Does the Book of Mormon Contradict the Bible?

Critics of the Book of Mormon often try to say that it contradicts the Bible.  They do this by taking one passage from the Book of Mormon out of its context and placing it next to a biblical verse and saying, “See, look, they’re different.”  This sort of trickery is dishonest and, as many Mormons can testify, nowhere does the Book of Mormon contradict the Bible.  Instead, it confirms and validates the meanings and doctrines of the Bible.  Some biblical doctrines are examined and explained in the Book of Mormon, making them easier to comprehend.

One of the most common claims is that the Book of Mormon contradicts the Bible by teaching that Jesus was born in Jerusalem, not Bethlehem.  However, these critics do not quote that verse in its full context.  The passage reads:

For behold, the kingdom of heaven is at hand, and the Son of God cometh upon the face of the earth.  And behold, he shall be born of Mary, at Jerusalem, which is the land of our forefathers … (Alma 7:9-10, pg 224).

The people that this prophet, whose name was Alma, was addressing lived in America and, though they were descended from Israelites, knew nothing about the land of Israel.  They knew the name Jerusalem, but Bethlehem, which was a very small village near Jerusalem, was meaningless to them, so the prophet referred to the one place they did know.  Imagine you were from a small town just outside of New York City.  Would you tell people you were from that small town or just say New York City.  Since they wouldn’t know where your town was, it makes sense to refer to a place they would recognize.  Alma also makes it clear that he was referring to the land of Jerusalem, or the land around Jerusalem.  The city of Bethlehem is only a few miles south of Jerusalem and so could easily be described as in the “land of Jerusalem” to someone who had never been there and did know anything about it.

Most of the supposed contradictions that critics charge the Book of Mormon with are similarly taken out of context, or presented in an unfavorable light to make their position seem stronger.  All honest persons who desire to know the truth about Mormonism and the Book of Mormon are invited to read it for themselves.

Mormon Temples and Temple Work

One of the most distinguishing characteristics of the Mormon Church is its temples.  Mormon Temples are sacred buildings, set apart from the world.  They are not ordinary church buildings like chapels.  Mormons have both churches and temples.  In temples, Mormons perform sacred ordinances that strengthen us in this life and prepare us for the life to come.  Also in temples, families can be sealed together for all eternity and faithful Mormons can perform ordinances like baptism for those who died without the opportunity. The Holy Endowment One of the most sacred and defining moments in the life of a member of the Mormon Church comes when he or she receives his or her endowment.  An endowment is a gift; in this case it is a gift of knowledge and spiritual power from God.  Jesus referred to an endowment of power when he commanded his disciples to “tarry [...] in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high” (Luke 24:49).  Endue is an older form of the word endow.  In the endowment a person learns more about his place in the world and his relationship to God and the Savior, Jesus Christ. In the endowment, a person is first symbolically washed and clothed in white to symbolize becoming a new creature through Jesus Christ’s atonement.  Secondly, through a serious of symbolic presentations, a person learns about the purpose of this world and the mission of Jesus Christ.  A person then makes covenants to live righteously and according to God’s will, and receives a promise of eternal life.  A covenant is a binding promise between two people, in this case the covenants are between God and man. Finally, a person enters the Celestial Room which symbolizes salvation and God’s presence.  In this room, which is reserved for quiet prayer and meditation, a person can feel the power and spirit of God’s presence more than anywhere else in the world.  Many people return time and again to pause and pray here seeking for answers to their problems.  As a symbol of the covenants made in temples, Mormons wear sacred undergarments for the rest of their lives.  This garment serves to remind them of those promises and covenants which they have made. Celestial Marriage and Sealing For Mormons, one of the highest goals is have their family united forever through Celestial Marriage, which takes place only in temples.  This ceremony is called a sealing.  In a sealing ceremony a couple is married for time and eternity.  Time refers to the duration of this life and eternity to the life to come.  A family that knows they can and will be together forever becomes stronger as they realize the importance of their ties to one another.  This eternal perspective allows us to tolerate and express patience toward one another’s shortcomings.  (See The Family in God’s Plan). Family History and Temple Work The prophet Malachi wrote the following prophecy from the Lord: “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet, before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord: and he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse” (Malachi 4:5-6).  This promise has been fulfilled.  On April 3, 1836, the prophet Elijah appeared to Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery in the Kirtland Temple (see Doctrine and Covenants 110:13-16).  He gave them power to seal families and generations together.  Without this power and the strength it gives to families, the Lord says that the earth would be struck with a curse.  Everywhere you look today, you can see the misery that comes from broken families. Not only should our families be united together, but past generations can also be brought closer to the Lord.  Through genealogy, sometimes called family history, you can find out who your ancestors were.  In Holy Temples, there is a place provided where living persons can be baptized on behalf of deceased persons.  This is called baptism for the dead.   The Apostle Peter taught that Jesus visited the souls of people in spirit prison:

“For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit; By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison; Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah” (1 Peter 3:18-20).

In the next chapter, he explains the purpose of Jesus visiting these souls:

“For for this cause was the gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit” (1 Peter 4:6).

All those who have ever lived and died without a knowledge of the Gospel will be taught it in the Spirit World, and they will have the opportunity of either accepting or rejecting this baptism done for them in the temples.  Mormons believe this is one of the most supreme acts of service since we do something for others that they cannot do for themselves.

Did the Three Witnesses deny their testimonies about the Book of Mormon?

In the introduction to the Book of Mormon there is section entitled “The Testimony of the Three Witnesses”  This testimony was given by three men–David Whitmer, Oliver Cowdery, and Martin Harris–each of whom saw the plates from which Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon.  According to their account, they gathered with Joseph Smith to pray in the woods and while praying an angel appeared to them and showed them the plates and other artifacts.

Over the next several years, these three witnesses faced many challenges and left the Mormon Church.  Two, Harris and Cowdery, later returned, humbly repenting of their mistakes and pride which had led them out of the Mormon Church.  Whitmer never rejoined the Mormon Church, but he never denied his testimony.  Instead, he claimed that everyone else in the Church had gone wrong, but that the Book of Mormon and his testimony were still true.

Anti-Mormon critics have tried to argue that one or all of these denied their testimony.  However, the circumstances that led these men out of the Church either by choice or by excommunication were unrelated to the Book of Mormon.  Harris was excommunicated because of problems in the Church during a financial crisis in Kirtland, Ohio.  Harris was firmly against the use of paper money, and thereby opposed the founding of the Kirtland Safety Society, which was printing it.  He became offended and left, but in 1870 he rejoined the Mormon Church and moved to Utah, where he died many years later.  In Utah, Harris was anxious to bear his solemn testimony repeatedly that he was a true witness that the gold plates existed and were translated by Joseph Smith through the power of God. Cowdery was excommunicated (at his own request) in 1838.  He was charged by the Church High Council “for persecuting church leaders with vexatious lawsuits, seeking to destroy the character of Joseph Smith, not abiding ecclesiastical authority in temporal affairs, selling lands in Jackson County (contrary to received revelation), and leaving his calling” to follow worldly pursuits (Church History in the Fulness of Times, 186).  In 1847, he rejoined the Church and died while crossing the Great Plains with the Mormon pioneers.  Whitmer was excommunicated also in 1838.  He was charged with usurping too much authority, willfully breaking the Word of Wisdom, and writing letters of dissension to apostates (CHFOT, 187).  He opened a business in Missouri where he remained until his death.  Though he never rejoined the Mormon Church, he nevertheless maintained that his testimony of the Book of Mormon was true, but that the Mormon Church had strayed.  Shortly before his death, he even took out a newspaper ad testifying about the Book of Mormon.

Does the Book of Abraham Prove that Joseph Smith was a False Prophet?

In 1835, Joseph Smith and members of the Mormon Church in Kirtland, Ohio, purchased some papyrus scrolls and mummies from a traveling showman named Michael Chandler.  Joseph Smith had realized that some of the scrolls, but not all, contained writings by the ancient biblical prophet Abraham.  Over the next few years, whenever he had free time, Joseph Smith translated portions of the text and eventually published it as the Book of Abraham in 1842.  When the Mormons were expelled from Illinois in 1846 after Joseph Smith’s murder, the mummies and papyrus remained behind and were eventually lost.  This book has become very controversial among critics of the Mormon Church who claim that the Book of Abraham could not have come from those papyri as Joseph Smith claimed.

In the 1960s a few fragments of the original papyri were found in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City and given back to the Mormon Church.  They have since been published and studied, but they are not, unfortunately, the papyri from which Joseph Smith took the Book of Abraham.  In his writings, Joseph Smith describes the papyrus scroll that the Book of Abraham was “beautifully written on papyrus, with black, and a small part red, ink or paint, in perfect preservation” (History of the Church, 2:348).  The surviving fragments contain only black ink and are in terrible disrepair.  So, for all the fuss that critics have made about the Book of Abraham, there is no evidence to refute it.  The best solution is to look at the content of the book as it is published and compare that to other known traditions about Abraham.  When that comparison is made, it shows that the Book of Abraham is very accurate about Abraham’s life that Joseph Smith could not have known in the 1830s.  For example, the Book of Abraham says that while a young man Abraham was nearly murdered for speaking against idolatry.  This tradition is not found in the Bible, but does occur in texts found among the Dead Sea Scrolls.  The Book of Abraham also mentions a place called the plains of Olishem which are not known in the Bible, but do appear in inscriptions dating from the time of Abraham.

Why Do We Need the Book of Mormon?

Some people wonder why we need the Book of Mormon if we already have the Bible.  The Bible, they say, is the complete word of God.  However, the Bible never claims to be complete, and even today different churches use different Bibles.  The Catholic version of the Bible includes 14 books not found in the Protestant Bible, and Eastern Christian Churches have books not found in any Western Bible.

The Book of Mormon helps us more fully understand God’s teachings about Jesus Christ and about salvation through Him.  The title page of the Book of Mormon proclaims that its aim is to

• “Show unto the remnant of the House of Israel what great things the Lord hath done for their fathers.”
• “[T]hat they may know the covenants of the Lord, that they are not cast off forever.”
• “And also to the convincing of the Jew and the Gentile that Jesus is the Christ, the Eternal God, manifesting himself unto all nations.”

The Book of Mormon validates and elucidates on doctrines found in the Bible, explaining some that are barely given mention in the Bible and clarifying others.  The Book of Mormon refers to some biblical stories that many consider fables, adding another testimony that they are true.  For instance, in the Book of Mormon is a record of the “Jaredites,” who were led to the Americas at the fall of the Tower of Babel.  They were blessed by the Lord not to have their speech confounded.  Thus, we have a second scriptural reference to a questioned event—the building and destruction of the Tower, and confounding of languages.

The book of Proverbs says:

Where there is no vision, the people perish; but he that keepeth the law, happy is he (Proverbs 29:18).

Without vision, or revelation, from God, people find their own meanings in scripture.  The Apostle Peter warned of this:

And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you; As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their destruction (2 Peter 3:15-16).

To wrest means to twist or distort, so Peter was warning his audience that some people were distorting the meaning of the scriptures.  The Book of Mormon helps to prevent this by elaborating on biblical messages.  Some examples include

• Very thorough and profound explanations of the relationship between Adam’s fall and Christ’s atonement.
• A thorough explanation of the relationship between the Law of Moses and the Law of Christ—how the Law of Moses is a type of Christ.
• A vision of Mary and verification of the virgin birth of Christ.
• A solid picture of the organization and ordinances of the Church.  The Book of Mormon peoples were visited by the resurrected Christ, and Christ established His Church among them.
• More promises of the gathering of Israel and last days’ prophecies.
• An explanation of the nature of evil, and the need for opposition.
• Thorough discussions of Godly qualities, such as faith, hope, charity, and the use of spiritual gifts.

The Book of Mormon also contains much information specific to our day through the messages of its prophets and the types contained in God’s dealings with the Book of Mormon peoples.  The Book of Mormon prophets were especially concerned with the future of the Americas, and many prophecies pertain to past, current, and future events occurring in America.  Settlement by gentiles from Europe was predicted, as well as the freedom that would be established.  Destruction and scattering of the Native Americans, as well as the restoration of Christ’s true Church were prophesied.

Through it all, the consistency of God’s dealings with man are apparent.  Wherever there is a remnant of people willing to serve Him, He is willing to protect and enlighten them.  As it says in 2 Nephi 29:11-13, 9:

For I command all men, both in the east and in the west, and in the north, and in the south, and in the islands of the sea, that they shall write the words which I speak unto them; for out of the books which shall be written I will I judge the world, every man according to their works, according to that which is written.

Did the Mormon Church Change the Book of Mormon?

Anti-Mormon critics and others assert that the Mormon Church has made over 4,000 changes to the Book of Mormon.  They claim that if the Book of Mormon was true and “the most correct book” as Joseph Smith described it, then it could not be changed, and since (as they claim) there have been changes, it is not true.

There are two arguments here.   The first is that there have been changes to the Book of Mormon and second, that changes to the Book of Mormon would prove that it was false.  Neither of these arguments is valid.  It is true that there are differences among the printed versions of the Book of Mormon, but the number 4,000 is misleading.  Most of the changes were made by Joseph Smith himself and were changes for clarification in meaning and style or correction of grammatical and spelling errors that crept into the published manuscript.  Joseph Smith never claimed that the text was perfect.  His claim that the Book of Mormon was “the most correct book” referred to its spiritual teachings as can be seen by finishing the quote, “a man would get nearer to God by abiding by its precepts, than by any other book.”

If you look at your Bible and compare it to another translation you will notice subtle and sometimes major differences.  This happens whenever you translate something from one language into a different one.  Over time, printers might make a mistake or two and switch a word around, but hopefully subsequent editions of the book will correct them.  This is what happens with both the Bible and the Book of Mormon.  Almost every single supposed change made to the Book of Mormon was a change in punctuation, spelling, or correcting a mistaken word.  Joseph Smith himself went back in subsequent editions published in his lifetime and fixed mistakes.

Among these changes are:

• 891 changes of which to who to conform with modern English usage
• 177 changes of exceeding to exceedingly
• 162 changes of was to were

In some places Joseph Smith changed a word because he felt that another word more closely expressed the intent of the original.  So, in several places he changed white to pure and once corrected a name from Mosiah to Benjamin because the printer had erred.  In two places Joseph add the son of to clarify the meaning of a passage which had been confusing.  As translator, Joseph could make these changes because he knew the original text and was trying to convey that same meaning in the English translation.

The other argument, that changes in the text make the Book of Mormon false, is also untrue.  When dealing with translation, the translator must try his or her best to convey the original meaning, and sometimes this can be difficult.  If these slight changes to the Book of Mormon invalidate it, then what about the many differences among the various translations of the Bible?  When Joseph Smith said he translated the Book of Mormon through the gift and power of God, he did not mean that God just gave him the translation.  He had to work to understand the text just as any other translator would have to.  The truthfulness of the Book of Mormon lies in the doctrines it teaches and the principles it espouses.  At the center of this message is the Savior, Jesus Christ.

Is the Bible the [block]0[/block]?

Critics of Mormonism have long claimed that the Book of Mormon cannot be true scripture since the Bible contains all of God’s word.  They often cite the closing verses to The Revelation of John which reads:

For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book:  And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book (Revelation 22:18-19).

At first glance this seems to say that nothing can be added to the Bible, especially since it appears in the last chapter of the New Testament as we have it today.  However, when one looks more carefully at the text itself and at the origins of the Bible, it becomes clear that John was referring to his book, that is, the Book of Revelation.

The first thing we should note is that the original Greek wording used here for book is biblios, which translates as book, where as the word Bible, which comes from Greek as well, comes from the plural of biblios, biblia, meaning books.  The Bible is composed of the inspired writings of prophets compiled into books written over thousands of years and compiled in the second and third centuries after Jesus Christ.  In fact, the Revelation was written in around A.D. 90 and John himself wrote his Gospel in around A.D.110, so he obviously had no trouble writing more inspired scriptures.  We should also note that Moses said the same thing thousands of years earlier.  In Deuteronomy we read:

Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you (Deuteronomy 4:2).

Moses was obviously talking about the words he had spoken to them which were recorded in the five book of Moses (the first five books of the Old Testament), just as John was talking about his book.  No human by himself is authorized to add to or take away from the scriptures.  God, however, can and does continue to inspire His prophets to speak inspired words.

It is also important to note that during New Testament times, many people were writing letters and gospels of their own without authorization and some even lied and claimed to be apostles.  The Apostle Paul mentioned this in one of his epistles:

Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him that you be not soon shaken or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us … (2 Thes. 2:1-2).

Paul was apparently worried that false scriptures were being spread among the early Christians.  John likely knew about these false scriptures as well and so he added a warning to his book that God would judge anyone who tampered with it.  John closed his account of the life of Jesus with these words:

And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written. Amen (John 21:25).

He obviously believes that there are many more teachings and deeds of Jesus Christ.  The scriptures used by Mormons, the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants, are some of those additional accounts.  The Book of Mormon says this:

Know ye not that there are more nations than one? Know ye not that I, the Lord your God, have created all men, and that I remember those who are upon the isles of the sea; and that I rule in the heavens above and in the earth beneath; and I bring forth my word unto the children of men, yea, even upon all the nations of the earth?  Wherefore murmur ye, because that ye shall receive more of my word? Know ye not that the testimony of two nations is a witness unto you that I am God, that I remember one nation like unto another? Wherefore, I speak the same words unto one nation like unto another. And when the two nations shall run together the testimony of the two nations shall run together also.  And I do this that I may prove unto many that I am the same yesterday, today, and forever; and that I speak forth my words according to mine own pleasure. And because that I have spoken one word ye need not suppose that I cannot speak another; for my work is not yet finished; neither shall it be until the end of man, neither from that time henceforth and forever (2 Nephi 29:7-9)