In the recently published collection of Mormon apologetic essays edited by Robert Millet titled "No Weapon Shall Prosper," John W. Welch, a widely published Mormon apologist and BYU professor of law, has an essay on evidence for the Book of Mormon. Among the most convincing, he says, is the "fact" that it takes exactly 344 days for the Pacific Current to travel from Asia to Mexico.

And 344 days is exactly the same amount of time that it took the Jaredites to travel from Asia to America (Ether 6:11)! Wow!

A few puzzling questions which Welch does not address:
- Exactly 344? Not ever 343 or 346?
- Doesn't it matter, in measuring the time, where one starts and where one lands? Starting in Viet Nam or China or Kamchatka? No difference? Landing in Baja California or near Acapulco? Not even a day's difference?
- No variation in the speed of the current from 2000 BC to today?
- None of the barges got delayed by a day during all that time?

Of course there are more problems with the Jaredite barges (see "Jaredite Shipbuilding Technology" by Dr. Kent Ponder at http://packham.n4m.org/ships.htm ), but this is hardly convincing "evidence."

That is really pathetic evidence. It's practically nonexistant.

And of course, how could an uneducated farm boy know this? Amazing.

Considering that the continents have been slowly drifting apart during this 4000 year period, this "evidence" is moot.

Just because the current moves that fast doesnt mean that a boat/barge would travel that fast. Storms would surely push that time frame out, but I suppose god could make it nice and sunny. I mean after all, he wouldnt want to rock the boat to much with all those bees in there.

That's funny, 'cause that's not what the NOAA says:

"It travels at speeds of 25 to 75 miles per day at about one to three knots (1.15-3.45 miles per hour or 1.85-5.55 kilometers per hour)."

Gee, that's *considerable* variation. Not at all the "exactly" he claims. How about that.

WINNER !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Weren't the barges driven by winds?

Did he measure this himself? Is he talking about surface currents?...currents that would never push a barge across the Pacific? I can't find anything that says the exact time for any Pacific current is 344 days.

Looking at maps of ocean currents, what route is he proposing they took? It doesn't look like any current from SE Asia would have even landed them in Mexico.

Besides that, Ether 6 says:

5 And it came to pass that the Lord God caused that there should be a furious wind blow upon the face of the waters, towards the promised land; and thus they were tossed upon the waves of the sea before the wind.

Is that "furious wind" still blowing? If God helped them out, why even bother comparing what the book says and what currents today are doing?

Back to Ether 3 for some interesting, yet unrelated, "scriptures":

23 And behold, these two stones will I give unto thee, and ye shall seal them up also with the things which ye shall write.

24 For behold, the language which ye shall write I have confounded; wherefore I will cause in my own due time that these stones shall magnify to the eyes of men these things which ye shall write.

28 And it came to pass that the Lord commanded him that he should seal up the two stones which he had received, and show them not, until the Lord should show them unto the children of men.

The Nephites in the book didn't find these, and Joe didn't use them. I guess God changed his mind.

I just did some reading on this and it sounds like the ocean currents are so variable and inconsistent that no organization or individual would ever publish an exact time for a specific current to cross an ocean. These times would change from year to year.

Even today, scientist can't predict very accurately where drift bottles will end up. Many never make it out to sea, and others end up all along the coasts on either side of the ocean. Barges launched from anywhere in Asia probably wouldn't go anywhere. If they did get out to sea, they could have ended up anywhere...elsewhere in Asia, Australia, anywhere along the Pacific coast of North of South America... Why doesn't he go build a barge and get in it with his year's supply and find out for himself.

At the risk that commenting adds some additional credibilty to Welch's nonsense, I'd like to add the following question:

Even though the ships were "light upon the water, even like unto the lightness of a fowl upon the water", the sum total of the influence of windage added up to 0? Windage neither added to or subtracted from the 344 days of drift provided by the current? No amount of windage even ever so slightly deviated the ships from the exact track of the current so that not a single day of deviation was added to the 344 days of the current (+ ship) making landfall? As a guy who's hobbies include sailing on the Gulf coast and wooden boatbuilding I find this more than just a little hard to believe. You try riding a "light upon the water" boat with even minimal windage on a moderate speed current and see how that works out in practice.

If you haven't had the experience of plotting off the miles in a sailing vessel who's speeds are mesasured in single digit knots, it might not immediately occurr to you that by giving an exact figure of 344 days, Welch has pinpointed the starting location of the Jaredite crossing to within about 20 nautical miles (given that either of the potential currents in question average about 1 knot). That's almost as good as the NHM thing... We shouldn't be suprised when Welch soon announces his find of an ancient inscription that reads "The Brother of Jared wuz here :)" in the pure Adamic language.

So what if they unearthed 16 glowing stones somewhere on the American Continent?

He doesn't say where in Asia, nor where in America.
But let's try an example, shall we?

It's 7,378 miles from Shanghai, China (Asia) to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico (America).

At the NOAA's low-end current rate of 1.15 MPH, it would take 267 days to get from Shanghai to Cabo.
At the high-end rate of 3.45 MPH, it would take 89 days.

Neither is exactly 344 days. In fact, 344 days is outside the range of the measured current rate.

Now, I'm sure I could find SOMEWHERE in "Asia" (it's big), and SOMEWHERE in "America" (it's big), and use an AVERAGE rate for the current, and make the numbers come out to 344 days.
But then that wouldn't be honest. So I wouldn't do it. :)

Build a boat and hop in it. Even a raft will do. I think it's time for ole John Welch to put up or shut up.

Proof is in the pudding John. We won't even require you to behead someone and steal some plates. Just get on your floating device and drift over in exactly 344 days.

I think he should make his floating device tight, like unto a dish. He should then load it up with farm animals, people and provisions, including fresh water that will last for one year. He also needs to make this water tight dish have the ability to expel sewage (lots of it from people and animals over a year) and to bring in sufficient fresh air.

Problems like how to keep water fresh, sewage contained, food clean and bug, mildew, mold, bacteria free. How to keep the vessel, people, animals, clothing, food,living quarters, and utensils clean and germ free, would be an insurmountable problem without modern day chemicals. Just keeping water potable in that situation would have been impossible.

We haven't even touched on mental health yet. Can you imagine the claustrophobia? The mental breakdowns, and the anxiety ridden, raging people full of fear that they're going to die? The build up of methane gas from the sewage? The bacteria, germs, virus's that would take over and kill every living thing with some kind of disease? There isn't one single aspect of this story that is plauseable. I hope they don't make the youth re-enact the insanity to entertain their parents.

Don't forget all of the pissed off bees...

Haha. The logistics really kill the deal don't they?

Your graphic last paragraph really lays it on the line. EWWWWW!

The impossibility of it all is staggering. Of course . . . God.

Now we can say that our testimony is strengthened by the use of such a specific number, even though it is tied to hypothetical departure and arrival locations. If someone points out that the account says the Jaredites were blown by the wind, we can just say that they must have written that according to their understanding at the time, as they didn't know about ocean currents.

It's true, because....God!


Anyway, it's been a while since I trotted out this link, which I think of when I hear about Jaredite barges, and then think about how close JS lived to the Erie Canal:

http://www.eriecanal.org/boats/Henry-EarlyDaysOfRapidTransit.jpg

https://www.lds.org/bc/content/shared/content/images/gospel-library/manual/34187/p-191-1.gif

The closest coast to Mesopotamia, which is the origin site of the Jaredites, is the Arabian Sea. This is the most western coast in Asia. The barges would have had to cross the Indian Ocean, just like the Nephites, before they even got to the Pacific.

I'm still waiting for swords, shields, wheels, horses, money, bones, buildings, Dark skin to White and delightsome...

With this apologetic's claims, I can assume that 344 days of ocean drift proves all the rest is of the BOM is true too!

...from Spain to San Salvador.

As I've noted many times before, the 344-day-Jaredite-voyage story isn't realistic. The text says that the Lord provided a mighty wind to drive them across the sea. And yet, it took them five times longer to reach America than it took Columbus? The story is just plain silly. Not to mention the fact that it would have been impossible to carry enough food, water, and everything else that the people and animals would have needed to survive a 344-day sea voyage.

This is a problem I noticed when I first began studying these issues from a logical viewpoint about 18 years ago. It's sad that apologists like John Welch can't discern that things like this make the story unbelievable.

Jack has been running for general authority for a very long time. Sadly he is kinda boring.

AS IF floating vessels / boats always maintain the exact same speed (and direction) as the current carrying them. AS IF the wind always blows in the exact same direction as the ocean currents..... or is the wind being completely discounted in this instance, even though the MORmON scriptural account states that the wind drove the boats.

MORmON *proof* only proves that MORmONS know nothing about proof.

How long can bees survive in a container without access to pollen and nectar?

OOH! OOH! I know this! 344 days! 344 days!

This guy is a professor of law? Does he have any idea how pathetic his assertion is? It is literally - literally - moronic.

I don't know why but at the mention of John Welch I felt compelled to post this video ..... for some reason, even though I am sure that Larry was a much better person in real life than John, and definitely better looking, but still there is some connection ......

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5z53oWCZXX4

Two things about this I find particularly vicious: one, John Welch clearly knows better, and two, it works.


That Welch likely knows better is easier for me to believe than that a professor of law doesn't understand how evidence works. He's pimping out his credentials and skills in hopes for personal gain, at the expense of those who will believe him.

I understand very clearly those who will believe him because I was once one of those people. TBMs, like every one else, are busy, maybe even busier because of their tendency to have larger families and be from larger families. It's not that the Jaredite story hasn't bothered us since we were ten, it has. Them and us. We talked about it when we were ten, and then we put it at the back of our minds.

When we are older it's still there, hidden with all the other "mormon problems" that cropped up over the years. But these problems are eased in our 'back shelf' minds a great deal if we just *hear* about John Welch, professor of law don't you know, pointing out this strange coincidence that cannot be other than a *proof* that the BofM is true.

We're busy. We haven't time enough to "study" the BofM. We barely have time to do all the other things on our TBM checklist, let alone the checklist for daily life with four kids and callings and etc. So when our smart father-in-law or the Sunday school teacher brings up John Welch's coincidence in passing, well there you go, voilà.

Mormon apologetics works as long as you don't read it.

But those who do read it, believe it and then pass it on? I don't know what to think of those people anymore, to be honest.

As for the apologists themselves, people like John Welch? My guess it they sleep through the night with the same ease as those who pimp themselves out for any other cause, guys like this:

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/08/25/chris-horner-coal/

And when you think of it that way, maybe guys like John Welch ain't all that smart after all. They come pretty cheap, I must say. They even pay 10% for the pleasure to pimp themselves. Not sure anymore what to think of that.


Human

+ a lot

+ another "a lot"

I don't believe his 344 would hold up in a court of law for second, and, he has to know that as well, unless he gets an all Mormon jury.

None of your factual rebuttals matter. Something that nonsensical and nonfactual is enough for most mormons. They just need to be able to snicker and think they know something everybody else doesn't know. Just humor them.

Unfortunately you are right. What you say is right on the money for my TBM family. Who needs facts when you have the "one true truth."

After 344 days sealed up in those barges, they would all be dead of scurvy anyway. Yarrr!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scurvy

Unless the glowing stones emitted UVB as well as visible light, they would all have been suffering from vitamin D deficiency as well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_D

The Jaredite barge journey makes a cruise ship norovirus outbreak look like pleasant vacation.

1. One thing I will never deny is that I think that Jack & his family are awesome decent very intelligent wonderful people. As a sophomore in HS I got a ride to school from him 100+ times and saw them all front/center quite a bit. Maybe they have some hidden issues where its not as awesome, decent, and wonderful as I've portrayed. But he very clearly was a very brilliant and intelligent man. I certainly know plenty of Mormons who are very intelligent and well-educated. For example, my dad has 2 doctorate degrees but he is very TBM. Likewise my mom has 2 doctorate degrees and she is also very TBM. However they are caught in the spiderweb of Mormonism, too heavily invested emotionally, and will be that way for the rest of their lives.

2. One time John W. Welch (his friends call him Jack) substitute taught my Seminary class and shared this same example you just provided about the Pacific current.

3. I agree with your assessment RPackham.

I was asked to visit with Jack by my in-laws as they have been friends for decades. The meeting lasted for over two hours. He never tried to "prove" the church was true. Never trotted out this turd.

When we finished he said that it would require faith and a desire to believe and to put aside some facts that I had learned in the hope for future knowledge, perhaps in the afterlife. Then he testified.

In other words, after 2 hours he realized that I was too informed to shovel shit at.

We are still getting 2011 Japanese tidal wave waste showing up on the west coast.

Definitely longer than 344 days

Yes. And, that actually could be recorded, logged and entered as tangible evidence.