BobRyan, your comments went off into another area, unsupported by not giving us any sources. You also didn't accept the challenge, ignored it, or don't want to deal with it:
The challenge & charge that could be made, that anti-Mormon "Christians" must have borrowed the arguments they now use, from early to later anti-Christians & Atheists, who bring up the same types of "borrowing" charges for the origins of the Bible (that Mormons also believe in too). Sources of this were presented in my earlier post, as also links to Robert & Rosemary Brown's series, vol. 2:
They Lie in Wait to Deceive, Volume 2. Learn the truth behind well-known anti-Mormons such as “Dr.” Walter Martin, Wayne Cowdrey, Howard Davis, and Donald Scales. Wayne Cowdrey, while working with others to resurrected the Spalding theory, joined the church under the false guise that he was a true believer. He soon "left" the church after being baptized, & while he continued to write an anti-Mormon book with others. He was exposed as doing so because
a tactic often used by such critics, is to build up their claims to being an "expert" or "ex-Mormon," or
kin to some past Mormon leaders. Attempting to make themselves sound like they were an "insider" or waving their schooling "degrees" in your face to make it sound like they are "experts" in the area of study in questions. Walter Martin did this, claiming to be kin to Brigham Young, & was exposed by the Browns, that he couldn't be, in the way he was claiming. And exposed of having a
Dr. degree from a diploma mill. Wayne Cowdrey did the "I'm kin" tactic too, claiming to be kin to Oliver Cowdery (note last names spelled differently). The Browns exposed their false claims, &
how the Spalding theory won't work, & never could.
As for "borrowing," if Christian apologists, (like Mormons), were to agree that Satan inspired the early anti-Christians to reject Christ, then these questions ought to be asked: Who was it that inspires modern critics to bring back the same types of tactics of rejection? Or, to "borrowed" from earlier critics,
the same old arguments answered by early to later Christian apologists? Arguments & tactics that are now used to reject the restored gospel, modern prophets & modern revelation, which produces modern scriptures, such as
The Book of Mormon. Should some Christians here accept the challenge to answer the Atheists, & early to later anti-Christian charges of "borrowing," will we see the same doctrines being used to so do? The doctrines of the
pre-existence,
Christ going to other nations, or
prophets in other nations preaching about Christ; plus, Christ preaching the gospel in the spirit prison. Or, because some of these sound like what Mormons would use, will they not be used? So how might Christians here answer the
same types of charges that the Bible & early Christianity was "borrowed," or "plagiarized" from the bible's environment, or pre-Christian pagan mystery religions, myths & sources?
Or will these answers be ignored here? Like the late 18th century anti-Christian writer, T. W. Doane, in his
Bible Myths, did, who knew the answer was given, but
didn't accept the late 18th century Christian writer, John P. Lundy's responses to the charge of
borrowing. Note here, how Lundy uses what
Mormons & early Christian apologists have used: The doctrines of the pre-existence & Christ manifesting himself to other nations, (
Book of Mormon themes too).
John P. Lundy: "Infidelity has been accustomed to say, from the time of Dupuis to the present, that Christianity is only a sort of copy of ancient Paganism: that is has no new ideas, and must therefore be rejected. But where did Paganism get its sublime conceptions of God, its notions of immortality and human destiny? Whence did all ancient nations derive them, hold them, and agree so marvellously about them? This universal faith must have an adequate cause; and Christianity is but the more full, clear, true and glorious exponent of it all . . .
If Christ was before Abraham, as He claimed to be, then surely He must have
manifested Himself to other nations beside the Jews, or other nations, including the Jews, must have derived their religious systems and ideas from some common source."
Monumental Christianity, 98, (emphasis added here).
Justin Martyr, 110-165, responding to the borrowing charge too, explained that the reason why there are so many parallels between the early Christians & the heathen mythology of other nations was this: "And these things were said both among the Greeks &
among all nations where they [the demons] heard the prophets foretelling that Christ would specially be believed in; but that in hearing what was said by
the prophets they did not accurately understand it, but imitated what was said of our Christ, like men who are in error, we will make plain." (
Ante-Nicene Fathers, = ANF, 1:181,
1st Apology, chap. 54). Note the use of the belief that other prophets were preaching of Christ in "all nations." Origen, 185-230-254, used this concept too, in response to the early anti-Christian, 2nd cent., Celsus, (
ANF, 4:609, book 6, chapters lxxviii—lxxix,
Origen Against Celsus; A. S. Garretson,
Primitive Christianity and Early Criticisms, (Boston: Sherman, French Company, 1912), 90-91. ANF 3:157-58, Tertullian,
An Answer to the Jews).
“
Borrowing, theft, adulteration. We have dwelled on the confrontation of comparative chronology since it seems to have weighed heavily on the Christian’s evaluation of the features they shared with classical paganism. From the moment they thought that, by virtue of their connection to the Jewish people, they preceded Greek history, they were able to consider resemblances to their adversaries only as cases of plagiarism committed against them by the latter. The direction of influence seemed beyond all doubt; as Justin unambiguously puts it, “It is not we who think like the others, but all of them who imitate us in what they say” (
First Apology 60.10).Tertullian would recall the determining role played by chronology: “That which first existed is necessarily the origin of what followed. And this is why you have things in common with us or things that resemble ours”; so it is, he continues, that our Wisdom (
sophia) gave you philosophy, and our prophecy your poetic divination.” (Apologeticus 19.1.5*-6*). This slide from posteriority to dependence, in Judaism as well as in Christianity, has been studied by K. Thraede. (“Erfinder,” part 2, in Reallexikon fur Antike und Christentum (1962), cols. 1242-61).
Tertullian,
Apologeticus 47.11-14.
Ad Autolycum 1.14; 2:37, translated by Robert M. Grant, Oxford 1970.
Stromateis 2.1.1.1.
Justin Martyr,
First Apology 54.1-4, 54.5-10, 55.1;
Dialogue With Trypho, 67.1-2; 69.1-5; 70.1-3, 5; 78.5-6.
Yves Bonnefoy,
Mythologies, (A Restructured Translation of
Dictionnaire des mythologies et des religions des societes traditionnelles et du monde antique) Prepared under the Direction of Wendy Doniger, (Chicago & London: The University of Chicago Press, 1991), 2:659-662, article
Christian Judgments on the Analogies Between Christianity and Pagan Mythology, J. P./d.w.
