Monday, August 2, 2010

And Another Thing


So I forgot another 'fact' about the Book of Mormon that I don't like. I may be posting ones that should seem obvious, but people usually skip right over these. I could also be using plenty of other issues brought up about the legitimacy of the BoM, or any of the evidences that truly seem to support it's legitimacy. I don't really want to go through and try to take a stance on it. It is perfectly possible that the BoM is not what it says to be and I don't need to argue the evidence against and for that stance. But as for the ones I mentioned in my Religion Classes Part 1, and the one I'll post here, I just have to say something, I have to rant for a moment.

On the mission we had a reading experiment. We had to read the BoM in 59 days ... or 70? 69? Anyways, it was the number of days it took to write, er, translate the BoM. This is actually fairly common in missions, and I know of many people who do try this who are not missionaries nor ever went on missions. But my question has always been, "it didn't take Joseph Smith 2 months to translate! The process took over a year." And it did. But scholars say, and the numbers vary, that in the year or two that Joseph Smith was moving around and such he only spent about 60 days translating. So he took a day a week to translate? Took a few months off then went a week straight? I guess the Book of Lehi (lost is improper to say, it most likely was stolen) is sometimes counted into the times, given why the days change, but what is going on here?

I mean, I know a little about church history, more than half the members I'm guessing, but I am no historian. Did somebody keep track of what days they 'translated' and what days they did not? Why did it take so long?

People are like, ''J.S. could not have written this in 69 days," and of course he didn't. It was over a year in the process, he had plenty of time to work on it, if that's what happened. I haven't heard many good theories on how the BoM came about from a secular standpoint but the whole process sounds fishy. The curtain, the hat, different people coming in and out, different scribes. And then for people to just say it took 60-70 days only, some people making it sound like 2 months straight in the spring of 1829 or whatever. Misleading.

Again, certainly doesn't disprove the BoM, but why do people say this? And not 'lowly' members but Mission Presidents and Stake Presidents. Meeting some of these people, I know they are intelligent, how can they tell this to the people under them and make it sound like Joseph Smith received the plates and 59 days later, shazam!, BoM in print. Sheep I tell you, being led around.

Also, as a side note, when you read it in the 59 days it actually only takes about 30 minutes of reading a day. So, giving some extra time, and saying that reading out loud, and then writing down what is being said take longer than reading in your head, we'll say it only took about 2 hours, and that's being lenient. So it took about 120 hours to say and write it all down? But took about 69 days to do, over the course of a year? As I said, somethings just not clicking within me.

I had to come back and post this. By the way, this is the above Jesus statue burning after a lightning bolt struck it.

4 comments:

  1. why do people say this?

    LDS standards of factual accuracy are notoriously low. It's rather embarrassing.

    But, here's the point: in the Mormon worldview, facts don't matter. What matters is how you feel. This is why Moroni doesn't recommend that you take a trip to the library when assessing the BOM.

    Good luck.

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  2. Yeah, even when 'falling' out of the faith I didn't notice, but now that I'm in religion classes again, just horrible. I never realized how much the church says 'study it out, question, but don't doubt, don't ask too much, and if it feels good then it must be true, but only if it's from the Mormons."

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  3. I remember the reaction to lightning striking the "Touchdown Jesus." So funny....especially since I'd driven past it a number of times.

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