The Book of Mormon - Page 7

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The Mormon Church—A Restoration of All Things?
THE Mormon Temple in Salt Lake City, Utah, is, for the LDS (Latter-day Saints), a proud symbol of their faith. Diligence, family values, and financial self-sufficiency are Mormon watchwords. Mormon missionaries, with their lapel name badges, are a familiar sight around the world. But some inner affairs sacred to the Mormons are hidden from outsiders. So the church remains a target of sensational rumors. A fair evaluation, however, should be based, not on scurrilous tales, but on facts. What can we learn about this much-maligned faith?

Joseph Smith’s Church Today

The Mormons believe that their religion is the restoration of the true church with its priesthood and ordinances. Hence, its official name, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In the Mormon Church, no division exists between clergy and laity. Rather, beginning at the age of 12, every worthy male member may become involved with various duties of the church, achieving priesthood by the age of 16.

The majority of church positions are unsalaried, and LDS families join in the many programs sponsored by their local congregation, or ward. On a congregational level, elders, bishops, and stake (district) presidents oversee the well-organized affairs of the church. A council of 12 apostles in Salt Lake City has worldwide jurisdiction. Ultimately, the president of the church—revered as prophet, seer, and revelator—and two counselors form the church’s presiding authority, called the Quorum of the Presidency, or the First Presidency.

Several ordinances affect the lives of devout Mormons. Baptism, signifying repentance and obedience, may take place upon reaching eight years of age. Washing and anointing purify and consecrate the believer. 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. Also, a Mormon couple may seal their marriage in a temple “for time and eternity” so that their family can remain intact in heaven, where the couple may continue to bear children.

The Mormon Church has won acclaim for its welfare program, established so that “the curse of idleness would be done away with.” It is financed by local members who give up two meals a month and donate the value of them to the church. In addition, strict tithing of their income is required. Family and friends supply the funds to support Mormon missionaries. These are generally young men and women, who spend about two years in the service.

Self-sacrifice, close families, and civic responsibility are features of Mormon life. But what of Mormon beliefs?

The Mormons and the Bible

“We believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly,” states the eighth article of the Mormon Articles of Faith. But it adds: “We also believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God.” Many wonder, though, why the need for other scriptures?

Elder Bruce R. McConkie asserted: “There are no people on earth who hold the Bible in such high esteem as [Mormons] do. . . . But we do not believe . . . the Bible contains all things necessary for salvation.” President Gordon B. Hinckley wrote in the pamphlet What of the Mormons? that the numerous different sects and churches “bear witness to the inadequacy of the Bible.”

LDS writers express profound misgivings about the Bible’s reliability because of alleged deletions and translation errors. Mormon apostle James E. Talmage, in his book A Study of the Articles of Faith, urges: “Let the Bible then be read reverently and with prayerful care, the reader ever seeking the light of the Spirit that he may discern between truth and the errors of men.” Orson Pratt, an early Mormon apostle, went further: “Who knows that even one verse of the whole Bible has escaped pollution?”

On this issue, though, the Mormons do not appear to be aware of all the facts. True, the Bible text has been copied and translated repeatedly over the years. Yet, the evidence of its essential purity is overwhelming. Thousands of early Hebrew and Greek manuscripts have been scrutinized alongside more recent copies of the Bible. For example, the Dead Sea Scroll of Isaiah, dated from the second century B.C.E., was compared with a manuscript dated over a thousand years later. Had serious corruptions crept in? On the contrary, one scholar’s analysis stated that the few discrepancies found “consisted chiefly of obvious slips of the pen and variations in spelling.”

After a lifetime of intense study, former British Museum director Sir Frederic Kenyon testified: “The Christian can take the whole Bible in his hand and say without fear or hesitation that he holds in it the true Word of God, handed down without essential loss from generation to generation throughout the centuries.” Thus, the psalmist’s words are still true today: “The words of the Lord are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times.” (Psalm 12:6, King James Version) Do we really need more?

“Thou fool,” reproaches The Book of Mormon at 2 Nephi 29:6, “that shall say: A Bible, we have got a Bible, and we need no more Bible.” Many Mormons, however, have pondered the apostle Paul’s stern words in the Bible at Galatians 1:8 (KJ): “Though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.”

LDS scholars explain that the new scripture is not beyond what is declared in the Bible but is only a clarification and complement thereof. “There is no tension between the two,” writes Rex E. Lee, president of Brigham Young University. “Both the Bible and the Book of Mormon teach the same plan of salvation.” Is there agreement between these books? Consider the Mormon plan of salvation.

“As God Now Is, Man May Become”

“Though we do not remember it,” explains Lee, “we existed as spirits before this life.” According to this LDS belief of eternal progression, by strict obedience a man may become a god—a creator like God. “God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted Man, and sits enthroned in yonder heavens,” stated Joseph Smith. “You have got to learn how to be Gods yourselves, . . . the same as all Gods have done before you.” Mormon prophet Lorenzo Snow said: “As man now is, God once was; as God now is, man may become.”

Is such a future presented in the pages of the Bible? The only offer of godhood ever recorded there was the empty promise by Satan the Devil in the garden of Eden. (Genesis 3:5) The Bible shows that God created Adam and Eve to live on earth and instructed them to produce a perfect human family that would live here in happiness eternally. (Genesis 1:28; 3:22; Psalm 37:29; Isaiah 65:21-25) Adam’s willful disobedience brought sin and death into the world.—Romans 5:12.

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. “Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy.” (2 Nephi 2:22, 23, 25) Spirits in heaven are thus said to await a chance to live on a sinful earth—a necessary step toward perfection and godhood. Says the LDS magazine Ensign: “We look upon what Adam and Eve did with great appreciation rather than with disdain.”

“This doctrine [that man existed in the spirit creation],” says Joseph Fielding Smith, great-nephew of Joseph Smith, “in the Bible is only discerned through a mist or fog . . . because many plain and precious things have been taken out of the Bible.” Further he states: “This belief is based upon a revelation given to the Church, May 6, 1833.” Therefore, while accepting the Bible’s authority, in case of disagreement LDS doctrine necessarily assigns greater weight to the words of their prophets.

The Book of Mormon—Keystone of the Faith

Joseph Smith lauded The Book of Mormon as “the most correct of any book on earth, and the keystone of our religion.” One set of golden plates was said to have been the source for his writings. Eleven Mormons testified that they saw the plates. Upon completion of the document, though, Smith said the plates were taken to heaven. Thus, they are not available for textual analysis.

The Pearl of Great Price (see box, page 20) tells of a Professor Charles Anthon who was shown a copy of some of the inscriptions and declared them to be authentic and the translation accurate. But upon being told of the plates’ origin, the account says he retracted his verdict. This story appears to be inconsistent, however, with Smith’s claim that he alone had the gift to translate the language of the plates, “the knowledge of which was lost to the world.” Could Professor Anthon verify as correct a text he could not read and therefore could not translate?

The Book of Mormon quotes extensively from the King James Version of the Bible, with its Shakespearean English, which was already considered archaic in Joseph Smith’s day. 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.—See box, page 20.

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. For instance, there is apparent confusion over the identity of “the Eternal Father.” According to the first edition at 1 Nephi 13:40, “the Lamb of God is the Eternal Father.” But later editions say that “the Lamb of God is the Son of the Eternal Father.” (Italics ours.) The two original 1830 manuscripts of The Book of Mormon still exist. One of the two originals, held by the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, has the words “the Son” added between the lines.

As for the Mormon scripture Doctrine and Covenants, the book The Revelations of the Prophet Joseph Smith, by LDS scholar Lyndon W. Cook, explains in the preface: “Inasmuch as some revelations have been revised by those committees appointed to arrange them for publication, significant textual additions and deletions have been noted.” One such alteration is found at Book of Commandments 4:2, which said of Smith: “He has a gift to translate the book . . . I will grant him no other gift.” But when the revelation was reprinted in 1835 in Doctrine and Covenants, it read: “For I will grant unto you no other gift until it is finished.”—5:4.

Historical Enigmas

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) Within 19 years of their arrival, this small band supposedly built a temple “after the manner of the temple of Solomon . . . , and the workmanship thereof was exceedingly fine”—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.

Careful readers of the Book of Mormon have puzzled over certain events that seem out of proper chronological sequence. For example, 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.

The Book of Mormon presents itself more as a historical narrative than as a doctrinal treatise. The phrase “and it came to pass” occurs about 1,200 times in the current edition—about 2,000 times in the 1830 edition. 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.

The Mormon story tells of vast settlements across the North American continent. Helaman 3:8 reads: “And it came to pass that they did multiply and spread . . . to cover the face of the whole earth.” According to Mormon 1:7, the land “had become covered with buildings.” Many people wonder where the remains of these sprawling civilizations are. Where are the Nephite artifacts, such as gold coins, swords, shields, or breastplates?—Alma 11:4; 43:18-20.

Considering such questions, members of the Mormon faith do well to reflect seriously on the words of Mormon Rex E. Lee: “The authenticity of Mormonism stands or falls with the book from which the Church derives its nickname.” A faith based upon solid Scriptural knowledge, rather than just on an emotional prayer experience, presents a challenge to sincere Mormons—as well as to all claiming to be Christians.

The Basis for Restoration

It was the spiritual chaos around him that caused Joseph Smith to spurn the warring sects of his day. Other reverent men before, during, and since his time have sought to return to the true faith.

What is the pattern for true Christianity? Is it not Christ who set “an example, that ye should follow his steps”? (1 Peter 2:21, KJ) 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. He was persecuted because he was “not of the world.” (John 17:16, KJ) The foremost aim of Christ’s ministry was to glorify his Father, Jehovah, and to sanctify His name. The same is true of Jesus’ true disciples. They view their own salvation as of secondary importance.

Jesus taught the Word of God, freely quoted from it, and lived it. Brigham Young said of the Bible: “We take this book for our guide, for our rule of action; we take it as the foundation of our faith. It points the way to salvation.” (Journal of Discourses, Volume XIII, page 236) So he urged: “Take up the Bible, compare the religion of the Latter-day Saints with it, and see if it will stand the test.” (Discourses of Brigham Young) Not only the Mormon faith but all religions claiming to be Christian must submit to this test, for Jesus said: “The true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth.”—John 4:23, KJ.