Xenophon wrote: ↑Tue Sep 21, 2021 12:57 pm
Philo Sofee wrote: ↑Tue Sep 21, 2021 4:28 am
Oh crimany! Thanks for the heads up Xenophon, I am not paying attention very well. Well, interestingly two independent posts and thinkers have the same problem, which is extremely interesting... thanks again man I shall check it out.
Just for clarity I was just pointing out my comment for the same thing you suggest in your post here, not needing credit or anything .
It isn't that much of a stretch to suggest this line of thinking throws into question a fair bit of the divine mandate that believers grant the leadership of the church. So little a stretch that we both thought of it right away.
In a sense, yes it does. We have been taught that we are not to depend wholeheartedly on what what our leaders say. That we need to study it out in our own minds and use our own intuitions and/or spiritual guidance. To me, this topic is a prime example of doing this. When things don’t add up we can either chose to blindly believe anyway, put something on a shelf, or believe in a nuanced fashion. Oh, or not believe at all. I am not persuaded that not believing at all is necessarily the only reasonable choice. Especially when there is some question as to why believing the traditional story of a historical event/narrative is unappealing and yet one sees other pieces of the puzzle/picture as having some appeal.
My participation on this thread is to demonstrate that we, as independent beings, are not in any way, shape, or form obligated to accept something that may not be true in the literalistic sense even though others may do so. Yes, the Book of Abraham was canonized. No, I don’t see that going away. No, I don’t see that as a dealbreaker. The million dollar question at the end of the day, of course, is why God let it happen. That is, if the Book of Abraham was more or less a midrashic composition why would he let things go the way they did. One possibility would be that the midrashic composition contained enough doctrinal inspiration that taught truth that it was allowed to stand. Pearls encapsulated within the messiness of the internals of an oyster, by analogy.
I think when looking at the overall life and teachings of Joseph Smith there is reason to believe that he was inspired to do and say many of the things he did. Others, maybe not so much. Personally I see evidences in the restoration that God is behind it, so that forces me to look at the apparent anomalies and look for reasonable explanations. This is one of those cases where I have played around with the traditional understandings that we all grew up with.
Xenophon wrote: ↑Tue Sep 21, 2021 12:57 pm
In all of MG's posting here I only see him working to attempt to establish thst canonization was wrong, not deal with any of the fall out that I believe would come were it to be removed from the standard works or at the very least were the canonization left in tact but acknowledged as wrong.
Obviously there would be fallout. But there has also been fallout as a result of the acceptance of the traditional narrative. Number wise, probably less of a fallout. The world is not binary in the way that things operate. Agency is valued more than all else in the eyes of God, in my opinion. We have to look at a wholistic view when it comes to the Book of Abraham. Starting from the obtaining of the scrolls, what Joseph was thinking and entertaining in his mind, what other’s thoughts were, the product and it’s meaning, and what to do with it after it had been serialized. John Taylor obviously saw things differently than Brigham Young and possibly Joseph Smith.
Xenophon wrote: ↑Tue Sep 21, 2021 12:57 pm
These kinds of apologetics always leave me thinking some members might be much happier in a church that looks more like the church or Joseph Smith (not that they worship him per se, but just that one adhere to only his teachings). That is fine and all but I think one has to acknowledge how out of sync that is with the current church and its community.
Believe me, I don’t worship Joseph Smith. What I do, however, is look at whether or not his place in history amounts to anything in the eternal scheme of things, assuming that there is an eternal scheme of things with
purpose beyond the here and now. If that presupposition is a non starter for you, then we we will, by default, have divergent views in this matter and others.
Regards,
MG