You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
22 reviews for:
Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, Pearl of Great Price
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
4.25 AVERAGE
22 reviews for:
Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, Pearl of Great Price
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
4.25 AVERAGE
adventurous
challenging
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
tense
slow-paced
My goal to read most of the major religions scriptures lead me to read the Mormon scriptures, sheer will and stubbornness were the only reasons why I finished. Its been a while since the last time I read something I disliked this much and didn't stop. I rated this two stars only because I gave it an extra star for its importance in the lives of millions.
A few years ago two Mormon missionaries stopped by my house to talk about a new testament of Jesus Christ, at the time I was too busy to have any real discussion with them, but they left me the book of Mormon, they asked me pray to the holy spirit to reveal himself and the truth to me while reading the BoM. I honestly assumed that the BoM would be more persuasive and challenging, I wasn't ready though for the boredom, repetitiveness, blatant racism, and plagiarism. The BoM is full of later stuff which makes me think that it surely was written in the 18th century and definitely not before the conquest of Babylon in the 6th century BCE. For example in the Hebrew bible, we have vague references to a future messiah, with the BoM we not only direct messianic mentions, they're actually told his name would be Jesus Christ (does Joesph Smith not know that Christ isn't Jesus's surname?). There are zero mentions of a church in the old testament, but the book of mormon is full of references to the great abdominal church, how on earth do they know what the church will be called? I mean honestly, I think all three Jewish based religions can agree that the Jews were (are) god's chosen people, you'd think if god gave this much information to the Nephites he wouldn't have been so vague with his chosen people (we can also agree that we have latter BCE evidence of the Hebrew scripture, but only Joseph Smith's word about the BoM). I can't imagine that if God told the old testament people that his only begotton son Jesus Christ is coming, he'd be god incarnate and to follow him, we'd have the division between the Jews and Christians today. Why would god trick his chosen people but reveal so much to a people he knew would be completely killed off?
The most surprising thing to me was just how racist the LDS scriptures are. First with the BoM, god gets pissed at the Lamanites for being evil so he “curses” them with dark skin while he's pleased with the Nephites so he gives them an exceeding white skin. God seems to repeat this dark skin cursing several times, another example is found in the Pearl of Great Price where god once again gets mad at a decedent of Noah and curses him with black skin (which leads to the Egyptians). In the doctrines and covenants god has many things to say about slaves, nothing about slave ownership being wrong but more about how the white man should fear if the slaves have an uprising.
An example 2 Nephi 5:21 “And he had caused the cursing to come upon them, yea, even a sore cursing, because of their iniquity. For behold, they had hardened their hearts against him, that they had become like unto a flint; wherefore, as they were white, and exceedingly fair and delightsome, that they might not be enticing unto my people the Lord God did cause a skin of blackness to come upon them”.
Next the whole LDS scriptures are highly plagiarized, for example about half of the book of 2 Nephi is a word for word copy of King James's version of Isaiah. When Jesus comes to America to talk to the Nephites, people whom will be shortly killed off, he says nothing new, just somewhat repeats what's already in the KJV, why not at least throw something new in there? (You also get even bigger attempts to out do the new testament, for example when Jesus dies the sun stops shining for three days over the entire continents of the Americas).
Next the entire LDS scriptures are a very dry read, the attempt at King James English only makes the read harder. This is pretty surprising because the story sounds somewhat interesting on paper, you have a group of Israelites whom God sends away because of the depravity in Israel and they happen to land somewhere in America where they quickly multiple into a massive civilization stretching from coast to coast. Later Jesus, after his crucifixion, shows up and allows all one million plus of them to touch the holes in his hands and delivers a few messages to them. Later the evil god hating Lamanites brutally kill all of the god fearing (but back sliding) Nephites and one Nephite named Mormon survives, and hides while he spends the rest of his life compiling the history of his peoples. His son buries the plates only to return as an angel 1400 years later to deliver them to Joseph Smith.
The execution of this story is extremely boring though. Its long and extremely repetitive. Over and over again the Nephites and Lamites fight, someone preaches they repent then backslide and fight all over again. Sections are repeated over and over again to the point of frustration. The phrase “And it came to pass” is literally used over a thousand times. Commands and instructions are repeated over and over again hardly anything new is ever said.
The doctrine and covenants seem very much like they're words from Joseph Smith. Repeatedly people question Joseph and all of a sudden god has a special word to them delivered by Joseph Smith. Someone wants the ability to translate scriptures also, Smith ask god, god tells Smith to tell them that only Smith can translate at this time. Someone gripes about spending too much money, Smith asks god, god tells Smith to tell them they're giving the money to god and god will bless them. I mean its really hard for me to believe that people actually believe this stuff. The most absurd one occurs in #132, Emma Smith is mad that Joseph Smith has taken other wives, god gives Joseph Smith a message, god commanded all of his great prophets to have multiple wives, Abraham, David, Solomon, and Smith should take many wives also. If Emma Smith doesn't accept this she'll be destroyed, so does this mean god allows Emma to take another husband, nope instead he says “And I command mine handmaid, Emma Smith, to abide and cleave unto my servant Joseph, and to none else. But if she will not abide this commandment she shall be destroyed, saith the Lord; for I am the Lord thy God, and will destroy her if she abide not in my law.” (Also notice the destroy part is repeated, this type of repetition happens over and over again in the LDS scripture, far worse than this mild example). I mean seriously does this seem like the work of Smith getting what he wants or a divine sexist / racist being.
The only halfway redeeming work in the LDS scriptures is the Pearl of Great Price, I disliked it the first time I read it, but after slogging through the other stuff, this was easy to get through and way more interesting. In this, I have to think Smith was getting bored with his other stuff and just jumped off the deep end. In the book of Abraham, you have god talking to Abraham and god tells him about how god has his own planet circling a star Kolob where god sends spirits to earth, at least this absurd stuff was slightly interesting and its short which is odd for LDS stuff.
In the end, obviously I'm not even close to becoming a Mormon. The holy spirit didn't speak to me through the LDS stuff and there wasn't any type of bubbling in my bowels. Having read some other scriptures, I can imagine that Paul, Mohammad, Siddhattha, ect all actually believed that they were having a spiritual vision (every person needs to decide for themselves how true they think these visions were), but I don't believe the same for Smith. I truly believe that he was disillusioned with the churches of his day so he completely made up the book of Mormon and claimed it was ancient to get followers. This 'holy book' gave me nothing but a couple months of torture.
A few years ago two Mormon missionaries stopped by my house to talk about a new testament of Jesus Christ, at the time I was too busy to have any real discussion with them, but they left me the book of Mormon, they asked me pray to the holy spirit to reveal himself and the truth to me while reading the BoM. I honestly assumed that the BoM would be more persuasive and challenging, I wasn't ready though for the boredom, repetitiveness, blatant racism, and plagiarism. The BoM is full of later stuff which makes me think that it surely was written in the 18th century and definitely not before the conquest of Babylon in the 6th century BCE. For example in the Hebrew bible, we have vague references to a future messiah, with the BoM we not only direct messianic mentions, they're actually told his name would be Jesus Christ (does Joesph Smith not know that Christ isn't Jesus's surname?). There are zero mentions of a church in the old testament, but the book of mormon is full of references to the great abdominal church, how on earth do they know what the church will be called? I mean honestly, I think all three Jewish based religions can agree that the Jews were (are) god's chosen people, you'd think if god gave this much information to the Nephites he wouldn't have been so vague with his chosen people (we can also agree that we have latter BCE evidence of the Hebrew scripture, but only Joseph Smith's word about the BoM). I can't imagine that if God told the old testament people that his only begotton son Jesus Christ is coming, he'd be god incarnate and to follow him, we'd have the division between the Jews and Christians today. Why would god trick his chosen people but reveal so much to a people he knew would be completely killed off?
The most surprising thing to me was just how racist the LDS scriptures are. First with the BoM, god gets pissed at the Lamanites for being evil so he “curses” them with dark skin while he's pleased with the Nephites so he gives them an exceeding white skin. God seems to repeat this dark skin cursing several times, another example is found in the Pearl of Great Price where god once again gets mad at a decedent of Noah and curses him with black skin (which leads to the Egyptians). In the doctrines and covenants god has many things to say about slaves, nothing about slave ownership being wrong but more about how the white man should fear if the slaves have an uprising.
An example 2 Nephi 5:21 “And he had caused the cursing to come upon them, yea, even a sore cursing, because of their iniquity. For behold, they had hardened their hearts against him, that they had become like unto a flint; wherefore, as they were white, and exceedingly fair and delightsome, that they might not be enticing unto my people the Lord God did cause a skin of blackness to come upon them”.
Next the whole LDS scriptures are highly plagiarized, for example about half of the book of 2 Nephi is a word for word copy of King James's version of Isaiah. When Jesus comes to America to talk to the Nephites, people whom will be shortly killed off, he says nothing new, just somewhat repeats what's already in the KJV, why not at least throw something new in there? (You also get even bigger attempts to out do the new testament, for example when Jesus dies the sun stops shining for three days over the entire continents of the Americas).
Next the entire LDS scriptures are a very dry read, the attempt at King James English only makes the read harder. This is pretty surprising because the story sounds somewhat interesting on paper, you have a group of Israelites whom God sends away because of the depravity in Israel and they happen to land somewhere in America where they quickly multiple into a massive civilization stretching from coast to coast. Later Jesus, after his crucifixion, shows up and allows all one million plus of them to touch the holes in his hands and delivers a few messages to them. Later the evil god hating Lamanites brutally kill all of the god fearing (but back sliding) Nephites and one Nephite named Mormon survives, and hides while he spends the rest of his life compiling the history of his peoples. His son buries the plates only to return as an angel 1400 years later to deliver them to Joseph Smith.
The execution of this story is extremely boring though. Its long and extremely repetitive. Over and over again the Nephites and Lamites fight, someone preaches they repent then backslide and fight all over again. Sections are repeated over and over again to the point of frustration. The phrase “And it came to pass” is literally used over a thousand times. Commands and instructions are repeated over and over again hardly anything new is ever said.
The doctrine and covenants seem very much like they're words from Joseph Smith. Repeatedly people question Joseph and all of a sudden god has a special word to them delivered by Joseph Smith. Someone wants the ability to translate scriptures also, Smith ask god, god tells Smith to tell them that only Smith can translate at this time. Someone gripes about spending too much money, Smith asks god, god tells Smith to tell them they're giving the money to god and god will bless them. I mean its really hard for me to believe that people actually believe this stuff. The most absurd one occurs in #132, Emma Smith is mad that Joseph Smith has taken other wives, god gives Joseph Smith a message, god commanded all of his great prophets to have multiple wives, Abraham, David, Solomon, and Smith should take many wives also. If Emma Smith doesn't accept this she'll be destroyed, so does this mean god allows Emma to take another husband, nope instead he says “And I command mine handmaid, Emma Smith, to abide and cleave unto my servant Joseph, and to none else. But if she will not abide this commandment she shall be destroyed, saith the Lord; for I am the Lord thy God, and will destroy her if she abide not in my law.” (Also notice the destroy part is repeated, this type of repetition happens over and over again in the LDS scripture, far worse than this mild example). I mean seriously does this seem like the work of Smith getting what he wants or a divine sexist / racist being.
The only halfway redeeming work in the LDS scriptures is the Pearl of Great Price, I disliked it the first time I read it, but after slogging through the other stuff, this was easy to get through and way more interesting. In this, I have to think Smith was getting bored with his other stuff and just jumped off the deep end. In the book of Abraham, you have god talking to Abraham and god tells him about how god has his own planet circling a star Kolob where god sends spirits to earth, at least this absurd stuff was slightly interesting and its short which is odd for LDS stuff.
In the end, obviously I'm not even close to becoming a Mormon. The holy spirit didn't speak to me through the LDS stuff and there wasn't any type of bubbling in my bowels. Having read some other scriptures, I can imagine that Paul, Mohammad, Siddhattha, ect all actually believed that they were having a spiritual vision (every person needs to decide for themselves how true they think these visions were), but I don't believe the same for Smith. I truly believe that he was disillusioned with the churches of his day so he completely made up the book of Mormon and claimed it was ancient to get followers. This 'holy book' gave me nothing but a couple months of torture.
I read this book as a way of trying to understand one of my childhood friend's religion (Mormon) because I had not met anyone who believed in what she believed in. She told me that this was the word of God so I was very curious to read this book. I was able to ask questions and she did her best to answer, but it was wonderful that she was not trying to convert or make me feel ignorant for not understanding this book.
I finished D&C and Pearl of Great Price. Both very good installments to the Standard Works.
Too many plot holes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Misogyny, Racism, Sexism, Slavery, Violence, Xenophobia, Kidnapping, Murder, Cultural appropriation, Gaslighting, Colonisation, War
this is the greatest book in the world. people may say that it is crazy talk and they think that it is the devils work but they are wrong. it is inspired of god and approved by him as his word to the people of this earth.
I can give this nothing but 5 stars. I truly believe that this book is scripture and that it was brought forth by the power of God. If you’ve ever been curious about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, read this book. It has brought me much peace in my life.
slow-paced