The Book of Mormon Jaredite Barges Story: Quirky?

How did 22 friends along with their wives and children board 8 barges and collected and packed in them “flocks and herds, male and female of every kind” along with enough food and water to feed them all for an ocean journey that would last for 344 days at sea? (just by way of reference, one cow would require six tons of hay and 3000 gallons of fresh water to survive)

 

One Possible Response To This Question: 

As is often the case, the terse account in ancient texts with few details leaves many questions unanswered.  The text says nothing about the Jaredites taking cows with them, and what the flocks and

herds consisted of is pure speculation (we have some mention much later in Ether, but no discussion as to which of these animals were brought on barges and which were indigenous). 

 

At three families per large barge, there was clearly a large amount of storage space.  The text provides no other specific details which would answer logistical questions.  A variety of potential solutions could be posited in view of the scriptural parameters, but there would seem to be little point in engaging in such speculation.  There are also some Latter-day Saints who view this story as literal and others who see it figuratively, just as many non-LDS Christians view some of the early content of Genesis.

 

The Jaredite story is clearly less fantastic than the Noah's Ark story, or a great many other stories that have come down in ancient records, and the limitations of our knowledge must be kept in mind.  Your question is therefore one which has little specific to do with Latter-day Saints, but engages long-standing themes of the Judeo-Christian scripture about which controversies are unlikely to be resolved anytime soon.  One might as well protest in front of various Christian churches with signs reading "Noah's Ark is a Lie" as to attempt to make hay of this much less problematic account in LDS scripture.

 

Another additional point to add to this is that the record says nothing one way or the other about the journey being uninterrupted.  They were on the water for a given number of days.  It doesn't say that they didn't beach from time to time to replenish, stretch one's legs, etc.  But, that amount of time clearly doesn't count for travel time--i.e., if I want to know how far or how long it took, I don't care about the two months you spent beached on the tropical island replenishing stocks; I care how long you were shut up in the boat.

Comments

[php]

Spin it to the Bible stories, to lessen it's absurdity. That's okay I guess. I'm wondering it the glass windows the Book of Mormon mentions were invented before this time? I know you'll have an answer for this, but I didn't think people were making windows during this time. I don't know.

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Well, if I was Jared and his brother, I wouldn't have taken full grown elephants, bison, cows and whatever- of the larger mammals.

Another thing would be the amount of manure that would accumulate over a number of days.

...and being inside a barge that is sealed like a dish, would quickly turn very deadly because of the fumes( I have heard of men being overcome in minutes, when they went inside a tanker that previously contained liquid manure- two of them died)

They must have made the journey in small leaps and bounds.

Just my opinion!

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