Blogging Through the Book of Mormon

Chapter 15 is short and just reviews the policy forgiving debt and freeing indentured servants. From what I remember, I thought that debts were forgiven and servants freed only every 50 years, on the year of jubilee but this chapter says that it’s every 7 years. What TB pointed out was the while previously it had been discussed that it would be every 50 years, in practice, it became a problem because every 7 years the land was supposed to rest which meant that servants or debtors couldn’t repay their debts because there was no food to be harvested from the fields. So this new 7 year rule was implemented as to not further indebt someone because they couldn’t pay back their debts during that year. They were already going to be hungry enough, compounding debt on top of that would have been catastrophic for the very poor among them. They are also to be given gifts, and this whole thing is a reminder that everything they had belonged to and came from God, so if someone had a lot, then that ...

Chapter 14 is all stuff that has been discussed previously, such as a prohibition on self-mutilation and dietary restrictions. Interestingly, I just saw a Reddit post asking, from an LDS perspective, if self-harm was a spiritual defect. All the responses, which I agree with, was that this was a mental health issue and not indicative of a spiritual problem. If I recall correctly, when this was discussed previously, TB noted that anciently the pagan worships of the people around the Israelites at this time would do extensive decorative cutting of themselves and tattooing and this was God saying not to do that, for various reasons but also to set Israel apart from the pagans surrounding them. As far as self-mutilation in these days, obviously it’s not ideal, but does that extend to piercings and tattoos? I have tattoos and I know there has been counsel from the pulpit several years ago against tattoos, I personally don’t think it’s the end of the world, I thought about getting more, but s...