Why Do I Care?

If you can’t tell, I’ve been very frustrated lately with this aspect of my life. I’m annoyed particularly at Nephi, whether that’s fair or not. As stated in my BoM typos post, I don’t think the BoM is particularly well written and if that’s true, that is either the fault of the writers or the translators.

What really gets me is on the one hand, Nephi and Moroni talk about how bad they are at writing things compared to how well they can say things in person (fine, you’re great speakers and bad writers), but on the other hand Nephi will say something like this:

But behold, I proceed with mine own prophecy, according to my plainness: in the which I know that no man can err.

So if you’re such bad writers, why do you then say you can write things so plainly? So plain, in fact, that no man can err. Really?? Are you seriously for real?

I can only assume Nephi thinks he’s being crystal clear about everything when he actually isn’t. Maybe there is some kind of writing pattern or thought structure or missing context to his words that to his culture is painfully obvious but to our culture and way of thinking, is anything but.

But then I wonder why not clean that up in the translation/interpretation of his words?

I’ve vented to my wife a few times recently and she was surprised at one point. “Wow…you’re angry, I can tell.” And yes, I am. I’ve spent quite a bit of time trying to unravel BoM prophecy. I have a pretty good reason for caring so much, which I will explain below.

A Dream of A Book

I had the following dream in Feb 2014:

I was sitting in a large storage room filled with all kinds of old and discarded things. Almost like an old garage or barn filled with things that had long been forgotten. I was given a book of sorts. It was in an odd case that was shaped something like this:

It was white. I lifted off the cover and inside were card-like papers with writing on them. I had difficulty discerning the writing. Not because of language, so much. I just had difficulty discerning the lettering at all. It reflected in a silvery print but I just couldn’t make it out. I picked up a card and as I struggled to discern it I saw the following:

A lion cub was in a field. He was approached by 3 offspring of a bull. They were haughty, these calves. The cub mingled with them and was friendly with them. He enjoyed their presence. After a time, there was a call of sorts. The Lion was coming! The calves of the bull left in a great hurry for they feared the Lion. The lion cub, however, felt no such fear and lay down in the grass to sleep. A voice announced that the Lion was coming and that if he detected the presence of his prey it would be dangerous for the cub. The Lion approached his cub and where a lion cub lay, the Lion, by smelling, discerned his prey, the bull. He was come to destroy his prey. He lifted his cub in his mouth. The cub protested. The Lion carried the cub to a great bull, the father of those who had mingled with his cub, and laid the cub at the bull’s feet. The bull raged! He reared up and stamped and dashed the cub. The Lion saw this and stood by to wait the appointed time to destroy his prey, the bull, but his time was not yet.

The vision closed and I again saw the book. I thumbed through several leafs/cards seeking to discover their meanings but could not. I found one at the very bottom of the stack that was folded over and clearly out of place. It had some writings of Isaiah and “2 Ne” with the number 27 in an upper corner of the page but I could discover nothing else. In the dream I knew I was supposed to place this leaf/card in its proper place in the stack but being unable to discern the other cards I knew at the moment it was impossible. Fearing I would put something else out of order, I determined I would wait until I could discern the writings. I placed the cards carefully back in their case and replaced the lid. I awoke.

I interpret the dream as a directive to understand or make sense of 2 Nephi chapter 27 and that doing so will unlock other knowledge. Over the years I have made many attempts to do so but have never felt satisfied by the end result.

Three years after having that dream, I was on vacation with my family in Florida. We were hunkered down waiting to see if hurricane Irma would force us to evacuate (it didn’t). Stuck inside, I was pretty bored, so when I saw an email come through from Daymon Smith’s blog about a new book, I decided to check it out. I clicked the link to Amazon and while reading the description laughed a mocking laugh. “This guy has apparently lost it,” I thought.

Despite myself, I clicked into the book preview and noticed this scripture quoted on one of the pre-intro pages:

And that is the one and only reason I didn’t simply delete his email. Here Daymon was clearly tying his new book to 2 Ne 27 so I found myself somewhat compelled to at least explore it. I seriously doubt I would have bothered had it not been for that dream and the Nephi quote posted as part of the free book preview.

So the dream is why I care so much about trying to understand that chapter of the BoM. And the pre-intro quote is why I try to fit it into this strange worldview that blends Mormonism with Tolkien’s fantasy-mythology. Realizing this week that a decade of effort has not paid off has me writing snarky image captions.

Of course, it could be that I am simply barking up the wrong tree by bringing Tolkien into this. After all, just because Daymon quoted that exact chapter doesn’t mean there is any connection to my dream.

It could also be that I have misinterpreted the dream in part or in full. Or that despite my best efforts I just have not yet made the right connections.

Regardless, now you know why I care and why I am so frustrated. I feel like it matters so I have tried pretty hard and despite all of that I have come up short. So now I’m venting while I keep trying. For some reason it feels good to tee off a little on Nephi or Moroni or the translation team. It makes them feel more human (to me anyway) if I can say “hey you guys could have done a much better job here just so you know”.

I doubt any of them would care one bit what I think, but if they did, maybe they would have something to say about me. At the very least, I hope they wouldn’t be mad about it.