The Book of Mormon (moral, Creator, bible, moral, God)

[painted wolf]

the story of Ham who was cursed to be dark skinned and the 'sevent of servents'.

sounds kinda' racist to me...

not to mention all the snipeing of the Arabic nations around Isrial in the bible.

However I'm not saying that all Cristians/LDS are racist, just that thier is some raceism inherant in the books they hold so dear. Individuals choose what to believe for themselves.

wa:do

[Mercellus]

I testify to you in the name of Jesus Christ that The Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ is true and is the word of God. The Bible, too, testifies of the divinity of God and His great love for us and is His word.

Yes, there are many of our brothers and sisters here in the world today that have a different color of skin than you or I may have. They, you and myself are all sons and daughters of a loving Heavenly Father. God is no respector of persons, but He does reward righteousness. There are a lot of peope out there, of every color of skin, that are living their lives contrary to the commandments of God. There are a lot of people out there, of every color of skin, that are living their lives in accordance to the commandments of God.

You can find in both The Bible and The Book of Mormon instances where the Lord has cursed someone for disobedience and placed a mark upon them. That only came after that person(s) chose to go against God and His Gospel. If they would have chosen to keep His commandments, neither the curse nor a mark would have been placed upon them. God may not always place a mark upon us because of our sins, but the curse and terrible punishment of losing the companionship of His Spirit, because of OUR actions, which are contrary to His commandments, causes great pain and loneliness. Although God is just and does punish us for our sins, He is also mercifull and loving. "For God so loved the world, that he gave his Only Begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have everlasting life." (John 3:16)

"But the Lord said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart." (1 Samuel 16:7)

"For none of these iniquities come of the Lord; for he doeth that which is good among the children of men; and he doeth nothing save it be plain unto the children of men; and he inviteth ALL to com unto him and partake of his goodness; and denieth none that come unto him, BLACK and WHITE, BOND and FREE, MALE and FEMALE; and he remembereth the HEATHEN; and ALL are alike unto God, both JEW and GENTILE." (2 Nephi 26:33)

[Corban]

Originally Posted by dolly

No, the BoM doesn't. It falls apart at the seams.

1) no evidence of the Lamanites and Nephites civilizations, people, cities, etc.
2) no unquestionable, accepted evidence of "reformed Egyptian" existing
3) some parts of the Book of Mormon contradict Mormon beliefs
4) the BoM quotes from the King James Bible that wasn't written 1200 years + after the original copy of the BoM was supposedly written
5) It has translation errors from the King James Bible in it.
6) Most of the doctrines of Mormonism aren't from the BoM, but from another text (Doctrine and Covenants), but that contradicts the D&C.
7) etc

1)there is alot of evidence of civilizations in ancient americas. they built temples similiar to those found in the eastern world.

2) does there need to be, not all egyptian writing is the same, different writings could of themselves be called reformed. The Nephites lived on thier own for a thousand years, of course their writings would have changed in that time, English has been around for less time than the Nephites were.

3)what part of the BofM contradicts Mormon beliefs?

4)the bible wasn't written 1200 years later, the bofm people left Jerusalem around 600 B.C. about the time of Jeremiah, they took whith them records of the prophets, including the books of moses and writings down to that time and it was from those they quoted.

5)As well it should. Who can claim that the King James Version is a perfect translation from the original writers. The writings from which the book of mormon people quoted were from a more originall source ((see previous question) than that from which the KJ version was transated. if they were the same then you could make an argument

6)Your right here, not all our doctrines come from the book of mormon. We accept the BofM and the Bible and the Doctrine and Covenants to be the word of God. And we accept what is taught by the prophet who lives today as the word of God, when he dies we will accept what is taught by the next prophet to be the word of God. We believe all that God has revealed all that He does reveal and that He will yet reveal many important things pertaining to the kingdom of God.

[Ceridwen018]

1)there is alot of evidence of civilizations in ancient americas. they built temples similiar to those found in the eastern world.

And where is this evidence? Certainly not in museums or in textbooks, to the best of my knowledge. Could you provide informational websites for us to check out? Preferably ones supported by archeologists and science as opposed to religion?

2) does there need to be, not all egyptian writing is the same, different writings could of themselves be called reformed. The Nephites lived on thier own for a thousand years, of course their writings would have changed in that time, English has been around for less time than the Nephites were.

Of course there needs to be evidence! We can't just assume things here! The idea you presented about the Nephites living on their own for such a long period of time could be considered a logical explaination for the evolution of a style of writing, but only after we have evidence that the Nephites ever existed, and therefore that this writing style even exists.

4)the bible wasn't written 1200 years later, the bofm people left Jerusalem around 600 B.C. about the time of Jeremiah, they took whith them records of the prophets, including the books of moses and writings down to that time and it was from those they quoted.

So does the BoM consider the New Testament in the bible to be false?

5)As well it should. Who can claim that the King James Version is a perfect translation from the original writers. The writings from which the book of mormon people quoted were from a more originall source ((see previous question) than that from which the KJ version was transated. if they were the same then you could make an argument

Why don't we have these 'more original sources' today? What proof do you have that they exist/existed?

when he dies we will accept what is taught by the next prophet to be the word of God

What if the two prophets contradict each other?

[dolly]

Thank you Ceridwen for answering that. : )

1)there is alot of evidence of civilizations in ancient americas. they built temples similiar to those found in the eastern world.

Of civilizations, yes. Of the civilizations spoken of in the BoM, no. If you have evidence, then please show them to me.

2) does there need to be, not all egyptian writing is the same, different writings could of themselves be called reformed.

There does need to be. If this was a real language and they had the capability to write, there would be more than one text written in it.

3)what part of the BofM contradicts Mormon beliefs?

Alma 11:28-31: "Now Zeezrom said: ‘Is there more than one God?’ and [Amulek] answered, ‘No.’ And Zeezrom said unto him again, ‘How knowest thou these things?’ And he said: ‘An angel hath made them known unto me.’"

I thought you were polytheistic?

etc

4)the bible wasn't written 1200 years later

The King Jame's version was, correct me if I'm wrong.

5)As well it should. Who can claim that the King James Version is a perfect
translation from the original writers. The writings from which the book of mormon people quoted were from a more originall source ((see previous question) than that from which the KJ version was transated. if they were the same then you could make an argument

You misunderstood. The BoM has some of the same translation errors as the KJ bible. There is plagiarism involved. Sometimes whole chapters were written in a verbatim manner (with only slight changes in phrases (like using synonyms, etc), and a few things removed) from the Bible. 2 Nephi 16 = Isaiah 6. 2 Nephi 13 = Isaiah 3. etc

6)Your right here, not all our doctrines come from the book of mormon. We accept the BofM and the Bible and the Doctrine and Covenants to be the word of God. And we accept what is taught by the prophet who lives today as the word of God, when he dies we will accept what is taught by the next prophet to be the word of God. We believe all that God has revealed all that He does reveal and that He will yet reveal many important things pertaining to the kingdom of God.

"...the Book of Mormon contains "the truth and the Word of God" (D&amp:C, 19:26); "the fullness of the gospel of Jesus Christ" (that is, Mormon teachings, D&C, 20:9); and the "fullness of the everlasting gospel" (D&C, 135:3). Doctrine and Covenants also has Jesus claiming that the Book of Mormon has "the principles of my gospel" (D&C, 42:12) and "all things written concerning the foundation of my church, my gospel, and my rock" (D&C, 18:4, cf. 17:1-6; emphasis added [...]).

According to the Doctrine and Covenants then, the Book of Mormon must contain at the very least some of the central doctrines of the Mormon faith. But the Book of Mormon contains few major Mormon doctrines. It does not teach any of the following central Mormon principles, which form the foundation of the Mormon church and its "gospel": polytheism; God as the product of an eternal progression; eternal marriage; polygamy; human deification; the Trinity as three separate Gods; baptism for the dead; maintaining genealogical records; universalism; God has a physical body and was once a man; God organized, not created, the world; mother gods (heavenly mothers); temple marriage as a requirement for exaltation; the concept of eternal intelligences; three degrees of heavenly glory (telestial, terrestial, celestial); salvation after death in the spirit world; a New Testament era of Mormon organizational offices and functions such as the Melchizedek and Aaronic priesthoods; stake presidents and first presidency."

They said it better than I could.

http://www.apologeticsindex.org/b60ab.html#subject1

[reeder]

Nice work Dolly & friends,

You didn't even bring up the horses mentioned in the BOM. Horses were not on the American continent during the time period covered by the BOM.

What about those millions of swords, we can't find any of the swords the lamanites fought with.

What about the DNA, the native americans are genetically shown to be from across the bearing staight, No sign of middle eastern DNA.

[dan]

There are many archeological evidences of the veracity of the Book of Mormon, but most people rely on a very old negation by the Smithsonian of any validity of Book of Mormon claims. This statements predates many of the finds that shape our current understanding of archeology. Evidence is ample to not only to make credible our claim, but to make it very convincing.

1- Joseph Smith was the very first man to suggest that there was any type of organization or intelligence in the mesoamerican civilizations. The Book of Mormon was laughed at for years until an archeologist discovered that writings and even books did, in fact, exist during that time (along with an incredibly intricate civilization). Up until then they were all thought of as savages and nothing more. This discovery rocked the anthropological world, but you wouldn't know that because you live at a time when that is common knowledge. Joseph Smith asserted that fact before anyone even thought of it.

2- The Book of Mormon mentions a city in south-central arabia called Nahom. Joseph Smith seemed to have pulled it out of his nether-regions until a city was unearthed in south-central arabia bearing the name Naham (the differences in transliteration are meaningless). How could Joseph Smith have given an arbitrary name and location to a city only to have that city unearthed almost two hundred years later? Heck of a coincidence.

3- Spanish conquistadors have written about ancient mesoamerican stories about a white, bearded god visiting them and promising to return, as well as stories about a family crossing the seas after the tower of babel incident to inhabit their lands; two stories that exist nowhere in the world except in the Book of Mormon.

4- We're all familiar with the controversial fact that the Book of Mormon(hereafter referred to as the b.o.m.) talks of horses and even elephants (how can that be? They didn't come to the Americas until after the Spanish arrived!), but both species have been found to have pre-dated contemporary discovery of this continent. All the things about plants, animals and inventions that didn't appear to exist before the Spanish have also been shown to be false.

5- The b.o.m. contains Hebraisms and Semitic literary styles that Joseph Smith could not possibly have even been cognizant of. Synonymous parallelism, antithetic parallelism, chiasmus, simile curses, the prophetic perfect, compound prepositions, plural amplification, four and eight part construction, the construct state, the cognate accusative and the repitition of the possessive pronoun are some of the styles that were unique to ancient and near eastern literature. They were all completely unhknown to Joseph Smith or any of his contemporaries, but the b.o.m. is replete with textbook examples of them.

6- Of the eleven men who swore to have physically seen and handled the gold plates, only a couple remained faithful to the church, but not a one denied his testimony, despite ridicule, humiliation and offers of riches. Every single one, in fact, restated his testimony and affirmed the actuality of the gold plates shortly before death, even though some of them tried to have Joseph Smith arrested and killed.

7- The b.o.m. claims the southern pacificislands were inhabited by south american peoples. This was laughed at until a man in the forties, Thor Hyerdahl (not mormon) came up with the same theory and set out to prove it by building a ship of ancient materials and sailing it across the pacific. The whole world told him he was gonna die until he arrived at the other side of the pacific. Read the book Kon Tiki to find out about his trip. He proved possible a theory that Joseph Smith came up with (completely unbeknownst to him) over a hundred years earlier.

I could go on for days, but I won't. These are only the easiest ones to type out. Others would take hours to get down. A good book you can read is Echoes and Evidences of the Book of Mormon, by Parry, Peterson and Welch. It was published by the foundation for ancient research and mormon studies, a.k.a F.A.R.M.S. If this isn't enough simply submit a problem (one at a time) that you have with the b.o.m. and I'll show you the most recent research that has been done.

[dan]

Originally Posted by reeder

Nice work Dolly & friends,

You didn't even bring up the horses mentioned in the BOM. Horses were not on the American continent during the time period covered by the BOM.

What about those millions of swords, we can't find any of the swords the lamanites fought with.

What about the DNA, the native americans are genetically shown to be from across the bearing staight, No sign of middle eastern DNA.

Recent discoveries have proven horses did, in fact, exist before the Spanish ever arrived. I'll provide the documentation when I have access to it.

So?

All that old study shows is the existence of a certain DNA type that was more common in far eastern peoples than in near eastern. It does not set out to prove or disprove anything, nor does it provide any evidence for any kind of conclusion on the subject. At best it says, "Hey, they may have come from accross the bearing straight."

[sethsherwood]

The idea of Indians coming over the bering land bridge is quickly becoming a thing of the past.

[DianJo]

The Book of Mormon cannot be taken seriously, please!
They cannot even be considered Christian. They believe that God is a CREATED being and that he had a celestial wife and the product of that union was Jesus and that Satan is Jesus' brother! They believe that Jesus is the son of god but not THE Son of God! They believe Jesus is a created being!
They also believe something about - If you're a Mormon "in good standing" (provided you've tithed correctly) that when you die, you will become a god, like God, and have your own planet to rule over! How whacked is that! They also believe in a plurality of gods - like paganism?!

There is no archeological evidence for anything in the Book of Mormon or anything else Joseph Smith professes to be "truth"! He claims that Jesus appeared to him and charged him with "bringing back His chruch". The Book of Mormon that was given to him by an "angel" and was supposedly a book of gold. Oh! but where is this "book"? The angel took it with him when he left! Right, Please!

First of all, ALL revelation ended with the death of last apostle - period! Second, Jesus' church didn't go anywhere, it's still on this earth - just as He promised it would be - "the gates of hell shall not prevail agianst it".