LDS 4000 Changes To The BOM

Solomon Smith

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Joseph Smith said "that the Book of Mormon was the most correct of any book on earth, and the keystone of our religion, and a man would get nearer to God by abiding by its precepts, than by any other book," (History of the Church, vol. 4, p. 461). Allegedly it was translated by the power of God. Nevertheless, it has some 4,000 changes in it. Some are mere spelling corrections, but others are significant changes. Why is this so if the book of Mormon was translated accurately by the hand of God? Why would the Mormon Church continue to change the work even after Joseph Smith's death?

Some of the Many Changes in the Book of Mormon | CARM.org
 
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“Paisios”

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Solomon Smith

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The LDS Church provides some explanation on its official website...

I’m sure they do ^_^

They make excuses for all of their gross errors and heterodox teachings so why would this be any different.
 
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Ironhold

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If you're willing to do a fair bit of reading, then FARMS has an explanation.

Book of Mormon/Textual changes - FairMormon

The gist of it is that the vast majority of the alleged 4000 changes are typographical in nature, the kind of things that even the Bible itself has had happen.


And as far as CARM goes, the National Enquirer has a better batting average. Slick is yet another self-professed "Good Christian" who isn't willing to let the facts get in the way of his narrative.
 
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Solomon Smith

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If you're willing to do a fair bit of reading, then FARMS has an explanation.

Book of Mormon/Textual changes - FairMormon

The gist of it is that the vast majority of the alleged 4000 changes are typographical in nature, the kind of things that even the Bible itself has had happen.


And as far as CARM goes, the National Enquirer has a better batting average. Slick is yet another self-professed "Good Christian" who isn't willing to let the facts get in the way of his narrative.

You have an excuse for everything don’t you? Even an excuse for 4000 changes. I guess if a person wants to convince themselves that something is true then they can.
 
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Solomon Smith

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And as far as CARM goes, the National Enquirer has a better batting average. Slick is yet another self-professed "Good Christian" who isn't willing to let the facts get in the way of his narrative.

Every time someone refutes your fairytale beliefs you initiate this kind of a smear campaign.
 
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sfs

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PS: There were zero changes made to the biblical text. The scribes had to copy the scriptures perfect.
Since there are in fact hundreds of thousands of differences between the many Biblical manuscripts, that is plainly impossible.
 
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Ironhold

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That’s not true. The majority of manuscripts are identical.

Uh, no.

Johannine Comma - Wikipedia

Entire passages of the Bible, such as the Johannine Comma (1 John 5:7-8), are suspect as they aren't present in earlier manuscripts; they were either scribal glosses or were otherwise inserted at later dates.

This caused quite a bit of controversy when we started seeing English translations that were not the KJV, as some of these newer translations either moved the suspect passages to the footnotes (like the RSV and its heirs) or ignored them entirely.

So yeah - not only do the various manuscripts disagree with each other quite a bit, some of these disagreements are pretty major. For example, I'd estimate that about 95% of the mainline Christians I've spoken with over the years could not defend the three-in-one concept of the Godhead without referencing the Comma.
 
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sfs

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That’s not true. The majority of manuscripts are identical.
Here's my copy of the Greek New Testament, opened to the page I happened to be translating currently. All of the footnotes at the bottom of the pages represent textual variants. These are only the major variants -- ones that occur in a lot of manuscripts, or in very early manuscripts. (Plus a few that occur in early quotations of the passage.) There are over 600 pages in this edition of the NT, and every page looks like this.
P1040291s.jpg
 
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Solomon Smith

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Here's my copy of the Greek New Testament, opened to the page I happened to be translating currently. All of the footnotes at the bottom of the pages represent textual variants. These are only the major variants -- ones that occur in a lot of manuscripts, or in very early manuscripts. (Plus a few that occur in early quotations of the passage.) There are over 600 pages in this edition of the NT, and every page looks like this.
View attachment 242173

When scribes copied manuscripts if they made any mistakes they had to throw the whole thing away.
 
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sfs

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Read the book “God Breathed” by Josh McDowell.
I'd suggest instead reading something by someone who knows something about the subject. Try The Text of the New Testament by Bruce Metzger. It goes into great detail about the manuscripts, the kinds of scribal errors, the families of manuscripts, and the process by which scholar reconstruct what the original text said.
 
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Ironhold

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I'd suggest instead reading something by someone who knows something about the subject. Try The Text of the New Testament by Bruce Metzger. It goes into great detail about the manuscripts, the kinds of scribal errors, the families of manuscripts, and the process by which scholar reconstruct what the original text said.

Any good New Testament survey class at any credible college should bring this up.

I know. I took one so I could understand the NT from the perspective of other people.
 
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