Thursdays with Moroni, Part 3: We Like Short Books

[vovat]

From Nephi himself, the Book of Mormon moves on to his brother Jacob, who tells us that he "cannot but write a little of my words, because of the difficulty of engraving our words upon plates." But that apparently didn't stop Nephi from engraving significant portions of Isaiah, nor does it stop Jacob from repeating a lot of the stuff that Nephi had already said. Jacob reiterates how the coming of Jesus was foretold by the prophet Zenos. Funny how we've never heard of this prophet outside the Book of Mormon, and his name doesn't look particularly Jewish, but more like a misspelling of the Greek term for "stranger." Another theme that Jacob touches on is monogamy. No, seriously. One passage reads, "And now it came to pass that the people of Nephi, under the reign of the second king, began to grow hard in their hearts, and indulge themselves somewhat in wicked practices, such as like unto David of Old, desiring many wives and concubines, and also David, his son; yea, and they also began to search much gold and silver, and began to be lifted up somewhat in pride." Hey, is Joe Smith planting prophecies about himself again? It's kind of weird that mainstream Christians and Jews tend to be opposed to polygamy despite the fact that I don't think there are any specific Biblical passages forbidding it, yet the religion most closely associated with polygamy claims it's a sin right in its holy book.

The next book, Enos (named after Jacob's son, and not Fry's grandfather), is a really short one, dealing primarily with what happened to the Lamanites when they turned away from God and Nephi. The Native Americans, whom Smith claims are descended from the Lamanites, are said to be "wild, and ferocious, and a bloodthirsty people; full of idolatry, and filthiness." That's right, Enos, get down with your racist self!

Our next alleged writer is Enos' own son Jarom, who must not have been as talkative as his ancestors. His brief book says a little about the wars between the Nephites and Lamanites, and how the former were eventually victorious. The Nephites then spent their time making buildings, machinery, and metal weapons, of which there is (surprise!) absolutely no sign in the American lands where they supposedly lived.

The title of the book of Omni is somewhat misleading, because only the very beginning is attributed to Jarom's son Omni, the rest being supposedly written by his descendants. And none of them really say much, making it seem like this book was just to allow for some time to pass in Smith's fictional...um, sorry, hidden history of America.

Next come the Words of Mormon, which basically just say that some guy named Mormon finished up the engravings on the plates and buried them. That's still not the end of the book, though. But you'll have to wait until next week for the next part.

Comments

[kevenn.livejournal.com]

Oh don't forget, the Lamanites descendants (maybe it comes later) were also cursed to be a lazy people too - more racist references to how Native Americans were seen as lazy drunks. Like the one story where an entire city is able to escape the Lamanite because they get them so drunk, they sleep through an entire city running away from them...

[vovat.livejournal.com]

There's been at least one reference so far to the Lamanites as lazy drunks so far, but I don't know that I've come across the story you mention.

[(Anonymous)]

I think that all of these short books were designed in part to fill in the gap between the various sections of the book that Smith wrote. He started off by writing the Book of Lehi but then allowed the person financing the translation to take the manuscript and it was lost. Smith was incredibly paranoid about not being able to faithfully reproduce that section, especially if the original manuscript resurfaced, so he started over with a new section said to be an abridgement by Mormon that runs from Mosiah to the end of Mormon. Then when he finished that, he went back and rewrote the Lehi sections as told by Nephi on the "small plates of Nephi" that were amazingly enough kept for this very purpose and go through Words of Mormon.

[brostron.livejournal.com]

Oh, that was me.

I think that the verse in Jacob strongly denounces polygamy but then very ambiguously says that it might be remotely tolerable if it's necessary for procreation. See, that Smith was a clever fellow, always leaving himself an out!

There was a section in the Book of Commandments and then Doctrine and Covenants that explicitly condemned polygamy, but that section was added at a meeting led by Oliver Cowdary, Smith's companion in the writing of the Book of Mormon, and Smith was not present. (Cowdary seems to have had similar interests in white magic and ethnic origins stories, but balked at Smith's interests in polygamy and theocracy.) Anyway, the section actually stayed in the Doctrine and Covenants until 1872 even though the LDS church openly taught polygamy from 1852 on. A related section adopted at the same meeting that condemns the influence of religious organizations in civil government still exists in the D&C even though Smith, Young, and many other LDS leaders have often ignored it.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

See, that Smith was a clever fellow, always leaving himself an out!

I think Muhammad also gave himself special provisions for being allowed to have more wives than any of his followers. Honestly, I can't really understand why polygamy is such a big deal. The problem with Smith and some of his followers isn't so much that they were polygamists as that they married children, and one doesn't necessitate the other (regardless of what Bill O'Reilly might say).

[brostron.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the problems with Smith's polygamy were a)some of his wives were as young as 14 when he married them b)he told some of the wives and daughters of his most devoted and naive followers that an angel with a fiery sword had commanded him to marry them or that their marriage would ensure the eternal salvation of the girls' families c)he neglected to tell his legal wife of any of this and d)he consistently lied about this to his followers and outsiders.

If Smith wanted to be a swinger, then he should have just said so.