OK, thank you, Zer, for patiently going down the rabbit trail of my previous series of questions! I’d like to get back to the main path of what the Book of Mormon has to say to me.
I think you and i are correct in agreeing that the Spirit of God uses fulfilled prophecies as one of many ways to convince a person that the Scriptures are true. This was certainly my own experience. I was amazed when i discovered that the Bible actually wrote history hundreds of years before it happened. There are several hundred predictions in the Old Testament that have already come true exactly as predicted. These prophecies are specific and verifiable and that which no human being could predict. There are prophecies about:
- Jerusalem and nearly every ancient city within 1,000 miles of the Jerusalem
- the Jewish people and Jewish nation
- our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ
What i’m finding, as i read the Book of Mormon, is that the Spirit of God is said to use fulfilled prophecy to convince people of the truth just as fulfilled prophecy is used as a reason for believing the truth in the pages of the Bible. An example is this passage from 3 Nephi 5:Therefore I have made my record of these things according to the record of Nephi, which was engraven on the plates which were called the plates of Nephi.
And behold, I do make the record on plates which I have made with mine own hands.
And behold, I am called Mormon, being called after the land of Mormon, the land in which Alma did establish the church among the people, yea, the first church which was established among them after their transgression.
Behold, I am a disciple of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. I have been called of him to declare his word among his people, that they might have everlasting life.
…** Yea, and surely shall he again bring a remnant of the seed of Joseph to the knowledge of the Lord their God. **
**And as surely as the Lord liveth, will he gather in from the four quarters of the earth all the remnant of the seed of Jacob, who are scattered abroad upon all the face of the earth. **
And as he hath covenanted with all the house of Jacob, even so shall the covenant wherewith he hath covenanted with the house of Jacob be fulfilled in his own due time, unto the restoring all the house of Jacob unto the knowledge of the covenant that he hath covenanted with them.
And then shall they know their Redeemer, who is Jesus Christ, the Son of God;
and then shall they be gathered in from the four quarters of the earth unto their own lands, from whence they have been dispersed; yea, as the Lord liveth so shall it be. Amen.
(3 Nephi 5:10-13, 23-26)
Now, if these words were written circa AD 25, they would be seen as a prophecy not yet fulfilled at the time Joseph Smith introduced the Book of Mormon to America. The prophecy that the Jewish people would “be gathered from the four quarters of the earth unto their own lands” was not completely fulfilled until AD 1948, when the Jewish people won the first Israeli-Arab war and formed the nation of Israel.
Do you think i’m understanding correctly?
). If, let’s say, Joseph Smith’s own memoirs were found and it was revealed that he had constructed the whole thing?