The Book of Mormon | Doctrine and Covenants | The Pearl of Great Price, by Joseph Smith
I had a recent Mormon student working with me who piqued my interest in actually reading the book of Mormon. I had several hard copies of the Book which I got at various Marriott hotels, but decided to download this from Amazon.com and read it on my Kindle. Most of it was read while I was at work.
First, let me say that I mean no harm and hold no hatred towards Moronis. The same was true when I reviewed the Koran. I have many friends (and even relatives) that are Muslim and Mormon, and unhesitatingly state that they are good friends and dear relatives without reservation. I don’t let particular religious biases cloud my judgment of a person. The same is true of my mix of political friends, who are far left, far right, far middle, off the edge, conservative, liberal, feminist, anti-feminist, pro-Nazi, anti-Nazi, Communist, Fascist, Democratic, Republican, Libertarian, etc., etc. To all, I mean no harm, and read these texts in a hopefully non-prejudicial fashion. Yet, my rose-colored glasses are Reformed Protestant Christian with Amish type roots. I can’t help that. That’s who I am. But, it does affect how I read anything and everything. Finally, I will call Later-Day-“Saint” folk Moronis because the warrior-become-angel Moroni seems to get more honor in the LDS faith than the warrior-become-whatever man Mormon. Back to the text at hand.
Looking at the text itself, it is very sloppily written. Joey (Joseph Smith) should have had a better proof-reader. I am told that this text has been “corrected” and altered substantially from the initial writings of Joey to the present day version that we read, but there are still problems with mis-spellings, grammatical errors, and a very sloppy style. Supposedly, a number of people wrote individual books of the book of Mormon onto the plates translated by Joey, yet the writing style remains exactly the same, all the way through the entire trilogy. The various texts of the Old and New Testaments all have differing styles, and sometimes even books of the OT have different style (look at Genesis, Isaiah) which have led to criticism of different authorship. There is nothing of that in the Trilogy. It matters not that there is a single translator, as Martin Luther single-handedly translated the Christian bible, yet the styles of the authors remain explicit. The only plausible Moroni explanation was that “god” was giving verbal dictation style inspiration to the various authors of trilogy, as well as a verbal dictation of the translation. But, that creates other questions. If the translation was verbally dictated by “god”, why does god speak 16th century English in the 19th century, why does he get it wrong and needs to be corrected, why did Joey even need the plates, the Urim and Thummin, and the translation stones to create this stunning trilogy?
There is a sense of extreme dullness in reading the trilogy. Unlike the Christian bible, the trilogy constantly reflects back to defend itself. Perhaps Joey figured people just might question him for the legitimacy of his writings? There is no real prose, no poetry, no shift in styles, nada! College English classes will offer books of the Christian Bible as examples of great literature, even though they may not believe that literature, but nobody except a Moroni school would dream of suggesting that the contents of the book of Mormon is great literature. It just isn’t.
Dullness is compounded by confusion in reading the text. Joey had no imagination in nomenclature of people and places. Many OT and NT characters are used in the book of Mormon, like Adam, Moses, Amalek and Jerusalem, just to name a few. The names that he created are multiple. There are two Moronis, two Mormons, multiple Almas, Helamans, etc., etc., etc. Joey doesn’t even give a means of differentiating the BC Moroni from the AD Moroni. They all just kind of blend in. Perhaps, Joey would have ultimately developed the concept of reincarnation in his theology, had he not have prematurely died, to explain this faux pas in his writing. Joey has multiple place names and descriptions of the land. Yet, there is not a shred of a clue as to where these fictional places might be. We now know where the hill Cumorah existed in upstate NY, but even there, there is virtually NO archeological findings to substantiate the claims. Even the large stone pit which held the plates for 1500 years is strangely gone. Otherwise, there is not a single identifiable place name in the new world consistent with Joey’s fantasy world. This is a substantial problem. Truth is verifiable. The writings in the book of Mormon are NOT verifiable. Let the reader draw his own conclusions.
Joey has a problem with chronology. The book of Mormon was written from about the year 600BC until 400AD. It was written entirely in the Americas with absolutely NO contact with the Eurasian continent. Yet, there are multiple quotes from the New Testament, and even from Old Testament text written after 600BC. Lengthy quotes are given of Jesus, even before Jesus supposedly appeared in 34AD to the American continent. Paul and John are frequently quoted, long before they were ever born. Mormons might argue this to be a manifest of “inspiration” to the ancient scribes of the book of Moroni, but I argue that even the NT and OT don’t do this. Animals exist in Joey’s fantasy world, like horses, that never existed until European settlers after 1492AD. The fraudulent nature of the book of Mormon is just so blatant as to strain one’s credulity. More examples of chronological faux pas’s are found in the text review.
Joey gives lengthy quotes of Scripture. He especially loves the book of Isaiah, which is quoted in length. I did not cross-read his version of Isaiah with the Scripture text we have now, but do know that Joey jumps around all over the place when quoting. It is not a straight quote out of Scripture. It is Joey’s version. The quotes of Jesus are practically verbatim from the King James Bible. But then that is understandable. Jesus spoke King James English in ancient Palestine; don’t you know that?
The Mormons love to call themselves Christian, but from my reading of the Trilogy, they are definitely not Christian. In fact, they are very anti-Christianity. The Jesus that they describe is a non-historical fantasy, and the name “Church of Jesus Christ…” refers to a much different Jesus than walked in Palestine 2000 years ago. In the D & C. Joey stresses clearly that all Christian churches just have it wrong, and yet uses their bible, and much of their liturgy and doctrine for his own church without arguing how the church got it wrong. Joey often talks of “my gospel”. He is totally correct. Paul in Galatians 1:8 (ESV) states “But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed”. The Mormon gospel is a MUCH different gospel from the Christian gospel, and Paul’s words stand as they will. In the BOM, Joey frequently speaks of the “atonement” of Christ, even the “infinite atonement” of Christ, but NEVER EVER tells you what that atonement was, why it was, or what it accomplished… it is simple religious “god-speak” in the Moroni sense of the word.
Conclusion: The reading of this Trilogy did not persuade me to become Mormon, but actually bred a bit greater resentment of Moronis. The reason for my resentment is the deception that Moronis offer. They are not forthright and honest about their belief system, but feel like they need to break it in slowly, especially when witnessing to those of the Christian persuasion. They are not honest with themselves about their belief system. Though their schools have apologetic departments to defend the Moroni faith, their ultimate defense trickles down to their “burning in the bosom”, a feeling that they get that persuades themselves that they are correct. I have a burning in the bosom that they are wrong. So, who is correct, me or them? I’m willing to proffer a defense of my faith based on rationality. The Mormon faith will never have a Francis Schaeffer. They can’t, since their faith is indefensible. No belief system will be able to absolutely prove the legitimacy of their claims, including the belief systems of atheism, agnosticism, what-ever-ism, Buddhism, Hinduism, or Nose-picking-ism. We believe what we do based on fundamental presuppositions. The question for anybody is to examine what are your ultimate presuppositions, and to decide whether they have a logical consistency to them that can be discussed. The burning-in-the-bosom ploy just doesn’t work for me.
So, I conclude with the notes I jotted down as I read through the Trilogy. My comments are simple observations and my preliminary reflections of the text.
The Book of Mormon
Introduction
The introduction includes signed testimonies of three, and then eight witnesses, followed by the testimony of Joey Smith attesting to the veracity of these writings. Joey discusses how he managed to obtain the plates that contained these writings, which were buried on a hill, and then proceeded to translate the plates. The plates were then removed from Joe’s possession by angels. The plates themselves are accounts written by a group that escaped the Babylonian captivity and sailed to the Americas, writing their history for posterity.
Nephi 1
This first book is 22 chapters, and the account of Lehi, his wife and four sons, one being Nephi, on their departure from Jerusalem and journey to the Americas. They all took Ishmaelite wives, and struggle is noted between the “godly” Nephi and his troublesome brothers. The book was translated in the 1820’s (roughly), though the English used was King James 17th century English (which, incidentally, was quite annoying to read). It is written in first person, with Nephi repeatedly noting that he was writing this chronicle. While the plates were supposedly written at the time of the fall of Jerusalem in 600+B.C., numerous chronological faux pas’s are noted by me. He often spoke of the Christ, who was still in coming. He spoke of the church, which didn’t exist until the Christian era. He loves to quote Isaiah, but also extensively quotes New Testament Scripture, especially the words of Christ and the writings of Paul. I guess one has to assume that Nephi was being retro-inspired, since Jesus and Paul had no access to these plates. There is the presence of fine steel and compasses, neither of which existed in 600 BC. They found horses and other animals in the new world (America) which didn’t exist until the European explorers and settlers brought them to America. He speaks frequently of baptism, which wasn’t a practice until various sects began the practice in the last century before Christ. Finally, Joe spends much time putting words into Nephi’s mouth about the “great and abominable church, which is the whore of all the earth”, and then wonders why standard Christians have a little problem with Mormonism. Joe suggests that another “pure” church will come which is holy and righteous, implying that it will be the Mormon church. He fails to explain how 12 apostles essentially formed a whore church. Oh well. Joey didn’t do his homework before picking up the pen.
Nephi 2
Nepthi 2 is a continuation of the chronicle of Nephi 1, 33 chapters long. It is divided into a narrative section and a moral section. The narrative details the rebellion of Nephi’s brothers against Nephi, and how he fled into wilderness to escape his brothers. Joe attempts to provide some theology in this narrative section, such as hypothesizing what would have happened in the fall never occurred. To him, Adam and Eve would then not have had children. Odd, because Joey had many wives, and I’m sure he used them plentifully in a sexual manner. Intermingled are words from Nephi’s son Jacob. The majority of Nephi 2 is not narrative but moralistic and theological statements, with a very large section of Joey quoting from the book of Isaiah. Even then, direct quotations from the writings of Paul are inserted by some miraculous means. Joey frequently uses the word “Jew”, a term in the year 600BC that did not yet exist, but was first used in the post-exilic period. There are phrases that Mr. Smith frequently repeats again and again and again, often many times in the same chapter, such as “wars and rumors of wars” (taken from Matt 24:6). He repeatedly speaks of “infinite atonement”, a simple nonsensical phrase, described for mankind, making Joey a universalist. Yes? Mr. Smith waxes at length about Nephi discussing how he was going to preach, prophesy, and write about the Christ who was still 600 years to come. I consider this to be anachronistic sloppiness at its worst. It would be quite easy to detail numerous other anachronisms and simple sloppy writing and thinking in this text. It makes it VERY difficult for me to believe that anybody could believe this nonsense.
Jacob
The book of Jacob is short, at 7 chapters. It is written by Jacob, the brother of Nephi. There is little narrative, and it is totally Jacob preaching to his brethren. Oddly, the content and style are virtually identical to that of Nephi. Perhaps it was actually from the same person (Joey Smith????). Inconsistencies include Jacob suggesting that he was a priest, even though Nephi condemned priests, and Jacob condemning multiple wives, even though early Mormon practice was to have multiple wives. Jacob inserts in the middle a tale of the vineyard which goes for MANY pages, and ultimately making no sense, especially since vineyards are used to make wine, which Mormons don’t drink. The last chapter was a story of Nephi contending with a doubter of Christ (still 600 years in the coming!!)
Enos
Enos was the son of Jacob, and in a short 1 chapter book describes the struggles between the people of Nephi and their brothers (the enemy) the Lamanites. He describes also some falling away of Nephites. It engages in the same stylistic writing of Nephi and Jacob, and similarly makes chronological mistakes, such as quoting New Testament passages. Oh well!!! I guess some people will believe anything!
Jarom
Jarom was the son of Enos, and also wrote a short, one chapter book. He details the continuing struggle between the Nephites and Lamanites. Jarom notes that he didn’t have but small plates to write on, so had to keep things short. Thank God for that!
Omni
This one chapter book involves brief statements by Omni, his son, and on for a number of generations. During one generation, it was noted that another group of people were discovered in the “promised land” (America), who had also come across the ocean by boat from Jerusalem after its fall, but ended up with another language and belief system than the Nephites. By the end of the book of Omni, the plate was reported as “full”.
Words of Mormon
This is an account of the past by Mormon, who describes when Benjamin was king and engaged in a great but victorious battle against the Lamanites, bringing peace to the land.
Mosiah
I almost thought that Mr. Smith was running out of creative juices, that his muse had dried up, but now he again has a 29 chapter book. The tale is now very rambling and hard to follow, so pardon if you don’t follow my accounting. Mosiah was the son of king Benjamin. The books starts by recalling the end of Benjamin. Benjamin called the people of Nephi to the temple to speak to them. This happened just before AD 0. Oddly, 2:32, Mosiah is called the father of Benjamin-not sure if that was a mistake of Joey’s. Benjamin speaks at length moralistic platitudes, transfers power to Mosiah, and then dies. Mosiah sends out a scouting party that encounters another city apparently in struggle against the Lamanites. They have plates that need interpretation. The king was Zeniff, who was good. His son was Noah, a bad king. Battle persisted during this time against the Lamanites. Alma,a good guy, leads a group to settle elsewhere, but is harassed by the Lamanites and eventually returns to Mosiah’s city. Alma’s son, also named Alma, becomes chief priest. Interspersed is much moral dialogue, mostly sloppy quotes from the Old and New Testaments.
Alma
Alma was the son of Alma (Joey was having a hard time being original about names, using many Biblical names like Noah and Gideon. The book starts out with the deaths of Alma #1 and Mosiah, and the development of “heretical” preachers. Joe S. notes in the second chapter that the Lamanites were given dark skin because they were cursed of God. Alma, after battling the heretics with the Lamanites, establishes himself as high priest, and builds cities, setting up a “godly” empire, stamping out wickedness, etc. Alma goes about his country preaching, and often encountering resistance. Much of the first portion of the book is filled with moralistic preaching, the central aspect of Alma details the 39 years of war with the Lamanites, taking over cities that the Lamanites had conquered. In the end, several of the Nephite heroes were dead, Alma dies, Moroni dies, and Helaman dies. This book was long and tedious to read. Most of it did not read as a credible account of any real struggle that had occurred. many times, Joey reuses names, such as Judah, Ammon, Amalikite, etc. making the reading even more confusing. I’m not sure how Mr. Smith is going to get Moroni back into the picture in order to bury all the pages of much still unwritten parts of the book of Mormon. I wait anxiously…
Helaman
The Helaman that wrote this book is the son of Helaman. The book has 16 chapters, thus, shorter than Alma. It starts with Helaman as the chronicler, but he dies in the third chapter, and the chronicles are taken over by Nephi, the eldest son of Helaman. Through preaching of Nephi and imprisonment while surviving through fire, the Lamanites become good people, and the Nephites evil. Wow! By the end of the book of Helaman, Nephi is the judge of the wayward Nephites, and the Lamanites through the prophet Samuel is preaching to the Nephites to repent. There is no mention of particular sins of the people, just that they practiced great iniquities. Samuel mentions that the Christ is about to be born, and will come to the Nephites/Lamanites to preach to them. Thus, the end of 90 years of the judges.
Third Nephi
3 Nephi was a tedious book to read, 30 chapters long. This Nephi was not the first Nephi, but the son of Helaman the son of Helaman. The story starts with continuous wars between the Nephites and Lamanites, who sometimes unite each other to fight the Gadianton robbers lurking in the woods surrounding the Nephite and Lamanite towns. War against the Gadianton robbers leads to victory for the Nephites. Mormon then writes of their history, of which I can only presume that this was a different person Mormon than the Mormon mentioned in previous books. Again, the Nephites turn evil, civil unrest occurs, Nephi preaches in vain. The year 34 AD arrives. The land gets darkness for three days, and great physical upheaval occurs that destroys many of the cities, the city of Moroni and others sank into the depth of the sea, and many die. Then, Jesus appears, and he preaches. And preaches. And preaches. Between, he ascends to heaven. Then reappears. Then re-ascends. Then reappears. Etc. Etc. Lengthy quotes of the sermon on the Mount were given, as well as a few quotes by Paul. I guess Jesus needed Paul’s help. Twelve apostles are chosen by Jesus. I guess these apostles were counter-apostles to those chosen in Judea? It was a blessing to end this book.
Fourth Nephi
4 Nephi is just one long chapter. I’m not sure why Joey made it a separate book from Third Nephi. This book spans about 3-400 years, and incredibly, Nephi wrote it, even though he lived a normal length life. Oh well! The Nephites and Lamanites are all converted to the Mormon church, and live happily. But, as the years go by, they fall away and turn wicked again. Oddly the robbers of Gadianton reappear. Geez? Ammaron (another Ammaron than he who was mentioned previously) preserves the “sacred” records.
Book of Mormon
The book of Mormon is 9 chapters. Ammaron informs Mormon of the sacred records (this is a different dude Mormon than the Mormon mentioned earlier, unless he was “reincarnated”). The book starts by mentioning the continued war going on between the Nephites and Lamanites. Three of the Nephite apostles are wicked away to heaven, but the book does not mention who they were. War continues with Mormon as general of the Nephite army, and he also becomes responsible for the plates. Mormon then refuses to continue on as general of the army, carnage continues, Mormon again accepts generalship of the army, and “prophesies” that the Lamanites some day will be preached to by the Gentiles (how would they even know who the Gentiles were, as they were living in the Americas for 1000 years!). The Nephites gather in Cumorah (now in upstate NY!) and the Lamanites wipe out the Nephites. Mormon hides the plates in the hill Cumorah. I’m not sure how the remainder of this book and the following two books made their way into the plates, save perhaps by some “miracle”. Mormon carries on his preaching, even though the Nephites were utterly destroyed. Oh well! By now, my credulity has been strained to the maximum anyway. And, the moon is made of cheese, isn’t it?
Book of Ether
Ether is 15 chapters long, and is an accounting of 24 plates incidentally discovered hundreds of years ago BC, during the reign of Mosiah. These plates were written in abridged form by Moroni. Mr. Smith needed more stories, and more fictions to create, so here is the book of Ether. It is the record of the Jaredites, who started at the tower of Babel. For some reason, their language was not “confounded” at the tower, so that they could understand themselves. Mein Gott! Jared went to live in Nimrod, but the Lord has a few long chats with Jared, who has Jared go down to the great sea, build a boat (with holes in the top and bottom), and sail across the sea (to America). Wow!… just like Lehi did with his family a thousand some years later. Absolutely incredible! Jared reveals that God actually is made of flesh and blood, JUST like us! Jared was given stones that glowed in the dark, allowing him to see the way across the ocean to America. This account was instructed to be written by Jared, but to be preserved unseen by man until the coming of the Christ. It is mentioned here that these works were written in reformed Egyptian, a language not known or used by any language group on earth, but that the story was recounted by Moroni from memory. Why didn’t he just translate the 24 plates? Perhaps this explains how Mr. Smith got everything… “memory”. On reaching the “promised land”, they quickly appoint a king (even though there were only 22 people), the king of who does well, but many generations later, the kings turn wicked. Many place names and personal names were identical to the Lehi generations and settlements, which is incredible, since the Jaredites had unconfounded language, as compared to what Lehi would have spoken. A number of stories are told, such as a Smithian version of Herod vs John the Baptist. It is here that Smith notes how the Jaredites had many horses, elephants and other animals which never ever existed in the Americas until after 1492. The book ends with a great battle between the people of Shiz and Coriantumr, where they destroy each other. Every other sentence starts with “and it came to pass” which I needed to know repeatedly, especially when at the end, Shiz’s head is struck off but he continues breathing! Ether quickly buries the plates chronicling these events and the book ends.
Book of Moroni
The book of Moroni is a fitting book to end the Mormon Scriptures, as it was written by a moroni for a bunch of moronis, and is 10 chapters long. Moroni continues his story, starting with the end of the Jaredites, and getting back to the story of the Nephites being destroyed by the Lamanites. These chapters start very short, and detail church liturgy, followed by lengthier chapters reiterating previous moral behavior. He spends a chapter refuting infant baptism and original sin. Chapters are closed with the phrase “I am now done writing” but then resumes in the next chapter. Moroni ends with some final words and passes away.
Part 2: Doctrine and Covenants
There are 138 sections and two additions to this section. These were obtained by “special revelation” to Mr. Smith on various occasions and in the company of various people. Each section introduces the occasion and circumstances of the revelation, and attests that this is directly the word of God to Joe. The first few sections start by attesting that the book of Mormon and this Doctrine and Covenants are the very words of God, and MUST be heeded. A number of sections then find Joey with a problem in that one of the men with Joe, Martin Harris, took some of the translation pages and lost them. Joe astutely realized that perhaps when he “re-translated” the plates, that they might come out much different, proving that the translation was a joke. Joey wiggles through this one, later re-befriending Mr. Harris. Section 19 was written as a specific reprimand of Mr. Harris to repent and shape up. This brings an interesting concept to mind. Throughout the book of Mormon, and now here, conformity to the head of the church is mandated without any questioning or hesitation. The book of Mormon frequently speaks that the main “sin” of the people was that of contention. This is evolved into a church that is intolerant of any questioning. You don’t dare question whether the “leader” or “apostle” truly received a message from God. Thinking ist verboten!!!! In section 28, some other dude was receiving revelation through a special stone, and was immediately shut up by a prophecy that ONLY Joey would be getting revelations. Whoa, dude!!!! But then, Joey was assassinated or committed suicide, and in several instances, some very embarrassing doctrines and practices of the church needed to be fixed, so, lo and behold, more “divine” revelations were given. The first was in 1890 when certain leaders realized that polygamy was a problem, and so the “Lord” decided that the Moronis should stop the practice. The second was in 1978, when it became apparent that negroes, orientals, and other races would be a financial boon to the church, that they were suddenly (MIRACLE!!!!) permitted to become members and priests in the church. The sections show a sharp turn toward becoming really bizarre about 1836, when Joey was jailed in Missouri. It is at that time that he started introducing some VERY strange doctrines, like that God exists in the heavens as flesh and blood, that humans are spirits brought down from the nether world to be humans, the doctrine of baptism for the dead, etc. Many other doctrines known to the Mormon church alone have not been mentioned in either the book of Mormon or D&C, such as the origin of Satan (as a brother to Jesus), the necessity of lineages, family practice, etc.
The D&C is a very strange document. It sections are both short and long, most of them being orders (from God???) about minor decisions, such as Mr. X needing to donate money to build a church is town Y, or a temple which should be built in town Z with such and such dimensions, or some transgression of a member (the transgression is never specifically mentioned). Only toward the end is there mention of certain doctrines peculiar to the Mormon church. I get a very strong feel that this is a deceptive ploy of Joey to control other people’s lives, as all you need to do is to tell them God commands this. It does great harm to the true gospel. Another peculiarity is how often “god” got it wrong, such as commanding Joey to build a temple in Far West, Missouri, only to have the Moronis expelled from the state. Joey, of course, quickly attributes it to the sin of the Moroni believers, an oddity, since God NEVER does that in the entirety of the Old and New Testaments. The book of the D & C seems to do more than anything to persuade me not only of the inconsistencies of the Moroni faith, but of the positive evil that they reflect. I will forever find it harder to forgive Moronis for being a touch naive about their faith, as it is so clear than this is a totally artificial religion demonstrated by the D&C.
Part 3: Pearl of Great Price
This is a hodge-podge of writings first assembled in 1851, later experiencing a number of additions and revisions. It seems to be a work in progress of the church. It starts with a fanciful “re-translation” of the first 5 chapters of Genesis, formed somewhat creatively by the wishful imagination of Joey Smith. I don’t mean to be cruel, but it is stated as a “translation”, which means that you are reading something in one language, and re-stating what has been said in another language. So, what was it translated from? Where did the extra text come from? Where did the creative new “interpretations” come from? Truth of the matter, it’s all a hoax, as is seen again in the next section on Abraham. In this section with the following facsimiles, Joey obtained some Egyptian script obtained from a traveling road salesman, and allegedly interpreted the Egyptian script. Unfortunately for Joey, this was soon after Champilion had broken the code on the Rosetta Stone, but before anybody was able to efficiently translate from Egyptian hieroglyphics. In the facsimiles, Joey details the events of what was going on, but left the hieroglyphics for the illustrations intact, allowing any Egyptian scholar to confirm the validity of the translations, which (of course) Joey had totally wrong. In the Abraham translation, he again repeats several early chapters in Genesis which were translated in Moses, but now the translation has much more added, including additions that describe a plurality of gods that counseled to create earth. Oooops! I guess he thought we wouldn’t notice. The Old and New Testaments show very ancient forms, and very unsubstantial changes over time. Joey shows that the book of Mormon, the D&C, and the Pearl are constantly changing as the church prophets discover mistakes and errors in their sacred texts. The PGP then contains the start of a translation of Matthew. I presume that if Joey hadn’t committed suicide by jumping out of a window, he would have eventually translated the entire old and new Testaments. There is no explanation as to what he was translating from, and I can only assume that it was his personal form of “re-inspiration” of these texts. Unfortunately again, the texts are so significantly deviant from the earliest extent copies we have of Matthew, that there is only a fleeting resemblance. It was Joey’s way of discrediting the entire volume of the Old and New Testament. The PGP finally included an autobiography of Joey as a kid, and his discovery of the “plates”. It ends with the articles of faith of the Moroni church, which is a lie, because they tacitly assume much more must be believed in order to go directly to the celestial sphere. The so-called Moroni prophets are constantly inventing new doctrine which also must be believed.
A final summary of the Mormon trilogy is stated at the beginning of this post, so look up for my assessment.
For my Moroni readers, Joey, throughout the trilogy, calls for repentance. He is relentless. He doesn’t tell you what you should repent of, save for being contentious against the high priest. The LDS system cannot tolerate dissension or questioning of their faith since they have no answers. I will tell you what you really need to repent of, and that is of your belief in the LDS church.
As a kid, we had a book of Mormon in our AC church library, and the librarian (Rosalie D) astutely had the checkout card label the author as Satan. A few people took issue with that, but I believe Rosalie had it right. Your angels of light were none other than demons from the pit of hell. Why would the devil wish to make a peaceful, loving, family friendly religion? Simple. Anything that could distract one from the true Gospel is fair play for the nether world. All of my Muslim, atheist, liberal, conservative, Commie pinko freak, or whatever-they-are friends have a much greater chance of passing through the pearly gates than you do. So, I beg of you LDS adherents: repent.
