Ha! Imagine my confusion at taking the opposite journey. :P Got halfway through the first book before I realized why the story sounded so eerily familiar...
I would, ironically, recommend trying to read the Book as if it were a fictional narrative. You can’t do that with the Bible, because that wasn’t the purpose it was written for. However, with the Book of Mormon, Mormon compiled a millenium’s-worth of religious documents into a cohesive, understandable narrative for the benefit of the reader. So you can afford to read it that way.
Also, yes, I know it’s boring. Even Mormons have a hard time reading it cover to cover. xP
IMO the Old Testament reads OK as a narrative, though the recurring “and then God told Moses ‘Tell the Children of Israel to do X, Y, and Z’” bits are admittedly distracting. The New Testament reads as a fictional narrative even better. (Or, rather, several parallel ones.) The Book of Mormon works OK, but is, yes, incredibly dull. While we’re on the subject, though, IMO the Koran really doesn’t work as a fictional narrative.
Not to mention the ”… begat … begat …”. :3 I know several Mormons who simply skip over Nephi’s ten or so chapters of quoting Isaiah, it being interminable and dense, which is a shame, because those are chapters that Nephi included because he thought they were so important.
Agreed that Toldot (Generations? I forget what it’s called in English) is tedious, but it’s just one chapter. And it contains the highly entertaining line “And so-and-so begat Nimrod, who was a mighty hunter before the Lord; thus it is said ‘Like Nimrod, a mighty hunter before the Lord’” embedded in the middle of all the begats, which I could never read without giggling when I was a kid.
I believe (and
someone else does too)
that “nimrod” used as an insult stems from a Bugs Bunny
cartoon where Bugs says of Elmer Fudd, “What a Nimrod”, in
sarcastic praise of Fudd’s hunting skill.
I would’ve thought the protagonist’s name would give it away.
I did try to read it like it was a novel. I probably shouldn’t, because I prefer my novels less boring. I’m just not sure what to read it like it is instead. I don’t read anything that boring under normal circumstances.
Hmm. Read one chapter at a time, and therefore spread out the torment? There are resources available on the internet—pandering to Mormons—that map out a plan for reading the whole Book in one year. This has the added benefit of allowing each chapter to separately marinate in your mind, that you can decide for each individual one how it contributes to your worldview and/or your confidence level in the Book.
Find a friend to read and discuss it with? A Mormon friend would be easier to find, but would likely view the situation in a light that you’d be uncomfortable (annoyed?) with. A non-Mormon friend would be harder to find, but would be able to discuss the text with you in an areligious context. Ideally you’d want a Bayesian.
Which leads me to an idea which terrifies me: Why not make this an online thing? Day-by-day, or perhaps week-by-week, post (somewhere, not necessarily on Less Wrong, so as to not clutter the site; though perhaps Less Wrong would actually be the ideal locale, due to familiarity, extant population, etc?) a chapter of the Book of Mormon and allow discussion of it, separately from the rest of the Book, using terms common to Rationalists.
What do you think?
EDIT: My terror at this idea, I just realized, is evidence that it’s a good one, from a selfish perspective. This would be the strongest possible test of my belief system. xP
Ha! Imagine my confusion at taking the opposite journey. :P Got halfway through the first book before I realized why the story sounded so eerily familiar...
I would, ironically, recommend trying to read the Book as if it were a fictional narrative. You can’t do that with the Bible, because that wasn’t the purpose it was written for. However, with the Book of Mormon, Mormon compiled a millenium’s-worth of religious documents into a cohesive, understandable narrative for the benefit of the reader. So you can afford to read it that way.
Also, yes, I know it’s boring. Even Mormons have a hard time reading it cover to cover. xP
IMO the Old Testament reads OK as a narrative, though the recurring “and then God told Moses ‘Tell the Children of Israel to do X, Y, and Z’” bits are admittedly distracting. The New Testament reads as a fictional narrative even better. (Or, rather, several parallel ones.) The Book of Mormon works OK, but is, yes, incredibly dull. While we’re on the subject, though, IMO the Koran really doesn’t work as a fictional narrative.
Not to mention the ”… begat … begat …”. :3 I know several Mormons who simply skip over Nephi’s ten or so chapters of quoting Isaiah, it being interminable and dense, which is a shame, because those are chapters that Nephi included because he thought they were so important.
Agreed that Toldot (Generations? I forget what it’s called in English) is tedious, but it’s just one chapter. And it contains the highly entertaining line “And so-and-so begat Nimrod, who was a mighty hunter before the Lord; thus it is said ‘Like Nimrod, a mighty hunter before the Lord’” embedded in the middle of all the begats, which I could never read without giggling when I was a kid.
I believe (and someone else does too) that “nimrod” used as an insult stems from a Bugs Bunny cartoon where Bugs says of Elmer Fudd, “What a Nimrod”, in sarcastic praise of Fudd’s hunting skill.
I was so excited to be able to say that thing that you just said, until I saw that you’d already said it. x3
I would’ve thought the protagonist’s name would give it away.
I did try to read it like it was a novel. I probably shouldn’t, because I prefer my novels less boring. I’m just not sure what to read it like it is instead. I don’t read anything that boring under normal circumstances.
Hmm. Read one chapter at a time, and therefore spread out the torment? There are resources available on the internet—pandering to Mormons—that map out a plan for reading the whole Book in one year. This has the added benefit of allowing each chapter to separately marinate in your mind, that you can decide for each individual one how it contributes to your worldview and/or your confidence level in the Book.
Find a friend to read and discuss it with? A Mormon friend would be easier to find, but would likely view the situation in a light that you’d be uncomfortable (annoyed?) with. A non-Mormon friend would be harder to find, but would be able to discuss the text with you in an areligious context. Ideally you’d want a Bayesian.
Which leads me to an idea which terrifies me: Why not make this an online thing? Day-by-day, or perhaps week-by-week, post (somewhere, not necessarily on Less Wrong, so as to not clutter the site; though perhaps Less Wrong would actually be the ideal locale, due to familiarity, extant population, etc?) a chapter of the Book of Mormon and allow discussion of it, separately from the rest of the Book, using terms common to Rationalists.
What do you think?
EDIT: My terror at this idea, I just realized, is evidence that it’s a good one, from a selfish perspective. This would be the strongest possible test of my belief system. xP