Gadfly did you say Repent?
Posted on 12/10/2003 4:42:29 PM PST by truthfinder9
New Film Reveals Evidence Against Mormons' Historical Account
By Jenni Parker and Chad Groening December 3, 2003
(AgapePress) - A Utah-based Christian ministry is trying to make the public aware of new DNA research that could spell disaster for the Mormon Church.
Since its founding in the 1820s by Joseph Smith, the Mormon Church, now known as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS), has claimed that its primary sacred text, the Book of Mormon, is a historical account of a group of Israelites who emigrated to the New World in about 600 B.C. The church claims that modern American Indians are descended from some of these ancient Israelite progenitors (Laman and Lemuel). LDS members claim that the prophet Mormon, who they believe originally compiled the history that became the Book of Mormon, also had Hebrew roots, supposedly being descended from an ancient Israelite named Nephi. According to LDS lore, Mormon's son Moroni hid metal plates engraved with his father's record of the "Nephites" and the "Lamanites" in the side of a hill, where Joseph Smith found them with the divine assistance of the angel Moroni and translated them into English.
But now, a new video has documented several DNA studies refuting the purported Hebrew origins of the early inhabitants of the American continent.
The video was produced by Living Hope Ministries http://www.livinghopeministries.info the media production arm of Living Hope Christian Fellowship, a small,evangelical non-denominational congregation located in Brigham City, a predominantly LDS community in northern Utah. Living Hope's pastor, Joel Kramer, produced the film titled DNA vs. the Book of Mormon >, which reveals among other evidence, the testimony of molecular anthropologists and other scientific experts asserting that DNA conclusively proves American Indians are not of Israelite ancestry.
would that make him "White Whine" ?
Your #30: Oh, by the way, what is FAIR? I saw WM on a Christian site somewhere...
Well, it isn't the "White Mountain" at christianforum.com (see post #34). Registered Nov 26 but hasn't yet posted anything.
View Profile: White MountainSo let me know where the "White Mountain" LDS-basher is bashing, other than fairboards.org, and I will go take a look.Last Activity: 26th November 2003 12:56 PM
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Who knows, maybe they are on to something! 8o)
Did my quotation imply that are some? Did it get into specific verses? Is this a matter of Biblical inerrancy in your mind? You have to have one of two things to prove that a translation is incorrect: 1) the originals must be extant, or 2a) Jesus must send true apostles and prophets with the same authority and inspiration the ancient ones had, and 2b) you need to accept them as such (or you cannot be benefited).
We do not have 1), not here in mortality. We have 2a). Do we have 2b)?
I can suggest some hypotheticals: How about translations that render the verses about casting out devils as though it was really instant successful psychoanalysis? How about the account where Jesus stilled the storm being translated as: He arose and observed that the storm just happened to go away right then. How about translating passages in a way that questions or denies the divinity of Jesus Christ?
Do you know of some translations like that? Wouldn't we all consider those incorrect translations?
I would....and the JW translation comes to mind - however for you to claim "as translated" indicates LDS as a whole had discovered inerrancies that were corrected by the BOM.
For the benefit of the lurking audience, can you indicate a few instances of where the original text was in error and what verse corrects it in the BOM?
Actually it is the LDS Scriptures (8th Article of Faith) that reads "as ... translated correctly".
>> indicates LDS as a whole had discovered inerrancies that were corrected by the BOM.
Perhaps you mean errors rather than "inerrancies". Don't know that it indicates that. Like I said in my #44, people with agendas can come up with some wild translations.
>> can you indicate a few instances of where the original text was in error and what verse corrects it in the BOM?
Now you are talking original text rather than translation. You want me to find ERRORS in the ORIGINAL TEXT! You want me to say there are errors in the Bible so you can be the Defender of Biblical Inerrancy! Well, guess what? I won't take the bait.
By the way, the original autographs are no longer extant. Makes it tough to prove errors or inerrancy, either one. But all the variations in the manuscripts we have today do at least show that the copying over the centuries was not perfect.
LDS 8th Article of Faith
8 We believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly; we also believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God.
James 3: 13
13 Who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among you? let him shew out of a good conversation his works with meekness of wisdom.
1 Pet. 1: 15
15 But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation;
1 Peter 3:1
1 ... if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives;
2 Peter 3:11
11 ... what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness,
D&C 121:41-42
41 No power or influence can or ought to be maintained by virtue of the priesthood [or sisterhood], only by persuasion, by long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned;
42 By kindness, and pure knowledge, which shall greatly enlarge the soul without hypocrisy, and without guile—
Come unto Christ, learn of Him, and be born again!
Yes, I do because youve told me those errors were rectified in the text known as the BOM - it should be easy to point out dont you think ?
By the way, the original autographs are no longer extant. Makes it tough to prove errors or inerrancy, either one. But all the variations in the manuscripts we have today do at least show that the copying over the centuries was not perfect.
you are correct - but again - you have the restored text in the BOM - should be easy to indicate to a slacker like me where particular verses have been changed in the "bastardized" KJV
Im intrigued though, You claim the Biblical texts have changed over the years - but say nothing how the Mormon texts have done the same over just a couple hundred years
1 Nephi 13:28-40 in the Book of Mormon tells us that many plain and precious things were taken away from the Bible before it came down to us, and that latter-day revelation makes those plain and precious things known.
Now to transmorgrify that into "errors in the original text of the Bible", is your spin. You guys keep trying to do that. One day you will figure this out.
>> where particular verses have been changed
That should be "taken away", rather than "changed". See above.
>> You claim the Biblical texts have changed over the years
I said:
My #47: But all the variations in the manuscripts we have today do at least show that the copying over the centuries was not perfect.
So are today's extant Bible manuscripts the same, word for word and letter for letter, or are there variations from manuscript to manuscript?
(I'll give you a hint. The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible documents many variations between Qumran manuscripts, the Septuagint, the Masoretic text, and others. For example, Goliath's height in 1 Samuel 17:4 varies from four cubits and a span (about six feet) in a Qumran manuscript to six cubits and a span (about nine feet) in the Masoretic text 1000 years later. The story grew in the retelling!)
It happens again and again. The saints post, and they of natural-man behavior come out of the woodwork with their false accusations.
Jesus warned that wolves in sheep's clothing would show up. He said, "by their fruits ye shall know them".
The next passage [1 Samuel 17:3-6] illustrates how ancient narratives sometimes grew at the hand of narrators or scribes. 4QSam(a) gives the height of Goliath as "four cubits" (equaling about six feet), and this is what the original Septuagint, followed by the historian Josephus, also records. Later Septuagint manuscripts read "five cubits", and the Masoretic Text, followed by yet later Septuagint manuscripts, reads "six cubits" (equaling about nine feet).On another forum I asked Woody and another poster to link to a web page giving a concise statement defining Biblical inerrancy that they were prepared to defend. I invite you to do so as well. It would be one thing to say that the originals are inerrant and leave it at that (because we no longer have the originals), but people such as yourself make vague claims of inerrancy regarding the Bible we have today, and that is where I point out that the originals must be extant and all copies of them identical, word for word and letter for letter, in order to validate any claim of inerrancy, or else "the Bible we have today" cannot be proved inerrant.
Abegg, Flint, and Ulrich, The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible: The Oldest Known Bible Translated for the First Time into English. HarperCollins, 1999, p. 228
Given the state of the Biblical manuscripts we have today, it would be better just to drop all the vague talk of inerrancy, stick with wording like the 8th Article of Faith: "We believe the Bible to be the Word of God as far as it is translated correctly ...", and look to the true and living apostles and prophets Jesus has sent in our day for guidance and direction concerning this and all other religious matters.
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