It is an easy question to answerDoes the Church teach that the Book of
Mormon has a Familiar Spirit?
Check
one:YES/
NO
DAVEH: LOL......."has a Familiar Spirit"??? The context in which you construe "has a Familiar Spirit" is not the same as Richards (and JFSjr) or even Isaiah implied. If you read all the passages of the OT that refer to "familiar spirit(s)", with one single exception you will notice they all pertain to people or persons who dabble in divining (querying) spirits in the spirit world, which the Lord condemns. That one exception is Is 29:1-4, where Isaiah foretells the future plight of the people of Jerusalem. He then (vs 4) uses imagery (which was familiar to those to whom he was preaching) to convey the message that their voices will be heard as that which comes murmuring out of the ground. It was not meant to infer that their voices (or rather their message) would be evil, but rather they would be like whispers sifting up from a place least expected.Richards goes a step further to suggest that the spirit of that message would be familiar to those who are discerning of the Lord's gospel......hence, he uses the phrase "Truly it has a familiar spirit, for it contains the words of the prophets of the God of Israel" to connote the familiar ring of truth that comes from the prophets of God quoted in the BofM, coming to us in effect as whispers from the ground due to the nature of how the BofM was preserved.
jt: Sounds appropriate to me - the object lesson that is.
Judy
