NOM

Don't want to be a jerk here, but why did the word "even" start a prophetic statement?

Pres. Nelson said that the Lord advised him that using Mormon and LDS and all these nicknames for the church- that's bad form- and then Nelson goes on to say the church should be called by its proper name: Even The Church of Jesus Chris of Latter Day Saints....hmm....does that mean we should use "even" in the title?

Peculiar use of the word. We say things like "even the playing field" meaning to smooth it out. Or to include something that was sort of left out of the statement like: " We are not about to go against the will of God and we are keeping all of the bad people from having the priesthood...even the bad girls".

Or, "You take all the odd numbers and I'll take the even ones."

Help me out here folks, I'm not sure if this topic has come up before and I'm too lazy to look. I can't speak for you, but I think it's odd (not even) to use the word "even" the way Pres Nelson did. Where'd that nonsense come from anyhow?

It's been something that brethren have said to emphasize their speech for many years. Usually when they e call out Jesus in some way as in Even the saviour of the world as they close their talk.

Not often but a long history.

It does come across as silly to outsiders but insiders seem to eat it up.

See also supernal.

The use of "even" is just a pickup from the scriptures. It's a nod to Joseph Smith in using Elizabethan scriptural language to make yourself sound more authoritative as in the BofM.

II Cor. 1:3

" Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort.."

The BofM is loaded with it.

I Nephi 10:3

"That after they should be destroyed, even that great city Jerusalem, and many be carried away captive into Babylon, according to the own due time of the Lord, they should return again, yea, even be brought back out of captivity; and after they should be brought back out of captivity they should possess again the land of their inheritance."

It's more of a faddish mannerism in the LDS church. Something that caught on and refuses to die. Like the exceedingly overused "awesome" in current American culture. Overuse actually deadens or robs a word of its original impact. Kind of like my kid saying "awesome" when I bring them a role of toilet paper their in need of....

It seems like an old form of stuffy english. Or a good way to weld different clauses together to make Even more unwieldy run on sentences.

For any other language geeks out there, this is a short discussion of why/how "even" is used in the KJV of the Bible: https://www.waywordradio.org/discussion ... mes-bible/

I agree that it gets used in Conference talks and leadership utterances to artificially add weight to what's being said, while it comes across to outsiders as pompous and affected.

Thanks for some interesting ideas. The one I liked best, and I hope not to sound like a jerk again, is the post from fifi de la Vergne referring to the word pompous- which I looked up- because I thought it may be too strong of a word, the way it is said these days, usually added with the term a**h***.

One of the synonyms that I noticed was "self importance". I'm not going to put Pres. Nelson down because I don't know him, have never met him and frankly have sort of ignored him as he's never been one of my faves.

This declaration that he gave is strange indeed in my eyes. Why would the good Lord care what a church is called? Wouldn't he care more about what the church taught or the contribution they make to the society they live in? I think so.

The Lord, in my opinion, could not care less if a church is called "The Church of Christ, or Mormon, or LDS or anything else, so I do think that good old Pres Nelson may be taking himself a bit too seriously. He's acting not like an a**h***, but certainly pompous- at least that is my opinion.

I think the apologists at the Mormon Interpreter have suggested the Nephite writers were Shakespeare fans.