Benjamin Brooks > Recent Status Updates

In my divorced era😤

Guys I did it.

Only 31 more pages left for this week😭 why did no one warn me how much reading seminary was? (Literally every person I know who’s been to seminary said it’s a ton of reading)

Super easy to read. So far it’s covered a lot of history and important figures while being easily digestible and entertaining.

There’s literally too much wrong with this book to write it all down every chapter. I get frustrated reading this. And then I get really sad. Pray for the lost.

Nephi’s been having this vision of the “promised land” and “heaven” and the tree of life that’s definitely not the tree of life. Smith quotes and obscures a lot of NT and is vague in all the important parts and specific when he has the info.

1 Nephi 7
Yellow: vv 1-2, 22

Oh boy (there’s only 6 verses in this chapter, making 66% of this chapter erroneous)
Yellow: vv 1, 3, 6
Red: v 2

New color! Amazingly I am now also highlighting in blue, which is something that’s actually true.

1 Nephi 5
Blue: v 2
Yellow: vv 6, 9, 12-13
Red: vv 19-20

This has been good so far but I feel like this is mostly either intuitive or I learned through the internship, definitely recommend to any first year interns though.

1Ne4
This one has a few theological uh oh’s so let’s break it down. I’ll start using yellow and red to organize. Yellow is anything that’s weird, suspicious, or interesting enough to mention. Red is anything theologically, historically, or narratively incorrect outright.
Yellow: vv 11-12, 14
Red: vv 2,16, 18-21

1Ne.3
Not much here, but it is interesting that a genealogy would be recorded on brass plates instead of passed down orally or written down with a paper equivalent. I’m curious why brass?

v17 “he knew that Jerusalem must be destroyed” Jeremiah is the contemporary prophet to 1 Nephi so people would certainly be hearing his prophesies of Babylon.

1Ne.2
“now this he speak because of the stiffneckedness… for behold, they did murmur and many things against their father”
Interesting how the second chapter of the whole book introduces that there is doubt for this religion, and that there is severe punishment for doubting this religion. Almost as if that is a manipulation tactic that cult leaders will use to bolster fake authenticity.

1 Ne. 1
v2 “in the language of my father, which consists of the learning of the Jews and the language of the Egyptians.”
What I was able to find was that this is called reformed Egyptian. What I wasn’t able to find was any other source using this language besides something Joseph Smith wrote down, which is not even enough to be able to decipher an entire language. This book isn’t verifiable.

Illustrations:
No.

Brief explanation:
“abridgment by Mormon… with many commentaries.”
“abridged by Moroni, who inserted comments of his own…”
Again, this book is just admitting that it is full of idiosyncrasies that you must believe blindly. It is a poor source academically, and spiritually. I’m not even on page one yet.

Smith’s testimony:
“But his whole person was glorious beyond description” nothing in the entirety of the Bible has been beyond description, including God (Dan. 7:9-10; Rev. 4:2-6) but ok.

Really interested to see how the Urim and Thummim get to America, and how it can be concluded they were used for translating anything (Ex. 28:30; Lev. 8:8 being the only mentions of it in the Bible).

Witness testimonies:
These people testify to seeing the gold plates, but doing some quick research, I can’t find any original copies. Don’t know the history behind the actual plates or where they’re supposed to be, but why are there no original copies? There’s no way to verify translation or accuracy, let alone authenticity.

Intro:
“ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ among the Nephites soon after his resurrection.” Jesus was among Jews for 40 days (Acts 1:3) then ascended to Heaven (1:9). Immediately after, angels said to the apostles that He would return in the same way (v10-11), and all people will witness (1 Cor. 51-51, 1 Thes. 4:16; Rev 1:7). He could not have gone somewhere after ascending without everyone knowing of his return.

Ok so first off title: “The Book of Mormon, **Another ** Testament of Jesus Christ”

Right so before reading at all we’ve got some theological uh oh’s. The Bible is very clear that there is not another testament of Jesus Christ
- Galatians 1:6-9

Got this from some Mormons that came to my door. This will be interesting. So yeah I’m gonna write down my thoughts and notes here and this is for me so not super up for arguing in a comments section, but would love to talk to people if they actually want to discuss.
I’m going to update chapter by chapter probably. Here we go!