NOTE: The BoM Reading Project is at the end of this post.

Once a little girl was being babysat by her older, wiser, taller and wealthier brother. The brother and the sister decided they’d like some chocolate chip cookies, and the brother proceeded to gather the ingredients and to mix them according to the accepted, traditional recipe given on a slip of paper found in the kitchen.

“Can I help mix the dough?” asked the sister.

“No, I’m sorry, it doesn’t say here you can,” he replied.

“Oh. OK. Can I eat the cookies?”

“Of course, you can eat all the cookies you’d like,” brother answered wisely.

“But does it say I can eat all the cookies I’d like?”

“Well no, it doesn’t need to specify everything, and Father said you can eat cookies, right?”

“Yes, I suppose he did. SO I shall eat until I am sick of eating cookies.”

“Excellent.”

The next time big brother watched over little sister, she had grown taller, and thought perhaps mixing walnuts into the dough might be a delightful change from the now traditional chocolate chip cookie brother so often mixed up.

“Can I mix the cookie dough, this time?”

“Well, why not. You’ve grown. Here are your instructions.”

“Must I follow all the instructions?” she asked, meekly.

“Yes, we must follow all the instructions on the recipe, or the cookies may not turn out.”

“But what if I want to add walnuts? Can I add walnuts? Just one, and I’ll eat it myself?”

“Of course not. It doesn’t say here to add walnuts. SO you must not.”

“Does it say I should not add walnuts?”

“Well we can’t expect the recipe to specify everything that cannot be added, why, the list would be enormous indeed. Silly girl.”

“But I can mix how and when you instruct?”

“Yes, that is your privilege, to turn the dough which I have provided, and of course to eat all the cookies you’d like.”

“But not walnut?”

“Not walnut.”

The last time big brother watched over little sister, she was taller even than the boy, and had grown wiser and had seen her friends eating many different cookies, even some they had made themselves.

“Brother, can I now mix the dough as I’d like, without your supervision, even when you are not around, or don’t approve of my mixing and baking?”

“WhaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaat??????? Father said no. You recall in the Garden of Eatin’ when Father gave me commands to not partake of that fruit on the salad bar, and you did partake? And he banished us from the restaurant, because of your inquisitive eating?”

“Well, you never told me not to eat that fruit.”

“That’s not the point. The point is, Father told me, and you went against it. Now I’m telling you — ”

“–this time”

“– this time, yes, that father has a rule that you cannot mix the dough on your own, add to it what you’d like, though you may mix as I instruct, and eat all you’d like. What’s the problem? You have all that I have to give.”

“I’d like to mix cookies on my own, I suppose.”

“Why? Are my cookies not good enough? Is the recipe not good enough? Is Father’s wise recipe book, and his instructions to me, not good enough for you?”

“Geez. Umm, look, I’d just like to make cookies without you watching over me, telling me what to do, when to do it, and so on. You can understand that, can’t you?”

“I can understand. But you are saying the way Father has established now needs some variation or alternative. Do you think you are wiser, smarter, better than God? He made everything!”

“No, no, I’m not saying that. Only tell me this: Have ye inquired of Father whether he will now let me make cookies on my own?”

——–

Your weekly dose of the Cultural History of the Book of Mormon,

Volume 3: Delta Cycles of Deep Sleep, part 2

BoMVol3deltaProject_East