The Gospel According to Jeffrey

As often happens, I’m involved in a discussion on Facebook and have a response that’s much too long for what amounts to an extended tweet. Long-time readers may remember my posts to Brian Dunning regarding the Book of Abraham. This will be much of the same, but since old questions die hard, I’ll be responding to it again. The rest of this post will therefore be directed to Facebook member Darren Ashby . First of all, Darren, you asked me a few questions. However, that was just before I headed to lunch and ran some errands, and when I returned, I found over 100 comments following them. So that being said, I’m going to ignore most of the comment thread and focus on you. Hope you don’t mind me jumping back over 100 some-odd comments and answering the questions you asked. :-) So without any further ado, let’s start at the beginning. You asked: “So you define translation as not direct translation? When I translate the words "mi nombre es Darren" from Spanish to English I...

A woman on Twitter just referred me to page called Difficult Questions for Mormons to Answer . I thought the page was so concurrently sad and funny, I just had to post the questions (and my responses) here. Enjoy. If the Book of Mormon is true, why do Indians fail to turn white when they become Mormons? (2 Nephi 30:6, prior to the 1981 revision). The Book of Mormon isn’t about Indians; it’s about the descendants of a Bedouin sheik. You’ll notice that the Lamanites whose skin became “white” are not all those who joined the Church, but those who actually amalgamated themselves into Nephite *society*. This is completely consistent with Bedouin culture, which regards city dwellers as “white-skinned” and nomads as “dark-skinned,” presumably at least in part because of the dirtier lifestyle of the latter. If the Book of Mormon is true, then why has the Mormon church changed it? Examples are: 1 Nephi 11:21; 19:20; 20:1 and Alma 29:4. Compare these with the original Book of Mormon....

A couple of days ago, I posted a response to Pastor Wil’s Top Ten Questions for “Mormons”. As long-time readers know, I have blogged about dissenting opinions in the past. What makes this time different is that the dissenting author has actually seen fit to respond. Pastor Wil, if you’re reading, I greatly appreciate this courtesy. Much as I am apparently “the only member of the [C]hurch [of Jesus Christ] who has answered all the questions,” so you, Pastor Wil, are perhaps the only non–Latter-day Saint who has responded to a relevant blog post. You thus have my gratitude, as well. Now, normally when someone comments on my blog and I need to respond, I will do so in the same venue as the initial response, i.e. in the comments section. The problem with that method, however, is that it becomes quite unwieldy when a response requires more than a paragraph or two. In this case, I feel that Pastor Wil’s comment does indeed necessitate a more lengthy response, so I hope my other readers wi...

For the last few weeks, a man who goes by the name of “PastorWil” has been tweeting about the Church of Jesus Christ and so-called “Mormonism.” Today, he tweeted a link to a recent blog post entitled My Top Ten Questions For Mormons . As a so-called “Mormon” myself, I will endeavor to respond to each of his top ten questions. Here we go! :-) 1. Do you believe the Bible has been corrupted? Of course I do. I suspect you do, too. There are literally thousands of Bible translations. No two are exactly alike, and they often contradict each other. Do you believe that the Inspired Version of the Bible (used by the Community of Christ) and the New World Translation (used by Jehovah’s Witnesses) are both 100% accurate? If not, then you, too, believe that the Bible has been corrupted. 2. If the Bible is corrupted, then why does the LDS church still use the King James and not the Joseph Smith Translation? This is actually a trick question. The Church does use the Joseph Smith Translation...

Following my August 26 post regarding Michael Crook and Mitch Mayne, I received a question in the comments. Strangely, I was not notified of its existence until just now, so I am now endeavoring to respond. Hopefully the author won’t be too unhappy with me. The question was as follows: Jeff, I appreciate that you've thought about the situation critically. That's awesome. That got me on a deep-think track about a few subtle differences between sexual orientation and the inclinations to which you've referred (e.g., to steal a Twix bar). You've basically asserted that all inclinations are basically on the same playing field. What happens, though, when God says to one person "You can act on this inclination" then turns to another person and says "I'm sorry, you can't act on this inclination"? That's how I view sexual orientation in the LDS Church: God has told straight Mormons, Date! Hold hands! Kiss! Develop these powerful urges withi...

A few days late, I realize, but I’ve just discovered that Liam Hoare (sorry I misspelled your name, by the way; I’ve fixed it in the original) has responded to my earlier post,  I Believe… . As my regular readers know, brevity is not my strong suit, but I will attempt to deal with his complaints succinctly. Liam’s response deals with the Church’s position on race—an issue which I asserted, and continue to assert—has been a non-issue from the start (see previous post). I will thus deal with his arguments in turn. 1. “Jeff makes the assertion in his reply that Joseph Smith was some kind of Lincoln before there was a Lincoln.” I actually didn’t say that, but it’s a good point. Joseph Smith, Jr., actually did run for President of the United States on an anti-slavery platform, in 1844. His position was that the United States government should outlaw any new slavery, then sell all federal lands and use the money to purchase the freedom of all existing slaves—which, by the way, wou...

“He taketh three days’ journey into the wilderness with his family.” It’s so funny that I would get to this sentence, this morning. Last night I was researching something related to the Bible and discovered a web site that mocks the Book of Mormon. Such sites are, of course, a dime a dozen, but this one was different: never before have I seen such inaccurate information as this. I mean, it’s one thing to take issue with the doctrines or even the historical narrative; it’s quite another to come up with such incredibly obvious straw man arguments. Such is the statement that is brought to mind by this passage: “It only took Nephi and his family three days to travel from Jerusalem to the Red Sea. (A distance of 250 miles)” Let’s ignore, for the moment, the fact that this author couldn’t even manage grammatical accuracy in his argument. Where on Earth did s/he get this idea? Lehi didn’t start from the city of Jerusalem; he started from “the land of Jerusalem” (see “ Headnote, Part II ”). J...

(This is part two of my explanation of the Book of Abraham. Of course,  part one  is also available.) As discussed previously, the most significant problem with the Book of Abraham is that each of the three Facsimiles found therewith have been translated by Egyptologists—both Latter-day–Saint and otherwise—and the result has been unanimous: Joseph Smith’s interpretation of these writings have absolutely nothing to do with their actual translation. When these hieroglyphs were first authored by our ancient Egyptian cousins, they had nothing whatsoever to do with Abraham or even Judeo-Christianity; they dealt with Egyptian mythology and beliefs, and that’s all there is to it. End of story. The problem with this thinking is that it overlooks an important, even essential issue: when Joseph Smith Jr. set forth the meaning of these texts, what, exactly, was he interpreting? Let’s return to the Book itself. The Book of Abraham is a not an Egyptian document. Everyone agrees that ...

As mentioned in my last post , I would like to take the time to respond to Brian Dunning’s Skeptoid Podcast: specifically, Decrypting the Book of Abraham . But first, let’s be fair: Skeptoid is a ten-minute show, so Brian’s treatment thereof is certainly not on the same level as the volumes and volumes that have been written on the subject. Perhaps it is for this reason that he has ignored several well-established facts that would detract from his argument, and I expect that I, being limited by time and reasonable space, shall do the same. However, I think we need to return to the context I so often speak of. Brian, this one is for you. Brian begins his Podcast by giving a brief history of the papyri which, after being purchased by the Church of the Latter Day Saints (as it was then, inexplicably, known), resulted in a translation of a portion of the Book of Abraham. To be frank, this history is probably the most accurate summary I’ve seen, in so few words. Yes, there are a few mista...

For those of you that aren’t familiar with Michael R. Ash , you don’t know what you’re missing. Mike Ash is a member of FAIR (the Foundation for Apologetic Information and Research) and the author of Shaken Faith Syndrome , a great book for those that have some basic unanswered questions about the Church. Mike also has a column on Mormon Times entitled Challenging Issues, Keeping the Faith , and it is this last one that brings us to this blog entry. In Mr. Ash’s latest column, Book of Mormon DNA issue one of science, not theology , Ash points out that “it’s ironic that critics—who do not believe in LDS prophets—claim Mormons must accept every word spoken by every LDS general authority as the inerrant word of God.” While I wholeheartedly agree with his assessment (as did President George Albert Smith, who expressly refuted the idea that “when our leaders speak, the thinking has been done”), I couldn’t help but disagree with one of his examples. I therefore post an open letter to Mr...