chrisdu@uunet.uu.net (Chris Durham) (07/24/90)
I just saw a TV commercial from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day
Saints, otherwise known as the Mormons. In it, a woman describes something
in the Book of Mormon which caught my fancy. She says the Book of Mormon
shows that Jesus appeared to ancient America after he ressurected? Is this
true? What other things does this book have to say? Where does it come from?
Inquiring minds want to know about this sect of Christianity.
Note: I am already a Christian. I am not interested in becoming a Mormon,
I am just curious about their beliefs, etc.
--
"For all their long civilization, Jim thought, Vulcans never bothered
to invent air conditioning. I wonder what logic explains that?"
-Admiral James T. Kirk, _STIV: The Voyage Home_
by Vonda McIntyre
-Christopher Durham
Internet: chrisdu@sco.COM Technical Support
UUCP: ...!{uunet,ucscc}!sco!chrisdu The Santa Cruz Operationhall@vice.ico.tek.com (Hal Lillywhite) (08/06/90)
In article <Jul.24.04.50.27.1990.17560@athos.rutgers.edu> chrisdu@uunet.uu.net (Chris Durham) writes: >I just saw a TV commercial from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day >Saints, otherwise known as the Mormons. In it, a woman describes something >in the Book of Mormon which caught my fancy. She says the Book of Mormon >shows that Jesus appeared to ancient America after he ressurected? Is this >true? What other things does this book have to say? Where does it come from? Yes, the Book of Mormon does indeed describe the visit of Jesus to the Western Hemisphere after his resurrection. That part (the book of 3rd Nephi beginning with chapter 11) also includes many of his teachings here beginning with a sermon similar to the sermon on the mount. A brief synopsis of the main part of the book is: 600 BC, during the time of Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel and some other prophets, this is one of the darker times in Jewish history as Jerusalem is about to fall to Babylon. (If you want a real downer, read Jeremiah. It's all full of doom and gloom.) A man named Lehi living in the vicinity of Jerusalem listens to the prophets, prays, and sees a vision. As a result he not only repents of his sins but also preaches to the people. His reception is similar to that given the other prophets and eventually he must flee for his life. Guided by the Lord they cross the Arabian peninsula and eventually come to the Americas. Lehi also has family problems. He has 4 sons (2 more are born after he leaves Jerusalem) and they split down the middle, 2 following him and the other 2 rebeling. This eventually leads to a split in his descendents with the Nephites (after one son, Nephi) generally being the "believers" while the Lamanites (after Laman, the eldest son) generally being non-believers. This is used throughout the book as a warning to believers - they are repeatedly told that individual righteousness and repentance are required, membership in the "right" group is not enough. Whenever the Nephites forget this the Lamanites are there to start a war and remind them of their dependence on the Lord. The book emphasizes the mission of Jesus Christ throughout. Even before His birth it indicates that, although it was necessary to live the Law of Moses, salvation was only through Christ and that the purpose of the Law was to point to Him. The climax of course is His visit to the Americas mentioned above. After Jesus visit there is a period of peace for about 200 years before apostacy again begins to creep in. Political divisions, pride, greed etc. take over and eventually the Nephites and Lamanites engage in a war resulting in the anihilation of the former about 420 AD. During the last part of this time a prophet named Mormon (hence the name Book of Mormon) makes an abridgement of the records of his people which he gives to his son Moroni. Moroni hides it from the Lamanites who want to destroy it. This abridgement is what is known as the Book of Mormon today. I cannot do justice to the book within the constraints of my time and network bandwidth. I suggest that you read it for yourself. You can probably get a copy by calling the number listed in the TV ad or you can almost certainly find a copy in your local library. If all else fails, email me and I will do something to see that you can get a copy. Hal Lillywhite
swindle@spanky.stanford.edu (08/06/90)
I noticed your inquiry of a couple of weeks ago on the
christian bboard, and thought I would respond. You may
ignore this message if your questions have already been
answered -- although, as a member of the Mormon church, I
may be able to give you some insight about the book that
others are unable to provide.
A quick synopsis of the book:
It begins with a Hebrew prophet
named Lehi living in Jerusalem around 600 BC, just prior to the
conquest of the city. Lehi has been warning the inhabitants
of Jerusalem of its impending doom when he is told in a dream
to take his family and another, and flee the city. To make
a long story short, they traverse the desert and the ocean
and end up in the "New World" (probably South America). Over
the ensuing centuries, they develop a civilization, intermingle
with peoples already living there, have wars, etc. Much of the
Book of Mormon is concerned with the history of this people,
with particular emphasis on religious history and the teachings
of various prophets and church leaders after Lehi.
As you mentioned in your posting, one of the principal
teachings of the book is that Christ visited the people (or
some subset thereof) of the American continent(s) after his
resurrection. He came to America to establish his church (as
he had done in the old world), preach his gospel, and ordain
apostles. A large portion of the Book of Mormon contains His
teachings given at that time. He stayed with them only a
relatively short time, then ascended back to heaven. The Book
of Mormon continues the story of this people until roughly
400 A.D., at which time the last writer in the book buries
the record (written on golden sheets or plates) in a hillside.
The record remains buried until the early 1800s, when a
young man named Joseph Smith is directed by the Lord to
retrieve, translate, and publish it, which he does. The book
is named after Mormon, one of its last authors (the record had
been passed down from generation to generation), who lived
around 350 A.D. The book becomes sort of the cornerstone of
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, which is
founded in 1830, only a couple of years after the book was
translated.
Without bogging you down with too much doctrinal detail,
here are some important points about the book and the church:
1) we believe that both the Bible and the Book of Mormon are
scripture, and are literally the word of God. The Bible,
however, because of thousands of years of translation, re-
translation, and mis-translation, necessarily contains many
errors. We believe that one of the purposes of the B of M
coming forth in our day was to clarify the gospel of Christ,
and serve as a second witness to His divinity (\ie "in the
mouths of two witnesses shall the truth be made known ... ").
2) we believe that, with the foundation of the Church, the
primitive church was restored to the earth; i.e., not only
had the doctrines of the Bible been obscured by men (well-
intentioned, no doubt), but the original church established
by Christ had essentially disintegrated (sort of a slow
apostasy).
Anyway, I've probably gone on long enough. I hope this has
been helpful and not too heavy. If you have any
further questions, I'd be happy to respond. In fact, if you'd
like, I could send you a copy of the Book of Mormon, or at
least tell you where you could find one.
Take care,
Lee Swindlehurst
(swindle@rascals.stanford.edu)ssimmons@unix.cie.rpi.edu (Stephen Simmons) (08/08/90)
In article <Aug.5.22.06.10.1990.18750@athos.rutgers.edu> swindle@spanky.stanford.edu writes about the Mormon church: > Without bogging you down with too much doctrinal detail, >here are some important points about the book and the church: >1) we believe that both the Bible and the Book of Mormon are > scripture, and are literally the word of God. The Bible, > however, because of thousands of years of translation, re- > translation, and mis-translation, necessarily contains many > errors. We believe that one of the purposes of the B of M > coming forth in our day was to clarify the gospel of Christ, > and serve as a second witness to His divinity (\ie "in the > mouths of two witnesses shall the truth be made known ... "). I think the case about errors in the Bible is a little overstated...The English Bible has (except in very early times) been translated from the Greek and the Hebrew; most copies of the Bible (I would suppose) have been translated only once; that is, they have been translated from Greek/Hebrew/Aramaic --> English/German/French/etc. There is only one translation step here. A retranslation merely means that scholars took a more exacting look at the original text and attempted to improve the quality of earlier translations. A retranslation *improves* the quality of the text, normally. Re-translations normally fix mis-translations in previous versions. The few errors in the Bible (say, as compared to most other ancient writings) are do to copyists mistakes. If you want some quick, hard facts about the manuscripts of the Bible, check out Josh McDowell's Evidence that Demands a Verdict, Vol. I, chapters 3 & 4 (I think). If you want to look carefully at the books that were included in the Bible as well the various translations of the renaissance and the modern age, check out the Canon of Scripture, by F.F. Bruce. I've heard, but not read, of a book about the Manuscripts of the Bible by F.F. Bruce. I'm sure that many other books could be recommended too. I think that after reading these books that you will find that it is difficult to argue that there are many errors in the Bible. A few, but not many. A Mormon friend of mine says that he trusts the Bible over the Book of Mormon because the Bible has been out in the open and under scrutiny for 2000 years or so. It has been tested for thousands of years, quite literally. It has withstood the test of time. What I have found fascinating is the vast number of places where the Bible agrees with itself. There are a lot of parallel passages in the Bible (i.e. the Gospels; Samuel & Kings vs. Chronicles & Isaiah; etc.). In many of these cases, we have entire passages repeated word for word. Furthermore, Numbers 7 is a classic example of an entirely different kind of redundancy: where a list of items is given with its total. In this case, as in all the others that I have examined, the total matches the sum of the items in the list, and therefore we can be quite confident in stating that the text is correct... --Stephen Simmons
jp@harvard.harvard.edu (John Pimentel) (08/12/90)
>Stephen Simmons writes >>swindle@spanky.stanford.edu writes about the Mormon church: >> Without bogging you down with too much doctrinal detail, >>here are some important points about the book and the church: > >I think the case about errors in the Bible is a little >overstated...The English Bible has (except in very early times) been >translated from the Greek and the Hebrew; most copies of the Bible (I >would suppose) have been translated only once; that is, they have been >translated from Greek/Hebrew/Aramaic --> English/German/French/etc. What the original poster was refering to and what I am refering to is: The Bible was translated to the extent that the original meaning has been, in parts, lost. What do I mean by that, you might say? Simply, that, if I take something (I've done this for others) say, in Portuguese, and translated into english I have two ways: 1) Meaning for meaning, in which the meaning is preserved; 2) Meaning for words, in which the meaning is translated to the approximate meaning, because the meaning for meaning might be just too long, thus in this case I would lose the author's true feelings, and have my interpertation of what he/she wanted to say. Essentially, the original poster was refering to an article of the LDS faith in that [paraphrase if not correct] "We believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is correctly translated; we believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God." From what I understand the Bible was translated into english in 1540, or thereabouts, but prior to this time, scholars preserved the bible by writing out copies of it. The belief is based on, in my opinion, on these rewrites, to the extent that errors may have crept in. The Book of Mormon, on the other hand was translated once into english, and any corrections to the BoM were made from the original or the printer's manuscript (which I understand was copied once by Oliver Cowdery). >A Mormon friend of mine says that he trusts the Bible over the Book of >Mormon because the Bible has been out in the open and under scrutiny I, personally, would say that this is a very isolated incident and does not reflect the membership as a whole, much less a minority. >In many of these cases [of the Bible], we have entire passages repeated >word for word. This goes back to the example, in part, I listed above, if I were given a work to translate and during my reading I found a section that looked familiar,e.g., something I wrote earlier, I would copy that section in the spot of this familiarity, rather than translate that section again. Joseph Smith did the very same thing {reference 2 Nephi 20 approx.} were he was translating a passage that was very familiar, and he found it to be similiar to Isiah (as you read through the section you can see that the Prophet Nephi is reading the works of the Prophet Isiah -- kindly don't argue about how did he have a copy, that's the silliest argument I've heard yet, unless you wish to convince me that there was only one copy of what the Prophet Isiah wrote), and while translating this section he put in the missing meanings as he was inspired. One further item, Joseph Smith also retranslated parts of the Bible, to put back the meaning that was accidently/deliberately omitted (not intended as an accusation, but covering all the bases). --- ------------------------------------------------------- John Pimentel ...!{decvax!mit-eddie!harvard}!frog!jp Disclaimer: The opinion presented, is just that; I take full responsiblity for those parts I've entered. [I'm not entirely sure what you are saying about the history of the Bible. If you are simply pointing out that no translation is exact, then you are surely right, but the same thing is true of the Book of Mormon. Even if Smith had angelic help, he would have had to make the same compromises in going into English that modern Bible translators have to, because no two languages map onto each other cleanly. Having multiple modern translations of the Bible is probably not a disadvantage. Looking at several different translations often allows us to get a clearer view of where compromises had to be made in the translation, and what the nature of those compromises is. Obviously we're not as near to the original as we are to the original of the Book of Mormon. But it's not true that translations are based on multiple generations of copies ending up in an Nth generation copy in 1540. In fact current NT translations (I don't know enough about the OT text to comment on it) are based on manuscripts from about 200 to the early 300's. The manuscripts from about 200 do not cover the entire text of the NT, but coverage is good enough to be a good check on the accuracy of the later manuscripts. So I think we can be fairly sure that nothing substantive changed after 200. --clh]
ssimmons@unix.cie.rpi.edu (Stephen Simmons) (08/16/90)
In article <Aug.12.04.48.28.1990.16815@athos.rutgers.edu> frog!jp@harvard.harvard.edu (John Pimentel) writes: >>Stephen Simmons writes: >>I think the case about errors in the Bible is a little >>overstated...The English Bible has (except in very early times) been >>translated from the Greek and the Hebrew; most copies of the Bible (I >>would suppose) have been translated only once; that is, they have been >>translated from Greek/Hebrew/Aramaic --> English/German/French/etc. >What the original poster was refering to and what I am refering to is: >The Bible was translated to the extent that the original meaning has >been, in parts, lost. What do I mean by that, you might say? Simply, >that, if I take something (I've done this for others) say, in Portuguese, >and translated into english I have two ways: 1) Meaning for meaning, >in which the meaning is preserved; 2) Meaning for words, in which >the meaning is translated to the approximate meaning, because the >meaning for meaning might be just too long, thus in this case I would >lose the author's true feelings, and have my interpertation of what >he/she wanted to say. Essentially, the original poster was refering >to an article of the LDS faith in that [paraphrase if not correct] "We >believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is correctly >translated; we believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God." As the moderator pointed out, and as I tried to point out in the previous posting, the original meaning has not been lost because we still have manuscripts (even ones quite ancient) in the original languages. >From what I understand the Bible was translated into english in 1540, >or thereabouts, but prior to this time, scholars preserved the bible >by writing out copies of it. The belief is based on, in my opinion, >on these rewrites, to the extent that errors may have crept in. The >Book of Mormon, on the other hand was translated once into english, and >any corrections to the BoM were made from the original or the printer's >manuscript (which I understand was copied once by Oliver Cowdery). If I may clarify, scholars preserved copies of these in the original language. This is a pretty simple operation, and provided no mistakes are made in the process, a perfect replica of the original (other than the handwriting style) is produced. However, mistakes did creep in, and the scribes and copyists were not ignorant of this possibility. In fact, some of the extremes that the Jewish scribes went to to preserve the quality of the O.T. text are almost unbelievable. They kept counts of the total number of letters in each book and chapter of the Old Testament. The kept track of the middle letter of each verse, chapter and book. In this means the Talmudic and Masoretic texts of the Old Testament were preserved. This kind of error checking precludes many mistakes. As you mentioned, the English Bible was translated in about 1540. It was not translated from 16th century Greek manuscripts, however. It was translated from 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th century Greek manuscripts and 10th century Hebrew manuscripts. However, as time passed, some remarkable discoveries were made, and our moderator has noted some of these and modern translations have been largely translated from these. Not all of these manuscripts are complete, but many are: [*** Begin Bible Evidence -- Long ***] New Testament & Greek Old Testament 130 AD Greek Fragment containing about 3 verses of John 18; 140-200 AD Text containing John 1-14. 200 AD Text containing Luke 14-John 14 225 AD Texts for Paul's letters (minus Pastorals), Revelation, Acts, and four Gospels. 250 AD Text for 1 Timothy to Jude 350 AD Entire Bible in one Codex (Codex Sinaiticus, Codex Vaticanus) except for a few missing pages (actually, quite a few in the Vaticanus). 400 AD Codex Byzantanticus (sp?) containing most of the Bible 450 AD+ Archaeologists have found over 2400 Greek manuscripts, 10000 Latin manuscripts, and manuscripts from some 20 or so other languages dating to 450 AD or later. All together, as of about 1988 or so, there are over 24,000 manuscripts and fragments; some five or ten thousand of these have not yet filtered from the scholar's desk to Bible translations because they have been discovered in the last 10 years or so. Modern translations of the New Testament are based upon Greek texts known as the Textus Receptus, the Majority Text, and the Revised Greek text, the latest edition of which is published by Nestle-Aland and the United Bible Societies. Hebrew Old Testament Sources 150 BC to 100 AD Dead see scrolls; some scrolls date early (like Isaiah) and some apparently date later. 900 AD Oldest copy of the Masoretic Text (note: the Jews considered a new copy so reliable that it was worth more than the old, as the old was generally several hundred years old and was becoming fragile. The old texts were used for teaching students, the new for public reading. When the old became unusuable, they were burned. That's why the oldest manuscript is so late. 1050 AD Oldest copy of the Samaritan Pentateuch Translations of the Old Testament generally follow the Masoretic text, but the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Samaritan Pentateuch, the Targum (an Aramaic paraphrase of the O.T.), the Syriac (a translation), the Septuagint (the Greek O.T., above), and the Vulgate (a Latin translation) are consulted. Other, less well known sources have been used, but I don't know the exact names. By my estimations, the fragments that we have of the book of John are no more than a third-hand copy, and possibly a second-hand copy. I doubt that the complete texts of the Sinaiticus and Vaticanus are more than fifth-generation. That's not much room for error. The reason, therefore, for the many minute differences in the New Testament is the fact that the texts were generated in a tree structure, which is perhaps no more than 15-20 levels deep, but contains, overall, perhaps 100000 manuscripts. Simply an error made in a text near the root of the tree is perpetuated into all of its leaves. But since near the leaves there are many copying processes going on, there can be many possible different mistakes. According to one (liberal, not conservative) scholar, there are only about 40 uncertainties in the New Testament that affect the meaning of the text. None of these cover any major doctrine (such as some that the BoM disagree with). Therefore, I ask you (or any Mormon, or any Muslim, for that matter), where did the errors creep in? Could there have been some authority somewhere that didn't like what the Bible said and changed all the copies? No, for two reasons. First, there were many copies in existence, and there was no central authority that knew where all the copies were. Second, the only possibly group with this type of authority before 350 AD (the date of the oldest complete manuscript) was the Roman Empire. However, when they were not concerned with their own internal problems, the burned the Bible, not perverted it. It was simply easier to burn than to corrupt. And if they did corrupt it, they did not succeed, for they would still be offended at its contents today. And the evidence I presented above concerning the New Testament does not even consider the times that the Bible was quoted. A guy by the name of Sir Richard Darymaple (I think that's his name) was posed this question by his students: if all the copies of the New Testament were destroyed before 300 AD, and all that was available to Christians of that day were the writings of the early Church Fathers, how much of the New Testament could be reconstructed? After a bit of analysis (several years), the answer came: all but eleven verses. The early church writers (before Eusebius, but not including him) quoted the New Testament over 32,000 times that we still have record of today, and of these quotations, all but 11 verses of the New Testament are covered. Altogether, there are over 84,000 quotations of the Bible from the time of Jerome or earlier (I'll have to check this, though). Additionally, the Bible was translated into many languages before the age of the printing press, and many before the collapse of the Roman Empire. Such languages include (NT only) Old Syriac, Aramaic, Latin, Frankish, Sogdian, Ethiopic, Arabic, and at least 10 others including in part, Old English! Some manuscripts have several languages in parallel. The point is, we have additional references: how ancient authorities translated the Bible too. [*** End Bible Evidence -- Long ***] That's why I said in the previous posting: >>I think the case about errors in the Bible is a little >>overstated... To show you the vast amount of support there is for the accuracy of the modern translations among the manuscripts, I tell you that this evidence came from my memory of what I have read (I will look up and quote anything anyone would like to have a reference for). The above is basically all that I can remember off hand. In otherwords, it only scratches the surface. In summary (to this question, anyway), I state that the New Testament could not have been corrupted nor are there any significant errors in it. >>In many of these cases [of the Bible], we have entire passages repeated >>word for word. > >This goes back to the example, in part, I listed above, if I were given >a work to translate and during my reading I found a section that looked >familiar,e.g., something I wrote earlier, I would copy that section in >the spot of this familiarity, rather than translate that section again. You miss the point. I was refering to original languages, not translations. If anyone thinks that the Translators of our Bibles have done such a thing, let him learn Greek & Hebrew and see the contrary. >One further item, Joseph Smith also retranslated parts of the Bible, to >put back the meaning that was accidently/deliberately omitted (not >intended as an accusation, but covering all the bases). Because of this "controversy," I have recently started reading the Book of Mormon to see what it is about. Today, I read a verse that said something to this effect: "and an angel said it, wherefor can one doubt?" (I don't have the BoM handy. I'll look it up for anyone who is interested). Indeed, this verse disturbed me deeply. The writer of the text trusted an angel because he was an angel. But that's in stark contrast to the statement of the Bible: "But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed." Gal. 1:9. Why? because, "And no wonder! For Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light." 2 Cor. 11:14 The Book of Mormon even prophetically quotes this (somewhere in the books of Nephi, I think). Yet, what appeared to Joseph Smith? An angel (messenger) of light! Was this angel of light Satan? Joseph Smith never found out. He just trusted the angel (messenger). The angel said he was from the presence of God. Joseph Smith's father declared, upon hearing the story, "it is of God." How did he know? By the way, the Bible does give a way for testing spirits (and angels are spirits, according to the Bible -- Heb. 1:14): "Now he who keeps His commandments abides iin Him, and He in him. And by this we know that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us. Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in he flesh is not of God. And this is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard was coming, andis now already in the world." 1 John 3:24-4:3. Did Joseph Smith apply this test? As far as I can tell from his telling of the story, no. So now we come to the other part of the verse from Galatians: does the Book of Mormon contradict the teachings of Paul: preliminary investigations indicate that it does. Another very curious thing about the Book of Mormon. The name "Jesus" is very rare. I have encountered it two or three times. Instead of Jesus, I find Christ. Now, if you have read the New Testament, you know that Paul almost uses the terms interchangably. In fact, he uses Christ a bit more than Jesus. But the ratio that I have discovered in the BoM is more like 40:1. And when there are direction quotations of Jesus, so far, it has always been "and Christ said." This phrase never occurs in the Bible. Not even in "Jesus Christ," but only "Jesus said" or variants thereof. What is the significance to this? In my experience, the name of Jesus is a difficult name to say sometimes. Sometimes, even in front of Christians it is difficult to say Jesus. Christ is very much an easier word to say. And when I say difficulty here, I refer to the fact that it takes spiritual effort to choose the word Jesus over Christ. There is power in the name of Jesus that's not present in the word "Christ." One more thing that I discovered: the prophet Nephi (about 600 BC), and the brother of Jared (about 2200 BC) had great revelations of Jesus Christ. They had many details about Jesus that no other prophet, including Isaiah was given. Why is this surprising? Well, look at the details: Jesus death on the cross was clearly foretold; The atoning purpose of the death was clearly foretold; The fact that salvation would come to all men was clearly foretold But if you read the Bible you find that "had they [Satan and his forces] known [about the results of the resurrection] they would not have crucified the Lord of glory." (I'll get the exact quote for any interested party). And thus, that is why neither the purpose nor the plan of Jesus' coming was given in detail in the Bible. This makes me severely doubt that the book of Mormon (specifically Nephi & Ether) was written before 33 AD, as the book supposes. Furthermore, the Book of Ether states that the brother of Jared sees Jesus Christ. In fact, Jesus Christ is revealed to him, and claims something like this: "I am Jesus Christ, I am the Father and the Son" But doesn't the Bible say, "You are My Son, Today I have begotten you?" Therefore, 2200 years before he was begotten, he was called the Son. And didn't John say, "No man has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him (John 1:18)" Yet, Jesus, the Father & the Son--God, was revealed visibly to this man 2200 years before he appeared on earth. And didn't Isaiah say, "He shall be called Immanuel" -- that is, Jesus was named after his birth, not before? Yet the Book of Ether states the Jesus had the name "Jesus" and the title "Christ" 2200 years before he was given these names. From a cursory reading of the Book of Mormon, I find many things (I'll provide a list of current "discoveries" to any one interested) that are unacceptable to me because they contradict what the Bible says and because some of them seem quite unhistorical. If I am misusing these quotations and the BoM does not contradict the Bible, then, pardon me & correct me; the BoM is only misleading, not incorrect. Because of this, though, Mormons, like Muslims are forced to the questionable conclusion that the Bible has many mistakes, whether intentional or unintentional. But as I have shown, this is very unlikely. And neither groups have given me a shred of manuscript evidence to support their claim that the Bible is unreliable (although to be fair, I have not dealt much with Mormons, and they may posses such evidence somewhere). Speaking of Muslims, I find many similarities between Joseph Smith's account of his angelic (or saintly) visits and Muhammed's angelic visitations. Both angels claim to come from the presence of God; neither proves it. Who, if either are we to believe? The Koran and the BoM certainly don't agree, so one of them has to be wrong. (Or, to cover all bases, imperfect). Dear Mormon friends: If you can answer these questions that I have raised, please do. But without presenting evidence for an unreliable Bible don't try to convince us that the Bible is reliable. --Stephen Simmons P.S. Does any one have a computerized version of the BoM?
jp@endor.harvard.edu (John Pimentel) (08/25/90)
I wrote: >One further item, Joseph Smith also retranslated parts of the Bible, to >put back the meaning that was accidently/deliberately omitted (not >intended as an accusation, but covering all the bases). > >--- >------------------------------------------------------- >John Pimentel ...!{decvax!mit-eddie!harvard}!frog!jp >Disclaimer: The opinion presented, is just that; >I take full responsiblity for those parts I've entered. In article <Aug.12.04.48.28.1990.16815@athos.rutgers.edu> [--clh] wrote: >[I'm not entirely sure what you are saying about the history of the >Bible. If you are simply pointing out that no translation is exact, >then you are surely right, but the same thing is true of the Book of >Mormon. Even if Smith had angelic help, he would have had to make the >same compromises in going into English that modern Bible translators It is my understanding that Joseph Smith prayed as he translated, thus if the interpertation he thought is correct, he was told so by the Holy Ghost, likewise, if the interpertation was incorrect the thought was removed from him by the Holy Ghost or, in other words he had a stupor of thought. >have to, because no two languages map onto each other cleanly. Having >multiple modern translations of the Bible is probably not a >disadvantage. Looking at several different translations often allows >us to get a clearer view of where compromises had to be made in the >translation, Don't you mean where errors had crept in by the translator. I see no reason, if something is translated by gift of translation from God, that I should seek out several versions to understand the meaning of the word of God. >and what the nature of those compromises is. Obviously >we're not as near to the original as we are to the original of the >Book of Mormon. But it's not true that translations are based on >multiple generations of copies ending up in an Nth generation copy in >1540. Can you say Xerox? :-) >So they had >In fact current NT translations (I don't know enough about the >OT text to comment on it) are based on manuscripts from about 200 to >the early 300's. Well, currently I am reading the OT, currently at 2 Chr. and I am finding all sorts of neat things, like missing books, verses that say something contrary to God's actions. Here's an example: [KJV] Exodus 4:21 "And the Lord said unto Moses, When thou goest to return into Egypt, see that thou do all these wonders before Pharoah, which I have put in thine hand: but I will harden his heart, that he shall not let the people go." Later, the Lord punishes the Pharoah, because the heart was hardened; does this sound like the action of a loving Lord. Essentially, this verse states to me, as is, that the Lord will harden someone's heart then punish him for it, but it's the Lord who did the hardening. This raises the question, what if the Pharoah didn't want to harden his heart? Then this punishment would be unjust. If, however, I use the JST(Joseph Smith Translation) for this verse, a different meaning is found: Removing "but I will harden his heart" and replacing it with "but Pharoah will harden his heart, and he will not...", then the punishment from the Lord is justified. >The manuscripts from about 200 do not cover the >entire text of the NT, but coverage is good enough to be a good check >on the accuracy of the later manuscripts. So I think we can be fairly >sure that nothing substantive changed after 200. --clh] I am aware of some of the history from 30 AD to 200 AD, so I must raise a warning flag. --- ------------------------------------------------------- John Pimentel ...!{decvax!mit-eddie!harvard}!frog!jp Disclaimer: The opinion presented, is just that; I take full responsiblity for those parts I've entered. [No, my purpose in looking at multiple translations is not normally to find where errors crept in. The problem is that different languages generally do not have the same structure. Thus no simple translation carries exactly the same meaning as the original. This is not an issue of translators making errors. It's inherent in the structures of the languages, and is not solved by having the help of prayer, visiting angels, or anything else. Because it's impossible to get exactly the same combination of nuances, different translators will choose to emphasize different things in the original. Looking at several translations is one way to help get a feeling for this. For example, consider the Good News Bible and something like the Revised Standard. The Good News Bible does its best to get all of the implications that would have been present to the original readers. This means care with idioms and with things that are implied, but would not be obvious in a literal translation. In doing so however, they sometimes obscure the original literary structure. Thus you see things in the prophets that you didn't see before, but you also miss seeing some aspects of their poetry. If you want to look at the literary structure, or you want to read a commentary that deals with details on a word by word basis, you really need something more literal, like the RSV. There are probably places where the Good News Bible and the RSV differ due to one having access to recently found manuscripts not available to the other. But these differences are quite minor, and would not in themselves cause me to consult multiple translations. Your particular example of an "inspired" change does not make me feel more confident about your translation. One of the basic axioms of textual criticism is that the "harder reading" is likely to be the true one, because people who change texts tend to remove things they don't understand and replacement them with ones that they do. Certainly the concept of God hardening people's hearts is a hard one to deal with. But it's in enough different places in the Bible that we can be pretty sure it wasn't introduced simply during transmission. (E.g. Rom 9:18 implies that it was in the Bible as it existed in the time of Paul.) When a translation removes this sort of difficulty, I am sceptical. There are ways to deal with "hardening" that avoid strict Calvinism, but do not require changing the text. --clh]
jp@endor.harvard.edu (John Pimentel) (08/25/90)
In article <Aug.16.12.49.07.1990.23564@athos.rutgers.edu> Stephen Simmons writes: >previous posting, the original meaning has not been lost because we >still have manuscripts (even ones quite ancient) in the original >languages. But did the authors write them in those languages, or are those the original translations? >If I may clarify, scholars preserved copies of these in the original >language. ... >As you mentioned, the English Bible was translated in about 1540. It >was not translated from 16th century Greek manuscripts, however. It >was translated from 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th century Greek manuscripts >and 10th century Hebrew manuscripts. So many manuscripts for the same work. Why the different manuscripts, if the scholars preserved the original copies? >In summary (to this question, anyway), I state that the New Testament >could not have been corrupted nor are there any significant errors in >it. As you have shown. >>a work to translate and during my reading I found a section that looked >>familiar,e.g., something I wrote earlier, I would copy that section in >>the spot of this familiarity, rather than translate that section again. > >You miss the point. I was refering to original languages, not >translations. If anyone thinks that the Translators of our Bibles >have done such a thing, let him learn Greek & Hebrew and see the >contrary. No, I feel you are missing the point, if you can prove that the orginal authors knew Greek, as an example, and these authors bounced between the languages of the era with ease, then you are correct in your point. Otherwise, these other language translations are just that, translations, and not the original. No difference is made, if someone later translated the copy. Personally, I acknowledge -- not for the sake of this argument -- that errors crept in, unless, of course, they had a Xerox; there was only "Perfect" person, and his name was Jesus Christ, everyone else makes mistakes. Only a short-sighted person sees no errors from a work that has been for centuries in the hand of man, unless of course, these men had the best interests of God first. >>One further item, Joseph Smith also retranslated parts of the Bible, to >>put back the meaning that was accidently/deliberately omitted (not >>intended as an accusation, but covering all the bases). > >Because of this "controversy," I have recently started reading the Book >of Mormon to see what it is about. Today, I read a verse that said >something to this effect: Not that it will produce fruit, but I, for one, would like the scriptural references, just like those cases in which you quote the Bible. Quite frankly, I don't have a desire to search some 718,000 words to find the string you pulled up to prove your point from the BoM. >Dear Mormon friends: > If you can answer these questions that I have raised, please do. >But without presenting evidence for an unreliable Bible don't try to >convince us that the Bible is reliable. I won't try to convince that the Bible is reliable. >--Stephen Simmons > >P.S. Does any one have a computerized version of the BoM? Not yet. --- ------------------------------------------------------- John Pimentel ...!{decvax!mit-eddie!harvard}!frog!jp Disclaimer: The opinion presented, is just that; I take full responsiblity for those parts I've entered.