Blogging Through the Book of Mormon

1:5-12 - We know that Abraham was ordained to the priesthood by Melchezidek because he sought out the blessings of the Fathers, but not from his father, which we can deduce means that his father was not worthy of educating or ordaining Abraham to such an office. Indeed Abraham states “my fathers, having turned from their righteousness… unto the worshipping of the gods of the heathen.” Abraham’s father had an affinity for “the god of Elkenah, and the god of Libnah, and the god of Mahmackrah, and the god of Korash, and the god of Pharaoh, king of Egypt.” With all these different gods, it begs the question, why does there have to be so many, why couldn’t Terah just choose his favorite and stick with that one? The answers has more to do with his motivation “for their hearts were set to do evil” than it does for any practical purpose. The worship of these gods consisted of “offering up their children unto these dumb idols… (and) endeavored to take away my life by the hand of the priest of...

As things settled after the Lord confused the languages at the tower of Babel, we circle back to Ether 1-3 and 6-7 where Jared and his brother and their families and friends were granted the ability to stay together and speak the same language. We have the account of the Jaredites being led away from the main population where they are commanded to make barges and travel across the ocean to the American continent. There are hundreds of years’ worth of records of this people living in the Americas before Lehi and his family showed up. As Genesis goes through the generations from Noah to Abram, there is simply the statement that Terah took his family “and they went forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Canaan; and they came to Haran, and dwelt there.” We learn from modern revelation that it was instead Abram who took his family into the new land at the command of God, but when we go back to Abraham chapter 1, we get a more in depth account of what really happene...