Noah’s Ark and Nephi’s Ship Compared

07 September

noahs-ark Answering Genesis 1 Nephi 18:1-4; “And it came to pass that they did worship the Lord, and did go forth with me; and we did work timbers of curious workmanship. And the Lord did show me from time to time after what manner I should work the timbers of the ship. 2 Now I, Nephi, did not work the timbers after the manner which was learned by men,neither did I build the ship after the manner of men; but I did build it after the manner which the Lord had shown unto me; wherefore, it was not after the manner of men. 3 And I, Nephi, did go into the mount oft, and I did pray oft unto the Lord; wherefore the Lord showed unto me great things. 4 And it came to pass that after I had finished the ship, according to the word of the Lord, my brethren beheld that it was good, and that the workmanship thereof was exceedingly fine; wherefore, they did humble themselves again before the Lord.”

As you can see in the BoM narrative, Nephi made it very clear that he, and he alone, built the ship. The only specifics we have is that it was made of ‘curious workmanship’, Nephi’s brothers ‘beheld it was good’, and it was ‘exceedingly fine’.

Now let’s look at what transpired with Noah and the ark –

Genesis 6:3; “And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.”

Most experts believe it probably took Noah anywhere from 55-75 years to build the ark. See Answeringgenesis.org for more cool info on this! While the Bible is silent if received help building the ark, it certainly didn’t rule out the idea his sons and possibly even others, may have helped. One thing’s for sure – the Bible doesn’t say he did it all on his own, in a matter of a few days.

Our next item of interest is the amount of time it took everyone to load up their supplies, and climb aboard their respective vessels.

1 Nephi 18:5; “And it came to pass that on the morrow, after we had prepared all things, much fruits and meat from the wilderness, and honey in abundance, and provisions according to that which the Lord had commanded us, we did go down into the ship, with all our loading and our seeds, and whatsoever thing we had brought with us, every one according to his age; wherefore, we did all go down into the ship, with our wives and our children.”

Events in 1 Nephi 18:5 are somehow very similar to those we read about inGenesis 6:21. Additionally, there are 80 words in 1 Nephi 18:5 which comprises one verse.

Genesis 6:21; “And take thou unto thee of all food that is eaten, and thou shalt gather it to thee; and it shall be for food for thee, and for them.”

In Genesis 7:1-4 we see how God gave Noah and family seven days to load up and get on board the ark. Again, there are few specifics in the BoM; Nephi and family only had one day.

Genesis 7:1-4; “And the LORD said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation. 2 Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his female: and of beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female. 3 Of fowls also of the air by sevens, the male and the female; to keep seed alive upon the face of all the earth. 4 For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights; and every living substance that I have made will I destroy from off the face of the earth.”

While not intended to be part of this story, all of the highlighted words in our examples today were done to bring attention to the poor grammar, or how out of place these words are for the text. The BoM narrative is heavily laden with multiple problems.

‘Wherefore’ is Middle English from the 12th century. Would the Nephites have used the Reformed Egyptian form of a purely English word?

How did they know what it was?

How did they have the time to hammer this into the plates?

The term ‘wherefore’ is used excessively throughout the BoM. While we’ve not counted the number of times it shows up, you can be sure it’s on our list of things to do!

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2 Responses to “Noah’s Ark and Nephi’s Ship Compared”

  1. jIM mCcREA September 9, 2016 at 3:10 am #

    I cannot find a mention of such a ship being built near Jerusalem at about 600 BC

  2. jIM mCcREA September 17, 2016 at 10:56 pm #

    I cannot find reference of such a ship being built at Jeruslam around 600 bc.

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