Comments on Givens' All Things New

I've commented before on the Givens' book All Things New, which places a bizarre emphasis on the word "woundedness" which appears in the 1830 Book of Mormon but which Joseph replaced in subsequent editions.

1830	1837 through present
Neither will the Lord God  suffer that the Gentiles shall  forever  remain  in  that  state  of  awful  woundedness which thou beholdest that they are  in, because of the plain and  most precious parts of the  Gospel of the Lamb which  hath been kept back (page 31, line 2–6)	Neither will the Lord God suffer that the Gentiles shall forever remain in that awful state of blindness, which thou beholdest they are in, because of the plain and most precious parts of the gospel of the Lamb which have been kept back (1 Nephi 13:32)

Alan Hurst wrote an outstanding discussion about the Givens' book All Things New. Hurst titled his article "The Natural Man is an Enemy to God."

It would have been interesting to have Hurst comment on Jonathan Edwards' sermon on this topic, in which he explained how "Natural Men are God's Enemies." This is essential reading to understand the context of King Benjamin's address, which alludes to the concept but doesn't explain it.

https://www.mobom.org/men-naturally-gods-enemies

Of course, not many Latter-day Saints are familiar with Jonathan Edwards. Hopefully that will change as we move forward.

Hurst's article is well worth reading.

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THE NATURAL MAN IS AN ENEMY TO GOD

April 18, 2022

A Friendly Rejoinder to Fiona and Terryl Givens’ “All Things New: Rethinking Sin, Salvation, and Everything in Between,” in Three Parts.

https://publicsquaremag.org/media-education/reading/the-natural-man-is-an-enemy-to-god/

Excerpt:

“The natural man is an enemy to God”: It’s not a rhetorical flourish dropped carelessly into a single Book of Mormon sermon. It would make a decent subtitle for the whole book, which begins with God telling a prophet His own chosen people are so corrupt that He’s about to destroy them, and then plays variations on the same theme for most of the next 530 pages.