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those are reallygood ideas. i love to read and i love to write — good alternatives for a guy who feels some discomfort right now. thanks!
this is a hard topic for me. i found out about the alternate versions while on my mission, and that was pretty difficult, i often felt insecure about it while teaching it. i didn’t really dwell on it until college — and i still feel conflicted — i don’t necessarily doubt that something happened to joseph sometime in his youth. but i don’t know how to reconcile the versions into something that works for me — i mean, we put a lot of emphasis on the official account, which is much different than the 1832 account. it seems there are theological implications there.
i don’t know…i’m personally stuck on it.
i watched general conference for the first time in a while, and i really enjoyed it — i have always liked the music, and certain speakers still resonate for me (holland especially). i find sunday school difficult right now in general — i find myself footnoting and commenting a lot, probably because my views of the bofm have changed so much recently — it’s still kind of hard for me to feel at ease there.
i haven’t been to the temple in quite some time, and haven’t gone through the interview, so take this for what it’s worth. i’m pretty sure the bishops/sp are told not to ask follow-up questions. and ‘temple worthiness’ isn’t between him and you, but between you and god. so if it’s something that is important for you, then the most important thing is to be honest with yourself.
i think the internet mormon communities have shown there is a spectrum of beliefs about every aspect of the church.
a belief in the restored gospel doesn’t have to necessarily mean you believe in the CES version. that is really a personal matter, which i think is really the whole point — worship — in or out of the temple, is between you and god.
good luck.
salo hit on some points that resonate with me. i think the book offers a window into joseph smith’s personal beliefs, and in many ways is a critic of the bible and of 19th century Christianity. this viewpoint has shifted the meaning of the book a great deal for me, while i respect the belief of most in the church that it is in fact a historical record of ancient people. dan vogel hits on a lot of these points in his book, the making of a prophet that i thought were pretty interesting.
We can definitely get into a lot of semantic wrangling with the Book of Mormon. I think foremost among those semantic challenges is the word translation. I think growing up we all saw the pic of Joseph with the gold plates on the table as he dictates to his scribe. I’m assuming all of us know that artistic rendition, however well intentioned, is a false depiction of reality. I think it has probably caused some detrimental effects in perpetuating those inaccuracies.
But the Book does clearly make claims of authenticity and ancient origin. Mormon’s title page states it’s “an account written by the hand of Mormon upon plates taken from the plates of Nephi.” The introduction states the book was written by many ancient prophets by the spirit of prophecy and revelation.”
While Joseph did not use the plates in a literal sense while translating, he did believe a tangible product was necessary. (whether the plates he had and often carried were authentic is perhaps another question for another time).
The tangibleness of the record has always served an important function for the church — both then and now. But if the ancient record hid up by the Lord and delivered to Joseph was never actually used, why the painstaking process and sacrifice to actually have a record? Nephi kills Laban for the plates, and for 1000 years there were strict instructions for its preservation. Enos prays for the plates to reach his ancestors. Moroni hids them up with the promise of their eventual benefit in the latter-days.
hmmm, a lot to digest in that post. I’m going through my faith crisis/struggle pretty intensely right now, and appreciate a lot of what people like Bennion and Aarington have to say and contribute.
I guess the problem I’ve been having when I’m at church right now is that I am constantly footnoting and commenting in my head about the lessons and discussion. Sometimes it feels like I’m in a secret place and have to keep quiet lest I give away to everyone else the perspective they probably don’t want to hear. While I like hearing from the unorthodox pioneers of mormon thought, it’s not exactly the sunday school version.
How do we reconcile those two worlds? how do we merge internet and chapel (or more appropriately, temple) mormons together?
I have very recently come to a nuanced conclusion that the Book of Mormon is not what it claims to be. The Book claims to be a translation from an ancient record handed down through generations and preserved to come forth in the latter-days. I tend to think along the lines of Anthony Hutchinson and others who believe the book comes from 19th century origins. Growing up in the church, one of the most common lines of defense was Joseph’s lack of formal education. This justified the believe that he could not have created the book with so little schooling. But I tend to think it shows Joseph’s genius. I believe he was able to create a very complex critic of 19th century Christianity, the bible, and American thought at the time. With that said, I don’t think the book should be discredited, because it is a book of scripture and has value for non-believers and believers alike.
The question I have though is this: If the bofm is in fact a 19th century creation, does that preclude it from being inspired by God?
I think those missions are well articulated…for me, someone who is on the fence, I’m going to be trying to be a part of both — so my apologies in advance if I don’t toe the line as well as I should. I’m still falling off the cliff, and am not quite sure how I will land.
ahh polygamy…what a topic. like many Mormons, I’m a descendant of a polygamist. that said, i think it is and always has been wrong, evil, vile, etc. I don’t personally think it was ever a commandment of God.
A little food for thought from one of my favorite philosophers, Soren Kierkegaard. He has an idea called the ‘teleological suspension of the ethical,’ that is, God can command us to do something that would seem unethical, yet serves his higher purpose. The example he uses to frame this idea is Abraham offering Isaac. But I disagree with Kierkegaard. I don’t believe God would command us to do something unethical or immoral. Would he not then cease to be God? I know maybe people would say that God’s ways are higher than ours, so we have to take it on faith, but I just don’t believe God would do that. I don’t believe God has multiple wives either.
The thing about it is, monogamous relationships are a highly evolved form of living — and polygamy takes something I believe to be beautiful — the love between man and wife to create a family — to it’s basest form. polygamy is about procreation, not about love.
I tend to agree with what Joseph told William Marks: “This doctrine of polygamy, or spiritual wife-system, that has been taught and practiced among us, will prove our destruction and overthrow. I have been deceived; it is a curse to mankind, and we shall have to leave the United States soon, unless it can be put down, and its practice stopped in the Church.”
It took another 45 years or so to be put down, but thank the good Lord above it was.
