Joseph Smith's scripture - the Book of Mormon

[_Stem]

An Account Written by
the Hand of Mormon
upon Plates Taken from the Plates of Nephi
Wherefore, it is an abridgment of the record of the people of Nephi, and also of the Lamanites—Written to the Lamanites, who are a remnant of the house of Israel; and also to Jew and Gentile—Written by way of commandment, and also by the spirit of prophecy and of revelation—Written and sealed up, and hid up unto the Lord, that they might not be destroyed—To come forth by the gift and power of God unto the interpretation thereof—Sealed by the hand of Moroni, and hid up unto the Lord, to come forth in due time by way of the Gentile—The interpretation thereof by the gift of God.
An abridgment taken from the Book of Ether also, which is a record of the people of Jared, who were scattered at the time the Lord confounded the language of the people, when they were building a tower to get to heaven—Which is to show unto the remnant of the house of Israel what great things the Lord hath done for their fathers; and that they may know the covenants of the Lord, that they are not cast off forever—And also to the convincing of the Jew and Gentile that Jesus is the Christ, the Eternal God, manifesting himself unto all nations—And now, if there are faults they are the mistakes of men; wherefore, condemn not the things of God, that ye may be found spotless at the judgment-seat of Christ.
Translated by Joseph Smith, Jun.

Doesn't the title page tell say it all? If Teryl Givens is on to something and Joseph employed bricolage then I suppose this title page make sense. But what is Mormon saying? Mistakes on record about various peoples who lived over 1,000 years? I read the Book of Mormon now and wonder what anyone gets out of it. I can still feel some sense of use out of snippets from King Benjamin or from the story of the passive peoples in Alma (I can't help it passivity compels me). But most of the rest? I have to apply meaning to it to get meaning from it. Not at all different from the Bible, but the Bible is genuinely more ancient...and there's something about learning history that is meaningful.

I guess what it comes down to is, I don't think I get what scripture is supposed to be anymore.

[_SuperDell]

The passive/pacifists can only live that way when someone else takes responsibility for their defense.

[_Stem]

The passive/pacifists can only live that way when someone else takes responsibility for their defense.

That's always been my wife's reminder to me. Is it a good story that they held onto their "covenant" to never shed blood any longer so much so that they sat idly by why people died in their defense? Is keeping promise of such high priority? Yah..yeah...good point. But the image I get resulting from passive penitent people accepting slaughter at the hands of bloodthirsty opponents who grow touched by such passivity is compelling enough for me.

[_Physics Guy]

If a pacifist allows themselves to be killed rather than shed blood then that’s arguably impressive. I’m less impressed if a pacifist avoids staining their hands with blood by letting someone else be killed.

[_Holy Ghost]

I read the Book of Mormon now and wonder what anyone gets out of it.

It is hard to find anything of unique value in the Book of Mormon, anything that is not already, ver batim, in the Bible. At other points, there are close paraphrases of what is the Bible. When the Book of Mormon is not simply the result of plagiarism to one degree or another, of the Bible, the Book of Mormon is pretty insipid and unremarkable.

I can still feel some sense of use out of snippets from King Benjamin or from the story of the passive peoples in Alma (I can't help it passivity compels me). But most of the rest? I have to apply meaning to it to get meaning from it. Not at all different from the Bible, but the Bible is genuinely more ancient...and there's something about learning history that is meaningful.

The Bible talks about real places. The Book of Mormon doesn't even achieve that. The Bible, as an anciently written book, gives insight to what the authors, people that lived hundreds and hundreds of years ago, thought and viewed the world. The Book of Mormon gives a glimpse of how back-woods folks, like the Smiths, viewed the world of the 1820s.

I guess what it comes down to is, I don't think I get what scripture is supposed to be anymore.

In practical terms, it is nothing more than a tool that some who are well versant with it use to hold over the head of others as if it is "the word of God."

[_Physics Guy]

I've only read a few bits of the Book of Mormon but nothing in that sample has impressed me. Actual ancient writings are cool just because they are ancient. Furthermore at least some ancient scripture passages are the original sources of ideas that have since been clarified and refined.

Someone once pointed out to me that if you read the original papers in which important scientific concepts were first expressed, you often find that their landmark content was presented clumsily. The authors were geniuses but it was still hard for them to articulate their new insights; they crawled through thick swamp of old confusions and collapsed on the shore still caked thickly with mud. They showed the way to all of us, though. You have to cut them some slack.

In the same way I think we ought to be generous in reading some ancient scripture. A lot of it may just be ancient mud, but where there are pearls we should overlook a lot of mud for their sake.

Take the Tower of Babel for example. The story evidently comes from a time when mud brick was a breakthrough technology—or at least from a time when mud bricks were still cool enough that people could imagine them as grounds for hubris. We can do anything now with these bricks! Let's build a city with a tower up to heaven!

The Lord said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.” So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city.

As a historical record the story is absurd in multiple ways but what strikes me about it is this. Somebody back in the age of mud brick thought about what would limit human achievement and the bottleneck that they identified was communication.

That's some scripture.