Click to Listen: Episode 84: Pricey Pearl 2 – Moses 4-5
First we learn that Satan had a waaaaay better plan for the Earth than Jesus ever did. Next, Adam and Eve eat the forbidden fruit, but upon reflection, did they really have a choice? Then Cain kills Abel, but again, can you blame him? Then all of humanity turns against God, what a shocker.
“Drink” Count – 6
1 measley beer
![1f37a[1]](https://mybookofmormonpodcast.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/1f37a11-e1405273035787.png)
I’ll see everyone in Salt Lake City on June 25!
My Book of Mormon 
June 15, 2015 at 6:24 pm
The more you learn about Mormon doctrine, the more you realize that Satan is the true hero and God just likes to screw people over and have his ego stroked.
June 20, 2015 at 11:13 pm
You genuinely think that Satan is the “true hero”? Why do you think this?
June 21, 2015 at 1:12 am
Think of it like this: Living under God’s plan is like living in 1984 or in North Korea. Satan means adversary. Lucifer means light bringer. It’s like he’s a revolutionary and the Dear Leader is waging a massive propaganda campaign to get us to ignore competing voices and come to him. Have you read Animal Farm? The regime will say anything to make the revolutionaries sound more dangerous than they really are, more powerful than they really are, and then they steer the public’s hysteria into compliance with whatever the Dear Leader’s will is. God’s plan is an authoritarian state. He is Big Brother. It is a celestial North Korea.
June 21, 2015 at 11:13 pm
It’s been interesting to me to learn how other people think regarding certain aspects of life. I was born into the Catholic church and attended many different churches as a child, so I have knowledge of different religions and beliefs. I live in a very diverse area and have come across many different opinions on many things in day-to-day life. Yes, I know that there are some that think that God is on some type of power trip, but I know he’s not. As a mother I can tell you that that greatest thing that I ever created was a child, and yet I truly did very little to make a body for a soul. He lets us take credit for so much when, in truth, we did it with training wheels on and almost all of the work coming from Him. I know that even though I didn’t have the brain to create the Golden Gate Bridge or how to comprehend most mathematical theorems, He loves and values me. I love Him because He lets us think whatever we want to think, sends people to help us, yet lets us decide what we want to do. I wish I could be like him more. Do you know what it’s like to give birth to a child and see your child become addicted to alcohol? I do. I can understand a little how He must feel to let us choose. But he even lets us choose to despise Him if that is what we want, and I could never look at a person like that with anything other than immense admiration. The patience, love, and self-control that must take is something that I desire to emulate in my own life. He is my father and I love Him.
June 22, 2015 at 4:40 pm
Ellie, as a parent, I agree that the best thing you can do for your kids is to love them, teach them, give them guidance, and then let them make their own decisions (even when we disagree with some of those decisions). The difference between a ‘good’ human parent and looking at god as a parental figure is that no good parent would EVER create an environment to torture their children for the decisions they made. God did (Pearl of Great Price, Book of Moses 6:29). Could you imagine willfully sending your child somewhere to be tortured? Even if it was just for a ‘short’ punishment, it would be unthinkable. Not only did the god of your admiration do that, but he created it in a way that there can be no escape, and it is eternal. In my opinion, no being that does that is worthy of admiration or respect; and certainly does not deserve the title of ‘Father’.
June 15, 2015 at 7:24 pm
When you deal with eternity, the simple fact that the tree was there made it impossible for Adam and Eve to not eat the apple. When a billion years turn into the equivallent of a nano second there would probably even be a point where Adam would forget God’s order, see a fruit he hasn’t tasted yet and go for it. Obviously after having composed every music in existance and after writing every book ever written.
June 16, 2015 at 1:58 am
MASTER MAHAN –– what does it mean?
I don’t know. But it is a continuation of the “secret combinations” trope from the Book of Mormon.
Remember the Gadianton Robbers in Helaman 6:26-27?
“26 Now behold, those secret oaths and covenants did not come forth unto Gadianton from the records which were delivered unto Helaman; but behold, they were put into the heart of Gadianton by that same being who did entice our first parents to partake of the forbidden fruit—
27 Yea, that same being who did plot with Cain, that if he would murder his brother Abel it should not be known unto the world. And he did plot with Cain and his followers from that time forth.”
What you are seeing here in Moses chapter 5 is the further fleshing out of ideas that Joseph Smith had experimented with in his earlier works.
I’m going to try hard to explain what the Book of Moses is based just on what you have read so far. On the introduction page which you read, it says “Selections from the Book of Moses. An extract from the book of Genesis of Joseph Smith’s Translation of the bible, which he began in June 1830.”
No, he was not looking at the Greek or the Hebrew and actually translating them. He was studying a King James Bible and literally adding whatever he thought it was missing. TBMs do believe, however, that this process was inspired and is as good as scripture. In fact, the Book of Moses, apparently, according to Smith, is what the corresponding chapters in Genesis in the Bible originally said.
This is the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible, or JST for short. Occasionally you will look down in the notes at the bottom of the page and see a scripture reference with “JST” written beside it. That is a reference to Joseph Smith’s new and improved version of the Bible, often called the Inspired Version. Most verses of this Bible are just minor variations of the King James Version that can be included in the footnotes of the LDS edition of the KJV Bible or tucked in an appendix in the back. The Book of Moses, however, and one other work in the Pricey Pearl that well will get to in its time 🙂 were large enough to stick in Mormonism’s fourth ‘standard work,” which really is power-combo of miscellanity, a catchall for important Mormon texts that we don’t know where else to stick.
And these texts are important, even if they seem redundant. For example, chapter 5 of Moses describes the gospel of Jesus Christ being preached since Adam. Mormons consider this a revelation of earth-shattering proportions. They do believe that Adam was the first man, literally. The gospel was taught to Adam, and it was promised to him that it would be on the earth to stay until the end of time –– revealed religion is always the gospel of Jesus Christ, and not just the gospel but the version of it according to Joseph Smith. This is the significance of Smith to Mormons today –– it was through him that the Lord “brought to pass much restoration unto the house of Israel” (2 Nephi 3:24). He is often called the Prophet of the Restoration, and boy oh boy did he receive all sorts of tasty revelations from God in a myriad of different ways.
The following chapters should pick up the pace quite nicely, but I’ll end my comments there.
June 16, 2015 at 2:53 am
Master Mahan = Master Mason?
June 16, 2015 at 3:09 pm
Listening to this, something dawned on me. God hates himself. Eating from the Tree of Knowledge gave Adam and Eve “like God” and he punished them for it. He doesn’t want people like him, (who lie, murder, and control), in heaven, he wants unquestioning sheep to tell him he’s pretty for eternity. Followers are considered his “flock,” his first ever commandment was to worship him, the first three commandments given to Moses were to worship him. He just wants droves of people stroking his ego forever. People who kill once are forever punished, yet he killed millions. He’s the king of the mountain.
June 16, 2015 at 10:14 pm
These chapters give rise to LDS urban legends out Cain. Some Mormon’s speculate that Cain became bigfoot because off his curse to be never be killed and to be a vagabond. There are also stories told by missionaries that Cain lives beneath the Vatican and influences the leaders of the Catholic church.
July 1, 2015 at 2:06 pm
This is the kind of thing I cone to his blog for.
Also that would make a great comic book.
August 18, 2015 at 11:13 pm
They already exist in comic book form through LDS friendly sources. They’re aimed entirely at young children and selectively omit some uncomfortable points. The PoGP (Pricey Pearl) is entirely omitted from being made into a comic book format.
https://www.lds.org/children/videos/scripture-stories?lang=eng
June 19, 2015 at 12:45 pm
I had to laugh when you said that we beat God’s curse because of epidurals. When effective anaesthetics were discovered, people were against giving them to women going through childbirth because it was “defying God” and women were supposed to suffer through birth.
June 22, 2015 at 1:44 am
I hope David is reading from a book and not online/Kindle… otherwise he will miss the best (and most controversial) part of the entire book in the upcoming pages…
June 29, 2015 at 5:53 pm
Kent is right. Master Mahan does equal Master Mason. And “secret combinations” does refer to Free Masonry. That was the common term used for it in the USA among the anti-Masonic movement at the time of Joseph Smith. He, his father and brother were Masons. Two months after becoming a Mason Joseph came out with the temple ceremony which mimics much of the masonic rites and symbols including the handshakes, tokens, penalties, square, compass, temple garment symbols, etc.. He became an enemy of his Masonic lodge because of this. He gave a Masonic cry for help when shot at the Liberty Jail (after shooting and killing two people himself).