False Teachers #3 - Joseph Smith. Joseph Smith believed that the revelations he allegedly received superseded the revelation given to us by the Bible. These “revelations” included a vision of a visit from God the Father and Jesus at the age of fifteen in which he was told all religions were wrong. These visions resulted in the alleged finding of golden plates which he translated supernaturally from the unknown and never-seen language “reformed Egyptian”. Smith also used his supernatural ability to translate an Egyptian papyrus which later composed part of the Mormon canon, although this was later proven to be completely fraudulent when it was translated properly. The golden plates were returned to an angel, so they can’t be so easily disproven, but we can apply some logic here. Supernatural translation, if from God, would be correct 100% of the time. Let’s look at some other things. The Disappearance of the Church. The book of Mormon alleges that the real church of Jesus Christ was wiped off of the face of the earth and had been for 1400 years before he found the golden plates. Is it even reasonable to believe that after such careful preparation and planning by an omniscient being over thousands of years, God would have allowed His Church to be taken over by heretics? Remember, Jesus said, “I am with you always, to the end of the age.” The Bible +/- As Needed. Mormons believe in the Bible in so much as it has been properly translated. Basically, if it disagrees with their belief, the Bible is wrong, even though they allegedly believe it. False Prophecies. Joseph Smith said Jesus would return in 56 years while he was alive, that a temple would be built in Independence Missouri before his generation died, that a certain man David Patten would go on a missionary trip with himself in 1839 only to be killed in 1838. Joseph Smith said men lived on the moon dressed like Quakers who live to be 1000 years old. You don’t need divine revelation to tell you whether or not this man was trustworthy. Special Revelation / “Warm Feeling”. Mormons expect its potential converts or people raised in the Mormon church to pray to God and ask him if this is the truth. This is their way out of any conversation that includes logic or reason, since it’s based on a feeling. The Bible includes actual history and, when it speaks of history, it always speaks of things that really happened and can be proved or disproved by objective study. And it’s never been proven wrong. Obviously, there are things in the Bible that we can’t objectively know, but if those historical things and names are correct, then it’s reasonable to believe the things that can’t be proven (John 3:12 - If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things?). If the historical things are incorrect, we have no basis for accepting the non-historical. Not one historical or archeological reference in the book of Mormon can be objectively verified. It doesn’t make sense for the Bible to be in the context of verifiable history but not the book of Mormon if they’re both “holy books” since God never asks us to accept anything on faith alone, but instead asks us to accept it on the basis of what is true. More to come next time.
Posted on: Fri, 12 Sep 2014 10:56:32 +0000
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