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Showing posts from May, 2012

Ammon and the Lamanites: Book of Mormon Narratives in Columbus' Voyages

Last summer I mentioned that accounts from Columbus's journeys to the New World consistently mention gold plates so thin that  they resemble the leaves of a book . Then, as I was listening to  Elder Quentin L. Cook's talk at General Conference in April , I couldn't help but remember another link between Columbus's journeys and the Book of Mormon. Elder Cook taught: "The Book of Mormon is of seminal importance. There will, of course, always be those who underestimate the significance of or even disparage this sacred book. Some have used humor. Before I served a mission, a university professor quoted Mark twain's statement that if you took 'And it came to pass' out of the Book of Mormon, it 'would have been only a pamphlet.' "A few months later, while I was serving a mission in London, England, a distinguished Oxford-educated teacher at London University, an Egyptian expert in Semitic languages [Ebeid Sarofim], read the Book of Mormon, c