Helaman

[Relentless]

I was reading my Book of Mormon today, and ran into an interesting scripture in Helaman,

Hel 12:7-17

7 O how great is the nothingness of the children of men; yea, even they are less than the dust of the earth.

8 For behold, the dust of the earth moveth hither and thither, to the dividing asunder, at the command of our great and everlasting God.

9 Yea, behold at his voice do the hills and the mountains tremble and quake.

10 And by the power of his voice they are broken up, and become smooth, yea, even like unto a valley.

11 Yea, by the power of his voice doth the whole earth shake;

12 Yea, by the power of his voice, do the foundations rock, even to the very center.

13 Yea, and if he say unto the earth—Move—it is moved.

14 Yea, if he say unto the earth—Thou shalt go back, that it lengthen out the day for many hours—it is done;

15 And thus, according to his word the earth goeth back, and it appeareth unto man that the sun standeth still; yea, and behold, this is so; for surely it is the earth that moveth and not the sun.

16 And behold, also, if he say unto the waters of the great deep—Be thou dried up—it is done.

17 Behold, if he say unto this mountain—Be thou raised up, and come over and fall upon that city, that it be buried up—behold it is done.

Now I have read this scripture several times before, but given my recent ENLIGHTENMENT regarding scriptural word context (thanks Snow and Vort), I got to wondering if Nephi had it wrong. Did he mean the whole American Continents would shake? That the whole American Continents would move to make the days longer? So if the Americas moved to lenghten out the days, then what would happen to the rest of the Earth?

I mean, these are scriptures from 7BC, so they couldn't have possibly KNOWN about the whole Earth is Round thing, right? They were probablly refrencing a localized area, or their indigenious population that they were familular with, not the WHOLE GLOBAL EARTH as we think of it today.

I mean, can we even trust that this is what Nephi said, wasn't the Book of Mormon abridged by Mormon? How do we KNOW that he didn't rewrite the verses and lose the original intent of the scriptures?

All I can think of now is, how would the America's move and not the rest of the Earth?

[Hemidakota]

Now, don’t think otherwise these people did not know the heavens or the earth itself. Take a good look at Abraham writings, Enoch, or Moses when they had the privy to view the creation and this earth. They simple knew it was round. Even in these wonderful visions, they were not left for themselves but there is always someone to instruct, if none of the Godhead were presence. Read the Book of Moses or Abraham has they both viewed the earth.

This voice, do you understand the depth of this meaning on how it works?

Robert Millet, BYU Professor, Ancient Scriptures Department, stated -

7-26. God, who is the creator of all things, has dominion and power over them. When God speaks, all that is of God hears and responds. "For I am the Lord thy God; I dwell in heaven; the earth is my footstool; I stretch my hand over the sea, and it obeys my voice; I cause the wind and the fire to be my chariot; I say to the mountains—Depart hence—and behold, they are taken away by a whirlwind, in an instance, suddenly" (Abraham 2:7).

The priesthood of God—which, when granted to man, is the authority to speak and act in the stead of Deity—has from the earliest of times been understood to embrace the power to do the kinds of things listed in these verses by Mormon. The Lord told Enoch: "Every one being ordained after this order and calling should have power, by faith, to break mountains, to divide the seas, to dry up waters, to turn them out of their course; to put at defiance the armies of nations, to divide the earth, to break every band, to stand in the presence of God; to do all things according to his will, according to his command, subdue principalities and powers; and this by the will of the Son of God which was from before the foundation of the world" (JST Genesis 14:30-31 )

"So great was the faith of Enoch that he led the people of God, and their enemies came to battle against them; and he spake the word of the Lord, and the earth trembled, and the mountains fled, even according to his command; and the rivers of water were turned out of their course; and the roar of the lions was heard out of the wilderness; and all nations feared greatly, so powerful was the word of Enoch, and so great was the power of the language which God had given him" (Moses 7:13).

7-8. Having had the vastness of God's creations revealed to him, having obtained some sense of God's glory and power, Moses declared: "Man is nothing, which thing I never had supposed." As mortal men, we have every claim upon the virtue of humility. Nevertheless, when Satan sought to have Moses worship him, Moses, as a result of the same experience in which he had learned of his own nothingness, responded with the incredulous question, "Who are thou?" and then added, "I am a son of God, in the similitude of his Only Begotten." (Moses 1:10, 13.)

In one sense, then, we come to see ourselves as less than the dust of the earth as we, like the people of Benjamin, view ourselves in our carnal and unredeemed state, as we realize our absolute need for the Redeemer (see Mosiah 4:1-2). Here Mormon explains another way in which the children of men are less than the dust of the earth—the inanimate dust of the earth obeys when God speaks, whereas the highest of the animate creation, man, so often fails to hearken to and obey the word of the Lord. See commentary on Mosiah 4:5.

9-13. One of the great prophecies that attends the transition of this earth from its present telestial state to the Edenic or paradisiacal state of the Millennium is that of the mountains being made low and the valleys being brought up (see Isaiah 40:4; JST, Luke 3:10). "It shall be a voice as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder, which shall break down the mountains, and the valleys shall not be found. He shall command the great deep, and it shall be driven back into the north countries, and the islands shall become one land; and the land of Jerusalem and the land of Zion shall be turned back into their own place, and the earth shall be like as it was in the days before it was divided." (D&C 133:22-24.)

14-15. Reference is here made to the biblical account that shows Joshua commanding the sun and the moon to stand still so that his army might complete their rout of the Amorites (Joshua 10:12-14). Here a corrective note is added to that account, which supposed the sun to rotate around a stationery earth. (See also Isaiah 38:7-8; 2 Kings 20:8-11.) These verses provide a subtle but certain assurance that the prophet-editor Mormon, like many of the ancient spiritual leaders, was anything but primitive in his understanding concerning God, man, and the universe.

17. This is precisely what would later happen to the city of Moronihah (see 3 Nephi 8:10).

Doctrinal Commentary on the Book of Mormon, vol. 3 by Robert L. Millet, Joseph Fielding McConkie

[Relentless]

Maybe I should have added that my OP was tongue in cheek...

[Hemidakota]

got it.

I still laugh at the times of the European dark ages and the lackluster media today in telling us, it was our own technology that advance our own thinking that the world was not flat.

[Relentless]

Snow? Vort? Buehler?

I guess they don't want to debate the wording in the Book of Mormon.

[Hemidakota]

Perhaps not...they are still in several heated arguments in other posts.

[pam]

Haven't seen Vort around since the site went down.

[Relentless]

I miss his "I am right so my opinion is the only one that matters" way of arguing...

[Relentless]

Snow? Ideas? Theories? Scholalrly examples as to how I am wrong?

[Traveler]

The science of the ancient world knew that the world was round. In the Americas the Mayan’s possessed the science and math to navigate to anywhere on the earth and return. Not only did they know that the earth was round but they knew the curvature of the earth’s surface and mirrored it in some of their temple structures.

The concepts of a flat earth are part of the foolishness of the Dark Ages and a result of misinterpreting the Bible. Because the Bible spoke of the 4 corners of the earth the Dark Age theologians ignored science and proclaimed the earth flat. It is a good thing that in our age theologians and believers are not so foolish?

The Traveler

[Relentless]

I am more concerned with the use of the world earth", because aparently when other scriptures say earth, they really mean "known populated geographic area".