How many times did Joseph Smith preach using the Book of Mormon?

[_kairos]

This question has been on my mind for a number of years-seems like to me Joseph Smith cranked out the Book of Mormon and never really used it as a source for preaching. Is this correct or am I off the rails
on this? And why did he not use it like the GAs of today do?

Just Askin'
k

[_Rick Grunder]

"Mormon periodicals in the 1830s," according to Philip L. Barlow, "cited the Bible nineteen times as often as the Book of Mormon, . . . ," even though in 1832 (on the anniversary of the Moroni visits), "The Lord chided Church members for not valuing the Book of Mormon sufficiently." (Barlow, 44, citing D&C 84:54-57).

Most striking to me, however, are Barlow's statistics for Joseph Smith, where ". . . in the 173 discourses given in Nauvoo, Illinois for which contemporary records exist, Smith himself paraphrased the Book of Mormon only twenty-three times but quoted or paraphrased the Bible more than six hundred times." (citing Grant Underwood and other sources).

And then the observation which takes my breath away: "Although he described the Book of Mormon as more correct than any other book and as 'the keystone of our religion,' there is little evidence that he ever took time to study its contents as he did the Bible's." (Barlow, 44)


--Philip L. Barlow, Mormons and the Bible: The Place of the Latter-day Saints in American Religion. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, [1991].

[_Dr Moore]

And then the observation which takes my breath away: "Although he described the Book of Mormon as more correct than any other book and as 'the keystone of our religion,' there is little evidence that he ever took time to study its contents as he did the Bible's." (Barlow, 44)

That IS interesting evidence of it being a work of his own fabrication, maybe more than any other such evidence.

[_kairos]

Thanx Rick and the good Dr. M for your comments.


i hope i remember this correctly but did not Dan Vogel and several others postulate that if Joseph Smith was beginning a new religion he needed/used the Book of Mormon
as a "foundational " source he could claim he was connected to God and the Book of Mormon gave him the needed credibility? i wonder if the Book of Abraham could be thought of that as well-he thinking "i am a prophet so i translate plates and other documents that others cannot-i get revelations etc".

k

[_kairos]

bump

[_Dr Moore]

I would love to know where to find the apologetic answer on FAIR Mormon.

"Why didn't Joseph Smith make daily study of the Book of Mormon a priority?"
"Why didn't Joseph Smith teach more frequently from the Book of Mormon?"

The answer makes its own case from the data: because the Book of Mormon was a product of his imagination.