Is Joseph Smith the world’s luckiest guesser? (Book of Mormon Edition) Ep. 84

In this episode, Dave talks about 5 details from the Book of Mormon that exhibit knowledge that Joseph Smith likely could not have acquired by himself (or sometimes even with the help of others). Of course, these details do not “prove” the Book of Mormon to be true, but they do raise some interesting questions. Can we attribute all of these things to sheer dumb luck? And if not, what/who do we attribute them to?

More on our website: https://bit.ly/2XUQKC8
More on Nahom: https://bit.ly/2X616xT
More on the land “Bountiful”: https://bit.ly/2ZeiBhZ
More on the name, “Alma”: https://bit.ly/2Zs5v11
More on Jershon: https://bit.ly/369kRZi
A couple of other episodes were I mention some of Joseph’s lucky guesses: https://bit.ly/3g3X3KS / https://bit.ly/2Zf3cy0 / https://bit.ly/2X9s9bt

-Just a little tidbit that might interest you: In Alma 46 we read the motivational words of Moroni (emphasis added): “Behold … we are a remnant of the seed of Joseph, whose coat was rent by his brethren into many pieces; yea, and now behold, let us remember to keep the commandments of God, or our garments shall be rent by our brethren, and we be cast into prison.”

Curiously, in the Bible, when Joseph’s brothers take his coat and leave him for dead, there is no record of them ripping the coat. The Biblical account only says the brothers “stript Joseph out of his coat” (Gen. 37:23). The idea that the brothers ripped the coat is probably an assumption based on what Jacob says when the brothers bring the coat to him, freshly dipped in goat blood: “Joseph is without doubt rent in pieces” (Gen. 37:33).

It’s not difficult to make the assumption that maybe a “rent” coat suggested to Jacob that Joseph had likewise been “rent in pieces.” Nonetheless, the Bible does not specify that detail. The Book of Mormon does. Not surprisingly, at least one other extra-biblical text called the Book of Jasher does as well. It says that the brothers (43:13) “...hurried and took Joseph’s coat and tore it, and they killed a kid of the goats and dipped the coat in the blood of the kid...” The English translation of the Book of Jasher was not available until years after the Book of Mormon was published.

Anyway, this wasn’t included in this episode because it’s not too much of a logical leap (just from the Biblical account) to conclude that the coat was torn. I wouldn’t classify it as an astronomically lucky guess, like the other details mentioned in this episode. That said, I thought I’d just include it here in the description in case anyone finds it interesting. More on Joseph’s torn coat: https://bit.ly/2Tegbfy

Have a great day!


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