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The B of M is a work of fiction, does it really matter? I don’t know about you, but the church (as a whole) being a work of fiction makes it much more fascinating to me than if it was true. Mormonism is a unique glimpse into how religions are created by man. A process which normally is shrouded beh...

BeNotDeceived wrote: ↑

Mon Jan 09, 2023 8:20 pm

The B of M is a work of fiction, does it really matter?

Yes. I'm not trying to simply debunk Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. I'm trying to be a scholar of early Mormonism, so accuracy matters.

Come see me and the Backyard Professor tonight at 6 pm Mountain Time. I will be responding to Cheryl Bruno and Nick Literski's mostly feeble rebuttal of my incomplete review of their book Method Infinite. I will also discuss their ill-conceived attempt to make the Book of Mormon pro-Masonic and anti...

Kishkumen, So we can say that Joseph Smith was keying into anti-Masonic views of 1829 that dated Masonry to the Garden of Eden, but we can't imagine Joseph Smith possibly seeing an apostate Masonry coming from Cain based on the views of an author in 1823. The anti-Masons were saying the same thing w...

I don't follow the logic of that. Since others stole from the Masons, Joseph Smith didn't steal from them? Is it the word "steal" that bothers you? Perhaps Shulem should use "appropriated"? I don’t see what is so complicated about it. Nobody says that Vergil “stole” from Homer. It really oversimpli...

Kishkumen, I was preoccupied by other matters that kept me from getting back to your long response on 1 Dec. I think it all comes down to the question of does the Book of Mormon talk about a double strand of pure and spurious Masonry like Oliver and other Masonic writers invented? Or does it describ...

Masonry provided the basic ritual lexicon for numerous initiation rites in dozens of esoteric communities. Only a polemicist would call this “stealing” from the Masons. I don't follow the logic of that. Since others stole from the Masons, Joseph Smith didn't steal from them? Is it the word "steal" ...

And the crucial answer is that Joseph Smith stole everything and anything he ever got! That's how he operated. He was a liar and a thief. He borrowed ideas from all manner of sources and historical stories and references. But the bottom line, he was a thief. And he would turn on a dime when things ...

Kishkumen If the topic is what Oliver believed, and what Smith might have learned from reading Oliver, then this is a non-sequitur. No one here is arguing that Oliver was right! Smith read Oliver before dictating the Book of Mormon? Later, perhaps. There is no evidence for this. Trying to identify s...

It seems someone has taken issue with what I wrote about George Oliver. Well, how could that be since the first three degrees deal with Hiram Abiff, the Master Mason who worked on Solomon's temple? The key words also come from the temple. Salem Town explained how some Masonic authors could speculat...