Episode 159: D&C 59 – Sections 81, 82, 83
July 29, 2017 eveningish, meet up with us at Squatter’s Pub in Salt Lake City. We’ll probably record a live episode and would love to have you there!!
Jesse Gause is called to be a high counselor to Joseph Smith in his very own revelation, except then history is rewritten to make it be a revelation for Frederick G Williams. Joseph’s inner circle is back, now with nicknames! Everyone is exceedingly sinful/steadfastly good. Go get more converts, especially ones with money. Zion needs to pretty itself up. It’s the episode where Marie and Bryce rant about the
Prosperity Doctrine.
Check out the Symonds Ryder name-spelling controversy here.
Jim and Tammy Bakker were televangelists back in the late 1980’s.
Lwaxana Troi is a character in Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
Drink count – 16, or about two and a half beers
Read along with us at http://joelakuhn.com/dc-compare/
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Drop me a line at comments@mybookofmormonpodcast.com
Podcastriarchal blessing: Laurel K.
Podcastriarchal music is Our Happy Life by Maps and Transit, edited for length
My Book of Mormon 
May 20, 2017 at 4:59 pm
Where to begin… let’s start with 82:7, a verse that has an insidious message that is easy to miss. The first part of the verse is a paraphrase of John 8:11 (The Woman Caught in Adultery) “And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.” But it’s the next phrase, “but unto that soul who sinneth shall the former sins return” that’s the problem.
Basically, you can repent of whatever sin you may have committed, but if you slip up and do it again, the ‘forgiveness’ for all the earlier commissions goes away! You are never truly forgiven; you are only in a ‘state of forgiveness’ contingent on never committing that sin again. I don’t think that’s quite what Jesus was implying. Talk about the short path to stress and guilt! :O
I hated this concept growing up in the church. As a teenager, I would sometimes say a ‘bad’ word instead of using one of the Utah-approved substitutes: “flip,” “fetch” or the omnipresent (and still cringe-inducing to my ears) “Oh my heck!” (Utah Mormon teen slang of the 1980’s is a fascinating subject in and of itself: e.g the use of “ignorant” – pronounced “ig-nurnt” – to mean “rude.” But I digress…)
So when I inevitably slipped up and “swore” (technically, “cursed”) again, according to this verse I didn’t just have to repent of that instance, but of every instance in the past – again. So it was also the short path to discouragement and giving up – why bother repenting if your effort goes for naught? F@#% it.
Now, Code Names! 😀
These were always presented in Sunday School as being necessary to protect the identities of Joseph et.al. due to the persecution of Mormons occurring at the time. However, this was a bit of convenient reinterpretation: protection was desired, yes, but not from persecution, from lawsuits. They wanted to avoid the published revelations dealing with the organization of the United Firm from being used as evidence that the Firm was a company in a legal sense with its organizers having financial liability, rather than an exempt religious organization. Kinda takes some of the fun out of it. 😦
Oh, and Marie, for my whole life I always pronounced “Shinehah” like you: shin-e-hah. The word comes from Abraham 3:13 and is supposedly the name for the sun in the Adamic language (i.e. the ‘pure’ language spoken by Adam and Eve, a concept that is present in Dante’s Divine Comedy, interestingly enough.) It was only a couple years ago, after noting Joseph’s propensity for adding the suffix -hah to words and names to make them sound ‘foreign’ or ‘ancient’, that it struck me that it was pronounced “SHINE-hah.” The Sun = Shine-hah. *facepalm*
(Similarly, I recall in an early Mormon diary – wish I could remember whose right now – seeing Adam-Ondi-Ahman spelled “Adam-on-Diamond” just like an English place name… oh. *facepalm*)
Finally, Symonds Ryder–
For me, this story falls into the same category as the Thomas B. Marsh “Milk Strippings” story (which I won’t spoil here – pun intended 😉 ) in that an actual incident is being used to ridicule and vilify someone without revealing the real reason for the antagonism.
Ezra Booth, after having to walk back to Ohio after the infamous ‘canoe-tipping/Destroying Angel’ incident, was now convinced that Joseph was not a prophet. He used Symond’s displeasure at the misspelling of his name to convince Ryder of the same. After Ryder left Mormonism, he went back to Campbellism, becoming a pastor of a Disciple congregation (possibly even one of the congregations established by Sidney Rigdon himself just a few years earlier – I need to see if I can find that out for sure).
Hiram, Ohio, was a stronghold of the Disciple church, and the Mormons were having much success ‘poaching’ their membership. This, I believe, was the main driving force behind Ryder’s efforts to discredit Joseph and Mormonism, and unfortunately this also lead to his involvement in the tarring and feathering of Joseph and Sidney on March 24, 1832.
The multiple reasons for that event is an essay in and of itself, but the important thing to remember is that in ‘official’ Mormon history anyone who opposed the church, regardless of how legitimate their reasons or questions may have been, is recast as “wicked,” “weak” or “foolish” (I’d give a list, but there would be WAY too many spoilers!).
Thanks for the shout-out – MoNerds Unite! 🙂
May 20, 2017 at 5:02 pm
May 22, 2017 at 5:49 pm
lol danging Gottfried you beat me to the Sunshine joke…
That thing SHATTERED my illusion when I realized that one…
May 20, 2017 at 6:05 pm
Well, a little digging allows me to make this clarification–
Symonds Ryder was baptized a Disciple of Christ (i.e. Campbellite) in 1828. He was the first person in Hiram, Ohio, to do so and established the congregation there. Excepting his brief venture into Mormonism, he was the Elder (pastor) of that congregation for 33 years until 1852. After he rejected Mormonism, saying it was “a plot…to take their property from them and place it under the control of Joseph Smith the prophet,” he he returned to his congregation asking forgiveness, which they gave and returned him to his position in the pulpit. He was revered as “Father Ryder” by Disciples in the region up to and even after his death in 1870.
See: A.S. Hayden, “Early history of the Disciples in the Western Reserve, Ohio.” 1875, Cincinnati. Online at https://archive.org/details/earlyhistoryofdi00hayd
May 20, 2017 at 9:05 pm
Sweet zombie jesus, this is fascinating. I get such a kick out of it that you know so much about all this, and can bring up the appropriate citations so quickly. I want ur brain, man.
May 22, 2017 at 5:48 pm
So guys… We joke about Kirtland being Shinehah… but guess what? THAT WORD is one that sent me away from the church.
Check this out… EVERY time the suffix “-hah” is used in the Book of Mormon… Moronihah, son of Moroni… Ammonihah, son of Ammon… Mathonihah, son of Mathoni… Nephihah, son of Nephi.
See the pattern? This is very common in many languages… like Johnson, Smithson, Jensen, Anderson…
But then Joseph goes and uses this faux-egyptian suffix for “son” in a different context..
Abraham 3:13
“And he said unto me: This is Shinehah, which is the sun.”
I’m sitting there ON MY MISSION (In Nashville) and I read this…and I say “OH! I know that Mormon word! It means son!”
Wait… The Sun is called Shinehah?
The Sun is called… Son… Shine…?
SUNSHINE?!?
There’s no chance this word play works in any other language but English…
Are we just making this shit up??
Apparently.. yeah.
May 22, 2017 at 5:48 pm
Well, maybe not away from the church entirely, but it was one of the things that shattered the illusion
May 26, 2017 at 4:05 am
D&C 82 has at least three doctrinally important verses that get frequent attention.
Gottfried already covered verse 7, which lays out that you’re only under grace until you sin again, then you once again become fully accountable for every sin you’ve ever committed, so you have to constantly be repenting, every single day, basically. I don’t know if this is the single most important verse in describing the Mormon experience, but it could be.
Verse 3 you guys fittingly described in terms of Spider-Man, and that’s about right. God doesn’t expect much from all those never-mo Gentiles, but once you’re baptized and in the know, you’ve got responsibilities. That’s why the harshest afterlife is reserved only for the worst apostates.
Lastly, let’s mention verse 10, in which God binds himself to fulfill his promises… if we do what he says. If we don’t do what he says, he’s off the hook. This is the ultimate doctrinal support for the concept we’ve brought up time and time again already, that if you don’t get a blessing that the scriptures say you’ve got coming to you, it’s only because you did something wrong.