Tuesday, August 2, 2016

Jacob, Chapter 6

1) And now, behold, after I had read the words of Zenos, the people did desire to see it for themselves upon the brass plates, for verily they had never heard of Zenos, neither had such a name ever been discovered among all the archaeological findings of ancient Israel.

2) And they did claim that Zenos sounded a lot like Enos from the Book of Genesis, and did accuse me of simply adding a Z to make it sound cool, and then fabricating the entire story, for verily the whole thing did sound much like an amalgamation of Romans Chapter 11 and Isaiah Chapter 5, the latter having already been plagiarized by my brother as 2 Nephi, Chapter 15.

3) And I said unto them, I have not fabricated any of this story, despite the strange inconsistencies and heavily borrowed material. Nevertheless it will conveniently disappear one day from all records, only to be rediscovered thanks to Joseph Smith.

4) And as for the name Enos, it is true. I like it. In fact I have given my son that name. But that is only coincidence and has nothing to do with Zenos, which is a completely different name. And besides, Joseph Smith couldn't possibly have known about the horticultural practices that were described.

5) And they said unto me, he was a farmer. And besides, wild branches can not yield tame fruit. That is genetically impossible.

6) And I said unto them, harden not your hearts; for why will ye die?

7) For behold, after ye have been nourished by the good word of God all the day long, if ye will reject these words ye shall be cast into the fire and suffer the epitome of endless torment.

8) And they did accuse me of escalating the debate, and of attempting to shut down rational discussion by using death threats.

9) And I said unto them, know ye not that God doeth it all the time? Therefore, debate not, question not, for unless ye accept my words at face value Christ will bring you to stand with shame and awful guilt before the bar of God.

10) And because ye did not arbitrarily choose to cleave unto these words as opposed to any other of thousands of philosophical writings, justice cannot be denied, and ye must go away into that lake of fire and brimstone, whose flames are unquenchable, and whose smoke ascendeth up forever and ever, which lake of fire and brimstone is endless torment.

11) Oh then, my beloved non-member neighbors reading this in modern times, thank you for joining us for Family Home Evening tonight. I'm sorry ye had to hear that particular verse, but it's where we left off last week, and we have to follow tradition. I swear there are uplifting parts somewhere in this book. Here let me offer a trite, uninspiring, but quippy one-liner as damage control:

12) O be wise; what can I say more?

13) Ah, ye are leaving. That is not the moral I expected ye to draw from my idiom. I bid you farewell, then, until I shall meet you before the pleasing bar of God, which bar is so pleasing that it shall strike you down with awful dread and fear. Are you sure you don't want to stay for dessert?

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