Gospel Doctrine for the Godless

An ex-Mormon take on LDS Sunday School lessons

Category: cherry-picking (page 2 of 2)

OT Lesson 43 (Ezekiel 1)

16 November 2014 / / Comments Off on OT Lesson 43 (Ezekiel 1)

The Shepherds of Israel

Ezekiel 18; 34; 37

LDS manual: here

Reading

We’ve seen some wild behaviour from prophets in the Old Testament. We’ve seen performance art from Jeremiah, a serious cuckold fetish from Hosea, and the bear-tearing hijinx of Elisha. But now we’re going to see the most truly psychotic prophet of all, Ezekiel.

With that comment, I mean no disrespect to people with mental illness. It’s a real problem, and one that can be treated and managed with the help of modern medicine. But Ezekiel didn’t have the benefit of such treatment — and was hailed as a prophet for his erratic behaviour and his deranged rantings. What does it tell us about a society when its craziest people are held up as heroes?

Okay, I just took a look at our society, and you don’t have to answer that question.

But still, Ezekiel is the kind of guy you have to keep a tight leash on. The book of Ezekiel has 48 chapters, and the LDS lesson manual only wants you to read six of them. Why? Steve’s list of the weird bits is not to be missed, but here’s my list of highlights:

• Ezekiel had to build a little fort to besiege the city of Jerusalem, represented by a tile. This was more difficult than it may seem; couch cushions were rare in that region.

4:1 Thou also, son of man, take thee a tile, and lay it before thee, and pourtray upon it the city, even Jerusalem:
4:2 And lay siege against it, and build a fort against it, and cast a mount against it; set the camp also against it, and set battering rams against it round about.
4:3 Moreover take thou unto thee an iron pan, and set it for a wall of iron between thee and the city: and set thy face against it, and it shall be besieged, and thou shalt lay siege against it. This shall be a sign to the house of Israel.

• Then he had to lay on his left side for 390 days, and then he got to turn over and lay on his right side for 40 days.

4:4 Lie thou also upon thy left side, and lay the iniquity of the house of Israel upon it: according to the number of the days that thou shalt lie upon it thou shalt bear their iniquity.
4:5 For I have laid upon thee the years of their iniquity, according to the number of the days, three hundred and ninety days: so shalt thou bear the iniquity of the house of Israel.
4:6 And when thou hast accomplished them, lie again on thy right side, and thou shalt bear the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days: I have appointed thee each day for a year.

• He had to bake bread in an unusual manner. Have you ever seen that Ezekiel 4:9 bread?

It’s based on this passage:

4:9 Take thou also unto thee wheat, and barley, and beans, and lentiles, and millet, and fitches, and put them in one vessel, and make thee bread thereof, according to the number of the days that thou shalt lie upon thy side, three hundred and ninety days shalt thou eat thereof.

Well, that sounds pretty good. I don’t mind barley, or even millet. (I’ve never eaten a fitch.)

But for some reason, the makers of this bread don’t print the method of cooking on the packet.

4:12 And thou shalt eat it as barley cakes, and thou shalt bake it with dung that cometh out of man, in their sight.
4:13 And the LORD said, Even thus shall the children of Israel eat their defiled bread among the Gentiles, whither I will drive them.

Yep, bread cooked over a fire made with human dung.

If you’d like some help making your own Ezekiel bread, you can try this book:

Oh, but that’s not all. You’ll remember that Jeremiah portrayed Israel as a harlot. Well, old Ezekiel takes it over the cliff.

23:20 For she doted upon their paramours, whose flesh is as the flesh of asses, and whose issue is like the issue of horses.

Or as the NIV has it:

There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses.

Or as the Internet has it:

Main points from this lesson

The sin of Sodom

Many times, I’ve had Mormons (and Christians) defend their anti-gay bigotry by making reference to the destruction of Sodom. Clearly the people of Sodom were doing something terrible. 
Well, in Ezekiel, Jehovah explains what the “sin of Sodom” was.

16:49 Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy.
16:50 And they were haughty, and committed abomination before me: therefore I took them away as I saw good.

It’s very instructive that sins like pride and not taking care of the poor appear on this list, but homosexuality does not (unless it’s coming in under the general category of ‘abomination’). Something you can toss into a discussion when it comes up.

Sticks of Judah and Joseph

Ezekiel 37 contains probably the clearest example of the way Mormons cherry-pick from the Bible. All through my youth, I heard that the Bible prophesied of the coming forth of the Book of Mormon, based on this scripture:

37:15 The word of the LORD came again unto me, saying,
37:16 Moreover, thou son of man, take thee one stick, and write upon it, For Judah, and for the children of Israel his companions: then take another stick, and write upon it, For Joseph, the stick of Ephraim and for all the house of Israel his companions:
37:17 And join them one to another into one stick; and they shall become one in thine hand.

What could this mean? The LDS lesson manual rather blithely states

• How has the prophecy in Ezekiel 37:15–20 been fulfilled? (See 1 Nephi 5:14; 2 Nephi 3:12; D&C 27:5. Explain that the word stick in these verses refers to a type of wooden writing tablet commonly used in Ezekiel’s day. The stick of Judah symbolizes the Bible, and the stick of Joseph symbolizes the Book of Mormon.)

A wooden writing tablet? I don’t speak Hebrew, but that isn’t one of the meanings in Strong’s. It just refers to trees, or actual sticks.

But that doesn’t really matter. All we have to do is keep reading to see what Ezekiel meant:

37:18 And when the children of thy people shall speak unto thee, saying, Wilt thou not shew us what thou meanest by these?
37:19 Say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will take the stick of Joseph, which is in the hand of Ephraim, and the tribes of Israel his fellows, and will put them with him, even with the stick of Judah, and make them one stick, and they shall be one in mine hand.
37:20 And the sticks whereon thou writest shall be in thine hand before their eyes.
37:21 And say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will take the children of Israel from among the heathen, whither they be gone, and will gather them on every side, and bring them into their own land:
37:22 And I will make them one nation in the land upon the mountains of Israel; and one king shall be king to them all: and they shall be no more two nations, neither shall they be divided into two kingdoms any more at all.

Ezekiel’s meaning is rather straightforward: he was taking two sticks and putting them together, as a way of saying that Jehovah / Jesus was going to join the tribes of Israel together after their separation. There’s nothing to suggest that any books are involved.

The LDS lesson manual allows for the “reunion” interpretation, and yet sticks to the “sticks” interpretation.

Explain that Ezekiel’s prophecy of the sticks of Judah and Joseph has a dual meaning. It refers to the latter-day combining of the scriptural records of Judah and Joseph (Israel). It also refers to the latter-day reunion of the kingdoms of Judah and Joseph (Israel).

So the church is hanging a lot on tenuous word games. No surprises there.

Additional lesson ideas

Failed prophecy about Tyre

With his prophecy of the destruction of Tyre, Ezekiel falls flat. God says (three times!) that Tyre will be destroyed, and never be built again.

26:7 For thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will bring upon Tyrus Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon, a king of kings, from the north, with horses, and with chariots, and with horsemen, and companies, and much people.
26:8 He shall slay with the sword thy daughters in the field: and he shall make a fort against thee, and cast a mount against thee, and lift up the buckler against thee.
…
26:14 And I will make thee like the top of a rock: thou shalt be a place to spread nets upon; thou shalt be built no more: for I the LORD have spoken it, saith the Lord GOD.

27:36 The merchants among the people shall hiss at thee; thou shalt be a terror, and never shalt be any more.

28:19 All they that know thee among the people shall be astonished at thee: thou shalt be a terror, and never shalt thou be any more.

Actually, Tyre still exists, and has for thousands of years. It’s on Wikipedia’s list of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world.

Even Jesus is said to have visited it. One wonders if he was puzzled by its persisting existence in defiance of his edict.

But then Ezekiel said the same thing about Egypt, and that didn’t happen.

29:9 And the land of Egypt shall be desolate and waste; and they shall know that I am the LORD: because he hath said, The river is mine, and I have made it.
29:10 Behold, therefore I am against thee, and against thy rivers, and I will make the land of Egypt utterly waste and desolate, from the tower of Syene even unto the border of Ethiopia.
29:11 No foot of man shall pass through it, nor foot of beast shall pass through it, neither shall it be inhabited forty years.

Oh, Ezekiel!

More of him next time.

OT Lesson 40 (Trito-Isaiah)

26 October 2014 / / Comments Off on OT Lesson 40 (Trito-Isaiah)

“Enlarge the Place of Thy Tent”

Isaiah 54–56; 63–65

LDS manual: here

Reading

Finally, we’re into the third of our three Isaiahs. Trito-Isaiah (as he’s known) likes writing about the destruction and death that will characterise the end times, but along the way, he writes some scriptures that Mormons like because they’re about church and stuff.

First up: Why did God abandon his people? Because he got a little bit angry for a while. But don’t worry, Israel; he’ll totally make it up to you.

54:7 For a small moment have I forsaken thee; but with great mercies will I gather thee.
54:8 In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment; but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith the LORD thy Redeemer.

There’s going to be a thousand years of peace on earth. The hills will be alive with the sound of music — they’ll be singing, of course — and handclaps will be provided by trees.

55:12 For ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace: the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.

Trees got hands?

Death to pagans and nature-worshippers, though.

57:3 But draw near hither, ye sons of the sorceress, the seed of the adulterer and the whore.
57:4 Against whom do ye sport yourselves? against whom make ye a wide mouth, and draw out the tongue? are ye not children of transgression, a seed of falsehood.

As kids, we used to joke that this was about French kissing. But this is no joking matter; it’s death for anyone who doesn’t serve Jehovah / Jesus.

60:12 For the nation and kingdom that will not serve thee shall perish; yea, those nations shall be utterly wasted.

There’s currently a debate about whether Christianity or Islam is more violent, and I’d just like to toss these scriptures onto the bad pile for Christianity.

There are some nice ideas promoted along with fasting, though.

58:6 Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke?
58:7 Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh?

Main points for this lesson

The Second Coming?

Through cherry-picking and tormented interpretation, Mormons (and Christians in general) have taken these Jewish scriptures — originally about Jehovah coming to save his people — and have somehow retooled them into a story about the Second Coming of Jesus. From the real lesson manual:

The closing chapters of Isaiah’s record present a beautiful picture of the Millennium, the thousand-year period of peace that will be ushered in by the Savior’s Second Coming.
Which I doubt was on Isaiah’s mind; if anything, he would have been focused on the First Coming.

Here’s a particularly egregious example from the manual:

3. Christ’s Second Coming (Isaiah 63:1–6)
• The Second Coming of the Savior is described in Isaiah 63:1–6. What color will the Savior’s robe be when he comes in his glory? (See Isaiah 63:2; Revelation 19:11–13; D&C 133:46–48.)

Oooh! I know this one from one of those Mormon trivia games. The answer is “red”.

63:2 Wherefore art thou red in thine apparel, and thy garments like him that treadeth in the winefat?

Yay, ten points. Then the manual asks:

What does the red color symbolize? (The blood that he shed when he suffered for our sins in Gethsemane and on the cross.)

No, no, no. You don’t have to read very far to see that it’s not his own blood. In the very next verses, he says it’s the blood of everyone else that he treads on in his fury. That’s right; at the last day he’s going to kill everyone, and he’s going to get their blood all over his clothes!

63:3 I have trodden the winepress alone; and of the people there was none with me: for I will tread them in mine anger, and trample them in my fury; and their blood shall be sprinkled upon my garments, and I will stain all my raiment.
63:4 For the day of vengeance is in mine heart, and the year of my redeemed is come.
63:5 And I looked, and there was none to help; and I wondered that there was none to uphold: therefore mine own arm brought salvation unto me; and my fury, it upheld me.
63:6 And I will tread down the people in mine anger, and make them drunk in my fury, and I will bring down their strength to the earth.

It’s this kind of clueless and dishonest reading that typefies Christian attempts to retcon Jewish scriptures into Christian doctrine. However, it does put a new spin on this Minerva Teichert painting.

Look out; it’s Jesus coming to trample us! HELP! auuugghhhhhhh… crunch

 

God’s ways are not your ways, and your ways suck

Here’s a scripture about the sabbath that’s definitely in the Mormon Top 40.

58:13 If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the LORD, honourable; and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words:
58:14 Then shalt thou delight thyself in the LORD; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it.

It seems that on the Sabbath, you’re supposed to do the things God wants. Fine and dandy. But there’s something troubling here. According to Isaiah, you’re not supposed to find your own pleasure, do your own ways, or even say your own words. Isn’t this kind of odd? There’s an assumption here that doing things your way is wrong. If you want something, it’s either wrong or inconsequential.

And this is something that I was constantly told: “You want the wrong thing, but God wants the right thing for you. Don’t do your thing; do his thing.” You are wrong, and your desires are wrong. And in this way, you’re taught to mistrust your own instincts about what is right, to second-guess your innate human sense of right and wrong, and replace it with whatever the church says.

I don’t think this is so. I think I want good things. More so than God, in fact; I want people to be kind, have a nice life, get enough to eat, and God wants to bespatter his clothes in the blood of heathens.

Just to continue this theme, here’s what I think is #3 on the list of Worst Scriptures of All Time:

55:8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD.
55:9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.

I’m counting this scripture as one of the worst for a couple of reasons. First, it has the aforementioned “God is good, you suck” meme. But second, it’s so often used as a thought-blocker. If God’s ways are not our ways, then we can’t rely on our own intuitions for how a god would do things. And that means that if something in church history or church doctrine is absurd, contradictory, or just morally repugnant, it doesn’t matter — God does things different! It excuses everything, and there’s nothing more to say about the matter.

But, the Christian says, what’s wrong with the idea that God knows more about morality than we do? Aren’t we really just demanding that he conform to our way of morality?

Well, let me respond this way: I’m just a regular human, with regular human morality, and even I can see that God’s way of doing things is fucked up.

If these are his ways, then I want no part of them. I am more moral than the being that’s described in the Bible.

The big news at the time of this writing is that the church has released an anonymous essay about polygamy in Nauvoo and Kirtland. This is the most overt admission from the Church that Joseph Smith married 14-year-old girls, and other men’s wives.

I love this bit:

Although the Lord commanded the adoption—and later the cessation—of plural marriage in the latter days, He did not give exact instructions on how to obey the commandment.

Isn’t that just like Jehovah? It’s important enough for him to send an angel with a flaming sword to force Joseph to fuck a teen, but when it comes to details of implementation, he’s like, “Eh, do whatever.” What a colossal doofus!

(“Mental note to Myself: Do a better job when explaining who’s supposed to be president of the church after Joseph.”)

I discussed this essay with a Latter-day Saint, and they gave the expected rationales:

  • This isn’t new information.
  • It happened a long time ago.
  • The important thing is that they stopped polygamy.

But the ultimate thought-blocker was:

  • I don’t understand why Heavenly Father would do that, but I’m sure I will when I get up there.

And that was really the end of the discussion. You’re dealing with a hyper-intelligent being who you can’t possibly comprehend. So don’t try. Essentially, it’s like saying “A wizard did it. Don’t think about it. A wizard did it.”

Out of all the people God could have chosen to found his church, why did he pick a known swindler and story-teller like Joseph Smith? Someone who he knew in advance would bed 14-year-olds, mother-daughter pairs, and other men’s wives — in short, someone who he knew would act like, to all appearances, a 19th century sex guru? Why would he go to all the trouble of making his church look dodgy? Well, God’s ways are higher than your ways. There’s no inconsistency or flat-out con job that you can’t excuse with this idea.

The irony here is that it’s this claim that God is super-human that is meant to distract us from noticing that his church and his modus operandi are actually very human. Everything we see about the Morg is exactly what we should expect to see if humans were running it. The problem is not that God’s ways are higher than our ways, but that his ways mirror ours too closely. We should expect more.

Everything you do is terrible

This one is a favourite scripture for the Pentecostals I’ve met:

64:6 But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.

Again, same old story. No matter what you could ever do, it would still be awful. If you’re going to be worth anything, it won’t be because of anything you do. It’ll be because you attached yourself to someone else.

Have a look at these graphics that Christians use to illustrate this point.

 

Ask: How do they make you feel about your efforts? Do they encourage you to do your best? Or do they encourage you to shrink into reliance on someone besides yourself? What effect might this have on your self-esteem? Why would it be beneficial to a church for its members to feel helpless in their own efforts?
Possible answer: The helplessness engendered by this idea keeps you coming back for more.

This is not an idea that builds self-reliant people. It creates broken people.

On reflection, I should point out that Mormons aren’t that big on this scripture, probably because it rubs up against their ideas on the importance of personal righteousness. I actually never heard this scripture until I got into the mission field. So this criticism belongs more to other sorts of Christian folk.

Additional teaching ideas

Stakes

The lesson is big on stakes. The manual even helpfully says:

If you use the attention activity, bring a tent stake.

This is if no one has seen a tent stake before, or in case a vampire shows up to Sunday School.

For the lesson manual, Isaiah’s exhortation to “enlarge the place of thy tent” means: missionary work!

Isaiah’s Counsel

  • Stretch the tent curtains and lengthen the cords.
  • Strengthen the tent stakes.

What We Can Do

  • Serve as full-time missionaries; share the gospel with friends and neighbors.
  • Strengthen our local stakes.

I’m having a bit of a beef with missionary work these days. The old slogan is “Every member a missionary”, but in my experience, very few missionaries or members are familiar with the more uncomfortable areas of church history. That Joseph Smith used a magical rock in a hat to translate the Book of Mormon, or even that he had multiple wives, isn’t on their radar. The new essays, anonymous and unannounced, haven’t penetrated into the awareness of the membership.

What that means is that people are serving missions — sacrificing time, money, energy, and opportunity — for a church they scarcely know, and without full knowledge of what they’re representing. Full, informed consent is still lacking.

Common phrases

I noticed two phrases in this reading that have worked their way into our lexicon.

Game. Which phrase actually appears in the Bible?

  • There is no rest for the wicked.
  • There is no rest for the weary.
  • There is no peace for the wicked.

Answer: None of them! Here’s the actual scripture.

57:21 There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked.

Yes, it’s always the prepositions that trip people up. This is a bit of evidence to show how prepositions have changed since the King James Translation of 1611.

The phrase “holier than thou” also appears in this reading. Jehovah / Jesus is talking about the kind of people that really piss him off.

65:5 Which say, Stand by thyself, come not near to me; for I am holier than thou. These are a smoke in my nose, a fire that burneth all the day.

I hear ya, Jehovah.

Male lactation

Finally, a look at what Israel’s diet will consist of in the Millennium.

60:16 Thou shalt also suck the milk of the Gentiles, and shalt suck the breast of kings: and thou shalt know that I the LORD am thy Saviour and thy Redeemer, the mighty One of Jacob.

Probably a metaphor. Yeah, that’s it.

OT Lesson 37 (Proto-Isaiah 2)

28 September 2014 / / 1 Comment

“Thou Hast Done Wonderful Things”

Isaiah 22; 24–26; 28–30

LDS manual: here

Reading

We’re still in the first of the three Isaiahs. If you want a representative chunk of Isaiah, chapter 34 wouldn’t be a bad bit to read. It’s got the main themes:

  • God is angry at the nations because they don’t love him enough

34:1 Come near, ye nations, to hear; and hearken, ye people: let the earth hear, and all that is therein; the world, and all things that come forth of it.

  • He’s going to kill them.

34:2 For the indignation of the LORD is upon all nations, and his fury upon all their armies: he hath utterly destroyed them, he hath delivered them to the slaughter.

  • There’s going to be lots of blood.

34:3 Their slain also shall be cast out, and their stink shall come up out of their carcases, and the mountains shall be melted with their blood.
34:4 And all the host of heaven shall be dissolved, and the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll: and all their host shall fall down, as the leaf falleth off from the vine, and as a falling fig from the fig tree
34:5 For my sword shall be bathed in heaven: behold, it shall come down upon Idumea, and upon the people of my curse, to judgment.
34:6 The sword of the LORD is filled with blood, it is made fat with fatness, and with the blood of lambs and goats, with the fat of the kidneys of rams: for the LORD hath a sacrifice in Bozrah, and a great slaughter in the land of Idumea.

  • And then the mythical animals come.

34:7 And the unicorns shall come down with them, and the bullocks with the bulls; and their land shall be soaked with blood, and their dust made fat with fatness.

The immortality idea is also starting to bubble up:

26:19 Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust: for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead.

Which is like saying: God’s going to take all the people he just killed and make them alive again. So no harm.

Main points from this lesson

Cherry-picking with Isaiah

When you look at it, Christianity has done something kind of amazing: it’s become incredibly popular by building itself onto an existing work, and it’s cobbled bits of that work together to assemble a rationale for its existence. It’s as if Wicked had managed to supplant The Wizard of Oz in popularity.

Lots of these bits are pulled from passages in Isaiah that were about something else. Here are some examples from the real lesson manual.

Isaiah 22:22. The Savior opens the door to Heavenly Father’s presence

22:20 And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will call my servant Eliakim the son of Hilkiah:
22:21 And I will clothe him with thy robe, and strengthen him with thy girdle, and I will commit thy government into his hand: and he shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to the house of Judah.
22:22 And the key of the house of David will I lay upon his shoulder; so he shall open, and none shall shut; and he shall shut, and none shall open.

The lesson manual says this is about Jesus. But Isaiah says it’s about his servant Eliakim. Who’s right? Well, both apparently. Isaiah thinks he’s talking about his servant Eliakim, but remember, he’s speaking in a kind of secret symbolic code that no one can understand unless they’re trying to interpret it in a Jesusy way. Once you understand Mormon doctrine, you can come around after the fact, cherry-pick bits of this and that, and understand that he’s totally talking about Jesus in a way that fits the story you’re trying to tell. Got it?

Or this one. It seems to be talking about taking a bunch of kings from other countries and throwing them in prison, but instead of hewing them to pieces before the Lord, or cutting off their noses, ears, and privates like you’d see in the rest of the OT, they’re going to get taught the Gospel because this is totally about spirit prison.

Isaiah 24:21–22. The Savior shows mercy for those in spirit prison.

24:21 And it shall come to pass in that day, that the LORD shall punish the host of the high ones that are on high, and the kings of the earth upon the earth.
24:22 And they shall be gathered together, as prisoners are gathered in the pit, and shall be shut up in the prison, and after many days shall they be visited.

See? Visited. By Jesus! How is that not about Spirit Prison.

Okay, see if you can guess what this one is about.

27:1 In that day the LORD with his sore and great and strong sword shall punish leviathan the piercing serpent, even leviathan that crooked serpent; and he shall slay the dragon that is in the sea.

Um, that’s one’s about Satan, I think. It’s probably how Jesus is going to defeat Satan at the Last Day. Yeah, totally.

See, Isaiah isn’t that hard.

There’s a very special prophecy about the Book of Mormon.

29:1 Woe to Ariel, to Ariel, the city where David dwelt! add ye year to year; let them kill sacrifices.
29:2 Yet I will distress Ariel, and there shall be heaviness and sorrow: and it shall be unto me as Ariel.
29:3 And I will camp against thee round about, and will lay siege against thee with a mount, and I will raise forts against thee.
29:4 And thou shalt be brought down, and shalt speak out of the ground, and thy speech shall be low out of the dust, and thy voice shall be, as of one that hath a familiar spirit, out of the ground, and thy speech shall whisper out of the dust.

This scripture seems to be about a city called Ariel that God’s going to kill, but it’s actually about gold plates being buried in the ground. See, the Book of Mormon does have a ‘familiar’ sort of sound to it. It sounds kind of like the Bible. It has that same ‘spirit’ to it. So it has a ‘familiar spirit’. Heh.

But of course, familiar spirits in the Bible aren’t really a great thing. They’re always associated with witchcraft and necromancy. So this is an odd point to be making. Oh, well; not all the cherries you pick are winners.

Here’s another one. Anyone who’s sat in church for too long has heard the story of Professor Charles Anthon of Columbia University. Martin Harris took some of Joseph Smith’s drawings of the supposed characters that appeared on the supposed Gold Plates. According to Harris, Anthon said the characters were legit, and offered a certificate of authenticity. But when hearing that the plates were brought by an angel, Anthon tore the certificate up. Further, Anthon was supposed to have told Harris to bring the gold book for him to translate, and when told that a portion of it was sealed, Anthon allegedly said, “I cannot read a sealed book.”

All of this was supposed to have been foretold — in a manner that can only be described as oblique — by Isaiah.

29:11 And the vision of all is become unto you as the words of a book that is sealed, which men deliver to one that is learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee: and he saith, I cannot; for it is sealed:
29:12 And the book is delivered to him that is not learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee: and he saith, I am not learned.

Let’s hear Professor Anthon’s side of the story, which was published in “History of Mormonism” by Howe.

Dear Sir — I received this morning your favor of the 9th instant, and lose no time in making a reply. The whole story about my having pronouncd the Mormonite inscription to be “reformed Egyptian hieroglyphics” is perfectly false. Some years ago, a plain, and apparently simple-hearted farmer, called upon me with a note from Dr. Mitchell of our city, now deceased, requesting me to decypher, if possible, a paper, which the farmer would hand me, and which Dr. M. confessed he had been unable to understand. Upon examining the paper in question, I soon came to the conclusion that it was all a trick, perhaps a hoax….
The farmer added, that he had been requested to contribute a sum of money towards the publication of the “golden book,” the contents of which would, as he had been assured, produce an entire change in the world and save it from ruin. So urgent had been these solicitations, that he intended selling his farm and handing over the amount received to those who wished to publish the plates. As a last precautionary step, however, he had resolved to come to New York, and obtain the opinion of the learned about the meaning of the paper which he brought with him, and which had been given him as a part of the contents of the book, although no translation had been furnished at the time by the young man with the spectacles. On hearing this odd story, I changed my opinion about the paper, and, instead of viewing it any longer as a hoax upon the learned, I began to regard it as part of a scheme to cheat the farmer of his money, and I communicated my suspicions to him, warning him to beware of rogues. He requested an opinion from me in writing, which of course I declined giving, and he then took his leave carrying the paper with him.

This paper was in fact a singular scrawl. It consisted of all kinds of crooked characters disposed in columns, and had evidently been prepared by some person who had before him at the time a book containing various alphabets. Greek and Hebrew letters, crosses and flourishes, Roman letters inverted or placed sideways, were arranged in perpendicular columns, and the whole ended in a rude delineation of a circle divided into various compartments, decked with various strange marks, and evidently copied after the Mexican Calender given by Humboldt, but copied in such a way as not to betray the source whence it was derived.

Ask: Whose story is probably closer to the truth?

For my part, I’m going with the learned professor. I think we’ve all known someone like Martin Harris — a serial believer who seems like an easy mark for con men. He’s the equivalent of that one friend who pays to see stage shows by mediums, and then gets mad when you tell them it’s probably bunk. Harris’s version of the episode has all the hallmarks of a story concocted during a cherry-picking expedition.

Line upon line

Any all-powerful god who knows the end from the beginning — and who has its plan together from the beginning — would be able to explain itself clearly, without having to resort to ambiguous piecemeal explanations or incremental modifications. Or periodic updates to cope with situations it didn’t foresee. And yet these are exactly what we see in the LDS Church.

In this lesson, we see a passage that is used to justify this practice:

28:10 For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little:
28:11 For with stammering lips and another tongue will he speak to this people.
28:12 To whom he said, This is the rest wherewith ye may cause the weary to rest; and this is the refreshing: yet they would not hear.
28:13 But the word of the LORD was unto them precept upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little; that they might go, and fall backward, and be broken, and snared, and taken.

This is a very convenient scripture. It allows for incremental rewriting of church doctrine. It also justifies concealing unappealing or embarrassing doctrines from members who aren’t “ready” for them.

Most of all, it allows church leaders to string members along. If we don’t know everything right now, if there aren’t convincing explanations for all the gaps and plot holes — don’t worry, Brother Midgley; everything will be revealed in the fulness of time. Line upon line!

It would make no sense for an all-knowing being to dole out information this way, but it makes a lot of sense for humans, who have problems with consistency and continuity.

Additional teaching ideas

Isaiah, the naked prophet

The real lesson manual ignores one of the more striking parts of Isaiah: he walks around naked and barefoot for three years.

20:1 In the year that Tartan came unto Ashdod, (when Sargon the king of Assyria sent him,) and fought against Ashdod, and took it;
20:2 At the same time spake the LORD by Isaiah the son of Amoz, saying, Go and loose the sackcloth from off thy loins, and put off thy shoe from thy foot. And he did so, walking naked and barefoot.
20:3 And the LORD said, Like as my servant Isaiah hath walked naked and barefoot three years for a sign and wonder upon Egypt and upon Ethiopia;
20:4 So shall the king of Assyria lead away the Egyptians prisoners, and the Ethiopians captives, young and old, naked and barefoot, even with their buttocks uncovered, to the shame of Egypt.

Now this isn’t the first time someone has showed his prophetic… power by prophesying naked. Saul also did back in 1 Samuel, and all the people were, shall we say, mightily impressed.

The church has tried to tamp down the nudity aspect of this scripture, partly because it might detract from the decorum of the prophetic office, and part because that’s a mental image no one really wants. So we have this:

(14-32) Isaiah 20:2. What Was Meant by Isaiah Walking “Naked and Barefoot”?
“With the great importance attached to the clothing in the East, where the feelings upon this point are peculiarly sensitive and modest, a person was looked upon as stripped and naked if he had only taken off his upper garment. What Isaiah was directed to do, therefore, was simply opposed to common custom, and not to moral decency. He was to lay aside the dress of a mourner and preacher of repentance, and to have nothing on but his tunic (cetoneth); and in this, as well as barefooted, he was to show himself in public.” (Keil and Delitzsch, Commentary, 7:1:372.)

See, he was wearing a tunic, and that meant ‘naked’. It didn’t mean ‘naked’ for Adam and Eve, or for Job, or for a lot of other examples in the Bible. But I suppose words can mean more than one thing, and maybe Isaiah wasn’t walking around starkers for three years.

Still, I think the modern prophet shtick could use, if not more nudity, a bit more performance art.

What I’m noticing from today’s lesson is the fluid quality of words. Naked isn’t really naked. A unicorn isn’t a unicorn, and prison has a special meaning, once you know the story. And of course, steel isn’t steel and a horse isn’t a horse. With that in mind, it’s odd that an all-knowing being decided to use human language to get his massage across. Language is imprecise, it changes over time, and it requires imperfect translators for everyone to understand it. Errors and imperfections can be introduced through any of those things. A god would know a better way of communicating his message, and yet he doesn’t. We can therefore conclude that he wants his message to be misunderstood — as indeed it is; God is the author of so much confusion — or that he doesn’t exist and this religion thing is a human enterprise.

What does Isaiah get wrong?

Failed prophecy

19:23 In that day shall there be a highway out of Egypt to Assyria, and the Assyrian shall come into Egypt, and the Egyptian into Assyria, and the Egyptians shall serve with the Assyrians.
19:24 In that day shall Israel be the third with Egypt and with Assyria, even a blessing in the midst of the land:

We’re not likely to see an Egypt-Israel-Assyria alliance in (these) the latter days, as Assyria no longer exists. (No, it’s not the same as Syria.)

Isaiah is unclear on how the moon works

30:26 Moreover the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days, in the day that the LORD bindeth up the breach of his people, and healeth the stroke of their wound.

Since moonlight is reflected from the sun, it’s not possible for the moon to be as bright as the sun. And if the sun appeared to be seven times as bright as it does, it would fry us to a crisp.

More animals that don’t exist

30:6 The burden of the beasts of the south: into the land of trouble and anguish, from whence come the young and old lion, the viper and fiery flying serpent, they will carry their riches upon the shoulders of young asses, and their treasures upon the bunches of camels, to a people that shall not profit them.

Wow! Flying snakes of fire! Do they breathe fire, or do they just have fire coming off of them? Cool either way. I bet they’d get on well with the unicorns.

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