Timothy Sedor's Newsletter
"Photographs of the Month"
Timothy Sedor - 2012 - Spokane Valley, WA
Book of Mormon Explorer
May 2012
Once Nephi finished constructing his ship, he had to learn how to sail her. It is likely that he learned how to command a ship from the captains who spent the winter season moored at Khor Rori waiting for the winds to change so they could return to their own home ports with their vessels laden with frankincense.
Even with a trained captain, Nephi's ship was going nowhere without a crew. The task of captaining a ship is a daunting task. To do so without a trained crew would be like trying to juggle a half-dozen bowling balls while standing on one leg as your nose was beginning to itch. You would not want to think about it.
Without a trained crew to handle the sails and riggings, Nephi's ship would have never left the port where she was built. Having a place to moor the ship would have provided another key element for Nephi's successful voyage: sea trials.
Sea trials are more than just a precautionary measure to make sure the ship is sound. They are the means by which the captain and the ship's crew learn to sail her, the process by which shipbuilders discover the proper amount of sail for different conditions, and of utmost importance - what should be the right amount and balance of the ballast to keep the hull stable and upright.
Before Nephi's family entered his ship for the voyage to the New World, they knew that the finished ship was "good," and the "workmanship thereof was exceedingly fine" (1 Ne. 18:4).
This implies that they must have already conducted successful sea trials. Otherwise, how could they have judged the ship's workmanship unless they saw that the hull was sound and watertight, that the ship rested properly and equally balanced in the water, and that the ship handled well in various seas?
Without sea trials, the words "good ship" would have been as meaningless as saying a "good airplane" before seeing if it could fly.
My "Photograph of the Month" for May is of an illustration depicting a ship's crew engaged in a very intense effort of setting the sail's rigging in a storm. The illustration is by Jose Flores and was selected from Part 6: Discovering Nephi's Harbor of our 6-part film DVD, Discovering Lehi's Trail.
April 2012
We have received e-mails from interested individuals who believe that Nephi could not have built a ship in Southern Arabia, because there were no hardwood trees tall and straight enough for constructing a ship. It is a known fact that the trees in and around the coast of Oman are not suited for shipbuilding, as the woods are too soft and are not large enough to fabricate a ship that would be strong enough to make a trans-oceanic voyage.
Khor Rori is the only harbor or inlet in southern Oman that has an ancient shipbuilding and maritime lore. The Salalah Coastal Plain in Dhofar, where Khor Rori is located, is home to one of the most ancient ships built in Oman, the sewn sambuq (boat). However, building ships is no simple process.
It is likely that Nephi developed the needed shipbuilding skills at Khor Rori, perhaps under the tutelage of the Adite shipwrights. This knowledge would allow him to state from firsthand experience that he "did not work timbers after the manner which was learned by men, neither did I build the ship after the manner of men." (Ne. 17:2)
Using imported lumber would not contradict Nephi's claim that he worked timbers. Nephi's text alludes to the fact that the timber they were working had already been cut somewhere else. "We worked timbers of curious workmanship" (Ne. 18:1). How could they have been curious to Nephi if they had logged the lumber themselves?
Apparently, some of the timbers Nephi used to construct his ship were precut in an unfamiliar manner. We know that the beams and rafters that were then being imported to Khor Rori from India would have been fashioned in a manner that was new to Nephi.
The "Photograph of the Month" for April showing a shipwright hand-shaping a very large timber was selected from Part 6: Discovering Nephi's Harbor of our 6-part film DVD, Discovering Lehi's Trail.
March 2012
Joseph Smith could never have invented the Book of Mormon. For example, at Nahom the party changed direction and traveled "nearly eastward from that time forth" (1 Nephi 17:1). Therefore, Bountiful should be nearly due east of where the frankincense trail turns east in Yemen, where Nahom has been located. The natural harbor of Khor Rori, where we believe Nephi built his ship and where the trail ended, is only 3° off true east from where the party turned east in Yemen.
A long mountain range runs parallel to the southern coast of Arabia from Yemen to Khor Rori and beyond. In order to reach the coast from the inland caravan trail, Nephi and his family would have had to cross this mountain range. Camels laden with heavy tents, carpets. and provisions can only cross mountains on a prepared gently sloping trail. Maps of the ancient trade routes in southern Arabia show only one camel trail through the mountains of southern Oman to the coast which is the Salalah/Thammarit road. The road has been in use for many thousands of years to reach the coast from the inland trail and finally ends at Khor Rori.
After crossing the mountains, the family would have seen "Irreantum" or the "many waters." The entire southern coast of Arabia sits on the Indian Ocean. As Nephi looked south out over the ocean from the mountains, the next landfall would have been Antarctica.
While translating the Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith would have been the first westerner to realize all that is described above.
The "Photograph of the Month" for March is a scene from above the Salalah coastal plain. The photograph was selected from Part 5: Discovering the Land of Bountiful of our 6-part film DVD, Discovering Lehi's Trail.
February 2012
Last month, I described the scene Lehi's family would have witnessed standing above the Salalah coastal plain after having left the most inhospitable desert of all Arabia behind them.
Nephi repeats that they called the place Bountiful because of its abundant fruit. This bounty of fertile land continued right down to the shore. By the time the party of weary travelers descended from the limestone mountains on the well traveled caravan trail to the seashore, the rich bounty of this land became obvious to them.
We can easily imagine that the Salalah coastal plain had then, as it has now, groves of coconut palms bent down above the sands of the beach; abundant banana plantations, their leaves a rich deep green; mangoes and fields of sugar cane lining the edges of the fields.
Whatever the fruit species of this tropical paradise would have been in antiquity, most of them would have been totally new to the travelers from Jerusalem. As they stood on the beach, they may well have seen the fishermen bringing in their catch of snapper, kingfish, sardines, lobster, crayfish, and giant turtles.
Surely, to them, this was Bountiful, and they were no longer alone.
I call the "Photograph of the Month" for February "Surfs Up!" The photograph was selected from Part 5: Discovering the Land of Bountiful of our 6-part film DVD, Discovering Lehi's Trail.
January 2012
The birds sang in the trees around them as they stood on a carpet of lush emerald green grass. A thousand feet below them was a bustling society and a harbor where merchant ships settled in port. They could also see abundant plantations of the like that they had not seen since they left the land of Jerusalem
The dirt trail that led them out of the desert was well traveled, and the family easily made their way down the mountain side to the shores of the ocean. Today this dirt path that marked the Frankincense trail has been made into a beautiful highway.
We also stood and took in this amazing view and imagined what Lehi and his family must have felt at seeing such a beautiful vista of farms and the busy seaport town. We agreed that even a blind man would have called this land "Bountiful."
To start this New Year, the "Photograph of the Month" for January 2012 is a scene I call "The View." The photograph was selected from Part 5: Discovering the Land of Bountiful of our 6-part film DVD, Discovering Lehi's Trail.
Happy New Year!