Posted on 09/20/2009 3:44:47 PM PDT by Colofornian
...The Joseph Smith Papers, Revelations and Translations, Volume 1: Manuscript Revelation Books will be in bookstores on Sept. 22. It is the second book to be released in the anticipated 30-volume comprehensive scholarly set that will cover more than 2,000 documents in the Prophet's personal papers.
Of necessity, the latest volume is larger and more expensive than the others. This is because it contains a full-color photo image of each page of two important manuscript collections produced by the Prophet and his scribes: the Book of Commandments and Revelations and the Kirtland Revelation Book.
"Coupling them together, we're presenting one of the most important collections of revelation manuscripts that the Church owns," said Robin S. Jensen, a member of the Church History Department staff..."As painful as it is for me to say as a historian, not all members are interested in the history of the Church," he said.
SNIP
Comparing the manuscripts to the published revelations, one soon notices numerous changes.
"I don't think there should be a concern about that," Brother Jensen said. "One of the tenets of Mormonism, then and now, is continual revelation." He added, concerning the written revelations, "These were living, breathing documents to Joseph Smith and to others."
He contrasted present-day mentality with attitudes in the early days of the Church, when revelations were often updated to conform to newly understood doctrine and changes in Church administrative structure. For example, a revelation that referred to the "leading elder" might be updated to refer to the presiding high priest.
Other changes, he said, might involve corrections in grammar, spelling, punctuation or capitalization. "I don't have a problem with that," he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at ldschurchnews.com ...
If you are referring to the KJV being a bad choice I will take the KJV over the corrupt Alexandrian descendent bibles any day of the week. At least the KJV was taken by the voluminus greek/byzantine manuscripts, of which there are more than 4000 extant manuscripts. The Alexandrian only has three extant manuscripts. One of which is a latin translation of the original greek. Todays modern translations are taken from the Alexandrian giving them a very New Age flavor.
That'll work; UNLESS...
You are Spanish, or German, or Chinese, or French...
Why would there be a discussion about Bible translations on a thread about the Book of Mormon?
The only logical reasons I can think of are: 1. To sidetrack the discussion. 2. To inject the idea that the Bible contains errors, and thus deflect any critisism of the Book of Mormon's translation errors/revisions. Either way, it would seem the person more concerned about defending the Book of Mormon (by creating doubt about the Bible) than actually having a serious discussion about the Book of Mormon.
Very perceptive Brook. I don't know how much you follow these threads, but it is a common ruse to side track the discussion. Mormons will even go as far as starting to cite/link to atheist sites to bolster their argument.
No, it’s to draw a parallel between what I consider wrongful rewrites of the Bible with what I assume would be considered wrongful rewrites of the Mormon texts.
Personally I put no faith at all in the Mormon ideologies as I’m a Baptist. “No man cometh unto the Father but by me”, and all that.
Now I see where Wingdings comes from.
No, its to draw a parallel between what I consider wrongful rewrites of the Bible with what I assume would be considered wrongful rewrites of the Mormon texts.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
I don’t see them as being parallel at all.
Original copies of the first printing of the Book of Mormon (exactly as Smith wrote and approved) are still in existance today. Why make changes when you have the original?
The Bible translations you refer to are just that, TRANSLATIONS from the original into English. No different than translations into French, German, or Korean. Nobody is claiming a translation is inspired the way the original document is.
A better parallel would be what happened in Greece. The New Testament, of course, was originally written in Greek. Greek speaking nations have always enjoyed the advantage of being able to read the New Testament in the original Greek. A number of years ago, a group decided they were going to “update” the Greek NT into “modern” Greek (what they ended up with was a highly revised/redacted Greek NT.) This caused quite a firestorm as I understand it.
The attempted Greek NT update and the BOM update are parallel situations. In both cases you had the original document (or pretty close in the Greek case) that was not being translated, but updated/modified by someone that wanted to put a different theological spin on it.
I understand your worries with some translations, but se still have the source documents (in the original language) we can use to verify any Bible translation. The Mormons are essentially modifying the original, not making a translation.
Except NO ONE says that the early transcriptions of the BIBLE are WRONG - just that our knowledge of ancient languages keeps getting better and better.
and Wingdings 2
and Wingdings 3 as well!!!
Looks like you already have an opinion about me, thats very wrong. As far as textual criticism is concerned. Look at who is pushing it and what they believe. Westcott and Hort were 19th century occultists. Look up the "Ghostly guild" look at the lives of the people who came up with their so-called greek text. Look at the secret meetings that were part and parcel with the RSV translation committee.
A lot of apostate hands are on the modern versions and the greek text that backs those translations.
As far as the autographs are concerned they no longer exist but I have more than 4500 greek texts that backup my KJV as opposed to the 3 that are Alexandrian in origin.
Many of the proponents of the modern versions don't even believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God. Or in salvation by faith alone in Jesus. Why would I listen to anything they had to say?
I don't read after non-believers.
Again
What? The NIV and NASB give us the famous John 1:1-14 passage that Jesus IS God. Show me how they deny that Jesus is the Son of God please. Or that these translations deny salvation by faith alone in Jesus. I didn’t realize that the Pauline Epistles were removed (is Ephesians not found in the NIV?). Or that John 3:16 was re-written. Matthew 3:16 reads, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” in the NIV.
Those are ad-hominem attacks that you lay out, they bear nothing on the actual translations themselves. There is no single doctrine that is distorted or removed in NIV or NASB (my favorite translation) that is in the KJV.
The only major thing that is removed is the 1 John passage that has the doctrine of the Trinity spelled out unambiguously (”and these three are one”). However there is a footnote in all version of the NIV or NASB that tell us that this is not found in the oldest and best manuscripts.
All of that said, I like the KJV of the Bible. It reads like poetry in lots of areas. But, for modern audiences it can be a little hard to understand. But there is the NKJV which uses the same source manuscripts as the KJV if you want a more modern translation.
I have spent awhile reading all the posts on the Joseph Smith Papers and was a bit let down by the type of comments made back and forth. A friend of mine just recently commented that someone from the political far right will look with skepticism and really not listen to the words of someone from the left no matter his or her position in the world and vise versa. The Nazis during WW II used propaganda to make a caricature of the Jewish people so no one would feel they were actually human and of worth so they could say and do anything to them. Protestants in all of their diverse denominations, Catholics, Greek orthodox, Mormons, and all non Christians are not caricatures of anything. Their beliefs are rich and diverse. They are worthy of understanding and the freedom from our ignorance of their true beliefs and practices. “Mircea Eliade, a historian of religions, has argued,’There is, indeed, only one way of understanding a cultural phenomenon which is alien to one’s own ideological pattern, and that is to place oneself at its very center and from there to track down all the values that radiate from it... Before we proceed to judge it we must fully understand it and become imbued, as it were, with its ideology, whatever form it may take- myth, symbol, rite, social attitude’.”
I might be wrong, but it seemed that most of the persons responding claimed some christian background in their lives. What does this mean; “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.” John 13:35. I found very little of this love that Christ talked about as uninformed caricatures were used to make hurtful and malicious comments about someone’s faith.
The tone I might add,in some of the responses sounded very near to the type of comments that might have been found in the early 1900’s in the southern part of the united states about black people.
by the way this post is not to you in particular but to all the persons who posted.
Welcome to FreeRepublic!
Let me just remind you of the words of THE Savior Jesus Christ: “I AM the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” (John 14:6)
You have managed quite clumsily in the space of two paragraphs to equate those of us in this thread who are exposing the fraud known as Joseph Smith to Nazis and Racists. Because obviously, we’re trying to segregate Mormons from the rest of society, and/or gas them to death.
Brilliant analysis.
Why do Mormons always act so grieved when people expose the charlatan that is Joseph Smith?
Remember: If the words of Jesus are true (and I believe they are) the vast majority of Mormons are pretty much doomed to an eternity in Hell. To keep them ignorant of that fact is NOT love, it is HATRED.
The only way to break them out of the cult and into the arms of the TRUE God is to preach the gospel to them and show them that they can be saved through Faith in the Risen Son of God Jesus Christ, who died as the ultimate atonement for our sins against our Maker.
Those who expose Mormonism understand it and its fraudulent origins better than those who profess to be Mormons.
In some ways, it has to be hard to be a devout Mormon anymore (praise the Lord!) because you can find out in about 15 minutes via Google that Mormonism doesn’t have a single solitary shred of evidence going for it — and that the “prophet” was a sham.
Can't we all just get along???
If a person wants to start his own 'religion' - that's fine with me.
Just don't be dancing on the supposed graves of other religions.
"You see some classes of the human family that are black, uncouth, uncomely, disagreeable and low in their habits, wild, and seemingly deprived of nearly all the blessings of the intelligence that is generally bestowed upon mankind.
The first man that committed the odious crime of killing one of his brethren will be cursed the longest of any one of the children of Adam. Cain slew his brother. Cain might have been killed, and that would have put a termination to that line of human beings.
This was not to be, and the Lord put a mark upon him, which is the flat nose and black skin. Trace mankind down to after the flood, and then another curse is pronounced upon the same race--that they should be the 'servant of servants', and they will be, until that curse is removed."
Brigham Young-President and second 'Prophet' of the Mormon Church, 1844-1877- Extract from Journal of Discourses.
Here are two examples from their 'other testament', the Book of Mormon.
2 Nephi 5: 21 'And he had caused the cursing to come upon them, yea, even a sore cursing, because of their iniquity. For behold, they had hardened their hearts against him, that they had become like unto a flint; wherefore, as they were white, and exceedingly fair and delightsome, that they might not be enticing unto my people, the Lord God did cause a skin of blackness to come upon them.'
Alma 3: 6 'And the skins of the Lamanites were dark, according to the mark which was set upon their fathers, which was a curse upon them because of their transgression and their rebellion against their brethren, who consisted of Nephi, Jacob and Joseph, and Sam, who were just and holy men.'
August 27, 1954 in an address at Brigham Young University (BYU), Mormon Elder, Mark E Peterson, in speaking to a convention of teachers of religion at the college level, said: "The discussion on civil rights, especially over the last 20 years, has drawn some very sharp lines. It has blinded the thinking of some of our own people, I believe. They have allowed their political affiliations to color their thinking to some extent.I think I have read enough to give you an idea of what the Negro is after." "He is not just seeking the opportunity of sitting down in a cafe where white people eat. He isn't just trying to ride on the same streetcar or the same Pullman car with white people. It isn't that he just desires to go to the same theater as the white people. From this, and other interviews I have read, it appears that the Negro seeks absorption with the white race. He will not be satisfied until he achieves it by intermarriage." "That is his objective and we must face it. We must not allow our feelings to carry us away, nor must we feel so sorry for Negroes that we will open our arms and embrace them with everything we have. Remember the little statement that we used to say about sin, 'First we pity, then endure, then embrace'...." (Rosa Parks would have probably told Petersen under which wheel of the bus he should go sit.)
1967, (then) Mormon President Ezra Taft Benson said, "The Communist program for revolution in America has been in progress for many years and is far advanced. First of all, we must not place the blame upon Negroes. They are merely the unfortunate group that has been selected by professional Communist agitators to be used as the primary source of cannon fodder."
We are told that on June 8, 1978, it was 'revealed' to the then president, Spencer Kimball, that people of color could now gain entry into the priesthood. According to the church, Kimball spent many long hours petitioning God, begging him to give worthy black people the priesthood. God finally relented.
Sometime before the 'revelation' came to chief 'Prophet' Spencer Kimball in June 1978, General Authority, Bruce R McConkie had said: "The Blacks are denied the Priesthood; under no circumstances can they hold this delegation of authority from the Almighty. The Negroes are not equal with other races where the receipt of certain blessings are concerned, particularly the priesthood and the temple blessings that flow there from, but this inequality is not of man's origin, it is the Lord's doings." (Mormon Doctrine, pp. 526-527).
When Mormon 'Apostle' Mark E Petersen spoke on 'Race Problems- As they affect the Church' at the BYU campus in 1954, the following was also said:
"...if the negro accepts the gospel with real, sincere faith, and is really converted, to give him the blessings of baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost, he can and will enter the celestial kingdom. He will go there as a servant, but he will get celestial glory."
When Mormon 'Prophet' and second President of the Church, Brigham Young, spoke in 1863 the following was also said:
"Shall I tell you the law of God in regard to the African race? If the white man who belongs to the chosen seed mixes his blood with the seed of Cain, the penalty, under the law of God is death on the spot. This will always be so."
(Journal of Discourses, Vo. 10, p. 110)
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