Posted by:
soju
(
)
Date: November 04, 2013 12:30PM
Ok, so the story is god tells Nephi to decapitate some random jewish dude "because plates." The plates are so super-duper important that it justifies murder. The plates are passed along through the generations, and eventually a small portion of the history is recorded on other plates to be translated by Joseph Smith.
Joseph Smith doesn't even bring the plates with him when he does the bulk of the translation work --- using a stone and a hat. God instead beams the information directly into his brain and it is transcribed. Later, when Joseph is asked to translate other ancient documents, he gets it completely wrong, but that's ok because (as the apologist explains) the documents were being used as a medium to gather inspiration, not being translated literally.
Finally, Joseph makes some adjustments to the new testament because the original translators got stuff wrong. Again, the information does not require Joseph to do any actual translating; the info he needs is beamed into his mind by the holy spirit.
So, we've established that a prophet, seer, and revelator does not actually need the original document in order to translate it or correct it. A much, much more efficient and effective method already exists - beaming the information directly into the prophet's head. Presumably, if god can do it once, he can do it an infinite number of times without breaking a sweat, so there is never any risk of corruption of the important information.
So, we go back to the beginning again. Why did Nephi need to commit cold-blooded murder to get these plates, when there were not one, but two prophets of the Lard on the journey? All Nephi *really* needed to do was get some parchment made, or if he is really crazy about plate records get some plates made, and get the info beamed into his brain. There is bound to be enough downtime between the two prophets to get it written down while they travel. By the time their civilization is gaining momentum, Lehi is dead, and Nephi is dying, the plates will probably have been reproduced. Furthermore, even if Nephi can't finish the job, there were other prophets contemporary to him to continue the job.
Hell, if he did it this way, we would have an explanation for how the Nephites obtained prophetic record that should not have been available to Lehi before he left. Also, Nephi wouldn't have had such a guilt complex going into 2 Nephi (there is a part in 2 Nephi where he laments how screwed up he is / sinner / blah blah blah, that always sounded to me like he was still shouldering the guilt for murdering Laban, which is literally the only thing Nephi ever does in the narrative that approaches "wrong" in the least degree--- the rest of the time he is way too "perfect").
I noticed this conundrum the first time I tried to read the Book of Mormon after I left the church. I didn't go any further into the book than 1 Nephi because the absurdities piled up faster than I could keep track. I was left wondering how I had ever, in any version of reality, thought that this book could have been legit in the first place.