LDS defend the faith as Christian

The Salt Lake Tribune ^ | 10/07/07 | By Peggy Fletcher Stack

[colorcountry]

Not only is Mormonism a Christian faith, it is the truest form of Christianity, said speaker after speaker on the first day of the 177th Semiannual LDS General Conference. LDS authorities were responding to the allegation that Mormonism isn't part of Christianity. Made by different mainline Protestant and Catholic churches and repeated constantly during coverage of Mitt Romney's presidential campaign, the claim is based on Mormonism's beliefs about God, its rejection of ancient ideas about the Trinity still widely accepted, and the LDS Church's extra-biblical scriptures. "It is not our purpose to demean any person's belief nor the doctrine of any religion," said Apostle Jeffrey R. Holland in the afternoon session. "But if one says we are not Christians because we do not hold a fourth- or fifth-century view of the Godhead, then what of those first [Christians], many of whom were eye-witnesses of the living Christ, who did not hold such a view either?"

{snip}

The day's sermons included many familiar themes, including the importance of faith, the need for pure thoughts and actions, avoiding pornography reaching out to neighbors and eliminating spiritual procrastination. Hinckley talked about the destructive nature of anger in marriages, on the road, and in life, urging Mormons to "control your tempers, to put a smile upon your faces, which will erase anger; speak with words of love and peace, appreciation and respect."

[Elsie]

The gospel doesn’t remove our obligation to obey, it just makes it possible for the the barriers our failures to obey create to be removed.

Obey WHAT?

Acts 15

 

 1.  Some men came down from Judea to Antioch and were teaching the brothers: "Unless you are circumcised, according to the custom taught by Moses, you cannot be saved."
 2.  This brought Paul and Barnabas into sharp dispute and debate with them. So Paul and Barnabas were appointed, along with some other believers, to go up to Jerusalem to see the apostles and elders about this question.
 3.  The church sent them on their way, and as they traveled through Phoenicia and Samaria, they told how the Gentiles had been converted. This news made all the brothers very glad.
 4.  When they came to Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the church and the apostles and elders, to whom they reported everything God had done through them.
 5.  Then some of the believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees stood up and said, "The Gentiles must be circumcised and required to obey the law of Moses."
 6.  The apostles and elders met to consider this question.
 7.  After much discussion, Peter got up and addressed them: "Brothers, you know that some time ago God made a choice among you that the Gentiles might hear from my lips the message of the gospel and believe.
 8.  God, who knows the heart, showed that he accepted them by giving the Holy Spirit to them, just as he did to us.
 9.  He made no distinction between us and them, for he purified their hearts by faith.
 10.  Now then, why do you try to test God by putting on the necks of the disciples a yoke that neither we nor our fathers have been able to bear?
 11.  No! We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are."
 12.  The whole assembly became silent as they listened to Barnabas and Paul telling about the miraculous signs and wonders God had done among the Gentiles through them.
 13.  When they finished, James spoke up: "Brothers, listen to me.
 14.  Simon  has described to us how God at first showed his concern by taking from the Gentiles a people for himself.
 15.  The words of the prophets are in agreement with this, as it is written:
 16.  "`After this I will return and rebuild David's fallen tent. Its ruins I will rebuild, and I will restore it,
 17.  that the remnant of men may seek the Lord, and all the Gentiles who bear my name, says the Lord, who does these things'
 18.  that have been known for ages.
 19.  "It is my judgment, therefore, that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God.
 20.  Instead we should write to them, telling them to abstain from food polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from the meat of strangled animals and from blood.
 21.  For Moses has been preached in every city from the earliest times and is read in the synagogues on every Sabbath."
 22.  Then the apostles and elders, with the whole church, decided to choose some of their own men and send them to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas. They chose Judas (called Barsabbas) and Silas, two men who were leaders among the brothers.
 23.  With them they sent the following letter: The apostles and elders, your brothers, To the Gentile believers in Antioch, Syria and Cilicia: Greetings.
 24.  We have heard that some went out from us without our authorization and disturbed you, troubling your minds by what they said.
 25.  So we all agreed to choose some men and send them to you with our dear friends Barnabas and Paul--
 26.  men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
 27.  Therefore we are sending Judas and Silas to confirm by word of mouth what we are writing.
 28.  It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following requirements:
 29.  You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things. Farewell.
 30.  The men were sent off and went down to Antioch, where they gathered the church together and delivered the letter.
 31.  The people read it and were glad for its encouraging message.

[Elsie]

Where did the IMAGES go??

[restornu]

Sorry but I have no clue what it is you are talking about!

[Elsie]

Let's try again!!!

 

 

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<SNIP>

Caractors. The title of the above book, "which may be* the original paper carried by Martin Harris to show Charles Anthon," according to Mormon scholars. ("What Did Charles Anthon Really Say," Reexploring the Book of Mormon, p. 76) Of course no sealed or unsealed gold plates were delivered to the learned Anthon nor anything else that might in any sense be called a book (or even a readable excerpt from a book) so this whole fabrication is more than faintly ridiculous.

---

*"may be..." Take note of the apologists' sorry stab at leaving themselves a minimally loopy loophole here. They had to be aware (they're scholars) of the unsettling fact that the "Caractors" are amateurishly faked and foolishly fraudulent. Truly unsettling is the fact that Latter-day Saints are thought to have high standards of probity and honesty to uphold. Read this, from p. 75 of the aforementioned publication:

Caught on the horns of a dilemma, and having unwittingly fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah 29, Anthon took the easy way out: He tore up the statement he had innocently given to Harris and denied Harris's story. Today Anthon's cover-up appears more blatant than ever.

Aha! All doubt has been removed. No buts or maybes about it! These thankfully preserved "Caractors" definitely are what Anthon saw and he truly believed, as do these intelligent apologists, that the "Caractors" were exactly what he supposedly claimed. Has a blatant pretense of scholarship stumbled all over itself here?

Think about it. The "Caractors" are the only tangible evidence in existence related to Smith's story. No gold plates, no brass plates, no peep stones, no Urim and Thummim... only these "Caractors," not a single one of which is in the purported languages.

---

Smith's translation of the Caractors. According to Martin Harris (Joseph Smith - History, 1:64), "I went to the city of New York, and presented the characters which had been translated, with the translation thereof, to Professor Charles Anthon, a gentleman celebrated for his literary attainments. Professor Anthon stated that the translation was correct, more so than any he had before seen translated from the Egyptian. I then showed him those which were not yet translated,* and he said they were Egyptian, Chaldaic, Assyriac, and Arabic; and he said they were true characters."

Speak right up now in all truthfulness. Isn't it revealing how Smith started out making a stab at creating believable "caractors" but quickly gave up and produced nothing but squiggles, ending up with a series of nothing more than crude little scribbles? Yet Professor Anthon supposedly translated them!

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*Harris must have had two or three pieces of paper with him—one with characters and a translation of them (on the same paper or a separate one) and one with untranslated characters—quite likely the "Caractors." Some Mormon "scholars" have gone out on a limb, sawed it off, and knocked themselves out trying to translate from these true Egyptian, Chaldaic, Assyriac, and Arabic characters a segment that would correspond with a verse from 1 Nephi.

---

Modern-day experts in Egyptian, Chaldaic, Assyriac, and Arabic. In 1829, any knowledge of these languages possessed by U.S. scholars would have been rudimentary at best. Expertise in them has vastly improved since then. So go ahead, do it. Get any modern expert in these languages to identify which of these "Caractors" are Egyptian, Chaldaic, Assyriac and Arabic. Better still, accept the claim of Mormon apologists that Anthon did indeed so testify and that his appraisal of the Caractors was correct. (Op. cit, pp. 73-75)

Save your money! Samples of Assyriac/Aramaic and Arabic writing:

What say you? Which of Smith's "Caractors" resemble the Assyriac and Arabic ones? No need to pay experts for their analysis. A child could accurately check this out. These writing systems have remained constant for well over 3000 years.

[restornu]

I receive an impression at that beganning you were not as sincere as you posed to be.

an it is attitude if one truly desires to know the Lord or argue with his fellowman.

After all these same request was made by Jesus in the NT but you seemed to found a way to TRY to dilute the whole subject..

Good day!

[dangus]

>> There is nothing that establishes that Christ walked on water, or that Mary was in fact a virgin when she gave birth, or that Christ did in fact live a sinless life except for the word of the apostles. <<

Not of those particuliar events, but those events are not the ones that the apostles used to establish their authority. And, of course, the Virgin birth was prophesied about, in prophesies revealed before the events in question. And given what was established about Jesus, his sinless nature is sort of presumptive, is it not? (Would the son of God sin?)

>> Validating the existence of places and persons and some events doesn’t prove the Bible is the word of God. <<

Not entirely. But I do believe that the human soul innately longs for the teachings of the gospel and of the apostles to be true. And such details are attested to by the apostles and the early Church, as opposed to the Book of Mormon, which was unknown to them.

>> There were many who did see them and handle them. They testified of it and their testimony is contained in the BoM. <<

Yah, like I noted in my later post... a lawyer would only ever put one of the witnesses on the stand. And he only “saw” the plates long after he had a very strong invested interest.

>> Smith claims he translated from an ancient language. Well, if he had written down the ancient language, that would certainly testify on his behalf... but he didn’t <<

A few characters hardly testifies to anything. Even if it had been in actual Egyptian, it would at least mean something, but of course it’s in “reformed Egyptian” so no-one could ever know if it were authentic. Just another unfalsifiable claim. But isn’t odd how with all the archaeological discoveries (King Tut’s tomb, the Dead Sea Scrolls, the City of Jericho), no-one’s ever found significant corroboration for the existence of reformed Egyptian? Of course, part of the problem is that the sample is uselessly small, so it’d easy to find slight clues and bits of evidence, but hard to find significant corroboration.

>> There was nothing re-translated...<<

My bad... I remembered the story wrong. The point is that Smith couldn’t recreate what he had already written, which seems quite odd, except for Smith’s convenient excuse.

>> That’s painting with a pretty broad brush. I also disagree with the claim. There are many evidences of many different kinds that support the claims of the BoM, also evidence that ‘unique’ aspects of Mormonism were in fact part of early Christianity as Joseph claimed. <<

A very broad brush should be easy to disprove, no? And yet, you do not offer a single example.

>> It isn’t our job to force anyone to believe anything. <<

No, but you could come up with a reason I should believe you.

[Grig]

“They also saw the empty tomb...”

But even the first ones to see the empty tomb didn’t see it as evidence that Christ had risen at first, they thought the body had been taken. Anybody can make a tomb empty.

“But the witnesses were credible: they pointed to OT passages which foretold such things; they made falsifiable claims which weren’t falsified; they performed miracles.”

The witnesses of the BoM were credible, there are prophecies of the BoM and the restoration in the Bible, Joseph and other church leaders performed miracles, were visited by divine beings, had revelations, displayed the gifts of the spirit etc. etc.

“But hadn’t the Three Witnesses already staked their entire lives on Smith, before he showed them the plates? And didn’t all three abandon Smith’s religion, eventually? And weren’t all three denied access to the plates until after the plates had allegedly departed from the Earth, so that their witness would HAVE to be inherently mystical?”

The three witnesses were shown the plates by an angel who literally appeared to them and literally showed it to them. They touched and handled them for real and even though they had a personal falling out for a time with Joseph they never denied their testimony in spite of eager efforts to have them do so. Likewise the 8 witnesses saw and handled the plates literally. They saw and held them and also stood by their testimony to the end. If it was a fraud, why would they hold to it even after they left the church? Anti-Mormons would have hailed them as brave heroes and welcomed them into their fold for denying it, but they did not.

It doesn’t matter if it is the witnesses of the BoM or the apostles of the NT, if someone wants to find an ulterior motive or other excuse to discount them, they can. That what Islam does to discount the NT.

[dangus]

Btw, thank you very much for your work. I’m thinking there’s a thread here, aren’t you?

[Grig]

“Oh my goodness, there’s no mention at all that this is added text? That’s positively deceitful?”

Since the JST was a work in progress when Joseph was killed it is only used as a study guide, and it’s nature is clearly explained in the introduction, no deception on our part. http://scriptures.lds.org/en/jst/contents

[Grig]

Being baptized doesn’t mean you will never sin again.

[Logophile]

Hmmmmm, 5,000 or 11? Yeah, I’m going with the 5,000.

So, truth is established by majority vote?

[Grig]

“But how do you know it was GOD that answered your question?”

The same way Peter knew it the dream he had was from God and that it was time for the gospel to go to the Gentiles. The same way the apostles knew that the Spirit of God was in agreement with them on no longer requiring circumcision.

[Grunthor]

“So, truth is established by majority vote?”

Nope. By the Word of God, which the Bible is.

[Grig]

“Seriously, folks, how can anyone defend inserting text into what is passed off as merely an alternate translation of existing texts?”

The JST doesn’t claim to be an alternate translation of existing texts, it claims to be a restoration of the original text received by revelation. You are being mislead about what the JST is.

“Even if I believed that Joseph Smith was directly commanded by angels to add this passage, how is not deceitful for this passage to be published without making clear that this passage did not exist in the traditional version of the scriptures?”

It is made clear in the introduction.

[Logophile]

Nope. By the Word of God, which the Bible is.

Good. I thought for a moment there that we would have to count heads to agree on what is true.

As a matter of fact, I agree with you that the Bible is the word of God. Can you tell me why you believe it?

[Logophile]

It is made clear in the introduction.

Moreover, the JST is not inserted into the text of our Bibles. I have on my desk a brand-new LDS edition of the Bible. It is the King James Version of the Bible; the text has not been changed. Excerpts from the JST appear in footnotes and in the Appendix.

[MHGinTN]

“The JST doesn’t claim to be an alternate translation of existing texts, it claims to be a restoration of the original text received by revelation.” Smith would have a made a good carnival act ... everything by revelation with zero substantiation of his claims. In upstate New York, when he used his peepstone to con farmers about ‘treasure buried on their lands’, he was prosecuted for it. And one is reminded of the Kinderhook plates. LOL

[MHGinTN]

“The JST doesn’t claim to be an alternate translation of existing texts, it claims to be a restoration of the original text received by revelation.” Then why does the LDS organization title it The Joseph Smith Translation? http://www.centerplace.org/hs/iv/default.htm ... Smith added to Revelations, too. What does it say about that in the Book of Revelations? ... Your prophet was a conman.

[dangus]

Restornu:

I’m not a potential convert to LDS, if that’s what you mean, and I apologize if you implicitly understood my curiosity to stem from such a potential.

As the thread states, LDS asserts itself to be a Christian denomination, and, like any sincere belief system, its inherents believe it to be the most correct (which is why I find the brouhaha about Pope Benedict’s recent assertions to be so preposterous).

Here’s my agenda: Are LDS followers inherently anti-rational? Is there any point to ecumenical dialog? Can I trust a Mormon president to think rationally? As I pointed out much earlier, the LDS seems nonsensical, but appealingly nice. Part of me has wanted to say “well, maybe it doesn’t make any sense to them either, but some part of them figures that a naive trusting in kindness is a requirement for salvation” After all, Jesus *did* say that “unless you become as these children, you shall not inherit the kingdom.” But, gosh, that seems awfully condescending of me.

If there’s a case to be made that LDS is sensical, even if I don’t subscribe to their beliefs, I can accept a Mormon as President as easily as I can accept a Protestant. If LDS is nonsensical, but y’all don’t claim rationalism as a means of wisdom, then I can accept y’all are capable of reason, but focus on love more, so that you don’t let intellectualism stifle love. I don’t believe those two should be at cross purposes, but I can respect the Mormon resolution of the apparent but nonexisting dilemma far more readily than I can accept the Marxists’, Rationalists’, Utilitarians’, and Objectivists’ resolution.

But the third option, frankly, scares me: that Mormons do value rationalism, but refuse to acknowledge that their faith is not rationalist, and thus are incapable of rational thought. The gentleness of most Mormons, while not being inconsistent with this, does not support this conclusion. (Many others in this categorically are decidedly non-gentle: Soviets, Nazis, Islamofascists, Maoists; others are gentle while conditions are favorable, at least: neopagans, deconstructionists, etc.). But there are other slight hints: the unusually high suicide rates among Mormons, for instance. (And please let me emphasize that Mormons are far more virtuous than the others I’ve placed into this category!!!)

I’ve been trying to see if anyone will accept being nudged from Category 3 into Category 2. It seems Colorcountry is arguing that Mormons should accept this nudge, but is regarded as a heretic. It seems that Elsie might also accept this. But at least several of you seem stridently resistant, firmly believing you are in fact in the first category.

[MHGinTN]

Here's from an LDS approved site: [ http://scriptures.lds.org/en/jst/contents ]

***********

GUIDE TO THE SCRIPTURES
Joseph Smith Translation (JST)

See also Smith, Joseph, Jr.

A revision or translation of the King James Version of the Bible in English, which the Prophet Joseph Smith began in June 1830. He was commanded by God to make the translation and regarded it as part of his calling as a prophet.

Although Joseph completed most of the translation by July 1833, he continued until his death in 1844 to make modifications while preparing a manuscript for publication. Though he published some parts of the translation during his lifetime, it is possible that he would have made additional changes had he lived to publish the entire work. The Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints published the first edition of Joseph Smith’s inspired translation in 1867. They have published several editions since that time.

The Prophet learned many things during the translation process.

***********
Riiiiight, he learned many things during the 'translation' (read fabrication" process. It's impossible for Mormonism adherents to accept that he made it all up because they've based their profession upon his lies. Satan counts on an embarrassment factor once he can suck you into the twister's version of the Christian religion, Mormonism. That is a darkness only God can penetrate. That's why some of us keep posting the Bible pasaages, God's real Word for you to read.