2020. What a year. But you’ve heard enough about that by now. Take a break from the elections, pandemics, and murder hornets, and let’s review very quickly what’s been going on on this blog over the past year. The blog is turning 2 years old, and 23 posts have dropped here since Jan 2020. Feel free to follow the links provided to read each post in its entirety. That would be cool.
We started off 2020 by talking about the Pearl of Great Price prophecy that a remnant of Noah’s seed would be found among all nations. A remnant, or part of Noah’s descendants would be found among all nations, instead of would become all nations. There’s a difference there, and it’s significant, leaving it wide open that Noah’s flood was a local flood that in fact didn’t wipe out the entire human and animal population. (Noah’s Flood: A Remnant of Noah Among the Nations (Moses 7:52))
Around that time, there was a sensation around the star Betelgeuse. Was it about to explode? Truth is it already might be exploded, but we don’t know yet. Here I prayed that the star would explode, and contemplated the ethics of that supplication. It’s like praying for the snow to stop so you can travel to festivities safely while others are simultaneously praying for the snow to continue to mitigate drought conditions. I want a star to explode so I can see it happen, but that wouldn’t bode well for any life in the star’s vicinity. What do you guys think? (Betelgeuse, Please Explode)
Then it was more Noah stuff, but from an odd angle: the People of Shum. This is a group of people randomly mentioned in Moses 7 that could complicate the global-flood hypothesis. Why is the destruction of the People of Shum even in Moses, and what does it have to do with world history? I also entertained and explored the possibility that the Shum people have a connection to Shum Laka in Cameroon. (Noah’s Flood: The People of Shum (Moses 7:4-8))
After that, I just kinda dumped some thoughts and ideas for blog posts in a blog post just in case the world ended a bit earlier than expected. Go there for some cool ideas and let me know what you think. Some of these ideas have evolved into their own posts already. (Thoughts on Just About Everything)
Then it was my favorite post of 2020. Joseph Smith famously declared that the earth was made out of pieces of destroyed planets, and ever since then, science has been proving him right. Our world is a veritable mashup of other planets, we’re finding out, and I’m amazed that Joseph somehow knew about this in 1841. To me, it’s compelling evidence that he was a seer, and I nerd out about it almost daily. (That Time Joseph Smith Said The Earth Was Made of Planets)
I’m constantly comparing what Young Earth Creationists (YECs) and atheists say to what Joseph Smith said because the man drew a beautiful compromising line down the middle of those two extreme positions. Because Ken Ham always has, …well, interesting things to say, I started my first comparison with him. Check it out–it’s pretty fun and quite informative. What if Ken Ham debated, not Bill Nye, but Joseph Smith? With science and religion in mind, which man gets closest to the truth? (Ken Ham vs Joseph Smith)
Next we discussed how the grammar in a Book of Moses passage could imply that Adam was not the sole ancestor of all humans (Adam: The Grammar Strikes Back). And then I went on a different tangent and talked about meditation and God’s commandment to be perfect (Be Ye Therefore Perfect). We dabbled a bit more in the Noah sphere and discussed how the POGP describing Enoch walking on the “sea east” could help us to accept a localized flood of Noah (Noah’s Flood: The Sea East (Moses 6:42)). Then we jumped to talk about time and how God is probably timeless–doesn’t experience it the same way we do (A Timeless God).
And then it was time to talk about stars. Stars are perfect examples of things in nature that can teach us symbolically a lot about Jesus Christ (Stars are Creators). Joseph Smith broke with Genesis 1 and declared that the very first thing God created in the universe was a star named Kolob. It wasn’t the earth, as the Bible’s creation account implies (The First Creation). And he says that the greatest star ever is Kolob, which is interesting, because if Kolob was the very first star ever, it was a Population III star, and it would have been absolutely ENORMOUS (The Greatest of All the Stars).
And all those led me to my theory about Kolob, that it was a Population III star that has since died and scattered its elements throughout the galaxy, perhaps forming our planet and us, and perhaps even being the seed of the black hole that resides in the center of the Milky Way. Maybe Kolob is dead, guys, and it helped create us. Maybe it died so we could have life. Sound symbolic to you? (Kolob Might Be Dead)
Well, and then the next one was still about Kolob, it being the farthest star ever seen by man. That’s cool because it was the first star. Could Joseph have known that the farther away an object is, the farther back in time it is too? (Kolob: The Fartherest Star Ever Discovered)
But, yes, we eventually took a break from Kolob (for a bit), and went to Brigham Young and the controversy that dropped in 2019 about the Church harboring investments of $100 billion. We could look at that as excess, or we could look at it as a fulfillment of Brother Brigham’s prophecy (Brigham, Temples, and $100 Billion). Then it was back to Kolob, whose name could possibly mean that it was the father of everything… but I could totally be wrong about that. I’m still waiting for a Hebrew scholar to correct me (Kolob: The Father of Everything).
Whew, and we’re not done yet. I’m sorry this is taking so long. Honestly, the purpose of today’s post is to review and help you catch up on what’s been going down on the blog if you just joined us. So, take a deep breath and keep trudging along…
Joseph Smith taught that there existed planets like glass, crystal, or diamond perhaps, and now we know that he was right–things like that really do exist in the universe. In fact, billions of crystallized globes dot our very galaxy all around us (Crystal, Glass, and Diamond Worlds of Fire). We then talked about the day when the system of astronomy was unfolded to Joseph, Oliver, and W. W. Phelps, and what that might mean. Needless to say, Joseph gave us a lot of astronomy-related things to discuss, did he not?! (What Went Down When “the System of Astronomy Was Unfolded”?)
Then it was time to talk some history and hypothesize that maybe Joseph didn’t believe that Adam lived in 4000 BC, or even that much of Ussher’s Bible Chronology was correct; which is cool because serious doubt is now placed on that timeline (Joseph Smith Maybe Didn’t Believe in the Bible Dictionary’s Chronology). And speaking of Biblical timelines, Church History accounts give us reason to believe that Cain, the son of Adam, NEVER DIED, despite the world being plunged under a supposedly-worldwide flood and scriptures declaring that only 8 people survived. Is this a clue that Noah’s flood was small? (Noah’s Flood: Cain Survived?)
After that, we had our currently most-viewed post of all time… Did the Jaredites leave the great tower around 10,000 years ago, and was their great tower what we now know as Gobekli Tepe? Some pretty awesome parallels happen between the Tower of Babel and Gobekli Tepe, and many things about the Jaredite story make sense and even better sense if the story happened around 8,000 BC rather than 2600 BC. Check it out! (The Jaredites Came From Gobekli Tepe, 10,000 Years Ago)
And then we finally finished off the year with another one about Kolob, but this time we looked at it from the Kolob-is-Sirius viewpoint. Sirius is a star orbited by a white dwarf, a crystal globe, not unlike the planet we’re told that God lives on… Is there a connection? Maybe. (Kolob & God’s Throne As Sirius A & B)
Alright. There you go! The year 2020 on this blog. That was a lot, but just be glad it was free of virus talk, mask debates, and vaccine speculation. This blog is growing, and it’s been a fun year to watch it progress. Stay tuned for 2021, because I’ve got a lot of fun things in the works. You won’t want to miss it.
Sources and Notes
Header image of formation of the Moon, when another planet hit our planet and they all got mixed up, from https://www.express.co.uk/news/science/1368123/moon-formation-supercomputer-simulations-astronomy-moon-origins-space-news-evg . This Earth was made from other planets that had been broken up.
Science Is True and the Church Is Too 