“Despite being born nearly 100 years before the restoration of the gospel...”
that's about as far as I got. Are the BYUers that behind the times? Haven't they heard of David Barton's research on George Washington?
As to “restoring” anything to the “foundation that is already laid” or “adding” anything from any so called “Angel” to the sealed Scriptures is forbidden by the Bible... in fact, it commands a curse. There is a very good reason Jesus warns us against “false prophets” adding anything to the living Gospel as the Book of Mormon does.
The New Covenant is a contract between God and His people. You cannot add anything to this contract without changing it. This is why it is an accursed thing to try to do.
Just what exactly was it about the Bible that was so “bad” that it needed to be “restored” with “new revelation” from Mormons operating under the Old testament “Office of the Prophet”? An office that died at Pentecost?
And while we are at it, how come the Book of Mormon doesn't have any demarcation or distinction between the Old and New Covenants?
There is a reason that the the Temple Curtain was rent when Jesus died on the Cross.
These Mormons... always thinking they are “Christians”.
Just what exactly was it about the Bible that was so “bad” that it needed to be “restored” with “new revelation” from Mormons operating under the Old testament “Office of the Prophet”? An office that died at Pentecost? Here is some thinking on that subject by leaders of the mormon church:
"Apostle George Q. Cannon (1827 - 1901):
"After the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was organized, there were only two churches upon the earth. They were known respectively as the Church of the Lamb of God and Babylon. The various organizations which are called churches throughout Christendom, though differing in their creeds and organizations, have one common origin. They all belong to Babylon."
- Apostle George Q. Cannon, Gospel Truth, p. 324
Prophet Joseph Fielding Smith (1876 - 1972):
"Doctrines were corrupted, authority lost, and Prophet Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, v. 3, p. 266
"For hundreds of years the world was wrapped in a veil of spiritual darkness, until there was not one fundamental truth belonging to the place of salvation ...Joseph Smith declared that in the year 1820 the Lord revealed to him that all the ‘Christian' churches were in error, teaching for commandments the doctrines of men."
- Prophet Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, v. 3, p. 282
Apostle Bruce R. McConkie (1915 - 1985):
".the Book of Mormon remains secure, unchanged and unchangeable, ...But with the Bible it was not and is not so....it was once in the sole and exclusive care and custody of an abominable organization [Christianity], founded by the devil himself, likened prophetically unto a great whore, whose great aim and purpose was to destroy the souls of men in the name of religion. In these hands it ceased to be the book it once was."
- Apostle Bruce R. McConkie, The Joseph Smith Translation, pp. 12, 13
“Believers in the doctrines of modern Christendom will reap damnation to their souls.”
- Apostle Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, see pp. 45-46
“... all the millions of apostate Christendom have abased themselves before the mythical throne of a mythical Christ.... in large part the worship of apostate Christendom is performed in ignorance, as much so as was the worship of the Athenians who bowed the Unknown Gods.”
- Apostle Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, pp. 269, 374-375
Prophet Ezra Taft Benson (1899 - 1994):
"This is not just another Church. This is not just one of a family of Christian churches. This is the Church and kingdom of God, the only true Church upon the face of the earth..."
- Prophet Ezra Taft Benson, Teachings of Ezra Taft Benson, p. 164-165
Prophet Gordon B. Hinckley (1910 - ):
“We accept that as a statement which came to him [Joseph Smith's vision in which he was told all other religions were "abominations"], which is printed, of course, and published in his history as a statement. But we go forward with a friendly relationship, with a respect for people everywhere and with an effort to accept them as we meet them and, where opportunity exists, to talk with them and explain to them what we believe.... We don’t criticize them for what they believe. We accept the good that comes of that understanding which they have, but we feel we having something to offer beyond what they have.”
- Prophet Gordon B. Hinckley, interview with Richard Ostling, as quoted in Mormon America, by Richard and Joan Ostling, p. 323
“God is not at its head, making that church [i.e., Christianity] – following the appearance in it of Satan – no longer the church of God. To say that Satan sits in the place of God in Christianity after the time of the apostles is not to say that all that is in it is Satanic.”
- Kent P. Jackson, “Early Signs of Apostasy,” Ensign, December 1984, p. 9