A bit of evidence for the "interplanetary Book of Mormon" hypothesis

In my August 2024 posts "Thoughts on the Astronaut Nephi theory" and "Tight like unto a saucer?" I looked and Bill and Leo's theory that Lehi and Jared traversed not ordinary seas but the "great waters" of outer space. I was mostly critical of the idea, but in my current read-through of the Book (yes, the Book of Mormon will now be known as "the Book"), I noticed a detail that does lend it some support.

The Book's "promised land" is 13 times referred to as being "choice above all." Here are 10 of these instances:

a land which is choice above all other lands (1 Ne. 2:20)

the land which is choice above all other lands (1 Ne. 13:30)

a land which is choice above all other lands (2 Ne. 1:5)

a choice land, saith God unto me, above all other lands (2 Ne. 10:19)

choice unto me above all other parts of the land of my vineyard (Jacob 5:43)

the land of promise, which was choice above all other lands (Ether 2:7)

a land which is choice above all other lands (Ether 2:10)

a land choice above all other lands (Ether 2:15)

choice above all other lands (Ether 9:20)

a choice land above all other lands (Ether 13:2)

The key word I want you to notice here is other. This is required by logic, since a land that is choice above "all lands" would have to be choice above itself, and that is impossible. Something can be choice above all members of a given category only if it is not itself a member of that category.

Now look at these two instances from Ether:

a land which is choice above all the earth (Ether 1:38)
a land which is choice above all the lands of the earth (Ether 1:42)

These differ from the others it two respects: (1) they omit the word other, and (2) they refer not to "lands" but to "the earth" or "the lands of the earth." Logically, this implies that the choice land, though it is a land, is not "of the earth." Another planet seems to be indicated.

There is, alas, one counterexample:

a land that was choice above all lands (Ether 10:28)

As stated above, it is logically impossible for what is said in this verse to be strictly true, and if the language here is logically loose, so could the language of those other two Ether verses be. This weakens the evidence presented here but does not disprove the interplanetary theory. What would potentially disprove it would be the other sort of counterexample -- "choice above all other lands of the earth," which would place the promised land firmly on planet Earth -- and this we do not find in the Book.

As evidence, this is extremely tenuous, and by itself it is hardly enough to tip the scales in favor of the interplanetary hypothesis. I thought it was worth mentioning, though. Some additional tenuous evidence may be found in the command that the Jaredites bring "seed of the earth of every kind" (Ether 1:41) -- a phrase not used anywhere else in scripture -- and in the fact that "they did also prepare a vessel, in which they did carry with them the fish of the waters" (Ether 2:2) -- scarcely necessary on an ordinary sea voyage.