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I’ll check tonight when I get there. There might be a smaller plaque under the normal one I’ve been missing. 
Let me add one thing:
It’s important to phrase things carefully. If I were to say, “We shouldn’t trust what the Prophet or apostles say unless we receive personal revelation to do so,” . . . um . . . yeah, I’d be labeled a heretic my most members I know.
If, however, I said, “The Prophet and apostles aren’t perfect and infallible, and we need to make sure we follow our own personal revelation and not rely only on what they say,” – yeah, I think the large majority of members I know would agree.
Even if I said, “The Prophets and apostles need to give counsel to the Church as a whole, but we are responsible to make sure our own lives are in accordance to what God wants of each of us – even if that means we don’t always follow all of the general counsel for the Church as a whole,” I think the large majority of members I know personally would agree.
There’s a HUGE difference between what some leaders say (like the quotes you listed) and what MANY members actually believe and follow – and there has been throughout Mormon history. There’s never been a time when everyone walked in lock-step to everything that came out of the mouths of the global leadership – and I doubt there ever will be. Polygamy is a great example, since the official pronouncements often tied it to exaltation – but the large majority of membership never practiced it and didn’t have any desire to do so. Tithing is another good example, as is weekly attendance – and genealogical work and food storage and “dedicated” Scouting participation and missions. Our numbers are nowhere close to 100% for those things, even among “active” members.
cwald wrote:Old-Timer wrote:Quote:Personally, I just don’t agree with the idea of prophets now or in the past the way the Church teaches as if they are supposed speak directly for God
to the point that we shouldn’t ever doubt or question what they say. I agree, DA – and when it is worded that way, the majority of members I know would agree…
Really? The majority of the members I know would most certainly DISAGREE.
I would have to agree with cwald (again). That is totally my experience, or at least my perception. If people don’t really mean what they say, then, well, all bets are off.
I’m not sure where you all live, but perhaps there is some regional aspect to this. If you’re, say, ‘out in the mission field’, maybe it’s not as easy to get away with expressing certain non-standard views, whereas if you’re knee-deep in fertilizer (a metaphor I like to use) then the contradictions become so obvious that there’s no alternative. Pure speculation, of course, but might provide the one and only check in the ‘plus’ column for moving to Utah someday.
Comment withheld jamison wrote:Father of 4 husband of one, did you read my post?
Of course he read it. That is why he started this thread. If he read it like I did, than he just shrugged it off as another apologetic argument that makes no logical sense.
Quote:but have acted as a novice apologist whenever I see publications attack Church doctrines or beliefs.
That is just my opinion. You can believe whatever you want about the BofA – but you can’t really expect others on this site to buy into just because you say so.
Quote:We have to remember that we do not understand the translation process from a prophet’s perspective; much of the time it is not solely a strict translation (item by item, word by word, etc.), but interpretation. The Book of Abraham consists of facsimiles that are graphic in nature; meaning that they may consist of multiple interpretations much like any hermeneutic device such as the Mormon endowment ceremony. To think there is only one plausible interpretation of the Endowment Ceremony would be insane, ludicrous, and pointless. It is looking at the issue too narrowly. The Book of Abraham has many interpretations by many cultures, Egyptian, Hebrew, Islamic, Early Christian, and Latter-Day Saint. The fact of the matter is all interpretations have “truths” in them. To deny one may weaken another. Here, it must be understood to embrace all truth into one whole.
I call BS – on this paragraph especially. IMO, this is really nothing more than a desperate attempt to justify why the scholar have proven that JS DID NOT translate the scrolls that he said he did. What I hear you saying is that the JS used his Later-day Saint interpretation of the scrolls, so he is correct and the BofA is a valid rendition/interpretation of the scroll. Yeah, that might be true. But I could do the same thing and just call it the cwald interpretation Does that make it true and an accurate interpretation of truth? I believe JS wrote the BofA to say what he WANTED it to say. Or perhaps on a generous day, maybe he wrote it to say what GOD wanted him to say it says.
But it does not say what is actually written on the scrolls.Ray is absolutely correct on this issue. Either it’s all a fraud. Or JS got some divine message, imagery in the brain, from god to write what he wrote, and one just has to take it on faith that is from god. Because it doesn’t come from the scrolls.
Oh, one other minor itch. To EVERYONE who is not LDS, and even to many who are (me) — comparing Joseph Smith to Jesus Christ is VERY offensive.
cwald stated, Quote:Oh, one other minor itch. To EVERYONE who is not LDS, and even to many who are (me) — comparing Joseph Smith to Jesus Christ is VERY offensive.
I’m sorry people outside of the faith of Mormonism have that issue, dang I compare the Dali Lama to Jesus, Mother Teresa to Jesus. Alexander Dumas compared the Count of Monte “Cristo.” to Jesus. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s character Billy Budd was another Christlike character. Be it a historical or fictional characte, I think there are plausible comparisons that one can make to Christ. I just don’t think people outside of Mormonism even know much about Joseph Smith, and what they do learn is second hand “trash” they learned from some damned protestant gainsayer minister who is threatened by a 14 year old farm boy that came from an obscure township in upstate New York. Jesus was just as controversial in his day as Joseph Smith was in his. Both Jesus and Joseph Smith are controversial today. Oops, I did another comparison! Revolution bring it on! I’m grateful people like Jesus and Joseph Smith created revolutions in religious thought. It is much needed in a time where Oprah and Dr. Oz are the new “messiah’s of Pop Culture via TV and the world wide web.
Fwiw, I’ve said in multiple threads that I understand how fortunate I’ve been – especially over the past 14 years in two different wards in two different states. I was raised in Utah County, educated in Boston, taught school in Alabama, lived in Utah County again briefly, worked across the Eastern United States while living in Ohio, and now live in Missouri. Iow, I’ve lived all over the country, and most members I have known really don’t accept and follow every single thing the Prophets and apostles say. They pick and choose what they will believe and live, even if some of them don’t realize they are doing it. They are, in actual, practical fact, “cafeteria Mormons”. Again, however, I know I’ve been blessed in my most recent wards, especially. One example:
Tonight, I was at the church to pick up my family. While I was waiting, I dropped in on our new Bishop to make sure he knew I would be speaking in our ward on Sunday. As we talked about the topic, I mentioned that my only request was that I have at least 20 minutes – but I also added that it probably wasn’t a CHI requirement, with a big smile on my face. (He was reading the CHI when I walked into his office.) He said, basically,
Quote:“It’s not – and we’ll follow the Spirit in what we do. I will do what the CHI says as a Bishop, but if it’s not in the CHI it’s up to us to run the ward on our own inspiration and revelation. I don’t believe in doing anything just because.”
I told him about cwald (a “friend online”) and his experience being told all members need to believe the OT stories literally (even something like Jonah) and he said:
Quote:“That’s just mean. I wish people like that understood how mean that is, but, unfortunately, they just can’t see it. They might be really good people, but that’s just mean. My father and I see the afterlife radically differently, but that’s fine. We’ll find out who is right and who is wrong – or if we both are right or wrong – someday.”
Yeah, I know how fortunate I am.
[ ADMIN NOTE:Let’s be VERY careful, everyone. Emotions are starting to roil, and the tone is getting dicey, really quickly. This can be a very good discussion, still, and I really don’t want to shut down the thread, but I will do so if emotions start to rule and things get more heated – and strictly personal.] jamison wrote:I just don’t think people outside of Mormonism even know much about Joseph Smith, and what they do learn is second hand “trash” they learned from some damned protestant gainsayer minister
Well, okay. I know quite a bit about the guy, even have some respect for him, and I still find it offensive.
On the other hand,
Quote:Jesus was just as controversial in his day as Joseph Smith was in his. I’m grateful people like Jesus and Joseph Smith created revolutions in religious thought.
This is a GREAT thought. Really. Wonderful!
It what keeps me going to church some weeks, and allows me to smile when I get condemned by members of my own faith. So I guess I am comparing myself to both JS and Jesus. And I hope there are MANY MANY more folks like you in the church who are grateful for controversial people me, and others at StayLDS, otherwise, they will just throw us out for heresy.
Old-Timer wrote:[
ADMIN NOTE:Let’s be VERY careful, everyone. Emotions are starting to roil, and the tone is getting dicey, really quickly. This can be a very good discussion, still, and I really don’t want to shut down the thread, but I will do so if emotions start to rule and things get more heated – and strictly personal.] Okay. I must have cross posted with you. I will go to bed.
btw – Interesting conversation with the bishop. Yes, you have been fortunate.
Wow, this thread has a lot of comments, and I haven’t had time to read them. I haven’t viewed the video in question, but I do know it is an anti-Mormon site. I know some people here view me as an “apologist” (which is funny, because I had someone leave my blog because I was too “anti”–guess that makes me a moderate.) Anyway, I did a post about the Gospel of Judas that was recently discovered. Anciently, many scrolls were wrapped together. Egyptian scholar Bart Ehrmann from the Univ of North Carolina described what other documents were discovered with this gospel.
Quote:1. A mathematical treatise, written in Greek
2. A fragmentary copy of the Old Testament book of Exodus, also in Greek
3. A fragmentary copy of some of the New Testament letters of the apostle Paul, written in Coptic
4. The codex containing the Gospel of Judas (as I will explain later, we have the complete beginning and end of the Gospel, and much of the middle, but some portions have not been lost because of the rough handling of the manuscript after its discovery; about 10-15 percent of the text is now unrecoverable), along with three other fragmentary texts, all of them Coptic:
a. The Letter of Peter to Philip (in a version slightly different from the one discovered at Nag Hammadi),
b. The First Apocalypse of James (also different from the Nag Hammadi version),
c. And the Gnostic treatise on Allogenes (which is a different work from the Nag Hammadi tractate that is entitled “Allogenes”)
Ehrmann describes that a copy of one of these other docs was leaked and translated on the internet.
Quote:Van Rijn found an American scholar, Charlie Hedrick-a New Testament scholar I have known and liked for years-who claimed to have photographs of the Gospel of Judas and to have already made preliminary translations of them. In order to squash any speculation about the Gospel, and to beat National Geographic to the punch, van Rijn published the photographs and the translations. When I read them, I was massively disappointed.
The first text appeared to have nothing to do with Judas and Jesus. It was a Gnostic document whose main figure was someone called Allogenes, who prays to God and hears God’s answer. The text had Gnostic characteristics, and it would be of some limited interest to scholars of Gnosticism. But as far as Judas and Jesus were concerned, it was a complete bust.
It is amazing how even those of us who teach for a living fail to practice what we preach. Every semester in my undergraduate courses at Chapel Hill I have to tell my students not to trust everything they find on the Internet, since anyone can publish anything there, and there is often no way of knowing if the source is credible or bogus. In this particular case, not having followed my own advice, I was completely taken in.
What I didn’t know at the time, but eventually came to realize, is that Hedrick had translated the wrong text.
Hugh Nibley offered a similar theory with the Book of Abraham–that what was discovered was not what Joseph translated. Certainly the scroll Joseph described was much larger than what was found in the 1960’s. I did a post on this topic a while back:
http://www.mormonheretic.org/2009/06/24/comparing-the-book-of-abraham-and-the-gospel-of-judas/ I emailed Bart Ehrmann and asked him to comment on the Book of Abraham. He responded that he was not familiar with the controversy, and he didn’t seem very interested.
😥 (Big bummer for me, but I was pleased that he at least responded to my email…..)I’m late into this discussion, and I confess, I haven’t read all the posts leading up to this point, but I wanted to share something that keeps dawning on me. “
My commitment to Mormonism is independent of whether Mormonism is true or not”.My commitment to my religion, my family’s pursuit of the goals in our religion etcetera, is independent of the truth of its doctrine, scriptures and history. I focus on the good its doing for my family, which is substantial, and it’s very liberating. It does’t have to be true to be good and worthwhile to commit my life to.
It does present challenges in bearing testimony etcetera, and also teaching certain classes that have an “all or nothing”, “one true Church” orientation, but I’ve been learning to navigate those waters pretty well by avoiding situations that require me to confront those issues publicly. This approach does mean holding one’s tongue at times, but I have to do that in a lot of other contexts, like my work and even in my relationship with my wife. So, really, the carefully filtered comments I make at Church are an extension of other areas of my life.
The assumption that doctrines in Mormonism have to be entirely true to bring us peace and goodness is flawed in my view. Much of what we tell ourselves to maintain our inner peace is often based on flawed assumptions, partial facts, and outright theories of how the world works. I feel we expect too much of the Church in the truth department. It’s partly the fault of hte Church because it operates on the premise that you have to “find the truth” etcetera, but in reality — does anyone know for sure absolute truth? I think not. In fact, many Churches don’t even claim to have it all, yet people believe and commit to their principles.
But that doesn’t mean I have to languish in unbelief and lack of commitment my whole life. I’m glad I’ve committed to something and have managed to feel at peace within it, despite the ugly history, gaps in some of the claims etcetera.
It doesn’t have to be true to be good….that’s my mantra now.
SilentDawning wrote:“
My commitment to Mormonism is independent of whether Mormonism is true or not”.It doesn’t have to be true to be good….that’s my mantra now.
I can respect that. Good for you.
I know I should not even take the chance of a derail with this comment, but I hear this quite a bit and it truly puzzles me. Old-Timer wrote:…Polygamy is a great example, since the official pronouncements often tied it to exaltation – but the large majority of membership never practiced it and didn’t have any desire to do so.
I guess it depends on who you ask, and who you count. For me, if I look at my 8 great-grandparents I believe 7 of them come from some form of polygamous family. I’ve heard if you count the married women of the church during the years when polygamy was at its peak, the number involved can be close to 50%.
Anyway, sorry for the derail but I do see some correlation between personalities who would live polygamy for example, and state things in the ways that cwald has experienced.
For what it’s worth.
There are times when I believe it’s purpose was merely population growth. Leaders can attach all kinds of personal opinions to commandments when seeking results. Perhaps this was one of those times. mormonheretic wrote:Wow, this thread has a lot of comments, and I haven’t had time to read them. I haven’t viewed the video in question, but I do know it is an anti-Mormon site.
I know some people here view me as an “apologist”(which is funny, because I had someone leave my blog because I was too “anti”–guess that makes me a moderate.) Anyway, I did a post about the Gospel of Judas that was recently discovered. Anciently, many scrolls were wrapped together. Egyptian scholar Bart Ehrmann from the Univ of North Carolina described what other documents were discovered with this gospel.
Quote:…The text had Gnostic characteristics, and it would be of some limited interest to scholars of Gnosticism. But as far as Judas and Jesus were concerned, it was a complete bust…It is amazing how even those of us who teach for a living fail to practice what we preach…
I have to tell my students not to trust everything they find on the Internet, since anyone can publish anything there, and there is often no way of knowing if the source is credible or bogus. In this particular case, not having followed my own advice, I was completely taken in…What I didn’t know at the time, but eventually came to realize, is that Hedrick had translated the wrong text.Hugh Nibley offered a similar theory with the Book of Abraham–that what was discovered was not what Joseph translated. Certainly the scroll Joseph described was much larger than what was found in the 1960’s.
No, I wouldn’t necessarily call you an apologist but it seems like you have more faith in the Church than I do at this point and I thought you would know some of the best apologetic answers to this issue as well as anyone that comments here. As far as this hypothetical missing larger scroll even if that’s true then what about the documents with side-by-side text of the “Book of Breathings” and BoA I mentioned earlier? It looks like they thought this was the translation for some reason. Also what about the facsimiles? According to Egyptologists they deal with pagan Egyptian gods with no indication they have anything to do with Abraham. I understand jamison’s idea that there is more than one way to interpret pictures and even text and possibly there is some hidden meaning in the way Egyptians did things that we still don’t fully understand but I guess the biggest problem I have with all this is why would God ever allow all this confusion in the first place if all the Church’s major claims and assumptions are true?
It seems to me that if Joseph mistakenly thought these records were related to Abraham then God could have revealed to him that this wasn’t the case and that he shouldn’t pursue telling people this story. On the other hand if this hypothetical missing scroll was the real source for the BoA then why was it lost? If the meaning is encoded or hidden and we are supposed to believe all this based on faith and warm fuzzy feelings alone then why couldn’t these existing fragments have been lost or burned in the Chicago fire as well similar to the way the gold plates were supposedly taken back? Is God trying to throw us a curve ball to really test our faith to the limit by requiring us to believe all this anyway in spite of this conflicting evidence?
None of this speculation really helps me feel very confident about JS as a trustworthy prophet. I don’t mind entertaining a few alternative possibilities and plausible denials but when you have to try to explain one problem after another that’s when I start to get tired of trying to make the evidence fit with some desired answer and would rather just interpret it the way that looks like the most likely case to me. I’m sorry but until more information turns up (like this hypothetical missing scroll) the only conclusion that makes sense to me is that JS made this whole Abraham story up and he was clearly wrong regardless of whether he believed it himself or not.
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