Lucifer's Lantern

At first glance, The First Book of Napoleon: The Tyrant of the Earth  (1809) by Eliakim the Scribe (likely a pseudonym of Michael Linning) appears to be nothing more than a biblical retelling of the French Revolution and the rise of Napoleon Bonaparte. However... although The First Book of Napoleon and the Book of Mormon describe vastly different peoples, places, and historical events, both books present a remarkably similar explanation for the rise and fall of civilizations.  One of the most recognizable themes in the Book of Mormon is commonly call the " pride cycle ." Throughout the Nephite record, societies prosper when they are faithful to God. Prosperity eventually leads to complacency, complacency gives rise to pride, pride produces wickedness, and wickedness brings suffering and destruction. Affliction humbles the people, leading to repentance and a return to righteousness before the cycle begins again. Eliakim the Scribe similarly argues that political collapse is m...

It looks like the topic of horses and the Book of Mormon is going to crop up every few months like a nasty case of eczema, so I feel it’s worthwhile to summarize the debate as it currently stands. There's another post on this blog  about more recent research, but it always goes back to the (in)famous analysis done by Matthew Roper and his colleagues at BYU, John Clark and Wade Ardern, all the way back to 2005. But first, let's look even further back.  What the Book of Mormon Said The word “horse” appears 14 total times in the Book of Mormon in the context of domesticated livestock, with half of those references being connected with pulling chariots of war. Both Lamanite and Nephite peoples equated these horses with those described in Isaiah 2:7 and 5:28, which Nephi expressly quotes in his own record (compare 2 Nephi 12:7 and 15:28), with no distinction made between them. The horses of the Americas, per the Book of Mormon, are intended to be the same in form and function to ...

Before Joseph Smith was known as a prophet, he was known locally for treasure digging. An article written by Dan Vogel   mapped out the physical locations connected to that earlier phase of Smith’s life. Drawing from court records, affidavits, neighbor testimony, and later reminiscences, Vogel was able to place Smith on specific hillsides, farms, and riverbanks across western New York and northern Pennsylvania. Show Dan Vogel's Full Article (If you have issues on mobile, you can read the full document  here ) The article itself is a valuable asset to anybody who wants to understand the treasure digging activities of Joseph Smith. However, due to the design of the maps provided it may be difficult to immediate tell where the digs took place. Which in my opinion, may limit the sharing of his research. As such, I took it upon myself to update the map in Google Earth using Dan Vogel's research as my guide. This gives us a bit of clearer idea of w...

  Disclaimer: the following is entirely satire. Aaron: Did Nephites really practice Christmas? The answer might be less straightforward than you think, because critics of the LDS church have pointed out that the Book of Mormon says that Nephites were separated from the Old World centuries prior to the rise of not only Christmas as a holiday but the Christian religion as a whole. But that's what we're going to talk about today, especially because this actually turns into kind of a surprising evidence in favor  of the Book of Mormon when you actually get to the bottom of the criticism and what the actual evidence says. So Mason, did Nephites celebrate Christmas? Mason:  Uh, well, obviously, they're Christians, they don't just practice "happy holidays." Aaron, Mason, Dean: *laughing* Mason: Only joking, and it's important to note that we aren't going to know for sure what festivals developed in the Nephite civilization. Dean: We do have a good idea abo...

In the past two months, I have blazed through two different Bart Ehrman books: How Jesus Became God , and Jesus Interrupted . Both give a thorough overview on the consensus of Biblical scholarship on the New Testament, its authors, and questions of its historicity. More than once, and to my surprise, Ehrman demonstrates logical fallacies employed by the broader Christian community in rejecting Mormonism, that could just as easily have been used to reject Christianity in the first centuries of its own development. Ehrman recognizes Mormonism as being on the fringes of Christian society, which comes as no surprise to me, as Ehrman did not grow up a Mormon or a member of the LDS church. But I did. I repeatedly took note that Ehrman, perhaps inadvertently, also provides commentary that runs counter to the LDS truth claims about their own holy text, the Book of Mormon: in the case of this essay, the grand apocalyptic vision of Nephi, son of Father Lehi, who was the Israelite patriarch said ...

According to the Book of Mormon, a family of Israelites claims to be inspired to flee the city of Jerusalem and embark on a transoceanic voyage to somewhere on the American continent, which their chief patriarch, Lehi, asserts is a "promised land" for them and their posterity. What follows is my reconstruction of Lehite history by using the chronology described in the Book of Mormon text, which is replete with mentions of the years that have passed "since Lehi left Jerusalem," as well as its dating method when its government shifted to a judicial republic, known as "the reign of the judges." I will be treating this as a history as written . That means that I will attempt to fill in gaps of relevant information with the most logical timeline, especially the ages of the various patriarchs featured in the narrative.  Some events, when summarized, will sound more absurd or strange than they do in the more flowery prose presented in the text. I have attempted t...

We need to talk about the current apologetics attempting to downplay the Lamanite curse. Nephi Sees Our Day In preparation for my next topic, I was reading 1 Nephi 13:15 , where Nephi sees a vision of the future for his own civilization and the European conquest of America. This passage stuck out to me: And I beheld the Spirit of the Lord, that it was upon the Gentiles, and they did prosper and obtain the land for their inheritance; and I beheld that they were white, and exceedingly fair and beautiful, like unto my people before they were slain. This is in direct contrast to 1 Nephi 12:23 : And it came to pass that I beheld, after they had dwindled in unbelief they became a dark, and loathsome, and a filthy people, full of idleness and all manner of abominations. You might notice that there is ample ambiguity in both passages, but in juxtaposing these two peoples, we see a contrast that I just can’t reconcile if the curse is only “symbolic” or “spiritual.” In comparing Gentiles to Lam...

Never has any passage of scripture come with more scrupulosity to the heart of man than Mosiah 3:19 has to me: For the natural man is an enemy to God , and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever… It’s a passage which seemed to enter with great shame into every feeling of my heart. I heard this passage mentioned and quoted again and again - it appears in General Conference addresses a total of 347 times, over half of which occurring in my lifetime (according to the LDS General Conference Corpus ). It’s a passage that implies a divine curse on not just one people group, not on one continent, but on the whole of the human species - an original sin, as it were. Mosiah 3:19 would have you believe that you and I are God’s personal enemies, because we are the posterity of Adam and Eve. Depending on how you read LDS theology, I either did or didn’t have a choice here, a subject too dense to get into just yet; and either way, an omniscient God supposedly laid the groundw...