What's so bad about the Book of Mormon?

[Ironhold]

Yea, that is a totally respectable archaeology site.

NOT.

Pretty much proving my point.

So what makes the average critical site "respectable" when it comes to issues of archaeology?

 

[Ironhold]

Even 2 Nephi 5:21 ???

And he had caused the cursing to come upon them, yea, even a sore cursing, because of their iniquity. For behold, they had hardened their hearts against him, that they had become like unto a flint; wherefore, as they were white, and exceedingly fair and delightsome, that they might not be enticing unto my people the Lord God did cause a skin of blackness to come upon them.
​

We've had this discussion several times before, during which I noted that at the time the BoM was translated "white" and "black" were synonyms for "pure" and "impure" respectively and so the words likely don't mean what you want people to think they mean.

At this point, you may as well be shouting "Inconceivable!" at the end of every post.



(points to anyone who gets the reference)

 

[Rescued One]

We've had this discussion several times before, during which I noted that at the time the BoM was translated "white" and "black" were synonyms for "pure" and "impure" respectively and so the words likely don't mean what you want people to think they mean.

At this point, you may as well be shouting "Inconceivable!" at the end of every post.
(points to anyone who gets the reference)

You are sadly mistaken. On December 6, 2013, the Mormon church officially renounced the doctrine that dark skin was a punishment from God.

"There is a reason why one man is born black and with other disadvantages, while another is born white with great advantages. The reason is that we once had an estate before we came here, and were obedient, more or less, to the laws that were given us there. Those who were faithful in all things there received greater blessings here, and those who were not faithful received less...There were no neutrals in the war in heaven. All took sides with either Christ or with Satan. Every man had his agency there, and men receive rewards here based upon their actions there...The Negro, evidently, is receiving the reward he merits."
Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, 1954,1:61,65,66

"...Behold, they had hardened their hearts against him...wherefore, as they were white, and exceeding fair and delightsome, that they might not be enticingunto my people the Lord God did cause a skin of blackness to come upon them. And thus saith the Lord God: I will cause that they shall be loathsome unto thy people, save they shall repent of their sins."
2 Nephi 5:21-22

"And the skins of the Lamanites were dark...which was a curse upon them because of their transgression against their brethren...therefore they were cursed; and the Lord God set a mark upon them. And this was done that their seed might be distinguished from the seed of their brethren, that thereby the Lord God might preservehis people..."
Alma 3:6,8

 

[Ran77]

We've had this discussion several times before, during which I noted that at the time the BoM was translated "white" and "black" were synonyms for "pure" and "impure" respectively and so the words likely don't mean what you want people to think they mean.

At this point, you may as well be shouting "Inconceivable!" at the end of every post.



(points to anyone who gets the reference)

That's a great character. Totally memorable performance.

(Princess Bride)

 

[drstevej]

We've had this discussion several times before, during which I noted that at the time the BoM was translated "white" and "black" were synonyms for "pure" and "impure" respectively and so the words likely don't mean what you want people to think they mean.

At this point, you may as well be shouting "Inconceivable!" at the end of every post.



(points to anyone who gets the reference)

So their skin was turned impure?

This is not how translation is done...

I will now give you a description of the manner in which the Book of Mormon was translated. Joseph Smith would put the seer stone into a hat, and put his face in the hat, drawing it closely around his face to exclude the light; and in the darkness the spiritual light would shine. A piece of something resembling parchment would appear, and on that appeared the writing. One character at a time would appear, and under it was the interpretation in English. Brother Joseph would read off the English to Oliver Cowdery, who was his principal scribe, and when it was written down and repeated to Brother Joseph to see if it was correct, then it would disappear, and another character with the interpretation would appear. Thus the Book of Mormon was translated by the gift and power of God, and not by any power of man.

 

[Ironhold]

This is not how translation is done...

Translation isn't an exact science; good translators know that sometimes, you just have to fudge a translation for the sake of clarity.

I've actually had situations in which I've had to watch some foreign movies twice, once in each language option (English and original language + subtitles) because various concepts and phrases didn't translate cleanly; it was basically the only option if one wanted to fully understand everything.

 

[Ironhold]

You are sadly mistaken. On December 6, 2013, the Mormon church officially renounced the doctrine that dark skin was a punishment from God.

[citation needed]

 

[TasteForTruth]

You are sadly mistaken. On December 6, 2013, the Mormon church officially renounced the doctrine that dark skin was a punishment from God.

No, the Church disavowed "the theories advanced in the past that black skin is a sign of divine disfavor or curse, or that it reflects unrighteous actions in a premortal life; that mixed-race marriages are a sin; or that blacks or people of any other race or ethnicity are inferior in any way to anyone else." Source

Theories, not doctrine. Get it straight.

 

[Ironhold]

Get it straight.

You mean a critic of the church actually doing independent research and proper fact-checking?

 

[TasteForTruth]

You mean a critic of the church actually doing independent research and proper fact-checking?

No doubt there is research and fact-finding. Why the word "doctrine" slips in where it was "theories" is beyond me. Seems that the wrong thing got quoted...oops?

 

[EarlyChristianresearcher]

So Isaiah wrote in King James English? As well as all the Nephite recorders? Please. We are not that stupid. And if you read the NT, the places where OT writings were cited, most of them were altered to show how what was happening with Christ was a direct fulfillment of them. So point not well taken.



I understand what the purpose of the BoM is (having been RLDS for 40 years of my life), and I have no problem with the concept that it is a record of a remnant of God's chosen people. It is how it was brought about, the claims and failings of Joseph Smith, as well as the purported claims from him about what God said to him that I don't believe. I have no doubt that the first vision did not happen, nor do I believe that God changes his mind the way he would have had to have done in order for those claims of JS to be true.




So, I'm scratching my head here. What does this have to do with why I need someone to stand between me and Christ when God rent the veil in the Temple in Jerusalem when Christ died, signifying we don't need someone to stand in for us anymore?

Gregory of Nyssa, c. 335 – c. 395, "wrote in King James English? As well as all the early Christians recorders? Please. We are not that stupid." Yes, your same rejection could be used against translations of the early Christian writers, whom, for some reason, were translated into King James English.

Gregory of Nyssa, On The Baptism of Jesus: "For Thou verily, O Lord, art the pure and eternal fount of goodness, Who didst justly turn away from us, and in loving kindness didst have mercy upon us. Thou didst hate, and wert reconciled; Thou didst curse, and didst bless; Thou didst banish us from Paradise, and didst recall us; Thou didst strip off the fig-tree leaves, an unseemly covering, and put upon us a costly garment; Thou didst open the prison, and didst release the condemned; Thou didst sprinkle us with clean water, and cleanse us from our filthiness. No longer shall Adam be confounded when called by Thee, nor hide himself, convicted by his conscience, cowering in the thicket of Paradise. Nor shall the flaming sword encircle Paradise around, and make the entrance inaccessible to those that draw near; but all is turned to joy for us that were the heirs of sin: Paradise, yea, heaven itself may be trodden by man: and the creation, in the world and above the world, that once was at variance with itself, is knit together in friendship: and we men are made to join in the angels’ song, offering the worship of their praise to God. For all these things then let us sing to God that hymn of joy, which lips touched by the Spirit long ago sang loudly: “Let my soul be joyful in the Lord: for He hath clothed me with a garment of salvation, and hath put upon me a robe of gladness: as on a bridegroom He hath set a mitre upon me, and as a bride hath He adorned me with fair array21602160 Is. lxi. 10 (not exactly from LXX.)..” And verily the Adorner of the bride is Christ, Who is, and was, and shall be, blessed now and for evermore. Amen."
(In addition to the King James language in the translation here, you might also note the temple type mysteries. For the early Christians were a mystery religion, which even they themselves admit & the early anti-Christians mocked them for their temple type mysteries).

You Said: "What does this have to do with why I need someone to stand between me and Christ when God rent the veil in the Temple in Jerusalem when Christ died, signifying we don't need someone to stand in for us anymore..."

Response: Joseph Smith restored the early Christian mysteries, the RLDS, did away with them, although I understand they do have a temple, but don't know what to do with it, except for a few things. But not like what we find in historic biblical Christianity that had their own mysteries, or temple type rituals, including veils. Their mysteries was a journey of the soul, and Christ is there to greet those who enter into paradise, by different types of hand & wrist grasping. So Christ is the one standing in as the one who greets those on the ritualistic type of realm journeys of the soul through different realms of existence.

You brought up God can't change his mind. Hmmm, that was also an early anti-Christian issue against early Christians, about God can't make up his mind, changes his mind, changes different things. How would you answer the early anti-Christians?

A. S. Garretson, Primitive Christianity And Early Criticism, (Boston: Sherman, French & Company, 1912).

R. Joseph Hoffmann, (translator) Celsus On The True Doctrine, (A Discourse Against the early Christians), (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987).

Robert Louis Wilken, The Christians As The Romans Saw Them, (Yale University Press; New Haven and London, 1984).

 

[EarlyChristianresearcher]

You are sadly mistaken. On December 6, 2013, the Mormon church officially renounced the doctrine that dark skin was a punishment from God.

"There is a reason why one man is born black and with other disadvantages, while another is born white with great advantages. The reason is that we once had an estate before we came here, and were obedient, more or less, to the laws that were given us there. Those who were faithful in all things there received greater blessings here, and those who were not faithful received less...There were no neutrals in the war in heaven. All took sides with either Christ or with Satan. Every man had his agency there, and men receive rewards here based upon their actions there...The Negro, evidently, is receiving the reward he merits."
Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, 1954,1:61,65,66

"...Behold, they had hardened their hearts against him...wherefore, as they were white, and exceeding fair and delightsome, that they might not be enticingunto my people the Lord God did cause a skin of blackness to come upon them. And thus saith the Lord God: I will cause that they shall be loathsome unto thy people, save they shall repent of their sins."
2 Nephi 5:21-22

"And the skins of the Lamanites were dark...which was a curse upon them because of their transgression against their brethren...therefore they were cursed; and the Lord God set a mark upon them. And this was done that their seed might be distinguished from the seed of their brethren, that thereby the Lord God might preservehis people..."
Alma 3:6,8

I wonder if early Mormons, who were converts from Christian sects, during the 1800s, brought in their former Christian perspectives about blacks, & dark skins. The reason being is how Christianity is just as "guilty" of racial interpretations of some doctrines. There was even a Jewish belief that got passed down to early Christians about spirit-angels sinning in the pre-existence, (John 9:1-2). Thus, it was believed by many early to later Christians that the type of body, or conditions that someone was born into, reflected the type of life they lived during their pre-existence. Some attributed black skins to fallen angels, mixing up & literalizing color symbolism, white being a symbolical type of purity, but it wasn't actual skin color, it was symbolic. Whitesunday, for example reminded later Christians of their white baptismal robes worn. Black Sabbath was the reversal of white sunday, black being associated with demons, the devil & Satan, who is called the Lord of Darkness, The Black One. He is also depicted in early to later Christian art with black or dark skins. This got passed down to later centuries even to this day. During 553 AD at the Council of Constantinople, the Justinian the emperor, said that anyone who says that black skinned people were born that way as a result of their pre-mortal sins, should be anathmatized. Despite his efforts to rid the church of that time of this concept, it still was passed down to later generations, thus, the devil was believed to be a black man often riding an animals backwards. Thus, not only has the LDS had to rethink our own concepts, but apparently, so has historic Christianity.

Bibliography

Alice K. Turner, 1993, The History of Hell, (New York, San Diego, U.S.A.; London, England: Harcourt Brace & Company).

Carl A. Raschke, Painted Black, From Drug Killings to Heavy Metal—The Alarming True Story of How Satanism is Terrorizing our Communities, (New York, New York: Harper Paperbacks, 1990).

Colleen McDannell and Bernhard Lang, Heaven: A History, (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1988).

Henry Ansgar Kelly, The Devil at baptism: Ritual, Theology, and Drama, (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1985).

Jeffrey Burton Russell, Satan, The Early Christian Tradition, (Ithaca, London: Cornell University Press, 1981). Lucifer, The Devil In the Middle Age, (Ithaca, London: Cornell University Press, 1984). The Prince of Darkness, Radical Evil and the Power of Good in History, (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1988).

Maury Terry, The Ultimate Evil, (Garden City, New York: Dolphin Book, Doubleday and Company, 1987).

 

[drstevej]

Has Mormonism ever apologized for the racism of some of their leaders?

 

[Rescued One]

I wonder if early Mormons, who were converts from Christian sects, during the 1800s, brought in their former Christian perspectives about blacks, & dark skins. The reason being is how Christianity is just as "guilty" of racial interpretations of some doctrines.

But the Bible is completely non-racist. True Christianity comes from the Bible not the prejudices of men.

There was even a Jewish belief that got passed down to early Christians about spirit-angels sinning in the pre-existence, (John 9:1-2). Thus, it was believed by many early to later Christians that the type of body, or conditions that someone was born into, reflected the type of life they lived during their pre-existence. Some attributed black skins to fallen angels, mixing up & literalizing color symbolism, white being a symbolical type of purity, but it wasn't actual skin color, it was symbolic. Whitesunday, for example reminded later Christians of their white baptismal robes worn. Black Sabbath was the reversal of white sunday, black being associated with demons, the devil & Satan, who is called the Lord of Darkness, The Black One. He is also depicted in early to later Christian art with black or dark skins. This got passed down to later centuries even to this day.

Do you think that the misunderstandings of some and the sins of others excuses Mormonism?

Did the Book of Mormon come from a peep stone or the mind of Joseph Smith?

 

[Norah63]

“Behold, hath the Lord commanded any that they should not partake of his goodness? Behold I say unto you, Nay; but all men are privileged the one like unto the other, and none are forbidden.”—2 Nephi 26:28
Another fine scripture from the book. So glad of all the interest this thread has provided.
We learn from each other, as the truth draws close.
Hoping Songsmith will chime in again.

 

[ivanc0]

This thread starts out with different ones attempting to vilify the Book of Mormon with alleged "problems," then others claiming there is no arch. evidence, or some other alleged issues. One claim being that Laban was an "uncle." We don't get that in the Book of Mormon passages you mentioned, which is why some of us have question if you read the book of Mormon or not. Claims to geneological lines is broad & could include a lot of people, but there's no mention in the text that Laban was an uncle, which was why that issue was questioned.

As to poligamy, the Book of Mormon allows it, if God commands it to raise up a righteous seed, (Jacob 2:30), even though He knows of the problems that were created, when some took it to an extreme, like King Solomon & David did. So that's the setting for the passage often taken out of context. How that in the case with the Book of Mormon, in Jacob's time, there were men who remembered how David & Solomon had many wives, & they wanted to do the same thing out of lust. Jacob pointed out how poligamy for the wrong reasons was an abomination in the sight of God, not poligamy itself. (Jacob 2:6-35). So there's no allege contradiction as I've seen critics claim, when they put together certain passages & ignore Jacob 2:30. But poligamy problems in LDS history are like the poligamy problems in Biblical times, so its a human problem, one of weakinesses & imperfections that Christ's atonement is suppose to have covered. I had one critic tell me that God "winked" on such things for Old Testament times, but she then used a double standard against the LDS by allowing it for OT times, but not for LDS history. I think we've covered this issue, & perhaps could move on to any others now.

jacob 2
30 For if I will, saith the Lord of Hosts, raise up seed unto me, I will command my people; otherwise they shall hearken unto these things. 31 For behold, I, the Lord, have seen the sorrow, and heard the mourning of the daughters of my people in the land of Jerusalem, yea, and in all the lands of my people, because of the wickedness and abominations of their husbands.

Where it say it support polygamy in jacob 2:30, you are just getting a fallacy out of thin air, Poligamy was an abomination in the old testament and was an abomination in the time of Josep smith and Bringam young.
This is what the Book of Mormon says, and Probaby Joseph and Brigham did not read the book of mormon very often...... otherwise will have not used abominable practices as qualified in the book of Mormon.

 

[TasteForTruth]

Did the Book of Mormon come from a peep stone or the mind of Joseph Smith?

Neither.

 

[ivanc0]

But the Bible is completely non-racist. True Christianity comes from the Bible not the prejudices of men.



Do you think that the misunderstandings of some and the sins of others excuses Mormonism?

Did the Book of Mormon come from a peep stone or the mind of Joseph Smith?

The bible is racist, Paul is an exception.

 

[Ironhold]

We already explained that Jacob allows for a caveat... one you seemingly don't want to admit could have happened.

 

[smaneck]

Where it say it support polygamy in jacob 2:30, you are just getting a fallacy out of thin air, Poligamy was an abomination in the old testament and was an abomination in the time of Josep smith and Bringam young.

Excuse me. The Tanakh (which is what we call the Old Testament in the World Religions forum) calls a lot of things abominations like same-sex behavior, eating catfish, and cotton-blend clothing. Nowhere is polygamy called an abomination. It was the custom among the Hebrew people that when a woman of the elite classes was married she brought a handmaiden as part of her dowry. If she failed to produce an heir or didn't have enough children, the handmaiden served as her surrogate. When the handmaiden gave birth, it would be into the lap of the wife, making the baby thus born the legitimate offspring of both the husband and the wife. Abraham did this. Jacob did this. There were also men with multiple wives though they were usually kings, Jacob being the exception.
Polygamy is not as widespread in biblical times as it was among early Mormons, but it was definitely there and nowhere condemned in the slightest.