by EndofMysteries 21 Replies latest watchtower bible
Just curious if the message is the same or anything extra in it. I'll eventually read it to decide if I think it's in agreement and inspired. To those who say no books would be added after revelation, I say read that scripture again, it's for the book of REVELATION ITSELF. THe bible wasn't written as one book.
Even if it is inspired, doesn't mean they are doing all the right stuff either. Just wanting to see if it maybe was or wasn't in your opinions and why.
It has been proven through DNA evidence that the North and South American natives were not the lost tribes of Israel and it has been thoroughly examined that the hieroglyphics that Joseph Smith translated into the Book of Abraham did not say what he said, once hieroglyphics were readable later and a piece of what J.S. translated was still available.
What point would there be in reading the Book of Mormon, knowing all that?
Excerpt from http://www.carm.org/religious-movements/mormonism/book-abraham-papyri-and-joseph-smith which explains it in detail.
Conclusion
It should be quite obvious that present scholarship has revealed that Joseph Smith did not translate the Book of Abraham by the power of God as he had claimed. It follows that if he did not translate the Book of Abraham by the power of God, then it would be very easy to conclude that he did not translate the Book of Mormon by the power of God either.
When Joseph first gave his translation, hieroglyphics were undecipherable. Today they are. He was safe in saying anything he wanted to and there would be no way of proving him wrong. But with the resurfacing of the same papyri he used to do his Book of Abraham translation, and the fact that he did not in any way do it correctly, should be proof enough that Joseph Smith lied about his abilities from God. He has been shown to be a false prophet.
So there are the golden plates he translated found?
If so, where on earth did they come from? Where can you find them online at?
No no no. The golden plates are gone. They certainly could have never existed. What's still available are the scrolls of Egyptian writing that formed another book within the Book of Mormon- The Book of Abraham.
The logic here is that Smith was a liar about translating the hieroglyphics, it is proven. Therefore, he did not have God's power upon him with that translation. He would not have had God's power in translating any golden plates either. He made the whole thing up.
OTWO the book of Abraham is not a book within the book of Mormon, but is a book in the Pearl of Great Price.
Do the same research on the Mormon church that you would recommend to someone looking at the JW's.
Read 'Under the Banner of Heaven' by Jon Krakauer for an excellent portrayal of the rise and history of the LDS church. Joseph Smith was no prophet...just another religious huckster.
Yes, many times. I grew up with Mormons; played with them, went to school with them, dated them, worked with (and for) them. I've still got a really nice BoM with my name embossed in gold on the front cover -- a gift from a Mormon employer.
As a work of fiction it is interesting and very imaginative. I like reading it despite its flaws.
However I can't take it seriously and have a hard time understanding why anyone else would.
Even to an atheist, the Bible holds a certain degree of historical value inasmuch as it describes real peoples and real civilizations. For example, there is absolutely no doubt that the Egyptians, Israelites, Greeks, Persians, Romans, etc. existed. You can actually see (And sometimes even touch) Egyptian artifacts that were already ancient at the time of Christ.
You can travel to the Holy Land if you want. You can see the Wailing Wall. You can see the Mount of Olives. You can see the house of Caiaphas. You can see Hezekiah's tunnel. You can see the pool of Siloam These things really existed and you can see and touch the proof.
The Book of Mormon describes a civilization technologically on par with the Ancient Greeks and Romans, but there is not a shred of evidence that such a civilization ever existed, which is a huge problem because Iron age civilizations create durable objects that last for many thousands of years.
For example, how many durable objects do you see depicted here?
(The prophet Abinidi before King Noah)
I see iron chains, leg irons and manacles, steel swords, cut jewels, gold ornaments, cut stone, mosaic tile, helmets, breastplates, bucklers, and grieves just to name a few.
Mosaic tile alone is almost indestructable once it has been fired. It doesn't rust, disolve, or corrode. It is impervious to solvents. It can't be melted down. Breaking it only makes smaller fragments that are more easily lost (And rediscovered later) which is why we have so many mosaic artifacts from the Greek and Roman civilizations today.
One of the most naive things about JW depictions of cozy little shingled, gabled, lapsided, dormered houses tastfully situated in front of a clear mountain lake in a future paradise is that even the simplest of manufactured items sits on top of a large pyramid of technology. A pencil is one of the simplest of tools, but could you make one from scratch? Even the basic tools to build a log cabin (An axe, a saw and a bracebit) are the product of foundaries and smelting furnaces. It takes tools to make tools. It takes tools to make the tools that make tools (And on and on.)
The picture above is similarly naive because what you don't see in pictures that (Mormon) artists have painted to capture what the Book of Mormon describes is the pyramid of technology it would have taken to support that level of civilization. This also would have create many artifacts that cannot and would not disappear without a trace.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. IMO In the BoM, Lehi and his family come to North America shortly before Jerusalem fell to the Babylonians. This was many centuries before Alexander the Great conquered the Holy Land and the Jews started speaking Greek. Therefore you should find ZERO Greek influence in the BoM. Any Greek influence at all would be anachronistic
But that's easier said than done. The influence of the Greek language absolutely permeates the NT. If someone were to borrow words and expressions from the NT with no knowledge of Greek, it would be very, very easy to inadvertently introduce Greek expressions into a composition without realizing it.
For example, one of John's pet expressions was "αμην αμην λεγω υμιν"
If you translate it absolutely literally it comes out "Verily, verily I say to YOU" It this case, a dead, literal translation is not the best because this expression is idiomatic. Semantically it actually means, "I tell you the truth" or "Truly I tell you."
But a poor farm boy who only had the AV to read (i.e Joseph Smith) wouldn't know that would he? He might come to the incorrect conclusion that "Verily verily I say unto thee" was a normal way that ancient people spoke and not realize that it is simply a poor translation of a Greek idiom peculiar to John:
"Verily verily I say unto you, that this is my doctrine...." (3 Nephi 11:35)
"Verily verily I say unto you, that whosoever shall put away his wife...." (3 Nephi 12:32)
"And verily verily I say unto you, that I have other sheep which are not of this land..." (3 Nephi 16:1)
Greek idioms should not be in the Book of Mormon. The word "synagogue" should not be in the Book of Mormon. Their presence is a dead giveaway that Joseph Smith was simply aping the NT.
If this sounds too complicated, just ask yourself, "Why is the Book of Mormon written in Jamesian English at all? Is that really how people spoke in America in the late 1820's and 1830's?
Stayed at a Marriott Hotel and they had a Book Of Mormon in the desk instead of a Gideon's Bible, read it over a weekend. Nice fantasy.
I have a very distant Mormon cousin- probably at least a 7th or 8th cousin and when dna testing matched us up, he was dumbfounded when I told him I was Jewish. I let him stew in that paradox for a week before I told him I converted. Anyway, he just brushed off the dna tests of Native Americans, with the words, "it's not yet conclusive". meaning that unless they test every native American, there could still be some missed lineage that IS semitic in origin. I see the same sort of mental gymnastics in the LDS as I do in the JWs.
Noticing that Joseph Smith translated the book of Mormon in the same style of English as the King James Bible is a dead giveaway of a fraud. I asked the same question once about the Masonic rituals that were supposed to be hundreds and hundreds of years old- why were they all in modern day English? No amswer on that either.
