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In the missionary lessons book Preach My Gospel young Mormon missionaries are taught:
‘The Book of Mormon, combined with the Spirit, is your most powerful resource in conversion. This book is an ancient, sacred record written to convince all people that Jesus is the Christ (see the title page of the Book of Mormon). As its subtitle says, the Book of Mormon is “another testament of Jesus Christ.” It is also compelling evidence that God called Joseph Smith as a prophet and restored the gospel of Jesus Christ through him.’
The Book of Mormon is variously described as ‘the keystone in our witness of Jesus Christ’; as containing ‘the fulness of the gospel of Jesus Christ’; as foundational, ‘the Church stands or falls with the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. … If the Book of Mormon be true … one must accept the claims of the Restoration’; as essential to conversion, ‘An essential part of conversion is receiving a witness by the power of the Holy Ghost that the Book of Mormon is true.’
The first lesson missionaries bring is the Mormon message of the ‘restoration’ of the gospel. In three short paragraphs they cover all of gospel history, from Adam, Noah, Abraham, and Moses, through Christ, to establish the idea that God ‘always’ speaks through prophets, to the claim that the early church ‘fell away from the fulness of the gospel,’ and that the gospel was restored through Joseph Smith. It is quite breathless.
When the Bible Isn’t Enough
If you ask a Mormon what they think about the Bible they will likely answer, ‘We believe the Bible to be the word of God.’ You, perhaps, won’t know that they are quoting the Mormon eighth article of faith. At least, they are partially quoting it. The full article states, ‘We believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly. We also believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God.’ (italics mine)
If you ask a Mormon to expand on this, you will likely hear an explanation like this:
‘As the Bible was compiled, organized, translated, and transcribed, many errors entered the text. The existence of such errors becomes apparent when one considers the numerous and often conflicting translations of the Bible in existence today. Careful students of the Bible are often puzzled by apparent contradictions and omissions. Many people have also been curious about references by biblical prophets to books or scriptural passages that are not currently in the Bible.’ Gospel Topics Manual (For more on ‘missing books’ see here)
Look at the eighth article of faith again and you will see no such qualification applies to the Book of Mormon. A favourite rebuttal to this observation is found in the official preface to the book:
‘’And now, if there are faults they are the mistakes of men; wherefore, condemn not the things of God, that ye may be found spotless at the judgement seat of Christ.’
On one hand the faults, the mistakes of men, in the Bible cause Mormons to question the Bible’s reliability, on the other hand the faults, the mistakes of men, in the Book of Mormon should be no reason for questioning or rejecting it. Does anyone see a double standard?
Bridge to Life
In Mormonism the Bible is the book of the apostasy. Mormons claim it was this apostasy that made their restoration narrative necessary. The Book of Mormon is the book of the restoration. It is said to contain ‘the fulness of the everlasting gospel.’ On November 28, 1841, Joseph Smith met with the Nauvoo City Council and members of the Quorum of the Twelve. “I told the brethren,” he said, “that the Book of Mormon was the most correct of any book on earth, and the keystone of our religion, and a man would get nearer to God by abiding by its precepts, than by any other book.”
You will be familiar, perhaps, with the Bridge to Life. It is a powerful illustration of man’s fundamental problem – sin separates us from God. Nothing will bridge that gap, not good works, not religious activities, not a resolve to do better. The cross of Christ alone bridges the chasm that separates us from God, and countless generations of Christian witnesses have urged people to ‘flee to the cross.’
Book of Mormon: a Bridge to Mormonism
The Book of Mormon is not a bridge to life but a bridge to Mormonism. Ironically, many doctrines of Mormonism are not found in the Book of Mormon. It’s actually a bridge to Joseph Smith, who defines the Christian message and ‘Restoration’ as he chooses.
The problems with the Book of Mormon are myriad, we will look at four.
An Absent Population
In February 1828, Martin Harris, an early convert to Mormonism, travelled to Harmony, Pennsylvania to serve as a scribe while Joseph Smith dictated the translation of the golden plates. It was Harris who guaranteed the publication of the book and was the projects financier, mortgaging his farm and later selling land to ensure the printer was paid. By June 1828, Smith and Harris’s work on the translation had resulted in 116 pages of manuscript.
Harris asked Smith for permission to take the 116 pages of manuscript back to his wife, who thought this was a fool’s errand and too costly, to convince her of its authenticity; Smith reluctantly agreed. After Harris had shown the pages to his wife and some others, the manuscript disappeared. Smith hadn’t kept a copy.
With 116 pages missing Smith had a problem. He couldn’t remember all the details of this already substantial story he had dictated. His solution was to claim there were other plates, the small plates of Nephi, from which he could translate the same story, but with fewer details. Smith awkwardly explains this in the Book of Mormon:
‘And now, as I have spoken concerning these plates, behold they are not the plates upon which I give a full account of the history of my people…’ 1 Nephi 9:2
The large plates, from which the 116 pages came, were a secular history, the small plates were a sacred history. Only eleven names are given to people in the first book, 1 Nephi. His elder brothers had sons and daughters, but they are not named, nor their wives. Nephi doesn’t name his own wife.
Strangely, no names were added in 2 Nephi. After 179 years only two names are added. After 238 years there are still only 15 names, eleven of which we knew already from the first eight chapters of the book. After 320 years only two more names are added. We have Jerald Tanner of Utah Lighthouse Ministry to thank for discovering and making known this ‘black hole’ in the Book of Mormon.
What was originally written on those 116 pages? Joseph Smih himself tells us through the mouth of Nephi:
‘Upon the other plates [the plates from which the 116 pages were translated] should be engraven an account of the reign of the kings, and the wars and contentions of my people…’ (Book of Mormon, 1 Nephi 9:4)
The final man to write on the small plates is Amaleki, who writes the last 19 verses. It is here we appear to pass the end of the 116 lost pages. It is from this point that names and details suddenly spring up. That is over three hundred years, with two warring people groups, countless numbers of whom have died, where the population of these communities are overwhelmingly anonymous. What the rest of the Book of Mormon looks like is what the beginning originally looked like – until Mrs Harris. Even Mormon scholars struggle with this.
The Book of Mormon Doesn’t Act Like Scripture.
The first thing to note is the book’s writers reproduce great tracts of the Bible on the pretext of quoting the Pentateuch, a copy of which they brought with them. The second Book of Nephi alone quotes 18 chapters of Isaiah complete. 30 percent of Isaiah is quoted in the Book of Mormon.
The Bible doesn’t reproduce earlier writers in this way. Nowhere in the New Testament is Isaiah 53 reproduced verbatim, even though it is quoted 7 times. There are more than 100 Old Testament references in Matthew, but not one whole chapter. The most quoted Old Testament text is Psalm 110, but it is selectively quoted and not reproduced. No one writes, ’Here are a few chapters of Isaiah you might find helpful.’
Despite this reproduction of great tracts of the Bible, including the Sermon on the Mount, the Book of Mormon doesn’t know where Jesus was born:
‘And behold, he shall be born of Mary, at Jerusalem, which is the land of our forefathers…’ Alma 7:10
Consider how this ignores the significance of Jesus’ birthplace to the fulfilment of prophecy:
‘But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be the ruler in Israel, whose coming forth is from old, from ancient days.’ Micah 5:2
The birth of David, the most unlikely shepherd king, in Bethlehem, the most unlikely place, foreshadows the coming of the greater king who was to come, the most unlikely carpenter’s son. This is a key Messianic text. Even the rabbi’s recognised the significance of Bethlehem (Matthew 2:1-6) How could this be missed, and substituted with a general ‘at Jerusalem’?
The Book of Mormon contains thousands of words from the King James Bible, including editing errors, such as the Johannine comma of 1 John 5:7-8, which would have come from Joseph Smith’s own 1769 KJV.
Then there are the anachronisms:
Nephi’s brother Jacob signs off his short book with the words, ‘Brethren, adieu.’
John the Baptist is described baptising the Messiah in 1 Nephi 10:9-10. That’s 600 years before Christ. The Greek name/title ‘Christ’ is found a little later in 2 Nephi 10:3.
Challenge a Mormon about not being Christian and he will likely quote 2 Nephi 25:26, ‘And we talk of Christ, we rejoice in Christ, we prophesy of Christ…’ However, the revelation of God in Scripture is progressive, revealed gradually and building on what went before. Paul writes to the Colossians of, ‘the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to the saints.’ Col.26-29
How can the Book of Mormon be Christian Scripture if it fails to behave like already established Scripture?
A Third Covenant
Then there is the subtitle added to the Book of Mormon in 1982: The Book of Mormon, Another Testament of Jesus Christ.
By ‘testament’ of course, they mean testimony, adding this third ‘testament’ to the previous Old and New Testaments. This causes a huge problem because ‘testament’ used in this context indicates a covenant.
The Old Covenant is the Law of Moses, the New Covenant is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. According to the Bible there are but two covenants, and we already have them. A reasonable question would be, what is the nature of this third covenant? This has bearing on the whole Restorationist claims of Mormonism.
They say they have restored apostles and prophets and these add revelation to established Scripture. Joseph Smith added the Book of Mormon, along with the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price, to the established word of God in the Bible. They argue for this by pointing to prophets and apostles in the Old and New Testaments, their favourite text being Ephesians 4:11-14:
‘And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.’
The ‘Do Not Add’ Texts
Speaking to a Mormon, you may have raised the issue of adding to God’s Word. Revelation 22 says:
‘I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book, and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.’ Rev.22:18,19
Any Mormon worth their salt will point out that John is writing specifically about his book, and not about the Bible, which didn’t exist at that time in the form in which it has come down to us. Moses, they will point out, issues a similar warning in Deuteronomy:
‘You shall not add to the word that I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the LORD your God that I command you.’ Deut.4:2, c.f. 12:32
Must this mean, then, that everything coming after Moses must be rejected? What does John mean in Revelation 22? What does Moses mean in Deuteronomy 4? The argument is made that Old Testament prophets ‘added to’ Moses, that it is through prophets that God adds to his Word. Thus God speaks through such prophets today. Did apostles and prophets add to God’s word? In the Old Testament, whichever character you look at among the prophets, whatever word they bring, they looked back to Moses and forward to Christ. There were prophets after Moses, but they did not add to, or take away from Moses. That is what Moses’’do not add’ verses are about.
This idea is summed up clearly by Paul in his letter to the saints in Galatia:
‘Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions, until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made, and it was put in place through angels by an intermediary. Now an intermediary implies more than one, but God is one.
Is the law then contrary to the promises of God? Certainly not! For if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law.
But the Scripture imprisoned everything under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.
Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed.
So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith.
But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.
There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.’ Galatians 3:19-26
This is familiar territory to any serious Bible student. We can’t be saved by the Law, the Law is there as a guardian until Christ, and it is sufficient to do that without being added upon. I have had cause to look recently at the role of the prophetic in light of so many today claiming to be prophets.
God’s people are a covenant people, and the purpose of of the covenant is that we should be in direct covenant relationship with God. What needs to happen for that covenant relationship to be finally established is that God himself comes. As long as we have an angelic or prophetic mediator bringing us and God’s Word, that unity cannot be realised. We are a people in guardianship until Christ, imprisoned by law until faith comes, ‘that we might be justified by faith.’
In Christ, God has come, the end of prophetic revelation is arrived at. Consider the significance of the Transfiguration. In that holy place Moses and Elijah appear with the glorified Christ. Peter, James, and John witnessed the Law and the prophets recognising their function coming to an end and the voice of God the Father confirming the role and identity of Jesus, ‘This is my beloved Son; listen to him.’
The gospels are followed by early church history (Acts), much as Moses is followed by the histories of Joshua, Judges, Chronicles, and Kings. Just as Old Testament prophets pointed people back to Moses, so New Testament prophets and apostles pointed people back to Jesus. As prophets looked forward to the coming of a Saviour, so prophets and apostles point forward to his second advent.
If the Law and the prophets point us forward to Christ, if the prophets and apostles point us back to Christ, and all anticipate his second advent, what need have we for ‘another testament’? The weaknesses of Mormonism’s claims for the Book of Mormon are best exposed by the witness of a strong and more than sufficient Bible.
These are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.’ John 20:30
