The Writings Of Moronirejected Scriptures



1 Now I, Moroni, after having made an end of abridging the account of the people of Jared, I had supposed a not to have written more, but I have not as yet perished; and I make not myself known to the Lamanites lest they should destroy me. Sep 5, 2020 - Explore Connie Malone's board 'Church Things', followed by 737 people on Pinterest. See more ideas about The church of jesus christ, Church activities, Church. The Book of Mormon: A Guide for the Old Testament.

You may have heard people reference the “Mormon Bible” and assumed that was the Book of Mormon. In reality, the Mormon Bible is the King James translation of the Holy Bible—the same translation used by millions of other people.

Mormon is a nickname for members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Mormons are Christians, but are not Protestant or Catholic. They are a restoration of New Testament teachings. However, they use the King James Bible, which is commonly used by Protestants. There is a Mormon version of the Bible, but the text is from the King James translation with no alterations. The chapter summaries, footnotes, and study materials are unique, but those are not part of the original Bible.

Mormons accept the Bible as the word of God as far as it is translated correctly. This caution is natural since there are many, many different translations of the Bible, all differing in sometimes significant ways. Mormons believe the original documents were perfect as they were first written, but that it is possible for translation and copy errors to creep in over the years.

In addition to the Bible, Mormons accept the Book of Mormon. This book is a record of the visit of the Lord Jesus Christ, after His death and resurrection, to what is today known as the Americas. This visit demonstrates that Jesus Christ is the Savior of all the world, not just a small group of people. It also proves without question that the Savior is divine, since He appeared after he died and to a group of people who knew of Him despite living far away without communication with the Holy Lands. Only through the work of prophets could they have known about Jesus Christ.

It is interesting to note that it is impossible to believe in the Book of Mormon without accepting both the divinity of Jesus Christ and the truthfulness of the Bible. The Book of Mormon was written by prophets. The first prophet came to the Americas around 600 BC with his family and several other people. Each prophet handed the book down to the next prophet or a ruler before he died, creating a unified document. This document was abridged by the last two prophets of the civilization that developed. The first prophet, Lehi, had portions of the Bible with him when he came to the new world and taught from it, as did future prophets. The people of this civilization, known as the Nephites, were familiar with Biblical literature and the prophets often quoted from this literature in their sermons, particularly Isaiah, which the second prophet was especially fond of.

Mormons also use two additional books of scripture. The Doctrine and Covenants contains the modern revelations and history of the church. The Pearl of Great Price contains a variety of documents of both ancient and modern origin.

These four books, combined with the teachings of modern prophets, make up the canonized scriptures of the Mormons. Mormons study the four books of scripture over a four year period. Two years are devote to the Bible. The Book of Mormon receives one year and the Doctrine and Covenants receives one year. The Pear of Great Price is studied wherever specific portions fit in, since it is a combination of ancient and modern scripture. Everyone ages eight and older studies in this pattern during Sunday School or the children’s Primary. Younger children follow a different schedule.

Teens and college students take additional training each year in the books, but on a different schedule from the Sunday School. Teenagers meet daily in most places, usually before school, to study an additional four year rotation of these books in more depth. College students attend a program called Institute of Religion, held on or near college campuses, and take college level courses on the scriptures.

The intensity of this study is why Mormons scored higher on a test of Bible knowledge than other faiths.

Moronirejected

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Many passages of the Book of Mormon are demonstrably dependent on the New Testament. The most obvious use of the New Testament in the Book of Mormon comes in 3 Nephi 12–14, most of which is copied nearly verbatim from the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5–7 in the King James Version (KJV). However, there are many other interesting examples that are important because they demonstrate this textual dependence in other ways. Among the most noteworthy parts of the Book of Mormon making use of the New Testament are the writings attributed to Moroni, especially Mormon 8–9 and Moroni 7–10.

In a new series of articles, I explore the evidence from these passages that they were composed—not just translated—by a modern author who drew freely and extensively on the New Testament from the KJV. Three installments of this series are now online. Here I will provide what the Book of Mormon would call an abridgment of those three articles. The headings below give the titles of each article with a link.

Part 1: The Use of the KJV New Testament in the Books of Mormon and Moroni

In part 1 of the series, I provide an overview of the subject. I first look at what the Book of Mormon itself claims about the writings of Moroni: that he was a Nephite prophet in the early fifth century AD writing partly to address concerns of his own day and partly to exhort future readers to accept the message of the Book of Mormon.

The writings of moronirejected scriptures fulfilled

Next, I discuss criteria for identifying meaningful parallels between the New Testament and the Book of Mormon. Expressions that are too short, not distinctive, or not meaningful, or that could come from the Old Testament books to which Moroni (if he existed) would have had access, should not be counted here. With these restrictions, I limit the pool of meaningful parallels to strings of five or more words paralleled verbatim (including variant grammatical forms such as you and thee) between the Book of Mormon and the New Testament, such as “behold the Lamb of God” (Mormon 9:3; cf. John 1:29, 36). Merely identifying a parallel as such does not prove one source borrowed from the other; one must consider all of the facts before drawing that conclusion.

In the rest of part 1, I survey the parallels between Moroni’s writings and the New Testament. I first identify four major parallels:

  • Mormon 9:22b-24 exactly parallels Mark 16:15-18 KJV, a passage about Jesus commissioning his apostles to preach the gospel after his resurrection; the only verbal difference at all in 80 words is an additional use of the word and to begin a clause in Mormon 9.
  • Moroni 7:44b-47 closely parallels 1 Corinthians 13:2b, 4-8a, in Paul’s famous “love chapter,” including a 32-word string in 1 Corinthians 13:5b-8a KJV that is identical to one in Mormon 7 except again for an additional occurrence of the word and.
  • Moroni 7:48 contains 36 words paralleled in 1 John 3:1-3, a passage about believers becoming the children of God, including a string of 18 words that are verbally identical.
  • Moroni 10:8-17 contains substantial parallels to Paul’s discussion of the gifts of the Spirit in 1 Corinthians 12:4-11. About 93 words (including grammatically variant forms) of the passage in 1 Corinthians 12 are paralleled in Moroni 10 in the same order.

I then identify an additional 21 examples of comparatively minor parallels between Mormon 8–9 or Moroni 7–10 and the New Testament. Here are just two examples of those minor parallels:

and the elements shall melt with fervent heat (Mormon 9:2).
and the elements shall melt with fervent heat (2 Peter 3:10, 12).

and work out your own salvation with fear and trembling (Mormon 9:27).
work out your own salvation with fear and trembling (Phil. 2:12).

The Writings Of Moronirejected Scriptures Fulfilled

Counting the four major parallels noted previously, then, there are 25 texts in Mormon 8–9 and Moroni 7–10 containing parallels to 25 different texts in 12 different books of the New Testament: Matthew, Mark, John, Acts, Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Philippians, Hebrews, James, 2 Peter, 1 John, and Revelation. To put it another way, the parallels involve passages in the Gospels, Acts, Paul’s epistles, the general epistles, and Revelation—every part of the New Testament.

Part 2: 10 Lines of Evidence for the Use of the KJV New Testament in the Book of Mormon

Having surveyed the parallels between Moroni’s writings and the New Testament in part 1, in part 2 I offer an analysis of this evidence. This analysis yields ten distinct lines of evidence that the Book of Mormon had one modern author who made extensive use of the KJV New Testament. Here is a quick rundown of those ten lines of evidence.

  1. New Testament parallels in a book first appearing in 1829
  2. Quantity of New Testament parallels
  3. Diversity of New Testament parallels
  4. Density of New Testament parallels
  5. Multiple parallels to widely separate parts of the same New Testament book
  6. Parallels to adjacent New Testament chapters
  7. Clustering of New Testament parallels in the Book of Mormon
  8. The same New Testament texts paralleled in other parts of the Book of Mormon
  9. Use of the wording of parallel New Testament passages in the King James Version
  10. Adaptation of the New Testament material to address issues of Joseph Smith’s day

Taking these ten lines of evidence cumulatively, the only reasonable explanation is that the real author of Moroni’s writings was a modern English-speaking individual. The obvious and most likely suspect, given the appearance of the Book of Mormon for the first time in 1829 and 1830, is Joseph Smith.

Part 3: First John in the Book of Mormon

Part 3 is the first of several planned articles that look more closely at some of the New Testament parallels in the writings attributed to Moroni. In this article, I discuss two parallels in Moroni 7–8 to the epistle of 1 John:

“Wherefore, my beloved brethren, pray unto the Father with all the energy of heart, that ye may be filled with this love which he hath bestowed upon all who are true followers of his Son Jesus Christ, that ye may become the sons of God, that when he shall appear, we shall be like him: for we shall see him as he is, that we may havethis hope, that we may be purifiedeven as he is pure” (Moroni 7:48; cf. 1 John 3:1-3).

“Behold, I speak with boldness, having authority from God; and I fear not what man can do: for perfect love casteth out all fear” (Moroni 8:16b; cf. 1 John 4:17-18a).

The Writings Of Moronirejected Scriptures In The Bible

After presenting the parallels in a table, I analyze the parallels and discuss their significance. The exact parallel using the 18-word sequence that when he shall appear we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is (Moroni 7:48) can only be plausibly understood as the Book of Mormon drawing on the text of 1 John 3:2 in the KJV. The parallels between these two texts are not merely verbal but also follow the same conceptual train of thought: (a) the Father has bestowed love on believers; (b) they are or will be sons of God; (c) when Christ appears we will be like him because we will see him as he is; (d) this hope purifies us to be pure like him. The second parallel, in Moroni 8:16b, comes a chapter later and parallels 1 John 4:17-18a, which is also a chapter later in 1 John as compared to the first passage paralleled. Based on these and other observations, I draw the following conclusion:

The simplest explanation is that the actual author of Moroni 7–8 was someone familiar with 1 John in the KJV, since this view would explain all of the evidence: the similar trains of thought, the two parallels in the same order, the duplication of wording, and the many parallels in the surrounding context to other books of the New Testament. Therefore, we should conclude that the author was an English-speaking person writing after 1611 and of course no later than 1829.

That author was evidently Joseph Smith.

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