Category Archives: Book of Mormon
Parsing Nephi: the earliest Book of Mormon text
Most of you are probably aware that the earliest editions of the Book of Mormon (starting with the 1830 first edition) had different chapter divisions than the current LDS editions. The chapter-and-verse divisions that we are used to were devised … Continue reading
Posted in Book of Mormon, LDS History, Main, Scriptures
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Five Nephite restorations
As Latter-day Saints, we tend to be locked into the narrative of our own history, namely: Christ’s mortal ministry in Palestine; the eventual apostasy of the Christian churches; and the restoration of the Church in the early 19th century, some … Continue reading
Posted in Book of Mormon, LDS History
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The Second Quorum of the Twelve
[Note: this is a follow-up to the discussion in the comments to this post some months back.] We believe in the same organization that existed in the Primitive Church . . . . – 6th Article of Faith Yea, behold, … Continue reading
Early thoughts on “The Book of Mormon: The Earliest Text”
FedEx showed up about a few hours ago with my pre-ordered copy of Royal Skousen’s magnum opus, The Book of Mormon: The Earliest Text (Yale University Press, 2009, 848 pages). This volume represents over 20 years of work on Skousen’s … Continue reading
Posted in Book of Mormon, LDS Doctrine, LDS History, Main
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The Enos problem in the Book of Mormon
Enos is the third author in the Book of Mormon (after Nephi1 and Jacob). He is best known for his lengthy prayer while hunting in the wilderness, wherein he first asks for personal forgiveness, then for God’s blessings upon the … Continue reading
Posted in Book of Mormon, Main
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Mining terms from the Book of Mormon
Language Log is one of my favorite daily blog reads, and today it had among other things a post about an online “term mining” tool (Termine) that analyzes text to attempt to identify multi-word terms (e.g., technical terms) within the … Continue reading
Posted in Book of Mormon, Main
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A few curious absences in the Book of Mormon
Gregory: “Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?” Holmes: “To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.” Gregory: “The dog did nothing in the night-time.” Holmes: “That was the curious incident.” … Continue reading
Posted in Book of Mormon, Main
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Jaredite update
Before I post more on the Jaredites, I want to finish my review of LDS scholarship on them. This largely means Nibley and Sorenson, since few other scholars have tackled them at length. Re-reading The World of the Jaredites and … Continue reading
Posted in Book of Mormon, Main, REPO
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The REPO Atlas: the Jaredites (part 1)
[Here is an introduction to the REPO postings. Also I've made a few updates below.] It’s hard to mine any detailed information about the Jaredites out of the book of Ether itself. What we have is Joseph Smith’s translation of … Continue reading
Posted in Belief systems, Book of Mormon, Main, Politics, REPO
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The Book of Mormon REPO postings: an introduction
“The first rule of historical criticism in dealing with the Book of Mormon or any other ancient text is, never oversimplify. For all its simple and straightforward narrative style, this history is packed as few others are with a staggering … Continue reading
Posted in Belief systems, Book of Mormon, Politics, REPO
2 Comments