I went to Amazon and did a search for the Book of Mormon. Wow, there are a lot more than I realized; new formats, old editions, public domain books, and the official LDS as well as Community of Christ (RLDS) versions. There were a couple illustrated children’s versions, a journal version, and the very well done Royal Skousen version, not to mention the Denver Snuffer movements newest addition to the group. I was disappointed though, because I scrolled and scrolled, passing commentaries and study guides, but never saw on the list the two versions produced by Daymon Smith; The Abridging Works, which reads more like an epic poem along the lines of The Iliad and The Odyssey, or his 2nd version The Book of Mormon in three volumes. I’m glad that there is a need that exists outside the purview of the official LDS, or any sect. I’m glad that copyright laws open up the book to public domain status and helps unwrap the book from the octopus tentacles of the corporation. There is so much baggage there, and as the octopus looses its grip, and so much is revealed as false or true, or real or not, the opportunity to imagine new things (freedom) seems to be arising.
As I continued to discover new ideas, in the midst of leaving lds™️, and especially leaving the remnant, I realized that I actually didn’t know anything. The more I learned the less I knew. 😁 In contrast there are many who have picked up a few new ideas and now know the things that they currently believe. I like sharing ideas with others, willing to listen to other ideas, and hopefully be offered a turn to share my own ideas. It seems this requires imagination, were we each imagine ourselves equals and we each imagine other ideas worthy of conversation and listening and pondering. I feel like Daymon Smith presents his ideas in this way. He seems to say, “Hey, I have an idea that I think is pretty neat, what do you think of my idea?” And in the midst of his ideas he reminds the reader that he doesn’t know, but based off of evidences he perceives, he speculates out loud. He doesn’t know. And, of yeah, those other guys, they don’t actually know either.
I like that. I think it gives everyone the space to think their own ideas without the requirements to prove them. Proofs and evidences that convinces others, those for me shut down imagination. Besides, there are already plethora of apologists and critics. I appreciate them. Yet I think it’s time to make way for the imaginationists – those willing to dream new dreams and not be bound down by being right or wrong.
The Abridging Works by Daymon Smith.
“Mormon, however, would write in Reformed Egyptian, which need not bear any resemblance to whatever scripts scholars now call Egyptian, or its variations in Demotic, Hieratic, and otherwise. Mormon, after all, did not write his record after the discoveries of Thomas Young and Champollion, and need not be bound by anachronistic definitions, even those of 1828.”
Breathings 