There I was, reading my morning paper, when I was confronted with this gem:

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/56734589-78/mormon-book-church-course.html.csp

So which edition will they study? It should be the 1830 mess--otherwise it ain't authentic in my estimation.

19th-Century-trashy-fiction-as-literature-my-ass-ly yrs,

S

Probably for the Qu'ran and other documents.

Me, I consider them of the same level as Twilight -- the product of people trying to strengthen their personal fantasies.

This is something I have kind of been paying attention to and thinking about as I am re-reading the BoM for the first time as an Ex-mo. So even despite all the historical issues and falsities, it doesn't even make for half-decent literature. The narrative is weird, confusing, and full of plot holes. The characters are generally unlikable, not very well developed and their motives are totally fickle and crappy. "I Nephi, being born of goodly parents, got my ass kicked by my brothers for the 20th time today 'cause they are big meanie heads."


The morals, lessons, philosophies, theology for the most part are not very well thought out and are almost always nonsensical or totally illogical. Some key examples,

1.) It is totally OK to just kill a drunk guy in the street for no apparent reason because God said so.

2.)Righteousness or worthiness is directly related to the color of one's skin

3.)IF there is no evil, then there is no such thing as good.

4.) Nephi essentially tells his brothers at one point "If you have faith, and accept these things to be true, then you will develop faith and believe these things to be true!" The most blatant circular reasoning ever, and reasoning that the church continues to use to this day. "If you just force yourself to have faith and believe this is true despite having doubts, then you will find that you have faith and believe this is true!"

5.)God first explains that as long as Nephi's seed remains faithful and righteous, they will dwell and prosper in the promised land, it will be THEIR promised land, etc. He then turns around not too long after and explains to Nephi that he was just kidding, that the bad guys actually win in the end and kill all of the good guys despite the good guys remaining good and doing what they were supposed to. And then the bad guys DO WIN! Not exactly a good way to teach that obedience to God pays off in the long run, when clearly it doesn't pay off in the long-run.

It just plain sucks, and it is really hard to read because it is just so uninteresting and bad. At least that has been my opinion thus far.

The book needed serious editing.

It is wordy, verbose and repetitive. See examples at http://packham.n4m.org/linguist.htm#ENGRAVED

It is full of internal corrections, what I call "editing on the fly". See examples at http://packham.n4m.org/inotherwords.htm

...but, but it's the "most perfect"!

BLECH!

If it is a product of Western Americana, it is well worth to study.
As long as it is not a religious class.