Circle Squared
A Textual Analysis of the Book of Mormon
Chapter 26: "Full Retard"
Chapter Summary:
Christ will minister to the Nephites--Nephi foresees the destruction of his people--They will speak from the dust--The Gentiles will build up false churches and secret combinations--The Lord forbids men to practice priestcrafts. About 559–545 B.C.
Grammar can be hard. I struggle with grammar, as do most people I know. Mormons admit that of the thousands and thousands of edits to the Book of Mormon (surprise!), most of these have been grammatical. To me, this speaks to the uninspired nature of the "translation" process of the Book of Mormon, wherein god dictated the entire book word-by-word to Joseph Smith through a magic rock in a hat. Joseph didn't even use the gold plates upon which Nephi allegedly painstakingly wrote his people's history.
That any grammatical errors made it in to a book which was translated by an omnipotent god brings to question the omnipotence of said god. But let's suppose that it isn't completely ridiculous, that the Book of Mormon was translated through a divine, albeit imperfect, process and that modern Mormons have been able to rectify thousands and thousands of god's mistakes in his "most correct" book. There shouldn't be any grammar errors now, right? Everything in the Book of Mormon must be clear and correct by now. Right?!?
Nephi makes it very clear that the messiah (Jesus) will die, resurrect, and come to America to talk to Nephi's descendants. When this happens, the dreaded Law of Moses will be replaced with whatever Jesus says (which happens to mostly be the "sermon on the mount", which historians question was actually said by Jesus). When this happens, according to verse 3, the Nephites will be given signs of Jesus' birth, death and resurrection:
"3 And after the Messiah shall come there shall be signs given unto my people of his birth, and also of his death and resurrection;"
What? Why would signs of Jesus' birth, death and resurrection be given after the fact? What good is that?
I have established that it is unlikely, if the Book of Mormon is true, that this contradiction and/or ridiculous statement cannot be dismissed through an appeal to bad grammar. Maybe this is just a reflection of Joseph Smith's pattern of retrofitting prophecy (retro-smithing?). If this is the case, it would be so even if the order of events was correct. This is just sloppy writing. Frankly, I expect more from omnipotence.
Nephi warns those who reject the prophets that they will be held accountable. Of course, if Nephi or Lehi or Isaiah are any indication of the caliber of god's prophets and their methods of convincing and warning people, then I would be surprised if anyone accepts them. All proposed prophets I have come across--live, dead or otherwise--has been thoroughly unconvincing.
They give no good reasons to believe their trite threats of damnation. All they have is their conviction that they believe what they are saying. I don't care how fervently they believe something. I care about why they believe something. If all they can offer is their own personal revelation, then how can I know they are divinely inspired? How can I believe them without a comparable revelation? How can I know that any revelation I may have is divine?
This line of questioning came up once at my church when I was in high school. Guess what the answer was to the question of how one could know that their revelation was truly from god: If it is agreeable with the church's teachings, it is true; it is disagrees with the church's teachings, it is not true. No joke. No one in the room pointed out the fallacious circular reasoning in this argument. This is the caliber of their reasoning.
A god that would punish me for not believing a prophet who uses threats of eternal punishment (a tactic which Nephi uses throughout this chapter) and backs it up with circular unverifiable reasons does not deserve my allegiance or adoration. He is worthy only of my contempt.
Many of the ways in which god intends to punish the wicked will come as natural disasters, according to Nephi. This is a common theme in the book. The problem, of course, is the issue of weeding out the goodies from the baddies.
As described in this chapter, either god has impeccable aim with toppling mountains, earthquakes, and tornadoes, or he intends to kill everyone indiscriminately. Unlike mainstream Christians who fall back on the ridiculous concept of the righteous being raptured in to heaven before the ensuing destruction, Mormons generally believe everyone will stay on earth during Armageddon. So, that will be fun.
In an unexpected way, Nephi perfectly surmises the pathetic sadomasochistic nature of Christian belief:
"7 O the pain, and the anguish of my soul for the loss of the slain of my people! For I, Nephi, have seen it, and it well nigh consumeth me before the presence of the Lord; but I must cry unto my God: Thy ways are just."
The audacity of Nephi calling such depravity and senseless pain and destruction "just"--of his own people, no less--makes me sick.
Nephi makes a few "prophecies" about his people, like how righteous they will be and for how many generations after Jesus appears to them (hint: what's greater than 3, and smaller than 4?). Mormons love to point to these sorts of predictions in the Book of Mormon as legitimate prophecies, but internal consistency in a story is not the same thing as truth. Besides, in literature prophecies are merely an obvious form of foreshadow (you know, for stupid people). There is nothing impressive about a character in a book predicting the end of the story.
In verse 13 Nephi makes a very interesting claim:
"13 And that he [Jesus] manifesteth himself unto all those who believe in him, by the power of the Holy Ghost".
To a lay person, this may sound like Jesus physically appearing to people who believe in him. Mormons, realizing how untenable this claim is, will say this is not a physical manifestation, but a spiritual warm-fuzzy feeling. How underwhelming. But to a Mormon, this is how god always communicates to humans, so it makes sense. To reasonable people who know a thing or two about critical thinking and evidence, this is retarded.
Nephi explains that those of his descendants who "dwindle in unbelief" (a nonsensical phrase to anyone who knows about Native American culture) will speak to future generations as a "voice from the dust". This will happen in two ways: as a "familiar spirit" or ghost, and through a sealed book which will be inaccessible to nonbelievers.
At various times, Nephi and other Book of Mormon writers condemn speaking to "familiar spirits" because it is black magic. Mormons rarely acknowledge that their doctrine states that black magic or "priestcraft" is real.
I always found it silly when people would bring it up at church. Any power that priestcraft or Satan may possess must be granted or permitted by god himself. God's omnipotence trumps Satan's non-omnipotence every time. Satan is only allowed to tamper with our lives because god set up the system that way as a "test".
Regardless how lopsided the system may be, or how strange it is for god to both allow black magic to have actual power while condemning its practice, the fact that Nephi describes his disbelieving descendants as "familiar spirits" communicating with the living is odd to me. But this may be splitting hairs, since the whole thing is mystical garbage.
Next, the sealed book which only righteous people will be able to read. Joseph Smith claimed that a large portion of the gold plates were sealed and that god forbade him from opening and translating from it. Considering the proposed process for translating the book, and that the process didn't even use the plates, one may well ask why they were sealed in the first place.
I think Joseph was simply setting up more opportunities to "find" and "translate" additional holy records. The Book of Mormon refers to others groups of traveling Jews and Mormons still believe that one day they will have records comparable to the Book of Mormon for each of the lost tribes of Israel and all of the Nephite splinter groups who travelled to the Polynesian islands, etc. I find it telling that none of Joseph Smith's successors have "found" any such records.
After railing for a few verses about how the devil works in darkness, and is the author of murder and "secret combinations" (gangs with secret pacts), Nephi explains that god is totally not like that:
"23 For behold, my beloved brethren, I say unto you that the Lord God worketh not in darkness."
He may not work in darkness, but god's "mysterious ways" are just as opaque and confusing to me. What is the difference?
Nephi wraps things up with a few admonitions. First, priestcraft is bad--very bad. So, knock it off. Second, god is awesome and he wants you to be awesome, too. Everyone is welcome to come to god and be awesome. Third, charity is good. Do it. And last but not least, everyone is equal to god, "black and white, bond and free, male and female." This raises the obvious question of why god has a "chosen people" if everyone is equal to him. I guess we will just have to chalk it up to more of god's infamous "mysterious ways".