Jamie123

I've been searching for the Red Dwarf scene, but can't find it. We'll have to make do with my recitation from memory:

When I first heard the term "reformed Egyptian" I assumed it meant Demotic. It's the language of the middle panel of the Rosetta Stone: You're right - after the Roman Empire adopted Christianity, the old Egyptian characters were deemed "idolatrous" by the Church, and Egyptians were forced to write their own language using Greek letters (except for a few Egyptian sounds for which no Greek character existed - here a couple of Demotic characters were tolerated). When the Arabs invaded Egypt they brought their own language with them, but Egyptian Christians continued to use Egyptian (with Greek letters) and that language came to be called "Coptic". No one knew it was really Old Egyptian - it was just the ceremonial language of the Coptic Church. Years later the Rosetta Stone was discovered, which (so it was suspected) told the same story in Hieroglyphic Egyptian, Demotic Egyptian and Greek, and could potentially provide a kind of "cipher key" to understand Egyptian. However, the real breakthrough came in 1822 when a French scholar called Jean-François Champollion realized that the Egyptian language was very similar to Coptic - which he knew well! By comparing the Greek and Egyptian words he was able to read not only the Rosetta stone, but every single hitherto mysterious Egyptian inscription. I have seen the Rosetta Stone many times. It is in the British Museum in London, having been filched (along with a whole bunch of other Egyptian stuff) when we conquered Egypt from the French. If you're ever in London it's well worth a visit!

Ok I read Mosiah 1. Verse 4 mentions Egyptian language. The sister missionaries who first came to me told me the plates were written in Egyptian (though they seemed rather vague on the point). I've always wondered why they would not have been written in Hebrew like the Old Testament. (Except for the section of Daniel that in Aramaic, but that was written after the Nephites left Jerusalem.) Were all the plates written in Egyptian, including the "Bible" ones from Laban's house?

So it's mostly Mosiah for some time to come! I have read the Words of Mormon this lunchtime. I suppose this is a kind of editorial bridge between the original plates (which Amaleki has just filled up) and whatever records followed. P.S. I really appreciate your efforts here Zil. Your scheduling is making this exercise very easy and enjoyable. Thank you.

Maybe you're right - this wasn't such a good analogy. However, I seem to recall a scene where Connery - now accepted as "Son of Gazander" - tells Michael Caine "this was meant to be" - that he really was a fulfilment of prophecy. But this is in any case fiction.

Interesting article - also the Book of Mormon does mention how their language had changed and how they needed to be taught to speak Hebrew again. Maybe this changing mutated "MakliYahu" into "Mulek" (in much the same way the English "bishop" is a mutation of the Greek "episkopos").

But presumably the name Mulek is mentioned somewhere else?

Another thought - if Mulek was the son of Zedekiah, then his descendents - including Zarahemla - would have been of the royal house of David. Its a little surprising perhaps that they didn't claim the kingship over Mosiah - though maybe having lost their cultural heritage (through having no records) they felt less qualified to lead.

I don't see the word "Mulekite" here (unless I missed it). Are they named that elsewhere? I was vaguely aware of the Jaredites, but its news to me that there was another party from Jerusalem that made it to America.

This reminds me of a book I once read by Rebecca Manley. Her thesis is that evangelism isn't something you *have* to do - it's something you *will* do naturally when you are ready. When a person comes to Christ they go from being worldly to being unworldly, but later (if they are faithful) they will develop a new kind of worldliness and will connect and share their faith with other worldly people.

Very perceptive! He claims no one can know the future, and then claims that HE does! The Book of Mormon app (which I've found very useful) has a link to a dramatisation of this story.

It's worked very well for me so far! I really appreciate the effort you have taken over this. It has changed my perception of the Book of Mormon - especially now we are getting beyond the parts I have read before. Maybe (assuming it's it's fine with everyone else) we continue with the current formula?

Of course, I only previously knew of the short version in Luke 13, but I always saw the servant as Jesus.

"Cwm" (valley) has exactly the same meaning in both.

Blackadder would agree...

I wish you'd give me warning! I nearly wet myself!

...sung by the Tabernacle Choir... If ever I'm tempted to think life isn't worth living, I remind myself that a world in which such beauty as this exists has to have something going for it. These aren't the words I'm familiar with, but I'm glad they kept my favourite bit about the "firey cloudy pillar". Here it is sung in a traditional Welsh chapel, in English and Welsh (at the end): In England we more often sing "redeemer" instead of "Jehovah" - but I recently found out the original Welsh word is "Arglwydd" - which just means "Lord". I've sometimes thought it would be fun to learn Welsh - though they it is twice as hard to learn as French. (And I was never very good at that when I was at school!)

Like the mote and the beam!

Chapter 5 is one ripsnorter of a chapter. It's like Luke 13:6-9 "on acid"! I read the whole thing once, but I'm going to need to go through it again a few times!

I can only see two possibilities here: She knew all along that she was talking nonsense, and that it would catch up with her in the end. She was making hay while the sun was still shining. Maybe this isn't so implausible: she may have a few uncomfortable prison years ahead of her now, but after that she's on easy street living off the wealth of Billy Evans. (And even if Evans sees sense and dumps her, she'll soon charismatize some other poor sucker.) The charisma with which she manipulated others also worked on herself. She deceived herself into thinking that her idea would really work, and that she'd enter history alongside Edison and Ford. In the second case she's like Sean Connery's character in the movie The Man Who Would be King: an ex-soldier claims that he's Alexander the Great reincarnated, and eventually starts believing it himself!

...is (according to Wikipedia) "an aphorism that suggests that by imitating confidence, competence, and an optimistic mindset, a person can realize those qualities in their real life and achieve the results they seek". The problem comes when having faked it, you realize too late that you can't make it, and both you and everyone you won over with your fake confidence are heading for a train wreck. The first time I encountered this, I was about six years old. One night as I was getting into bed, I had a "brilliant idea" for making a robot. Actually my "idea" only covered the robot's head, but I was so sure that my run of of inspiration would continue, that the rest of the robot would follow: Next morning, having procured a custard tin and some string from the kitchen, I ran to the garden shed and got to work... My "big idea" was that by pulling the string, I could make the head move in the required direction. It worked beautifully! Then came Phase 2... the neck, torso, arms and legs? Hmmm... Foresight had failed. I showed the "robot" to my mother, hoping she might have some ideas. However, her best suggestion was to tie a second custard tin to the other end of the string and make a tin-can telephone. But I didn't want a telephone. I wanted a robot. Luckily I had no big stakeholders in my project; my one shareholder was my mother, whose investment consisted of one empty custard tin and a couple of feet of string. Elizabeth Holmes was not so fortunate. Her big idea was to perform every imaginable blood test using a pinprick of blood, which could be taken at a supermarket counter, and analyzed by a device called an "Edison" which - despite being the size and shape of desktop computer - contained an entire blood testing laboratory. Not only would this make bloodwork much more affordable, it would be more accurate. It would detect health problems well in advance, and no one would have to "say goodbye too soon". Now poor little Elizabeth got quite a lot of pooh-pooh for this. But like the true-blooded American she was (star-spangled apple pie land-of-the-free etc.) she didn't let that put her off. After all, every great visionary get's pooh-poohed. Don't they? They pooh-poohed Columbus. They pooh-poohed the Wright brothers. They pooh-poohed Thomas Edison. They pooh-poohed me for my rob... Oh dear... With her charismatic personality and Steve Jobs roll neck, Elizabeth Holmes raised seven hundred million dollars from venture capitalists. At it's height, her company Theranos was valued at 10 billion. She even had Henry Kissinger on her board of directors! She was on magazine covers everywhere as the world's youngest ever female self-made billionaire. The trouble was, she had no more idea of how to make a desktop-sized blood testing laboratory that ran off a single drop of blood, than I had of how to make a robot. And no matter how much she whipped, beat and starved the scientists she hired (few of them put up with her for very long) they couldn't figure it out either. And now she's in prison for defrauding her investors. Three morals to this story: If you're going to "fake till you make", be sure that you can make it. Much as we all hate pooh-poohers, there are times when they can be worth listening to. (It would have saved Elizabeth Holmes the bother of going to jail!) A tin-can telephone may not be a robot, but it's better than nothing!

Ah yes I see that one! Nice pic!

Your image doesn't come up for me