LDS: What do you know about your Heavenly Mother? Would you like to know more?

[zaffiroborant]

Where did that matter come from? If you think it is logically impossible for God to have always been there, then you must also admit that it is logically impossible for matter to have always been there.

So who created the matter that your god uses to make stuff?

Paul (formerly LDS, now happily Catholic)

The funny part is not only does the LDS teach that God has always been here, it teaches that we, just like him, have always been here in the form of intelligences.

 

[Peter_John]

Yet you justify the superiority of the RCC based on the logic of men

Now you are talking apples and oranges. I never said logic has no value. I never said the Church exists independent of the humans who compose it. I never even said that the leaders never err – they are human.

I demonstrate the internal inconsistencies of Mormonism by that logic. For example, I affirm that as long as we believe that any part of us can exist independent of God – an inherent part of LDS belief – we cannot believe that God is omnipotent. This is an internal inconsistency in LDS theology: God cannot be omnipotent at the same time as Man is coeternal with God.

I demonstrate how Catholicity is consistent with history and the complete Biblical record. The formation of the Church and the existence of God are separate questions, the former dependent on the latter. To affirm that because we do not understand a particular description of God that description cannot be so places us above God. The laws God creates over the nature of our existence do not necessarily apply to him.

Now, Mary is another question altogether. If we maintain a certainty of a Heavenly Mother, and had no premortal existence, then there must also be an error in the LDS understanding of the nature of Our Mother in Heaven and our relationship to Her.

 

[Peter_John]

that’s not true you can’t prove that unless you were with all those Near-death-experiences people and saw he doctors or nurses give them medications.

You may want to read a book called “My Stroke of Insight” by Jill Bolt Taylor (I think that is the author’s name). She was a cerebrologist who had a stroke. There are parts of our brain that affect everything we perceive, including our place in a room , our perception of separateness from other things, our perception of sequence of events. … very interesting book.

I did not say it applies to all cases, but that I consider them cautiously.

I said that most, having happened in hospitals, involve some kind of medication. I know standard medical procedures as a former Army medic and should have my Master of Psychology in about three weeks. It does not take knowing every case to know that when Doctors cut into someone they anesthetize them, for example.

I also did not say I reject them. I said I consider them cautiously because of the medications involved in hospital treatments. For that matter Morphine even finds its way to the battlefield.

 

[Peter_John]

you do not understand. we and God are he same species the same being, God is human. yes i believe he is omnipotent but if what you that before is you became Catholic you were LDS and i believe you said you like me at my age? then you understand what i strongly believe in. please i don’t want to be converted to Catholic Church or any other church im just reason with you. God is not self-existent you know what never mind there is no hope in discussing this anymore.

We cannot confront the beliefs of others without our own beliefs entering the discussion.

We all know that Mormons believe God is a glorified Man. In fact I have found your honesty on this matter very refreshing, as in the various dicussions on the site we have had people post outright denials of some of these things, so you demonstrate that despite official PR positions, the LDS Church still teaches them.

I never expected to be Catholic myself, but I never realized how much Mormonism misrepresented Catholicism to me – as well as its own history. I dismissed as anti-Mormon propoganda all those claims about the revisions to the Book of Mormon, but they are true. Even the early LDS Historian B.H. Roberts said they were substantive changes, not just typos.

yes, at your age I did not beleive it when Catholics told me that I understood their beliefs wrong, because the LDS Church had told me that they were themselves deceived, and that doubting anything that came down from Salt Lake was already a step toward Apostasy. The funny thing is that once you go to another country and see what Mormonism does differently, it can affect your perception of the LDS CHurch’s dependability.

In Brazil we had some distinctive baptism policies for some couples living in adultery that would never be permitted in the US. I describe them in other posts. Some LDS members do not believe me when I discuss them, others have no problem accepting them. It created a problem for me, as the Law of Chastity was supposed to be one inviolable rule, as my experience had taught me even more than my studies. I found it very confusing.

But that was not the first shock of my mission. The first shock was that even though Blacks had been permitted to hold the priesthood for several years, LDS leaders in the US still advised strongly against interracial marriage – but the CHurch in Brazil was filled with interracial couples. Nobody ever made an issue out of it. I was surprised how many Utah missionaries considered US missionaries inherently better than Brazillian missionaries (almost all my companions were Brazilians, and they were all better men than me), or that sending women on missions was just a sort of indulgence. They really didn’t belong there.

This was all very disturbing to me, but I pushed the thoughts aside.

It wasn’t until after my rather sudden conversion to Catholicism that I began thinking of the implications of Mary being a Temple of God.

 

[Tony888]

We cannot confront the beliefs of others without our own beliefs entering the discussion.

We all know that Mormons believe God is a glorified Man. In fact I have found your honesty on this matter very refreshing, as in the various dicussions on the site we have had people post outright denials of some of these things, so you demonstrate that despite official PR positions, the LDS Church still teaches them.

No Peter, it is only your wisth that LDS Doctrine was “God was a Glorified Man”
Sadly for you, it is not LDS doctrine. If you continue to insist it is doctrine, please provide a reference to this teaching iin our Quad, Proclamantions by the Apostles, or even the current teaching manuals.

I won’t disupute you if you want to inisist you were taught this false doctirne by your lparents or local woard . It just hasn’t been taught in my ward.

The point for you to remember is you cannot infer doctrine through logical deduction. If that was possible, then I state “All catholics believe they will become Gods and live in post mansions by the throne of our Father” Since I have quote mined Catholic doctrine to support it, I must be right in calling it Catholic doctrine .

 

[Peter_John]

No Peter, it is only your wisth that LDS Doctrine was “God was a Glorified Man”
Sadly for you, it is not LDS doctrine. If you continue to insist it is doctrine, please provide a reference to this teaching iin our Quad, Proclamantions by the Apostles, or even the current teaching manuals.

I won’t disupute you if you want to inisist you were taught this false doctirne by your lparents or local woard . It just hasn’t been taught in my ward.

The point for you to remember is you cannot infer doctrine through logical deduction. If that was possible, then I state “All catholics believe they will become Gods and live in post mansions by the throne of our Father” Since I have quote mined Catholic doctrine to support it, I must be right in calling it Catholic doctrine .

I read “The Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith”, compiled by hisgreat-nephew Joseph Fielding Smith twice before my mission. It was required reading for missionaries, and remains so as far as I know. Joseph Smith clearly states that the truth about God is that God is a glorified man. If you are saying the Church backs off this opinion now, then chalk it up as one more reason that Mormonism cannot dismiss Catholicism for any appearance of shifting with the times.Perhaps it has become as inconvenient now as Polygamy was 120 or so years ago.

 

[Crdl2Grv]

No Peter, it is only your wisth that LDS Doctrine was “God was a Glorified Man”
Sadly for you, it is not LDS doctrine. If you continue to insist it is doctrine, please provide a reference to this teaching iin our Quad, Proclamantions by the Apostles, or even the current teaching manuals.

Seriously, Tony? Seriously?

Wrong again, Tony.

Again, from the current Gospel Principles manual, chapter 47:
**
"This is the way our Heavenly Father became God. Joseph Smith taught: “It is the first principle of the Gospel to know for a certainty the character of God. . . . He was once a man like us; . . . God himself, the Father of us all, dwelt on an earth, the same as Jesus Christ himself did” (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, pp. 345-46). **

Please, Tony, learn what the LDS church teaches before you come here to defend it to those of us who know better.

Paul (formerly LDS, now happily Catholic)

How many times does someone have to post this stuff before you stop pretending it doesn’t exist?

You never quite got around to responding to this one, either:

forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=8177557&postcount=22

Must have just slipped your mind.

Honestly, I will never cease to be baffled by the intentional deception. Why not just come right out and say what you believe?

 

[Peter_John]

No Peter, it is only your wisth that LDS Doctrine was “God was a Glorified Man”
Sadly for you, it is not LDS doctrine. If you continue to insist it is doctrine, please provide a reference to this teaching iin our Quad, Proclamantions by the Apostles, or even the current teaching manuals.

I won’t disupute you if you want to inisist you were taught this false doctirne by your lparents or local woard . It just hasn’t been taught in my ward.

The point for you to remember is you cannot infer doctrine through logical deduction. If that was possible, then I state “All catholics believe they will become Gods and live in post mansions by the throne of our Father” Since I have quote mined Catholic doctrine to support it, I must be right in calling it Catholic doctrine .

Excuse me, he is not a “glorified man” but an “exalted man”: From the series of Melchizedek Priesthood manuals on the teachings of the Presidents of the Church:
"“God Himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man, and sits enthroned in yonder heavens! That is the great secret. If the veil were rent today, and the great God who holds this world in its orbit, and who upholds all worlds and all things by His power, was to make Himself visible,—I say, if you were to see Him today, you would see Him like a man in form—like yourselves in all the person, image, and very form as a man; for Adam was created in the very fashion, image and likeness of God, and received instruction from, and walked, talked and conversed with Him, as one man talks and communes with another. … "
lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=da135f74db46c010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD&locale=0&sourceId=dc48b00367c45110VgnVCM100000176f620a____&hideNav=1&contentLocale=0

 

[Tony888]

I read “The Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith”, compiled by hisgreat-nephew Joseph Fielding Smith twice before my mission. It was required reading for missionaries, and remains so as far as I know. Joseph Smith clearly states that the truth about God is that God is a glorified man. If you are saying the Church backs off this opinion now, then chalk it up as one more reason that Mormonism cannot dismiss Catholicism for any appearance of shifting with the times.Perhaps it has become as inconvenient now as Polygamy was 120 or so years ago.

Peter, I certainly will not disupte your personal experience,
I do disupte your source is doctrine.

You obviously must be able to find the teaching in doctrine if it was really doctrine, RIGHT?

My experience is nietither you nor any other ex-LDS can find such teaching in doctinre.

 

[SteveVH]

Peter, I certainly will not disupte your personal experience,
I do disupte your source is doctrine.

You obviously must be able to find the teaching in doctrine if it was really doctrine, RIGHT?

My experience is nietither you nor any other ex-LDS can find such teaching in doctinre.

Let’s try this one more time:

Again, from the current Gospel Principles manual, chapter 47:

"This is the way our Heavenly Father became God. Joseph Smith taught: “It is the first principle of the Gospel to know for a certainty the character of God. . . . He was once a man like us; . . . God himself, the Father of us all, dwelt on an earth, the same as Jesus Christ himself did” (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, pp. 345-46).

I’m not sure what you consider doctrine, but do you dispute your founding prophet?

:banghead:

 

[Tony888]

Excuse me, he is not a “glorified man” but an “exalted man”: From the series of Melchizedek Priesthood manuals on the teachings of the Presidents of the Church:
"“God Himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man, and sits enthroned in yonder heavens! That is the great secret. If the veil were rent today, and the great God who holds this world in its orbit, and who upholds all worlds and all things by His power, was to make Himself visible,—I say, if you were to see Him today, you would see Him like a man in form—like yourselves in all the person, image, and very form as a man; for Adam was created in the very fashion, image and likeness of God, and received instruction from, and walked, talked and conversed with Him, as one man talks and communes with another. … "
lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=da135f74db46c010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD&locale=0&sourceId=dc48b00367c45110VgnVCM100000176f620a____&hideNav=1&contentLocale=0

Your focus on this speech is pathetic

• It is a speech and is not doctrine
• the exact wording is obviously highly important, but is unknown. JS did not publish this speech in written form, it was amalgamated from the audience notes of close to a dozen listeners. No, we don’t know exactly what was said in this speech
• I urge you to read the full text again. Assuming the text is right, JS said God was flesh and bone and had been on earth like Jesus
  All LDS doctrine clearly indicated both Jesus and his Father were always Diety.

It is only by the fantasy of quote mining and speculation that anyone imagines the doctrinal impossibility of “infinite regression of Gods”

If this were really doctrine then why isn’t it explicit as a revelation, why isn’t it expanded upon repeatedly and dissected like every other important aspect of faith and salvation?

Since you’ve read the bible and LDS scriptures, you know the important things are oft repeated throughout the scriptures

 

[PaulDupre]

Your focus on this speech is pathetic

• It is a speech and is not doctrine
• the exact wording is obviously highly important, but is unknown. JS did not publish this speech in written form, it was amalgamated from the audience notes of close to a dozen listeners. No, we don’t know exactly what was said in this speech
• I urge you to read the full text again. Assuming the text is right, JS said God was flesh and bone and had been on earth like Jesus
  All LDS doctrine clearly indicated both Jesus and his Father were always Diety.

It is only by the fantasy of quote mining and speculation that anyone imagines the doctrinal impossibility of “infinite regression of Gods”

If this were really doctrine then why isn’t it explicit as a revelation, why isn’t it expanded upon repeatedly and dissected like every other important aspect of faith and salvation?

Since you’ve read the bible and LDS scriptures, you know the important things are oft repeated throughout the scriptures

This “speech” is presented as prophetic teaching in your church’s Melchizedek Priesthood manual.

If it is taught by the prophets and apostles in general conference and in the books they write; if it is taught in the church’s Sunday school manuals and priesthood manuals (which must be approved by the first presidency); if the members believe it because it is consistently taught in all these ways:

THEN IT IS LDS DOCTRINE.

If it is not to be considered doctrine, then why do you go to Sunday school? Why do you attend piesthood meetings? Why do you bother to listen to general conference? Why pay attention to anything these guys say if it is not doctrine? If it is just their speculative opinion, then why listen to it at all? Are you gambling your eternal salvation on some guy’s opinion? What makes Thomas S. Monson’s speculative opinions any better than Jimmy Swaggart’s opinions?

To quote Yul Brenner in The King and I, “Is a puzzlement!”.

BTW, other Mormons on this forum have stated that it is doctrine. They have even born testimony of it.

 

[SteveVH]

• It is a speech and is not doctrine

I’m trying to imagine our Pope speaking in a public forum and saying anything antithetical to Catholic doctrine; saying anything that the Church would then reject on a doctrinal basis.

In this case the subject is most definately a doctrinal matter on which JS was commenting.

• the exact wording is obviouysly highly important, but is unknown. JS did not publish this speech in written form, it was amalgamated from the audience ntoes of clsoe to a dozen listeners. No, we don’t know exactly what was said in this speech

The question is do you agree with what was put down, aside from its apparent questionable origin? Or do you reject it?

• I urge you to read the full text again. Assuming the text is right, JS said God was flesh and bone and had been on earth like Jesus
  All LDS doctrien clealry indicated both Jesus and his Father were always Deithy

Did the Father become incarnate or did he begin as a mere man? Jesus became incarnate, he was not always so. So where did “Heavenly Father” originate?

It is only by the fantasy of quote mining and specualtion that anyone imagines the doctrinal impossibility of “infinite regression of Gods”

Not sure what you are saying here. Are you defending the “infinite regression of Gods”?
I would say that it is only by fantasy and specualtion that anyone imagines the doctrinal possibility of “infinite regression of Gods”.

If this were really doctrine then why isn’t it explicit as a revelation, why isn’t it expanded upon repeatedly and disected like every other important aspect of faith and salvation?

Since you’ve read the bible and LDS scriptures, you know the important things are oft repeated throughout the scriptures.

Maybe there is much confusion surrounding true doctrine concerning the nature of God. There sure seems to be confusion on these threads. I don’t think it has been nailed down to a point where it can be “expanded upon repeatedly and disected like every other important aspect of faith and salvation”.

 

[Tony888]

Let’s try this one more time:

I’m not sure what you consider doctrine, but do you dispute your founding prophet?

:banghead:

Why do you read and infer what is not said?
Here is the link and full text, red format is mine. The teaching certainly agrees with CCC 460 that ‘Christ became man so that man might become God’, but it doesn’t teach what you claim, an infinite progression of Gods,

Yes, It says God was on the earth as Jesus was. Since we have explicit teachings that Jesus was deity before, during and after his time on earth, hence** that is all you can assume about God being on earth. **Net:

• Yes the LDS teach both Jesus and God have flesh and bone.
• No, the LDS do not teach infinite progression of Gods

[Chapter 47: Exaltation (Chapter 47: Exaltation)

After We Have Been Faithful and Endured to the End

• What happens when we have endured to the end in faithful discipleship to Christ?

The Lord has said, “If you keep my commandments and endure to the end you shall have eternal life, which gift is the greatest of all the gifts of God” (D&C 14:7). President Joseph Fielding Smith said, “If we will continue in God; that is, keep his commandments, worship him and live his truth; then the time will come when we shall be bathed in the fulness of truth, which shall grow brighter and brighter until the perfect day” (Doctrines of Salvation, 2:36).

The Prophet Joseph Smith taught: “When you climb up a ladder, you must begin at the bottom, and ascend step by step, until you arrive at the top; and so it is with the principles of the gospel—you must begin with the first, and go on until you learn all the principles of exaltation. But it will be a great while after you have passed through the veil [died] before you will have learned them. It is not all to be comprehended in this world; it will be a great work to learn our salvation and exaltation even beyond the grave” (*Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith *[2007], 268).
Joseph Smith taught: “It is the first principle of the Gospel to know for a certainty the Character of God. … He was once a man like us; … God himself, the Father of us all, dwelt on an earth, the same as Jesus Christ himself did” (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, sel. Joseph Fielding Smith [1976], 345–46).
Our Heavenly Father knows our trials, our weaknesses, and our sins. He has compassion and mercy on us. He wants us to succeed even as He did.
Imagine what joy each of us will have when we return to our Heavenly Father if we can say: “Father, I lived according to Thy will. I have been faithful and have kept Thy commandments. I am happy to be home again.” Then we will hear Him say, “Well done … ; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord” (Matthew 25:23).

 

[zaffiroborant]

Why do you read and infer what is not said?
Here is the link and full text, red format is mine. The teaching certainly agrees with CCC 460 that ‘Christ became man so that man might become God’, but it doesn’t teach what you claim, an infinite progression of Gods,

Yes, It says God was on the earth as Jesus was. Since we have explicit teachings that Jesus was deity before, during and after his time on earth, hence** that is all you can assume about God being on earth. **Net:

• Yes the LDS teach both Jesus and God have flesh and bone.
• No, the LDS do not teach infinite progression of Gods

[Chapter 47: Exaltation (Chapter 47: Exaltation)

It says God the Father was on an earth not the earth, really there is a difference.

Jesus while on earth did the will of the Father, who’s will did God the Father do while He was on an earth? How did He get His body, after all He started out as an “intelligence” just the same as you and me?

 

[RebeccaJ]

All LDS doctrine clearly indicated both Jesus and his Father were always Diety.

lds.org/library/display/0,4945,11-1-13-59,00.html

This is the way our Heavenly Father became God. Joseph Smith taught: “It is the first principle of the Gospel to know for a certainty the character of God. . . . He was once a man like us; . . . God himself, the Father of us all, dwelt on an earth, the same as Jesus Christ himself did” (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, pp. 345-46).

Your god was not always god, as it is not possible to state this while also stating your god became a god.

Also, LDS doctrine indicates that you have always been deity. There isn’t any difference between you and your god, just a level of power and authority, but LDS teach that your nature is the same as your god…something called"intelligence". So saying your god has always been deity, isn’t clarifying anything…it is an obsfuscation.

 

[mwok]

No Peter, it is only your wisth that LDS Doctrine was “God was a Glorified Man”
Sadly for you, it is not LDS doctrine. If you continue to insist it is doctrine, please provide a reference to this teaching iin our Quad, Proclamantions by the Apostles, or even the current teaching manuals.

I won’t disupute you if you want to inisist you were taught this false doctirne by your lparents or local woard . It just hasn’t been taught in my ward.

The point for you to remember is you cannot infer doctrine through logical deduction. If that was possible, then I state “All catholics believe they will become Gods and live in post mansions by the throne of our Father” Since I have quote mined Catholic doctrine to support it, I must be right in calling it Catholic doctrine .

If you need reference material for this LDS doctrine, read the “King Follett Discourse”, spoken by Joseph Smith, talking on the very nature of God.

 

[Peter_John]

Your focus on this speech is pathetic

• It is a speech and is not doctrine
• the exact wording is obviously highly important, but is unknown. JS did not publish this speech in written form, it was amalgamated from the audience notes of close to a dozen listeners. No, we don’t know exactly what was said in this speech
• I urge you to read the full text again. Assuming the text is right, JS said God was flesh and bone and had been on earth like Jesus
  All LDS doctrine clearly indicated both Jesus and his Father were always Diety.

It is only by the fantasy of quote mining and speculation that anyone imagines the doctrinal impossibility of “infinite regression of Gods”

If this were really doctrine then why isn’t it explicit as a revelation, why isn’t it expanded upon repeatedly and dissected like every other important aspect of faith and salvation?

Since you’ve read the bible and LDS scriptures, you know the important things are oft repeated throughout the scriptures

He said God is an exalted man. Nothing to infer there. Regarding your “infinite regression of Gods”, that is actually incorporated into your hymnal, and is by your scripture considered a prayer (D&C 25:12, if I recall). In the song “If you could hie to Kolob” . “Do you think that you could ever in all eternity find out the generation when gods began to be?”

In Mormonism God was not always God, and therefore is not absolutely omnipotent, but relatively omnipotent. ASk your Bishop about it, and why it seems to disagree with the Bible, and he will cite Paul’s admonition that there are gods many and lords many but to us there is one God, to justify the relativism of God’s ultimate influence over us, but not necessarily over everything that exists.

 

[Peter_John]

Your focus on this speech is pathetic

• It is a speech and is not doctrine
• the exact wording is obviously highly important, but is unknown. JS did not publish this speech in written form, it was amalgamated from the audience notes of close to a dozen listeners. No, we don’t know exactly what was said in this speech
• I urge you to read the full text again. Assuming the text is right, JS said God was flesh and bone and had been on earth like Jesus
  All LDS doctrine clearly indicated both Jesus and his Father were always Diety.

It is only by the fantasy of quote mining and speculation that anyone imagines the doctrinal impossibility of “infinite regression of Gods”

If this were really doctrine then why isn’t it explicit as a revelation, why isn’t it expanded upon repeatedly and dissected like every other important aspect of faith and salvation?

Since you’ve read the bible and LDS scriptures, you know the important things are oft repeated throughout the scriptures

I find it interesting that while the Church tries to deny this as Doctrine, despite Smith declaring it so, even as they accept that “Mahonrimoriankumr” was the name of the Brother of Jared. That was a sort of afterthought when Joseph Smith’s day was once interrupted to bless yet one more baby that any worthy father could have blessed. They called him off the street, and he gave the baby a long ridiculous name (good way to keep people from interrupting you to bless their babies all the time), and then added that it was the name of the Brother of Jared. (He may as well have named the baby “Uthinktwiceforaskinmedoodisaginwissuchaname.”)

Despite the possibility of such circumstances, and no other mention I know of reinforcing that name as the name of the Brother of Jared, Leaders often cite it as fact. In the King Follet Discourse Smith outright declared he was proclaiming doctrine. If when the Prophet outright declares that something is doctrine, and he still may not be acting as a Prophet, how do you know when the prophet speaks as a prophet and when not?

 

[Peter_John]

• the exact wording is obviously highly important, but is unknown. JS did not publish this speech in written form, it was amalgamated from the audience notes of close to a dozen listeners. No, we don’t know exactly what was said in this speech

1. The Church by republishing the statement to which I refer validates that statement whatever the source. Please note that the reference I use for it is an LDS Melchizedek Priesthood manual still formally distributed through the official LDS website. Furthermore, it is part of a series of Priesthood Manuals specifically created so that Priesthood members could better recognize the consilience among all the Presidents of the Church in what they taught. As a whgole the series demonstrates how each President had some particular doctrine they emphasized (Lorenzo Snow, Tithing, for example) but that their overall teachings remain consistent with each other.

Whatever the source, the Church declares this a valid teaching by including it in a lesson manual. It is something they want Priesthood holders to believe.

1. Joseph Smith wrote very little of his formal teachings down himself. MAny of the “revelations” accepted as part of the Doctrine and Covenants came during formal meetings, and the scribes took them down. Other teachings came during speeches and discourses where he usually spoke off the cuff, and I think it was Wilford Woodruff who later wrote them down. He reputedly had a near perfect memory of all that Smith said that held until he had committed the words to writing. This also (quite probably) allowed for grammatical changes in his expression. Smith actually had a folksy way of speaking, like a storyteller spinning a yarn, that often ignored grammatical rules of tense and person. This is apparent in the actual text of the 1830 Book of Mormon (e.g. “There was seven churches”).