As I am no longer of sound mind since I realised that I don't know all there is to know about the spirituality. I have undertaken to try to prove the Book of Mormon either way using my new mind, which isn't sure about things and is open to new ideas.

My current beliefs are that I REALLY want there to be a God but I cannot deny science and while the two are not definitely mutually exclusive a hypothetical God with at least the knowledge we have today should have been able to do a better job bringing forth a bible that wasn't so full of hate and silly ideas. So that's where I am at the moment. I am suspending disbelief as my empirical findings are that it makes me feel less angry to do so. I am a bit of a universalist. I believe everyone will go to heaven if there is one.

So what did I learn today?

My findings as I listened to the Book of Mormon on the way to work were 2Nephi chapter 9 and 10 as follows:

2Nephi 9: sounds pretty nasty and judgy. V 14 sounds very "self" righteous quote:
"the righteous shall have a perfect knowledge of their enjoyment"
didn't Jesus say there are none righteous?

2Ne 10:3 Nephi talks about Christ before backtracking to explain who christ is. This seems unlikely that a man sitting, tapping painstakingly at some at some gold plates would make such an obvious anachronistic error let alone Mormon at a later date copy the error. It sounds like Joseph Smith caught himself as he was dictating a made up story to Oliver Cowdery.

2Nephi10:11 Nephi says that there shall be no kings upon this land. This was obviously written post 1776, but prior to that there had been kings ruling the Americas. Also Queen elizabeth II was the monarch of Belize until 1966 when it became independant.

Just my musings for today.

Thanks for listening.

Geoff Staines Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> As I am no longer of sound mind since I realised
> that I don't know all there is to know about the
> spirituality. I have undertaken to try to prove
> the Book of Mormon either way using my new mind,
> which isn't sure about things and is open to new
> ideas.
>
> My current beliefs are that I REALLY want there to
> be a God but I cannot deny science and while the
> two are not definitely mutually exclusive a
> hypothetical God with at least the knowledge we
> have today should have been able to do a better
> job bringing forth a bible that wasn't so full of
> hate and silly ideas. So that's where I am at the
> moment. I am suspending disbelief as my empirical
> findings are that it makes me feel less angry to
> do so. I am a bit of a universalist. I believe
> everyone will go to heaven if there is one.
>
> So what did I learn today?
>
> My findings as I listened to the Book of Mormon on
> the way to work were 2Nephi chapter 9 and 10 as
> follows:
>
> 2Nephi 9: sounds pretty nasty and judgy. V 14
> sounds very "self" righteous quote:
> "the righteous shall have a perfect knowledge of
> their enjoyment"
> didn't Jesus say there are none righteous?
>
> 2Ne 10:3 Nephi talks about Christ before
> backtracking to explain who christ is. This seems
> unlikely that a man sitting, tapping painstakingly
> at some at some gold plates would make such an
> obvious anachronistic error let alone Mormon at a
> later date copy the error. It sounds like Joseph
> Smith caught himself as he was dictating a made up
> story to Oliver Cowdery.
>
> 2Nephi10:11 Nephi says that there shall be no
> kings upon this land. This was obviously written
> post 1776, but prior to that there had been kings
> ruling the Americas. Also Queen elizabeth II was
> the monarch of Belize until 1966 when it became
> independant.
>
> Just my musings for today.
>
> Thanks for listening.



Great points. Note that Mormon isn't claimed to have redacted and compiled 2 Ne. That was claimed as part of the small plates which were not in Mormon's condensed book.

One of my favorites is when it talks about Jesus Christ being the Messiah.

"Messiah" is the anglicized version of the Hebrew word for "anointed one" and is found only in the Old Testament, which was written in Hebrew

"Christ" is the anglicized version of the Greek word for "anointed one" and is found only in the New Testament, which was written in Greek.

So whoever wrote the Book of Mormon thought that "Christ" was Jesus's last name ("What are you going to name the lad, Mr. and Mrs. Christ?") and "Messiah" was his job-title. In fact they are the same word but translated from different languages.

So SOMETIMES, we are given to believe, the rock in the hat translated the Reformed Egyptian word as "Christ" and at other times it translated the same word as "Messiah." Like in 2 Nephi 25:19--

"19 For according to the words of the prophets, the Messiah cometh in six hundred years from the time that my father left Jerusalem; and according to the words of the prophets, and also the word of the angel of God, his name shall be Jesus Christ, the Son of God."

LOL, I love that one too. I also like how some names are used in the BoM which either didn't exist at that time or names that weren't at all Hebrew.

Read Richard Packham's post on this: http://packham.n4m.org/linguist.htm

Pick up a Canadian coin and see Elizabeth II. Brazil and all Spanish America was ruled by Kings into the 19th C.

There are lots of anachronisms in the Book of Mormon. Steel swords, chariots (no wheeled vehicles in W. Hemisphere), horses (makes chariots hard) existed here before the ice age and after the Spanish brought them, but for 10,000 years there were no horses here. Of course, JS would not know that, because wild horses were common in the early 19th C. America.

Here is an entire wikipedia article dedicated to BoM anachronisms:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anachronisms_in_the_Book_of_Mormon

Good one I forgot about Canada. Sorry Canada. So the Nephi prophecy is an out and out lie

I didn't think about that either. Interesting points Geoff and axeldc. It just goes to show how arrogantly USA-centric Mormonism is. Even Utah-centric because when people move out of the Morridor they tend to want to force Salt Lake City Mormonism down the throats of members in other parts of the U.S.

There were kings and queens in Hawaii too, as I recall, although that may not count to "Nephi" since it's not part of the mainland. Still, they were "Lamanites", theoretically.

Guatamala where the apologists claim the book of mormon actually took place was under all sorts of dictatorships and emperors

Firstly the Mayan kings, Then spain until 1821 then Mexico then various dictators until independence in 1996. Yes Wiki is good isn't it.

This puts a boot in for the limited geography theory. You can't have it both ways.

(I even noted once that worms are anachronistic because they were introduced to North America with the Europeans. That one might be a stretch)

But I have never thought about the kings reference, interesting.

That one is a stretch. While the Europeans introduced several species of earthworm to N. America, native species still outnumber imported, and in some desert areas, European species cannot survive.

but the very very sciencey thing I was reading stated that earthworms were wiped out during the Ice Age and all earthworms are from Europe. They are actually an invasive species in some ecosystems that evolved without worms to decompose fallen leaves.

That very sciencey thing was wrong. If you're really interested, you should read some other sciencey papers on the subject.

My favorite anachronism is 2 Nephi 29-"A bible, a bible, we already have a bible." Nephi knows what a bible is 800 years before the word "Bible" even existed. The Bible didn't even exist as a concept, since the scriptures in 600 BC consisted of numerous scrolls that had yet to be canonized into a single volume. A single volume that would eventually be known by the simple Latin word for "Books"- "Biblia".

There are so many anachronisms in the bofM it isn't even funny.

That's a good catch on the one about no kings upon the land. I never picked up on that one. Untrue, and very united states-19th century centric.

It's not that there are anachronisms in the Book of Mormon; it's that the anachronisms fit perfectly in with what an early 19th Century boy of limited education and experience would write.

JS was born just 30 years after the US was formed, so the British experience was still fresh in the minds of his parents. The War of 1812 was fought when he was a kid. This anti-monarchist sentiment would have been strong, much like a child in modern Russia would hear about communism today. Making this such a priority firmly places the BoM in the zeitgeist of JS's day.

The horses, steel, chariots, etc. are all things JS would not have known were wrong. He probably read about them in novels and history books and thought they would be cool in Nephite society. Even "Reformed Egyptian" sounds like some language you would make up if you were writing a historical fiction.

Most evidence not only disproves the Book of Mormon as a historical religious document, but firmly places it as an early 19th C. novel written by JS et al.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/17/2012 02:19PM by axeldc.

The verse you quote would tend to indicate that the BOM took place in North America (allowing for Smith's USA-centric interpretation), as it is obvious that there were many kings in Mexico and Central America and South America.

So limited geography apologists, explain that please.

Hi Geoff
I think I know you in "Real life". You might prefer to keep all discussions like this online here, but if you like I could make myself known to you outside of the forum?

Yes puzzled
How do we go about that

I am myself on facebook if you want to friend me