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choctaw
Guest
Dokimas…reading your statement brings to mind the words of Plato " who stated arguments like men are often pretenders".
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Catholic20064
Guest
I’d have to say it’s a big strike against it, but it is impossible to prove the Book of Mormon never happened because you can’t prove a negative. I don’t think a reasonable person looking at the evidence within the Book of Mormon would be willing to base their salvation on it. And then if you look at the character of Joseph Smith, a proven liar and fraud, you would be even less willing to follow him. Joseph’s public denials of polygamy and his willingness to defraud people through treasure seeking by “glass looking” reflect badly on his honesty. The DNA evidence against Hebrews in America is predictable when you take Joseph Smith’s other fabrications into account such as his supposed translation of the Book of Abraham and his changes to his own Book of Commandments as if God had made a mistake the first time. Again, a reasonable person looking at the evidence we have today would convict Joseph of being a false prophet if his case were ever brought to a court of law.
I don’t think the DNA evidence is a silver bullet, but it adds to the continual drip which has turned into a river of evidence against Joseph Smith.
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why_me
Guest
The video was sponsored by Living Hope Ministries, an Utah organization who focuses their entire attention on the lds church. They are antimormon. Lets look at it this way:
An anticatholic organization, an organization whose sole existence is in proving the catholic church wrong and they decided to make a video with excatholics in it. What exactly would that prove? Yes, everyone should read the rebuttals.
So, the video proves the bible true?
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why_me
Guest
I think that you need to look into different sources. You can start by reading Rough Stone Rolling by Richard Bushman. The book is published by Knopf.
amazon.com/Joseph-Smith-Rough-Stone-Rolling/dp/1400042704
You seem to be reading a lot from antimormon sources. It is quite amazing that when Joseph Smith was doing as you claim that he was doing the lds church was growing. The mormons must be awfully stupid. You can also search www.fairlds.org to get a different perspective.
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ricko
Guest
No not stupid but very gullible. You have to be gullible to believe that a couple of experienced shipbuilders would build a boat with no openings for light or air. When they asked god about this, god told them to cut a hole in the top AND the bottom.
Gullible enough to disbelieve what Jesus said about His Church being protected by the Holy Spirit and lasting till the end of the world. Gullible enough to believe Joseph Smith over the True Words of God.
Gullible enough to believe in golden plates that were taken away by a supposed angel.
Gullible enough to believe anything from a man who uses a seer stone… and the list goes on…
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Catholic20064
Guest
You said the Mormons were stupid. I didn’t. There are lots of smart people who believe things that aren’t reasonable – smart Muslims claim that Muhammad received the Koran, but it’s pretty obvious to most outsiders that Muhammad’s claims don’t make a lot of sense. People want to believe in something. After looking at the claims, the Catholic Church’s claims made a lot more Biblical to me than Mormonism’s claims. Of course whenever anyone says anything which contradicts Mormonism it is “anti-Mormon” to the Mormons. If growth of a church is proof of the wisdom of its founder, I guess we would all become Moonies. As for FAIR, we get all of their arguments through people like Parker and you – you know the kind, like Sorenson’s claim that a horse was really the Nephit name for a deer. Let’s be really simple about this. If God knew that what Mormon was calling a horse was what Joseph Smith would have known as a deer, I suggest it’s not unreasonable He would have inspired Joseph Smith to translate it as deer. And if Mormon meant cotton when he said linen, God would have inspired Joseph to translate it as cotton.
This idea that God is just having angels providing books from heaven or from the ground as Mormons and Muslims claim is suspect from the start.
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Prodigal_Son1
Guest
I suggested everyone view the video and then so see the spurious rebuttals. There was much evidence in support of the Bible, there was no evidence to support the Book of Morom. I tell you what, provide sources to the evidence to rebutt the lack of evidence in the video. Prove Living Hope Ministries wrong, show us the evidence.
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Catholic20064
Guest
I really like the one they have about DNA.
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Jerusha
Guest
The DNA evidence is an old subject.
More recent academic work has been done on authorship attribution to the BoM. Multiple measures say that a man by the name of Solomon Spalding actually wrote the narrative portion of the book.
For interested people out there, you might want to take a look at I and II Maccabees and the narrative of the BoM. Many similarities.
Ol’ Sol was a very well-read man, and actually Catholic-friendly.
You might also find it interesting to read Francesco Clavigero’s *History of Mexico. *There is evidence that Spalding’s previous literary effort, called “Manuscript Story” contained parallels to Clavigero. Again, there are more than thirty parallels between Clavigero and the BoM.
I think the BoM as a fraud is a done deal.
Most evangelical Prot. work on combatting Mormonism does not subscribe to the Spalding/Rigdon theory, since Spalding’s narrative in the BoM presents opposition to Biblical literalism. .
More recent academic work has been done on authorship attribution to the BoM. Multiple measures say that a man by the name of Solomon Spalding actually wrote the narrative portion of the book.
For interested people out there, you might want to take a look at I and II Maccabees and the narrative of the BoM. Many similarities.
Ol’ Sol was a very well-read man, and actually Catholic-friendly.You might also find it interesting to read Francesco Clavigero’s *History of Mexico. *There is evidence that Spalding’s previous literary effort, called “Manuscript Story” contained parallels to Clavigero. Again, there are more than thirty parallels between Clavigero and the BoM.
I think the BoM as a fraud is a done deal.
Most evangelical Prot. work on combatting Mormonism does not subscribe to the Spalding/Rigdon theory, since Spalding’s narrative in the BoM presents opposition to Biblical literalism. .
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why_me
Guest
I suppose for an atheist, the bible’s fraudalent nature is a done deal too. But that doesn’t make it so. Perhaps you can tell us just how this all worked out with spaulding. Can you put together a scenerio? And make that scenerio believable? And just how did all the fraudsters manage to keep all their mouths shut throughout their lives regardless if they left the lds church or not.
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why_me
Guest
I suggest everyone read the wonderful rebuttals after they watch the spurious video. I see no evidence that christ is who the bible says he is outside the bible. I find no second hand account of the divinity of christ. I see no testimony of anyone who was living at that time, witnessing the miracles. Conclusion: both the bible and the book of mormon take faith and not evidence.
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Prodigal_Son1
Guest
You claim they are anti-Mormon because they speak of a lack of evidence to support the Book of Mormon. There is no archeological evidences of the claims made by the Book of Mormon. Whole civilizations do not ‘disappear’ without a trace, that is without leaving something to support their existence.
Show us the evidence to prove them wrong.
Everyone can watch the video and read the Mormon rebuttals and decide for themselves.
The Bible vs the Book of Mormon
Show us the evidence to prove them wrong.
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Catholic20064
Guest
A typical LDS response. Try to bolster the BOM by demeaning the Bible.
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Catholic20064
Guest
A typical LDS response. Try to bolster the BOM by demeaning the Bible.
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aspirant
Guest
It’s my understanding that the Spalding manuscript to which E.D. Howe referred is not known, though other writings with some parallel material are.
I’ve also got a copy of Ethan Smith’s 1825 edition of View of the Hebrews somewhere around here.
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Jerusha
Guest
“Manuscript Story” about some Roman sailors landing in N. America during King Constantine’s time, doe have some parallels. He never completed it, because he had an idea for something better, which was a satire on religious fundamentalism and the abuse of religion.
There are something like 15 people who made either general comments about the resemblance of the BoM to “Manuscript Found”, Spalding’s other story, or made specific comments as to its content. A man by the name of Hurlbut collected many of those. He got the manuscript from Spalding’s widow, but the Mormons apparently forced him to give it up.
Yeah, View of the Hebrews contributed to it. In fact, Spalding and E. Smith attended Dartmouth at the same time, and they may have both taken a course on “Origins of American Indians” It ws a hot subject back then. Now most people think the Jewish Origins Theory is about as ridiculous as the theory that the universe revolves around the Earth.
There are something like 15 people who made either general comments about the resemblance of the BoM to “Manuscript Found”, Spalding’s other story, or made specific comments as to its content. A man by the name of Hurlbut collected many of those. He got the manuscript from Spalding’s widow, but the Mormons apparently forced him to give it up.
Yeah, View of the Hebrews contributed to it. In fact, Spalding and E. Smith attended Dartmouth at the same time, and they may have both taken a course on “Origins of American Indians” It ws a hot subject back then. Now most people think the Jewish Origins Theory is about as ridiculous as the theory that the universe revolves around the Earth.
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zach_dunn
Guest
I’d like to say something which piggybacks this idea of translation. It is my understanding that the way the BoM was translated is as follows: JS used the Urim and Thummim to translate part of the plates, this translation was then lost by Martin Harris. When this failed, JS used the seer stone to translate the plates (which didn’t even need to be in sight while the seer stone, “worked its magic”); Smith placed the seer stone in a hat which he proceeded to put up to his face to darken the light. When it was dark enough, he saw words appear that were the English text of the golden plates. Smith would painstakingly read the verse to his transcriber then audibly speak the word “written”, if the words were transcribed correctly, the words would disappear and new ones would appear, but if the transcriber was wrong, the words would remain and they would try to fix the problem. I’m assuming the translation in this circumstance would have come from God.
Now, my question is this: assuming the formerly described procedure is true, why have there been revisions to the BoM? Did God not get the translations to His own Scriptures right? Do Mormon scholars know more than God Himself? If the aforementioned procedure is correct, how is the lds church justified in revising the BoM. And please, if my account is incorrect in any way, shape, or form, let me know.
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ParkerD
Guest
Zach Dunn,
If you’ll either mentally or on paper, draw a picture as follows:
At the far left, show a man inscribing pictograph writing onto plates with the words of a formal “religious code” language that he is familiar with, with both history and with the revelatory word of God to prophets among those people. Draw an arrow to two other men, Mormon and Moroni, who compile the record and condense the writings including the most important items. Next, draw an arrow to Joseph Smith but note that his mind needs to partly be the conduit for getting the words brought out of the old pictograph language into a readable English language. Draw an arrow to transcribers/writers (Martin Harris or mostly Oliver Cowdery) who would write down the dictation. Their minds are part of the conduit process to get the words into readable English. Draw another arrow to the printer, who set the type.
You seem to want there to have been an impeccable and perfect process for such a book to have been translated, but God works through human people within their own capabilities to bring about His work on earth, and each of the steps for the Book of Mormon being brought forth as a finished book could have introduced “people errors” that would not make them “God’s errors”. A correction to “people errors” is to be expected as improved techniques for finding the need for such corrections have been identified. They are not major changes–they are minor types of changes.
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aspirant
Guest
The “translation” of the Book of Mormon poses some interesting problems. For example:
LDS 1Nephi 11:20-32 reads:
The handwritten manuscript used by the printer supports the 1830 edition; it does not include the phrase “the Son of” in either of these verses. (See page 17 here, third line from the top and fourth line from the bottom.)
I have seen Mormon apologists maintain that there is no difference in meaning between “the Lamb of God, yea, even the Son of the Eternal Father” and “the Lamb of God, yea, even the Eternal Father.” I am not so much interested in that as I am curious by what technique it was later determined that the manuscript contained “people errors” requiring correction, given that the gold plates are not available for comparison?
LDS 1Nephi 11:20-32 reads:
The 1830 edition of the Book of Mormon reads:
(See it here and here. I purchased a reprint of my own from the CoC[RLDS] once while visiting Kirtland.)
The handwritten manuscript used by the printer supports the 1830 edition; it does not include the phrase “the Son of” in either of these verses. (See page 17 here, third line from the top and fourth line from the bottom.)
I have seen Mormon apologists maintain that there is no difference in meaning between “the Lamb of God, yea, even the Son of the Eternal Father” and “the Lamb of God, yea, even the Eternal Father.” I am not so much interested in that as I am curious by what technique it was later determined that the manuscript contained “people errors” requiring correction, given that the gold plates are not available for comparison?
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zach_dunn
Guest
I understand what you are getting at here, but I am referring to revisions such as:
2 Nephi 30:6
And then shall they rejoice; for they shall know that it is a blessing unto them from the hand of God; and their scales of darkness shall begin to fall from their eyes; and many generations shall not pass away among them, save they shall be a pure and a delightsome people. [1981 edition]
2 Nephi 30:6
And then shall they rejoice; for they shall know that it is a blessing unto them from the hand of God; and their scales of darkness shall begin to fall from their eyes; and many generations shall not pass away among them, save they shall be a white and delightsome people. [1920 edition]
This seems more than a “minor” type of change, it seems like an avoidance of doctrine to me . . .
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