THE BOOK
OF
MORMON
DIVINE?
OR
DECEPTIVE?By DAVID OLDFIELD
The Latter Day Saint's publication "Improvement Era,"
Oct., 1961, p. 716 stated that "most of them (Mormon mission-
aries) have never read the Book of Mormon" and "a great part
of them, if not the greater part, have never read the New
Testament."
This is really an amazing and startling revelation, especially
when we see that these two books make up one half of the
"scriptures" of the Mormon church. Furthermore, if the
majority of their church leaders are unfamiliar with these books
what about the mere average Mormon? From a Christian stand-
point this is a real shame because a good study in either of these
books would completely destroy any thinking person's faith in
Joseph Smith, his books and his "Gods."THE BOOK OF MORMON According to Mormon theology the original manuscripts of the
Book of Mormon were written about 600 years before Christ
then "translated" with a special technique and power of God to
be published in English in 1830. This translation by Smith was
claimed to have been perfect, "every word and every letter was
given to him by the power of God" (Oliver B. Huntington). In
the beginning, this book was the key to Mormon thinking and
was the first basis for the church.
Little do modern Mormons realize that between 1830 and 1977
there have been 3913 changes in their "inspired" book. The
first copies of Joseph Smith's book contained so many
grammatical, doctrinal and polemical errors that present day
Mormon leaders refuse to permit their own people to see early
copies of their own scriptures. I challenge any seeking Mormon
to make this comparison, if they can locate any photostatic
copies of the first. These changes alone should be enough to
drive anyone to the truth of God. "God's word is true from the
beginning: and every one of His righteous judgments endureth
for ever" (Psalms 119:160).LOGICAL OBSERVATION Mark Twain was no Christian, but he was basically intelligent
and a keen student of human nature. He once remarked that the
Book of Mormon "seems to be a mere prosy detail of imaginary
history, with the Old Testament for a model, followed by a
tedious plagerism of the New Testament." Is this a baseless
slander or a provable fact? Let's see...
The last book of the Old Testament, Malachi, was written in
about 440 BC, some 150 years after the Book of Mormon was
purportedly penned. How then is it possible that the older book
(Mormon) quotes and paraphrases the younger? Read Malachi
4:1-2; I Nephi 22:15; II Nephi 25:15; 26:4, 6, 9, etc. Why does
the Book of Mormon borrow more than 18 chapters from the
book of Isaiah? Why does the story of Nephi parallel so closely
the story of Joseph in the Book of Genesis? Is it because God has
so little to say that He must often repeat Himself? Or is it an act
of plagerism?
How is it that the Book of Mormon quotes the New Testament
in over 400 places even before the New Testament was written?
Why is it that Lazarus seems to be raised from the dead under
the name of Lamoni in Alma 19:1-2 (Jn. 11:1-44)? Why is it that
I Nephi 18 sounds strangely like Mark 4? How can it be that
Omer (Ether 8:10-12) was nearly beheaded in exactly the same
gory fashion as was the Baptist, John? It might not be unusual to
read of two or three coincidental details, but when they number
in the hundreds, there is justifiable reason to question things
just a bit farther.CONFUSION MULTIPLIED Things get a bit more confusing when in the Book of Mormon
Jesus quotes Revelation 21:6 (yet unwritten) in the Greek
language.
One of the most interesting aspects of Joseph's book is the
commentary that it gives us of life in the middle 1800s. That was
a unique era in human history and the Book of Mormon
describes many aspects of it in surprising accuracy. For
instance, it describes religious revival meetings exactly as they
were reported in 1830 newspapers; it has a discourse on the
baptism of infants in a day when that was a really hot issue; it
touches on the controversy of whether ministers should be paid
or not; it speaks out on Freemasonry which, again, was a current
hot topic in the 1800s. Either God, centuries beforehand, spoke
out on issues to arise in Joseph's day or the Book of Mormon
was actually written in that very day. If it be claimed that it was
the forethought of God, then we must also ask why the Lord has
not clearly done the same for today's topics of controversy;
abortion, euthanasia, T.M., women ministers, etc.IT'S HARD TO EXPLAIN There is more... Mormon leaders have a difficult time ex-
plaining how their ancient book can quote the well-known
Westminster Confession of Faith (Alma 40:11-20). And then
why does Joe Smith permit William Shakespeare (Hamlet, Act
III, Scene I) to be quoted in II Nephi 1:14?
To say that this was the miraculous hand of God, is not
sufficient to answer the problem because the Lord has not done
this with the 66 books of the Bible. The only "God" to take part
in the writing of the Book of Mormon was a "God" of plagerism
and deception. "[T]he god of this world hath blinded the minds of
them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of
Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them" (II
Cor. 4:4).
My friend, if you are caught up in Mormonism, I urge you to
examine the facts in the light of the Bible, then repent of your
sins and trust Christ as your Saviour.
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