Science & Archaeologyvoyagelehijareditesseafaring

Transoceanic Voyages

Could Lehi, Mulek, and the Jaredites actually have crossed oceans in the ancient world, or is that 19th-century fantasy?

Bible

The Bible answers

Bible · Psalm 107:23–24

KJV + NRSVUE

King James Version
They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters; These see the works of the LORD, and his wonders in the deep.

NRSVUE
Some went down to the sea in ships, doing business on the mighty waters; they saw the deeds of the LORD, his wondrous works in the deep.

Bible · Isaiah 11:11

KJV + NRSVUE

King James Version
And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall set his hand again the second time to recover the remnant of his people, which shall be left, from Assyria, and from Egypt, and from Pathros, and from Cush, and from Elam, and from Shinar, and from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea.

NRSVUE
On that day the Lord will extend his hand yet a second time to recover the remnant that is left of his people, from Assyria, from Egypt, from Pathros, from Cush, from Elam, from Shinar, from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea.

Book of Mormon

The Book of Mormon answers

1 Nephi 18:8, 23
And it came to pass after we had all gone down into the ship, and had taken with us our provisions and things which had been commanded us, we did put forth into the sea and were driven forth before the wind towards the promised land… And it came to pass that after we had sailed for the space of many days we did arrive at the promised land; and we went forth upon the land, and did pitch our tents; and we did call it the promised land.

Ether 6:8, 12
And it came to pass that the wind did never cease to blow towards the promised land while they were upon the waters; and thus they were driven forth before the wind… And they did land upon the shore of the promised land. And when they had set their feet upon the shores of the promised land they bowed themselves down upon the face of the land, and did humble themselves before the Lord, and did shed tears of joy before the Lord, because of the multitude of his tender mercies over them.

Ancient witnesses

Dead Sea Scrolls and related extra-biblical texts that illuminate the same pattern the Restoration restores.

Ancient Near Eastern and Mediterranean seafaring; experimental archaeology

Phoenician, Egyptian Red Sea, and Indian Ocean trade; the monsoon system; and modern reconstructions (including trans-Pacific and trans-Atlantic experimental craft) show that drift and directed voyages were possible long before 1492.

The Book of Mormon claims three crossings (Jaredites, Lehi, Mulek), not weekly ferry service. L’Anse aux Meadows ended the dogma that no Old World craft reached America before Columbus. Possibility is no longer the critic’s friend.

Faithful answers

Scripture Central

1 Nephi is a realistic voyage narrative: timber, a compass (Liahona), a storm caused by rebellion, wind-driven progress, and landfall. Ether’s barges are a different technology for a different dispensation, with light, air, and a promised wind. Neither story needs nineteenth-century steam.

Once the dogma of an isolated pre-Columbian America is dropped, Lehi’s crossing becomes a question of route and providence, not of fantasy. The Arabian direction of 1 Nephi 16–17 is now one of the book’s strengths.

Lehi’s party builds on the seacoast Bountiful after an old-world wilderness trek that matches Arabia. The ocean is the last stage of a real itinerary.
Mulek’s crossing (Omni; Helaman 6:10; 8:21) is a short additional claim that a royal son fled the Babylonian destruction—entirely in character for 586 B.C.
Wind-driven barges in Ether are miracle-framed, not a claim of Phoenician naval architecture for the Jaredites.
DNA and later populations do not erase small founder voyages. A few families leave little genetic signature after millennia of mixing. See the Church’s DNA essay for the larger issue.

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