Talk:Book of Omni

Merge Omni
Omni (Book of Mormon prophet) is small and unlikely to be expanded. I suggest that it be merged here. Please discuss on Talk:Omni (Book of Mormon prophet). &mdash; Val42 (talk) 02:22, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Oppose Merge - They are two different things, and deserve their own articles. --Descartes1979 (talk) 02:34, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Expansion
This page needs expansion. As such, I will expand it, adding narrative and interpretation sections. Heidi Pusey BYU (talk) 22:56, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

Reverted edit
I noticed that the narrative section was removed in good faith due to a lack of sources. I have reverted this edit because I have located source material to add to this section. Nevertheless, I will revise the narrative section as I see fit while I work on adding citations. Heidi Pusey BYU (talk) 23:53, 27 February 2024 (UTC)


 * John Christopher Thomas's Literary and Theological Introduction and Oxford University Press' Annotated Book of Mormon make sense as reliable sources for that material. Thank you for being transparent about editing decisions. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 00:23, 28 February 2024 (UTC)

TNT
WP:TNT says sometimes it's best to just blow up an article and start over. I think we may have found such an article here. The prose is turgid, the claims are bizarre and intricate without proper attachment to any context, and the general focus seems to be on apologetics rather than explaining the importance of the book to any believers or otherwise. In general, I think we may wish to stubify. jps (talk) 01:22, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I disagree. I assume that you object to the discussion of the Book of Omni's narrators as the text presents them. The narrative section in Pale Fire presents its fictional redactor matter-of-factly. The interpretation section discusses Kinbote as an actual character. Do you believe that this Book of Omni page needs a section about the Book of Mormon and theories of its origin like the one on Pale Fire under "novel structure"? Rachel Helps (BYU) (talk) 17:13, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I fail to see the comparison. This isn’t a novel by Nabokov. This is considered sacred scripture by Mormons. To that end, our discussion of it needs to start from how it is received by believers (which this article makes no attempt to really describe), what the implications of such beliefs are, and what importance that may have broadly. The fact that you think the text here presents the “narrators as the text presents them” is a huge problem. How do we know this is how the text presents them? There is an incredible amount of editorial choice in these summaries and they are not simply “retold”. They are adopting a kind of attempted in-narrative logic that is only justified if there are sources that do the same. But the sources offered make no attempt at describing how widely held or duly considered these connections actually are. We are instead left with a disjointed and lazy mess of unremarkable claims that are at once mystifying and bizarrely arguable without any context or understanding of what it is supposed to mean. It’s truly terrible stuff. jps (talk) 23:28, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Could you please be more specific in your critique? You said that our work is too much like we're presenting religious beliefs as fact. So I tried to imagine the opposite. What if I wrote about the Book of Mormon as if it were a work of fiction? That's why I'm making the comparison to Pale Fire. There is a similarity when critiquing the work. Even if you are discussing the Book of Mormon as a work of fiction, it is still useful to know who the "narrator" of the text is. You say that there should be more context. If that's true of this page, then it would be true of pretty much every page about the Book of Mormon--pages for books in the Book of Mormon as well as people from it. Are you proposing that we add more contextual information to the template for BoM pages? I'm looking at a page I would consider sort of similar, Daniel 1. It's a page for a single chapter of the Book of Daniel in the Bible. There is a paragraph in the lead about the historicity of the text of Daniel. However, I'm not seeing a section there on the historicity of the Book of Daniel overall--but there is a "manuscripts" section on the main Book of Daniel page. Is this the kind of thing you want included on this page? Origin of the Book of Mormon goes into the most detail about that. Do you think this page should link to Origin of the Book of Mormon? Rachel Helps (BYU) (talk) 16:40, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

This is a question of genre. I don't think Daniel 1 is a good comparison since its connected to a longer tradition of religion and historicity. All we have to go on here is the Mormon reaction and how others may have seen it. I guess I might as well do a point-by-point thing here because it seems that general discussion isn't hacking it. Here we go:


 * The book contains only one chapter, although it covers more than two centuries of Nephite history. Who added up those centuries? How do we know it is that many centuries?
 * It has been proposed that the book spans events from 361 B.C. to about 130 B.C. By the Book of Mormon reference companion? And how, praytell, did they come up with that set of dates? 361 BC is uncomfortably specific making me wonder whether this source should ever be used for things like this.
 * The text tells of many wars between the Nephites and Lamanites many compared to what? Give the number of wars or just say "wars". What is with this unnecessary flowery WP:PEACOCK terms?
 * expeditions into the wilderness what is "the wilderness"? What is an "expedition"? These are stories that ostensibly take place in the Bronze Age and it sounds more like it's a reference to the "expeditions into the wilderness" that were happening at about the time the Book of Mormon was being written. Is that noted? Noticed? Critiqued? If no, what is this "expedition into the wilderness" nonsense?
 * Grant Hardy, Fatimah Salleh, and Margaret Hemming conclude that several of the narrators of the Book of Omni write out of obligation rather than desire Who cares? I don't know who these people are or why their analysis should get lede placement over any other analysis. And, to be clear, the narrators of the Book of Omni are not "writing", right? They are narrating. Or is there some sort of self-consciour reference to the process of "writing" happening in the book that we are missing?
 * The first author, Omni, is a military member. What is a military member? A member of the military? What military? This is first I'm hearing of any military.
 * He explains that he hasn't lived in accordance to God's commandments. Does he now? Aside from the use of the contraction as though this were some sort of blogpost. What is the reader supposed to gain from this sentence? Which of "God's commandments"? The ten commandments? If there are specific ones mentioned, why the vaguewave? If there aren't, was the reader expected to just know what this is referring to?
 * He narrates his section of the book after possessing the small plates for 38 years The text says "38 years"? If so, might be good to quote and attribute it to the text itself. Also, what on Earth are "small plates"? Small plates of Nephi? This hasn't been established.
 * then passes the record to Amoron. Why are we calling small plates "the record"? Is that some sort of turn of phrase from the Book of Mormon? Who is Amoron? I surmise that this is the second author? But that's not stated in the article at this point. How am I supposed to follow this?
 * In his narrative, Amoron explains that a large number of the Nephites have been destroyed "Explains"? Why is he "explaining"? "large number"? Does he mention the number? Does he just say it was large"? Is this a quote? What does "have been destroyed" mean? Why the passive construction? Did they get destroyed by some unknown third-party process? Are we supposed to interpret this as an act of God? What's going on?
 * but also mentions that the righteous Nephites were protected from their enemies Is this a direct quote? "righteous Nephites"? If so, reference it. What does "protected from their enemies" mean? Is that a direct quote? If so, reference it. Because otherwise this is just absurdly vague and laughable as a summary.
 * The next author is Chemish, who writes only one verse, and explains that he received the plates from his brother Amoron What does "writes only one verse" mean? Is there some sort of game or contest for who writes verses? Is there some significance to the idea that Orson Pratt only gave this voice one verse? If so, what is it? There's that word "explains" again. How is this an "explanation"? What is being explained?
 * Next, Abinadom, the son of Chemish, speaks of many wars between the people of Nephi and the Lamanites Wait, I thought these were writers. Now they're speakers? What's going on? How many wars does he "speak" of? Why is it now the "people of Nephi" as opposed to the "Nephites"?
 * and says he killed several Lamanites during these wars. Several, eh? Is that the word he uses? Why are we using such casual accounting here?
 * He admits that he doesn't know of any significant spiritual events that occurred in his lifetime. Lolwut?! Is he being cross-examined? There's that fun contraction again! What is a "significant spiritual event"? As opposed to "insignificant" spiritual events? What is a spiritual event at all?

I'm going to stop now. This is just plain ridiculous. TNT is probably required and it is embarrassing because almost all the Book of Mormon pages are like this.

jps (talk) 17:52, 14 March 2024 (UTC)


 * Are there any articles that you would consider a good model for an article like this? I think that would help guide the conversation.
 * I agree that this article needs work, but I think if I wanted to improve it, I would find the current version a much better foundation than a stub. Ghosts of Europa (talk) 21:35, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
 * That's a good question. So far I've been pretty deflated looking through Book of Mormon articles. Nothing looks very good at all and I'm pretty exhausted. And I find that it is somewhat difficult to make decent comparisons because it sits in that sweet spot between obscure religious text and well-known religious text. It's like half-and-half. So books/chapters of the Bible, Qu'ran, or the Vedas don't work well as comparisons but neither do articles on foundational books from other religions which don't try to match the style of ancient texts. I'll keep looking. Good to know that you find the current version better than a stub. That's a good argument against TNT. I'm probably just getting exhausted. jps (talk) 22:22, 14 March 2024 (UTC)