Dancing for decapitation -- stop me if you've heard this one

Gustave Moreau, La fille de Jared dansant devant Akish (1876)

1. The dancing daughter of Jared

Here's a tale of Jaredite devilry from the Book of Ether. See if it reminds you of anything:

And it came to pass that he begat Omer, and Omer reigned in his stead. And Omer begat Jared; and Jared begat sons and daughters.

And Jared rebelled against his father, and came and dwelt in the land of Heth. And it came to pass that he did flatter many people, because of his cunning words, until he had gained the half of the kingdom. And when he had gained the half of the kingdom he gave battle unto his father, and he did carry away his father into captivity, and did make him serve in captivity;

And now, in the days of the reigns of Omer he was in captivity the half of his days. And it came to pass that he begat sons and daughters among whom were Esrom and Coriantumr; and they were exceedingly angry because of the doings of Jared their brother, insomuch that they did raise an army and gave battle unto Jared. And it came to pass that they did give battle unto him by night. And it came to pass that when they had slain the army of Jared they were about to slay him also; and he plead with them that they would not slay him, and he would give up the kingdom unto his father. And it came to pass that they did grant unto him his life.

And now Jared became exceedingly sorrowful because of the loss of the kingdom, for he had set his heart upon the kingdom and upon the glory of the world.

Now the daughter of Jared being exceedingly expert, and seeing the sorrows of her father, thought to devise a plan whereby she could redeem the kingdom unto her father. Now the daughter of Jared was exceedingly fair. And it came to pass that she did talk with her father, and said unto him: 

Whereby hath my father so much sorrow? Hath he not read the record which our fathers brought across the great deep? Behold, is there not an account concerning them of old, that they by their secret plans did obtain kingdoms and great glory?

And now, therefore, let my father send for Akish, the son of Kimnor; and behold, I am fair, and I will dance before him, and I will please him, that he will desire me to wife; wherefore if he shall desire of thee that ye shall give unto him me to wife, then shall ye say: 

I will give her if ye will bring unto me the head of my father, the king.

And now Omer was a friend to Akish; wherefore, when Jared had sent for Akish, the daughter of Jared danced before him that she pleased him, insomuch that he desired her to wife. And it came to pass that he said unto Jared: 

Give her unto me to wife.

And Jared said unto him: 

I will give her unto you, if ye will bring unto me the head of my father, the king.

And it came to pass that Akish gathered in unto the house of Jared all his kinsfolk, and said unto them: 

Will ye swear unto me that ye will be faithful unto me in the thing which I shall desire of you?

And it came to pass that they all sware unto him, by the God of heaven, and also by the heavens, and also by the earth, and by their heads, that whoso should vary from the assistance which Akish desired should lose his head; and whoso should divulge whatsoever thing Akish made known unto them, the same should lose his life. And it came to pass that thus they did agree with Akish. And Akish did administer unto them the oaths which were given by them of old who also sought power, which had been handed down even from Cain, who was a murderer from the beginning. And they were kept up by the power of the devil to administer these oaths unto the people, to keep them in darkness, to help such as sought power to gain power, and to murder, and to plunder, and to lie, and to commit all manner of wickedness and whoredoms.

And it was the daughter of Jared who put it into his heart to search up these things of old; and Jared put it into the heart of Akish; wherefore, Akish administered it unto his kindred and friends, leading them away by fair promises to do whatsoever thing he desired (Ether 8:1-17).

2. The dancing daughter of Herodias

I assume anyone with even a passing familiarity with the New Testament will immediately recognize the dancing-for-decapitation plot point in Ether as being strangely similar to one found  in the Gospels:

This obviously calls to mind the story of the daughter of Herodias, as told in Mark 6 (and Matthew 14):

And when a convenient day was come, that Herod on his birthday made a supper to his lords, high captains, and chief estates of Galilee; and when the daughter of the said Herodias came in, and danced, and pleased Herod and them that sat with him, the king said unto the damsel, 

Ask of me whatsoever thou wilt, and I will give it thee.

And he sware unto her, 

Whatsoever thou shalt ask of me, I will give it thee, unto the half of my kingdom.

And she went forth, and said unto her mother, 

What shall I ask? 

And she said, 

The head of John the Baptist.

And she came in straightway with haste unto the king, and asked, saying, 

I will that thou give me by and by in a charger the head of John the Baptist.

And the king was exceeding sorry; yet for his oath's sake, and for their sakes which sat with him, he would not reject her (Mark 6:21-26).

Essentially the same story is told in Matthew 14, but I have quoted the Mark version because it has more in common with the story in Ether. (Matthew omits the reference to "the half of my kingdom" and does not say Herod is "exceeding" sorry.)

3. Two different types of parallels

I think it's important to recognize that the story in Ether parallels that in Mark in two very different ways.

First, and most obviously, there is the core similarity of the plot itself: Someone wishes to be rid of an enemy but does not have the power to do so themselves, so they have their daughter ingratiate a powerful person by dancing for him, which leads to that person agreeing to bring them the enemy's head. This core parallel is reinforced by some incidental similarities in the way the story is told. For example, in both stories "the daughter" is unnamed (only in extrabiblical tradition is the daughter of Herodias called Salome), is said to have "pleased" the man she danced for, and so on.

The other parallels are of the type discussed in this blog's inaugural post, "Lehi, Nephi, and the pillar of fire that 'dwelt upon a rock': A case study of hard-to-define biblical parallels." I have yet to coin a suitable term to refer to parallels of this kind, and so they remain as "hard to define" as ever.

As you will recall if you've read that post, the Book of Mormon's opening verses introduce two characters, Nephi and Lehi, and relate Lehi's vision in which "a pillar of fire . . . dwelt upon a rock" (1 Ne. 1:6). Searching for Nephi and Lehi in the King James Bible, you will find that Nephi (i.e., naphtha) was the name given to a liquid that was "poured on the great stones" and "kindled a flame" (2 Macc. 1:31-32), while Lehi is a place name, introduced one verse after we are told that Samson "dwelt in the top of the rock" (Judg. 15:8). So in both the Bible and the Book of Mormon, Lehi is connected with someone or something that "dwelt" on a "rock," and Nephi is connected with a fire burning on a rock -- but the stories incorporate these elements in entirely different ways, so that the stories themselves are not similar at all.

The two dancing-daughter stories are similar, but in addition there are parallels of this Lehi-Nephi type (for lack of anything better to call them), where biblical elements appear in the Book of Mormon story but fit into that story in a completely different way:

• Herod promises up to "the half of my kingdom" to the dancing daughter. Jared first gains "the half of the kingdom" before being removed from power; it is the desire to regain this lost half-kingdom that motivates the decapitation scheme.
• Herod is "exceeding sorry" because he has to kill John, whom he fears and respects. Jared is "exceeding sorrowful" (unnecessarily "corrected" to exceedingly in later editions) because he has lost his kingdom. 
• The dancing daughter of Herodias requests the decapitation at the prompting of her mother. Jared requests the decapitation at the prompting of his dancing daughter.
• Herod swears an oath to give the dancing daughter ""whatsoever thou shalt ask," which turns out to be the decapitation of John. Akish has all his family and friends swear an oath to assist him and keep his secrets; this is to facilitate his plan to decapitate Omer, and it results in their doing "whatsoever thing he desired."

One major difference between the two stories is that only one of the decapitation plots is successful: John is in fact beheaded, while Omer escapes that fate. Even in this difference there is a biblical parallel, though, when you consider how Omer is saved: "the Lord warned Omer in a dream that he should depart out of the land; wherefore Omer departed out of the land with his family" (Ether 9:3). After the deaths of Jared and Akish, who had plotted to kill him, Omer returns (Ether 9:6, 12-13).

Compare this passage from Matthew:

And being warned of God in a dream that they should not return to Herod, they [the wise men] departed into their own country another way.

And when they were departed, behold, the angel of the Lord appeareth to Joseph in a dream, saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt, and be thou there until I bring thee word: for Herod will seek the young child to destroy him. When he arose, he took the young child and his mother by night, and departed into Egypt:

And was there until the death of Herod: . . . But when Herod was dead, behold, an angel of the Lord appeareth in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and go into the land of Israel: for they are dead which sought the young child's life. (Matt. 2:12-15, 19-20).

This is not part of the Bible's dancing-daughter story -- it's not even the same king Herod -- but it's another story about a murderous "Herod," and it, too, has echoes in Ether 8. The link seems to be the name Herod (which is also phonetically similar to Jared). The expression "warned . . . in a dream" appear only in Ether 8 and Matthew 2, and nowhere else in the Bible or Book of Mormon.

4. Skeptical explanations

Obviously, skeptics are going to explain any biblical parallels in the Book of Mormon as plagiarism or "borrowing" on the part of Joseph Smith: Smith took the main theme from the story of the daughter of Herodias and adapted it for his story about Jared and Omer. It's puzzling that Smith would plagiarize so heavily from the Bible, though -- the one text that he knew most of the potential readers of the Book of Mormon would be intimately familiar with, making his plagiarism extremely easy to detect. If Smith wanted to lift material from the Bible, we would expect him to at least try to disguise it. Instead, we have lots of very obvious Bible plagiarism -- including, in other parts of the book, extensive copy-and-pastes from famous passages in the epistles of Paul. Why would a fraudulent Joseph Smith -- who was obviously neither stupid nor lacking in creativity -- have done that?

And the Lehi-Nephi type parallels can't easily be explained as conscious plagiarism. If Smith made a conscious decision to plagiarize the main story of Salome, it would make no sense to add in other elements from that story -- half the kingdom, exceeding sorrow, oaths to do whatever is requested -- but to work them into the story in a completely different way. This would obviously be more difficult than either straightforward plagiarism or original storytelling, and what purpose would it serve but to make the plagiarism more obvious? What does the "half the kingdom" reference add to the Jared story, except as another telltale sign of the biblical source?

I think the only explanation is that the Lehi-Nephi parallels were added subconsciously: Thinking of the daughter of Herodias story primed Smith's mind, by subconscious free-association, to think of other themes and expressions from that story, and also from another murderous-Herod story. He put these into his text because they just appeared in his mind, without being consciously aware that they had their source in the New Testament.

5. Believing explanations

Coincidence is always a possibility. One need only peruse one of those lists of Lincoln-Kennedy coincidences to be persuaded that two very real events can be connected in multiple ways be sheer coincidence. Some of the similarities are straightforward (each president was shot in the head on a Friday and succeeded by a Southerner named Johnson who was born in '08) and others are more of the "Lehi-Nephi" variety (Lincoln was shot in Ford's Theatre; Kennedy was shot in a Ford automobile, a Lincoln). Other explanations are obviously to be preferred, though.

The beginnings of an explanation for the basic story similarity can be found in the fact that the daughter of Jared's dance-for-decapitation scheme was inspired by "an account concerning them of old, that they by their secret plans did obtain kingdoms and great glory" (Ether 8:9), and of these secret plans Moroni writes, "it hath been made known unto me that they are had among all people" (Ether 8:20). Based on this, we should positively expect to see similar schemes being carried out among other people. It is hardly a stretch to suggest that the wicked Herods might have been involved in Gadianton-style secret combinations. The story of Esther might be a (partially disguised) account of another such scheme. Although she does not dance, Esther is "fair and beautiful" (Esther 2:7) and with that beauty extracts from Ahasuerus the very promise -- "even to the half of the kingdom" (Esther 5:6, 7:2) -- that Salome extracted from Herod. Like Salome and Jared, Esther uses that promise for murderous ends, getting the king to execute Haman and declare open season on the Jews' enemies. Is Esther -- whose book contains not a single reference to God or prayer -- less of a heroine than popularly believed? "For I, Nephi, have not taught them many things concerning the manner of the Jews; for their works were works of darkness, and their doings were doings of abominations" (2 Ne. 25:2). The daughterly dance of death could well be some established ritual among the workers in darkness.

Could the "unto the half of my kingdom" wording also be part of an established secret-combination oath? If so, the inclusion of similar wording may be not a coincidence but an allusion. We know that Moroni is unwilling to "write the manner of their oaths and combinations" (Ether 8:20) directly, so perhaps he is deliberately saying "the half of the kingdom" as a hint to those with ears to hear.

That would leave only "exceeding sorrowful" and "warned in a dream" as seemingly coincidental parallels. They could be just that, coincidences, or they could be instances the sort of "biblical contamination" I proposed in my first post here.

Thoughts on the Astronaut Nephi theory

William Wright ("The Promised Land: Landing the Jaredites and Lehites somewhere..." and passim) and Leo ("Mapping God's Vineyard") have proposed that the "sea" across which Lehi's family traveled to reach the promised land was actually outer space. In this post I try to assess how textually plausible that is.

Irreantum

And we did come to the land which we called Bountiful, because of its much fruit and also wild honey; and all these things were prepared of the Lord that we might not perish. And we beheld the sea, which we called Irreantum, which, being interpreted, is many waters (1 Ne. 17:5).

"Being interpreted" appears multiple times in the New Testament, always to translate a Hebrew or Aramaic word or name into the Greek in which the New Testament is written. These glosses are necessary because the language of the intended readers is not the same as the language of Jesus and his disciples. Here, though, Nephi is writing for his own descendants and reporting a name that his own family gave to the sea, so it's not clear why a gloss would be necessary. Why would Lehi's family have given the sea a name that their own children would have difficulty understanding? To me, this strongly suggests that, though this part of the Book of Mormon is not supposed to have been edited by Mormon, it was likely edited by someone and that the gloss was added by this later editor and not by Nephi himself. This in turn implies that the meaning of Irreantum is obscure and that therefore the gloss might be wrong. So that's a point in favor of the theory that Nephi might not have been talking about literal waters.

Since the Astronaut Nephi theory is something I got from William Wright and his friend Leo, and since they also try to tie the Book of Mormon in with Tolkien's world and languages, it occurred to me to try to find an Elvish etymology for Irreantum. Here's one possible analysis as a three-morpheme compound:

• airë -- an archaic Quenya word for "sea" which fell out of use due to conflict with another word airë, which means "holy." Although today we pronounce Irreantum so that the first two syllables sound like those of irresponsible, I don't think it's impossible, given the non-standard spelling habits of Joseph Smith and his associates, that a "long i" sound, corresponding to the diphthong in the Elvish word, was originally intended.
• yána -- Quenya for “wide, vast, huge,” from the root √YAN. In earlier versions of the language, √YAN meant "holy." The root for "holy" was later changed to √AYA(N), but it's interesting that both airë and yan could mean "holy." This is one possible explanation for the gloss: In a compound word, aire-yan would most naturally be understood to mean "holy," since both elements can mean that; hence the need to explain that in this case it actually means "vast sea."
• tumna -- Quenya for "deep" -- or, in Tolkien's earlier notes, "profound, dark, hidden" -- from the root √TUB, also meaning "deep"; in many words derived from the root (for example Sindarin tum, "valley"), the final b becomes m.

So Irreantum could be Aireyantum, suggesting both "vast, deep sea" and "holy darkness." As evidence that the latter reading can be very naturally applied to outer space, we have Carl Sagan's essay "Sacred Black," in which he modifies the French minced oath sacre-bleu and applies it to outer space.

Unfortunately for the Astronaut Nephi theory, everything else about Irreantum seems inconsistent with its being anything other than a literal body of water. Even in the first just quoted, they "beheld the sea" only after they had "come to the land which we called Bountiful." If the "sea" is simply the night sky, it should be equally visible from anywhere, and the association with a particular place seems strange.If anything, the night sky would have been more clearly visible in the desert they had just left than in Bountiful, whose "much fruit" implies higher humidity and probably lots of trees.

Furthermore, we learn that this "sea" has a "seashore":

And it came to pass that we did pitch our tents by the seashore; and notwithstanding we had suffered many afflictions and much difficulty, yea, even so much that we cannot write them all, we were exceedingly rejoiced when we came to the seashore; and we called the place Bountiful, because of its much fruit (1 Ne. 17:6).

What could possibly be meant by the "shore" of outer space? Isn't every point on Earth's surface equally "adjacent" to outer space? I suppose one could say that a very high mountain, being closer to the place where the atmosphere ends and the vacuum begins, is on the border or "shore" of space. Unfortunately, the tops of high mountains are not notable for their "much fruit," and in any case the text seems to make it clear that Bountiful by the sea is not a mountaintop:

And it came to pass that after I, Nephi, had been in the land of Bountiful for the space of many days, the voice of the Lord came unto me, saying: Arise, and get thee into the mountain. And it came to pass that I arose and went up into the mountain, and cried unto the Lord (1 Ne. 17:7).

Nephi has been in Bountiful for many days before he goes "up into the mountain." It was near a mountain but not on it. I suppose this is technically consistent with its being "by the seashore," but that just seems like a ridiculously convoluted way of saying "near a high mountain," especially since one verse later the mountain is referred to plainly as "the mountain."

And it came to pass that the Lord spake unto me, saying: Thou shalt construct a ship, after the manner which I shall show thee, that I may carry thy people across these waters (1 Ne. 17:8).

"These waters" can only mean Irreantum, and for the reasons discussed above, it's hard to force the reading that Irreantum is outer space. I suppose you would have to say that in these verses references to a literal sea and seashore are interspersed with references to the "waters" of outer space. Perhaps Nephi stays down on the (literal) seashore, and perhaps contemplates crossing those waters, but the Lord calls him up into a mountain, away from the ocean but closer to the sky, and says, "No, actually you're going to cross these waters."

This still strikes me as an extremely strained reading, and I would want to find a pretty clear smoking gun in the text before subjecting it to such an extravagant interpretation.

More than just this earth

A bit later in the same chapter, we find some verses more amenable to the Astronaut Nephi theory. In rebuking his brothers for mocking and criticizing his ship-building enterprise, one of the things Nephi says to them is this:

Behold, the Lord hath created the earth that it should be inhabited; and he hath created his children that they should possess it. . . . And he leadeth away the righteous into precious lands . . . . He ruleth high in the heavens, for it is his throne, and this earth is his footstool (1 Ne. 17:36-39).

Is it possible that "the earth" in v. 36 means something more like "the world" -- or perhaps "land" in a generic sense -- including more than just the one planet called "this earth" in v. 39? We can imagine Nephi gesturing up at the stars and saying, "God created all this land -- on all these planets -- to be inhabited, and he created us, his children, to possess it. After all, his domain is the whole of the heavens, of which this earth is just a part."

The expression "this earth" does not occur in the King James Bible, but it used in the Book of Moses, clearly in the context of there being other earths:

And worlds without number have I created; . . . But only an account of this earth, and the inhabitants thereof, give I unto you. For behold, there are many worlds (Moses 1:33, 35).

Nephi alludes to two passages from Isaiah. One of these, Isa. 66:1, has the Lord say, "The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool." The other, Isa. 45:18, says:

For thus saith the Lord that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited: I am the Lord; and there is none else.

This strongly implies multiple habitable worlds. It states that the earth would have been created "in vain" if it were not inhabited, implying that the same is true of the heavens.

To throw me into the depths of the sea

After Nephi's rebuke, his brothers

were angry with me, and were desirous to throw me into the depths of the sea; and . . . they came forth to lay their hands upon me" (1 Ne. 17:48).

This has to be a literal sea, right? Everyone is still on earth at this point, so throwing Nephi into outer space doesn't seem possible. I mean, we can make something up -- perhaps the ship included an antigravity device which Laman and Lemuel planned to use to make Nephi fly off into the void -- but nothing in the text warrants that.

Nephi then says,

If God had commanded me to do all things I could do them. If he should command me that I should say unto this water, be thou earth, it should be earth; and if I should say it, it would be done. And now, if the Lord has such great power, and has wrought so many miracles among the children of men, how is it that he cannot instruct me, that I should build a ship? (1 Ne. 17:50-51).

Even though Nephi is talking about seemingly impossible feats, still some things are more readily imagined than others. Douglas Hofstadter writes somewhere that, after driving a car through a swarm of bees, it's very natural to say, "It's lucky the windows weren't open," but not at all natural to say, "It's lucky those bees weren't made of cement." In the same way, it's natural to imagine being able to transform sea into dry land -- but to transform outer space into land? What would that even mean? Here, again, I think water just has to mean "water."

Of course it's possible in principle that Nephi was camped at a literal seashore while he built a ship to cross the very different "sea" of outer space, but this passage makes the most sense if the water he imagines being turned into earth is the very water they intend to cross. Nephi is saying, "Look, if God wanted to get us across this sea by teaching me how to turn it into earth and then having us walk across, he could do it. So why not the much less extravagant miracle of teaching me how to build a ship?"

The building of the ship

Here is the description of the building of the ship itself:

[W]e did work timbers of curious workmanship. And the Lord did show me from time to time after what manner I should work the timbers of the ship. Now I, Nephi, did not work the timbers after the manner which was learned by men, neither did I build the ship after the manner of men; but I did build it after the manner which the Lord had shown unto me; wherefore, it was not after the manner of men.

And I, Nephi, did go into the mount oft, and I did pray oft unto the Lord; wherefore the Lord showed unto me great things.

And it came to pass that after I had finished the ship, according to the word of the Lord, my brethren beheld that it was good, and that the workmanship thereof was exceedingly fine (1 Ne. 18:1-4).

Nephi emphasizes the fact that the construction of the ship "was not after the manner of men." This was not an ordinary ship and did not reflect ordinary human technology. This is consistent with the theory that it was actually a spacecraft. On the other hand, it is apparently made of "timbers," an unlikely material for an interplanetary vessel. Reports of UFOs that incorporate wood in their structure are not unheard of, though, with the Roswell wreckage being the best known example. Who is to say what materials would or wouldn't be suitable for this "curious workmanship" that "was not after the manner of men"?

The voyage

How consistent is the description of the voyage itself with space travel?

And it came to pass after we had all gone down into the ship, and had taken with us our provisions and things which had been commanded us, we did put forth into the sea and were driven forth before the wind towards the promised land (1 Ne. 18:8).

The reference to putting forth into the sea, rather than onto, is consistent with the "sea" being space; a spacecraft does not float on the surface of space but is immersed in it.

"Driven before the wind" is obviously incompatible with space travel if it is taken literally, since "wind" in the ordinary sense is an atmospheric phenomenon. In support of the space-travel reading, though, we might note the way "before the wind" is used in the King James Bible. It is never used to refer to the propulsion of a sailing ship, but only to describe lightweight things such as chaff and stubble being blown away, or made to "fly."

And I, Nephi, began to fear exceedingly lest the Lord should be angry with us, and smite us because of our iniquity, that we should be swallowed up in the depths of the sea (1 Ne. 18:10).

As noted above, a spacecraft is "immersed" or "swallowed up" in the depths of outer space even when it is operating normally. We can contrive ways of making Nephi's fear fit the outer-space setting, but the most natural reading is definitely that he fears their floating ship will sink.

Laman and Lemuel then "bind" Nephi "with cords" (1 Ne. 18:11). Artists almost universally depict Nephi being tied to the mast like Odysseus, but nothing in the text suggests this. Nephi reports that after his bands were loosed, his wrists and ankles were swollen (v. 18), which sounds more like he was hogtied rather than tied to anything. Anyway, no references to a mast and therefore no conflict with the outer-space reading.

18:13 Wherefore, they knew not whither they should steer the ship, insomuch that there arose a great storm, yea, a great and terrible tempest, and we were driven back upon the waters for the space of three days; and they began to be frightened exceedingly lest they should be drowned in the sea; nevertheless they did not loose me. And on the fourth day, which we had been driven back, the tempest began to be exceedingly sore. And it came to pass that we were about to be swallowed up in the depths of the sea. And after we had been driven back upon the waters for the space of four days, my brethren began to see that the judgments of God were upon them (1 Ne. 18:13-15).

Like the earlier reference to "wind," "storm" and "tempest" normally refer to atmospheric phenomena, though we could perhaps contrive a space-friendly reading. Also, in contrast to the earlier reference to the ship's going "into" the sea, here it is "upon the waters" -- more consistent with sailing on a surface than with traveling through space.

When Nephi's parents' lives are in danger during the voyage, he writes,

their grey hairs were about to be brought down to lie low in the dust; yea, even they were near to be cast with sorrow into a watery grave (1 Ne. 18:18).

I don't think this is a very natural way of describing a death in space, even in the context of the "great waters" metaphor.

When the storm ceases, we have this description.

And it came to pass that I prayed unto the Lord; and after I had prayed the winds did cease, and the storm did cease, and there was a great calm. And it came to pass that I, Nephi, did guide the ship, that we sailed again towards the promised land (1 Ne. 18:21-22).

This is essentially the same language used in the New Testament to describe Jesus stopping a storm on the Sea of Galilee: "And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm" (Mark 4:39). There is one hint, though, that this may not be a literal storm on a literal sea: Immediately after the winds cease and there is "a great calm" -- i.e., no wind -- they "sailed again towards the promised land." Obviously you can't sail towards anything when there's no wind. Of course the Gospels also describe the voyage continuing after the wind ceases and there is a great calm, but they don't say they sailed (Luke alone mentions sailing, and only before the storm; see Luke 8:23), and we know that they sometimes traveled the Galilee by rowing (see Mark 6:48).

While I wouldn't call it a smoking gun, this reference to "sailing" in "a great calm" is the only textual evidence I can find against the standard reading that the Lehites sailed an ordinary ship across an ordinary sea.

Conclusion

As much as I like the interplanetary reading of the Book of Mormon and want to find it convincing, so far I'm just not finding it that plausible. For the time being, I think I regrettably have to classify it together with readings that propose that maybe north means "west" and horse means "tapir."