Honestly, it’s not about “besting” anyone. Parker is a great many things, but he’s not stupid. I just like giving him a little chin music about the lengths he’ll go to obfuscate any honest discussion of LDS doctrine. It’s fun. And I’m sure that our exchanges would be a lot more charitable if he’d just drop the act and honestly say, “Yes, this is what the LDS Church teaches” or “this is what I believe.”
I did not mean to make it sound like a competition…it isn’t. It just seems that Parker stops responding to people who he knows really “knows” the LDS Church
It’s not about there being a few different words or phrases in the BoM (that are mostly just made-up names of people, places and things), or how Noah Webster used the KJV for the definitions he used in his dictionary. Those are things that are usually just the preferences of the writer, and both of them are totally irrelevant to the point. The style is significant because if you read anything else in literature that was also written during that same time period (early 19th century), it sounds absolutely nothing like the cadence of the English used in the KJV like the BoM uses. In this case, the author(s) was only copying that particular style to make it sound more “Biblical”.
He pointed his gun out of the door and fire3d shots down the stairs. I have been in that room and walked on those stairs
So, Telstar,
Its a bogus test. It presumes that Joseph told the truth about how he wrote the book. Mormon history does not even agree on how it was written. Bottom line, Joseph has several years to write the book, he had scholars who helped him, and he had the Bible and Solomon Spaulding to copy from.So, Telstar,
If you want to take up the challenge of writing a “Book of Mormon II” or “another testament about the scattered tribes of Israel who left Jerusalem before or during its destruction, and their relationship with God”, then if you think you could do what the Book of Mormon does, it would need to:
Enjoy yourself–if you care to share a paragraph or two from what you come up with, then bring it onto the forum and it will be interesting to read.
- Have authentic love communicated from the writers and speakers toward their fellow men and women and toward the world of our day. (A reader can usually fairly easily detect unauthentic, “pretended” love–people do that all the time in real relationships around them, and it’s not much different when reading a book).
- Have at least a hundred passages, sometimes entire chapters, that are original in their own right and that amplify teachings or prophecies (especially from the book of Isaiah) in the Bible but with originality and tastefulness and complexity, sometimes using Hebrew poetry forms in the process.
- Have at least a hundred different “plots and sub-plots”, complete with flash-backs, foreshadowing, and character development that always are internally consistent for the particular participants and the plots and sub-plots in the history.
- Write your book without the aid of word-processing or computers, and only by dictating the book to another who will write down what you say, and when you take a break or start out the next day on the book, then never ask for anything to be read back to you as to where you left off–just start from the exact spot where you had left off each time, and do that throughout the process of writing this book, without ever repeating yourself or skipping something you had meant to include.
So, Telstar,
If you want to take up the challenge of writing a “Book of Mormon II” or “another testament about the scattered tribes of Israel who left Jerusalem before or during its destruction, and their relationship with God”, then if you think you could do what the Book of Mormon does, it would need to:
Enjoy yourself–if you care to share a paragraph or two from what you come up with, then bring it onto the forum and it will be interesting to read.
- Have authentic love communicated from the writers and speakers toward their fellow men and women and toward the world of our day. (A reader can usually fairly easily detect unauthentic, “pretended” love–people do that all the time in real relationships around them, and it’s not much different when reading a book).
- Have at least a hundred passages, sometimes entire chapters, that are original in their own right and that amplify teachings or prophecies (especially from the book of Isaiah) in the Bible but with originality and tastefulness and complexity, sometimes using Hebrew poetry forms in the process.
- Have at least a hundred different “plots and sub-plots”, complete with flash-backs, foreshadowing, and character development that always are internally consistent for the particular participants and the plots and sub-plots in the history.
- Write your book without the aid of word-processing or computers, and only by dictating the book to another who will write down what you say, and when you take a break or start out the next day on the book, then never ask for anything to be read back to you as to where you left off–just start from the exact spot where you had left off each time, and do that throughout the process of writing this book, without ever repeating yourself or skipping something you had meant to include.
:clapping: Parker, have you ever heard of something called a “novelist”? They are people who write fiction, who once did not have word processors or computers with which to write their works, and had no problem with literary elements such as plots, sub-plots, flashbacks, and the like. Also, within the realm of writing, we have all sorts of styles of writing and ways in which we write, many of them quite experimental.Please. Whoever wrote a novel before the computer or word processor was invented? Answer: No one…
Where did you find that out Paul???…And if Joseph Smith was not dictating from an already-completed manuscript, why did he insist on having a curtain between him and his scribe at all times?
Paul (formerly LDS, now happily Catholic)
theidler,Parker, have you ever heard of something called a “novelist”? They are people who write fiction, who once did not have word processors or computers with which to write their works, and had no problem with literary elements such as plots, sub-plots, flashbacks, and the like. Also, within the realm of writing, we have all sorts of styles of writing and ways in which we write, many of them quite experimental.
If your response was intended as humorous, I simply must thank you…if my wife wasn’t sleeping right now, I would have let out a ripping peal of laughter.
Parker,So, Telstar,
If you want to take up the challenge of writing a “Book of Mormon II” or “another testament about the scattered tribes of Israel who left Jerusalem before or during its destruction, and their relationship with God”, then if you think you could do what the Book of Mormon does, it would need to:
Enjoy yourself–if you care to share a paragraph or two from what you come up with, then bring it onto the forum and it will be interesting to read.
- Have authentic love communicated from the writers and speakers toward their fellow men and women and toward the world of our day. (A reader can usually fairly easily detect unauthentic, “pretended” love–people do that all the time in real relationships around them, and it’s not much different when reading a book).
- Have at least a hundred passages, sometimes entire chapters, that are original in their own right and that amplify teachings or prophecies (especially from the book of Isaiah) in the Bible but with originality and tastefulness and complexity, sometimes using Hebrew poetry forms in the process.
- Have at least a hundred different “plots and sub-plots”, complete with flash-backs, foreshadowing, and character development that always are internally consistent for the particular participants and the plots and sub-plots in the history.
- Write your book without the aid of word-processing or computers, and only by dictating the book to another who will write down what you say, and when you take a break or start out the next day on the book, then never ask for anything to be read back to you as to where you left off–just start from the exact spot where you had left off each time, and do that throughout the process of writing this book, without ever repeating yourself or skipping something you had meant to include.
I agree - they are generally written well.
First and foremost, in order to write a “BoM II”, I would have to read the entire BoM, first. I seriously doubt that I could ever bring myself to do that. No offense, because I know you think it’s beautiful to read, but with all of the repetitiveness and circular logic, it confuses the heck out of me. It also exasperates me due to it’s errors in theology, while the rest of it, basically, just bores me to tears. It’s torturous enough just to read a page or two without stopping to let my brain-cramps subside and my blood pressure to return to normal. At that rate, it would take me years just to read it all. If I had to use that same form of English to write my version, I think I’d probably just commit myself to the local mental institution, right now.
Umm… I must have been reading the wrong sections, because all I remember was reading a lot about fire, brimstone and damnation (not necessarily in those exact terms), repeated over and over again. I don’t think I read anything much that made the ‘writers’ sound very ‘loving’ toward anyone, except God (occasionally). But, even those references were followed with more admonitions and threats of being “cut off”, etc., if the reader didn’t do exactly what he was told by the ‘writer’. They made God sound more like a demanding tyrant than a loving Father. :ehh:
Like I said, it doesn’t take a genius to make up stories and tall tales. JS was pretty good at that, for sure, especially when he had a rough outline (the Bible, etc) to base them on.
But, JRR Tolkien was the true master at creating all of the above, including making up an entire language for one of his character groups. His stories were a shadow of the Bible and many of its stories, as well as its philosophies and the struggles between good and evil. They’re much more interesting to read than anything in the BoM, and I still haven’t even read all of them.
How would I be able to post any of it, here? And, where would I find myself a ‘scribe’ to take dictation? Would you like to volunteer for that position? Could I really trust you to write everything I said without embellishing on it?
If I followed all of your instructions to the letter, that could never happen!Enjoy yourself–if you care to share a paragraph or two from what you come up with, then bring it onto the forum and it will be interesting to read.
I know it was a bogus challenge, but I had to respond, anyway. The whole premise of claiming the BoM as authentic scripture instead of pure fiction, is bogus from the get-go. There’s nothing in it that has any significance regarding the true life of Jesus as He lived it. Most of it, never even talks about Him, at all. It’s just meant to fool people into thinking God wanted JS to build a ‘new church’ to replace the one Jesus already built, except on a completely different ‘foundation’ (aka: one built on JS and what he taught, not on what Jesus taught).