Mormon 4

1 "The thirty and fourth year passed away, and also the thirty and fifth."

6 "And thus did the thirty and eighth year pass away, and also the thirty and ninth, and forty and first, and the forty and second, yea, even until forty and nine years had passed away, and also the fifty and first, and the fifty and second; yea, and even until fifty and nine years had passed."

14 "And it came to pass that the seventy and first year passed away, and also the seventy and second year, yea, and in fine, till the seventy and ninth year had passed away; yea, even an hundred years had passed away."

22 "And it came to pass that two hundred years had passed away"

I feel so edified spiritually when I read those verses.

It is also a very good thing that they did not engrave these words on something like....uhmmmm....maybe....gold....you know....it would be difficult to write much and the authors would have needed to be very sparse with their words.

did mock and scoff. And thus it came to pass as it was fortold that some did claimeth that Joseph Smith was a liar and thus was the churcheth proveneth true.

How COULD they have known about that?!?!?!

Ha ha! That is hilarious!!

Well......you know.....uh, Reformed Egyptian was pretty compact compared to Elizabethan English.

After all, look at how many paragraphs were conveyed by one single 'caractor' when the PoGP is compared to the actual scrolls from which Joseph translated.

Too bad those grabby angels took the plates so you doubters could see for yourselves.

Just wait until you see the sealed portion- it is a highly detailed blow by blow account of grass growing.

eddie Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Mormon 4
>
> 1 "The thirty and fourth year passed away, and
> also the thirty and fifth."
>
> 6 "And thus did the thirty and eighth year pass
> away, and also the thirty and ninth, and forty and
> first, and the forty and second, yea, even until
> forty and nine years had passed away, and also the
> fifty and first, and the fifty and second; yea,
> and even until fifty and nine years had passed."
>
> 14 "And it came to pass that the seventy and first
> year passed away, and also the seventy and second
> year, yea, and in fine, till the seventy and ninth
> year had passed away; yea, even an hundred years
> had passed away."
>
> 22 "And it came to pass that two hundred years had
> passed away"

I had to look this up, it's been a while. Turns out to be from 4 Nephi 1:1 and so forth.

But, I could not agree with you more. As a fresh, goody-two-shoes newbie Morgbot, I set out to read the BOM to get to the Celestial kingdom. It started out pretty interesting, at least there was a narrative and storyline one could follow, a hero, villains, blood and death, a dangerous journey.

But as the BOM unfolded, I could not get past Mosiah. Just couldn't do it, it put me to sleep (chloroform in print indeed!). So I skipped pages, and I come to the battles, which were mildly interesting--and then this. Even as a TBM, I was embarrassed to read that part you quoted. The term "WTF" wasn't coined yet, but it's what was running through my mind.

I'm pretty sure "and it came to pass" was encoded as a single character, possibly one matching a fly speck.

If you stacked enough engraved gold plates to make the BoM, the weight of the plates would crush the engraving flat.

It's so redundant. At the time I couldn't fully figure out WHY it had to be so wordy. I had such a hard time reading it. I had to force myself to read it. And even then I had to tune it out as my eyes followed along. It couldn't hold my attention worth a darn and I didn't want to read everything twice....

It seems like I heard somewhere that if the phrase "and it came to pass" was removed, the book would actually be 28 pages shorter. Not sure where I heard it, but I believe it!