Shulem cracks the code for The Book of Lehi/116 Lost Pages!!

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Don Bradley

Post by Shulem »

Chapter six launches into how Smith changed course in replacing the lost manuscript which he assumes ("what likely began") was written in a simple third-person narrative to that of a first-person narrative, a key difference thought to exist between the large and small plates. Bradley admits that such a radical and fundamental change between the book's initial structure was the result due to the fact the original work was lost and to duplicate it again via a second translation would be "difficult" to say the least. But in reality it would be IMPOSSIBLE because Smith was the true author who pretended to translate gold plates just as he pretended to later translate the writing in the Facsimiles. What's the king's name in Facsimile No. 3? How do you spell, "Shulem" in Egyptian? Does Don have an apologetic for that?

Bradley, as an apologist, cites the revelation that Smith "not translate again those words that have gone forth out of your hands" because Smith's "rational" was that they would alter the words and set a trap for him and thus prove he couldn't keep his story straight and translate the same thing again. But that is ridiculous and the whole concept that the thieves were setting up a trap by altering words was Smith's excuse to not retranslate (rewrite) something he knew he could not do. Is anything too hard for the Lord? God knows all things and he can just as easily provide a second translation that is exactly the same as the original and then tell the thieves to go to hell! That is exactly what a true translator would have done! Bite the bullet, move on, and let the chips fall where they will. The thieves would have been shocked and blown out of the water! But Smith knew he was over his head and we have a classic example of the tail that wags the dog or the thieves that are wagging God -- thus Smith concocts a BS excuse because he knows he can't reproduce the same work. Will that ever click in Bradley's head? Wake up, Don, and smell the coffee! Smith was making it up because he knew the thieves had the original and anything he reproduced would be chock full of differences from start to end.

So, Smith reasoned he could change the narrative and perspective of the story-telling from Lehi's first-person narrative to Nephi's first-person narrative and thus save the story. This business of the third-person came later while translating with Cowdery.
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Don Bradley

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Bradley wrote:If Joseph was able to reproduce the translation exactly, then by altering the text they could claim that he was unable to do so.

Give me a break, Don! What utterly stupid reasoning is that? Look, if Smith had retranslated the text exactly the second time around it would have been a bloody miracle. Right? And as far as those thieves who stole his work, Smith could have pressed charges and hauled them into court and sued the hell out of them! Theft was illegal in the State of New York and a man's manuscript representing two months worth of work for a book he planned to publish was stolen! How hardly could the thieves get away with that in a court of law! But, you as an apologist, think to defend the thieves as if they did nothing wrong and can come forward with the stolen manuscript or a copy of it in order to show everyone how Smith got some words wrong. That's just silly, Don. Absolutely silly!

Bradley wrote:The revelation handily solved this problem of not reproducing the stolen text by instructing Joseph to replace it with another account covering the same time period.

It wasn't a revelation, it was a Goddamn excuse! It was Joseph Smith's personal fears on how to proceed and reason within himself on what to do and how to produce an excuse for not being able to retranslate the work. Smith came up with the idea to jettison Lehi's first-person narrative and replace it with Nephi's first-person narrative. There was nothing Smith could do to save the original "Book of Lehi." Smith brilliantly schemed up an idea to save the original story by introducing Nephi as a second primary author within the so-called gold plates.
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Re: Don Bradley

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Bradley continues by defining the differences between the "small plates" and the "large plates" and how all that somehow works together with Smith having to replace the lost manuscript and account for Mormon's abridgement. It all gets rather complicated when considering all the references and timelines but it boils down to two simple ideas in which the "small" and the "large" are two different kinds of historical records within the contents of Mormon's gold Bible. That is something that I will be highlighting later on up in the Celestial forum thread! And you can bet that Shulem will wow you!

For the most part, Bradley understands the differences and pieces things together rather nicely. This information will prove helpful in my Celestial thread with certain points I will make. The lost manuscript was a record from the "large plates" and contained a fuller history having greater details of Nephite history during the period when Lehi left Jerusalem up until the time of king Benjamin. It could be said that the account taken from the small plates was a watered down version of the former and didn't contain the same kind of detail as the larger plates which was a "more particular account" or as Bradley implies, the fuller, more detailed account of a vast, near-comprehensive record of Nephite history. Bradley explains how the small plates skimp on historical narrative and sums it up by likening the small plates as a spiritual account and the large plates as a secular account. He even goes so far as to say, "The large plates share a similarity to the historical books (such as Kings and Chronicles)."

Anyway, it seems in the midst of Bradley's rigmarole in defining the differences of the plates, it gets somewhat confusing when describing the characteristics of the large plates processed by Mormon's abridgement. Here is that paragraph in question:

Don Bradley, p. 110 wrote:Doctrine and Covenants 10 describes the narrative in the lost manuscript as an abridgement of the large plates of Nephi. According to Noah Webster's contemporaneous American Dictionary of the English Language published in 1828—the same year Joseph Smith dictated and lost the initial Book of Mormon manuscript—to "abridge" was "to make shorter; to epitomize; to contract by using fewer words, yet retaining the sense in substance." Thus, according to the revelation, the lost narrative that Joseph translated from the golden plates was a condensed version of the narrative contained in Nephi's large plates, offering fewer words and minutiae but with the same essential narrative substance.

But if you ask me, it's all part of the tangled web that Smith wove in trying to coverup the fact that he was simply telling a story and not really translating gold plates he claimed to unearth at Cumorah. The Words of Mormon show how Joseph Smith had to come up with something to excuse the fact he couldn't reproduce the lost manuscript and thus prophesied BS about how God foresaw him stumble more than 1,400 years before he pretended to translate a gold Bible:

And I do this for a wise purpose; for thus it whispereth me, according to the workings of the Spirit of the Lord which is in me. And now, I do not know all things; but the Lord knoweth all things which are to come; wherefore, he worketh in me to do according to his will. (W of M 1:7)


Note to Bradley, it's verse 7, not 6.
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Re: Don Bradley

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Both Martin and his wife Lucy denied having anything to do with the theft of the manuscript taken from the locked bureau inside the locked parlor of the Harris house. Both denied having any knowledge of the whereabouts of the stolen manuscript and it seems that based on what I know of the incident that not a whole lot was done to solve the crime. I get the impression that Lucy simply denied any involvement while Martin was pointing his finger at her as if she must have known something about what happened. But as it was, he was treading on thin ice and their relationship was on the rocks.

Was law enforcement ever called to investigate the scene of the crime? I do not know, but I pose that question because in all seriousness, considering what took place was a theft, it suggests that the home may have been specifically targeted and burglarized by outsiders. So, were the police called to investigate and take statements? Was there a formal investigation for the "crime"? Based on what I know there doesn't seem to have been sufficient action taken on the part of the Harris homeowners. We can only conclude that Martin suspected his wife was involved and only at the end on her deathbed did he begin to think she was innocent.

Look, a police investigation should have taken place, whether in 1828 or 2023; the same methods and principles apply whereby someone needed to call the cops. That would have been the responsible thing to do if Martin and Lucy really believed that someone had burglarized the residence without their knowledge. Additional security measures should have been taken and a formal report with law enforcement should have ensued. Smith should have given a full statement to law enforcement about the loss of his manuscript and enquire about an investigation and at least question possible suspects. I find the whole story to be fishy and reeks with coverup on the part of the Harris's. Joseph Smith's silly ideas about enemies altering the words of his manuscript are somewhat childish and ridiculous. Someone should have slapped the prophet across the face and told him to snap out of it and call the police and file a formal complaint and demand an investigation into the theft of his manuscript! Then, Smith should have retranslated the same work and defied the thieves to show their cowardly faces and prove how the new translation differs with the words on the original manuscript.

Did you ever think of that, Don Bradley? Only when we think outside the testimonkey box can we really come to a knowledge of the truth which is: Everyone was lying about something!

Martin Harris home in Palmyra Township, Wayne County, New York. Picture taken in 1907

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Re: Shulem cracks the code for The Book of Lehi/116 Lost Pages!!

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Shulem, what if some apologists from the future went back in time to take the Lehi manuscript because of essential errors it contained, and they were counting on a revised version being less likely to contain essential errors?

This could show that the Interpreter crew is capable of generating 1.21 Gigawatts.
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Re: Shulem cracks the code for The Book of Lehi/116 Lost Pages!!

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Moksha wrote:
Fri Mar 24, 2023 4:42 pm
Shulem, what if some apologists from the future went back in time to take the Lehi manuscript because of essential errors it contained, and they were counting on a revised version being less likely to contain essential errors?

This could show that the Interpreter crew is capable of generating 1.21 Gigawatts.

Funny you should say that, Moksha. I just returned from time traveling using my time machine and had a rather frank conversation with Joseph Smith in Palmyra. I informed him that I know all about how his missing manuscript was reported to have been stolen from the Harris estate. He looked shocked and was in quite a tizzy! He asked me if I was an angel or a prophet from the past. He gazed at me with shock and utter amazement! I explained to him that my name was "Mormon" and that I was from the future and had come back in time to tell him that I know the whole thing was a con job and that the Book of Lehi was a fictional story which he imagined while eating magic mushrooms to expand his mind.

Then, I bid him adieu and wished him luck in his revision by retelling the story from Nephi's point of view. We shook hands and I left.
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Don Bradley

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Okay, so Bradley continues discussing the differences between narratives given in first-person and third-person and how the missing manuscript can compare to the replacement that is within the covers of our existing Book of Mormon. He touches on when Mormon makes his introductions and more on the so-called abridgement that was taking place in bringing the book into a whole. As discussed earlier, the third-person narrative may seem somewhat anonymously narrated and any attempt to pin that down into the missing manuscript is speculative on anyone's part because it simply doesn't exist -- it's lost.

I like how Bradley leans more to my way of thinking with the first-person narrative for an early on version of the "Book of Lehi" or the "plates of Lehi" and is open to the idea that the book opened with Lehi as a main narrator who told the story through his own eyes and perspective. It's easy to think how the "Book of Lehi" which was the beginning of the record was obviously suggesting that it centralized Lehi more than Nephi.

Don Bradley wrote:Thus the kind of detail regarding Lehi that Nephi says he is not including from his father's record—his earliest dreams and visions (1 Ne. 1;16), his genealogy (6:1), the details of his exodus (v. 3)—very likely were included in the lost manuscript (19:2).

Of which, I agree.
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Don Bradley

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Bradley's chapter six ends with a well succinct description of the historical setting that existed in Israel prior to Lehi's departure into the wilderness. He describes Lehi as their Moses who set out to found a new promised land. Later, under Nephi, they would build what would be likened to a new Jerusalem equipped with a temple wherein they could perform all the consecrations to Israel's God.

Bradley again points out that the missing manuscript "offered greater detail on certain themes, such as those linked with the kings in Nephi's dynasty and Hebraic themes like temple, lineage, and the observance of Jewish festivals." He acknowledges that we can't possibly recover all the missing narratives and details that were had in the lost manuscript but there are ways and means in which certain things can be reconstructed by using clues both in the extant text and by contemporary witnesses of those who knew about the contents of the missing manuscript.

And so, at this point, Bradley builds a case in which the missing manuscript indicated that Laban was murdered slain :shock: during the Jewish Passover. This is very significant. According to an interview of Joseph Smith Sen., given by town residents prior to publication of the Book of Mormon, he tells of Laban being slain during "a great feast," an important detail which is NOT mentioned by Nephi in our current Book of Mormon! Nephi's narrative omits any information that Jerusalem was celebrating the Passover! What could be more biblical minded than Passover? But we see that this important detail failed to make it into the revision version of the small plates which focuses more on the things of God rather than secular details found on the large plates. That's certainly a red flag! No Passover?

In any case, Bradley uses this strange anomaly to produce another faith promoting parallel in order to strengthen his position that the Book of Mormon is spiritually minded and therefore is true. Give me another break!

Don Bradley wrote:Thus, as will be shown in the following chapter, by examining Lapham's account of a feast in light of the Hebraic emphasis of the missing pages and references within Nephi's small plates account, we can surmise that Laban's drunkenness on the night that Nephi snuck into Jerusalem to acquire the brass plates was connected to the celebration of the Jewish Passover—a festival that both looked back on the Israelites' Exodus from Egypt towards their promised Land in Canaan and launched the Lehites' exodus from Jerusalem towards their own promised land in the Americas.

Again, the idea that Passover is not mentioned in our current Book of Mormon but was alluded to in the missing manuscript via Joseph Smith's father while being interviewed about the upcoming publication of the Book of Mormon is quite telling. Bradley begins chapter seven with more information given by Joseph Smith's father about interesting details described in the missing manuscript that failed to make it into the replacement version.
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Don Bradley

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Don Bradley wrote:However, while the extant Lehi and Nephi narrative never mentions the celebration of the Passover festival explicitly, it refers to it implicitly through action in the narrative.

Thus, behold, there can be no worries about Nephi failing to mention "Passover" when leaving Jerusalem because Don Bradley explains the Passover context and content of Lehi's & Nephi's visions which are so filled with stuff about the "Lamb of God" it automatically turns/qualifies the visions into Passover-like visions, if you can believe it. So it's okay that the word "Passover" is not officially/specifically in grammatical terms mentioned (spelled out) because the visions cover it all in a Christ-like Passover blanket! Hence, when it comes to explaining Mormonism, anything goes, baby! Thus we get an apologetic explanation for the "Passover vision!" Holy smokes.

Thus we see how Joseph Smith's pre-Christian religion existing in the mind of Lehi and Nephi many hundreds of years before the Christ and the Christian religion existed is the answer to everything. The mere mention of a future Messiah, redemption, and Lamb in the visions and prophecies has turned the whole affair into a theophany of a Passover event thoroughly imbued with Passover themes, referring some fifty-six times to the Lamb.

So, as you can see, Bradley thinks it's okay that Nephi failed to mentioned the word, "Passover." But it's NOT biblically minded! It's an omission of a term given by Moses that Joseph Smith simply failed to include in his story as he did many other terms of the Mosaic law. It's a red flag in showing Smith's characters were not up to speed on Mosaic law and ritual.
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Re: Don Bradley

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Bradley acknowledges that the Book of Mormon text does not mention the Passover during the time Lehi left Jerusalem in which he makes a case that their departure was during Passover month in which I have no objections. The so-called "great feast" that was mentioned in the missing manuscript did not carry over into the replacement whereby Bradley and other apologists go to great lengths to wave it off as if it's no big deal. One example of this handwaving is that it was so obvious to everyone that it was Passover that it simply didn't need to be mentioned because everyone knew it and readers in the last days could infer the same. They compare it to like seeing a Christmas tree being decorated, everyone automatically knows it's Christmas so there is no real need to say, "It's Christmas time," let alone, "Merry Christmas." The same could be said for Passover because everyone knows it's Passover and it doesn't need to be said. The spiritual vision and theophany of Nephi and the Lamb of God was enough to let everyone know it was Passover and deliverance was being had once again through another Moses named, Lehi.

Since Lehi and his family made their exodus during Passover we can expect that Passover was regularly celebrated during Book of Mormon times -- 600 years and someone must have said something about it at some point.

Don Bradley wrote:The occurrence of Lehi's exodus during Passover season is implied by the date on which Jesus was crucified in the Nephite calendar system. According to 3 Nephi 8:5 this happened on "the first month, the fourth day of the month." . . . . And given that the Nephite calendar was based on Lehi's departure from Jerusalem, this, in turn, would mean that Lehi and his family began their exodus from Jerusalem at the beginning of the preparation for Passover.

So, WHEN is the *Passover* ever mentioned in Book of Mormon text in relation to the first month of the Nephite calendar? isn't it true that Joseph Smith (the true author) forgot to mention Passover every time that time of the year was mentioned in the stories?

FIRST MONTH = commencement of the year

Alma 2:1 commencement of the fifth year
Alma 4:11 commencement of the ninth year
Alma 8:3 commencement of the tenth year
Alma 30:5 commencement of the seventeenth year
Alma 43:4 commencement of the eighteenth year
Alma 45:20 commencement of the nineteenth year
Alma 50:1 commence in the commencement of the twentieth year
Alma 50:17 commencement of the twenty and first year
Alma 50:25 commencement of the twenty and fourth year
Alma 51:1 commencement of the twenty and fifth year
Alma 52:1 first morning of the first month (New Year’s day)
Alma 52:19 commencement of the twenty and eighth year
Alma 54:1 commencement of the twenty and ninth year
Alma 56:20 commencement of the twenty and seventh year
Alma 56:1 commencement of the thirtieth year of the reign of the judges, on the second day in the first month
Alma 57:6 commencement of the twenty and ninth year
Alma 62:12 commencement of the thirty and first year
Alma 63:1 commencement of the thirty and sixth year
Helaman 1:1 commencement of the fortieth year
Helaman 6:16 commencement of the sixty and seventh year
Helaman 11:30 commencement of the eighty and first year
3 Nephi 1:4 commencement of the ninety and second year
3 Nephi 2:17 the commencement of the fourteenth year
3 Nephi 6:17 commencement of the thirtieth year
3 Nephi 7:23 commencement of the thirty and third year
3 Nephi 8:5 in the first month, on the fourth day of the month


No mention of any Passover celebration required by Mosaic law! What excuse can Don Bradley come up with for that?
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