EruditioSalvatus

I'd rather be god's dockworker than his kid waiting to swipe the family business.

I know it's semantical, but coupling the idea of 'other uses for the Earth' with the often mentioned commandment 'replenish the Earth' makes one wonder if all this hasn't happened before. If something is in need of being replenished, it must have been filled some time before and subsequently emptied or reduced.

That must be a LDS thing, right? Because the hundreds of Jewish people I know have never told me that, neither have I heard it in any Temple service I attended.

It is mentioned once or twice that I am aware of that the Covenants made between God and Moses are "perpetual" or lasting "for all generations," thus until the world ends there's Covenants and laws to be had. However, these Covenants were between the children of Israel and not the Goy, so the Goy would only have to follow the Noahide Laws, or "Seven Laws of Noah," instead of the standard 613 Commandments of God. (here lies yet another extremely weird idea) Now, following the extremely simple basis of 'God's Covenants are perpetual' and 'we are all children of God,' and ignoring the whole Goy issue, here's an 'outside the box' idea: what if the Laws of Moses still stand? Jesus says he's not here to, "destroy, but to fulfill" and that until, "heaven and earth passes away" and until such time the Laws stand, unaltered, until it is wholly fulfilled. Last time I checked heaven and earth are still here. What if this is a prophecy Jesus is making for when he returns for his Millennial Reign? Knowing his corporeal time was short, Jesus is simply speaking of what was to transpire at some future point in time when the whole world is ready to accept a set of new laws and commandments. Remember, he specifically says whomever breaks the commandments, or instructs others to, will get the room next to the noisy air conditioner in the Kingdom of Heaven, but whomever follows and teaches the commandments get the room with the extra pillow. No where does it say these commandments are to be ignored or done away with (I'm probably wrong, but don't know of any offhand) only that he shall fulfill said commandments.

There's several texts not included in the bible for various reasons. Most, or all, of the 'missing books' are old testament references to texts that contain decrees, records, and histories. The best guess as to why these texts were left out of the old testament is either 1) they were boring or 2) the old testament was modeled after the Pentateuch and if those texts got cut once they were probably unknown or inaccessible to christian scribes. WillowTheWisp makes a good point. The bible is less of a book and more of an omnibus of sorts. There are several christian texts that were never seen as good enough to make it in the bible. This gave rise to idea of 'lost books' of the bible, namely the apocrypha. So why, especially if they have access to the texts, are the texts absent? Politics, politics, politics is the best answer. Some books were written too late and didn't make it under the 'canon deadline.' Others were considered unimportant; contradicted other, more important texts; weren't popular enough; or deemed heretical because their teachings or ideas were contrary to what the bible consolidators believed or wanted. Finally, some were considered too fantastic to be believed or true (ironically, the book or revelations almost didn't make it because of the reason, go figure). ~ES