Gospel Doctrine for the Godless

An ex-Mormon take on LDS Sunday School lessons

Category: Book of Abraham

D&C Lesson 13 (Joseph Smith’s work)

26 March 2017 / / Comments Off on D&C Lesson 13 (Joseph Smith’s work)

“This Generation Shall Have My Word through You”

Reading assignment

The scriptures listed in the following questions and in the scripture chain:
D&C 84:19–25 (Melchizedek Priesthood),
D&C 88:15–24 (Three kingdoms of glory; see also D&C 76:50–112),
D&C 93:29 (Premortal existence),
D&C 107:23, 33, 35 (Apostles and prophets),
D&C 124:37–42 (Temples),
D&C 128:16–18 (Baptism for the dead),
D&C 130:22 (The Godhead);
Bible Dictionary, “Joseph Smith Translation,” 717;
Our Heritage, pages 23–25, 41, 58.

Links: Teacher’s manual | Student manual

Overview

This lesson is about Joseph Smith, and his impact on Mormon doctrine. (Since he’s the founder, the answer is an unsurprising “huge”.) For Mormons this lesson is kind of a breather, a list of what Smith wrote, along with exhortations to be grateful for it, and invitations for class members to tell what it “means to them”.

For us, it’s a chance to take an all-encompassing look at the full horror, and see how wrong it all is. If somewhere I missed an opportunity to bash away at a volume of scripture, here’s where I make up for it.

Joseph Smith was part story-teller, part con artist, part religious mystic, and all sexual predator. Richard Dawkins’s description of him as “enterprisingly mendacious” is just right. He was a magpie, scanning the frontier culture of his day, picking up anything shiny that crossed his path, and working it into a narrative that he busily constructed for the whole of his life, in hopes that it would be the One Big Sell that would get him money, sex, and power.

We’ll be looking at his major works:

  • The Book of Mormon
  • Doctrine and Covenants
  • The Joseph Smith “Translation” of the Bible
  • Pearl of Great Price

Reading

The Book of Mormon

The Book of Mormon is arguably the most beloved book of scripture for Latter-day Saints, and predictably, it gets everything wrong.

It misidentifies Hebrews as ancestors of Native Americans — a hypothesis that was current in Joseph Smith’s day, but which has been disconfirmed by modern evidence. It mentions plants and animals that did not exist in the ancient Americas, and fails to mention many that did. The Lamanites should have left an extensive archaeological footprint, but would appear to have vanished without a trace.

Joseph Smith plagiarised the Bible in its entirely, even the bits that weren’t supposed to have been written at the time of the Book of Mormon. No one in the church seems to notice this.

Joseph Smith was supposed to have seen God the Father and Jesus Christ as two separate individuals — a theological bombshell for Christendom at the time — but then went ahead and wrote the Book of Mormon to reflect a trinitarian doctrine, as though the First Vision had never happened. It also addresses theological, social, and political concerns of the American frontier Protestantism of the 1800s, in a way that would have been entirely foreign to ancient Mesoamerica.

Even more brashly, Joseph Smith inserted himself into the Book of Mormon as a fulfilment of prophecy, in a move that would make any writer with a sense of shame blush. From the manual:

The Book of Mormon
Read 2 Nephi 3:11–15 with class members. Explain that this passage contains a prophecy about Joseph Smith. The writings mentioned in verse 12 are the Bible and the Book of Mormon.

2 Nephi 3:11 But a seer will I raise up out of the fruit of thy loins; and unto him will I give power to bring forth my word unto the seed of thy loins — and not to the bringing forth my word only, saith the Lord, but to the convincing them of my word, which shall have already gone forth among them.
3:12 Wherefore, the fruit of thy loins shall write; and the fruit of the loins of Judah shall write; and that which shall be written by the fruit of thy loins, and also that which shall be written by the fruit of the loins of Judah, shall grow together, unto the confounding of false doctrines and laying down of contentions, and establishing peace among the fruit of thy loins, and bringing them to the knowledge of their fathers in the latter days, and also to the knowledge of my covenants, saith the Lord.
3:13 And out of weakness he shall be made strong, in that day when my work shall commence among all my people, unto the restoring thee, O house of Israel, saith the Lord.
3:14 And thus prophesied Joseph, saying: Behold, that seer will the Lord bless; and they that seek to destroy him shall be confounded; for this promise, which I have obtained of the Lord, of the fruit of my loins, shall be fulfilled. Behold, I am sure of the fulfilling of this promise;
3:15 And his name shall be called after me; and it shall be after the name of his father. And he shall be like unto me; for the thing, which the Lord shall bring forth by his hand, by the power of the Lord shall bring my people unto salvation.

Talk about audacity!

Ask: If you were a believer, what did you think about these verses? Did you allow yourself to reflect on how transparent a con this might have been?

Doctrine and Covenants

The manual explains:

The Book of Commandments. This is the first compilation of the revelations given through the Prophet Joseph Smith. These revelations later became part of the Doctrine and Covenants.

Ahem: not in their original form. The chapters from the Book of Commandments were reworked (in some cases, extensively). And the best part:

Interestingly, most of the revelations collected in the Book of Commandments were first printed in the Church periodical The Evening and Morning Star. When Doctrine and Covenants was printed, the first fourteen issues of The Evening and Morning Star were reprinted so as to agree with the revised revelations.

Down the memory hole!

There’s a bit in this lesson about the tensions between the people of Missouri and the Mormon settlers. That’s not cool, and I don’t want to excuse that. But there’s a tendency to think that the opposition facing the church — then and now — is the result of blind, unreasoning (possibly Satanic) prejudice. There are a couple of reasons for that.

  1. It’s a way of explaining opposition. If people are against the church, members must not give in to the idea that they might have a point. Make it seem unreasoning, and thereby invalid. That way, there’s nothing to explain or think about. No self-analysis is necessary.
  2. Blind implacable aggression is frightening. Fear drives members farther into the in-group. It galvanises support.

In fact, there were reasons that the early Saints and the Missiourians didn’t get along. I’d encourage having a read of the relevant entry in the Encyclopedia of Mormonism, which surprised me by being pretty even-handed in its treatment, without whitewashing the actions of the Mormons.

Tension between the Latter-day Saints and their neighbors in frontier Jackson County mounted for several reasons. First, marked cultural differences set them apart. With New England roots, most Saints valued congregational Sabbath worship, education of their children, and refined personal decorum. In contrast, many Jackson County residents had come to the Missouri frontier from other states precisely to avoid such interference in their lives. Many held no schools for their children, and Sunday cockfights attracted more people than church services did. Often hard drinking intensified violent frontier ways. In the opinion of non-LDS county resident John C. McCoy in the Kansas City Journal (Apr. 24, 1881, p. 9), such extreme differences in customs made the two groups “completely unfitted to live together in peace and friendship.”

Second, Missourians considered the Latter-day Saints strange and religiously unorthodox. Many LDS Church members aggressively articulated belief in revelation, prophets, the Book of Mormon, spiritual gifts, the Millennium, and the importance of gathering. Some went further and claimed Jackson County land as a sacred inheritance by divine appointment. Even David Whitmer, presiding elder of one branch, thought these boasts excited bitter jealousy. Articles on prophecy and doctrine published in the Church newspaper at Independence, the evening and the morning star, added to hard feelings. In addition, local Protestant clergy felt threatened by LDS missionary activity.

Third, because the Saints lived on Church lands and traded entirely with the Church store or blacksmith shops, some original settlers viewed them as economically exclusive, even un-American. Others accused LDS immigrants of pauperism when, because of diminished Church resources, they failed to obtain land.

A fourth volatile issue was the original settlers’ fear that Latter-day Saints might provoke battles with either slaves or Indians. They accused the Saints of slave tampering. As transplanted Southerners who valued their right to hold slaves, the settlers erroneously feared that the Saints intended to convert blacks or incite them to revolt. They also correctly asserted that the Latter-day Saints desired to convert Indians and, perhaps, ally themselves with the Indians.

Finally, Missourians feared that continued LDS ingathering would lead to loss of political control. “It requires no gift of prophecy,” stated a citizens’ committee, “to tell that the day is not far distant when the civil government of the county will be in their hands; when the sheriff, the justices, and the county judges will be Mormons” (HC 1:397). These monumental differences between the Latter-day Saints and the Missourians eventually led to violence.

The short story: utopian religious groups don’t play well with others. The frontier people of Missouri might have had some valid concerns about people from a strange unknown religious tradition moving in en masse and agglomerating economic and political power — not to mention firepower. But that’s going to figure in later.

That fourth point — “slave tampering” — became an issue at this time. The Mormons published a pro-abolitionist article (<a href=”http://mit.irr.org/joseph-smith-and-abolition-of-slavery”>atypical for Mormons at the time</a>) called “Free People of Color”. Incensed, the Missourians destroyed W. W. Phelps’ printing press, and copies of the Book of Commandments were destroyed. The destruction of the printing press was a move that the Mormons would later reciprocate.

The Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible

Ever written a book of fan fiction based on another work, and then found out that it conflicts with the canon? How annoying! But Joseph Smith has the answer — just retrofit the Bible so it works better with your theology. This attempt was the so-called Inspired Version, now called the Joseph Smith Translation.

It’s awful. He rewrites the poetry of the Creation account by sticking “And it came to pass” right up the top! (He doesn’t fix the problem of plants coming before the sun, though.) Instead of the KJV Lot offering his daughters to the men of Sodom,

KJV Genesis 19:8 Behold now, I have two daughters which have not known man; let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do ye to them as is good in your eyes: only unto these men do nothing; for therefore came they under the shadow of my roof.

he has Lot make a rather unpersuasive detour:

JST Genesis 19:13 And Lot said, Behold now, I have two daughters which have not known man; let me, I pray you, plead with my brethren that I may not bring them out unto you; and ye shall not do unto them as seemeth good in your eyes;

Why would the JST need to be a thing? Because Latter-day Saints teach that the Bible has many textual errors. From the manual:

• Read the eighth article of faith with class members. What is the significance of the phrase “as far as it is translated correctly”?

The problem here is that Mormons don’t bother to find out how we would know what a correct translation looks like, or what’s even involved in translation. They don’t want to use a better translation. “Translated correctly” just means “agrees with Mormon doctrine”. It’s a lazy way of dismissing inconsistencies between LDS dogma and the Bible.

I might also add that the word “translation” doesn’t have the conventional meaning to a Mormon. It means something like, “providing inspiration or a jumping-off point for something spiritual that you want to write”.

Instead of making a literal translation, as scholars would use the term, he used the Urim and Thummim as a means of receiving revelation. Even though a copy of Abraham’s record possibly passed through the hands of many scribes and had become editorially corrupted to the point where it may have had little resemblance to the original, the Prophet—with the Urim and Thummim, or simply through revelation—could have obtained the translation—or, as Joseph Smith used the word, he could have received the meaning, or subject-matter content of the original text, as he did in his translation of the Bible. This explanation would mean that Joseph Smith received the text of our present book of Abraham the same way he received the translation of the parchment of John the Revelator—he did not even need the actual text in front of him.

More word games from apologists. Translation doesn’t translation, horses don’t mean horses, and steel doesn’t mean steel. And no one knows what the hell a curelom or a cumom is.

But now we’ve wandered into Book of Abraham territory, so maybe it’s best to go there now.

The Pearl of Great Price

The Book of Abraham is the best evidence that Joseph Smith was making stuff up. If there’s a bigger smoking gun, I don’t know what it would be.

Joseph Smith pretended to translate Egyptian papyri that he procured, and — what do you know! — it was written by Abraham’s own hand. At the time that Joseph Smith wrote the Book of Abraham, decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphics was not well understood. Joseph Smith could have written anything, and no one would have able to tell him he was wrong.

We can now, though. The papyri are ordinary funerary documents. The meanings given to the facsimiles are what you’d expect from someone who was making stuff up, and who was trying to fool people.

Click to follow the links.

More here.

Conclusion

If I wanted to snark, I could say that if God didn’t pick a fact-challenged con-man to lead his church, he sure went to a lot of effort to make it look like he had.

But then my kinder nature kicks in. Joseph Smith was a writer of terrible and historically inaccurate fiction. For most of us, this is uncontroversial. But he and his followers have created a community that thinks it’s fact, and they can’t see their way out of it. Their reasoning is upside-down; they’ve decided it’s true, and reason backward from there. As LDS apologist Kerry Muhlestein said:

“I start out with an assumption that the Book of Abraham and the Book of Mormon, and anything else that we get from the restored gospel, is true,” he said. “Therefore, any evidence I find, I will try to fit into that paradigm.”

Ask: How are you avoiding poor reasoning and confirmation bias in what you think and read?

Are you finding sources that you disagree with? Do you try to understand their arguments, and can you identify the strengths in their arguments, as well as the weaknesses?

BoM Lesson 17 (Limhi)

8 May 2016 / / 1 Comment

“A Seer . . . Becometh a Great Benefit to His Fellow Beings”

Mosiah 7–11

LDS manual: here

Purpose

To point out that prophets are of no real benefit to humanity.

Reading

For this lesson, there’s a subplot. We’re in the city of Zarahemla. Zarahemla was a bustling metropolis teeming with people, which somehow left no traces for modern archaeologists to find. Which is strange, because Joseph Smith told them where it was: Guatemala.

View post on imgur.com

Anyway, some years previous, some of the Nephites left Z-town to find the land of Nephi. Ammon heads up an expedition to find them, and runs across Limhi and his people. Limhi’s problem is that his people are enslaved by the Lamanites.

Now how did they come to be enslaved? Simple. God allowed it because they killed someone (and that someone turned out to be Abinadai).

Mosiah 7:25 For if this people had not fallen into transgression the Lord would not have suffered that this great evil should come upon them. But behold, they would not hearken unto his words; but there arose contentions among them, even so much that they did shed blood among themselves.
7:26 And a prophet of the Lord have they slain; yea, a chosen man of God, who told them of their wickedness and abominations, and prophesied of many things which are to come, yea, even the coming of Christ.
7:27 And because he said unto them that Christ was the God, the Father of all things, and said that he should take upon him the image of man, and it should be the image after which man was created in the beginning; or in other words, he said that man was created after the image of God, and that God should come down among the children of men, and take upon him flesh and blood, and go forth upon the face of the earth —
7:28 And now, because he said this, they did put him to death; and many more things did they do which brought down the wrath of God upon them. Therefore, who wondereth that they are in bondage, and that they are smitten with sore afflictions?

Okay, killing someone is bad, even if it is a trinitarian. But there’s something revealing in this passage.

Mosiah 7:29 For behold, the Lord hath said: I will not succor my people in the day of their transgression; but I will hedge up their ways that they prosper not; and their doings shall be as a stumbling block before them.

Let’s think about this. God’s a big guy; he’s bigger and smarter and stronger than those puny humans whose worship he demands. But if he doesn’t get it, he’s going to subject them to suffering, slavery, and affliction. What kind of being is this?

But there’s more: He didn’t just afflict them for their transgressions — he also put them through a famine for being “slow to remember” him.

Mosiah 9:3 And yet, I being over-zealous to inherit the land of our fathers, collected as many as were desirous to go up to possess the land, and started again on our journey into the wilderness to go up to the land; but we were smitten with famine and sore afflictions; for we were slow to remember the Lord our God.

It’s like you’ve got to focus your attention on him all the time. What a demanding narcissist! (I was going to say attention whore, but I realised that I didn’t want to demean sex workers by comparing them to God.)

Main ideas for this lesson

Prophets, seers, and revelators

Limhi has a problem: He has these gold plates — everyone did back then — and he needs them to be translated.

Mosiah 8:12 And I say unto thee again: Knowest thou of any one that can translate? For I am desirous that these records should be translated into our language; for, perhaps, they will give us a knowledge of a remnant of the people who have been destroyed, from whence these records came; or, perhaps, they will give us a knowledge of this very people who have been destroyed; and I am desirous to know the cause of their destruction.

Then there’s a bit of back-and-forth where Ammon and Limhi try to figure out who outranks whom in God’s hierarchy. Just the kind of thing enquiring minds want to know!

Mosiah 8:13 Now Ammon said unto him: I can assuredly tell thee, O king, of a man that can translate the records; for he has wherewith that he can look, and translate all records that are of ancient date; and it is a gift from God. And the things are called interpreters, and no man can look in them except he be commanded, lest he should look for that he ought not and he should perish. And whosoever is commanded to look in them, the same is called seer.
8:14 And behold, the king of the people who are in the land of Zarahemla is the man that is commanded to do these things, and who has this high gift from God.
8:15 And the king said that a seer is greater than a prophet.
8:16 And Ammon said that a seer is a revelator and a prophet also; and a gift which is greater can no man have, except he should possess the power of God, which no man can; yet a man may have great power given him from God.
8:17 But a seer can know of things which are past, and also of things which are to come, and by them shall all things be revealed, or, rather, shall secret things be made manifest, and hidden things shall come to light, and things which are not known shall be made known by them, and also things shall be made known by them which otherwise could not be known.
8:18 Thus God has provided a means that man, through faith, might work mighty miracles; therefore he becometh a great benefit to his fellow beings.

Glad they sorted that out.

So, given that prophets / seers can translate documents, how have prophets done at this job?

Since Joseph Smith, the translation history has been, shall we say, scarce. And that’s funny, because Joseph Smith was an avid translator. And by translate, I mean ‘make stuff up’. You couldn’t wave an ancient papyrus under his nose without him attempting to come up with a translation.

Take the Kinderhook plates. They were fakes, but Smith didn’t seem to recognise that. He offered a translation anyway.

kinderhook

And then there’s the Book of Abraham.

Back in 1835, Smith declared that some ancient documents that had fallen into his possession were written by none other than Abraham himself, and he produced a translation. Champollion’s decipherment of Egyptian, while published until 1832, wasn’t well-known, and it would have been difficult for anyone to catch Smith out on his inventions.

However, we know now the contents of the papyri, which turned out to be ordinary funerary documents. Smith’s supposed translation turned out to be wrong on everything.

2a5sban

Imagine how amazing that would be if God had provided a correct translation. What a stunning confirmation of Smith’s prophetic powers! But no.

Enough about translation. How about seeing the future? Even here, church leaders get it wrong.

The LDS Gospel Doctrine manual says:

“[Many years ago] the Brethren warned us of the disintegration of the family and told us to prepare. . . . “

I suppose they’re talking about The Family: A Proclamation to the World. It says:

“Further, we warn that the disintegration of the family will bring upon individuals, communities, and nations the calamities foretold by ancient and modern prophets.”

Many things could be described as “the disintegration of the family”, but subsequent LDS Church rhetoric would strongly suggest that we’re talking about gay marriage.

Since the publication of the Proclamation, gay marriage has become the law of the land in many countries. So are they suffering “the calamities foretold by ancient and modern prophets”?

Not quite. They’re actually doing quite well. Many are on this year’s list of World Happiness Report.

gmhttp://worldhappiness.report
http://time.com/3937766/us-supreme-court-countries-same-sex-gay-marriage-legal/

Say what you want about correlation and causation, but we don’t even need to go there. The fact that the most “troubled” nations (in LDS terms) are doing quite well is enough to defeat the predictions of prophets (ancient and modern) that the “disintegration of the family” causes calamities.

And let’s just make a point here:

The world’s happiest countries are also the world’s least religious countries according to a new report released by the World Happiness Index.

Science Alert reports that every year, the World Happiness Index surveys numerous people from various countries around the world in search of, as the name implies, which country has the happiest population. This year’s winner is Denmark, followed closely by Switzerland, Iceland, and Norway. The US ranked 13th.

The report shows that the world’s happiest countries are also the world’s least religious countries. The happiest countries also tend to be fairly homogeneous nations with strong social safety nets.

What else did prophets fail to foresee? Well, I don’t think they foresaw the slowdown of conversion rates.

RNS: What do you make of the 2015 Statistical Report which shows a slowing rate of LDS growth?

Martinich: Annual membership growth has steadily declined in the last 25 years. It used to be 4-5% a year, and now it’s only 1.7%. I don’t think it will decrease much more than to 1.5%, though.

This was supposed to be the rock that rolled out of the mountain to fill the whole earth. And instead it’s like this slinky.

slinky-fail-o

So let’s get real here. A prophet — seer, what have you — is not “a great benefit to his fellow beings”. He’s a parasite who teaches wrong things, creates nothing useful, and bills people 10% for the pleasure.

Additional lesson ideas

Things that didn’t exist

This reading contains a lot of things that simply didn’t exist in this place at that time.

Swords and cimeters

Mosiah 9:16 And it came to pass that I did arm them with bows, and with arrows, with swords, and with cimeters and with clubs, and with slings, and with all manner of weapons which we could invent, and I and my people did go forth against the Lamanites to battle.

No swords or cimiters dating from this era have been found.

Apologists like to say that swords didn’t have to be metal. They could have been obsidian or wood. But obsidian and wood don’t rust, do they?

Mosiah 8:9 And for a testimony that the things that they had said are true they have brought twenty-four plates which are filled with engravings, and they are of pure gold.
8:10 And behold, also, they have brought breastplates, which are large, and they are of brass and of copper, and are perfectly sound.
8:11 And again, they have brought swords, the hilts thereof have perished, and the blades thereof were cankered with rust; and there is no one in the land that is able to interpret the language or the engravings that are on the plates. Therefore I said unto thee: Canst thou translate?

Plants

Mosiah 9:9 And we began to till the ground, yea, even with all manner of seeds, with seeds of corn, and of wheat, and of barley, and with neas, and with sheum, and with seeds of all manner of fruits; and we did begin to multiply and prosper in the land.

Wheat and barley did not exist in the Americas at this time. It’s as though Joseph Smith (or whoever) didn’t bother to do any research, and just threw in the names of things he was familiar with — along with some made-up words.

Ziff

Mosiah 11:8 And it came to pass that king Noah built many elegant and spacious buildings; and he ornamented them with fine work of wood, and of all manner of precious things, of gold, and of silver, and of iron, and of brass, and of ziff, and of copper;

I threw this one in because I like saying ziff. Let’s hear it for neologisms!

OT Lesson 26 (Solomon)

13 July 2014 / / 1 Comment

King Solomon: Man of Wisdom, Man of Foolishness

1 Kings 3; 5–11

LDS manual: here

Reading

Abishag

This chapter certainly starts off with a bang: Kind David is old and cold, so they throw a girl into bed with him. Her name is Abishag, or as it is sometimes rendered — rather amusingly, given the situation — Avishag.

1 Kings 1:1 Now king David was old and stricken in years; and they covered him with clothes, but he gat no heat.
1:2 Wherefore his servants said unto him, Let there be sought for my lord the king a young virgin: and let her stand before the king, and let her cherish him, and let her lie in thy bosom, that my lord the king may get heat.
1:3 So they sought for a fair damsel throughout all the coasts of Israel, and found Abishag a Shunammite, and brought her to the king.
1:4 And the damsel was very fair, and cherished the king, and ministered to him: but the king knew her not.

Pedro_AMérico_1879_Davi_e_Abisag
Davi e Abisag by Perdo Américo, 1879

All kinds of questions here. What does cherishing involve? Was Abishag kind of a hot name for a girl back then? Was the past tense of get really gat?

But we do know that the word shunamitism derives from this practice, meaning ‘throwing a young girl into bed with an old man to extend his life’. Believe it or not, it was encouraged in the 1800s.

In the 17th century, Francis Bacon approved King David’s practice, suggesting, however, that puppies might serve as well as young virgins.

Puppies? Forgive me, but this — while very cute — hardly seems an appropriate substitute. On the other hand, let’s have a moment of sympathy for this Shunammite girl, tossed into bed with a dusty old man. She probably didn’t want to be there.

Succession woes

The young Abishag, for her part, finds herself at the centre of a succession struggle, wonderfully summarised here.

David’s son Adonijah wants to be king after David dies, but Bathsheba wants the throne for Solomon. The prophet Nathan’s on board — Adonijah’s not that into him. So Bathsheba and Nathan bring David around.

1 Kings 1:29 And the king sware, and said, As the LORD liveth, that hath redeemed my soul out of all distress,
1:30 Even as I sware unto thee by the LORD God of Israel, saying, Assuredly Solomon thy son shall reign after me, and he shall sit upon my throne in my stead; even so will I certainly do this day.

Meanwhile, Adonijah and his friends is celebrating his accession to the throne.

1 Kings 1:9 And Adonijah slew sheep and oxen and fat cattle by the stone of Zoheleth, which is by Enrogel, and called all his brethren the king’s sons, and all the men of Judah the king’s servants:

But when they hear the news that David has backed Solomon, all of Adonijah’s friends bail, like Bob Alexander’s campaign event at the end of the movie Dave.

1 Kings 1:49 And all the guests that were with Adonijah were afraid, and rose up, and went every man his way.

Adonijah knows he’s in trouble, so he heads to the temple and grabs the horns of the altar. That’s a safe zone.

1 Kings 1:50 And Adonijah feared because of Solomon, and arose, and went, and caught hold on the horns of the altar.

Solomon tells him to knock it off; he’s not going to kill him.

1 Kings 1:52 And Solomon said, If he will shew himself a worthy man, there shall not an hair of him fall to the earth: but if wickedness shall be found in him, he shall die.

Now you’d think Adonijah would lie low after this, but no, he decides he wants to marry Abishag the Royal Hottie.

1 Kings 2:17 And [Adonijah] said, Speak, I pray thee, unto Solomon the king, (for he will not say thee nay,) that he give me Abishag the Shunammite to wife.

Even Bathsheba thinks this is uncontroversial.

1 Kings 2:18 And Bathsheba said, Well; I will speak for thee unto the king.

But Solomon is a little smarter than your average bear, and sees this as a power play. If Adonijah marries Abishag, who was in a way the last partner David had, it could be a claim to his legitimacy to the throne. Sorry, Adonijah, but you have played the game of thrones badly.

1 Kings 2:23 Then king Solomon sware by the LORD, saying, God do so to me, and more also, if Adonijah have not spoken this word against his own life.
2:24 Now therefore, as the LORD liveth, which hath established me, and set me on the throne of David my father, and who hath made me an house, as he promised, Adonijah shall be put to death this day.
2:25 And king Solomon sent by the hand of Benaiah the son of Jehoiada; and he fell upon him that he died.

In killing Adonijah, Solomon is only following in the ways of his father David, who used his last moments to settle some old scores. He commands Solomon to kill Joab and Shimei.

1 Kings 2:1 Now the days of David drew nigh that he should die; and he charged Solomon his son, saying,
2:2 I go the way of all the earth: be thou strong therefore, and shew thyself a man;
…
2:5 Moreover thou knowest also what Joab the son of Zeruiah did to me, and what he did to the two captains of the hosts of Israel, unto Abner the son of Ner, and unto Amasa the son of Jether, whom he slew, and shed the blood of war in peace, and put the blood of war upon his girdle that was about his loins, and in his shoes that were on his feet.
2:6 Do therefore according to thy wisdom, and let not his hoar head go down to the grave in peace.
…
2:8 And, behold, thou hast with thee Shimei the son of Gera, a Benjamite of Bahurim, which cursed me with a grievous curse in the day when I went to Mahanaim: but he came down to meet me at Jordan, and I sware to him by the LORD, saying, I will not put thee to death with the sword.
2:9 Now therefore hold him not guiltless: for thou art a wise man, and knowest what thou oughtest to do unto him; but his hoar head bring thou down to the grave with blood.

Dispute over a baby

This is the story everyone’s familiar with, but even my highly educated never-Mo girlfriend/wife had never heard it! So here it is.

Two women — sex workers — live together and have a baby each. In the night, one baby dies, and so now both are claiming the same live baby. Solomon considers, and instructs a nearby minion to cleave the living baby in twain, and distribute half to each women. Before the axeman can carry out this eminently fair proposition, one of the women bursts out, telling Solomon to keep the baby alive and to give it to the other woman.

1 Kings 3:26 Then spake the woman whose the living child was unto the king, for her bowels yearned upon her son, and she said, O my lord, give her the living child, and in no wise slay it. But the other said, Let it be neither mine nor thine, but divide it.

King Solomon halts the proceedings, and delivers the baby to the mum that wanted to keep it alive.

1 Kings 3:27 Then the king answered and said, Give her the living child, and in no wise slay it: she is the mother thereof.

Everyone’s really impressed.

1 Kings 3:28 And all Israel heard of the judgment which the king had judged; and they feared the king: for they saw that the wisdom of God was in him, to do judgment.

It’s even more impressive when you realise that it doesn’t matter if the woman was the real mother. The child would do best with whichever woman wanted it to be alive, regardless of maternity.

Since I can never resist a bit of Twain, here’s Huckleberry Finn and Jim arguing over this story. Please excuse the n-word as a product of language use at the time.

“WELL, den! Warn’ dat de beatenes’ notion in de worl’? You jes’ take en look at it a minute. Dah’s de stump, dah — dat’s one er de women; heah’s you — dat’s de yuther one; I’s Sollermun; en dish yer dollar bill’s de chile. Bofe un you claims it. What does I do? Does I shin aroun’ mongs’ de neighbors en fine out which un you de bill DO b’long to, en han’ it over to de right one, all safe en soun’, de way dat anybody dat had any gumption would? No; I take en whack de bill in TWO, en give half un it to you, en de yuther half to de yuther woman. Dat’s de way Sollermun was gwyne to do wid de chile. Now I want to ast you: what’s de use er dat half a bill? — can’t buy noth’n wid it. En what use is a half a chile? I wouldn’ give a dern for a million un um.”

“But hang it, Jim, you’ve clean missed the point — blame it, you’ve missed it a thousand mile.”

“Who? Me? Go ‘long. Doan’ talk to me ’bout yo’ pints. I reck’n I knows sense when I sees it; en dey ain’ no sense in sich doin’s as dat. De ‘spute warn’t ’bout a half a chile, de ‘spute was ’bout a whole chile; en de man dat think he kin settle a ‘spute ’bout a whole chile wid a half a chile doan’ know enough to come in out’n de rain. Doan’ talk to me ’bout Sollermun, Huck, I knows him by de back.”

“But I tell you you don’t get the point.”

“Blame de point! I reck’n I knows what I knows. En mine you, de REAL pint is down furder — it’s down deeper. It lays in de way Sollermun was raised. You take a man dat’s got on’y one or two chillen; is dat man gwyne to be waseful o’ chillen? No, he ain’t; he can’t ‘ford it. HE know how to value ’em. But you take a man dat’s got ’bout five million chillen runnin’ roun’ de house, en it’s diffunt. HE as soon chop a chile in two as a cat. Dey’s plenty mo’. A chile er two, mo’ er less, warn’t no consekens to Sollermun, dad fatch him!”

I never see such a nigger. If he got a notion in his head once, there warn’t no getting it out again. He was the most down on Solomon of any nigger I ever see.

The temple is built and dedicated

Solomon wants to build a temple. This is a positive sign: instead of war and conquest, Solomon is channeling the Israelites’ efforts into architecture. Not only would this be very beautiful, but also a sign of stability besides.

1 Kings 5:2 And Solomon sent to Hiram, saying,
5:3 Thou knowest how that David my father could not build an house unto the name of the LORD his God for the wars which were about him on every side, until the LORD put them under the soles of his feet.
5:4 But now the LORD my God hath given me rest on every side, so that there is neither adversary nor evil occurrent.
5:5 And, behold, I purpose to build an house unto the name of the LORD my God, as the LORD spake unto David my father, saying, Thy son, whom I will set upon thy throne in thy room, he shall build an house unto my name.

Old habits die hard, though; the opening ceremony involved the slaughter of 22,000 oxen and 120,000 sheep. How long would that have taken‽

1 Kings 8:63 And Solomon offered a sacrifice of peace offerings, which he offered unto the LORD, two and twenty thousand oxen, and an hundred and twenty thousand sheep. So the king and all the children of Israel dedicated the house of the LORD.

Whatever. I’m just glad that Mormons don’t sacrifice animals anymore. Instead, they just wave handkerchiefs around in an awkward and slightly dorky way.

Solomon marries foreign women

There has to be some conflict here, and it relates to Solomon’s choice of wives.

1 Kings 11:1 But king Solomon loved many strange women, together with the daughter of Pharaoh, women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Zidonians, and Hittites:
11:2 Of the nations concerning which the LORD said unto the children of Israel, Ye shall not go in to them, neither shall they come in unto you: for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods: Solomon clave unto these in love.

That sounds great. That would have meant that the formerly warring kingdoms were integrating. But Jehovah/Jesus isn’t happy with that. He sees his monotheistic hold slipping away.

1 Kings 11:11 Wherefore the LORD said unto Solomon, Forasmuch as this is done of thee, and thou hast not kept my covenant and my statutes, which I have commanded thee, I will surely rend the kingdom from thee, and will give it to thy servant.
11:12 Notwithstanding in thy days I will not do it for David thy father’s sake: but I will rend it out of the hand of thy son.

The real lesson manual chastises Solomon for the sin of — having lots of wives? no — interfaith marriage, equating it with ‘turning away from God’.

How did Solomon’s choice of wives show that he had turned away from God? (See 1 Kings 11:1–2. He married out of the covenant.)

Ask: How do members in part-member families feel about this?

Main points from this lesson

Did Solomon’s temple exist?

We’ve seen a bit of a pattern here in the Old Testament. We read about the Flood — and then see that there’s no evidence for it. We read about the Exodus — and then find that there’s no evidence that the Hebrews were ever in Egypt at all.

And by the way, while I’m thinking of it, did you catch this bit of the church’s terrible new Book of Abraham essay?

But even this evidence of ancient origins, substantial though it may be, cannot prove the truthfulness of the book of Abraham any more than archaeological evidence can prove the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt or the Resurrection of the Son of God.

Comparing the Book of Abraham with two other fictitious events. That’s cute.

Anyway, while it may have been a bit of shock to find that these Bible stories have no evidentiary basis, it’s equally surprising to find that the trail of evidence never really gets started the further you go. And so it is with Solomon’s temple. The book of 1 Kings was written way after the fact — about 400 years after the temple was allegedly built — and no evidence for it exists.

Could Solomon’s temple have existed anyway? Well, much of 1 Kings is taken up with very specific detail that gives the whole thing an air of verisimilitude. Then again, fiction can be very detailed. Some works of fiction even come with their own constructed languages (which you can hear me talking about in Episodes 161 and 162 of my language podcast Talk the Talk).

Skeptic Brian Dunning, for his part, feels that we should believe the Solomon’s temple story until it’s disconfirmed…

Since we can’t verify that the temple existed, we certainly can’t say that the Holy of Holies did, and we can’t say that there was an Ark inside of it. However, there is a wealth of non-empirical evidence supporting the idea that Solomon, his temple, and the Ark within probably did exist. Historians going back through ancient Rome, such as Josephus, and ancient Greece, such as Herodotus, have all provided accounts that are generally consistent with the Biblical history of Solomon’s temple. I believe it’s fair to say that the existence of Solomon’s temple, and a gilt wooden ark hidden inside of it, are the null hypothesis. We’ve no compelling reason to doubt it.

…but it doesn’t work that way. Unspecified ‘non-empirical evidence’ might be okay for ordinary propositions, but I think I’d like a bit more before I sign off on this.

I feel the same way about Solomon’s temple as I feel about Jesus. It’s fine with me if it existed, and if more details come to light that confirm their veracity, I have no problem with that. On the other hand, I’m not holding my breath, and if the LDS Church wants people make important life choices based on this elaborate narrative, then it needs to support it with publicly verifiable evidence.

Temples, Solomon, and Freemasonry

Just about every Latter-day Saint has heard unflattering comparisons between Freemasonry and the Mormon temple ceremony, with the implication that Joseph Smith ripped off the Masonic ritual and incorporated it into the endowment.

While I’d always heard talk of such things, it wasn’t until I read a leaked copy of the Master Mason Degree ritual (PDF) that I fully understood the extent of Joseph Smith’s plagiarism (a representative slice is at right). I went through the LDS temple for the first time before the 1990 changes, so I remember the penalties and the Five Points of Fellowship, and they’re all there. It’s a wholesale transplant. What a spin-out. I found myself thinking, “Was there anything original that Smith did?”

See also Richard Packham’s convenient chart.

How do Mormons explain away the similarities? One common line of reasoning involves Solomon’s temple. The argument goes something like this:

  • The LDS temple ceremony was practiced in Solomon’s temple.
  • Solomon’s temple was built by stone masons, who had access to the temple ceremony.
  • Those same masons formed Freemasonry.
  • They therefore pilfered the temple ceremony from Solomon’s temple, and used it for their own.

As a believer, I accepted this explanation for a while, until I became aware that Freemasonry does not go back to the time of Solomon’s temple, supposedly about 900 BCE. In fact, organised Freemasonry starts in the 1700s, and probably goes no farther back than the 1200s or 1300s. Even that might be a bit generous — Cecil Adams of the Straight Dope pegs it at the 1500s. By the way, Uncle Cecil’s description of Masonic handshakes might raise a tremor for an endowment holder.

In shaking hands, for example, a Master Mason will press his thumb between the other guy’s second and third knuckles, thereby identifying himself to initiates while leaving others clueless.

And more handshakes and drawings here. Beware, though: evangelical Christianity.

To say that Freemasons borrowed the temple ceremony from proto-Mormons is to get it exactly backwards. It was Joseph Smith that remixed the Masonic ritual into what is now the LDS temple endowment.

Additional ideas for teaching

King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba: Is it true about those two?

The book of 1 Kings has this little subplot about a powerful woman — the Queen of Sheba — who came to visit Solomon.

1 Kings 10:1 And when the queen of Sheba heard of the fame of Solomon concerning the name of the LORD, she came to prove him with hard questions.
10:2 And she came to Jerusalem with a very great train, with camels that bare spices, and very much gold, and precious stones: and when she was come to Solomon, she communed with him of all that was in her heart.
10:3 And Solomon told her all her questions: there was not any thing hid from the king, which he told her not.

I would have loved to be a fly on the wall for this supposed meeting; it sounds like a meeting between two intelligent people who found an intellectual kinship. And when people bond in this way, things can get… well… a little bit hot.

1 Kings 10:13 And king Solomon gave unto the queen of Sheba all her desire, whatsoever she asked, beside that which Solomon gave her of his royal bounty. So she turned and went to her own country, she and her servants.

So… did they have a thing?

Certainly film and artwork have had no trouble filling in the gaps in the narrative.

At this point, we need to look back on the Bible and see the two similar stories we’ve run across: David and Jonathan, and Ruth and Boaz. In both of these, the Bible is maddeningly circumspect in its details. But are we to believe that nothing went on there? Were these rough and semi-barbaric people secretly the inventors of Victorian morality? Even though the text doesn’t explicitly sanction such a reading, you have to look at this and say, come on.

Another thing: when there’s no sex, as with David and Abishag, the text specifically says, “He knew her not.” If that’s not there, some bets are off.

So my take, as Gospel Doctrine for the Godless teacher: They totally did it.

pi = 3

As we all know, the value of pi (π) — the ratio of the circumference of a circle and its diameter — is 3.141592… and on and on and on.

And if you didn’t know the value of π, just remember this sentence: “Boy, I wish I could calculate pi.” The number of letters in each word corresponds to each digit. Science moment of the day.

But a common atheist criticism is that the Bible puts the value of π at just plain 3. How so? Well, 1 Kings 7 gives some measurements of the ‘molten sea’, which was a vessel of some kind.

1 Kings 7:23 And he made a molten sea, ten cubits from the one brim to the other: it was round all about, and his height was five cubits: and a line of thirty cubits did compass it round about.

That makes π = 30/10, or just plain 3.

I actually think this is not a good argument against the Bible. Remember, π is a transcendental number, so the flow of digits never stops and never repeats. That means that any value of π given in the Bible could be considered insufficiently precise to anyone who decided to think so. Bible says 3? That’s not accurate. Bible says 3.1? Also inaccurate.

So this is on my list of Arguments Atheists Shouldn’t Use.

And yet… this is a bit of a missed opportunity for Jehovah/Jesus. He could have stuck an easter egg in the text, something like “The number thereof never endeth.” That way, when people found out more about π (and it wouldn’t have taken long), they could have been amazed by the Bible’s accuracy, instead of patting the ancient Hebrews on the back and saying, “There, there; you weren’t to have known about geometry.” Too bad.

OT Lesson 9 (Killing Isaac)

1 March 2014 / / 4 Comments

“God Will Provide Himself a Lamb”

Abraham 1; Genesis 15–17; 21–22

Links to the reading in the SAB: Abraham 1, Genesis 15, 16, 17, 21, 22
LDS manual: here

Background

We’re back to Abraham, and a big story that everyone remembers: the attempted murder of Isaac. But a lot of other markers of tribal identity are also making their first appearance in this lesson. Let’s get right into it.

Main points from this lesson

There would have been no attempt on young Abraham’s life.

The lesson manual makes a quick stop at the Book of Abraham. They want to draw a parallel between Abraham nearly getting sacrificed by Egyptian priests as a boy, and then being asked to sacrifice his own son in turn. Wow, parallelism. Abraham having flashbacks and moments of self-doubt. It’s a neat literary twist.

The problem is that it couldn’t have happened.

First up, it’s disputable that human sacrifice was ever practiced in ancient Egypt.

Second, if human sacrifice was practiced in ancient Egypt, it would have been at one specific time and place: Abydos in 2950–2775 BCE. This may have been a case of ‘retainer sacrifice’, or killing all the servants so they could serve the king in the underworld.

Ask: Doesn’t the idea of the afterlife have the most delightful implications?

Okay, so when would that have been on our fanciful Old Testament timeline? Not in Abraham’s time, that’s for sure. Abraham would have been 1,000 years too late.

Click the graphic for a big PDF, straight from the LDS website.

It would have been at about the time of Noah’s birth, before the Flood, and way before Noah’s grand-daughter Egyptus would have discovered Egypt.

Abraham: “Wait — you can’t kill me! All the available evidence shows that the Egyptians didn’t practice human sacrifice during this period!”
Priest: “Can it, white-and-delightsome boy! I killed Fred Flintstone for his clothing, and I can kill you!”
Angel: “Cease this anachronistic ceremony!”

This is just one more manifestation of how mixed-up the LDS timeline is. The bodies from Abydos date from the 1st Egyptian dynasty around 2900 BCE, but according to the LDS timeline, Egypt wouldn’t have a pharaoh until the alleged Egyptus put her son on the throne — some time after the Flood, some 500 years later. Funny how the Flood didn’t wipe all the Abydos evidence out.

Polygamy rears its head

Abraham isn’t the first polygamist in the Bible — that would be Lamech in Genesis 4 — but you begin to get an idea of the problems that could arise.

Abraham and Sarah are ‘barren’ — her fault, natch — so Sarah suggests ‘going in unto’ her maid Hagar. Apparently Abraham didn’t find Hagar too horrible, because it doesn’t even take him a verse to think about it.

16:2 And Sarai said unto Abram, Behold now, the LORD hath restrained me from bearing: I pray thee, go in unto my maid; it may be that I may obtain children by her. And Abram hearkened to the voice of Sarai.

Conflict arises when Hagar conceives, and Sarah forces her to flee into the wilderness.

Here’s a bit from the real manual:

What can the revelation that Abraham and Sarah would have a son teach us about how God fulfills his promises? (God will fulfill his promises, though not necessarily in the way or at the time we might expect.)

LOL. Right, you might need a concubine to help you with that.

The attempted murder of Isaac embodies the worst idea in religion: “Always obey God.”

It’s a parent’s job to protect their children. No decent deity would try and short-circuit that, but Jehovah does, when he commands Abraham to sacrifice Isaac.

22:2 And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.

And any decent parent would ignore any such request, but Abraham doesn’t.

Ask: Why did God command Isaac to be killed?

Some have speculated that Jehovah and Isaac didn’t get on.

 

Click through for some good analysis.

Others say that God was off his nut.

At one point, I imagined (and mentioned in my Gospel Doctrine class) that God wanted someone to know what it felt like to have to sacrifice his son. Which is crap; God didn’t have to kill his son. An all-powerful god could have created a different way — hey, maybe just forgiving people — but instead chose human sacrifice. What a wacky god, eh?

So now I’m not sure what the rationale is supposed to be, and I’m left with the impression that God really just likes killing children. (The rest of the Old Testament will do little to dispel this, I’m afraid.)

In Tim Minchin’s words, the God of the Bible has a ‘fetish for dead baby blood’.

In considering the Abraham-and-Isaac story for this lesson, it’s taken me a while to come to grips with what it’s about and what it’s meant to teach. And I’ve come to realise that what we’re seeing here is the foundational belief — and the worst belief — of Abrahamic religion: Always obey God.

In the upside-down world of Abrahamic religion, this loyalty test — in which a father is commanded (and willing) to murder his child — is held up to be the ultimate moral act, the thing that proves Abraham’s righteousness.

22:16 And said, By myself have I sworn, saith the LORD, for because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son:
22:17 That in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies;
22:18 And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice.

In other words, the most moral thing to do in an Abrahamic religion is whatever you think the voices in your head are telling you to do, no matter how immoral that is.

It’s an idea that comes up a few times in the scriptures, so this isn’t a one-off:

Matthew 6:33 But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.

Ask: What’s wrong with obeying a god above all else?

 Possible answers:

  • It short-circuits reason and discourages questioning.
  • It’s an abnegation of the responsibility to think for oneself and make moral decisions.
  • It invokes a trust that hasn’t been earned.
  • It makes immoral actions seem moral. All it takes is for someone to think that God has commanded an immoral action, and poof! it’s magically moral.
  • It brings about a sheep-like mentality that can be readily exploited by leaders.

And speaking of leaders, here’s one who thinks that by ignoring the commandments of a god, non-believers are ignoring morality, and destroying society.

Cheapened civilisation? I think he’s cheapened civilisation by unloading his dogma onto his followers, and taking their 10% for the pleasure. How wrong that those of us who choose to live by the light of reason should get sniped at and hectored by those who make their living from superstition and control.

Oaks is wrong about this, just as he’s wrong about so much else. For me, using human reasoning to supersede divine influence has been the key to understanding, education, and escape from the muck of religion. And why do they rubbish human reasoning, anyway? If logic and reason were on their side, you can bet they’d appeal to it. But they don’t, and that’s enough to tell you where they stand. Human reasoning has brought all the intellectual progress that we have. Oaks is a guy who’s trying to hold all that back.

Obedience to a god above all else is a terrible idea, and it starts here in this chapter of Genesis. The rot of Abrahamic religion starts with its founder. This gets people flown into skyscrapers, gets children killed from lack of medical attention, and sees poor people give their money away to wealthy mall-builders.

Ask: If obedience to a god is the wrong thing to do, what’s the right thing?

The one word answer is: Think.

  • Use your mind and your moral instincts to decide what’s right or wrong.
  • Think about the consequences of your actions, and take responsibility for them.

A good guide for this is Dan Barker’s book for kids: Maybe Right, Maybe Wrong. It focuses on well-thought out principles instead of rules, and the need to decide what’s right in terms of people, not gods.

Click here for a preview on Imgur, or go to all the usual places to buy.

Additional ideas for teaching

What else was in the reading?

God doesn’t care for foreskins, even though he created them

17:10 This is my covenant, which ye shall keep, between me and you and thy seed after thee; Every man child among you shall be circumcised.
17:11 And ye shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin; and it shall be a token of the covenant betwixt me and you.

Slavery, on the other hand, is okey-dokey

17:13 He that is born in thy house, and he that is bought with thy money, must needs be circumcised: and my covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant.

Casting a mother and child out into the desert to die? A-okay!

21:9 And Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, which she had born unto Abraham, mocking.
21:10 Wherefore she said unto Abraham, Cast out this bondwoman and her son: for the son of this bondwoman shall not be heir with my son, even with Isaac.
21:11 And the thing was very grievous in Abraham’s sight because of his son.
21:12 And God said unto Abraham, Let it not be grievous in thy sight because of the lad, and because of thy bondwoman; in all that Sarah hath said unto thee, hearken unto her voice; for in Isaac shall thy seed be called.
21:13 And also of the son of the bondwoman will I make a nation, because he is thy seed.
21:14 And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and took bread, and a bottle of water, and gave it unto Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, and the child and sent her away: and she departed, and wandered in the wilderness of Beersheba.

Off you go, darlin’. Lotsa luck.

OT Lesson 2 (Pre-mortal life)

11 January 2014 / / 3 Comments

“Thou Wast Chosen Before Thou Wast Born”

Abraham 3; Moses 4:1–4

Links to the reading in the SAB: Abraham 3, Moses 4
LDS manual: here

Background

The Book of Abraham is arguably the most transparent confabulation in LDS scripture. In 1835, Joseph Smith bought some Egyptian papyri from a traveling mummy exhibition, and claimed to translate them into what is now the Book of Abraham. Even at the time, Egyptologists recognised that the papyri were ordinary funerary documents, having nothing to do with Abraham. Mormon apologists have invented many explanations in which the papyri could be the BoA: maybe the real Egyptologists missed something. Maybe Joseph Smith gave a special magical translation of what the papyri were supposed to say. Maybe what Abraham wrote was on a different part of the papyri that we don’t have. Maybe maybe maybe.

Even for the parts we have, it’s not hard to show that Joseph Smith got it wrong. Here’s what Smith’s copy of Facsimile 1 looked like.

But some bits are missing. What was originally in those gaps? Joseph Smith thought it should go like this:

Egyptologists now know it really looked like this:

That’s the jackal god Anubis, and not a priest.

What’s more embarrassing, Smith gives oodles of explanation of what all the facsimile items mean, and they’re all painfully wrong. From hindsight, we can see that Joseph Smith was B.S.ing as hard as he could. Yet believing Mormons still buy it.

More info at mormoninfographics.com

Main points for this lesson

The Pre-Mortal Life

The pre-mortal life (confession time) is actually one of my favourite bits of Mormon doctrine. I really used to enjoy thinking that we all came from realms of glory. I’d be in a big city and see lots of people, and think, “Gee, how amazing it is that we’re all related.” Fortunately, this is a feeling that I still have access to, thanks to biology. I can still enjoy the idea that we’re part of a big human family, without having to imagine that we were once all together in middle-class potpourri pre-mortality. (Our family also includes other animals, and biology can tell us how related we are. Amazing!)

I also don’t have to think, “Gee, all these people used to believe in Heavenly Father, but they’ve forgotten. Now I have to help get them back on track!” That’s a bit self-flattering.

Also self-flattering is foreordination, the idea that you were set up in the life before this one to accomplish great churchy things. Congratulations, you’ve kept your ‘first estate’ — made it through the first round — and now all you have to do is stay active in the church until you die to get the goodies! It makes you feel like you’ve already accomplished something, and it raises the stakes: you don’t want to throw away all that progress, do you?

The appeal of the pre-mortal life is that no matter what you do, you’re still a perfect person underneath all the bad that’s happened. That can be a powerful motivator. But you can imagine a better version of yourself — and work towards it — without buying into self-congratulatory fiction.

Ask: What age were we in the pre-mortal life? (Answer: In our ‘prime of life’. But what does that mean? Explain that it’s not important to your salvation.)

Video: Watch this more-complete explanation of our Heavenly Father’s plan with the class. Boogie down to the funky beats.

Gender identity

Gender is kind of a complicated area. Our gender identity arises from our bodies, social norms and expectations, and our own sense of self. For some people, gender identity aligns with their biological sex, but other people identify as male, female, both, or neither.

Compare this to the rather simplistic view offered by the LDS Proclamation on the Family:

Gender is an essential characteristic of individual premortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose.

“And purpose.”

Wow — talk about a sweeping and unsupported claim. If you’re a dude, you’ve been a dude since pre-eternity, and you’ll be one forever. This view is sometimes called gender essentialism.

There are a lot of problems here. What about intersex people? What about people with androgen insensitivity? You might have heard of this, but if not: Some of us have a Y chromosome, and some of us don’t, but we’re all girls in the womb. After about 60 days, if you’re an XY, you get a shot of testosterone and it’s genetic boyhood for you. But a few of us have bodies that aren’t sensitive to testosterone. That means that they stay girls in the womb, they’re born as girls, and they grow up as girls, but they’re walking around with a Y chromosome.

Video: Show the class this video of Christy North, a woman with androgen insensitivity.

With a belief in premortal gender essentialism, we have to ask silly and unnecessary questions like:

  • Was Christy a man in premortality?
  • Will she be a man in the hereafter?
  • Is it a fair test for her to have a life experience so different from her supposed pre-mortal gender?

Having this belief could make it difficult to accept her gender identity, and that of trans* and intersex people. And there’s enough suspicion and prejudice against them without reasons for adding more.

Gender essentialism has other nasty effects, like limiting women’s choices by keeping them out of the professional world and in the home, and of course denying them access to ecclesiastical authority and having a real voice in their own church.

Gender is far more complicated than the facile pronouncements of elderly men would allow, and reducing the whole thing to two genders — determined since eternity — is unhelpful and unsupported by evidence.

The War in Heaven

According to the myth, Satan wanted to force people to be good and take the glory for himself, while Jesus was more of a pro-choice kind of guy. He wanted the glory to go to the Father, but it didn’t quite turn out that way.

Reading: Assign class members to read parts of this hilarious scene by The Rnegade.

God: Listen up everyone; I have an announcement to make.
Everyone: What is it, God?
God: I have a plan to turn all of you into a god, just like me. I call it The Plan of Salvation.
Crowd erupts in applause
God: Ahem. Ok, so here’s how the plan is going down, yo. Before you can be God’s you’ll need bodies. So, we’re going to create a planet for you to live on, where you’ll be born, raised and die. You’ll also have to choose the right.
Nephi: That’ll be easy. I always choose the right.
God: It won’t be easy. Satan will be there to tempt you.
Adam: Who’s Satan?
God: It’s Lucifer.
Lucifer: Me? What did I do?
God: It’s not what you did but what you will do. You’re going to rebel against my plan.
Lucifer: I am?
God: Yep. It’s ok, though because my plan requires you to rebel against my plan so that you can tempt the others and help them grow.
Lucifer: What the fuck? Do I get some kind of compensation?
God: No. In fact, the exact opposite, you get eternal damnation in Outer Darkness
Lucifer: Jesus Christ!
Jesus: Sup homes.
…
God: Anyway, my plan will require a sacrifice because everyone is going to sin and, for some odd reason, you’re not allowed to pay for your own sins. However, I want a sacrifice who won’t take any credit for his actions.
Jesus: I’ll do it. I’ll tell the humans to give you all the glory. I’m sure they won’t worship me at all, singing praises to my name, dedicating their lives to me and even calling themselves Christians and what not, essentially negating one of the big reasons why you opposed Lucifer’s plan.
God: Awesome.

Read the whole thing on the Exmormon subreddit.

Ask: What was the War in Heaven like, with no physical bodies to fight with?
Answer: We had to fight with opinions, kind of like the Internet. The War in Heaven basically resembled one big web forum, with the GodMod finally bringing down the ban-hammer on 1/3 of everyone. They became sort of like 4chan or the Dark Web.

Race and pre-mortality

Ask: Were people of African descent less valiant in the pre-mortal life?
Answer: Absolutely not. According to the Church’s recent statement “Race and the Priesthood“:

Around the turn of the century, another explanation gained currency: blacks were said to have been less than fully valiant in the premortal battle against Lucifer and, as a consequence, were restricted from priesthood and temple blessings.

It gained currency, did it? How did it do that? I can’t imagine where people got this idea, except that it was taught by LDS leaders.

Reading: Have a class member read this excerpt of a letter from Joseph Fielding Smith to Joseph Henderson.

“According to the doctrine of the church, the negro because of some condition of unfaithfulness in the spirit — or pre-existence, was not valiant and hence was not denied the mortal probation, but was denied the blessing of the priesthood.”

Be sure to point out that at this time, Smith was not the president of the Church, so really, how could he have known anything about its doctrine? He’d only been President of the Quorum of the Twelve for 12 years; you might as well ask the cat. An important part of the Church is continuing revelation, which means that statements from church leaders — but only important ones — must be taken extremely seriously, until the moment they’re retroactively disclaimed because they’re distasteful or embarrassing.

And in fact, Smith was going against Brigham Young, who earlier said, “No, they were not [neutral], there were no neutral [spirits] in Heaven at the time of the rebellion, all took sides …. All spirits are pure that came from the presence of God.”

Reflect on what a weird and unreliable method of getting knowledge this is. As we saw in the last lesson, this would be easy for a prophet to clear up, but instead we get centuries of contradictory statements.

Additional Teaching Ideas

Foreordination

Teaching idea from the real manual:

Draw 14 blank spaces on the chalkboard to represent the 14 letters in the word foreordination. Explain that the word represented by these spaces relates to the premortal life.
Give class members 14 chances to guess which letters form the word.

It’s Hangman! Are they not allowed to say hangman? Anyway, here’s how this goes in class:

Everyone: It’s foreordination!
Gospel Doctrine Teacher: But you didn’t guess any letters! How did you know?
Everyone: We remember it from four years ago! And four years before that!

Ask: What were you foreordained to do? Perhaps be sexually abused? In 1986, the Ensign magazine ran this item in their “I Have a Question” series, explaining that God may have purposely placed children in abusive families, so that they could break some putative but now-discredited ‘cycle of abuse’. Try this on for size:

So many children are abused, offended, and abandoned. If little children are precious to God, what justification can there be for permitting some to be born into such circumstances?

…Indeed, my experience in various church callings and in my profession as a family therapist has convinced me that God actively intervenes in some destructive lineages, assigning a valiant spirit to break the chain of destructiveness in such families. Although these children may suffer innocently as victims of violence, neglect, and exploitation, through the grace of God some find the strength to “metabolize” the poison within themselves, refusing to pass it on to future generations. Before them were generations of destructive pain; after them the line flows clear and pure. Their children and children’s children will call them blessed.
…
In a former era, the Lord sent a flood to destroy unworthy lineages. In this generation, it is my faith that he has sent numerous choice individuals to help purify them.

Allow members of the class to give their own explanations for the failure of a loving god to prevent abuse, each one more morally callous than the last. Be astonished at the ease with which they can do this.

Kolob and Kokaubeam

There’s some proto-sci-fi in here, where God (or Jesus) mentions the names of stars (or perhaps planets) such as Kolob, Shinehah, Kokob, Olea, Kokaubeam. This chart by u/narcberry (Reddit thread) explains everything.

Activity: Try to say the names of these stars (or perhaps planets) with a straight face.

Occasionally someone will actually try to figure out where Kolob is (often Sagittarius A), and I always think “Bless their hearts,” as one would with someone who’s slightly ‘touched’.

It also kind of pisses me off. That’s the problem with religious scams: the con artist makes enough off of it to last for their lifetime, but they waste other people’s time for generations. Think of all the human time and effort that’s been dedicated to baloney. Entire lifetimes.

It’s why I say that bad answers are worse than no answers at all. At least when you have no answers, you might look for — and find — a good one. When you have bad answers, you don’t.

Rounding out the Egyptian theme:

Activity: Listen to Ralph Vaughan Williams’ wonderful “Five Variants of Dives and Lazarus”. This tune was borrowed for the LDS hymn, “If You Could Hie to Kolob”.

While listening, try not to think of Kolob and those dorky invented names. Fail.

Ponder how terrible it is that this great music will be forever linked in your mind to some maniac’s bad fiction.

Testify that religion poisons everything.

Meta

© 2024 Gospel Doctrine for the Godless

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑