3 Nephi 17:4 [Book of Mormon]
“But now I go unto the Father and also to show myself unto the lost tribes of Israel, for they are not lost unto the Father, for he knoweth whither he hath taken them.”
Ahhhh, really? The lost tribes. For one, there really were no lost tribes. This goes back to the separation of Israel and Judah. Israel to the north, that eventually was overtaken by Assyrians. These tribes, unfaithful for generations, were displaced by the policies of empire. They were moved to other areas of the ancient world, where they eventually assimilated into the populaces to which they had been sent, accepting their gods, and abandoning their own God, the God of Israel.
But they weren’t totally lost, as when the kingdoms separated after the death of Solomon, people from the northern tribes came to live in Judah, because they were faithful to God and did not want to be separated from the place God had chosen to be worshiped. They would not worship in the temples Rehaboam set up in the north, for they knew that was idolatry. 2 Chron. 11:13-16 (ESV)
"And the priests and the Levites who were in all Israel presented themselves to him from all places where they lived. [14] For the Levites left their common lands and their holdings and came to Judah and Jerusalem, because Jeroboam and his sons cast them out from serving as priests of the Lord, [15] and he appointed his own priests for the high places and for the goat idols and for the calves that he had made. [16] And those who had set their hearts to seek the Lord God of Israel came after them from all the tribes of Israel to Jerusalem to sacrifice to the Lord, the God of their fathers."
The Mormons, and even the Book of Mormon, act as if the lost tribes just up and vanished as if in some sort of rapture, and their whereabouts was just not known. People should really read their Old Testaments more.
6 comments:
Those people who assimilated weren't all regathered.
Benjamin,
What is your point?
Mine is we know what happened to these tribes. They had assimilated into the cultures to which they were displaced, and lost any distinctive identity. They did not vanish.
Yet when the kingdom split, representatives from the other tribes found refuge in Judah, so neither were they completely lost. They did not need to be "regathered." And they were not lost in such a manner that would account for them showing up in shangrila or where ever this forsaken book takes place.
The claim that's being made here is that the people who "lost any distinctive identity" will need to be reminded of where their fathers came from and that the Book of Mormon is going to try to do that
Benjamin,
How is a book written in N. America going to do that for a group of people that have assimilated into the cultures of the Middle east, to the point where they are no longer a distinctive people at all?
You have to read it to find out :)
Benjamin, I have read it, and it just becomes more laughable.
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