An Introduction

This is going to be The Book of Mormon, as translated into common sense by Amber, possibly with bias. I'm going to put all the posts in backwards date order, so that it reads like a book rather than a blog. I hate reading things backwards on blogs!

As many of you know, I'm a Pastafarian - and happy in my beliefs. I'm a realist, pragmatist, evolutionist and strongly believe that sciences hold the answer; I particularly enjoy physics and trying to wrap my head around complicated topics such as the Menger Sponge. I also enjoy learning about other beliefs, particularly their creation theories. It is fascinating to see how different faith viewpoints affects people in day to day life.

However, I have to wonder at some folks. How can you deny evolution when there is so much evidence of it, both in modern evidence and in historical records like fossils? I'm a little fed up of hearing "So, you think we all came from monkeys?"

No. No, we did not come from monkeys. You are missing the point of evolution.

Look at it like this: you have a pound. Or a dollar. Or whatever. You put 50p (or whatever, call it pence for now, it makes it easier on me) in a bank account earning 1% interest per year. We will call that Coin A. You put the OTHER 50p in another bank account earning 2% interest per year. Coin B.

They are both halves of the same coin essentially, they are the splitting point of a branch. In one hundred years, Coin A is worth £1.35. Coin B is worth £3.62. Those are radically different end results at the same time from the same thing, with a slight variation affecting both coins. Do you see where I'm going with this?

Anyway, I mention this because we had Mormons visiting, and they gave me the Monkey Line - and left me a Book of Mormon.

And I started to read it. And then I started to REALLY read it.

And so I've made a common sense translation. It IS going to offend people, particularly Mormons - and for this I apologise straight up. I am happy to explain my rationalisations, and I would dearly love to hear your views and where I am wrong.

Just one note of warning: you can NOT answer with "Because God".

First Testimony

So, the big deal starts when Joseph Smith, age 14, finds some metal plates, upon which is writ "The Book of Mormon". These are more like metal sheets than plates - not necessarily gold though they call them the Gold Plates, more likely brass as it's harder wearing and cheaper. 
Some of the plates were written by Mormon, and then handed to his son Moroni (yes, seriously) whom added his own bit and then buried them.

The stuff on the plates is impressively well documented, considering what happens. You'll see.

So yes, 14 year old Joseph went to bed one night, September 20th, 1823 and had a pretty weird time until the morning of September 21st. Basically, he took himself off to bed and started to pray - when the room suddenly got brighter and a guy appeared hovering just off the floor, dressed in "most exquisite whiteness". (Note: 1823. These people didn't have Daz. A nice new shirt would have been pretty awesomely bright in comparison with the dusty, grubby clothes of your average person. )

So yes, the man in the bright white robe turned up ("The POWER OF PINK!" Sorry.) and went "Oi, Joe. I'm Moroni, sent by God. You gotta job to do - I buried some stuff that tells tales of the "ancient" people of the land and how they worshipped Christ.

Yeah, I mean Native Americans - forget the Mayans, the Aztecs, the Miccosuke and all that jazz, they were all Christian really. The rest was just pretty pictures.

Anyway, I need you to go get this stuff. Oh yeah, there's also some funky armour that has jewels in silver bows with names. You need to go get that stuff. They'll help you translate the plates, because otherwise it's gobbledegook.

I sense you're looking at me a bit blankly. You, Joe, go get some stuff, but not now. In a bit. Oh, and when you DO get them, don't show them to anyone without checking with me first, or you know, God will have to kill you."

And so Joe knew where they were. The light faded away into a tunnel to Heaven and Moroni scooted off up, leaving Joe in the dark. He sat wondering what the hell just happened.

When suddenly, the light was back! Moroni was back!
Apparently he told him the same story without the slightest variation, but I feel that would be lazy copy and paste work to do here, so I'll summarise: "Plates. Indians and previous peoples actually Christian. Aermour with kooky jewels in. Don't tell people or God will kill you."

Oh yeah, and he also said this time "Great judgements are coming upon the earth, with great desolations by famine, sword and pestilence; these grevious judgements are coming to the earth in this generation!"
(That sounds a bit familiar. They could have at least made up their OWN version of the Four Horsemen. Someone needs to sue for plagarism. I'll also point to "In this generation!" - that's a bit "the end is nigh!" for me, as well as a bit vague. Humans are great at misery, getting diseases, being too poor and starting fights. Big whoop, some revelation, man.)

Anyway, he vanishes again, leaving Joe even more befuddled and scared wide away "so deep were the impressions made on my mind."

When suddenly, the light was back! Moroni was back! Again!
(I'm sensing a pattern here, because...) He told the same story all over again, once more without variation. To summarise: "Stuff to get, Indians secretly Christian. Show people, God kills you." This time though, he has a different additional message. (He appears to be pretty lousy at this messenger of God thing, he keeps forgetting bits, having to come back and start from the beginning to get it right.) This additional message was about not being a greedy git. They might be gold plates, but they're GOD'S gold plates. Satan will try to make you greedy, because they're worth shedloads of money.

And then he vanished. And dawn turned up.

At which point, the not-having-slept-all-night Joe dragged himself out of bed and went to help out on the farm with his dad, but was so knackered as to be completely bloody useless. Dad sent him home and, as he tried to climb over the fence, he passed out on the floor.

And woke up to discover Moroni looking down at him, going "Dude. I told you all this stuff already. Plates. Christindians. Go get."

Joe picked himself off the floor and went to tell his dad, whom sensibly (I guess) told him to go do as he was jolly well told then, and go to the pretty big hill just outside Manchester, Ontario Country, New York.

Well, Joe got there and discovered pretty big rock at the top of the pretty big hill. Sort of half buried with the edges under the ground, and once pried up, revealed a sort of large stone box. (A bit like a stone coffin... or, you know, someone's tomb. The kind of thing it's likely to find a warrior's breastplate and a big stack of gold in. Oops.)

Anyway, Joe tried to pick up this stuff, and found he couldn't. Maybe it was too heavy? That is a LOT of gold, and he is only fourteen... So, in an elegant solution, he comes back every year to try again, each time being given more information from Moroni.

Finally, a whole four years later (22nd September 1827, if you're that interested) he managed to actually go get them. Only to have to look afger them until Moroni would actually need them, on the 2nd May, 1838. (Which seems a bit pointless really. If you don't need them right now, why couldn't you just leave 'em be until you DID? Unless I misunderstood a bit. "I delivered them up to him; and he has them in his charge until this day, being the 2nd May..." Perhaps Moroni had them off him for a bit, got bored, and gave them back?)

Joe took the items home and hid them in a box. People were allowed to pick up the box to see how HEAVY all this gold was, but they weren't allowed to look at it. God said so. Anyway, they were written by "people speaking from the dust" - "reformed Egyptian" (which is a cute way of putting it really).

Anyhow, Moroni told him to look after them pretty darned carefully, because "Joe, dude, you're responsible for them now. Screw up, and you'll be cut off." This was good advice, as people had figured out shortly after that 18 year old Joe was bumming around with a big stack of gold and tried to nick it.

****

You can read an extended "complete record" in the Pearl of Great Price or The History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (volume 1, chapters 1 through 6.) Fair enough if you want to, but it's really not that exciting over these 11 years, besides lots of people tried to nick them by various methods.

They were translated/dictated into "modern" speech "by the gift and power of God" - by putting one of the jewels in a hat and putting it over his face, then reading what the stone said. It was published in 1830 as The Book of Mormon. I'm being mindful of typos.

He then returned the plates to their "angelic guardian". As a result, these plates cannot be examined. Which is a bit sad, after all the trouble people took to get hold of the things in the first place - more details to come. And it's also a bit convenient because now the Mormons have to believe as a matter of faith.

****

In the next chapter - the Testimonies of Others.

Then Three and Eight Testimonies

The Three witnesses:

To summarise, the "testimony" is written in Legalese. That is, to look like a "Truth, Whole Truth and Nothing But..." style document, finished with a prayer - in which they testify that they have seen these plates and the records which they contain."Shown to us by the power of God, not man, for his voice hath declared it unto us; wherefore we know of a surety that the work is true."

I wonder if they saw the tablets or the "translations", as in the original "reformed Egyptian" I am sure they would be quite unreadable. It did take a magic stone and guidance from God to translate them after all.

This is signed by three men - Cowdery, Harris, and Whitmer.

They had a disagreement with Joseph in 1838, causing them to be excommunicated and for him to say they were "too mean to mention; and we had liked to have forgotten them."

The relation to Smith has some points of interest (and even bias): Harris was paying for Smith's "research", and accidentally lost the first, incomplete manuscript of translation.

Whitmer was a friend of Cowdery and Cowdery was a lodger of Smith's. Cowdery's family were also writing a book about how Native Americans would have originally been Hebrew. Funny that, it's got a lot of similarities to the plates... especially as the book was being written before the transcript of the plates.

Interestingly Harris was later disturbed by this "official document" and in a moment of crisis with his religion, confessed that he hadn't actually seen them at all. Cowdery and Whitmer told him that they had, and so he agreed to sign anyway. He changed his mind shortly after, recanting this statement and swore for the rest of his life that it was all the truth.

The Eight Witnesses:

Pretty much the same thing. It's a bit shorter, and signed by eight people claiming they were not drunk: Christian Whitmer, Jacob Whitmer, Peter Whitmer, Jr., John Whitmer, Hiram Page, Joseph Smith, Sr., Hyrum Smith, and Samuel Harrison Smith.

Three of whom were his direct family and the other five were family of Whitmer. Again, the Whitmers fell out with "the Church", never to rejoin.

A further interesting comment by Harris comes into play here - whilst the eight swore that they had seen and hefted (shown to them by Joseph and not God this time), Harris mentions to a former Mormon leader in 1938 "the eight witnesses never saw [the plates] & hesitated to sign that instrument for that reason, but were persuaded to do it."
(February 9, 1843, microfilm reel 2, pp. 64-66, LDS archives; quoted in "Facts On The Book Of Mormon Witnesses," )

These characters define Mormons to me. I dearly want Mormons to QUESTION everything, instead of inherently believe what they are told, copying the role models of the eight.

There is a lot more worthy reading to be found here on the testimonies.

The First Book of Nephi: Chapter 1

I'm not yet sure who that is, but apparently he's important. My understanding is that Nephi is a relatively young man or boy, the youngest of four brothers, living in Jerusalem. He decided to write in the "language of my father", consisting on "The learning of the Jews and the language of the Egyptians". He says he won't write the stuff his dad has already documented, because it wouldn't do to repeat works already written. (Which is a little ironic, in places.)

His diary starts 576BC, telling of a great many prophets calling for the repentance of the people of Jerusalem.

His father, Lehi, encountered a pillar of fire in town one day and saw doom within it. This shook him badly enough to take to bed,`where he had another vision of angels bringing him a book. It described God, heaven and the fact that switching to HIS faith would not "perish".

Of course, Lehi took this somewhat to heart, and wrote it all on plates before setting out into the city to preach. He started going round telling the Jews that they were all sinners, wicked people doing abominable things, and that they would bring the destruction of Jerusalem.

The Jewish, being the sort of people they are, were a bit uncomfortable but laughed it off at first, so he upped his game - really getting in people's faces and preaching of the coming of the Messiah and redemption.

By this time, the Jews were getting really hacked off with this man telling them what to do and threatening them with hell when they chose to stick with their own religion.

The First Book of Nephi: Chapter 2

Around this time when the Jews were getting very, very upset at this man telling them they'll burn forever etcetera, God gave Lehi some sound advice. Namely "Dude, now's a pretty sensible time to leave. There's a lynch mob on the way. You've really cheesed them off."

He dashed home long enough to round up his family and a few supplies, then headed into the wilderness. They walked for three days until they reached the valley at the point of the river meeting the Red Sea, where they set up a tent and an altar for an appropriate "offering".

He told his eldest son that he should be more like the river, "continually running into the fountain of all righteousness" and his next eldest that he should be more like the valley "firm, steadfast and immovable in keeping the commandments of the Lord."

Basically he was pissed because his eldest two sons were complaining about being hoiked away from their home and having to leave all their nice things to avoid a lynching because their dad wouldn't stop upsetting the people of Jerusalem.

Nephi, the youngest, was upset that his brothers were unhappy about having to flee their home because of "the foolish imaginations of [their father's] heart" and decided that his brothers just didn't understand God, or the prophets, despite the fact that they all swore Jerusalem would be destroyed.

In fairness, I'm inclined to agree with the brothers. I'd be pretty cheesed off if I had to run away from my home and stuff because my father didn't stop upsetting the neighbours. Plus, you know, Jerusalem IS still there, to this day.

Anyway, Lehi, the dad, got so annoyed when his sons expressed their disapproval of the situation that he shouted at them so horribly that it made the poor lads tremble. And then he went to sulk in the tent for a bit.

Nephi suddenly decided he wanted to understand the "mysteries of God", and of course God visited him. He instantly believed all the things his father said and didn't "rebel against him like unto my brothers"!  Personally, I think he's sucking up a bit. I can hear it in the undertones, between the lines - "see what a good son I am, love me daddy! I'm a GOOD boy."

He then went to speak to his slightly older brother, the second youngest of the four, telling him all the things God had told him - but, not surprisingly, his two older brothers (the ones hacked off about the whole circumstance) didn't particularly believe him.

God told him "Don't worry, you believe, so you'll be sucessful - prosper and be led to the land of promise (Hang on, wasn't that Moses?), a land prepared specially for you and is seriously good.

And if your brothers continue to be dicks, don't sweat it. You keep telling people this stuff and you'll be a ruler and teacher over them and I'll curse them so that they won't have any power over you, your kids, your kids kids. Plus, their doucheyness will remind everyone how awesome I am."

The First Book of Nephi: Chapter 3

Some time later, Dad, Lehi, is still to be found in a huff in the tent. Nephi goes to check on him, and Dad tells him he's had a dream that the boys should go to Jerusalem to "liberate" some plates.

These plates contain the record of the Jews and the genealogy of the ancestors - and just happens to be in the Kings house (Laban, not Elvis), in the middle of the city full of people already cheesed off with them.

Understandably, the older boys (whom were already upset from having had to run away from home already to avoid the lynching, or rather, having to leave home at the suggestion of a God in whom they don't believe) were not best appealed to the idea of nicking stuff from a king of the people already severely narked with them.

Lehi then responded "Well, I don't want you to do it. But God does. Nephi, you will be favoured because you've not complained about any of it, you understand God."

Neph was pleased to hear this and was all "YEAH! I'll do it! God wouldn't tell me to do something without making sure we CAN succeed first!" Apparently Nephi's enthusiasm was another sign from God that they would be blessed with success.

The boys trekked all the way back to the city and decided to draw straws as to which would have to try to get the plates; the eldest son lost the draw and had to go in.


Sensibly, rather than just try to sneak in and steal them, he asked the King nicely. He wasn't all too surprised when the King wasn't particularly impressed. The King yelled that he'd kill the cheeky git of a thief, and so he ran away. (I'm thinking this lad's got a pretty smart head on his shoulders.)

The older boys were perfectly content to return to Dad and say in all honesty, "Well, we did what we could." but that wasn't good enough for (snotnosegoodytwoshoes) Nephi. No. God TOLD them, so they MUST get those plates. Jerusalem is to be destroyed by the wickedness of the sinful people, and so the plates could not be left to be lost in the destruction.

So, first things first - they went back and gathered their nice stuff that was left behind (the stuff that the older brothers weren't best pleased about leaving behind, like their money and such). They took it up to the King's house and offered to BUY the plates.

Apparently the King saw all the nice stuff and greed overcame him, so he sent slaves to kill the boys. (Not because he was irritated that the cheeky gits that want to nick his nice things are back on his property again. Of course not.)

They dropped the stuff and ran away, leaving it all scattered in his garden. The King tidied up (it would have been unsightly and a thief magnet to just leave it lying there after all) whilst the boys ran back out into the wilderness and hid in a cave.

he older brothers were really, really angry now - they've had to flee from mobs of people, risk their lives, lost their home and all their things, because their father kept going on about stuff they didn't even believe in to start with - and now their baby brother has got them into yet MORE trouble. (Way to go, bro!)

They were clouting him with a stick when an angel told them off for it and told them to complete the job already. "The lord will deliver [the King] into your hands." The brothers were, not unreasonably, concerned that this wasn't going to be very likely - the man had a private army of fifty and could easily kill fifty, so it wasn't bloody likely that they were just going to be able to walk up to him and take his things...

The First Book of Nephi: Chapter 4

So the angel has told them that, despite their less-than-wonderful success rate of obtaining these plates so far, they have to try again. God sez. 

Nephi tells his brothers that the king's armies of tens of thousands of men are no big deal, they've got God on their side. I mean, you just saw an angel, how much more proof do you need? (clearly not just some passer by that saw a young lad being beaten with a stick for what he thinks is probably because some other lad nicked their toy and baby bro has failed to get it back.)

The brothers still grumbled about it, but followed him back to the city. Neph went towards the Kings place and found someone silly drunk on the floor - the king! He nabbed the king's sword (a sensible move. Saves a drunk man with a large knife waking up and finding the little git that caused so much trouble standing over him) and finds it to be a nice one made of steel.

God told him to kill the king.

Nephi couldn't.

God pointed out that, dude, the guy is wasted, and just LAID there. He'd kill you if the tables were turned. Kill him. I even gave you the weapon for Me's sake.

Nephi thought about it. It says in Moses' law not to kill. But Moses' law is on the plates. And to rescue the plates, he needed to kill this dude. Hmmm.

So he grabbed the Kings hair and chopped off his head with his own sword, then nicked his clothes and armour, before marching off to the treasury and doing a pretty good impression of the King. It must have been halfway decent, as he fooled the slave looking after the treasure, demanding that the plates are handed over and then to come to the city walls - where he then scared the crap out of his brothers, whom also thought he was the king!

The servant realised when the brothers came back that this dude was an imposter and tried to run off. Nephi grabbed hold of him and told him that, essentially, he's gotta go with them or die. But don't worry. If you're coming with us, God will look after you and you'll always have a place with us. So the poor guy didn't really get much choice in the matter. But hey, he was already a slave I guess.

So, having kidnapped the dude, they cleared off sharpish back into the wilderness before the Jews realised what had gone on.

The First Book of Nephi: Chapter 5

Chapter 5 mysteriously went missing (a little like some certain golden plates I won't mention...), so here's the rewrite!

The boys trekked all the way back to the tent at the valley where the river meets the Red Sea, some 400 kilometers from Jerusalem. This is pretty impressive in itself as, to do it in three days like they suggest (repeatedly), the family would have had to have been going at a fair old clip. Call it 9 hours of walking, they'd have had to have gone over 9 miles an hour. That's more than even the US Navy Seals double-time march - and certainly isn't sustainable over long periods.

But anyway, that's not the point of this chapter (though I should have mentioned it earlier) - the point of this chapter is that Mum is delighted to see her lads "home" safely, having berated her husband for sending their children out on a ridiculous mission and putting them all in danger in the first place.

Dad gives it all "Chill woman. I am a visionary. God sez everything will be cool. Stop being so damn ungrateful - if God hadn't told us to leave, we'd have all perished with the rest when Jerusalem falls." He is even more pleased to find that they have managed to nab the books and so offers a sacrifice and yet more burned offerings. (I'm starting to think that he might just suck at campfire cooking.)

He then takes up the books and proceeds to read through them - the histories of the Jews, the kings, prophets, ancestors - and discovers he's a descendant of Joseph. Apparently Joseph (with the same spelling as the Book of Mormon's writer. Sorry, translator!) is a pretty big deal back when, having been sold into slavery in Egypt and being saved by God.

Anyway, this lead Dad to start making prophesies of his own. But they're not written here, besides that God said it would be pretty stupid to chuck the books away now after they've been to so much effort to get hold of them.

So the books were taken with them as they journeyed "towards the land of promise." No mentions about milk and honey though.

The First Book of Nephi: Chapter 6

Nephi says he's not going to rewrite the plates here, because his Dad has already done that and there's not much point in rewriting an existing work. (Which is kind of ironic really. Big chunks later on are snipped straight out of the King James bible. But shhhh!) He says it is suffice to say that they are decendents of Joseph. (See. I told you so, in chapter 5.)

He doesn't want to rewrite all the stuff his Dad wrote because he wants the room in the book to write about his stuff and God, so that he may persuade other people to believe the same way he does. But don't get him wrong, he isn't going to write stuff that will pander to your fickle desires. No, he's only going to write stuff that appeals to GOD'S.... uh, to God. So if you don't like it, it's because you don't get God.

And he leaves a message for his kids and descendants saying they need to follow this rule.