“To be heard, you must speak the language of the one you want to listen.”
Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass
The book I have read more than any other book is ripped apart and hidden in my bathroom cabinet. I have more copies of this book than any other book I own – it keeps appearing in my closet, on my bookshelves, tucked beneath my bed as I organize and clean my house for the changing season. But I have not read this book in years, and recently, in the name of healing poetry, I have started mutilating it.
The Book of Mormon is the book I read more times and have more copies of than any other book. My life was built around Book of Mormon stories and characters; my earliest memories of reading words were stumbling over “therefore” and “Lamanites” as I read the verses each night with my family. My grandparents celebrated their grandchildren who finished the Book of Mormon each year by taking us to the Golden Corral; a metaphor for “feasting on the words of Christ.” And it took me years to recognize that this book was not written for me.
Joseph Smith said: “the Book of Mormon was the most correct book of any book on earth.” So, I read it constantly. Each of my copies are colorfully marked up with words like “compassion” and “love” written in the margins. I assumed the book was for everyone and I found what I was looking for in a book full of men, written by men for their sons and brothers: I mined stories of love and compassion in this book about men and their wars.
And then I read the first three pages of the Dance of the Dissident Daughter and sobbed on a bench at an ice-skating rink. She. Her. Womb. Feminine. Goddess. Language matters. And Sue Monk Kidd was writing my wounds and despair into language that hugged me and held me rather than pushed me out and horrified me.
In Old English, the word mann meant “thinking one” and included all bodies, evidenced in the words: human, mankind, and woman. But language is fluid and changing (“awful” used to mean “worthy of awe”) and the word “man” now means “an adult male human being.” That is what it means to me. Every time I read it. And I realize: the Book of Mormon was always intended for men (males), not me.
The Introduction to the Book of Mormon (written in 1981, when the men who wrote it spoke modern American English) states that they “invite all men everywhere to read the Book of Mormon.” They suggest that it tells “men what they must do to gain peace.” And they quote Joseph Smith, who “told the brethren that the Book of Mormon was the most correct of any book . . . and a man would get nearer to God by abiding by its precepts . . .” Joseph Smith never told everyone that the Book of Mormon was correct for anyone, only his brethren.
This makes sense to me, and once I read The Dance of the Dissident Daughter, I could not stop reading texts that included me. I feasted on Braiding Sweetgrass, Women Who Run With the Wolves, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, This Here Flesh, The Power of Kindness, Tattoos on the Heart, The Power of Ritual, etc. and felt what it was to have scripture written for me – to hear and see a God that isn’t just for men but for everyone.
I have read the Book of Mormon countless times and I am grateful for the language and songs that built my history, the ones that taught me about transformation in the waters of Mormon and the anti-Nephi-Lehi’s who didn’t fear death and the vision of a tree. I appreciate the study and love and dissecting and rejecting I learned from these words of men. I’m grateful for the parallels between Korihor the Anti-Christ and Alma the Younger – one privileged and the other condemned; one allowed to face his shadow, the other punished and killed by cruelty before he could change because he was not a son of a prophet. So, you see, I have learned to see myself in “him.”
However, I do not read this book anymore; we should believe Joseph Smith and the other men when they say their messages are for their brethren. I always felt I didn’t exist in the language of their stories – now I understand why that matters: because there are words and language and stories where I do exist. Words that are written for everyone.
“Language is our gift and our responsibility.”
Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass
20 Responses
So spot on. I recall sometimes hearing leaders say when the words in scriptures speak to men that it means all of us collectively. Ok thanks ????
Thanks for your comment, Dee. Yeah, unfortunately, the etymology does exclude regardless of what a leader says.
Strong enough for a man but made for… well, other men
My take on scripture- written by men, for men, and about men. Count the number of times the Book of Mormon uses the word Brethren. In my earlier life I could stretch to hope that “man” included woman (although young girls have to be expressly taught that). But no amount of stretching can make me a brethren.
Agreed. Thanks, Kim.
Always grateful for your heart and insight.
Thank you, Amy F.
“Joseph Smith never told everyone that the Book of Mormon was correct for anyone, only his brethren.” – Wow. I hadn’t thought about it in these terms. Like you, I have a totally different experience reading something with language that includes me.
Yes, thank you, Katie Ludlow Rich. To feel included by language is incredibly moving when one has been excluded their whole life.
So a man can get closer to God by reading that book than any other one. Okay, cool -where’s the book for women, then? And if they say that “man” includes women too, then how come it doesn’t if we’re talking about men holding the priesthood? We can’t have it both ways!
Good points. Thanks for your comment, Abby! I have found many, many books written for women that are scripture for me. I have learned that a sacred text is sacred when someone declares it to be – if it speaks to my soul, it is scripture.
I think this is why some of President Nelson’s challenges have felt so hurtful to me. Tell women to read the sections of the Doctrine and Covenants that relate to priesthood, okay. Completely forget to discuss that women have to parse ambiguous language about when “men” means them and when it doesn’t, ouch. Mark each verse in the Book of Mormon that refers to the savior, okay. Not realizing that a woman underlining eleventy bajillion male words like “he” “him” and “his” might be getting a different message than a man, golly that’s a gut punch.
I wrote a post you might be interested in. It asks men to learn to identify with female gendered language.
https://wheatandtares.org/2021/01/15/men-who-mother/
Ah, brilliant. Thank you, Kaylee!
I wish I had realized this when I was struggling to stay awake reading it.
Haha!
I love the Book of Mormon. I listen to it almost every day. It grieves me when someone condemns and rejects it. This is even more so when the condemnation and rejection is based on inaccurate information. Perhaps it’s a case of history repeating itself….“Though the message of the Book of Mormon caused some people to rejoice, others were embittered by it.” https://rsc.byu.edu/living-book-mormon-abiding-its-precepts/getting-nearer-god-history-joseph-smiths-statement
Lavender’s genuine despair makes me wonder if it is rooted in something far deeper than merely the semantic drift of “man” and “mankind” as found in the Book of Mormon. To examine that drift and conclude the Book of Mormon is not meant for women is disheartening at best.
To begin with, if we reject the Book of Mormon, we must completely stop self-identifying as Christians. Otherwise, we are voluntarily placing ourselves back under the “curse of Eve.” For it is first in the Book of Mormon that we learn the truth about Eve and the Fall. Other Christians believe if Eve had not partaken of the forbidden fruit, then all humankind would have been born in the Garden of Eden and we would all now be living happily ever after. “Eve’s curse has resulted in the virtual subjugation of women ever since. Until the Enlightenment in the 18th century, women had few rights, if any….In short, a woman was chattel.” https://www.bibletools.org/index.cfm/fuseaction/Topical.show/RTD/cgg/ID/4014/Eves-Curse-.htm
We are also rejecting:
– He inviteth them all to come unto him and partake of his goodness; and he denieth none that come unto him…male and female….
– Now, this restoration shall come to all…both male and female….
– And now, he imparteth his word by angels unto men, yea, not only men but women also.
– Abish (Alma 19:16-31)
Worst of all, we’re rejecting: And he shall go forth, suffering pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind; and this that the word might be fulfilled which saith he will take upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people….
Mormon said, “if there are faults they are the mistakes of men; wherefore, condemn not the things of God….” I don’t hear anyone complaining that he didn’t include women in that phrase about making mistakes….
Moroni said, “Condemn me not because of mine imperfection, neither my father, because of his imperfection, neither them who have written before him; but rather give thanks unto God that he hath made manifest unto you our imperfections, that ye may learn to be more wise than we have been.
Are we being more wise than Moroni when we reject the Book of Mormon because of semantic drift? Yes, Moroni, the guy who dug gold out of a mountain (or panned it from a river), melted it down, pounded it into thin sheets, cut the sheets into plates, created a book out of those plates, learned a foreign language, and then scratched a record of his people in that foreign language onto those plates, then hauled the plates around for 30+ years all by himself while people were trying to kill him, keeping the plates safe until they could be discovered and translated into English….so we can criticize him for his choice of words….
I totally get that words matter, and that “words make worlds.” I also totally get being guilty of presentism, and “they that make a man an offender for a word, and lay a snare for him….”
Lastly, the notion that Korihor was condemned merely because he wasn’t the “privileged” son of a prophet, that he was not given sufficient chances to change, and that Alma “pulled the daddy card” to “get off” is utterly false. Korihor was given many, many chances to change, by many different groups of people. And he was finally brought before Alma himself, who of all people would assuredly have been the most lenient toward a repentant sinner (he was certainly lenient toward Zeezrom). But no, Korihor rejected even Alma’s offers for repentance. And who killed Korihor? The church members that Korihor had been mocking and lying to? No! It was the apostate Zoramites who killed him – those, of all people, who should have taken him in and succored him, because he was “one of them”!
Thank you for your comment, Robin Litster Johnson. I appreciate you sharing and thinking about this topic. Thankfully, you have not felt excluded by the language, stories, and narrators of the Book of Mormon and see yourself reflected in the messages. I’m so glad. However, my post simply points to the exclusion of women and queer language, stories, perspectives, and narrators in a book that is held as the most correct book in a world full of books that use inclusive language and inspire similar (and beautifully different) messages as the ones you shared above. Perhaps you have not ached for the stories of mothers and sisters and therefore cannot relate to the wonder and divine love that comes from reading messages from that perspective.
Regarding the assertion that “Joseph Smith never told everyone that the Book of Mormon was correct for anyone, only his brethren,” please review the Joseph Smith Papers https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/.
20 June 1839 • Thursday
Thursday following went to Elder Zebedee Coulters [Coltrin’s], from there were invited to visit a brother br Vance’s which wee did and there gave to the brethren and friends of the Neigborhood, a brief history or account of the coming forth of the Book of Mormon,
https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/journal-1839/5?highlight=book%20of%20mormon
30 June 1839 • Sunday
Sunday at Meeting at Br Bosiers [Squire Bozarth’s] Bore testimony to a crowded audience concerning the truth of this work & also of the truth of the Book of Mormon &c. &c.
https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/journal-1839/6?highlight=book%20of%20mormon
Hmmmm….it appears that in the 14 years from the time of the Book of Mormon’s publication and the Prophet’s martyrdom, he talked about the Book of Mormon on at least two more occasions, and to more people (presumably including women), than a small group of the Twelve Apostles (to whom the “I told the brethren” comment was specifically directed https://rsc.byu.edu/living-book-mormon-abiding-its-precepts/getting-nearer-god-history-joseph-smiths-statement).
I remember sitting in a religion class at BYU and the Professor asked the class why women were so rare in the scriptures. A young man raised his hand and said, “Because men deal with the important things: priesthood and property.” I was stunned. Even more stunning is I don’t remember the professor correcting him. (Maybe he did, I was in shock}. I can’t explain why we aren’t named more often, I just chalk it up to good ole’ sexism, particularly at the time these books were written and translated.
I do know this, however, as a never-married woman, I don’t have a priesthood holder in my home and getting ahold of one for blessings is actually pretty tough business. I learned many years ago that God is not limited by not having priesthood holders. I have had numerous physical healings just praying directly to the Lord. It makes me wonder if women’s experiences just occupy a sacred and more personal space and that they don’t need to be broadcast. I can’t remember the names, but there is a story in the New Testament where Jesus heals a young girl and he sends the crowd away before he does so. Her miracle is personal and not for public consumption.
When I was born the universe unconditionally gave me love, air to breathe, food to eat and water to drink.
No manuals (religions) for how i must live were thrust upon me, there was no compulsory choice to be made.
Religions were created by man to instill fear and exert control, to seduce us into giving away our power.
A common thread that runs through all religions is that women are inferior and subservient to men. Being born a woman is considered to be some sort of karmic punishment.
How do we reverse the mind conditioning of women such that they question why they engage with any religion on any level at all?
Paul
An adherent of Roots Christianinty – the true teachings of Mary and Jesus.