TBOA:what is scripture?

[Anonymous]

Quote:

I will read anything that uplifts me and inspires me to do good works and skip the works or sentences or paragraphs that don’t regardless of where it came from or who published it.

:thumbup:

There is a LOT of good in the scriptures, including the Book of Abraham. I don’t want to throw out the baby with the bathwater.

[Anonymous]

I don’t think that anyone will ever be able to completely confirm that everything that happened in the scriptures happened through circumstantial evidence, especially when we are talking about a good while after the fact. I feel that those who have recieved a witness through the spirit will find the evidence that supports their view and those who want to tear down the church will find plenty of ammunition as to why there is not enough evidence to support LDS claims. In saying this, I am not saying that everyone that has skepticisms is in the same boat as those who try to destroy the church. Many who are trying to build the church up also find troubling info about the church. I am just saying that there is always going to be an element of faith. Even in the Bible, archaelogists still have not found any remains of Lions in the Israel area even though they are mentioned several times, likewise the major battles of the Bible and their evidences are often hard to find. I do not discount the Bible for this, I just think the evidence is not there yet and may not be. I do feel though that those who defend the church are a lot more objective than those who attack it. Those who defend the church are generally honest about the shortcomings of their work, unlike many members who see church history through rose colored glasses and then are shocked to read the human side of Church history. While those who attack the church will say there is not a shred of evidence supporting LDS claim and turn around and say that all of the evidence is completely solid for bible claims, when in reality there is evidence for both sides. I feel that it is a lot easier to tear something apart than to create something and if those publish the book material of all the ways our doctrine can’t be true, their writing would fall far short of the doctrines that were able to be compiled in our cannon of scriptures, despite the flaws.

[Anonymous]

scthomas34 wrote:

I do feel though that those who defend the church are a lot more objective than those who attack it.

Funny, I’ve heard nearly the same comment coming from both camps. Each side feels that they have the truth and each side will view the other as being close minded. To me they are both correct in their assumptions.

There’s either end of the extremes, thankfully the majority of people meet somewhere in the middle.

[Anonymous]

Curtis wrote:

Quote:

I will read anything that uplifts me and inspires me to do good works and skip the works or sentences or paragraphs that don’t regardless of where it came from or who published it.

:thumbup:

There is a LOT of good in the scriptures, including the Book of Abraham. I don’t want to throw out the baby with the bathwater.

Ya!

[Anonymous]

Orson,

You bring me to tears:

Quote:

Bear wrote:…what is the difference between a fantasy novel about Christ (say Narnia for instance) and The Book of Abraham or The Book of Mormon. Why should one be considered scripture and the other not?

The purposes of any church will obviously dictate what works receive special status within the organization, but for me personally when I ask the question:

Why should one be considered scripture and the other not?

I wonder – shouldn’t I accept all truth for truth? …all goodness for good? Should I embrace all lessons that have a component of divinity for the benefit of that component in my life?

If I receive all good from any source for the benefit that it contains, am I personally served by holding some sources above others for any reason other than the quality of its good? If I seek the spirit as I study wouldn’t all study benefit me based on the “good” component of the material itself? Should I rate the quality before or after my study?

For me because I recognize all scripture comes through an imperfect human filter I am not too hung up on official canonization. I do recognize in my conversations that canonized scripture will carry more weight in some settings, but for my personal study I see God in all good things no matter the status.

I love the new perspective this gives me. Thank you, thank you, thank you

[Anonymous]

Quote:

How did you work this one out, if you did?

Bear, I wish I had the same answer. I appreciate what many of you have said, but it still misses the main point for me. The BoA was the straw that finally broke the camel’s back for me. It isn’t about whether or not there are good take away’s in the BoA, it’s about the fact that it isn’t at ll what JS said it is. If JS wanted to present the teachings contained in the BoA, why didn’t he find a different way to do it? He could have just told everyone that he’d received inspiration on a new book of scripture. At that point, most probably would have believed him.

Aside from the reasons Bear stated in the OP, I also learned just from history classes in general, that very little evidence has been found that Egyptians performed human sacrifices in the way described in the BoA. Very early on in southern Egypt, they did kill the servants, and sometimes family members, of their nobles to be buried with them, but seems it was mostly done by poison or other means. There’s no evidence that the kind of sacrifice mentioned in Abraham 1 was practiced at all in that time or part of Egypt. And there’s the whole issue of the “Grammar and Alphabet of the Egyptian Language” book JS wrote. No one has come close to adequately explaining these things IMHO.

My current feelings about JS are that he was some kind of spiritual genius who got carried away sometimes and was sometimes full of himself too. I think the BoA is the perfect example of this, as well as polyandry. There are things I can get my mind around in the church and explain away enough to get past them. The BoA isn’t one of them. Whether or not the book contains admirable truths, there seems to be too much deception surrounding it for me to ignore. It goes too much against my sense of logic and a little bit, my gut feeling.

SS has been a huge challenge for me this year because having said all the forgoing, I try not to let myself think about this too much. When I go to SS and we study from the BoA almost every week, it’s hard for me to ignore it. I did appreciate that our teacher skipped right past going over the origins of the book though. I think I would have bitten off the end of my tongue. :silent:

[Anonymous]

For what it’s worth I know where you are coming from. Back in early December I posted similar feelings:

http://www.staylds.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=3807&p=66547&#p66547” class=”bbcode_url”>http://www.staylds.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=3807&p=66547&#p66547

That was only about 4 months ago but in that short time I feel like I’m in a better place. It’s almost as if it has completely ceased to be an issue for me… and I still “know” what I know about the BoA. It’s not less of an issue because I’ve gone back to believing in the BoA like I did before my FC, rather I’m finding ways to be more at peace with it. It’s a bit of a mystery to me why my attitudes have changed so much lately. Maybe that miracle will be my way of reconnecting to the divine because I can’t explain how I was able to let all of it go.

Anyway, hang in there, sometimes it takes time. One thing that might help is to spend some time focusing on what you do believe rather than spend time on what you no longer believe, that process can can reinvent you. Afterwards let the BoA cards fall where they may.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for that, Nibbler. It’s comforting to know it’s possible to get past this, even if you’re not sure how it happened. I guess you’re right that I need to focus more on what I do believe right now. To be honest, at this moment, I’m not exactly sure what that is. Maybe trying to write it down would help.

[Anonymous]

writer63 wrote:

My current feelings about JS are that he was some kind of spiritual genius who got carried away sometimes and was sometimes full of himself too.

Perhaps JS had to have these tendencies in order to accomplish what he did. To some extent all the people that have made an impact in history have gotten “carried away” and “full of” themselves. That is not to say that they would be someone that you would want to spend time with. Also – saying that is neither for or against the idea of God using JS in some way.

[Anonymous]

Thanks a lot for all the posts. I somehow feel better these days but maybe only because I have been very busy with work, so I didnt have much time thinking about it. I’ll go over the all posts again now as there is some great stuff in here. Thanks again! This group is awesome:) I’ll probably get back again with more questions.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Anonymous]

scthomas34 wrote:

These issues dealing with TBOA has troubled me lately so I have done some research by Micheal Ash of FAIR and others to resolve these especially considering the doctrinal value of Pearl of Great price. I will give a summarized version of the LDS apologetics response to evidence against. I think there is some things that have to be remembered here with TBOA. First, only 13% of the scrolls the JS had only 13% of the material survived the fire of the Chicago museum or where destroyed elsewhere according to John Gee of Farms. The scroll for TBOA, or scroll or Horos, was calculated to be 10 ft and 8 times longer than would survived. Critics claim that the Horos scroll is like any sensen scroll or Documents of breathing by Isis. However, John Gee also points out that JS had a lion-couch vignette which made it unique and of the Facsimilies, or pictures that we have in TBOA….. etc etc

Yeah I just cut off the quote since it was a bit long but still very informing.

At this time i’ll have to go with the “there seems to be just as much against it as fore it”. I can take all the good i want from all books, and that is fine, but since JS had certain claims about tboa i will stick with those claims, otherwise it simply doesn’t make sense to me.

i’ll continue to investigate further and i guess i’ll have to go down the apologetic path on this one, since i still can’t believe in the “divine fiction” model.

But thanks for all the great comments everyone! I love this forum and that we can ask all the questions we want and still remain a good “spirit” even when people disagree.

Its funny how grateful i am for my faith crisis… its forcing me to choose my version of everything (even though that changes all the time) instead of just going with the flow and believing what is popular.

Thanks again and have a great easter 🙂

[Anonymous]

I’m sick of hearing about “scriptures” now. I’m tired of sitting in Sunday School while people try to glean scriptural wisdom from parts of the Old Testament that are not scripture. The people in the room seem to think, “Since this is the veritable word of God, there must be great meaning to this. If I don’t get it, there is something wrong with me or I just have to wait until I’m ready to understand it.”

I don’t want to hear “We believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly”! It doesn’t matter how well something is translated if the original text isn’t really the word of God! We could probably toss out 90% of the OT. I don’t care about letters Paul wrote to people.

I’m not going to go to Sunday School for a while. I don’t care about Saul and David and Solomon and their stupid wars and sexual antics. They are just stories whether they really occurred or not. I’ll find out when they get to Isaiah and then attend class.

[Anonymous]

Okay, I went too far. I’m sure there is some important stuff to learn about Israel. I just don’t care about other stuff. I was frustrated by last week’s lesson about Ruth. I just don’t see the significance in Ruth following Naomi. Maybe Ruth didn’t like her own mother or was bored with Moab. So she went to Judah and impressed Boaz and it just doesn’t seem to matter at all. Maybe the book of Ruth is important because it names three different women.

[Anonymous]

I completely understand you! I generally like Sunday school but the treating the Old Testament like you can believe it word for word and theme deduct tons of things just seems to be too far fetched sometimes( goes for other scriptures as well).

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[Anonymous]

Bear, thanks for that. I’m glad you understand.

[Author]

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