Aaaand it came to pass in that seventh year since the coming of the Nephites to the land of their inheritance, in the third month of that year, on the first day of that month, that the people of the land of the chief judges of the people of the Lord God Almighty, ruler of all, did gather together for a great and mighty purpose, yea and I will tell you the mighty purpose for which they did meet. And the purpose was not known among all the people of any other land. But it was known by the people of the Lord. And all knew it who were righteous. Yea, all who could be numbered among the people of Nephi. And they knew it was for the sake of fasting and prayer before the Lord God Almighty for the purpose of greater understanding of his ways. Yea the ways of God Eternal. And this was the reason for the gathering. And they all knew it and did bare record.
Aaand it came to pass...
...vs...
The Nephites then gathered to fast and pray for understanding.
xwre ยท 10 points ยท Posted at 15:52:51 on February 21, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
Joe needed time to remember the next story arc. Needed to stall long enough for a dinner break and the opportunity to check his notes.
hyrle ยท 5 points ยท Posted at 18:58:24 on February 21, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
Moses: Yep, that's what he did for me too. I didn't even have to draw funeral pictures like Abraham.
Abraham: Those pics weren't mine. It was some Egyptian person. I'm a Jew, yo.
Moses: My bad.
Jacob: You both suck.
Matthew: At least he didn't re-write some of your best work because it directly contradicted what you taught. I mean chapter 24 was totally my best stuff and he straight up rewrote my shit.
Jacob: That's okay, God also told him something different than God told me in chapter 2.
Abraham: Yeah well that God guy told me to kill my son Isaac and then when I was about to, he was like "Sike!". He's such a fickle fuck.
All: Yup.
illyume ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 19:38:34 on February 21, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
Moroni: And here I went and had to re-write-down everything pretty much everyone after you wrote, Jacob.
Jacob: Oh, did they start writing things down on papyrus instead?
Moroni: Nah, they just wrote too much and I had to abridge it so people might actually read it or something.
Jacob: So you got rid of all the repetitive wording and made everything concise and to the point?
Moroni: Nah, I just got rid of all the stuff that was too sacred to write down.
Jacob: Oh, well at least you didn't do that to my book!
{much later}
Moroni: GOD DAMNIT! The fucker isn't even using what I wrote! He's peeking in some rock he found in a well years before I told him about the plates, while the thing I spent my whole goddamn life writing sits buried in some hole!
hyrle ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 21:08:48 on February 21, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
Jacob: Well what do you expect? The damn thing weighs like 300 pounds and is made of gold. Do you know what you can buy with 300 pounds of gold? A fucking lot.
SenHeffy ยท 24 points ยท Posted at 11:33:00 on February 21, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
All that engraving work and Joe didn't even look at it, since he just got the gyst of it from a rock in a hat.
1 Now behold, it came to pass that I, Jacob, having ministered much unto my people in word, (and I cannot write but a little of my words, because of the difficulty of engraving our words upon plates) and we know that the things which we write upon plates must remain;
4 Nephi 1:6, the Book of Mormon:
6 And thus did the thirty and eighth year pass away, and also the thirty and ninth, and forty and first, and the forty and second, yea, even until forty and nine years had passed away, and also the fifty and first, and the fifty and second; yea, and even until fifty and nine years had passed away.
I lol-ed. A couple years ago before I was out one of my kids was struggling and so I made a point to spend extra time with her each morning reading the BOM before school. I thought it would be transformative. It was but not in the way I expected. It had been a while since I sat down to read it cover to cover. I realized how stupid It sounded and that it sounded like it was trying to copy the Bible and missed the mark.
YES!! We tried multiple times to read it as a family, but every time we tried it just became such a burden on the family. No one ever received any value from it and it elicited plenty of complaints going through the stupid shit like all those chapters on genealogy, money conversion, and Isaiah. It was painful reading, even as a TBM.
[deleted] ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 16:48:41 on February 21, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
I can imagine the current keeper of the plates updating them every few years with x years passed, and then they didn't write anything else.
jta314 ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 07:36:52 on February 21, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
...tell me I'm not the only one that doesn't get this one...
This was shelf item for me. If not a big one. Because really if it's so hard to write on them and only the most plain and precious things are on them, why is it so damn long winded. Why would he meticulously engrave entire chapters of Isaiah.
[deleted] ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 00:19:26 on February 22, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
I always figured the plates were just lying around, and the writer just wrote the year whenever he thought about it.
"Did anything happen this year? Nope? Ok... 'and the seventy and fifth year passed away'"
Book of Mormon writers use a ton of words to complain about how difficult it is to write down words. In other places they use up valuable space to complain about how limited space is.
Then they write out 'and it came to pass' thousands of times. And they spend ages writing the date. And they name off dozens of cities, captains, genealogies and so on. And Nephi legit copies out pages of Isaiah, what on earth is the point of copying from one set of plates to another set of plates?
It was an early oddity I noticed in the BOM. And one that doesn't need a scholar to find.
I was looking for an exact quote from Mark Twain about taking out โand it came to passโ would reduce the Book of Mormon to a pamphlet and found the whole excerpt from his book. The entirety is worth a read here
30 And now it came to pass that all this was done in Mormon, yea, by the waters of Mormon, in the forest that was near the waters of Mormon; yea, the place of Mormon, the waters of Mormon, the forest of Mormon...
Yes!!! I knew I remember seeing Moroni in his office working on the bound metallic version of the records! Heโs even got his engraving instrument in hand!
[deleted] ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 13:13:13 on February 21, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
Or...literally everything from 1 Nephi 1:1 through the end of Moronic. It's all bullshit with dubious value to the human family and a terrible moral guide, so why did the non-existent Mormon et al bother to engrave anything anywhere? Hint: they didn't because they did not exist and there was not that type of metallurgical skill at that time on this side of the Atlantic/Pacific/whathaveyou.
Obviously this inconsistency is only further proof that BoM is the true word of God. If the writing was still shortened in 4th Nephi it would be proof against Joseph Smith's claim that he translated the plates. However, the fact that 4th Nephi was able to write with such detail and ease just goes to support the natural advancement of technology over time, as Jacob and 4th Nephi are hundreds of years apart.
[deleted] ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 21:10:19 on February 21, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
Haha, I used to share Jacob chapter 4 as my go to spiritual thought when I needed to share something. They worked so hard to engrave their words on gold plates, they carried them from place to place for a thousand years, blah blah blah we need to be grateful they put in the effort so we could have their scriptural writings.
Little did I realize how much redundant nonsense is written in the Book of Mormon. And it came to pass...
Also, rock in hat. Joseph didn't translate from the plates. Even the false narrative doesn't claim he translated them.
Saved comment
Dravin84 ยท 65 points ยท Posted at 14:35:12 on February 21, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
It is amazing how much of the Book of Mormon reads like a student trying to pad a paper.
HumanRaisedByHumans ยท 32 points ยท Posted at 15:11:10 on February 21, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
Aaaand it came to pass in that seventh year since the coming of the Nephites to the land of their inheritance, in the third month of that year, on the first day of that month, that the people of the land of the chief judges of the people of the Lord God Almighty, ruler of all, did gather together for a great and mighty purpose, yea and I will tell you the mighty purpose for which they did meet. And the purpose was not known among all the people of any other land. But it was known by the people of the Lord. And all knew it who were righteous. Yea, all who could be numbered among the people of Nephi. And they knew it was for the sake of fasting and prayer before the Lord God Almighty for the purpose of greater understanding of his ways. Yea the ways of God Eternal. And this was the reason for the gathering. And they all knew it and did bare record.
Aaand it came to pass...
...vs...
The Nephites then gathered to fast and pray for understanding.
xwre ยท 10 points ยท Posted at 15:52:51 on February 21, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
Joe needed time to remember the next story arc. Needed to stall long enough for a dinner break and the opportunity to check his notes.
HumanRaisedByHumans ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 04:50:02 on February 22, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
This is a hilarious concept. It's so long-winded because he is stalling while he thinks up the next part to dictate.
RyanofArabia ยท 7 points ยท Posted at 17:18:04 on February 21, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
I felt the spirit so strong while reading this. The TL;DR version... not so much.
mikeymikemike99 ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 18:23:16 on February 21, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
One of my favorite Scripture Masteries.
chiablo ยท 8 points ยท Posted at 17:56:41 on February 21, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
Now make it double-spaced and 12-point font and you've got yourself an essay!
justaverage ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 23:36:48 on February 21, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
1.25โ margins or gtfo
Michamus ยท 6 points ยท Posted at 18:54:39 on February 21, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
And it came to pass intensifies
abrahamburger ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 18:38:07 on February 21, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
Exactamundo!
[deleted] ยท 53 points ยท Posted at 16:18:02 on February 21, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
Jacob: Abraham! Good to see you man! How're things?
Abraham: Good, good! Say, what's with the wrist brace?
Jacob: Oh, I got tendonitis scratching several thousand words onto metal plates. Super jealous that you got to use papyrus!
Abraham: Oooooh, um....I actually didn't write anything.
Jacob: What do you mean?
Abraham: I didn't write anything down, god just sort of whispered my story into Joe's ear.
Jacob:........he can do that?
Abraham: Yeah.
Jacob:....Fuck.
levelheadedsteve ยท 10 points ยท Posted at 18:34:56 on February 21, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
Bahahaha, this is amazing.
hyrle ยท 5 points ยท Posted at 18:58:24 on February 21, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
Moses: Yep, that's what he did for me too. I didn't even have to draw funeral pictures like Abraham.
Abraham: Those pics weren't mine. It was some Egyptian person. I'm a Jew, yo.
Moses: My bad.
Jacob: You both suck.
Matthew: At least he didn't re-write some of your best work because it directly contradicted what you taught. I mean chapter 24 was totally my best stuff and he straight up rewrote my shit.
Jacob: That's okay, God also told him something different than God told me in chapter 2.
Abraham: Yeah well that God guy told me to kill my son Isaac and then when I was about to, he was like "Sike!". He's such a fickle fuck.
All: Yup.
illyume ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 19:38:34 on February 21, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
Moroni: And here I went and had to re-write-down everything pretty much everyone after you wrote, Jacob.
Jacob: Oh, did they start writing things down on papyrus instead?
Moroni: Nah, they just wrote too much and I had to abridge it so people might actually read it or something.
Jacob: So you got rid of all the repetitive wording and made everything concise and to the point?
Moroni: Nah, I just got rid of all the stuff that was too sacred to write down.
Jacob: Oh, well at least you didn't do that to my book!
{much later}
Moroni: GOD DAMNIT! The fucker isn't even using what I wrote! He's peeking in some rock he found in a well years before I told him about the plates, while the thing I spent my whole goddamn life writing sits buried in some hole!
hyrle ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 21:08:48 on February 21, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
Jacob: Well what do you expect? The damn thing weighs like 300 pounds and is made of gold. Do you know what you can buy with 300 pounds of gold? A fucking lot.
SenHeffy ยท 24 points ยท Posted at 11:33:00 on February 21, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
All that engraving work and Joe didn't even look at it, since he just got the gyst of it from a rock in a hat.
donkeymadness2017 ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 18:37:41 on February 21, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
Painstakingly chiseled that shit in to metal over many many years, even beheaded a man!! Fuck it, Iโll use this rock and hat!!
๐๏ธ missedinsunday ยท 15 points ยท Posted at 07:10:26 on February 21, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
Crash Course: http://www.missedinsunday.com/memes/scripture/difficulty-engraving/
Jacob 4:1, the Book of Mormon:
1 Now behold, it came to pass that I, Jacob, having ministered much unto my people in word, (and I cannot write but a little of my words, because of the difficulty of engraving our words upon plates) and we know that the things which we write upon plates must remain;
4 Nephi 1:6, the Book of Mormon:
6 And thus did the thirty and eighth year pass away, and also the thirty and ninth, and forty and first, and the forty and second, yea, even until forty and nine years had passed away, and also the fifty and first, and the fifty and second; yea, and even until fifty and nine years had passed away.
5Monkeysjumpin ยท 11 points ยท Posted at 11:49:57 on February 21, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
I lol-ed. A couple years ago before I was out one of my kids was struggling and so I made a point to spend extra time with her each morning reading the BOM before school. I thought it would be transformative. It was but not in the way I expected. It had been a while since I sat down to read it cover to cover. I realized how stupid It sounded and that it sounded like it was trying to copy the Bible and missed the mark.
kool_beenz ยท 8 points ยท Posted at 14:33:14 on February 21, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
YES!! We tried multiple times to read it as a family, but every time we tried it just became such a burden on the family. No one ever received any value from it and it elicited plenty of complaints going through the stupid shit like all those chapters on genealogy, money conversion, and Isaiah. It was painful reading, even as a TBM.
[deleted] ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 16:48:41 on February 21, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
I can imagine the current keeper of the plates updating them every few years with x years passed, and then they didn't write anything else.
jta314 ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 07:36:52 on February 21, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
...tell me I'm not the only one that doesn't get this one...
๐๏ธ missedinsunday ยท 26 points ยท Posted at 07:40:41 on February 21, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
"I must be brief because it is difficult to write". Book uses a ton of words to describe a simple date.
jmstructor ยท 17 points ยท Posted at 08:24:37 on February 21, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
This was shelf item for me. If not a big one. Because really if it's so hard to write on them and only the most plain and precious things are on them, why is it so damn long winded. Why would he meticulously engrave entire chapters of Isaiah.
[deleted] ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 00:19:26 on February 22, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
I always figured the plates were just lying around, and the writer just wrote the year whenever he thought about it.
"Did anything happen this year? Nope? Ok... 'and the seventy and fifth year passed away'"
"Whew. Better take a four year break."
LucindaMorgan ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 03:43:32 on February 22, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
They apparently didn't have conference twice a year.
DrTxn ยท 11 points ยท Posted at 14:15:45 on February 21, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
As can be seen from the Book of Abraham translation, it only takes one character to make a whole sentence. /s
[deleted] ยท 4 points ยท Posted at 16:04:08 on February 21, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
[deleted]
DrTxn ยท 7 points ยท Posted at 16:40:43 on February 21, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
Yes, Joseph also would use the iStone for finding women to marry by swiping left and right.
GodsOwnTapir ยท 15 points ยท Posted at 10:45:00 on February 21, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
Book of Mormon writers use a ton of words to complain about how difficult it is to write down words. In other places they use up valuable space to complain about how limited space is.
Then they write out 'and it came to pass' thousands of times. And they spend ages writing the date. And they name off dozens of cities, captains, genealogies and so on. And Nephi legit copies out pages of Isaiah, what on earth is the point of copying from one set of plates to another set of plates?
It was an early oddity I noticed in the BOM. And one that doesn't need a scholar to find.
warbing_tomcat ยท 4 points ยท Posted at 16:04:47 on February 21, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
I was looking for an exact quote from Mark Twain about taking out โand it came to passโ would reduce the Book of Mormon to a pamphlet and found the whole excerpt from his book. The entirety is worth a read here
freshyoungsprightly ยท 3 points ยท Posted at 20:22:24 on February 21, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
Mosiah 18:30
30 And now it came to pass that all this was done in Mormon, yea, by the waters of Mormon, in the forest that was near the waters of Mormon; yea, the place of Mormon, the waters of Mormon, the forest of Mormon...
namtokmuu ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 08:51:24 on February 21, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
Yes!!! I knew I remember seeing Moroni in his office working on the bound metallic version of the records! Heโs even got his engraving instrument in hand!
[deleted] ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 13:13:13 on February 21, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
Or...literally everything from 1 Nephi 1:1 through the end of Moronic. It's all bullshit with dubious value to the human family and a terrible moral guide, so why did the non-existent Mormon et al bother to engrave anything anywhere? Hint: they didn't because they did not exist and there was not that type of metallurgical skill at that time on this side of the Atlantic/Pacific/whathaveyou.
peloconcha ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 15:20:38 on February 21, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
I swear that when JS was writing a lot of this shit, he was counting the years with his fingers so that it all adds up.
fuckeveryone________ ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 18:09:12 on February 21, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
fuck nephi didn't his mother ever tell him that brevity is the soul of wit?
SpookyMulder13 ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 18:32:14 on February 21, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
This is hilarious. I don't know how I never made that connection before. Thank you thank you!
the70sdiscoking ยท 2 points ยท Posted at 20:14:40 on February 21, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
Obviously this inconsistency is only further proof that BoM is the true word of God. If the writing was still shortened in 4th Nephi it would be proof against Joseph Smith's claim that he translated the plates. However, the fact that 4th Nephi was able to write with such detail and ease just goes to support the natural advancement of technology over time, as Jacob and 4th Nephi are hundreds of years apart.
/s
theycallmejethro ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 08:52:05 on February 21, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
Pure gold.
Err, brass? Whatever, you know what I mean.
psyforpresident ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 15:28:33 on February 21, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
...yea and not so many as 70 years; and 71 years had also not passed by...
[deleted] ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 16:40:09 on February 21, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
Grin
Thanks for highlighting what I have thought since, well, forever.
Ethan-Bastian ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 17:17:54 on February 21, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
Lollllllllll
scotland42 ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 17:33:51 on February 21, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
One of the first ones I actually lol'ed reading!!
byniumhart ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 18:26:06 on February 21, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
TIL Nephi had Carpal Tunnel from engraving Gold plates.
TheNewNameIsGideon ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 20:15:15 on February 21, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
For the win!
[deleted] ยท 1 points ยท Posted at 21:10:19 on February 21, 2018 ยท (Permalink)
Haha, I used to share Jacob chapter 4 as my go to spiritual thought when I needed to share something. They worked so hard to engrave their words on gold plates, they carried them from place to place for a thousand years, blah blah blah we need to be grateful they put in the effort so we could have their scriptural writings.
Little did I realize how much redundant nonsense is written in the Book of Mormon. And it came to pass...
Also, rock in hat. Joseph didn't translate from the plates. Even the false narrative doesn't claim he translated them.