have peed off the side of the boat. I'm just saying.