Where are you at in the 97 day Book of Mormon challenge?
If you're playing along I'm currently at 1 Nephi 16:7-20
I want to recap what I've noticed thus far.
We are first intoduced here to Nephi who is telling us the story of his family. His father recieves visions from God telling them to leave the corrupt city of Jeruselem and go into the wildness. We are shown much respect for nature and God is often equated to, found in, or respect via nature.
1 Nephi 1:6
And it came to pass as he prayed unto the Lord, there came a pillar of fire and dwelt upon a rock before him
An angel's luster is equated with the sun in 1 Nephi 1:9 and just below in 10 we see the twelve apostles compared to stars.
In 1 Nephi 2:9 Nephi's father makes an interesting statement concerning the Red Sea which equates the nature, Goddess and menstruation to righetouesness, I blogged about it before here
Now I always felt a little uncomfortable when I read 1 Nephi 4:13 when God commands Nephi to kill the drunken Laban but I gained a new insight into this story of God sanctioned slaughter during this read. It seems to me that when Nephi says "And the Spirit said unto me again: Behold the Lord hath delivered him into thy hands." in 1 Nephi 4:11. It is made clear that God chose Laban to be sacraficed for the greater good so that the chosen familiy could flee the wickness of the city and go into the wilderness with the records and money they needed to continue on to the promised land.
Sacrafice choosen by God sounds like a terrible thing to us these days, and it should, but back then, for whatever reason, it was a common occurance not only amoung Nephi in the Book of Mormon but the Celts, as well, chose sacrafices to please God, sacrafices for the greater good, only in their case God(dess) chose the one to be sacraficed during a ritual where one man received a blackened wedge of ale cake ad then was killed three times and buried in a peat bog.
In chapter 5 Lehi, Nephi's father, continues with his psychic visions, dremas and messages from God. We hear a little refernce to Sariah who was "exceedingly glad" when her sons returned unharmed from Jerusalem because she had "mourned" because of them.
The next woman mentioned is Eve in 1 Nephi 4:11 "Adam and Eve, who were our first parents." Our first parents is a very God and Goddess concept to me and it is interesting that later Brigham Young would describe Adam as being God (a concept I believe the LDS church no longer excepts). It's also interesting because of the mitochondrial Eve discovery made a few years back.
What also strikes me is how God is continually referenced in the gender and religiously neutrual term "Spirit" with a capitol "S".
In 1 Nephi 7:1 We hear that God has commanded the sons of Lehi to take the daughters of Ishmeal as wives, which to me signals an imblance that God is trying to restore by bringing in more women. It pays off for Nephi too when later, when his not-very-nice brothers try to kill him he is saved by one of these wives and her mother who spoke out for Nephi and begged for his life. Thus life was granted Nephi through two women (and sort of rebirth for him though the feminine).
In 1 Nephi 7:22 we see again that the family practices ritual magick when they make burnt offerings unto their God.
Now comes one of the best parts of the Book of Mormon. The Tree of Life! I would go into great detail but a well known scholar already has so I will refer you to his work here.
In 1 Nephi 9:4 We see Jesus given many descriptions as a prophet,"even a Messiah" and savior and to anyone who has studied Greek you know that the word for "savior" in the greek to english translation of the bible can also be translated as "teacher".
One of my favorite quotes in this section is 1 Nephi 10:19 "the course of the Lord is one eternal round" It sounds very universal doesn't it?
In 1 Nephi 13 we are told that after the crucifixtion of Jesus a great church will rise up and this church will be abominable and of the devil. This church will hide truths and in 1 Nephi 13: 26 we are told this church has, "taken away from the gospel of the Lamb many parts which are plain and most precious; and also many covenants of the Lord have they taken away." Meaning that the Bible is incorrect/incomplete AND that there are parts missing. These parts also refer to the "plainess of the Lamb", and in my Mormon tradition that plainess would include his everyday lifestyle inculding his marriage to Mariamne.
In 1 Nephi 13:40 these missing parts are called the "last record" and above in 39 they are called the "other books", books being plural, meaning that it's not just the Book of Mormon that restores our full understanding of Christ. The Nag Hammadi texts that were left out of the bible come from some of the 12 apostles just as it alludes to in 1 Nephi 41 and in this same passage we are told that "there is one God and one Shepard over all the Earth" in my opinion this speaks to a Universal concept of all-one-God faith.
Another quote I enjoy in this section is from 1 Nephi 13:27 "and whoso shall publish peace, yea, tidings of great joy, how beautiful upon the mountains shall they be."
Now we all know the 1 Nephi 13 and 14 gets dicey. It uses a lot of language not oto savory towards women. It goes on to describe this evil church as a whore and mother of harlots. But on closer look we see in 1 Nephi 14:11 that the whore is described as having dominion OVER all the earth, not upon the face of it which to me signals "control" of the earth instead of working with Her and considering Her righteous as Nephi's family does. It seems that this sets up a Goddess of death and destruction, a Kali figure in our B of M. Remember not all Goddesses are sunshine and rainbows. We know that the tree of life is the Mother Goddess, she is shown as such and she is the mother of Mormonism just as the Goddess of abomination and harlotry is the mother of the corrupt church.
Ok, that's enough for now, my head is spinning. Good night!
