Cover image via ChurchofJesusChrist.org. 

In spite of Nephi’s beautifully crafted and carefully composed description of the trek of Lehi’s family down through the Arabia peninsula, we can sometimes misinterpret his words.  One verse that is often puzzling is how long it took to travel through the arid, desert portion to the lush oasis of Bountiful.  It sounds like eight years when we read 1 Nephi 17: 4-5.  But we may be misinterpreting those verses.  Nephi wrote that:

And we did sojourn for the space of many years, yea, even eight years in the wilderness.  And we did come to the land which we called Bountiful… and we beheld the sea, which we called Irreantum.

A key to understanding what Nephi is saying, here, involves our preconceptions of what is meant by the word “wilderness.”  The traditional and almost universal reading of these verses assumes that:  A) the Lehites spent eight years in a dry and arid desert before reaching Bountiful and then, B) an undetermined period of time in Bountiful building the ship.  But the distances just don’t match the time frames Nephi describes.  It was a journey of months; how could it possibly have taken eight years?[1]  Plus, the seeds that they carried were an invisible but ticking clock.  Nephi clearly tells us that the seeds came from the Land of Jerusalem, and “all” were planted in the New World where they grew “exceedingly…in abundance” (1 Nephi 18:24).  How is that possible?  All seeds, like everything living, have a shelf-life.  Seeds progressively lose viability; that’s the principle of entropy.  All experts agree that seed longevity is enhanced with cool conditions and dry storage.  The Lehites’ situation could not have been worse.  They experienced hot conditions in the desert and humid conditions in Bountiful and crossing the ocean.  Obviously, a trip of shorter duration, say 8½ years, would be less puzzling from the standpoint of the seeds than a trip of 12 or 13 years.  So, 8 years in the desert portion may not be what Nephi is telling us.  Rather, the desert portion of the trip may have taken no more than a couple of years.

In attempting to fill in the “missing years,” scholars have come up with several speculations.  All of them contain significant credibility problems.  But what if Lehi and his family reached Bountiful in only two years, not eight?  What if the word “wilderness” didn’t refer only to a desert, but to any undeveloped area?   And what if the inlet of Bountiful – lush, yes; abundant, yes, but still uninhabited and undeveloped – was part of the “wilderness”?  In other words, what if the exiles spent eight years in Arabia, not eight years in the desert?

Well, that would change everything.

The assumption that the eight years referred to just the desert portion of the trek is so universal that many readers do not even recognize that an assumption is being made.  But it is.  It is as if people are reading the verses as a sequence with the word “then” inserted:

And we did sojourn for the space of many years, yea, even eight years in the wilderness.  And we did come to the land which we called Bountiful… and [then] we beheld the sea, which we called Irreantum.” 

But is this correct?  Just as “then” can be easily and unconsciously inserted, so the words, “this includes” could be inserted, instead.  That amplification would make the verses read quite differently and yield a very different conclusion:  “And we did sojourn for the space of many years, yea, even eight years in the wilderness.  And we did come to the land which we called Bountiful… and [this includes the following:] we beheld the sea, which we called Irreantum.”

Perhaps a fun example will help.  My wife and I have sons and grandchildren who live in California.  We could write about a visit with them using Nephi’s formatting.  It might sound something like this:

And we did sojourn for the space of many days, yea, even two weeks in Sacramento… and [this includes the following:]  we did take a day-trip to the city called San Francisco… and we beheld the sea, and Alcatraz Island was in the midst thereof and the Golden Gate Bridge did cross the void thereof.

The problem with that is that a sequential reading of that trip would not be correct.  The two weeks in Sacramento were not followed (“and then”) by a trip to San Francisco on the way home.  San Francisco was not on the way home.  We described two weeks with the family in Sacramento, which we then amplified to say that the two weeks “included” a day-trip to San Francisco.

Amplification is a frequent device in the Book of Mormon.  Look at the verses just before that:  “We did travel nearly eastward from that time forth.”  Nephi then amplifies the comments with the explanations that: 1) “We did travel…through much affliction,” 2) “Our women did bear children” 3) “We did live upon raw meat,” 4) “Our women did give plenty of suck,” and 5) “[They]…were strong, even like unto the men.”  A sequential assumption (A then B) would make no sense.  The blessings could not have followed the 700 miles.  They all occurred during that leg of the trip (A includes B).

In the next verse, also, Nephi presents a general principle: God will “provide means whereby they can accomplish the thing which he has commanded them.”  In the same verse, Nephi applies this principle to their own specific case:  “He did provide means for us while we did sojourn in the wilderness” (verse 3).  The Lord is the Great Planner.  Just as the earth was planned spiritually before it was created physically, the oasis of Bountiful was perfectly planned, prepared, fully stocked, and waiting for the arrival of the Lehites.  The verses in 1 Nephi 17:4-5 can thus be read as an amplification of the general principle given in verse 3.  The time in the lush and fertile Bountiful was also among those “means” provided.  Nephi says as much when he adds in verse 5: “and all these things [fruit and wild honey] were prepared of the Lord that we might not perish.”  He continues listing the “means” in verses 6 through 13:  an uninhabited oasis, ocean access, fresh water supply, flint for fire, ore to molten, trees for lumber, meat, and fish.

Another way of thinking about all this is as an editorial aside (sometimes called a colophon).  Nephi uses such editorial asides frequently.  If the text were read with Nephi’s passage removed, it would read as follows:

And so great were the blessings of the Lord upon us, that while we did live upon raw meat in the wilderness, our women … began to bear their journeyings without murmurings.… And we did come to the land which we called Bountiful, because of its much fruit and also wild honey; and all these things were prepared of the Lord that we might not perish….

The parenthetical passage, written years after the fact, may be Nephi interrupting the story to burst out in praise, song, and testimony.  He marvels that Heavenly Father always provides the means to accomplish what he has commanded.  And God specifically provided the necessary means for them – during the entire eight years, not only during the desert portion, but in Bountiful, as well.  Nephi then returns to the factual account of the means that God provided.

For all this to be a viable possibility, it is necessary for Bountiful to be a “wilderness,” The Hebrew word is “midbar,” which naturally usually referred to a desert, since that is what surrounded them.  Even so, there is still some diversity as shown in Nephi’s own description.  The Lehites walked across flat tundra, rolling sand dunes, and high mountains.  Interestingly, Nephi refers to the Valley of Lemuel as wilderness (four times) yet still writes that they left the wilderness of the Valley of Lemuel to “depart into the wilderness” (repeated in four verses).  So, they left one type of desert to enter another type of desert.

The question is, could the lush oasis of Bountiful also be a wilderness?  Nephi seems to refer to it that way at least two times.  When the family loaded the ship, that included “fruits and meat from the wilderness, and honey in abundance” (1 Nephi 18:6).  They didn’t return up the wadi some 20 miles into the desert to get the meat.  That’s ridiculous.  There were few if any animals there.  Animals follow water, and fresh water was right there in their lagoon, not in the desert.

And, just after Lehi died, he wrote, “My God … hath led me through mine afflictions in the wilderness (2 Nephi 4:20).  We read about his afflictions in the desert prior to Bountiful, but those didn’t cease once in the inlet.  Those afflictions included his brothers trying to throw him off a cliff “into the depths of the sea” (1 Nephi 17:48).  Nephi considered all of his afflictions, including those in Bountiful, to be a part of his total “afflictions in the wilderness.”

Later, when the Nephites were established in the vast forests of the New World, Mosiah described, four times, his people being “lost in the wilderness.”  That was not a desert.  And when Zeniff was forced to defend his people, he armed the men but “caused that the women and children of my people should be hid in the wilderness” (Mosiah 10:9).  Hiding in a desert is difficult; hiding in a forest is easy.

Zeniff also described Lamanite tradition, “which is this—Believing that they were wronged in the wilderness by their brethren, and they were also wronged while crossing the sea” (Mosiah 10:12-16).  Was Bountiful excluded from this tradition?  Of course not.  Laman and Lemuel considered themselves wronged in Bountiful, as well.  They had no sooner arrived in the inlet than Nephi began to exhort them to faithfulness and diligence.  Nothing changed in Bountiful.  In fact, they became so angry with his “wronging them” there that they again attempted to murder him.  Unless Bountiful was intentionally skipped, which is unimaginable, the Lamanite traditions included Bountiful in “wronged in the wilderness.”

Consider what the Lord said – and this, when they first entered Bountiful:  “And I will also be [future tense] your light in the wilderness; and I will prepare the way before you [future tense]” (1 Nephi 17:13-14).  Then he added, “after ye have arrived in the promised land, ye shall know that …I, the Lord, did deliver you from destruction.”  So, Nephi would look back over the entire experience, including Bountiful, and see that the “means” were “prepared” the whole time.

Even later, Joseph Smith used wilderness to describe the heavy forests near his home:  “And again, what do we hear? …A voice of the Lord in the wilderness of Fayette, Seneca county…. The voice of Peter, James, and John in the wilderness …[by] the Susquehanna river” (D&C 128:20).  Noah Webster’s 1828 definition further expands the diversity when he includes “the ocean” as well as “uninhabited and undeveloped prairies.”  The people of Alaska still call their vast, undeveloped regions of ice and snow, “wilderness.”  It appears that the definition of a wilderness comes down to the mindset of the speaker.  If these varying definitions of an undeveloped wilderness are all valid, and they seem to be, there is no reason that word could not include the uninhabited and undeveloped oasis of Bountiful, as well.

Having discussed the diversity of meanings of wilderness and that wilderness could include Bountiful, the next point to consider is what this alternative reading might reveal about the timing of the various events that took place during their trek through Arabia.

From Jerusalem to Nahom and then eastward to Bountiful is 2,200 miles, the same distance as from Salt Lake City to New York City.  Most experts agree that the group traveled between 15 and 20 miles per day.  With no extended rest stops, they should have arrived in Bountiful in six months.  That is a major problem for those interpreting Nephi’s wording of “eight years in the wilderness” as meaning only the desert portion.  To resolve this, some scholars have speculated that they delayed their journey in each stop to either grow crops in a desert – with no available seeds and no water access – or to sell themselves into multi-year indentured servitude or even slavery to Arabian overlords.  Both theories have serious limitations and those are refuted in my much longer article in the Interpreter journal.  But the bottom line is that such speculations are simply not needed with the alternative interpretation of the eight years as including Bountiful.

Without such unneeded speculations, we can estimate more reasonable times both for traveling and at the four primary stops that Nephi describes.  Let’s start with leaving Jerusalem.  Although it may be tempting to imagine a frantic overnight scramble to escape or flee, Nephi’s account does not describe a crazed mob charging toward the house carrying pitchforks and blazing firebrands.  Rather, the Lord told Lehi that “they seek to take away thy life” (1 Nephi 2:2).  If “seek” means “planning or plotting,” Lehi might have had more time, perhaps as much as a week or two, to purchase enough tents and camels and obtain enough seed for planting in the New World.  Two weeks is a closer match to Nephi’s calmer phrase, “depart” into the wilderness.

The group then traveled approximately 180 to 250 miles (depending on route) to the Red Sea.  That would have taken another two weeks.  Still not safe from Jewish travelers taking news back to Jerusalem, Lehi and his family traveled an additional “three days in the wilderness, [where] he pitched his tent in a valley [Wadi Tayyib al-Ism] by the side of a river of water” (1 Nephi 2:5-6), which he renamed, the Valley of Lemuel.

A lot happened at that first stop.  There were two trips back to Jerusalem and at least five weddings.  The entire Brass Plates were closely studied, and profound revelations were received.  “And all these things did my father see, and hear, and speak, as he dwelt in a tent, in the valley of Lemuel, and also a great many more things, which cannot be written upon these plates” (1 Nephi 9:1).  They were in the Valley of Lemuel for some time – just not multiple years as would be required to support the traditional reading.  Jeffrey Chadwick estimates that they sojourned in the Valley of Lemuel for just four months.[2]  Kent Brown agrees but then widens the estimate: “All of the activities rehearsed by Nephi …could have taken place within a few months … a year at most.”[3]

After leaving the Valley of Lemuel, they “traveled for the space of four days … and we did call the name of the place Shazer” (1 Nephi 16:13), which is believed to be the 15-mile oasis along the Wadi Agharr.  Their stay, though, does not sound like an extended one – probably a month, but certainly not multi-year.  They likely used this time to amass a stockpile of meat to dry as jerky for later travel.  Wellington and Potter assert that “the best hunting in the entire area was in the mountains of Agharr.”[4]  (How could Joseph Smith have known that?)  The entire stay is summarized in just one verse, so let’s allocate one month of hard hunting and meat processing at Shazer.

Since the distance from Shazer to the next stop was approximately 830 miles, the “space of many days” (1 Nephi 16:17) at 15 miles per day meant that they traveled for 60 days or a little over two months.  This estimate is supported by scripture where the meaning of “many days” is given as “40 days” (Mosiah 7:4).

Several events took place at this stop, though none of them could have taken multiple years.  The sons set off to hunt only to lose their bows due to a drastic change in humidity.  Then Nephi’s steel bow broke.  With no food, the families were soon in crisis and began to “murmur exceedingly” (verse 20).  Nephi immediately began to build a hunting bow which was, according to Hugh Nibley, “almost as great a feat for Nephi to make a [lethal] bow as it was for him to build a ship.”[5]  That doesn’t necessarily mean that it took a long time; Nephi didn’t have a long time.  The families were in danger of starving.  It took, perhaps, as little as one week to find the right branch, cure the green wood, and shape the bow.  Wellington and Potter point out that “traditional wood that Arabs used to make their bows …grows in a very limited range …[near] Bishah.”[6]  The loss of the bows at precisely the spot where there was bow-making wood is yet another tender mercy that Joseph Smith could not have known in frontier America in 1820.

During that same week, Nephi “did speak much unto my brethren” and by the time the new bow was finished, “they had humbled themselves because of my words” (verses 22 & 24).  This means the repentance process did not take additional time.  Christ/Jehovah is “quick to hear the cries of his people and to answer their prayers” (Alma 9:26).  Nephi returned with meat to the joy of the entire camp.  All in all, it seems unlikely that the Lehites were there for any longer than Nephi’s “the space of a time” or around two months.

They then traveled for two more months, a distance of approximately 830 miles, only to encounter a new upset.  “And it came to pass that Ishmael died, and was buried in the place which was called Nahom” (1 Nephi 16:34).  This threw the entire camp into turmoil and hit everyone hard, especially Ishmael’s daughters.  Ishmael was going to be denied the Israelite custom of burying in one’s native land.  Even worse, his body was soon to be left behind as the Lehites moved on.  Perhaps that explains why the daughters of Ishmael “were desirous to return again to Jerusalem” (1 Nephi 16:36).  Elder Jeffrey R. Holland compares this situation with the sin of Lot’s wife.  It was not just that Lot’s wife looked back, but that… “in her heart she wanted to go back. …She was already missing what Sodom and Gomorrah had offered her.  As Elder Maxwell once said, such people know they should have their primary residence in Zion, but they still hope to keep a summer cottage in Babylon.”[7]

Whether Laman was a part of the daughters’ initial murmuring, or simply capitalized on it, he was soon on board with them.  He had put his hand to the plow; but his own desire to “look back” and return to corrupt Jerusalem marked him as unfit for the kingdom of God (Luke 9:62).  Sadly, some of today’s Church members are also “looking back” and leaving the Church over exaggerated social issues and the misreadings of historical events.  Hopefully, like the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:17-19), many will come to realize how much better it really is to be close to the Father and will return to the Church.[8]

Laman took the rebellion a major step forward when he suggested the horrendous idea: “Behold, let us slay our father, and also our brother Nephi” (verse 37).  This time, Lehi and Nephi could not defuse the situation alone; it wasn’t until “the voice of the Lord came and did speak many words unto them” (verse 39) that “they did turn away their anger, and did repent of their sins” (verse 39).  That could not have taken months of rebellion and months of repentance, or the family would have starved to death.  It had to have been an intense and impulsive flare-up that quickly dissipated, probably in less than a week.  And the crisis was not solved by selling themselves into bondage (as one scholar speculated to fill up the “missing” years).  No, the problem was resolved by the Lord, following their repentance.  We must conclude that their repentance was sincere since “the Lord did bless us again with food, that we did not perish” (verse 39).

The burial of Ishmael and the brief, though violent, rebellion had to have taken up to a month or two (the “space of a time” – verse 33), but no more.  If they had remained in Nahom for 6, 7, or 8 years, Nephi would have told us that.  He didn’t.  Nephi writes nothing about growing crops or indentured servitude for several years.  What the text says is that was a rebellion, they suffered loss of food, and the Lord solved the crisis after their repentance (verse 39).  In fact, in the very next verse, Nephi announces that “we did again take our journey in the wilderness” (1 Nephi 17:1).  That final leg of the journey was unquestionably the most difficult and brutal.  This horrendous part of the trek extended approximately 700 more miserable miles.  At 13 miles per day, that meant 54 days – or more likely 54 nights – or just under two months to reach Bountiful.

The grand total of the entire journey – Jerusalem to Bountiful – computes to two years, not eight years; and that is being quite generous in estimating the time spent at the four stops.

But there is more.  If Nephi’s “eight years in the wilderness” included Bountiful, then they must have been in Bountiful for six years.  This is consistent with Jeffrey R. Chadwick’s suggestion: “I strongly suspect that as much as six of the eight years in the wilderness was actually time spent at Bountiful.”[9]

What is not clear is how much of those six years was spent actually building a ship that would transport a large group of people and a huge cargo across 16,000 miles of ocean.  The ship was the miraculous crown jewel of the time in Bountiful.  McConkie and Millet movingly write, “The sweat and tears shed in the building of the ship were a sacrament, for the building of the ship was a form of worship and an act of faith.”[10]  Newell Wright shared a beautiful opinion that the ship became a symbol of Christ.  “Thou shalt construct a ship, after the manner which I shall show thee, that I may carry thy people across these waters” (1 Nephi 17:8).  As Wright pointed out, “Christ equated the ship with himself.”[11]  One thing that seems sure is that this vessel could not have been thrown together in haste.  Even so, most people fail to take into account the preparation demanded before it could even begin.  The full six years could not have been spent just assembling the ship, and the other major accomplishments should not be glossed over.

According to Nephi, the voice of the Lord did not come to him for several months (“the space of many days” – 1 Nephi 17:7).  But the colony members were far from idle during those several months.

  • First, they had to set up their tents again, most likely on the western plateau to avoid monsoon flash floods. They had to prepare the natural caves and hollows at the cliff edges for long-term kitchens, lumber storage/drying areas, and for additional sleeping areas, thus saving at least some of the tent fabrics to later modify as sails for the ship.
  • Second, they had to “stock the cupboards.” The fruit was easy enough to gather but many of the honeycombs were hanging from the cliff walls[12] requiring them to climb up or rappel down from the cliff tops.[13]  Plus, the human body requires protein.  Aston points out that “the plentiful sea life all along the coast likely holds the key to understanding how Lehi’s group with its limited manpower could derive enough protein”[14] and there was abundant wildlife to hunt in Bountiful.  But this all took time.
  • Third, they most likely would have constructed a stone worship area, just as they had built an altar upon first arriving in the Valley of Lemuel (1 Nephi 2:7). Perhaps they even built a temple as they did in the New World (2 Nephi 5:16).  Warren Aston and his son, Chad, discovered stone ruins and Richard Hauck later proposed that these ruins could have been the remains of a “sanctuary site [in] the same size and proportion as the Temple of Solomon.”[15]
  • Fourth, other activities included solving health and illness needs, sanitation requirements, and repairing, or likely replacing, clothing. Arabian leopards and the wolves that occasionally hunted in the lagoon would have yielded hides, but those had to be scraped clean, dried, and processed – another learning curve.

Time to do such things is rarely considered but could have been considerable.  All the record says is that “after I, Nephi, had been in the land of Bountiful for the space of many days, the voice of the Lord came unto me, saying: Arise, and get thee into the mountain” (1 Nephi 17:7).  All this preparatory work prior to Nephi’s receiving the new revelation must have taken around two months.

On the mountain, the Lord provided the stunning news that Nephi was to build a handmade ship using homemade tools to fell and mill what would have to have been many dozens of trees.  Little wonder that his brothers murmured, “Our brother is a fool” (1 Nephi 17:17) and “did not believe that I could build a ship; neither would they believe that I was instructed of the Lord” (verse 18).

That skepticism prompted another long admonition by Nephi comparing their situation to that of the children of Israel under Moses.  The comparison implied that Nephi was a Moses figure, which did not go down well with Laman and Lemuel.  Nephi then punctuated the sermon by saying that Laman and Lemuel were “murderers in your hearts” (verse 44) and that he feared “lest ye shall be cast off forever” (verse 47).  Laman and Lemuel flew into an instant and murderous rage, which was stopped by the dramatic threat that, if they touched him, they would “wither even as a dried reed” (verse 48).

Although Laman and Lemuel doubted their younger brother could build a ship, they clearly did not doubt his warning and backed off significantly.  Notice that there was a long “cooling off” period for Laman and Lemuel.  We don’t know what they were doing in this time, but Nephi writes that they “were confounded and could not contend against me; neither durst they lay their hands upon me nor touch me with their fingers, even for the space of many days” (verse 52).  After these apparently two months, the Lord instructed Nephi to “shock” his brothers into compliance and Nephi secured their willingness to provide labor, apparently for several years (1 Nephi 18:1).  Note that those two sets of activities occurred back-to-back.  The first time period comprised the time to set up their tents, recuperate, hunt, and settle in before receiving the Lord’s directive to build the ship.  The second time period was the calming down of Laman and Lemuel and the time when they could not touch him.

During this time, Nephi was already mining ore, gathering flint, building a reliable bellows made out of animal hides, and preparing to make tools.  A casual reading of the text takes that as a few-day’s job and a trivial detail.  Not so.  Nephi had to, in effect, create a serious and on-going “blacksmith shop” right there in the inlet.  He would eventually have seven healthy young men who all needed their own building tools, not to mention multiple cooking tools and tools for scraping and preparing hides.  One set of tools wouldn’t have “cut it.”  The production of all of the sets of tools appears to have been the work of Nephi alone because only he had metalworking skills to forge heavy hammers, mauls, axes, hide-scrapers, and saws.  These initial accomplishments should not be glossed over, although they usually are.

Nor was this a one-and-done activity.  Wellington and Potter argue that “Nephi needed hardwood to build a ship strong enough to survive an ocean crossing.”  As any woodworker knows, there is a major difference between hand-working softwoods and hand-working hardwoods; it is an entirely different proposition.  Not only are hardwoods hard – making them difficult to cut, shape, and smooth – they also dull the tool cutting blades very quickly.  Therefore, sharpening and even replacing broken tools was an on-going need.  We don’t know, of course, how fast Nephi could have set up his “blacksmith shop,” but it sounds as if it would have taken considerable time.  It seems as if the time for the blacksmith-related activities had to have been in the order of six months or so.

After that came the lumber problem.  Judith Grimes, a botanist who visited Bountiful, found many large trees; one had a girth of 23 feet.  Felling many dozens of such trees with only homemade axes and primitive saws would already have been a monumental undertaking.  But they also had to limb the branches and drag the trunks and larger branches back to the building location.  Then they had to scrape off the bark and split the trunk multiple times to mill the “timber” into “lumber” for planks and beams.  It seems clear that Nephi had to create a serious, working “sawmill and lumber yard” in order to harvest and process lumber out of native trees.  The men could not have even started the assembly and joining of the planking until they had an impressive supply of lumber already collected and right there on hand, ready to go.  Even at full speed and with enthusiastic workers, that had to have taken a minimum of six months.

But even that is not the end of the story.  “When a tree is first cut down and the logs are sectioned into lumber, the resulting wood is considered ‘green’ because it still has a considerable moisture content. …Air-drying lumber typically takes one year per inch of wood thickness.”[16]  And that cannot be rushed.  Unless timber is cured correctly, the wood will shrink, twist, or even worse, split.  One cannot build a water-tight ship with wood that contains warps and splits.  Perhaps they sped up the curing of the green wood using bonfires and laboriously hand-fanned the heat into the woodpile.  But … caution!  The same website continues:  “Care must be taken not to heat the lumber too quickly, as this can cause uneven curing or create potential flaws, such as splitting.”

Of course, some of the boards (for example, those used for the housing areas, railings, masts, or the storage bins) didn’t require fully cured timber because they wouldn’t be in contact with the ocean water and a twist or split wouldn’t be as serious.  The many planks that made up the hull are a different story.  The wood had to be planed with a homemade wood plane to not only make them smooth, but also thin enough to facilitate the drying process.  If the Lehites used mortise and tenon joints, as in the Church’s Book of Mormon Videos, they would have had to be chiseled with great accuracy.  In that same Church video, the boards of the ship appear to be 8- to 10-inch-thick beams.  Sure, there might have been some beams that thick, but the hull planks would have had to be much thinner to have them air dry as quickly as possible, given no kiln.  It’s hard to even imagine the planks averaging as thin as an inch and a half in thickness but, if the rule-of-thumb given above is correct and it takes one year per inch of wood thickness, at 1½ inches thick, that would require at least 18 months.

Earlier, the estimate for the trek through the desert portion was calculated as approximately two years, not eight years.  That leaves roughly six years for the time in Bountiful.  Of those six years in Bountiful, I have allowed a reasonable year and a half for settling in, blacksmithing, milling timber, and then another 18 months for the green wood to cure.  That equals 34 months – and that is before even beginning the actual assembly.  Logically, some of those activities would have overlapped.  For example, Nephi could have been forging tools while Ishmael’s sons were felling trees, or Laman and Zoram could have been splitting trunks while Sam and Lemuel milled the timber.  That kind of overlapping would cut the time taken up in preparation for the building by, say, ten months, making two full years of preparation before the assembly of the ship.

Adding the two years for the trek through the desert to two years of preparation in Bountiful makes four years before assembling the ship.  Subtracting those four years from Nephi’s total of eight years in Arabia result in four more years to actually assemble the vessel.

A fair question to ask of this or any article looking into scripture is whether the commentary makes any difference.  I think it does.  Eight years of desert travel and the glossing over of details about the ship’s construction is what has been presented in talks, books, scholarly articles, firesides, classes, videos, and casual conversations.  With the clearly plausible new reading of the verses, it becomes possible to draw better estimates of the time spent at various locations and the time spent building the ship.  Thus, this alternative interpretation of Nephi’s “eight years in the wilderness” solves a major puzzle by suggesting conclusions that no longer strain credulity.  Plus, with the alternative reading, it now becomes possible to estimate more closely the timing of key events and provides a closing bookend:  eight total years from Jerusalem to the launch into the Indian Ocean.  This interpretation allows a more logical estimate of two years in the desert, a solid estimate of two years of preparation in Bountiful, and a calculation of four years of assembly to build the ship.  It is hoped that this article provides a deeper understanding of scripture.  Such an outcome is always to be welcomed.

Notes: 

[1] A more detailed discussion of these problems is contained in my much longer article, which can be found in the “Interpreter Foundation” website.  Look for Godfrey J. Ellis, “Nephi’s Eight Years in the ‘Wilderness’: Reconsidering Definitions and Details,” Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 57 (2023): 281-356.  The logic is spelled out more clearly there.  A similar interpretation was offered by Jeffrey R. Chadwick, “An Archeologist’s View, Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 15, no. 2 (2006): 74.  Unfortunately, he did not offer justifications for re-interpreting or ignoring Nephi’s assertion in 1 Nephi 17:4-5.

[2] Jeffrey R. Chadwick, “An Archeologist’s View,” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 15, no. 2 (2006), 73.

[3] S. Kent Brown, “Refining the Spotlight on Lehi & Sariah,” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 15, no. 2 (2006): 48.

[4] Richard Wellington and George Potter, “Lehi’s Trail,” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 15, no. 2 (2006), 30.

[5] Hugh Nibley, Lehi in the Desert; The World of the Jaredites; There Were Jaredites (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1988), 61.

[6] Richard Wellington and George Potter, “Lehi’s Trail,” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 15, no. 2 (2006), 30.

[7] Jeffrey R. Holland, “Remember Lot’s Wife,” BYU Speeches, Jan. 13, 2009, https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/jeffrey-r-holland/remember-lots-wife/.

[8] I am indebted to Dean Bjornestad for the comparisons with Lot’s wife and the Prodigal Son.

[9] Jeffrey R. Chadwick, “An Archeologist’s View, Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 15, no. 2 (2006), 74.

[10] Joseph Fielding McConkie and Robert L. Millet, Doctrinal Commentary on the Book of Mormon, vol. 1, First and Second Nephi (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1987), 140.

[11] Newell Wright, email correspondence to Godfrey Ellis, Dec. 27, 2022.

[12] A description of safely taking honey from the honeycombs in the trees of Khor Kharfot is reported in Brent Heaton, “What Life is Like Today at Nephi’s Bountiful,” Meridian Magazine (July 12, 2018), https://latterdaysaintmag.com/what-life-is-like-today-at-nephis-bountiful/

[13] See a photo-essay by Alan Taylor, “Honey Hunting on the Cliffs of China’s Yunnan Province,” The Atlantic, June 6, 2019, https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2019/06/honey-hunting-chinas-yunnan-province-photos/591202/.

[14] Warren P. Aston, Lehi and Sariah in Arabia: The Old World Setting of the Book of Mormon (Bloomington, IN: Xlibris Publishing, 2015), 137.

[15] Scott and Maurine Proctor, “Nephi’s Bountiful: Archaeological Dig: Was There a Holy Place of Worship at Nephi’s Bountiful?” Meridian Magazine, Feb. 29, 2016, https://ldsmag.com/day-2-was-there-a-holy-place-of-worship-at-nephis-bountiful.

[16] “Curing Lumber,” Thomas, a Xometry Company; www.thomasnet.com/articles/plant-facility-equipment/curing-lumber/#:~:text=Air%2Ddrying%20lumber%20typically%20takes,it%20is%20trying%20to%20release.