Posted on 10/20/2009 6:50:56 AM PDT by Colofornian
Church members from Utah and abroad gathered on Friday to hear some Book of Mormon stories their teachers have never told them.
The lessons centered around Mesoamerica, including Mexico and Guatemala, as the most likely setting for Book of Mormon peoples and events at the 7th annual Book of Mormon Lands Conference at the Red Lion Hotel in Salt Lake City.
The conference drew 280 attendees — the conference’s biggest crowd ever — as a result of key speakers such as Dr. John L. Lund, Joseph Allen and Jerry L. Ainsworth, said Stephen L. Carr, senior vice president of the Book of Mormon Archaeological Forum.
Lund spoke about Joseph Smith and his contributions to the pioneer publication, Times and Seasons. It was Joseph Smith as editor of the publication who suggested the Book of Mormon events took place in Mesoamerica, Lund said.
Although critics have tried to discount Smith, claiming he never wrote about the Book of Mormon’s location in the Times and Seasons, Lund presented evidence to the contrary.
The goal of the Book of Mormon Archaelogical Forum is to provide an open forum to discuss theories such as Lund’s, Carr said.
“We are a group that promotes the understanding of the culture and the geography of the Book of Mormon,” Carr said. “We base our ideas on the fact that they took place in Mesoamerica.”
Members of the church don’t hear about the theories of the Book of Mormon’s settings in Sunday School or Institute because they are the opinions of researchers, and not endorsed by the church, Carr said.
“Most Latter-day Saints don’t have a clue what the [geographical references in the Book of Mormon] are,” said Doug Christensen, a member of the BMAF board of directors, from Twin Falls, Idaho. “We mostly focus on the stories and skip the travel and wars.”
Kirk Magleby stressed the need for church members to come to a consensus on where the Book of Mormon events took place. He called the current lack of consensus “of particular delight to Satan and to the critics of the church.”
“If we can’t agree on where [the Book of Mormon] took place, how can people take us seriously?” he said.
There are specific conditions the BMAF has outlined for a geographic region to be considered a Book of Mormon land.
For example, the region must be a “narrow neck of land surrounded by seas,” with a major river flowing from north to south. It must also have had a highly literate society and an agricultural base that was capable of supporting millions of people.
All of the requirements come from the Book of Mormon’s text and only Mesoamerica fits all the criteria, according to the organization’s Web site.
Eh ???
Dontcha know that Joey Smith found that little book written on gold plates in Reformed Egyptian ...
Ye ancient dust made him puke as he tranlated the words into Ye Olde King James English...
So he puked into his hat instead of Emma’s clean floor...
of course all the booze he was guzzling added to the need to puke...
And then there was the chewin tobacky that Emma wouldnt let him spit on the floor...
That went into his hat to...
Joey Smoth wore out several hats while he whiled away his lazy hazy days of summer translatin them there Reformed Egyptian words...
Why it got so much a sacrifice and chore he even had to get his wife, Emma, (the only one he married in front of a preacher, that one) to look things up in the abominable Christian Bible...
Hey Emma, check and see if there was a fence around that there Jerusalem. These horses keep getting out and running all over the map... There they go off to MesoAmerica...
What’s that ?...drink less booze and I wont see things...Silly woman...what would I get yoa ta write if I didnt see things?...
Boy those horses sure can jump...Well I’ll just say they were there all along...
What’s that ? ...There were no horses in America until the Spanish brought them ?... Gosh Emma yer raht smart... Hmmmmmmm..I’ll just back it up a few years ta make it more interesting...Shhh... we wont tell anyone about them Spanish...They’ll never know...
Hmmm Looks like something by Maynard Dixon! I was in Farmington NM a couple of weeks ago. Saw quite a few still dressed in the traditional clothing at the new Walmart!
Also saw my old place. It looked like a dump!
Actually,
it was neither written nor interpreted by Joey “Big liar/convicted glass-looker” Smith but by one of Cowdery’s acquaintances/uncles.
I forget the guy’s name right off the top (a little help here, friends!?), but extensive and exhaustive stylistic analysis of the bom writing style was conducted and compared to a good depth of the other fellow’s known writings and there is next to no chance that it was written by Smith or Cowardly - oops my bad - I mean Cowdery.
It is as indelibly and incontrovertible connectable to its all-too-human author as the poems of John Donne, or Samuel Taylor Coleridge are to their respective authors.
That is to say - other than the parts which were outright plagiarised (like happened often in the D & C and pogp)from the original Bible.
Colloquial phrases unique to the Palmyra area were incorporated into passages of the text - one which occurs frequently is, “is/was/were a-going” as in: “Joey Smith and Oliver Cowdery were a-going to the library to return their dog-eared copy of the book, “A View of the Hebrews”...when they spied the bloody ghost of a pirate dressed like a Spaniard...
Oh wait - it was the SON..no, no it was the father AND the son...
Dad-gummit, when there are seven different known stories of record, it’s a little tough to keep stories straight.
Gotta go consult that copy of “Feeding the Flock while Fleecing the Flock” again...or mebbe jes’ get the flock outta here before I git martyred like a lamb with wine in its belly and a smokin’ pistol in its hand...
A.A.C.
Sidney Rigdon?
Your old place??
Not even REALLY bad Pulp Fiction could come up with so darn many "and it came to pass" phrases in such a small space!
Or...
2 Nephi 3:18 And the Lord said unto me also: I will raise up unto the fruit of thy loins; and I will make for him a spokesman. And I, behold, I will give unto him that he shall write the writing of the fruit of thy loins, unto the fruit of thy loins; and the spokesman of thy loins shall declare it.
Joseph Smith Translation Gen. 50: 27 Thus saith the Lord God of my fathers unto me, A choice seer will I raise up out of the fruit of thy loins, and he shall be esteemed highly among the fruit of thy loins; and unto him will I give commandment that he shall do a work for the fruit of thy loins, his brethren.
Joseph Smith Translation Gen. 50: 31 Wherefore the fruit of thy loins shall write, and the fruit of thy loins of Judah shall write; and that which shall be written by the fruit of thy loins, and also that which shall be written by the fruit of thy loins of Judah, shall grow together
It would thus appear that the SLC bunch are ILLEGITIMATE offspring. Religiously speaking that is. (You SLC branch members may want to hie thee to an RLDS place of worship. THEY must have the ACTUAL 'authority' to do the Temple Rituals...)
it was neither written nor interpreted by Joey “Big liar/convicted glass-looker” Smith but by one of Cowdery’s acquaintances/uncles.
____________________________________________
Solomon Spaulding ???? The Spauding Manuscript
Ethan Smith ??? A View of the Hebrews
How did these guys ever get anyone to follow them???
Then who wrote it?
holy cow!! and people believe this?
***Your old place??****
I used to live in Farmington NM years ago. I still visit there often. Many of the Navajos still dress in their traditional clothing there.
They don't TELL you this stuff at first...
You really need to ask a MORMON who responds in these threads how THEY rationalize it all in their minds.
The place hasn’t been the same since they re-named 666.
LOL
Nothing of the book of mormon can be archaeologically or anthropologically proven. Nada; Zilch.
Any mormons who want to read the full truth of their "book of mormon" need to only read HERE.
And the full truth of mormonism (written by those who broke from the cult) can all be found HERE.
Saundra Duffy:
people are asking you questions over in this thread...
This is typical; happens everytime. The mormons cannot back-up their cult and so they bail. I really don't put the blame on them, I put it on Joe's Myth. The worldly and wise bail from Joe as soon as they can. There is no way to defend the madness of such a con.
It’s just when they call us all kinds of bad names.
They really can’t help it; for they CANNOT complain about their faith or their leaders without getting on the road to apostacy - so they dump on us.
I no longer mind it; for I understand it.
At least, when they are jumping on us; there are DOUBTS that are working on them about their chosen Religious Organization.
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