[Traveler]

Originally Posted by ceeboo

Hello Traveler,

I appreciate the responses,

I have looked at a few resorces ( J lindsay, Fairlds, CAF, and a couple different google searches ) as to consider this JS " history" . I do hear what you have said in this regard but would aslo like your perspective on the varying accounts of the actual " translation".
To be very transparent with you, I have a very hard time with this. I look forward to your contribution, if you would.

Thanks again Traveler,

God bless,
Carl

The Book of Mormon came to us through a young man (early twenties) from the American frontier with no formal education and very little education of any kind. Joseph was given divine help to accomplish the task – there can be no rational argument that Joseph brought forth the Book of Mormon or other scriptures on his own abilities. This, unlike most modern contributions to religious thinking, is not the result of learned scholars and a life time of study. It is a personal observation of mine that there is great difficulty in describing spiritual thing of divine nature among the societies of man. The scriptures often make reference to such things as appearing “foolish”.

I believe the challenge is to perceive such things by their content and contribution. For example there are some rather interesting things in the Book of Mormon about traveling on the Arabian Peninsula that were not known in the Americas during the time of Joseph Smith. If you like I could summarize some of these things I have learned.

I would also point out that one of the main arguments used by the Pharisees and Scribes (the ancient scholars and experts in scripture) concerning the teaching of Jesus was not based on the value of his teachings but that Jesus was not expert and learned. Or in other words that Jesus did not use the accepted methods to learn and qualify his teachings, therefore, they argued that his teaching were bogus. Why should Christians use one method to qualify the rich and deep lessons learned from Jesus and then use a completely different method to learn of Joseph Smith? The method of learning spiritual truth should be the same – regardless of the preceived source.

I believe Jesus put it thus: To judge a tree by it fruit - for a corrupt tree cannot bring forth good fruit nor will a good tree bring forth corrupt fruit.

The Traveler