Talk:Book of Moses

"Modern pseudepigrapha" is NPOV-vio

The articles for Book of Mormon, Book of Abraham, and Book of Moses have been edited a few times to put them in the Category:Modern pseudepigrapha, and the article Modern pseudepigrapha has been edited to include them (with the all-too-appropriate edit note, "removing NPOV", rather than "removing NPOV violation"). These edits are equivalent to a factual determination that the books were originally written in modern times, which is the equivalent of making the assertion that a church that accepts it is false - or, the equivalent of starting the article on The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints with the assertion, "This is a false church". Neither statement would conform to a NPOV. - Reaverdrop _(talk/nl) 17:48, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

So what is wrong with factual determination? Are we to include all sorts of non-facts in Wikipedia? Hey, God just appeared to me in the form of a cockroach and handed me a golden ipod in which is recorded the thoughts of Jesus as he travelled the lands of Israel. Should we include that?

If you allow non-factual stuff to appear as though it were factual you are mis-educating our youth. There is no reason in the world to believe the mumbo jumbo that appears in these articles.

Mike0001 12:12, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Actually, there is a reason to at least consider, if not believe, the claims of Joseph Smith, and that is simply the fact that a major portion of society has done so, making the claims noteworthy, and therefore worthy of inclusion in an encyclopedia, worthy of study, and worthy of being given the respect of a neutral point-of-view. This opinion is augmented by the fact that while some reject the claims of Joseph Smith, there are many followers of Smith who do not follow blindly, but are quite skilled in defending what they accept to be true. Rejecting anything without at least sincerely hearing a defense is perhaps not appropriate. Your remark about including a statement regarding a golden ipod would actually indeed be appropriate to include, if the circumstances became such that they mirrored the circumstances of various world religions, i.e., if your own claim (which is understood to be a means of making a point) actually gained momentum, adherents, defenders, scholarly evidence, etc., and noteworthiness. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 32.97.110.142 (talk) 15:20, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

"Actually, there is a reason to at least consider, if not believe, the claims of Joseph Smith, and that is simply the fact that a major portion of society has done so, making the claims noteworthy, and therefore worthy of inclusion in an encyclopedia, worthy of study, and worthy of being given the respect of a neutral point-of-view" - well said. Except there is nothing about this article that is from a neutral point of view. Perhaps the author should look up the definition of neutral. While you are at it, look up gentile too - you guys are misusing that also. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.56.220.2 (talk) 20:15, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

The notion that these works should not be discussed because they may not be true is just plain silly. A lot of people reject Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu etc. doctrines and believe the teachings of those religions are untrue, but the assertion that such topics should not be included in an encyclopedia because some individuals consider one or more of those belief systems "mumbo jumbo" is stupid to the point of being laughable. I suppose Wikipedia should also not include discussions of Sigmund Freud's psychoanalysis, as much of it has been thoroughly debunked, nor should a mention of Ptolemy's explanation for the planetary orbits be included either. The list goes on and on. In short, omitting any discussion of so-called non-factual "mumbo jumbo" is, for lack of a better word, moronic. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.28.78.34 (talk) 00:25, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Title Capitalization

While in the title of an Article it is standard to capitalize the first word as well as any content words, with the book of Moses the standard practice is to leave "book" lowercase when in midst of text. For reference, a default search here on the lds.org website returning 20 results has 15 results with "book", 2 results with "Book" in text (both from the same article), 2 results apparently without the query contained, and 2 results with "Book" in the title of a referenced document (one of which also has "book" when in the text itself). Going to the next twenty reveals similar results, with a few more "book"s, but every single article referenced with said case is at least 25-30 years old, and more recent articles by the same authors now use "book" again. ~Araignee (talk • contribs) 13:44, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

If "Book of" is part of the name of the book, the MOS would mandate that it is capitalized. If the book is actually called "Moses" and "book of" is just an uncapitalized explanation, then that suggests that perhaps the page should be moved to Moses (book). I'm of the opinion of the former—that "Book of Moses" is the full title of the book. As such, the MOS says we should capitalize it, regardless of how the LDS Church capitalizes it. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 01:52, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Parallels

The article does a great job of showing parallels from The Book of Moses and various other religious texts. There are a lot more parallels that should be represented in the article. One such parallel is how the Book of Moses mentions that the city of Enoch walked with God (Moses 7:69). The Bible only mentions Enoch walking with God (Gen 5:24). However, The Book of Jasher mentions that many who were with Enoch could not be found (Jasher 3:38). This parallel definitely needs to be in the article. --CABEGOD 01:10, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

All parellels, however, should have reliable sources, have you got some for this? Dougweller (talk) 01:28, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

Indeed I do. I'll be coming up with a draft in the coming days. --CABEGOD 01:37, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

NPOV

Reading this article gives the impression that no criticisms have been made of this book. I find this a bit hard to believe, there must be other opinions that should be included in this article. Dougweller (talk) 01:38, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

It seems to me that the problem of neutrality on this page is not about what content gets included or doesn't; as the page stands right now, the problem of neutrality is startlingly apparent in the language deployed on the page. I won't get into, as others here have, an argument about the legitimacy of book in question, which can only lead to reductio ad absurdam. Like it or not, this content deserves a (neutral) place on wikipedia. The problem for me is that the word "clarify" is used to describe the LDS translation. This presupposes that the Mormon translation is somehow better, more precise, more accurate or true etc, than the standing translations. Regardless of whether you believe the Mormon accounts or not, we should be able to agree that this is patently a non-neutral way to talk about a (re)translation, no? Can we replace the word clarify with the word "alternate"? As in, these translations and synopsis are alternatives. This doesn't fix the whole page, I agree, but it's a step toward making this article reasonable. Because it isn't right now. John.d.thorp (talk) 19:26, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

I agree. Perhaps my edit makes it a bit more palatable? ~Araignee (talk • contribs) 02:59, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Yes thanks, though palatable is an odd word here...not passing a judgment, I'll just have to think about that one. In any case, yes, thanks much for the edit. John.d.thorp (talk) 18:20, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Clearing up the genealogy of two Enochs

Looking at the genealogy of Adam and his sons (Genealogies of Genesis), it is clear that the Enoch that walked with God and the Enoch that has the city named after him are two different people. The Enoch that walked with God came from the line of Seth who is the third son of Adam. The Enoch that had the city named after him is from the line of Cain who is the first son of Adam.

As a side note, David M. Rohl- a British Egyptologist and former director of the Institute for the Study of Interdisciplinary Sciences (ISIS) (see: David Rohl) believes that the city of Enoch is incorrectly translated and that it was actually named after Irad- Enoch's son. The following an excerpt from the Giza Discovery(http://www.redmoonrising.com/Giza/SpiritCiv5.htm) discussing spirit worlds and civilizations:

According to the Bible the first city was built by Cain and named after his son Enoch. According to Sumerian history the very first city ever built was established by human beings under the care of the god Enki, and named Eridu. While the Genesis account may in fact be correct there is a great deal of evidence that the very first city eventually became known by the name of Enoch's son, who was Irad. In other words, the name "Eridu" comes from the name "Irad."

In fact, based on his analysis, David Rohl believes that the Genesis text of 4:17 has been tampered with. He believes that the subject of the second sentence, following the usual rules of grammar, should be understood to refer to Enoch. Rohl also believes that the last word of Genesis 4:17 appears out of place and must certainly be a scribal insertion. If read with Rohl's preferred corrections the verse would then read:

"And Cain knew his wife, and she conceived, and bare Enoch: and he (Enoch) builded a city, and called the name of the city, after the name of his son (Irad)."

Surfinsomm (talk) 23:16, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Does this have anything to do with improving this particular article? Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 01:57, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

The above is User:Surfinsomm's only edits here at WP, so I'm not sure they understand what a talk page is for. -- 208.81.184.4 (talk) 18:00, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

i want you to show me some magic in the book of moses so that i can used it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.220.69.54 (talk) 21:39, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

Parallels (copied from my talk page}

I've copied the text below from my talk page as it really belongs here:

Book of Moses entry...

Hi, Doug. Thanks for the kind tone of your remarks. I wanted to let you know that I just reverted some of the changes you made to the book of Moses article. I agree that the announcement of the forthcoming book may be a conflict of interest, so I did not add that back. However the parallels between the book of Moses verses and the Enoch literature can be publicly verified, and I thought they should be kept as is. If you or anyone else has an honest quibble with any of these parallels, however, I'd be happy to look at them again on a one-by-one basis. I'll try to watch for any reply from you, but since I don't get a chance to check for such messages often, please forgive me if I am slow to reply.

Cheers, Jeff — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jeffreymarkbradshaw (talk • contribs) 20:53, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

The parallels need to be sourced to someone such as Orlov, otherwise they are your interpretation/original research. Have you read WP:NOR? Dougweller (talk) 21:02, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

Hi, Doug. Thanks for your quick reply. First of all, do I take it that the reference to the Orlov article is sufficient for the "lad" material, or do I need more?

As far as the others go, I have read NOR, but it seems I have not understood all the nuances. Please help me understand which of the following options is acceptable, and I'll document the material accordingly in the next day or two:

1. Could I, as one alternative, document the parallels by brief quotations of the actual phrases from the book of Moses and the Enoch literature (e.g., "And there came a man unto him, whose name was Mahijah, and said unto him: Tell us plainly who thou art, and from whence thou comest?" (Moses 6:40); "they summoned Mahujah… And the giants… sent him to Enoch [...] saying to him: ... tell him that he is to explain to you." (Dead Sea Scrolls 4QEnGiants 1:20)).

2. If this is not acceptable, could I reference a Web page such as http://strongreasons.wordpress.com/2009/01/27/the-book-of-enoch-and-the-book-of-moses/ ?

3. If this is not acceptable, I assume I could reference published materials such as Hugh Nibley's books on the topic, right?

Thanks, Jeff — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jeffreymarkbradshaw (talk • contribs) 21:19, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

Comments on the above

1. No, that would still be original research, as you would have chosen the passages and be the one showing that they demonstrate parallels. 2. No again, sorry. That's a blog, and we only use blogs where they have reliable editorial supervision or are by an acknowledged expert, and the latter we'd still never use for living people, not that that applies here. 3. That's tricky and might need consensus here. You'd certainly have to make it clear it's Nibley's opinion and not a fact. But probably yes, but I'd say keep it short, give his opinion without lists of passages, etc. Dougweller (talk) 11:25, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Reply to the above

Thanks, Doug. Sorry I did not see that you'd asked to move this to this talk page sooner.

I think I understand what you are asking, and I'm okay with that. But I'd like to discuss the part of the guidance where you say: "give his opinion without lists of passages." I'm concerned that if we just give general statements of opinion from various authors (e.g., "There are many parallels between the book of Moses and the Enoch literature...") without also listing references to specific verses from manuscript sources that are referenced by those authors, it makes the article into a sort-of "he said" vs. "she said" instead of giving the reader the tools they need to consult the specifics themselves and come to their own opinions (I can add hyperlinks to the manuscript sources, if that is helpful). Of course, I do understand the need for being concise in any such references.

That's my main concern. Your further guidance would be welcome.

Cheers, JeffJeffreymarkbradshaw (talk) 20:40, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

RE: July 20 Edits

Doug, not having received any further guidance since July 18, I went ahead with new edits to the part of the article dealing with parallels between the Enoch literature and Moses chs. 6-7, with references to Orlov and Nibley. In the interest of conciseness, I greatly reduced the number of examples given. I hope this is an improvement over my previous edits in your eyes, and would welcome any additional guidance.

Jeffreymarkbradshaw (talk) 14:48, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

NPOV edits

I've made several edits in expansion that deal with third-party scholarship, including many non-Mormon sources. As I don't see any specific claims of bias other than not having enough non-Mormon sources, I'll remove the templates that are atop the article. ~Araignee (talk • contribs) 03:29, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

the prophet who weeps

The Book of Enoch, in XC.28–42 talks about Enoch who "weeps" for the wickedness of the people, but it also does in the Book of Moses. Is it a strange coincidence, or Joseph Smith could copied this from the Book of Enoch (did he even had access to this book)? — Preceding unsigned comment added by LucasW (talk • contribs) 22:05, 27 July 2013 (UTC)