http://www.ldsmag.com/article/1/12895

In explaining why Smith's magic upbringing is useful to the Book of Mormon translation, Ashat says:

"Unfortunately the Interpreters didn’t come with instructions and Joseph was apparently left on his own as to how to use them. This is when his cultural background came in handy."

Some of my other favorites:

"The seer stones were related to crystal balls or the practice of looking into pools of water or mirrors to divine information (such as the Queen’s magic mirror in the Snow White tale)."


"Unfortunately most artists are not historians and may produce beautiful drawings and paintings that are based on misassumptions."

The church has known these problems for decades, and they still don't fix it. Why not, Ashie?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/27/2013 11:50AM by Jesus Smith.

So, uh....Jesus was all about talking mirrors (that belong to evil queens), crystal balls, folk magic and divine interpreters with zero instructions?

Now THAT'S a church I can believe in!!

He had his dad's mirror?

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Yeah, you bet I believe!!

Moroni can show Joe in visions where to dig for plates, spend hours teaching him about nephite civilization, but he forgot to simply tell joe to put the interpreters on the plates and use them properly?

Moroni failed to get tenure at University of Nephi because he got so many poor student ratings.

Of course, no rocks (seer or plain) come with heavenly instructions, so we can't be sure Joe even got the right kind when he dug that well. God has never actually sent any instructions on deciphering rocks from seer stones. Never.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/27/2013 12:31PM by Jesus Smith.

IF Joe would have actually FOUND any buried treasure with his
rock in the hat trick, then maybe, just MAYBE they could say
something. But the fact that he never did while taking people's
money by CLAIMING that he could, speaks volumes.

"The seer stones were related to crystal balls". Wow.

Sometimes I forget how silly all of us are for even visiting this site to discuss this stuff.

It's no different than middle school kids discussing Harry Potter on some fan message board.

Talking about the mental and emotional impact is one thing and should be respected but the doctrine and history is straight out of a comic book. This religion and anyone involved with it in any capacity should be institutionalized. Yet, in this great country, one of them almost became president! Jesus(Smith)!

Man, you said it. Harry Potter . . . right out of a comic book. It seems half-insane to have a serious conversation about such silliness.

Sounds like TSCC's spin machine is working overtime to figure out how to introduce this idea so in 5 years no one remembers that "head in a hat" translation was never taught.

Just another instance of pretending to ignore how history really went down.

Umm...just so I understand...this guy is suppose to be "for" TSCC...right?

This is priceless...



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/27/2013 01:25PM by magnite.

""The seer stones were related to crystal balls or the practice of looking into pools of water or mirrors to divine information (such as the Queen’s magic mirror in the Snow White tale).""



HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA…………….oh god………… I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe, takes big breath, HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA oh god!

Ditto!

Yeah go for the Disney reference, that's something ALL Mos can relate too! :)

Reminds me of that 1980s show 'The Greatest American Hero' where aliens give this guy a superhero costume that gives him all sorts of superpowers. But he lost the instruction manual and he doesn't know how to work the suit right and is constantly crashing into things and such.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Greatest_American_Hero

As the Nephite prophets struggled to inscribe the plates and hand them down for centuries without them being lost or stolen, I bet they never envisaged that young Jo Smith would simply keep them wrapped up while he opted to just use a peep stone and hat.

Also if Jo's magical upbringing and his hat trick were perfectly normal and part of The Lord's plan, why is TSCC only now starting to tell its members about this AFTER this was exposed by critics?

You can try to justify and validate Jo's behaviour all you like, but we all know what TSCC has taught & hidden for decades. Wanna throw any more Sunday School teachers under the bus? They're only teaching from the correlated manuals that TSCC produces in its committees that are overseen by GAs and ultimately, the 15.

For a second you almost had me feeling bad for nonexistent nephites!! Priceless!!!

The big problem is that the magic glasses and breastplate came first and were taken away after the lost 116 pages and replaced with the magic hat trick. Much like Mesoamerica and the limited geography model--the chronology doesn't work.

This is a classic example of a TBMopologist confronted with evidence and then countering it with a bizarre, unfounded rationalization and then acting like both have the same credibility.

The reason why? Because the reality that his real estate investment in the CK is just a big lie is too much for him to handle.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/28/2013 05:48AM by morgrefugee.

There appear to be no limits in Mikey's unending efforts to insult his own intelligence.

One day that boy is gonna wake up: RFM will be here for you, Mikey.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/27/2013 01:52PM by 3X.

Here's the trouble with this kind of a$$hat explanation for stuff. It works well with the low information types who just want something, anything, to be spewed out as a crutch to shore the whole thing up -- another prop for the shelf.

As for it's usefullness for explaining the troubling aspects of the story to thinking members, or Golden type contacts -- forgetaboutit! It not only doesn't cut it, it makes them look like drooling fools!

This is the ridiculous. If he only a peep stone why did Moroni hide them after risking his life to keep them safe. Why have witnesses to them if JS never even looked at them. Why did Moroni even take the plates back, they weren't even used. Why not "retranslate the lost pages, JS had the gold record oh I forgot he never looked at them. Joseph should have used a ouija board. There is no difference.

Ouija board is of the devil duh that's why he can't use it duh

Michael Ash is the inventor of "chicken in backpacks," a concept so silly that one poster uses it for a moniker. See above.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/27/2013 07:58PM by donbagley.

Can you elaborate about this?

When Ammon was "preparing" "horses and chariots", neither of which existed in mesoamarica, Ash posits that perhaps they ate horsemeat (or tapir meat, or kotamundi, or whatever), and chariots could translate as some kind of travois or backpack, so when King Lamoni called for "Horses and Chariots!" he really meant "Bring some snacks!"

Because that's what kings do in all great stories....

Oh man! That's rich! Maybe he meant chinchillas? It sounds a lot like enchiladas. That god's a tricky one!

His chicken is choked, and all on foot he fights,
Seeking for Richmond in the throat of death.
Rescue, fair lord, or else the day is lost!

A Mink! a Mink! my kingdom for a Mink!

OMG, Exdrymo for the win!!!!

Or a Ferret perhaps?

Ah yes, shoulda, coulda been a ferret!

Oh boy...god stones.

What ever happened to idea of "Direct Revelation" from God, and "KNOWING the truth" through the power of the Holy ghost?

The great advantage of Mormonism's dogma is that everything supposedly comes straight from the horses mouth (so to speak). No translation problems. No mortal interpretation. God speaks for Himself and the "prophet" just passes it on word-for-word.


But according to this report, God has quality control problems BIG TIME.

I always love how they blame the artists...I know a lot of people that have done illustration and artwork for the Church magazines. The Church heavily art directs every single piece that goes out there. Much of the direction is done to make sure that every piece is as unoffensive and bland as possible. Essentially nothing that is printed or put out there is not directly approved by one or more of the apostles. The artwork that is presented is what they want to be seen.

Oh, now, you're just unhappy because you are suffering from Shaken Faith Syndrome. :p

I was like, his name cannot seriously be ashat. I'm sad to find it isn't.

Also, this is lame even for an apologist. Doesn't he read his own stuff and think... I sound like a complete ass. I bet this apologist crap actually gets more people out of the church than it helps. The shelf is really only so big...

Exactly.

The biggest mistake of the last fifty years (and there were many candidates), right up there with the "I'm Not Weird I'm Mormon" campaign was the letter the GA's wrote divesting themselves of responsibility for clarifying Mormon doctrine and...choke...telling people to go to FAIR or their bishop. That these apostles were too busy to be bothered with religious nonsense, in effect.

Sending people to FAIR is pointing to the door.

One can reasonably assume the underlying contempt the GA's have for the average member. Clearly, they think the members will believe anything that is called an "explanation," no matter how ridiculous.

In their defense, they would not believe this if they had not been rewarded positively for this behavior. I have been told by a member that Mormon academics, "experts" at these matters, have explanations for everything. When I asked what the explanation was for having four conflicting versions of the First Vision, the member said he didn't remember because it isn't essential to his salvation.

When people are in love with an abusive person, they rationalize the behavior, "He had an abusive childhood...ever since his sister was killed...he only does it when he's drinking..." They don't want it to end--they love being in love, or love being married.

This is no different. Mormons love being in the only true church and having all the answers. It's hard to leave that for the wild and woolly real world where you have to figure things out for yourself and your path to spirituality may be entirely different from your neighbor's.

Whaaat? No plastic card or secret handshake?

Anagrammy

Some people will go to great lengths to remain in their magical, imaginary world. They look ridiculous to us, but they are so deep into it that they just have to make up this apologetic BS to try to justify it to themselves as much as to others. It's absolutely hilarious.

Every time I try to read an apologist, somehow I always end up singing to myself

"You spin me right round, baby, right round
Like a record, baby, round and round"

Did Joseph actually say that he was having difficulty shoving the spectacle urim & thummim in a hat so he resorted to the mini urim & thummim pocket-sized stone that did the same thing - you know the one found on Willard Chase's property 20 feet underground where he and Hyrum were digging a well?