Eric Poulin

Testimony of Prophet Joseph Smith

“I should not show them to any person; neither the breastplate with the Urim and Thummim; only to those to whom I should be commanded to show them; if I did I should be destroyed”

How would Joseph be destroyed… by Gods power? Maybe, but unlikely that God would use such a vulgar display of power. More likely this had reference to the people who sought the plates for monetary gain. If the plates were gotten for gain by someone, Joseph’s credibility would be destroyed and any important message no matter how true or impactful would be lost because the money would supersede anything else in peoples minds. Read the rest of this entry »

Introduction to Book of Mormon

“The record is now published in many languages”

This reminds me of an old Economics thought exercise. Imagine you and a small group of 30 people have been stranded on an island. People have needs to be taken care of and quickly learn if everyone tries to do everything, nothing gets done. So… people specialize. There are coconut pickers, and water gatherers and hut builders. Soon, we need to trade products and services so we quickly learn after bartering for a while that a currency is needed to exchange goods. Read the rest of this entry »

Introduction to Book of Mormon

“Their words, written on gold plates,”

From the very inception of the Book of Mormon, we read of gold plates. Gold has always been a precious metal, valued for its intrinsic beauty and used as currency for many generations before and since the Book of Mormon. Perhaps gold was an ideal metal to inscribe on because it is malleable and therefore relatively easy of use. Or, perhaps more importantly, the precious words that were to be written thereon were of such value that only plates made of the most precious ore would be used to contain this important record of God’s dealing with the ancient Americans. Read the rest of this entry »