LINKS:
http://mormonscripturestudies.com/
http://www.realmormonhistory.com/
INDEX – CLICK TO NAVIGATE
IS
THE BOOK OF MORMON THE WORD OF GOD?
PHILOSOPHICAL
ERRORS IN THE BOM
The Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the fastest growing Church in the
world. It traces its origins back to
1830 when a young man called Joseph Smith of
The Book of Mormon
is a scripture that was supposedly miraculously revealed to a man called Joseph
Smith in the 19th Century in
The Book of Mormon
does not claim to be another Bible. It
claims to be a missing part of our Bible.
It is a companion then to the Bible.
Members of the Mormon faith say that the Book of Mormon is therefore the
word of God.
The Bible is false
and not divinely inspired so it is impossible then to see how the Book of
Mormon could be anything other than a hoax.
Also there is solid evidence that Jesus who the Book of Mormon says was
a real person who appeared in
Joseph Smith
taught that God translated the book through him by means of magic spectacles
which was why he said it was the most correct book on earth (History of the
Church, 4:461). The articles of
faith of the Mormon Church say that the book is the word of God. The book means the whole book. The whole thing is allegedly of divine
authorship and God is even claimed to have done the translating.
The book does not
claim to be fully inspired which is the main reason why it is best
ignored. Nevertheless, it contains
prophecies and revelations which it does say are inspired. But the book is certainly a forgery and not
from God. First Nephi 19:6 says that
mistakes could have been made in the book.
Nephi says that he only writes things down if he thinks they are sacred
and that if he makes mistakes it is only natural for he is a man. So Nephi is not sure if he is right or
not. Mormon chapter 8 says that Mormon’s
work contains imperfections though he knows of no fault and that whoever
condemns the book will be eternally damned.
Mormon
When the Book of
Mormon is not infallible how could Smith be?
Mormon
The Mormons might
respond that these imperfections are just bad writing style and awkward
descriptions and banal language on the basis of Ether 12:23. But Ether was not the author of the Book of
Mormon and wrote on different plates.
Anyway God would improve the style and so on in the translation.
When the book
might be fallible in matters of history and science the way is opened for the
Mormons to advance a liberal understanding that the book gives the word of God
but is not always factually correct.
This helps the Church not to look stupid when the fact that there is no
evidence that anything the book says is true becomes too much to bear. It would be a tragedy if the Church began to
admit human error in the Book of Mormon for it would do away with many of the
evidences against the Mormon Church at a stroke and make it stronger.
But when God
planned to do a translation through Joseph Smith why could God not get the
prophets to write without making mistakes?
Jesus appeared among the Nephites and to
Mormon and Jesus commanded that some prophecies and things be written down so
why didn’t he make sure the scriptures were right? If the Book of Mormon is to have the right to
be added to the Bible then it has to be perfect for the Bible says true
scripture is always factually correct down to the crossed ts
when it predicts the future meaning that it is reasonable to expect total
perfection. These questions are
unanswerable.
2 Nephi
No Book of Mormon
coins have ever been found. The Mormons
say they used no coins but they would have had for they came from a culture
that used them. Mormons respond the Nephites did not use coins.
They gave precious metals in exchange for other goods depending on the
weight. But this is no help to the
Mormons.
No Book of Mormon cities
have ever been found. Smith believed
that the science of his day could prove the book when he wrote these daring
things but made the book say it was imperfect just in case.
Mormon 7:9 says
that anybody who believes the Bible will believe in the Book of Mormon too
which is dishonest when the book never claims to be the word of God and claims that
the Bible is unreliable. If I should
believe in the Book of Mormon because of the Bible then it follows that both
are equally full of error. Why? For if the Book of Mormon were infallible and
not corrupted like the Bible, then it would be superior to the Bible and we
should believe in the Bible where it says the Bible is right. We should make the Book of Mormon the supreme
authority. The verse says that if you
believe either one you have to believe in the other. The Bible is more believable than the Book of
Mormon. We know that some of the places
and people in the Bible existed and we do not have this assurance with the Book
of Mormon.
1 Nephi
Mormons say that
the Book of Mormon in 2 Nephi 29 has God saying that those who say they have a
Bible and need no more Bible when they hear of the Book of Mormon are wrong for
if he speaks his words once he can speak them again. Then God says that it is silly to suppose that
God would speak to one nation and not another.
This argument fails because God can speak again but may have chosen not
to. This argument is trying to say that
God cannot do that and must always speak!
The Book of Mormon
then rejects the idea that the Bible is closed and the Book of Mormon claims to
be another part of the Bible.
This is about what
people say. It makes no comment on
whether the Bible is accurate or not.
The fact that the
Book of Mormon does not pretend to full inspiration proves that any blunders in
it could be put down to the lack of divine protection so that the Book can
still be believed no matter how many blunders it makes. This is an untenable approach. A book with no or fewer errors would have
more authority.
The chapter speaks
of the Bible. But the Bible was not
called the Bible until well into the first millennium of the Church and this
was supposedly written between 559 and 545 BC.
Mormons say that God translated the word used by the Nephites
as Bible so they didn’t know the word Bible.
Verse 10 claims
that it is mad to suppose that if there is a Bible that it contains all the
word of God for there would have to be some word of God that was not in
it. True but that does not prove that
there would have to be new scripture or that the missing word would be
preserved. The logic God uses here is
fallacious. Also the Book of Mormon says
there can only be one true
The Book of Mormon
accepts the gospel account of Christ and the Sermon at the
So if the Sermon
at the Temple were very different from both Matthew and Luke it would have a
better claim to authenticity going by biblical standards.
We know too that
the portrait of Jesus in the Book of Mormon is a product of the nineteenth
century because it can be proved that the gospel Jesus was not known in the
days of Paul and the activities of Jesus in the New World supposedly precede
Paul for Jesus was in America in 34 AD according to the Book of Mormon.
The Book of Mormon says that the Bible has been altered. This means the Book of Mormon alone can be considered to be proper evidence for the resurrection of Jesus. The three witnesses should have seen the risen Jesus instead of the angel when they had their vision of the angels showing them the plates. Without seeing Jesus their testimony is no use because it means we have to believe that Jesus rose because they saw a book that said so. But the resurrection is Jesus’ great proof that he was the Son of God and the saviour of the world. It is not much of a proof but a failure then in that case.
The Book of Mormon gives no provable prophecies or predictions of the future to show that a God who knew the future wrote it. The prophecies in it were largely written after the event. The book predicts that the Jews will return to their land when they believe in Christ. They are back in their land today and they don't!
There are many
religions and cults in the world that vie for your allegiance. In the end the choice of which one you will
join has to be decided on the basis of reason and the best evidence alone. It will be the most believable creed that has
no philosophical absurdities in it. A
teaching is either reasonable or it is not.
The Book of Mormon has to be discarded it makes errors in
reasoning.
The Book of Mormon
states that when God does not do miracles such as apparitions of angels it is
because there is no faith and miracles are worked by the power of faith (
2 Nephi 2:23
states that if Adam and Eve had not sinned they would have had no children and
would not have known any joy for they knew no misery and being unable to do
good for they did not know what sin was.
This is utter rubbish. Sinlessness was no bar to making babies. And you can have joy when you forget about
misery and do good when you forget about sin so you can have joy without
knowing what sin is.
2 Nephi 2:13
argues that if there is no law there is no sin and if there is no sin there is
no righteousness and if there is no righteousness there is no happiness and if
there is no happiness there is no unhappiness and if there is no happiness or
righteousness there is no punishment or sadness and if they do not exist there
is no God and if there is no God there is no earth or creation.
These arguments
are outrageously silly. Happiness can
exist without us freely doing what is right.
Rewards and punishment do not infer that God exists. And the teaching that heaven and earth must
have been made by God is childish for who made God? If they had to have been made then what about
God? The Mormon God is a material being
and is not a being that has a chance of having to exist like 2+2=4 like the
Christian one. Heaven and earth could
have been made by an impersonal spiritual intelligence that is not a person and
is not entitled to be believed to be God or worshipped.
The Mormon Church cannot say that these arguments are just part of what
the speaker in the Book was saying and not necessarily endorsed by God or the
inspired author of the Book. The Book of
Mormon makes it clear that it is an abridgment of the Nephite
scriptures meaning that Mormon the abridger was going to use only material that
was doctrinally correct for it would be madness to put stuff like that in when
the space could be used for divinely approved teaching. Moreover, once you start using that excuse
that the text might be inspired but what it says might not be endorsed by God,
you could come to the epistles of Paul in the New Testament with the same
approach. Scripture is no good to you if
you accept the excuse. You could say
that God inspired the four gospels and that he does not approve of everything
in them. So unless a teaching in a
scripture is specifically stated to be just the opinion of the speaker it has
to be taken to be the word of God and the teaching of God. You could say that when the Old Testament
reports God as having commanded something that you don’t like you could say the
author was only on about what he thought God was saying and was not claiming to
be always right.
In 2 Nephi 11:7 we
read that if there is no Christ there is no God. This seems to mean that if there is no Christ
to die to satisfy the justice of God and atone for sins there can be no God for
God does not care about us to save us (see 2 Nephi 9:26). But one person cannot atone for another. Our good works should be infinitely pleasing
to God for God likes them infinitely and should be able to atone. Jesus could not atone if we are already
atoned. The Christian gospel says that
we do not deserve to be saved so God would be perfect right and just not to
bother saving anybody if he didn’t want to.
The recording of
miracles in the Book of Mormon prove that it is inauthentic. This was a book that was allegedly revised
and abridged and edited by Mormon and then by his son
The Book of Mormon
says that Satan appears like a good angel (Mosiah
30:53) and miraculously appeared and spoke to Eve from a serpent (2 Nephi 2:17,
18) and supernaturally supervised the people who set up the abominable Church
(1 Nephi 13). When Satan has such powers
that millions think are good miracles from God and which are clever deceptions
in ways we cannot see it follows that the only thing that gives us the right to
believe that the Book of Mormon is the word of God is its ability to foretell
the future. But there is no evidence for
that. Any prophecy that was fulfilled
could have been written after the event or was going to happen anyway by human
deliberation. Though the Devil can make
a prophecy and then force secretly possessed people to fulfil the prophecy
meaning that even fulfilled prophecy does not prove that anybody or God can see
the future we know that no believer can accept this and will have to put down
prophecy as evidence. Anybody can write
a pack of religious lies and say it is the word of God so God has to put some
mark of authenticity on his real book.
Had the Book of Mormon not attributed supernatural powers to Satan there
might have been some hope for it. Smith
then made the mistake of thinking that visions of angels and golden plates and
feeling that the Book of Mormon was true would be enough which contradicts his
book and makes it contradict itself for it promises these things.
The real test of a
true prophet according to Deuteronomy 18 is that the prophet must not be
sinless but that he must be extremely honest and truthful for God wouldn’t
speak through anybody that would tell or tells something even only the once
that is supposed to be from God and which is not from God at all. This implies that we will be able to know if
the prophet was this kind of man. But we
do not know this of Moses or Joseph Smith or even Jesus for we are missing the
favourable first-hand witness of those who knew them best and intimately and
the testimony from Smith’s neighbours and friends was that Smith was born
liar. Deuteronomy 18 also implies that a
false prophet can make loads of predictions that come true but error shows that
he is not speaking for God at all so miracles prove nothing according to this chapter. But at the same time, it is better to do
miracles for it shows you should get attention but not necessarily faith. A real prophet will always do miracles. Smith did none. He made no predictions of the future that are
convincing evidence that he was able to see the future by the power of
God. When a prophet has to be accurate
in everything he says that is supposed to be inspired by God it follows that it
is only right that the prophet make predictions and not be accepted until the
prophecies have all come true (this automatically excludes Isaiah and Ezekiel
who made prophecies that have not been all fulfilled yet from the Bible
canon). For if a man making one false
prophecy in the name of God is enough to take away any right to authority from
him then a man who makes none and claims to be God’s mouthpiece is worse. The Jews and Christians did not insert
Deuteronomy 18 for it makes good sense and would only have made it harder for
their false prophets who allegedly rewrote the Bible to succeed.
The Book of Mormon
claims that there can be no law where there is no punishment for breaking the
law (Alma 42:19) and uses this as the rationale behind the doctrine that Jesus
died to pay for sins other people committed so that God would forgive. That is not true. Punishment is based on the idea of free will
and merit – you deserve suffering for inflicting suffering in so far as you did
it of your own free will. But many
Atheists believe that the law can be safeguarded without belief in free will. Undoubtedly it can.
The Book of Mormon
says that three witnesses are needed before any charge against an elder can be
listened to (
It is a sin to
give beggars nothing and it will put you in Hell forever (Mosiah
In 1 Nephi 4 the
Holy Spirit tells Nephi to kill Laban in
1 Nephi 10:4 says
that God will raise up a messiah which in other words means saviour of the
world. The word messiah does not mean
saviour of the world at all but anointed one or king. The Mormon Church says that since the Messiah
would have to be the saviour the difficulty vanishes. But when the verse could mean that Messiah is
the same word as saviour that is how we must take it for the Mormons are
assuming the Book does not contradict itself which is an unscientific approach.
Although the Book
of Mormon denies that babies are sinners and need baptism it does teach that
all mankind is lost because of the sin of Adam and Eve (2 Nephi
The Book of Mormon
cannot be taken seriously as the word of God.
This is what the facts state.
Prophets and Churches come and go but the facts endure forever.
A GATHERING OF
SAINTS, Robert Lindsay, Corgi,
A MARVELLOUS WORK
AND A WONDER, LeGrand Richards,
AN ADDRESS TO ALL
BELIEVERS IN CHRIST, David Whitmer, Board of
Publications of The Church of Christ with the Elijah Message, Lacy Road,
Independence, Missouri
ARE THE MORMON
SCRIPTURES RELIABLE? Harry L Ropp, IVP,
ASK YOUR BISHOP,
Ira T Ransom, 317 W 7th South,
CHANGES IN JOSEPH
SMITH’S HISTORY, Jerald and Sandra Tanner, Utah Lighthouse Ministry, 1965
CHANGING OF THE
REVELATIONS, Apostle Daniel McGregor,
GOD’S WORD FINAL
INFALLIBLE AND FOREVER, Floyd C McElveen, Gospel
Truth Ministries, Grand Rapids, 1985
CONCISE GUIDE TO
TODAY’S RELIGIONS, Josh McDowell and Don Stewart, Scripture Press, Bucks,
1983
HOW TO ANSWER A
MORMON, Robert A Morey, Bethany House Publishers,
JOSEPH SMITH AND
MONEY DIGGING, Jerald and Sandra Tanner, Utah Lighthouse Ministry, 1970
JOSEPH SMITH’S
BAINBRIDGE NY COURT TRIALS, Wesley P Walters, Utah Lighthouse Ministry,
LARSON’S BOOK OF
CULTS, Bob Larson, Tyndale,
LEAVING THE SAINTS, Martha Beck, Portrait, London, 2005
MORMONISM SHADOW
OR REALITY? Jerald and Sandra Tanner,
Utah Lighthouse Ministry, 1972
MORMONISM, AA Hoekema, Paternoster Press,
MORMONISM, MAGIC
AND MASONRY, Jerald and Sandra Tanner, Utah Lighthouse Ministry, 1988
MORMONISM, MAMA
AND ME, Thelma Geer,
MORMONISM, THE
PROPHET, THE BOOK AND THE CULT, Peter Bartley, Veritas,
NEW LIGHT ON
MORMON ORIGINS, Rev Wesley P Walters,
NO MAN KNOWS MY HISTORY, Fawn M Brodie, Vintage, New York, 1995
SOME MODERN
FAITHS, Maurice C Burrell and J
THE BIBLE
UNEARTHED,
THE BOOK OF
COMMANDMENTS,
THE BOOK OF
MORMON, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Deseret
Enterprises Ltd, Manchester, UK, 1972
THE CASE AGAINST
MORMONISM, VOL 2, Jerald and Sandra Tanner, Utah Lighthouse Ministry, 1968
THE FACTS OF
MORMONISM ARE STRANGER THAN FICTION, Charles Crane and J Edward Decker,
Christian Information Outreach,
THE HUMAN ORIGIN
OF THE BOOK OF MORMON, Wesley P Walters, Ex-Mormons for
WHY THE
THE WEB
THE BOOK OF MORMON
WITNESSES
Excellent
refutation of the claims of the witnesses of the Book of Mormon
Barry R Bickmore
www.geocities.com/Athens/parthenon/2671/EC.html
MORMON
SCHOLARSHIP, APOLOGETICS AND EVANGELICAL NEGLECT, Carl Mosser
and Paul Owen,
www.gospelcom.net/apologeticsindex/cpoint10-2.html#mosserowen
BOOK OF MORMON
QUESTIONS
www.lds-mormon.com/bookofmormonquestions.shtml
MORMONISM
UNVAILED: MORE EVIDENCE THAT IT IS TRUE.
Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry
www.carm.org/lds/unveiled_defended.htm
THE ABRIDGEMENT OF
D&C 137
www.saintsalive./com/mormonism/falseprophetjs/htm
THE BOOK OF
MORMON: ONE TOO MANY M’S Stephen Van Eck
www.infidels.org/library/modern/stephen_eck/toomany.html
EGYPTIAN
CHARACTERS
www.mormonstudies.com/seer2.htm
This shows that
when Smith translated the book of Abraham he invented hieroglyphics where there
was a piece missing from the papyri. The
characters Smith added make no sense to translators. Yet he translated these imaginary
hieroglyphics! His mother and close
associate David Whitmer spoke of Joseph copying
characters of the gold plates of the Book of Mormon before he translated and
that like the Book of Abraham Smith often produced two lines in the manuscript
with the translation of a single character which shows that the whole Book of
Mormon thing was a hoax.
MORMON FARMS
www.xmission.com~country/reason/farms_1.htm
by Jerald and
Sandra Tanner. Gathers evidence that
indicates that it was possible that Smith was insane and had manic
depression.
DR CHARLES ANTHON
RE AUTHENTICITY OF WRITING SAMPLES ALLEGEDLY COPIED FROM THE GOLDEN PLATES
www.mormonism-web.com/anthon.htm
INTERVIEW OF
MARTIN HARRIS
www.xmission.com/~research/about/docum4.htm
COMMENTS ON THE
BOOK OF MORMON WITNESSES: A RESPONSE TO JERALD AND SANDRA TANNER
www.mormons.org/response/bom/witnesses_Roper.htm
A ridiculous
rebuttal that has been taken into account for this book and refuted.
FACTS ON THE BOOK
OF MORMON WITNESSES, PART 1
Excellent
refutation of the reliability of the witnesses to the Book of Mormon
THE STOLEN MANUSCRIPT
www.utlm.org/onlineresources/bom_early_problems/goldenbible_stolenmanuscript.htm
Sunday, 17 February 2008