Where is the Primitive Christianity?

[deacon blues]

Hagoth brought this up on a different post, but it's an excellent post. The words of Jesus in 3rd Nephi are, well, starting with the 'Sermon on the Mount,' largely redundant.
Did Jesus teach the Nephites baptism for the dead? Not that we know of.
What about the two priesthoods, and the importance of authority? Well, not really.
The importance of the temple and all the new ordinances? Hum...
What about the Lamanites wreaking havoc on the American gentiles in the last days? YES! 3 Nephi 20, and 21: "12 And my people who are a remnant of Jacob shall be among the Gentiles, yea, in the midst of them as a lion among the beasts of the forest, as a young lion among the flocks of sheep, who, if he go through both treadeth down and teareth in pieces, and none can deliver.
13 Their hand shall be lifted up upon their adversaries, and all their enemies shall be cut off.
14 Yea, wo be unto the Gentiles except they repent; for it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Father, that I will cut off thy horses out of the midst of thee, and I will destroy thy chariots;"
(It's been a long time since there was a General Conference talk of this!) -- Deacon

Best evidence that Joseph Smith was just making it all up
Post by Hagoth » Sun Oct 09, 2022 10:07 am

3 Nephi 26: 6 And now there cannot be written in this book even a hundredth part of the things which Jesus did truly teach unto the people; 7 But behold the plates of Nephi do contain the more part of the things which he taught the people.
The first half of the BoM is looking forward to Jesus' impressive message to the Nephites, and the second half is looking back at it. Jesus went to a whole lot of effort to get this message to us via the BoM scribes. And he had to kill untold thousands of people at his arrival to punctuate to punctuate its importance. So, if the scribes could only record a hundredth part of this more-important-than-anything message, why did they only include the 1 percent that everyone who read the translated plates just happened to already have in the New Testament and none of the other 99 percent?

And why did the plates not have room for the most important message possible, but they had plenty of room for:

1- Endless chapters of Isaiah in KJV language that everyone reading he BoM already had, word-for-word, in the Bible?
2- Endless chapters of highly detailed war stories
3- An extremely detailed account of the Nephite coinage system
4- 116 pages that God knew were going to be lost, so he added extra pages to replace them.

If you left all of those unnecessary things out you could probably fit half of Jesus' message. If you left any of them out you could at least make a damn fine summary.

But Joseph's wording performs a masterful little piece of magic by making it all sound so amazing and wondrous that the scribes didn't even attempt to write it down.

There is much lameness here.--- Hagoth

In Church classes I always learned the Church was restored to be the same as the New Testament Church; apostles, prophets, bishops, etc. but most of what Joseph Smith added was not in the New Testament, and not in 3rd Nephi either. Hagoth, your point is as significant the "Black Hole" in the Book of Mormon, that is the lack of names in the duplication of the 116 pages/small plates of Nephi that the Tanners pointed out back in the 1990's- I think.-- Deacon.
(Note: Hagoth wrote the words in the middle. I unintentionally posted them as mine.

[moksha]

The believers of 100 AD would not recognize the structure of the LDS Church.

[alas]

I find it quite telling that Joseph didn’t restore anything that was changed at some of the important councils during Roman times. Where is reincarnation? I really want to believe that Donald Trump is going to be reincarnated as a blood sucker. We didn’t even get back to the beliefs they had about God before they invented the trinity. They just kept Jesus is God, the Father is God, the holy spook is God, but we only have one God and that sent a problem because …well… because we said so. Nope, in the restored gospel, the Messiah isn’t God, just the son of God, and not even a god. No more God than any of the Roman or Greek heroes who were sons of gods. And the holy spook is, well female for one fact.

Maybe I should invent a restored gospel. I will go mostly from the book, The Gospel of Mary Magdalene.

[Hagoth]

In Church classes I always learned the Church was restored to be the same as the New Testament Church; apostles, prophets, bishops, etc. but most of what Joseph Smith added was not in the New Testament, and not in 3rd Nephi either.

We are also taught that the BoM contains the fullness of the gospel. But it contains nothing that is uniquely Mormon, right? Doesn't that mean someone who is living the fullness of the gospel can ignore anything restored by Joseph Smith, or taught by his successors? If the BoM contains the fullness of the gospel it is all you need, so nothing Joseph did after translating it matters. It's all just busy work.

[jfro18]

We are also taught that the BoM contains the fullness of the gospel. But it contains nothing that is uniquely Mormon, right? Doesn't that mean someone who is living the fullness of the gospel can ignore anything restored by Joseph Smith, or taught by his successors? If the BoM contains the fullness of the gospel it is all you need, so nothing Joseph did after translating it matters. It's all just busy work.

As a convert one of the most striking things about the BoM is just how 'normal' it reads compared to the Bible. When I read the BoM as an investigator it didn't seem weird and was easy to accept because it has none of the uniquely Mormon things I would learn later.