View source for Criticism of Mormonism/Books/The Changing World of Mormonism/Chapter 12

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{{H1
|L=Criticism of Mormonism/Books/The Changing World of Mormonism/Chapter 12
|H=Response to claims made in "Chapter 12: Mormon Scriptures and the Bible"
|T=The Changing World of Mormonism
|A=Jerald and Sandra Tanner
|<=[[../Chapter 11|Chapter 11]]
|>=[[../Chapter 13|Chapter 13]]
}}
{{ChartChanging12}}
<onlyinclude>
{{H2
|L=Criticism of Mormonism/Books/The Changing World of Mormonism/Chapter 12
|H=Response to claims made in The Changing World of Mormonism, "Chapter 12: Mormon Scriptures and the Bible"
|S=
|L1=Response to claim: 365 - The Bible has secondary status in the Mormon Church
|L2=Response to claim: 365 - Joseph Smith taught that the Bible contains errors
|L3=Response to claim: 365 - Thomas Paine's book The Age of Reason influenced early Church leaders to criticize the Bible
|L4=Response to claim: 366-367 - Orson Pratt attacked the accuracy of the Bible
|L5=Response to claim: 368 - A phrase concerning baptism was later added to the Book of Mormon quotation of Isaiah 48:1, quoted in 1 Nephi 20:1
|L6=Response to claim: 371-373 - The authors suggest that the Dead Sea Scrolls "present serious problems" for the Book of Mormon and the Joseph Smith "Inspired Version" of the Bible
|L7=Response to claim: 378-379 - LDS leaders claimed that "Catholics conspired to alter the Bible," but this is proven wrong by the Dead Sea Scrolls
|L8=Response to claim: 383 - The "Inspired Version" of the Bible has been a "source of much embarrassment" for leaders of the Church
|L9=Response to claim: 383 - The Church would never allow the Inspired Version of the Bible to be printed
|L10=Response to claim: 385 - The contents of the "Inspired Version" of the Bible contradict doctrines taught by the Mormon church
|L11=Response to claim: 385-386 - Joseph Fielding Smith said that the "Inspired Version" was never completed, yet Joseph Smith stated that he completed the translation of the Bible
|L12=Response to claim: 393 - Joseph's "Inspired Version" of the Bible does not restore any of the "lost books" of the Bible
}}
</onlyinclude>

==Response to claim: 365 - The Bible has secondary status in the Mormon Church==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=The Changing World of Mormonism
|claim=
The Bible has secondary status in the Mormon Church.
}}
{{disinformation|This claim is total nonsense.
}}
*Heber C. Snell, ''Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought'', Spring 1967, pp.56-57
*David Bitton, ''Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought'', Autumn 1966, p.113

==Response to claim: 365 - Joseph Smith taught that the Bible contains errors==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=The Changing World of Mormonism
|claim=
Joseph Smith taught that the Bible contains errors.
|authorsources=<br>
#''Pearl of Great Price'', p.59	
}}
{{propaganda|Only the most extreme fundamentalist insists that there can be no errors in a document created by humans.
}}
{{:Source:Gospel Topics:Bible, Inerrancy of:As the Bible was compiled, organized, translated, and transcribed, many errors entered the text}}
{{:Question: Is the Bible without error?}}
{{:Question: Does the Bible itself claim to be inerrant?}}
{{:Question: What evidence demonstrates that the Bible has been altered?}}
{{:Question: What did early Christians think about alterations to the scriptures?}}
{{:Question: Do Mormons believe that the Bible has less value because it contains errors?}}

==Response to claim: 365 - Thomas Paine's book ''The Age of Reason'' influenced early Church leaders to criticize the Bible==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=The Changing World of Mormonism
|claim=
Thomas Paine's book ''The Age of Reason'' influenced early Church leaders to criticize the Bible, and to question its translation.
|authorsources=<br>
*Thomas Paine, ''The Age of Reason'', p.189
*''The Age of Reason'', p.32
}}
{{propaganda|The authors cite the book, but this book proves ''nothing'' about its influence on the Church or its leaders.  The authors are merely asserting their opinion instead of evidence.
}}

==Response to claim: 366-367 - Orson Pratt attacked the accuracy of the Bible==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=The Changing World of Mormonism
|claim=
Orson Pratt attacked the accuracy of the Bible.
|authorsources=<br>
#Orson Pratt's Works, "The Bible Alone An Insufficient Guide," pp.44-47
}}
{{misinformation|The authors fail to tell us that a speech of Brigham Young's (which they ''also'' quote, and ''also'' misrepresent) explains both Orson's purpose ''and'' the Saints' belief that the Bible is valuable as it stands.  (See entry below for [[#383|p. 385]].)
}}

==Response to claim: 368 - A phrase concerning baptism was later added to the Book of Mormon quotation of Isaiah 48:1, quoted in 1 Nephi 20:1==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=The Changing World of Mormonism
|claim=
A phrase concerning baptism was later added to the Book of Mormon quotation of Isaiah 48:1, quoted in 1 Nephi 20:1.
|authorsources=<br>
*Book of Mormon, 1830 ed. p.52
*1 Nephi 20:1"
}}
{{information|Joseph Smith inserted an explanatory phrase to explain to modern readers what the words "the waters of Judah" meant.
}}
{{:Book of Mormon/Textual changes/"or out of the waters of baptism"}}

==Response to claim: 371-373 - The authors suggest that the Dead Sea Scrolls "present serious problems" for the Book of Mormon and the Joseph Smith "Inspired Version" of the Bible==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=The Changing World of Mormonism
|claim=
The authors suggest that the Dead Sea Scrolls "present serious problems" for the Book of Mormon and the Joseph Smith "Inspired Version" of the Bible, because the "Isaiah scroll" is "proved to be word for word identical with our standard Hebrew Bible in more than 95 per cent of the text." The authors also suggest that the "Isaiah scroll" should have caused "a great deal of joy" among Mormon scholars, but did not because it is not "filled with evidence to support the text of Isaiah in the Book of Mormon."
|authorsources=<br>
*Gleason D. Archer, ''A Survey of Old Testament Introduction'', p.19
*''Courage'', vol. 1, no. 1, September 1970, p.20
*Sidney B. Sperry, ''Progress in Archaeology'', pp.52-54"
}}
{{misinformation|LDS scholars are deeply involved in the study of the Dead Sea Scrolls.  BYU professor Donald W. Parry is one of the scrolls' team of international editors. {{InternalContradiction|p. 365}}: The authors have insisted that Joseph was wrong to say the Bible has errors.  Now, they admit that at least 5% of the text is ''not'' the same between the Dead Sea Scrolls and other versions.  One version must be less accurate than the other&mdash;so it seems Joseph was right after all about the text not being inerrant.
}}

{{:Question: Was the Joseph Smith Translation intended to be a restoration of original Bible text?}}

==Response to claim: 378-379 - LDS leaders claimed that "Catholics conspired to alter the Bible," but this is proven wrong by the Dead Sea Scrolls==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=The Changing World of Mormonism
|claim=
LDS leaders claimed that "Catholics conspired to alter the Bible," but this is proven wrong by the Dead Sea Scrolls.
|authorsources=<br>
#1 Nephi 13:26-29
*Joseph Fielding Smith, Jr., ''Religious Truths Defined'', p.175
*Mark E. Peterson, ''As Translated Correctly'', p.4, 14
*''The Evening and the Morning Star'' (vol. 1, No. 1, p.3)
}}
{{misinformation|The textual alteration and suppression likely occurred before the Catholic church as such existed (the cited authors were influenced by earlier, Protestant scholarship that has since been superceded: see article in Reynolds by Dursteler, "Inheriting the "Great Apostasy": The Evolution of Latter-day Saint Views on the Middle Ages and the Renaissance." {{link1|url=http://mi.byu.edu/publications/books/?bookid=42&chapid=202}}.)

* '''Important source''': {{Disarray1| start=1&ndash;}}  See especially, Gee, "Corruption of Scripture in Early Christianity."{{link1|url=http://mi.byu.edu/publications/books/?bookid=42&chapid=206}}
}}

==Response to claim: 383 - The "Inspired Version" of the Bible has been a "source of much embarrassment" for leaders of the Church==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=The Changing World of Mormonism
|claim=
The "Inspired Version" of the Bible has been a "source of much embarrassment" for leaders of the Church.
|authorsources=<br>
#{{JDfairwiki|author=Brigham Young|disc=16|vol=3|start=116}}
}}
{{disinformation|This is flatly untrue. Passages from the JST are included in the footnotes of the current Latter-day Saint scriptures.
}}
{{:Question: Is the Church "embarrassed" by the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible?}}

==Response to claim: 383 - The Church would never allow the Inspired Version of the Bible to be printed==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=The Changing World of Mormonism
|claim=
The Church would never allow the Inspired Version of the Bible to be printed because it would tend to embarrass the church and to show that Joseph Smith was not a prophet of God.
}}
{{disinformation|Less than a year later, the Church ''did'' publish huge amounts of the JST in the KJV Bible version after years of work.  (See [[#383|above]].)	
}}

==Response to claim: 385 - The contents of the "Inspired Version" of the Bible contradict doctrines taught by the Mormon church==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=The Changing World of Mormonism
|claim=
The contents of the "Inspired Version" of the Bible contradict doctrines taught by the Mormon church.
}}
{{disinformation|The leaders and members do not seem to have noticed.  Less than a year later, the Church ''did'' publish huge amounts of the JST in the KJV Bible version after years of work.  (See [[#383|above]].) See many ''Ensign'' articles encouraging the use of, and praising, the JST [[Joseph Smith Translation as the Church's official Bible/JST an embarrassment to leaders|here]].		
|authorsources=<br>
#}}

==Response to claim: 385-386 - Joseph Fielding Smith said that the "Inspired Version" was never completed, yet Joseph Smith stated that he completed the translation of the Bible==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=The Changing World of Mormonism
|claim=
Joseph Fielding Smith said that the King James Bible is "the best version translated by the power of man" and that the "Inspired Version" was never completed, yet Joseph Smith stated that he completed the translation of the Bible.
|authorsources=<br>
*''Doctrines of Salvation'', vol. 3, p.191
*''History of the Church'' 1:324
*''History of the Church'' 1:368
}}
{{misinformation|Joseph indicated that he had "completed" the translation in the sense that he had gone through the entire Bible. However, Joseph conti=nued to make additional changes until his death, so he did not regard it as "completed" in the sense that no more could be done or added.  Joseph did not believe that a single, perfect, inerrant translation of any scripture was possible (or, perhaps, even desirable).
*Joseph had sought to publish the JST, but could never raise the funds.
*Joseph Fielding Smith's son-in-law, Bruce R. McConkie, wrote an article discussing such issues. <ref>{{Ensign1|author=Bruce R. McConkie|article=Come: Hear the Voice of the Lord|date=December 1985|start=54}}{{link|url=https://www.lds.org/ensign/1985/12/come-hear-the-voice-of-the-lord?lang=eng}}</ref> 
Since the JST manuscripts were in possession of the RLDS Church, LDS leaders were not certain about their contents or the accuracy of the publications made by the RLDS.  As scholarly cooperation allowed LDS scholars to see the originals, LDS confidence in the accuracy and value of the JST increased markedly.  Joseph Fielding Smith's remarks must be viewed in this context.
}}

==Response to claim: 393 - Joseph's "Inspired Version" of the Bible does not restore any of the "lost books" of the Bible==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=The Changing World of Mormonism
|claim=
Joseph's "Inspired Version" of the Bible does not restore any of the "lost books" of the Bible.
|authorsources=<br>
#''Joseph Smith's Revision of the Bible'', p. 18
}}
{{propaganda|The claim is hypocritical, since the authors believe the Bible is inerrant and sufficient, and so they would not regard these "lost books" as part of scripture anyway.  Indeed, if Joseph had included them, then the authors would probably complain he had been "adding" to the Bible. They also misunderstand the nature of the JST: see [[Bible/Joseph Smith Translation/As a restoration of the original Bible text|JST as textual restoration?]]
}}

{{endnotes sources}}



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