Why do Mormons Accept the Canon of the Bible?

[Karin]

Not interested; and neither are you. Have a nice day.

zerinus

oh my do the LDS now have the power to read minds?
it sounds more like you are not interested in answeing an honest question that is posed to you

 

[FromTheCrossroa]

You stick to your “logic and science” and I will stick to my testimony of the Holy Ghost. As a matter of fact, you haven’t brought any arguments against the Book of Mormon except to tell me that it contains extracts of the Bible. Well, so what? The Bible also contains many extracts from itself. That is how they wrote scripture in those days, and the Book of Mormon is no different. That is no argument against the Book of Moremon.

zerinus

Thats the crux of the mormon argument when the faith is shone to be false. It’s usually called the “burning in the bosom”. Christianity does not shy away from scrutiny. Rather, we welcome it as we know our scripture will stand up to examination because it is the inspired word of God.

I’ve seen plenty of arguments against the BOM in this thread. These have not been answered by you apart from the standard “burning in the bosom” response. It would serve your faith well to look at these critically.

To summarize:

One: It was never canonized or authenticated by the Church. The mormon church had to back track from its claims of outside authentication when outside sources cited vehemently denied the accounts. Conveniently, the ONLY existing original manuscript disappeared with 8 non-objective witnesses being the only proof. Even Christ’s resurrection was witnessed by more people than the golden plates. Holy Scripture has thousands of manuscripts dating back thousands of years.

Two: There have been 3900 changes in substance made to the BOM since the 1800’s or “revelations” as the church now calls it. The original scriptures (Bible) has been shown to be unchanged in substance since being written down by examining the manuscript evidence.

Three: Secular history has not affirmed historical portions of the BOM. Not a single story in the BOM has been authenticated, and its NOT for lack of effort on the mormon churches part.

Four: The BOM plagerized the KJV 1611 including grammatical and translation errors. An ear mark of an offshoot of Protestantism, not of divine revelation.

Five: Prophecies did not “come to pass” as Joseph Smith prophesied. The civil war for instance was to be the end of the world and all nations until the church had a revelation. True prophets such as Isaiah and Daniel didn’t need Rabbi’s to come behind them and “fix” prophecy to fit history.

That covers the past, the present, and the future. These ear marks are found ONLY in the cannon of Holy Scripture.

 

[IanS]

Z, I quoted you in part, and would like to ask you a question regarding this separation of church and state thing. I’ll study the rest of your post when I have time.

My understanding is that the Mormons built a theocracy whereever they went. The early Mormons did not distinguish between church and state. The Mormon church WAS the state. In fact, it is my understanding from reading, that when Utah applied for statehood in 1849, Congress denied for the main reasons of polygamy and theocracy. It took over 50 years of U.S. federal involvement in Utah’s territorial affairs, removing the connections between the LDS church and the territorial (state) gov’t before it would grant statehood, which finally occurred, I think, in 1894 after the then-prophet had a revelation that allowed for the legal prohibition of polygamy.

So, my question is, if LDS people value this American separation of church and state so highly, why is it that the early Mormons were so determinedly theocratic?

I realize that this is steering far afield of the original thread, so if we need to move to another thread, maybe we should. I’ve always found this theocratic tendency in the early Mormons interesting and perhaps revealing. Now that you’ve brought it up, I’d like to explore it a little.

I don’t know Allweather, based on the way a few Mormons are able to skirt around every direct question, change the subject in a flash, and put a “spin” on just about every passage in the Bible, I’d say they model themselves after the state and modern politics.

zerinus:
Admitting that your church has made some mistakes or had some growing pains does not mean you are not a good and faithful Mormon, it means you are an honest, sincere, and charitable Mormon. However, trying to come off like the LDS church and Joseph Smith are totally perfect forces you into corners and just makes you look prideful, desperate, and well, a little foolish.

 

[Brad_Haas]

The necessity of the Sacraments.
Our position on that is a lot closer to Catholicism than to Protestantism. We believe that the sacraments are necessary for our salvation. In fact we have more of them than the Catholic Church does! The Catholic Church has traditionally recognized seven sacraments. The Protestants have rejected most of these, and kept only baptism and the Eucharist; and they maintain that even these are not necessary for our salvation. The LDS Church is the only church on earth that has more sacraments than the Catholic Church does! And we think that they are all necessary for our salvation.

More sacraments? Which ones are those?

 

[Karin]

More sacraments? Which ones are those?

LDS Ordinances (Sacraments)
**Baptism **

Confirmation and bestowal of the Holy Ghost Priesthood Ordination - Conferring the Priesthood and ordaining to an office -

Sacramental prayer on the bread -

**Sacramental prayer on the water **

**Naming and blessing children - **

Consecrating olive oil -

**Administering to the sick **

**Anointing the sick **

Sealing the Anointing
**Dedication of grave - **

**Patriarchal Blessings - . **

**Temple Ordinances **

**Temple Endowment [this is known as a saving ordinance] **
**http://www.xmission.com/~research/central/blank.gif **
Temple Marriage (Sealing) [this is known as a saving ordinance]

**Plural Marriage **

SOURCE

 

[zerinus]

LDS Ordinances (Sacraments)
Baptism

Confirmation and bestowal of the Holy Ghost Priesthood Ordination - Conferring the Priesthood and ordaining to an office -

Sacramental prayer on the bread -

Sacramental prayer on the water

Naming and blessing children -

Consecrating olive oil -

Administering to the sick

Anointing the sick

Sealing the Anointing
Dedication of grave -

Patriarchal Blessings - .

Temple Ordinances

Temple Endowment [this is known as a saving ordinance]
http://www.xmission.com/~research/central/blank.gif
Temple Marriage (Sealing) [this is known as a saving ordinance]

Plural Marriage

SOURCE

Very good Karin. You saved me the trouble.

zerinus

 

[Karin]

Very good Karin. You saved me the trouble.

zerinus

yeah was not too hard…every ex-mormon site lists the ordiances that the LDS have…
my understanding is you guys call the Eucharist the Sacrament and these other things I listed are “ordinances”

 

[zerinus]

yeah was not too hard…every ex-mormon site lists the ordiances that the LDS have…
my understanding is you guys call the Eucharist the Sacrament and these other things I listed are “ordinances”

Yes, that is right. It is a matter of terminology, evolved in each case for historical reasons.

zerinus

 

[Allweather]

Not interested; and neither are you. Have a nice day.

zerinus

No, truly, I am very interested.

I realize that the Mormon church has morphed into a kinder, gentler form since around 1900, so that it is nothing now like it was in the mid-19th century. Still, it seems important that we should know our roots. Catholics should know their religious roots, and so should Mormons. I don’t think anyone is well served by ignoring the past.

I take it, then, from your reply, quoted above, that you are ignorant of the fact that it took Utah a half-century to obtain U.S. statehood due in large part to the Mormon theocracy and polygamy? Or is it that you know all about this history, but find it embarrassing and hard to explain to those others on this board who you hope might be actually thinking of becoming a Mormon?

 

[FromTheCrossroa]

No, truly, I am very interested.

I realize that the Mormon church has morphed into a kinder, gentler form since around 1900, so that it is nothing now like it was in the mid-19th century. Still, it seems important that we should know our roots. Catholics should know their religious roots, and so should Mormons. I don’t think anyone is well served by ignoring the past.

I take it, then, from your reply, quoted above, that you are ignorant of the fact that it took Utah a half-century to obtain U.S. statehood due in large part to the Mormon theocracy and polygamy? Or is it that you know all about this history, but find it embarrassing and hard to explain to those others on this board who you hope might be actually thinking of becoming a Mormon?

While I disagree with your theology, I do respect your honesty. The mormon faith has a lot of foundational problems. A building with a bad foundation is a house in disrepair at best, or soon to be a relic of the past at worst. For me, a foundation is of the utmost importance. If you can in good conscience accept being mormon with what you’ve understood about your history, I won’t try to convince you otherwise. Without the Holy Spirit, there is little fruit that would come of it anyhow. I would be interested to hear you address the questions zarius refuses to. If you did so without using “BITB” as proof, you would be the first.

 

[Allweather]

While I disagree with your theology, I do respect your honesty. The mormon faith has a lot of foundational problems. A building with a bad foundation is a house in disrepair at best, or soon to be a relic of the past at worst. For me, a foundation is of the utmost importance. If you can in good conscience accept being mormon with what you’ve understood about your history, I won’t try to convince you otherwise. Without the Holy Spirit, there is little fruit that would come of it anyhow. I would be interested to hear you address the questions zarius refuses to. If you did so without using “BITB” as proof, you would be the first.

Crossroa you may have me confused with someone else. I’m certainly no Mormon. Maybe you meant this post for another forum member but quoted me (Allweather) by mistake? BTW I agree with you completely on the foundation thing. I think it is too bad that Zerinus is so touchy about the many apparent faults with Mormonism’s origins.

 

[Nan_S]

The Septuagint version was the Bible of the Greek-speaking, or Hellenist, Jews, whose intellectual and literary centre was Alexandria. The oldest extant copies date from the fourth and fifth centuries of our era, and were therefore made by Christian hands; nevertheless scholars generally admit that these faithfully represent the Old Testament as it was current among the Hellenist or Alexandrian Jews in the age immediately preceding Christ

I’ll do you one better: Although the oldest known complete copies of the Septuagint date from around that period, the oldest collection of quotes from the Septuagint date from much, much earlier. Specifically, some 300 of about 330 OT passages quoted in the NT were from the Septuagint. The Book of Job is the only one where the Masoretic/Hebrew text was exclusively used instead of the Septuagint/Greek.

These 300 passages quoted by the Apostles and their scribes came from books written by Jewish hands, not Christian hands.

The Septuagint in the New Testament

Which leads us all the way back around: The forensic evidence clearly shows that the apostles used the Greek OT instead of the Hebrew OT. Now if the Christian religion went into apostacy with the death of the last apostle and the Mormons are restoring original Christianity, and the apostles used the Greek OT instead of the Hebrew OT, why do the Mormons use an “apostate” bible instead? Particularly, why do they do this when very early copies of the Greek OT still exist?

Nan