Per J Christopher Conkling's Joseph Smith Chronology, he started the process for the JST as early as June 1830 (and as late as October 1830 - Conkling has him finishing Moses 5 on 10/21/1830, and finishing with his New Testament work on 2/2/1833) as a result of praying for clarification on certain passages of the Bible. You have to remember, we take James 1:5 very seriously. In contrast, from what I've seen and read he wasn't given a copy of Hebrew scripture to keep until at least 1835, and the only ancient records that he translated and were canonized became a part of the Pearl of Great Price (specifically the books of Moses and Abraham - the other parts of the Pearl of Great Price are a portion of JST Matthew, his own history as dictated to Frederick G Williams, and the thirteen Articles of Faith)
The LDS explanation for the plurality of God in Old Testament writing is that the Godhead (the Trinity for those of you unfamiliar with the term) is three distinct beings united in purpose. I've made this comparison before, but it's comparable to you and me and Bisquit all working together on the same TAS. I interpret the commandment of "Thou shalt have no Gods before me" specifically as instructing us to worship God the Father (in any case it was given by Jehovah to Moses), though results may vary depending on who you talk to. (In an earlier revision of this post, I had stated that I interpreted it as intending for us to worship the Son Jehovah, which is personally incorrect, though the error would have stood had I not thought about what I had actually written. This is more-or-less an admonishment to myself not to post in the religious debate thread when I'm supposed to be sleeping). Certainly it would have been a necessary admonishment to the Hebrews, who had been a captive people to a polytheistic nation and would within the century begin conquering the lands of polytheistic nations (they were, unfortunately, commanded to exterminate the conquered nations - that they didn't meant that those nations' religions were allowed to continue, and if you pay attention to 2 Kings and 2 Chronicles and the book of Jeremiah, you can see that it ultimately led to the undermining of the Hebrew faith through comingling of incompatible faiths - and that, in turn, led to the rise of the hyperlawful rabbinic Judaism seen in the time of the New Testament. Hyperlawful Rabbinic Judaism was more of a knee-jerk response to the laxity of generations past towards the Mosaic Law, but it became so concerned with obeying the letter of the law that it all but lost the spirit of the law. Certainly Moses didn't expect people to start counting their steps on the Sabbath!)
As an aside, for the curious: The reason we don't use the full JST as part of our standard works despite it being a revision more in line with our doctrine is because Emma Smith refused to accept Apostolic Succession, instead insisting that Joseph was speaking as Prophet when he named his son the successor to Prophethood. Brigham Young at least had D&C 107 in his favor (Apostolic Succession such as is used in the church today does appear in the Book of Mormon, but even not a lot of Mormons realize it - certainly Joseph missed out on it since he kept naming various different people outside of the Apostolic Succession, once even naming a man who was later excommunitcated!), and that's before the miraculous "he looks and sounds like Joseph" speech. The annotated bible that is used as the source for the JST ended up staying with Emma, and through her it went to the Reorganized LDS Church, which is now the Community of Christ.
In any case, except for the parts of the JST canonized in our standard works the KJV is sufficient for our doctrinal purposes when compared to the doctrines presented in the Book of Mormon as well as doctrines presented by the prophets and apostles of the Church in this dispensation.
I'm gonna take flak for this, but the Joseph Smith 'translation' is by no definition a translation since it was from the KJV to KJV. Regardless of whether or not you believe it to be divinely inspired, it should never have been called a translation.
For a book like Exodus, my approach would be to see the Hebrew edition, along with the early translations, Greek and Aramaic. I put no stock in the English translations from recent times. Most of them are awful, missing key nuances, and missing all the word plays that are common in the original text.
That's a fair enough point; particularly the early Aramaic translation would be illuminating on this matter. The only caution I would give is to remember that the Hebrew language evolved between the time of the Exodus and the time of the Maccabean uprising (I want to say the earliest known Aramaic translation is around the time of Maccabes, but I could be very wrong on that), particularly given the various wars and vassalages that the Hebrews/Jews endured, so even the current standard Hebrew edition might have lost some nuances between then and... uh, then.
In the meantime, the english translation on chabad.org (which also presents Hebrew text alongside it) follows the KJV wording that presents the Lord hardening Pharaoh's heart instead of Pharaoh hardening his own heart. As I said, I didn't think the JST version would make a difference to anyone here.
E2: English isa stupidlanguage anyway. Too bad it's the modern language of commerce.
The above is supposedly an argument against the assertion that "God will not reveal himself to us directly, because that would violate our free will."
According to the Bible, God did reveal himself directly to the whole nation of Israel (descendants of Jacob + a mixed multitude) at the mount Sinai. And if memory serves right, also to Adam and Eve. That alone is an argument against the unsourced assertion you quoted.
This one can be a bit odd though, depending on whether you believe Jehovah is the Father or is the Son. Certainly Adam would have had a direct, personal relationship with God, given the direct results of the expulsion from Eden (and the fact that God directly confronts Cain directly later on).
Aqfaq wrote:
Is this not a correct assessment of the "free will" involved:
1. God creates something.
2. God doesn't ask the creation what the creation wants to be. Just like we don't ask the sims. The sims have about as much free will as Adam. (I for one would love to have more hands, brains and eyes! Would you not? Would Adam? Nobody even asks his opinion!)
3. After creation, God commands what the creation must do.
4. Therefore, God violates the free will of the creation.
Per LDS scripture, the created beings did have a say in it.
Abraham 3:22-26 wrote:
22 Now the Lord had shown unto me, Abraham, the intelligences that were organized before the world was; and among all these there were many of the noble and great ones;
23 And God saw these souls that they were good, and he stood in the midst of them, and he said: These I will make my rulers; for he stood among those that were spirits, and he saw that they were good; and he said unto me: Abraham, thou art one of them; thou wast chosen before thou wast born.
24 And there stood one among them that was like unto God, and he said unto those who were with him: We will go down, for there is space there, and we will take of these materials, and we will make an earth whereon these may dwell;
25 And we will prove them herewith, to see if they will do all things whatsoever the Lord their God shall command them;
26 And they who keep their first estate shall be added upon; and they who keep not their first estate shall not have glory in the same kingdom with those who keep their first estate; and they who keep their second estate shall have glory added upon their heads for ever and ever.
Bear in mind, we were created in the image of God. I don't see why people refuse to take this part literally when Christianity traditionally asserts that we're all children of God.
As for point 3, there's really nothing stopping you from ignoring the commandments given. Granted, it's still a very good idea to not commit murder given there are both laws in place to punish it as well as the fact that the murderee's family/loved ones might just opt to seek revenge in kind rather than rely on the laws in place. But do those laws violate your freedom to act any more than a commandment from God does now?
E1:
That was true at first. The more disasters that occurred, the more they were begging Pharaoh to let the Hebrews go.
Exodus 10:7: And Pharaoh's servants said unto him: 'How long shall this man be a snare unto us? let the men go, that they may serve the LORD their God, knowest thou not yet that Egypt is destroyed?'
A valid point. I still think he was politically cornered, though.
E2: Regarding the hardening of Pharaoh's heart: Joseph Smith has it as being "for he hath hardened his heart, and the hearts of his servants, therefore I will show these my signs before him", as opposed to the KJV's "for I have hardened his heart, and the heart of his servants, that I might shew these my signs before him". Not that I expect this to change anyone's position on the matter, just something to point out.
To add on to this, there are times where it seems that God explicitly violates free will within the Bible. For instance, the best known is hardening the Pharaoh's heart, because it's so explicit.
That's actually a terrible example. Pharaoh in that section is being utterly blasted by disaster after disaster, where no sane human being wouldn't fold at this point. We can easily say this hardening of Pharaoh's heart was to counterbalance against what was being done against his country so he still had free choice despite the duress he was under.
Politically, Pharaoh wouldn't have had much of a choice but to hang on to the slaves as long as he could; a Pharaoh (or an Emperor, or a King) only remains in power so long as his taxpayers and generals leave him in power.
Regardless of the beliefs of the time as to whether or not Pharaoh was divinely appointed to rule, the nobility and generals would not have simply let him let the Hebrews go. Frankly, they likely would have staged a coup and pursued the Hebrews if he had.
The scientific method does still work. It's just there's been a lot of academic laziness the past few decades, average people have conflated "science" with "technology" in far too many cases (and therefore won't make the push to find out for themselves the truth since science is inaccessible/incomprehensible/whatever), and those who are conducting the experiments aren't recording all the information that's necessary to ensure reproducible outcomes.
Did you make an m3u file listing all of the game's discs, and load that as your game in bizhawk?
If not, open the folder your disc dumps are in (if they're in subfolders, do the folder that the folders are in) and make note of what the filenames are. Hold shift and right click. Select "Open command window here", then type in the following
dir /s /b *.{extension} > exoddus.m3u
where {extension} is the extension of the file that you would load into bizhawk normally (something like ISO or CUE or CCD).
If you ran your dumps through Discohawk, they should have an extension of CCD.
Then open up that m3u file in notepad, and make sure that all discs for your game are accounted for. If discs for other games are in there as well, remove them from the list at this time. Then save your m3u file, and load that directly in BizHawk.
NOTE: If you move your dumps, the m3u file will stop working (as these instructions makes it use absolute paths).
The propaganda has been so pervasive and so virulent that even many gamers have started believing it.
Maybe because they took a moment, evaluated themselves, and realized it was true? Because I know several people - including myself - where that was the case.
Warp, the issue is that those same toxic people that aren't representative of the whole are the most vocal, the most visible, and the most likely to be in an echo chamber. Disregarding traditional media's bizarre need to blow things out of proportion, because we're not rooting them out ourselves they will continue to be cancerous.
What's worse is that because they toxic ones are the most visible and vocal, young kids are going to enter the world of gaming with the assumption that that's how they have to behave in order to fit in. Even if it's not the norm now, it has the frightening potential to become the norm.
"If there is hope,... it lies in the proles."
I notice that thus far this thread has specifically focused on major game companies. What about folks like Daisuke Amaya, Derek Yu, Kayin Nasaki, Scott Cawthon, Adam Pedersen, or our very own Mothrayas?
What about small groups like Wayforward Technologies, Yacht Club Games, Team Meat, or the various rom-hacking communities dotting the landscape of the internet?
No, big gaming companies cannot survive on the traditional model in this modern era. The big gaming companies have recognized this, which is why most of the above-cited examples can be found on their consoles and handhelds. This isn't the halcyon days of the nineties, kids, where we were beholden to the manufacturers because of cartridges and were forced to accept what they decided to publish. We have our own wallets, our own computers, and our own passions. We can make our own games.
That, more than anything else, is why the Big Three need to evolve or die.
Now I'm very curious to know what the limits (ha) of Unexpected Disk Changes are. Change back to the right disk at the right time and you can probably avoid a softlock or crash.
Yeah if the "wrong" cd is in it'll still play but it'll play the wrong PRVs when they come up. It can be a decent time-save if you get the right ones, and I think there are PRVs on the first two discs that can be skipped entirely by inserting disc 3.
Found this TAS by AvariceLank; I've asked the uploader for an input file. The dominant strategy in this one was to attack every time except for when Holy or the Fire Staff were more efficient. Final time came out to 1:11:5, but it can be improved further.
Copy-pasting my yt comment.
Faster to guard than to attack for 0 (You do this late in the run but not early)
Superficially there's no real need to pick up the Alpha Sword since Kishe's using Holy 3 all hours of the day; would need to compare HolyGuard actions vs HolyAttack.
Solion isn't doing enough damage from direct attacks to justify not using Holy 2 (could save a half-turn because of speed)
I seem to remember one of the forced battles had an enemy that was susceptible to Curse, of all things, so that needs testing as well.
I want to say putting a little more speed onto Kishe will pay off once you have Offense Up since that way his spell's going off before physical attacks do. Since Kishe is using Holy 3 almost exclusively once he gets it putting points into strength is wasted.
And of course as I was posting to this thread he replied to my comment saying he was thinking of submitting so I directed him to this very thread.
Consider it from another perspective:
Let's assume that game series were eligible. Also let's assume that a fan of the series were to make a TAS of every single one of those games. What's the amount of "harm" that would ensue from publishing them?
Our hypothetical fan would get bored of having a flawless 3-0 victory by the 5th game and would start on a TAS that aims at being entertaining enough for publication in Moons, removing it from Vault consideration entirely.
I don't know how much harm would ensue, but I know that I personally would get bored of and burned out from doing the same solution nine times. I suspect the judges would similarly burn out from judging tactically identical TASes.
Why does the rule apply only to sport game franchises and not all game franchises?
It's really just an extension of the (already in effect) Hack rule for the Vault, as well as an application of the requirement that TASuperplaying stand out from unassisted play. Vault Tier Requirements wrote:
Hacks (defined as being modifications of an existing eligible game) are not eligible for this category. We demand hacks with entertainment value, therefore they are judged by the Moon tier requirements.
The gameplay still needs to standout from non-assisted play.
1: Per the encoders, you need gui.drawText as opposed to gui.text
2: Go to File > AVI/WAV > Capture OSD, and make sure it's checked. Nothing will be captured for encode otherwise.
