kjf512 Posted April 18, 2007 Report Posted April 18, 2007 hey you guys, i'm new here, and have a few questions on mormonism.. 1. ok, i was just studying islam, and they have a challenge in their qu'ran.. it says that if you don't believe the qu'ran is true, test it for contradictions and all. does the Book of Mormon have any challenges like that too, or? 2. is the writing style in the Book of Mormon different then the writing style of Joseph Smith, or? 3. how old was joseph smith when he said that he started recieving revelations from God? was he persecuted for it? thanks! Quote
BenRaines Posted April 18, 2007 Report Posted April 18, 2007 You can find answers to most of your questions at mormons.org or lds.org. That would be a great place for official church policy. Ben Raines Quote
a-train Posted April 18, 2007 Report Posted April 18, 2007 The Book of Mormon challenge is in Moroni (last book of the Book of Mormon) 10:3-5: 'Behold, I would exhort you that when ye shall read these things, if it be wisdom in God that ye should read them, that ye would remember how merciful the Lord hath been unto the children of men, from the creation of Adam even down until the time that ye shall receive these things, and ponder it in your hearts. And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost. And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things.'I can say that personally, I have read the scriptures and prayed and received such a manifestation from the Holy Ghost.-a-train Quote
Palerider Posted April 18, 2007 Report Posted April 18, 2007 Get a copy of the Book of Mormon and read it........ Quote
kjf512 Posted April 18, 2007 Author Report Posted April 18, 2007 thank you atrain for the nice answer. and for palerider and crimsonkairos - if you're going to be rude, why even post? i mean honestly now.. if you want to promote your religion (which mormons seem to do a LOT), at least answer questions that people have. Quote
CrimsonKairos Posted April 18, 2007 Report Posted April 18, 2007 Who's being rude? If you want to know what Mormons believe, read the Book of Mormon. How is that rude Quote
Palerider Posted April 18, 2007 Report Posted April 18, 2007 thank you atrain for the nice answer.and for palerider and crimsonkairos - if you're going to be rude, why even post? i mean honestly now.. if you want to promote your religion (which mormons seem to do a LOT), at least answer questions that people have.I wasn't being rude......I was telling you how you could find out the answers to your own questions.......I fail to see "RUDE" in that........ B) Quote
Maureen Posted April 19, 2007 Report Posted April 19, 2007 thank you atrain for the nice answer.and for palerider and crimsonkairos - if you're going to be rude, why even post? i mean honestly now.. if you want to promote your religion (which mormons seem to do a LOT), at least answer questions that people have.kjf512, believe me, they were not being rude. You have high expectations! Do you believe that reading the BofM would be a bad thing to do, hence your idea of rudeness. M. Quote
jimradictis Posted April 19, 2007 Report Posted April 19, 2007 hey you guys, i'm new here, and have a few questions on mormonism..1. ok, i was just studying islam, and they have a challenge in their qu'ran.. it says that if you don't believe the qu'ran is true, test it for contradictions and all. does the Book of Mormon have any challenges like that too, or?2. is the writing style in the Book of Mormon different then the writing style of Joseph Smith, or?3. how old was joseph smith when he said that he started recieving revelations from God? was he persecuted for it?thanks!Hi kjf512,The first questions has been answered for you so I will attempt the other two. 2) I am fairly new to the Church but I have read on numerous occasions that the BoM has several writing styles contained withing the different books. I have noticed this myself while reading it, also the D&C seems to be in a completely different style as well. I have also come across a site that might be of interest to you. While it does not show Joseph Smith's writing style it does explain the writing style in the BoM. http://www.jefflindsay.com/LDSFAQ/wordy.shtml3) In the Testimony of the Prophet Joseph Smith contained within the Book of Mormon it is written“On the evening of the . . . twenty-first of September [1823] . . . I betook myself to prayer and supplication to Almighty God . . . .“While I was thus in the act of calling upon God, I discovered a light appearing in my room, which continued to increase until the room was lighter than at noonday, when immediately a personage appeared at my bedside, standing in the air, for his feet did not touch the floor. "Joseph Smith was born December 23, 1805, so he was 17 years old. Durring these times he was persecuted.I hope this helped :) Quote
MaidservantX Posted April 19, 2007 Report Posted April 19, 2007 God the Father and Jesus the Christ personally visited Joseph Smith when he was 14 years old, so this is what you would call the first revelation, I suppose. Then the experience jim brought forward at age 17. It went from there in various manners and experiences.See D&C 123, 127 and 128 for examples of Joseph Smith's writing (I'm sure there are other examples, lol, but this is some).Happy learning, k!oh, by the way, www.josephsmith.net. Quote
john doe Posted April 19, 2007 Report Posted April 19, 2007 Way to go, rude guys!!! Can't you two ever learn to be nice to the newbs???? Quote
Palerider Posted April 19, 2007 Report Posted April 19, 2007 Way to go, rude guys!!! Can't you two ever learn to be nice to the newbs???? I am sorry.........am I in timeout now????.............. Quote
a-train Posted April 19, 2007 Report Posted April 19, 2007 There are definitely different writing styles in the Book of Mormon. Everyone seems to love Nephi's style. He is easy, direct, and holds the reader's interest. Mormon was much different. A lot of people get sort of bogged down when they hit Alma (which was written by Mormon). He is good, but less excting than Nephi.What is further interesting is that the revelations to Joseph Smith in D&C seem to be very different than the Book of Mormon. Joseph Smith's speaches are different still. They contain a smattering of his 19th century boyish personality. He also had a bit of humor and a tinge of street preacher in him.Joseph Smith was 14 when he had his first vision of the Father and Christ. He was socially ostracized as soon as he made this public as a teen. The really violent stuff didn't start until he was in his late twenties and stood as the First Elder in the newly organized Church of Jesus Christ.Oh, I don't think those guys were being rude. They were serious. Their advice is good. Reading the Book of Mormon would answer tons of questions and give you more to inquire of. It can be like wax-on/wax-off training from Mr. Miyagi, you will learn things without even knowing it.GOD BLESS!-a-train Quote
shanstress70 Posted April 19, 2007 Report Posted April 19, 2007 Of course there are several accounts of the 'first' vision. Here is a link to the wikipedia's explanation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_VisionAnd here is Jeff Lindsay's (and LDS apologist) explanation: http://www.jefflindsay.com/LDSFAQ/FQ_first_vision.shtmlPerhaps it would be prudent to read both sources, and any more reliable sources you can find, and make up your own mind. Quote
Shade Posted April 19, 2007 Report Posted April 19, 2007 Of course there are several accounts of the 'first' vision. Here is a link to the wikipedia's explanation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_VisionAnd here is Jeff Lindsay's (and LDS apologist) explanation: http://www.jefflindsay.com/LDSFAQ/FQ_first_vision.shtmlPerhaps it would be prudent to read both sources, and any more reliable sources you can find, and make up your own mind.i think the best part of the Jeff Lindsay entry reads:The official version of Joseph Smith's First Vision is available at LDS.org as "the Prophet Joseph Smith's Testimony."as for the Wikipedia entry, i just tested this entry and it is unlocked and open for editing... cos i can. oh-boy-oh-boy-oh-boy-oh-boy!!! this is like re-writing history, science, geoography and stuff! whooooo!!!go and look--- i just edited it and added the following line: "SHADE WAS HERE !!!" at the end of the first paragraph titled "=Earlier Smith family visions"dunno how reliable that is... EDIT: ok, i have removed my little line of text and made some changes on some other pages, now... Quote
kjf512 Posted April 20, 2007 Author Report Posted April 20, 2007 thanks all for the responses :) btw, i have read the Book of Mormon several times. but i was still unaware of the style of joseph smith compared to it. like take islam for example. you have the quran, and hadiths. the quran is supposingly the word of god, and has an interesting, poetic style. then there's the hadiths, which quoted mohammad.. and the style of mohammad is different then hadiths. muslims use this to claim that the quran had to be from god, since the qwriting styles were different. i thought maybe joseph smith would be quoted somewhere, and if his writing style was different lol Quote
Palerider Posted April 20, 2007 Report Posted April 20, 2007 well.......am I out of time out now?????????...................... Quote
Maureen Posted April 20, 2007 Report Posted April 20, 2007 as for the Wikipedia entry, i just tested this entry and it is unlocked and open for editing... cos i can. oh-boy-oh-boy-oh-boy-oh-boy!!! this is like re-writing history, science, geoography and stuff! whooooo!!!go and look--- i just edited it and added the following line: "SHADE WAS HERE !!!" at the end of the first paragraph titled "=Earlier Smith family visions"dunno how reliable that is... EDIT: ok, i have removed my little line of text and made some changes on some other pages, now...Editing Wikipedia pages...Wikipedia has robust version and reversion controls. This means that poor quality edits or vandalism can quickly and easily be reversed or brought up to an appropriate standard by any other editors, so inexperienced editors cannot accidentally do permanent harm if they make a mistake in their editing. As there are many more editors intent upon good quality articles than any other kind, articles that are poorly edited are usually corrected rapidly.Wikipedia content criteria...Wikipedia content is intended to be factual, notable, verifiable with external sources, and neutrally presented, with external sources cited...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Abo...Wikipedia_pagesM. Quote
Shade Posted April 20, 2007 Report Posted April 20, 2007 Editing Wikipedia pages...Wikipedia has robust version and reversion controls. This means that poor quality edits or vandalism can quickly and easily be reversed or brought up to an appropriate standard by any other editors, so inexperienced editors cannot accidentally do permanent harm if they make a mistake in their editing. As there are many more editors intent upon good quality articles than any other kind, articles that are poorly edited are usually corrected rapidly.Wikipedia content criteria...Wikipedia content is intended to be factual, notable, verifiable with external sources, and neutrally presented, with external sources cited...M."vandalism" of the sort i committed is easy enough to spot. proper factual editing is not too easy to spot apparently. so who exactly verifies the information if it appears for all intents and purposes to be correct and valid? a GOOD EDITOR might quite easily "change history".as for "intended"The evil that is in the world almost always comes of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence if they lack understanding.Albert Camus Quote
Outshined Posted April 20, 2007 Report Posted April 20, 2007 Computer analysis was performed on the Book Of Mormon. From Stylemetry Authorship Analysis: Three different types of "wordprints" or stylometry were used in examining the authors of the Book of Mormon: (1) frequency of letters, (2) frequency of commonly occurring non-contextual words, (3) frequency of rarely occurring noncontextual words. Three types of statistical methods will be used with this data: Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA), Cluster Analysis, and Discriminant or Classification Analysis. The Book of Mormon and non-Book of Mormon authors were clearly separate and a straight line could be drawn between both groups. Joseph Smith was also compared with the four major Book of Mormon authors and plotted in two dimensions. Again each author clustered by themselves and Joseph Smith's writing is very definitely distinct from that of the authors in the Book of Mormon. http://www.lightplanet.com/response/style.htm Quote
kjf512 Posted April 20, 2007 Author Report Posted April 20, 2007 Computer analysis was performed on the Book Of Mormon. From Stylemetry Authorship Analysis: Three different types of "wordprints" or stylometry were used in examining the authors of the Book of Mormon: (1) frequency of letters, (2) frequency of commonly occurring non-contextual words, (3) frequency of rarely occurring noncontextual words. Three types of statistical methods will be used with this data: Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA), Cluster Analysis, and Discriminant or Classification Analysis. The Book of Mormon and non-Book of Mormon authors were clearly separate and a straight line could be drawn between both groups. Joseph Smith was also compared with the four major Book of Mormon authors and plotted in two dimensions. Again each author clustered by themselves and Joseph Smith's writing is very definitely distinct from that of the authors in the Book of Mormon. http://www.lightplanet.com/response/style.htmthanks for the response!!the book or mormon really sounds a lot like the OT book of isaiah in many, many ways. :) Quote
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