Response to Jehovah's Witness Articles
on the LDS Church
by John A. Tvedtnes and Matthew Roper
In the November 8, 1995 issue of Awake!, the Jehovah's Witness organization published a brief article on Joseph Smith entitled "A Young Man's Search for Answers," followed by a second article "The Mormon Church--A Restoration of All Things?" The first article has some minor inaccuracies, but otherwise has the appearance of an unbiased attempt at briefly recounting the history of Joseph Smith. The second article begins along similar lines, but then turns to a rendition of familiar criticisms of the Book of Mormon, most of which have little substance and have been answered time and time again. The author(s) were evidently unaware that these issues have been more than adequately addressed, and it is clear that they simply picked them up from some of the typical anti-Mormon literature that has been floating around unchanged for decades.
The story of Joseph Smith begins by noting that "many farmers" of Joseph Smith's day "were tantalized by tales of buried Indian treasure" and sought this treasure "armed with magic seer stones, incantations, and divine rods." Supposedly, "local legends told of a great Indian civilization that perished in a terrible battle somewhere in New York State." Unlike the second article, which is replete with references, there is no source given for this information. But its intent is clear: it lays the foundation for establishing that Joseph Smith simply invented the Book of Mormon, which fit with what others already believed. Were this true, of course, one would expect that Joseph Smith's story would have been better received. The fact is, he was persecuted for what he said happened to him.
Here are some of the errors in the articles, referenced by page number, followed by our response. We have skipped over some of the more minor errors.
"It meant instant death for others to see the plates at that time" (17). We know of no indication that people would die if they saw the plates. Joseph Smith merely indicated that he would be destroyed if he showed them to anyone without permission (JS-H 1:42).
"The plates were inscribed in ‘reformed Egyptian' writing, Smith explained, which was more compact than Hebrew" (18). Neither Joseph Smith nor the Book of Mormon tell us why the Nephites used reformed Egyptian, though the compactness argument is a valid one. Thanks to archaeological finds in the Near East during the last few decades, there are now several examples of mixed Hebrew-Egyptian writings and of Jews (including some from Lehi's time) writing in Egyptian script.
"According to Smith, Mormon's son, now the spirit Moroni, had given him the record on golden plates" (18). At no time does Joseph Smith call Moroni a "spirit," and it is generally understood that he was a resurrected being. To some people, the term "spirit" hints at séances and contact with the "dear departed," which is not something Joseph Smith was involved in.
"When hostilities erupted, Smith was arrested and jailed in Carthage, Illinois" (18). Hostilities did not erupt. Joseph Smith was charged with the destruction of a press--an action undertaken not by Joseph alone but by the Nauvoo City council, with one dissenting vote. The practice of destroying libelous presses had its precedent in actions taken by local governments in other parts of the United States in that time. When charged with wrongdoing by those opposed to his religious views, Joseph voluntarily went with his brother Hyrum and some friends to surrender to state authorities in Carthage.
"The majority of church positions are unsalaried" (p. 19). Virtually all ecclesiastical positions in the LDS Church are unsalaried, the exception being the General Authorities of the Church, fewer than a hundred in number in a church of ten million.
"The temple endowment ceremony involves a series of covenants, or promises, and a special temple undergarment to be worn ever after, as a protection from evil and as a reminder of the vows of secrecy taken" (p. 19). The garment is not "a reminder of the vows of secrecy," but a reminder of the covenants we make in the temple to obey the basic laws God has given us, which are explained as the law of obedience, the law of sacrifice (acceptance of Christ), the law of the gospel (helping others come to Christ), the law of chastity, and the law of consecration. There are many early Jewish and Christian texts that speak of the use of this special priesthood garment in ancient times, and some of them even attribute special powers to the garment, though, in fact, only God possesses such powers. (John A. Tvedtnes, Priesthood Clothing in Bible Times, in Donald Parry, ed., Temples of the Ancient World [Deseret Book Company and FARMS, 1994]: 649-704; Stephen D. Ricks, The Garment of Adam in Jewish, Muslim, and Christian Tradition, in Donald Parry, ed., Temples of the Ancient World [Deseret Book Company and FARMS, 1994]: 705-739.)
"Strict tithing of their income is required" (p. 19). Tithing is considered a free-will offering. Membership in the Church is not contingent on paying tithing. The principle of tithing is very ancient, going back at least to Abraham (Genesis 14:20; Hebrews 7:4-10) and Jacob (28:22). In the days of the early apostles, Christians were asked to donate all of their possessions to God (Acts 2:44; 4:31-37).
"Why the need for other scriptures?" (p. 20). It is likely that the Jews of the first century A.D. were asking the same question when the gospels and epistles began circulating. To people of that era, the Bible consisted of the Old Testament alone. Before Jeremiah wrote his book, the Israelites already had scriptures, and there was so much opposition to the prophet's new revelations that the first copy of his book was burned and he had to redictate it to a scribe (Jeremiah 36:4-32). There have always been people who wanted to accept the former revelations and ignore the ones God had for their own generation. But, in his love for his children, God has continued to provide prophets and scriptures down through the ages. The Bible itself is not a single book, but a collection of many of these revelations. Ironically, the Bible is different for Jews than for Christians, who add the books of the New Testament. Some of the books in our current New Testament were not acceptable to many early Christians and they had books in their Bibles that are no longer in ours. The Bibles used in the Christian churches of Armenia and Ethiopia also contain books not in our western Bibles. It is naive to believe that the English Bible is everything God ever gave or has to give to mankind. Certainly the Bible makes no such claim.
"LDS writers express profound misgivings about the Bible's reliability because of alleged deletions and translation errors" (p. 20). Latter-day Saints have no more reservations about the text of the Bible than do the vast majority of Bible scholars. On the whole, we accept the Bible and use it to expound church doctrine and practice, believing that there are some minor errors, omissions, and additions, to the various books contained therein. We honor the Bible and strive to live by its principles. We also honor the Book of Mormon, which is a second witness of Jesus Christ and supports what the Bible says of him. Orson Pratt's views of the Bible, cited in the Awake! article, are extreme and are not those of other LDS Church leaders and members. The pamphlet's assertion that discrepancies found between the Dead Sea Scrolls and other Bible manuscripts "consisted chiefly of obvious slips of the pen and variations of spelling" is correct only for those scrolls that are part of the Massoretic tradition from which our own Bible was produced. Even so, the number of variants are not few, and some of the "slips of the pen" involved omission of one or mores lines of text or the addition of explanatory marginal notes into the text. In addition, a number of the Dead Sea Scrolls represent variant traditions of biblical books, such as the ones found in the Greek Septuagint and Samaritan Bibles. One of the Hebrew Jeremiah scrolls, for example, follows the much shorter Septuagint version, while others follow the Massoretic text from which our Bibles have been translated. The Septuagint Jeremiah is an eighth shorter than our Jeremiah and has considerable transpositions. In Jeremiah 10, where the Septuagint omits verses 6-8, 10, and moves verse 5 to appear after verse 9, the scroll found near the Dead Sea follows. One of the Hebrew Exodus scrolls reflects the Septuagint version, while another is closer to the Samaritan. Similarly, a Hebrew Numbers scroll is closer to the Samaritan than to the Massoretic text and is closer still to the Septuagint. And so it goes. From the evidence of the Dead Sea Scrolls, it is clear that already two thousand years ago, there were different versions of the books of the Bible. The quote from long-dead Sir Frederic Kenyon, asserting that there have been no changes in the Bible text over time, is clearly out-of-date and does not accord with post-Dead Sea Scrolls Bible scholarship.
"Doctrine and Covenants . . . revelations . . . have been revised at times as doctrinal and historical developments dictated" (p. 20). Doctrinal issues were not changed in the revelations, only church practices and organization, as the church grew over time. When Jeremiah redictated the book he had previously dictated to his scribe Baruch and that the king had destroyed, he added material not in the original (Jeremiah 36:32).
"The Pearl of Great Price . . . contains Joseph Smith's revisions of the Bible book of Genesis" etc. (p. 20). Actually, only the first few chapters of that revision are included in the Pearl of Great Price.
The statements regarding the Book of Abraham (p. 20) reflect the views of only some who have studied the matter and cast the book in an unfair light. It would be impossible to discuss the entire matter in these few pages.
Additional doctrines presented "by the church's living prophet . . . are equal in authority to the Holy Bible" (p. 20). This is true only insofar as such doctrines are presented for canonization by the Church. Prophets, too, may have their own opinions. Joseph Smith declared that "a prophet was a prophet only when he was acting as such" (History of the Church 5: 265).
Regarding scripture beyond the Bible, the pamphlet quotes Paul's words from Galatians 1:8, "Though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto him, let him be accursed" (p. 21). The "gospel" is, however, not a book, but the "good news" (which is what the word means) about Jesus Christ, his mission and atoning sacrifice. When Jesus went about "preaching the gospel of the kingdom" (Matthew 4:23; 9:5; 11:15; Mark 1:14; Luke 9:6; 20:1), he obviously did not carry the New Testament with him, for it had not yet been written. In 3 Nephi 27:13-22, Jesus described what he called "my gospel" to the Nephites and it is exactly the same gospel that we find taught in the New Testament. The Book of Mormon is not "another gospel," but another record of the same gospel message--that through the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ we can be saved.
"In the pages of the Bible . . . the only offer of godhood ever recorded . . . was the empty promise by Satan the Devil in the garden of Eden (Genesis 3:5)" (p. 22). While it is true that Satan told Eve that by partaking of the fruit she and Adam would become "as gods, knowing good and evil," we must also note that, in Genesis 3:22, God himself confirms that this is what happened: "And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil." Obviously, the promise was not so "empty." Where Satan deceived Eve was in saying that she would not die (Genesis 3:5), in contradiction to what the Lord had said (Genesis 2:17; 3:3). The scriptures command us to become perfect and holy like God (Matthew 5:48; 1 Peter 1:15-16; Leviticus 11:44-45; 19:2; 20:7, 26). In Psalms 82:6, the Lord declares, "I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High." Jesus repeated this when the Jews sought to stone him for making himself God, then added, "If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken" (John 10:30-36). Peter wrote that we can become "partakers of the divine nature" (1 Peter 1:2-4), while Paul declared that, as "children of God," we can become "heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ" (Romans 8:14-15). John similarly noted that we are "the sons of God," that "when he shall appear, we shall be like him," and that "every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure" (1 John 3:1-3). [Emphasis added.]
"The Book of Mormon says that had the former spirits Adam and Eve remained sinless, they would have been childless and joyless, alone in Paradise. So its version of the sin of the first married couple involved sexual intercourse and childbearing . . . (2 Nephi 2:22, 23, 25)" (p. 22). Actually, it is mainstream Christianity, following teachings introduced by St. Augustine, who believe that the "original sin" was sexual in nature, while Latter-day Saints believe that Adam and Eve partook of a literal fruit that made them mortal. That this first sin was not sexual intercourse is clear from the fact that Eve ate the fruit before Adam (Genesis 3:6). It is not remaining "sinless" that would have left Adam and Eve "childless and joyless," but the fact that they were not mortal and, unable to be exposed to opposition, would not have been able to distinguish joy from sorrow. It was Eve, not Adam, who was deceived by Satan, as Paul makes clear in 1 Timothy 2:14. Having transgressed the commandment of God, she would be cast out of the garden, while Adam, had he not taken the fruit she offered him, would have remained. But because he fell, men are, as the Book of Mormon passage states, and mortality has come into the world.
"While accepting the Bible's authority, in case of disagreement LDS doctrine necessarily assigns greater weight to the words of their prophets" (p. 22). The statement is basically true, but it implies that there could be a "disagreement" between the Bible and living prophets, which is nearly nonexistent. The differences seen by non-Latter-day Saints are due to their misconceptions about what the Bible says and about the role of prophets, ancient and modern. One would not expect, for example, that every prophet should build an ark just because God told Noah to do so, nor to go to Nineveh as God told Jonah. In his day, many Jews rejected Jesus because he did not fit their preconceived notions of what the Messiah should be. Jeremiah and other prophets were rejected because they did not fit the preconceived notions of the people about what a prophet should be. Things haven't changed much.
"The story [of Martin Harris' visit to Professor Charles Anthon] appears to be inconsistent, however, with Smith's claim that he alone had the gift to translate the language of the plates" (p. 22). The inconsistency is not in the story told by Martin Harris, but in Anthon's claim that he would be able to translate the record. At the time of Harris' visit to Anthon, there existed no Egyptian grammars or dictionaries. Indeed, the first of these were just being prepared by the French scholar Jean-François Champollion, who deciphered the Egyptian language, and were not published until after his death in 1832--two years after the Book of Mormon was published. Anthon might have made a valiant try, but he was not qualified to do the work.
"It has troubled some readers that The Book of Mormon, this ‘most correct' of books, lifts at least 27,000 words directly from the Bible version that is purportedly full of errors and that Smith later undertook to revise" (p. 22). Since the Book of Mormon was written by Israelites who possessed many books of the Bible, we should not be surprised to see them quote from those books. New Testament writers frequently quoted Old Testament prophets and Psalms, and some Old Testament prophets quoted from earlier prophets. Many hundreds of examples could be given. The Book of Mormon would be more suspect as ancient scripture if it ignored the Bible. Joseph Smith's comments about the correctness of the Book of Mormon have often been misrepresented. The full quote, from History of the Church 4:461, reads, "I told the brethren that the Book of Mormon was the most correct of any book on earth, and the keystone of our religion, and a man would get nearer to God by abiding by its precepts, than by any other book." His stress on the book's "precepts" clearly shows that the prophet was referring to its doctrinal content, not its language. No one language can adequately express all the nuances intended by the original. Anyone who knows a foreign language can attest that there is no one-to-one correspondence between words in two different languages. Thus, for example, the Hebrew word meaning "to sit" also means "to dwell." Seeing this word in a Hebrew text, a translator would have to decide which of the two English verbs to use in his English language version. In 1 Nephi 1:6, we read that "there came a pillar of fire and dwelt upon a rock before him." In this case, Joseph Smith used the word "dwelt" where another might have preferred "sat." Many of Joseph's later corrections to the Book of Mormon and the Bible were attempts to clarify the intent to English readers. The fact that Joseph later made corrections to the text of the Book of Mormon, on both copies of the manuscript (the original and the copy prepared for the printer) and in later editions demonstrates that he did not consider the book to be an infallible translation. The Book of Mormon itself indicates that it may contain errors made by the men who wrote it (Title Page; 1 Nephi 19:6; Jacob 1:2; 7:26; Mormon 8:1, 17; 9:31-33; 3 Nephi 8:2; Ether 5:1). Since Joseph Smith must have known about these statements, his declaration of correctness could not have meant that the book had no failings whatsoever.
During World War II, "German Mormons were encouraged to bear arms for their country and to pray for her victory," and some saw clear "links between their faith and the politics of the Third Reich," so much so that "the church even excommunicated one dissident posthumously after the Nazis had executed him" (p. 23). Mistakes were clearly made by some church leaders in Germany, as is evidenced by the fact that the excommunicated man was reinstated after the war as a correction of the error. The fact that he was a dissident indicates that not all Latter-day Saints saw links between their beliefs and those of the Nazis. Indeed, many German Latter-day Saints are known to have resisted and a number died at the hands of their oppressors. We admire the Jehovah's Witnesses for their passiveness and willingness to die rather than participate in war. At the same time, we note that God himself occasionally ordered the ancient Israelites to war against their neighbors (note especially the books of Joshua and Judges) and that Jesus declared, "Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law" (Matthew 10:34-35). Remember, there is "a time to kill, and a time to heal . . . a time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace" (Ecclesiastes 3:3, 8).
"A comparison of the first edition of The Book of Mormon with current editions reveals to many Mormons a surprising fact--that the book said to be ‘translated . . . by the gift and power of God' has itself undergone numerous changes in grammar, spelling, and substance" (p. 22). Such changes should not be "surprising" at all, since one of the introductory pages to the 1981 edition reads, "Some minor errors in the text have been perpetuated in past editions of the Book of Mormon. This edition contains corrections that seem appropriate to bring the material into conformity with prepublication manuscripts and early editions edited by the Prophet Joseph Smith." Joseph Smith himself noted that, in preparation for the second (1837) edition, he made corrections (History of the Church 4: 494-5). Since the spelling and punctuation were largely the product of the typesetter, not the translator, these kinds of corrections are irrelevant. When Joseph Smith said "that the Book of Mormon was the most correct of any book on earth" (History of the Church 4.461), he had reference to its doctrine, not its language. "Most correct" does not mean "perfect." Mormon and Moroni admitted that mistakes may have been made in the record (Book of Mormon, Preface; 3 Nephi 8:2; Mormon 8:17), as did Nephi (1 Nephi 19:6; cf. Alma 10:5).
"Some find it difficult to reconcile that about 20 Jews were said to have left Jerusalem for America in 600 B.C.E. but that in less than 30 years, they had multiplied and split into two nations! (2 Nephi 5:28)" (p. 24). The Book of Mormon does not say how many people came to the New World with Lehi. Nor does it say that they had "split into two nations" after thirty years. Rather, we learn that Nephi and three of his brothers, a friend and an unspecified number of his sisters, along with their families (spouses and children, perhaps grandchildren) parted from his older brethren and their families (2 Nephi 5:5-8). Neither group was yet called a "nation."
"Within 19 years of their arrival, this small band supposedly built a temple ‘after the manner of the temple of Solomon' . . . a formidable task, indeed! The seven-year construction of Solomon's temple in Jerusalem occupied nearly 200,000 laborers, craftsmen and overseers--2 Nephi 5:16; compare 1 Kings 5:6)" (p. 24). The author of these words quotes only part of 2 Nephi 5:16, leaving out Nephi's comment that the temple "could not be built like unto Solomon's temple. But the manner of the construction was like unto the temple of Solomon." The temple was obviously not as elaborate, nor as large, as the one Solomon built. It was probably like the small Israelite temple excavated at Arad that was built in the time of Solomon and in the same shape. Moreover, we are not told in what year the Nephites began or finished the structure. The thirtieth year after their departure from Jerusalem in 2 Nephi 5:28-31 refers only to when Nephi made the second set of plates. The actual journal entry was made in the fortieth year, as is clear from verse 34. [See the Response to Question 2 (42 Questions).]
"Acts 11:26 says: ‘The disciples were called Christians first in Antioch.' (KJ) But Alma 46:15, purportedly describing events in 73 B.C.E., has Christians in America before Christ ever came to earth" (p. 25). Were we to say that the Templars were organized in Germany and settled in the Holy Land in the late 19th century, you might try to correct us by saying that the Templars were organized in the year 1118 by Hugh de Payen and participated in a Crusade to the Holy Land in the years that followed. Actually, both statements are correct, for we would be referring to two different Christian groups that called themselves "Templars." Since Luke, who wrote the Acts of the Apostles, didn't know about the followers of Christ in the New World, he would naturally assume that the term "Christian" was first used in Antioch in his own day. In the same way, many history books credit Columbus with having discovered America, though there is now abundant evidence for the Vikings having visited North America five hundred years earlier. If one acknowledges that prophets such as Isaiah (e.g., Isaiah 53) foresaw the coming of Christ, there should be no problem in having a people living a few decades before his birth and who looked forward to his arrival calling themselves "Christians." Since the term "Christians" is from the Greek word that gave us "Christ," it would not, of course, have been used by the Nephites. They may have called themselves Meshihim, from the Hebrew Messiah. All we can say for certain is that the anglicized form "Christians" was used in the English translation to represent whatever term the Nephites used.
"Many places mentioned in the Bible still exist, yet the locations of virtually all sites named in the Book of Mormon, such as Gimgimno and Zeezrom, are unknown" (p. 25). The ease with which biblical sites have been identified has come not because scholars have dug and found the name inscribed on records on the site (this has happened at only a handful of places, and only since the 1930s!). It is because those sites have, for the most part, always retained their ancient names or a close approximation thereto. This is because the conquerors and immigrants who have come to the Holy Land have always spoken Semitic languages, related to Hebrew. Thus, for example, when some of the Jews returned from the Babylonian captivity, they now spoke Aramaic, a language related to Hebrew. The Israelites who had remained behind also adopted an Aramaic dialect, Samaritan. These languages were still in use by the Jews and Samaritans of Jesus' day. Even after the area became Christian under the Byzantine empire, the Christians of Syro-Palestine continued to use Aramaic/Syriac dialects (the two words mean the same), and the native churches of the area to this very day continue to employ these dialects in their liturgy. The Arabs conquered the area from the Christians in the seventh century and retained the ancient names in Arabic form, for Arabic is another language related to Hebrew. Even the Crusaders, who came from Europe, adopted Syriac--the local Christian language--as the official language of the "Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem." When they were removed, Arabic was reinstated as the predominant language of the area. Unfortunately, in Mesoamerica, we have not had the same continuity of related languages that could retain the ancient place-names. Mayan, Aztec, and other languages of various families have predominated for centuries, resulting in the change of many place-names. A number of Mexican and Guatemalan cities named in early Spanish writings of only five centuries ago can no longer be identified, so one should not expect more of Book of Mormon cities that are much older. In addition, archaeological investigation of the area has also been much more difficult than in Israel, because of the jungle that, in some areas, has covered over ancient sites. Only in the past few decades has any serious archaeological work been done in some parts of Mesoamerica, and most of that at sites that postdate the Book of Mormon era. One cannot expect as much from this region as from the arid Middle East. Nevertheless, there is a fair amount of archaeological evidence already available that ties Mesoamerica to the Book of Mormon. We suggest reading Warren and Ferguson's The Messiah in Ancient America, John Sorenson's An Ancient American Setting for the Book of Mormon, Diane Wirth's A Challenge to the Critics, and William Hamblin's "Basic Methodological Problems with the Anti-Mormon Approach to the Geography and Archaeology of the Book of Mormon," in Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 2/1 [available as a FARMS reprint].
"A faith based upon solid Scriptural knowledge, rather than just on an emotional prayer experience, presents a challenge to sincere Mormons" (p. 25). Latter-day Saints are urged by Church leaders to read the scriptures on a daily basis. The scriptures form the basis of study in all LDS Church classes. From the time one is a teen, there is opportunity to attend seminary and institute of religion classes at sites near high schools and universities. Each year, dozens of books of scriptural research by LDS scholars are published. No one is expected to just pray to find the truth. D&C 9:8 instructs us to "study it out in your mind; then you must ask me if it be right." Moroni 10:3-5 tells us regarding the Book of Mormon that we must "read these things," then "ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true." The principle of asking God is found in the Bible: "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened" (Matthew 7:7). "If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him" (James 1:5). If we neglect this step in our search for truth, we shall end up like the rest of the Christian world--divided into hundreds of churches, each differing with the other on matters of doctrine. [Emphasis added]
"The life of Jesus Christ stands in stark contrast with LDS theology. While Jesus was no ascetic, his simple life was devoid of any ambition to amass wealth, glory, or political power" (p. 25). Despite the fact that the pamphlet suggests that Latter-day Saints seek for wealth, glory, and political power, devout members of the Church try to pattern their lives after that of Jesus Christ, following the admonition in Jacob 2:18, "before ye seek for riches, seek ye for the kingdom of God." Since the Book of Mormon shows time and time again that setting one's heart on wealth and power leads to pride and to spiritual downfall, it is hard to see why the authors of the articles think that "LDS theology" teaches the opposite. It is also ironic that, on the one hand, the pamphlet denounces the idea that we can become like God (p. 22), then here states that "Jesus' true disciples" pattern their lives after him.
A sidebar on page 24 contrasts "The Bible and Mormon Writings." We shall look at each of these here.
"The garden of Eden was probably in the Mesopotamian region by the Euphrates River," while in LDS belief it "was in Jackson County, Missouri." The Bible does not say where the garden was located. Surely the flood could have taken Noah quite far away from the original site. The Euphrates river in Genesis 2:14 cannot be the one we know by that name, for the rivers in Genesis 2:10-14 are divisions of a single river coming out of the garden of Eden. While it is true that topography can change over time and that the rivers may no longer exist or may no longer have a single source, the major rivers of the Middle East flow in different directions, having very different sources.
The Bible tells us that "the soul dies.--Ezekiel 18:4; Acts 3:23," but the Book of Mormon says "‘The soul could never die.'--Alma 42:9." In the sense that "the spirit and the body are the soul of man. And the resurrection from the dead is the redemption of the soul" (D&C 88:15-16), it is true that the soul can die (for the body, the spirit, and the soul, see 1 Thessalonians 5:23). But the term "soul" is sometimes used for "spirit" in English, as virtually any dictionary will attest. Thus, in Revelation 6:9-11, "the souls of them that were slain" obviously refers to spirits that lived on after the body was dead, for they cry to the Lord for vengeance. Had the revelation in D&C 88 been received before Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon, he might have used the word "spirit" in Alma 42:9. Nevertheless, his translation reflects good English usage for his time. That the spirit survives after death is evidenced in such Bible passages as Isaiah 14:9-20; Ezekiel 32:18-32; Luke 16:22-31; 24:39; John 2:1-10.
In the Bible, we learn that "Jesus was born in Bethlehem.--Matthew 2:1-6," while the Book of Mormon says "Jesus was to be born in Jerusalem.--Alma 7:10." After the many discussions of this subject, we are surprised to see this argument recycled. After all, since Joseph Smith, like all American children of his time, must have known that Jesus was born in Bethlehem (what practicing Christian family never sang "O Little Town of Bethlehem"?), the wording in Alma 7:10 must be deliberate. Actually, it does not say that Jesus would be born in the city of Jerusalem, but in "Jerusalem which is the land of our forefathers." In more than forty passages, the Book of Mormon speaks of "the land of Jerusalem" (e.g., 1 Nephi 3:9-10; 7:2). Jerusalem is called a "land" in Jeremiah 6:8 (cf. 15:5-7). In ancient Israel (Joshua 8:1; 13:17; 15:45, 47; 17:11; 1 Chronicles 6:55-56) and among the Nephites (e.g., Alma 50:14), major cities controlled nearby villages and the land in which they were located was denominated by the name of the principal city. Thus, for example, Tappuah is called a "land" in Joshua 17:8, but a "city" in Joshua 16:8. Jeremiah, a contemporary of the Book of Mormon prophet Lehi, wrote of "Jerusalem and all of its cities." Clay tablets written in the fourteenth century B.C. and found at el-Amarna in Egypt use the term "land" for Palestinian sites known to have been ancient cities. For example, one text (EA 289) speaks of the "town of Rubutu," while another (EA 290) mentions the "land of Rubutu." The first of these also speaks of "land of Shechem," and "the land of the town of Gath-carmel" (both ancient cities) and says of Jerusalem, "this land belongs to the king." A third text (EA 287) mentions the lands of Gezer, Ashkelon, and Jerusalem. One of the Amarna texts (EA 290) speaks of "a town in the land of Jerusalem" named Bît-Lahmi, which is the Canaanite equivalent of the Hebrew name rendered Beth-lehem in English Bibles. [Emphasis added.]
While the Bible indicates that "Jesus was begotten by [the] holy spirit.--Matthew 1:20," Brigham Young taught that "Jesus was not begotten by the holy spirit. He was begotten in the flesh by Adam's having intercourse with Mary" (p. 24). In the reference given (Journal of Discourses 1.50-51), President Young did not use the term "intercourse," nor did he specifically say that Adam fathered Jesus. In any event, such a doctrine was never accepted by the Church. To us, it makes little sense to speak of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost if the Holy Ghost is really the "Father" of Jesus! While Matthew 1:18-20 implies that the Holy Ghost fathered Jesus, Luke 1:35 makes it a bit more clear, when the angel said to Mary "The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God." Latter-day Saints believe that one cannot endure the presence of God without being filled by the Holy Ghost--a fact implied in Acts 7:55-56 (see "Transfiguration" in Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, 803). Mary could not have endured the presence of the Father unless protected by the power of the Holy Ghost. [Emphasis added.]
The Bible says that the "New Jerusalem [is] to be in heaven.--Revelation 21:2," but the LDS belief is that "New Jerusalem [is] earthly, to be built by men in Missouri, U.S.A.--3 Nephi 21:23, 24; Doctrine and Covenants 84:3, 4." We note that the pamphlet fails to cite Ether 13:3, where we read "of the New Jerusalem, which should come down out of heaven." Three verses later, it says "that a New Jerusalem should be built upon this land" (Ether 13:6). Obviously, the Book of Mormon sees no conflict here. Bruce R. McConkie explained that, "This New Jerusalem on the American continent will have a dual origin. It will be built by the saints on earth and it will also come down from heaven, and the cities so originating will be united into one holy city" ("New Jerusalem, in Mormon Doctrine, 532). Joseph Smith also spoke of the New Jerusalem coming down out of heaven (History of the Church, 2.262; 4.453).
"Writers of the Bible were inspired to write God's thoughts.--2 Peter 1:20, 21," but the Book of Mormon "prophets are said to have written according to their own knowledge.--1 Nephi 1:2, 3; Jacob 7:26)." Obviously, the writers of the Bible also wrote according to their own knowledge, whether from personal experience or from knowledge received by revelation. For example, in the same chapter (2 Peter 1:16-19) Peter gives his personal testimony of Jesus, saying he and his fellow apostles "were eyewitness" of the transfiguration on the Mount. Note also that Peter "thought he saw a vision" (Acts 12:9) and that Paul wrote "I think also that I have the Spirit of God" (1 Corinthians 7:40). Shall we interpret this as uncertainty?
The "Mosaic law, including tithing, [was] terminated by the death of Jesus. Contributions are to be voluntary, not under compulsion.--2 Corinthians 9:7; Galatians 3:10-13, 24, 25; Ephesians 2:15). But D&C 64:23 declares, ‘Verily it is . . . a day for the tithing of my people; for he that is tithed shall not be burned at his [the Lord's] coming).'" We see no conflict here. Tithing in the LDS Church is voluntary. But the Lord does command that we pay a tithe, just as he commanded in ancient times. Through the prophet Malachi, he promised blessings from heaven for tithe payers and said that he would "rebuke the devourer . . . and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground" (Malachi 3:10-11). Even in the early Christian church, we read of a man and his wife whom the Lord slew because they did not give all that they had promised, "and great fear came upon all the church, and upon as many as heard these things" (Acts 5:1-11).
acually regardless of what some people say in the king james version and older version there are several scriptures that say grace and works both are needed
Bible Teachings:
Diligence, patience, and enduring to the end is required to ensure our
salvation:
2 Peter 1:4-10; 2 Peter 3:14-18; Heb. 12:1,7,14,15; Heb. 10:36; James
1:12; Mark 13:13; Heb. 6:15; Heb. 3:14; Rev. 2:7,10,11; Col. 1:22-29;
James 5:7-12; 1 John 2:24-25.
Why? Rom. 8:16-18; Rev. 3:19-21; Rev. 21:7; Heb.12:9,10; Acts 17:28,29
The words of Christ himself:
His teachings show that obedience is required to obtain eternal life;
there is no hint of "once saved, always saved" or instant salvation
without works:
Matt. 19: 16-23 (point blank: to obtain eternal life, keep the
commandments); see also Mark 10:17-30; Luke 18:18-30
Luke 10:25-28 (again: keep the commandments to be saved)
Mark 12: 28-34 (Christ teaches the two greatest commandments, and
tells one who understands them that he is "not far from the kingdom of
God")
Luke 11:28 (blessed are they that DO the word of God)
Sermon on the Mount
Matt. chapters 5 to 7 (focuses on works, behavior)
Matt. 5:19-21 (must keep commandments)
Matt 5:48 (must seek to be perfect)
Matt. 7:13,14 (the gate is straight and narrow)
Matt. 7:21-23 (Must DO God's will; Christians who did evil will not go
to heaven)
Matt. 7:24-28 (those who do what Christ says are built on a sure
foundation)
Matt. 24:13 (endure to the end to be saved) - see also Matt. 10:22 and
Mark 13:13
Matt. 12:35-37 (will be judged by our words, to be condemned or
justified)
Matt. 16:24-27 (we'll be judged by our works)
John 8:31-32 (we must continue in the word of Christ)
Luke 21:19 (patience is required to preserve our souls)
Luke 21:34-36 (be cautious, avoid sin, to be counted worthy to stand
before God)
Mark 11:25-26 (we must forgive others to be forgiven ourselves)
John 5: 28,29 (those that do good obtain life)
John 14:15,21,23 (Christ teaches us to keep his commandments)
John 15: 1-14 (we must bear fruit, keep commandments)
Matt. 13:3-23 (parable of the sower: He warns that some receive the
word and believe, but do not endure: will they be in God's kingdom?
See Luke 9:24-26)
Matt. 12:50 (must do his will to have a close relationship with
Christ)
Matt. 13:40-43 (parable of the tares: those in his kingdom who do evil
are damned)
John 12:50 (The Father's commandment is life everlasting)
See also Luke 21: 19,34-36; Matt. 25 (esp. v. 31-46); John 3:5
Judged by works:
Rom. 2: 4-11; Rev. 20: 12-15; Matt. 16:27; Gal. 6: 7-9; Rev. 22:12-14;
2 Cor. 5:9,10; Col. 3:24-25; John 5:28,29; Eccl. 12:13,14; 1 Peter
1:17; Psalm 62:12; Prov. 24:12; Rev. 2:23; 1 Peter 4:17-19.
Repentance and obedience are required for salvation:
Acts 2:37-38; Matt. 4:17; Acts 17:30,31; 2 Peter 3:9; 2 Cor. 7:9-11;
Ezekiel 18:4,5,9,20-27,30-32; Ezekiel 33:11-20; Acts 26:20; Mark 6:12;
Luke 24:47; Heb. 5:8,9; Rom. 2: 4-11; Prov. 4:4; Prov. 19:16; Deut.
6:17; Eccl. 12:13,14; Matt. 4:4; Deut. 8:3; 1 Sam. 15:22; Jerem. 7:23;
2 Cor. 10:5,6; Exo. 19:5; Deut. 29:9-15; John 7:17; Rom. 6:16; James
4:6-10; 2 Thess. 1:4-9; 1 Pet. 1:14-16; Matt. 5:48; Lev. 11:45; Lev.
19:2; Lev. 20:7,26; Matt. 5:19-20; Rev. 3:5,19-21; Joel 2:12,13; 2
Cor. 10:5,6; 2 Cor. 7:15; Phil. 2:8.
Saved by Grace - but we access that Grace by obedience:
Eph. 2:8; Rev. 22:12-14; Philippians 3:12-14; Heb. 5:8,9; Exodus 20:6;
James 4:6-10; Matt. 5:7; 1 Peter 1:13-22.
We must do, not just believe:
James, Chapters 1 and 2; 1 John 3:18,19; Matt. 7:21-27; Matt.
25:31-46; 2 Cor. 5:9,10; Titus 2; 1 Peter 1:22; Matt. 12:50; 1 Tim.
6:17-19.
Christians can fall from grace, so be cautious:
Heb. 12:15; 1 Cor. 10:12; 2 Pet. 1:4-10; Heb. 3: 12-14; Heb. 4:1,11;
Matt. 7:21-23; Luke 21:34-36; Phil. 2:12; Gal. 5:4; Heb. 6:4-6; Heb.
10:26-31; 2 Cor. 6:1; Jude 1:3-13; Col. 1:23; James 5:12,19,20.
Sin can keep you out of heaven:
1 Cor. 6:9-10; Gal. 5:16-26; Eph. 5:3-7; 1 Thess. 4:1-7; Col. 3:5-25;
Jude 1:14-25; Heb. 12:1-17; James 4:4; Matt. 5:22; Matt. 25: 31-46;
Ezek. 18.
We must grow and progress through obedience to be saved:
2 Peter 1:3-10 (heavy!); 1 John 2:4,5; Phil. 3:12-15.
journal of discourses is not offical doctrine I enjoy reading it but it's important to remember it was written in short hand! it's like playing the game telephone
Critics claim that the Book of Mormon account contradicts the Bible. The Bible teaches that there were three hours of darkness when Christ died (Luke 23:44), while the Book of Mormon says that mists of darkness persisted on the land for three days after an intense three-hour storm (3 Nephi 8:19, 23). As is often the case, a closer look at this alleged Book of Mormon problem results in strengthened appreciation for the authenticity and divine origin of the Book of Mormon.
The "mists of darkness" apparently refer to volcanic ash that was present at this time in Central America (Book of Mormon territory) but not in Jerusalem. Many of the literally earth-shaking events described in the Book of Mormon at the time of Christ's death are consistent with what is now known about volcanic activity - quaking ground, cities being buried and burned, changes in water level or tidal waves associated with seismic activity (some cities were sunk), and intense lightning and storms. Most particularly, volcanic activity can result in thick volcanic ash that meets the descriptions of the "mists of darkness" in the Book of Mormon (3 Nephi 8:19-23)): the ash can be felt, it can overpower people (3 Nephi 10:13), it can make it difficult to light fires (especially when the ash is moist or is associated with rain), it can block out sunlight completely, and it can persist for days (three days, for example). Volcanic activity is strongly implied in the text and is accurately described (and Joseph Smith could not have known such things himself). The only question, then, is whether there is any evidence for volcanic activity in the New World at the time of Christ's death. The amazing answer is yes: there was significant volcanic activity in the New World near the time of Christ's death - and the location is Central America, the limited area that serious LDS scholars have concluded must be the region described in the Book of Mormon. For sources and more evidence concerning the significance of volcanism in the Book of Mormon
An important theological issue is whether or not we are accountable for Adam's transgression. Do we share guilt in that original sin (i.e., the sin associated with the origin of man)? Concerning evangelical views on original sin, L. Ara Norwood in FARMS Review of Books (Vol. 9, No. 2, pp. 164-201) explains that "the source of this doctrine rests with the erroneous scriptural interpretation of Romans 5:12" from Augustine, as Professor Elaine Pagels details:
The Greek text reads, "Through one man [or 'because of one man,'] sin entered the world, and through sin, death, and thus death came upon all men, in that all sinned." John Chrysostom, like most Christians, took this to mean that Adam's sin brought death into the world, and death came upon all because "all sinned." But Augustine read the passage in Latin, and so either ignored or was unaware of the connotations of the Greek original; thus he misread the last phrase as referring to Adam. Augustine insisted that it meant that "death came upon all men, in whom all sinned" - that the sin of "one man," Adam, brought upon humanity not only universal death, but also universal, and inevitable, sin. Augustine uses the passage to deny that human beings have free moral choice, which Jews and Christians had traditionally regarded as the birthright of humanity made "in God's image." Augustine decrees, on the contrary, that the whole human race inherited from Adam a nature irreversibly damaged by sin...."
Augustine attempts to rest his case concerning original sin ... upon the evidence of one prepositional phrase in Romans 5:12, insisting that Paul said that death came upon all humanity because of Adam, "in whom all sinned. But Augustine misreads and mistranslates this phrase (which others translate "in that [i.e., because] all sinned") and then proceeds to defend his errors ad infinitum.... Augustine's argument has persuaded the majority of western Catholic and Protestant theologians to agree with him;... But, ... when we actually compare Augustine's interpretation with those of theologians as diverse as Origen, John Chrysostom, and Pelagius, we can see that Augustine found in Romans ... what others had not seen there. (Elaine Pagels, Adam, Eve, and the Serpent, New York: Random House, 1988, pp. 109 and 143, emphasis in the original, as cited by Norwood, pp. 187-188.)
Dr. Seth Farber writes of Augustine's doctrine of original sin in "The Reign of Augustine," The Christian Activist: A Journal of Orthodox Opinion, Vol. 13, Winter/Spring 1999, pp. 40-45,56:
Thus, according to Augustine, due to Adam's sin every person belongs to a "mass of perdition".... Augustine wrote, "The damned lump of humanity was lying prostrate. Nay, was wallowing in evil...." Augustine argues that infants who did not receive baptism would be condemned to suffer the torments of eternal punishment in hell. He wrote that no one who is born of Adam and Eve was "less a sinner than they were." ... "Everyone arising as he does from a condemned stock, is from the first necessarily evil and carnal through Adam." Because it was transmitted by natural propagation, "original sin was as universal and inevitable as life itself." Thus, Augustine writes, "The infant is bad: though little, he is already a great sinner."
Hey, Augustine, speak for your own kids!
Unfortunately, Augustine's views prevailed. They were formally canonized by the Council of Trent in the sixteenth century.
Jesus was born at Jerusalem. Alma 7:10
Jesus was born in Bethlehem. Matthew 2:1
in the year 82 BC, Alma did live and taught that Christ "shall be born of Mary, at [the land of] Jerusalem which is the land of our forefathers" (Alma 7:10). Proof of the historical and linguistic accuracy of Alma's statement is found in the Armana letters, where it is recorded that in Palestine and Syria, a large area around a city and all the inhabitants of that area bore the name of the city.
Bethlehem is only five miles south of the much larger city of Jerusalem. Thus, a citizen of Bethlehem could have accurately described himself as a person who lived "at Jerusalem." Rather than Alma's comment being evidence of Joseph Smith's fraud, it is in reality a confirmation of his inspiration.
Today, the further we are away from our home or any specific town, the more likely we are to "lump it" with the closest large metropolitan area. If we are visiting New York we might tell people we are from Salt Lake City rather than Bluffdale, Utah. If we are in Europe we might tell someone that we are from Utah, or possibly we might say we are from the United States. When we say that, we aren't in error; we are just not being as specific as we could be.
A final thought: if Joseph Smith or later Church leaders felt this to be an error, why didn't they "correct" it and make it one of the many "wholesale" changes the detractors are always accusing the Church leaders of making in the Book of Mormon? Latter-day Saints find no contradiction with Christ being born "at Jerusalem," the land of the forefathers of Alma and his people.
The Gospel, Church, and Christianity existed prior to the time of Christ (in the Americas) 2 Nephi 26:12
The Gospel, Church, and Christianity began following the time of Christ. Matthew 16:18
Yes, we read of Alma establishing a church in the land nearly a century before the birth of Christ, and some critics feel this represents a major blunder in the Book of Mormon. But the concept of a church - a convocation of believers - was had among the House of Israel prior to the coming of Christ. I quote from the outstanding Bible scholar, Alfred Edersheim, who is not LDS, as he discusses the meaning of Christ's statement to Peter about building His church (Matt. 16:15-18):
"Nor would the term 'Church' sound strange in Jewish ears. The same Greek word [ecclesia], as the equivalent of the Hebrew Qahal, 'convocation,' 'the called,' occurs in the Septuagint rendering of the Old Testament, and in 'the Wisdom of the Son of Sirach' (Ecclus, 24.2) and was apparently in familiar use at the time. In Hebrew use it referred to Israel, not in their national but in their religious unity.
(Alfred Edersheim, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, Hendrickson Publ., Peabody, Mass., 1993, pp. 531-532)
As one of many examples, Psalms 89 speaks of praising the Lord "in the congregation of the saints" (v. 5) and says that God is to be feared (respected, revered) "in the assembly of the saints." Why not call such a congregation or assembly of worshipful believers a church? In fact, the Septuagint does, using the Greek word "ecclesia" which is translated as "church" when it occurs in the King James Version of the New Testament. (By the way, notice how the Bible consistently uses the word "saints" to describe the mortal members of God's Church?)
The priesthood did not need to be Levitical. 2 Nephi 5:26 (Lehi was of the tribe of Joseph.)
The priesthood could only be through the lineage of Aaron, a Levite. Numbers 3:9-10
Heb. 7:24 in the KJV describes the Melchizedek Priesthood of Christ, the great High Priest, as being "unchangeable," which is often said to mean that it cannot be passed on to others. The modern Good News Bible states that Christ's "work as priest does not pass on to someone else." Our critics use Heb. 7:24 to challenge the LDS practice of ordaining men to the Melchizedek Priesthood or to the office of high priest, claiming that Christ is the only One.
An insightful answer to this question was provided to me by D. Charles Pyle in e-mail of March 29, 1998, from which I draw the following.
Modern Evangelical Protestants have based this argument on the traditional translation rendered for the Greek word aparabatos. In the Bible, it is used only in Hebrews 7:24 and for many years was thought to be a special word coined by Paul to convey a meaning not available in other Greek words of the day. Older concordances, such as those of Strong and Thayer, indicated that this word refers to something that cannot be passed from one person to another. Indeed, the word literally means "not passing to another." Strong includes "untransferable" as a meaning. Thayer says it can mean "unviolated, or not to be violated, inviolable: hierosune unchangeable and therefore not liable to pass to a successor, Heb. vii. 24" (Joseph Henry Thayer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, (1901), reprint 1987, Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, p. 54a). Thayer and Strong thus support the Evangelical claim that the Priesthood cannot be passed from one to another.
The problem is that improved scholarship since the century-old work of Strong and Sayer has changed the picture substantially. D. Charles Pyle explains:
Happily, W.E. Vine lived to see the discovery of many papyri which contained virtually all of the same words which were regarded as hapax legomena (words found only once in the New Testament, thought by many to be special words invented by the N.T. authors, under divine inspiration, to express concepts not found elsewhere in the language). After seeing a number of examples of the use of aparabatos in the papyri, Vine wrote:
aparabatos ... is used of the priesthood of Christ, in Heb. 7:24, "unchangeable," "unalterable, inviolable," RV, marg[in]. (a meaning found in the papyri); the more literal meaning in KJV and RV margins, "that doth not pass from one to another," is not to be preferred. This active meaning is not only untenable, and contrary to the constant usage of the word, but does not adequately fit with either the preceding or the succeeding context.
Since the papyri were contemporary with the N.T. documents and the N.T. was written in the Koine or common dialect of the day, tremendous insight was afforded to us by careful examination of the word usage by contemporary writers. The old gave way to the new, as it were. Bauer followed suit in declaring that:
aparabatos ... in Heb[rews]. 7:24 is usu[ally] interpr[eted] without a successor. But this m[ea]n[in]g is found nowhere else. a[parabatos] rather has the sense permanent, unchangeable.
(Bauer, Arndt, Gingrich and Danker, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, (1979) Chicago: University of Chicago Press, p. 80b (brackets are D.C. Pyle's))
Thus, Hebrews 7:24, according to the best Biblical scholarship, does not mean that the Melchizedek Priesthood cannot be passed from one to another, but that this divine power is permanent and unchangeable, which makes sense since it is one aspect of the power and authority of God - granted in a narrow sense to selected mortals to act in His name. This Priesthood authority is what Christ gave His apostles and prophets to enable them to carry out His work in His name. It can be transferred to mortals, but the power and its source do not change.
As one example of the influence of modern discoveries about the ancient language of the Bible, the New English Bible, which incorporates a good deal of modern research, uses the word "perpetual" instead of "unchangeable."
Some additional insight was provided to me by e-mail from Michael T. Putnam, in e-mail from 2003. He points out that Heb. 6:20 teaches that Christ was "made an high priest after the order of Melchisedec." The term "order" implies that there were others previously ordained to this office, and as Putnam argues from Hebrews 7, that others were to continue to hold this higher priesthood. According to Putnam:
Hebrews 7:11 provides us with the importance/mission of this higher priesthood: namely, that the Levitical (Aaronic) Priesthood could not bring mortals back into the presence of God the Father. Hebrews 7:12-14 further explains the superiority of the Melchizedek Priesthood to the Levitical (Aaronic). We also see that the Priesthood is now open to ALL the Tribes of Israel. . . . Hebrews 7:21 illustrates that the Melchizedek Priesthood can only be attained through an oath (D&C 88:33-44) unlike the Levitical Priesthood which was strictly attained by birthright.
Brother Pyle's interpretation of Hebrews 7:24 is paramount to understanding the purpose of the Priesthood in any dispensation. Why is it important for the Priesthood to continue? Well, it's quite simple, actually. With the Priesthood of God your ordinances are valid, and with valid ordinances the covenants made therewith are recognized beyond the veil of death. Not the carnal ordinances that are spoken of later in Hebrews (chapters 9 & 10) but the ones mentioned by Paul earlier in this same book (Hebrews 6:1-4).
from jeff lindsey
The Book of Mormon teaches that little children are not capable of sin because they do not have a sinful nature (Moroni 8:8). In contrast, the Bible in Psalm 51:5 clearly teaches that we have sinful nature from birth: "Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me." (NIV) Can you explain? A. LDS scriptures (e.g., Moses 6:55) also teach that children are conceived in sin - which means that they are born of sinful parents and born into mortality, where they will be fallen mortals, subject to both death and sin. But neither Ps. 51:5 nor Moses 6:55 says that little children are damned or guilty of sin. They are fallen, but are born innocent. The pernicious doctrine of infant damnation and "original sin" (that children are born guilty and damnable because of Adam) is NOT found in early Christianity, but was a later innovation based on the ugly errors of Augustine and later Luther and Calvin. For evidence that this is so, see my page that discusses original sin, http://www.jefflindsay.com/faith_works.html
to answer the mormon"so called Challange this might take up a bit of room" you know what I think is funny the fact they had to make "The New Mormon Challange" what will they call the next one? THE Really new Mormon Challange... Really! lol
you see everything has already been addressed :) Everything! There hasn't been anything new!
The following reviews address different essays within The New Mormon Challenge. The reader is invited to examine both sides of the story and make up their own mind concerning the challenges and responses presented.
http://www.fairlds.org/New_Mormon_Challenge/index.html
6.0 Conclusion
C&C have not given us any reason to believe that the an eternal reality is either physically or logically impossible. The first argument commits the fallacy of equivocation. None of the supposed absurd stories even applies to the eternal universe. The second argument has two false premises. Those who believe in an infinite past do not claim that it can be formed by successive addition; in fact they claim that it is in the nature of such realities that the concept of formation by successive addition doesn't even apply. Thus, premise 2.1 is false. Moreover, the notion that it is impossible to add to an actual infinite is simply in error. Thus, premise 2.2 is also false.
Even if the arguments were sound, per impossibile, they would not apply to discontinuous spatio-temporal epochs such as those posited by the chaotic inflationary and quantum vacuum theories of cosmology. However, these theories must be considered to be speculative metaphysics rather than empirical science. I am speaking of possibilities, opening new horizons for consideration rather than dogmatically asserting that reality is actually structured as these theories predict.
However, the recognition that the it is logically possible that the world has always existed is not insignificant. It shows that it is not possible for the arguments suggesting otherwise to be constructed successfully.
http://www.fairlds.org/New_Mormon_Challenge/TNMC01.html
The Book of Mormon has come under heavy fire from critics in light of DNA evidence that is said to utterly refute the Book of Mormon, for the evidence points to Asiatic origins, not Middle Eastern origins of the ancient inhabitants of this continent. These attacks typically rely on several faulty assumptions about what the Book of Mormon actually states and do not refute a divine origin for the Book of Mormon. The DNA "proof" has very little to do with the authenticity of the Book of Mormon.
Of the various men and women in three different Old World groups who came to the Americas according to the Book of Mormon, we can only safely state that one of them, Mulek, was definitely Jewish, but we still do not know what kind of DNA he carried. Lehi was somehow descended from Manasseh, but that does not specify what kind of Y-chromosome he had. We have no clue about the genetic origins of his wife or the other individuals that came with him. We know nothing about the genetic origins of others in Mulek's party or the people they almost certainly intermarried with in the Americas. We know nothing about the Jaredites, though they probably originated from Central Asia. The DNA they contributed to the Americas could have looked like Asiatic DNA. Given the uncertainty in the genetic origins of the groups mentioned in the Book of Mormon, one cannot claim that genetic evidence has somehow disproved the Book of Mormon (see my article, "Why Should We Expect to Find Jewish DNA in Native Americans?" and the May 2004 article by David Stewart, "DNA and the Book of Mormon"). DNA attacks on the Book of Mormon ultimately boil down to erroneous logic and flawed assumptions, as Blake Ostler has shown in his article, "Assessing the Logical Structure of DNA Arguments against the Book of Mormon" [Ostler, 2004].
The DNA-related attacks generally assume that the Book of Mormon teaches that the ONLY ancient peoples in the Americas came from the three migrations mentioned in the text (the Jaredites, Lehi's group, and Mulek's group), and that Book of Mormon lands cover the whole hemisphere. Serious students of the Book of Mormon have recognized for many years--long before the DNA controversy--that such assumptions are unjustified. The Book of Mormon deals with a few groups of people in a small geographical area, and does not exclude the possibility of many others being present in North and South America. There is significant internal evidence in the Book of Mormon for the presence of many people in Book of Mormon lands who were not primarily descended from Lehi's group. If Lehi landed on a continent already populated with millions of people of Asiatic origin, this would not be inconsistent with the Book of Mormon. But what genetic evidence of Lehi's arrival would we expect to see today, if the genes of Lehi's group represented a minute fraction of ancient American peoples? And what genetic evidence of Lehi's arrival should we be looking for, given that we don't know the genetic composition of that group? (For additional indirect insight on this issue, see the Sept. 2004 news stories about previously missed evidence of ancient Australian immigrants to the Americas that I posted on my Mormanity blog.)
In my view, the DNA-based attacks on the Book of Mormon are rather unscientific, though they are dressed in counterfeit robes of scientific objectivity. The scientific weakness in the DNA attacks clearly illustrated in the November 2003 issue of The Journal of Book of Mormon Studies published by The Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies. This volume offers four excellent articles from scholars, including a couple of DNA scientists, on the issue of DNA and the Book of Mormon. Many of their conclusions are similar to ones that I have reached here, but they provide many additional insights that I highly recommend considering. These articles are:
"Before DNA" by Dr. John L. Sorenson and Matthew Roper, pp. 6-23 (available in PDF or HTML formats).
"DNA and the Book of Mormon: A Phylogenetic Perspective" by Dr. Michael F. Whiting, pp. 24-35 (PDF or HTML).
"A Few Thoughts From a Believing DNA Scientist" by Dr. John M. Butler, pp. 36-37 (PDF or HTML).
"Who Are the Children of Lehi?" by D. Jeffrey Meldrum and Trent D. Stephens, pp. 38-51 (PDF or HTML). Update: The authors accept the hypothesis that mtDNA haplotype X in the Americas probably came from Siberia, where Derenko (2001) found a tiny pocket of haplotype X DNA. However, after Meldrum and Stephen wrote their article, a new study was published by Reidla et al. (2003) showing that the haplotype X DNA in Siberia is not directly related to the haplotype X DNA in the Americas. Details are discussed below.
Note: All four of the above articles plus a PDF version of this essay (the Nov. 16, 2003 version) are now available in the LDS.org newsroom (you can access that page starting with newsroom.lds.org, followed by clicking on "Mistakes in the News"). My article is posted at http://www.lds.org/newsroom/files/jeff_lindsay_dna.pdf. One advantage of using the LDS.org version of this page is that it includes a table of contents with page numbers for more convenient use when printed out.
Genetic data do point to an Asian origin for much of the genetic matter in the ancient Americas, and challenge some popular misconceptions about what the Book of Mormon teaches. But as we shall see below, the scientific evidence is not necessarily incompatible with the Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon simply does not require that "Jewish" genetic markers should be found throughout Native Americans, contrary to the claims of several vocal critics. When the claims of the text are clearly understood, the scientific findings pertaining to DNA do not pose any serious challenge to those who accept the Book of Mormon and also respect the findings of science. In fact, the scientific details about the DNA evidence leave plenty of room for the authenticity of the Book of Mormon.
One important detail is that there is evidence of genes in Native Americans that may have come from sources other than northeastern Asia, such as the Middle East. Many of the DNA-related attacks on the Book of Mormon misrepresent scientific findings by falsely claiming that Native American DNA originated solely from Asia. While Asia appears to be the leading source of ancient immigrants to the Americas, there is plenty of room for additional groups coming to the continent, and several studies have found evidence for non-Asian DNA that cannot be explained by modern European admixture. These are discussed in below in the section entitled, "Throwing out the Pearl with the Clamshell: The Likelihood of Discarding the Most Interesting Evidence." The bottom line is that the "Asia only" model of ancient migration to the Americas is clearly incomplete.
Critics charge that genetic evidence refutes the Book of Mormon, which reports a migration of a group of people from Israel to the New World in 600 B.C. But mitochondrial DNA analysis shows that haplogroup X is found in both Israel and the New World (Morell, 1998; Brown et al, 1998; Forster et al., 1996; Highfield, 2000). The problem is that the estimated date of entry of haplogroup X in the New World is many thousands of years before 600 B.C., but that dating is based on an assumed mutation rate that has been shown to be many times slower than actually occurs in modern humans (Parsons et al., 1997; see also Ivanov et al., 1996; Denver, 2000; Howell et al., 1996; Pitman, 2003). A more reasonable mutation rate based on actual measurements in humans could allow for a time frame consistent with the Book of Mormon. Of course, this is an area where more information is still needed.
The evidence from mitochondrial DNA, passed on by mothers only, is supplemented by evidence from Y-chromosomes, which are passed on by fathers only. Native American Y-chromosomes show a variety of haplogroups, including haplogroups 4 and 1C (Karafet et al., 1999), which are also characteristic of Jewish peoples (Hammer et al., 2000). Haplogroup 1C is common enough in the New World that it has been proposed as a major founder haplogroup for the New World. Karafet is one of the co-authors in Hammer et al. (2000), and his 1999 paper is cited there, making me confident that they are talking about the same haplogroup 1C.
The DNA evidence can be at least partially explained by migrations from Asia, but the point is that DNA evidence DOES NOT rule out the Book of Mormon, at least not when the actual claims of the text are examined. DNA evidence may not be compatible with some errant assumptions that many Latter-day Saints have made about New World peoples and the Book of Mormon--natural assumptions made in the absence of scientific data and divine revelation regarding other peoples who have inhabited the New World. But this is no reason to reject the Book of Mormon. In fact, there is much fascinating evidence supporting its authenticity as an ancient record.
One should also note that even if more direct evidences of Jewish/European origins were to be found in DNA evidence, it would likely be assumed to be due to modern admixture rather than due to pre-Columbian sources, which I discuss at length below. In fact, contrary to some anti-Mormon claims, it is not impossible to find genes characteristic of Jewish ancestry among some Native Americans, and while these may generally be due to modern mixing with European Jews, how can one be sure of that? One example is given by Carvajal-Carmona et al. (2000), who discuss the presence of several indicators of Jewish ancestry among the Antioquian population of Colombia. These genes are believed to be due to Sephardic Jews who came to the Americas with the Spaniards, but it is very difficult to prove that conclusively.
In fact, the mathematics of genetic mixing (see discussion below) imply that there should be "Semitic DNA" among Native Americas. According to Steve Olson in the highly acclaimed book, Mapping Human History (2002a, p. 114):
The forces of genetic mixing are so powerful that everyone in the world has Jewish ancestors, though the amount of DNA from those ancestors in a given individual may be small. In fact, everyone on earth is by now a descendant of Abraham, Moses, and Aaron--if indeed they existed.
Every Native American may literally be a descendent of Abraham and even Lehi, but a vast number of other ancient ancestors who also contributed their genes may make it difficult to find the remnants of Semitic DNA. This does not destroy the plausibility of the Book of Mormon, when fairly and accurately read.
Significant evidence of pre-Columbian Middle Eastern and European genes entering the Americas is offered by analysis of human lymphocyte antigens (HLAs), as James L. Guthrie has shown (2000/2001) using extensive HLA data compiled by Cavalli-Sforza et al. (1994). The HLA genes code for the histocompatibility antigens on the surfaces of many cells. HLA type is used to match individuals for organ donation (e.g., bone marrow transplants). Unlike mtDNA and Y chromosomes, HLA genes are not passed on only along purely maternal or paternal lines, possibly making it easier for minority genes to persist. While the HLA data do not contradict the possibility that Native American genes overwhelmingly came from Asia, there are small amounts of genes that appear to provide evidence for the pre-Columbian entry of other groups in ways that I suggest are consistent with Book of Mormon claims. There is evidence for pre-Columbian migrations from Europe and Middle East that may be compatible with Book of Mormon claims, for example. I discuss Guthrie's article in more detail below.
Critics may rage about God's purported failure to reveal complete scientific information to modern prophets. How could God let a true prophet understand something incompletely? I believe that God's revelations are intended to teach people what is needed for salvation. If a prophet were to mistakenly think that a bat was a bird, a mistake Moses may have made (based on Deut. 14:7,18), then can we accuse that prophet of having led people to damnation? Not really. It's a detail of minor importance--at least of minor importance for the purposes behind the Book of Deuteronomy. When later scientific information reveals that bats are mammals, not birds, we can take several approaches in responding, such as:
Reject Moses and the Bible, and write anti-Biblical essays to lead as many people as possible away from Bible.
Rejoice that God has now revealed more complete information, through the medium of science, that can help us better understand details of our world and of the Biblical record.
Demand that secular science no longer be taught in schools, since we know from the Bible that bats are birds. End of story.
I choose approach #2. In my opinion, the other two approaches are scripturally and scientifically immature, being two sides of the same coin. Both assume or require that the Bible be absolutely free of apparent problems. When possible evidence for a problem is presented, the immature response is simply to either deny the Bible or deny the evidence. Anyone attempting to resolve the two are dismissed as being apologists or corrupters of the word. To gain real knowledge, we must be prepared to dig into things as they are and not rely on grade-school level aphorisms to make sweeping conclusions. (For further background, see my essay, "Questions about Science and Mormon Doctrine.")
Recognize that prophets are mortal. Though they are inspired by God on many matters pertaining to our salvation, God does not replace 100% of their brain with new matter upon being called as prophet. I believe that they maintain their knowledge and understanding of things until God sees fit to provide new knowledge. Everything from their use of grammar to their preference of football teams to their understanding of ancient American history and the genetic makeup of indigenous peoples will be subject to their past education and experience. Biases, misconceptions, and limitations in understanding need not suddenly morph into perfect omniscience once they are called as prophets.
We can look forward to future revelations to help us better understand the history of mankind upon the earth and the details of God's creations. We can expect that true advances in scientific understanding will ultimately help us better appreciate God's creations and better understand the scriptures. Advances in knowledge have already done much to strengthen our appreciation of the Book of Mormon (consider, for example, the rich understanding that has come through investigations of the geography of the Arabian peninsula relative to Nephi's account, as discussed on my Book of Mormon Evidences Page). Further advances may challenge our assumptions about some things, but we should welcome all the light and knowledge that God sees fit to bestow upon us--recognizing, of course, that the scientific "truths" of any era have often been discarded or revised in light of later advances, so a degree of caution and patience is always advisable. And we must not make the mistake of letting the tentative and often incomplete or errant proclamations of men weaken our faith in the Savior, Jesus Christ. In spite of my own lack of knowledge, I am proud to stand as a witness for the truthfulness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and for the divine reality of the Book of Mormon as a testament of Jesus Christ.
That's the short summary. What follows is my more in-depth response, where I explore a variety of details.
Oct. 2004 Update: The prestigious scientific journal, Nature, has just published an article suggesting that humans share a common ancestor only a few thousand years ago. It is based on an improved statistical model that takes into account how genes flow through marriage and travel. Though there are some assumptions in the model that can be challenged, I think the statistical model used in this work is one that demands more attention. The reference is D.L.T. Rohde, S. Olson, and J.T. Chang, "Modelling the Recent Common Ancestry of All Living Humans," Nature, Vol. 431, No 7008, Sept. 30, 2004, p. 562. It has been the subject of much publicity (see a sample press release).
Here is the beginning of the paper (Rohde et al., 2004):
If a common ancestor of all living humans is defined as an individual who is a genealogical ancestor of all present-day people, the most recent common ancestor (MRCA) for a randomly mating population would have lived in the very recent past. However, the random mating model ignores essential aspects of population substructure, such as the tendency of individuals to choose mates from the same social group, and the relative isolation of geographically separated groups. Here we show that recent common ancestors also emerge from two models incorporating substantial population substructure. One model, designed for simplicity and theoretical insight, yields explicit mathematical results through a probabilistic analysis. A more elaborate second model, designed to capture historical population dynamics in a more realistic way, is analysed computationally through Monte Carlo simulations. These analyses suggest that the genealogies of all living humans overlap in remarkable ways in the recent past. In particular, the MRCA of all present-day humans lived just a few thousand years ago in these models. Moreover, among all individuals living more than just a few thousand years earlier than the MRCA, each present-day human has exactly the same set of genealogical ancestors.
Please note that finding a common ancestor is a much easier task--and one that requires less digging into the past--than finding a common ancestor along purely maternal or purely paternal lines, the kind that are analyzed using mitochondrial DNA and Y-chromosome tests.
The implication for the book of Mormon, as I discuss below, is that it is entirely possible for the majority of Native Americans to be direct descendents of Lehi with some of his DNA, even though there may not be anyone with his Y-chromosome or with Sariah's mitochondrial DNA. Lehi may be a common ancestor for most Native Americans without requiring that they all have clearly discernible "Jewish DNA."
http://66.102.7.104/custom?q=cache:L5mz229cyV8J:www.jefflindsay.com/LDSFAQ/DNA.shtml+North+American+Indians+lost+tribe&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=5&ie=UTF-8
The scriptures that the Christians had at the beginning of the second century were different from those that they had at the end of the second century. By the end of the second century, the scriptures of the Christians were very close to those we have at present. Tertullian, writing at the end of the second century, cites every book in the New Testament except Philemon. Irenaeus, also writing at the end of the second century, cites every book in the current New Testament except the tiny books of Philemon, 3 John and Jude. Of course, lrenaeus also cites a few apocryphal books as authoritative.
Christian writers at the beginning of the second century have a different set of scriptures than the Christian writers at the end of the second century. Clement of Rome is generally seen as the earliest of the Christian authors after the New Testament. Clement quotes from many books of the Old Testament (Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, 1 Samuel, 2 I Chronicles, Esther, Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Malachi), and the New Testament books Matthew, Mark, Luke, Romans, 1 Corinthians, Hebrews, and 1 Peter. But Clement also quotes from the apocryphal books of the Wisdom of Solomon and Judith. Furthermore, Clement quotes from other scriptural passages, passages that are not known from any writings. We will list these in roughly the order they might have been found in our current Bibles if they contained them. For example, Clement quotes Moses as saying: "I am smoke from a vessel,"3 a quotation that is not found in any known biblical or apocryphal work.4 Clement further cites a passage from Psalms 28:5 "Thou shalt raise me up and I shall acknowledge thee."6 This reading of the Psalm, however, is not attested in any extant manuscript. Clement also quotes from a passage attributed to Ezekiel7 but not in our text:
Repent, O house of Israel, from your sins from the earth to heaven, and though they be red like scarlet and black as ashes, and you turn to me with your whole soul and say: I Father, hearken to us as to the holy people.8
Clement quotes the following passage as scripture, although its source is currently unknown:9
Wretched are the double-minded, who doubt in their soul, who say: This we have heard against our fathers and behold, we have grown old and none of them have happened even to us. O fools, compare yourselves to a tree-take the vine-first it sheds the leaf, then the bud comes, then the leaf, then the blossom, and after that the sour grape, then comes forth the ripened grape.10
Finally, Clement cites as scripture "Cleave to the saints, for those who cleave to them shall be sanctified,"11 though this is not found in any body of scripture:12
The homily known as 2 Clement also contains variations in quotations of the scriptures. Consider the following passage, which comes from a gospel but is not found in any of the gospels known to us:
Ye shall be as sheep in the midst of wolves. And Peter answering, said to him: What if: the wolves should scatter the sheep? Jesus saith to Peter: The sheep shall not fear the wolves after they kill them; ye also shall not fear those who shall kill you and cannot do anything against you, but ye shall fear him who hath power after your death to cast soul and body into the hell of fire.13
The sentiments are generally found in gospels but not as they are here. 2 Clement attributes the following saying to Jesus also:
"If ye are gathered to me in my bosom and do not my commandments, I shall cast you out and shall say to you: Depart from me, workers of iniquity; I know not whence ye are."14
Of course, this passage resembles the Sermon on the Mount, but if the passage is from Matthew, it is a different form of Matthew than what we now have.
The epistle of Barnabas purports to be written by Barnabas, normally presumed to be Paul's missionary companion, to his sons and daughters in the Gospel. Most scholars date the epistle to the early second century rather than the first century. The epistle of Barnabas: largely a pastiche of scriptural quotations; he simply strings one scripture after another. Among these quotations is the following attributed to the prophets but not found in the scriptures: "and they shall eat from the goat offered by fasting on behalf of the sinners. . . . And the priests only shall eat the innards, unwashed with vinegar"15 The epistle also includes the following as part of the law of Moses as part of the scapegoat rite: "And all you shall spit and pierce it, and encircle its head with scarlet wool, and let it be driven into the wilderness"16 Leviticus, however, does not contain this rite. The epistle of Barnabas also includes the following as part of the words of the prophets, but which we do not find in our scriptures: "The parable of the Lord, who shall understand it except the wise and learned who also loves his lord?"17 The following, the epistle attributes to the prophets but it is absent from our scriptures: "And when shall these things come to pass? Saith the Lord: When the tree shall bend and arise, and when blood shall flow from the wood"18 The epistle also included the following attributed to the Lord but not found in the scriptures: "Behold, I make the last as the first."19
In all of these instances, Christian authors quote from scriptures that are not in the canon, but even quotations that they make from scriptures that we presently have, the quotations do not match the manuscripts. The standard explanation is that these passages found in writers of the beginning of the second century but not elsewhere "are sometimes loosely and inaccurately cited from memory . . . .Indeed they are so unlike anything to be found in the known books of the Bible that despairing critics are reduced to supposing that Clement has taken them from some lost apocryphal source."20 But this theory assumes that the text of the Bible was essentially the same for the early second century Christians as it is for us today and that no major corruption of the text has occurred. This assumption, however, is not supported by the evidence of the second century Christian writers.
Accusations of Corruption
If comparison between the beginning of the second century and its end shows that scripture has changed, a closer look at the Christian authors of the second century shows that they were aware of this change. Peter noted that the process of corruption had started in apostolic times:
And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you; As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction (2 Peter 3:15-16).
The most sacred teachings of Jesus were not committed to writing (3 John 13-14) but reserved for a close few.21 Indicative of this are the fifty-three parables of Jesus preserved in the Gospels, of which only three have interpretations, all of the interpretations being given behind closed doors to a chosen few.22 Those so privileged to receive this hidden treasure of knowledge prized it most highly23 but shared it with few if any others.24 The situation is most poignantly explained by one of John's disciples, Ignatius of Antioch (d. ca. 110)25 as he was lead off to his death:
Could I not write you the celestial matters? But I fear lest I might set harm before you, since you are but babes; so pardon me, lest, if you are unable to make room, you be suffocated; for although I am bound and am able to comprehend the celestial matters and the angelic orders and the principle revelations,26 seen and unseen, nonetheless I am not yet a disciple.27
Justin Martyr, a philosopher who lived in the middle of the second century, leveled the following accusation against the Jews: "from the ninety-fifth (ninety-sixth) Psalm they have taken away this short saying of the words of David: 'From the wood.' For when the passage said, 'Tell ye among the nations, the Lord hath reigned from the wood,' they have left, 'Tell ye among the nations, the Lord hath reigned.'",28 Justin's antagonist, Trypho downplayed the accusation by saying "Whether [or not] the rulers of the people have erased any portion of the Scriptures, as you affirm, God knows; but it seems incredible."29
Clement of Alexandria (ca. 150-215) describes the corruption of the gospel of Mark by Carpocrates:
Now then, Mark during Peter's stay in Rome wrote down the acts of the Lord, nevertheless not telling all, nor even hinting at the sacred ones (tas mystikas), but selecting those which he thought most useful for the growth of the investigators' faith. When Peter was martyred, Mark came to Alexandria; polishing both his own and Peter's notes, from which by transferring into his first book those things appropriate for those progressing in the testimony (gn_sis), he compiled a more spiritual gospel for the use of those being perfected (t_n teleioumen_n). In no way, however, did he betray those things not discussed, nor did he write down the initiatory teaching (hierophantik_n didaskalian)30of the Lord. But adding to the previously written acts yet others, he still added certain sayings thereto, the explanation of which would be capable of initiating (mystag_g_sein) their hearers into the holy of holies (adytan) of the truth veiled seven times. Wherefore he prepared it thus-neither corruptly nor unprecautiously-so I deem it. And when he died he left his compilation at the church which is in Alexandria, where it is kept very safe and secure to this day, being read only to those who are initiated into the great mysteries (taus myaumenous ta megala myst_ria).
But Carpocrates who was taught by the defiled demons who continually plot destruction for the children of men, having even used the arts of deception, thus enslaved a certain elder of the church in Alexandria so that he prepared a copy of the secret gospel (tou mystikou euangeliou). And he explained it according to his own blasphemous and carnal thought. But still he defiled it by mixing into the immaculate and holy words the most abominable lies. From this tincture he extracted the Carpocratian doctrine.31
Irenaeus claims that the Valentinians changed the scriptures "by transferring passages, and dressing them up anew, and making one thing out of another."32 Irenaeus notes that among some biblical manuscripts circulating in his day, the number of the beast in Revelations was not 666 but 616.33 Irenaeus reveals that accusations of corruption of scripture were also applied to the orthodox church as well, for the so-called heretics "turn round and accuse these same Scriptures, as if they were not correct."34
Tertullian was a lawyer who lived at the end of the second century. He was a prolific author and the first Christian father to write in Latin. Tertullian wrote against many of the Christian sects in his day and eventually switched from what we today call the "orthodox" Christian sect to the Montanist Christian sect because the Montanists still believed in continuing revelation, whereas the other Christian sects did not. He claimed there was "proof of the Gospel. . . having become meanwhile adulterated."35 Tertullian notes that a Christian sect of his day "does not receive certain Scriptures; and whichever of them it does receive, it perverts by means of additions and diminutions, for the accomplishment of it[s] own purpose; and such as it does receive, it receives not in their entirety; but even when it does receive any up to a certain point as entire, it nevertheless perverts even these by the contrivance of diverse Interpretations."36 One of the sects that Tertullian deals with is that of Marcion, a Christian leader in the early second century who accepted Paul and a modified form of Luke, but rejected all other Christian scriptures. Tertullian specifically claims that "Marcion expressly and openly used the knife, not the pen, since he made such an excision of the Scriptures as suited his own subject matter,"37 and that "Marcion seems to have singled Luke for his mutilating process."38 Another sect that Tertullian writes about is the Valentinians, named after Valentinus, a mid-second century Christian leader who almost became bishop of Rome. Tertullian also claims that although Valentinus "seems to use the entire volume, he has none the less laid violent hands on the truth only with a more cunning mind and skill than Marcion,"39 for although he "abstained from such excision, because he did not invent Scriptures to square with his own subject-matter, but adapted his subject matter to the Scriptures; and yet he took away more, and added more, by removing the proper meaning of every particular word, and adding fantastic arrangements of things which have no real existence."40 Tertullian discusses "writings which wrongly go under Paul's name" but instead were composed by a presbyter in Asia.41 Each of these leaders, Marcion, Valentinus, etc., had his own Christian sect. Tertullian acknowledges that these other sects "go so far as to say that adulterations of the Scriptures, and false expositions thereof, are rather introduced by ourselves [meaning Tertullian's sect, the one that later became orthodox], inasmuch as they, no less than we maintain that truth is on their side."42
Methods of Corruption
We learn about some of the types of changes made in the Christian texts because, ironically, they are clearly enumerated by the very people responsible for preserving them. For example Rufinus (fourth century) says of the earlier Christian texts he is copying: Wherever, therefore, we have found in his [in this case Origen's] books anything contrary to that which was piously established by him about the Trinity in other places, either we have omitted it as corrupt and interpolated, or edited it according to that pattern that we often find asserted by himself. If, however, speaking to the trained and learned, he writes obscurely because he desires to briefly pass over something, we, to make the passage plainer, have added those things that we have read on the same subject openly in his other books….All who shall copy or read this…shall neither add anything to this writing, nor remove anything, nor insert anything, nor change anything.43
In this Rufinus simultaneously and almost hypocritically pleads that others not do to him what he has done to them. Rufinus is explicitly following the example of his predecessors, specifically the example of Macarius "who when he translated over seventy works of Origen, which are called homilies and also several of his writings on the apostle into Latin in which are found several offensive passages, therefore he removed or cleaned up all of these when he translated, so that a Latin reader would find nothing in them that disagrees with our belief. This, therefore, we follow even if we are not so eloquent, nevertheless as much as we can, by the same rules, watching to be sure not to reveal those passages in the books of Origen that disagree and contradict with himself."44 Deleting,45 altering, and even adding to works have been problems in antiquity,46 in the Renaissance,47 and even in the present day.48 But other types of corruptions also affect the text. One is the process by which the texts are reinterpreted in a non-literal or allegorical framework.49 Another is the changing of the meanings of words, such as occurred during the second sophistic period.50 Between the time of writing the New Testament and the end of the second century, the meanings of several of the words changed. Examples included the change of the principle meanings of pistis from "collateral, guarantee" to "belief,51 of homologein from "to agree to terms, accept an agreement, enter into a legal contract, promise" to "to confess;"52 of myst_rion from "(initation) rite" to "secret,"53 Because the New Testament is usually read with meanings of the second sophistic period and later-meanings which have often changed-the understanding of the text can be drastically changed. Unfortunately, many books by New Testament scholars will not help the average reader remove this obfuscation because the scholars who write many of the books, have read little in Greek other than the New Testament or occasionally philosophical writings and thus, by training, reflect the viewpoint after the second sophistic period. All of the methods of changing the text that we have just discussed occur in the second century.
Removal is the easiest textual corruption to introduce, and the most frequent form of scribal error. Justin Martyr accuses the Jews of removing small phrases from the scriptures.54 Tertullian makes the same accusation of using "the knife, not the pen," in making "such an excision of the Scriptures" against Marcion.55
Addition is also a textual corruption, though less frequent than deletion: Tertullian discusses entire forged "writings, which wrongly go under Paul's name" and which circulated in his day.56
Irenaeus accuses Valentinus of acting much like modern biblical critics and dividing "the prophecies [into different classes], maintaining that one portion was uttered by the mother, a second by her seed, and a third by the Demiurge. In like manner, they hold that Jesus uttered some things under the influence of the Saviour, others under that of the mother, and others still under that of the Demiurge."57 The Valentinians believed, in line with the best Neo-Platonic thinking of their day, that God did not create the world, but rather a junior god who created a more junior god, and so on until one of these junior gods created a devil, called the Demiurge, who created the world.
They gather their views from other sources than the Scriptures; and to use a common proverb, they strive to weave ropes of sand, while they endeavour to adapt with an air of probability to their own peculiar assertions the parables of the Lord, the sayings of the prophets, and the words of the apostles, in order that their scheme may not seem altogether without support. In doing so, however, they disregard the order and the connection of the Scriptures, and so far as in them lies, dismember and destroy the truth. By transferring passages, and dressing them up anew, and making one thing out of another, they succeed in deluding many through their wicked art in adapting the oracles of the Lord to their opinions.58
Tertullian makes the accusation that Marcion "ascribes no author to his Gospel, as if it could not be allowed him to affix a title to that from which it was no crime (in his eyes) to subvert the very body."59
Motivations for Manipulating the Text
What motives did second century individuals and groups have to change scripture? Clement of Rome wrote his epistle at the beginning of the second century at the request of leaders in Corinth to settle a dispute they were having. Clement accuses individuals at Corinth of "pride and sedition" and as setting themselves up as "leaders" and usurping the authority that was not theirs.60 Toward the end of the second century, Clement of Alexandria notes that the Carpocratians changed scripture to sanction their own homosexual and other immoral practices. Irenaeus claims that the Valentinians "endeavour to adapt with an air of probability to their own peculiar assertions the parables of the Lord, the sayings of the prophets, and the words of the apostles, in order that their scheme may not seem altogether without support."61 Tertullian says that "writings which wrongly go under Paul's name" were forged by a presbyter in Asia to give "a license for women's teaching and baptizing."62 Changes in the texts and the motivations to alter the text of scriptures both canonical and non-canonical,63 in general, match those Nephi gave:
After the book hath gone forth through the hands of the great and abominable church, that there are many plain and precious things taken away from the book (1 Nephi 13:28).
Behold the gold, and the silver and the silks, and the scarlets, and the fine-twined linen, and the precious clothing, and the harlots, are the desires of this great and abominable church (1 Nephi 13:8).
While not all second century Christians were consumed by these desires, some clearly were.64
Manuscript Evidence
Some modern individuals, like the second century Trypho,65 deny the change in scripture by making statements like "We have today over 25,000 handwritten manuscripts of the New Testament alone, and over 5,000 of these are written in Greek, the original language of the New Testament."66 Or "Any number of scholarly works have proven that the Bible has not been corrupted-it has by far the best manuscript attestation and textual preservation of any ancient book."67 With all the respect due to these three individuals who appear to have four mail-order doctorates between them, I would like to suggest that it is they who are "in ignorance of the history of the canon."68 We have been discussing evidence from the second century, but it is only fair that we look at Greek biblical manuscripts.
This supposed assemblage of five thousand Greek biblical manuscripts includes the entire Bible, and most of these manuscripts are late cursive manuscripts. If we consider only those of the New Testament, we have about 341 uncial manuscripts (which are generally earlier than the cursive manuscripts).69 Of these, about 10% date before the time of Constantine, and only one dates to the second century. This second century manuscript (P52 = Rylands 458) is about the size of a postage stamp and contains only ten complete words. (Peter Thiede's redating of the Magdalen College fragments to the first century70 would be wonderful if true, but his arguments have been demonstrated wrong.)71 Ninety-nine point seven percent of Greek uncial New Testament manuscripts come after the time period when accusations of textual corruption are rampant. If we included the cursive manuscripts as well the percentage of second century manuscripts would become even smaller. But further consider that only ten complete words of the New Testament are attested in manuscript form during the time of textual corruption, and not a single one is attested before that time. If we assemble all the manuscripts from the second and third centuries and just note those chapters where even a part of a verse is attested, we find that entire books are missing, including 1-2 Timothy, 1-2 Peter, 2-3 John and Jude. Of the twenty-eight chapters in the gospel of Matthew, there is no manuscript containing even a single verse of sixteen of these chapters before the end of the third century.
Conclusions
What we have been looking at for these few moments is the state of Christian scripture in the second century. We have not, generally, had to rely on scholarly interpretation or writers outside the second century to detect a large shift in the concept of scripture in the second century. The books that were considered scripture and some of the content of those books changed from the beginning to the end of the century. During the second century various fragmentary groups of Christians accused other groups of having changed the texts to fit their own ideas. These changes took the form of deletions, some additions, and the redefining of the text. What the angel told Nephi is largely supported by what remains of second century Christian literature. To the second century, if not before, we may place the corruption of scripture and the loss of the plain and precious things, and it is worth noting that none of the Greek manuscripts date before that time period. Like Humpty Dumpty, all the kings horses and all the kings men cannot put our text together again. We cannot look to scholarship to restore the plain and precious portions of the text that were lost. We must look to the Restoration.
Notes
1 Tertullian, Scorpiace 1; Irenaeus, Contra Haereses 1.28.1, 29.1 describes them as popping up like mushrooms; more poignantly, M_r_t_, the bishop of Maipherqat says that there was only one ear of wheat left in all the tares, see M_r _t_- Against the Canons from the Synod of 318, 5, in Arthur Voobus, The Canons Ascribed to M_r _t- of Maipherqat and related sources, 2 vols., CSCO 439-40 (series Scriptores Syri 191-92) (Lovanii: E. Peeters, 1982), 1 :22. See also Henry Chadwick, The Early Church (Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin, 1967), 34; W. H. C. Frend, The Rise of Christianity (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984), 201-203; Pagels, Gnostic Gospels, 7-8.
2 Acts 20:30 (Paul prophesying the corning corruption of the teachings; cf. Kent P. Jackson, "'Watch and Remember': The New Testament and the Great Apostasy," in Lundquist and Ricks, eds., By Study and Also By Faith, 1:85.); 2 Peter 3:15-16 (showing the process starting in apostolic times); Justin Martyr, Dialogus *** Tryphone 73 (accusing the Jews); lrenaeus, Contra Haereses 1.7.3,8.1,9.4,18.1,19.1,20.1-2,22.1-3,26.2,27.2,4;' V.30.1 (accusing various groups); 111.2.1 (for the counter charges); Tertullian, De Baptismo 17 (discussing well- intentioned but nonetheless misguided tampering with Paul); Tertullian, Adversus Marcionem IV.2.2-5 (charging, Marcion with corrupting Luke); Tertullian, De Praescriptione Haereticorum 16-19, 38-40 (the charges run both , ways); M_r_t_, Against the Canons from the Synod of 318,5, in V60bus, Canons Ascribed to M_r_t- ofMaipherqa, 1 :22-23,25-26 (with a long list of groups); M_r_t_, The Seventy Three Canons 1, in ibid., 1:57-58, cf. 135; The Apocalypse of Peter VII. 76.24- 78.31 (no specific sect specified); The Apocalypse of Adam V. 77.18-82.25 lists thirteen different views of Christ, twelve of which-including the "orthodox" one-are labeled as being in error; see also NTA 1:31-34; Pagels, Gnostic Gospels, 20-21. Though from the fourth century, Epiphanius, Panarion 30.13.1, 14.1; 42.9.1-2 accuses the second century figures Ebion, Cerinthus, Carpocrates, and Marcion of corrupting the text of the Gospel of Matthew; Epiphanius, however, is not necessarily a reliable source.
3 1 Clement 17:6.
4 See Lightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers, 1.2:64-65
5 See Lightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers, 1.2:89.
6 1 Clement 26:2.
7 See Lightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers, 1.2:39-41.
8 1 Clement 8:3.
9 See Lightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers, 1.2:80-81.
10 1 Clement 23:3-4.
11 1 Clement 46:2.
12 'This quotation is no where [sic] found in the Old Testament." Lightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers, 1.2:139-10.
13 2 Clement 5:2-4.
14 2 Clement 4:5.
15 Barnabas 7:4.
16 Barnabas 7:8.
17 Barnabas 6:10.
18 Barnabas 12:1.
19 Barnabas 6:13.
20 Maxwell Staniforth, Early Christian Writings: The Apostolic Fathers (New York: Dorset, 1986), 22.
21Matthew 13:11-16; 19:11; Mark 4:2,33; Luke 18:34; 22:67; John 3:12; 6:60-61; 8:43; 10:27; 16:12, 18, 25; Acts 10:41. See also William J. Hamblin, "Aspects of an Early Christian Initiation Ritual," in John M. Lundquist and Stephen D. Ricks, eds., By Study and Also By Faith, 2 vols. (Salt Lake City: Deseret and Provo, Utah: FARMS, 1990),204-207
22 This was noted in ancient times in the Apocryphon of James 1.8.4-10 listing some previously unknown parables as well.
23 Tertullian, De Praescriptione Haereticorum 20-22.
24 1 Corinthians 3:1-2; 2 Corinthians 12:4; Colossians 1:26; Hebrews 5:11; 2 John 1:12. See also Elaine Pagels, The Gnostic Gospels (New York: Random House, 1979), 17-18; Hamblin, "Aspects of and Early Christian Initiation Ritual," 208-210.
25 J. B. Lightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers, 2 parts in 5 vols. (Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson, 1989), 2.1:29-30.
26 Greek tas systaseis tas archontikas. Though Ignatius does use the word systasis in other senses (see Ignatius, Epistle to the Romans, 5), here it seems to be used in a more technical sense of oracular inquiry, the equivalent of the Demotic ph-ntr; see Janet H. Johnson, "Louvre E3229: A Demotic Magical Text," Enchoria 7 (1977): 90-91; Robert K. Ritner, "Gleanings from Magical Texts," Enchoria 14 (1986): 95; Robert K. Ritner, The Mechanics of Ancient Egyptian Magical Practice, SAOC 54 (Chicago: Oriental Institute, 1993), 214-220.
27 Ignatius, Epistle to the Trallians 5. Unless specified, all translations are the author's own. This list of characteristics of the secret teachings makes its way into the magic tradition eventually to end up in an English fairy tale as the content of the magician's "one big book bound in black calf and clasped with iron, and with iron comers;" see "The Master and his Pupil," in Joseph Jacobs, coll., English Fairy Tales (London: G. P. Putnam's Sons and David Nutt, 1898, reprint New York: Dover, 1967), 73-74. These matters are also the principle subject of the books of 1 Jeu and 2 Jeu as well as much of the Jewish Hekalot literature.
28 Justin Martyr, Dialogus *** Tryphone 73, in The Ante-Nicean Fathers, 1:235.
29 Justin Martyr, Dialogus *** Tryphone 73, in The Ante-Nicean Fathers, 1:235 (brackets in source).
30 For a discussion of other ways this phrase has been taken, see Werner Jaeger's comments in Morton Smith, Clement of Alexandria and a Secret Gospel of Mark (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1973), 38; John W. Welch, The Sermon at the Temple and the Sermon on the Mount (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book and Provo, Utah: FARMS, 1990), 59; and the response of Todd Compton, review of Welch, Sermon at the Temple and the Sermon on the Mount, in RBBM 3 (1991): 322; Hamblin, "Aspects of an Early Christian Initiation Ritual," 209.
31 Clement of Alexandria, Letter to Theodore, 1.15-2.10, in Smith, Clement of Alexandria and a Secret Gospel of Mark, 448-51, Plates I-II; cf. Hamblin, "Aspects of an Early Christian Initiation Ritual," 210-211.
32 Irenaeus, Contra Haereses 1.8.1, in The Ante-Nicean Fathers, Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, eds. (reprint Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1985), 1:326.
33 Irenaeus, Contra Haereses V .30.1, in Ante-Nicean Fathers, 1 :558-559.
34 Irenaeus, Contra Haereses 111.2.1, in Ante-Nicean Fathers, 1:415.
35 Tertullian, Contra Marcionem IV.2, in Ante-Nicean Fathers, 3:347
36 Tertullian, De Praescriptione Haereticorum 17, in Ante-Nicean Fathers, 3:251.
37 Tertullian, De Praescriptione Haereticorum 38, in Ante-Nicean Fathers, 3:262.
38 Tertullian, Contra Marcionem IV.2, in Ante-Nicean Fathers, 3:347.
39 Tertullian, De Praescriptione Haereticorum 38, in Ante-Nicean Fathers, 3:262.
40 Tertullian, De Praescriptione Haereticorum 38, in Ante-Nicean Fathers, 3:262.
41 Tertullian, De Baptismo 17, in Ante-Nicean Fathers, 3:677.
42 Tertullian, De Praescriptione Haereticorum 18, in Ante-Nicean Fathers, 3:251
43 Rufinus, preface to Origen, Peri Archon, 2-4, in Patrologiae Graecae 11: 113-114; cf. G. W. Butterworth, trans., Origen On First Principles (Goucester, Massechusetts: Peter Smith, 1973), lxiii-ixiv. This particular work of Origen's is preserved only through Rufinus' Latin translation and a few fragments quoted by Greek authors. Rufinus' unreliable translations of this and other works were known both to his contemporaries and to modern scholars as "vitiated and confused" if not "very hasty and careless" since "he frequently paraphrases and misinterprets his original," see Quasten, Patrology, 1:61, 170; 2:37,49,58, 146; 3:172, 240, 315, 341, 533.
44 Rufinus, preface to Origen, Peri Archon, 2, in PG 11: 112-113, italics added.
45 See Rufinus' preface to pseudo-Clement, Recognitiones, in Alexander Roberts, and James Donaldson, eds., The Ante-Nicene Fathers, 10 vols. (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans, and Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1986),8:75, and n. 3. "The most common scribal error (I think) is haplography, that is, reading two identical sequences of letters as one and omitting whatever intervenes;" P. Kyle McCarter, Textual Criticism: Recovering the Text of the Hebrew Bible (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1986), 17.
46 An excellent introduction to the problems involved may be found in Hugh Nibley, "The Way of the Church," CWHN 4:209-63. An awareness of the problems of textual tampering appears very early in human history; see, for example, Ur-Nammu (2112-2095 B.C.), the first king of the Ur III Dynasty: lú mu-sar-ra-ba šu bí-íb-úr-a dBíl-ga-mes-e nam ha-ba-da-ku5-e "may Gilgamesh curse whosoever alters this inscription;" Urnammu 41, in Ilmari Kärki, Die Konigsinshriften der dritten Dynastie von Ur, vol. 58 of Studia Orentalia (Helsinki: Finnish Oriental Society, 1986), 26; similar imprecations spanning the length of Babylonian history may be found in Hermann Hunger, Babylonische und assyrische Kolophone, vol. 2 of Alter Orient und Altes Testament (Kevelaer: Butzon & Bercker, 1968); for the spread of this curse formula into Hittite culture at the beginning of its written history, see O. R. Gurney, The Hittites 4th ed. (Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin, 1990), 141 (1st ed., 1952), 170.
47 See A. E. Housman, M. Manilii Astonomicon, 5 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1937), 1 :xiv-xxii; for an estimate of Renaissance and previous Byzantine textual work, see Alexander Hugh McDonald, "Textual Criticism," OCD 1049.
48 0n the modern rewriting of Polybius, see Robert K. Ritner, "Implicit Models of Cross-Cultural Interaction: A Question of Noses, Soap and Prejudice," in Janet H. Johnson, ed., Life in a Multi-Cultural Society: Egypt from Cambyses to Constantine and Beyond, SAOC 51 (Chicago: Oriental Institute, 1992), 287-88. This central point in Ritner's argument was itself omitted in the original published version and the errata sheet must be checked. Another egregious example of rewriting the sources is Morton Smith's Jesus the Magician (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1978): On p. 53, Smith claims to take Pliny's Epistulae X.96 ''as it is usually taken, at face value" and then proceeds to introduce magical spells, demons, and cannibalism into a text which actually lacks all of these elements.
49 See Richard Lloyd Anderson, Understanding Paul (Salt Lake City: Deseret, 1983),376-77; Layton; Gnostic Scriptures, 317. For an exhaustive analysis of the switch in interpretation in one passage of scripture, see Thomas W. Mackay, "Early Christian Millenarianist Interpretation of the Two Witnesses in John's Apocalypse. 11:2-13," in Lundquist and Ricks, eds., By Study and Also By Faith, 1 :222-331. For the use of the allegorical approach in Rabbinic Judaism, see Jacob Neusner, "The Case of Leviticus Rabbah," in Lundquist and Ricks, eds., By Study and Also By Faith, 1 :366-370. For a historical discussion of allegory, see C.S. Lewis, The Allegory of Love: A Study in Medieval Tradition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1936), 44-111. For recent attempts to bring about a similar switch in interpretation among the Latter-day Saints, see Louis Midgley, "More Revisionist Legerdemain and the Book of Mormon," RBBM 3 (1991): 261-311; Stephen E. Robinson, review of Dan Vogel, ed., The Word of God: Essays on Mormon Scripture, in RBBM 3 (1991): 312-318; Daniel C. Peterson, "Questions to Legal Answers," RBBM 4 (1992): xl-lxxiii.
50 In general, this topic has not received the treatment it deserves. Preliminary steps in this direction are Nibley, "Evangelium Quadriginta Dierum," 33 n. 61; Welch, The Sermon at the Temple and the Sermon on the Mount, 88. For analysis of some of the dynamics involved, see Hugh Nibley, "Victoriosa Loquacitas: The Rise of Rhetoric and the Decline of Everything Else," CWHN 10:243-286. The list of meanings of charis in John Gee, review of Robert L. Millet, By Grace Are We Saved, in RBBM 2 (1990): 101-106 gives an indication of some of the problems but it does not further refine the analysis by chronological arguments. Another example of work recently done in this direction is John W. Welch, "New Testament Word Studies," Ensign 23/4 (April 1993): 28-30.
51 LSJ 1408.
52 LSJ 1226.
53 LSJ 1156.
54 Justin Martyr, Dialogus *** Tryphone 73, in The Ante-Nicean Fathers, 1:235.
55 Tertullian, De Praescriptione Haereticorum 38, in Ante-Nicean Fathers, 3:262.
56 Tertullian, De Baptismo 17, in Ante-Nicean Fathers, 3:677.
57 Irenaeus, Contra Haereses 1.7.3, in Ante-Nicean Fathers, 1:326.
58 Irenaeus, Contra Haereses 1.8.1, in Ante-Nicean Fathers, 1:326.
59 Terullian, Contra Marcionem IV.2, in Ante-Nicean Fathers, 3:347.
60 1 Clement 14.
61 Irenaeus, Contra Haereses 1.8.1, in The Ante-Nicean Fathers, 1 :326.
62 Tertullian, De Baptismo 17, in Ante-Nicean Fathers, 3:677.
63 Also Tertullian, De Praescriptione Haereticorum 38-40; other categories and examples given in Robinson, "Lying for God," 144-46.
64 1 Clement 44: 1; Hegesippus, quoted in Eusebius, Historiae Ecclesiasticae III.32.7; Second Treatise of the Great Seth VII.59.19-61.24. The urge to usurp authority might have been the cause of the anonymous accusations attested in Pliny, Epistulae X.96.5.
65 Justin Martyr, Dialogus *** Tryphone 73, in The Ante-Nicean Fathers, 1:235.
66 James R. White, Letters to a Mormon Elder (Minneapolis, Minnesota: Bethany House, 1993), 26.
67 John Ankerberg and John Weldon, Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Mormonism (Eugene, Oregon: Harvest House, 1992), 379-380. While it is true that the Bible has better manuscript attestation than any ancient book, we might consider the second runner up: there are almost five hundred copies (498) of the Iliad from Egypt alone; P.W. Pestman, The New Payrological Primer, Second edition (Leiden: Brill, 1994), 71.
68 Ankerberg and Weldon, Everything You Ever Wanted to Know, 377.
69 The information in this section was compiled from Kurt Aland, et. al., Novum Testamentum Graecae, 26th ed., 7th corrected printing (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1983), 684-702.
70 Carsten Peter Thiede, "Papyrus Magdalen Greek 17 (Gregory-Aland P64) A Reappraisal," Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 105 (1995): 13-20.
71 Klaus Wachtel, "P64/67: Fragmente des Matthäusevangeliums aus dem 1. Jahrhundert?" Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 107 (1995): 73-80. Thiede appears to be the papyrological equivalent of D. J. Nelson; Harald Vocke, "Papyrus Magdalen 17-weitere Argumente gegen die Frühdatierung des angeblichen Jesus-Papyrus," Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 113 (1996): 153-157.
http://www.fairlds.org/FAIR_Conferences/1999_Corruption_of_Scripture_in_the_Second_Century.html
The doctrine of the Trinity, as defined in several post-biblical councils, is widely used as the standard of what one must believe to be a Christian. Latter-day Saints are routinely said to be a cult for not accepting some doctrines from the Nicene Creed, the Athanasian Creed (or click here), and other creeds from the fourth century and beyond (e.g., the Westminster Confession of Faith from 1646, used by Presbyterians). In many of those creeds and related statements of belief, it is taught that there is one God manifest in three persons, all of one substance, without body, parts, or passions. This differs from the LDS view, as we shall see.
As a reminder, the creeds from the Council of Nicaea and the related Council of Chalcedon were theological, philosophical statements developed in the fourth century A.D. amid intense debate about the nature of God. Influenced heavily by Greek philosophy (Neo-Platonism), these creeds teach the concept of an abstract, transcendent, "consubstantial" unity in trinity, one in three, coequal, existing incomprehensibly without body, parts, or passions, wholly other and outside space and time as we know it.
We do not fully accept that doctrine. We believe in God the Father, in His Son, Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost, but we believe that they are three distinct Beings who are one in purpose and intent, perfectly united to comprise one Godhead, but not "consubstantial" (made of one essence or substance, not being physically distinct). We believe that Christ literally resurrected and has a tangible body of both matter and spirit which He allowed his disciples to feel and see, proving that He was not spirit alone but had flesh and bone (Luke 24:36-43). We believe that the Father looks like the Son and that we are literally created in God's image (Gen. 1:26,27; Gen. 5:1-3). In short, we reject much of the philosophical or metaphysical statements of the Trinitarian creeds. Now my desire is not to attack those who accept the doctrine of the Trinity, but to address the allegation that real Christians must accept Trinitarian philosophy and that those who don't must belong to a cult. Does rejecting the doctrine of the Trinity mean that we reject the God of the Bible? Absolutely not.
For all its popularity and dominance in the Christian world, the doctrine of the Trinity, as stated in the creeds of the 4th century, cannot be found in the Bible. (For a well documented discussion of the corrupted text in the King James Version of 1 John 5:7,8 - the infamous Johannine Comma, apparently added by men to the Biblical text centuries after the time of John - see Marc Schindler's "Trinity and the Bible".) Yes, we can read that there is one God and that the Father and the Son are one, but these simple statements hardly lead to the complex and abstract metaphysics of consubstantiality, or to an understanding that Christ is without body, parts, or passions. In my view, the doctrine of the Trinity is not a genuine summary of anything in the Bible, but rather is an extensive, philosophical elaboration that goes far beyond what is taught in the Bible. Even if that doctrine is correct, is it fair to require that Christians must accept a formulation not found in the Bible in order to be Christians? What is the basis for branding someone as a cultist for not accepting a post-biblical, manmade statement of philosophy? Ironically, some groups teach that the Bible alone is sufficient for salvation (Luther's doctrine of sola scriptura) while also teaching that one must also believe extra-biblical creeds - in addition to the Bible - in order to be saved as a Christian. Did Christ teach the doctrine of the Trinity? Do we find all the teachings of the Nicene Creed in the Bible? No. But don't take my word for it. Consider the teachings of some of the foremost non-LDS Protestant and Catholic religious scholars on this topic. For example, Harper's Bible Dictionary, compiled with the help of the Society of Biblical Literature, declares that "[t]he formal doctrine of the Trinity as it was defined by the great church councils of the fourth and fifth centuries is not to be found in the New Testament" (in P. Achtemeier, ed., Harper's Bible Dictionary, Harper and Row, San Francisco, 1985, p. 1099, as cited by Stephen E. Robinson, Are Mormons Christians?, Bookcraft, Salt Lake City, 1991, p. 74).
Further, Edmund J. Fortman, a Jesuit scholar who authored a major work on the Trinity, wrote that "there is no trinitarian doctrine in the Synoptics [Matthew, Mark, and Luke] or Acts" and that "nowhere do we find any trinitarian doctrine of three distinct subjects of divine life and activity in the same Godhead" and that "in John there is no trinitarian formula" (The Triune God: A Historical Study of the Doctrine of the Trinity, Westminster Press, Philadelphia, 1972, pp. 14,16,29, as cited by Robinson, p. 74). In fact, after examining the whole New Testament, Fortman concludes that the classical Trinity doctrine is not to be found there, only a foundation for the future development of that doctrine:
There is no formal doctrine of the Trinity in the New Testament writers, if this means an explicit teaching that in one God there are three co-equal divine persons. But the three are there, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and a triadic ground plan is there, and triadic formulas are there. . . . The Biblical witness to God, as we have seen, did not contain any formal or formulated doctrine of the Trinity, any explicit teaching that in one God there are three co-equal divine persons. (Fortman, pp. 22-23, as cited by Robinson, p. 74) In the New Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 14, p. 299, R. L. Richard writes that "the formulation 'one God in three persons' was not solidly established, certainly not fully assimilated into Christian life and its profession of faith, prior to the end of the 4th century. . . . Among the Apostolic Fathers, there had been nothing even remotely approaching such a mentality or perspective" (as cited by Robinson, p. 121).
The non-LDS scholar J.N.D. Kelly noted the absence of the doctrine of the Trinity in the early writings of the Church. "The Church had to wait for more than three hundred years for a final synthesis, for not until the Council of Constantinople (381) was the formula of one God existing in three coequal persons formally ratified" (Early Christian Doctrines Harper, New York, 1978, pp. 87-88, as cited by Robinson, p. 76).
Daniel C. Peterson and Stephen D. Ricks in Offenders for a Word: How Anti-Mormons Play Word Games to Attack the Latter-day Saints (Salt Lake City: Aspen Books, 1992, pp. 45-48) explain that LDS theology is essentially consistent with the early and simple Apostles' Creed, although we do not use it per se (its principles are well covered by the scriptures and the LDS Articles of Faith). Anti-Mormons, looking for tools to exclude Latter-day Saints from Christianity, have therefore turned to the more esoteric philosophy behind later creeds to distinguish LDS doctrine from their view of Christianity (Peterson and Ricks, pp. 47-48):
Among them, the Nicene Creed is almost certainly the most famous and the most important. Yet its very innovativeness makes it a most questionable basis for banishing the Latter-day Saints from Christendom. "It is impossible for any one," declared [the non-LDS scholar] Edwin Hatch in his classic 1888 Hibbert Lectures, "whether he be a student of history or no, to fail to notice a difference of both form and content between the Sermon on the Mount and the Nicene Creed. The Sermon on the Mount is the promulgation of a new law of conduct; it assumes beliefs rather than formulates them; the theological conceptions which underlie it belong to the ethical rather than the speculative side of theology; metaphysics are wholly absent. The Nicene Creed is a statement partly of historical facts and partly of dogmatic inferences; the metaphysical terms which it contains would probably have been unintelligible to the first disciples; ethics have no place in it. The one belongs to a world of Jewish peasants, the other to a world of Greek philosophers. The contrast," Hatch continues, "is patent. If any one thinks that it is sufficiently explained by saying that the one is a sermon and the other a creed, it must be pointed out in reply that the question why an ethical sermon stood in the forefront of the teaching of Jesus Christ, and a metaphysical creed in the forefront of the Christianity of the fourth century, is a problem which claims investigation." [Edwin Hatch, The Influence of Greek Ideas on Christianity, Gloucester, MA: Smith, 1970, p. 1.]
The problem Hatch refers to at the end of the above quotation is, in the LDS view, a symptom of the Great Apostasy which occurred gradually after the persecution and death of the Apostles and during the subsequent Hellenization of the Church once it became popular and powerful, entwined with the Roman empire.
I realize this is a sensitive issue for many people who have grown up taught nothing but the doctrine of the Trinity all their lives, but in my opinion, the modern doctrine of the Trinity is not taught in the Bible and is a doctrine introduced by philosophers, not prophets and apostles. I respect those who believe otherwise and I would never say someone is not a Christian for differing in their belief on this crucial issue, but I feel the Bible does not support that doctrine. There is no mention of the Trinity in the New Testament, but there are numerous clear teachings that God and the Son are separate beings, though ONE in purpose, heart, and intent.
The Hellenistic doctrine of unity of substance, a God that was one being without body, parts, or passions, was not found or taught in early Christian doctrine until almost the fourth century, introduced by men to make Christian doctrine more reasonable in light of Greek philosophy (Neo-Platonism in particular), where the concept of a God with a body - such as that shown and revealed by Christ - was most objectionable. The Nicene creed does not properly reflect the plain teachings of the Bible, which we will review below.
Christ did teach that He and His Father are one (John 10:30), but He explained what this unity meant. In John 17:20-22, He prayed that He and His followers might be one, as God and Christ are one. In other words, God and Christ are one - united - in the same way that we should be united with them. This does not mean that we will no longer be individuals or that we will be dissolved into one substance, but that we can be of one heart and mind, united with the will of God, in perfect agreement and unity. This same teaching occurs in other passages, where Christ explains that the oneness and unity between the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are what we should have with each other or what we can also have with them in heaven. For example, in John 14:10,11, Christ says that the Father is in Christ and Christ is in the Father. Does this mean they are the same person or same being? No, for in verse 20 He explains that in heaven, we will know that Christ is in the Father and we are in Christ and He is in us. Clearly, something other than oneness of substance and person is meant here.
As for the meaning of "I and the Father are one" in John 10:30, the non-LDS scholar David J. Ellis gives the following explanation in his commentary on John in The International Bible Commentary, ed. F.F. Bruce, Zondervan Publ. House, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1986, p. 1249:
I and the Father are one (Gk. hen): The neuter gender rules out any thought of meaning 'one Person.' This is not a comment on the Godhead. Rather, having spoken of the sheep's security in both Himself and the Father, Jesus underlines what He has said by indicating that in action the Father and He be can regarded as a single entity, because their wills are one.
How do we know that Christ is different from the Father, that they are two Beings rather than different aspects of a single Being? One reason we know is because Christ said so in clear terms, and said so many times. The Gospel of John, for example, makes this point repeatedly, as do other parts of the Bible. We see that the Father is a different Being, with a distinct "will" and "self," dwelling in a different location, and being "greater" than Christ, a Being whom Christ obeys and honors. We consider specific examples below. In doing so, I realize that the following scriptures can be adapted to the doctrine of the Trinity by arguing that there are three "Persons" within one Being having one substance, something which is a mystery that cannot be explained in human terms. But is this what the writers of the Bible understood and meant? Is that metaphysical doctrine really what the Bible is trying to teach us? Was Christ's physical, resurrected body that His disciples touched just a vision? Was the missing body from His tomb metaphorical? Are the references to our creation in the "image" of God purely figurative, in spite of the repeated use of that Hebrew word to describe physical appearance? When we read of Christ being at the right hand of God, isn't it possible that Christ and the Father are two distinct Beings, yet operating in perfect oneness and unity?
Joseph Smith saw with his own eyes that the Father and the Son are two distinct Personages, in whose physical image we are created. Here are comments on specific passages of the Bible confirming that precious truth:
We know the Father was in a different location than Christ while He was on earth, because Christ frequently spoke of having been sent from the Father and of returning to the Father. Examples: John 6:12; John 8:28,29,33; and John 20:17, where Christ explains to Mary that He has not yet ascended to His Father, but must now go there. Compare this to Augustine's explanation of the Trinity: "Let no separation be imagined to exist in this Trinity either in time or space, but that these three are equal and co-eternal, and absolutely of one nature" (Letter 169, in The Fathers of the Church, 67 vols, New York: Fathers of the Church, Inc., 1955, 12:54).
We know Christ is not the same Being as the Father because the Father knows (or knew) at least one thing that Christ did not know, namely, the exact time of the Second Coming, as explained in Mark 13:32: "But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father."
We know that the Father is not the same Being as Christ or the Holy Ghost because Christ taught that the Father would send another comforter, the Holy Ghost (John 14:16, 26). Christ was a comforter while with the Apostles. The Holy Ghost would be "another" comforter. And He would be sent by the Father - thus indicating that He is not the same as the Father.
We know that the Father is a different Being because His witness counts as the witness of another person, allowing the testimony of Christ and the Father to fulfill the Biblical requirement that testimony should be offered by two or more persons. Consider John 8:16-19:
16. And yet if I judge, my judgment is true: for I am not alone, but I and the Father that sent me.
17. It is also written in your law, that the testimony of two men is true.
18. I am one that bear witness of myself, and the Father that sent me beareth witness of me.
19. Then they said unto him, Where is thy Father? Jesus answered, Ye neither know me, nor my Father: if ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also.
(The latter verse means that to know Christ is to know the Father because they are one in purpose, manner, heart, and mind, but they are still two separate persons, allowing Christ to say that the witness of the two meets the requirements of the law of witnesses: at least two men must give the same testimony.)
We know that the Father is a different Being because Christ said "my Father is greater than I" in John 14:28. Christ is subordinate to the Father, for the Father commands, and Christ obeys (John 14:31; John 15:10). Further, it is the Father who gave Christ authority and the power of life (John 5:23). Note than John 14:28 directly contradicts the Athanasian Creed's statement regarding the Trinity: "And in this Trinity none is afore, nor after another; none is greater, or less than another."
Christ is not the same Being as the Father because Christ said He did not teach His own doctrines, but only those that He had heard or seen from the Father. Examples: John 7:16-18 (especially clear!); John 15:15; John 8:38; John 12:49,50; John 5:19.
Christ is not the same Being as the Father because Christ did not have authority to decide who will sit at His right and left, a right that is exclusively the Father's (Matthew 20:20-23).
We know that Christ and the Father are two separate Beings because Christ refers to the two in plural terms: their enemies have hated "both" Christ and His Father in John 15:24. The Holy Ghost is yet another entity who would be sent by the Father (John 15:26; John 16:7; John 14:26). Christ also said He was not alone because the Father was also with Him (John 8:16,29).
Christ uses the word "self" in many contexts to differentiate Him from the Father. For example, Christ does not honor Himself, but the Father does (John 8:54); Christ does nothing of Himself, but what the Father taught him (John 8:28)
Christ also uses the word "will" to differentiate Himself from the Father. In John 6:38 and John 5:30, we learn that Christ came not to do His own will, but the will of the Father.
We know Christ is different than the Father because the Father will not judge men, but Christ will (John 5:22).
In addition to the testimony of Christ Himself, other witnesses testified that God and Christ are separate beings. Stephen, as he was being stoned, looked toward heaven and saw the Father with Christ standing at His right (Acts 7:55,56). He saw two beings, two separate personages. The baptism of Christ also provides evidence that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost are separate, for they were in three separate places, as recorded in Matthew 3: 13-17. Christ was in the water, the Father spoke from heaven, and the Holy Ghost was descending in the form of a dove ("in a bodily shape like a dove" according to Luke 3:22). The Father from heaven said, "This is my beloved son."
The concept of the oneness of God, in terms of Biblical, early Christian and modern LDS understanding, is discussed in more detail on my LDSFAQ page, "The Oneness of God," where I also discuss the post-Biblical doctrine of the Trinity.
The relationship between the Father and the Son
What, then, is the relationship between the Father and the Son? Forgive me for stating something so obvious, but its import has been forgotten by many: one is the Father, and the other is His Son. They are related as a human child is related to his father. Christ identified Himself as the SON of God. Examples: John 10:35-36; John 11:27; John 6:35; John 6:69; John 5:18; and John 3:16,17. Interestingly, Christ is also called the Son of man (e.g., John 6:27).
Christ, though a Son, is one with the Father and has power and authority from the Father. he represents the Father and does only that which the Father would do, teaching only that which the Father would teach (John 5:19; John 7:16-18).
Though He shared divine glory with His Father before His birth, He came to earth as a man, inheriting mortality from His mother and godly power from His Father, that He might suffer and be able to die, yet also be able to take up His life again and bring to pass the Resurrection. Thus Christ, though God, became like mortal man, like we are, that we might be able to become more like Him through His atonement (suffering an infinite burden of pain to pay the full price of our sins, making forgiveness possible), the reconciliation of our sins, and also through the Resurrection, which will give us endless life. These concepts are taught plainly in the Book of Mormon (e.g., Alma 34; Alma 40-42; Mosiah 27; 2 Nephi 2 and 9; 3 Nephi 11, etc.) and also in the Bible, in passages such as Hebrews 2:7-18; Heb. 4:15-16; 1 Peter 1, etc. Through His Atonement and work on the earth, the Son was "made perfect, [and] became the author of salvation unto all them that obey him" (Heb. 5:8,9).
Do not forget this basic truth, taught so plainly in the Bible: Christ is the Son of God, and God is the Father. Among the many implications of this truth, we know that as a child looks like its father, so Christ looks like His Father in Heaven. More than just being in the image of God, as all of us are (Gen. 1:26,27; James 3:9; Gen. 5:1-3), Christ is "the express image of his person" (Heb. 1:3), meaning that His physical appearance (the only proper translation for the word "image") is expressly that of the Father's. It can't be said much more clearly than that. So exact is the physical resemblance that in John 14:9, Christ says to Peter that "he that hath seen me hath seen the Father." It is important to realize that Christ is in our image, that He looks like us and has a physical, tangible body, though it is now immortal and glorious. He showed His body after He was resurrected and had his disciples feel it to remove all doubt that He was alive, resurrected, and not just a spirit. This powerful point is made in Luke 24: 36-43. He even went so far as to eat and swallow food in front of His apostles to make sure they understood the nature of His glorious body after the Resurrection, the same kind of body that we should look forward to receiving (Philip. 3:21; 1 Cor. 15:39-43; John 5:28,29). Christ is in the image of God the Father, and we are created in their image.
Some Christians, having never been taught the plain meaning behind the phrase "in the image of God," and not having understood the physical reality of Christ's resurrection, are offended at the "new" LDS view of God. They have been taught that it is a departure from the Bible to believe that God looks like man or could even have a body (as the Resurrected Christ most obviously does). They are offended to think that God could be anthropomorphic. But it's not God that has been "created" to look like man, but man that has been created to look like our Father in Heaven. Rather than God being anthropomorphic, it is man that is "theomorphic." But is this doctrine something new to Christianity? Though we may point to Bible verses for support, did the original Christians believe such a thing? Yes! It was post-apostolic philosophers and intellectuals who introduced a new, manmade doctrine in denying that God has a body, parts, or passions, seemingly recreating God in their own intellectual image. Peterson and Ricks explain (pp. 74-75):
And, finally, does anthropomorphism really disqualify those who believe in it from being Christian? It would be odd if it did, for most Christians of the very earliest period were almost certainly anthropomorphists. As a recent article in the Harvard Theological Review contends, "ordinary Christians for at least the first three centuries of the current era commonly (and perhaps generally) believed God to be corporeal," or embodied. "The belief was abandoned (and then only gradually) as Neoplatonism became more and more entrenched as the dominant world view of Christian thinkers." [David L. Paulsen, "Early Christian Belief in a Corporeal Deity: Origen and Augustine as Reluctant Witnesses," Harvard theological Review 83 (1990): 105-16; quotation from p. 105.] And these early Christians had excellent biblical reasons for believing in a corporeal deity, as the contemporary fundamentalist preacher Jimmy Swaggart, an anthropomorphist himself, has noticed. [Swaggart, "What is Meant by the Trinity? And When We Get to Heaven Will We See Three Gods?", typed, undated paper.] But pursuing this argument would take us too far afield. Roland J. Teske has shown that the great Augustine turned to Manichaeism out of disgust at the anthropomorphism that characterized the Christianity in which he had been raised, and that he had thought was typical of Christianity as a whole. "Prior to Augustine (and, of course, the Neoplatonic group in Milan)," writes Teske, "the Western Church was simply without a concept of God as a spiritual substance." [R.J. Teske, "Divine Immutability in Saint Augustine, The Modern Schoolman 63 (May 1986): 233-49, especially 242 n. 25, 244 nn. 34 and 35.]
Having a body does not limit God. He created it and we can presume it is a powerful tool, just as our vastly inferior, mortal bodies are great blessings to us. He has a body, as does Christ. They are distinct beings, yet one, just as the followers of Christ should be one (John 17:20-23) - meaning one in heart, mind, intent, will, etc. - but not one substance.
While I feel that the LDS doctrine of the nature of God is purely Biblical, there is room for disagreement. But using that doctrinal disagreement to label someone as a non-Christian cult is grossly improper. It would certainly rule out many of the earliest Christians and, in my opinion, the writers of the Bible themselves. Call them cultists, too, if you will, but that's the kind of cult I want to support.
http://www.jefflindsay.com/LDSFAQ/FQ_cult.shtml#1