I agree, too. I don’t go along with the explanation of the facsimiles, but the contents of the books are revelation. If we are going to have a true Restoration of all things, and I believe the Restoration is an unfolding process that didn’t begin or end with Joseph Smith, we need to consider, not just going back to the primitive Christian church from the time of Christ, but all the way back to Adam and the Patriarchs.
Enoch actually succeeded in building Zion. He gathered a people. He taught them true principles of righteousness, because he and the other patriarchs were preachers of righteousness (the LDS don’t even know what that means, but the CofC have their Evangelists who come a little closer); Enoch’s people obtained the Presence of God, and Christ came down and dwelt among them. The Book of Moses finishes with the promise that when we build a similar society in the latter-days, Enoch and his community will descend from heaven and join us. And Christ will also join us.
THIS dream or vision is, to me, the most exciting thing about Mormonism, and the religion that has the beginnings of a practical plan to bring this about — a plan that was never quite realized.
Every effort since that time has been a failure. Righteous men and women down through the ages sought for that land, but were unable to obtain it, and they had to confess that they were strangers and pilgrims wandering the earth.
What is the secret that Enoch knew that seemed to escape everybody since? Christ probably knew it, but because of the stiffneckedness of the Jews was unable to implement it. Joseph Smith revealed these two books and tried to implement it, but even he was so caught up in imitating the failed religions of his time, and his followers had no inkling of what he was trying to tell them, and the whole thing degenerated into polygamy.
I know that’s a radical statement to say that Joseph Smith tried to imitate the religions of the day, but if you really step back 1,000 miles and look at the Mormons, the Jews, the Catholics, and the Protestants from a distance, they share most of the same spiritual DNA. Like humans and chimps.
What we need to do is to revisit those books and use the aid of modern revelation — both modern revelation from the days of Joseph Smith and modern revelation from today — meaning the 20th and 21st centuries. We need to see what is missing and try to recreate it.
No, it’s not just buying a plot of land in Timbuktu, Missouri, putting on your overalls and taking up farming. If we build an autonomous community without changing our fundamental nature or mindset, all we do is export our problems to a new locale and start another failed church.
You might want to check out the references at https://john144.com/blog/?page_id=62, with particular attention to The Foundation of Zion Volume 2, and the revelations to John Taylor and Wilford Woodruff.
John144 