LDS Joseph Smith's Book of Abraham is False

Ironhold

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this quote from the official LDS website sounds like money must be given directly to the bishop with a completed form.

is it stated somewhere that placing it in the care of the USPS is the equivalent of giving it to the bishop?

Most such envelopes have the bishop's official mailing address on them. If a person cannot physically give them to their bishop, then they can put a stamp on the envelope and mail it through the postal system.

SOP is that the bishop is to collect any such envelopes they receive this way and process them as normal, with the yellow sheet the person keeps being proof that they sent it off in the first place.
 
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Ironhold

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it sounds like anonymous tithing cannot be done, then.

so just to be sure I understand what you're saying, to the best of your knowledge, is it allowable to place your tithe in the form of cash in an envelope and mail it to the bishop without including anything in the envelope or on the outside of the envelope indicating who it came from?

Most envelopes have the bishop's official mailing address on them, and so they can be sent through the mail if they cannot be hand-delivered. SOP is that the bishop is to collect them and have them processed as normal.

Handing them in directly is preferred, however, as there's a lot that can go wrong with the mail system. It can in fact happen that such an envelope will get lost or stolen, a very real issue.

(For the record, I'm dealing with something similar myself. The person who does the paychecks at work was supposed to leave my check in an envelope at my work station, but as near as anyone can figure the envelope was inadvertently sent out in the mail with a bunch of bills. My name and address are on the check and can be seen through the envelope window, but the envelope itself lacks postage or a return address. I've already tried to ask the post office to let me see their dead letter file in case it's in there, but after a few days of it not showing up accounting had to put a stop payment order on it and cut me a new one. I still have to watch in case it somehow does arrive.)
 
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He is the way

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this quote from the official LDS website sounds like money must be given directly to the bishop with a completed form.

is it stated somewhere that placing it in the care of the USPS is the equivalent of giving it to the bishop?

it doesn't sound to me like the completed form is optional.
does it say somewhere in the handbook that these kinds of things are only suggestions? that the important thing is to follow the leading of the spirit?

"Members give their tithing and a completed Tithing and Other Offerings form to the bishop or one of his counselors."

34. Finances and Audits

on my device the site was very slow to load, so I accessed the quote using the following link:
Members give their tithing and a completed Tithing and Other Offerings form to the bishop or one of his counselors. at DuckDuckGo
You said: "is it stated somewhere that placing it in the care of the USPS is the equivalent of giving it to the bishop?"

I and others have mailed their donations to the bishop. There is no problem in doing it that way.

You said: "it doesn't sound to me like the completed form is optional.
does it say somewhere in the handbook that these kinds of things are only suggestions? that the important thing is to follow the leading of the spirit?"

Certainly it is best to fill out the form. I don't know how cash money is handled if the form is not filled out and there is no return address. I believe that the important thing is to follow the prophet and his teachings.
 
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Ironhold

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Certainly it is best to fill out the form. I don't know how cash money is handled if the form is not filled out and there is no return address. I believe that the important thing is to follow the prophet and his teachings.

If a person is a member of the church and they have a membership record, then they're contacted by phone and asked to clarify. Once they explain, the document is filled out and the person who does so puts their initials in place to denote what happened.

I've never had it happen to where we couldn't reach the person, so I never faced anything more than this.
 
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Leaf473

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And then you knew what? That there were grammatical errors and that JS had changed a few verses of the text to make it more clear. And from that, you knew what?

Look at this Book of Mormon Central series of articles on the BOA. It is very good.
Watch: Evidence for the Book of Abraham Facsimiles from Egyptology

Like I say now, stay on your course, talk with people who you can trust about your experience. Who told you to read the 1830 version? Were you being advised by an anti that put into your head that the 1830 version will prove to you that the whole BOM has been changed and altered from the original. It is not true. Stop listening to anti. Continue to listen to those who support the restored gospel.
I watched the entire video on youtube.
at about 3:17, the presenter says words to the effect that parts of each of Joseph's descriptions of the facsimiles don't match up with Egyptologists say is in the pictures.


if you wonder why I focus on that instead of the parts that do match, it's like this:
I assume that God doesn't make mistakes.
if someone claims to speak for God, and says that God told them 10 things,
and 9 of them turn out to be amazing but one falls flat,
I want to know what went wrong with the one.

something occurred to me while I was watching the video, and my apologies if this has been talked about already.
why would God inspire Abraham to write a book and then leave it hidden for maybe 3,500 years?
God's word to us is like light to our path,
and like Jesus said, people don't light a lamp and then put a bucket over it.
going over the 66 books in the Protestant canon, I can't think of one that wasn't revealed during the writer's lifetime or shortly thereafter.
but did I miss something?
 
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Hrairoo

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You hit the nail on the head, @Leaf473 . I don't expect prophets to be perfect but I at least expect God to be consistent.

In regards to the Book of Abraham, what I was taught was that during the dark ages, after the death of the last of Christ's apostles, there was an age called the great apostasy, where God's priesthood was no longer on the earth. During this time, the plain and precious things were edited out of the Bible by inconsistent scribes and evil men. But God is not a Plan B God. So, he prepared the gold plates to be written and hidden away in the Americas, and likely did the same with the Book of Abraham. Saved it up to be revealed at the right time.

The United States of America is considered a providence nation by LDS. The Constitution with all its freedoms and protections was an inspired work. It laid the foundation for this land to enable the true word of God to be revealed safely and during a time when it would not be edited and touched by the error of men's hands.

But wait...nevermind. The papyrus actually isn't important at all. God just "revealed" the book to Joseph Smith directly in his head. So, it doesn't matter what the ink actually says. God told Joseph Smith Abraham's secret record by revelation.
 
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He is the way

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as I believe I talked about earlier on this thread,
I think Joseph was a literary genius.

in much the same way that Mozart was a musical genius who could do amazing, stupendous things on a keyboard even as a very young boy,
so Joseph was able to do amazing literary things.

I've heard that Homer could recite the entire Iliad from memory.
even if true, imo, it doesn't indicate inspiration from God.


what is the mansion house?

are the book and the diary you refer to available on the internet so that we can read them for ourselves?
Joseph Smith Mansion House - Wikipedia

https://www.amazon.com/His-Arms-Experiences-Other-Side/dp/189082836X

My great great grandfathers diary is private.
 
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He is the way

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I don't doubt it, seeing as how it is a very American religion (headquartered in Utah, its founding events in NY, some of its early ideas about the Garden of Eden being in Missouri, etc.), and hence has its base in a wealthy, first world country where people can afford to give higher dollar amounts; I'd just like more to go on than "it's probably this way".



Sure, but again this number is likely to be artificially inflated for all the reasons we've already talked about. If one Mitt Romney takes the place of however many hundreds (thousands?) who give well under $422.57, then it would be reasonable to treat him and those of that class as an outlier, in terms of who is actually doing the giving (for statistical purposes, at least; there were such stats at the page I referenced in the other thread saying something like a very small percentage actually tithe in any given congregation, though I can't remember the exact percentage). Same would be true with regard to the smaller number of rich Catholics, Orthodox, or Protestants relative to the larger worldwide communions of all those, which are primarily made up of poorer people in countries where $422.57 per year is absolutely not doable. For example, the average yearly income in Ethiopia (which I'm only picking because it has a large Orthodox Christian population of over 32 million, representing over 40% of the country's total population) is the equivalent of just under $9,000 USD, which probably doesn't go nearly far enough when you consider that the nationwide average family size is 4.8 people (this is significantly higher than the Mormon average of 3.4, which is itself higher than the US general average of 2.1). With the exchange rate being as it is, $422.57 USD would be around 15,000 Ethiopian Birr, which is the equivalent of almost two months of the average monthly salary in that country (8,900 ETB).



That's excellent. I wonder, though: since the majority of Utah's charity is classified at that site as religiously-based, does that count the sending of Mormon missionaries as charity? I'm assuming these rankings are by self-report, so I imagine to find the answer you'd have to ask the respondent to specify. I'd be interested to see if the LDS religion tells its people that their missionary work is charity work. (I wouldn't assume they do, but I don't know.)
You said: "does that count the sending of Mormon missionaries as charity?" No, missionaries leave the state. However, many of us volunteer at welfare square, welfare farms, or the cannery where food is prepared for the needy. We also volunteer to help in other ways. Service for others is an important aspect of our lives.
 
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dzheremi

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I watched the entire video on youtube.
at about 3:17, the presenter says words to the effect that parts of each of Joseph's descriptions of the facsimiles don't match up with Egyptologists say is in the pictures.


if you wonder why I focus on that instead of the parts that do match, it's like this:
I assume that God doesn't make mistakes.
if someone claims to speak for God, and says that God told them 10 things,
and 9 of them turn out to be amazing but one falls flat,
I want to know what went wrong with the one.

something occurred to me while I was watching the video, and my apologies if this has been talked about already.
why would God inspire Abraham to write a book and then leave it hidden for maybe 3,500 years?
God's word to us is like light to our path,
and like Jesus said, people don't light a lamp and then put a bucket over it.
going over the 66 books in the Protestant canon, I can't think of one that wasn't revealed during the writer's lifetime or shortly thereafter.
but did I miss something?

I stopped the video after about three minutes (when the presenter is done with his six approaches), because I couldn't help but notice the underlying assumption in all of these is that there is this thing called "The Book of Abraham" that makes it reasonable to make some kind of link between the Biblical Jewish patriarch Abraham and the text that JS supposedly 'translated' from the papyrus or papyri to produce said book. As just pointed out by Hrairoo, it doesn't seem like the LDS themselves necessarily stick to this as a hard and fast rule when discussing the book (if you'll recall from Elder Holland's interview by BBC journalist John Sweeney -- which I think I linked to in this thread, and if not I can easily find again -- now the LDS line is that they don't know what was on the papyri; they only know that what got translated from it got translated into the word of God...right, right :|).

So if they don't, why should we? And then if neither of us do, then all six of these approaches -- since they rely on there being such a relation between the text of the papyri and the BOA -- are inherently flawed and unworkable.

It's the 'Reformed Egyptian' problem all over again: Mormons themselves can't seem to figure out what they're even arguing for in the first place (is 'Reformed Egyptian' a language, a script in which some other non-Egyptian language was written, or something else? Is the BOA the translation of the papyri -- in which case it makes no sense for LDS leaders to now claim that they don't know what the papyri said -- or was the papyri just some sort of vehicle for 'inspiration' in writing the BOA?).

Until or unless they figure that out and stick with it (which they'll never do; 'continuing revelation' allows them to change their direction whenever science tells them they're wrong, as it most definitely has with regard to the BOA and its supposed Egyptian origins), I don't see any reason why anyone should have to take their claims seriously. After all, actual academically-trained, dispassionate Egyptologists have said there is no mention of Abraham in any sense on the available papyrus (which matches up with the BOA with regard to these illustrations, so there's no room for Mormons to claim that the BOA was actually found on some other papyrus, as though it's just some big coincidence that they happen to still be printing their BOA with those same drawings and wrong explanations!), so it's that very definite conclusion based on actually being able to read the darn thing vs. Mormons' protestations that the BOA is...something.

Hmmm...now I wonder who I should go with... :scratch:
 
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He is the way

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I watched the entire video on youtube.
at about 3:17, the presenter says words to the effect that parts of each of Joseph's descriptions of the facsimiles don't match up with Egyptologists say is in the pictures.


if you wonder why I focus on that instead of the parts that do match, it's like this:
I assume that God doesn't make mistakes.
if someone claims to speak for God, and says that God told them 10 things,
and 9 of them turn out to be amazing but one falls flat,
I want to know what went wrong with the one.

something occurred to me while I was watching the video, and my apologies if this has been talked about already.
why would God inspire Abraham to write a book and then leave it hidden for maybe 3,500 years?
God's word to us is like light to our path,
and like Jesus said, people don't light a lamp and then put a bucket over it.
going over the 66 books in the Protestant canon, I can't think of one that wasn't revealed during the writer's lifetime or shortly thereafter.
but did I miss something?
You said: "
why would God inspire Abraham to write a book and then leave it hidden for maybe 3,500 years?
God's word to us is like light to our path,
and like Jesus said, people don't light a lamp and then put a bucket over it.
going over the 66 books in the Protestant canon, I can't think of one that wasn't revealed during the writer's lifetime or shortly thereafter.
but did I miss something?"

God does not reveal all things at once. Jesus said:

(New Testament | 1 Corinthians 3:1 - 3)

1 AND I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ.
2 I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able.
3 For ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men?

(New Testament | Matthew 17:9)

9 And as they came down from the mountain, Jesus charged them, saying, Tell the vision to no man, until the Son of man be risen again from the dead.

Surely there are many things that will not be revealed until the millennium.
 
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dzheremi

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You said: "does that count the sending of Mormon missionaries as charity?" No, missionaries leave the state.

That doesn't really answer my question. Since it is certainly possible to live in a state -- even for an extended period of time -- without becoming a legal resident of that state (my own father lived in Idaho for a little under two years without legally changing his residency, for various reasons), the fact that LDS missionaries leave Utah doesn't tell me anything about whether LDS missionaries would be counted as religious volunteers in Utah's total.

Or by saying "they leave the state", are you telling me that they are required to establish legal residency in wherever they are sent?

However, many of us volunteer at welfare square, welfare farms, or the cannery where food is prepared for the needy. We also volunteer to help in other ways. Service for others is an important aspect of our lives.

That's good.
 
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He is the way

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That doesn't really answer my question. Since it is certainly possible to live in a state -- even for an extended period of time -- without becoming a legal resident of that state (my own father lived in Idaho for a little under two years without legally changing his residency, for various reasons), the fact that LDS missionaries leave Utah doesn't tell me anything about whether LDS missionaries would be counted as religious volunteers in Utah's total.

Or by saying "they leave the state", are you telling me that they are required to establish legal residency in wherever they are sent?



That's good.
I am assuming that the statistics are about people who are in Utah and not those who are out of state. Here is another page:

Utah
 
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Leaf473

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Most envelopes have the bishop's official mailing address on them, and so they can be sent through the mail if they cannot be hand-delivered. SOP is that the bishop is to collect them and have them processed as normal.

Handing them in directly is preferred, however, as there's a lot that can go wrong with the mail system. It can in fact happen that such an envelope will get lost or stolen, a very real issue.

(For the record, I'm dealing with something similar myself. The person who does the paychecks at work was supposed to leave my check in an envelope at my work station, but as near as anyone can figure the envelope was inadvertently sent out in the mail with a bunch of bills. My name and address are on the check and can be seen through the envelope window, but the envelope itself lacks postage or a return address. I've already tried to ask the post office to let me see their dead letter file in case it's in there, but after a few days of it not showing up accounting had to put a stop payment order on it and cut me a new one. I still have to watch in case it somehow does arrive.)
so, not that I want to beat this to death, but just so I can understand the situation of LDS and anonymous giving,

the only way that I can think of that an LDS could give anonymously is to put cash into an envelope and mail it to the Bishop's address without filling out a slip to go with it or putting any return address on it.

is this practice allowed for lds?
if it is allowed, is that made clear on the church's website, or handbook, or is this frequently talked about from the pulpit?

also, I hope your check situation gets resolved soon!
 
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Leaf473

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You said: "is it stated somewhere that placing it in the care of the USPS is the equivalent of giving it to the bishop?"

I and others have mailed their donations to the bishop. There is no problem in doing it that way.

You said: "it doesn't sound to me like the completed form is optional.
does it say somewhere in the handbook that these kinds of things are only suggestions? that the important thing is to follow the leading of the spirit?"

Certainly it is best to fill out the form. I don't know how cash money is handled if the form is not filled out and there is no return address. I believe that the important thing is to follow the prophet and his teachings.
thank you for your answers.

what does the prophet say about filling out a form to include with your donation?
is it required?
 
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Leaf473

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You hit the nail on the head, @Leaf473 .
thanks!

I don't expect prophets to be perfect but I at least expect God to be consistent.

In regards to the Book of Abraham, what I was taught was that during the dark ages, after the death of the last of Christ's apostles, there was an age called the great apostasy, where God's priesthood was no longer on the earth. During this time, the plain and precious things were edited out of the Bible by inconsistent scribes and evil men.
yes, I think an apostasy is actually prophesied in the Bible as well.

what is not prophesied is that there would be no true Christians on Earth at all at that time.

Jesus said that you (his followers I assume) are the light of the world, a city set on a hill that cannot be hidden.

he also said that he would build his church.

for me, it doesn't make sense that Jesus did those things and then let some combination of Satan and evil people hide the light for many centuries.

But God is not a Plan B God. So, he prepared the gold plates to be written and hidden away in the Americas, and likely did the same with the Book of Abraham. Saved it up to be revealed at the right time.

The United States of America is considered a providence nation by LDS. The Constitution with all its freedoms and protections was an inspired work. It laid the foundation for this land to enable the true word of God to be revealed safely and during a time when it would not be edited and touched by the error of men's hands.

But wait...nevermind. The papyrus actually isn't important at all. God just "revealed" the book to Joseph Smith directly in his head. So, it doesn't matter what the ink actually says. God told Joseph Smith Abraham's secret record by revelation.
right, if some sort of physical document didn't need to be read at the same time as the "translating" process was done, it doesn't seem like it would matter if they had been found or not.

but about the book of abraham,
even if there had been a complete apostasy in that entire region,
I think it's very strange that other people living before the death of the apostles do not mention it.
for example, is it quoted by any of the New testament documents?
why did the translators of the lxx not include it?

but maybe I missed something, so I want to be open to learning more, wherever it leads.
 
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Peter1000

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I watched the entire video on youtube.
at about 3:17, the presenter says words to the effect that parts of each of Joseph's descriptions of the facsimiles don't match up with Egyptologists say is in the pictures.

Here is the interesting thing. Even though a man is called an Egyptologist, it does not mean he knows all there is about ancient Egypt. In fact, I'm guessing he knows less than 10% of everything ancient Egypt.

So if an Egyptologist says "per our knowledge, I think JS does not translate this correctly", you have to take into account the 10% problem. No Egyptian or Egyptologist knows the special nuances and deep secrets of the thoughts of the men that created the figures and symbols that are presented in their writings and drawings in their tombs and temples.

What we have to do is look at each figure or symbol individually on the facsimile, that JS said something about. JS hit many of these figures or symbols right on target, as to how the Egyptologist would have agreed. How could JS hit anything ancient Egyptian right on target? Did he have a book or information from the doctors or scientists of ancient Egyptian origins. Not in Nauvoo, Illinois, the frontier jumping off point to the wild west territories, in the 1830's, and having no access to anything ancient Egyptian.

So what about those things he got wrong. Wrong by who's word? An Egyptologist? You know that if you give 10 Egyptologists a piece of writing in ancient Egyptian, and ask them to translate the writing, you would get 10 different translations. So what about those thing that do not agree with Egyptologists? Are they really wrong? No, they are wrong according to the knowledge of the Egyptologist (10% problem), but not wrong period. They look wrong according to our knowledge today, but what happens if in 20 years we find out that what JS said was right on target.

It is like the translation of the BOM. When JS published the BOM, scientists howled and laughed with glee that this stupid JS would write such things about ancient American people that were scientifically so wrong, according to the knowledge of the scientific community, who are experts in ancient American history. Some 30 items that were perposterously stupid, JS should be embarrassed.
But 150 years later, of those 30 items, 23 of them have been proven to be scientifically true, 2 are on the verge of being proven true, and 5 are still not proven one way or the other. (this is an example, the numbers could be different, but the point is taken).

The BOA facsimilies are in the same state of criticism.

why would God inspire Abraham to write a book and then leave it hidden for maybe 3,500 years?

Why would God inspire Enoch to write a book and then leave it hidden for maybe 4500 years?
Why would God tell us in the Bible to read the epistle to the Laodiceans (Revelation 4:16)
and then allowed the book to go out of existence? Have you ever read this book?
Why did God allow Noah's writings to go out of existence?
Why did God not allow us to read many of the NT writers?
I could go on, but I hope this makes sense to you. We do not know why God did these things.
We must have faith that what we have and what the present prophets and apostles are telling us is enough to get us to the kingdom of God.
 
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Peter1000

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Leaf473 says:
yes, I think an apostasy is actually prophesied in the Bible as well.

You are correct.
what is not prophesied is that there would be no true Christians on Earth at all at that time.

This is not correct, there were millions and millions of Christians on the Earth since the first century. Notice I left off the word "true". Although they were righteous believers in Christ and lived a life that will allow them to enter the kingdom of heaven, they were not technically true Christians. Only when one is baptized and receive the Holy Ghost and the other ordinances that are necessary for salvation may they be "true" Christians.

This is the very reason that God has set up the "spirit world", where the spirits of all men go when they die. Here in the spirit world will these faithful saints learn the full gospel of Jesus Christ and through our baptism for the dead doctrine, they will recieve their true baptism and receive the Holy Ghost and other ordinances necessary for salvation.
IOW God has not abandoned them, they are in his hands at all times, and will inherit the kingdom of God the same as people who are living today with these ordinaces available in the flesh.
Jesus said that you (his followers I assume) are the light of the world, a city set on a hill that cannot be hidden.
And how many wonderful stories do you read in history about wonderful Chirstians that let their light shine to light up the world, as wonderful examples of Christian charities and the love of God. Thousands of stories.
for me, it doesn't make sense that Jesus did those things and then let some combination of Satan and evil people hide the light for many centuries.

It only makes sense when you know that God has a plan for each and every person no matter what time they live. The baptism for the dead doctrine is the equalizer for all good Christians everywhere and any time.
I think it's very strange that other people living before the death of the apostles do not mention it.

many did, but there writings no longer exist. Thousands and thousands of people left the church who believed that the church had moved away from them. Especially by the dark ages, when the church was more of a dictator than a shepherd. By the 1500's the church was so far gone, that the head of the protestant reformation, Martin Luther said that the Pope was satan incarnate and the Vatican was were satan lived.
I would call that far worse words than "there was an apostacy".

So by the 1500's the Roman Catholic church was all that was left of the original Church of Jesus Christ of the first century. All other churches that existed in the East and in Europe, broke off, and left the Catholic Church. The church that supposedly held the keys of the kingdom of heaven. (not by that time, the keys were long gone).

So read books on the reformation, people mention it often. In fact read books on the history of the Christian church and their councils, and you will see the apostacy right before your eyes.
right, if some sort of physical document didn't need to be read at the same time as the "translating" process was done, it doesn't seem like it would matter if they had been found or not.
You could say the same thing about the Bible documents as they were written too, it obviously matters that these writings were kept, at least until copies could be made. (not one original document of the bible exists).
 
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He is the way

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thank you for your answers.

what does the prophet say about filling out a form to include with your donation?
is it required?
I have always filled out the form for two reasons 1 to indicate where the donation is to go and 2 so I can compare at the end of the year to see that it is correct. I don't know if there are people who do not fill out the form.
 
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He is the way

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thanks!


yes, I think an apostasy is actually prophesied in the Bible as well.

what is not prophesied is that there would be no true Christians on Earth at all at that time.

Jesus said that you (his followers I assume) are the light of the world, a city set on a hill that cannot be hidden.

he also said that he would build his church.

for me, it doesn't make sense that Jesus did those things and then let some combination of Satan and evil people hide the light for many centuries.


right, if some sort of physical document didn't need to be read at the same time as the "translating" process was done, it doesn't seem like it would matter if they had been found or not.

but about the book of abraham,
even if there had been a complete apostasy in that entire region,
I think it's very strange that other people living before the death of the apostles do not mention it.
for example, is it quoted by any of the New testament documents?
why did the translators of the lxx not include it?

but maybe I missed something, so I want to be open to learning more, wherever it leads.
I don't believe there was a complete apostasy, but I do believe that was an apostasy:

(New Testament | 2 Peter 2:1 - 2)

1 BUT there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.
2 And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of.

(New Testament | Acts 20:29 - 31)

29 For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock.
30 Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them.
31 Therefore watch, and remember, that by the space of three years I ceased not to warn every one night and day with tears.
 
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