Book of Moses

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Hagoth
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Book of Moses

Post by Hagoth » Fri Apr 23, 2021 2:02 pm

It seems like neither critics nor apologists have a lot to say about the Book of Moses. Today and tomorrow BYU, The Interpreter Foundation, Book of Mormon Central, and FAIR are holding a conference called Tracing Ancient Threads in the Book of Moses.

Anybody following this? It looks like they rounded up a lot of the usual suspects to give presentations: Mulhstein, et. al.
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2bizE
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Re: Book of Moses

Post by 2bizE » Fri Apr 23, 2021 3:56 pm

John Gee should be there as he is an expert in Egyptian fabrications and social considerations.
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jfro18
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Re: Book of Moses

Post by jfro18 » Fri Apr 23, 2021 4:24 pm

I kept going back and forth on doing an overview for this, but you're right that it's just not talked about much and feels like a throwaway to a large extent.

The problems that the documentary hypothesis creates for the Book of Moses are fatal though and I felt like that might've been a good way to illustrate that Joseph Smith had no idea what he was doing but I just didn't know where to start on that.

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moksha
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Re: Book of Moses

Post by moksha » Fri Apr 23, 2021 10:02 pm

Surely Moses must have picked up Reformed Egyptian while he was hobnobbing with Pharaoh. Were the 10 Commandments written in Reformed Egyptian so Moses could understand it?

Wish Moses could have written a note or some type of book informing Joseph that Pharaoh was a title rather than a personal name.
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Hagoth
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Re: Book of Moses

Post by Hagoth » Sat Apr 24, 2021 6:48 am

moksha wrote:
Fri Apr 23, 2021 10:02 pm
Were the 10 Commandments written in Reformed Egyptian so Moses could understand it?
That's a great fun fact, Moksha. Moses might not have read/written in Hebrew. Let's start raising money for an expedition like the Land O' Bountiful thing and go looking in Sinai for some tablets written in Reformed Egyptian.

If anything Joseph Smith wrote can be called Bible fan fiction, surely the Book of Moses tops the list. It's biggest problem is that it should be Old Testament fan fiction, but too much New Testament-ish stuff leaked into it: Father, Son and Holy Ghost, Only Begotten of the Father, Satan vs. Jesus, baptism with water & "fire and the Holy Ghost," "salvation unto all men, through the blood of mine Only Begotten, who shall come in the meridian of time..." That kind of stuff.
“The easy confidence with which I know another man's religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also.” -Mark Twain

Jesus: "The Kingdom of God is within you." The Buddha: "Be your own light."

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deacon blues
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Re: Book of Moses

Post by deacon blues » Sat Apr 24, 2021 9:19 am

jfro18 wrote:
Fri Apr 23, 2021 4:24 pm
I kept going back and forth on doing an overview for this, but you're right that it's just not talked about much and feels like a throwaway to a large extent.

The problems that the documentary hypothesis creates for the Book of Moses are fatal though and I felt like that might've been a good way to illustrate that Joseph Smith had no idea what he was doing but I just didn't know where to start on that.


Yup. The Documentary Theory is hard on Fundamentalists and Evangelicals, but it is even harder on the Book of Moses, because it claims the first 8 chapters of Genesis came directly from God, and Moses just wrote them down, kind of like Joseph Smith was doing.

I believe the Book of Moses is the first clear indication that Joseph Smith taught God (Elohim) and Jesus (Jehovah) were two separate beings.

However, the Book of Moses says it is God the Father (Elohim) not God the Son (Jehovah) is speaking to Moses. Hence we have apologetic diversions about 'divine investiture' such as this from Joseph Fielding Smith/Bruce R. McConkie: "Moses 1:3–8. Who Spoke to Moses?
The personage who spoke to Moses was the premortal Jesus Christ, who is Jehovah, the God of the Old Testament. Being one with Heavenly Father, Jesus at times speaks as if He were God the Father (see Moses 1:6). This is known as divine investiture, whereby Christ is invested with authority to speak for and in behalf of the Father (see also D&C 29:1, 42, 46).

President Joseph Fielding Smith wrote: “All revelation since the fall has come through Jesus Christ, who is the Jehovah of the Old Testament. … He is the God of Israel, the Holy One of Israel; the one who led that nation out of Egyptian bondage, and who gave and fulfilled the Law of Moses. The Father has never dealt with man directly and personally since the fall, and he has never appeared except to introduce and bear record of the Son” (Doctrines of Salvation, comp. Bruce R. McConkie, 3 vols. [1954–56], 1:27)."


I remember Elders in the mission field in the 1970's having heated discussions about such things. :roll:
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LSOF
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Re: Book of Moses

Post by LSOF » Sat Apr 24, 2021 2:52 pm

Divine investiture is also how apologists explain the trinitarianism in Abinadi's sermon.
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2bizE
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Re: Book of Moses

Post by 2bizE » Sat Apr 24, 2021 9:01 pm

LSOF wrote:
Sat Apr 24, 2021 2:52 pm
Divine investiture is also how apologists explain the trinitarianism in Abinadi's sermon.
If I understand Divine Investiture correctly, if something doesn’t fit your theory, you can invent a new word to make up a reason to make it fit....
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Exiled
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Re: Book of Moses

Post by Exiled » Mon Apr 26, 2021 9:29 am

Hagoth wrote:
Fri Apr 23, 2021 2:02 pm
It seems like neither critics nor apologists have a lot to say about the Book of Moses. Today and tomorrow BYU, The Interpreter Foundation, Book of Mormon Central, and FAIR are holding a conference called Tracing Ancient Threads in the Book of Moses.

Anybody following this? It looks like they rounded up a lot of the usual suspects to give presentations: Mulhstein, et. al.
I think the book of moses gets crowded out by the book of abraham and all the obvious fabrication that occurred there. It is too juicy to discard and so not much focus gets put on the book of moses. At least the book of moses doesn't have the "translation" problems the book of abraham and the book of mormon have. Direct fabrication contained in the D&C and book of moses is a lot cleaner and more easily defended from a revelation standpoint.

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