A Facebook friend wanted a discussion of a BOM passage. I read it and the passage was one long miserably written repetitive sentence of around 70 words. If God gave JS this stuff one word at a time, God is one lousy editor. I would provide the passage, but it might reveal my identity to the wrong folks. It doesn’t matter since I found passages like this everywhere in the BOM. Any modern translation of the Bible is easy to understand compared to the BOM.

I will reveal a passage for you then.

And it came to pass... (then insert direct line verbatim from the bible here)

So much was copied from the supposedly flawed and mistranslated bible verbatim it is truly amazing how people cannot see it, but they can claim words in the Book of Mormon came from Christ.

Funny how that is when you steal them directly from the King James (the translation of the greek/hebrew translations) Bible

I have pointed this out in my article on Mormon linguistic problems:
http://packham.n4m.org/linguist.htm#ENGRAVED
-scroll down to the section "wordiness"

It’s so needlessly wordy. Many chapters have a “made it up as they were writing it” feel to it. It’s light on doctrine (and has almost no unique doctrine), but it’s heavy on wars, preparation for war, war strategies, weapons used in war...did I mention wars?

That’s because part of it was copied from “The Late War Between the United States and Great Britain”. See http://wordtree.org/thelatewar/

Other parts were copied from the 1767 edition of the KJV Bible (complete with errors unique to that edition) and “View of the Hebrews”. The BoM (the parts that aren’t filler) was not made up on the fly. That’s just a story, like Moroni taking the plates to heaven. It’s more like a teenager’s homework assignment copied directly from an encyclopedia but with wording changes to hide the plagiarism.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/25/2020 11:57AM by bradley.

A Marvel and a Wonder...verily, verily.

"A Marvel and a Wonder...verily, verily" that anyone ever believed it to be the word of ghawd.

I know. For this very reason I laugh hard every time my mother exclaims, "There is no way an uneducated 14 year old farm boy could have written such a perfect book. It's impossible!"

Oh, Mom, it does indeed read exactly like that. Except at least one and probably three grown men who were educated wrote it by copying the Bible, getting names from maps, and putting in it all the misconceptions of the times. She never wanted to hear that though and I let it be.

Your mother can't do first-grade arithmetic or even count.

Smith was 14 when he had his Feelin' Grovey experience (canonized version).

He did his Rockin' Hat shtick a full 10 years later.

According to your mom, 14 + 10 = 14.

Have you ever brought up that Smith had been married three years by the time the BOM was published? Even farm boys don't get married at 11.

'Feelin' Grovey!" Haha. Too good.

Somehow the uneducated 14 year old makes for a more compelling testimony ensuring story and so she is sticking with that.

And he wasn’t 14 when he wrote it. He was college age.

Done & Done Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I know. For this very reason I laugh hard every
> time my mother exclaims, "There is no way an
> uneducated 14 year old farm boy could have
> written such a perfect book. It's impossible!"
>
> Oh, Mom, it does indeed read exactly like that.
> Except at least one and probably three grown men
> who were educated wrote it by copying the Bible,
> getting names from maps, and putting in it all the
> misconceptions of the times. She never wanted to
> hear that though and I let it be.

Joseph Smith Jr. was not an uneducated 14 year old farm boy when he created the Book of Mormon. Whats more he had the help of several highly educated ministers to assist him.

I read where his brother Hyrum was on the debate team, his mother bragged that they never let their kids education falter, and she bragged non-stop at what a great story teller Joseph was as in making up stories, and I believe his father was actually a school teacher. A lot of that is in Fawn's book but I've read it elsewhere as well.

Uncouth perhaps, but not uneducated.

Done & Done Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I read where his brother Hyrum was on the debate
> team, his mother bragged that they never let
> their kids education falter, and she bragged
> non-stop at what a great story teller Joseph was
> as in making up stories,

Joseph's mother was the great story teller. Joe was just more of a mouthy liar ....and pervert sex maniac ......and a toxic narcissist

thedesertrat1 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> Joseph Smith Jr. was not an uneducated 14 year old
> farm boy when he created the Book of Mormon. Whats
> more he had the help of several highly educated
> ministers to assist him.

and they STILL ended up with POS that is remarkably BAD !!!

Most poorly written book that I have read. It makes the Bible and the Koran look almost good in comparison. Nobody can see, and marvel at, the emperor's new threads like a Mormon.

donbagley Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Most poorly written book that I have read. It
> makes the Bible and the Koran look almost good in
> comparison.

Au contraire, good sir!

I can’t speak for the Koran, for I’ve been repeatedly told that it must be read in Arabic. But the KJV is not only good but stupendously great when compared with the BofM. In fact, they can’t even be compared.

As a whole, the books between Ecclesiastes and the Song Of Solomon are on par with Shakespeare, in my experience anyway. The cadence alone strongly reverberates throughout poetry written in English, and you’ll find elements of the contents scattered throughout English prose. Melville alone is impossible to imagine without the KJV.

One of the few positives about LDSinc is that they insist on the KJV.

As a reader and fan of Melville, I concur with what you say. There are some wonderful literary passages in the Bible, and the Koran is at least poetic (though derivative as hell). Both are easier to read than the BoM.

And if we obey God, we must disobey ourselves; and it is in this disobeying ourselves, wherein the hardness of obeying God consists.

--Herman Melville--
--Moby Dick--



"There's something ever egotistical in mountain-tops and towers, and other grand and lofty things; look here, -- three peaks as proud as Lucifer. The firm tower, that is Ahab; the volcano, that is Ahab; the courageous, the undaunted, and victorious fowl, that, too, is Ahab; all are Ahab; and this round gold [the doubloon] is but the image of the rounder globe, which, like a magician's glass, to each and every man in turn but mirrors back his own mysterious self. Great pains, small gains for those who ask the world to solve them; it cannot solve itself. Methinks now this coined sun wears a ruddy face; but see! aye, he enters the sign of storms, the equinox! and but six months before he wheeled out of a former equinox at Aries! From storm to storm! So be it, then. Born in throes, it is fit that man should live in pains and die in pangs! So be it, then! Here's stout stuff for woe to work on. So be it, then.

--Herman Melville--
--Moby Dick--



What of it, if some old hunks of a sea-captain orders me to get a broom and sweep down the decks? What does that indignity amount to, weighed, I mean, in the scales of the New Testament? Do you think the archangel Gabriel thinks anything the less of me, because I promptly and respectfully obey that old hunks in that particular instance? Who ain't a slave? Tell me that. Well, then, however the old sea-captains may order me about -- however they may thump and punch me about, I have the satisfaction of knowing that it is all right; that everybody else is one way or other served in much the same way -- either in a physical or metaphysical point of view, that is; and so the Universal thump is passed around, and all hands should rub each other's shoulder blades, and be content.

--Herman Melville--
--Moby Dick--



Doubts of all things earthly, and intuitions of some things heavenly; this combination makes neither believer nor infidel, but makes a man who regards them both with equal eye.

--Herman Melville--
--Moby Dick--



For unless you own the whale, you are but a provincial and sentimentalist in Truth.

--Herman Melville--
--Moby Dick--

Agreed.

There are more accurate translations but none is better literature. The KJ is poetic; it is epic, and it endures. The BoM doesn't belong in the same bookstore as the KJ Bible.

I've read pretty much all different versions of the Bible thoroughly more than once and they all say the exact same things just worded a little different. I've also read the book of Mormon, doctrine and covenants, and Pearl of great Price thoroughly more than once. All the bibles are also terribly written. In 2 Samuel 24.1 the Lord tells David to number Israel and in 1 Chronicles 21.1 Satan tells David to number Israel. This kind of thing happens many times in all the bibles, book of Mormon, doctrine and covenants, and Pearl of great Price. My conclusion is Jesus Christ, Jehovah, Yahweh are all Satan. As for the Lamanites, they have always been the scapegoats for the Nephite Mormons. Always us versus them for wars to please the Christian/Mormon God. The God and Goddess I would believe in would not have us killing each other or enjoy the smell of burning flesh like it always talks about in the old testament. I'm sticking with the good angels.

example of copied from the Bible (N.T.) into Mormon scripture, but FORGOTTEN - overlooked by ChurchCo:


both the Bible (Luke 19:8) and the D&C (98:47) specify that restitution must be 4 X the value of something wrongfully taken...

who ever heard of That in a GA talk, writing?
I'm guessing NO ONE...

The only way that you can convince me that God created this mess of crap is if he is more human than we think and he is an occasional pot smoker.

He is giving Joseph word for word "on the fly" worse than I have seen in a freshman impromptu speech class. Ain't no way man! Ain't no way!

I never made it past the first chapter. It's sleep-inducing.

The Book of Mormon is
a poorly written. heavily plagiarized. 19th century work of fiction. It was written by a brilliant story teller who was aided by cronies of a like mind to enhchant and enslave gullible people.

THIS should be on the inside cover.

Better yet, on the OUTSIDE!

Yes

Considering how much is plagiarized from multiple, identifiable publications, it is, as you say, TERRIBLY written, even comically so. That recognition was the first thing that did it for me, as every time I picked up the BoM, I thought, "Wait a minute..." The very last thing I read from the BoM was in 2008 when I was asked to read a passage out loud in class. It was from Helaman (the guy whose many "sons" apparently have problems with masturbation), and about the Gadianton Robbers. I choked when reading it aloud because I thought, "Wait! This story is talking about today's Mormons!" Many of the BoM's obviously invented stories are still somehow oddly prophetic in an unintended way, condemning today's Mormon church and its members' behavior.

Keep on mind the Book of Mormon you're reading isn't the one written by Joe Smith. It's been extensively edited to try to make some sense of it.

Talk about long sentences. The original manuscript was a single sentence; the printer took it upon himself to add punctuation.

A little googling will lead you to online copies of the original version--it's a real hoot.

JS couldn't even spin a consistent narrative about the First Vision. No wonder the BoM can't withstand serious analysis as to its many extravagant, risible claims.

The Book of Mormon was wonderfully written, as a work coming out of the 1830s. Have you read books from then, I have a have an undergraduate degree in literature.

As for God writing it. Hell no.

Why don't you compare it to contemporary books? I disagree with your assessment, as did Mark Twain.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/25/2020 11:58AM by donbagley.

Hawthorne, Twain, Poe, Emerson: the BoM is nowhere near top tier for that period.

Was that degree from BYU?

Ouch!

SLAAAA BAMBAAAAAAA!!!!!

Frankenstein, Mary Shelley, 1818

Repetition is a major feature in ancient Semitic literature whether Hebrew, Arabic or whatever.

Joseph Smith got that feature right. But it does contradict the parts about saving space on the plates.

Nefi Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Repetition is a major feature in ancient Semitic
> literature whether Hebrew, Arabic or whatever.
>
> Joseph Smith got that feature right. But it does
> contradict the parts about saving space on the
> plates.

.....WHOOOOOPS!!!!!!!!

Compared to some of the trash that ends up winning major prizes nowadays, BoM is great literature.

Look at this... Written by a recent Nobel Prize winner -

Stay, lady, stay
Stay with your man awhile
Why wait any longer for the world to begin
You can have your cake and eat it too
Why wait any longer for the one you love
When he’s standing in front of you"


I wrote better stuff in high school. You want repetition? There it is.

Some of the novels that win prizes now are laughable trash.

True, but that song will get you laid way before the BoM will.

Chloroform in print -Mark Twain

I follow Mark Twain... and last I know ole' Joe follows me.

"lapsed2" wrote,

>>Chloroform in print -Mark Twain

Anyone besides me think that Ol' Clem was having fun with a bit of word play, making a subtle reference to "The Book of Ether"?

Carry on...

I could never make sense of the Book of Mormon. I attempted several times to read it after I converted 40 years ago. I couldn’t make sense of it nor concentrate on it. I left the church 6 weeks after baptism. I was young and naive but at least I had sense to leave when I did.

jojo Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I could never make sense of the Book of Mormon.

there is a reason for that !!!

> I
> attempted several times to read it after I
> converted 40 years ago. I couldn’t make sense of
> it nor concentrate on it. I left the church 6
> weeks after baptism.

Lucky you / good move

> I was young and naive but at
> least I had sense to leave when I did.

In my opinion The book of Mormon is a poorply written, heavily plagiarized, fantasy oriented, 19th century work of fiction.
So far as I can determine it has no basis either fact nor verifyable history.
The novelist that wrote it was a story telling genious completely fantasy oriented.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/25/2020 07:21PM by thedesertrat1.

I have been reading for YEARS and it is the most sorely put together, treacherous, ridiculous, and irritating (so-called) reads I've ever attempted.

I was Never Tempted to read the books of morons. Only FORCED!

If Mormonism is based on it, the book should be read back words first.

ufotofu Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I have been reading for YEARS and it is the most
> sorely put together, treacherous, ridiculous, and
> irritating (so-called) reads I've ever attempted.

It can become interesting when seen as an artifact/ manifestation of Joseph Smith's pathology or as an attempted example of literature that turned out horrendously bad

>
> I was Never Tempted to read the books of morons.
> Only FORCED!
>
> If Mormonism is based on it, the book should be
> read back words first.

....and maybe backwards too..... even though the first four chapters are a dead giveaway that Smith thinks that person can get away with anything, including gratuitous murder, by using the name of Jesus prominently enough

Interesting or not, it doesn't belong on my shelves... where ONLY Real, Interesting, Attractive books share space.

such harsh words for "a marvelous work and a wonder", a gift directly from MORmON Jesus

Only good and true words exit my finger taps, er, mind, or mouth.

P.S. There ARE NO good words for Mormon's books, theology and other hogwash.

To the express the true appeal of the book Rusty has to dare to people to read it in a year.

It has become a sort of mormon fear factor in religion.
You can either eat a bowl of worms in a minute or read this book for a year. Um I will take the worms!

You know the members don't love to read it because if they did they would just read it without needing a dare. How's that for suppressing personal honesty and encouraging self delusion?