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?
I asked the same question HERE, but I can't get any Latter-day Saint to even attempt to answer it!