Reading Update

It's been a while since I've done some reading updates.  I've just been busy it's not that I haven't been reading.

The BKC, I've been reading it still.  Right now I read what it says about a chapter in the OT about every other day, the days that I ride my exercise cycle.  The problem is that it's not really saying anything that's caught my interest except recently.  I did discover that it looks like the authors is changed on every chapter.  The chapter on Exodus is written by John D. Hannah, and I seem to like the author of the first chapter on Genesis.  Allen P. Ross wrote the first chapter.  I guess if I'm really interested I could look up the authors information at the beginning of the book.

I guess that the reason that I haven't really noticed anything of interest is because of the truly story nature of the last couple of chapters.  But it may just be that I haven't been that impressed with the writer.  For example, when he was talking about the plague of the frogs he says that perhaps the frogs came out of the river because of the fact that all the fish were dead from the blood of the first plague.  That my be true, but it doesn't make much sense.  1.  If the frogs came out because of all the dead fish why did they wait until Aaron used his staff?  Why didn't the frogs come out of the bloody nile?  Do frogs like to swim in blood?  If the writer is going to use reason to explain the plagues he should at least make it reasonable.

Also, in the introduction he goes into a lot of the different ideas about dating the Exodus and problems with the different times.  That was very interesting, but not new, then he just picks the date that he wants to use and starts using that date.  This means that the writer says things like this would have been the Pharaoh at this time.  Then he says that one problem we have with the dating is that there is a mistake in the translation of Reed Sea, as Red Sea.  He does say that the Hebrews were miraculously delivered, my question is how?  If the Hebrews came to the Reed Sea, why were they worried about getting across a swamp?  I mean it might be hard to do, but it's not like going across the Red Sea is it.  Then what happened to the Egyptians, they all rode into the swamp until they were dead?  I guess I'll have to wait till I get to that part to find out what happens.  I guess I don't like the mixing of reality based with faith based writing.

However, now to the interesting part.  When Moses tells the Pharaoh that he will lift the plague of frogs that the Pharaoh should pick the time so that the Pharaoh would know that it was the Lord that stopped the plague.  Another thing that I'd never noticed was that the Lord says that he will treat the Land of Goshen differently than the rest of Egypt.  Never noticed that before, but it makes a lot of sense.

I've caught up on reading the Ensign and New Eras.  I'd gotten behind this year for some reason and made a point of catching up on all the back issues for this year.  I'd thought that I'd caught up with July when on the day I finished with July the August Ensign and New Era showed up so I started reading them again and now I'm done with them.  Yeah.

Here's my current reading schedule.  On days that I do t turbulence training I listen to the scriptures, one chapter in the Book of Mormon, and the New Testament for the rest of the time (currently).  Then when I do the interval training I read a thought from "Come Listen to a Prophets Voice", which is a book by Lloyd D. Newell of "daily counsel and inspiration."  Then I either read the Ensign or New Era or the Church book that I'm reading currently.  Right now for my morning reading I'm reading "Making Sense of the Doctrine and Covenants: A Guided Tour through Modern Revelations" by Steven C. Harper.  Provides background information of each section of the D&C.

On days that I do the exercise cycle in the AM I read a chapter of the Book of Mormon.  Right now I'm reading "The Book of Mormon: The Earliest Text" that was edited by Royal Skousen.  It's cool, it's his attempt to recreate the Book of Mormon as Joseph Smith dictated it.  It has all the grammar mistakes that Joseph Smith made.  Dr. Skousen used the original manuscript where it exists, and the printer manuscript to recreate original text.  He also uses what he calls "Sense-lines."  There is evidence that Joseph Smith would read out a line of text and then make sure that the scribe had the line right before he moved on.  In the original manuscript there is no punctuation of any kind.  In the first printing of the Book of Mormon the printer edited the manuscript because he couldn't print a book sized paragraph.  So Dr. Skousen has re-punctuated the text and gives what he calls sense-lines which is what he things are the sections that Joseph read out to the scribe.  There is a fairly large introduction where Dr. Skousen give examples of things that are clearer in the original text.  For example there are a lot more "hebraisms" in the original text.  Also, Joseph's use of grammar was less than stellar which is what is expected from someone who was probably functionally illiterate.  Emma Smith in a quote later in life says that the production of the Book of Mormon was beyond Joseph Smith, and all you have to do is read some of his letters that he wrote himself from this time period, and this original text, and you begin to realize that Joseph had problems with the English language.  His writing got better as he worked on educating himself throughout his life.  Anyway, I really like reading this version of the Book of Mormon on my cycle riding days.

After I read a chapter from the Book of Mormon I then read the uplifting thought from "Come Listen to a Prophets Voice" then I read a chapter form the BKC and the corresponding chapter from the OT.  Then I read from the Ensign, New Era or the Church book that I'm reading in the morning as described above.

Besides all those books I'm also currently reading "Hearken, O Ye People: The Historical Setting of Joseph Smith's Ohio Revelations" by Mark Lyman Staker.  The title is pretty self explanatory, are when I'm not reading that I'm reading Vol 4 of BYU Studies on my iPhone.

So that's what I'm reading right now.  I just love reading.  I also just finished BYU Studies, Vol 50, Number 2 2011.  However, it was not very good.  Sometimes I love that journal and sometimes it just falls flat.  The only really interesting article in the edition was called "Last Rites and Dynamics of Mormon Liturgy" by Jonathon A. Stapely.  One of the books that was reviewed was the "Book of Mormon: The Earliest Text."  They reviewer seemed to like it as well.  Apparently there are some sections at the end of the book as well that sound as interesting as the introductory sections at the beginning were.  I'm looking froward to reading them.

So that's the round up on what's been happening in my reading life.