NOM

Thought I would pose this thought to NOM since there are some pretty smart folks here, and people who enjoy actually reading primary source material themselves, which I do not enjoy doing

It seems to me that Joseph Smith didn't teach much from the Book of Mormon after it was published. He seemed to be attracted to bright shiny objects and would jump from doctrine to doctrine, teaching to teaching. In particular, many of the Book of Mormon characters never seem to be included in JS's sermons (Nephi, King Benjamin, Alma, etc.). And interesting doctrinal points that are contained in the BofM don't seem to be explicitly clear in his sermons, at least he didn't cite the BofM for the things he taught because he was too busy being the mouth piece of God - no reason to cite past scripture when God is purportedly giving you word-for-word what to talk about...

Anyways, am I wrong here at all? I'm totally open to the possibility that I am, but in all my exposure to JS's teachings, and even BY's for that matter, they don't really seem to give much emphasis to the BofM and certainly some of the teachings contained in it (tree of life, Jacob 5, Alma 32, etc.). If I am right, why do you think they did this? The deep underlying question I'm trying to get at is, if my notions are correct here, could the cause of this lack of attention to the BofM be attributed to the potential fraud of the BofM's creation? At the end of the day, the BofM is an enigma to me. I like a lot of stuff in it, don't like some stuff in it, it's clearly a 19th century creation, etc. But the seeming lack of attention given to the BofM by the very early church leaders, including JS himself, makes me curious... Again, I could just be plain wrong in the direction I've gone here.

One of the classic signs of a suspected murderer is that they often inadvertently speak of someone who is "missing" in the past tense because they actually know they're already dead.

I think Joseph wasn't honestly interested in the BoM as scripture because he knew what it truly was. He may have said a man can get close to God by reading it but in practice, he inadvertently avoided it. He really didn’t want to go there.

I recall one instance when Joseph complained that the saints weren't taking the BoM seriously enough and another when Hiram asked Joseph to tell the story of the BoM translation to an assembly of saints and he deflected the question. Apart from that, and the "most correct book" comment that you referenced, his other recorded comments about it seem mostly in reference to bogus evidences of its veracity, like the Nephite Tower, the bones of Zelph and Frederick Catherwood's illustrations in John Lloyd Stephen's books. It's value to Joseph seemed to be as a testament to his prophetic skills.

Joseph Smith seems to have wanted people to remember only that he had produced a new set of scripture without being held accountable for its contents. Jacob's clear teachings about monogamy would be one that Joseph seems to have forgotten. The Joseph Smith translation of the Bible includes Christ's sermon on the Mount chapters in Matthew 4, 5, and 6, but none of those changes made it into 3 Nephi 12. Jesus simply copies the 1769 KJV version of the bible without noting any inspired changes from Joseph Smith.

Corsair wrote: ↑Sun May 13, 2018 11:35 am Jesus simply copies the 1769 KJV version of the bible without noting any inspired changes from Joseph Smith.

Uh, don't you mean changes from Adam Clarke?

Hagoth wrote: ↑Sun May 13, 2018 12:59 pm

Corsair wrote: ↑Sun May 13, 2018 11:35 am Jesus simply copies the 1769 KJV version of the bible without noting any inspired changes from Joseph Smith.

Uh, don't you mean changes from Adam Clarke?

Right. Clearly it was Adam Clarke who messed up the inspired translation of the bible and not Joseph Smith. After all, according to the official LDS Bible Dictionary:

The author of the Bible Dictionary wrote:A revision or translation of the King James Version of the Bible begun by the Prophet Joseph Smith in June 1830. He was divinely commissioned to make the translation and regarded it as “a branch of his calling” as a prophet.

Could it have turned into a money making scheme (“Hey, let’s go to Canada and sell the copyright...”) or a marketing ploy to attract ‘customers’ that he lost interest in (until some dude years later said, “Hey, let’s promote the hell out of this book as the answer to your problems)? To Joseph, was the business of religion in the early days all that much different than the money and power-centric corporation the church has evolved to today? (Sorry, I’m just spitballing cynicism here.....)