Book of Mormon Reading Group: 16 Oct - 22 Oct 2023 (Mosiah 14 - Mosiah 29)

[zil2]

Please see the Book of Mormon Reading Group thread for details (and discussion of 1 Nephi 1 - 5).  Our goal is to read the Book of Mormon by the end of the year.  I'll make a new post before each Monday so that it's ready to go - weeks go from Monday to Sunday for our purposes.

This week's schedule:

Oct 16	Mosiah 15	Monday
Oct 17	Mosiah 18	Tuesday
Oct 18	Mosiah 21	Wednesday
Oct 19	Mosiah 23	Thursday
Oct 20	Mosiah 26	Friday
Oct 21	Mosiah 27	Saturday
Oct 22	Mosiah 29	Sunday

 

Last Week: Book of Mormon Reading Group: 09 Oct - 15 Oct 2023 (Words of Mormon 1 - Mosiah 13)

Thread Index

[Just_A_Guy]

This may be a stretch, but it just occurred to me:

—Noah’s priests interrogate Abinadi by quoting Isaiah 52:7-10.

—Abinadi, in his reply, skips the rest of Isaiah 52 and starts up with Isaiah 53.

But, the part of Isaiah 52 that Abinadi skips is interesting:

11 Depart ye, depart ye, go ye out from thence, touch no unclean thing; go ye out of the midst of her; be ye clean, that bear the vessels of the Lord.

12 For ye shall not go out with haste, nor go by flight: for the Lord will go before you; and the God of Israel will be your rearward.

13 Behold, my servant shall deal prudently, he shall be exalted and extolled, and be very high.

14 As many were astonied at thee; his visage was so marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men:

15 So shall he sprinkle many nations; the kings shall shut their mouths at him: for that which had not been told them shall they see; and that which they had not heard shall they consider.

In some ways, the experience of Abinadi and his followers mirrors this section of Isaiah:  Abinadi has likely been tortured and is before the priests with marred visage (v 14); he is stunning the king and his priests into silence (v 15); he has dealt prudently (v 11) by coming in disguise; his followers (after his death) will depart the domains of the unclean king (v 11); and those followers will eventually flee again (from Amulon and the land of Helam) through miraculous means of divine intervention (v 12).

I don’t mean to suggest that Abinadi is a fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy.  But to me it’s an interesting case of parallelism-by-omission (is that even a thing?)—the chronicler whispers for our attention and reinforces his narrative by subtly referencing the scriptural dog that didn’t bark.

 

Also, note v 10 (quoting Isaiah)—“When thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin he shall see his seed”.  “Mosiah”, IMHO, can be read as a combination of “Moses”/“Moshe” and “-iah”.  The latter, as we know, often shows up in Old Testament names as a reference to YHWH.  The former derives, apparently, either from an Egyptian word for “son” [Thutmose = “son of Thoth”] or a Hebrew word for “to draw out of the water” (a euphemism for childbirth).  So “Mosiah” may literally mean either “son of Jehovah” or “born of Jehovah”.  We see numerous instances of people being “born of God” in this book of Mosiah—the hearers of Benjamin’s sermon, Alma the Elder, the followers he eventually converted in the land of Nephi, the church he organized in Zarahemla, and ultimately the experience of his son Alma the Younger—but it all, to my mind, comes back to this verse:  

When thou shalt make His soul an offering for sin He shall see his seed.

Edited October 16, 2023 by Just_A_Guy

[Vort]

On 10/15/2023 at 6:42 PM, Just_A_Guy said:

Also, note v 10 (quoting Isaiah)—“When thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin he shall see his seed”.  “Mosiah”, IMHO, can be read as a combination of “Moses”/“Moshe” and “-iah”.  The latter, as we know, often shows up in Old Testament names as a reference to YHWH.  The former derives, apparently, either from an Egyptian word for “son” [Thutmose = “son of Thoth”] or a Hebrew word for “to draw out of the water” (a euphemism for childbirth).  So “Mosiah” may literally mean either “son of Jehovah” or “born of Jehovah”.  We see numerous instances of people being “born of God” in this book of Mosiah—the hearers of Benjamin’s sermon, Alma the Elder, the followers he eventually converted in the land of Nephi, the church he organized in Zarahemla, and ultimately the experience of his son Alma the Younger—but it all, to my mind, comes back to this verse:  

When thou shalt make His soul an offering for sin He shall see his seed.

Moses was the great lawgiver to the house of Israel. Josiah was the great post-Davidic lawgiver to Israel much later, who purged the worship of pagan gods from among Israel and re-established Jehovah worship. Nibley had the theory that Mosiah, the great lawgiver to the Nephite population post-emigration (under Mosiah I), was named for a combination of Moses and Josiah. I don't know how much water such an idea holds, but I thought it interesting.

Edited October 17, 2023 by Vort

[Jamie123]

Isaiah 53! I totally love it!

 

[Jamie123]

8 hours ago, Just_A_Guy said:

This may be a stretch, but it just occurred to me:

—Noah’s priests interrogate Abinadi by quoting Isaiah 52:7-10.

—Abinadi, in his reply, skips the rest of Isaiah 52 and starts up with Isaiah 53.

I was in two minds whether to mention this, but most scholars think Isaiah 52 ought to end at verse 12. Isaiah 52:13-15 and the whole of 53 are collectively called the "fourth servant song" or "the song of the suffering servant".

The chapter/verse system we use today was devised in 1227 by Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury. Something, I suppose, must have prompted Langton to put the chapter division where he did, and "modern scholars" are not necessarily right. 

Edited October 16, 2023 by Jamie123

[zil2]

Mosiah 14

Well, I don't think this one really needs any comments beyond: follow Christ, repent, be grateful for the unspeakable gift he is.

Mosiah 15

v5: We, too, must learn to subject our flesh to our spirit and to God.

v9+: heed the prophets.

v14-17: We too, upon conversion, are called to "publish peace".

v26: Do not willfully rebel!

[Jamie123]

37 minutes ago, zil2 said:

Mosiah 14

Well, I don't think this one really needs any comments beyond: follow Christ, repent, be grateful for the unspeakable gift he is.

Mosiah 15

v5: We, too, must learn to subject our flesh to our spirit and to God.

v9+: heed the prophets.

v14-17: We too, upon conversion, are called to "publish peace".

v26: Do not willfully rebel!

And of course all little children go to heaven (assuming they die before they reach a certain age). I think most Christians would agree with this, though I do remember watching a video by James White (that notorious Calvinist!) arguing that if that were true, abortion clinics were doing the greatest service for the Kingdom of God!

[Vort]

6 minutes ago, Jamie123 said:

And of course all little children go to heaven (assuming they die before they reach a certain age). I think most Christians would agree with this, though I do remember watching a video by James White (that notorious Calvinist!) arguing that if that were true, abortion clinics were doing the greatest service for the Kingdom of God!

This is exactly the kind of human reasoning, engaged in extensively by almost everyone (definitely including the Saints), that leads us away from God. I remember many years ago, a woman in Pasco, WA, threw her two sons off the cable bridge into the Columbia River. The boys drowned in the river. Horrific. Her excuse to police was that she was ensuring that they would go to heaven.

There is no royal road to heaven. There is no loophole that allows people to "get in" that otherwise wouldn't "qualify". That is not the way God works. That is not the nature of heaven. There is one gate to heaven, one, not several, not many, not two. One. All who enter that heavenly rest do so through that gate. No exceptions. And the gatekeeper is Jesus Christ; he employs no servant there.

Anyway, the cable bridge is a beautiful bridge:

[Jamie123]

27 minutes ago, Vort said:

This is exactly the kind of human reasoning, engaged in extensively by almost everyone (definitely including the Saints), that leads us away from God. I remember many years ago, a woman in Pasco, WA, threw her two sons off the cable bridge into the Columbia River. The boys drowned in the river. Horrific. Her excuse to police was that she was ensuring that they would go to heaven.

There is no royal road to heaven. There is no loophole that allows people to "get in" that otherwise wouldn't "qualify". That is not the way God works. That is not the nature of heaven. There is one gate to heaven, one, not several, not many, not two. One. All who enter that heavenly rest do so through that gate. No exceptions. And the gatekeeper is Jesus Christ; he employs no servant there.

I think James White meant it as a kind of reductio ad absurdum (he is as anti-abortion as any LDS). His alternative idea was that God has his Elect (and presumably also his Reprobate) amongst unborn children. I find this idea almost as disturbing as the alternative...

P.S. Although now I think about it, I have heard other evangelical preachers (not James White) explain away the massacres of large numbers of people, including many children, at the hands of the Israelites, as God sending the children to heaven (rather than letting them grow up with their reprobate parents and go to hell). I was never very convinced by that argument either.

Edited October 16, 2023 by Jamie123

[Jamie123]

17 hours ago, Just_A_Guy said:

Also, note v 10 (quoting Isaiah)—“When thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin he shall see his seed”.  “Mosiah”, IMHO, can be read as a combination of “Moses”/“Moshe” and “-iah”.  The latter, as we know, often shows up in Old Testament names as a reference to YHWH.  The former derives, apparently, either from an Egyptian word for “son” [Thutmose = “son of Thoth”] or a Hebrew word for “to draw out of the water” (a euphemism for childbirth).  So “Mosiah” may literally mean either “son of Jehovah” or “born of Jehovah”.

I once started reading a book called The Bloodline of the Holy Grail by Lawrence Gardener, which argued that Moses was the same historical character as the Pharaoh Akhenaten - the father of King Tut - who preached monotheism. According to Gardener, he was overthrown and fled into the desert accompanied by his followers who called him "The Mose" - which (so Gardener claimed) means "the heir". Forty years later their descendants re-entered history as the Israelites. I got about 1/3 of the way through before I realized it was trash* and stopped reading - though from the blurb on the back, his main thesis is that the surviving Jacobites (descendants of the Catholic James II of England (VII or Scotland)) are not only the rightful heirs of the British throne, but are also the descendants (and heirs) of Jesus. I still have the book somewhere.

*Just to give you an idea, he'd make some totally unsubstantiated statement in chapter x. Then in chapter x+1 he'd refer to the same "fact" and give it a nice scholarly-looking reference. When you looked up the reference, it would point you back to the same statement in chapter x.

Edited October 16, 2023 by Jamie123

[askandanswer]

Perhaps I should go to a shearing shed one day, during shearing time, and hear how noisy or quiet it is.

Mosiah 15:6

6 even as Isaiah said, as a sheep before the shearer is dumb, so he opened not his mouth

 

Justice is such a subjective concept, it seems odd that such eternal importance is attached to something with such an unreliable meaning. It is so common for different groups of people to say that the same set of facts are both just and unjust. Whose sense of justice are we dealing with here? Is it God's justice or is it a higher version of justice that even God is subject to? If it is God's sense of justice that needed to be satisfied, then perhaps it could be argued that God sacrificed His Son to satisfy God's sense of justice.

I wonder how analogous this is to Abraham being called on to sacrifice his son. I think that it would have been against Abraham's sense of justice to sacrifice his son but he was being called upon to do so by a higher sense of justice. Perhaps the sacrifice of God the Son was also done to satisfy a higher sense of justice.

Mosiah 15:9

standing betwixt them and justice;

 

In what way, and to what extent, was Christ's soul involved in this? Usually, the price of sin is mental and physical anguish. But it can also be said that sin has an impact on the soul. Restoration of that impact is usually possible through the atonement. So perhaps Christ's atonement applied to His own soul as well as everyone else's?

Mosiah 15:10

 Behold, I say unto you, that when his soul has been made an offering for sin 

 

 

This is not quite complete. There are many who have done this - who have heard the prophets and harkened to their words, but who, like the seed that fell on stony ground, soon wither and die and do not continue.

I wander if this has any implications for the many Jews who even now,, almost 2,000 years after He has been and gone, still look or His coming.

Mosiah 15:11

11 Behold I say unto you, that whosoever has heard the words of the prophets, yea, all the holy prophets who have prophesied concerning the coming of the Lord—I say unto you, that all those who have hearkened unto their words, and believed that the Lord would redeem his people, and have looked forward to that day for a remission of their sins, I say unto you, that these are his seed, or they are the heirs of the kingdom of God.

 

Christ died for everybody's sins, not just those referred to in the previous verse. Surely Abinadi understood this?

Mosiah 15:12

For these are they whose sins he has borne; these are they for whom he has died, to redeem them from their transgressions. And now, are they not his seed?

Christ delivered what I think are His best teachings in the sermon on the mount.

Mosiah 15:18

18 O how beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that is the founder of peace, 

 

 

I'd forgotten that the knowledge of a first resurrection had been revealed to someone else prior to it being revealed to Alma. The fact that Alma the Younger didn't seem to know this suggest that there were things his father knew that Alma the Younger did not. 

This resurrection seems to be limited to those who lived before Christ but there are many in the church today whose Patriarchal blessing says that they will come forth in the morning of the first resurrection. 

Mosiah 15:21

And there cometh a resurrection, even a first resurrection; yea, even a resurrection of those that have been, and who are, and who shall be, even until the resurrection of Christ—for so shall he be called. 

 

t seems as if Abinadi's visions concerning the first resurrection was pretty extensive, giving how much he says here about who it will include. Alma seemed to be quite hesitant and cautious about saying too much about his understanding.

Mosiah 15:22

And now, the resurrection of all the prophets, and all those that have believed in their words, or all those that have kept the commandments of God, shall come forth in the first resurrection; therefore, they are the first resurrection.

 

This seems to be consistent with what was revealed to Joseph Smith as recorded in section 137 of the Doctrine and Covenants about the fate of those who died before they had a chance to hear the gospel. But Joseph didn't seem to understand this principle until God revealed it to him. And in describing the circumstances and final destination of a specified group of people seems very similar to aspects of Doctrine and Covenants 76.

Mosiah 15:24

And these are those who have part in the first resurrection; and these are they that have died before Christ came, in their ignorance, not having salvation declared unto them. 

 

 

This is an example of where definitions are important. What does it mean to be redeemed, and how many meanings does that word carry? A form of redemption - redemption from physical death - is available to all, whether they want it or not and those who rebel against God will certainly be redeemed from physical death. They will not be redeemed from their sins if they do not choose to repent.

Mosiah 15:26

 But behold, and fear, and tremble before God, for ye ought to tremble; for the Lord redeemeth none such that rebel against him and die in their sins; 

 

 

The first part of this phrase - "that have wilfully rebelled against God, that have known the commandments of God and would not keep them" - very much describes the son of the man who recorded this teaching, Alma, but the second part of this sentence "have no part in the first resurrection" does not apply to Alma. (See Alma 45:19)

Mosiah 15:26

that have wilfully rebelled against God, that have known the commandments of God, and would not keep them; these are they that have no part in the first resurrection.

 

How is justice controlled and by whom or how is it determined that the demands of justice have been satisfied? What happens if you try to cheat justice of its demands and who or what is it that controls what would happen? After thinking about it, I think the answers to some of these questions - by whom and what is it - might be God. Perhaps He is the one who determines whether or not justice has been done and how it is done and whether its demands are met. As to what is guiding His assessments and decisions, I can only speculate that it might be His own individual sense of what is right and what is wrong.

Mosiah 15:27

for he cannot deny justice when it has its claim.

 

I guess it makes sense that this message would be preached everywhere immediately prior to the coming of the Lord, both His first coming and His second coming. It still strikes me as strange that we only have the Bible and the Book of Mormon as the only two records containing any prophecying of His coming even though such prophecies might have been made to every nation, kindred, tongue and people. I suspect that explanations regarding this absence of additional witnesses comes down to one of two possibilities - either that evil has been successful in suppressing other witnesses, or that these are the only witnesses that God wants us to have at this time. Both possibilities raise interesting questions. 

Mosiah 15:28

the time shall come that the salvation of the Lord shall be declared to every nation, kindred, tongue, and people.

 

They will see it but will they recognise it? Many people saw the signs spoken of in the early chapters of 3rd Nephi but they soon developed ways to explain away what these signs meant.

Mosiah 15:31

The Lord hath made bare his holy arm in the eyes of all the nations; and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God.

 

 

[Carborendum]

On 10/15/2023 at 8:42 PM, Just_A_Guy said:

“Mosiah”, IMHO, can be read as a combination of “Moses”/“Moshe” and “-iah”.

On 10/15/2023 at 10:08 PM, Vort said:

...Mosiah, the great lawgiver to the Nephite population post-emigration (under Mosiah I), was named for a combination of Moses and Josiah. 

I had supposed it was an evolution of the word "Messiah"

Edited October 17, 2023 by Carborendum

[zil2]

Mosiah 16

v3: A lifetime of behavior turns you into a type of person.  The notion of deathbed (or post-mortal) repentance is (in almost every case) denying reality.  So spend your lifetime becoming a better type of person.

v6: "...speaking of things to come as though they had already come..." - You can do this when the "things" are promises of God - God never fails to deliver.

Mosiah 17

v11-12: Why mobs are such an awful thing.  Why the people with whom you associate closely are so important.  Why you should love God above all and not fear men...

v15-19: Neither the believers nor the wicked get away unscathed (so to speak).  Clearly, "unscathed" isn't critical to God's plan for anyone.

Mosiah 18

v3: We should remember that just because a group of people (nation, culture, etc.) seem like they wouldn't be receptive to the word of God, doesn't mean there aren't individuals within that group who would be receptive.

v8-10, v13: Essentially the baptismal covenant.  It's always seemed strange to me that there aren't any formal "you covenant to do X and God promises y" words as part of baptism.

v19-20: Good advice for any gospel teacher.

v21+: Good counsel to any follower of Christ.

[Jamie123]

Ooo er! King Noah's on his way, with his band of merry jerks! Wonder what's going to happen next!

[Just_A_Guy]

Mosiah 16:1:  Abinadi quotes from Isaiah 52:10 (all shall see the salvation of the Lord) and 52:8 (Lord and His people to see eye to eye), which were quoted in the priests’ initial question to him (chapter 12).  The care with which this account was constructed, never ceases to amaze me.  It may not be “great literature”, as that term is popularly understood.  But it was painstakingly put together by someone who was highly intelligent and, I think, couldn’t resist a bit of literary showing-off now and again.

Mosiah 17:7-8:  interesting to me now the priests stake out their position with their verdict:  they are the devoted followers of God, Abinadi is a blasphemer pure and simple, and his execution has nothing—nothing!—to do with his accusations against their purported misconduct (though his recanting those accusations will spare his life even if his blasphemy is permitted to stand).  
Also:  where could we have gotten the account of Abinadi’s final condemnation, testimony, and execution; since Alma is already on the run?  Did someone else from the royal court ultimately defect and join Alma?

Mosiah 17:10:  Royal Skousen’s work with the earliest manuscripts of the BoM leads him to conclude that this should read “unto death”, not “until death”.

Mosiah 17:13:  Skousen has this as “scorched”, not “scourged”.  The image I conjured up as a kid was being burned at the stake, but that’s not necessarily what happened here.

Mosiah 18:4:  Joseph Smith once (somewhat facetiously, IMHO) noted that the Egyptian word “mon” meant “good” and “Mormon” could this be interpreted as meaning “more good”.  But this verse suggests that maybe the word has to do with wild animals or wild beasts or something like that.  (Maybe that’s why President Nelson wants us to lay off on using the word.  What if we’ve been using the Nephite word for “wild animals” to describe ourselves for the past two centuries?!?)

Mosiah 18:13:  Comparing the baptismal ritual/prayer here with the one Christ taught the Nephites after His resurrection and/or the ritual we practice today suggests that liturgy is . . . malleable.  Which is interesting considering Isaiah 24:5’s oft-quoted condemnation of those who have altered the ordinances.

Mosiah 18:24-26:  we often quote this as the basis for our own practice of not having a paid clergy at the congregational level.  But of course, in the New Testament Paul defends his priestly prerogative to support from the Church; something the D&C also clarifies that modern church leaders can claim (and which was done by bishops and stake presidents into the Utah territorial period).  Our lay clergy is, we presume, divinely ordained for our particular circumstances; it is not an eternal or unchangeable sine qua non through which one identifies The True Church.

Edited October 18, 2023 by Just_A_Guy

[zil2]

35 minutes ago, Just_A_Guy said:

“wild animals”

Well, you know how those crazy Mormons can party into the wee hours....

[Jamie123]

Now I'm a wee bit confused.

In Mosiah 8:5, Limhi shows Ammon the plates containing the record of his people since they left Zarahemla. This record begins in the next chapter, where the intro calls it the "Record of Zeniff" and says that it comprises chapters 9 to 22.

However, 21:22 brings the story up to date with the arrival of Ammon at Limhi's court. So is this still part of the "Record of Zeniff"? Did the scribes quickly write out an account of Ammon's arrival and add it to the plates before giving it to Ammon himself to read?

[Just_A_Guy]

32 minutes ago, Jamie123 said:

Now I'm a wee bit confused.

In Mosiah 8:5, Limhi shows Ammon the plates containing the record of his people since they left Zarahemla. This record begins in the next chapter, where the intro calls it the "Record of Zeniff" and says that it comprises chapters 9 to 22.

However, 21:22 brings the story up to date with the arrival of Ammon at Limhi's court. So is this still part of the "Record of Zeniff"? Did the scribes quickly write out an account of Ammon's arrival and add it to the plates before giving it to Ammon himself to read?

Perhaps.  This account is Mormon’s summary of the record of the people of Zeniff, but Mormon is giving the account as a (relatively) omniscient narrator and at times is probably weaving in materiel gleaned from other sources.  Exactly where the record of Zeniff ended and at what point he relied on other sources for the denouement of the story, Mormon doesn’t seem to tell us.  

Edited October 18, 2023 by Just_A_Guy

[Carborendum]

.

Edited October 18, 2023 by Carborendum

[zil2]

35 minutes ago, Carborendum said:

.

Short and to the point.

[Jamie123]

2 hours ago, zil2 said:

Short and to the point.

I'm tempted to say I don't "get the point" of that message, but it wouldn't be quite true.

And speaking of "The Point" that reminds me of... On second thoughts I'll make a different thread of that. It would be getting away from the point of this one.

[zil2]

Mosiah 19

Lots of this chapter demonstrates the tendencies of people (individuals and groups).

Mosiah 20

In chapter 19, Noah and his people can't be bothered to watch or be prepared for the Lamanites (too busy being wicked, I guess).  In this chapter, Limhi and his people are the opposite.  I think this lesson scales from an individual level through family, community, and up to nation.  And I think it scales across types of threats: attacking army, enslaving nation, wicked government, enslaving ideas, spiritual attack, etc.  The lesson seems all too relevant to our modern world.  The gospel of Jesus Christ really is the solution to all problems.

Mosiah 21

The consequences of wickedness (yours and others') can follow long after repentance.

v6+: We see repeatedly in the Book of Mormon that the Lord will not support those who start the war - even if it's to escape from an unjust captivity or burden.  The only exception would be if the Lord is the one to say "go to war" (though I'm not sure we ever see that here - the Lord always leads the captives away).

v13+: There is no escape from the requirement to be humble.  Better to choose it and rely on the Lord than to have it drilled into you...

v33-34: It seems they did have a formal idea of a church - that they had to be baptized into it and organized under authority.

v36: In a way, this should be all our study - to deliver ourselves from Satan's bondage.

5 hours ago, Jamie123 said:

Now I'm a wee bit confused.

Mormon seems to toggle back and forth between direct quotes from the plates he's abridging, his own narrative summation of those plates, and his own commentary on the spiritual lessons to be gleaned.  If you can remember that what you're reading is Mormon's abridgement, that can help you to spot where he switches between the three.  FWIW.

Edited October 18, 2023 by zil2

[Jamie123]

1 hour ago, zil2 said:

Mosiah 20

In chapter 19, Noah and his people can't be bothered to watch or be prepared for the Lamanites (too busy being wicked, I guess).  In this chapter, Limhi and his people are the opposite.  I think this lesson scales from an individual level through family, community, and up to nation.  And I think it scales across types of threats: attacking army, enslaving nation, wicked government, enslaving ideas, spiritual attack, etc.  The lesson seems all too relevant to our modern world.  The gospel of Jesus Christ really is the solution to all problems.

This is a very interesting situation. We have a war over a misunderstanding. The Lamanites assume that it was Limhi's people who abducted their women, whereas actually it was the priests of Noah. Meanwhile the Nephites think the Lamanites are attacking them just to be jerks. The Nephites win the first battle and capture the Lamanite king. The Nephite soldiers want to kill him, but Limhi knows this would be counterproductive: while his people may have won this round, they would ultimately lose in a sustained war with the Lamanites. So instead he talks to the captured king, and hey presto! The misunderstanding is set straight, and no need for any more war! If only a few more wars could be sorted out this easily!

[Carborendum]

3 hours ago, Jamie123 said:

I'm tempted to say I don't "get the point" of that message, but it wouldn't be quite true.

And speaking of "The Point" that reminds me of... On second thoughts I'll make a different thread of that. It would be getting away from the point of this one.

I was going to post a long post that built upon JAG's post.  But after I was all done, I realized that all I had done was I had repeated JAG in an entirely verbose manner.

[Jamie123]

33 minutes ago, Carborendum said:

I was going to post a long post that built upon JAG's post.  But after I was all done, I realized that all I had done was I had repeated JAG in an entirely verbose manner.

I was sure you had a good point!