The Book of Mormon on this Day in History

 

This day in history: The Book of Mormon was published on this day in 1830. In 1823 Joseph Smith claims to have found the golden plates after being directed by God through the Angel Moroni to the place where they were buried. This then led to the Book of Mormon and an overpriced musical on Broadway. 

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has printed and distributed over 200 million copies of the Book of Mormon, with the first edition in 1830 including 5,000 copies. 

By the year 2000, the Church had distributed 100 million copies. The Church has doubled the number of copies distributed, reaching 200 million by the summer of 2023. The Book of Mormon has been published in 113 languages.

However, there were a few issues with the Book of Mormon:

The French word "Adieu" closes the book of Jacob (Jacob 7:27). The Book of Mormon dates Jacob between 544 and 421 BC. The French language didn't even exist until around 700 AD!

The Book of Ether speaks of steel (7:8,9) and breakable windows (2:23) back in Abraham's era. Neither had been invented at that time.

The Book of Mormon implies that the North American Indians are descended from the Jews. But we now know that American natives are descended from east Asia.

2 Nephi 22:2 quotes Isaiah 12:2 almost verbatim from the King James Bible:

"Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and not be afraid: for the Lord Jehovah is my strength and my song; he also is become my salvation."

However, this scripture in the Book of Mormon is dated at 559 and 545 BCE, the King James Bible was not released until 1611 AD.

However, one of my favorite quotes about the Mormons comes from a Jewish academic, Alan Goldberg:

"Mormonisn teaches the deity of Christ and the Trinity, and freely admits its followers recognize many gods. Trinitarian Christianity denies that it is in any way polytheistic, but is it not the same basic qualitative form of theology" It is not a perversion of Trinitarian theology to draw a parallel to Mormonisn, Yet, it would be impossible to draw this parallel from Judaism or Unitarian Christianity, neither of which ever recognized component parts of God, nor ever made God a man. It is clear that, except for differences in degree, the same basic principles for the foundation of Trinitarian Christianity and Mormonism. The qualitative similarity is that both teach multiple divine entities. The qualitative difference is that Mormonism admits it." Every Tree is Known by Its Fruit-A Journal of Radical Reformation Vol. 6, No. 1, Fall 1996

As of December 31, 2023, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) reported a worldwide membership of 17,255,394.

See also Over 300 Books on Mormons (Latter Day Saints) to Download (Joseph Smith etc)

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Introducing the Unitarian Standard Version New Testament

 

This work is an update of the American Standard Version of 1901. Corrections were made to reflect the findings discovered in the newer editions of the Critical Greek Texts. This is a Unitarian version of the ASV. Most other Bibles reflect a Trinitarian theology, which is a belief that was alien to the early church. Read more at https://usvbible.blogspot.com

Read the foreword.

References Used

Matthew 1 and 2

1 Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king, behold, astrologers(a) from the east came to Jerusalem, saying, 2 "Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we saw his star in the east, and are come to pay homage(b) to him." 

Matthew 3

"The voice of one crying in the wilderness, 'Make ye ready the way of Jehovah(a), Make his paths straight(b).'"

"The Bible has now been pretty well rescued from the control of clerics and theologians and restored to the common people, where it belongs."~Edgar J. Goodspeed

Matthew 4

"Ye shall not tempt Jehovah your God, as ye tempted him in Massah." (see Darby & Bullinger). "Thou shalt not tempt - To expose myself to any danger naturally destructive, with the vain presumption that God will protect and defend me from the ruinous consequences of my imprudent conduct, is to tempt God." Adam Clarke

Read more at https://usvbible.blogspot.com

Banning "The Twist" on This day in History

 

This day in History: On this day in 1962, Bishop Burke of Buffalo Catholic dioceses declares Chubby Checker's "The Twist" to be impure and banned it from all Catholic schools.

"Calling the song and accompanying dance impure, and saying it lacked a proper sense of decorum and good taste, Bishop Burke prohibited all Catholics from performing the dance. This action earned Bishop Burke the dubious nickname 'Bishop Buzzkill' in 1962." Source

Also, in 1952, the Catholic Church denounced the holiday song “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus”. 

In 1957, Cardinal Stritch of the Catholic archdiocese in Chicago, prohibited all Rock 'n' Roll music from their schools, fearing that "Its rhythms encourage young people to behave in a hedonistic manner".

In 1978, "Billy Joel's 'Only the Good Die Young' was banned in Boston and New Jersey after several religious groups deemed the lyrics anti-Catholic." Source

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Absurdist Thinker Albert Camus on This Day in History

 

This Day in History: Author and philosopher Albert Camus died in a car crash on this day in 1960, on a straight country road with an unused train ticket in his pocket. How absurd. 

Camus wrote that there "is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy." He told a sad & poignant story of a building manager who had killed himself because he had lost his daughter five years before, which greatly changed him and that the experience had “undermined” him. According to Camus "A more exact word cannot be imagined. Beginning to think is beginning to be undermined."

Though he once was a Communist, he dropped that ideology in favor of freedom.

"Because he was not a partisan in the Cold War between the U.S./NATO and the U.S.S.R, Albert Camus was an oddball.  As a result, he was criticized by the right, left, and center.  His allegiance was to truth, not ideologies.  He opposed state murder, terrorism, and warfare from all quarters.  An artistic anarchist with a passionate spiritual hunger, an austere and moral Don Juan, this sensual man of conscience and honor earned his reputation by a lifelong literary meditation on death in all its guises: disease (he was constantly threatened by tuberculosis), murder, suicide, capital punishment, war, etc.; deaths both 'happy' and absurd, sudden and slow.  His enemy was always injustice and those powerful ones who thought they had the right to make others suffer and die for their perverted purposes.  An artist compelled by history to enter the political arena, he spoke out in defense of the poor, oppressed, and powerless.  Among his enemies were liberal imperialism and Soviet Marxism, abstract ideologies used to enslave and murder people around the world." Edward Curtin

Some quotes from Camus:

"The real passion of the twentieth century is servitude."

"It is a kind of spiritual snobbery that makes people think they can be happy without money." 

"The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion."

"Political utopias justified in advance any enterprises whatever."

"The welfare of the people…has always been the alibi of tyrants…giving the servants of tyranny a good conscience."

"The tyrannies of today…no longer admit of silence or neutrality…I am against."

"The only conception of freedom I can have is that of the prisoner or the individual in the midst of the state. The only one I know is freedom of thought and action."

"Absolute domination by the law does not represent liberty, but without law there is no freedom."

"Freedom is not a gift received from the State."

"Freedom is not a reward or a decoration…It’s a long distance race, quite solitary and very exhausting."

"Freedom is nothing else but a chance to get better, whereas enslavement is a certainty of the worse."

"Liberty ultimately seems to me, for societies and for individuals…the supreme good that governs all others."

"Is it possible…to reject injustice without ceasing to acclaim the nature of man and the beauty of the world? Our answer is yes."

"We have to live and let live in order to create what we are."

"The aim of art, the aim of a life can only be to increase the sum of freedom and responsibility to be found in every man and in the world. It cannot, under any circumstances, be to reduce or suppress that freedom."

"Without giving up anything on the plane of justice, yield nothing on the plane of freedom."

"More and more, when faced with the world of men, the only reaction is one of individualism. Man alone is an end unto himself."

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