Comment #10: “Their [Nephite]
preference for wood is stated or inferred a number of times by the various
historians.”
Response: Historians are never the authority over scripture.
The scriptures related on this matter are not supportive of choosing wood over
stone, or any other material, but in recognizing that wood was (and is today) a
very important building material and, in its absence, other sources have to be
sought.
Comment #11: “About
570 B.C. Nephi tells us “And I did teach my people to build buildings, and to
work in all manner of wood, and of iron, and of copper, and of brass, and of
steel, and of gold, and of silver, and of precious ores, which were in great
abundance” (2 Nephi 5:15). He mentions wood and metals, but stone is
conspicuously absent from the list.”
Stone is
not conspicuously absent from these ancient Jewish houses and buildings in and around
Jerusalem. Stone was plentiful, as was wood, and both were used in building
homes, basements, walkways, alleys, streets, palaces, temples, synagogues, and
other buildings in the last millennium B.C.
Response: Cement and ziff are also conspicuously absent. So are
nails, or its equivalent, scales, levels, chisels, hammers, and all the other
tools Nephi had learned to use under the tutelage of the Lord (1 Nephi 18:1-3).
And if one is to look at the list by importance, then one can easily see that
wood is the simplest material on the list to work with, going up to the more
difficult items of gold, silver and precious ores. Nephi did not tell us which
type of bellows he built, nor which ores the Lord showed him to find, or what
the curious manner he worked with the wood in building his ship. Nor does he
tell us the names of his two sisters, nor when they were born, or who Jacob and
Joseph and his two sisters married, nor a thousand other things he could have
written about but did not. When something as important as his mother’s death is
not even commented upon, it is rather difficult to say that the absence of the
word “stone” is conspicuous.
Comment #12: “When
sources of wood became scarce, they reluctantly learned to build with
"cement", but still retained a preference for wood. Some scriptural
references will illustrate this point.”
Response: First of all, you don’t just learn how to work
with cement. It is an acquired skill, one that takes certain knowledge since
powder hardening into cement is not a natural phenomenon. It is made from
limestone, clay, sand (shale), and when mixed with water, forms a binding
substance that turns sand and gravel into a hard, solid mass. This was
obviously not a case of those who traveled north in 46 B.C., got up there and
found no trees and decided to make cement. It was a substance of which they
knew and had worked with before, and now had to know how to build houses out of
it—which they became quite expert at doing. Secondly, any builder will have a
preference of working with wood, no matter what type of house they are
building. Other materials take greater skills, cost more time and money to use,
and longer in the building.
Today we
pour concrete into temporary forms, called stem walls in construction; however,
it is doubtful that the Nephites knew concrete in the same manner we do today.
Their concrete likely was more like plaster or stucco and was applied on the
outside of mud brick
However, to think that public buildings, temples,
synagogues, palaces and other similarly-sized structures would be made of wood
is not realistic. Wood does not span well, has limits to its use and requires
other materials, such as iron and steel to supplement its strength. Even though
Solomon built his stone temple out of finished rock, he sent off to King Hiram
of Tyre for the famous Lebanon cedars and cypress wood for the framing of the
construction. However, despite the comment, there is no reluctance shown to use
cement—only a concern that they would have no future wood, which was essential
as we’ve point out, in building.
Comment #12: ”Later
King Noah "built many elegant and spacious buildings; and he ornamented
them with fine work of wood, and of all manner of precious things, of gold, and
of silver, and of iron, and of brass, and of ziff, and of copper; And he also
built him a spacious palace, and a throne in the midst thereof, all of which
was of fine wood and was ornamented with gold and silver and with precious
things. And he also caused that his workmen should work all manner of fine work
within the walls of the temple, of fine wood, and of copper, and of
brass." (Mosiah 11:8-10.) Again stone is not mentioned.”
Response: Mormon describes many large, spacious buildings
built by king Noah. Because of there size, these would obviously not be built
with wood. They were framed and decorated with wood—with fine wood, which
Mormon describes, and of the fine appointments of precious things, gold,
silver, iron and brass. Mormon was illustrating that taxing people for his own
aggrandizement was an evil practice, and shows what he used that money for and
the waste of public funds on his own evil manner, very different from his
father and son. As a side note, a few years ago we moved up on a ridge overlooking
a large valley in Southern Utah. I personally designed and my wife and I
personally drove every nail, cut every board, etc., in its construction. It is
7,400 square feet on two levels, with seven bedrooms, five bathrooms, a
spacious sewing room and a large office, sitting room, library, two living
rooms and two family rooms, huge laundry, craft room, large grandchildren’s
play room, etc., etc., etc. In looking back over all my explanations of that
achievement, never once did I tell anyone what the house was made of wood and rock, or any other substance. But I did tell them all the neat things we had in it.
Comment #13: “In 49
B.C. Helaman says: “And it came to pass that they [the Nephites] did multiply
and spread, and did go forth from the land southward to the land northward, and
did dwell in tents, and in houses of cement, and they did suffer whatsoever
tree should spring up upon the face of the land that it should grow up, that in
time they might have timber to build
their houses, yea, their cities, and their temples, and their synagogues, and
their sanctuaries, and all manner of their buildings. And they did send
forth much by the way of shipping. And thus they did enable the people in the
land northward that they might build many cities, both of wood and of cement.”
(Hel. 3:8-11). Again in this instance we are told that their homes and cities
were built of wood and cement. Stone is still not mentioned. They obviously
preferred wood as they would ship it over great distances, to places where
stone would have been more readily available. Even when they didn’t use wood,
they didn’t build with stone, but with “cement”.
Response: Having at one time many years ago been in charge
of designing and having built regional and local office buildings for a large corporation
in the 11-Western States, I cannot conceive of building anything other than a
wall without wood framing, structural and aesthetic design, support,
highlights, etc. In the more than 250 buildings I designed, I cannot think of a
single one where wood was not the principle material, or one of them, yet when
the structure was complete, few would have thought it was made with wood, but
rather with rock, brick, stucco and plaster. Few people understand how wood is
used, even in metal and glass building. Even today, wood is choice over metal
in small construction, such as residential houses: You
can build a wood-frame house with ordinary labor (no welders, for example),
less need for heavy equipment, fewer code requirements, fewer building
department inspections, and without having to hire on-site deputy inspectors to
overlook on-site welding.
An excavated house in Jerusalem at the time
Lehi lived, shows several rooms, rock walls, paved patios, accessible roofs,
and minimal use of wood other than for some framing (doorways, lintels, etc.) and decoration
A recent detailed
cost comparison of two identical homes, one constructed with wood, the other
with steel, showed that labor for wood construction cost about 25 percent less
than for steel, and the material for the wood house cost about 6 percent less.
The Nephites preferred to build their small houses out of wood rather than
anything else. That should be understandable to anyone. On the other hand, they
built their public buildings, their large and spacious buildings, their
temples, synagogues and palaces, out of stone, as did the Jews in Jerusalem
before them.
(See the next post,
“Did the Nephites Build out of Stone? Part VI,” for more on the building of the
Jaredites and the Nephites)
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