\u201c\u2018Answers Will Come\u2019 shares how to cope with religious doubts, questions\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Last night, I picked the book up again and happened to notice on page 145 what the author, Shalissa Lindsay, calls \u201cOne parting thought . . .\u201d:<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Thank you for reading these pages.<\/span><\/p>\nPlease let errors or weaknesses in this book strengthen your testimony of the Prophet Joseph Smith.<\/span><\/p>\nI have eighteen years of formal schooling. \u00a0I have a laptop, word processing tools, an online thesaurus, and a digital gospel library. \u00a0I received helpful suggestions from a dozen people. \u00a0After every interruption or pause, I had to reread several paragraphs or pages to get back into the train of thought I had left. \u00a0And after all of that, I still had to rework most pages many times to improve the flow and resolve inconsistencies in mood, tone, or logic. \u00a0Writing this book took two years.<\/span><\/p>\nThe Book of Mormon is twelve times longer and infinitely more complex and profound than this book. \u00a0It involves hundreds of people, thousands of years of history, intricate Hebraic literary devices, powerful sermons, detailed foreshadowing, and complicated nuances of politics, economics, warfare, and human nature.<\/span><\/p>\nJoseph Smith had three years of formal schooling and no electronics. \u00a0His wife said he dictated from no reference materials and never asked to have the prior sentences read back to him, even after long interruptions. \u00a0He translated the Book of Mormon in about three months.<\/span><\/p>\nI testify that he did that by the power of God.<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
I think that Sister Lindsay makes a very important point here, and one well worth serious consideration. \u00a0The sheer existence of the Book of Mormon is remarkable. \u00a0That it came from such an unlettered and unbookish young man, that it was dictated so quickly, that (apart from the claimed golden plates) there was no preexisting text, that it is so complex \u2014 these facts are, in my judgment, extraordinarily difficult to explain away.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Some critics seem to think that all it took for Joseph Smith to dictate the Book of Mormon was a lively imagination. \u00a0But, overwhelmingly, the people who speak so casually of creating a book are people who have never seriously tried to write<\/em> a book. \u00a0Lengthy, complex volumes don\u2019t just \u201chappen.\u201d<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 \u00a0 Back 0n 30 March 2017, slightly more than two years ago, I published a column in the Deseret News about a book that I had just read and that I thought (and still think) some will find helpful: \u00a0 \u201c\u2018Answers Will Come\u2019 shares how to cope with religious doubts, questions\u201d \u00a0 Last night, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-72706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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<\/a>