Which way did Nephi’s voyage come to the new world? Was it the Atlantic or Pacific Ocean? George Potter is a proponent of a South American geography theory for the Book of Mormon, and he’ll answer. Check out our conversation…
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Book of Mormon in Peru?
GT 00:35 Welcome to Gospel Tangents. I’m excited to have a repeat visitor on our show. Could you go ahead and tell us who you are and where we are?
George 00:44 I’m George Potter, and you’re here at my home in Elkridge, Utah.
GT 00:48 All right. So George is our Middle East expert. Last time we talked about Lehi’s trail through Saudi Arabia. A lot of people may be new listeners, maybe didn’t hear you the first time. How did you get involved in Saudi Arabia?
George 01:05 Well, I worked there for 27 years as an executive leadership coach for the power company there. It’s actually GE’s largest company in the world, largest customer. So we had, like, 70 power plants, if you can imagine. And I worked with their consultants, I mean with their executives.
GT 01:22 Okay. Was it Aramco? Is that it if I remember right?
George 01:25 It’s Saudi electricity company. It’s the company that powers the company that powers the worlds. In other words, we send the power to Aramco and they pump oil and make petroleum for everybody.
GT 01:38 Okay. Well, very good. So I would just remind everybody, if you haven’t seen our talk about Lehi’s trail, please go check that out. And I’ve been looking for a South America Book of Mormon expert for a very long time. And you believe the Book of Mormon took place in Peru? Is that right?
George 02:00 That’s correct.
GT 02:01 Okay. Now, why do you think that?
George 02:05 Well, first of all, let’s just go back to the original narrative about where the Book of Mormon took place.
GT 02:13 Okay. Before you do, I want to ask you another quick question. Because there’s a big debate on, well, we’ll say Heartlanders versus Meso, and I know you’re not in either of those camps. However, the question is, did Lehi travel around Africa and over to South America, as the case may be? Or did he cross the Pacific Ocean and go around India and China and across? What’s your take on that?
George 02:47 I gave a presentation at BYU, once, for the faculty.
GT 02:51 Okay.
George 02:52 It was at the law school.
George 02:55 Really? They let you in there because they don’t like any Heartlanders in there. {Rick laughing}
George 03:00 Heartlanders are good people. Those people, everybody’s sincere. And that’s a good part. And I commend anybody who’s really dedicating time and effort to try to defend the Book of Mormon. That’s good. So, when I gave that presentation, it was about Nephi’s harbor, where he built his ship.
GT 03:22 Okay, that makes a lot more sense. Because you– actually, there’s a guy named Warren Ashton who’s kind of, can I call him a rival? You guys have rival partners?
George 03:32 I know Warren. Warren’s a good guy.
GT 03:35 Okay.
George 03:36 And he’s very sincere and has done a lot more work on trying to document data flow than I have.
GT 03:45 We talked about that in our last interview with Khor Rori and Khor Kharfot and Nephi’s Harbor, so I would just direct you guys to there for more on that.
George 03:56 Yeah, Nephi built his ship at Khor Rori. Let’s get that straight.
GT 04:00 Okay, {both laughing} Warren says Khor Kharfot. Right?
George 04:02 Right, now I wrote an article in the Interpreter Magazine, May of 2022. I went through all the arguments for Khor Rori and if you have any doubt about where he built the ship, I suggest you read that first.
GT 04:18 Okay.
George 04:18 Do I know for one hundred percent? No, but it’s makes a very strong argument for why he built a ship there. But when I gave this presentation at BYU, I showed a film and in that film, I featured Frank Linehan, a friend of mine, who I grew up with, who’s an engineer in the merchant marines, went to the Maritime Academy in Stockholm, at Stockton, California, excuse me. He sailed for years. He’s built his own ships. He’s been able to commission ships, both privately and for the US military. [He’s] A scholar on maritime history and certainly knows his way around. He’s sailed through typhoons. He’s sailed through hurricanes. He sails in sailing ships over a million miles.
GT 05:13 Okay.
George 05:13 He knows the ocean really well.
GT 05:16 Okay.
George 05:17 So it became very obvious to me that I knew very little about sailing. And we’re talking here about the main, the whole main feature of chapter 16 and 17 of the 1st Nephi, the center object here is building that ship and sailing it to the New World.
George 05:38 So, if you don’t know much about a subject, go find out. And when I showed the video of Frank Linehan talking about what it took to build that ship and to captain it to the New World, you could just see in the whole room of all these scholars, supposedly. They’re looking each other thinking, “We know nothing about shipbuilding. We know nothing of what, really, the challenges were that Nephi had to face, just in captaining a ship, let alone, building it.” So, I knew very little about it, myself. So, a few years later, after I wrote Nephi in the Wilderness, Frank got back to me, Frank Linehan and said I have a friend here, Conrad Dixon, he, also, is a officer in the maritime, he’s also sailed a million miles. He puts on all the regatta’s up in the Puget Sound. He has a simulator, where you can put in the time of year, where you’re going to start sailing from, and where you want to disembark. And it will set down and it will tell you exactly the course you should take, you can divide it up into as many segments as you want. And it will tell you, the winds, the currents, the water temperatures, the probability of a doldrum, all this stuff. I mean, it puts out reams and reams of information on a single voyage. I go, this sounds like a book. So what I did is, I said, “Let’s take a look at that simulator and simulate voyages. And even before that, they both told me Nephi, a novice sailor, he seemed to be the one who was captaining the ship. A novice sailor could have never gone around the horn of Africa. Impossible.
GT 07:22 [Rick chuckling} Okay, keep going.
GT 07:22 Right.
George 07:27 Okay, nor can he even…
GT 07:28 I may have a dispute with you though, but keep going.
George 07:32 Okay, Phoenicians got around. Okay.
GT 07:35 The Phoenicians went around Africa?
George 07:37 Yes.
GT 07:37 Okay.
George 07:38 At approximately the same time, they got around. They’re much better sailors than the novice Nephi. Nephi does not sail.
GT 07:44 Okay.
George 07:45 They’re saying those seas are so difficult, both the Capes, that Nephi could have never done it.
GT 07:52 Okay.
George 07:53 Okay, so I mean, could an angel come down and took a hold of the ship and got them around? Yeah, I mean, the Lord can do whatever he wants, but that miracle wasn’t recorded in the Book of Mormon.
GT 08:03 I’m going to–keep going. I’m not going to interrupt yet.
George 08:05 Okay. So, I take their word for it. They’ve sailed around the Horn. They’ve actually been a Captain on these regattas.
GT 08:15 I have a video for you to watch, I can tell, but keep going.
George 08:18 Okay, anyway. And the Chinese did it later.
GT 08:23 Okay.
George 08:24 So, they doubt that very much and the simulator that we had, had them going around India, up through, near New Zealand and catching the roaring 40s, to get enough wind to get across to South America.
GT 08:40 So you’re going with the Pacific crossing?
George 08:42 The Pacific crossing. That’s our best guess.
GT 08:46 You ever heard of Phillip Beale?
George 08:48 Yes.
GT 08:50 What do you know about Phillip Beale?
George 08:52 I’ve heard the name, I think he’s one that was with the Phoenicia. Right?
GT 08:57 The Phoenicia ship, yes.
George 08:58 Yeah. The Phoenicia ship.
GT 08:59 He sailed around Africa.
George 09:01 Yes.
GT 09:02 And made it all the way to Florida.
George 09:04 Right. Well, he didn’t go to Florida in the same voyage. He went around Africa with the Phoenicia. Okay, then he went back to Mediterranean, or I forget, England, then later on they sailed across to Florida.
GT 09:21 Yeah. So basically, here’s what happened. And this is what..
George 09:24 Phoenicians were good sailors. And that ship was built with modern technology in the form of a Phoenician ship. I mean yeah, I got it.
GT 09:35 Okay, so for those of you who didn’t watch my Philip Beale interview, I’ll just recap really quickly. So, he wanted to replicate the Phoenicians voyage to circumnavigate–it took the Phoenicians three years to circumnavigate Africa. I don’t know if you knew that.
George 09:53 No, I didn’t.
GT 09:54 So Phillip, in 2009, if you’ve seen the Tom Hanks movie, Captain Phillips, which I highly recommend, {Rick chuckling} and you remember that Captain Phillips got hijacked by the Somali. So, he, this is the same year and so, unlike Captain Phillips, Tom Hanks, he went way around Somalia {Rick chuckling} so he wouldn’t get hijacked by the pirates. He ended up in Cape Town. A huge wind blew him back 18 miles, ripped the sail, he put up a new sail. He used a square sail, just like the ancient Phoenicians. Now, apparently, the triangular sail is a better sail. But he built this ship as a replica of one that was a Phoenician ship that was found in France. At any rate, it took him two years and two months to sail from, I guess he started in Syria, went down to the Suez Canal, I believe, down around Africa. When he crossed Cape Town, the winds just naturally blew him to Florida. I shouldn’t say to Florida, 300 miles from Florida. And that wasn’t his goal. His goal was to circumnavigate Africa. It was all he could do, and then he finally turned the ship around, and then circumnavigated Africa. It took him two years and two months to do that. Now, the second voyage…
George 11:23 If you know my book, the picture of the Phoenicia is on the cover of my book.
GT 11:29 Oh, you’re kidding.
George 11:29 He gave me permission to do it.
GT 11:30 That’s nice. I didn’t know that.
George 11:31 We also talked about the Phoenicians in my book.
GT 11:34 Okay.
George 11:34 Which I wrote with Frank Linehan and Conrad Dixon.
GT 11:37 Okay. So, his second voyage was around, I think it took him about nine months, he came, he went through the Mediterranean, the Rock of Gibraltar, basically followed Christopher Columbus’ route, ended up in Florida, COVID hits. It only took him nine months to do that. COVID hits, they send him back to England, where he’s from. So, now the Heartland Research Group has purchased the Phoenicia. They’re building a museum in Iowa. And they’re doing it–but so here was my big question. And I ‘ve got to tell you…
George 11:37 I really should be on the defensive, okay.
GT 11:38 I was a skeptic. I was like, “You know what?” Because I’ve seen The Journey of Faith, The Pacific Crossing, and I said, “Is that possible?” And Philips response was, sailors always say, “West is best.” Because if you’re sailing across the Pacific, you’re fighting the winds. And you mentioned the roaring 40s. He said, [that] those are much worse conditions than around Cape Town. He had some rough times around Cape Town. But he said the roaring 40s are much worse. And he said [that] it’s twice the distance to go around India, China, et cetera. Now, it’s interesting that you said the roaring 40s Because you’re taking a southern route, The Journey of Faith says…
George 13:12 The winds are going to go in the opposite direction on the southern route.
GT 13:15 Right.
George 13:18 Because he is going against the winds, he’s going around Africa, we’re going with the winds.
GT 13:22 With the Journey of Faith, it looks like it kind of crosses the equator. And he said, “No way. It’s impossible.” Now, I do know when they had the Fukushima, earthquake and power plant melt down thing–so there’s a lot of stuff from Japan that went up through the Bering Strait, up Alaska and then down and ended up in California. And that took a year, probably, for some of these boats and things, obviously, unpiloted and just basketballs and whatever. So, you either would have to go, so The Journey of Faith cd, across the equator, that’s a no go. You can try the northern route through Japan, or the southern route is interesting that you pick the southern route for, with the winds. But Phillip says that’s a much tougher journey. And he’s one who’s actually done it.
George 14:17 Okay, let me say this. {Rick chuckling} That simulator is based on tens of thousands of shipping…
GT 14:21 But, Philip’s done it.
George 14:22 Okay.
GT 14:22 And it’s twice the distance, and a lot of years.
George 14:32 Loan me $10 million and we’ll do it. We’ll build a replica ship and we’ll do it.
GT 14:47 Okay, I love it! {Rick laughing}
George 14:36 Thank you. Yeah. Do you have anyone who has a deep checkbook? We want to do it. We want to build a replica ship. Go out of Oman. So, we’ve had, for example, Tim Severance. He built what he called The Sohar, which was a replica of Sinbad’s ship, Sinbad the Sailor. Because legends are Sinbad went all the way to China from Arabia. They went around India, they went through the East Indies and ended up in China.
GT 14:54 So, Phillip, here’s another trip for you.
George 15:11 This is Tim Severin, a very famous, marine archaeologist. And so they made it. The fact is, you can’t cross the equator, you’d die, because it’s like a big desert out there in the ocean.
GT 15:25 There is no wind. There’s no current. I think there is a counter-current, but it’s, like, one mile an hour. He said that the wind will push you backwards.
George 15:32 Yeah. And you’ll die before you get there. So, you have to go to where there’s enough wind to get you across. So the simulator we used simulated that voyage. Now, we put in Chile, 30 degrees south, Chile.
GT 15:48 Because of Joseph Smith.
George 15:49 Yeah. And leaving from Khor Rori.
GT 15:53 Okay.
George 15:53 And that’s what the simulator indicated that you do. That’s the best route.
GT 15:57 Did it indicate how long it would take?
George 15:59 Yes.
GT 16:00 How long? Four years?
George 16:02 No, no, no, no. iit’s not that long. You have to put in the type of boat, of course, that you’re sailing in.
GT 16:09 Well, I know, because Phillip was making pitstops all along the way. And it took the Phoenicians three [years] to get around Africa.
George 16:15 Yeah. Well, that’s another thing that Frank and Conrad pointed out, that they had to have stopped on the islands to refurbish their water, and fix their sails and whatever.
GT 16:29 I mean, you don’t really see that in the Book of Mormon, but it doesn’t seem logical.
George 16:32 How would they write that on gold plates. Yeah, all the little mechanical problems that they were having, as they went. They had to have anchors. They had to have all this sort of thing. It would have taken them some time to have gotten there. But according to them, they had to get up there where there’s enough wind to get you across before you’d starve to death. And then you get to a point where there are no islands.
GT 16:52 Right.
George 16:53 You’ve just got to get there.
GT 16:54 Well, and Philip says it’s twice the distance.
George 16:58 Yeah, I’m sure it is.
GT 17:00 And so I would assume twice the time, right?
George 17:05 Probably.
GT 17:05 Four years seems, I mean, it took them two.
George 17:06 Yeah, their main argument is, of course, the simulator says do this. But their main argument is they don’t think a novice sailor could have gotten around the two horns, through the Straits of Magellan and South Africa. We’re having them landing in Chile, not in Argentina, and not in Florida.
GT 17:24 Okay.
George 17:25 The Heartlanders have them landing in Florida. That’s not what Joseph Smith taught.
{End of Part 1}
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