What have we learned from the resent 787.5 million dollar defamation settlement? The same thing we learned from the the essays by the church ten years earlier. “The veracity and value of the book of Abraham cannot be settled by scholarly debate concerning the book’s translation and historicity. The book’s status as scripture lies in the eternal truths it teaches and the powerful spirit it conveys.” In other words, truths in these organizations, or any kind of cult, are not based on factual history or scientific evidence, but what satisfies the appetite of bias emotional feelings (spirit?). It is like drug dealers posing as doctors prescribing what perpetuates the patient’s addiction rather giving medicine that cures. All in the name of prophets.
If the prophet said it, it must be true. Unless it's provably false, in which case he was speaking as a man.
The prophet was being led by the spirit when writing the Book of Abraham. He was also led by the spirit to send married men away on missions and then move in on their wives. Same spirit? Different spirit? Who knows?
The BoA and BoM are evidently tall tales spun by Joseph et al. They contain the same truths as LOTR. LOTR may resonate with you and you may feel the spirit. But here's the difference. Nobody treats Gandalf and Frodo as real historical figures or the war for Middle Earth as something that actually happened. There is no Tolkienism that demands 10% of your income.
>> “The veracity and value of the book of Abraham cannot be settled by scholarly debate concerning the book’s translation and historicity. The book’s status as scripture lies in the eternal truths it teaches and the powerful spirit it conveys.”
Then you could say that same about the Star Wars saga, or The Lord of the Rings, or Harry Potter, or any other work that conveys meaningful truths within a fictional context.