Speaking of versification, the Book of Mormon itself is actually published by more than one church and there are different divisions into chapters and verses among those churches. You can go to this site, scroll down to “Scholarly Places” and then click on the drop down menu for Scriptures.
Is any reason given for the long pants and short-sleeve shirts?
Some kind of prohibition against proselytizing in the nude, one would think.
Rats, because based on some of the missionaries I’ve seen walking around, that would be a very effective short term tactic.
I have been proselytized by several pairs of Mormon missionaries. I have always liked them. I have never been impressed by their intelligence and knowledge of their religion. They never knew about the Book of Abraham. This is a presumed translation by Joseph Smith of an ancient Egyptian manuscript. The manuscript was discovered in 1967. It has been translated by reputable Egyptian scholars. The real translation has nothing to do with Joseph Smith’s presumed translation. As far as I am concerned, this proves beyond the shadow of a reasonable doubt that Joseph Smith was a religious charlatan.
When I tell the Mormon missionaries this, and when I tell them that there is no independent evidence that anything in the Book of Mormon happened, and much evidence that none of it happened, they smile politely, but without obvious comprehension.
If Judiasm and Christianity cease to be living religions, the Bible will continue to be read as great literature, much as the writings of Homer and the Greek tragedians are read. If Mormonism ceases to be a living religion, The Book of Mormon will only be of value to scholarly specialists.
According to the Book of Mormon the Nephites were the Christians. They were annihilated at the Battle of Cumorah.
Missionaries are supposed to be dressed up, so as to create a favorable impression. This differs from place to place, but a white dress shirt, dress pants, and tie seems to be the minimum.
I went on my mission to Brazil. And we were encouraged to wear long sleeve shirts and two piece suit, when practical. But the only ones who did were the folks in the office with the mission president. Everyone else went with the minimum required, the thinnest short sleeved white dress shirt with the thinnest dress pants we could find. In general I found the suit coat “impractical” almost universally.
I imagine it is the same everywhere else. When it is hot, long sleeved shirts suck. So you end up with everyone trying to get away with the minimally acceptable, which creates that odd but uniform fashion.
19th century unbelievers were pretty harsh about it. Mark Twain called it “chloroform in print”. Sir Richard Burton, that indefatigable traveler and religion-sampler, was kinder. He worked his way through it, and gave a useful outline in his book City of the Saints, but his judgment essentially amounts to “it’s no more absurd than any other sacred text” (although he didn’t put it that way, of course). He did go on record as calling church architecture “monstrosities”, but that’s a separate issue.
When I was nineteen years old I engaged in an extensive investigation of the Mormon faith with the help of two Mormon Missionaries. I had owned a copy of The Book of Mormon for about five years. Although I had not read it entirely, it did impress me as a book that sounded Biblical.
I investigated the Mormon religion with the attitude that Mormonism was unique among the religions, because it lended itself to a rational investigation. The other religions based their authority on miracles that happened so long ago that they were impossible to prove or disprove. Joseph Smith made a number of assertions that could be independently verified. He either had the golden plaits or he did not. They either told an authentic history of pre - Colombian history or they did not.
I must have been frustrating to the Mormon missionaries, because I did not follow their schedule of classes, but was in control of my investigation. I would ask questions. They would answer them as best as they could, and give me material to read.
I wanted to become a Mormon. My attitude was that if Mormonism is true, God exists, and there is life after death. If Mormonism is not true, God’s existence, and that life is uncertain. The Mormon way of life appealed to me. I did not drink alcohol or smoke. I wanted to marry a virgin.
Finally, I heard about the Book of Abraham. This is a presumed translation by Joseph Smith of an ancient Egyptian manuscript. That manuscript had recently been re discovered. I thought this would settle everything. If Joseph Smith’s translation was accurate, this could now be proven. If it was not accurate, that could also be proven.
When I asked for information about The Book of Abraham, the missionaries gave me several articles that had recently been written by Hugh Nibley. He was a Mormon scholar at Brigham Young University, who was fluent in many languages, including ancient Egyptian. I expected him to be pleased at the discovery of the manuscript for the Book of Abraham. I could tell that he was troubled.
Eventually, I concluded that the manuscript Joseph Smith claimed to translate was actually a manuscript of the Egyptian Book of the Dead. Recently I have read that my conclusion has been confirmed by reputable scholars. Hugh Nibley is a fascinating individual. He had to be intelligent and learned enough to know that the Mormon faith is built on very shaky foundations, but he continued to at least pretend to believe in it. Reading him was like reading a rebuttal by a brilliant mathematician of the multiplications tables.
It was not until many years later that I read The Book of Mormon in its entirety.
All mormons are expected to adhere to certain modesty standards. Missionaries especially are required to pretty much conform to the standard mormon missionary “uniform” which is long dress pants, a white shirt, and a tie.
Mixing the long pants with the short sleeves is probably about the only thing they can do to dress for warm weather. Not allowed to wear shorts or t-shirts or anything like that.
Female missionaries wear skirts or dresses (in non flashy colors, nothing tight, sheer, or well-fitting) and hems should always be below the knees.
Even on their days off, missionaries are still expected to meet certain standards of modesty in dress. BYU students also enjoy a rather strict dress code.
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The Smithsonian Institution has never used the Book of Mormon in any way as a scientific guide. Smithsonian archeologists see no direct connection between the archeology of the New World and the subject matter of the book.
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The physical type of the American Indian is basically Mongoloid, being most closely related to that of the peoples of eastern, central, and northeastern Asia. Archeological evidence indicates that the ancestors of the present Indians came into the New World–probably over a land bridge known to have existed in the Bering Strait region during the last Ice Age–in a continuing series of small migrations beginning from about 25,000 to 30,000 years ago.
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Present evidence indicates that the first people to reach this continent from the East were the Norsemen who briefly visited the northeastern part of North America around A.D. 1000 and then settled in Greenland. There is nothing to show that they reached Mexico or Central America.
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One of the main lines of evidence supporting the scientific finding that contacts with Old World civilizations, if indeed they occurred at all, were of very little significance for the development of American Indian civilizations, is the fact that none of the principal Old World domesticated food plants or animals (except the dog) occurred in the New World in pre-Columbian times. American Indians had no wheat, barley, oats, millet, rice, cattle, pigs, chickens, horses, donkeys, camels before 1492. (Camels and horses were in the Americas, along with the bison, mammoth, and mastodon, but all these animals became extinct around 10,000 B.C. at the time when the early big game hunters spread across the Americas.)
SIL-76
1988
Shorts are much more practical if you’re going to go everywhere by bicycle . . . Is any reason given for that? Why are Mormon missionaries always on bicycles?
Funds are limited and in urban areas where practical, some pair sets of missionaries will be issued bikes and others will be issued a mission-owned car. If the mishies get a car, they are restricted to certain geographical areas and are allotted only so many miles per month. The mission pays for gas and repairs. In general, it’s less expensive to maintain a bicycle for a missionary than a car.
Well… we had to buy our bikes. But that was 20 years ago. It may be that bikes are issued now, but I suspect the missionaries still purchase their own.
And given the tight budget, even in areas with cars, it is not unusual to ride bikes to save on gas. A lot of areas can have a rural/urban mix. Where we had cars, we usually rode the bikes to anything within 5-10 miles and saved the miles/gas for more distant investigators or bad weather days.
Yes but they aren’t allowed. And I could give two reasons for that:
1- The temple garments (otherwise known as the “special mormon underwear”) goes to the knee. These are to be worn in such a fashion that the temple garment does not show. This is a standard that all members are supposed to adhere to, if they have been to the temple. This eliminates almost all men’s styles of shorts as very few hang below the knee and above the waist at the same time.
2- The missionary Dress and Grooming Guidelines (warning PDF) don’t allow shorts.
Thanks for the correction. I had no idea missionaries were expected to provide their own bikes. Do you buy them in the mission field or do you have to pay to have them shipped from home (and presumably from one mission assignment to the next). Come to think of it, how are missionary moves handled? Does the Church pay for a U-Haul or is the Ward Mission Leader responsible for getting members to help move the mishies? What’s the SD on that, RMs?
It’s difficult to define “sounding Biblical” precisely. So far, the BoM sounds like what someone with a deep familiarity with the King James version of the Bible would think is stylistically appropriate. Lots of “it came to pass” and so-and-so “did smite them” and so on. I don’t know why a translation of “Reformed Egyptian” would come out like that rather than something more like nineteenth century American English, but perhaps Moroni intended it that way.
Regards,
Shodan
Nope. I briefly dated a young woman who was a Mormon and who tried to convert me. I did read the Book of Mormon at the time, though I confess to skimming the boring parts. It is among the least convincing of phony prophecies I have ever read. I could list minor problems all day. (Why does it say that Zedekiah was king in 600 B.C. when he didn’t become king until 597 B.C.? How did Nephi and his family camp by a river on the eastern shore of the Red Sea when no such river exists?) But the major point is just that it’s painfully obvious that all the theology, history, and physical detail matches up exactly with what you’d expect a con-man from upstate NY in the 1820’s to produce if he had only a KJV and perhaps a tiny bit of knowledge from other sources. Other facts, such as that Joseph Smith actually was a professoinal con artist, that he copied some of his revelations word-for-word from other would-be prophets in the same area, and that the church has been constantly chaning both the Book of Mormon and the temple ceremonies and other stuff, are good to know, but not necessary to dismiss the whole thing as a fraud.
I thought that was Rapunzel with the golden plaits.