ABC's of Science and Exmormonism: J is for ...

Jehovah. The big-dog. The main deity in most religions today. From Yahweh to renaming him to be the premortal name of Jesus, this impacts a lot of people.

The key point is that the LDS faith believes that Jehovah is the premortal name of Jesus

Jehovah in history was pronounced Yahweh and wasn't worshiped alone (Miller, Patrick D (1986) . A History of Ancient Israel and Judah. Westminster John Knox Press. page 110).

The earliest plausible references to it are in Egyptian texts that place him among the nomads of the southern Transjordan. Dever, William G. (2003b). Who Were the Early Israelites and Where Did They Come From. Eerdmans page 128.

In the oldest biblical literature he is a typical ancient Near Eastern "divine warrior" who leads the heavenly army against Israel's enemies; Hackett, Jo Ann (2001). "'There Was No King In Israel': The Era of the Judges". In Coogan, Michael David. The Oxford History of the Biblical World. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-513937-2 page 158–159.

Which is to say that Yaweh, as a concept, developed over time, shifting and changing in the earliest documents, to later documents with a traceable trail. This is a problem for anyone who wants to claim Yahweh, or Jehovah is a real, existing being.

It's like if you ask any kid about Batman, they can probably give you the basic lore: "parents were killed, throws batarangs, has a sidekick named Robin, fights the Joker." So too, if you ask a Christian about Jehovah, they can give some basics.

But if you ask someone who read the comics, the actual written word of the day, you might learn that Batman used to kill, and was Azrael for a while when Bruce Wayne's back was broken, and there are three Robins, as well as two girl ones including Frank Miller's questionable timeline; and let's not forget the second Girl Robin isn't called Robin.

Because the details are messy. And when you read the actual issues of the writen stories of Yahweh you get a very different picture. He starts out like Thor, and then becomes more and more dignified over the years.

Or if you like, you can read it in comic form

The LDS view is thusly challenged

All of this, is to say; problematic for the perception that Jesus was Jehovah before this world. It requires one to ONLY read the bible, and not any of the contemporary documents to maintain this view. It is a view entirely driven by ignoring the context.

But even within the bible there are issues

It is important to know that "The Lord" in the KJV of the bible was put in place purely to reverence the name of God in something called the "ineffible name doctrine](http://www.jewfaq.org/name.htm), and that it always means "Jehovah".

This becomes problematic in a very key scripture (Warning we're about to get theologically technical here):

Namely in Psalm 110, starting at verse 1 we get:

The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool.

Or to translate it with less respect, but clearer:

Jehovah said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool.

The question becomes who is Jehovah calling "My Lord", and in the New Testament, Jesus answers this in Mathew 22 declaring himself as the "My Lord" in the verse:

44 Saying, What think ye of Christ? whose son is he? They say unto him, The Son of David.

43 He saith unto them, How then doth David in spirit call him Lord, saying,

44 The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, till I make thine enemies thy footstool?

45 If David then call him Lord, how is he his son?

46 And no man was able to answer him a word, neither durst any man from that day forth ask him any more questions.

And so you've got Jehovah telling Jesus to sit on His right hand until Jehovah makes the world Jehovah's foot stool.

Which Jehovah are we talking to now, Sybil?

Other problems with Jesus/Jehovah

Beyond an identity crisis of a drunken Thor-like war God telling Jesus to "park it until he becomes Jesus and takes over the world", we also have issues with the Jesus narative.

Blood from every pore having pressure sufficient to let a drop of blood come out of a pore would require about a teaspoon of blood, and that if one bleeds out of every poor, you have to have thousands of gallons of blood come out. The average person contains about 5.5 liters of blood, meaning that Jesus must have had a superpower of "Spontaneous blood generation". This is a claim that is on the level of "Batman exists because he is a ninja, ergo no one has seen him" and should require extraordinary evidence that Jesus generated blood anywhere else, or should be dismissed as a pet theory.

The problem is, that Mormonism doesn't just have Mosiah stating that Jesus bled from every pore, it has Jesus/Jehovah/Yaweh stating it in revelation.

The New Testament ( Matthew 2:16-18) has Harod killing 2-year- olds to hunt down Jesus. Herod was indeed a tyrant, but nothing outside of Matthew hints at such a massacre of children.

Luke 2:1 tells of a decree from Caesar Augustus that everyone should return to ancestral homelands for a census. No such Roman decree (or anything like it) is ever mentioned outside of Luke.

The trial of Jesus is said to have taken place at night on the first night of Passover before the Sanhedrin. The members of the Sanhedrin were the leading rabbinic figures of the time. It is nearly incredible that they would violate their own rabbinic Law to meet in trial at night or on the Passover, let alone both. There is no corroboration of this apart from the gospel stories.

For more scientific issues with the Jesus story

The Atonement

Here is where we get into a scientific/theological issue that is central to Mormonism, and most of Christianity, that makes no sense.

First we must define the Atonement, that is that God (Jehovah or Elohim?) so loved the World, He sent His son, so that those who sinned could be redeamed.

That is to say, that sacrificing an innocent life would somehow make guilty individuals clean. This idea makes no sense.

Let's say that Batman has three robins. If he let's Joker bash Jason Todd's head in because Jason was innocent, does that somehow vindicate Dick Grayson and Tim Drake? Does the sacrifice of an innocent help the guilty?

But Mormonism goes beyond the bizarre concept of sacrificing an innocent deity to redeem fallen mankind to explain that the natural man, how we were created into this world, is sufficient reason to damn us all to an eternal punishment unless we let Jason Todd be hit by a crowbar sacrifice an innocent deity.

How does this make any sense at all? 6 billion units of sin; Billions of gallons of sperm, Billions of gallons of blood spilt in anger, unbelievable amounts of time and effort expended both to control or dominate, or in prison camps subjugated for unjuste whims of petty dictators, all wiped clean by a half-human sacrifice. It seems, well, primitive in nature.

The harmony of the Gospels

Another issue for the LDS and the Jesus/Jehovah situations is that the theology depends heavily on the accuracy of the entire bible. If, for example, Jesus didn't actually cast the 1st level spel "Create food" repeatedly for 5000 people, the Mormon mythos of food generation for pioneers is called into question.

If it is discovered that Jesus was not married, Brigham and other's statements are left to be apologized away.

Indeed, the view on Jesus is a very 1800's viewpoint. Things Jesus taught (Jesus tells us his mission is to make family members hate one another, so that they shall love him more than their kin (Matt. 10:35-37). He promises salvation to those who abandon their wives and children for him (Matt. 19:29, Mark 10:29-30, Luke 18-29-30). Disciples must hate their parents, siblings, wives, and children (Luke 14:26). The rod is not enough for children who curse their parents; they must be killed (Matt. 15:4-7, Mark 7:9-10, following Lev. 20:9) that were questionable were already mostly smoothed over by the time Joseph Smith Jr. came on the scene, and just like the Jehovah/Yahweh issue, Joseph seems not only unaware of the issues as he incorporates them into the day-to-day beliefs of his followers, he binds the faith to ideas that hadn't stood up to questioning in hundreds of years.

From Jesus visiting John the baptist To Jesus not attending temple weddings the whole mythos is as flawed as a comic book.

And they add to it with the idea that Jesus was married

Basically, all the flaws that apply to biblical christianity are compounded in Mormonism, and then enhanced by throwing in the Jesus/Jehovah connection. These ideas are never addressed by the Mormon theology, but are instead, ignored or simply ascribed to the miraculous workings of God.

If God really did restore a religion in the 1800's one would think He might address philosophical arguments that had been confusing mankind for the last few hundred years. He might have helped clarify who He was, and how interactions happened. But if the concept of God is ever changing depending on the author, then Mormonism is just one more set of fanfiction, drafted based on the current understanding, that has been written over the course of millennia.

Finally, to illustrate the point, individuals took the historical record and attempted to reconstruct what Jesus would actually look like The picture we get by following even what the text claims is so amazingly different from what the LDS church portrays it's almost like one isn't talking about the same person at all.

Is that Azarael under that cowl, Bruce?