Posted on 05/17/2008 11:28:18 AM PDT by donmeaker
Mormons, note the simularity of portions of the Book of Mormon to the King James Version of the Bible, assert that it proves the divine origin of the Book of Mormon. Of course that convicted fraud Joseph Smith Jr. would need to plagerize, but the G-d of Israel, of Jacob, and of Abraham would not need to plagerize, seems to have excaped them.
Ping, in case the thread stands.
So is this an open thread or a caucus thread?
:)
It’s probably “open” till moderators pull it when Mormons get upset. That’s how it works with threads on Catholicism.
This is an open thread.
of course it may end up proving the authenticity of Isaiah because Isaiah quotes Joseph Smith Jr.
I’m not upset. It is interesting however that the poster of this thread posted John A. Tvedtnes as the author when there is nothing written by John A. Tvedtnes on this thread.
I guess you missed this:Link
And try running a search on the religion forum on "activities"...the "hose" is working doubletime with LDS closed threads today.
You just THINK you've seen mormon propaganda...hang on to your hat, ROTFL!
Because they want to proselytize unchallenged. It's that simple.
Thank you, for some reason, that dinged my funny bone.
No, I didn’t miss it. In fact, I signed it. But thanks for pointing it out to me.
How about that other religious cult, global warming?
Yeah, I saw your signature.
Forgot that one! LOL!
Isaiah Variants in the Book of Mormon
Of the 478 verses in the Book of Mormon quoted from the book of Isaiah, 201 agree with the King James reading while 207 show variations. Some 58 are paraphrased and 11 others are variants and/or paraphrases. it is to the variants that we will give our attention here.Two factors led to my study of the Isaiah variants in the Book of Mormon. The first was a paper written by a friend of mine and now widely circulated as "evidence" against the Book of Mormon. It is essentially a statistical analysis of the frequency of changes made in the Isaiah passages in the Book of Mormon, and it concludes that because there are more such changes earlier on than later, this indicates that Joseph Smith wearied of making alterations as time went by. My objections to the study are basically twofold: First, some of the changes made by the Prophet fit the reading found in some ancient versions of Isaiah. Secondly, the study did not take into account that some of the changes were not in the first edition of the Book of Mormon but were added later. I contend that these changes have no bearing on Joseph Smith's translation—Moreover, many of them were stylistic or grammatical, such as the change from "which" to "who" or "whom" when the referent is human. To my way of thinking, it makes more sense to examine substantive differences between the texts of the King James and Book of Mormon versions of Isaiah.
The second impetus for my study came from an assignment given me to serve on the Book of Mormon Hebrew translation committee. One of my specific tasks was to examine all of the biblical quotes in the Book of Mormon to determine what changes, if any, would need to be made to the Hebrew translations of those books when the passages were incorporated into the translation. It was my feeling that we should try to render the translated Book of Mormon passages into the form in which Nephi and other Book of Mormon writers would have known them from the brass plates of Laban, which they took with them.
It was first necessary to identify all of the variants and paraphrases from Isaiah found in the Book of Mormon.1 To do this I read and reread each of the texts several times, checked out the cross-references, and looked up the key words in exhaustive concordances of the Bible and of the Book of Mormon. My wife and I then proceeded to compare the King James (KJV) and Book of Mormon (BM) texts of Isaiah, looking for differences. I read aloud from the BM while she followed in the KJV, and we marked the differences in green ink in a special copy of the Book of Mormon. Next. we did the same thing with the BM and the original 1830 edition, noting any differences in red ink. We used blue ink to mark differences between it and the RLDS version and some few items I was able to obtain from the handwritten BM manuscripts.
The next step was to look up all of the variant verses in different versions of the book of Isaiah: the Hebrew Massoretic text (MT), the Hebrew scrolls found at Qumran (notably IQIsa, which contains all sixty-six chapters), the Aramaic Targumim (T), the Peshitta (P), the Septuagint (LXX) or Greek translation, the Old Latin (OL) and Vulgate (V), and the Isaiah passages quoted in the New Testament. I also read dozens of articles and books written by the top experts on Isaiah and gleaned from them leads to other manuscript variants, such as those found in quotations by the early Church Fathers and other little-known documents.
To be frank, I did not expect to find the volume of support for the BM version of Isaiah that I did in fact discover. I knew enough about ancient manuscripts to realize that there were oftentimes several different versions, no two of which agreed completely with one another. In such cases it is impossible to know which version, if any, is the "original." It was therefore necessary to allow for errors on the brass plates of Laban from which the BM Isaiah passages were taken.
I have classified the variants according to seventeen different types. Some of these classifications are favorable to the BM versions, while others favor the KJV. Still others favor neither. In the listing below, those favorable to BM are marked +, those neutral =, and those unfavorable -.
Isn't the fact that they are both written in King James era English proof enough?
I wonder the same.
When ever anyone asserts miraculous divine authorship for any text written by an 1830s fraud, it desecrates my religion.
On the other hand, I feel the same way about those who push the book of Daniel from 172BC to 700 BC.
Your mileage may vary.
All anyone can do is to pray that Mormons reject false prophets...and return to the arms of the Lord Jesus.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.