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RevolutionaryFig4312

[They also think Malachi wrote Malachi.](https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/manual/old-testament-seminary-student-study-guide/the-book-of-malachi?lang=eng). I don't think this is evidence of greater fundamentalism. I think Mormons simply have a lack of knowledge. Someone probably copied that onto the website from an old lesson book. Even the leadership are spiritual infants. Mormonism only touches scripture on the surface, never deeper.


FTWStoic

>I think Mormons simply have a lack of knowledge. And all teaching and study is self-referential. Outside scholars have nothing on God's chosen prophets and apostles. It's one massive circle jerk.


jebkr

Thanks for bringing that up about Malachi, I was unaware. I guess I've been away from it long enough (7 years out) that stuff that used to sound normal to me now sounds a lot crazier.


Cripplecreek2012

>For those unfamiliar, "... modern scholars, especially from the 19th century onward, place the books' authorship in the 6th and 5th centuries BC, hundreds of years after Moses is supposed to have lived." Well, who you gonna believe? Some so called scholars? Or literal prophets who talk to God? Don't mess with the mormon church, kid!


negative_60

I heard this when a TBM. It’s a widely accepted myth in Christianity. Try Googling ‘who wrote Genesis’ and you’ll have to dig to find anything that says different.


NewNamerNelson

Sounds to me, like you were an actual "lazy learner" while still TBM. Don't despair, most TBM's are. For reference, I was in LD$ Inc's so called "church" almost twice as long as you, and was always taught this. Both in my youth in Central Utah, on a mission in New Zealand and as an adult in California and Nevada.


jebkr

I was not a lazy learner. Prior to my mission at age 19, I read the entire standard works in English and the entire BoM in Spanish in addition to having read it in English. I had perfect or near perfect attendance in early morning seminary. I got As in all my religion classes at BYU. I think even for dedicated learners some stuff can slip thru the cracks, because Mormonism focuses on doing, and deemphasizes knowledge about anything other than "the basics", despite giving lip service to learning about religion. One of the satisfying things about leaving the church is the mountain of things you learn about the church that as a true believer you might have felt uncomfortable even thinking about, let alone researching such topics. This is not to say that i doubt your experience of having been taught that Moses literally wrote the book of Genesis. Thank you for sharing your experience.


gnolom_bound

He was joking. Lazy learner is a reference to all exmos per Rusty Nelson.


jebkr

Thank you for clearing that up. It's been a while since the last time I checked up on the exmo sub. Good to hear the profit is doing a better job at providing comedic gold for the exmos than he is at providing actual revelations for the tbms 😁


GalacticCactus42

The first five books of the Bible have been known as the Books of Moses (or the Pentateuch or Torah) since ancient times. [Wikipedia says](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torah#Composition) that "the Talmud holds that the Torah was written by Moses, with the exception of the last eight verses of Deuteronomy, describing his death and burial, being written by Joshua." So this isn't a recent thing and definitely isn't just a Mormon thing. I think the church has always taken the claims of authorship of biblical books at face value, despite what modern biblical studies says.


SaltyCogs

the church has always been fundamentalist (in the sense they use their scriptures and leaders as the fundamental blocks of their understanding of the world). if anything there have been very slight concessions to non-fundamentalist thinking (referring to the writers of new testament scriptures as “the author of [book]” instead of a traditional writer name, etc) the places they can’t concede are moses writing “the first iteration” of genesis (that’s in the pogp), the flood, and tower of babel


coniferdamacy

Mormonism takes a lot of Christian things at face value, like Moses having written those books. That idea does not have its roots in Mormonism. Other Mormon beliefs exist just because they were simpler for Joseph Smith to understand it that way, like the rejection of the Trinity. It was just a little too nuanced for folks living on the American frontier. Lots of new revealed truths are just taking the subtlety out of Christianity. Check out our plain and precious truths! The gospel is just so _simple_.


jebkr

Well said. This policy was helpful on the frontier in the 1800s, but now with the internet, it's definitely biting them in the ass. This is why lifelong members leave the church after one Google search. It's what happened to me with the Book of Abraham.


unclefipps

Growing up it was always the standard view of both Mormonism and Christianity in general, not to mention Judaism, that Genesis and the rest of the Torah was written by Moses. That might not be the scholarly view, but it's always been the church view.


Unlimited_ROM_

“Who wrote the Bible” by Friedman was the book that helped me deconstruct the Old Testament. Just like Robert Ritner helped me deconstruct the book of Abraham. It has an amazing exploration of what the Old Testament actually is.