Circle Squared
A Textual Analysis of the Book of Mormon
Chapter 4: "I Can't Move No Mountains"
Chapter Summary:
All the prophets worshiped the Father in the name of Christ--Abraham’s offering of Isaac was in similitude of God and His Only Begotten--Men should reconcile themselves to God through the Atonement--The Jews will reject the foundation stone. About 544–421 B.C.
One of the greatest detractors from comprehensible writing is unnecessary disclaimers. Despite this, Jacob assures us, dear readers of the future, that he could not write "but a little of my words, because of the difficulty of engraving our words upon plates." Jacob felt it important enough, however, to use precious little space (four verses) and great effort to inform us that it is difficult to write with such little space. This was more important to Jacob, apparently, than sharing with us the amazing, life-changing speeches he delivered to his kingdom.
Lucky for us, Jacob finds enough space on his finite plates to reiterate points often made by preachers of Joseph Smith's day. Specifically, that the story of Abraham and Isaac is a foreshadow of Jesus Christ's sacrifice.
As Jacob explains, the prophets of old believed in Jesus Christ and knew specific things about his life, including that Jesus would live hundreds of years in the future, which is why they followed the Law of Moses. I know; I have a hard time following this logic, as well.
The trouble with this reasoning, that the ancient Jews knew as much about Jesus' life as we do, is that none of the ancient records we have today corroborate this. Only the Book of Mormon claims this and we don't exactly have scholarly reasons to take the book at its word.
It seems more reasonable to me that Joseph wanted his new-found holy book to appeal to mainstream Christians of his day. He could have done this by claiming that many of the precepts they already believed were also believed by ancient Jews and Natives, as described in the totally legit ancient book he found and translated. Many Christians believed then, as they do now, that Isaiah prophesied about Jesus. How convenient it is that Joseph would find a book which says this exact thing. The same principle applies to this chapter as Jacob claims that Abraham and Isaac foreshadow Jesus.
I was hoping that for all of Jacob's rambling, despite his limited space and encumbered writing process, that he would at least explain the story of Abraham and Isaac and how it applies to Jesus. Alas, this is completely overlooked, which means Jacob took it as granted that his readers would automatically put it together. And in Joseph's day, this would have certainly been the case for the average reader.
Without going into too much detail on the subject (following Jacob's example), the story of Abraham and Isaac is just about the most immoral thing in scripture I can think of. Abraham attempts to kill his son, Isaac, because the voices in his head tell him to do so. The retort often given by apologists is that god did not let Abraham to through with it, and a ram was provided in Isaac's stead. So what? Abraham still thought it was within the realm of possibilities for his god to ask him to kill his son, and Abraham would have done it, again, because of the voices in his head. Furthermore, had god not intervened at the last moment, Abraham would have obeyed and believers today would be defending his actions as moral.
Whenever I think about Abraham and Isaac, I am reminded of multiple true-believers who have killed their children because they believed that either god told them to, or they believed their theology justified the act. A few months ago, a Utah couple poisoned their whole family and themselves, thus sparing them from the impending apocalypse. A few years ago, a woman drowned her five young boys so they wouldn't reach the age of reason, and possibly go to hell. This woman, Andrea Yates, sacrificed her own eternal salvation to ensure that her children would make it into heaven. And according to Christian beliefs, these parents were successful.
This is the trouble with the idea that anything god orders is by definition good and moral--a principle put forth early in the Book of Mormon, when Nephi chopped off Laban's head because he believed the voice inside his head telling him to do so was the spirit of god. And modern, educated, thinking persons are expected to accept these stories and call them good?
Much of the remainder of the chapter is flowery preachments of people claiming to be able to use faith to move mountains and trees and to control the waves in the sea, although, no examples are given. And Jacob, like Nephi, calls god's works "great and marvelous." If anyone could actually move a mountain by faith, it would truly be impressive and certainly worth investigating. Hell, I would settle for a rock moved by faith. Unfortunately, the only reference of this ever happening is--you guessed it--in the Book of Mormon!
As if making bald assertions of moving inanimate objects through faith wasn't fatuous and irrational enough, Jacob piles on to this the claim that men can know about Jesus and the afterlife with a "perfect knowledge:"
"12 And now, beloved, marvel not that I tell you these things; for why not speak of the atonement of Christ, and attain to a perfect knowledge of him, as to attain to the knowledge of a resurrection and the world to come?"
This sounds like a great thing, and, I suppose, on the surface it is. It is certainly reassuring enough to earn a place in the common Mormon vernacular. However, the process proposed by Mormons which leads to this level of certainty is not as sound as it may... well, sound.
By conditioning oneself to associate one's feelings and thoughts as workings of the spirit of god (through a great deal of repetitious affirmations in front of people also going through this Pavlovian process), one can be made to think that they know for a fact things which they do not actually know. They base their belief in Mormonism, Joseph Smith, and his book of historical fiction upon subjective feelings which they are taught, often at a young age, are directly from god. The only reason they have to call these feelings "divine" is that people they respect and trust have told them this is the case.
Mormons believe they are unique in this methodology. But while researching other faiths, I have found this to be a common trend in many religions around the world. Not just Christian religions, mind you. But virtually all religions. And if the same process can be used to confirm different and mutually exclusive belief systems, how can Mormons--or anyone else--claim this process gives them "perfect knowledge?" Knowledge is demonstrable. As Aron Ra puts it: "If you can't show it, you don't know it."
This business of attaining knowledge through faith was one of the first things that truly bothered me about Mormonism. I struggled with it for years, finally deciding that faith is not a path to knowledge any more than it is a path to moving mountains.