Moses Chapter 6

[Stargazer]

1 minute ago, Jane_Doe said:

There's a huge different between being something being 1) inerrant 2) must be taken literally.  

Perhaps, but it does seem possible for something to be both inerrant and taken literally. I gather that snowflake does both.

[JLHPROF]

1 hour ago, mfbukowski said:

That's what my mirror says. 

I wonder how many people noticed that the veil in the temple is a mirror? That left is right and right is left?

I think if everyone paid such close attention in the temple instead of going through the motions we'd see a lot more there.

[JLHPROF]

3 hours ago, snowflake said:

Amazing, now I'm not to trust LDS scriptures because they might not be "revealed"? Never heard that one before.

You need to take a better look at scriptures, whichever ones you believe to have come from God.

Brigham Young said it best:

• "I know the Bible to be true in all its parts; It contains the words of the Gods, the words of angels, the words of devils, the words of men and, if you are very particular, the words of an ***. To me the Bible is the Key to Theology, the gauge of Philosophy, the age of Reason and the Rights of man."

I hold little respect for the term canon.  Paul was an Apostle, Orson Pratt was an Apostle.   Both wrote things down.  Both preached sermons and sent letters.
Some of Paul's are canonized, none of Orson's are.  Both are the works of men mingled with inspired teachings.  Paul is as apt to be wrong as Orson was.
Moses was a prophet, Joseph Smith was a prophet, Isaiah was a prophet, John was a prophet.  All men, all subject to error EXCEPT when God spoke to them or through them.

[Bobbieaware]

51 minutes ago, Jane_Doe said:

I agree that is doesn't really matter.  But I don't understand why Snowflake is trying to single out LDS specifically in this thread.  

One possible answer is that the Book of Moses, as opposed to the book of Genesis in the Old Testament of the Bible, is said to be a pure revelation from God to living prophet that doesn’t suffer from the Bible’s issues of inaccurate translation, even so some active Latter-Day Saints refuse to believe what the Book of Moses clearly testifies to be the truth. In other words, though it seems at least reasonable that a believing member of the LDS Church might have doubts about the Book of Genesis’ account of the early patriarchs living for nearly 1,000 years because the Church believes in the Bible but only insofar as it is translated correctly,” but what excuse does a believing Latter-Day Saint have for not believing a pure revelation from God directly to a living prophet, a revelation that, speaking of itself, testifies it is a restoration of true and sacred knowledge that was lost to the world prior to being re-revealed?

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 likeunto thee; and they shall be had again among the children of men—among as many as shall believe. (Moses 1)

I wonder if any of the believing LDS posters on this thread who don’t believe Adam lived to be 930 years-old realize they are disbelieving God’s very own words of restored ancient knowledge? It’s truly disturbing when believing members of the Church begin to no longer believe the Lord is a God of mighty miracles. Are there any here who think the God who can create human bodies that will live forever isn’t capable of creating bodies that can live for a paltry 930 years?

Edited October 24, 2017 by Bobbieaware

[Jane_Doe]

 

1 minute ago, Bobbieaware said:

I wonder if any of the believing LDS posters on this thread who don’t believe Adam lived to be 930 years-old realize they are disbelieving God’s very own words of restored ancient knowledge? It’s truly disturbing when believing members of the Church begin to no longer believe the Lord is a God of mighty miracles. Are there any here who think the God who can create human bodies that will live forever isn’t capable of creating bodies that can life for a paltry 930 years?

Again, there's believing literally versus believing symbolically/metaphorically.  Both are still believing, just in different ways.  And this variety is found throughout Abrahamic faiths, not just LDS.  

[JLHPROF]

7 minutes ago, Bobbieaware said:

I wonder if any of the believing LDS posters on this thread who don’t believe Adam lived to be 930 years-old realize they are disbelieving God’s very own words of restored ancient knowledge? It’s truly disturbing when believing members of the Church begin to no longer believe the Lord is a God of mighty miracles. Are there any here who think the God who can create human bodies that will live forever isn’t capable of creating bodies that can life for a paltry 930 years?

These are often the same people who can't accept other revelations from God.

Scripture tells us this earth has a temporal life of 7,000 years.  Science says impossible.
Scripture tells us this earth fell from its location near God.  Science says impossible.
Scripture tells us God placed man on earth.  Science says impossible.
Scripture tells us God covered the entire earth with water.  Science says impossible.
Scripture tells us men dead for days can return to life.  Science says impossible.
Scripture tells us water can turn to wine or be stood upon.  Science says impossible.
Scripture tells us the weather can be controlled by authoritative words.  Science says impossible.
Scripture tells us the sick can be made well in a variety of ways (7 baths, dirt in the eyes, touching clothing, etc).  Science says impossible.
Scripture tells us a city can be knocked down by trumpets.  Science says impossible.

Seriously...who really cares what science thinks is possible?  I love the knowledge science provides and the benefits to our lives, not the limits it places, especially on God.

[Bobbieaware]

27 minutes ago, Jane_Doe said:

 

Again, there's believing literally versus believing symbolically/metaphorically.  Both are still believing, just in different ways.  And this variety is found throughout Abrahamic faiths, not just LDS.  

Is this something like believing the Book of Mormon is “true” but also purely fictional at the same time? You know, “true” in a metaphorical sense, with the understanding that there were no real and actual Nephites and Lamanites living in ancient America?

[clarkgoble]

8 hours ago, snowflake said:

Amazing, now I'm not to trust LDS scriptures because they might not be "revealed"? Never heard that one before.

Umm. That's not what I said in the least. However knowing the history and nature of your scriptures is important. Otherwise you might make mistakes regarding their nature. After all Song of Solomon is in LDS scripture but Joseph said it was uninspired. Trusting something requires first knowing what it is you are trusting.

 

8 hours ago, snowflake said:

The bible is absolutely an accurate history book, there are tens of thousands of relics and archeological pieces that support the timeline, rivers, mountains, cities, peoples, cultures, languages and text of the bible all solidly documented. All of these help support the trustworthiness of the Bible.

Umm. What? The errors in the Biblical history are pretty well enumerated. But beyond that pretty much most of the Kingdom of David and Solomon has no archaeological evidence let alone much before them. To the point that the united kingdom is considered by many scholars to be a myth. (I'm not saying it is - I'm just pointing out the evidence problem)

Even in the NT, which is in a period where we know the general history is right, there are tons of major claims with zero evidence for and often strong evidence against. Things like the tombs breaking open, the census of Luke 2, the slaughter of the innocents by Herod the Great (not listed in the books listing the atrocities of Herod) and so forth.

In some ways the Bible is unlike the Book of Mormon in that no one doubts there were Jews from around 1000 BC - 110 AD in Palestine. Go much beyond that and the major existence of things like Hezekiah and so forth and things get messy quickly. 

[clarkgoble]

6 hours ago, Bobbieaware said:

One possible answer is that the Book of Moses, as opposed to the book of Genesis in the Old Testament of the Bible, is said to be a pure revelation from God to living prophet that doesn’t suffer from the Bible’s issues of inaccurate translation,

Umm. What? You do know how the Book of Moses came to be, right? You're making claims for it Joseph certainly didn't. Don't get me wrong I consider the JST to be invaluable. We learn tons of important things from the revelations given therein. But it's not really providing the original text. Rather it's an inspired revision.

If the JST was what you claim, there wouldn't be variant revisions of verses that continued well after the official end of the JST in July 1833. A good example is Genesis 1:1 which is the same in the JST/Moses but which is revised both in the Book of Abraham but more importantly in many of Joseph's sermons including famously the King Follet Discourse but also he changed "without form and void" to "empty and desolate" in the  5 January 1841 sermon. 

Brigham Young famously said well after Joseph's death, "Should the Lord Almighty send an angel to re-write the Bible, it would in many places be very different from what it now is. And I will even venture to say that if the Book of Mormon were now to be re-written, in many instances it would materially differ from the present translation. According as people are willing to receive the things of God, so the heavens send forth their blessings." (JD 9:311) That strongly suggests he thought there could be more changes to these scriptures.

Note Joseph also suggested there could be further translations when he said of Malachi, "I might have rendered a plainer translation to this, but it is sufficiently plain to suit my purpose as it stands." (D&C 128:18) If he'd restored a pure text with the JST that'd be a pretty odd thing to say.

There's also the case where Joseph redid the translation of Matthew 26 either not liking the initial revision in New Testament Manuscript 1 or forgetting that he'd already translated it. You can look at all the originals at the Joseph Smith Papers.

Also note the comment by God in D&C 91:1-2 when speaking of doing a JST of the Apocrypha. "It is mostly translated correctly" which is a more or less "good enough" view -- interestingly we don't include these texts in our Bible.

I'm definitely not devaluing the JST. It's one of my favorite works by Joseph. But it's nature is much more complex than you suggest.

 

Edited October 25, 2017 by clarkgoble

[clarkgoble]

5 hours ago, JLHPROF said:

These are often the same people who can't accept other revelations from God.

Scripture tells us this earth has a temporal life of 7,000 years.  Science says impossible.
Scripture tells us this earth fell from its location near God.  Science says impossible.
Scripture tells us God placed man on earth.  Science says impossible.
Scripture tells us God covered the entire earth with water.  Science says impossible.
Scripture tells us men dead for days can return to life.  Science says impossible.
Scripture tells us water can turn to wine or be stood upon.  Science says impossible.
Scripture tells us the weather can be controlled by authoritative words.  Science says impossible.
Scripture tells us the sick can be made well in a variety of ways (7 baths, dirt in the eyes, touching clothing, etc).  Science says impossible.
Scripture tells us a city can be knocked down by trumpets.  Science says impossible.

Seriously...who really cares what science thinks is possible?  I love the knowledge science provides and the benefits to our lives, not the limits it places, especially on God.

A few thoughts. First there are unstated assumptions going on with things like "temporal existence" (not life) which just can't be taken for granted. We don't know what the 7000 years of temporal existence means. I've no trouble of there being 7000 years of important history. However some people's interpretations go against science. Other people's don't. But I certainly have no trouble with D&C 77 although perhaps I read it differently than you do.

Scripture doesn't say the earth fell from its location near God. I think you're confusing sermons of Brigham Young (JD 17:143) with scripture. 

Science doesn't say God couldn't place man on earth. It certainly makes claims for how long humans have been on earth but that seems a different question.

Scripture says the water covered the earth, but the Hebrew word is not clearly translated well leading people to adopt universalist claims based upon Genesis. There's two somewhat contradictory accounts edited together. I'm not a Hebrew speaker so I'll bow to those better versed in such things. My understanding though is the terminology is compatible with a more limited view. There are two different words both translated as earth. One is eretz used in verses 3 & 6 and adama in verses 4 & 8. Eretz means land (i.e. eretz israel = land of Israel) while adama means ground. Neither means globe in the modern sense. The main argument for a global flood comes from 19 where they use "under all the heavens" (since they believed in a flat earth with a dome over it).  So I don't want to say there aren't problems, but the main problems are that floods leave evidence in places like caves. We don't see evidence of a flood everywhere.

Science doesn't say a dead body can't be repaired although clearly we have no idea how to do this. But there's no absolute theoretical objection to it.

Science doesn't say some advanced technology couldn't change water to wine. (Think teleportation) Again we have no reason to know how it was done. But there's no real theoretical objection.

The scriptures don't say weather is controlled by words. Rather people use words to draw on the power of God. Again there's no theoretical reason why some advanced technology couldn't modify the weather.

For Jesus healings, again your conflating symbolism Jesus used while healing with how he did the healing. Again no scientific objection.

Again Jericho wasn't knocked down by trumpets, but by God. The trumpets were what he required the people to do. Joshua 6 doesn't claim the trumpets did it. Blowing the trumpets was required by God though. There's lots of technologies that can knock down primitive walls now let alone some advanced technology.

 

 

[mfbukowski]

7 hours ago, Jane_Doe said:

I agree that is doesn't really matter.  But I don't understand why Snowflake is trying to single out LDS specifically in this thread.  

You are a newbie- that is what he does.  It's not just this thread but every thread.  And incidentally, welcome- I really like your posts.

[mfbukowski]

7 hours ago, JLHPROF said:

I think if everyone paid such close attention in the temple instead of going through the motions we'd see a lot more there.

I see many of the gestures as a kind of symbolic sign language the key to which is in facsimile 2 section 7.

There are so many layers of meaning that it could not possibly be of human origin.

[Bobbieaware]

7 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

Umm. What? You do know how the Book of Moses came to be, right? You're making claims for it Joseph certainly didn't. Don't get me wrong I consider the JST to be invaluable. We learn tons of important things from the revelations given therein. But it's not really providing the original text. Rather it's an inspired revision.

If the JST was what you claim, there wouldn't be variant revisions of verses that continued well after the official end of the JST in July 1833. A good example is Genesis 1:1 which is the same in the JST/Moses but which is revised both in the Book of Abraham but more importantly in many of Joseph's sermons including famously the King Follet Discourse but also he changed "without form and void" to "empty and desolate" in the  5 January 1841 sermon. 

Brigham Young famously said well after Joseph's death, "Should the Lord Almighty send an angel to re-write the Bible, it would in many places be very different from what it now is. And I will even venture to say that if the Book of Mormon were now to be re-written, in many instances it would materially differ from the present translation. According as people are willing to receive the things of God, so the heavens send forth their blessings." (JD 9:311) That strongly suggests he thought there could be more changes to these scriptures.

Note Joseph also suggested there could be further translations when he said of Malachi, "I might have rendered a plainer translation to this, but it is sufficiently plain to suit my purpose as it stands." (D&C 128:18) If he'd restored a pure text with the JST that'd be a pretty odd thing to say.

There's also the case where Joseph redid the translation of Matthew 26 either not liking the initial revision in New Testament Manuscript 1 or forgetting that he'd already translated it. You can look at all the originals at the Joseph Smith Papers.

Also note the comment by God in D&C 91:1-2 when speaking of doing a JST of the Apocrypha. "It is mostly translated correctly" which is a more or less "good enough" view -- interestingly we don't include these texts in our Bible.

I'm definitely not devaluing the JST. It's one of my favorite works by Joseph. But it's nature is much more complex than you suggest.

 

You say you are not devaluing the Book of Moses but it seems to me you delight in what you perceive to be ambiguities piled on top of more ambiguities so that you have enough wiggle room so you don’t have to accept what is plainly and unambiguous written concerning, for example,  how old Adam and the patriarchs were they died. I hope you will forgive me if I accept what the Lord himself said about the coming forth of the Book of Moses in the latter-days, rather than in your view of it being a collection of compounded uncertainties. And remember, because the Book of Moses is canonized it is not at all in the same category as the rest of the uncanonized portions of the Joseph Smith Translation. You surely know this.

Here is what the Lord said about the coming forth of the Book of Moses in the latter-days:

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 (the words of the Lord spoken directly to Moses) shall be had again among the children of men—among as many as shall believe. (Moses 1)

Please excuse me if I wholeheartedly accept the Lord’s stamp of approval upon the Book of Moses as reliable scripture rather than on your sort of tepid, half-hearted acceptance that gives you the excuse you need to not have to accept the Lord’s word to Moses that Adam lived to be 930 years-old when he died.

Edited October 25, 2017 by Bobbieaware

[Jane_Doe]

31 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

You are a newbie- that is what he does.  It's not just this thread but every thread.  

*rubs head, trying to preempt the headache* 

@snowflake, is this your purpose for being on this forum?  

[Jane_Doe]

33 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

And incidentally, welcome- I really like your posts.

  I like religious forums, LDS and non.   I'm a HUGE proponent of interfaith dialogue to understanding each other / ourselves better.  

[Calm]

It is a pity you didn't discover us back in 2006, we had a bit more variety back then.  And our great long term nonmember posters (blueadept, mudcat, some others I am spacing on)...most have disappeared, life changing, burnout.  3DOP hopefully will stick with us until the great ice death or fire...whichever gets here first.  Misere Nobilis (sp?) has been awol for awhile.  I need you back (if you are lurking by chance), you haven't been around long enough to be able to claim burnout.  A few more years please.

snowflake has made an effort to share personal beliefs at times, that is nice because many evangelicals come to just trash ours and refuse to do more than a just vague explanation of their own beliefs.  It can be hard to be on the receiving end of criticism and be willing to take it and actually engage with it to help others' understanding.  Just pontificating closes minds and hearts in my opinion.

Edited October 25, 2017 by Calm

[snowflake]

7 hours ago, Jane_Doe said:

*rubs head, trying to preempt the headache* 

@snowflake, is this your purpose for being on this forum?  

As this particular thread has evolved, i'm trying to understand why the LDS don't believe their own scriptures. Only Bobbieaware seems to agree with me and accept the age given in Moses 6 and Genesis 5 as accurate and factual. 

[Gray]

16 hours ago, Stargazer said:

Perhaps, but it does seem possible for something to be both inerrant and taken literally. I gather that snowflake does both.

The problem is the texts of the Bible, read closely, massively contradict one another. So in order to harmonize them and call them inerrant they must be reinterpreted.

[Gray]

31 minutes ago, snowflake said:

As this particular thread has evolved, i'm trying to understand why the LDS don't believe their own scriptures. Only Bobbieaware seems to agree with me and accept the age given in Moses 6 and Genesis 5 as accurate and factual. 

There's a difference between "believe" and "take literally". One can do the former and not the latter.

Edited October 25, 2017 by Gray

[Jane_Doe]

57 minutes ago, snowflake said:

As this particular thread has evolved, i'm trying to understand why the LDS don't believe their own scriptures. Only Bobbieaware seems to agree with me and accept the age given in Moses 6 and Genesis 5 as accurate and factual. 

LDS *do* believe Genesis 5 and other scriptures.  Believing in it symbolically is still believing.  Do you understand that?

[JLHPROF]

11 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

A few thoughts. First there are unstated assumptions going on with things like "temporal existence" (not life) which just can't be taken for granted. We don't know what the 7000 years of temporal existence means. I've no trouble of there being 7000 years of important history. However some people's interpretations go against science. Other people's don't. But I certainly have no trouble with D&C 77 although perhaps I read it differently than you do.

Scripture doesn't say the earth fell from its location near God. I think you're confusing sermons of Brigham Young (JD 17:143) with scripture. 

Science doesn't say God couldn't place man on earth. It certainly makes claims for how long humans have been on earth but that seems a different question.

Scripture says the water covered the earth, but the Hebrew word is not clearly translated well leading people to adopt universalist claims based upon Genesis. There's two somewhat contradictory accounts edited together. I'm not a Hebrew speaker so I'll bow to those better versed in such things. My understanding though is the terminology is compatible with a more limited view. There are two different words both translated as earth. One is eretz used in verses 3 & 6 and adama in verses 4 & 8. Eretz means land (i.e. eretz israel = land of Israel) while adama means ground. Neither means globe in the modern sense. The main argument for a global flood comes from 19 where they use "under all the heavens" (since they believed in a flat earth with a dome over it).  So I don't want to say there aren't problems, but the main problems are that floods leave evidence in places like caves. We don't see evidence of a flood everywhere.

Science doesn't say a dead body can't be repaired although clearly we have no idea how to do this. But there's no absolute theoretical objection to it.

Science doesn't say some advanced technology couldn't change water to wine. (Think teleportation) Again we have no reason to know how it was done. But there's no real theoretical objection.

The scriptures don't say weather is controlled by words. Rather people use words to draw on the power of God. Again there's no theoretical reason why some advanced technology couldn't modify the weather.

For Jesus healings, again your conflating symbolism Jesus used while healing with how he did the healing. Again no scientific objection.

Again Jericho wasn't knocked down by trumpets, but by God. The trumpets were what he required the people to do. Joshua 6 doesn't claim the trumpets did it. Blowing the trumpets was required by God though. There's lots of technologies that can knock down primitive walls now let alone some advanced technology.

You win.

 

[JLHPROF]

2 hours ago, snowflake said:

As this particular thread has evolved, i'm trying to understand why the LDS don't believe their own scriptures. Only Bobbieaware seems to agree with me and accept the age given in Moses 6 and Genesis 5 as accurate and factual. 

Hey!

[clarkgoble]

10 hours ago, Bobbieaware said:

You say you are not devaluing the Book of Moses but it seems to me you delight in what you perceive to be ambiguities piled on top of more ambiguities so that you have enough wiggle room so you don’t have to accept what is plainly and unambiguous written concerning, for example,  how old Adam and the patriarchs were they died.

Again I'm not devaluing merely noting the nature of the revelations. To my eye's you're devaluing the text by forcing it into a protestant inerrancy mode that Joseph simply never claimed. You are saying that the entire JST is a revealed revelation which completely ignores the process of its development. While Moses is presented in the Pearl of Great Price as if it was revealed as a whole, that was done well after Joseph's death. The actual production was just modifications to the text of Genesis and a separate revelation that is Moses 1. I get you might not like that if you have preconceptions but the history is pretty clear on this.

As to Moses 1:40 that can't be referring to the Book of Moses for the simple fact that the Book of Moses didn't exist. Interestingly Moses chapter 1 was published separately and quite late from the other chapters. It was first published as a stand alone book in January 1843 in the Times and Seasons. I've no doubt Moses did, as presented, write his revelations. But that's simply not the Book of Moses. It most likely is a text we don't have. Perhaps part of it was restored as part of the revelation process. Indeed I suspect Moses 1 is such a book. But I just don't think we can or should assume that verse refers to Genesis. Rather Moses 1 appears to be an introductory revelation but its connection to Genesis isn't clear. In Orson Pratt's version of the Pearl of Great Price, chapter 1 was the Visions of Moses while the rest were designated the Writings of Moses indicating a clear separation between the two. Treating it as a single book was a very late development done by Elder Talmage in 1902.

In any case I think your main argument is with Joseph Smith, not me. Since he's the one you are saying was wrong. I find it interesting you didn't respond to the quotes I provided, but just gave a quote from Moses 1 which can only be read in that fashion by ignoring the nature of the JST translation. It simply wasn't done the way the Book of Mormon was.

A useful introduction to the JST can be found in the Encyclopedia of Mormonism. While a bit dated it's still a great way to get up to speed. An other quite dated but useful introduction to the Book of Moses was printed in the Ensign back in the 80's. Your assumptions about the nature of the text are simply wrong and are an artifact of its late development in the Utah period. (That's not a personal criticism btw - I bet many people who only encounter it in the Pearl of Great Price assume it was a single revelation of a complete text)

Edited October 25, 2017 by clarkgoble

[thesometimesaint]

18 hours ago, JLHPROF said:

These are often the same people who can't accept other revelations from God.

Scripture tells us this earth has a temporal life of 7,000 years.  Science says impossible.
Scripture tells us this earth fell from its location near God.  Science says impossible.
Scripture tells us God placed man on earth.  Science says impossible.
Scripture tells us God covered the entire earth with water.  Science says impossible.
Scripture tells us men dead for days can return to life.  Science says impossible.
Scripture tells us water can turn to wine or be stood upon.  Science says impossible.
Scripture tells us the weather can be controlled by authoritative words.  Science says impossible.
Scripture tells us the sick can be made well in a variety of ways (7 baths, dirt in the eyes, touching clothing, etc).  Science says impossible.
Scripture tells us a city can be knocked down by trumpets.  Science says impossible.

Seriously...who really cares what science thinks is possible?  I love the knowledge science provides and the benefits to our lives, not the limits it places, especially on God.

Science says no such things. God can do anything he wants. That is what is so good about being a God. Science by definition can not put God into a test tube. It isn't science if a mortal nonbeliever as well as a mortal believer can't do it.

[snowflake]

1 hour ago, JLHPROF said:

Hey!

Sorry JLHPROF, you too!