Click to Listen: Episode 18: Jacob 7-Enos-Jarom
A false prophet makes his way into the Nephite camp, but Jacob makes quick work of him. Then we hear about Jacob’s son and grandson as they continue to try and cure that terrible stiffneck disease.
“Drink” Count – 24
4 Beers
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My Book of Mormon 
June 19, 2014 at 9:14 pm
Sherem: the first syllable is pronounced like “share” (but yeah, you won’t hear about him again because he was a useless apostate)
Enos: like penis without the p. Yes, many, many jokes are made by young boys in the Mormon church about this. I had a friend who was in primary (children’s class in church) with his 5 year old nephew, and the teacher asked, “What was the name of the man who wrestled with God?” The nephew raised his hand really fast, got called on, and blurted out “PENIS!” in all seriousness. That’s just what he thought it was.
I think you got the rest of the pronunciations right.
Also, no Mormon ever says “in fee-nay” for “in fine”. Whether or not it’s Latin, we all say it like it looks.
The “battle chapters” are still a ways off – the back half of Alma primarily (Alma is huge). There’s some good treats in there.
June 20, 2014 at 3:38 am
“and an hundred and seventy and nine years had passed away”
You said you didn’t want to do the math, but fortunately, some of us (the “cool kids” as I call us) like to do math. 🙂
This huge time span between the birth of one person and the death of another person just one generation removed was one of those red flags I spotted as a first time reader in my teenage years, but since I really, really wanted the claims of the church to be true, I denied the implausibility of it for a while. But to do that, it was time to do the math, and prove the Book of Mormon could be true!
Jacob would have been born between 600 BC and 590 BC, apparently, from what Nephi says. The year of Jacob’s death is not hinted at. Likewise, we don’t know when Enos was born, but he would have died no earlier than 420 BC, as he says here. Let’s assume he did die that very year, and we’ll give Jacob the benefit of the doubt, and assume, for plausibility’s sake that he was born as late as possible, 590 BC. That’s 170 years.
So, what scenario is possible? (Besides “this is all made up”, of course.) Well, we could have Jacob die at age 90 in 500 BC, and for consistency, we’ll have Enos live to age 90 as well, meaning he would have been born in 510 BC. 90 years old is very old, especially for olden times, but it’s possible. That would make Enos 10 years old when Jacob died. This is old enough (barely) to have received some instruction from Jacob, not only in the pleasing gospel of Sweet Jesus, but in advanced metal engraving as well, no doubt.
And of course, this means Jacob must have taken a young wife in his old age, barring any miraculous, old-lady-giving-birth narratives like Abraham and Sarah had in the book of Genesis (and which this narrative failed to mention, if such a thing happened.) Let’s hope any previous wife had already passed away, since God had told Jacob and the Nephites “No polygamy for you!” earlier on.
We could assume a slightly older Enos at the death of Jacob, but move his birth year back any further (or Jacob’s death forward any further), and we’re starting to deal with even crazier improbabilities.
Yes, these were actual mental gymnastics done by younger me in order to deny that my brain was telling me, “This book is BS.”
June 29, 2014 at 10:54 pm
Can’t believe no one else pointed this out yet, the word “adieu” (French for farewell) didn’t enter common usage in the French language until the late 14th century.
June 30, 2014 at 7:09 pm
Hahaha! Nope, you’re the first to point that out. Funny stuff.
August 27, 2014 at 12:00 pm
Remember.. Joseph Smith was translating this from the power of God… Who apparently is French…
December 15, 2014 at 5:59 am
Why stop at pointing out at “adieu”? The Book of Mormon is filled with hundreds of pages of English words which weren’t around in ancient times either! What a fraud!
(Sigh) There are lots of reasons to criticize the Book of Mormon (steel, horses, Tower of Babel). But the presence of one French word in text that purports to be a translation is not one of them. If Joseph could translate hundreds of pages into English, he could translate one word into French. Of the widespread criticisms, “Adieu” is one of the weakest.
March 3, 2015 at 4:26 pm
I got to open up a little bit. For my background, I’m a former active mormon, now almost a decade unactive and very critical towards the Book of Mormon and it’s claimed origin. It’s clear as day it is product of 19th century for a multitudes of reasons.
I’ve listened patiently so far since the beginning of the podcast to this episode. The problem I have with your way of reading the Book of Mormon is that you don’t even try to see any of the good sides of the book. There really are some beautiful pieces of text in it and you just continue to hammer it through with the mind set that every single thing that you can find to criticize, no matter how small or stupid. It’s kind of frustrating to listen every now and then.
Even though it’s a work of fiction, it really has some beautiful parts in it. I hope as I continue to listen to this that you begin to realize it 🙂
-Sami
MyMo from Kotka, Finland \o/