Bednar, on what is apparently a week-long "ministry" (gag) trip to the Middle East, spent Friday in Jordan.

According to one news/propaganda report, "Elder Bednar asked those in attendance to continue to study the Book of Mormon.

“The Book of Mormon is not a book of history,” he said to those in attendance. “The Book of Mormon is a book about the future.”

https://kslnewsradio.com/1958058/elder-david-a-bednar-makes-a-ministry-stop-in-jordan/

Amazing. So it's NOT "an abridgment by an ancient prophet named Mormon of the records of ancient inhabitants of the Americas"? And it's NOT "a religious record of three groups of people who migrated from the Old World to the American continents"?

So is it still "the most correct of any book on earth, and the keystone of [the Mormon] religion"?

Those lying weasels.

Here's the REAL message: They are no doubt wrong enough about many things they are saying today that they will have to re-purpose and ditch later.

He's saying all the inspiration about the things they taught in the past were wrong. I can't believe people just go along with the morphing BS religions do. It's as if they don't care about being lied to at all. The church never admits the wrongs they taught (well, maybe 200 years later). It's irritating.

church plans to sell the copyright just went down the dumper...

There's always Canada!

"Where are the gold plates?"

The dog ate my homework excuse the church gives for why the plates are missing never sat well with me even as a young child. So I'm back to where I started....if you want me to believe you are going to have to show me some golden plates written in reformed Egyptian that science and academia can confirm is an ancient record written by Jews in the Yucatan.

That picture of Bednar in the article has me thinking Bednar is trying to figure out how to get his arms around the kid and make him cry.

These are the kinds of statements where the steering wheel of the doctrine or beliefs are slooooooowly changing. I am shocked to see that statement so soon after the "not a history textbook" statement of Rusty. Maybe we will see the rollout of the non-history concept of the BoM much sooner than I would have expected. But his statement is still vague enough that it can fit into the LDS culture. Bednar needs to be asked to clarify this statement. And by that I mean cross examined style clarify.

Susan was also along for the ride. I thought that was interesting. The spirit tells me that he is really anxious to join the polygamous club that Rusty and dilly-Dallin are in. Would it be too presumptuous to assume or think he already has a second wife in waiting. I'm not implying anything Joseph Smithy is going on now. The spirit has probably told him who the next better-half will be. PLease Susan...out live that guy!!! PLease!!

cheezus Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> Susan was also along for the ride. I thought that
> was interesting. The spirit tells me that he is
> really anxious to join the polygamous club that
> Rusty and dilly-Dallin are in. Would it be too
> presumptuous to assume or think he already has a
> second wife in waiting. I'm not implying anything
> Joseph Smithy is going on now. The spirit has
> probably told him who the next better-half will
> be. PLease Susan...out live that guy!!! PLease!!

The truth is that nobody really knows what those top 15 do in secret. We barely know about the 2nd Annointings and possibly 3rd ones too! That just shows how well the top dog Mormons can successfully hide their true colors.

I wouldn't be surprised if the top were secretly sealed to multiple women (living, not deceased). They are pretty adept about concealing their criminal behavior.

It's a miracle that they can fit 15 clowns in one car.

that is a tender mercy

Maybe this is a good time to write the first presidency and apostles and all 70's asking for clarity.

"Bednar says BoM not a 'book of history', can we conclude there is no history in the Bom then and is a work of fiction?"

The goal would be to have those inquiries referred to the local stake presidents. Let the locals deal with the mess of Bednar.



Meant for this to be under the general topic of discussion and not a subset under my post... Whoops.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/26/2021 10:19AM by cheezus.

About the future?

So if the BoM is about the future I guess we can look forward to dark skin curses, cutting off of arms, chariots and horses, and never ending wars.

At least he didn't say it had the "fullness of the gospel". Have to be careful in case someone asks just where in the book that is. That would make a terrible question on Jeopardy. In fact, wouldn't it be fun to have Bednar, Oaks, and Russ competing on Jeopardy with all the categories BoM, BoA, Joseph Smith, Brigham Young and Spencer W. Kimball?

"I'll take 15 year old girls for $200, Mayim."

>> So if the BoM is about the future I guess we can look forward to dark skin curses, cutting off of arms, chariots and horses, and never ending wars.


It's almost like they favor racism and wars or something. :-/

I wonder if the missionaries still show the "Ancient America Speaks" film. It was a convincing tool they used on my family back in the 70s when we converted. The film drew parallels between the ancient peoples of central and south America and the Book of Mormon peoples. Guess they'll have to scrap that film. Maybe they already have.

Mormons should picket the church office building/Salt Lake temple with sighs that say, "You lied to us. Give us back our tithing!"

Oops. Signs not sighs

... Kinda works both ways!

So what will be the fate of the Three Nephites, those immortal peon paeans of plucky persistence. They are ordained as Disciples of ghawd, not Auto Club field reps...

Auto Club field reps! Ha ha hahaha hahahahahahah


How come nobody listed them on the hero thread? How many flat tires do they have to fix in order to make it into the Hero Hall of Fame?

heartbroken Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I wonder if the missionaries still show the
> "Ancient America Speaks" film. It was a convincing
> tool they used on my family back in the 70s when
> we converted. The film drew parallels between the
> ancient peoples of central and south America and
> the Book of Mormon peoples. Guess they'll have to
> scrap that film. Maybe they already have.
>

I was out in the 1990s selling Mormonism <wink>. Some of us tried to build up our missionary toolbox as most homes had a VCR at the time, so a bunch of us paid Salt Lake for that gunk. It was NOT approved by the then current Missionary Dept. One of my companions ratted that we would occasionally use the film Ancient America Speaks. The mission president was not happy and requested me (and others) to surrender our VHS copies.

I can't imagine facebook generation missionaries using that outdated propaganda.

When I’ve asked MORmONs this direct question,’Do you believe God cursed two entire races of people with dark skin for the sins of their fathers, like it says in Mormon Scriptures?’

They always lie by answering with one of the following b.s. cliches,

“Where the scriptures mention darkness, it is just a metaphor for being cut off from God. We don’t believe he actually cursed them with dark skin.”

Or, “Why is that important to your salvation?”

Or,”We don’t know why. We’ll find out in the next life.”

All of which denies what the scriptures actually say and all the hateful ways those racist scriptures have been interpreted by so-called ‘Prophets’ in these ‘LatterDays’

Bednar looks like a vulture or a mountain lion, ready to pounce on his helpless victim.

I was thinking Cobra but I like where you are going with this.

When I was in the horror house known as the MTC, I picked up all the BYU religion student manuals for what I naively assumed was edification. (Never a BYU student.) The BOM manual (2nd Ed, 1981) is STUFFED with photographs of Mesoamerican structures and artifacts. Literally zero doubt about the church's position on the history aspect, and who the BOM people were.

Now we have the Incredible Shrinking Lamanites. "Lamanites? Who? Umm… tiny group. Yeah, tiny tiny group. Got lost in the shuffle somewhere… Nothing to see here, move along."

I will never forget being told as a missionary, in Bolivia, early 70's, that we were working with the most pure blooded Lamanites in the western hemishpere

Approximately 2000 to 2020, "well, we really don't know who or where the Lamanites are!!!"

2021..."The BoM is not a book of history,it is a book about the future"

Does anyone have the balls to tell Holland this?

I gotta push back to this one.

Remember what the character Jacob said: his brother nephi commanded that he keep a record of his people besides the large plates of Nephi that was to be more spiritual on content and not touch, “save it were lightly” upon the things of Nephite history. That was in reference to the small plates of Nephi, a plot device that Joseph Smith came up with to get out of his 116 pages conundrum. But that’s beside the point. What the Book of Mormon really is doesn’t matter to Mormons, only what they think it is.

And they think it’s a historical book. Not a history book: it’s a spiritual book, or a book of their religious history specifically and then not even all there would have been available for Mormon to write about. But it does come to us out of history from a lost civilization like the dead speaking forth from the dust.

Bednar seems to be reiterating that the Book of Mormon was never intended to be scrutinized as a history book or contain enough points of history to triangulate where Zerahemla was. It was written for our day as a sort of blue print for how to morally prepare for the decades leading up to the earth’s baptism of fire and the lord’s triumphal return. To say that he is preparing the way to marginalize the Book of Mormon from this evidence just doesn’t follow, and tbms would laugh you out of Sunday school if they saw this.

Cold-Dodger Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I gotta push back to this one...
>
> Bednar seems to be reiterating that the Book of
> Mormon was never intended to be scrutinized as a
> history book To say that he is preparing the
> way to marginalize the Book of Mormon from this
> evidence just doesn’t follow...
>
> tbms would laugh you out of Sunday school if they saw this.

LOL. I truly could not possibly care less about TBMs "laughing me out of Sunday School." They'd have to get me in it, first.

I spent ~50 years of my life being told by "prophets, seers, and revelators" that the BoM is a "true record," that it's "the most correct book on Earth" and other such nonsense. For one of those men to now lead with "“The Book of Mormon is not a book of history” is a bold concession.

Unless he was trying to establish something, why would he even go into what it's not? Why not lead with “The Book of Mormon is a book about the future”? Why bother with asserting that it's not a book of history?

It is becoming abundantly clear to anyone that the BoM fails as a historical record, and the senior leaders of LDS, Inc. know that. They are being forced to walk away from prophets' comments like "Yes, it is indeed a true record, preserved by the hand of God to come forth in these latter days."

This is very much another "I don’t know that we teach it. I don’t know that we emphasize it" moment.

Me too. My whole life from every pulpit I was told the BoM was the *true history* of Lehi and his descendants who lived in America before and after Christ. And the Native Americans were for absolutely sure the Lamanites. And the temples in Central America were the remains of that great Nephite civilization. And SWK was affirming that the Lamanites were turning white. Because they were righteous. Not because they had been in school for the winter.

Now, we don't get to become gods and get our own planets. The priesthood ban for the Blacks was just a misunderstanding. The BoA is just a spiritual rambling and not the translation Joseph claimed.

So now that the BoM isn't history, what is left to deny and change? Are they about done yet?

hmmmmmm...why don't they all talk about this shit in general conference?

dwindler Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> hmmmmmm...why don't they all talk about this shit
> in general conference?

I don't have the time or the stomach, but I don't think any apostle has delivered a The BoM is wonderful, most correct book type of talk since the early 2000s~ maybe as late as 2005.

Sure, they cherry pick certain scriptures here and there but they haven't been promoting the BoM as authentic history/writings for nearly two decades.

The internet has blown holes in every attempt to prop the BoM as ancient history.

I’m only reporting an apologetic tactic that was used on me since I was a boy. Just because Bednar seems to be distancing himself from the historicity of the Book of Mormon doesn’t mean it was received as such. It’s an explanation about how the Book of Mormon cannot be substantiated and yet may be a historical book if you choose to believe, but that’s not important because it was meant primarily as a revelation for our time. The logic does something like that.

Problem is, it is a history book, at least to the extent that when it talks about horses and chariots, then you would expect to find somewhere in the Americas, evidence of horses and chariots.

Chariots are rather difficult to make. you would expect tools and spare parts lying around. Horses need feed and water, perhaps stables, and leave large skeletons, not to mention horse poop. You think there would be some evidence of that.

Claiming it is not a history book is an attempt to disarm questions about horses and chariots and "yellow submarines" that all those Jaredites lived on for a year. It is about as convincing as "ignore that man behind the curtain."

Pathetic.

Wars with steel swords and horses and chariots and millions of warriors and yet the only fossils we can find that have anything to do with Mormonism are in tall buildings in Salt Lake City.

If it's not a history book, what's with all the "and it came to pass" phrases written in just about every chapter of the Book of Mormon? Doesn't "and it came to pass" mean that something happened? Isn't that history? Didn't Joseph Smith write it 1,404 times in the BoM so that people reading it would think events actually happened? If you read every few paragraphs that "it came to pass" your brain thinks something actually happened. Just another brainwashing technique that worked for a while. Now the leaders are telling the sheep that events in the BoM didn't really come to pass.

one wonders what kind of 'thinking' has led to this Retrenchment.

O to be a fly on the wall of their meetings...


the curtain ala Wizard of Oz is both becoming transparent & opening;

the main question seems to be how will the GAs read 'customer' (member, donors) reaction - acceptance of this new path?

If they can't put this train on the right track, things are looking very bleak for them.

Bednar is doing what I suggested he do, and I said it to the rest of the High 15: you better prepare the Members to stop thinking of the BOM of history, but rather as a "prophetic parable about the future" written by J.S., or prepare for a mass-exodus.

Actually, this shouldn't have been any surprise!

After they diluted the TR requirement for Honesty (now diminished to 'strive to be honest') this Lowering the Bar was foreseeable.

Oh well, there goes all the past testimony of the BOM based on what what former prophets said....



http://indiemormon.com/quotes/all-or-nothing/

Very interesting. A few thoughts:

1) By making this statement abroad, could Bednar be test-marketing the "New! Improved!" product elsewhere before the primary marketing campaign in the US?

1-A) Maybe the new packaging should align with, "Bright New Look! Same Old Stuff!" When I see that kind of hype on a package, it usually means they've down-sized the product. Now our betters are telling us to "lower our expectations" and "consume less." I guess tCoJCoLdS has gotten the message.

2) The Middle East is where a lot -- most, actually -- end-time scenarios take place. As a Christian, I'm embarrassed by these speculations, especially when prognosticators provide specific dates. But there is this appeal to a certain Christian element. Could this be part of a larger agenda to "mainstream" LDS into Evangelical Christianity?

Pretty soon there's going to be more wax than turd . . .

It’s smart to test the waters before you jump right in. Because both Bednar’s and Nelson’s both said the Book of Mormon isn’t a history book you can see there is coordination. Let’s say this more and gauge how the members react. If they are ok with it let’s be more bold in changing things and denying what past leaders said.

> “The Book of Mormon is not a book of history,”
> he said to those in attendance. “The Book of
> Mormon is a book about the future.”

That's an unfortunate stance. It's generally easier to predict the past than the future, and if the church failed in the former respect. . .

I hope they don't dump Johnny Lingo...

They will come out with a gay version of Johnny Lingo. Johnny goes on the quest for a ten cow man.

U made my day!!!

Smiles, Rubiwhatever!!!!!

HA HA. Maybe. But they still won't let them in the Temple.

Norwegian is Ja Ja;

vennligst konform, tusen takk!

Easier, if only ya just blame it all on The Book Of Mormomo-ism..

The Book Of Mormon play..
Thank Gawd, for the nationwide Broadway extravaganza!

It might be interesting to see his whole talk. I wonder what question he thinks he is answering? You know that aposthole says you have to not answer the question you are asked, but answer what should have been asked.

I gotta think like a weasel to understand these guys.

More Jedi mind tricks. This isn’t the history you are looking for.

I don't think it's a coincidence that they did away with all the Book of Mormon pageants etc. They are restoring the "Hill" and grounds (probably because they will draw less attention and require fewer difficult explanations).

They are even walking away from the very word "Mormon"!

I've heard that The Temple ground Information Center material is also being "reconsidered".

Soon the Broadway Musical will no longer make sense.

I can only imagine what my convert mom's reaction would have been to all this faith destroying news from Rusty and Bedknob about her beloved BofM. She read it fervently when the ward mishies were teaching her the GAWZPELL.....and believed every word I'm sure.

There is plenty to dislike about the internet but ya gotta love that it may be the single most important factor in seriously wounding the church. Wonder what it'll look like in 15 years when most of the current 15 will be taking the dirt nap. Hope I'm still around to witness it.

Lethbridge Reprobate Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> There is plenty to dislike about the internet but
> ya gotta love that it may be the single most
> important factor in seriously wounding the church.

+1

“The Book of Mormon is not a book of history,” he said to those in attendance. “The Book of Mormon is a book about the future.”

Do they really think a large group of American's will fall for such an absurd lie?

It's pretty obvious a large group of Americans WILL fall for big lies. If the church just keeps repeating it over and over, eventually it becomes the truth narrative- the only one believers will accept. Humans are very good at manipulating others.

You remind me all the time of what a lot of elders used to say on my mission when we were taken to task and our fairy tale was being rejected because it had no evidence, foundation, or even made sense. They would say smugly, "Well, when we get to the after life you are going to be very surprised."

In the end, it wasn't about conversions, it was about maintaining face and ego.

dagny Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> It's pretty obvious a large group of Americans
> WILL fall for big lies.

A significant number of gullible MOR(m)ONS will fall for big lies..... like the ones who already have. LDS Inc is counting on it!!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5eqps2O7s8

however most people are way too smarts to buy into MORmONISM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rOPRdjrlJE

You know, all those exaggerated muscles, Jesus in America, Lehi with the crystal ball and so forth. Laughable.
It also has "white and delightsome".

It's fun to heft, from time to time, "another witness of Christ"... Although I rather think of it as "a witness of another Christ".

B.H. Roberts was a high-ranked CoJCoLdS official in the early 20th Century, and did research into the origins of the BoM. In 1922, according to this Master of Arts in History thesis (U.Nev/Reno, 2019), Roberts circulated a few scholarly papers on the "problematic" origins of the BoM, and held meetings with " a select group of highly educated Mormon men and women outside of church hierarchy."

I've just started reading this thesis, which doesn't cover the Roberts papers themselves (published 1985, "Studies Of the Book of Mormon"), but focuses on the "dozens of people knew about the information contained in Roberts’s studies and that even when hidden and unaddressed, they had a large impact on
Mormon culture and belief."

The matter boils down to: You can lead a horse to knowledge, but there's no telling whether he'll believe it."

https://scholarworks.unr.edu/bitstream/handle/11714/6712/Montez_unr_0139M_13054.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

The BH Roberts book is excellent. So too is the introductory essay by Sterling McMurrin, who was a non-believing expert on Mormon theology who was protected by David O. McKay.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQ1uIgbI2QY&;