LDS

[tsig]

Is there anything "more human", than what they did?

No, humans' gods always seem concerned that the penis be pacified.

 

[kblood]

You and I both know that those who started the mormon church, did plenty of tapping.

Men hard at work

 

[desertgal]

[qimg]http://www.yvonneclaireadams.com/HostedStuff/SLC.jpg[/qimg]
Corner of West South Temple and South Main Street, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA​

Oh, my. Dad had it right. That IS funny.

Thanks, Pharaoh!

 

[Akhenaten]

Oh, my. Dad had it right. That IS funny.

Thanks, Pharaoh!

​

 

[halleyscomet]

As an Australian of early settler Anglo Saxon descent my first and only language is British English.

Did you intend that post to imply pride in not knowing a second language?

 

[Akhenaten]

Did you intend that post to imply pride in not knowing a second language?

Or that British English is the language everyone uses in their "pre mortal existence"?

Must be confusing for all those poor little unborn Chinese babies.

 

[desertgal]

Did you intend that post to imply pride in not knowing a second language?

No, it sounds like she meant it to imply English is her only language.

 

[Cleon]

No, it sounds like she meant it to imply English is her only language.

Odd that LDS doesn't have people studying Reformed Egyptian the way Jews study Hebrew.

 

[RandFan]

Odd that LDS doesn't have people studying Reformed Egyptian the way Jews study Hebrew.

 

[halleyscomet]

Odd that LDS doesn't have people studying Reformed Egyptian the way Jews study Hebrew.

Since Smith's "key" was a made up wad of nonsense and has never been successfully used to translate anything, it would be a short class.

"Here is some bovine excrement in print form. Examine it, marvel over it, for a standard Egyptian funeral text is alchemically transmuted into Mormon scripture by applying this herbivore feces to the hieroglyphs."

 

[desertgal]

Odd that LDS doesn't have people studying Reformed Egyptian the way Jews study Hebrew.

Because they already have their members studying a language: Joe Smith babble speak. Currently appearing in a BoM near you.

 

[halleyscomet]

Because they already have their members studying a language: Joe Smith babble speak. Currently appearing in a BoM near you.

Mark Twain Meets The Mormons

All men have heard of the Mormon Bible, but few, except the elect have seen it or at least taken the trouble to read it. I brought away a copy from Salt Lake. The book is a curiosity to me. It is such a pretentious affair and yet so slow, so sleepy, such an insipid mess of inspiration. It is chloroform in print.

If Joseph Smith composed this book, the act was a miracle. Keeping awake while he did it, was at any rate. If he, according to tradtion, merely translated it from certain ancient and myteriously engraved plates of copper, which he declares he found under a stone, in an out of the way locality, the work of translating it was equally a miracle for the same reason.

The book seems to be merely a prosey detail of imaginary history with the Old Testament for a model followed by a tedious plegiarism of the New Testament. The author labored to give his words and phrases the quaint old fashioned sound and structure of our King James translation of the scriptures. The result is a mongrel, half modern glibbness and half ancient simplicity and gravity. The latter is awkward and constrained, the former natural, but grotesque by the contrast. Whenever he found his speech growing too modern, which was about every sentence or two, he ladeled in a few such scriptural phrases as, "exceeding sore," "and it came to pass," etc. and made things satisfactory again. "And it came to pass," was his pet. If he had left that out, his bible would have been only a pamphlet.

His summary of the individual books that make up the overall volume is amusing in a typically Twain manner. I was particularly tickled by this:

The book of Ether is an incomprehensible medley of history, much of it relating to battles and seiges among peoples the reader has possibly never heard of and who inhabited a country which is not set down in the geography.

 

[Empress]

Mark Twain Meets The Mormons

His summary of the individual books that make up the overall volume is amusing in a typically Twain manner. I was particularly tickled by this:

When I brought my mother her lunch yesterday, she was sitting at her computer listening to the BOM. In the few minutes it took me to move her keyboard and arrange her meal, I believe I heard "and it came to pass" three times. Why anyone would willing read that poorly-written snooze-fest is beyond me.

 

[Mister Earl]

Anyone have a digital copy of the BOM they can edit? I'm just curious... if you do a find / replace "And it came to pass" with "", how many pages does it lose?

 

[halleyscomet]

Anyone have a digital copy of the BOM they can edit? I'm just curious... if you do a find / replace "And it came to pass" with "", how many pages does it lose?

I'll use the Project Gutenberg version of the text

The Book of Mormon by Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and Smith

"and it came to pass" 1092 instances

Size before search and replace: 1,595,452 bytes
Size after search and replace: 1,574,704 bytes

This is probably an underestimate, as the text file contains line breaks in the paragraphs, and I didn't bother doing the search and replace as a regular expression to trap line breaks in the phrase.

 

[Mister Earl]

So a 1.4% reduction. That's less than I would have thought. Thank you!

 

[gabeygoat]

When I brought my mother her lunch yesterday, she was sitting at her computer listening to the BOM. In the few minutes it took me to move her keyboard and arrange her meal, I believe I heard "and it came to pass" three times. Why anyone would willing read that poorly-written snooze-fest is beyond me.

When I first really read the BOM, I had to actually go and mark out "and" as well as "and it came to pass" just to make the thing readable. Physically, with a pen.

 

[halleyscomet]

When I first really read the BOM, I had to actually go and mark out "and" as well as "and it came to pass" just to make the thing readable. Physically, with a pen.

I have a sudden desire to write a condensed Book of Mormon. The question is what would I CALL it and how could I market it to Mormons?

Do you think there's a market for a condensed version of the Book of Mormon targeted at Christians who want to learn more about this offshoot sect?

What about a novelization? Christians read adaptations of Bible stories all the time. Would Mormons read such a thing?

 

[sackett]

...What about a novelization? Christians read adaptations of Bible stories all the time. Would Mormons read such a thing?

The BOM has been called a novel at least once. By Clifton Fadiman? Dunno; I was only a teenager when I read Fadiman on the Book, and that's a LONG DAMN TIME ago.

I would suggest a lampoon novelization, perhaps in the manner of Bored of the Rings. But beware: It's an old, sound rule among parodists that you can't lampoon something that's no good to start with.

Would Mormons read (I think you mean buy) such a thing? Yes, a few, clandestinely, like late-50s teens sneaking a look at Playboy.

Not that I would know!

 

[Empress]

I have a sudden desire to write a condensed Book of Mormon. The question is what would I CALL it and how could I market it to Mormons?

Do you think there's a market for a condensed version of the Book of Mormon targeted at Christians who want to learn more about this offshoot sect?

What about a novelization? Christians read adaptations of Bible stories all the time. Would Mormons read such a thing?

Well, apparently there are a few BOM fanfics out there, based on the book itself, not on the musical, so maybe you've got yourself a niche Mormon market.