The Book of Mormons and the Bible

  • Thread starter Thread starter kellie
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
Okay, quick question for clarification here. You use the Bible, though saying it is less than perfect now, but you do in fact still use it. I assume you believe it to be inspired, to the extent that it is translated correctly and preserved. However, here you admit that the apostasy means that the Church ceased to have any authority just after the death of the Apostles. So, how did we get the Bible, which you do use and seem to hold as inspired, in the first place? It certainly wasn’t collected together definitively during the life of the Apostles, or even the men who wrote it, and most likely not within the lives of the men who knew the men who wrote it. The earliest evidence of a complete modern New Testament is something like the third or fourth century. This means, effectively, that the entire New Testament is a product of the Apostasy. Why is it used at all then?

Patrick
You’re wasting your breath, or er, type, on this one. I’ve seen this question posed, numerous ways, by so many on this post. I have yet to see a real answer. It’s cafeteria style scriptural decoding, pick and choose what fits, dump what doesn’t, and they don’t have any other explanation, so please, if you’re holding your breath, exhale…😉
 
In my opinion and as a former Mormon, Im sure some of the LDS people on here get frustrated. They have been taught most of their lives as to the “true teachings” and when others ask questions they try real hard to justify the teachings, its a natural reaction to defend what you have been taught. Honestly I’m surprised that any LDS member is on this site and I’m very shocked to see how rude some of them are…😦 What ever happened to …Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. …
How did you break from this cycle of thought?

Also, you raised the idea of ‘love thy neighbour’; I saw many years ago a show that said the LDS stockpiles food and other goods for charity - but for use only within the LDS community. Is this true?
 
To me, if you want to get some idea of the truth of a religion, you must look first to the founder. The real truth of Mormonism lies in the documented history of Joseph Smith, a man who is on a par, at least to Mormons, with Jesus Christ Himself. A man, who in in his youth, was accused and prosecuted for fraud, “moneydigging” and various other shaky schemes. Then he allegedly experienced various “visions”, the accounts of which have changed frequently. “Golden Plates” were unearthed, which were seen by no one else. “Magic spectacles” were necessary to read these alleged plates and were copied down by a scribe on the other side of a curtain. No independant observer ever saw the alleged plates and they mysteriously disappeared. The recruits to this new religion were viewed by their neighbors as pushy, dishonest and contentious and Joseph Smith began to take on some very strange traits for a “Prophet of God.” Strange sexual proclivities and megalomania began to be made manifest in the “Prophet”. Eventually the antics of these “Saints” forced them to leave New York State and head for greener pastures in Missouri. After many stranger events, things culminated in Smith’s arrest and jailing in Carthage. The “martyr” met his end after seriously wounding a member of the crowd with a smuggled pistol. His neighbors evidently regarded this as the removal of a particularly nasty bump on the posterior of humanity. All hands subsequently decamped to Utah where further criminal adventures awaited them, among which was the massacre of Christian men, women and children at Mountain Meadows.

Contrast this with the history of Christianity, whose Founder healed the sick, raised the dead and preached a Gospel of love, forgiveness and salvation to all. He was cruelly persecuted, beaten nearly to death and then crucified between two criminals. He did not raise a finger to defend Himself, but remained silent. No six-shooter for Our Lord. Who founded the True Religion? Was it the sexually-driven “religious” con-man or was it the Son of God who gave up His life for the sins of the world? Joseph Smith’s history and that of his successors is one of fraud, deception, mind-control and murder. Mormons are bred to deception, so do not expect to hear the truth from them on these forums.
 
Sorry folks, as I said, I am a truck driver. I have been driving all over the northeast and sleeping. Driving on bad roads wears me out. Trying to dodge 4-wheelers (and sometimes big trucks) who think 79000 lbs stops on a dime on ice gives me the heebeegeebees.

Majic-
Don’t recall your question(s)…

Cothrige-
Our position on the Bible is it is the Word of God. Sure, some parts have been translated incorrectly (as I stated before, Catholics also believe this. Evidence of this is they keep bringing out new translations based on more and more current scholarship). We believe the King James Version is more than sufficient to learn of the Gospel. Regarding the question of who compiled the Bible. We believe the ‘Bible’ was first, the Old Testament was handed down through the ages, with the main version we have now a result of the Septuagint. The New Testament is more complex. The earliest document is know as a portion of the Gospel of John (18:31-33 on one side and 18:37-38 on the other sidee) from AD 125. It is called ‘P52’. There are many fragments used by translaters date up to AD 300. In addition to these fragements are three most famous Codi; the AD 300 Codex Vaticanus, the AD 350 Codex Sanaiticus, and the AD AD 450 Codex Alexendrinus. From these various codi, scholars translate the New Testiment. I get two significant facts from this: 1) None of the manuscripts agree, and 2) None disagree significantly enough to alter the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It may interest you to here what a big name says regarding textual criticism, Dr. Metzger (of Princeton) says, "The necessity of applying textual criticism to the books of the New Testament arises from two circumstances: (a) none of the original documents is extant, and (b) the existing copies differ from one another. The textual critic seeks to ascertain from the divergent copies which form of the text should be regarded as most nearly conforming to the original. In some cases the evidence will be found to be so evenly divided that it is extremely difficult to decide between two variant readings. In other instances, however, the critic can arrive at a decision based on more or less compelling reasons for preferring one reading and rejecting another. (From The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration, available on line at “Questia”. Any way, that is how we think we got the Bible. Is that specific enough?
 
Cothrige-
Our position on the Bible is it is the Word of God. Sure, some parts have been translated incorrectly (as I stated before, Catholics also believe this. Evidence of this is they keep bringing out new translations based on more and more current scholarship). We believe the King James Version is more than sufficient to learn of the Gospel. Regarding the question of who compiled the Bible. We believe the ‘Bible’ was first, the Old Testament was handed down through the ages, with the main version we have now a result of the Septuagint. The New Testament is more complex. The earliest document is know as a portion of the Gospel of John (18:31-33 on one side and 18:37-38 on the other sidee) from AD 125. It is called ‘P52’. There are many fragments used by translaters date up to AD 300. In addition to these fragements are three most famous Codi; the AD 300 Codex Vaticanus, the AD 350 Codex Sanaiticus, and the AD AD 450 Codex Alexendrinus. From these various codi, scholars translate the New Testiment. I get two significant facts from this: 1) None of the manuscripts agree, and 2) None disagree significantly enough to alter the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It may interest you to here what a big name says regarding textual criticism, Dr. Metzger (of Princeton) says, "The necessity of applying textual criticism to the books of the New Testament arises from two circumstances: (a) none of the original documents is extant, and (b) the existing copies differ from one another. The textual critic seeks to ascertain from the divergent copies which form of the text should be regarded as most nearly conforming to the original. In some cases the evidence will be found to be so evenly divided that it is extremely difficult to decide between two variant readings. In other instances, however, the critic can arrive at a decision based on more or less compelling reasons for preferring one reading and rejecting another. (From The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration, available on line at “Questia”. Any way, that is how we think we got the Bible. Is that specific enough?
You’ve completely missed the point of the question.

The books of the Bible weren’t drawn together to make ‘the Bible’ until after 300 AD - when the Bible’s supposed to have been corrupt.

This so-called Apostate Church authorised the Bible.

It also assumes as Protestants do that the whole message of the Bible is contained in the Bible. It isn’t. The message of Christ is in the Church.
 
Sorry folks, as I said, I am a truck driver. I have been driving all over the northeast and sleeping. Driving on bad roads wears me out. Trying to dodge 4-wheelers (and sometimes big trucks) who think 79000 lbs stops on a dime on ice gives me the heebeegeebees.

Majic-
Don’t recall your question(s)…
how convenient… :cool:

how about you take a moment to quickly review this thread. try post #92 for the main questions and then #112 as the follow up to your other comments.
 
Sorry folks, as I said, I am a truck driver. I have been driving all over the northeast and sleeping. Driving on bad roads wears me out. Trying to dodge 4-wheelers (and sometimes big trucks) who think 79000 lbs stops on a dime on ice gives me the heebeegeebees.
Welcome back, wussup. Glad you survived the road. According to the TV reports, weather in the NE has been atrocious. Not good here in the West, either, but not as bad at the NE. You might spend some time back-reading, as much has transpired in your absence.
 
Ricardo…
Alas, you need to take a course in logic. Questions don’t have a ‘point’, they simply ask a question. “So how did we get the Bible”? I answered the question. If the objective of the question is to trap or trick me into saying, “Gasp, aaaargh, we, mumble mumble, er, got the Bible from the Catholic Church”, well we didn’t. The Catholic Church has a lot more in their Bible then the KJV does. However, the parts of the KJV we do have we accept (though there are some who have doubts regarding the Songs of Solomon). In fact. there ARE some missing books in the Bible. To wit, the Book of Jasher, the Book of Samuel the Seer, the Acts of Solomon, the Book of Nathan, the Book of Shemaiah, the Acts of Abijah, the Book of Jehu, a missing epistle to the Corinthians, a missing prophecy of Christ (fulfilled by his adobe in Nazareth), a missing epistle to the Ephesians, a missing epistle of Laodicea, a Book of Enoch, and writings of Jude. Hmmmm, I wonder why the Catholic Church lost these plain and precious books? The various ancient writings purported to be written by apostles were gathered together. The various concils, most of which were Catholic (not Roman, but just Catholic) set up various criteria (which most of you should know, if you don’t know the criteria, new advent.com should be of help) and the Books were selected and compiled into the New Testament (with the curious exceptions of the forementioned missing scripture).

Finally, regarding the JST. The JST was not a translation in the conventional sense, but was a matter of a learning experience and prayer on the part of Joseph Smith. We look at the JST as an invaluable aid in reading the scripture. The JST is not an official replacement for the Bible.

Got to go to sleep, while you folks will be tearing apart my work here, I will have reawoken and will be on the road delivering 43,957 lbs of Alum powder to someone in Illinois. Nighty night…

Kelli-
First, I gave a false dichotomy, though none in here picked up on it (sigh). I said you were either a liar or woefully ignorant. Again, I reference your statement: “Isn’t this exactly what the Mormons say happened to us? That the Apostles and prophets died leaving no one in authority”.

HOW DO YOU FOLKS GET THE QUOTES SET IN A LITTLE BOX?

Again, the answer is NO. The Prophet did not die leaving no one in authority. Brigham Young was given the keys (the same ones Peter had). This is what we believe. You can no longer say “Isn’t this exactly what the Mormons say happened to us? That the Apostles and prophets died leaving no one in authority” without lying. This is what I am saying. You are no longer ignorant on this tiny little subject. It will be the next time you say this, pretending to not know the answer, that you will be lying.

Kristin-
I get frustrated when I answer a question in detail, per the previous expose regarding where we think the Bible came from, and then am told that I did not answer the question.

Somemore background info., I majored in Philosophy (with a favourate emphasis on Spinoza, Frank Sheed’s quotation on Page 1 of the current thread “Three-in-one=trinity” is structurally similar to Spinoza’s Ethics), and attended several schools in the process thereof., to wit Dallas Baptist University, Penn State, Univ. of North Texas, etc… You will save yourselves a lot of grinding of teeth if you stop being condescending. I have not attacked the Catholic Church directly, only to point out scriptures to support our argument. Whereas the writers here are going to anti-mormon literature, the vast majority of which is perjurous. The ‘ex-mormons’ here out to have the courage to at least say, hey folks, there is a lot to criticize in the Church, but that is false. Anyway, it’s your salvation. If you want to promote falsehoods, continue on.
 
Kelli-
First, I gave a false dichotomy, though none in here picked up on it (sigh). I said you were either a liar or woefully ignorant. Again, I reference your statement: “Isn’t this exactly what the Mormons say happened to us? That the Apostles and prophets died leaving no one in authority”.

HOW DO YOU FOLKS GET THE QUOTES SET IN A LITTLE BOX?

Again, the answer is NO. The Prophet did not die leaving no one in authority. Brigham Young was given the keys (the same ones Peter had). This is what we believe. You can no longer say “Isn’t this exactly what the Mormons say happened to us? That the Apostles and prophets died leaving no one in authority” without lying. This is what I am saying. You are no longer ignorant on this tiny little subject. It will be the next time you say this, pretending to not know the answer, that you will be lying.
Once again I will state I am not lying.

Nor am I ignorant on this subject.

I said what I said due to the fact that Smith died leaving his translation of the bible unfinished, and no one ever took it over.

Also, after reading this site, there seems to have been a lot of in-fighting when Smith died, as to who was in charge. It led to many schisms.

It sure sounds like Young was in it for his own personal power and not the good of the church.
 
How did you break from this cycle of thought?

Also, you raised the idea of ‘love thy neighbour’; I saw many years ago a show that said the LDS stockpiles food and other goods for charity - but for use only within the LDS community. Is this true?
Hmmm…many many things led me to break away from this church…
At first, it was when I started reading different books on the beginnings of the church… The more information I found about Joseph Smith his (seer stone, money digging practices, his family ties to the occult, they way he lived polygamy etc etc) I knew something was very wrong no matter what I had been taught… That was the beginning for me…

As far as the food storage, it is true the church asks every member to have a years supply of food on hand for their family and as for charity they have warehouses of food to help " their members".
 
Also, you raised the idea of ‘love thy neighbour’; I saw many years ago a show that said the LDS stockpiles food and other goods for charity - but for use only within the LDS community. Is this true?
That is not correct. The LDS Church has a charitable arm that reaches out to those in need wherever they may be regardless of their faith or religion. Some years ago they donated a large sum of money to a Catholic charity for use in Africa where the LDS Church did not have a strong presence. Food storage is a different thing entirely. Church members are recommended to have a year’s supply of food for themselves and their family in case of an emergency. It is a part of the Church’s welfare and family preparedness program. But there is no rule that says that they should not share their food storage with those not of their faith should such an emergency arise.

zerinus
 
Ricardo…
Alas, you need to take a course in logic. Questions don’t have a ‘point’, they simply ask a question. “So how did we get the Bible”? I answered the question. If the objective of the question is to trap or trick me into saying, “Gasp, aaaargh, we, mumble mumble, er, got the Bible from the Catholic Church”, well we didn’t. The Catholic Church has a lot more in their Bible then the KJV does. However, the parts of the KJV we do have we accept (though there are some who have doubts regarding the Songs of Solomon). In fact. there ARE some missing books in the Bible. To wit, the Book of Jasher, the Book of Samuel the Seer, the Acts of Solomon, the Book of Nathan, the Book of Shemaiah, the Acts of Abijah, the Book of Jehu, a missing epistle to the Corinthians, a missing prophecy of Christ (fulfilled by his adobe in Nazareth), a missing epistle to the Ephesians, a missing epistle of Laodicea, a Book of Enoch, and writings of Jude. Hmmmm, I wonder why the Catholic Church lost these plain and precious books? The various ancient writings purported to be written by apostles were gathered together. The various concils, most of which were Catholic (not Roman, but just Catholic) set up various criteria (which most of you should know, if you don’t know the criteria, new advent.com should be of help) and the Books were selected and compiled into the New Testament (with the curious exceptions of the forementioned missing scripture).

Finally, regarding the JST. The JST was not a translation in the conventional sense, but was a matter of a learning experience and prayer on the part of Joseph Smith. We look at the JST as an invaluable aid in reading the scripture. The JST is not an official replacement for the Bible.

Got to go to sleep, while you folks will be tearing apart my work here, I will have reawoken and will be on the road delivering 43,957 lbs of Alum powder to someone in Illinois. Nighty night…

Kelli-
First, I gave a false dichotomy, though none in here picked up on it (sigh). I said you were either a liar or woefully ignorant. Again, I reference your statement: “Isn’t this exactly what the Mormons say happened to us? That the Apostles and prophets died leaving no one in authority”.

HOW DO YOU FOLKS GET THE QUOTES SET IN A LITTLE BOX?

Again, the answer is NO. The Prophet did not die leaving no one in authority. Brigham Young was given the keys (the same ones Peter had). This is what we believe. You can no longer say “Isn’t this exactly what the Mormons say happened to us? That the Apostles and prophets died leaving no one in authority” without lying. This is what I am saying. You are no longer ignorant on this tiny little subject. It will be the next time you say this, pretending to not know the answer, that you will be lying.

Kristin-
I get frustrated when I answer a question in detail, per the previous expose regarding where we think the Bible came from, and then am told that I did not answer the question.

Somemore background info., I majored in Philosophy (with a favourate emphasis on Spinoza, Frank Sheed’s quotation on Page 1 of the current thread “Three-in-one=trinity” is structurally similar to Spinoza’s Ethics), and attended several schools in the process thereof., to wit Dallas Baptist University, Penn State, Univ. of North Texas, etc… You will save yourselves a lot of grinding of teeth if you stop being condescending. I have not attacked the Catholic Church directly, only to point out scriptures to support our argument. Whereas the writers here are going to anti-mormon literature, the vast majority of which is perjurous. The ‘ex-mormons’ here out to have the courage to at least say, hey folks, there is a lot to criticize in the Church, but that is false. Anyway, it’s your salvation. If you want to promote falsehoods, continue on.
and once again, those of us who used actual facts get ignored. 😦
 
All you need to know about the Book of Mormon can be found in these two videos:
Believe it not! The videos prove nothing. They are worthless anti-Mormon propaganda. The Book of Mormon has its own internal proof–the testimony of the Holy Ghost. And it is ture!

zerinus
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top