The Book of Mormon on the
Bible
By D. Gene West
The Bible makes several
extraordinary claims for
itself. For example, in 2
Timothy 3:14-17,
it claims to be the complete guide for man with the ability to thoroughly
equip him for every good work.
If the Bible has the
ability to thoroughly equip a person for every
good work, what good is it unable to equip him to do? The answer can
only be,
none! Not only so, but the Bible claims to be eternal, or everlasting
in its
nature. Peter said “the Word of
God…lives and abides forever.” Furthermore,
he quoted from the Old Testament prophet Isaiah (40:6-8) to prove it.
So,
whether one speaks of the Old Testament or the New, he is still
speaking of the
Word of God, which lives and abides forever. In addition to these
things, from Hebrews 4:12,
we learn that the Word of God is both living and powerful. Finally,
Jesus said
that He knew God=s command
is everlasting life (John 12:50). These are some very big claims, and
they are
claims that have never been disproved.
However,
the Book of Mormon does not see the Bible in
this light. In 2 Nephi 29:3,
we read the words of Joseph
Smith, or someone, “And because my words shall hiss forthBmany of the Gentiles
shall say: A Bible!
A Bible! We have got a Bible, and there cannot be any more
Bible.” Then in
verse 10,of the same book and chapter, these words are found,
“Wherefore,
because that ye have a Bible ye need not suppose that it contains all
my words;
neither need ye suppose that I have not caused more to be
written.” These words
are taken from the Book of Mormon itself. Anyone can see that the
respect for
the Bible as the complete Word of God is not great in this book.
Now
friends, we have a problem here. The apostle Peter
clearly stated that God has given us “all
things that pertain to life and godliness
through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue”
(2
Peter 1:3). If we have received “all
things” for our spiritual benefit from
the Bible, how could there be anything needed for some other book to
provide.
Yet, this “prophet” and his book that came along
some 1800 years after the
Bible was completed said that we should not be foolish enough to
believe that
the Great Book contains all the words of God. That is a serious
contradiction!
Not only so, but inspired Jude, half-brother to our Lord wrote these
words, “…I found it
necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the
faith,
which was once for all delivered to the saints.”
The
question to be propounded here is this: If “the
faith” was (past tense) for all delivered to the saints in
the days when Jude
wrote this language, how could there be any more of the faith to be
delivered
to a “prophet” some 1800 years later in his
so-called “golden bible”?
Consequently, we are put in the position where we must choose between
the words
of the inspired half-brother of Jesus, or the words of mere man, who
morally
was not a very good man. Who ever wrote the words, “We have
got a Bible, and
there cannot be any more Bible,” was writing the truth
regardless of what the
rest of that passage goes on to say.
In an attempt to prove
that the so-called golden plates
could have existed, the proponents of the Mormon holy book have gone
around to
photograph archeological evidence that in ancient times, such as in the
days of
the great Persian kings, people wrote on sheets of gold, copper and
brass. No
one, to the best of our knowledge has ever denied that, for this has
been known
for years. However, that does not even remotely suggest that God wrote
a “golden
bible” and hid it in the hill Cumorah in New York State for
a young, highly
impressionable, treasure hunting teenager to find.
The Mormons have tried
every imaginable thing to prove
that their book is the genuine article, but they have failed utterly
and
completely. No one saw the “golden plates,” save
one other person, and he was
later expelled from the church. It cannot be demonstrated by any
evidence
acceptable to man that these plates ever existed. You see friends, we
have
found thousands of manuscripts of the Bible, yet not one of the book
that tries
so very hard to challenge it.
