OK. Here's a Mormon who has studied the BoM in-depth, and upon this study, concludes the BoM isn't like the Bible, after all!
From the column: we know who is responsible for every word in the Book of Mormon.
(Yeah, we know: Joseph Smith)
It’s either Nephi, Jacob, Mormon, or Moroni (plus a few minor authors at the end of the Small Plates). This means that the Book of Mormon, as a whole, is a much more integrated and deliberately constructed volume than the Bible.
(Game show buzz: Wrong answer. Although Hardy is right on one thing: Indeed, the BoM is an "integrated and deliberately CONSTRUCTED volume!"
From the column: Nephi, Jacob, Mormon, and Moroni are named, human narrators writing from their own historical, human perspectives...Indeed, they often were participants in the stories that they tell.
Hmmm...not secondhand -- God to people thru God's eyes [like most of the OT]...
...but firsthand as if only thru the lens of humanity.
From the column: They interrupt their narratives regularly to tell us about their lives, their testimonies, and their desires. They worry about their “weakness in writing” (Eth. 12:23, 40; cf. 2 Ne. 33:1, 4). And they do not hesitate to address readers directly to explain their intentions, their editorial techniques, and their emotional responses to the events they recount.
Bingo. Only somebody in a publishing world is going to "worry [about] their 'weakness in writing." That's hardly a description of people writing up to four centuries after Christ and up to six before!!! Likewise, Hardy says these guys tell their readers about their "editorial techniques" -- again the luxury of living in the publishing world the past several centuries. But NOT a reality of earlier times!
Furthermore, these tangents (the interruptions Hardy references) matches what Joseph Smith's mother would hear from her son when he was a teen about 17:
"During our evening conversations, Joseph would occasionally give us some of the most amusing recitals that could be imagined. He would describe the ancient inhabitants of the continent, their dress, mode of traveling, and the animals upon which they rode; their cities, their buildings, with every particular; their mode of warfare; and also their religious worship. This he would do with as much ease, seemingly, as if he had spent his whole life among them. On the twenty-second of September, 1824, Joseph again visited the place where he found the plates the year previous; and supporting at this time that the only thing required, in order to possess them until the time for their translation, was to be able to keep the commandments of God...he fully expected to carry them home with him. (Lucy Mack Smith, edited by Preston Nibley, History of Joseph Smith, p. 83, Bookcraft, Salt Lake City, 1958)
[Keep in mind the above is all before he had a chance to "interpret" or "translate" those plates].
There is only one book for me: The Bible.
SFL
I often wonder how they got people to fall for this...
But not as much as I wonder what on earth could be the attraction of Islam (the Religion of Peace (tm))
It is hard to take the poster serious in their efforts attacking The Book of Mormon for not being Christian when their Grammar shows the true Intellect behind the attacks e.g. “ How to Book of Mormon is Not Like the Bible (And Why We Should Celebrate That!)”
Maybe they should check out Anti-Mormonism for Dummies!!!!
The BoM is the word of Joseph Smith (a thug, a grifter, a flim flam man, a con artist, a known liar, a known adulator, a known pedophile, a thief, a murderer............ and on and on.)
Nor do most authors get told by god to go to canada and sell the copywrite for the scriptures in order to make a quick buck.
When I read the Bible, I feel the presence of the Holy Ghost. When I read the Book of Mormon, I feel the presence of the Holy Ghost.
The Book of Mormon is another Testament of the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the Lord.
“Wherefore I give you to understand, that no man speaking by the Spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed: and that no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost”
1 Corinthians 12:3
Is it true that the plates were lost? One thing I find difficult to believe is that something so substantial and important in 1824 was lost.
As well they should. They go to the "And it came to pass..."well way to many times.
It is chloroform in print.
If Joseph Smith composed this book, the act was a miracle--keeping awake while he did it was, at any rate. If he, according to tradition, merely translated it from certain ancient and mysteriously-engraved plates of copper, which he declares he found under a stone, in an out-of-the-way locality, the work of translating was equally a miracle, for the same reason."
Mark Twain 1861
Do they not realize that here, at the very beginning of their book, is where they lose most of us? And from there on into the actual text it just gets worse. There are some of aspects of the "Mormon life" that are appealing, and they have every right to believe and preach whatever they wish. But personally, as a Christian, and an avid with degree but not full time student of history, their "scripture" is a fairly obvious fraud.
“Biblical narrators do not usually mention themselves”
“Biblical narrators [generally] make no reference to their activity in writing the narratives”
_________________________________________________
Oh Noez Joez...
And it came to pass ye mucketh up boy...
The book of Mormon is just the 19th century versio of “Dianetics”
Hole buncha peeople on thiss thred need to git spel chek an grammer check.
Either y’all are trying to post too quickly, or you missed the part of school where they taught how to communicate using words. Please, just slow down a bit and double check your spelling and grammar. It is so much easier on the eyes and brain to read when written correctly.
A Bible is a Bible and nothing else is a substitute.
"Now the way he translated was he put the urim and thummim into his hat and Darkned his Eyes than he would take a sentance and it would apper in Brite Roman Letters. Then he would tell the writer and he would write it. Then that would go away the next sentance would Come and so on. But if it was not Spelt rite it would not go away till it was rite, so we see it was marvelous. Thus was the hol [whole] translated."---Joseph Knight's journal.
"In writing for your father I frequently wrote day after day, often sitting at the table close by him, he sitting with his face buried in his hat, with the stone in it, and dictating hour after hour with nothing between us."
(History of the RLDS Church, 8 vols.(Independence, Missouri: Herald House,1951),"Last Testimony of Sister Emma [Smith Bidamon]," 3:356.
"I, as well as all of my father's family, Smith's wife, Oliver Cowdery and Martin Harris, were present during the translation. . . . He [Joseph Smith] did not use the plates in translation."
---(David Whitmer,as published in the "Kansas City Journal," June 5, 1881,and reprinted in the RLDS "Journal of History", vol. 8, (1910), pp. 299-300.
In an 1885 interview, Zenas H. Gurley, then the editor of the RLDS Saints Herald, asked Whitmer if Joseph had used his "Peep stone" to do the translation. Whitmer replied:
"... he used a stone called a "Seers stone," the "Interpreters" having been taken away from him because of transgression. The "Interpreters" were taken from Joseph after he allowed Martin Harris to carry away the 116 pages of Ms [manuscript] of the Book of Mormon as a punishment, but he was allowed to go on and translate by use of a "Seers stone" which he had, and which he placed in a hat into which he buried his face, stating to me and others that the original character appeared upon parchment and under it the translation in English."
"Martin Harris related an incident that occurred during the time that he wrote that portion of the translation of the Book of Mormon which he was favored to write direct from the mouth of the Prophet Joseph Smith. He said that the Prophet possessed a seer stone, by which he was enabled to translate as well as from the Urim and Thummim, and for convenience he then used the seer stone, Martin explained the translation as follows: By aid of the seer stone, sentences would appear and were read by the Prophet and written by Martin and when finished he would say 'Written,' and if correctly written that sentence would disappear and another appear in its place, but if not written correctly it remained until corrected, so that the translation was just as it was engraven on the plates, precisely in the language then used."
(Edward Stevenson, "One of the Three Witnesses,"reprinted from Deseret News, 30 Nov. 1881in Millennial Star, 44 (6 Feb. 1882): 86-87.)
In 1879, Michael Morse, Emma Smith's brother-in-law, stated:"When Joseph was translating the Book of Mormon [I] had occasion more than once to go into his immediate presence, and saw him engaged at his work of translation. The mode of procedure consisted in Joseph's placing the Seer Stone in the crown of a hat, then putting his face into the hat, so as to entirely cover his face, resting his elbows upon his knees, and then dictating word after word, while the scribes Emma, John Whitmer, O. Cowdery, or some other wrote it down."
(W.W. Blair interview with Michael Morse,Saints Herald, vol. 26, no. 12June 15, 1879, pp. 190-91.)
Joseph Smith's brother William also testified to the "face in the hat" version:"The manner in which this was done was by looking into the Urim and Thummim, which was placed in a hat to exclude the light, (the plates lying near by covered up), and reading off the translation, which appeared in the stone by the power of God"("A New Witness for Christ in America,"Francis W. Kirkham, 2:417.)
"The manner in which he pretended to read and interpret was the same manner as when he looked for the money-diggers, with the stone in his hat, while the book of plates were at the same time hid in the woods."---Isaac Hale (Emma Smith's father's) affidavit, 1834.
ROFL I wondered what was taking you so long to riducule this great article!
Keep it up! Keep showing your true colors!
ROFL I wondered what was taking you so long to ridicule this great article!
Keep it up! Keep showing your true colors!
The Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter day Saints is or is not be a cult depending on how you define “is”, but anyone who can find glory in the fall of man as stated in the book of Mormon (2 Nephi 2:22–25) I certainly can not agree with their views of a Holy God.
“And now, behold, if Adam had not transgressed he would not have fallen [been cut off from the presence of God], but he would have remained in the Garden of Eden. And all things which were created must have remained in the same state in which they were after they were created; …
“And they would have had no children; wherefore they would have remained in a state of innocence, having no joy, for they knew no misery; doing no good, for they knew no sin.
“But behold, all things have been done in the wisdom of him who knoweth all things.
“Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy” (2 Nephi 2:22–25).