Comments on: What to do about Shiblon… er, Shiblom?

Comment by: Lincoln Cannon

2007-10-29T13:59:56Z

Hi Jonathan. That’s an interesting find. You might like this:

http://www.zugos.net

It is a parallel textual comparison of the Bible and the Book of Mormon that I originally put together for my honors thesis at BYU, and later expanded into a software program that automates the comparison.

Comment by: Cliff

2007-10-29T18:57:39Z

When a Mormon *doesn’t* learn this truth, its a real tragedy. When I learned it, it made me a much better Mormon, because it allowed me to think and receive the inspiration of God more directly, and have confidence in my own personal revelation.

This in turn allowed me to know that hominids have been making bowls and other ‘tools’ for at least 20,000 years, regardless of what Joseph Fielding Smith thought. Since the Church teaches that all truth can be circumscribed into one great whole, it has caused me to seek unity in all, and that was a second infusion of realizations that sweetened the first immeasurably.

The Gospel and the Church are two different (and I believe, complementary) things. The sooner people find that out, the better.

Comment by: Jonathan Blake

2007-10-29T21:32:31Z

Lincoln,

Interesting. What was the data source for the comparison?

Cliff,

I agree. If someone is going to practice Mormonism, I think it’s best to do it with their eyes open. Fundamentalism of any sort seems to be a form of immaturity especially prevalent in adolescence. In this respect, I agree with the spirit of James Fowler’s ideas on faith.

Comment by: Lincoln Cannon

2007-10-30T08:33:48Z

I used plain text files for both books.

Comment by: Jonathan Blake

2007-10-30T11:07:56Z

And was the comparison done manually or automatically? The reason I ask is that there are obscure comparisons that I never noticed before.

Comment by: Lincoln Cannon

2007-10-30T13:41:07Z

The first comparison was manual, which required several months of long hours. Afterwards, I automated the process to compare and confirm results. The results on the site you looked at are from the automated comparison — the site is just a stylesheet applied to XML files generated by the comparison tool (you can see the XML by looking at source). The automated comparison is more detailed, but does not catch a few things the manual comparison caught.