Mormons and Alma 11:28-30

[mormon_fool]

There seems to be a misunderstanding of what the Book of Mormon proports to be. Some of my previous comments that seem a little out of place because I assumed some common understanding. I will take a moment and stress that the Book of Mormon is ancient scripture translated through the gift and power of God by Joseph Smith. The title page to the Book of Mormon was probabably written by Moroni, the last of the ancient prophets to write in the Book of Mormon. I will include it here so people can see what it is about. For all the books that get recommended back and forth this is the one I recommend most highly for truly understanding mormonism.

THE
BOOK OF MORMON

 AN ACCOUNT WRITTEN BY  
 
 THE HAND OF MORMON  
 
 UPON PLATES



   TAKEN FROM THE PLATES OF NEPHI

Wherefore, it is an abridgment of the record of the people of Nephi, and also of the Lamanites—Written to the Lamanites, who are a remnant of the house of Israel; and also to Jew and Gentile—Written by way of commandment, and also by the spirit of prophecy and of revelation—Written and sealed up, and hid up unto the Lord, that they might not be destroyed—To come forth by the gift and power of God unto the interpretation thereof—Sealed by the hand of Moroni, and hid up unto the Lord, to come forth in due time by way of the Gentile—The interpretation thereof by the gift of God.

An abridgment taken from the Book of Ether also, which is a record of the people of Jared, who were scattered at the time the Lord confounded the language of the people, when they were building a tower to get to heaven—Which is to show unto the remnant of the House of Israel what great things the Lord hath done for their fathers; and that they may know the covenants of the Lord, that they are not cast off forever— And also to the convincing of the Jew and Gentile that JESUS is the CHRIST, the ETERNAL GOD, manifesting himself unto all nations—And now, if there are faults they are the mistakes of men; wherefore, condemn not the things of God, that ye may be found spotless at the judgment-seat of Christ.

 

[mormon_fool]

From the Introduction:

The book was written by many ancient prophets by the spirit of prophecy and revelation. Their words, written on gold plates, were quoted and abridged by a prophet-historian named Mormon. The record gives an account of two great civilizations. One came from Jerusalem in 600 B.C., and afterward separated into two nations, known as the Nephites and the Lamanites. The other came much earlier when the Lord confounded the tongues at the Tower of Babel. This group is known as the Jaredites. . .

The crowning event recorded in the Book of Mormon is the personal ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ among the Nephites soon after his resurrection. It puts forth the doctrines of the gospel, outlines the plan of salvation, and tells men what they must do to gain peace in this life and eternal salvation in the life to come.

After Mormon completed his writings, he delivered the account to his son Moroni, who added a few words of his own and hid up the plates in the hill Cumorah. On September 21, 1823, the same Moroni, then a glorified, resurrected being, appeared to the Prophet Joseph Smith and instructed him relative to the ancient record and its destined translation into the English language.

In due course the plates were delivered to Joseph Smith, who translated them by the gift and power of God. The record is now published in many languages as a new and additional witness that Jesus Christ is the Son of the living God and that all who will come unto him and obey the laws and ordinances of his gospel may be saved.

 

[kindlylight]

Mormon fool,
One thing that always puzzled me about Joseph Smith was why did he translate in 1823 using the style of Elizabethan English. Surely he spoke virtually the same English as we do today. See the newspapers of the time.

 

[DeFide]

mormon fool:

From the Introduction:

mmm-hmm…
…“Lifting” from the King James Bible

There are other problems with the Book of Mormon. For example, critics of Mormonism have shown convincing proof that the Book of Mormon is a synthesis of earlier works (written by other men), of the vivid imaginings of Joseph Smith, and of simple plagiarisms of the King James Bible.

The only Bible that Joseph Smith relied on was the King James Version. This translation was based on a good but imperfect set of Greek and Hebrew manuscripts of the Bible.

Scholars now know the Textus Receptus contains errors, which means the King James Version contains errors. The problem for Mormons is that these exact same errors show up in the Book of Mormon.

It seems reasonable to assume that since Smith was a prophet of God and was translating the Book of Mormon under divine inspiration, he would have known about the errors found in the King James Version and would have corrected them for when passages from the King James Version appeared in the Book of Mormon. But the errors went in.

…Another problem: Scientists have demonstrated that honey bees were first brought to the New World by Spanish explorers in the fifteenth century, but the Book of Mormon, in Ether 2:3, claims they were introduced around 2000 B.C.

The problem was that Joseph Smith wasn’t a naturalist; he didn’t know anything about bees and where and when they might be found. He saw bees in America and threw them in the Book of Mormon as a little local color. He didn’t realize he’d get stung by them.

source: catholic.com/library/problems_with_the_book_of_mormon.asp

But this may be going beyond the scope of this thread.

 

[kindlylight]

DeFide:

mmm-hmm…
…“Lifting” from the King James Bible

There are other problems with the Book of Mormon. For example, critics of Mormonism have shown convincing proof that the Book of Mormon is a synthesis of earlier works (written by other men), of the vivid imaginings of Joseph Smith, and of simple plagiarisms of the King James Bible.

The only Bible that Joseph Smith relied on was the King James Version. This translation was based on a good but imperfect set of Greek and Hebrew manuscripts of the Bible.

Scholars now know the Textus Receptus contains errors, which means the King James Version contains errors. The problem for Mormons is that these exact same errors show up in the Book of Mormon.

It seems reasonable to assume that since Smith was a prophet of God and was translating the Book of Mormon under divine inspiration, he would have known about the errors found in the King James Version and would have corrected them for when passages from the King James Version appeared in the Book of Mormon. But the errors went in.

…Another problem: Scientists have demonstrated that honey bees were first brought to the New World by Spanish explorers in the fifteenth century, but the Book of Mormon, in Ether 2:3, claims they were introduced around 2000 B.C.

The problem was that Joseph Smith wasn’t a naturalist; he didn’t know anything about bees and where and when they might be found. He saw bees in America and threw them in the Book of Mormon as a little local color. He didn’t realize he’d get stung by them.

source: catholic.com/library/problems_with_the_book_of_mormon.asp

But this may be going beyond the scope of this thread.

I read that there were 70,000 translational errors in the King James Bible, seems a bad choice for Joseph to use in his miraculous BOM.
Apparently he put horses in America about a million years before their time. Between the horses and the bees he must have been one sore prophet!!!

 

[tkdnick]

kindlylight:

Apparently he put horses in America about a million years before their time. Between the horses and the bees he must have been one sore prophet!!!

I think a million years is a bit of an exaggeration.

 

[DeFide]

Perhaps the most irrefutable evidence for the fraudulent character of the Book of Mormon came to light in the mid-1970s through the research of three young Americans, Wayne Cowdrey, Howard Davis, and Donald Scales.

From a very early date, the relatives and acquaintances of a retired Congregationalist minister, Rev. Solomon Spalding, who died in 1816, had complained against the Latter-Day Saints that the Book of Mormon was really a plagiarized version of an unpublished novel, Manuscript Found, which the deceased clergyman had written and circulated among his friends. A number of affidavits were sworn to this effect, but their publication and propagation was sporadic and poorly organized. The LDS church launched a massive counterattack that capitalized on the fact that the original draft of Manuscript Found could not be produced to verify the affidavits.

Naturally, the Mormons claimed that these were malicious, satanically inspired falsehoods. All that remained was an earlier Spalding novel, Manuscript Story, which shows some definite stylistic similarities to the Book of Mormon but also some marked differences. Eventually, most anti-Mormon writers stopped appealing to the Spalding theory as an explanation for the Book of Mormon because the available evidence seemed incapable of being substantiated.

But Cowdrey, Davis, and Scales pieced together a long chain of events connecting Smith and Spalding. The chief link in the chain was an itinerant evangelist named Sidney Rigdon, who had a close friend who worked at the print shop in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, from which Spalding’s second manuscript disappeared. A Dr. Winter later claimed to have been shown the manuscript by Rigdon in 1822.

Rigdon was eventually baptized into the Mormon Church in November 1830 and always claimed that he had known nothing of Smith or Mormonism until late that year. Cowdrey et al found at least ten people who testified that they had seen Smith and Rigdon together a number of times from 1827 onwards—the very period when Smith was preparing the Book of Mormon.

The climax came in 1976 when Cowdrey and his friends were examining some old manuscripts in an LDS church library. They came across a few pages from the Book of Mormon in handwriting no one had been able to identify. But before this the researchers had managed to track down some undisputed samples of Spalding’s handwriting at Oberlin College in Ohio, including a deed from January 1811 bearing his signature.

There, amid the quiet and rather dull surroundings of paper and bookshelves, the awesome truth dawned on them: These harmless-looking scraps of aging paper had the potential to shatter once and for all the myth of Joseph Smith the saint and prophet—a great, historic, American myth for which men and women had lived and died and suffered and killed; a myth that had pioneered part of the Wild West, built the state of Utah, and now ruled the hearts and lives and fortunes of millions round the world.

This extract from the Book of Mormon (“translated” from “golden plates” in 1828) was in the handwriting of Solomon Spalding (died 1816)! What the young men had stumbled on was part of the long-lost manuscript of Spalding’s second novel—crushing evidence of Smith’s plagiarism and deceit that had been preserved by the unsuspecting Mormons themselves.

The three men proceeded to write a book detailing the results of their research (Who Really Wrote the Book of Mormon? Vision House Publishers, 1977). The LDS Church issued denials of the identification and prohibited any further examination of the relevant manuscript. But the detailed testimonies of two independent handwriting experts, William Kaye and Henry Silver, are photographically reproduced for all to see: the unquestioned Spalding documents and the supposed Book of Mormon extract are judged professionally to be definitely in the same hand (Walter Martin, The Maze of Mormonism, pp.62–64).

source:
catholic.com/thisrock/2003/0305fea4.asp

 

[tkdnick]

DeFide:

The three men proceeded to write a book detailing the results of their research (Who Really Wrote the Book of Mormon? Vision House Publishers, 1977). The LDS Church issued denials of the identification and prohibited any further examination of the relevant manuscript. But the detailed testimonies of two independent handwriting experts, William Kaye and Henry Silver, are photographically reproduced for all to see: the unquestioned Spalding documents and the supposed Book of Mormon extract are judged professionally to be definitely in the same hand (Walter Martin, The Maze of Mormonism, pp.62–64).

Can these two books still be purchased? It’s be interesting to see what they say.

 

[DeFide]

tkdnick:

Can these two books still be purchased? It’s be interesting to see what they say.

They’re both on amazon.com.

 

[tkdnick]

DeFide:

They’re both on amazon.com.

YEAH? I’m gonna have to go check those out!

 

[kindlylight]

tkdnick:

I think a million years is a bit of an exaggeration.

Your’e right tkdnick I checked:

"Pleistocene Epoch
1.8 million-10,000 years ago"

"In the Americas, large mammals, such as** horses**, camels, mammoths, mastodons, saber-toothed cats, and ground sloths, are entirely extinct by the end of this epoch.

So Joseph in the BOM might have been only 10,000 years out when he put horses in North America."
Horses, as you know, were introduced to America by Spaniards in the middle ages when America was discovered, Christopher Columbus?

see
http://sdnhm.org/fieldguide/fossils/timeline.html

 

[Casen]

Note that up until 1947 archaeologists were convinced that the camel was not known in Egypt until Greek and Roman times. They dismissed the Biblical account of Abraham’s camels (Gen 12:16) as “the crudest of blunders”. J.P. Free later showed it’s continued existence and use in Egypt back to prehistoric times.

Archeology is certainly not a “hard science”. If tomorrow an archeologist discovers prehistoric horse bones in Nicaragua are you going to convert to Mormonism?

 

[DeFide]

Casen:

Note that up until 1947 archaeologists were convinced that the camel was not known in Egypt until Greek and Roman times. They dismissed the Biblical account of Abraham’s camels (Gen 12:16) as “the crudest of blunders”. J.P. Free later showed it’s continued existence and use in Egypt back to prehistoric times.

Archeology is certainly not a “hard science”. If tomorrow an archeologist discovers prehistoric horse bones in Nicaragua are you going to convert to Mormonism?

If you want to push aside archeology and DNA, what do have to say about Solomon Spalding’s handwriting showing up in the manuscripts of the Book of Mormon (post #67)? How about the King James Version errors being copied into the Book of Mormon?

It’s blatant plagiarism mixed with Smith’s personal theology. Smith+KJV+Spalding Novel= Book of Mormon.

Quotes from family, friends & neighbors of Spalding on his novel & Book of Mormon:
mazeministry.com/resources/books/havetext/appendixc.htm

 

[tkdnick]

Casen:

Archeology is certainly not a “hard science”. If tomorrow an archeologist discovers prehistoric horse bones in Nicaragua are you going to convert to Mormonism?

Guess part of that would have to depend on what the bones were and if they actually proved anything.

 

[mormon_fool]

DeFide:

Perhaps the most irrefutable evidence for the fraudulent character of the Book of Mormon came to light in the mid-1970s through the research of three young Americans, Wayne Cowdrey, Howard Davis, and Donald Scales.

This is probably the most easily refuted evidence against the Book of Mormon. OK I am exagerating, but only by a little. For instance check out what Jerald and Sandra Tanner, hardcore critics of mormonism, had to say about it.

utlm.org/newsletters/no39.htm#HONESTY%20WITH%20MORMONS%20ON%20SPALDING

 

[mormon_fool]

kindlylight:

Mormon fool,
One thing that always puzzled me about Joseph Smith was why did he translate in 1823 using the style of Elizabethan English. Surely he spoke virtually the same English as we do today. See the newspapers of the time.

This is a good question here. Why do I think Joseph Smith used Elizabethan English? Because it was the language of the scripture for that era. I enjoy the language in the Book of Mormon because it makes it seem more reverent. I still use the old forms like “Thee” and “Thou” when I pray.

Perhaps where it is most helpful is the aid it gives me in reading the Bible. There is a lot of similiar texts because the Nephite prophets frequently quote OT prophets like Isaiah and offer commentary on them like no else today can. There are also similarities to NT passages which have a common source in Jesus’s teachings that He gave to followers on both continents. The Book of Mormon sometimes gives an alternative reading that expands my understanding. Using greatly different styles of english would make similiar passages in the scriptures much more difficult to locate and analyze nuances.

The Book of Mormon was actually translated in 1829 so I like using Webster’s 1828 dictionary when I have trouble when Joseph Smith’s frontier english usage crops up. I also like consulting the Oxford English Dictionary because it documents how english usage has changed over the centuries. I am surprised how many technical readings of the Book of Mormon hinge on a particular shade of meaning.

 

[kindlylight]

mormon fool:

“This is a good question here. Why do I think Joseph Smith used Elizabethan English? Because it was the language of the scripture for that era. I enjoy the language in the Book of Mormon because it makes it seem more reverent.”

But it was not. It was the language of the scripture of Elizabethan times. It was still used in Joseph’s time but was full of errors and long overdue for revision as did happen eventually.
Lets get this straight. An unlettered farm boy translates by miraculous powers from reformed Egyptian written on gold plates.(BC/AD). What he translates is in a language and an idiom which is not his own vernacular including mistakes of translation peculiar to the scholars of King James’ time (1611). This could not have been on the plates as it was not yet written.
But I know now why he did so…in your own words “to make it seem more reverent” Why could it not have stood in it’s own right without borrowings from a flawed tanslation which surely makes it seem less “reverent”. would credible be a better word.

 

[DeFide]

mormon fool:

This is probably the most easily refuted evidence against the Book of Mormon. OK I am exagerating, but only by a little. For instance check out what Jerald and Sandra Tanner, hardcore critics of mormonism, had to say about it.

utlm.org/newsletters/no39.htm#HONESTY%20WITH%20MORMONS%20ON%20SPALDING

I will take the Tanners’ reservations into consideration. Thank you. However, don’t you find it disquieting that at the time of publication, so many people of so many different walks of life were able to identify Spalding’s old personal novel in the pages of the Book of Mormon?

Coupled with the KJV errors being translated into the Book of Mormon despite Smith’s alleged mystical translation from “golden plates” that he can’t produce, it makes it easy not to trust Smith’s testimony.

 

[BJ_Colbert]

kindlylight:

mormon fool:

“This is a good question here. Why do I think Joseph Smith used Elizabethan English? Because it was the language of the scripture for that era. I enjoy the language in the Book of Mormon because it makes it seem more reverent.”

But it was not. It was the language of the scripture of Elizabethan times. It was still used in Joseph’s time but was full of errors and long overdue for revision as did happen eventually.
Lets get this straight. An unlettered farm boy translates by miraculous powers from reformed Egyptian written on gold plates.(BC/AD). What he translates is in a language and an idiom which is not his own vernacular including mistakes of translation peculiar to the scholars of King James’ time (1611). This could not have been on the plates as it was not yet written.
But I know now why he did so…in your own words “to make it seem more reverent” Why could it not have stood in it’s own right without borrowings from a flawed tanslation which surely makes it seem less “reverent”. would credible be a better word.

I think this is a bit off topic, and also a bit of Mormon bashing. We could Catholic bash if we so wished, now couldn’t we? You would all have so called defenses for everything that was bashed. Or you would call for a moderator to strike what was said. I for one have never questioned the language used in the BoM as that is the language I use in my prayers. I was always taught to use thee and thy and thou when referring to deity. The BoM was translated by a simple man, by the power of God, therefore to question the language used is to question God Himself. I suppose if the translation was done today you would expect the F word in every other sentence, as that is modern language.
Now, you are also bashing the Holy Bible, which as far as I can see is only a word or two off from your own Holy Scripture, except for more books in yours. Sometimes KJV uses the word" earth" where the Catholic Bible uses"dirt". Was the Catholic Bible ever translated? Or was it always in English, so therefore not subject to errors in translation of any kind? Why is it not translated into modern language now? Would modern language including the slang of today make it more valid in your mind? Or maybe a southern drawl or a Boston accent, or how about eubonics?
If I God appeared to me and told me to do something, I would do it no matter what criticism I got from the rest of mankind. I fear God more than man, and so Joseph Smith gave up his life to accomplish the task God set for him. Others also sacrificed their lives for this great work of restoration. Sounds a little bit like the early days of Christianity. There are only 12 million Mormons worldwide, but there were only 6 million 20 years ago.
I don’t know why you have to dig up anti-Mormon stuff to prove whatever it is you are trying to prove. You have to be aware there is a lot of anti-Catholic literature that appears to “prove” the falacies of the Catholic faith. Not to mention the force and torture used to gain converts.(that was on the history channel) If the Mormons had the kind of history the Catholic Church has, I would be inclined to join another church. You all have a great day now… BJ

 

[DeFide]

BJ Colbert:

kindlylight:

I think this is a bit off topic, and also a bit of Mormon bashing. We could Catholic bash if we so wished, now couldn’t we? You would all have so called defenses for everything that was bashed. Or you would call for a moderator to strike what was said. I for one have never questioned the language used in the BoM as that is the language I use in my prayers. I was always taught to use thee and thy and thou when referring to deity. The BoM was translated by a simple man, by the power of God, therefore to question the language used is to question God Himself. I suppose if the translation was done today you would expect the F word in every other sentence, as that is modern language.
Now, you are also bashing the Holy Bible, which as far as I can see is only a word or two off from your own Holy Scripture, except for more books in yours. Sometimes KJV uses the word" earth" where the Catholic Bible uses"dirt". Was the Catholic Bible ever translated? Or was it always in English, so therefore not subject to errors in translation of any kind? Why is it not translated into modern language now? Would modern language including the slang of today make it more valid in your mind? Or maybe a southern drawl or a Boston accent, or how about eubonics?
If I God appeared to me and told me to do something, I would do it no matter what criticism I got from the rest of mankind. I fear God more than man, and so Joseph Smith gave up his life to accomplish the task God set for him. Others also sacrificed their lives for this great work of restoration. Sounds a little bit like the early days of Christianity. There are only 12 million Mormons worldwide, but there were only 6 million 20 years ago.
I don’t know why you have to dig up anti-Mormon stuff to prove whatever it is you are trying to prove. You have to be aware there is a lot of anti-Catholic literature that appears to “prove” the falacies of the Catholic faith. Not to mention the force and torture used to gain converts.(that was on the history channel) If the Mormons had the kind of history the Catholic Church has, I would be inclined to join another church. You all have a great day now… BJ

1. I don’t think kindlylight was “bashing” in poining out how odd it is to translate into English of a different era, or how it’s impossible that those ancient “golden plates” that no one can produce had the same errors as 1611 KJV when translated by Smith… yet the errors are there.
2. Smith wasn’t a martyr, he died in a shootout in a gunbattle where he fired shots.
3. Smith’s “witnesses” of the golden plates didn’t die for the faith either. Of “the 8” witnesses, Page produced his own seer stone and made prophecies, leading Whitmer and Cowdery also astray. Jacob Whitmer and Page apostatized from the Mormon Church; John Whitmer was excommunicated.

The original three weren’t very reliable, joining other sects or religions on and off, and Cowdrey even once made a “full and final renunciation” of his Mormon beliefs. Smith called Harris “a wicked man”. By 1847, all eleven (8+3 orig.) witnesses were either dead or had joined competing sects. (Christ had many more witnesses and they accepted horrible deaths rather than deny the faith.)

1. The sins of individual Catholics does not disprove the truth of Catholicism.