They Didn’t Tell Me This!!! RFM: 458

I had a faith crisis in my mid-twenties. A big faith crisis. It involved a salamander and it involved a letter. It made me question everything I thought I knew about Joseph Smith, the book he produced, and the religion he founded. The LDS religion. MY religion! And in that time of despair, I clung to the most significant single evidence that the Book of Mormon is ancient, and therefore authentic, and therefore true. I clung to the presence of “chiasmus” in the Book of Mormon; that incredible ancient Hebrew literary form that shows up in such abundance in the Nephite record. But had I been told everything there was to tell about chiasmus? Or had information been withheld from me to make “chiasmus” look like a much more impressive evidence for the Book of Mormon? Was it a solid evidence, or was it fool’s gold? And if I had known it was fool’s gold in my twenties, would I have clung to it as such strong evidence for the Book of Mormon? And if I had not clung to “chiasmus,” as proof of the Restoration, might I have left the church in my mid-twenties and lived a very different life; a life lived on my own terms as opposed to the terms dictated to me by Mormonism? These are the thoughts that I try to work through in this podcast. I hope you will join me on this journey.