ALL: MonkeyFace, the Mormon, is advocating here the Book of Mormon...So, as a follow-up to my last post, let's do a second comparison involving the Book of Mormon:
Comparison #2: Comparing ‘Ghosts’:
So, rather than just stop @ the 4th centuries (B.C. or A.D.) -- like I did in my previous post -- let's review what supposedly happened after the supposed "gold plates" recording the supposed "another testament" were supposedly buried in the ground…
…First...Moroni resurrects himself as a ghost-turned-angel…
…tells Joseph Smith where they are…
…but Smith can’t retrieve them for a while…
…then...Smith carts around gold plates that’s “worthy” of producing 522 English pages of writing…
…and a couple of people say they saw it with “spiritual eyes”…
…and yet Smith doesn’t even use these “gold plates” to translate anything…
…imagine that!
...instead, he has a pet rock, a supposed urim & thummim device…
…which he uses to somehow “translate” the text -- all as he places his face into a hat and dictates it…
Hmmmm....
Now who was this Moroni character again, alive and dead?
Alive: “Behold, I have but few things to write, which things I have been commanded by my father.” (Moroni character, Mormon 8:1)
Wow! That’s really “Holy Ghost” “inspirational” material…a guy who writes down Biblical stuff just ‘cause his dad ordered him to!!!
Dead: Moroni was a ghost.
"Moroni, who deposited the plates in a hill in Manchester, Ontario County, New York, being dead and raised again therefrom, appeared unto me, and told me where they were, and gave me directions how to obtain them." (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 119)
Now did Nehemiah or any other Biblical compilers identify ghosts as “key agents” in the canonization of the Old Testament? (No?) Yet Mormons hint that their "another testament" was somehow formulated in a manner to the Bible?
Now, if God needed dead ghosts to show where hidden records were from 14 centuries ago, why didn’t the ghost of the prophet Samuel point out where the previous OT records were kept when the witch of Endor rose him from the dead?
Instead, the spirit of Samuel said: "Why have you disturbed me by bringing me up?" … "Why do you consult me, now that the LORD has turned away from you and become your enemy? 17 The LORD has done what he predicted through me. The LORD has torn the kingdom out of your hands and given it to one of your neighbors—to David. 18 Because you did not obey the LORD or carry out his fierce wrath against the Amalekites, the LORD has done this to you today. 19 The LORD will hand over both Israel and you to the Philistines, and tomorrow you and your sons will be with me. The LORD will also hand over the army of Israel to the Philistines." (1 Samuel 28:15-19)
Comparison #3: Sources used by Mormon vs. Nehemiah
As I cited 2 Maccabees 2:13 in my previous post, we know ”Nehemiah's Memoirs how he collected the books about the kings, the writings of the prophets and of David, and the royal letters about sacred offerings”
...and we know from Neh. 8 how Ezra returned the Pentateuch from exile in Nehemiah’s presence.
So Nehemiah merged the Pentateuch, the kings’ writings, the prophets, David, etc. Now, I started off my previous post with a supposed generational Book of Mormon records “storied account”…and I didn’t even mention all the characters quoted in the Book of Mormon…like Zenos, Isaiah, Amulek, Zeniff, Abinadi, the first Moroni, Pahoran, etc.
But allow me to point out one more source for the supposed 4th century compiler character by the name of Mormon. Here, allow me to first quote Mormon…and then I’ll quote his source!
And now I, Mormon, make a record of all things which I have both seen and heard, and call it the Book of Mormon…And now behold, I, Mormon, do not desire to harrow up the souls of men…(Mormon 1:1; 5:8)
”I could a tale unfold, whose lightest word Would harrow up thy soul. (Shakespeare, 17th century) and cited in 1913 Webster dictionary, showing that this phrase of Shakespeare had been well known since Webster first came out with his 1828 version.
I can tell you this, Monkey Face…the Biblical ancient writers weren’t quoting Shakespeare like Smith had the Mormon character do in Mormon 5:8. Smith was giving an obvious clue for those to find after his death that the Book of Mormon WAS the “tale unfold” – Smith’s lightest word which would harrow up thy soul…And just to double emphasize this, lines 79 and 80 of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 1 read: The undiscovered country from whose bourn No traveller returns. somehow gets paraphrased in the 6th century B.C. in 2 Nephi 1:14:
…hear the words of a trembling parent, whose limbs ye must soon lay down in the cold and silent grave, from whence no traveler can return
Monkey Face...you've read rather widely...after you compared Shakespear vs. the Book of Mormon????
"Now the way he translated was he put the urim and thummim into his hat and Darkned his Eyes than he would take a sentance and it would apper in Brite Roman Letters. Then he would tell the writer and he would write it. Then that would go away the next sentance would Come and so on. But if it was not Spelt rite it would not go away till it was rite, so we see it was marvelous. Thus was the hol [whole] translated."---Joseph Knight's journal.
"In writing for your father I frequently wrote day after day, often sitting at the table close by him, he sitting with his face buried in his hat, with the stone in it, and dictating hour after hour with nothing between us."
(History of the RLDS Church, 8 vols.(Independence, Missouri: Herald House,1951),"Last Testimony of Sister Emma [Smith Bidamon]," 3:356.
"I, as well as all of my father's family, Smith's wife, Oliver Cowdery and Martin Harris, were present during the translation. . . . He [Joseph Smith] did not use the plates in translation."
---(David Whitmer,as published in the "Kansas City Journal," June 5, 1881,and reprinted in the RLDS "Journal of History", vol. 8, (1910), pp. 299-300.
In an 1885 interview, Zenas H. Gurley, then the editor of the RLDS Saints Herald, asked Whitmer if Joseph had used his "Peep stone" to do the translation. Whitmer replied:
"... he used a stone called a "Seers stone," the "Interpreters" having been taken away from him because of transgression. The "Interpreters" were taken from Joseph after he allowed Martin Harris to carry away the 116 pages of Ms [manuscript] of the Book of Mormon as a punishment, but he was allowed to go on and translate by use of a "Seers stone" which he had, and which he placed in a hat into which he buried his face, stating to me and others that the original character appeared upon parchment and under it the translation in English."
"Martin Harris related an incident that occurred during the time that he wrote that portion of the translation of the Book of Mormon which he was favored to write direct from the mouth of the Prophet Joseph Smith. He said that the Prophet possessed a seer stone, by which he was enabled to translate as well as from the Urim and Thummim, and for convenience he then used the seer stone, Martin explained the translation as follows: By aid of the seer stone, sentences would appear and were read by the Prophet and written by Martin and when finished he would say 'Written,' and if correctly written that sentence would disappear and another appear in its place, but if not written correctly it remained until corrected, so that the translation was just as it was engraven on the plates, precisely in the language then used."
(Edward Stevenson, "One of the Three Witnesses,"reprinted from Deseret News, 30 Nov. 1881in Millennial Star, 44 (6 Feb. 1882): 86-87.)
In 1879, Michael Morse, Emma Smith's brother-in-law, stated:"When Joseph was translating the Book of Mormon [I] had occasion more than once to go into his immediate presence, and saw him engaged at his work of translation. The mode of procedure consisted in Joseph's placing the Seer Stone in the crown of a hat, then putting his face into the hat, so as to entirely cover his face, resting his elbows upon his knees, and then dictating word after word, while the scribes Emma, John Whitmer, O. Cowdery, or some other wrote it down."
(W.W. Blair interview with Michael Morse,Saints Herald, vol. 26, no. 12June 15, 1879, pp. 190-91.)
Joseph Smith's brother William also testified to the "face in the hat" version:"The manner in which this was done was by looking into the Urim and Thummim, which was placed in a hat to exclude the light, (the plates lying near by covered up), and reading off the translation, which appeared in the stone by the power of God"("A New Witness for Christ in America,"Francis W. Kirkham, 2:417.)
"The manner in which he pretended to read and interpret was the same manner as when he looked for the money-diggers, with the stone in his hat, while the book of plates were at the same time hid in the woods."---Isaac Hale (Emma Smith's father's) affidavit, 1834.