And I looked and beheld a man among the Gentiles, who was separated from the seed of my brethren by the many waters; and I beheld the Spirit of God, that it came down and wrought upon the man; and he went forth upon the many waters, even unto the seed of my brethren, who were in the promised land. (1 Nephi 13:12)
The following video deconstructs a lot of the exaggerations and lies about Columbus:
The apologetic value of this would relate to how many LDS interpreters believe that Columbus fulfilled the prophecy in 1 Nephi 13:12 (quoted above).
Related to this, one may view 1 Nephi 13:12 as evidence against Open Theism. However, some may view this as a more “open” prophecy that could have been fulfilled by someone God raised up, not that Columbus had to be the person who fulfilled it. Brant Gardner, in his commentary on this verse, argued that it was symbolic as opposed to specific:
The traditional reading of this verse identifies the “man” as Columbus. For example, Rulon S. Wells of the First Council of the Seventy noted in October 1919 general conference: “Nephi sees in vision that the Spirit of God inspired the great Columbus (it can mean no other) to cross the many waters, the great Atlantic ocean, which separated him from the seed of Nephi’s brethren, who were in the promised land.”
The general connection between the European exploration of the New World and communication with the “Gentiles” in the Old World certainly begins with Columbus, even if the technical “discovery” of this new world has now been asserted for the Vikings. As a technical matter, neither the Vikings nor Columbus actually set foot on territory that is identified with the Lehites. While there is less to suggest that Hernán Cortés was inspired by God, a claim Columbus makes for himself, it is nevertheless Cortés who first stepped on the Lehite promised land and approximately where that land was located, in the geography accepted by this commentary.
Thus, I argue that it is better to read this vision symbolically rather than specifically. Divine inspiration to Columbus resulted in opening the promised land to Gentiles from the other side of the ocean; even if Columbus never set foot on the technical promised land, nevertheless he was the instrument by which the prophecy was fulfilled. (Brant Gardner, Second Witness: Analytical and Contextual Commentary on the Book of Mormon, Volume 1: First Nephi [Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2007], 232-33, emphasis added)