The Book of Mormon

[Anonymous No.17162161]

Is it of literary merit?

[F. Gardner, MFA, BA (Hons.) - (...) No.17162166]

>>17162161
Yeah science fiction is kinda shit in general.

[Anonymous No.17162169]

>>17162161
Grew up mormon. Within the church they hype it to shit. Honestly it's worse than the Bible. His fanfic book of abraham and moses are at least a little interesting though.

[Anonymous No.17162173]

>>17162161
No. The only book worth reading is the King James Bible.

[Anonymous No.17162215]

How God communicates with Smith is pretty Abraham tier

[Anonymous No.17162226]

If I wanted to read something trying to echo the literary style of Scripture, but that wasn't actually Scripture, I'd just read the Silmarillion.

[Anonymous No.17162230]

>>17162161
Guenon refuted Mormonism

[Anonymous No.17162365]

>>17162161
Is it believable that a random uneducated American farm boy could come up with all this over the course of a couple years in the 1820's sans divine inspiration? If so he was unironically the American Tolkien, creating an unprecedented work of mythopoeia.

[Anonymous No.17162405]

>>17162161
yes, read Korihor's section. an athiest argues with the people, the athiest wins the argument, no joke, the atheist literally wins the argument, and then god kills him anyway. it's good shit

[Anonymous No.17162412]

>>17162230
reminder that /lit/'s guenon spammer was caught posting that he loves "feminine penis" on /int/

[Anonymous No.17162423]

>>17162405
>the athiest wins the argument, no joke, the atheist literally wins the argument, and then god kills him anyway.
Positively based

[Anonymous No.17162523]

>>17162405
I just read it, as somebody who has only read the Old Testament up to now, the Book of Mormon seems to have more complex philosophical dialogue than the OT

[Anonymous No.17162570]

>>17162423
it really is. and summaries don't do it justice. they seriously steelman Korihor's arguments in that section, and they don't sugarcoat or purposely pretend not to understand what the he is saying. they unironically don't have any good response for anything he says other than "everything is proof God", which IS based, and then Korihor responds "i'll believe it when i see it" which leads to God killing him

the only part about that section i don't like is when Korihor "admits" he was purposely lying all along before being killed. especially considering how totally good faith their interpretation of atheism was until that point, it comes out of left-field. it seriously feels like they added that part in to please the idiots that wouldn't understand the beauty of just killing his ass for valuing reason over faith

>>17162523
>than the OT
i can agree with this. joseph smith was clearly a smart dude. the problem with the book of mormon is that, being made so recently, there's way too many archaeological debunks that he could not have anticipated

[Anonymous No.17162601]

>>17162570
>the only part about that section i don't like is when Korihor "admits" he was purposely lying all along before being killed. especially considering how totally good faith their interpretation of atheism was until that point
It's realistic though, "I won't deny the possibility that God exists but I don't personally believe it" is a pretty common normie position. Korihor sounds like basically any of my smart secular friends when I try to talk seriously about religion with them.
Or do you mean the part where he says "the devil made me do it"?

[Anonymous No.17162635]

>>17162601
>Or do you mean the part where he says "the devil made me do it"?
yeah the fact that he turned out to be a liar coerced by the devil; just the idea of portraying him as if he didn't even think he believed anything he said. i feel like the story would be way more powerful if they didn't bother with any of that shit. like pic related

[Anonymous No.17162656]

>>17162161
As an active Mormon it’s difficult to even think of it as literary. I’ve read KJV as well but it seems that the passages I’ve studied more frequently Iose their literary properties. The more familiar I become with a text in a religious sense, the less I see it as art. Is this true for y’all in other faiths?

[Anonymous No.17162679]

>>17162412
what's wrong with that

[Anonymous No.17162682]

>>17162161
Yes

[Anonymous No.17162685]

>>17162405
>>17162412
>>17162523
>>17162570
>17 And many more such things did he say unto them, telling them that there could be no atonement made for the sins of men, but every man afared in this life according to the management of the creature; therefore every man prospered according to his genius, and that every man conquered according to his strength; and bwhatsoever a man did was cno crime.
Korihor was right. That's why he was killed despite being rational.

[Anonymous No.17162716]

>>17162685
based. i still feel like smith had an off-day in storytelling near the end tho

[Anonymous No.17162755]

>>17162685
>bwhatsoever a man did was cno crime.
How can 16 million people worship a book this sloppy?

[Anonymous No.17162756]

>>17162173
keyed hitchins poster

[Anonymous No.17162783]

>>17162755
Those are reference marks if you weren't being sarcastic

[Anonymous No.17162806]

>>17162161
Grant Hardy makes an extremely compelling argument for it's literary value

[Anonymous No.17162923]

>>17162161
the book of morons giggles

[Anonymous No.17163247]

>>17162161
Unironically it is not of literary merit. The first of fifteen books has some good atmosphere, but after that it just seems tired. It's like the Bible in short term but all spectacle with no substance. Like there are wars but it's written like wars are somehow inherently interesting. In the old testament, there were real layers. Like Exodus is on the surface a simple story is escape but then there's this other layer about how Good is deliberately sabotaging Moses and Moses trying to deal with it, where it itself becomes an allegory for faith. There's nothing like that in the stories of Joseph Smith. Also Jesus just repeats himself in America. Disappointing.

[Anonymous No.17163277]

>>17162161
>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.

[Anonymous No.17163462]

>>17163247
You should read a little of the first chapter in
>>17162806
He doesn't take a Mormon perspective at all, and actually outs Nephi as an unreliable narrator.
There's a load of layer and structure and metaphor going on in here

[Anonymous No.17163480]

>>17163277
Twain was a proto-Dawkins-Atheist, he'd find any spiritual literature repugnant, even if it agreed with him.

[Anonymous No.17163506]

>>17162412
when he’s right he’s right

[Anonymous No.17163511]

>>17162365
He plagiarized it from existing sources.

[Anonymous No.17163528]

>>17162656
lol how can a man of god browse this hellhole?

[Anonymous No.17163532]

>>17163511
Then explain how the dynamic of four narrators and the remarkable consistency comes into effect.
Yes, many ideas in BoM are popular contemporary ideas of the time, but that's the most superficial aspects.

The four narrators being the focus and depth of the book is the real action.
It's one of the parts that makes it decidedly unique (esp compared to the Bible)

[Anonymous No.17163555]

>>17163528
Not him, but /lit/ is one of the few sfw boards where porn isn't regularly posted as a joke.

[Anonymous No.17163913]

>>17163532
There was an unpublished novel manuscript that Smith had access to with a similar narrative structure. Smith was a sociopath and compulsive liar.

[Anonymous No.17163937]

>>17163913
What novel?

[Anonymous No.17164007]

>>17163937
Manuscript by Solomon Spalding

[Anonymous No.17164017]

>>17163913
Seriously?
He copied down a dude's manuscript for a novel, and then proceeded to memorize it to the point he could convert it on the fly into KJV english, to a person to write down?
And he did this when he was like 19?

[Anonymous No.17164052]

>>17164007
Which manuscript?
The one about the Romans that the Church was so certain was unrelated to the Book of Mormon that they published it themselves?
Or the other one, with no physical evidence that it was even written, only secondhand accounts that sprung up after the Book of Mormon was published?

[Anonymous No.17164192]

>>17162365
Most of it is reworked from the Bible and Ethan Smith's View of the Hebrews. Smith wasn't uneducated and was obviously very familiar with scripture, he had enough imagination to spin a story about jews in America using his sources, that's all. A chunk of the book is literally copied from the KJV translation of Isaiah, and Biblical events are routinely copied over to Smith's fictional ancient America, like the Jaredites encountering the same poisonous snakes the Israelites encounter in Numbers.

[Anonymous No.17164292]

>>17164052
Both.

[Anonymous No.17165078]

>>17162169
Grew up mormon too and it’s way better than the Bible. Seethe.

[Anonymous No.17165084]

>>17162523
It doesn’t just seem to, it does.

[Anonymous No.17165091]

>>17162161
I like the art and Mormonism is interesting in that expands on existence before and after death. A spirit world where one chooses to live, as we know life, to be tested and earn a place with God in Heaven. Missionaries also tell me there's good battles towards the end.

I haven't go near the end however because it's so repetitively written. AND SO IT CAME TO PASS. AND SO IT CAME TO PASS. AND SO IT CAME TO PASS.

[Anonymous No.17165108]

>>17162656
So I’ve read the Book of Mormon 8 times now and and hold it above the Old Testament if we are considering the entirety of the text and think it’s about equal to the NT. I agree though but there are some beautiful chapters. King Benjamin’s speech and Almas exposition on faith far surpass most of what the Bible offers. Hebrews 11 is ok if we are talking about faith but not even close to as powerful and comprehensive.

[Anonymous No.17165112]

>>17162716
The end was good imo. Moroni’s people are scattered and almost extinct because of degenerates who rape and eat human flesh for sport. Burrows book and warns us of secret combinations that seek to overthrow all nations(Jews).

[Anonymous No.17165119]

>>17163247
You must not have read to to have this bad of a take

[Anonymous No.17165494]

>>17162161
Occasionally I pull it off of my shelf and read a random page or two. It's normally garbage, and that "it came to pass" thing is completely true. But recently I opened Alma 12 and it was actually good; good enough to remember what chapter it was.

[Anonymous No.17165499]

>>17162412
Could he get any more based?

[Anonymous No.17165696]

[Anonymous No.17165708]

>>17162166
this book isn't even on the level of science fiction; it's more a ripoff of a handful of contemporaries of the era, mixed in with offhand recollections of the bible.

[Anonymous No.17165715]

>>17162365
He just rewrote the KJV kek

[Anonymous No.17165723]

>>17162215
"seriously emma, i know you're 14 years old, and i'm 30, but an an angel with a flaming sword told me i need to fuck you. i'm not about to argue with an angel with a flaming sword"

[Anonymous No.17165797]

>>17162161
fyi, mormon missionary under quarantine sent to spam social boards in lieu of banging on doors and such-

your mission is more about alienating you from greater society in a bid to make you more dependant on the mormon church, as opposed to converting/"spreading" the mormon way of life.

they don't give a shit so much about converting others (conversion rate is abysmal, and they know this), but if you do, it's considered a bonus to them.

you are 18+, any power they (mp's, bishops and the like) have over you is only the power you allow over you, social ties aside.

if you're outside your native country and you want to leave, ask for your passport. if they don't immediatly produce it, ignore the mp, go straight to your embassy and tell them your passport has been stolen. because it has.

holding legal papers, especially passports, is the tactics of human trafficers (sex trade, slave trade, the like), and they have no business doing this. it is very illegal, and it is a well known tactic.

if you have teh googles, look for ex mormon boards, there are plenty of resources available with a quick search if you need to leave, but have no support.

[Anonymous No.17166285]

>>17165797
Take your meds schizo I'm merely interested in neutral discussion of Mormonism. Virtually everything said about it is either from the church itself or from seething ex-mormons from reddit.

[Anonymous No.17166310]

>>17162365
You can post this as much as you want, doesn’t make it true

[Anonymous No.17166332]

>>17165797
This jives. The OP (and several posts interacting with him, probably also himself) shows up in exactly the same order on /his/ last night.

[Anonymous No.17166505]

>>17165797
I also grew up LDS, tons of my family still is, go the the U, went to seminary in HS etc..

So the church as it is in modern times is a mixed bag, it does cause a lot of damage and trauma to people as much as it helps the few men who are at the center of it. It's not a terrifically good thing but if you're white and larp as trad then you must have a hard time seeing that darker side of it.

However, this discussion is about the BOM which is a whole other thing.

[Anonymous No.17166766]

>>17166505
what's going on right now in mormondom, aside from dropping significantly in numbers, is their "missionaries" are unable to get out in some places, so they instituted some new practices to keep them doing something, one among them is flooding social forums.

there were no "discussions" about the bom on this board till post pandemic.

[Anonymous No.17166774]

>>17166285
by attacking character, it reveals you have no interest in anything neutral.

[Anonymous No.17166781]

>>17165723
Emma wasn’t 14 at least get the story straight. They were already married when the angel threatened with the sword and it was about polygamy

[Anonymous No.17166799]

>>17163462
>He doesn't take a Mormon perspective at all, and actually outs Nephi as an unreliable narrator.
Joseph Smith doesn't do that, he just writes inconsistently. Whoever wrote that analysis is the one reading all this complexity into it.

[Anonymous No.17166878]

>>17166781
sorry, it was helen mar kimball that was 14, he had so many wives, i mean "spiritual wives" it's hard to keep track.

[Anonymous No.17167043]

>>17166332
>>17166774
I was reading random articles on American history wikipedia and found the idea of some literal who WASP in upstate New York creating an entire complex biblical fanfiction to be fascinating. The entire church is an understated part of American history and the quintessential 'American religion' right down to the constitution being considered sacred. It's sort of the WASP Islam, which I find to be interesting in its own right and due to the similar conditions around the creation of its main holy text and early spread.

The main problem I find is that there's no content out there on the religion that isn't produced directly by the church or some gay reddit atheist polemic. Hence I made two posts on forums relevant to literature and history. This isn't some gangstalking secret psyop to get you to go to sunday school. Take your meds.

[Anonymous No.17167070]

>>17162173
Why are you fags in every thread

[Anonymous No.17167663]

>>17167043
you revealed who you are by the language you use, and how you reference things.

do you think someone catholic would refer to mormondom as "the church"? would someone hindu do that? howabout someone atheistic?

[Anonymous No.17167736]

>>17167663
I'd say 'the church' if we were talking about the Catholic or Anglican churches. I'm a Canadian from a family of secular WASPs. I have no horse in this race. Take your meds.

[Anonymous No.17167745]

>>17167663
>do you think someone catholic would refer to mormondom as "the church"?
Typically people who talk about churches call them churches.

[Anonymous No.17167941]

>>17167736
i'm the pope. i refer to catholocism as catholocism

[Anonymous No.17167952]

>>17167745
overarcing themes yes, with specifity, no.