Boyd K. Packer and "A Logical Reaction"

[_Danna]

The whole Elias/Elijah thing is pretty confusing too! Joseph Smith apparently thought they were different people, JFS apparently thought they were different as well. The usual explanation is that the name was a 'title'.

Regardless, as D&C 110 indicates, BOTH Elias and Elijah were also translated beings, So JFS should not have seen Elias in the spirit world either. Whether he saw Elijah is up for debate since the passage is vague, but why mention him if he was not there?

[_bcspace]

Elder Boyd K. Packer, in this Ensign piece, had this to say:

.....

Packer goes on to assure us that this was not the reaction Shelley and Rosenvall received, but why would he think in the first place that such a position might be a "logical reaction" to this project? Any ideas?

Amazing how leaving out some context puts the lie into some of these questioning assumptions.....

A logical reaction to such a proposal might have been, “Better be careful; you do not know what might come of this kind of analysis of the scriptures. We might open a Pandora’s box that might never be closed. Don’t do it.”

That did not happen. We have no doubt about the scriptures. These brethren were urged to proceed. The result is LDSView, computerized scripture software. It is simple to operate and is capable of infinite ways of searching through, comparing, and analyzing this sacred library of the Lord. It did not open a Pandora’s box; it opened the scriptures to analysis beyond anything that had been imagined.

For instance, you may key in the word faith. Instantly you see that it appears 696 times in the standard works. Press a key, and the verses appear before you.

Add the word hope. You will see that it appears forty-six times. Then add the word charity. It appears seventy-five times. Push a key, and you will see that faith, hope, and charity appear together in the same verse nineteen times. All of that has taken less than three and a half seconds.

Select a verse, and it appears in its chapter setting. You may scroll back and forth from Genesis to the last verse in the Pearl of Great Price and, with a touch of a key, print a copy.

This does not replace the printed page. While every member may not have need for this computer program, it is a research instrument of profound importance.

And work is well underway to provide this software in Spanish, German, and other languages.

Because, logically, if you put the scriptures onto a computer it might gain knowledge of good and evil, and then we would have to cast it out into curel and dreary wilderness.

Not unless the answer came back "42".

HA! Then it is no coincidence that so many computers bear this symbol:

Not so many but no coincidence at all.