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

[Alphus and Omegus]

I don't know of any reviews to Bradley's book but I'm going to see it through to the end.

I'm glad you've been entertained. Do ya think Bradley will pop into this thread and say something? I'm only halfway through the book and so anything can I happen.

I wouldn't venture a guess. I don't know Bradley at all but I understand he occasionally posts here.

[Shulem]

I don't know of any reviews to Bradley's book but I'm going to see it through to the end.

I'm glad you've been entertained. Do ya think Bradley will pop into this thread and say something? I'm only halfway through the book and so anything can I happen.

I wouldn't venture a guess. I don't know Bradley at all but I understand he occasionally posts here.

Don frequents this board and I've gone over some of his work in the past: Kinderhook Plates and Don Bradley

Don has always been cordial and friendly towards me both publicly and in private messages. I have no ill feelings towards him personally. But I do speak my mind and am quick to point out fault if and when I see it.

[Shulem]

So, after two weeks in Harmony, Martin took Lucy home only to return and begin the translation process. But in the interim, we are informed that Emma was involved in the earliest part of the translation serving as a scribe for the "opening narratives" of the Book of Lehi and she provided interesting clues about that process. Two clues of interest:

• Joseph couldn't pronounce the name Sariah but had to spell it out.

• Joseph claimed he didn't know there were walls surrounding Jerusalem and told Emma he was afraid "he had been deceived."

I'm somewhat perplexed about why (video clip) Radio Free Mormon and Brent Metcalfe are confused about Emma's involvement during translation and apparently don't connect the idea that Emma learned of SARIAH and likely the WALLS in Jerusalem during the first translation process in making the Book of Lehi (116 pages) which surely told the story of Lehi leaving Jerusalem and everything else leading up to king Mosiah from Lehi's perspective. Granted, we don't know exactly what was contained in the missing manuscript or how much was said about Sariah and the walls of Jerusalem, but whatever was said and written down in the manuscript was something Emma was familiar with. Whether Emma actually penned those particular matters at that moment as a scribe with Martin Harris is not known, but I think we can rightly assume she was present in the room during the whole process. After all, it was a family affair!

What the heck is Emma Smith doing at the end of her life except making up stories or creatively charitably wishfully recreating memories or creating memories that make the Book of Mormon more fantastical and more miraculous in its production than it really was by making it more difficult for Joseph Smith to do and making him appear dumber than he was...

And yet we get this important point in the podcast leading up to RFM's question:

Martin Harris and Emma had been doing dictation on what Joseph Smith had identified as the Book of Lehi

I hope this answers RFM's question and thus we see there is no need to (video clip) diss Emma. RFM, I think Emma deserves an apology. Anyway, I need to watch the rest of the podcast but this has been a little disappointing.

[Moksha]

Shulem, I watched it and I am very glad you picked up on the details.

[Shulem]

Shulem, I watched it and I am very glad you picked up on the details.

I'm very glad that you are here to know that I picked up on those little details in which both RFM and Metcalfe really screwed up while Reel is shaking his head in agreement. There is no way Vogel would have fallen for that nonsense because he knows better. Unfortunately the audience was misinformed with a bad evaluation. RFM would not have dropped the ball if he was familiar with my threads here in this forum -- he would have known better. But as it was, he stuck his foot in his mouth on that one!

And yet, RFM continues to (video clip) diss Emma unfairly by questioning everything else she may have said based on his misunderstanding the intricacies of the 116 lost pages and what was contained therein. RFM really screwed up and he needs to apologize to Emma, period. And Metcalfe needs to read my threads and so does Reel.

Sigh.

Thanks, Moksha.

[consiglieri]

I apologize, Emma.

[Shulem]

I apologize, Emma.

It is well.

[Shulem]

I think we may rightly assume the lost pages provided some dimensional detail about the construction of the Temple of Nephi with regard to its size. The fact that we get nothing about size is very unbiblical and I think Smith had to jettison dimensions because he couldn't remember the numbers/values he assigned in the first manuscript via Martin Harris. Our present Book of Mormon offers a scant description of the temple in an abbreviated-like fashion compared to what we get in 1 Kings 6 of the Bible wherein we learn that the temple was 90 feet long, 30 feet wide, and 45 feet high. The biblical account provides other details and dimensions but the Book of Mormon offers nothing. Zilch? We don't get a single inch of information!

Why?

Because Smith couldn't recall the numbers and if he got them wrong, Lucy could have pretended to find the manuscript which she misplaced at a friend's house and easily check to see if the numbers match.

I've discovered how Don Bradley loves to find faith promoting parallels between the Bible and Book of Mormon and yet he makes these points in his book The Lost 116 Pages:

• "Details of the Nephite temple system are likely to have appeared in the lost manuscript, which had a distinctively Hebraic emphasis"

• "The latter small plates narrative raises more questions about the details of the Nephite temple worship than it answers, including questions on the name of Nephi's temple, the relationship of Nephi's temple to Solomon's"

Large plates or small plates; "tough titty," said the kitty when the milk ran dry; we should have been given basic dimensions of Nephi's temple in our current Book of Mormon but Joseph Smith omitted the size for the same reason he omitted the number of days it took for Lehi to sail to the land of promise.

What say ye, Don Bradley? Why is the Book of Mormon so non-biblical on this account? Do you have a silly faith promoting parallel you'd like to express? Considering all the garbage and useless information and repetitive nonsense we get on the small plates, there is no excuse for not being told how big Nephi's temple really was. And, Don, size does matter. But in this case it certainly appears that Joseph Smith was limp while rattling off a brief climactic description of Nephi's temple to Cowdery's disappointment. This is certainly a huge red flag when it comes to recognizing that Smith couldn't retranslate again.

Don, you've been had. Your book reads like tunnel vision within a very small thinking box -- the testimony box!

[Shulem]

I've finished reading Bradley's book. It's well written and informative. As far as I can tell or remember, Don made only one structural grammatical error that stuck out like a sore thumb in which the editors missed it.

So, that's that.

[Moksha]

LDS maps of the Mormon Holy Lands will now display the Yucatan in the Gulf of America. The Brethren will declare Trump a fellow Seer and Revelator. The Interpreter will stamp its feet to so signify.