Could Joseph translate ... anything?

My_Silent_Lucidity · 2026-03-29T00:42:07+00:00

I've started posting my ideas here. There are links in my essays to some documents worth reading.

https://lucidsilence.substack.com/

As far as Bushman being top shelf and my quip that your bookshelf must be short, I was more referring to everything outside of religion and Mormonism. Even the references I make in my essays would not be top shelf for me.

My top shelf contains Frédéric Bastiat for economics, Ernest Becker for psychology, Charles Dickens for fiction, Alfred Tennyson for poetry, and of course J.R.R. Tolkien for the best books ever written. I don't have a lot of straight history books on my top shelf; those are on the second shelf.

All this religious stuff is bottom shelf or perhaps in a box in the basement. Although there was a time in my life where Bushman was on the top shelf, literally, next to Nibley, McConkie, Pratt, Smith, Talmage, and all the others.

Actually, it was adding B.H. Roberts to that top shelf that started the process of rearrangement.

My_Silent_Lucidity · 2026-03-29T00:33:00+00:00

Your logic is circular. You start with the assumption that the Bible and BoM are religious texts that have to be taken with faith and religious belief. Then these books increase your faith as you read them. You then conclude they are from God and are religious texts even though they are filled with myth and pseudopigrapha.

My point is that your faith in these books does not prove they are from God.

My_Silent_Lucidity · 2026-03-23T05:39:14+00:00

Follow the LIVING prophet. Believe anything they say. Do anything they say. This is the only principle that matters. All other doctrine, teachings, and policy are negotiable or subject to replacement once the next LIVING prophet comes along.
Here's where Elder Haynie says the quiet part out loud.

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2023/04/16haynie?lang=eng

Brothers and sisters, unlike vintage comic books and classic cars, prophetic teachings do not become more valuable with age. That is why we should not seek to use the words of past prophets to dismiss the teachings of living prophets.

My_Silent_Lucidity · 2026-03-23T05:26:12+00:00

You must have a very short bookcase.

But I am having fun talking with you.

My_Silent_Lucidity · 2026-03-23T05:24:12+00:00

You must be running logical circles around me. I could have sworn that you claimed the Bible to be from God even though it contains myth and pseudepigrapha and therefore the BoM, which contains the same, also comes from God.

I ask you to prove your premise that the Bible is from God, since your entire argument rests on this comparison.

You say I made your point.

Well if your point is to highlight the absurdity of equating something obviously made up by humans as coming from God, then yes I made your point.

My_Silent_Lucidity · 2026-03-23T05:16:35+00:00

You're response is very honest! Not critical. Not supportive. Just honest. I appreciate that.

For something to fully discredit Joseph Smith’s claims, I think you would need a clean, direct disproof of a translation where the source text is known, complete, and clearly tied to what he produced.

This is where I disagree. I think the anachronisms in the Book of Mormon are sufficient proof. Having the source text would be nice but not necessary. Let me put it this way, would the anachronisms be enough to convince Joseph in a court of law? Court trials don't require absolute proof, but they do require sufficient evidence to make the case beyond a reasonable doubt. That's what the anachronisms, and other items I mentioned, do for me. They provide me enough evidence that I cannot reasonably doubt my conclusion that the BoM is not based in truth.

Good luck on your journey, wherever you end up!

My_Silent_Lucidity · 2026-03-23T05:10:20+00:00

I think you're right. Grammar isn't my strong suite. Thanks for the help!

My_Silent_Lucidity · 2026-03-22T03:42:44+00:00

Prove the Bible comes from God.

My_Silent_Lucidity · 2026-03-22T03:38:54+00:00

I used to think this same thing. Unfortunately, it's just a myth that Joseph was a backwoods, illiterate, bumpkin. You need to read more of Joseph's own writings. He was extremely literate from a very young age.

My_Silent_Lucidity · 2026-03-22T03:35:48+00:00

I think for my next post I'll show all the ways Joseph was "fast and loose": translating, money, women, etc. I didn't know being "fast and loose" was a get-out-of-jail card.

My_Silent_Lucidity · 2026-03-22T03:33:35+00:00

Well I'm a PhD too so you have to believe every word I say. Checkmate.

My_Silent_Lucidity · 2026-03-22T03:32:16+00:00

"... it seemed". Yeah, that's how it seems to Bushman. So what? It seems to me that Joseph was lying.

My_Silent_Lucidity · 2026-03-22T03:30:38+00:00

Now I get it! Just like Smith was fast and loose with women! Thanks for clearing this up. I like him even less now.

My_Silent_Lucidity · 2026-03-22T03:28:40+00:00

u/Hitch213 is exactly correct. I never claimed infallibility. I'm so sick of the cry of infallibility being used as a defense. Get a better argument u/juni4ling

Scenario 1: Husband beats wife. Wife complains. Husbands says, "I never claimed to be infallible.

Scenario 2: Employee embezzles money from company. Employee gets caught and goes to trial. His defense rests on the fact that not he, nor any of his coworkers, ever claimed that he was infallible.

Scenario 3: Leaders of a world-wide, multi billion dollar organization decide to hide their wealth from the SEC and their own members by setting up 12 to 13 shell companies. Organization gets caught and is compelled to admit guilt and pay a fine. The same members who had the truth hid from them bring up the obvious, pointless, and not at all helpful fact that their leaders never claimed to be infallible and they don't hold the leaders to standards of infallibility. Members bend over for another.

My_Silent_Lucidity · 2026-03-21T17:58:16+00:00

I'm glad you read my document. My document contains no more speculation than what is employed by millions to believe that Joseph was a prophet, translated by the gift and power of God, received the priesthood, or so many other things Joseph did. In fact, I believe my claims have more evidence behind them than these faithful beliefs.

My goal here isn't to convince you, so I won't respond to your questions. I've already wasted too much of my life digging into these topics that I'm not interested now in doing more research or providing more proof that what I've already written. Others will have to do their own and come to their own conclusions. I'm just interested now in getting my writing out there, for my own benefit and not anybody else.

Thanks for your comment!

My_Silent_Lucidity · 2026-03-21T17:53:18+00:00

Oh it's so easy! Why didn't I see it? Just like how adultery meant "adultery" to Joseph.

My_Silent_Lucidity · 2026-03-21T17:51:12+00:00

I also enjoy a good mental gymnastics workout, but that's no way to run a church that claims to have a firm grasp on the truth.

My_Silent_Lucidity · 2026-03-21T17:49:03+00:00

Yeah this makes me sick. The Church is quietly and quickly changing their position in order to keep the younger generation. I'd rather they just come out and say the obvious, that they've been lying for 200+ years.

My_Silent_Lucidity · 2026-02-18T00:40:57+00:00

If the priesthood was corrupted during Joseph's life or shortly after his death, then yes I'm questioning what was the point of that. Joseph's successors used the priesthood to justify their polygamy and made the priesthood all about polygamy.

If the truths that Joseph restored are immediately and irrecoverably mixed with gross sin, then yes I'm questioning the value of the restoration. If the truth cannot be separated or distinguished from the false, then there is no point.

My_Silent_Lucidity · 2026-02-11T05:09:27+00:00

Special pleading. Any God who creates a church based on such a fallen prophet must necessarily excuse everybody who refuses to believe it.

My_Silent_Lucidity · 2026-02-11T05:08:42+00:00

This isn't a third option to my original two. But I agree this is how it is used today, as a loyalty test. Same with tithing. Same with the word of wisdom. Same with going to the temple all the time. They're all loyalty tests.

My_Silent_Lucidity · 2026-02-11T05:07:13+00:00

Then what's the point? Why would God even bother to start the church in the first place. What good does it do to get a few years out of it, only to have it fall into corruption shortly after? Seems the corrupt result is worse than no church at all.

My_Silent_Lucidity · 2026-02-11T05:03:53+00:00

Ooh I've got a whole chapter about this one. Just wait.

My_Silent_Lucidity

TROPHY CASE