Thursdays with Moroni, Part 1: Yo Joe!

[vovat]

I'll admit I don't really know that much about Mormonism. Sure, I've heard all the stuff about magic underwear, gold plates buried in New York, and Jesus hanging around in the American Midwest, but that's about the extent of it. So I've decided to actually read through the Book of Mormon. But first, I thought I should get a little background on the founder of the Latter-Day Saints, Joseph Smith, Jr. Throughout his life, he managed to piss a lot of people off, go into debt, get convicted of bank fraud, marry several underage girls, and have himself declared King of Nauvoo, Illinois. Sounds like a guy you can trust with spiritual truths, right? But if there's one thing I've learned, it's that followers of religious movements don't care how jerky their founders were. In fact, if they're being criticized, that just means they're misunderstood and persecuted.

Smith's claim is that the Book of Mormon was translated from some hidden gold plates that he found with the assistance of the angel Moroni. The plates were written in a language that he called "Reformed Egyptian," which was what King Tut spoke after getting back from reform school. No, that wasn't his actual explanation, but it makes about as much sense. In order to translate them, he used glasses made out of the Urim and Thummim, which he had found buried with the plates. These objects are mentioned in the Bible as items carried by ancient Jewish priests, and their description sounds like their use was sort of the priestly equivalent of flipping coins, used to answer questions with two possible responses. How such things could be used to translate a text isn't clear, but I tend to think that Joe just wanted names that sounded mystically Biblical, without really caring much about the original context. And he apparently hid the plates away again rather than, say, donating them to a museum so that their authenticity wouldn't be in dispute.

Anyway, since the Book of Mormon was originally published in English, I figured I wouldn't have the same trouble in deciding between different editions that I did with the Bible and other books written in foreign languages. Then I found out that there were quite a few edits over the years. So I decided to stick to a scan of the original 1830 edition, at least for the time being.

Having read 1 Nephi, it's obvious that Smith was going for a style similar to that of the King James Bible, but he wasn't really that good at it, and some of the passages look like they were written by an Elizabethan first grader. Take 1 Nephi 1:93-97, for instance:

"And it came to pass as they smote us with a rod, behold an angel of the Lord came and stood before them, and he spake unto them, saying: Why do ye smite your younger brother with a rod?...Behold thou shalt go up to Jerusalem again, and the Lord will deliver Laban into your hands. And after the angel had spoken to us, he departed. And after that the angel had departed, Laman and Lemuel again began to murmur, saying, how is it possible that the Lord will deliver Laban into our hands?"

Was it absolutely necessary to be that repetitive? How about at least a bit of variation in the word choice? There's another sentence describing a sword, whichcontains the word "thereof" four times.

Anyway, the book is narrated in first person by Nephi, an inhabitant of the Kingdom of Judah around 600 BC. He journeys out into the wilderness with his father and brothers. The brothers rebel against him approximately 50,000 times during the events of the book, but always end up coming back around. Before they begin their journey, however, they are told by an angel to retrieve the brass plates containing their family's history from some guy named Laban (same name as the father of Leah and Rachel in Genesis, but not the same guy). They fail multiple times, but finally Nephi kills Laban, and then impersonates Laban's voice in order to fool his servant. A prophet who's also a master impressionist? This guy MUST be good!

After getting the plates, Nephi and his family are directed through the wilderness by a "round ball" (I'd say that's redundant, but I guess a football counts as a ball, so maybe not) made of brass. Eventually, Nephi is directed to build a ship "not after the manner of men," which the family uses to sail to America, where they somehow manage to find horses and other animals that weren't yet known in the New World.

Also worth mentioning is that, before sailing to America, Nephi has a vision of the future, including the birth of Jesus to Mary, who is described as "exceeding fair and white." Later, European settlers to America are described as "white, and exceeding fair and beautiful, like unto my people." Wait, so they were Semites with the complexions of Scandinavians? But then, I've heard that racism was a central tenet of Mormonism until fairly recently, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

Well, that's all for now. I plan to make this a weekly feature, but who knows how it will work out?

Comments

[kevenn.livejournal.com]

Oh dear gods, I'm so sorry you're putting yourself through this! I suffered being required to read that goddamned book over and over again while growing up. Good luck slogging through that POS.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Thanks. As with other holy books, I have to wonder how people can actually read it and still believe in it.

[brostron.livejournal.com]

Good post. I've read your posts for years through Aliste's friends list. I think that Smith actually had himself crowned "King of Israel" in Nauvoo. While running for president of the U.S. Ahem. Oh, and the LDS church actually likes to talk about the Urim and Thummin as glasses notion because the other process that Smith and others described involved him putting his favorite peepstone, which he had previously used to look for buried treasure for credulous farmers, at the bottom of a hat and then looking into the hat while reciting the contents of the plates, which weren't necessarily said to have even been physically present at those times.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Thanks. So would have given up his position as King of Israel if elected president? Since others have to give up positions in Congress or as governors, it's only fair, right? And if Smith had a magic hat, could he pull a rabbit out of it?

[brostron.livejournal.com]

Oh no, I think that it's all related to his concept of "theodemocracy." Smith was anointed and crowned King of Israel as part of his theocratic Council of 50 that was supposed to establish just dominion over the earth. And probably annex Texas or something. I don't think that the hat was supposed to be enchanted, but it blocked out light and allowed Smith to peer at his magical rock and perhaps go into a trance-like state. It's actually interesting to read one of the accounts of Smith's "crystal gazing" trial in New York state in 1825. It reads like something out of Irving or Twain. Smith had been arrested because relatives of an older farmer were tired of him paying Smith to look for buried Spanish treasure on his farm. Smith took the stand and apparently went on and on about his adolescent interest in white magic and how he obtained his favorite seerstrones. Then his father got up and said it was such a shame that his son was using his obvious psychic gifts to gain money and not pursue a spiritual purpose. A couple of hired men briefly said that they didn't believe in anything that Smith did. Then the older farmer took the stand and said he truly believed that Smith had a gift for finding treasure, so the case was dismissed because the supposedly damaged party did not feel that he had been wronged.

And then two years later, Smith starts talking about finding a buried treasure that he can translate with this seerstone, but he needs money to finish the translation and gets another older, credulous farmer to mortgage his farm to finance the translation ....

[kevenn.livejournal.com]

It's interesting to hear stuff like this that they never taught us in church.

[brostron.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the LDS church presents a very Disneyfied view of its history, with Smith as part Davy Crockett, part Martin Luther, and a third Arthur Fonzarelli.

I can't believe Vovat will make it through the tedium that is the chapters that recount endless warfare. Or the chapters that are verbatim copies of chapters from the King James Version of the Bible. Even so, he should soon get to the part where the Lamanites are punished with dark skin for general wickedness because dark skin is loathesome to God. And then their descendants killed all of the white Israelites and their descendants are the Indians! (Sorry, if I gave away a key plot point.)

All of this makes me wonder if Smith had ever actually seen a Jew when he wrote the Book of Mormon or knew what Semitic people were supposed to look like.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

We'll see how far I can get. I thought 1 Nephi was poorly written, but not bad enough to make me throw down the book (or, rather, close the Firefox window in which I had it open) in exasperation. But yeah, I've heard that racism was written into Mormonism from the beginning, which is another reason why I have to wonder how people can still accept it.