Mormon Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

pssst. different bibles say different things.really. not only is there revision between books of the bible (see 1Ch 21:1 and 2Sa 24:1, and psalms 14 adn 53), but different translations, editions, and even manuscripts of the bible say different things. the catholic and kjv editions don't even have the same number of books, and there's two entirely different versions of jeremiah.

ok, sure. whereas the inconsistencies are left in the bible? absolutely not! lamentations and numbers and matthew are three VERY different kinds of books. the messages aren't even consistent. same deal with the bible.there are three essential differences between the bible and the book of mormon:1. the bible is older
2. more people wrote/contributed to/editted the bible.
3. the bible has to be translated.these don't make it any more holy, really.

yes, but it's still wrong. not because the bom doesn't change -- i don't know the answer to that. but because the bible DOES. the internal inconsistencies are evidence of this, and the fact that original messages are probably preserved, even if modified.and SOMETIMES we catch modifications between existing manuscripts. here's on example:

quote:

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Deuteronomy 32:8,9 (JPS - Masoretic)

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When the Most High gave nations their homes
   And set the divisions of man,
He fixed the boundaries of peoples
   In relation Israel's numbers.
For the LORD'S portion is His people,
   Jacob his own allotment.

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unexciting verse, i know. but let's read what it's saying. when god divided the nations (at babel, in genesis 11), he made the same number of countries as the number of israelites. one israelite, one country. except israel, israel belongs to god. straightforward, right?so how many countries were there? --- the same number as the number of israelites: ZERO. jacob hadn't been born yet, let alone fathered a nation. and it can't be refering to literal sons of jacob either, a figurative way of saying "twelve" in effect, because i'm sure the torah itself names a lot more than 12 other nations.here's the solution to our problem with this verse. the dead sea scrolls and the septuagint (which are older than the masoretic text) say something to the effect of:

quote:

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He fixed the boundaries of peoples
according to the number of the Sons of God.

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subtitle change, BIG difference in meaning. what is the verse saying now? the nations are divided up according to divine beings, one for each son of god, and one for yhwh. let's a go a few steps further. this verse seems to indicate that author was fine with something called henotheism: the idea that we have one god, but other having their's is acceptable. sons, in hebrew, often means members of a group. "man" in the verse above is literally "sons of adam (man)" and israelites is "sons of israel." so "sons of god" could mean members of the group gods -- a hebrew pantheon of sorts, each nation with a patron god to watch over it. the difference with israel is that their god is the strongest, and his name is yhwh.now, at some point this made some rabbis itch. and some overtly polytheistic verses such as this were modified. even today, my jps bible refuses to correctly translate the sons of god, because it's too polytheistic for them.so yes, sometimes the message DOES change, and the proof is in the manuscripts.This message has been edited by Arachnophilia, 01-04-2005 02:41 AM

sorry to burst any bubbles here, but the bible has little to no historical validation, apart from egypt and jericho and jerusalem being real places. we can't even say for certain the exodus happened, and all of jewish theology hinges on that event. mainstream mormons today do not practice polygamy.also, lots of biblical figures practice polygamy. for instance, jacob (israel) had two wives, and two concubines, and all four played a part in the birth of the twelve tribes. i agree. there's several good reasons i find the bom to a lot less credible than the bible (which i don't find all that credible to begin with).This message has been edited by arachnophilia, 05-27-2005 02:10 AM

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אָרַח

schraf: does that have to do with letting people into the inner part of the temple?

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אָרַח

i think you answered your own question. ANY religion can be a cult. a good majority of the biblical texts (in the christian bible) were not written by witnesses, but attributed to people who lived much earlier than the age of the text. i think the difference is the difference in time between the real author and attributed author, and the intentions. i don't think that the biblical authors were TRYING to mislead people originally, and state that certain people wrote certain books. with one notable exception, of course.rather, they collected works. and compiled. and attributed backwards because of tradition.

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אָרַח

yeah, not sure how i feel about that. {glad i'm not dating a mormon anymore...}This message has been edited by arachnophilia, 05-27-2005 11:51 AM

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אָרַח

you know i didn't mean to hurt you, baby.

like the exodus, for example. uh, i beg to differ. it's not history. very little of the bible is, and the stuff that IS history is recorded with bias and is sometimes innacurate. yes, the places are often real. but the history is interpretitive. and you might be interested to know exactly how little it backs up the bible. look into, i think it's quite interesting. yes, i agree. the utter absence of evidence makes the bible look quite accurate by comparison. i'm quibbling over the manner in which things were recorded, embellished, and maybe occasionally made up in the bible. but the BoM seems to have been made up wholesale.while the bible seems to record a particular group of people's particular views and traditions regarding things that seem to have actually happened (assyrian and babylonian exile for instance), the book of mormon does not seem to be recording any variants of anything that actually happened. i wasn't equating them, really. it's just that when people claim there's a lot of historical evidence for the events in the bible (there's really not) and that we should accept the bible as a true, holy book because of it, but not the book of mormon because it has NO evidence, it sort of annoys me.the only difference is that there is SOME for bible, where there is not for the bom. but there is not a lot for the bible. much of the key elements are totally without evidence. for instance, the exodus and king david. the two biggest things in the religion.

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אָרַח

well, it'ls like saying the iliad is a historical document because we have archaeological evidence for it.we don't. he have archaeological evidence for the trojan war. but none of the rest of it is verifiable. in fact, the evidence even slightly contradicts the story: the iliad has the war taking place over 10 years. in reality, it was more like 100.same deal with the bible. it's technically correct to say that archaeology verifies the bible. but it does lend some credibility to it. where as it does not to the bom.

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אָרַח