Nephi Builds a Ship

1 Nephi 18:1-2, 6; “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. 6 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.”

Proverbs 30:6; “Add thou not unto his words, lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar.”

And so the BoM shows why it’s important to listen and heed God’s word.  Oh brother. Adding to His word brings a myriad of troubles, just as this story in first Nephi shows us today. 

If this ship was large enough to house this guy’s family and seaworthy enough to make it all the way to the American Continent, where pray tell did Nephi build such a vessel? 

Since they were all living in ‘the wilderness’ somewhere in Arabia, aka Egypt, wouldn’t it be in dry dock? How did they get it into the water? Where did they get all that wood??? 

How big was this ship? 

Why aren’t there any specifics like we have in the Bible? 

This group of people Nephi talks about is roughly 30 in all and half of those are women and kids. 

Who manned the ship? A good crew would need a captain, someone at the helm for the rudder, a couple of lookouts, cooks, janitors, night crew, etc. If Nephi’s story was real, he would have only had  15 grown men at the most who could help out. A small clipper back in the days of Joseph Smith required 30-50 crew members. 

Does this sound reasonable?