If The Book of Moses is unknown to you, read on. All is explained below under the caption," F R A U D A L E R T !"
Joseph Smith claimed to have translated The Book of Mormon from gold plates. He received The Book of Moses directly. "VISIONS OF MOSES - As revealed to Joseph Smith the Prophet, in June, 1830" essentially is a rewrite of Genesis, Chapters 1 to 10.
Though entitled The Book of Moses and the heading for every chapter is THE WRITING OF MOSES, Moses never speaks for himself. Quite clearly it is not his book at all. It is THE BOOK OF GOD, who refers to himself as "I" throughout the entire vision.
Verse 1 of Chapter 1, sets the pattern at once: "The words of God, which he spake unto Moses..." Now if Moses had written this, wouldn't he have stated, "The words of Yahveh,* which he spake unto me..." But let's not quibble. It is THE BOOK OF JOSEPH. Give Smith the credit that he all too often denies himself!
*The Israelites employed both Yahveh and Elohim to refer to God. "Elohim" is a plural noun, causing not a little misunderstanding. For many centuries, in many languages, the plural has been applied to singular entities as a means of exalting their importance and power. Thus, "we the king," for example. Israelite monotheism remained intact—one God only, though exalted through use of the plural.
This plural usage was so prevalent during the Renaissance in Europe that soon every peasant took it up, referring to themselves as well as to the nobility as "your [plural] grace," etc. In Spanish, vuestra merced (your mercy or grace) became usted (singular) and ustedes (plural). "Vuestra" is a plural form. Singular, historical "tú is employed as a familiar form; i.e. among family and friends, whereas "usted" and "ustedes" expresses formal relationships.
Something similar happened in English. The plural form "you" came to be used formally to address one person. Traditional "thee," "thou," thy," "thine" and "ye" disappeared except among the Quakers (Society of Friends) and in biblical and religious speech and writing, together with occasional romantic expressions ("How do I love thee?" for example). This left English without a plural "you" and awkward "you-all" came into existence, along with "you guys"—very curious, quirky expressions indeed.
Why a Book of Moses? The authorship of the first five books of the Bible (known as the Pentateuch and the Torah) had been disputed long before Smith's time. As the self-recognized and self-acknowledged greatest prophet since Moses, Smith realized that it was up to him to settle the disputes once and for all.
Most Christians have been taught in Sunday school that Moses wrote these books. However, outside of the more conservative seminaries and churches, it is commonly held that Moses did not write them and that they are a compilation of works by numerous writers over an extended period of time. Alternatively, if Moses did write them, it is maintained that he employed the sources available to him, including Chaldaic myths.
Nothing that a given writing does not claim for itself should be ascribed to it on the basis of baseless tradition—as, for example, in Martin Luther's traditional German translation of the Bible, in which the first five books of the Old Testament are entitled 1. Mose, 2. Mose, etc. Nowhere in Genesis is Moses mentioned as the author. Nothing in it justifies such an attribution in the slightest, nor can a spurious "vision."
Other believers can suggest that the flood episode is to be interpreted as a cautionary allegorical moral writing. Smith left Mormons without this out, stranding them high and dry. His authenticity as a "prophet, seer and revelator" once again is on the line.
When all things God had made were finished, it is written in Chapter 3:2 of The Book of Moses, "I, God, saw that they were good." Yet in Chapter 8:29-30, we read:And God looked upon the earth, and behold, it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted its way upon the earth. And God said unto Noah: The end of all flesh is come before me, for the earth is filled with violence, and behold I will destroy all flesh from off the earth." (Cf. Genesis 6:12-13)
"Good" at creation, how could all flesh become corrupt simply by performing as divinely created? Could it be that, endowed with free will, darling gamboling little lambs and cute fluffy little newly hatched chicks criminally misused it to become so corrupt and violent they had to be drowned? Noah and his family, thanks to their fine conduct and DNA, apparently were A-OK. Other creatures on land and in the air were not OK.
No mention is made of how pairs of "creepy-crawly things" like insects, snakes, etc. were herded onto the boat.... and let's not bring up cats. The fish and other aquatic creatures apparently were all all right. Orthodox Jews do not eat some unclean creatures of the sea (abominations), though it would appear that they were worthy of being spared, along with those violent sharks, orcas, tigers, cobras, eagles, spiders, and other predators prone to violence.
Question: Was the idea to prevent any future recurrences of corruption and violence? By selecting only beasts with good conduct and DNA? How would Noah determine that? Wasn't all flesh corrupt? How were things one bit different after the flood in this regard? Thanks to Noah's spotless life and superior DNA, are we humans better now? Have you noticed any violence or corruption lately? On TV, if not in real life? Well, at least all the bad guys got drowned (with one possible exception), to the enormous satisfaction of readers who know how to properly appreciate tall tales.
As a boy Ed often had a terrible time rounding up one cow. As for rounding up two skunks.... He had pigeons but never rounded them up and never considered trying to round up pairs of doves or other birds. Seems like birds would crowd the ark from stem to stern (willfully disregarding the two and two rule, or was it seven and seven?) as the only place among all those waters to perch. How many tens of thousands of cages and pens would be needed to hold and feed all those creatures before boarding? There are 200,000 different species of animals in Australia alone, assuming that Noah had even heard of the land of kangaroos and gila monsters, let alone able to get anywhere beyond, say, one thousand miles from his own neighborhood.
When a scientist collected beetles from a single tropical tree species, he found 682 different beetle species, 140 of which he estimated to be specialized to live exclusively on that single species of tree. Since there are ca. 50,000 different species of tropical trees, he concluded that there are ca. 7 million of specialist beetle species alone! In fact, the total number of species of animals and plants on earth has been estimated to lie between 10 and 100 million. Try herding all of those onto the world's largest passenger ship, the Royal Caribbean! Noah and his family would have had to spend centuries just checking out which of them were "clean" and which "unclean."
Grudging obeisance is given by some to hard facts like this in that little children in Sunday School are taught that "God helped Noah." At one time in his life, Pérez had to feed the cows and shovel manure. Was the fertilizer shoveled overboard to feed the fishies? Just a couple of cows produced too much of that for Eddie! A job he wasn't fond of. How much hay would it take to feed all those beasts? Ask a zookeeper how much red meat he has to provide for one day, compared with 11 months—minimum—on the ark.
Did the carnivores survive by eating all the herbivores? The herbivores would be gone after the first few weeks, with some 44 weeks still to go. The whole story is so ridiculous it's beyond laughable.
Was there any multiplication aboard? At least of rabbits? How did Noah round up beasts from widely varied, far-off habitats? Arctic, temperate, tropical, deserts, grasslands, mountains, jungles? Quite a job for one family. Did the ark provide the environments required to assure the survival of so many countless, disparate creatures?
Question: How did corrupt, violent flora contrive to survive? Crabgrass, roses, broccoli, thistles, apple trees, water lilies, kelp...? A little experiment: Submerge your garden for 11 months (Genesis 7:6, 8:13). See how it survives.
And how about the tiny plants and animals killed off by the enormous, catastrophic force of the flood waters and the mixing of salt water with fresh? One example: The coral reefs, which provide shelter and food to thousands of species and which miniscule coral polyps take ages to build, could not possibly survive.
The question has been asked, "Where did all that water go when the flood that covered the highest mountain tops subsided? A better question would be, Where did all that water come from?
"Through evaporation from the oceans?" you speculate. But that would leave great expanses of dry shoreline world-wide and water would scarcely begin to inch toward the tops of the mountains. And who knows where rain is going to fall, though that would matter not. Those mountains are just too high and most of it would run right back into the oceans anyway. Never-resting gravity. Water naturally flows down, not up.
Noah's divine vision, replayed for Joseph Smith, regrettably, provides not a single clue—no help at all to the clueless. Noah's divine vision, replayed for Joseph Smith, regrettably, provides not a single clue. Neither "Nature's laws" nor "God's laws" (view it as you may) can unpredictably and capriciously be altered or suspended just to accommodate the fancies of ancient Babylonian story tellers or contemporary religious fanatics, possessed though they may be of many admirable, enviable, virtues aside from their fantasizing.
Some staunch believers in myths counter these facts with the argument that nothing is impossible with the Lord. Not quite true. No truly divine being could be impossibly inconsistent and senseless... inconceivably wrathful and wantonly cruel toward humans, (darling, helpless little babies, boys and girls under the age of accountability!), animals... and plants... totally indifferent to the works of his own hands, the wonders of creation, of nature, that take our breath away. Not just the sensitive souls of PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) and those who have had a dearly loved pet are revolted by such a thought, but every living, breathing person with even one iota of feeling, caring, wonder, astonishment and appreciation for each of these divine miracles.
God is a God of love. Genocide (the murder of millions of innocents) is a word associated with fiends like Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot, not our divine Creator, who said his creation was good—and loves it.
Yes, life can be hard and tragic, catastrophes happen, and we struggle to understand, but all who have entered here, into this amazing, marvelous, miraculous world, would have to surrender all concepts of purpose and meaning minus the hope that God sees every sparrow that may fall.
Many believers in the Bible will resent these common-sense observations. Once in an adult Sunday School class, Pérez and others brought up some of these points and more. Most of the class seemed to be in agreement. The teacher, however, an esteemed professor of philosophy in the community, brushed such quibbling aside. "The Biblical account just has a ring of truth to it," he proffered. It astonishes Pérez that some prominent scientists, including ecologists, are Mormons. Of course there are "closet" heretics (skillfully going through the motions as true believers for family, social, economic, or other unheroic reasons) who are not ferreted out and excommunicated.
The Bible is a collection of diverse writings gathered together at different times. Each writing must be evaluated by itself. Do all of them, in part or in toto, even claim to be "the word of God"? Divinely revealed? Has every scriptural passage, beyond reasonable doubt, been inerrantly preserved and translated? Check it out. Follow the apostle Paul's injunction to prove all things and hold fast that which is good. (1 Thessalonians 5:21)
If you believe that, as Sacred Writ, the Biblical story of the flood is a true account of actual happenings and no myth, then you could accept Smith, perhaps, as a prophet of God. If not, you necessarily must view him as a scurrilous scoundrel. He caused his followers terrible grief, especially by his espousal of polygamy. Persecution, of course, made them cling to their beliefs all the more tenaciously. So hey, ease off. Be kind, like Pérez. Then maybe more of them will see the light.
Yes, great natural floods have occurred on earth and one of them could have given rise to the story of the flood—as in the Akkadian Epic of Gilgamesh (ca. 2500-1500 B.C.), for example. Another testament to the ancients' story-telling virtuosity (also in cuneiform) has the earth's inhabitants becoming altogether too numerous and the ruckus and noise they're making is so irksome the gods have to drown it out. But that the flood was divinely sent "to destroy all flesh" is another story. As Paul pointed out, "now we see through [with, by means of] a [looking] glass [mirror], darkly,"* (1 Corinthians 13:12) but it would be stupid of us to wear dark glasses on top of that or to deliberately close our eyes.
*How difficult it is to make King James English understandable, let alone natural-sounding! Once, on relating Peter's betrayal of the Messiah to a children's Sunday School class, Pérez quoted from KJV (King James Version), "Surely thou also art one of them; for thy speech bewrayeth thee." Seeing that this made no impression on the young twelve-year-olds, he translated it to modern English: "Come on, don't try to kid us! We know you're one of them. The way you talk gives you away." Then, since the kids were familiar with the way people from Orem, Utah supposedly talk, he said it was as if Peter had said the words "Arem farth word" (Orem fourth ward) or "barn in a born" (born in a barn). The kids had a good laugh and perhaps for one of the few times in their young lives got past the stupid insistence on cloaking the beautiful Bible stories in archaic 1600 A.D. English that no normal person speaks and which as a consequence doesn't seem real, belonging to a world that is not theirs.
Having said this, Pérez admits to loving much of that old version, but it often fails to capture precise meanings, providing unflawed translations for readers. He enjoys reading from the Bible in various languages, rotating each week from English to Spanish, French, German, Italian and Portuguese and then beginning over again. This enables him to improve his grasp of meanings, appreciate beauties of expression, and gain new insights from this great legacy to mankind. He signed up to learn Hebrew once and the dean closed down the class. Enrollment failed to reach the magic number of ten! The same thing happened with Mandarin Chinese. Deans have an extraordinarily keen and sensitive feeling for numbers. Why not put two dozen more students in any number of 101 courses on subjects already taught in high school in order to enable a few incalculably valuable ones?
English vision derives from Latin videre, to see. The things Moses and Smith saw were truly astounding. Even more astonishing and miraculous was the accompanying sound track. Smith doubtless was utterly amazed to realize that practically every word was exactly as Moses had already jotted it down in Genesis, quoting God's words verbatim.
What a relief! Now, instead of trying to remember all those countless details word for word, Joseph comprehended that he could just copy everything right out of the King James version of the Bible! Of course Moses wasn't a native speaker of English and he did absent-mindedly omit some very important items that the skeptical might view as anachronistic—and something doubtless had been lost in translation—so Smith was bound to do his bounden duty and rectify these errors and omissions.
You don't buy that? Well, eyewitnesses, it has truly been said, may not report an accident the same way, just as Smith did not report an indelibly vivid "First Vision"* in one way only rather than in eight different ones. "Moses" and Joseph Smith beheld the very same vision. Now behold with what exciting exactitude Joseph validated "Moses's" report of what he heard and saw:
*Originally it was a teenage dream, so reported and publicized in writing and in print. Years later, this was determined to be not at all distinctive enough. Anybody can have a dream. So the erstwhile dreamer, now a schemer, converted it to a vision. The First Vision.
An identical creation, described verbatim. The selfsame rivers out of Eden. Adam's rib. The very same technicolor peep show, missing Parental Guidance by two more fig leaves—with things hidden better later on behind animal skin "garments" apparently sporting a figurative compass and square (traditional masonic implements and symbols) that inspired their subsequent invention, so handy for drawing circles and squaring things up when designing and building circular and square mud huts.
The same old Serpent. The same old begetters begetting begotten.* The same old King James English. An identical end to corrupt flesh destroyed from off a violence-filled earth..... Anachronistic "embellishments" aside, an utterly admirable replication (hopefully anticipated and sometimes attained in science) which conclusively establishes this Holy Scripture's divine origin and as such excludes all creative, inventive interpretations other than an ultra-creative 100% literal one.
*As Joseph beholds the various begettings in these "Visions of Moses,"can't you just hear the divine narration or view subtitles more or less like this? "Lo, what thou art beholding now is the begetting of Mahalaleel... See thou now therefore that thou mixeth not up henceforth the begetters and the begotten... Who begat Cainan, which Jared, which Enoch, who Seth... Saving I thy Lord's timely identifications, wouldst thou know which hath begotten whom? Be thou therefore accurate, honest, truthful, humble!"
That it was the same narrator in both instances (switching from Hebrew to King James English) is evidenced by the fact that although Joseph Smith wasn't the least bit sexist, only two wives (Adah and Zillah) are mentioned—as if those upon whom the begotten got begetted were of no importance whatsoever! Do scenarios of this sort offend and disgust you? O.K., then you explain how the visions became writings.
The clincher. Mormons will obfuscate, equivocate, and prevaricate forever over Smith's other divine revelations, but the Book of Moses is so transparently based on a hoary old Chaldean myth repeated in Genesis that even they, if honest, can't imagine one family rounding up two polar bears (from the local zoo?), let alone two hippopotamuses, and loading them onto a 300 x 50 x 30 cubit boat along with multiple specimens of all God's clean and unclean creatures plus rapidly reproducing prey for the predators and insectivores, bamboo trees for the lemurs, eucalyptus trees for the koala bears, flowers for the bees and hummingbirds, ponds for the fresh water fish and mud puppies, plant and animal organisms for these to feed on, soil and nutrients for the trees and plants, a cover over the pond to prevent overflow and dilution from the heavy, constant rains, sufficient shovels, deck hands and energy to scoop excrement overboard for 11 months, etc.
How much time and effort is expended on maintaining the New York City Zoo—no trifling task—compared with replicating ecologies from pole to pole aboard a little wooden boat, together with situating in them samples of all the countless land and fresh-water animal and plant species in the world?
Apparently none of the salt-water ones were corrupt or violent and therefore of no interest to Noah or Smith or the Babylonians.
Hold it! Hold it! All flesh was corrupt and violent!
Exactly right. So why did all of the rest of creation not aboard that little ark, whether corrupt and violent or not, have to be destroyed?
So Joseph Smith had a vision of a flood that didn't happen. A flood that couldn't happen. Holey Moley! Moses never claimed to have had such a vision, but Smith claimed to have seen the very same thing just the same.
Smith's VISIONS OF MOSES has put Mormons in a yawning, slippery pit they can't get out of. Desperately trying to climb out will only get them muddier. The flood story is a favorite butt for jokers and cartoonists everywhere. Unless Mormons get honest and open, they will be but a butt for incredulity, laughter and pity world-wide.
F R A U D A L E R T ! In the woefully mistaken belief that God's visions and revelations to Joseph Smith bespeak eternal, sacrosanct, immutable, inviolate truths to all mankind, this writer employed a 1950 edition of The Book of Moses in writing the above. It has just come to his attention that this book no longer forms part of the Standard Works of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Obviously, the highest of the higher-ups suddenly realized that it was totally fraudulant and farcical and replaced it with SELECTIONS FROM THE BOOK OF MOSES - An extract from the translation of the Bible as revealed to Joseph Smith the Prophet, June 1830-February 1831, in which no account of the flood is given.
These high ones, in whom the onset of fear and trembling apparently has yet to set in, evidently have no dread of divine retribution. Have they no honor, no honesty, no shame? Don't they know the fate of those who quash "holy scripture"?
And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life... (Revelation 22:19)
On top of this unprincipled, ungodly deed, the highest of all prophets, seers and revelators have given their imprimatur to an equally ridiculous farce, continuing to foist on the gullible and unwary the preposterous notion that "translation" means nothing more than an arbitrary revision of a text.
From what language did Smith translate the Bible?
Well, mmmm, uhhh, duh... from King James English.
To what language?
Well, mmmm, uhhh, duh... to King James English.
How can the accuracy of his translation be tested?
By assigning translators of any purported skill the task of verifying its exactness and precision. Nothing more simple and easy! Let any number of them have at it and its total accuracy will be revealed. Of course, they must swear that they have never seen Smith's translation at any time. One or two of them might not be worthy and pure enough to receive the same high level of divine inspiration as Smith and could succumb to the temptation to cheat.
Year after year (now approaching 200) true blue Mormons have accepted The Book of Moses - VISIONS OF MOSES, As revealed to Joseph Smith the Prophet, in June, 1830 as authentic, factual, sanctified and holy. Now, suddenly, this unquestionably honest and true claim to have had visions of visions has been jerked out of the Standard Works. The divine visions can be envisioned no more! They have become a translation!
What does this rectifying of sacred, inviolable revelation reveal about Latter-day Saints? That they have been such naive, gullible, willing suckers (or, more kindly, such simple innocents) that they have accepted Smith's vision of Moses's vision (now non-existent) without question for lo these many years and now—incapable of taking offense, like sheep beneath the sheepherder's shears—they dumbly accept without a baaaa its divinely mutilated remains: SELECTIONS FROM THE BOOK OF MOSES - An extract from the translation of the Bible as revealed to Joseph Smith the Prophet, June 1830-February 1831.
One more comment: devout Messiahns support the Biblical tale of the flood because Yeshua Messiah alluded to it. So? Who has not alluded to Don Quixote, Romeo and Juliet, the Three Musketeers, Pinocchio, Alice in Wonderland—even movie, TV and cartoon characters—in speech and in writing? If the Messiah had attempted to debunk this and other fictional beliefs of his day, he would have been stoned and crucified upside-down before his mission could get under way. Whether in Pagan Rome, Primitive Britain or elsewhere, the fate of serious debunkers would likely be much the same.
Joseph Smith claimed to have translated "the writings of Abraham while he was in Egypt, called the Book of Abraham, written by his own hand, upon papyrus." The papyrus actually did come "from the catacombs of Egypt" as asserted. Woodblocks were cut of representational sections of it and printed in Times and Seasons in 1842. Then the papyrus disappeared, only to be rediscovered in 1967. Of the three facsimiles printed in The Pearl of Great Price, only the original source for No.1 was recovered. Joseph Smith's notations (reflecting a familiarity with Egyptian indubitably surpassing that of Champollion and Prof. Charles Anthon) and his "translation" are at total variance with the interpretations given by prominent Egyptologists.
Facsimile No. 2 in the Book of Abraham, 1977 edition, is reproduced below. Figure 7 (as it was designated) has been enlarged and flipped vertically for enhanced visibility.
According to Joseph Smith, it "represents God sitting upon his throne, revealing through the heavens the grand Key words of the Priesthood; as also, the sign of the Holy Ghost unto Abraham, in the form of a dove."
This is not only totally false but totally blasphemous. In reality, Figure 7 is part of a hypocephalus which, exactly like other similar ones (See below), depicts the Egyptian gods Min and Nehebkau (in the form of a hawk, as attested by the texts). Whoever did the woodblock or subsequently tampered with this depiction ineptly or deliberately positioned Min's penis at his navel, where perhaps it could be taken for the armrest of a throne. In some editions of The Pearl of Great Price it has been expurgated.* Someone in charge knew only too well what it was! The Egyptians placed these hypocephaluses under the heads of the deceased. (Hypo and cephalus come from the Greek words for under and head.)
How sickening! The gall, the chutzpa of Smith, that godfearless duper of poor dupes! No hypocephalus ever found has had anything whatsoever to do with the Bible or Abraham. What a perverted notion! Was there no limit to how false false prophet Smith could be? Or to the gullibility of his followers?
*No doubt in obedience to instructions from true servants of God—prophets, seers and revelators concerned above all with making known the truth of all things.
The writings of Abraham while he was in Egypt, called the Book of Abraham, written by his own hand upon papyrus. (History of the Church, vol. 2, pp.235,236, 348-351) If these true servants actually believed this, overwhelmed by a feeling of awe, veneration, reverence and respect for something from Father Abraham's own hand, they wouldn't have contemplated altering one tiny particle or speck of it for one millisecond.
So Abraham, the Father of the Faithful, could depict his God and the Holy Ghost in this lascivious pagan Egyptian fashion? The Holy Ghost appearing not as a dove but as a hawk displaying its reproductive organ? This exceeds the bounds of all credulity and propriety. Could the sexually potent "prophet"—as able as anyone to recognize a penis—have given his deluded followers a more brazen, contemptuous, in your face equivalent of the finger? Yet Mormon apologists, forever dodging bullets, refuse to bite this one and all others.
The following four lame explanations* should be more than anyone can stomach: "The depiction of a penis is there to accentuate God's generative powers." "In his own hand doesn't mean that literally." (100% true, of course, but not what Smith claimed.) "A portion of the original papyrus is missing." "There were two papyri and one of them is still missing." Oh? Well, whatever the source and whatever the spin, these penises are there for everyone to see (How generative of pious meditations!) as first printed in Times and Seasons in 1842 and in several editions of The Pearl of Great Price, a book first published in 1851 and canonized by Mormons as sacred scripture like the Bible, the Book of Mormon, and Doctrine and Covenants. Unbelievably lame legs like these ought to cause the whole fabricated propped-up edifice to topple.
*No penis, no explanations required, right? Why haven't these apologists explained away why it has been expunged in all later editions and by whose authority? How could any mortal, no matter how revered, dare to revise one single smidgeon of Father Abraham's sacred papyrus? The gates of Hell yawn wide to welcome such insolent, arrogant, hubristic reprobates. Don't they know what happens to him who putteth forth his hand to steady the ark? (2 Samuel 6:6, Doctrine and Covenants 85:8)
"Lewd dancing girls" typically are present in these ithyphallic (sexually aroused) depictions of Min. Do you see a dancing damsel in Fig. 7? Oh, but don't fall prey to prudish Victorian ways of thinking! What to us today might appear lewd and licentious represented something triumphantly powerful and public to Abraham and the ancient Egyptians. Do you think he would have taken up the art of making hypocephaluses if this were not so? He must have made at least three—one for Sarai's (Sarah's) head, one for his own, and one for his Book of Abraham, written "for the benefit of my posterity that shall come after me." (The Book of Abraham 1:31).
It must have been the immense intensity of Abraham's desire to maximize said benefit to his progeny that caused him to do his book in the Egyptian language and manner rather than in his and theirs and leave it behind in Egypt to end up buried in an underground vault inaccessible to them. It would have thrilled him to know that in the latter days his book would come into the hands of a "choice seer" who with his knowledge of Egyptian would really wow the yokels with his translation of it—an unbelievable tour de force that no highly skilled professional Egyptologist would enviously contemplate replicating for one moment!
By the way, didn't Abraham's descendants, both Israelites and Muslims, forbid the making of graven images—of "likenesses" of any kind—in stone, on papyrus or whatever? Yet here is faithful Father Abraham engraving (among other things) images of a lewd nude and penises!
"We must not, we cannot rely on secular learning! Get every last shred of that out of your heads!" The diehards' watchword is becoming less mellifluous.... For believers, that is, who must be shored up, pointed in the right direction and kept on their toes.... toeing the line. "These so-called scholars! How can they possibly mistake the Lord God for ithyphallic Min, the Holy Ghost for ithyphallic Nehebkau, and.... an.... uh.... er.... uh.... an angel?.... for a naked lewd dancing girl? If these self-appointed experts insist that the rediscovered papyrus dates from no earlier than 500 B.C. and therefore could not possibly have been written in Abraham's own hand, reject this and all other secular speculations out of hand!"
Professor Federico Sánchez y Escribano used to say, "No hay peor ciego que el que no quiera ver." (No one is more blind than someone who doesn't want to see.) So it is. "For this people's heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them." The words of Yeshua as recorded in Matthew 13:15.
Psssst! Wanna buy a bridge?.... The well-known come-on to selling shares in the Brooklyn Bridge to gullible yokels who bought counterfeit stock certificates from any number of swindlers in exchange for their hard-earned cash. In the folklore of U.S. scams, it's the one by which all others are measured.
"Priestcraft" (Doctrine and Covenants 33:4, L. R. Sunderland, Truth Vindicated: The Devil Mad, and Priestcraft in Danger!, etc.) is denounced and reviled by propagators of the "Restored Gospel." Yet they maintain that all those not properly "sealed" in holy Mormon temples while living—or vicariously, if dead—will be doomed to discontinuance of all family ties in the life to come. You may be a child's tender, devoted mother, loving it more than life, but if not sealed, you will cease to be its parent beyond the grave!
Refuse to buy this "Brooklyn Bridge" and immutable facts of birth—forever permanent and unchangeable, whatever anyone may attempt to claim—will be irrelevant to the God of Justice and Truth! And imperishable mother's love will be devalued by the God of Love! Scorn this grotesque, ludicrous scam and feelings formed and bonds forged in vibrant, vivid life.... granting us our earliest glimpses and glimmerings of heaven.... will be of no consequence to our life's Author!
Well, of course! Minus wholesale binding-up in heaven as on earth by petty priests "for and in behalf of" all mankind, how could immutable facts possibly have any meaning or value for God or for us? It is so obvious! Accept it! Without rote, robotic sealings performed by Pharisaical clones like unto dead men's bones in whited sepulchers (Matt. 23:13-27), our motherless, fatherless, spouseless, childless fate in the great beyond would be ineluctably sealed forever! (Hey, you millions of people out there without birth certificates.... Sorry, so very sorry! You haven't been born!)
So that an omniscient God will know the true facts and have a record of who is getting properly chain-linked back to Eve and Adam (requisite for "exaltation" in the Celestial Kingdom), Pharisaical clones—no exceptions possible for the living or the dead—must unceasingly delineate lineages, validate relationships and compile compliance data until every last soul (not known to be damned) is sealed up! (Offspring of rapes, incest, and the unmarried, too?) And priestcraft thereby acquires never before imagined dimensions and power.
Scam artists of "Brooklyn Bridge" caliber prey on victims' fears: On the one hand, loss of coveted cash (Got to get in on this once in a lifetime opportunity, now!), on the other hand loss of eternal family ties (Got to get sealed before Judgment Day, now!). Which of the marks are more susceptible to deceit? Which more to be pitied and mourned? Which more obdurately determined to not open their eyes? Which more set on calling fools' gold gold? Which deceivers and deceived are driven to "compass sea and land" gulling the gullible to the glory of God and their delusion?
"Sacred not secret" grand key words of the priesthood reign in holy rites eternally inaccessible to those without Temple Recommends obtainable on payment of 10% of one's income plus sustaining and obeying the prophets, seers and revelators without reservation and observing the true doctrine without deviation. If decreed unworthy, you cannot enter a holy temple, wear frontal loincloths with a bright green fig leaf motif and sacred garments for priests and priestesses (like unto Adam's and Eve's) or know the grand key passwords and the touching abracadabra points of fellowship (with "the Lord") without which you cannot "pass through the veil." That's literal point-to-point fellowship with God: foot to foot, etc. with stand-ins for the Eternal. Takes your breath away!*
*Presumptuous? Blasphemous? Not at all. These are the first steps toward becoming Gods. L.D.S. church president Lorenzo Snow stated very succinctly: "As man is now, God once was. As God is now, man may become." Interesting. Is the L.D.S. God not the Eternal God of Creation, but only one among many others in a long, long series? Where and by what means did their latecomer of a God gain the power to create universes? In a man-made temple in a little old planet like ours? So, insignificant us, we have to settle for an nth-rate God, who nonetheless created the universe and all that in it lies. And if God was once like us, at what age did he die? Two hundred, 1,000? And then what?
Nor can you have one glorious thing to do with the bogus baptisms for the dead, the sterile, barely shrouded, bordering on indecent washings and anointings, the sine qua non eternally certified sealings, the hocus pocus names, signs, and tokens and the awesome endowments from on high—mind-blowing and -boggling secrets revealed only behind the walls of "the Lord's University!" Some university! Not allowed: discussion, questions, questioning. Allowed: rote, regurgitated, rigorously rigged mumbo jumbo rigmarole.* How sad that so many devout souls holding fast to "the iron rod that is the word of God" can't see through the naked emperor's transparently mendacious, seamy clothes!
*Are these words too intemperate and harsh? Some true believers may be muttering, "Is this guy nuts? Doesn't he realize that day after day, thanks to the initiatory ordinances in our holy temples, many thousands of dead men and women are getting health in their navels?"
This blissful blessing is not for the dead only. Though they may not express it publicly, hundreds of thousands of living Latter-day Saints indubitably are grateful unto the Lord for the healthy navels they have got through these sacred rites.
Certain Grecian pagans at the time of St. Paul performed baptisms for the dead in order to secure a good afterlife for them. The apostle had this practice in mind when he wrote, "what shall they do which are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all? Why then are they baptized for them?" (1 Corinthians 15:29)
As Greeks, the Corinthians were familiar with this rite so Paul's allusion required no amplification. He was simply pointing out that the followers of the Messiah—who baptized only the living—were not alone in believing in a hereafter. Paul said "they," not "we." Mormons dig through fallible genealogical records to extract names and vital statistics of individuals not acceptably baptized. After a vicarious baptism in a holy temple, the lucky ones are eligible to receive by proxy the washings and anointings, etc. and be sealed. (If inaccurate or non-existent, the required information will be provided during the Millennium.)
Shortly before Smith foisted on the credulous his own celestial seal to the highest degree of glory, sealing was extensively practiced in England by the "prophetess" Joanna Southcott, who at her death in 1814 had more than 100,000 followers. She restrainedly sealed only the living (for an appropriate fee). In addition to personally sealing at least 10,000 souls to come forth with the righteous at the Second Coming (set by her for 2014), she also sealed herself to a number of husbands, a practice known as polyandry (more than one husband), from Greek poly (much, many) and andro- (man, male).
Smith associated his sealings for time and all eternity with polygamy (more than one husband or wife at the same time), from poly and gamos (marriage). Polygyny comes from poly and gyno- (woman or female; cf. gynecology, etc.). Side by side with polygyny, celestial polyandry was also practiced in the early days of Mormonism as Smith and others shared wives who already had one legally married husband; ergo, polygamy was the correct designation.
If the men were going to be polygynous, it was only fair and equal for certain men to propose polyandry to certain women. Call it spiritual, call it holy, call it "sacred loneliness" (supposedly these polyandrous marriages—sealed in heaven as on earth—were not consummated on earth), the fact is that the Seventh Commandment—" Thou shalt not commit adultery"—was adulterated in doctrine and in practice.
Smith revealed that the Lord's Second Coming would be before 1890, at least 124 years prior to the time predicted by Joanna Southcott. "Joseph, my son, if thou livest until thou art eighty-five years old, thou shalt see the face of the Son of Man; therefore let this suffice, and trouble me no more on this matter." (Doctrine and Covenants 130:15) Chalk one up for the "prophetess." Incontestably, she got it much closer than the "prophet." But watch out! Be on your best behavior in 2014! And at all costs do not fail to get yourselves sealed!
Both Joanna and Joseph must have passed on to their rewards without experiencing any real sense of achievement. Suckering all those yearning, seeking souls was just too confounded easy. Yet Smith said this: "I have more to boast of than ever any man had. I am the only man that has ever been able to keep a whole church together since the days of Adam. A large majority of the whole have stood by me. Neither Paul, John, Peter, nor Jesus ever did it. I boast that no man ever did such a work as I. The followers of Jesus ran away from Him; but the Latter-day Saints never ran away from me yet...." (History of the Church, Vol. 6, p. 408-409) Well, it pays to have a fairly high opinion of yourself, they say.
Some people swallow these scams hook, line, sinker, rod, and reel. Others can't believe anyone could take such complete leave of their perspicacity. Others know that even the very elect can be deceived. (Matthew 24:24) False prophets are not dunderheads. They have to be diabolically cunning and clever to dupe the elect. Yet, pathetically, as circus hustler P. T. Barnum put it, "A sucker is born every minute." Many may very well be very elect, but try to give them a little food for thought and they will bare their toothless gums and have a go at gumming you to death, grasping at straws to support their cause. Straws (in their eyes) the size of beams. Truth's stalwart beams, however—unhappily for them—have firm foundations. Stalwart is derived from the Old English words stathol and wyrthe, meaning foundation and firm.
At play here is the confirmation fallacy or—better expressed—the confirmation syndrome. Many things in life—our religious beliefs, even our table manners—come to us largely as a result of where and when we were born. Thereafter, we tend to automatically ignore and disregard any deviant paths, pressing on only in those that retrace or parallel our earliest ways, confirming their rightness and justness.
In his great book The Silent Language, Edward T. Hall perceives learning as informal, formal, and technical. Very succinctly, we learn informally by observing and assimilating the behavior patterns around us. Formal learning is based on authoritative yes-no, do-don't. Informal learning is easy-going. Formal has a strong, strict, emotional content. (Don't you say that! Look both ways before crossing the street! We face Mecca to pray!) Technical learning, through detached, unemotional consideration and analysis of alternatives is relatively rare, even in scientific circles, where encroaching on entrenched turf and "truth" may arouse strong, even violent feelings. Hence, the saying, "Never argue about politics and religion." (Among other things.)
"Blessed are you, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake." (Matthew 5:11) When it's for Yeshua's sake, gladly, always, but seriously messed up are you when it's for the sake of Holy Joes and Joannas! (Yeshua: the correct transliteration of the Lord's Hebrew name.)
Some people think that God has predestined or decides or knows when we are going to die. Well, that's been settled. God doesn't have the foggiest idea. "If thou livest until thou art eighty-five...." Born in 1805, Smith died far short of that in 1844. So we are to believe that God fudges on such matters only to miss in the end by a country mile, exactly like a conniving, disreputable, reprobate false prophet? Fudge that sacrilege of Smith's, if you can, you who would prop up the "prophet" on and on forevermore! "Prop up the prophet, prop up the prophet...!" It could be a song.
But enough on propped-up posturing for now. Pérez feels only love in his heart for these people, respect for their sense of duty, their abstinence from harmful substances, the way they care for their own and others, their many accomplishments and their courage when faced with adversity. He also pities them. They mean well. They have "testimonies." They "know" that theirs is the only true church. They "know" that the Book of Mormon is the word of God and that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God. They "know" this from earliest childhood and parrot it regularly. "Knowing" involves for them an unspoken pact for facts to do a disappearing act. Wouldn't you say, however, that knowing—like faith—must have as a basis the good sense to not take leave of our senses?
Re: Testimonies, Pérez recently received a surprise visit from the thought and conformity police in the guise of two Mormon high priests. The pair's leader announced that two days previously God had commanded him to go to Pérez's house and speak to him. Though barely knowing Pérez's name, that he had been a Mormon mission president and president of a Mormon MTC (missionary training center) in southern South America, that he was excommunicated on charges of heresy [in 1980] and accompanies his wife to Sunday sacrament meetings, the two officiously began to rebuke him for forsaking the true gospel. As a devout follower of the Messiah, Pérez protested (with a measure of righteous indignation) "The true gospel according to whom?" Attempts to counter their allegations with appeals to reason and logic, readily verified facts, and citations from LDS scriptures—which they made no attempt to rebut—only furthered their conviction that they were dealing with a hopelessly incorrigible reprobate.
And then... at last... finally... effectively putting an end to the ordeal... Stand back! Here they come! Two solemn testimonies with a doctrinal weight of certitude and finality easily outweighing any number of years of objective fact-finding, analysis, and evaluation! The leader of the two bore his witness in a cold, stern, authoritative way; his companion in a more typical blubbery, emotional manner. Wealthy men; i.e., successful (a merchant and a plumbing contractor), they were nonetheless very humble—virtuously untouched and unsoiled by worldly intellectual preoccupations, aspirations and attainments.
Having abjured evil and officially consigned an unrepentant Pérez to damnation, the two departed with a glow of saintly, sanctified satisfaction, having carried out to completion so creditably the Lord's errand. As Pérez let them out the door, the eulogistic phrase "dear departed" scampered unbidden across his brain. Afterward, pondering how such blustering, bullying thought police might best be dealt with, it came to Pérez that he should have just sung to them the first words to "My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty"—a liberty he fought for through France, Germany, and Austria as a World War II U.S. Army infantryman.
Speaking of which, escaping from a cult is not easy like accidentally falling over the edge of a precipice. It takes the courage of a combat infantryman. Two of Eduardo's treasured relatives, X and Y have contacted him independently—one by phone, one by e-mail. They were seeking his support but beseeched him to mention their disaffection to no one. The first was in tears, fearful that spouse would divorce and children disown.
Only X knew of Ed's defection through family. (Leprosy is not a polite topic of conversation.) Y had learned that an unidentified former mission and MTC president in South America had been excommunicated. Doubting very much that it could be a certain someone, Y nonetheless contacted the LDS membership department as a means of ascertaining this but was told that such information is privileged and cannot be divulged. How admirably protective they are of defectors' good names and repute!
The dear relative feared that simply venturing to check out such an unlikely possibility might take aback and affront this fine, humble, unassuming, intelligent, gifted, honorable, loyal, true, worthy, noble, caring, patient, forgiving, empathetic, pure, compassionate, saintly, gentle man. No, no way could he have been excommunicated! But what a relief to know his status at last and that declaring or confirming that a crow is black doesn't ruffle its fine feathers. Notice how protective Eduardo is of X and Y. He has been careful not to mention their sex or their location on the family tree. Near relatives or far, they are exceeding dear to him..
Two brief excerpts only from Pérez's response to Y's poignant e-mail:
"I now belong to The Kingdom Within. 'The kingdom of God is within you.' (Luke 17:21) So I live according to the gospel. I accompany my wife to sacrament meeting every Sunday but refuse to go to any other meetings. Why should I, when I'm not allowed to speak?* Are Mormons so weak in their faith that they can't tolerate a little discussion? As far as ordinances are concerned, I partake of the sacrament every Sunday while my wife is still at church. I get to use grape juice instead of water, too. No set prayer for this is given in the Bible. Why should there be? Rote, regurgitated things become commonplace and routine. My prayer is different every time as I fumble to express my gratitude and ask for strength."
"Just do your best. God will give you guidance and everything will turn out all right."
*Mormons, of course, protest that they have a perfect right to bar from their meetings anything deleterious to their faith. They should bear in mind that closed societies open themselves to stultifying, stunting rot and disease, like "Know Nothing" affiliations that glory in ignoring any input other than sycophantic dittos which in the long run sicken everyone. Free societies always flourish best—for one and for all.
Has Pérez been too harsh? Has a virulent strain of ridicule infected him? Can he be forgiven for ridiculing what to Mormons is sacred and true? Ridicule is the most effective way there is to call attention to how ridiculous something is. One example of the Messiah's inimitably expressive ridicule of the scribes and Pharisees: "Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel." (Matthew 23:24)
The Messiah promised his disciples, "....you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free." (John 8:32) Pérez is trying in the best, truly kind way he can to help individuals he loves to liberate themselves from lies, fraud, chicanery,* charlatans, and impostors. No one wants to be perceived as the grinch who stole Christmas. Is a child's belief in Santa Claus harmless? The Santa story is almost universally viewed as an innocent fiction, a source of delight. But if after many years—an adult now—a person persists in believing in Santa? "When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things." (1 Corinthians 13:11)
May all such put away childishness and accept the facts, the truth. May they put away phony mellifluous dominance and honey away others from clear thinking no longer. May they call fiction fiction and hold fast to all that they have—the much that they have—that is good. Innocent little lambs are loved of God. False shepherds who lead them awry should tremble. Honorable and sincere as they may adjudge themselves to be, those sucked in by sacred scams too sublime to be subjected to the light of truth, willing them to be true, wary of fact-finding and facts, lapping up spurious, mellifluous dissembling, one day will experience sheepish shame and remorse.
*A supreme example, one of the most egregious "Catch-22s" in history: "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." (Moroni 10:4-5)
Therefore, if you conclude that "these things" are not true, it must be concluded that you don't have a sincere heart, didn't ask with real intent, and have no faith in Christ! As for "ye may know the truth of all things," don't trouble yourself, for example, with putting in years of study and research to determine whether E = mc2 might relate in a certain way to a particular micro or macro reality! Just ask with real intent, etc. and it will be revealed to you!
You, oh most prominent of prop-uppers, try to be intellectually honest.* Do not put prestige before honor. Have a modicum of courage. Accept the facts. You will soon be facing your Maker. Make amends for your support of the unsupportable before your life ends.
Dr. H. N., take down those props !
*Pérez himself belatedly made an honest try, thanks in large part to Dr. Hugh Nibley (author of Lehi in the Desert, An Approach to the Book of Mormon, Since Cumorah, etc.). Pérez had always accepted the teachings of his parents and others as true. Faith was paramount; to question was to doubt and to doubt was a sin. Nibley (ironically) taught him that matters of belief are not exempted from honest discussion, analysis, reason, logic, and researching of facts. This focused a new light on the words "Seek and ye shall find." Those who already have "the truth" feel no need to heed the Savior's words.
P.S. Hugh Nibley went to his reward on February 24, 2005, just short of his 95th birthday. Local news accounts were fulsome in recognition and acclaim. The following letter was submitted to the Provo Daily Herald the day after his death:
Indoctrinated Mormons owe Hugh Nibley a great debt of gratitude for demonstrating that Mormonism can't be accepted on simple faith alone but must be subjected to fact-finding and logical reasoning. His zealotry clouded his thinking and his arguments are faulty, specious, and easily rebutted. Those who borrow oil for their lamps from Nibley in the belief that it's Brand A get Brand F, which gives confidence to their feet as they wend their way through the maze of smoke and mirrors in painted valley but fails to cast any light in the direction of the unvarnished valley of truth.
Wendell H. Hall
Repentantly realizing at long last that he had to take heed and seek like everyone else, it dawned on Pérez one blessed day that his conscience had been stung and stunned far too belatedly by his habitual citing as a Mormon missionary of these words: "He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me." (Matthew 10:37) It would be wrong, he admonished others, to follow without question (though always loving them) the teachings and traditions of our parents.
Only then did it impinge on his awareness that he had been a hypocrite, never having bothered to apply these words to himself. How could he maintain a clear conscience and countenance without conscientiously practicing what he for so long had preached to others? So he has full understanding, sympathy, and empathy for those who are now where he himself once was not so long ago.
The rest of Matthew 10:37 reads "and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me." If we should love God more than our parents and children, then without question we should love Him more than our siblings, friends—or former friends, who now pity or despise us for honestly, vigorously, seeking the truth, let the chips, brrrrrps, and bleeps fall where they may.
Is life difficult for those who defect from Mormonism and other cults? Very difficult ofttimes. Feeling rejected to any extent by those you deeply love is tough. But though living in harmony with them may not be that easy, it's a great consolation to be able to live with yourself. There are far too few independent thinkers in the world. We should all do our best to be one, earnestly, selflessly seeking what's best for ourselves and others. Unpretentious respect for ourselves will easily compensate for the disapproval of others.
To all the propped up: Do not be enemies of truth, treasuring, nurturing, promoting lies. Regimented victims of holy hoaxes chronically suffering from cognitive indigestion should not attempt to relieve themselves of their disorder by fanatically dumping it on others, dampening disquietude and dissent by glowingly glomming onto incautious converts and prime properties which—since statistics and conspicuous symbols of wealth cannot lie—exude for them a comforting, vindicating odor of respectability.
"Wherefore by their fruits shall ye know them" (Matthew 7:20) is a very important scripture to Mormons, as well it should be to all followers of the Messiah as evidence of their true discipleship. The LDS Church is well-known for its many acts of charitable giving. Underlying this to an observable extent is an assumption that good works can establish and confirm facts. This could be denominated "the good fruits fallacy." Behold, how righteous, charitable and respectable we are! Therefore, Joseph Smith was a prophet of God and the Book of Mormon is the word of God, etc.
"A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit." (Matthew 7:18) Mormons should be sincerely acclaimed for the good that they do, yet it is unavoidably tainted so long as they stand by the heinous belief that God has cursed certain of his children to have skins of blackness and be loathsome and that no one on earth can receive exaltation in the Kingdom of Heaven without accepting these and other LDS declarations and requirements as God's own words and will. The effusive glad-handing and big-hearted camaraderie of those at least semi-conscious of loving and living a lie have a false ring and tinge.
"But their intentions are good!" you exclaim.
"Quite possible, but as a clear-headed man pointed out many years ago, 'Good intentions do not pave roads to heaven.'"
Remember the parable of the talents. Use them or lose them. (Matthew 25:14-30) One of the greatest God-given gifts or talents is a thirst for knowledge and truth. Pérez does his best to face up to facts, searching for them and researching them continually. He loves Maude Louise Ray's inspiring song My Task:
To love someone more dearly every day,
To help a wandering child to find its way,
To linger o'er a noble thought and pray,
And smile when evening falls,
And smile when evening falls.........
|:This is my task.:|
To seek for truth as blind men long for light,
To do my best from dawn of day till night,
To keep my heart fit for His holy sight,
And answer when He calls,
And answer when He calls..........
|:This is my task.:|
And then my Savior by and by to meet
When faith hath made her task on earth complete
And lay my homage at the Master's feet
Within the jasper walls,
Within the jasper walls,
|:This crowns my task.:|
|
"Very nice. Yes, indeed, but here is something else: Just look at all the stupendous things we have accomplished—conquering the great American desert and so many other remarkable achievements! We are charitable. We have The Mormon Tabernacle Choir."
"All of mankind's great accomplishments arise from grand illusions and grand delusions."
L.D.S. Article of Faith No. 11 states:
We claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may. This generous, gracious allowance isn't extended to heretics and apostates, who cannot be left alone. They must be hounded with unbounded kindness and attention, which will get them back into the fold.
A stake president demonstrated how this is done. A few days prior to the high authority's all-important talk to be delivered at the Annual Ward Conference of the Wallsburg Ward of the Midway Stake of Zion, the targeted apostate received a call from the ward bishop. The wayward one would be honored by a visit from the stake president himself! No ulterior motive! This was made clear. No harassment. No, no. Ho, ho. It was to be an amiable visit by true friends.
When the stake president gave his talk on Sunday, the guileless motive became clear. The visit was a set-up, setting the stage for a salutary sermon. It's important to teach by our example, you know, not just our words.
The gist of his talk: We bring rebellious deserters back into the fold through demonstrations of true friendhip. That will get them every time! No matter how independent in their thinking the stinkers... er... thinkers may be. Oh, yes! You bet! Feelings trump thinking every time. Always! Try it! That thinker's resistance will cave in like a house of cards.
The staging was so perfect it was reflected in the selection of hymns. The meeting commenced with the hymn "Come Unto Jesus." As if Mormon apostates haven't done that... Won't do that. Don't do that. Only faithful Mormons can truly do this?
*The above midi is one of some two dozen incorporated into the novel. To listen to all of them, click here. Your browser should be equipped to play them. If there is a problem, check out the settings under "Preferences."
Copyright © 2003 by Wendell H. Hall
ISBN 0-9716324-6-6
A publication of Great Adventure 2000
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