Frankly, I am truly grateful that the Lord has seen fit to give us the Bible, after 2000 years, that confirms his truth and great love for us. Would that all men would use it and believe it!
I am more than grateful for His Word. But it is the ONLY text upon which I rely to determine Truth.
Seven, because I respect you as a person I am responding to this gross misrepresentation of Mormonism by you. We are told that Mormons believe and follow the Bible 'so far as it is translated correctly'. Joe Smith made a rather lengthy 'translation' of the King James Bible, into King James English, even adding thousands of words you apologists have claimed were inspired via the peepstone he used since they are not found in any Greek or Hebrew manuscripts in existence. I've posted the lengthy addition Smith made to the fiftieth chapter of Genesis, several times, with silence from Mormonism apologists as the response. Smith even went so far as to 'edit' the Revelation, a task which guarantees a curse upon the doer, found right in the Book. Your 'prophet' made the lengthy changes/'corrections' to the King James Bible.
Why is it that you now try to distance yourself from what your peepstone prophet claimed were the 'corrections' to the King James Bible, to presumably bring it into being 'translated correctly' and have the 'purposely omitted sections' added back in (like that crap added to the end of the fiftieth chapter of Genesis, which I will post for all to read, shortly)? It certainly comes across as your apologist platoon trying to have it both ways and maintain the deceit and heresies in Mormonism. You claim that the Bible as received in 1820 was incorrectly translated, and had major sections omitted by 'someone' in the past, yet your peepstone prophet claimed to have updated the King James translation, supposedly correcting it, yet you try to distance your platoon's modus operandi from the 'updated translation'.
Too bad that "evil men" took out some stuff.
I do wish that you guys would publish an ANNOTATED bible, with the "GOOD STUFF" put back in, so us uninformed could study it; BEFORE we start showing up in your buildings in great numbers, asking embarrassing questions.
Would that mormon leadership would believe the same too.
Orson Pratt proclaimed in a discourse delivered in 1859: "All the most ancient manuscripts of the New Testament known to the world differ from each other in almost every verse.... The learned admit that in the manuscripts of the New Testament alone there are no less than one hundred and thirty thousand different readings .... No one can tell whether even one verse of either the Old or New Testament conveys the ideas of the original author. Just think, 130,000 different readings in the New Testament alone!" (Journal of Discourses, vol. 7, pp.27-28).
In his book The World and the Prophets, page 188, Mormon apologist Dr. Hugh Nibley charges that "there are more than 8,000 ancient manuscripts of the New Testament, no two of which read exactly alike!"
... thou seest the foundation of a great and abominable church, which is most abominable above all other churches; for behold, they have taken away from the gospel of the Lamb many parts which are plain and most precious; and also many covenants of the Lord have they taken away.
And all this have they done that they might pervert the right ways of the Lord, that they might blind the eyes and harden the hearts of the children of men.
Wherefore, thou seeth that after the book hath gone forth through the hands of the great and abominable church, that there are many plain and precious things taken away from the book, which is the book of the Lamb of God.
... because of these things which are taken away out of the gospel of the Lamb, an exceeding great many do stumble, yea, insomuch that Satan hath great power over them (Book of Mormon, I Nephi 13:26-29)
Joseph Fielding Smith, Jr., son of the tenth president of the church, said that "The early 'Apostate Fathers' did not think it was wrong to tamper with inspired scripture. If any scripture seemed to endanger their viewpoint, it was altered, transplanted or completely removed from the Biblical text" (Religious Truths Defined, p.175).
Apostle Mark E. Peterson casts doubt on the reliability of the Bible: "Many insertions were made, some of them 'slanted' for selfish purposes, while at times deliberate falsifications and fabrications were perpetrated" (As Translated Correctly, p.4). "It is evident then that many of the 'plain and precious' things were omitted from the Bible by failure to choose all of the authentic books for inclusion, and by deliberate changes, deletions and forgeries ..." (p.14).
In 1832 the Mormon publication The Evening and the Morning Star (vol. 1, No. 1, p.3), said that the changes in the Bible were made "by the Mother of Harlots while it was confined in that Church,—say, from the year A.D. 460 to 1400."
Fact is, while holding up the KJV, mormons attack it as unreliable. So for mormons, how reliable is that? And if the JST is based upon the KJV, yet MS documentation refutes Smith's edition - how honest can one expect Smith's other writings to be?