God can write straight with crooked lines.

[I Have Questions]

If ambiguity counts as crookedness, then the Book of Mormon requiring continual prophetic correction is at least as crooked as the Bible it claims to straighten.

Or on the other hand one could look at the Bible, Book of Mormon, and living prophets forming a mutually reinforcing network of testimonies, comparable to multiple independent measurements that together give confidence in a line of evidence. The prophetic utterances and the scriptural straightening that happens in conjunction with the Book of Mormon being placed parallel with the Bible (assuming the Bible is not inerrant) can't prove themselves except through the inner witness of the Spirit and the pragmatic 'fruits' in the lives of adherents (those living the Gospel of Jesus Christ).

I noticed that you added the caveat “(assuming the Bible is not inerrant)” but didn’t add the caveat “(assuming the Book of Mormon is not inerrant)”, nor did you add the caveat “(assuming the living Prophets are not inerrant)” Is that a subtle declaration on your part that the Book of Mormon and the living Prophets are not inerrant in any aspect?

I also note that your assertion that the Bible and Book of Mormon could be seen as mutually reinforcing as completely baseless and without merit. The Book of Mormon might be seen as reinforcing the claims of the Bible, I mean, the Book of Mormon even goes so far as to plagiarise content from the KJV Bible! It’s a copycat. A mimic. The Book of Mormon is just another “Assassin of Secrets” scandal.

[Gadianton]

Some other possibilities:

1. Making His power, not the messenger, the point.
2. Preserving humility and dependence.
3. Protecting real faith and freedom.
4. Making the message accessible and relatable.
5.Exposing what we really value.

You're confusing the issue I'm trying to clarify. Are crooked lines Joseph's weaknesses, and was polygamy a creation by Joseph that God tolerated for a time, or was polygamy God's idea, a higher law?

God can write straight using crooked lines.

Saying it over and over again while refusing to clarify what you mean, even when others are doing most of the work for you, is much like lying. You aren't telling lies, are you, MG?

Was polygamy an invention by Joseph born out from his weaknesses of womanizing, lying, and controlling, or was it really a divine command by God? Perhaps it was both, it was a command by God but Joseph made mistakes with it?

If you admit polygamy was in any way dictated by God, then you've entered the trap. You've admitted that God himself authors crooked lines, as opposed to working with lines crooked for reasons initially outside of his control.

[bill4long]

I also note that your assertion that the Bible and Book of Mormon could be seen as mutually reinforcing as completely baseless and without merit. The Book of Mormon might be seen as reinforcing the claims of the Bible, I mean, the Book of Mormon even goes so far as to plagiarise content from the KJV Bible! It’s a copycat. A mimic. The Book of Mormon is just another “Assassin of Secrets” scandal.

Indeed, when it comes to the KJV and the Book of Mormon it's an apologetic nightmare. Not only did Joe rip off the KJV, but he included errors from the KJV as well. Which has led me to ask:

1. Was Joe's KJV laying on the table when dictating the KJV text, invalidating Emma's claim of "no books"? (What else might have been stashed in between the pages of the KJV?)

2. If not, then Joe had to have memorized long portions of KJV text and demonstrates that he had excellent memorization skills. (Which he would have learned as an exhorter with the Methodist church. They used to do things like memorizing the entire Gospel of Matthew.)

3. Or, if this whole thing was really a supernatural affair with the Seer Stone producing the KJV text, why did the Stone render the KJV translation errors?

[I Have Questions]

I also note that your assertion that the Bible and Book of Mormon could be seen as mutually reinforcing as completely baseless and without merit. The Book of Mormon might be seen as reinforcing the claims of the Bible, I mean, the Book of Mormon even goes so far as to plagiarise content from the KJV Bible! It’s a copycat. A mimic. The Book of Mormon is just another “Assassin of Secrets” scandal.

Indeed, when it comes to the KJV and the Book of Mormon it's an apologetic nightmare. Not only did Joe rip off the KJV, but he included errors from the KJV as well. Which has led me to ask:

1. Was Joe's KJV laying on the table when dictating the KJV text, invalidating Emma's claim of "no books"? (What else might have been stashed in between the pages of the KJV?)

2. If not, then Joe had to have memorized long portions of KJV text and demonstrates that he had excellent memorization skills. (Which he would have learned as an exhorter with the Methodist church. They used to do things like memorizing the entire Gospel of Matthew.)

3. Or, if this whole thing was really a supernatural affair with the Seer Stone producing the KJV text, why did the Stone render the KJV translation errors?

The use of italics in the KJV Bible that also appear in the plagiarised content in the Book of Mormon ends the discussion, it was copied from a KJV Bible into the Book of Mormon manuscript. The 19th century equivalent of a cut and paste. Emma didn’t sit there and watch the entire translation performance. So her “witness” does not rule out people sitting there with the KJV Bible open, copying it onto manuscript paper.

[Marcus]

Or on the other hand one could look at the Bible, Book of Mormon, and living prophets forming a mutually reinforcing network of testimonies, comparable to multiple independent measurements that together give confidence in a line of evidence. The prophetic utterances and the scriptural straightening that happens in conjunction with the Book of Mormon being placed parallel with the Bible (assuming the Bible is not inerrant) can't prove themselves except through the inner witness of the Spirit and the pragmatic 'fruits' in the lives of adherents (those living the Gospel of Jesus Christ).

I noticed that you added the caveat “(assuming the Bible is not inerrant)” but didn’t add the caveat “(assuming the Book of Mormon is not inerrant)”, nor did you add the caveat “(assuming the living Prophets are not inerrant)” Is that a subtle declaration on your part that the Book of Mormon and the living Prophets are not inerrant in any aspect?

I also note that your assertion that the Bible and Book of Mormon could be seen as mutually reinforcing as completely baseless and without merit. The Book of Mormon might be seen as reinforcing the claims of the Bible, I mean, the Book of Mormon even goes so far as to plagiarise content from the KJV Bible! It’s a copycat. A mimic. The Book of Mormon is just another “Assassin of Secrets” scandal.

That was a fascinating article, thanks for the reference, IHQ.

From the link:

…Plagiarism was and remains a murky offense, “best understood not as a sharply defined operation, like beheading, but as a whole range of activities, more like cooking,” the English professor James R. Kincaid wrote in this magazine in 1997. Imagine a scale on one end of which are authors who poach plot ideas (Shakespeare stealing from Plutarch) and on the other are those who copy passages word for word.

…Most psychiatrists I talked to suggested that chronic plagiarism falls under the rubric of pathological lying, not addiction. Michael Stone, a professor of clinical psychiatry at Columbia, places it in the “impostor” category, which includes financial fraudsters, such as Bernard Madoff. “It’s somebody who pretends to be someone who he isn’t and pretends to have skills that he doesn’t have,” Stone said, adding that it’s not unusual for this type of person to be law-abiding in all other areas of life: “It’s someone who you would speculate is making up for feelings of inadequacy by being overtly generous and ingratiating.” Of the wild risk-taking, he added, “The expectation that they’ll get away with it is embedded in their characters.”

This reminds me of someone. Let me think for a minute. Who do we know who 'pretends to have skills he doesn't have' by copying passages 'word for word' and then expects to 'get away with it'?

[MG 2.0]

Some other possibilities:

1. Making His power, not the messenger, the point.
2. Preserving humility and dependence.
3. Protecting real faith and freedom.
4. Making the message accessible and relatable.
5.Exposing what we really value.

You're confusing the issue I'm trying to clarify. Are crooked lines Joseph's weaknesses, and was polygamy a creation by Joseph that God tolerated for a time, or was polygamy God's idea, a higher law?

God can write straight using crooked lines.

Saying it over and over again while refusing to clarify what you mean, even when others are doing most of the work for you, is much like lying. You aren't telling lies, are you, MG?

Was polygamy an invention by Joseph born out from his weaknesses of womanizing, lying, and controlling, or was it really a divine command by God? Perhaps it was both, it was a command by God but Joseph made mistakes with it?

If you admit polygamy was in any way dictated by God, then you've entered the trap. You've admitted that God himself authors crooked lines, as opposed to working with lines crooked for reasons initially outside of his control.

God chose to work within a very crooked historical situation, which included inherited biblical polygamy (which Joseph had encountered in his studies), frontier patriarchy (and even ours today as we place blame or judgement), and Joseph’s own psychology (we are not privy to that).

It might also be well to remember that imagining God being positively willing to condone every specific hurtful decision as if it were ideal is a bit silly. Working within the framework of agency does have its drawbacks.

As for the charge of lying, I’m simply trying to describe how a believer can acknowledge moral problems in our history without collapsing everything wholeheartedly into either “God authored every abuse” or “there was nothing of God in it at all.” You may still see that as incoherent, but that’s the tension a believer lives with. I see and acknowledge the crookedness, I don’t canonize Joseph’s sins, and I still maintain the the very real possibility that God was at work in and through a very flawed story.

This matches up quite well with how we observe the world working in real time everyday and every week/year. I wouldn't expect things to have been all that much different back in Joseph's day.

Finally, when I say “God can write straight with crooked lines,” I am not claiming that every controversial practice in our history was a pristine “higher law,” nor that every action of Joseph Smith was divinely micromanaged.

It's fairly obvious that that wasn't the case.

Regards,
MG

[Marcus]

...God chose to work within a very crooked historical situation, which included inherited biblical polygamy (which Joseph had encountered in his studies), frontier patriarchy (and even ours today as we place blame or judgement), and Joseph’s own psychology (we are not privy to that)...

So convenient that mental gymnastics allow one to claim 'the gospel was restored' and everything necessary is found in the Book of Mormon, but anything that's problematic turns out to be the fault of the human that the Mormon god is forced to work with. What choice does the Mormon god have except to allow these horrible human things in his name, and then when they turn problematic, the Mormon god blames the human he used. This is nothing more than a convoluted version of the Texas sharpshooter fallacy. It takes mental gymnastics like this when one has to use their conclusions as their starting assumptions.

[I Have Questions]

...God chose to work within a very crooked historical situation, which included inherited biblical polygamy (which Joseph had encountered in his studies), frontier patriarchy (and even ours today as we place blame or judgement), and Joseph’s own psychology (we are not privy to that)...

So convenient that mental gymnastics allow one to claim 'the gospel was restored' and everything necessary is found in the Book of Mormon, but anything that's problematic turns out to be the fault of the human that the Mormon god is forced to work with. What choice does the Mormon god have except to allow these horrible human things in his name, and then when they turn problematic, the Mormon god blames the human he used. This is nothing more than a convoluted version of the Texas sharpshooter fallacy. It takes mental gymnastics like this when one has to use their conclusions as their starting assumptions.

“inherited biblical polygamy” in what way was what Joseph did something that was inherited from the Bible? Jesus, in the New Testament, promotes monogamy as God’s design for marriage. This is just MG ducking Gadianton’s question - he doesn’t want it to be God’s doing but can’t acknowledge that it was Joseph’s. It’s hilarious to watch.

[Gadianton]

As for the charge of lying, I’m simply trying to describe how a believer can acknowledge moral problems in our history without collapsing everything wholeheartedly into either “God authored every abuse” or “there was nothing of God in it at all.”

D&C 132 begins "Verily thus saith the Lord"

The main choices here are either Joseph made up D&C 132 or God really did reveal it to Joseph Smith. If you believe D&C 132 correctly begins "Verily thus saith the Lord" because the Lord really dictated D&C 132 to Joseph, then you believe God is the author of crooked lines.

36 Abraham was commanded to offer his son Isaac; nevertheless, it was written: Thou shalt not kill. Abraham, however, did not refuse, and it was accounted unto him for righteousness.

41 And as ye have asked concerning adultery, verily, verily, I say unto you, if a man receiveth a wife in the new and everlasting covenant, and if she be with another man, and I have not appointed unto her by the holy anointing, she hath committed adultery and shall be destroyed.

It's adultery unless God commands it otherwise -- that which is wrong in one situation is right in another. Higher plane geometry. God as the author of crooked lines. D&C 132 makes it clear that God authored polygamy. That doesn't mean every choice Joseph made was sanctified, but it does allow the very counterintuitive principle that a married woman is obligated to have sex with another man if God commands it. This is a crooked line principle. If God authored D&C 132, he's the author of crooked lines.

[MG 2.0]

As for the charge of lying, I’m simply trying to describe how a believer can acknowledge moral problems in our history without collapsing everything wholeheartedly into either “God authored every abuse” or “there was nothing of God in it at all.”

D&C 132 begins "Verily thus saith the Lord"

The main choices here are either Joseph made up D&C 132 or God really did reveal it to Joseph Smith. If you believe D&C 132 correctly begins "Verily thus saith the Lord" because the Lord really dictated D&C 132 to Joseph, then you believe God is the author of crooked lines.

36 Abraham was commanded to offer his son Isaac; nevertheless, it was written: Thou shalt not kill. Abraham, however, did not refuse, and it was accounted unto him for righteousness.

41 And as ye have asked concerning adultery, verily, verily, I say unto you, if a man receiveth a wife in the new and everlasting covenant, and if she be with another man, and I have not appointed unto her by the holy anointing, she hath committed adultery and shall be destroyed.

It's adultery unless God commands it otherwise -- that which is wrong in one situation is right in another. Higher plane geometry. God as the author of crooked lines. D&C 132 makes it clear that God authored polygamy. That doesn't mean every choice Joseph made was sanctified, but it does allow the very counterintuitive principle that a married woman is obligated to have sex with another man if God commands it. This is a crooked line principle. If God authored D&C 132, he's the author of crooked lines.

In my previous post I proposed that revelation is filtered through Joseph’s psychology, 19th‑century patriarchy, and biblical precedent.

In other words, God can enter into already crooked cultural, psychological, and institutional conditions and regulate or limit them without endorsing their crooked aspects as His own moral character.

Working with "crooked lines” is categorically different from being the author of crookedness.

God regulates slavery in the Old Testament. We wouldn't say that He was 'the author of slavery' in the sense of approving the institution as ideal... it is rather obvious that God is addressing a people who already live inside it, with all the moral hazards that entails.

Joseph didn't live in a vacuum. His revelations were filtered through cultural, psychological, Biblical interpretation/precident, views on patriarchy, etc. He also lived inside a bubble of existence that was open to moral hazards.

In Section 132 when we read “Verily thus saith the Lord” we might see it as a human framing of a real but limited encounter with God, not a guarantee that the entire section, in its every detail, is morally pristine.

Consider the rather 'rocky road' involved in the publication of that section. It may well be that Section 132 in the D&C is the 'showcase example' of God demonstrating, in real time, that He can write straight with crooked lines.

Regards,
MG