If I could ask them one question . . . Come Follow Me, Week 3

[annotatedbom]

Come Follow Me, week 3, Jan. 13-19, 1 Ne 8-10
And, Annotated BoM starting at 1 Nephi 8

If I wanted to encourage thought and try to understand devout believers better, I might ask:

"Why do you think Lehi's vision of the tree of life is so similar to the vision Joseph Smith Sr. had apparently 19 years prior to the Book of Mormon publishing"? (This LDS Living Article)

Things to consider:

• Principle of parsimony and Occam's razor: TL;DR - the least complex hypothesis with the fewest assumptions required is the most reasonable conclusion. Applied to Lehi's vision, if one does not presume the Book of Mormon is what it claims, what would be a rational conclusion about the source for Lehi's dream?
• Burden of proof: Book of Mormon claims of veracity are extraordinary (to say the least). Those who doubt Book of Mormon claims do not have a burden of proof to prove it is false. Merely suggesting more plausible conclusions is enough to satisfy the burden of the doubter, assuming they even care and want to be rational about it.
• Mormon apologist Terryl Givens admits "Smith’s prophetic vocation included inspired borrowings" (Epilogue to book, "Standing Apart").
• BYU researchers also admit to such borrowing in the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible: "The number of direct parallels between Smith’s translation and Adam Clarke’s biblical commentary are simply too numerous and explicit to posit happenstance or coincidental overlap. The parallels between the two texts number into the hundreds" ("A Recently Discovered Source").

Tangent:
Anybody try the New Tree of Life Augmented Reality App and have some feedback to pass on?

If you could ask believers questions about this week's Come Follow Me lesson, what would you ask?

Have fun studying!
Annotated Book of Mormon

Previous Weeks
Week 1
Week 2

[Hagoth]

Try this one on:

The JST translation of Genesis makes it clear that the "choice seer" that will be raised up in the in the latter days would be Joseph, son of Joseph, who is descended from Jacob's son Joseph. Both Smiths are obviously part of a long line of prophetic foreordained visionaries. It stands to reason that as part of that lineage Joseph Sr. would have occasional visionary glimpses of truths that would later be revealed in full to his son. This is more or less in line with Bushman's explanation of the Smiths practicing occult folk magic. It's all in preparation for the full reveal that would come later when the Lord finally pulled the cork on Joseph Jr's prophetic gift.

[deacon blues]

I pointed this out in another thread, but 1st Nephi 11:25, and 12:16 seem kind of confused.

1st Nephi 11:25 speaks about a fountain of living water: "And it came to pass that I beheld that the rod of iron, which my father had seen, was the word of God, which led to the fountain of living waters, or to the tree of life; which waters are a representation of the love of God."

1st Nephi 12:16 Speaks of a fountain of filthy water. "And the angel spake unto me saying: Behold the fountain of filthy water which thy father saw; yea even the river of which he spake; and the depths thereof are the depths of hell.

Which is it, or, are there two fountains. Or, did Joseph forget which it was and mix up his images. This seems a little confused, or is it just me?

[annotatedbom]

Try this one on:

The JST translation of Genesis makes it clear that the "choice seer" that will be raised up in the in the latter days would be Joseph, son of Joseph, who is descended from Jacob's son Joseph. Both Smiths are obviously part of a long line of prophetic foreordained visionaries. It stands to reason that as part of that lineage Joseph Sr. would have occasional visionary glimpses of truths that would later be revealed in full to his son. This is more or less in line with Bushman's explanation of the Smiths practicing occult folk magic. It's all in preparation for the full reveal that would come later when the Lord finally pulled the cork on Joseph Jr's prophetic gift.

These kind of defenses kinda tickle me. In the first case, I’d love to see the DNA evidence showing the Joseph’s descended from Joseph if the Bible, let alone a documented pedigree of the assertion. Such an argument requires presupposition of Joseph’s claims to mean anything the way I see it.

But, even more awkward is the argument that God prepares a person to be profit, $eer, and revamalator by having them practice with superstitious dabbling in the occult. I think it hurts their case by showing the difficulty in distinguishing between religion and superstition.

I can see how it would help some faithful feel better, but I’m not sure how I would have felt about this argument as a devout believer.

[annotatedbom]

I pointed this out in another thread, but 1st Nephi 11:25, and 12:16 seem kind of confused.

1st Nephi 11:25 speaks about a fountain of living water: "And it came to pass that I beheld that the rod of iron, which my father had seen, was the word of God, which led to the fountain of living waters, or to the tree of life; which waters are a representation of the love of God."

1st Nephi 12:16 Speaks of a fountain of filthy water. "And the angel spake unto me saying: Behold the fountain of filthy water which thy father saw; yea even the river of which he spake; and the depths thereof are the depths of hell.

Which is it, or, are there two fountains. Or, did Joseph forget which it was and mix up his images. This seems a little confused, or is it just me?

That's an interesting question. This could be a problem if we could pin down that the fountains mentioned were one and the same. It would seem contradictory. I did a cursory reading of the two chapters and the account of Lehi's dream, and I didn't find anything I would say definitively states they are one and the same fountain. Outside of that, maybe if a prophet taught that the fountains were one in the same, we could call out the contradiction, but I doubt they'd do that. I think the apparent contradiction would be obvious to even them if they said they were one fountain.

But, I could be wrong. I didn't read the chapters thoroughly, and I haven't compared/contrasted the Church's teachings about the two fountains.

What did others say about your thoughts on this?

[slavereeno]

Have fun studying!
Annotated Book of Mormon

Just want to let you know I am enjoying the annotated BoM site. Especially the captcha asking to identify which animal is not a real horse.

[annotatedbom]

Just want to let you know I am enjoying the annotated BoM site. Especially the captcha asking to identify which animal is not a real horse.

Thank you!

And, if you like the captcha, try going to a file on the site with a file name that's not there, like https://a-bom.github.io/thechurchistrue.html

I wish I could claim I came up with the idea for the 404 error page, but I saw something like it months or years ago. I can't remember where.

[Hagoth]

But, even more awkward is the argument that God prepares a person to be profit, $eer, and revamalator by having them practice with superstitious dabbling in the occult. I think it hurts their case by showing the difficulty in distinguishing between religion and superstition.

It also raises the question about why priesthood authority was associated with genetic lineage in the early church, but that is no longer talked about. We have patriarchs but we forget that the patriarchy was originally meant to be a line of inherited priesthood like the levitical, which could not be transmitted by the laying on of hands. That's why Joseph Sr. was the first patriarch.

[annotatedbom]

It also raises the question about why priesthood authority was associated with genetic lineage in the early church, but that is no longer talked about. We have patriarchs but we forget that the patriarchy was originally meant to be a line of inherited priesthood like the levitical, which could not be transmitted by the laying on of hands. That's why Joseph Sr. was the first patriarch.

Oh, great point! Do I remember correctly that one succession claim for Prophet after Joseph was based on the assertion that Joseph said his son would be the next prophet?

[Hagoth]

Oh, great point! Do I remember correctly that one succession claim for Prophet after Joseph was based on the assertion that Joseph said his son would be the next prophet?

Yes, that's why Brigham would not call himself a prophet (at least early on - I'm not sure whether he eventually adopted the title or whether it was foisted upon him) and why he tried so hard to get Joseph III to come to Utah. Yet another indication that the restored church ended with Joseph's death and a new church started with Brigham's coup.