The quote goes like this
"-Sunday 28- I spent the day in the council with the twelve apostles at the house of President Young, conversing with them upon a variety of subjects. Brother Joseph Fielding was present, having been absent four years on a mission to England. I told the brethren 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."
Thank you.
I suppose I could just counter with this statement (from a book entitled "The Articles of Faith" by James E. Talmage, a former LDS Apostle) and let the matter drop:
"The Church believes the word of God contained in the Bible. It accepts the Bible "as the foremost of [the Church's] standard works, first among the books which have been proclaimed as…written guides in faith and doctrine. In the respect and sanctity with which the Latter-day Saints regard the Bible they are of like profession with Christian denominations in general."
We use the King James Version of the Holy Bible. It has been described in various ways by our leaders, during the 180-year history of the Church. Without the Bible, Joseph Smith would never have been led to pray to God, asking which Church to join. Obviously, for us, if it led to the foundation of what we believe to be the re-establishment of Christ's original Church, it is held in high regard.
It is because we also believe The Book of Mormon to be the word of God that our critics assume we hold the Bible to be less important than is the case. We are occasionally asked which book trumps the other. To us, that's like asking whether Matthew trumps Luke, or whether John trumps Mark. Since we believe both books to come from the same source (i.e. God), neither one trumps the other. The Book of Mormon does teach some things that the Bible does not, but it does not in any way contradict the Bible. There are doctrines on which the Bible is silent. There are others on which the Bible raises more questions than it answers. The Book of Mormon clarifies many of the doctrines the Bible alludes to but on which it never makes a definitive statement. I have never found myself in a position where I've had to decide which book is right and which is wrong.
Our critics also often find fault with the statement one of our Articles of Faith makes with respect to the Bible. That statement begins, "We believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly." As far as it is translated correctly?!? Why the disclaimer, they wonder. What, after all, is the alternative? Should we believe it when it's translated incorrectly? Or when a careless transcriber left out a couple of ultimately important words? We do not believe that the Bible is inerrant. We do believe that the original message, as revealed by God to His servants in ancient times was perfect. But we are not so naive as to assume that, when not one single original biblical document exists today, the original writings have been preserved 100% free from human error.
All members of the LDS Church -- not just children -- attend Sunday School classes each week. Every year we study a different book of scripture. We study the Old Testament one year, followed the next year by the New Testament, the next by The Book of Mormon and the last by The Doctrine and Covenants (which is a book of modern revelation given to us when God spoke to his prophets beginning with Joseph Smith). We then start over. So you see, we spend as much time studying the Bible as we do studying the uniquely LDS scriptures. And when we study the Bible, we study it to learn of God, not to find fault with it, to try to figure out possible translation errors, or to find some way in which it is inferior to The Book of Mormon. We love and revere the Bible. As one of our living Apostles recently said, "[The Bible] is holy because it teaches truth, holy because it warms us with its spirit, holy because it teaches us to know God and understand His dealings with men, and holy because it testifies throughout its pages of the Lord Jesus Christ.
We do believe that there are fewer textual errors in the Book of Mormon than there are in the Bible. In other words, the translation is purer. The Book of Mormon has been translated into English just once from its original source, and we believe the translator to have been a prophet chosen by God for that purpose.
The Bible has had a much more complicated history. There is not one single solitary original biblical manuscript in existance today. The earliest manuscripts we do have are copies of copies of copies of copies. Any time a manuscript the size of the Bible is copied by hand, the potential for errors exists. The first copy may be fairly accurate, but a second copy, using the first one as the "original" is likely to have even more errors than the first. Then, of course, there are the problems which arise when anything is translated from one language into another. This would explain why there are so many different versions of the Bible today. Each group of translators was convinced that they were better qualified to translate accurately the words than were the others.
Even The Book of Mormon contained errors which had to be corrected as they were identified, and the first translation took place just 180 years ago. Joseph Smith considered the possibility of errors in his translation and addressed the issue on the cover page of the book, saying, "And now, if there are faults, they are the mistakes of men; wherefore, condemn not the things of God."
We believe The Book of Mormon to be "the most correct book on earth," not because of its message but because there has been less opportunity for that message to become flawed over time. Fewer human hands have handled it; it's that simple.
Finally, let's look at 2 Timothy 3:16 and what it
really says.
I see absolutely nothing in that passage that says "the Bible is the infallible word of God." As a Mormon, I fully agree that "All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness." I don't personally accept the Apocrypha, and I suspect you don't either. The Catholic Church says it's scripture, though. Does that make it "the infallible word of God"? Scripture is any holy writ accepted by a religion as being revealed by God. The words "scripture" and "Bible" are not interchangeable, much as you may wish they were. God never, ever said that "all scripture" was to be found in "the Bible," nor did He ever promise that by the time we got "the Bible," it would be a 100% accurate and complete record of His dealings with mankind.
