Word Usage in the Book of Mormon


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11 minutes ago, zil2 said:

I see the commas and the ands and don't see why you think anything other than:

  • there's a rod of iron that led to the tree
  • the rod of iron extended along the bank of the river

Yes, I agree with these.

11 minutes ago, zil2 said:

How can it do both of these unless the river goes toward the tree?  I suppose you think it means that the river flows from the tree (how it does that when the head is not the tree, but shouting distance from the tree, I don't know).  The picture in my head has the rod of iron going to the tree.  On one side is the path, which also goes to the tree, but obviously both would stop just short of the tree.  Parallel to both, but on the other side of the rod of iron is the river.  It doesn't go to the tree, but flows past it.  If it goes to the tree, what? Does is its whole length a shouting distance, and it goes from the head to the tree?  Or from the head to the tree and under/around it?  I think it flows past the tree.  This is what the text describes.  I don't believe it describes the river flowing away from the tree.

Ok.  

Yeah, that's a major restructuring of the picture I drew in my head based on the wording.  I was reading things linearly, because the rod, the path, and the river all seemed to be types of lines.

Linearly, good is on one end, bad is on the other end.  So, the place that was "away from the tree" was bad.  Lehi and Nephi were near the tree (very good place).

L&L were further away, but could possibly be close enough to make the trip.  But they didn't.

The building was even further than L&L.

The depths of hell were further. 

And all good things (the love of God, the living waters, the fruit) came from one point.  All good things flowed further away from the source (the fountain of all righteousness) and became corrupted.

-------------------

As far as the commas, we could read it either way.  We'll agree to disagree on which is more valid.

But at least I get what you were saying now.

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25 minutes ago, Carborendum said:

Yes, I agree with these.

...

-------------------

As far as the commas, we could read it either way.  We'll agree to disagree on which is more valid.

To me, you just said: "I agree. I disagree."  I'm very confused.

Apparently, I need to draw.  I'll go find a piece of paper and a pencil.  Might be a while.

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18 minutes ago, zil2 said:

Apparently, I need to draw.  I'll go find a piece of paper and a pencil.  Might be a while.

L+L = Laman and Lemuel

S, N, S = Sariah, Nephi, Sam

(both groups near the head of the river, L+L a little farther; distances and sizes may not be to scale :D )

Start at the lower left.

THLehisVision.thumb.jpg.eff834c65373a16b7059629dbc640438.jpg

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330BC4CA-7571-42BB-AB83-3331238BCE77.thumb.webp.2d6586e911f30f64b34852271df43165.webp

Tricked the bot to give me 2 pictures today, renaissance style.  I reminded it that it keeps omitting the central iron rod which is more of an iron railing that leads the people on their journey towards the tree of life.

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I like how the first image has Jesus, Heavenly Father, and Heavenly Grandfather.  The lightning bolt is a nice touch too.

It would take many iterations to get it right.

It is also confusing the tree of life for the world tree.  Those trees are huge.  Might try for a treeant tomorrow.

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11 hours ago, zil2 said:

To me, you just said: "I agree. I disagree."  I'm very confused.

This is what I was referring to with which I agreed:

  • there's a rod of iron that led to the tree
  • the rod of iron extended along the bank of the river

I disagreed with the bolded below.

Quote

He sees a rod of iron.  It extends along the bank of the river.  It leads to the tree.  Thus, the river flows toward the tree - because the rod of iron that leads to the tree is along its bank

You seem to be using "leads to" and "flows toward" as synonymous.

As all three are lines, all three can "lead" in both directions.  We follow a river upstream/downstream just as we follow a road uphil/downhill or to/away-from home.  It "leads" to the other end of where we begin.  But flow is a different matter.  It's only downstream.

At this point I have to admit that nothing there really says which direction anything is.  I had simply applied a very common archetype: all good things were in one area; and all bad things were in another area; and all these parallel lines ran between them. 

Since the head of the river is a good source, I put it with the Tree, flowing outwards.  I thought that was a reasonable archetype.  I could be wrong.

The fact that the head was "a little way off" is very imprecise.  We can't really derive much from that.

Maybe it really is some big mish-mash like those images that MB has posted.  In that case, I really have to wonder if direction or proximity means anything in the vision.

It is possible that we might get a different picture if we consider this vision as part of a Temple ceremony.  This would explain some things.  There are some things that Nephi could not write about specifically.  But if we consider it a journey... then we can fill in the blanks.  That is a very different picture indeed.  It's just in an order that we're not familiar with.

Edited by Carborendum
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3 hours ago, mikbone said:

 

It is also confusing the tree of life for the world tree.  Those trees are huge.  Might try for a treeant tomorrow.

At one point Quora, a social media platform where you can crowd-source answers to questions, had an experiment in place where when you posted an answer there was a chance you'd be given three images, one each from three different AI image generators, that you could use to put in your post to highlight your answer and make it look more attractive. 

For one question, my answer involved explaining the difficulties that Bob Hope had in filming a movie on location in France. Basically, not only was his local co-star a bit prideful, the local labor unions operated *strictly* per letter of their contracts and didn't offer the give-and-take American labor unions were willing to engage in. As a result, Hope spent a lot of time trying to smooth things over with different people and readjust the filming schedule accordingly. 

Cue one of the AI programs giving me a picture of Bob Hope wearing a MAGA hat and leading a pitchforks & torches - type mob. 

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2 hours ago, Carborendum said:

Since the head of the river is a good source,

This is an assumption on your part.  The text offers us no such judgement.

2 hours ago, Carborendum said:

The fact that the head was "a little way off" is very imprecise.  We can't really derive much from that.

"shouting distance" is close enough to give us an idea.  He had to shout, but it's not so far that shouting can't be heard.

2 hours ago, Carborendum said:

This is what I was referring to with which I agreed:

  • there's a rod of iron that led to the tree
  • the rod of iron extended along the bank of the river

I disagreed with the bolded below.

Quote

He sees a rod of iron.  It extends along the bank of the river.  It leads to the tree.  Thus, the river flows toward the tree - because the rod of iron that leads to the tree is along its bank

 

The only way the rod can both lead to the tree and extend along the bank of the river while the river flows away from the tree is if the rod stops at shouting distance from the tree - that is, the rod has to stop at the head of the river.  So one must travel "shouting distance" without the benefit of the rod or path.  If that's how you want to imagine it, I reckon that's as valid as my version (which honestly, has a pretty short rod, it being only shouting distance long).

Alternately, the rod continues past the head of the river and beyond the banks of the river (and the path also), and that was never mentioned.

Please note that I consider all this unimportant.  Though I thoroughly disagree that there is any reason whatsover to think that either the head of the river or the river itself was ever good.  I see absolutely nothing in the text to suggest or even allow it - and to my mind, you haven't offered anything other than your own assumptions to support your assertion that it started out good and went bad.

The idea makes for a good teaching tool: the gospel is pure when it comes from Christ and the farther it gets from Christ the more corrupt it becomes.  I just don't see Lehi's vision trying to teach that.

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I just realized a connection that should have been really obvious.

"Head of the fountain" = "Fountainhead"

No, not the Ayn Rand book.  The word made popular by Thoreau in Walden.

It was a compound word combining two words that meant essentially the same thing. But the combination turns it into a superlative.

So, the source of this river is not just a "representation" of the love of God.  It is THE source of the love of God. (or something along those lines.

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35 minutes ago, zil2 said:

This is an assumption on your part.  The text offers us no such judgement.

Here's the description:

Quote

...which led to the fountain of living waters, or to the tree of life; which waters are a representation of the love of God...

If it is representation of the Love of God, full of living water, that's probably good.

35 minutes ago, zil2 said:

"shouting distance" is close enough to give us an idea.  He had to shout, but it's not so far that shouting can't be heard.

Yes.

35 minutes ago, zil2 said:

The only way the rod can both lead to the tree and extend along the bank of the river while the river flows away from the tree is if the rod stops at shouting distance from the tree

A river can be wide enough that the "source" is very large.  In fact, the meaning of "fountainhead" can include the "pool" of water at the location of the spring.  IOW, there is a slow moving pool right near the source.  It only gets faster as we go farther away to the overflow point where the river rages on.

35 minutes ago, zil2 said:

The idea makes for a good teaching tool: the gospel is pure when it comes from Christ and the farther it gets from Christ the more corrupt it becomes.

Agreed.

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4 minutes ago, Carborendum said:

Here's the description:

Quote

...which led to the fountain of living waters, or to the tree of life; which waters are a representation of the love of God...

If it is representation of the Love of God, full of living water, that's probably good.

Sigh.  I already addressed this.  I disagree that this "fountain of living waters" is the same thing as the river or the head of the river or the head of the fountain referred to previously.  On this, we will just have to disagree.

 

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FWIW, @Carborendum, there are folk out there who agree with you about there being a fountain (though I didn't see any saying it's the source of the river) and people who agree with me that the fountain is the river.  And #13 in this document might interest you (it's a portion of a Nibley book).  Anywho, a trip through google might entertain you, dunno.

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I have a good imagination and I have had day dreams (visions) that gave me some insight on the Gospel.

My dreams on the other hand can get Bizarre.  And they can morph into something radical at the drop of a hat.  

I’d be hesitant to make too many interpretations of my own dreams let alone anyone else’s.

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Typing with my thumbs today so I won’t be providing references. If you want some be sure to ask and I’ll provide them when I get to a proper keyboard.

<img src=“cat playing piano” />

Talmage The House of the Lord points out that the contains imagery of the history of our first parents, a panorama of the various dispensations, and a personal salvation epic all within the same narrative framework. I see the same thing with Lehi/Nephi’s accounts of the tree of life. Lehi takes from it a personal application of his immediate children. He also seems to see the scattering and gathering of Israel in it based on Laman and Lemuel’s questioning (I think Nephi makes some allusions to it, but then builds on it as he studies Isaiah). Nephi also sees a family story, but it extends down to the destruction of his descendants. And he sees a personal salvation narrative (I think he also builds on this later at the end of 2 Nephi). And he also sees a panorama that takes him through apostasies and restoration and all the way to the end of the world (John finishes this for him).

in John’s vision the whore of Babylon sits on many waters, so the waters filthiness makes sense. Nephi also shares how the record of the Jews was pure when it came out of the mouth of the Jew but later was corrupted. This suggests a river that started clean but turned filthy. For the salvation narrative, there is a gulf dividing the righteous and the wicked. The depths of the filthy river are the depths of hell. Perhaps this suggests that the first step of rebellion is indeed a step to hell (in contrast to being lost from wandering in strange roads). In the life of Christ (oh yeah, he also see the life of Christ. This can be part of the panorama or part of the salvation narrative or its own category — make of it what you will). In the life of Christ water shows up again in the condescension of God: Jesus is baptized. Presumably his followers are baptized as they take the path to fall down at his feet and worship (tree imagery). Again, I am of the opinion that Nephi explicitly ties the action of Christ to the action of his followers in his sermon on baptism. For this the water would need to be clean. The scattering/gathering I think has more to do with an olive tree, and since this image and the explanation got cut Nephi (Lehi included it briefly in his explanation), and since I’m not seeing a water connection I’ll skip it here. Unless it’s also part of Nephi’s family story, in which case… In Nephi’s family story he sees that the Old World and the New World are separated by water and it gets traversed. I don’t see how filthiness or purity is involved in this, or how/when the river was crossed in the dream. I mention it because of the water connection.

From this I gather there is pure water, and there is filthy water. The apostasy motif has me thinking there is a river that becomes corrupted, but I could entertain the idea that there is a second river (flash flood!?!) that is only filthy.

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  • 2 weeks later...
Posted (edited)

In our reading for last week, we noticed something about the Lord's prayer.

Quote

9 After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.
10 Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
11 And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
12 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

 -- 3 Ne 13: 9-12

I wondered about a couple of things here.

If we compare the Lord's prayer in Matthew, we notice a few lines missing between v 10 and 11.  Why?

***********************

The other point of interest is verse 12.  It is the same as Matthew.  Yet the JST renders it differently.

Quote

And suffer us not to be led into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

This is interesting. The Syriac translation renders it as 

Quote

do not let us enter into temptation.

The BoM renders it the same as the Greek. But Joseph wanted to render it the way that the Syrians did.

........................

Even more interesting is that the Old Syriac version of the Bible wasn't even discovered until after Joseph's death.  Then it was translated in 1858.

The first English translation of the Peshitta was in 1851.

By those dates, Joseph never had access to an English version of those records.

Edited by Carborendum
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For the ease of readers: 3 Nephi 13:2-13.

38 minutes ago, Carborendum said:

If we compare the Lord's prayer in Matthew, we notice a few lines missing between v 10 and 11.  Why?

For the ease of readers:

Quote

Matthew 6:9 After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.

10 Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.

11 Give us this day our daily bread.

12 And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.

13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.

Verse 13 made a lot more sense to me when I learned that some translations read: "And suffer us not to be led into temptation (<JST), but deliver us from the evil one: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen."  The other translations change "evil" into "the evil one", aka Satan.  IMO, that makes the "For" make sense, otherwise, the "For" doesn't really make sense to me. (See Moses 4:1-3, and some of its footnotes.)  This is reminding us of the council in heaven, where the evil one sought to take away the kingdom, power, and glory of God; but Christ acknowledged they are God's forever.

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1 hour ago, zil2 said:

10 Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.

11 Give us this day our daily bread.

Any ideas why the bolded was omitted in the BoM?

We see the change for the "Be ye therefore perfect" as understandable because Jesus was now resurrected.  He became complete and whole.

But is the kingdom already come?  I could understand that it is now Jesus' kingdom.  But that wouldn't mean that the phrase should be omitted?  Or does it? Is there something going on here?

And why would we not ask for our daily bread as it was in Jerusalem?  Was it somehow different for the Nephites?

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6 minutes ago, Carborendum said:

Any ideas why the bolded was omitted in the BoM?

We see the change for the "Be ye therefore perfect" as understandable because Jesus was now resurrected.  He became complete and whole.

But is the kingdom already come?  I could understand that it is now Jesus' kingdom.  But that wouldn't mean that the phrase should be omitted?  Or does it? Is there something going on here?

And why would we not ask for our daily bread as it was in Jerusalem?  Was it somehow different for the Nephites?

I wish I knew. :)  I had the same sort of thoughts about the kingdom.  Only a guess about the daily bread - perhaps the Nephites were so abundantly blessed during times of righteousness that they didn't need to ask for daily bread - whereas the Jews under the Romans, at least, those who followed Christ, were not so prosperous...

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23 hours ago, Carborendum said:

Any ideas why the bolded was omitted in the BoM?

We see the change for the "Be ye therefore perfect" as understandable because Jesus was now resurrected.  He became complete and whole.

But is the kingdom already come?  I could understand that it is now Jesus' kingdom.  But that wouldn't mean that the phrase should be omitted?  Or does it? Is there something going on here?

And why would we not ask for our daily bread as it was in Jerusalem?  Was it somehow different for the Nephites?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_circuses

In order to keep the poor from becoming unruly, the Roman government issued a policy stating that those who met certain requirements could receive a daily measure of grain for free and would have reserved free seating in certain types of public venues. 

The powers-that-be figured that so long as the poor were fed and entertained they would be far less likely to take out their frustrations on the government. 

So far as we know, the Nephites had no such practice in place, so any reference to one's "daily bread" would have made no sense. 

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23 hours ago, zil2 said:

I wish I knew. :)  I had the same sort of thoughts about the kingdom.  Only a guess about the daily bread - perhaps the Nephites were so abundantly blessed during times of righteousness that they didn't need to ask for daily bread - whereas the Jews under the Romans, at least, those who followed Christ, were not so prosperous...

As I noted above (sometimes I can't always get the multi-quote to work), Rome engaged in the practice of "bread and circuses" to keep the poor pacified. Those who met certain requirements and were known to the government could get a measure of grain for free every day, and there was seating set aside for these people at certain types of public entertainment venues. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_circuses

The government officials who supported this figured that as long as the poor were fed and entertained, they would be less likely to revolt. 

There's nothing in the BoM to indicate that the Nephites had any comparable effort going. 

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2 hours ago, Ironhold said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_circuses

In order to keep the poor from becoming unruly, the Roman government issued a policy stating that those who met certain requirements could receive a daily measure of grain for free and would have reserved free seating in certain types of public venues. 

The powers-that-be figured that so long as the poor were fed and entertained they would be far less likely to take out their frustrations on the government. 

So far as we know, the Nephites had no such practice in place, so any reference to one's "daily bread" would have made no sense. 

WOW!  If that really is the meaning here, then this is really meaningful for apologists.  

If the critics are correct, then a farmboy with little education knew about this historic practice.  And also had the presence of mind to realize that it was due to a corrupt governmental system which the Nephites (a culture that he just "made up") didn't have (that we know of).

So, he omitted it without knowing this interpretation and made it fit culturally with this "made up history and political structure"?

I just did a search of various modern interpretations of daily bread and included "bread and circuses" with the search.  I couldn't find one reference that says this.  You're the only one!

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New meaning of a common scripture:

Quote

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.

 -- Mosiah 15:11

Quote

And I fell at his feet to worship him. And he said unto me, See thou do it not: I am thy fellowservant, and of thy brethren that have the testimony of Jesus: worship God: for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.

 -- Rev 19:10

Abinadi's words may not clearly state it as written.  But there is an implication.

ALL prophets have testified of Jesus.  And all prophets before Christ have prophesied of His coming.

If so, where are the other writings from Old Testament prophets?  Many have been found in the Apocrypha.  Some still no record.  

It may be worth looking at the Apocryphal prophecies that testify of the coming of Christ.

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