Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Becoming Gods

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Response to "Becoming Gods: A Closer Look at 21st-Century Mormonism"

Summary: NOTE: This book was re-issued in 2007 under the title "Inside Today's Mormonism."

Claim Evaluation

Becoming Gods

Response to claims made in Becoming Gods: A Closer Look at 21st-Century Mormonism by Richard Abanes

Summary: This book could best be described as an Evangelical apologetic work against Mormonism. The book spends much time refuting LDS interpretation of scriptural passages in the Bible, often claiming that Mormons have misinterpreted the scriptures and that they require "deeper study." In fact, it is claimed that LDS scholars have only a superficial knowledge of the scriptures, at one time stating that "[p]roperly interpreting them is not as simple as reading today's newspaper"

Jump to details:

• Response to claims made in Becoming Gods, "Preface: Can't We All Just Get Along?"
• Response to claims made in Becoming Gods, "Chapter 1: God's Latter-Day Prophet"
• Response to claims made in Becoming Gods, "Chapter 2: And it Came to Pass"
• Response to claims made in Becoming Gods, "Chapter 3: Thus Saith Joseph"
• Response to claims made in Becoming Gods, "Chapter 4: One God Versus Many Gods"
• Response to claims made in Becoming Gods, "Chapter 5: Heavenly Father is a Man"
• Response to claims made in Becoming Gods, "Chapter 6: Siblings from Eternity Past"
• Response to claims made in Becoming Gods, "Chapter 7: After All We Can Do"
• Response to claims made in Becoming Gods, "Chapter 8: Ye Are Gods"
• Response to claims made in Becoming Gods, "Chapter 9: More Than One Wife"
• Response to claims made in Becoming Gods, "Chapter 10: The 'Christian' Question"

Response to claims made in Becoming Gods, "Preface: Can't We All Just Get Along?"

Jump to details:

• Response to claim: 13 - Mormons exist in "two distinct groups:" Chapel Mormons and Internet Mormons
• Response to claim: 15 - The Journal of Discourses was viewed on par with the Standard Works by early Church members
• Response to claim: 16 - "Gospel Principles" is published by the Church, but contains a disclaimer that states that it is not an official publication of the Church
• Response to claim: 17, 331n35 - Mormons "focus on a minor issue while dismissing the broader point that is being made by a critic of the church." Example: "celestial sex"

Response to claims made in Becoming Gods, "Chapter 1: God's Latter-Day Prophet"

Jump to details:

• Response to claim: 24 - Joseph's family survived by "money digging"
• Response to claim: 24 - Joseph was adept at "occult ritual"
• Response to claim: 24 - Joseph's neighbors thought that he was "an imposter, hypocrite and liar"
• Response to claim: 26 - During the First Vision, Joseph was told that "all Christian creeds" were an abomination and that "all Christian teachers" were corrupt
• Response to claim: 26 - Many Mormons believe that "their salvation, to a limited degree, rests upon Smith"
• Response to claim: 26 - Bruce R. McConkie said that "we must turn to Joseph Smith to gain salvation"
• Response to claim: 26 - Dallin Oaks said that "I have built my life on the testimony and mission of the Prophet Joseph Smith."
• Response to claim: 27 - Joseph Smith was "harsh and violent"
• Response to claim: 27 - James E. Faust said that Joseph Smith "was the greatest prophet who ever lived upon the earth"
• Response to claim: 28 - Joseph Smith may have been a "pious fraud," who believed that he had been called of God while perpetrating fraud
• Response to claim: 28 - Polygamy was practiced in secret and denied publicly
• Response to claim: 28 - Heber C. Kimball predicted that the world would someday see Joseph Smith as "a god"
• Response to claim: 28 - Brigham Young applied 1 John 4:3 to Joseph Smith
• Response to claim: 29 - LDS claim that Joseph Smith "told but one" First Vision
• Response to claim: 30 - The 1832 account of the First Vision states that Joseph was in his "sixteenth year," and that he "probably meant when he was 16 years old"
• Response to claim: 30 - The 1832 account does not mention two personages
• Response to claim: 30 - The 1832 account does not mention that "all the churches in Joseph's day were false"
• Response to claim: 31 - Joseph claimed that he learned about the errors in Christendom through personal Bible study several years before the First Vision
• Response to claim: 31 - Orson Pratt said that the two personages "declared themselves to be angels"
• Response to claim: 31 - Church historian Andrew Jenson said that "The angel again forbade Joseph to join any of these churches"
• Response to claim: 31 - Joseph dictated the 1838 account of the First Vision to counter the leadership crisis in Kirtland
• Response to claim: 34 - "Not a single piece" of literature published in the 1830's mentions a visit by the Father and the Son
• Response to claim: 34 - Joseph's mother said that the First Vision was of an angel
• Response to claim: 34 - Joseph privately began reworking the story of seeing an angel into a vision of Christ
• Response to claim: 34 - Without "Mormonism's so-called" Melchizedek Priesthood, no man can see God and live
• Response to claim: 34 - Nobody knows "when or how" the Joseph received the Melchizedek Priesthood
• Response to claim: 34 - Joseph "had to backdate" the First Vision to 1820 in response to a leadership crisis
• Response to claim: 35 - The First Vision originally stated that the personages were angels
• Response to claim: 35 - There was no 1820 revival in Palmyra that converted "great multitudes" of people
• Response to claim: 35, 342n78, 348n130 - Joseph Smith is claimed to have joined other churches after having been told that churches were wrong
• Response to claim: 35, 342n79-80 - Newspapers reported in 1829 that Joseph Smith had a dream in 1827 about a spirit visiting him three times in one night
• Response to claim: 35-36, 343n83 - Joseph Smiths First Vision may have been a dream of a "bloody ghost dressed as a Spaniard
• Response to claim: 36, 343n85 - Joseph Smith was an "occultist"
• Response to claim: 36 - Early Mormons believed in "witchcraft"
• Response to claim: 36 - Joseph's mother talked about "magic circles" and the "faculty of Abrac"
• Response to claim: 37, 344n93 - Joseph's family had a "magick dagger" that was owned by Hyrum Smith
• Response to claim: 37, 344n94 - Joseph's family had "three magick parchments." One of these was owned by Hyrum Smith
• Response to claim: 37, 344n95 - Joseph had a "Jupiter talisman" with him the day he died
• Response to claim: 38 - "Researchers of Mormonism" now believe that Joseph was influenced by "Jewish kabbalism"
• Response to claim: 38 - Joseph considered the date April 6th to have "astrological significance"
• Response to claim: 38-39, 346 n. 104-109 - Joseph was arrested in 1826 for being a "disorderly person and an imposter"
• Response to claim: 39 - No "statements of repentance by Smith" for money digging have ever been found
• Response to claim: 40, 348n123 - Gordon B. Hinckley cited false documentation to support the story of an 1820 revival
• Response to claim: 42, 349n126 - There is no evidence that Joseph Smith was "persecuted" for telling the story of his vision between 1820 and 1824
• Response to claim: 42, 43 (sidebar) - Contradictions in the stories of Paul's vision were "long ago resolved by scholars analyzing the Greek texts"
• Response to claim: 42 - Brodie's idea that the First Vision may have been "the elaboration of some half-remembered dream stimulated by the early revival excitement" is a satisfactory way to "explain things"
• Response to claim: 44 - Brodie's idea that the First Vision may have been "created some time after 1830 when the need arose for a magnificent tradition to cancel out the stories of his fortune-telling and money-digging" "further weakens" Mormon claims
• Response to claim: 45, 351 n. 144 - Joseph "continued practicing magick, divination, astrology, and soothsaying long after the LDS Church was founded in 1830"
• Response to claim: 46 - Brigham Young and Heber C. Kimball were given divining rods by Joseph Smith
• Response to claim: 46 - Joseph received a revelation praising Oliver's gift of using his divining talents
• Response to claim: 48 - Joseph "never stopped being" an occultist
• Response to claim: 49 - The activities of Joseph's family may have been "satanic"

Response to claims made in Becoming Gods, "Chapter 2: And it Came to Pass"

Jump to details:

• Response to claim: 51, 353n2, 354n3 - Some Book of Mormon stories are simply reworked from the Bible or the Apocrypha
• Response to claim: 55, 355n28 - The 1839 history of the Church identified the angel who delivered the plates to Joseph as Nephi rather than Moroni
• Response to claim: 56, 357n34 - Joseph used his seer stone to locate the plates
• Response to claim: 56, 357n35-36 - The "golden book" was originally supposed to be about "hidden treasure" — the "religious twist" was added later
• Response to claim: 56 - Joseph translated the plates by looking at his seer stone in his hat. The plates were not nearby
• Response to claim: 57, 358-9n47 - Each sentence and word in the 1830 Book of Mormon "had supposedly come directly from God"
• Response to claim: 57-58, 359n49 - A voice from heaven proclaimed that the translation was correct, therefore no further editing should have been required
• Response to claim: 58, 359n50-51 - The use of the word "synagogue" in the Book of Mormon is an anachronism
• Response to claim: 58, 359n52-53 - There are anachronistic references to cows and oxen in the New World hundreds of years before Christ
• Response to claim: 58, 359n52-53 - There are anachronistic references to horses in the New World hundreds of years before Christ
• Response to claim: 58, 359n52-53 - There are anachronistic references to goats in the New World hundreds of years before Christ
• Response to claim: 58, 359n53 - "LDS apologist John Sorenson has suggested that Smith mistranslated numerous words" from the gold plates
• Response to claim: 58, 359n54 - The Book of Mormon "is simply a rehashing" of the speculation in the 19th century regarding Indian origins due to the presence of burial mounds "dotting the land"
• Response to claim: 60, 360n58 - Joseph Smith incorporated text from Josiah Priest's The Wonders of Nature into the Book of Mormon
• Response to claim: 60-61, 360n59-63 - Joseph Smith plagiarized Ethan Smith's View of the Hebrews
• Response to claim: 61 - Anyone who looked on the gold plates would die
• Response to claim: 62, 361n69-72 - The witnesses never actually physically saw the plates - they only saw them in visions
• Response to claim: 64 - Martin Harris said that he never saw the plates with his "natural eyes"
• Response to claim: 64, 362n81-82 - Cowdery, Whitmer and Harris's statements that they actually saw the plates only refer to times that the plates were either covered with a cloth or in a wooden box
• Response to claim: 64, 362n83-84 - Martin Harris said that none of the eight witnesses had seen or handled the plates
• Response to claim: 65 - The Book of Mormon "can hardly be considered unique" since James Strang produced a set of plates that were seen by witnesses
• Response to claim: 65, 362n87 - LDS defenders (apologists) have redefined many of the terms that Joseph Smith used in the Book of Mormon text
• Response to claim: 66, 362n88 - LDS scholars such as Dee F. Green have stated that Book of Mormon archaeology is a "myth"
• Response to claim: 66, 362n89 - Dr. Michael Coe stated that there was no Book of Mormon archaeology
• Response to claim: 66, 363n92 - LDS scholar Terryl L. Givens "admitted" that no connection has been made between the Book of Mormon and cultures or civilizations in the Western hemisphere
• Response to claim: 67, 363n95-96 - The limited geography theory "cannot bear rigorous scrutiny" and "does violence" to the text of the Book of Mormon
• Response to claim: 67, 363n99 - Apologists have suggested that "not a single early Mormon, including Joseph Smith, ever bothered reading the Book of Mormon 'closely enough to grasp the fact' " that the plates were not buried in the hill where the final Nephite battle occurred
• Response to claim: 70, 365n115 - Joseph Smith said that the angel told him that all American Indians were "literal descendants of Abraham," but DNA has disproved this
• Response to claim: 71, 365n120 - Joseph Smith founded the "Restored Church" on the belief that all Native Americans were descendants of the Israelites
• Response to claim: 72, 366 n.127 - All modern Mormons believed that all inhabitants of the New World were descendants of the Lamanites until "science showed it to be erroneous"
• Response to claim: 72, 366n128 - The "updated LDS paradigm" claims that Nephites intermarried with non-Israelite natives, thus diluting their DNA
• Response to claim: 72, 366n130 - The LDS view has always been that Israelites were the first people to populate the Americas
• Response to claim: 73, 367n131-135 - Not many Christians actually believe that the world was created around 4000 B.C.
• Response to claim: 73, 367n136 - The Lamanites were supposed to become "white" once they converted en masse to Mormonism. This was to be accomplished by having LDS men take Indian wives
• Response to claim: 73, 367n137 - The phrase "white and delightsome" was changed to "pure and delightsome" in the Book of Mormon
• Response to claim: 73, 367n138 - LDS leaders claimed that the alteration to the Book of Mormon had nothing to do with the Indians physically turning white
• Response to claim: 74 - LDS apologists dismiss Church teachings in order to make Mormonism compatible with scientific findings
• Response to claim: 75, 368n142, 76, 368n143 - LDS apologist B.H. Roberts "reached a shocking conclusion" that the Book of Mormon wasn't authentic
• Response to claim: 76 - FARMS claims that Roberts was playing "devils advocate," but have never provided documentation to support this assertion
• Response to claim: 77 368n145-147 - Thomas Stuart Ferguson lost his testimony of the Book of Mormon after failing to find archaeological evidence
• Response to claim: 77 369n150-153 - LDS scholars believe that Quetzalcoatl was Jesus Christ. However, Quetzalcoatl's association with a "feathered serpent" constitutes "snake worship"

Response to claims made in Becoming Gods, "Chapter 3: Thus Saith Joseph"

Jump to details:

• Response to claim: 84, 370n9-11 - The revelations in the Book of Commandments were modified because they were "showing their age"
• Response to claim: 85, 371n14 - Mormons view divine truth as "not absolute or fixed; it is changeable, flexible"
• Response to claim: 87, 370n23 - Joseph received a "false revelation" through his seer stone to go to Toronto, Canada to sell the Book of Mormon copyright
• Response to claim: 89, 372n28 - After translating the Book of Mormon he was not supposed to become a prophet or organize a Church
• Response to claim: 89, 372n29-30 - Joseph modified what is now D&C 8:6-9 to hide Oliver Cowdery's use of a divining rod
• Response to claim: 90, 372n34, 375n35 - Apostle William E. McLellin left the Church because he was "shaken by the changes made in the revelations"
• Response to claim: 94 - Joseph Smith turned the "Book of Breathings" into the "Book of Abraham"
• Response to claim: 94-98 - The restoration of the missing portions of Facsimile 1 were "terribly wrong"
• Response to claim: 99 - LDS apologists' main purpose is to explain away "any and all criticisms that might damage the validity of Smith's writings"
• Response to claim: 100 - One or two words in Egyptian were expanded to entire paragraphs in English

Response to claims made in Becoming Gods, "Chapter 4: One God Versus Many Gods"

Jump to details:

• Response to claim: 109 - Mormons embrace polytheism—the belief in a plurality of gods
• Response to claim: 112 n25-26 - Mormons redefine monotheism to be the worship of one "primary or supreme god above all other gods"
• Response to claim: 114 - Early biblical church quotes used by Mormons to support tritheism only superficially support their position. Upon closer examination, they do not provide this support
• Response to claim: 114 - Mormons worship the Godhead as "one god"
• Response to claim: 115, 379n47-48 - The Trinity is "one of the most important doctrines of the Christian faith" and is at the "heart of the Christian conception of God"
• Response to claim: 130 - The Mormon concept of the "eternality of matter" is a pagan belief
• Response to claim: 130 - The Mormon concept of "pre-existence of spirits" is a pagan belief
• Response to claim: 130 - The Mormon concept of "human deification" is a pagan belief

Response to claims made in Becoming Gods, "Chapter 5: Heavenly Father is a Man"

Jump to details:

• Response to claim: 136 - Biblical verses that describe God as having body parts are "difficult to interpret and require careful study"
• Response to claim: 136 - Mormons do not believe that "God is not a man" in spite of Biblical verses that state such
• Response to claim: 137 - God is a Spirit
• Response to claim: 149 - The title "Son of Man," does not mean "son of a man," contrary to what Mormons may assert

Response to claims made in Becoming Gods, "Chapter 6: Siblings from Eternity Past"

Jump to details:

• Response to claim: 154 - Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother "through some kind of sexual union" clothed each of us with a spirit body
• Response to claim: 156, 394 n. 28-31 - The belief in a "Heavenly Mother" is not supported by scripture and was simply added by Joseph Smith
• Response to claim: 157 - According to Brigham Young, our spirit body was created via a sexual union of Heavenly Father and Mother

Response to claims made in Becoming Gods, "Chapter 7: After All We Can Do"

Jump to details:

• Response to claim: 183 - Latter-day Saints are claimed to reject the "Evangelical belief" that "Christ was born of the virgin Mary"
• Response to claim: 184 - "Until recently, the common belief clearly implied throughout the history of Mormonism...was that Jesus' conception occurred via sexual intercourse between Heavenly Father (Elohim) and Mary"
• Response to claim: 185, 405n41 - Early LDS leaders redefined "virgin" to mean a woman who has never known a mortal man, since Heavenly Father is immortal
• Response to claim: 187, 406n54-55 - Latter-day Saints reject the idea that the death of Jesus on the cross was a significant part of the atonement
• Response to claim: 201 - The three heaven doctrine has no basis in the Bible, but is only based upon a vision of Joseph Smith

Response to claims made in Becoming Gods, "Chapter 8: Ye Are Gods"

Jump to details:

• Response to claim: 205 - Many Bible verses refute the notion of deification
• Response to claim: 213 - The concept of "deification" is actually derived from Greek philosophy

Response to claims made in Becoming Gods, "Chapter 9: More Than One Wife"

Jump to details:

• Response to claim: 225 - In Mormon theology, "creating" includes not only making a world, but peopling it through procreating, through sexual union with one's spouse
• Response to claim: 226 - The statement in the 1835 D&C condemning polygamy was "perhaps in an attempt to conceal Smith's affair"
• Response to claim: 233, 422n47 - Mormons believed that plural marriage was necessary for deification in the Celestial Kingdom
• Response to claim: 233, 422n48-49 - Brigham Young said, "The only men who become Gods, even the Sons of God, are those who enter into polygamy"
• Response to claim: 237 - "Although wives continued to live with their husbands, they would receive conjugal visits from Smith whenever the need arose"
• Response to claim: 237, 424n71 - Zina Huntington married Brigham Young while still married to Henry Jacobs, and Henry stood as a witness
• Response to claim: 237, 425n73-75 - "Wife swapping" was "wholly acceptable"
• Response to claim: 237 - The Bible does not sanction or command polygamy. "Most Israelites were monogamous"
• Response to claim: 239, n. 80-83 - "Early Mormon leaders" believed that Jesus and his apostles were polygamists

• Response to claim: 241 - How could Jesus have been a god before he was born, before he had a physical body?
• Response to claim: 241 - How could the Holy Ghost be a god, since he does not have a physical body?
• Response to claim: 244 - "...nowhere in the Old Testament is polygamy linked with any mandates to practice it"
• Response to claim: 245, n97 - Plural marriages were performed after the 1890 Manifesto

Response to claims made in Becoming Gods, "Chapter 10: The 'Christian' Question"

Jump to details:

• Response to claim: 255, 434n15 - LDS leaders spent decades denouncing mainstream Christianity
• Response to claim: 256 - The Book of Mormon teaches that there are only two churches: 1) the false church of the devil and 2) the true church of the Lamb
• Response to claim: 257 - The "ongoing condemnation of Christianity" is "built into the very core of Mormonism as a central tenet"
• Response to claim: 262, 440n46 - The "Mormon Jesus" is one of three gods overseeing this planet
• Response to claim: 262, 440n46 - The "Mormon Jesus" is the literal brother of Lucifer
• Response to claim: 262, 440n46 - The "Mormon Jesus" atoned only for Adam's transgression, providing us with the opportunity to obtain "eternal life" by our own efforts
• Response to claim: 262, 440n46 - The "Mormon Jesus" provides no salvation without accepting Joseph Smith as a prophet of God
• Response to claim: 268 - The Bible does not mention a total apostasy
• Response to claim: 273 - Baptism for the dead is unbiblical
• Response to claim: 274-276 - The need for the Aaronic priesthood ceased and was replaced by a new one that is held by all believers
• Response to claim: 276-279 - The Melchizedek priesthood was never a literal order of priests. It belonged only to Melchizedek and Christ

Use of sources

Summary: An examination and response to how the author of Becoming Gods: A Closer Look at 21st-Century Mormonism interprets the sources used to support this work, indexed by page number.

About this work

There are no books from an evangelical perspective that responsibly interact with contemporary LDS scholarly and apologetic writings.
—Paul Mosser and Carl Owen, "Mormon Scholarship, Apologetics and Evangelical Neglect: Losing the Battle and Not Knowing It?" Trinity Journal, 1998.

It is claimed that this book is an attempt to fill the void highlighted by Mosser and Owen. Unfortunately, what we find instead are the same misrepresentations and arguments that been offered in the past by anti-Mormon authors. There is nothing at all new here. This book could best be described as an Evangelical apologetic work against Mormonism. The book spends much time refuting LDS interpretation of scriptural passages in the Bible, often claiming that Mormons have misinterpreted the scriptures and that they require "deeper study." In fact, it is claimed that LDS scholars have only a superficial knowledge of the scriptures, at one time stating that "[p]roperly interpreting them is not as simple as reading today's newspaper" (p. 213).

Notable and Quotable

A summary of the painful manipulations required in order to circumscribe the meaning of the term "Christian" so that it excludes Latter-day Saints:

Many evangelical books offer little help. Some are strident or mocking.

—Richard Abanes, Becoming Gods, p. 11

Mormons do in fact seek salvation within the historical person known to the world as Jesus of Nazareth, as they see him.

—Richard Abanes, Becoming Gods, p. 265

This does not mean that Mormons are "Christian" in an objective theological sense. It merely means there exists no other category in which they can be placed. Allowing for the broad viewpoint, however, opens up a large can of worms. What about the Branch Davidians, who called themselves "Christian" but stored illegal weapons, abused children, and murdered law enforcement officers? What about The Family, a "Christian" group that currently engages in premarital "sharing" with multiple partners and allows adultery with consent? How about so-called "Christian" witches? There are also a significant number of liberal "Christians"...who deny the virgin birth, the deity of Jesus, and Christ's physical resurrection. And let us not forget "Christian" nudists.

—Richard Abanes, Becoming Gods, p. 265

So if Daniel Peterson and Barry Bickmore, for example, have no problem being called "heretical Christians," then I have no problem obliging them.

—Richard Abanes, Becoming Gods, p. 266

When it comes to whether or not Mormons are Christian, a simple yes or no answer will never do.

—Richard Abanes, Becoming Gods, p. 279

Appeals Court Rules Mormon Church Is Outside Protestant Christian Faith. This ruling clearly agrees that Mormonism is outside Protestantism. And Mormonism is certainly not Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox. The ruling, of course, fails to answer the question: What is Mormonism? Given the fact that it is not Roman Catholic, or Eastern Orthodox, or Protestant, one can naturally extrapolate that Mormonism is not Christian.

—Richard Abanes, blog post "Mormonism LEGALLY Declared Not Christian," October 9, 2008.

(The following day, October 10, in response to a reader comment, the title of the blog entry was changed to read "Mormonism LEGALLY Declared Not Protestant." One poster compared the logic presented with the following: "And given the fact that San Diego is not Los Angeles, or San Francisco, or Sacramento, one can naturally extrapolate that San Diego is not in California.")