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Except when Joseph Smith said the Book of Mormon was the "most correct book", he definitely did not intend that to be taken to mean it was perfect translation, since he made that statement in 1841 after making several corrections to the text. Rather, he was referring to the precepts that were taught in the book, saying, "a man would get nearer to God by abiding by its precepts, than by any other book."

It's a Artificial Inteligence (AI) client.

This is a dilemma that I encountered on my mission decades ago. Because the BoM is supposedly the most correct book, you can't really blame mistranslation or uninspired scribes.

Chatgpt? I've never heard about chatgpt. Is it a source machine? Like google?

Yes, and it's not always certain how much of the scriptures are really true. People love to manipulate the truth at their own hand and make it about their own ideas.

I'm responding to this one just to provide documentation to what Pyreaux said above. This is page 117 of the 1830 edition of the Book of Mormon showing the original reading of 2 Nephi 30:6, where it says "white and delightsome". This is page 125 of the 1837 edition of the Book of Mormon, perpetuating the original reading of 2 Nephi 30:6, where it says "white and delightsome". This is the page 115 from the 1840 edition of the Book of Mormon where in 2 Nephi, Joseph Smith had changed "white and delightsome" to "pure and delightsome". The reason that this change was omitted between the 1840 edition and the 1981 edition was because all the later (post 1840) American editions of the Book of Mormon up until 1981 were originally copied from the first European edition, which was based on the 1837 edition of the Book of Mormon which had the 1830 reading. The 1981 edition recognized the change made by Joseph Smith to the 1840 edition and updated the text to include his change. This is a common metaphor for purity and is even used throughout the Bible, for example: Psalms 51:7 "Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow." Daniel 11:35 "And some of them of understanding shall fall, to try them, and to purge, and to make them white, even to the time of the end: because it is yet for a time appointed." Daniel 12:10; "Many shall be purified, and made white, and tried; but the wicked shall do wickedly: and none of the wicked shall understand; but the wise shall understand." And some translations recognize that "white" can also be translated as "pure" (similar to the change that was made by Joseph Smith). For example: NASB95, Daniel 11:35: "Some of those who have insight will fall, in order to refine, purge and make them pure until the end time; because it is still to come at the appointed time." NASB95, Daniel 12:10: "Many will be purged, purified and refined, but the wicked will act wickedly; and none of the wicked will understand, but those who have insight will understand."

Forcing chatgpt to only answer with yes or no is probably the biggest trick in what he did. It allowed him to incorporate his information without letting chatgpt incorporate its own responses.

lulz. Using the same prompts and "epistemological lenses" it looks like ChatGPT also considers the ancient American record written by that other Mormon prophet Rajah Manchou to be true Obviously Ether's Elephant's methodology has some problems

Your source lied to you. Joseph Smith himself changed "white" to “pure” in 2 Nephi 30:6. Which strongly implies that to Joseph, "white" and "pure" are interchangeable synonyms, therefore all like-words: White, clean, spotless, delightsome, all = Pure. Exactly how it's used in Near Eastern idioms. Though "beautiful" is interesting, as black skin or faces are thought to be visible, yet not necessarily melanin related, features that gives impression or indication of one's mood, emotion, or character, and called "black" skin, face or eyes, to express one's countenance. One's character also expresses itself by "beauty". Being "black" as described in the Book of Mormon might manifest as just generic unattractiveness from hard living. So, to your point, it seems the curse might be "ugliness". So, your point still holds, as it might relate to the subject of individual worth of all people, if your looks are suggestive of being cursed. Also, the mark of Cain verse is straight from the Bible.

Thanks for your answer. I appreciate your thoughts. It does make me wonder just how much trust we are suppose to put on a person who claims to be a prophet who speaks for God. I definitely have trust issues with what guidance a person calling himself a prophet or anyone who claims to speak for God.

The type of question that helps me with this kind of stuff is, "What experiences and relationship with God do I have, or would I need to have, to make sense of these kinds of commandments, and accept them as perfectly fine things in which to participate?" Or, "What was it about Abraham's prior experience and relationship that made his treatment of Isaac a naturally holy thing to do?" Or Nephi, Moses, Joseph Smith, etc. It is easy to dismiss the prophets as primitive, abusive or racist, but some of the answers are aided by current scholarship that support them as prophets. Where one lacks access, interest or understanding of the scholarship, spiritual questions like these (I say "spiritual" because they are asked in good faith, prayerfully and with a foundation in prior spiritual experience and testimony, or with a willingness to simultaneously pursue a testimony of the key, basic foundational principles of the restored Gospel) can certainly help someone process internal spiritual conflict arising from how they react to the subject matter.

Many, many years ago, (way back in 2004), I was driving home from work when I heard a piece on NPR from Richard Rohr - it was part of the "This I Believe" series they used to have. I think it's worth quoting a bit of it here: I am not quite yet as old as he was then, but I have a better understanding now than I did when I first hear him speak. We like the world to be black and white. We like everything to be clear and concise and simple. And yet the world is messy, and our lives are messy, and unlike my expectations 30 some years ago, when I first got married, you don't stop being a parent once your children have moved out and are on their own. Being a parent, for example, has given me a great deal more appreciation for the job my parents did, even as I recognize that they were at least as unprepared as I was. Elder Bruce Hafen, in his book The Believing Heart, said something profound about this (the whole book is worth reading, and is inexpensive). He starts by saying that there are three different levels of approach to the ambiguity we find in the gospel and in our lived experience. At the first level, we generally have a denial that the ambiguity exists. At the second level, Hafen suggests, we learn to start developing our own opinions - our own judgements: So congratulations, you are moving our of that first level response into the level two response. And here we need to develop our own understandings - our own opinions (you encounter a lot of that here). And here we see ambiguity all around us. Here we see these conflicts between things that cannot both be true. We become painfully aware of the gaps in our understanding. Hafen then goes on to suggest that we subordinate our reality (what we see with eyes wide open) to our hearts. I am not sure it is that wonderful of a metaphor, and I think that in some ways, I prefer Rohr's description, but it comes to the same place - we learn to embrace ambiguity. The key to maintaining faith in the light of difficult issues isn't so much (in my experience) about the issues as it is about moving through these three stages of belief. And since we often look at different areas of our faith in different ways, sometimes we have to go through this painful process several times. I have also appreciated something written by Joseph Natoli: In the Church, sometimes we start in the wrong place I think. That is, we don't question, so we never have this problem. That is a sort of primary approach. But eventually we run into questions. There is, I think, a desire to go back to a black and white world where we don't have this ambiguity. Now I could simply answer the question about Abraham and Isaac (as I have many times), and suggest that in my opinion, this was a test of faith that Abraham failed (which is certainly one of the competing interpretations in Judaism). I could decide that this was a test of Abraham's faith, and he passed with flying colors. But I think that no matter how we individually understand Abraham, we run into the problems created by the ways in which the story is repeated and interpreted. A good example of this is D&C 132:51, where we are given a comparison between the sacrifice of Isaac and polygamy: "for I did it, saith the Lord, to prove you all, as I did Abraham" - except, we note, that there was no ram bound in the thicket. Abraham and Isaac is no longer a great example because with polygamy that carried it out - and it would have been the only way, perhaps, that Abraham could really have failed with Isaac - if he had actually sacrificed him on that alter on Mount Moriah. Making these issues simply about obedience is the black and white answer - the primary answer that removes the ambiguity that exists. We cannot develop sustaining faith until we confront the difficulties. Another example which is closer to my heart comes from the Sunday School lessons about Lehi's vision of the Tree of Life in the Book of Mormon. To understand the vision, Nephi asks God to receive the vision, and sees it for himself. And then we have a whole section in the Book of Mormon where Nephi explains the vision to his brothers, answering their questions about it. The key feature of Nephi's discourse though is that the best way to understand the vision is to receive it for oneself. And when he tells this to his brothers, they respond by saying: "the Lord maketh no such thing known unto us (1 Nephi 15:9)." So, if you can't receive the vision, the next best thing may be to listen to an explanation from someone who has. How does the Gospel Doctrine manual explain this? We get a whole series of explanations of the symbolism of the elements of the vision that Nephi saw. And yet, one thing stands out to me: The irony of the lesson manual is that we are encouraged to emulate Laman and Lemuel. This is, at best, Hafen's first level of understanding. I think that we all have to forge our own understanding - and this means (of necessity) that we will not always agree with everyone else. No one else comes to these questions with our experience, having lived our lives. Now, finally, for a bit of a non-LDS approach to this issue. I am a fan of Leon Festinger's theory of cognitive dissonance. And by this, I mean the real theory and not the sort of popular perception of it. When we encounter things that are competing, we have several ways of reducing that dissonance - we can either change our beliefs, the actions we take in response to those beliefs, or we can weight one belief more than another (to give it priority). We see these approaches here in this thread. @webbles suggests that we should add the idea to the Abraham narrative that Isaac was a willing participant (thus reducing the potential conflict). @Kevin Christensen will point to the idea that the narrative is meant as a type of the Savior. @The Nehor will point out the obvious fact that culturally, much of our problem with the narrative occurs because of our fundamental disagreements with the idea of people as property. I could continue the list. I even have my own ways of dealing with the issue. The thing is, each of these may also create problems or ambiguities. The thing for me is that instead of trying to adjust our beliefs at every turn, instead of trying to find the loophole that allows us to bring each non-conformity back into line, we need to become more like Nephi where we rely on our own experience and the personal revelation we receive to chart our course through belief (and mortality). And if we don't always agree with everyone else, we can at least be satisfied that the same is true of our sacred texts and our leaders.

Then he's done a masterful job with the titles and photos on his promos- because he absolutely is. What makes you believe he isn't?

I came to the conclusion about a year or so ago that the Abraham/Isaac story is probably more about Isaac than the even the writers realized: If Isaac is a type of Christ, than he absolutely had the agency, and ability, to say "No."- but chose to do the will of his father. Sound familiar?

Just going to do what I said, and stay away from the political side of this.

At 5 minutes, I think his point that if one requires as evidence something that is impossible to provide, one is presupposing something is false is useful and interesting.

Ether's Elephant isn't exactly a channel I would describe as TBM (often used as a pejorative by critics, but I consider myself a true believer) but it has fun points. This episode is kind of funny.

Since you seem to be asking the question more broadly than just Abraham sacrificing his son, there is another issue that seems to be problematic. I read this morning a list of scriptures from the. Book of Mormon that refer to skin color. I have heard the apologetic replies on this subject, but never realized the number of scriptures that seem to clearly point to a black skin as being a curse from God. That also seems like a conflict with the idea that we are all equal unto God. Are all of these scriptures that refer to skin color so easily dismissed when it seems to be a pattern that repeated over and over again in the scriptures? Can we dismiss it as just a misunderstanding of what color of skin means? Here are the list of scriptures that I ran across this morning. BOOK of MORMON 1 Nephi 11:13 (Mary): “She was exceedingly fair and white.” 1 Nephi 12:23 (prophecy of the Lamanites): “Became a dark, and loathsome, and a filthy people, full of idleness and all manner of abominations.” 1 Nephi 13:15 (Gentiles): “They were white, and exceedingly fair and beautiful, like unto my people [Nephites] before they were slain.” 2 Nephi 5:21: “A sore cursing … as they were white, and exceedingly fair and delightsome, that they might not be enticing unto my people the Lord God did cause a skin of blackness to come upon them.” 2 Nephi 30:6 (prophecy to the Lamanites if they repented): “Scales of darkness shall begin to fall … they shall be a white and delightsome people” (“white and delightsome” was changed to “pure and delightsome” in 1981). Jacob 3:5 (Lamanites cursed): “Whom ye hate because of their filthiness and the cursing which hath come upon their skins.” Jacob 3:8-9: “Their skins will be whiter than yours … revile no more against them because of the darkness of their skins.” Alma 3:6: “And the skins of the Lamanites were dark, according to the mark which was set upon their fathers, which was a curse upon them because of their transgression and their rebellion.” Alma 3:9: “Whosoever did mingle his seed with that of the Lamanites did bring the same curse upon his seed.” Alma 3:14 (Lamanites cursed): “Set a mark on them that they and their seed may be separated from thee and thy seed.” Alma 23:18: “[Lamanites] did open a correspondence with them [Nephites] and the curse of God did no more follow them.” 3 Nephi 2:14-16: “Lamanites who had united with the Nephites were numbered among the Nephites; And their curse was taken from them, and their skin became white like unto the Nephites and … became exceedingly fair.” 3 Nephi 19:25, 30 (Disciples): “They were as white as the countenance and also the garments of Jesus; and behold the whiteness thereof did exceed all the whiteness … nothing upon earth so white as the whiteness thereof … and behold they were white, even as Jesus.” Mormon 5:15 (prophecy about the Lamanites): “For this people shall be scattered, and shall become a dark, a filthy, and a loathsome people, beyond the description of that which ever hath been amongst us.” Pearl of Great Price Moses 5:40 “And I the Lord said unto him: Whosoever slayeth thee, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold. And I the Lord set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him.” Moses 7:8: “A blackness came upon all the children of Canaan.” Moses 7:12: “Enoch continued to call upon all the people, save it were [i.e., except] the people of Canaan, to repent.” Moses 7:22: “For the seed of Cain were black and had not place among them.”

In this video Joshua Miller, a former patient of Jodi Hildebrandt and faithful Latter-day Saint, shares his story of recovery from Jodi's "therapy" through the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Others have already pointed out that Isaac had total agency in this matter. Genesis 22 says in two different places (verse 6 and 8 ) that "they went both of them together", so it was a cooperative effort for both Abraham and Isaac. But I also think this story is here to teach us something greater. In verse 2 Abraham is commanded to take his "only son" (the son of the covenant) to the land of Moriah and "offer him" there. The Hebrew in that text that is translated as "offer him" in the KJV literally means "to bring him up" or to "lift up". And I believe Jesus drew directly from this story and the cooperation between Abraham and Isaac in parallel to the cooperation between himself and his Father in John 8:28-29: "When ye have lifted up the Son of man, then shall ye know that I am he, and that I do nothing of myself; but as my Father hath taught me, I speak these things. And he that sent me is with me: the Father hath not left me alone; for I do always those things that please him." (John 8:28–29) In other words, "they went both of them together" in what Jesus and his Father were doing, the same as with Abraham and Isaac. I think Hebrews 11 also gives us more insight into Abraham's faith related to this story too: "By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac: and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, Of whom it was said, That in Isaac shall thy seed be called: Accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead; from whence also he received him in a figure." (Hebrews 11:17–19) It was in Isaac that Abraham received the promise from the Lord that, "I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his seed after him". (Genesis 17:19). How could Isaac have "seed after him" if he died? As Hebrews 11:17-19 points out, Abraham fully trusted in God's promise and knew that God would raise Isaac from the dead if necessary based on that promise.

Funny thing is I had the same suspicions with your persona and rhetoric. Which doctrines would that be? The doctrine of the waters of Mormon, to "mourn with those that mourn, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort"? or The doctrine of compassion exhibited by the Samaritan? A figure, by the way, which was purposefully crafted as one considered filthy and ostracized. (and a real fabricated story) or The doctrine of the sinless Son of God dinning with "sinners".( oh, to be a fly on the wall) An optic that was an affront to religiously pious of the day, but nevertheless was one of the greatest empirical demonstrations of a "God that so loved the world(not just Zion) that he have his Only Begotten Son? Those doctrines?

We all carry biases that can only be eased, often over quite a bit of time, through a personal connection with God. Sometimes anticipating the liberation that Christ provided through His Atonement gives us enough of a glimpse to let go of these distressing things, whether they be in the form of fear, shame, habits, inadequacy, bad memories, offense, confusion, etc. Whoa: I ended up listing a lot more than I intended!

I think building upon the personal, individual covenant relationship (trust) in God enables His children to realize that nothing He does or commands harms them. This might be why Abraham proceeded, or how he was able to proceed (I do not know), and how we can proceed with increasingly challenging relationship-building actions that might appear unjust to others (this I do know!).

I have a major conflicting truth that isn't really related to religion (it is complicated and I don't want to get into it here). It, though, has a major factor on how I see the world and everything around me. I don't know how to resolve this conflict. I've read many people that discuss this issue from all sorts of sides. I don't think I'll ever resolve it. I just live with it and hope that maybe I'll find a solution at some point in the future. I might be able to find a solution after I'm dead but I'm not sure about that either.

I am going to need to sit with this for a while. I feel like this has a lot of potential to change the way I look at things. Thank you CV75! I also have to admit that a big part of my current struggles stem from the way I was raised and taught to conceptualize the church and Gospel.