Tell us about the Mormon Jesus

Doc T · Jul 29, 2005

DannyB said:
Absolutely true! However there were no major differences. By that I mean that there were no differences that would have changed the meaning of the text. There were gramatical errors and misspelled words. whooop-T

That would be in error. I will try to get to this tomorrow and post examples.

Doc

~

DannyB · Jul 29, 2005

DannyB said:
There were certainly no differences that would merit the kinds of changes that JS made, datz fer shur!

There's no error in this.

While you're looking for examples, try and find some good examples of any substantial evidence that there were ever any gold plates.

Doc T · Jul 29, 2005

DannyB said:
There's no error in this. "There were certainly no differences that would merit the kinds of changes that JS made, datz fer shur!

I assume you are referring to the JST. I don't believe that anyone has made the assertion that Joseph Smith was restoring any lost text.

DannyB said:
While you're looking for examples, try and find some good examples of any substantial evidence that there were ever any gold plates.

Afraid I might show you wrong, so you thought you would throw in a red herring, just in case?

Doc

~

DannyB · Jul 29, 2005

Doc T said:
I assume you are referring to the JST. I don't believe that anyone has made the assertion that Joseph Smith was restoring any lost text.

Afraid I might show you wrong, so you thought you would throw in a red herring, just in case?

Doc

~

Show me.

The red herring came from LDS side my friend. It showed up when I challenged for evidence.

RULDS2? said:
Somehow, I seriously doubt that. Do you have the actuall writings of the Prophets, or handed down tellings? I seriously doubt anyone has found any of the original writings of the prophets, or even the apostles.

Ran77 · Jul 29, 2005

Casiopeia said:
As an ex-Mormon I find this post completely rediculous.

Casi (welcome to the twilight zone)

If I remember correctly, he made a comment very similar to this under his Deren persona. It was ridiculous then too.

Cassiopeia · Jul 30, 2005

Ran77 said:
If I remember correctly, he made a comment very similar to this under his Deren persona. It was ridiculous then too.

You mean to tell me that he is Deren?

Rescued One · Jul 30, 2005

The Lamanites, according to the BoM, were supposed to become white and delightsome if they converted.

There was a poem printed in the Improvement Era that went something like this:

My little Navaho, dark by birth, sits and digs the earth, ...could it be? She looks white as my own to me.

DannyB · Jul 30, 2005

I don't remeber who said it but someone said that LDS pray ferverently for all of us to discover the Truth.

I would just like the LDS side of this debate to know that I know that. ALL of the Elders that I met with were very sincere and devout. They showed unparalleled respect, patience, kindness and love while they were in my home. These guys work like there's no tomorrow in the ministry. I have a great deal of respect for the work ethic that LDS displays as a whole, as well.

There's nothing fake about the LDS' love for their fellow man. I have never seen any LDS behave with disrespect even when faced with someone like me.

I know that you are just doing what you believe is right and that you truly care.

Just so there's no misunderstandings, I truly enjoy debating these things and aside from just enjoying a good confrontational debate, I do so for the same reasons that you do. I am hoping and praying that you and anyone else that happens upon this thread will see that you have been lied to.

If I'm wrong, then show me. From what I've seen LDS have nothing to "show" only to "tell".

DannyB · Jul 30, 2005

Gitmo said:
For quite a long time, 28 years in fact, I believed that the LDS Jesus Christ conformed exactly to the biblical Christ. I didn't want to believe otherwise. The theology that I had been taught, since I had become a Mormon at age 19, was strictly from the four standard works of the Mormon Church and books and study guides approved by the Mormon Brethren. I wasn't until I had been challenged by a Christian to actually research the 19th Century doctrinal history of the Mormon Church that I began to see and understand the real Mormon Jesus.

From 1820 until 1930, I don't think Joseph Smith knew who Jesus was. His statements concerning the visions he had were clearly conflictive, as denoted in the memories of his mother in her biography of the her son. The original 1830 BOM displayed a trinitarian understanding which was very close to Methodism, the church with which Smith was most closely associated. The Jesus of the BOM was the same character as the very Eternal Father and looked upon by Mormons between 1830 and 1837 as a triune God. The BOM emendations effected by Parly Pratt in the 1837 edition reflected the changes in theology posited by Smith after 1835. The contextul changes in the BOM were essential to support Smith's later theological change to the separateness of God the Father, his Son Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost. The five versions of the alleged "first vision of 1820" indicated that Smith vaccilated in determining who the real Jesus actually was. At the first, Smith said that an angel appeared to him, then he said that Jesus had come alone to visit him, then, according to his mother, Nehi was the visitor, then, in the 1880's, the present version of his first vision came about and was official sanctioned by the Mormon Church. But during the time from 1830 until 1837, the Mormon missionaries who went out preaching taught that God the Father and his son Jesus Christ were one in the same, according to the BOM.

It wasn't until Joseph Smith gave his King Follette Discourse, in 1844, just before his death that the standard understanding of the Mormon Jesus was declared. The plurality of the Godhead, two separate personages with resurrected bodies and one with a body of spirit, was advanced and became the doctrine that led directly to the Adam-God Doctrine of 1852 taught as revelation from God by Brigham Young. The concept that Jesus was not fathered by the Holy Ghost, but by a Father God with a resurrected tangible body, gave rise to the cannonized Mormon doctrine that Adam, a resurrected god, had sexual intercourse with the Virgin Mary to produce Mormon Jesus. Brigham Young taught that the Virgin birth was concocted as a figurative representation of Christ's conception and, therefore, incorrect. Brigham Young also stated that he had received all of his instruction about the Adam-God Doctrine from he mentor, Joseph Smith. When Joseph Smith announced that the great god who sits in yonder heaven was an exalted man, he set the stage for the advancement of polytheism, which was carried on by such men as Brigham Young, Parly Pratt, and Heber C. Kimball.

The Mormon Jesus, according to Brigham Young, continues to progress in knowledge and power on the literal right hand of his father. He is a god, but is becoming a more enlightened and more powerful god through eternal progression. Of course, this has been disputed by such 20th Century Mormons as Bruce R. McConkie, Anthon H. Lund, Spencer W. Kimball, and Joseph Fielding Smith. These Mormon apologists have tried to erase the Adam-God Doctrine of Brigham Young to reflect that Young never taught that Adam was the literal father of Jesus Christ, and that Jesus is amenable to Adam. Yey, erasing true history a far more difficult task than they thought.

The Mormon Jesus and the biblical true Jesus are very different, and I hope that those poor souls who are being taught Mormonism by Mormon missionaries will trust the Holy Bible over the BOM in explaining the real essence of Jesus Christ.

This is the real issue, BTW.

Doc T · Jul 30, 2005

DannyB said:
However there were no major differences. By that I mean that there were no differences that would have changed the meaning of the text. There were gramatical errors and misspelled words. whooop-T

Danny has made the claim that there has not been textual changes in the different texts of the Bible that would change the meaning of the text. I disagreed, but did not have the time to find my references. Here they are.

First, let me just say for the record, that I accept the BIble and every word in it as scripture, as "profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness" (2 Timothy 3:16). There are no parts of the Bible where I say, "Gee, that doesn't fit in with my view; I guess I'll just consider that part uninspired." I believe that the vast majority of other Latter-day Saints would agree with me on this part.

What I do not accept is the theological straightjacket imposed upon the Bible by orthodox Christianity and its creeds.

With that said let's take a look at a statement made by Joseph Smith about the Bible:

I believe the Bible as it read when it came from the pen of the original writers. Ignorant translators, careless transcribers, or designing and corrupt priests have committed many errors.[Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 327]

It seems that only hard-line Evangelical Christians still believe that the books of Bible have come down to our day untouched and uncorrupted as the day they were written. Even a cursory examination of the scholarly evidence on this subject shows that many minor (and some major) changes, additions, and deletions have affected the Biblical text.

Let's examine this issue: Was Joseph Smith correct about "ignorant translators, careless transcribers, or designing and corrupt priests" or is Danny correct "that there were no differences that would have changed the meaning of the text"?

Donald W. Parry, a member of the international Dead Sea Scrolls editing team, and an assistant professor of Hebrew language and literature at Brigham Young University, has written:

Although the [Dead Sea Scroll] biblical texts bring us one thousand years closer to the original words of the prophets, we still do not have the so-called autograph texts, that is, those which were penned by the prophets (or the scribes of the prophets) themselves. We possess copies of the apograph texts, which were created several hundred years after the autograph texts. Throughout the history of the various biblical texts, both the Old and New Testaments, various errors have crept ina fact that scholars have been aware of for centuries. The Jewish Talmud, which dates to the fifth century A.D., lists eighteen occasions when the scribes intentionally altered the Old Testament because they thought certain ideas showed disrespect for God, or because certain ideas disagreed with the scribes' theological notion of who or what God is. These textual changes, called the tiqqune sopherim (errors of the scribes) may be found in the following verses: Genesis 18:22; Numbers 11:15; 12:12; 1 Samuel 3:13; 2 Samuel 16:12; 20:1; 1 Kings 12:16; Jeremiah 2:11; Ezekiel 8:17; Hosea 4:7; Habakkuk 1:12; Zechariah 2:12; Malachi 1:13; Psalm 106:20; Job 7:20; 32:3; 2 Chronicles 10:16; and Lamentations 3:20.

In this same light, Bible scholar, James C. VanderKam notes that the Samaritan Pentateuch (the Samaritan version of the five books of Moses) "differs from the Masoretic Text [the source of the KJV] in some six thousand readings; most of these are minor matters such as different spellings of words." A few variant readings in the Samaritan Pentateuch are not minor; rather, they represent intentional theological changes dealing the temple and temple worship.[The Dead Sea Scrolls Today (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1994), p. 123.]

Perry brings in other non-Mormon scholars to support this position:

The New Testament, like the Old, was contaminated through long centuries of transmission. "There are over 5,200 Greek New Testament manuscripts, no two of which are alike. They come from different areas and communities in antiquity and that accounts for some differences." Bart D. Ehrman points out in his The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture that John Mill's critical apparatus of the Greek New Testament makes reference to approximately 100 Greek manuscripts and shows "some 30,000 variant readings." As Ehrman demonstrates, many of the variant readings are intentional theological changes.[James B. Sanders, "Understanding the Development of the Biblical Text," in The Dead Sea Scrolls after Forty Years, ed. Hershel Shanks et. al. (Washington, D.C.: Biblical Archaeology Society, 1991), p. 61; and Bart. D. Ehrman, The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture: The Effect of Early Christological Controversies on the Text of the New Testament (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), 43 n. 108.]

Regarding "careless transcribers," Parry quotes William Hugh Brownlee:

There are numerous examples of the interchange of letters which are similar in appearance or in sound: the former are errors of the eye; the latter, errors of the ear. These errors in a manuscript might be cumulative from a series of copyists. On the other hand, both kinds of error might occur all in the same process. Thus a scribe in copying a manuscript directly by himself might misread certain words because of the their similar appearance. If he read as much as a whole sentence to himself before transcribing it, it would be possible for him to make a few mistakes of "hearing," due to his habit of thinking orally rather than visually. Similarly, if a manuscript were being read aloud by a reader in a scriptorium, with scribes gathered about a table, each of them copying by the ear, errors of seeing and hearing could both be made. The reader might sometimes misread; and the scribes might not always understand the words, especially if the reader did not enunciate clearly. . . .

There were also mechanical errors of inverting the order of letters (metathesis); of copying letters or words twice (errors of dittography); of transcribing letters or words only once which should occur twice (haplography); of omitting one of two phrases which began similarly (homoioarchton) or ended similarly (homoioteleuton), the eye accidentally skipping from the first occurrence of the initial or final word to its second occurrence.[William Hugh Brownlee, The Meaning of the Qumran Scrolls for the Bible: With Special Attention to the Book of Isaiah (New York: Oxford University Press, 1964), pp. 156-57]

Parry adds to this:

Another scribal error results from the incorrect division of letters and words. For example, [in English] the letters Godisnowhere, designed to be read, "God is now here," may be misread as "God is nowhere."[ibid]

Regarding "designing and corrupt priests," Parry writes:

Scholars have produced evidence that textual changes [in the Bible] were made based on a specific theological stance or agenda held by scribes or others who have had control of various biblical texts at one point or another in history. P. Kyle McCarter's Textual Criticism: Recovering the Text of the Hebrew Bible discusses a number of theological changes, including euphemistic insertions, euphemistic substitutions, harmonizing substitutions, and suppressed readings. For a thorough examination of theological variant reading in the New Testament, see Ehrman's The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture, cited above. Emanuel Tov's Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible lists several examples of variant readings [between the Masoretic and Septuagint texts] that relate to God's appearance to humans:

"I shall never see the Lord" (Isaiah 38:11) (MT)
"I shall never see the salvation of God" (LXX)

"the Lord met him" (Exodus 4:24) (MT)
the angel of the Lord met him" (LXX)

"and Moses went up to God" (Exodus 19:3) (MT)
"and Moses went up to the mountain of God" (LXX)

"and they saw the God of Israel" (Exodus 24:10) (MT)
"and they saw the place where the God of Israel stood" (LXX)

"and he beholds the likeness of the LORD" (Num. 12:8) (MT)
"and he beholds the glory of the LORD" (LXX)

In every instance above, the LXX [Septuagint] presents a different picture than the MT [Masoretic text]. The words of the MT indicate that humans can access and even see God, while the text of the LXX never directly states the notion that humans are able to behold God. So which is it Danny? Can humans have access and even see God as the text of the LXX indicates or not?

Emanuel Tov points out that "anti-polytheistic alterations" that have taken place at some point in the transmission of the Bible.[P. Kyle McCarter Jr., Textual Criticism: Recovering the Text of the Hebrew Bible (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1986), p. 58; and Emanuel Tov, Textual Criticism of Hebrew Bible (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992), pp. 127-28 and 267-69.]

Note that Parry isn't just some rogue LDS scholar making up these assertionshe carefully produces evidence from several prominent non-Mormon scholars.

So was Joseph Smith right, and Danny wrong? "Ignorant translators"?yes it would appear so. "Careless transcribers"?most certainly. "Designing and corrupt priests"?definitely. And Danny's position is shown for what it is: Wishful thinking by those who desperately cling to Biblical inerrancy rather than a God who continues to "[reveal] his secret unto his servants the prophets." [Amos 3:7]

Now please understand: I don't rejoice in this information. I actually find it a little disturbing. But, IMO, it points out the need for additional, inspired, prophet witnesses of Jesus Christ's divinity and atonement. If the Bible has been altered, it brings into question the truth of its message. I thank God that He has given us the Book of Mormon, because it confirms the Biblical message that:

. . . nothing can save [us] save it be repentance and faith on the Lord Jesus Christ, who [came] into the world, and [suffered] many things and [was] slain for his people. (Helaman 13:6.)

[Note:The above is taken from an email exchange between Mike Parker and Doug Harris and is not my own words though I agree with them completely]

Doc

PS If this is not sufficient, there is more.

~

skylark1 · Jul 30, 2005

deleted

skylark1 · Jul 30, 2005

deleted

DannyB · Jul 30, 2005

Doc's references said:
Although the [Dead Sea Scroll] biblical texts bring us one thousand years closer to the original words of the prophets, we still do not have the so-called autograph texts, that is, those which were penned by the prophets (or the scribes of the prophets) themselves. We possess copies of the apograph texts, which were created several hundred years after the autograph texts. Throughout the history of the various biblical texts, both the Old and New Testaments, various errors have crept ina fact that scholars have been aware of for centuries. The Jewish Talmud, which dates to the fifth century A.D., lists eighteen occasions when the scribes intentionally altered the Old Testament because they thought certain ideas showed disrespect for God, or because certain ideas disagreed with the scribes' theological notion of who or what God is. These textual changes, called the tiqqune sopherim (errors of the scribes) may be found in the following verses: Genesis 18:22; Numbers 11:15; 12:12; 1 Samuel 3:13; 2 Samuel 16:12; 20:1; 1 Kings 12:16; Jeremiah 2:11; Ezekiel 8:17; Hosea 4:7; Habakkuk 1:12; Zechariah 2:12; Malachi 1:13; Psalm 106:20; Job 7:20; 32:3; 2 Chronicles 10:16; and Lamentations 3:20.

Just as I said. mispellings and little things that do not change doctrinal essentials.

Doc's references said:
The New Testament, like the Old, was contaminated through long centuries of transmission. "There are over 5,200 Greek New Testament manuscripts, no two of which are alike. They come from different areas and communities in antiquity and that accounts for some differences." Bart D. Ehrman points out in his The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture that John Mill's critical apparatus of the Greek New Testament makes reference to approximately 100 Greek manuscripts and shows "some 30,000 variant readings." As Ehrman demonstrates, many of the variant readings are intentional theological changes.[James B. Sanders, "Understanding the Development of the Biblical Text," in The Dead Sea Scrolls after Forty Years, ed. Hershel Shanks et. al. (Washington, D.C.: Biblical Archaeology Society, 1991), p. 61; and Bart. D. Ehrman, The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture: The Effect of Early Christological Controversies on the Text of the New Testament (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), 43 n. 108.]

Yes, but the differences are very small and insignificant and do not change Doctrinal essentials.

Doc's references said:
There are numerous examples of the interchange of letters which are similar in appearance or in sound: the former are errors of the eye; the latter, errors of the ear. These errors in a manuscript might be cumulative from a series of copyists. On the other hand, both kinds of error might occur all in the same process. Thus a scribe in copying a manuscript directly by himself might misread certain words because of the their similar appearance. If he read as much as a whole sentence to himself before transcribing it, it would be possible for him to make a few mistakes of "hearing," due to his habit of thinking orally rather than visually. Similarly, if a manuscript were being read aloud by a reader in a scriptorium, with scribes gathered about a table, each of them copying by the ear, errors of seeing and hearing could both be made. The reader might sometimes misread; and the scribes might not always understand the words, especially if the reader did not enunciate clearly. . . .

There were also mechanical errors of inverting the order of letters (metathesis); of copying letters or words twice (errors of dittography); of transcribing letters or words only once which should occur twice (haplography); of omitting one of two phrases which began similarly (homoioarchton) or ended similarly (homoioteleuton), the eye accidentally skipping from the first occurrence of the initial or final word to its second occurrence.[William Hugh Brownlee, The Meaning of the Qumran Scrolls for the Bible: With Special Attention to the Book of Isaiah (New York: Oxford University Press, 1964), pp. 156-57]

Doc's references said:
Another scribal error results from the incorrect division of letters and words. For example, [in English] the letters Godisnowhere, designed to be read, "God is now here," may be misread as "God is nowhere."[ibid]

Doc's resources said:

Scholars have produced evidence that textual changes [in the Bible] were made based on a specific theological stance or agenda held by scribes or others who have had control of various biblical texts at one point or another in history. P. Kyle McCarter's Textual Criticism: Recovering the Text of the Hebrew Bible discusses a number of theological changes, including euphemistic insertions, euphemistic substitutions, harmonizing substitutions, and suppressed readings. For a thorough examination of theological variant reading in the New Testament, see Ehrman's The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture, cited above. Emanuel Tov's Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible lists several examples of variant readings [between the Masoretic and Septuagint texts] that relate to God's appearance to humans:

"I shall never see the Lord" (Isaiah 38:11) (MT)
"I shall never see the salvation of God" (LXX)

"the Lord met him" (Exodus 4:24) (MT)
the angel of the Lord met him" (LXX)

"and Moses went up to God" (Exodus 19:3) (MT)
"and Moses went up to the mountain of God" (LXX)

"and they saw the God of Israel" (Exodus 24:10) (MT)
"and they saw the place where the God of Israel stood" (LXX)

"and he beholds the likeness of the LORD" (Num. 12:8) (MT)
"and he beholds the glory of the LORD" (LXX)

In every instance above, the LXX [Septuagint] presents a different picture than the MT [Masoretic text]. The words of the MT indicate that humans can access and even see God, while the text of the LXX never directly states the notion that humans are able to behold God. So which is it Danny? Can humans have access and even see God as the text of the LXX indicates or not?

Emanuel Tov points out that "anti-polytheistic alterations" that have taken place at some point in the transmission of the Bible.[P. Kyle McCarter Jr., Textual Criticism: Recovering the Text of the Hebrew Bible (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1986), p. 58; and Emanuel Tov, Textual Criticism of Hebrew Bible (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992), pp. 127-28 and 267-69.]

Click to expand...

Doc's resources said:

. . . nothing can save [us] save it be repentance and faith on the Lord Jesus Christ, who [came] into the world, and [suffered] many things and [was] slain for his people. (Helaman 13:6.)

Click to expand...

Just as I suspected. There are no errors that merit rewriting the Bible because the essentials are still intact.

Doc said:

PS If this is not sufficient, there is more.

Click to expand...

Well, where's the rest of your assignment?

I thought you were going to show us some archeological finds that prove that there were ever any major cities in what is now New York! LOL! You would think that with all of that digging that they did for those subaways and skyscrapers that they would have found at least a clay pot or something.

Or a single strand of evidence that any part of the history provided by JS. ever happened.

Doc T · Jul 30, 2005

Post deleted by poster. Off topic.

DannyB · Jul 30, 2005

Why yes, I did. see post above.

Doc T · Jul 30, 2005

DannyB said:
Yes, but the differences are very small and insignificant and do not change Doctrinal essentials.

Perhaps you missed statements like. "A few variant readings in the Samaritan Pentateuch are not minor; rather, they represent intentional theological changes dealing the temple and temple worship." And, "As Ehrman demonstrates, many of the variant readings are intentional theological changes." And the differences between the LLX and the MT. Which is it Danny? Can humans have access and even see God as the text of the LXX indicates or not?

DannyB said:
Just as I suspected. There are no errors that merit rewriting the Bible because the essentials are still intact.

Now who made such a ridiculous assumption? It was certainly not me.

DannyB said:
Well, where's the rest of your assignment?

I thought you were going to show us some archeological finds that prove that there were ever any major cities in what is now New York! LOL!

Why would I or someone else expect to find major cities in what is now New York?

DannyB said:
You would think that with all of that digging that they did for those subaways and skyscrapers that they would have found at least a clay pot or something.

Or a single strand of evidence that any part of the history provided by JS. ever happened.

You forget. This is your red herring, not mine.

Doc

~

DannyB · Jul 30, 2005

Whatever dude. ya ain't listenin'

I challenged you guys for evidence FIRST and there still has been no effort to do anything but to discredit the Bible ever since.

Doc T · Jul 30, 2005

DannyB said:
Whatever dude. ya ain't listenin'

I challenged you guys for evidence FIRST and there still has been no effort to do anything but to discredit the Bible ever since.

121st verse same as the first. The only rebuttal anyone can come up with is "your just trying to discredit the Bible".

Doc

~

DannyB · Jul 30, 2005

and you still have no evidence.

DannyB · Jul 30, 2005

Doc T said:
Perhaps you missed statements like. "A few variant readings in the Samaritan Pentateuch are not minor; rather, they represent intentional theological changes dealing the temple and temple worship." And, "As Ehrman demonstrates, many of the variant readings are intentional theological changes." And the differences between the LLX and the MT. Which is it Danny? Can humans have access and even see God as the text of the LXX indicates or not?

Doesn't matter. It doesn't change the essentials.

Tell us about the Mormon Jesus

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