Apologetics: Monthly Mormon Monday – My Initial Thoughts.

Will this be an actual series?

Maybe…but we’ll see how it goes. Overall, I just like aliteration.

But, on to the actual topic of this post, I started reading The Book of Mormon recently, something that needs no introduction whatsoever. It’s simply one reason why people in suits appear at your door while you pretend that you’re not home. The options are members of some other group want to get you involved or the FBI really wants to talk to you. So, here are my thoughts thus far.

The version of The Book of Mormon that I got was the cheapest one I could find on Amazon, and I legitimately hope that the reason why it’s so cheap is because someone couldn’t be bothered to correct grammar or format things properly. I say that because, as is, reading my version of The Book of Mormon makes the Quran look like a clear and well-written book.

And you guys – if you keep up with Flippin’ Fatwa Friday – know how poorly written the Quran is. So, if I’m saying that something makes the Quran look well-written, you know it’s bad. I don’t know what happened to Satan’s writing ability, but if my copy of The Book of Mormon is how the other copies are, apparently something happened in the time between Satan getting Muhammad to write the Quran and getting Joseph Smith to write The Book of Mormon and his writing skill depreciated drastically.

Add on the fact that so far in my read, it’s written like a 12-year-old’s self-insert fanfic where the main character has the personality of a cardboard box and is super overpowered for no reason, and is written using a crude imitation of the King James Bible, but keeps all the same grammatical foibles that are to be expected in fanfiction, and it becomes barely readable.

Like I said, I really hope this is just reflective of my copy of The Book of Mormon because if every copy is like this, I pity the Mormons even more.

But roasting the poor writing skill of Joe Smith aside, we need to get to the actual meat of The Book of Mormon.

So far, I’m only a few chapters into 1 Nephi, which is the first book in The Book of Mormon and already, I have run into a small problem for Mormonism.

Basically, for those of you who don’t know, in Mormonism, they believe that this guy, Lehi, during the time of King Zedekiah, decided to move his family from Jerusalem, down through Sinai, down the coast of Arabia, and into what I’ll assume is modern-day Yemen. From there, they decided to build a boat which they then sailed to the Americas, where they settled in approximately 589 BC.

Do you see the problem here?

Lehi, in all his wisdom took what is possibly the worst scenic route to America that anyone could come up with. Instead of going somewhere along the coast of the Mediterranean where he could get plenty of supplies and support and have somewhat of a straight shot to America if he knew what he was doing, he launched from Yemen.

That leaves two possible routes. First, he could sail along the east coast of Africa and around Cape Horn. This route would mean that he could, in theory, get some food and drinking water for the trip. But once Lehi hit Cape Horn, he would be in for a rough time since the water is notoriously cold and choppy through there. If he managed to navigate that, he would then be royally screwed once he got to the Atlantic.

Remember, too, no one knew the Americas existed yet. He would have had no idea where he was going, which probably would’ve added extra time to his voyage and everyone would’ve died from starvation or dehydration.

On the flip side of that, he could’ve gone through the Indian Ocean to the Pacific, but there’s problems with that as well. First, the question must be asked why he didn’t hit and settle in India, the Indonesian Islands, literally anywhere in Indochina, Australia, or somewhere in Polynesia. Second, if he, for whatever stupid reason didn’t decide to settle in any of those places, crossing the Pacific would have also meant near certain death for Lehi and his family.

[Author’s Note: That’s also not mentioning how ancient boats were not built for voyages around the world. They were built for shorter trips, usually in the Mediterranean region. It could still, in theory, be done, (i.e. the Kon Tiki expedition) but I have some doubts.]

And even worse for this is that if they did manage to survive, they must not have done anything too extraordinary because we have no archaeological records of any Semitic tribe reaching the Americas, much less possibly being the early ancestors of Native American tribes. We especially don’t have any record of them ever forming some sort of civilization anywhere in the Americas, be it from archaeological evidence, DNA from native tribes, or tribal stories.

Moving on from that however, right off the bat, The Book of Mormon sets up the doctrine that Mary was naturally impregnated by God and that’s how she conceived Jesus, though they still want you to believe in the virgin birth somehow. It also really hates the Catholic church for some reason (which apparently was a common hatred in America during the 1800s) and twists Scripture to try to say that they’re the real Israel and God’s gift to the world.

Or, at least, that’s what I got from what I could understand of that passage since it’s one convoluted, continuous thought that’s hard to read. Like I said, The Book of Mormon reads like a self-insert fanfic from a religious 12-year-old.

Overall, would I encourage Christians to read The Book of Mormon so far?

No. Absolutely not.

This isn’t even because not everyone is called to witness to Mormons, or even because I care for your sanity as you try to get through pretentious English with poor grammar. The reason why I don’t recommend every Christian read The Book of Mormon is because if you are not familiar with your Bible, you may very easily be deceived. It’s not like the Quran where the evil is overt. The Book of Mormon takes a lot of Biblical passages and doctrines and subtly twists them to make Mormonism look legit. Thus, if you don’t have your Bible on you to help weed through the heresy, you can become bogged down in the mire.

Until next time,

M.J.