Canonized Stupidity

[græy]

This is a great thread Hagoth! As for stupidity...

Jacob 4:1 (I'm sure there are other places that say this same thing.)

I cannot write but a little of my words, because of the difficulty of engraving our words upon plates

Followed by fully 2.5% of the book being the useless phrase: "it came to pass"

Not to mention things like this:

4 Nephi 1:6

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 away.

and

Mosiah 18:30

And now it came to pass that all this was done in Mormon, yea, by the waters of Mormon, in the forest that was near the waters of Mormon; yea, the place of Mormon, the waters of Mormon, the forest of Mormon, how beautiful are they to the eyes of them who there came to the knowledge of their Redeemer; yea, and how blessed are they, for they shall sing to his praise forever.

and many many more. So much wasted space and effort writing needlessly wrong sentences, many of which say nothing at all.

[græy]

-wooden submarines filled with elephants and elephant poop for a year, and enough food to produce all of that elephant poop.

Playing apologist's advocate here... I don't remember elephants being mentioned in the barges. Herds, yes. But I thought elephants were only mentioned after they arrived in the UNINHABITED promised land.

[græy]

* Except... "The book" actually says that they put doors in both the top and bottom of the dish-barges, because after being "tossed about" they wouldn't know which way was up, and they would have to open the doors to see which would let in air or water.

Yeah: Jaradite barges are one of the first shelf items my fluffy brain can recall.

Again, apologist's advocate mode: I think the text only states the top/bottom holes were for getting air. Or am I mis-remembering something about them not knowing that gravity works on the ocean?

[græy]

D&C 7 - Joseph has an argument with Oliver about whether John "tarried" or died. He wins the argument by looking at the seer stone, seeing a parchment with John's handwriting on it, and the parchment answers the question in Joseph's favor, bing bang boom - Joseph is right.

This one is great! D&C 7 was received in April 1829 and literally states that John would live until Christ would "come again in my glory."

2 And I said unto him: Lord, give unto me power over death, that I may live and bring souls unto thee.

3 And the Lord said unto me: Verily, verily, I say unto thee, because thou desirest this thou shalt tarry until I come in my glory, and shalt prophesy before nations, kindreds, tongues and people.

I may be wrong, but "in my glory" seems to indicate the real 2nd coming where the millenium starts, after the world is swallowed up in plagues, war, famine, and is burned. That clearly had not happened yet in April 1829.

HOWEVER, just one month later, in May 1829, John appeared as a resurrected being to give JS the melchizedek priesthood.

So John - who was supposed to be nearly immortal, not dead, totally waiting for JC to return, and continuously preaching before nations, kindreds, tongues and people - was apparently doing none of those things and simply chilling as a resurrected being in heaven the whole time.

Or - another explanation - by 1835 when JS was hastily making sh*t up about the priesthoods, he had completely forgotten about D&C 7 because it was a one-off thing he dictated in the spur of the moment to win an argument with Oliver.

[moksha]

-wooden submarines filled with elephants and elephant poop for a year, and enough food to produce all of that elephant poop.

Playing apologist's advocate here... I don't remember elephants being mentioned in the barges. Herds, yes. But I thought elephants were only mentioned after they arrived in the UNINHABITED promised land.

Well, that was an oversight. The modern elephant never made it to the Americas. Something to do with not wanting to climb the Himalayas and forage for food in the tundra.

[wtfluff]

* Except... "The book" actually says that they put doors in both the top and bottom of the dish-barges, because after being "tossed about" they wouldn't know which way was up, and they would have to open the doors to see which would let in air or water.

Yeah: Jaradite barges are one of the first shelf items my fluffy brain can recall.

Again, apologist's advocate mode: I think the text only states the top/bottom holes were for getting air. Or am I mis-remembering something about them not knowing that gravity works on the ocean?

Yes... "Not knowing which way was up" is my anti-apologist interpretation. Either that, or I heard it explained that way who knows how many times in Sunday School, Seminary, Institute, parents "teaching" me... It doesn't seem that I'm alone in that belief, so it seems that teaching is probably in a manual somewhere, or it's just part of the greater MORmON culture.

And the Lord said unto the brother of Jared: Behold, thou shalt make a hole in the top, and also in the bottom; and when thou shalt suffer for air thou shalt unstop the hole and receive air. And if it be so that the water come in upon thee, behold, ye shall stop the hole, that ye may not perish in the flood.

I was also wrong about doors top and bottom - it was just "holes." which I suspected, but I WASN'T GOING TO ACTUALLY GO READ IT... Now you've forced my hand, and I've done my BoM study for... Hopefully the rest of my life.



While we're talking about canonized stupidity, we should probably mention all the anachronisms in the BoM, one if which I was reminded of in my "studies" just now:

And the Lord said unto the brother of Jared: What will ye that I should do that ye may have light in your vessels? For behold, ye cannot have windows, for they will be dashed in pieces; neither shall ye take fire with you, for ye shall not go by the light of fire.

The Jaredites supposedly "sailed the ocean blue" after the tower of Babel, which "happened" ~2500 B.C.E. Glass windows didn't arrive until the Romans invented them around 100 C.E. Missed it by "that much."

You know what is also hilarious about that "window" verse? The word window is footnoted to Genesis 6:16, where God tells Noah to put a window in the Ark. I'm afraid Noah wouldn't have know what a glass window was either. (DING!) Noah: "What's a window?" (We'll see how many old folks understand that reference.)

And before you apologists jump all over Noah's window, and say it didn't have to be made of glass; You're correct, it could have just been an opening in the wall. It just struck me as funny that the MORmONs used Noah's "window" to justify the non-existence of windows in the Jaredite submarines. Besides, Neither Noah, nor Jared (nor his brother) ever existed. (ZING!)

[Corsair]

HOWEVER, just one month later, in May 1829, John appeared as a resurrected being to give JS the melchizedek priesthood.

So John - who was supposed to be nearly immortal, not dead, totally waiting for JC to return, and continuously preaching before nations, kindreds, tongues and people - was apparently doing none of those things and simply chilling as a resurrected being in heaven the whole time.

My McConkie-believing seminary teacher apparently notice this discrepancy. He made it clear that John was translated and not resurrected. He would have loved the modern FairMormon explanations.

[græy]

And the Lord said unto the brother of Jared: Behold, thou shalt make a hole in the top, and also in the bottom; and when thou shalt suffer for air thou shalt unstop the hole and receive air. And if it be so that the water come in upon thee, behold, ye shall stop the hole, that ye may not perish in the flood.

I was also wrong about doors top and bottom - it was just "holes." which I suspected, but I WASN'T GOING TO ACTUALLY GO READ IT... Now you've forced my hand, and I've done my BoM study for... Hopefully the rest of my life.

LOL, I'm sorry I forced that upon you! I too felt a wave of nausea as I opened an incognito tab and looked up the ether chapters on lds.org.

HOWEVER, just one month later, in May 1829, John appeared as a resurrected being to give JS the melchizedek priesthood.

So John - who was supposed to be nearly immortal, not dead, totally waiting for JC to return, and continuously preaching before nations, kindreds, tongues and people - was apparently doing none of those things and simply chilling as a resurrected being in heaven the whole time.

My McConkie-believing seminary teacher apparently notice this discrepancy. He made it clear that John was translated and not resurrected. He would have loved the modern FairMormon explanations.

Even if he was translated, it doesn't sound like he was fulfilling his wish or mandate to "tarry until I [Christ] come in my glory, and shalt prophesy before nations, kindreds, tongues and people." Did he just change his mind and give up? If so, that gives me hope as an EQP that I can do the same thing and still be on the up and up.

[Hagoth]

-wooden submarines filled with elephants and elephant poop for a year, and enough food to produce all of that elephant poop.

Playing apologist's advocate here... I don't remember elephants being mentioned in the barges. Herds, yes. But I thought elephants were only mentioned after they arrived in the UNINHABITED promised land.

Here's how I see it. Joseph created the BoM, among other reasons, to come out on top with answers the big questions that were plaguing Bible scholars who were trying to make sense of the anomalous American continents that were overlooked by Bible authors. Who are the Native Americans? Are they children of Noah? Of Adam? Who built the American mounds and pyramids?

By the time he got to Ether Joseph realized he had overlooked one of the really big ones - how did the Americas get repopulated with plants and animals after the flood, since they couldn't credit it to Noah. Joseph's solution was to provide another version of Noah's ark for the New World. I think this is obvious by the fact that they even carried insects, barrels of fresh-water fish and seeds of every kind.

That means elephants, cureloms and cumims would also be included. But, even if you could explain a way for elephants to get here on their own, Ether tells us that the Jaredites they had flocks and fowls, which means they also had all of the necessary food and water, and would have been knee-deep in the inevitable byproduct. There is no mention of them ever opening the doors to shovel out the poop. Hard to do when mountainous waves are crashing over you.

Another thing. There is a long history of disabled vessels floating from Asia to North America in the ocean current in less than a year, so the tight-like-a-dish boats and hurricane winds of the Jaredites would have been totally unnecessary to make the journey in the Jaredites' timeline. In fact, they could have easily added sail and/or oars and made it much quicker, and they could have fished along the way and captured rain water, and enjoyed the sunlight rather than relying on creepy glowing rocks.

[deacon blues]

Elisha being mocked and 2 she-bears eating a bunch of little children (2nd Kings 2:23-24) created a stir in my HS seminary class. I remember seminary teachers used a lot of B. S. to try to justify that. In situations like that LDS sometimes had to rely on conservative Christian Apologetics for help with the answer.

[moksha]

In situations like that LDS sometimes had to rely on conservative Christian Apologetics for help with the answer.

"If you making fun of a prophet's bald head, you are fully justified in murdering children". When you can justify something like that, you can lie about a myriad of topics.

[Linked]

Mosiah 29:13: ...it would be expedient that ye should always have kings to rule over you.

Did that come from his Twitter feed?

He didn't post anything from the Book of Mormon, but he said "Democracy isn’t the objective; liberty, peace, and prospefity are. We want the human condition to flourish. Rank democracy can thwart that" on Twitter. But that comment and the responses reminded me of Mosiah's speech that a god-fearing king is the best government, but democracy is number 2.

[Reuben]

Mosiah 29:13: ...it would be expedient that ye should always have kings to rule over you.

Did that come from his Twitter feed?

He didn't post anything from the Book of Mormon, but he said "Democracy isn’t the objective; liberty, peace, and prospefity are. We want the human condition to flourish. Rank democracy can thwart that" on Twitter. But that comment and the responses reminded me of Mosiah's speech that a god-fearing king is the best government, but democracy is number 2.

I think it would be lower. Reign of the judges was #2.

I was going to respond about Lee, but I think I'll move it to the Coffee Shop.

[Hagoth]

One of my favorite types of canonized stupidity are what I call the Book of Mormon's "oops" moments. These are when Joseph realized he had said something stupid and then, since he was dictating and couldn't go back and edit, said something else stupid to try to patch it up:

Mosiah 16:6 And now if Christ had not come into the world (oops!), speaking of things to come as though they had already come (whew!), there could have been no redemption.

Helaman 12: 15 And thus, according to his word the earth goeth back, and it appeareth unto man that the sun standeth still (oops!); yea, and behold, this is so; for surely it is the earth that moveth and not the sun. (whew!)

Mosiah 7:8 And it came to pass when they had been in prison two days they were again brought before the king, and their bands were loosed; and they stood before the king, and were permitted (oops!), or rather commanded (whew!), that they should answer the questions which he should ask them.

Alma 24:19... and thus we see that they buried their weapons of peace (oops!), or they buried the weapons of war, for peace (whew!).

Alma 43:38 ... they being shielded from the more vital parts of the body (oops!) , or the more vital parts of the body being shielded from the strokes of the Lamanites (whew!)...

I just thought of another one, but I can't remember where it is. The author seems unsure about something from the Biblical timeline, then at the beginning of the next chapter he clarifies it and reassures us that he knew it all along. Does that sound familiar?