Tuesday, April 27, 2010

BoM verses the Bible Part 1

Jim Olson said to Messianic

Messianic,

Have you read the BOM? In what ways does it “contradict” the Bible? You realize that what you related is an opinion, and there are millions of people who have studied the BOM and are of the opinion that it does not contradict the Bible. Have you made a serious study of the BOM, or just relied upon the opinions of others?



Jim, I have read the BoM and all the standard works and here is a partial list of contradictions, their are so many I will need to do two or three parts.
I wanted to reply to you about all the contradictions I see in the BoM that do not line up with the Bible. I needed to write this up as a post and not a reply under a topic because there are way to many problems and I was so busy that by the time I was able to reply, the topic was so far down that you would not give a good reply if one at all. So, here we go.

I'm doing my own reading of the BoM too find these problems, not simply scouring the internet looking for them. The list is very long. lets start with this.

1 Nephi 1:2

2 Yea, I make a record in the language of my father, which consists of the learning of the Jews and the language of the Egyptians.
and
Mosiah 1:4 For it were not possible that our father, Lehi, could have remembered all these things, to have taught them to his children, except it were for the help of these plates; for he having been taught in the language of the Egyptians therefore he could read these engravings, and teach them to his children, that thereby they could teach them to their children, and so fulfilling the commandments of God, even down to this present time.



According to the Bible, God told the Jews to not go back to the Egyptians and you cannot show me from the Bible or history where the Jews are to use the language of the Egyptians.

Egypt is the house of bondage


Exd 13:14 And it shall be when thy son asketh thee in time to come, saying, What [is] this? that thou shalt say unto him, By strength of hand the LORD brought us out from Egypt, from the house of bondage:

Exd 13:3 And Moses said unto the people, Remember this day, in which ye came out from Egypt, out of the house of bondage; for by strength of hand the LORD brought you out from this [place]: there shall no leavened bread be eaten.



Another one.


19 And it came to pass that the Lord spake unto me, saying: Blessed art thou, Nephi, because of thy faith, for thou hast sought me diligently, with lowliness of heart.

20 And inasmuch as ye shall keep my commandments, ye shall prosper, and shall be led to a land of promise; yea, even a land which I have prepared for you; yea, a land which is choice above all other lands.

21 And inasmuch as thy brethren shall rebel against thee, they shall be cut off from the presence of the Lord.



I put this down because according to the Bible, there is only one promised land and the Jews are in it. There is never any mention of any other people group, including Jews having a second promised land.

Deu 6:3

Hear therefore, O Israel, and observe to do [it]; that it may be well with thee, and that ye may increase mightily, as the LORD God of thy fathers hath promised thee, in the land that floweth with milk and honey.



This is not a huge deal in the sense of a salvation issue, but it is a problem just the same.

1 Nephi 5:19 19 Wherefore, he said that these plates of brass should never perish; neither should they be dimmed any more by time. And he prophesied many things concerning his seed.

1 Nephi 6:1
1 And now I, Nephi, do not give the genealogy of my fathers in athis part of my record; neither at any time shall I give it after upon these bplates which I am cwriting; for it is given in the record which has been kept by my dfather; wherefore, I do not write it in this work.



I only bring these up because you never see any accounts in the Bible being kept on metal plates, plus we have the dead sea scrolls but we do not have any of these plates as evidence.

Deuteronomy 31:24-26

And it came to pass, when Moses had made an end of writing the words of this law in a book, until they were finished, That Moses commanded the Levites, which bare the ark of the covenant of the LORD, saying, Take this book of the law, and put it in the side of the ark of the covenant of the LORD your God, that it may be there for a witness against thee.



Nehemiah 8:8

So they read in the book in the law of God distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused [them] to understand the reading.



Here is a problem.
1 Nephi 6:4

4 For the fulness of mine intent is that I may persuade men to come unto the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, and be saved.



The reason this is a major problem and contradiction is because God created the nation of Israel to bring people to Him. If you were not a Jew then you were a Gentile, and the best you could do was convert, then enter the court of the Gentiles. So, unless you can prove from the Bible that Nephi is/was a true Jew, what he said cannot be true. God would not tell him this. In the Bible, God did use Gentiles, but not for that purpose.

Isa 49:6

And he said, It is a light thing that thou shouldest be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel: I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth.



Here is a contradiction.

10 And the God of our fathers, who were led out of Egypt, out of bondage, and also were preserved in the wilderness by him, yea, the God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, yieldeth himself, according to the words of the angel, as a man, into the hands of wicked men, to be lifted up, according to the words of Zenock, and to be crucified, according to the words of Neum, and to be buried in a sepulchre, according to the words of Zenos, which he spake concerning the three days of darkness, which should be a sign given of his death unto those who should inhabit the isles of the sea, more especially given unto those who are of the house of Israel.



Show me from the Bible about 3 days of darkness being a sign.

To this one I say, "Really?"

7 Behold, he offereth himself a sacrifice for sin, to answer the ends of the law, unto all those who have a broken heart and a contrite spirit; and unto none else can the ends of the law be answered.



The Bible does not teach this, Read 1st John 1:8-9

Here are a bunch of verses that contradict the Bible because they mention the "Church" And according to the Bible the Church did not appear until Jesus created it when he walked among us, yet the BoM mentions the Church and all these mentions are hundreds of years before Jesus was even born.

Mosiah 25:22 And thus, not with standing there being many churches they were all one church, yea, even the church of God; for there was nothing preached in all the churches except it were repentance and faith in God.

Mosiah 26:22 22 For behold, this is my church; whosoever is baptized shall be baptized unto repentance

Alma 1:7 And it came to pass as he was going, to preach to those who believed on his word, he met a man who belonged to the church of God, yea, even one of their teachers; and he began to contend with him sharply, that he might lead away the people of the church; but the man withstood him, admonishing him with the words of God.

Alma 4:4-5,9
4 And they began to establish the church more fully; yea, and many were baptized in the waters of Sidon and were joined to the church of God; yea, they were baptized by the hand of Alma, who had been consecrated the high priest over the people of the church, by the hand of his father Alma.

5 And it came to pass in the *seventh year of the reign of the judges there were about three thousand five hundred souls that united themselves to the church of God and were baptized. And thus ended the seventh year of the reign of the judges over the people of Nephi; and there was continual peace in all that time.

9 And thus, in this eighth year of the reign of the judges, there began to be great contentions among the people of the church; yea, there were envyings, and strife, and malice, and persecutions, and pride, even to exceed the pride of those who did not belong to the church of God.



There are more verses about the Church, but this gets the point across.

Mat 16:18

And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.



How about this? Alma 7:14

14 Now I say unto you that ye must repent, and be born again



Jesus spoke about being born again, prior to that it was never mention in the Bible, I suspect LDS will blow this off, but its funny how things Jesus said are being said by people that lived before He did, and were never mentioned by the Prophets in the OT.

Here is a big problem. Alma 13:18-19


18 But Melchizedek having exercised mighty faith, and received the office of the high priesthood according to the holy order of God, did preach repentance unto his people. And behold, they did repent; and Melchizedek did establish peace in the land in his days; therefore he was called the prince of peace, for he was the king of Salem; and he did reign under his father.

19 Now, there were many before him, and also there were many after wards, but none were greater; therefore, of him they have more particularly made mention.



According to the Bible, Melchizedek had no mother or father.

Hebrews 7:1-3

For this Melchisedec, king of Salem, priest of the most high God, who met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings, and blessed him; To whom also Abraham gave a tenth part of all; first being by interpretation King of righteousness, and after that also King of Salem, which is, King of peace; Without father, without mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days, nor end of life; but made like unto the Son of God; abideth a priest continually.



The problem with this verse is, the scriptures were not open to everyone and anyone. They were only for the Jews, and the Gentiles did not have the word of God. Plus unlike when this was stated in the book of Acts, in Acts 17:11. At that time, they had the entire OT to go back and search. At this time, they had even less time to look back over.

Alma 17:2 Now these sons of Mosiah were with Alma at the time the angel first appeared unto him; therefore Alma did rejoice exceedingly to see his brethren; and what added more to his joy, they were still his brethren in the Lord; yea, and they had waxed strong in the knowledge of the truth; for they were men of a sound understanding and they had searched the scriptures diligently, that they might know the word of God.



Act 17:11

These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.



Jesus was not around until the NT, so that's a problem.

Alma 19:29 And it came to pass that she went and took the queen by the hand, that perhaps she might raise her from the ground; and as soon as she touched her hand she arose and stood upon her feet, and cried with a loud voice, saying: O blessed Jesus, who has saved me from an awful hell! O blessed God, have mercy on this people!



Is this Aaron the Brother of Moses?
Alma 21:9

9 Now Aaron began to open the scriptures unto them concerning the coming of Christ, and also concerning the resurrection of the dead, and that there could be no redemption for mankind save it were through the death and sufferings of Christ, and the atonement of his blood.



Either way, it does not really matter because before Jesus came, His coming was a mystery and the prophets did not understand what was going on.

1Peter 1:10-12 Of which salvation the prophets have enquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace [that should come] unto you: Searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow. Unto whom it was revealed, that not unto themselves, but unto us they did minister the things, which are now reported unto you by them that have preached the gospel unto you with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven; which things the angels desire to look into.

Part 2 coming later, Rick B