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Response to claims made in "Chapter 7: Revealing Revelations"

Chapter 6: This is Good News?

A FAIR Analysis of:
Mormonism Unmasked

A work by author: R. Philip Roberts

Chapter 8: Jesus Is Coming Again

95

Claim
The author depicts a dialogue between an evangelical and a Mormon:

Mary: "The Bible is God's infallible and inerrant Word! Do you believe that?"
Mormon: Of course I do!...See, we believe and use the Bible like you do!"

Response

The author got one fact incorrect:
Mormons do not consider the Bible to be "infallible and inerrant." No Mormon would claim this. When the Mormon says "of course I do," she if referring to the fact that we believe in the Bible.
The author got one fact correct:
Mormons use the King James Version of the Bible.

97

Claim
The author states that "despite repeated claims to the contrary, the LDS Church does not actually believe the Bible is accurate and can be trusted. They regard it, at the very best, as incomplete. At the worst, they think it has been tainted beyond reliability."

Response
Nonsense. The Bible is one of the four standard works used by Mormons. Latter-day Saints do not believe that the Bible has been "tainted beyond reliability." Far from it, the Church teaches that the Bible contains the "converting, healing Spirit of Christ."

Gospel Topics (lds.org), "Bible: The Word of God"

Gospel Topics (lds.org)

The Holy Bible literally contains within its pages the converting, healing Spirit of Christ, which has turned men’s hearts for centuries, leading them to pray, to choose right paths, and to search to find their Savior.

The Holy Bible is well named. It is holy because it teaches truth, holy because it warms us with its spirit, holy because it teaches us to know God and understand His dealings with men, and holy because it testifies throughout its pages of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Click here to view the complete article

98

Claim
The author claims that the Bible "plays only a small part in the religion of Mormonism anyway" and that "little or no LDS theology is really derived from the Bible."

Response
Nonsense.

103

Claim
The author states that "most LDS descriptions of the translation process say Smith utilized the Urim and Thummim as the instruements for translation. However, documented testimonies from several of those involved in the process, including Emma Smith and David Whitmer, described the process differently. Years later they stated that Smith actually used a small magic rock called a "seer stone" to comprehend the words on the plates and transcribe them into English."

Response

Gospel Topics (lds.org), "Book of Mormon Translation"

Gospel Topics (lds.org), (2013)

These two instruments—the interpreters and the seer stone—were apparently interchangeable and worked in much the same way such that, in the course of time, Joseph Smith and his associates often used the term “Urim and Thummim” to refer to the single stone as well as the interpreters. In ancient times, Israelite priests used the Urim and Thummim to assist in receiving divine communications. Although commentators differ on the nature of the instrument, several ancient sources state that the instrument involved stones that lit up or were divinely illumin[at]ed. Latter-day Saints later understood the term “Urim and Thummim” to refer exclusively to the interpreters. Joseph Smith and others, however, seem to have understood the term more as a descriptive category of instruments for obtaining divine revelations and less as the name of a specific instrument.