Shulem cracks the code for The Book of Lehi/116 Lost Pages!!

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Shulem
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Re: Don Bradley

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Bradley's faith promoting book continues to fantasize in such wild proportion that it becomes abundantly clear that this book is written by a faithful Latter-day Saint for other faithful Latter-day Saints who love to create fantasies and parallels in order to make something true in their own deluded minds. We are given the following bullets in which the Passover is a kind of deliverance that God does time and time or "again and again, Passover has been a time at which God delivers his people." Beginning with Moses who instituted the first Passover, to Christ who is the ultimate Passover, and finally to Joseph Smith celebrating a modern kind of Passover on April 3rd in the Kirtland Temple.
  • "Mosaic Exodus"
  • "The Crucifixion of Christ"
  • "The Coming of Elijah to the Kirtland Temple"

And there you have a Tic-Tac-Toe -- three Moses's in a row! Passover repeated three times!

Bradley offers more silly parallels in order to enrich the content of his book by inventing bogus THEMES in which to compare the Exodus of Moses with Lehi's exodus -- and needless to say, there is really no comparison. But leave it to Bradley to find some, as ridiculous as they are it seems that Lehi and Nephi was reenacting the original Passover in their own lives.

The pillar of fire brought down by Moses to stop the Egyptians echo again in Lehi who saw a pillar of fire dwell upon a rock.

Score 1!

The valuable possessions that Moses plundered from the Egyptians is reversed in narrative in how Lehi who instead of taking his valuable possessions, opted to leave them behind.

Score 2!

Moses and Lehi both went down towards the Red Sea.

Score 3!

"Lehi's exodus both recapitulates and reverses the biblical Exodus and the setting for the original Passover. With Lehi as their Moses, his family traveled away from the biblical Promised land rather than towards it."

Score 4!

And to top it off, Bradley relates how Moses convinced Pharaoh to allow the Israelites to take the bones of Joseph into the wilderness as a type or, "mirroring this, Lehi's sons sought to bargain with Laban to allow them to take the brass plates into the wilderness" but negotiations failed and Laban perished even as Pharaoh and his armies perished in the Red Sea.

Score 5!

Folks, I'm not making this BS up! Don Bradley is! It is that bad!
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Re: Don Bradley

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Shulem wrote:
Wed Mar 29, 2023 10:41 pm
Folks, I'm not making this BS up! Don Bradley is! It is that bad!

To be fair to Bradley, it's not entirely his fault because he is a victim of Joseph Smith's lies. He is strung along by the literal teachings of the Book of Mormon text which refer back to biblical text that repeats the false narrative of Egyptian history of things that never happened!

1 Nephi 4:2,3 wrote:Therefore let us go up; let us be strong like unto Moses; for he truly spake unto the waters of the Red Sea and they divided hither and thither, and our fathers came through, out of captivity, on dry ground, and the armies of Pharaoh did follow and were drowned in the waters of the Red Sea.

Now behold ye know that this is true; and ye also know that an angel hath spoken unto you; wherefore can ye doubt? Let us go up; the Lord is able to deliver us, even as our fathers, and to destroy Laban, even as the Egyptians.

No, this is not true! It is a lie! No Pharaoh or armies of Egypt ever followed Israelites into the desert and into the midst of the Red Sea where they were drowned by the vengeance of Jehovah God. That never happened! It is false biblical history made up by the Jews! It's a lie. It is non-historical and never happened. So, what does that say for the Book of Mormon that simply repeats the same old lies given in the Bible? What does that say for Joseph Smith? What does that say about Don Bradley?

The answer is simple: They are all wrong! They just keep quoting each other as if false history is really true. But that does not make it true. As a historian with a Master's, Don should know better than to use nonsense from the Bible to support more nonsense in the Book of Mormon. Thus we see that faith in things that are not true is all the Mormons really have in pushing their false agenda. It's a very sad state of affairs.

Faith in things that are not true.
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Re: Don Bradley

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Discussion is brought to bear regarding the nature and content of the brass plates had by Laban. I only want to touch upon one concept that Bradley brings up in discussing these matters which involves the genealogy that was contained on the brass plates. This genealogy served to prove how Lehi was a descendent of Joseph who was sold into Egypt.

Don Bradley, p. 140 wrote:The brass plates' origination with Joseph of Egypt, implicit in Nephi's small plates account and elsewhere in the Book of Mormon, was likely explicit in the lost manuscript. Nephi's extant record says he intentionally avoided duplicating many things from his father's record, including details of genealogy (1 Ne. 6:1). Since the brass plates contained a detailed genealogy that informed Lehi of his own descent from Joseph (5:26; 6:1), they most assuredly also detailed that of Laban's "fathers [who] had kept the records," back to whatever "father" had established the precedent of keeping the plates in Egyptian and handing them down among the descendants (5:16).

RED FLAG!

Please go HERE to the Celestial forum for more answers!
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Don Bradley

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It's interesting to note how Bradley compiles evidence to indicate that Laban's "steel" sword was of Egyptian origin dating all the way back to Joseph who was sold by his brethren. This information is gleaned from Gladden Bishop who was a longtime friend of Martin Harris. He related information about the sword of Laban which is believed to have come from Harris's understanding of the missing manuscript.

Gladden Bishop wrote:The history of this sword is as follows: It was caused to be made by Joseph, of old, in Egypt, by the direction of God, and was in the hand of Joshua when he led the house of Israel into the land of Canaan. And after him it came down in the lineage of Joseph to Laban, from whom it was taken by Nephi, according to the account given in the Book of Mormon; and since the fall of the Nephites it has been preserved with the other sacred things, to come forth into the hand of a descendant of Joseph of old, in the line of Ephraim.

Bradley wholeheartedly approves the claims above to harmonize well with Book of Mormon scholarship endorsing the sword of Laban's Josephite provenance. But I don't buy that at all. I can't endorse Joseph Smith using steel to correctly represent Egyptian swords during so ancient an era. The word "steel" in Smith's day is not the kind of steel we refer to today but nonetheless does not harmonize with metallurgy of the Egyptian time in question which was copper and bronze.

Noah Webster, 1828 wrote:STEEL, noun
1. Iron combined with a small portion of carbon; iron refined and hardened, used in making instruments, and particularly useful as the material of edged tools. It is called in chemistry, carburet of iron; but this is more usually the denomination of plumbago.

So, Joseph Smith would have understood "steel" to be a form of iron heated with charcoal. But the iron age in ancient Egypt came much later than the time when Joseph would have lived in Egypt. It should come to no surprise to anyone that Bradley fails to touch on any of this in effort to ascertain whether the Egyptians would have forged a "steel" sword long before the iron age began.

Go figure.
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Don Bradley

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And so, with the closing of chapter seven, half the book is now behind me. I find Bradley's closing remarks in justifying Nephi's cold blooded murder of Laban to be in opposition of how I view a universe of love and goodness. The God of the Book of Mormon was a cruel and vicious monster that yearned to bring about death and destruction upon those who opposed him. To me, the JESUS CHRIST of the Book of Mormon is the real SATAN, a man pretending to be holy but is really a ravenous wolf who devours his prey. Joseph Smith tasted and committed murder through him! Joseph Smith was a murderer in his heart!

Don Bradley wrote:One of the most basic of the Law's commandments was "Thou shall not kill"' yet the Spirit overrode this, commanding Nephi to violate the Law in order to acquire it for his descendants, so they might retain their covenants with God.

And thus we see that Mormonism is founded upon the spirit of murder.

Shame on Mormonism!
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Re: Don Bradley

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Chapter eight of Bradley's book provides extremely interesting details about Lehi's magic brass ball -- the so-called Liahona. I liken this ball ("director") to an Ouija spirit communicating with the living and to those who seek guidance from unseen forces -- the supernatural. It's a strange form in which to practice divination by using the magic ball with moving spindles which serve to direct and inform the reader on what do to. You must obey the spirit of the ball! It is an enchantment. Bow your head before that spirit and let the Ouija do its work and speak through the ball.

Fayette Lapham as cited earlier provides additional information in which the ball "went before them having two pointers, one pointing steadily the way they should go, the other the way to where they could get provisions and other necessaries." So the ball was used as a means to an end in order to get what they needed.

Another of Harris's close friends who was familiar with the lost manuscript provided information about the magic ball described therein. Through him we learn things that were not transferred over to the replacement version as given through the eyes of Nephi. The following descriptions undoubtedly detail Lehi's personal account from the lost manuscript as he worked the magic ball:

Francis Gladden Bishop wrote:The last of the sacred things to be named, is a curious Ball, spoken of in the Book of Mormon, and called Directors, from the circumstance, of there being in it two steel points, (called spindles, in the Book of Mormon,) which points directed the enquirer by faith the proper course to take. This instrument is composed of a small brass ball, about three inches in diameter, having two steel points coming out of it, in opposite directions. Around each of these points, are 12 squares, and between these 24 squares on the ball, are figures of various descriptions, representing various things on the earth, as vegetation, animals, running streams of water, &c.

Bradley sums up the idea that the ball was used to acquire necessities of daily living such as food and water. He indicates how one spindle pointed the way they should travel in the wilderness and the other spindle pointed at one of the pictures symbols around the ball which identified what they would find once they reached the destination. So, the magic brass ball having two spindles, one which points at the picture telling what they will receive and the other spindle points the way they must go in order to receive the promised reward.

That pretty much sums up Bradley's ability to explain the ball as he thinks within the confines of the faithful Mormon box, but I can do more as I think outside *that* box. I think it's pretty clear that this kind of magic divination produced by Joseph Smith is not anything modern Mormonism wants to embrace today. The Church today is nothing like what Joseph Smith set up and the prophets today are nothing like Joseph Smith.

More later on this magic ball...
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Liahona magic ball

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Francis Gladden Bishop wrote:Around each of these points, are 12 squares, and between these 24 squares on the ball

Let's be very clear about something, shall we? The information given in the testimonial of Francis Bishop about his understanding of Lehi's magic ball is not something he concocted out of thin air of his own accord. Neither is it something that Harris would have simply made up in describing the physical characteristics of the ball. This information is extremely explicit and exactly precise and could have only come from one possible source leading straight back to the horse's mouth, Joseph Smith. Logically, there are two ways this information could have been originally revealed:

1. The 12 & 24 was written into the text of the "Book of Lehi" in which that information within the missing manuscript was understood by the direct reading of the manuscript and relayed thereafter on that account.

2. Joseph Smith gave additional information through instruction or a sermon about the Liahona which was not recorded other than through Bishop who relayed what he heard via Harris and Smith.

Bottom line:

The 12 & 24 came from Joseph Smith!


More later...
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Stick of Ephraim

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Chapter 9 of Bradley's book came and went without a whole lotta fanfare. The seven branches were discussed in some detail being justified in the account which describes the genealogy of the nation state of the Book of Mormon: Nephites, Jacobites, Josephites, Zoramites, Lamanites, Lemuelites, and Ishmaelites. The Book of Mormon makes it very clear that Lehi was a descendant of Joseph through the tribe of Manasseh and says nothing of Ephraim. Bradley goes on to make the connection how Joseph Smith himself later went on to confirm that the blood of Ephraim was included but our present edition of the Book of Mormon failed to make that distinction and left that out of Book of Mormon genealogy. That, however, I view was a critical error on Smith's part rather than being left out intentionally by the real author (Joseph Smith).

Bradley brings up the bit about Ezekiel's prophecy of the so-called sticks that are an important part of Mormon prophecy which includes Ephraim in the Book of Mormon itself. Anyway, he quotes elder Franklin Richards later in life (1896) who recites what Joseph Smith told him in 1843 about the 116 page manuscript containing details of how the tribe of Ephraim was in fact part of Book of Mormon genealogy but was not included in the rewrite -- or in other words, it was omitted in that account.

We learn from Richard's second hand account that Ishmael was a descendent of Ephraim and so the lineage was preserved through the Nephites because the daughters of Ishmael married the sons of Lehi. Problem solved. But it really makes no sense that our current Book of Mormon fails to mention this. It would have only taken a sentence to reveal that Ishmael was a descendant of Ephraim while coupling that with Lehi being a descendent of Manasseh -- thus the house of Joseph would have been fully represented. But as it was, Smith forgot to add that to the record or so it seems. Whether that information really was in the original 116 pages according to Smith's lecture given to Richards, we will never know because we can't confirm it! It may have simply been a BS excuse made up by Smith to provide cover for the so-called sticks or books of scripture in the Ezekiel prophecy which to my understanding has been grossly misinterpreted by the church.

Sticks? I trust the BYP could enlighten us on that regard if he was here.
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Re: Don Bradley

Post by Alphus and Omegus »

Shulem wrote:
Fri Mar 31, 2023 9:20 pm
Francis Gladden Bishop wrote:The last of the sacred things to be named, is a curious Ball, spoken of in the Book of Mormon, and called Directors, from the circumstance, of there being in it two steel points, (called spindles, in the Book of Mormon,) which points directed the enquirer by faith the proper course to take. This instrument is composed of a small brass ball, about three inches in diameter, having two steel points coming out of it, in opposite directions. Around each of these points, are 12 squares, and between these 24 squares on the ball, are figures of various descriptions, representing various things on the earth, as vegetation, animals, running streams of water, &c.

Bradley sums up the idea that the ball was used to acquire necessities of daily living such as food and water. He indicates how one spindle pointed the way they should travel in the wilderness and the other spindle pointed at one of the pictures symbols around the ball which identified what they would find once they reached the destination. So, the magic brass ball having two spindles, one which points at the picture telling what they will receive and the other spindle points the way they must go in order to receive the promised reward.
I can see a believer in folk magic like dowsing or seer stones finding this description to be credible. If you believe that two sticks together can help you find water, then it would stand to reason that God could make a deluxe magical version that helps you find other things.
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Re: Stick of Ephraim

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Shulem wrote:
Wed May 10, 2023 2:37 pm
Whether that information (Ephraim) really was in the original 116 pages according to Smith's lecture given to Richards, we will never know because we can't confirm it!

Bradley and the faithful always take for granted that everything Joseph Smith ever said was the truth. Nobody questions whether he was making stuff up or lying to cover his tracks. Mormon apologetics is always so one-sided. Did Smith tell the truth about how the lost manuscript states that Ishmael was from the tribe of Ephraim? Maybe he did and maybe he didn't; that's my approach.

All references to the name Ephraim in the Book of Mormon are contained in the KJV citations of Isaiah except for the hill Ephraim mentioned in Ether in which swords were made (7:9). It would have been very easy to mention that Ishmael was of the tribe of Ephraim and how Ishmael's daughters mingling with Lehi's sons produced full-blooded Josephites! But as is was, nothing was ever said about Ephraim in the Book of Mormon. That is a hole in the script! It wasn't until shortly after the publication of the Book of Mormon that it was called a  "record of the  stick of  Ephraim" (D&C 27:5) and the prophecy of the stick of Ephraim & Judah come into play in which the Bible and Book of Mormon become one in the hand.

So, whether the lost manuscript ever said anything about Ishmael being from the blessed tribe of Ephraim is open to speculation. The Book of Mormon as presently constituted leaves that part out. And yet we see how Smith's later doctrine of the tribe of Ephraim takes preeminence over all others tribes (D&C 64:36, 113:4, 133:30,32,34).
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