Book of Mormon highlights

[Everybody Wang Chung]

"I, Nephi ... born of goodly parents ... highly favored of the Lord ... exceedingly righteous ... having a great knowledge of the goodness and the mysteries of God" 1 Nephi 1:1

Nephi thinks quite a lot of himself.


"I know that the record which I make is true." 1 Nephi 1:3

The book of 1 Nephi is true because Nephi says it is? And if you can't believe an arrogant, prideful, Egyptian-speaking Hebrew, who built a ship out of coconut trees, and supposedly lived 2600 years ago, whom can you believe?

[Gadianton]

Leaving aside the question of just how impressive or not the Book of Mormon is on an absolute scale, what are its most impressive passages? What parts of the Book are most deserving (or come closest to deserving) respect or even reverence?

Alma 32 is a pretty famous among Mormons. That's the Mormon version of the scientific method -- literally Baconian induction.

The stories of Nephi and family leaving Jerusalem and Lamen and Lemuel rebelling are all pretty popular. When I was a kid, for family home evening, we'd act out the story of getting the plates. Somewhere in old photos, there's a picture of me wearing a bathrobe and with a cardboard sword I'd made, approaching my dad who was playing Laban, who had a set of plates he'd made. Hey, at least my dad had an actual set of plates, rather than just a tile brick.

I think these stories are what's most popular and especially for kids.

I don't think there's much in the Book of Mormon that influences adults who convert in adulthood. My experience has been that Mormonism appeals to Christians who don't like the trinity, and like the humanist influences -- degrees of glory based on goodness rather than heaven / hell dichotomy.

I had two religion professors at BYU who had been protestant ministers and converted to Mormonism in adulthood. One was from South Korea and apparently his father was some huge wealthy minister there and sonny boy left all that for Mormonism. One thing both these guys had in common was the Book of Mormon not being an influence on them. The other guy taught world religions, and his only comment I remember about the Book of Mormon was sarcastic -- he already knew about Jesus from the Bible so didn't need the Book of Mormon.

I don't ever recall anyone I know being just enthralled with the Book of Mormon. Hugh Nibley and Grant Hardy are the only ones. I remember as a DL on my mission, this sister I had to interview asked me in frustration what she was supposed to do, because she's read the Book of Mormon 20+ times because you have to read it a half hour a day, and she's getting nothing out of it. And she was really bright and bubbly, not prone to negativity in the slightest, which is why it surprised me. I didn't know what to tell her. I know I sure as hell didn't read it 20 minutes a day. I just marked down on the paper that I did.

[drumdude]

Nothing better than teaching your children it's better to decapitate a helpless drunk man than let a world dwindle without gold plates that never got translated or used.

Laban turns most readers off fairly quickly, in my opinion.

[dantana]

Ether 15:30-32:

Millions of Jaredites kill each other in battle, leaving only their two leaders alive: Coriantumr and Shiz. Coriantur cuts of the head of Shiz (with his non-existent sword, of course) and then dies. What are the odds? Don't you just love a happy ending?

Yeah. Ya know, a person would think that out of that many combatants there would be at least a couple guys that survived due to, say, a bad flare up of bone spurs... and an influential father.

[Physics Guy]

I had already seen the end of Alma 32, about the tree, but now I read the whole chapter. What a rambling, wandering diatribe. The part at the end about the tree, though, is at least an idea: faith is like a tree that grows from a seed, but only if it is nourished.

There is something that rings true about Alma’s tree. Religious faith is indeed something that you can fake until you make, at least up to a point. Invest enough in it, put enough of yourself into it, and it puts roots into you and becomes part of you. Lots of other activities can work like that as well: hobbies, foods, relationships. Just because something doesn’t thrive and grow big fast all by itself doesn’t mean you can’t gradually nurture it into size and solidity.

To me that’s a two-sided truth. You can build a strong marriage over a lifetime but you can also hang on to an abusive relationship. Alma may say to a recent convert who is having second thoughts because they’re not getting so much out of it all, Just hang on, feed your tree, it gets better. Sometimes “hang on, it gets better” is indeed good advice, I think. But if I felt I had a nice, solid tree, Alma would make me worry that maybe all I had was the work that I’d put into it myself.

If I try to think what the Bible says about Alma’s tree principle, I think of the prophetic scorn for idolaters: they work hard making their gods, which cannot carry them but rather have to be carried. For better or for worse, it seems to me, the traditional Christian has been less Alma’s careful tree tender and more the primitive farmer who can’t get over the fact that the plants grow all by themselves—to heck with hunting and gathering, man, this is the life!

Jesus liked to talk about seeds and plants, but in his parables the growth of the plant to maturity is always taken for granted as something that happens by itself. That might be a more natural attitude in the Palestinian climate than in New England.

So the end of Alma 32 seems like a legitimate highlight to me, even though on the whole I personally find it more sinister than inspiring. It may well be distinctively Mormon, and it is a substantial idea. It seems to me to be at odds with the oldest Christian and Jewish traditions, but I think maybe I do recognize it as a familiar attitude from Christian traditions that developed in higher latitudes where fruit trees don't grow so easily, where the stern Protestant work ethic emerged from the more lax and ecstatic faith of the mezzogiorno.

[Gadianton]

Nothing better than teaching your children it's better to decapitate a helpless drunk man than let a world dwindle without gold plates that never got translated or used.

Laban turns most readers off fairly quickly, in my opinion.

Does it? I think once the average person sees the objection made by somebody else they see the problem. But until then, I think the average reader accepts a standard story of righteous vengeance. I have 2A neighbors ready to kill liberals for far less than that; stuff that didn't even really happen. At least Laban really did break his word and steal from Nephi's family. In today's world, Nephi could have lied about Laban stealing the plates and used that as pretext to kill Laban, and people would say he's a strong leader.

Anyway, I honestly can't remember if I thought of a moral objection to the Laban story on my own or read it somewhere. I don't recall any particular reactions to the story from my mission or anything, so I'm just saying what it seems like to me about people.

the Lord is able to cdeliver us, even as our fathers, and to destroy Laban, even as the Egyptians.

I think a good critical thinking question is if the author's justifications are out of line as far as biblical justifications go. The Bible has some questionable morality from a modern perspective, for sure, but supposing a person is a Christian and believes the Bible, does the story of Laban break any norms?

[drumdude]

I found it completely reprehensible and unnecessary on my first reading. I remember asking a lot of questions about it to the Mormons that were trying to convert me. It bothered me a lot that it didn't seem to bother them much. I saw the central message of that verse was, "obey the church even when it's wrong and asking you to murder someone."

The "My Book of Mormon podcast" has a non member read the entire book out loud for the first time and I think he was similarly disgusted, if I remember correctly.

[Gadianton]

But if I felt I had a nice, solid tree, Alma would make me worry that maybe all I had was the work that I’d put into it myself.

Your concern is justified, especially taking into account Mormon culture where the answer is never "no". If you ever get a result that doesn't support the Mormon Church, then obviously you made a mistake in the experiment.

Your explanation about the physics of trees is interesting. I have to wonder if you worked backwards from what you already knew about tensions between grace in EV Christianity and works in Mormonism, or does climate really fuel theology? Either way, it was an interesting point. You should find a Mormon outreach ministry to email your idea to, it would make for a good sermon.

[Chap]

In addition, the story of Laban's killing is just not plausible.

A very rich man, with a golden sword, goes out for a drink (or, it seems, rather a lot of drinks) in ancient Jerusalem, wearing armour, without any servants attending him to light the way, keep riff-raff out of his path, and see him safe home?

OK, maybe that was the best that the imagination of an early 19th century upstate New York story-teller could manage, but there was no way that could ever have happened.

[Kishkumen]

This thread has gone about as well as I would have expected. It is another opportunity for people who hate the LDS Church to ridicule the Book of Mormon. LOL.