Changes to Mormon Scriptures

[kimg901]

Hey Texan, if you dont mind, please explain to us why its so hard for these folks to accept the truth. I was only lds for a short time so I didnt get the whole “feeling” of what being mormon means. Thanks.

 

[SteveVH]

We live in an imperfect world with imperfect teachers. As I said before all books contain some error.

You must have little trust in the ability of the Holy Spirit to preserve and protect the word of God that came through him to the human authors. We dont’. We have great trust in the ability of the Holy Spirit.

There is only one sure way to separate truth from error. It is through the Holy Ghost. Jesus said, “Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth; for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come.” (John 16:13)

Exactly. And to which Church do you think he was speaking when he said those words? The Catholic Church has the protection of the Holy Spirit to guard it from error. The human authors of Sacred Scripture had equal protection in writing down the word of God so that we may have confidence in the truth.

Now this is usually the part where people start making light of what I say. As if the spirit is inconsequential.

In reality, it is you who believes the Spirit to be inconsequential. You do not believe that the Holy Spirit protected the human authors of Sacred Scripture form error. You also do not believe that Jesus kept his promise to send the Holy Spirit to guide the Church into all truth. You are prevented from believing this because then you would realize the truth that the Church cannot fail due to any human action because it is a divine institution, not a human institution. Realizing this you would have to conclude that there was never a “Great Apostasy” and therefore no need whatsoever for a “restored” church.

 

[twopekinguys]

Let’s get back to Mormon scriptures being changed. After all, that is what this thread is about.

Almost 4000 known changes for a book that is less than 200 years old.

I will ask this again. For a book that is less than 200 years old, and has gone through this many changes for “punctuation” and “spelling”, exactly who is editing this thing?

They need to be fired if they can’t get “punctuation” and “spelling” right after this many tries.

Spell check has been around for quite a few years now. So has the dictionary, and Thesaurus.

Each time, we hear how most of the changes are “punctuation and spelling”. This simply draws people’s attention away from the doctrinal changes that are being slipped in.

 

[RebeccaJ]

We have the original manuscript from the scribes which Joseph dictated to which is more than you have for the Bible.
I never said there were no old documents for the Bible. I said, the originals are gone. That all you have left are copies of copies. This is another ironic point. You, and others, beat on the fact that we don’t have the gold plates and yet you have no original Bible documents.

I see them as two different things, because they are two different things. It is absurd for you to say you have original documents, when you don’t. It is also absurd for you to apply what you think about the book of Mormon to the Bible. The Bible is the inspired word of God, the book of Mormon is fan fiction.

Rebecca, this is so funny. You ex-LDS claiming we believe the BofM is perfect and me a current, active, LDS member telling you that there are man made errors. Shouldn’t this be the other way around? I love how I and all Mormons are told what we believe by you.

Now, was the BofM translated by the power of God? Yes. But were humans involved in the translation? Yes. Joseph had to speak the right words. Then, a scribe had to put down the right words on paper. Further, the printer had to print the right words. There a number of chances for error along the way and a few did occur. I do not need the BofM to be absolutely perfect to sustain and build my faith. Do you expect the words of the Bible to be perfect? You almost sound like a Protestant.

What’s this, you telling me what I should believe?

You shouldn’t hold a view that everyone has a cookie cutter opinion about your Mormon book. The translation of the Book of Mormon means diddly squat to me, since I can deduce using rational thought that the whole thing is just a public ruse of Smith.Of course it has errors, that doesn’t make it scripture! Your church continually fiddling with it says to me, you view it as just another book,that needs a new editor to correct it every 40 years or so.

So you just made a new copy, with changes, again. Which copy is the correct, the original, or the one you have now? Which is more reliable, the original copy or the copy of the copy that your church has purposely made changes to? Aren’t you arguing the first copy is the one you be using?

You should also realize, maybe bagging on the Bible supports your position in Mormon circles, it doesn’t in Christian circles.

 

[RebeccaJ]

Having many manuscripts and copies of the Bible texts actually helps to remove errors from the translation, as scholars can compare versions. This is not the case for many other ancient texts, where there may only be one copy available. We can be more confident in the contents of the Bible representing the original texts than many other ancient documents, while in the case of BOM, we can’t even be confident that there was an original text at all.

.

 

[RebeccaJ]

Let’s get back to Mormon scriptures being changed. After all, that is what this thread is about.

Almost 4000 known changes for a book that is less than 200 years old.

I will ask this again. For a book that is less than 200 years old, and has gone through this many changes for “punctuation” and “spelling”, exactly who is editing this thing?

They need to be fired if they can’t get “punctuation” and “spelling” right after this many tries.

Spell check has been around for quite a few years now. So has the dictionary, and Thesaurus.

Each time, we hear how most of the changes are “punctuation and spelling”. This simply draws people’s attention away from the doctrinal changes that are being slipped in.

I think it is also silly to imply that punctuation doesn’t change meaning. It most certainly can.

 

[TexanKnight]

Nut how could there be ANY errors in the Book of Joseph?

Harris’ description concurs with that of David Whitmer, another one of the three witnesses whose testimony appears at the front of the Book of Mormon. Whitmer details exactly how the stone produced the English interpretation. On page 12 of his book An Address to All Believers in Christ, Whitmer wrote,

“I will now give you a description of the manner in which the Book of Mormon was translated. Joseph Smith would put the seer stone into a hat, and put his face in the hat, drawing it closely around his face to exclude the light; and in the darkness the spiritual light would shine. A piece of something resembling parchment would appear, and under it was the interpretation in English. Brother Joseph would read off the English to Oliver Cowdery, who was his principal scribe, and when it was written down and repeated to brother Joseph to see if it was correct, then it would disappear, and another character with the interpretation would appear. Thus the Book of Mormon was translated by the gift and power of God, and not by any power of man.”

Apparently, things could not proceed unless it was PERFECT

 

[twopekinguys]

J,

Are you not coming back to engage?

I see you have been on since Tex’s post.

Just wondering.

 

[mark_a]

As far as Blacks and the Priesthood, they appear to be throwing BY under the bus.

sltrib.com/sltrib/news/55930173-78/church-lds-changes-mormon.html.csp

It’s about time!

 

[Porknpie]

It’s about time!

I thought the quote below from the article was particularly telling:

Benjamin Park, an LDS doctoral student at Cambridge University, agrees.

"It teaches the lay reader that [Mormon] facts, quotes and issues aren’t set in stone, nor are they easily decipherable," Park writes in an email. "Rather, it teaches them that there is complexity, nuance and even gray area.

Translation: we can change the facts…change doctrine…nothing is set in stone. There is no objective truth.

Sometimes, the most important thing to teach a member of the church is how history is done, not just what happened."

So history can be rewritten. Mormon’s need to learn learn the Truth, learn history…starting with the fact that there was no apostasy in the Church, let alone a great apostasy.

There is no difference between “history” and “what happened”…unless the facts are distorted or glossed over. Facts and history does not change…but man can twist twist the truth, lie and mislead.

 

[Esran]

Wow, everybody is being really nasty to each other in this thread.

 

[twopekinguys]

Wow, everybody is being really nasty to each other in this thread.

Not at all.

Research some of the older mormon threads.

 

[twopekinguys]

I thought the quote below from the article was particularly telling:

Translation: we can change the facts…change doctrine…nothing is set in stone. There is no objective truth.

So history can be rewritten. Mormon’s need to learn learn the Truth, learn history…starting with the fact that there was no apostasy in the Church, let alone a great apostasy.

There is no difference between “history” and “what happened”…unless the facts are distorted or glossed over. Facts and history does not change…but man can twist twist the truth, lie and mislead.

Absolutely spot on.

I just see this as another PR nightmare for them.

All of the previous versions, including the original are out there to be reviewed and compared.

What isn’t out there is an intelligent reason behind all of them. Spelling and punctuation errors will only get you so far.

 

[batman1973]

Nut how could there be ANY errors in the Book of Joseph?

Harris’ description concurs with that of David Whitmer, another one of the three witnesses whose testimony appears at the front of the Book of Mormon. Whitmer details exactly how the stone produced the English interpretation. On page 12 of his book An Address to All Believers in Christ, Whitmer wrote,

“I will now give you a description of the manner in which the Book of Mormon was translated. Joseph Smith would put the seer stone into a hat, and put his face in the hat, drawing it closely around his face to exclude the light; and in the darkness the spiritual light would shine. A piece of something resembling parchment would appear, and under it was the interpretation in English. Brother Joseph would read off the English to Oliver Cowdery, who was his principal scribe, and when it was written down and repeated to brother Joseph to see if it was correct, then it would disappear, and another character with the interpretation would appear. Thus the Book of Mormon was translated by the gift and power of God, and not by any power of man.”

Apparently, things could not proceed unless it was PERFECT

Hey, Tex, Leave us not be so hard on him. Maybe he’s contemplating the facts. After all, It seems to be working for Living Waters 7. We can’t beat people into the kingdom. Present the facts, and let the Holy Spirit do the rest.

 

[TexanKnight]

Hey, Tex, Leave us not be so hard on him. Maybe he’s contemplating the facts. After all, It seems to be working for Living Waters 7. We can’t beat people into the kingdom. Present the facts, and let the Holy Spirit do the rest.

not being hard on him. Not sure why it came out “nut”. That is not what I typed. I thought I typed “now”

other than that…all I have typed are facts. If facts hurt, then it is time to change

 

[kimg901]

not being hard on him. Not sure why it came out “nut”. That is not what I typed. I thought I typed “now”

other than that…all I have typed are facts. If facts hurt, then it is time to change

LMAO. I thought you were calling him a nut too.

 

[Patavium]

Harris’ description concurs with that of David Whitmer, another one of the three witnesses whose testimony appears at the front of the Book of Mormon. Whitmer details exactly how the stone produced the English interpretation. On page 12 of his book An Address to All Believers in Christ, Whitmer wrote,

“I will now give you a description of the manner in which the Book of Mormon was translated. Joseph Smith would put the seer stone into a hat, and put his face in the hat, drawing it closely around his face to exclude the light; and in the darkness the spiritual light would shine. A piece of something resembling parchment would appear, and under it was the interpretation in English. Brother Joseph would read off the English to Oliver Cowdery, who was his principal scribe, and when it was written down and repeated to brother Joseph to see if it was correct, then it would disappear, and another character with the interpretation would appear. Thus the Book of Mormon was translated by the gift and power of God, and not by any power of man.”

One of the witnesses lied?? Are they throwing this witness under the bus with BY?

 

[Janderich]

Wow, everybody is being really nasty to each other in this thread.

This is usually why I end up quiting these threads. I don’t like the negativity from myself or what I may bring out in others. Sorry for any comments presented in bad taste.

 

[Aramis]

This is usually why I end up quiting these threads. I don’t like the negativity from myself or what I may bring out in others. Sorry for any comments presented in bad taste.

We see what the LDS as a religious community does, and, as a general reaction, we tend to not grasp why y’all can’t see how absurd it looks. Nor why you don’t see how weak LDS theology sounds.

(My LDS friends really don’t realize how heretical their beliefs really are to Catholics.)

 

[TexanKnight]

This is usually why I end up quiting these threads. I don’t like the negativity from myself or what I may bring out in others. Sorry for any comments presented in bad taste.

No…you end up quitting when you realize we are not fooled by the weak apologetics and we provide too much fact to overcome your fiction