The Book Of Moses

[Sethbag]

Sethbag:

Who says it is only â??â?¦ a creation myth, and not historical fact.â?? I believe that Adam and Eve were very real, very historical characters â?? the primal parents of the human race.

Let's be clear about this. Do you believe that Adam and Eve were the first human beings on the earth, which is the language I used? Or are you sticking to "primal parents of the human race" so that you can assert specialized definitions of "primal parent" that you can make apply to Adam and Eve, regardless of how the science turns out? Because if you believe that Adam and Eve were the first human beings on earth, then I'm sorry, but you are simply wrong, and that's "wrong" with no wiggle room whatsoever, ie: mistaken, incorrect.

I also believe that Noah was a very real, very historical character; that he built an ark and thereby saved his family from a flood.

That's nice. But I wasn't talking about William Schryver believed, I was talking about what Joseph Smith believed, and he didn't believe that Noah saved just his own family from some local flood. He believed that Noah's family were the only survivors in the whole world from a global, catastrophic flood which, except for Noah's saving his family in the ark, would have been the cause for the extinction of homo sapiens. And he was wrong.

I see much basis for the belief that Joseph Smith was inspired.

Of course you do, but that doesn't serve to counter my argument that with regards to Joseph Smith's views of certain Biblical stories contained in the very first five books of the Bible we're talking about, he was very much uninspired, and believed and taught mythology as truth.

[PacMan]

Sethbag,

He believed that Noah's family were the only survivors in the whole world from a global, catastrophic flood which, except for Noah's saving his family in the ark, would have been the cause for the extinction of homo sapiens.

I agree...except for those homosapiens that survived, the Flood would have been the cause for the extinction of homosapiens.

Kind of like the earthquake today in Japan. Except for those homosapiens that survived, it would have been the cause for the extinction of homosapiens!

PacMan

[Sethbag]

Sethbag,

At least pretend to be credible! Your ridiculousness via foot stomping and gnashing of teeth is only going to further cloud your reputation as an able and objective poster. How could you even begin to support such inflamatory ridiculousness? Whining and crying isn't going to do any good, so let's skip the hyberboles and polemics and get back to the issues. Immaturity and hubris may have driven you out of the church, but it isn't going to be tolerated here. To leverage argumentum ad ignorantium to such extremes begs the qualification of your competence in critical thinking--a poor measure to bet one's salvation.

Your whole post here, Pacman, is one of foot stomping and gnashing of teeth. I mentioned two very specific areas in which Joseph Smith believed and taught mythology as truth, ie: Adam and Eve as first human beings on the earth, and Noah saving humanity from extinction from a global, catastrophic flood. All you've done in your post is rage about my posting style, or my attitude, or something, I'm not even sure what.

So, Pacman, are you saying Joseph Smith didn't believe that Adam and Eve were the first human beings on earth?

Are you saying Joseph Smith didn't believe that but for Noah's family being saved on the Ark, homo sapiens would have gone extinct at the time of a global, catastrophic flood which wiped out everyone else?

[Sethbag]

Yes, we are all quite aware of your view on the topic. You're quite certain that God should give prophets revelation only in the manner you find acceptable, and preferably with several tangible items of irrefutable evidence to back up every claim of inspiration.

I can't imagine why God doesn't see things the same way you do ...

That's interesting. I can imagine why. It's because you create God in whatever image is necessary to defend the Prophet status of Joseph Smith, and so your God's modus operandi is determined by whatever the apologetic needs of the moment are. And I don't share that prime directive. So really, there's no mystery here why God doesn't see things the way I do.

[Sethbag]

Sethbag,

I agree...except for those homosapiens that survived, the Flood would have been the cause for the extinction of homosapiens.

Kind of like the earthquake today in Japan. Except for those homosapiens that survived, it would have been the cause for the extinction of homosapiens!

PacMan

Pacman, let's stop playing games. Who do you believe "those homosapiens that survived" were? Were they limited to the people it is written Noah saved onboard his ark? Or do you like to keep the language more ambiguous, so that you can stretch it out to mean whatever you need it to mean? Because if it's the former, then you join Joseph Smith in being simply wrong, and if it's the latter, then it's totally irrelevent to my discussion of what Joseph Smith believed, because it's clear that Joseph Smith believed the former.

[PacMan]

Sethbag,

Your whole post here, Pacman, is one of foot stomping and gnashing of teeth. I mentioned two very specific areas in which Joseph Smith believed and taught mythology as truth, ie: Adam and Eve as first human beings on the earth, and Noah saving humanity from extinction from a global, catastrophic flood. All you've done in your post is rage about my posting style, or my attitude, or something, I'm not even sure what.

So, Pacman, are you saying Joseph Smith didn't believe that Adam and Eve were the first human beings on earth?

Are you saying Joseph Smith didn't believe that but for Noah's family being saved on the Ark, homo sapiens would have gone extinct at the time of a global, catastrophic flood which wiped out everyone else?

You unabashedly deemed Adam and Eve and Noah (and their stories) as myths. Prove it.

And I did not say that Joseph Smith didn't believe that Adam and Eve were the first human beings on earth. What's your point?

And I'm not saying what Joseph Smith didn't believe concerning Noah's family being saved on the Ark. In fact, I don't recall mentioning a thing about what Joseph Smith said about what he DID believe concerning the matter. I do recall, however, you calling the creation story and the flood a "myth." Get to the point and either restate it as your (rather poorly construed) opinion, or back it up. Either way, I'm content seeing you backstep.

PacMan

[PacMan]

Sethbag,

Pacman, let's stop playing games. Who do you believe "those homosapiens that survived" were? Were they limited to the people it is written Noah saved onboard his ark? Or do you like to keep the language more ambiguous, so that you can stretch it out to mean whatever you need it to mean? Because if it's the former, then you join Joseph Smith in being simply wrong, and if it's the latter, then it's totally irrelevent to my discussion of what Joseph Smith believed, because it's clear that Joseph Smith believed the former.

Actually, I was just moking the structure of your argument. Not nice, but we're pals right?

Now you're asking me what I believe? Well...I tend to follow the literalist account, although I'm not a strict orthodox. In other words, I wouldn't be surprised if the earth received it's baptism and some trible group found some high ground (completely sogged to effectuate the necessary baptism of the earth), and somehow survived. Actually...maybe I would be, but I really don't care. I don't see what that has to do with you proving it's all mythological.

PacMan

P.S. And yes, I said moking. As opposed to mocking, which isn't nearly as bad.

[William Schryver]

Sethbag:

Joseph Smith â?¦was very much uninspired, and believed and taught mythology as truth.

Thus saith Sethbag. As he labors mightily to derail yet another thread â?¦

We already get that you are very angry at having been â??deceivedâ? by the truth claims of Joseph Smith and that devilish LDS Church he founded. We simply donâ??t share your conviction regarding what is and what is not â??mythologyâ? or what has and what has not been â??proven.â? So why donâ??t you go somewhere else to play today â?? this thread was advancing rather nicely until you dropped by.

[LifeOnaPlate]

I don't know if it is appropriate to tease Brother Bachman, considering how bravely he laid his life on the line on his mission, being surrounded by myriads of poisonous frogs, deadly crocodiles, swamp disease, and the sword of damocles hanging over him, that his mission president would soon ask him to suicide bomb some remote jungle location. (Presumably, when Tal claimed he would have said "sure! tell me where to go!" I believe his president would have instructed to go "as far away from any living thing as you possibly can...")

[Sethbag]

ROFL. Well enjoy whatever it is you imagine, in your own mind, you have won over me Pacman.

There are so many mountains of evidence that support the fact of homo sapiens going back many tens of thousands to even over a hundred thousand years, that I will simply remind you of what you already know about this. Just as the very briefest of glimpses into the subject, you might refer to this wikipedia article that very briefly touches on the timeline of human existence. A good book, I think, about this whole subject is Jared Diamond's "Guns, Germs, and Steel", which includes discussion of the timeline for the emergence and scattering around the world of homo sapiens. By the way, "Guns, Germs, and Steel" also effectively refutes the whole "global flood" argument by demonstrating a timeline for existing populations around the world that goes back, in uninterupted fashion, far earlier than any Biblical flood timeline for the flood of Noah. Also go look up in whatever source you want (except, I suppose, "Answers in Genesis") the ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica and what they would stand as evidence for in the context of a global flood of Noah. Really, there are mountains and mountains of research that could serve well in effectively refuting the notions of Adam and Eve as first human beings, and Noah saving humanity from extinction in a global flood, with the ones I've cited just being the tiniest tip of the iceberg, made more accessible to the general public.

But you know all of this already, and you're just playing games with me.

[Sethbag]

Sethbag:

Thus saith Sethbag. As he labors mightily to derail yet another thread â?¦

We already get that you are very angry at having been â??deceivedâ? by the truth claims of Joseph Smith and that devilish LDS Church he founded. We simply donâ??t share your conviction regarding what is and what is not â??mythologyâ? or what has and what has not been â??proven.â? So why donâ??t you go somewhere else to play today â?? this thread was advancing rather nicely until you dropped by.

My first posts in this thread were actually very much on topic, and it wasn't until you and Pacman showed up and jumped in that it got derailed.

[PacMan]

Sethbag,

ROFL. Well enjoy whatever it is you imagine, in your own mind, you have won over me Pacman.

I thought I might!

There are so many mountains of evidence...

Yet no proof. Darn. Still care to amend your statement, or are you going to carry on this impossible battle?

Really, there are mountains and mountains of research that could serve well in effectively refuting the notions of Adam and Eve as first human beings, and Noah saving humanity from extinction in a global flood, with the ones I've cited just being the tiniest tip of the iceberg, made more accessible to the general public.

Effectively refute? Is that like, effectively proving? And yea, verily verily, none of them seem to be posted here.

But you know all of this already, and you're just playing games with me.

Mayyyybe.

PacMan

[gtaggart]

It's clear that Joseph Smith believed that Adam and Eve were the first humans on earth (which is wrong), and it's clear that Joseph Smith believed that Noah saved the human race from a global, catastrophic flood which killed everyone on earth who wasn't in the ark (which is wrong).

Sethbag, you asserted; would you mind if I CFR'd you? I'd like to see what the Prophet said, in his own words. Thanks.

[Olavarria]

Nice insights David

[Sethbag]

Sethbag, you asserted; would you mind if I CFR'd you? I'd like to see what the Prophet said, in his own words. Thanks.

I kinda mind a little bit, as I'm trying to get some work done and don't have time to poke around finding quotes showing JS believed in Adam & Eve and Noah's flood. Most LDS don't have a hard time stipulating this and then focusing in on the ramifications. I should have thought it was pretty clear to most everyone that he believed this. But if you'd actually like to see things he said that support this claim, some poking around will have to be done. I'd accept volunteer submissions by people that happen to have things in mind already about it, and I'll try to poke around later on and find some things myself.

[Chaos]

David is surfing today. I don't want him to come back to 10 pages of off-topic posts. I see a good chance for a new thread in gtaggart's CFR to Sethbag.

Back to the topic, folks.

gtaggart started a new thread for the threadjack topic:

What Did Joseph Believe?, A spin-off from the Book of Moses thread

[William Schryver]

David is surfing today. I don't want him to come back to 10 pages of off-topic posts. I see a good chance for a new thread in gtaggart's CFR to Sethbag.

Back to the topic, folks.

gtaggart started a new thread for the threadjack topic:

What Did Joseph Believe?, A spin-off from the Book of Moses thread

Are there sharks in Rhode Island?

[Nevo]

This is a faulty conclusion, for both the reasons I cite above and the second item I shall note below. Again, Joseph Smith was restoring a text that considerably predates the formulation of our present-day Genesis, and purports to be the original writings of Moses.

Perhaps my wording was imprecise. In any case, we agree that Joseph believed he was restoring an original writing of Moses, a corrupted version of which survives in our present-day Genesis.

However, just because Joseph Smith regarded his revision of Genesis as a restoration of an original writing of Moses does not mean that we must do the same. I agree with David that the evidence of critical scholarship "suggests that this is not a correct interpretation" and that "rather than a restoration of ancient texts, the JST makes greater sense as an example of an inspired workbook that reveals the theological discoveries of an inspired prophet of God" (see also, Kevin L. Barney, "Reflections on the Documentary Hypothesis," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 33, no. 1 [2000]: 76-77).

Even Elder McConkie was open to the idea that at least some of the Book of Moses was inspired commentary rather than a restoration of an original text:

The things in the forepart of the book of Genesis are true. But the forepart of Genesis is virtually rewritten in the book of Moses and there is a tremendous added flood of light and knowledge because of what the Prophet added by the spirit of inspiration. I do not know whether he added all of it because it was in the original record or whether some of it is inspired interpolation by him, but that doesn't matter. The point is that when he gives us the book of Moses, he is giving a book that contains the sense and meaning of the early chapters in Genesis. So we have two translations, as it were, of the same thing and both of them are true.

-- Sermons and Writings of Bruce R. McConkie, ed. Mark L. McConkie (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1989), 269.

Accepting the Documentary Hypothesis does entail rejecting the Book of Moses as a textual restoration of an original writing of Moses--I don't think we can get around that--but it doesn't necessarily entail (pace Bachman) that the Book of Moses is uninspired. Indeed, as David pointed out in his initial post, there is much to be said in its favor.

[David Bokovoy]

Hello Nevo,

Thanks for providing the quote from Elder McConkie. This was very helpful.

Perhaps my wording was imprecise. In any case, we agree that Joseph believed he was restoring an original writing of Moses, a corrupted version of which survives in our present-day Genesis.

I think we need to remain open to the possibility that Joseph Smith recognized that his revisions were not restoring an original text.

In addition to the quotations I provided, the comparison between Josephâ??s explanation of the â??originalâ? version of Genesis 1:1-3 and the revision provided in Moses 2:1-3 suggests that at least by the end of his ministry, Joseph recognized that his revision of Genesis was not a restoration of the original text.

Surely the Prophet was smart enough to recognize when he explained that Genesis 1:1 originally read â??the head one of the Gods brought forth the Gods,â? that his revision of the passage did not match this wording.

If one assumes that the Prophet was simply making it all up as he went along, it would seem odd to believe that Joseph was capable of keeping track of the complex narrative details witnessed in the Book of Mormon in a way that avoided internal contradictions but was unable to remember that his revision of Genesis 1:1 did not read â??the head one of the Gods brought forth the Gods.â?

Anyone who assumes that Joseph himself was responsible for his scriptural texts needs to remain consistent. The Prophet canâ??t be a creative genius cable of avoiding contradictions throughout the Book of Mormon yet fail to recall that his explanation of the original version of Genesis 1:1 did not match Moses 2:1-3.

Hello Seth,

It depends really if you're just trying to support the modern LDS approach to the scripture, ie: the apologetic approach, or whether you care at all what the original authors actually believed and meant when they wrote their stories. If you believe that the original, ancient authors of the separate fragments actually believed in this quandary, then you should be able to support that somehow, and not just by saying hey, Joseph Smith said they did, and he would know, because he is, you know, a Prophet. This is the point, after all, of these various sorts of textual criticism, is it not?

If you don't wish to approach this sort of criticism with an open mind, interested in discovering, to the extent possible, what was meant and intended by the original authors, then why bother with it at all? Just read what Joseph Smith wrote, bear your testimony to the world that you "know" it's true, and be done with it.

Iâ??m certainly not going to argue against the importance of finding out what the original biblical authors actually believed. Thatâ??s precisely what I have devoted my academic career to discovering. Again, I believe in not only the legitimacy of the documentary hypothesis, but in its importance as tool for proper biblical interpretation.

I have even pointed out to LDS students in a variety of classes that the contradictions in the opening chapters of Genesis derive from the compilation of two separate sources. I honestly believe that more Latter-day Saints should have exposure to the insights gained from critical biblical scholarship.

Nonetheless, I refuse to accept that it is somehow â??wrong,â? as Talâ??s post suggest, for a religious group that accepts the Bible as scriptural to interpret Genesis as a literary whole. In the end, the Bible has been compiled in a way that the sources have been blended together to create a single literary unit.

Hence, LDS prophetic commentary which interprets the command to multiply and replenish the earth together with the story of Eden appropriately relies upon the text as it has actually been preserved, namely as a single literary whole.

Why are the views presented in the individual sources more important than the view of the editor/redactor who complied the sources into a single literary unit?

In other words, unlike you and Tal, both as a Biblicist and a believing Latter-day Saint, I do not believe that the issue is an either/or situation.

One can approach the text recognizing the original authors' intent while at the same time appreciating what the Bible in its current form has to offer.

Hello Will,

Are there sharks in Rhode Island?

Well, the movie Jaws was filmed at Marthaâ??s Vineyard. Sharks, however, are not nearly as frightening as other surfers who donâ??t know what theyâ??re doing.

Yesterday I had been up working a six foot wave for several minutes when another guy on a board decided to try and take off in front of me (this is a major violation of surfing protocol since the one up and riding has exclusive rights to the wave).

When the guy realized what he had done, he panicked and sent his board right into my knee cap. Fortunately, all I ended up with was a nice gash and a swollen knee.

The swell seems to have hit New Hampshire. Off for more today.

Happiness to all.

[Danite3459]

David,

In light of your thoughts, what would be your take on Moses 1:40-42?

And now, Moses, my son, I will speak unto thee concerning this earth upon which thou standest; and thou shalt write the things which I shall speak. And in a day when the children of men shall esteem my words as naught and take many of them from the book which thou shalt write, behold, I will raise up another like unto thee; and they shall be had again among the children of men--among as many as shall believe. These words were spoken unto Moses in the Mount, the name of which shall not be known among the children of men. And now they are spoken unto you (Moses 1:40-42). Doesn't this sound like a restoration of lost text written by Moses?

Danite

Hello Nevo,

Thanks for providing the quote from Elder McConkie. This was very helpful.

I think we need to remain open to the possibility that Joseph Smith recognized that his revisions were not restoring an original text.

In addition to the quotations I provided, the comparison between Josephâ??s explanation of the â??originalâ? version of Genesis 1:1-3 and the revision provided in Moses 2:1-3 suggests that at least by the end of his ministry, Joseph recognized that his revision of Genesis was not a restoration of the original text.

Surely the Prophet was smart enough to recognize when he explained that Genesis 1:1 originally read â??the head one of the Gods brought forth the Gods,â? that his revision of the passage did not match this wording.

If one assumes that the Prophet was simply making it all up as he went along, it would seem odd to believe that Joseph was capable of keeping track of the complex narrative details witnessed in the Book of Mormon in a way that avoided internal contradictions but was unable to remember that his revision of Genesis 1:1 did not read â??the head one of the Gods brought forth the Gods.â?

Anyone who assumes that Joseph himself was responsible for his scriptural texts needs to remain consistent. The Prophet canâ??t be a creative genius cable of avoiding contradictions throughout the Book of Mormon yet fail to recall that his explanation of the original version of Genesis 1:1 did not match Moses 2:1-3.

Hello Seth,

Iâ??m certainly not going to argue against the importance of finding out what the original biblical authors actually believed. Thatâ??s precisely what I have devoted my academic career to discovering. Again, I believe in not only the legitimacy of the documentary hypothesis, but in its importance as tool for proper biblical interpretation.

I have even pointed out to LDS students in a variety of classes that the contradictions in the opening chapters of Genesis derive from the compilation of two separate sources. I honestly believe that more Latter-day Saints should have exposure to the insights gained from critical biblical scholarship.

Nonetheless, I refuse to accept that it is somehow â??wrong,â? as Talâ??s post suggest, for a religious group that accepts the Bible as scriptural to interpret Genesis as a literary whole. In the end, the Bible has been compiled in a way that the sources have been blended together to create a single literary unit.

Hence, LDS prophetic commentary which interprets the command to multiply and replenish the earth together with the story of Eden appropriately relies upon the text as it has actually been preserved, namely as a single literary whole.

Why are the views presented in the individual sources more important than the view of the editor/redactor who complied the sources into a single literary unit?

In other words, unlike you and Tal, both as a Biblicist and a believing Latter-day Saint, I do not believe that the issue is an either/or situation.

One can approach the text recognizing the original authors' intent while at the same time appreciating what the Bible in its current form has to offer.

Hello Will,

Well, the movie Jaws was filmed at Marthaâ??s Vineyard. Sharks, however, are not nearly as frightening as other surfers who donâ??t know what theyâ??re doing.

Yesterday I had been up working a six foot wave for several minutes when another guy on a board decided to try and take off in front of me (this is a major violation of surfing protocol since the one up and riding has exclusive rights to the wave).

When the guy realized what he had done, he panicked and sent his board right into my knee cap. Fortunately, all I ended up with was a nice gash and a swollen knee.

The swell seems to have hit New Hampshire. Off for more today.

Happiness to all.

[David Bokovoy]

Hello Danite,

Hope all is well with you and your family.

Doesn't this sound like a restoration of lost text written by Moses?

Yes. It certainly does sound like a restoration of a lost text written by Moses, but I do not believe that it is.

Despite the fact that I believe very strongly in the legitimacy of the JST as inspired scripture, I do not believe that the Prophet's efforts restored an original existing text.

But of course I'm OK with it if you do.

Best,

--David

[William Schryver]

David,

Why should we not consider the possibility that Moses was in possession of essentially the same records possessed by Abraham?

Abraham 1

28 â?¦ I shall endeavor â?¦ to delineate the chronology running back from myself to the beginning of the creation, for the records have come into my hands, which I hold unto this present time.

Apocryphal sources indicate that the records which Abraham possessed had come down from none other than Enoch.

And, of course, as Professor Nibley so adeptly demonstrated, the Book of Moses shows all the signs of having been distilled from the record of Enoch, even containing a fairly extensive account of that most elusive of all the prophets.

Clearly there was a collection of records that had come down the line of the patriarchs to Enoch:

Moses 6

46 For a book of remembrance we have written among us, according to the pattern given by the finger of God; and it is given in our own language.

And clearly it is a significant book:

D&C 107

56 â?¦ Adam stood up in the midst of the congregation; and, notwithstanding he was bowed down with age, being full of the Holy Ghost, predicted whatsoever should befall his posterity unto the latest generation.

57 These things were all written in the book of Enoch, and are to be testified of in due time.

Why should we not consider the possibility that this same record, or a transmitted version thereof, descended in a direct line from Enoch to Noah to Shem to Abraham to Joseph and finally to Moses? And that from this very record, Moses crafted an account of the antediluvian period, and that Joseph Smith restored that very record, in fulfillment of the prophecy cited by the illustrious Danite above?

Moses 1

40 And now, Moses, my son, I will speak unto thee concerning this earth upon which thou standest; and thou shalt write the things which I shall speak.

41 And in a day when the children of men shall esteem my words as naught and take many of them from the book which thou shalt write, behold, I will raise up another like unto thee; and they shall be had again among the children of menâ??among as many as shall believe.

I, for one, believe this is precisely what occurred -- and that when the Book of Enoch mentioned in D&C 107 is "testified of in due time," we will find that it was the essential source for our own Book of Moses.

[David Bokovoy]

Hello Will,

Just so everyone knows, Iâ??m in no way on any intellectual crusade trying to convince fellow Church members that my view of the JST is what everyone else should accept.

Why should we not consider the possibility that Moses was in possession of essentially the same records possessed by Abraham?

He might have been, but if so, we do not have copies of those records.

The JST is the Prophetâ??s inspired revision of the King James Version of the Bible. Therefore, the Book of Moses is a revision of the opening chapters of the KJV. Based upon the KJV of the Bible, Josephâ??s revisions still include the linguistic and more importantly, the theological distinctions manifested in the separate Pentateuchal sources. In addition to their theological distinctions, these sources derive historically from a much later time period than Moses.

So, from my perspective, while Moses might have been in possession of the same records possessed by Abraham, those records are not represented in the King James Version of the Bible, nor in the Prophetâ??s inspired revision of the Pentateuchal sources.

Still, as I have tried to illustrate in this and in other recent threads, the Book of Moses features an amazing grasp of important, albeit extremely subtle theological and cultural perspectives associated with the Bible and the ancient Near East.

Clearly Josephâ??s revisions were inspired. Yet perhaps the most important aspect of the JST is that Josephâ??s theological ponderings that occurred while working through the Bible led directly to many of the revelations presented in the D&C.

As Danel Bachman has illustrated, section 132 (which I personally consider one of the most powerful revelations God has ever given to man) is an amalgamation of three separate questions/answers the Prophet encountered while revising the KJV.

Best,

-David

[William Schryver]

David:

The JST is the Prophetâ??s inspired revision of the King James Version of the Bible.

I suppose this is what I question. I understand (as Nevo cited above) that Joseph Smith may have considered that his reception of the revelation of the Book of Moses was an inspired revision of the KJV of Genesis. That may have been a logical conclusion on his part since the revelation came in consequence of the commandment to â??translateâ? the Bible, and specifically as a result of his reading of Genesis.

However, we today may in fact be in a better position to judge its true origin than was Joseph Smith. I donâ??t say this because I think that 21st century â??thinkersâ? or â??scholarsâ? are wiser or more capable than was the Prophet, but simply because I donâ??t think it would have been that important to the Lord to correct a minor misconception on the part of Joseph. His interest was in conveying the â??lost wordâ? to His people.

â?¦ they shall be had again among the children of menâ??among as many as shall believe.

Now, in consequence of the discovery (over the course of the past 100+ years) of purported books of Enoch, we can conclude with a good measure of probability that what we call the Book of Moses may very well resemble parts of the ancient Book of Enoch. It has all the necessary components, and many of those components are confirmed by these recently-discovered sources.

I understand that you believe the text, in its entirety, is a production of the 19th century â?? albeit a divinely inspired one. But I see a precedent in the scriptural record for what I am suggesting: that the Book of Moses is an actual â??translationâ? of a portion of the Book of Enoch â?? the book which shall be â??testified of in due time.â? Of course, that precedent is the 7th section of the Doctrine & Covenants. We are told explicitly that it is:

Revelation given to Joseph Smith the Prophet and Oliver Cowdery, at Harmony, Pennsylvania, April 1829, when they inquired through the Urim and Thummim as to whether John, the beloved disciple, tarried in the flesh or had died. The revelation is a translated version of the record made on parchment by John and hidden up by himself.

If we are to take this literally (and I see no reason why we should not do so), then we must admit that the Lord sees fit to restore lost scripture by apparently producing a .pdf file of the original (as it were -- presumably from the digital archive) and then permit the anointed seer to translate from the original, thereby causing the actual words of the ancients to be preserved unto the latest generations.

Anyway, it doesnâ??t really matter to me either way. If you are right and I am wrong, or vice versa, or if neither of us is right â?? I am still confident that the Book of Moses is the word of God, as I am sure you are as well. But I am fascinated with the apparent similarities between the two books of Moses and Enoch. I trust the promise of the Lord that we will one day receive the great blessing of having both the books of Enoch and the brother of Jared restored to us. Then perhaps this debate can be resolved to the satisfaction of all.

[William Schryver]

I rarely "bump" a thread. But I'm feeling like this one got buried a little too soon. So ...

B U M P

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