Friday, June 26, 2020

Bryan L. Baggaley on Ether 2:20 and the timing of the Construction of the Holes in the Jaredite Barges

 

And the Lord said unto the brother of Jared: Behold, thou shalt make a hole in the top, and also in the bottom; and when thou shalt suffer for air thou shalt unstop the hole and receive air. And if it be so that the water come in upon thee, behold, ye shall stop the hole, that ye may not perish in the flood. (Ether 2:20)

 

Bryan Linton Baggaley, a licensed contractor and licensed professional engineer, offered the following solution to a question many readers of this verse often have:

 

It is commonly asked why the Lord waited until the barges were constructed before directing the Jaredites to cut a hole in the top and a hole in the bottom. Why not install the hole during construction? The Lord wanted to test and build the Jaredites’ faith. However, there may be engineering answers as well. The hull of the barges were likely constructed using timbers laminated and sealed together. Allowing the timbers to bind and seal together creating a more uniform material prior to cutting a round hole would provide for optimal stress distribution around the hole. This assumes the barges were made of wood—which the record does not specify except to say they were the “length of a tree” (Ether 2:17). (Bryan L. Baggaley, Building Faith Like the Brother of Jared [Springville, Utah: CFI, 2020], 77 n. 1)

 

Whenever I discuss the barges of the Jaredites, I always try to share this video on youtube, too:


Brother of Jared, Barges, Ether, Book of Mormon, LDS