by TD 19 Replies latest jw friends
RevFrank said: If those or any mormon ever visit you again, you should ask them if they eveer saw the video called, "DNA vs. The Book of Mormon."
Don't need to. I've read enough about Joseph Smith to see that he was just another wacko at the time who was involved in Folk Magic and other bizarre stuff and the whole Mormon religion is built on sand, just like the WTS.
In the last 2 years of living where I do now....
JW's - 6
Mormons - 0 I don't think where I live in a poor enough city, because I've never seen anyone.
Community-type churches (is this considered non-denominational??) - 2
Baptists - 3
Atheists - 0
..so what did you read Mary? Like I keep asking the Rev, have you read the book. I've read a the JW orange book, portions of the the jolly green giant bible version, more 'awakes' than you can shake a college degree at and yet I'd still rather ask a JW/exJW what they believe since its very easy to get the wrong end of the stick.
By the same token the LDS aren't anything special as far as the people go, we still fart around and goof off, have affairs and generally get in a pickle like everyone else.
I know what you mean, Qcmbr. I've read the BOM, I've read LeGrand Richard's A Marvelous Work and a Wonder and I've read quite a few issues of Ensign. (They're always laying around here at work.) Yet there is much about the LDS faith that I don't understand.
Actually in the context of this thread, (Missionaries at your door) it probably wouldn't do much good for Mary to discuss what are likely the criticisms of ex-Mormons with (Let's face it) children.
Ancient Greek is a geeky hobby of mine and there are things that genuinely intrigue me about the BOM. How for example would a literal translation (ala KJV) of the Greek expression, amen amen lego soi have found it's way into the text? (And by this I mean aside from a poor farm-boy who didn't read Greek borrowing expression from the KJV.)
Obviously though, that's not something that can be discussed with wide-eyed innocent missionaries. ---No more so than you could discuss source criticism of the Bible with JW's at your door.
I have a friend who is 7th Day. He went to a seminar a few months ago and began telling me that the Catholic Chruch was the Scarlot Colored Wild Beast.
I had never heard that one.
Bryan
Have You Seen My Mother
so what did you read Mary? Like I keep asking the Rev, have you read the book.
I've read part of it........I found a great portion of it to be an obvious rip off of the bible. What interests me is the credentials of Joseph Smith, who supposedly got all his orders straight from heaven.......ya, riiiiight, just like Charles Russell did.
The gold plates that Joseph Smith allegedly received from the angel Moroni (if I remember correctly) were translated with a seer stone from "reformed Egyptian" to English and told about a group of Jews coming to America in 600B.C. where they became known as "Nephites". The translation became entitled The Book Of Mormon. However, there is no testimony from anyone other than 11 mormons that the gold plates ever existed, and they are, naturally nowhere to be found. There are many bizarre things in the Book of Mormons: it says that Jesus was bom in Jerusalem (Alma 7:9-10) and not in Bethlehem, which the bible clearly says, (Micah 5:2, Matthew 2:1) and it also says that the darkness after Jesus died lasted 3 days (Helaman 14:20) and not 3 hours (Matthew 27:45, Mark 15:33). As well, there is absolutely no historical or archaeological evidence of the existence of the Nephites that (supposedly) lasted 1000 years. Because of this obvious lack, some mormons grasp at straws and even claim that the ancient temples in the Yucatan peninsula were built by the Nephites even though archaeologists say that they were built around 1000 AD which is 600 years past the date of the end of the supposed Nephite civilization.
Allegedly two groups of Mormons saw the gold plates. The first group of 3 were the ones who ordained all of the first 12 apostles to the Mormon church. All 3 eventually renounced Mormonism and were called by Joseph Smith "too mean to mention; and we had liked to have forgotten them'' (Joseph Smith: History of the Church Vol 3 pg 232) and "liars, cheats, and blacklegs". Only 3 of the 11 stayed in Mormonism, all 3 being Smiths (naturally).
Many of the 11 were known to be very unstable and unreliable, always having weird visions and going from one religion to another (The God Makers, Decker & Hunt p102). As well, the Book of Morons contains literally hundreds of quotes from the King James version of The Bible (and even whole chapters; compare Isaiah chapters 2-14 to 2 Nephi chapters12-24, Isa 48-49 to 1 Nephi 20-21, Isa 50-51 to 2 Nephi 7-8). The alleged prophet Nephi allegedly made the gold plates in 600-500 B.C. but the King James version wasn't published until 1611 AD. Either Nephi lacked enough to write about and so magically transported to the future to copy out of the bible, or Joseph Smith copied out of the King James Bible (which was available to him) in order to enhance his fictitious story with the words of true prophets in order to fool those who weren't familiar enough with their bible to know that it had been copied.
Joseph Smith made it very obvious that he did copy from the bible by keeping the same bible chapter divisions and verse numbers and also kept the same words italicized----not too smart eh? He was also found out to be a fraudulent "translator" of ancient manuscripts by 3 men in 1843 who brought to him six thin brass plates which they had made to look like ancient plates with phony hieroglyphics on them. Joseph Smith began to "translate" them using his seer stone and said they "contain the history of the person with whom they were found. He was a descendant of Ham, through the loins of Pharaoh.'' After the death of Joseph Smith the 3 men made public the hoax which was then confirmed by experts. University of Chicago professor James Breasted wrote: "The Kinderhook plates are, of course, childish forgeries, as the scientific world has known for years. ... Where we can check up on Smith as a translator of plates, he is found guilty of deception. How can we trust him with reference to his claims about the Book Of Mormon?"
The list goes on and on......Joseph Smith's writing of the Book of Mormons is about as credible as Charles Russell's interpretation of the Great Pyramids.
Gotta defend my prophet Mary - you got a lot of your source from the Decks who are nuts.
1/ Kinderhook plates - Joseph Smith took them and never even pretended a translation.
2/ The three witnesses never denied their testimony which is odd if your lying. What did the 11 and the 3 witnesses ever gain out of their deception except a world of hurt. Give me one other christian organisation that even pretends to angelic visits, new scriptures. Most christian churches are left talking about the spirit since its the one thing that is impossible to disprove. The LDS church has 15 witnesses who signed their names to having seen the gold plates and some of them helped in the translation process.
3/ People leaving your side is not a proof your false. Exactly the same happened to Jesus.
4/ The book of Mormon translation contained sections from the old testament bible since the book of mormon contains portions of the old testament which the writer thought vital(remember they carried the old scriptures with them) interestingly there are some sections that aren't in our bible that have been lost but were current to the Nephites. The fact they are in KJV verbatum (though its fascinating to see what has been changed), is explained quite easily - just as Jesus quoted scripture in the language of the day and didn't correct and rephrase everything (the simplest route if your forging something) when the meaning is correct a prophet will quote the scripture of the day. Where the meaning of the old testament is not correct and has been bodged by translation then Joseph Smith provides a correction. Pretty much the way a prophet would.
5/ Proof of a civilisation that co-existed with much larger civilisations but had christian style beliefs does exist. I've listed it before. What everyone forgets about meso american culture is that of city states that may have indigenous peoples but are passed around by the ruling power. The Book of Mormon has this pattern exactly with several cities changing hands regularly and yet not 'becoming' culturally altered. Can you explain which parts of Nephite culture aren't found in Meso-America? Plenty of wars, trade, religious conflict. Its actually more stunning that JS got it so exactly right.
6/The book of Mormon states Jesus was born at Jerusalem not in Jerusalem. Bethlehem meant a lot less to a migrant people than their former capital. The land of is a common semitic style of reference for alocation and its environs. Pretty wierd that Joseph Smith would get that right since he certainly was no scholar.
7/ TD - latin phrases in Book Of Mormon, try french! The latin comes from the bible as stated above. The french carries a meaning not possible in english without extra words.
End of the day though - you are right to question this book right down to its core - if its false then the whole LDS faith just crumbles to dust. I had quite the crisis about this when I was younger.
Qcmbr,
To be fair, Elizabethan English was well out of vogue by the time Smith translated.
There is something bizarre in the fact that the chapters are identical down to the numbering structure. The numbering structure did not arise from any translation process but only as referential points, added later. It is too bizarre to chalk up to chance. The numbering system itself was added to the English Bible well after Nephi's time.
Respectfully,
OldSoul
7/ TD - latin phrases in Book Of Mormon, try french! The latin comes from the bible as stated above. The french carries a meaning not possible in english without extra words.
Latin? French? Are we talking about the same thing?
I'm talking about John's pet expression, amen amen lego soi.
Older translations like the KJV offer a wooden, word for word literal translation in period English -- Verily, verily I say unto thee
Modern translations more often than not drop the Greek redundancy in favor of the idiomatic content of the expression --Most assuredly, I say to you (NKJV) I tell you the truth (NIV) In all truth I tell you (NJB)
Even in the 19th century English of the early 1800's, we would not expect to see a poor translation of a Greek idiomatic expression in a work like the BOM.
Certainly we wouldn't expect to see it in the 16th and 17th century English of the translators that produced it.
Qcmbr, why are you coming on to an ex-JW site trying to defend the wacky religion of Mormonism?? Joseph Smith was a fraud. He and his whole family were involved in folk magic and all other kinds of weird practices. Hate to break it to you, but he was either dilusional or stoned out of his gourd or just plain lying when he got his "vision" from the angel Moroni. Anyway, I think you'd have more of an audience if you went on to an ex-Mormon site........we're trying to deal with the trauma of our own wacked-out religion----we don't need to hear about another one.........
