Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Mormonism by Ankerberg John & John Weldon

Author:Ankerberg, John & John Weldon [Ankerberg, John]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: ATRI Publishing
Published: 2010-02-08T16:00:00+00:00

23. Mormonism’s Word of God

Have Secret Changes Been Made in the Mormon Scriptures?

Standard religious bodies usually guard and protect their scriptures with unrepentant zeal.

It is inconceivable that any bona fide church would permit the alteration of what it truly believed were divine scriptures, let alone alter them itself and then keep such misrepresentations secret. This would represent total irreverence and desecration before God.

But this is exactly what the Mormon church has done. The Mormon church claims as its scripture the Book of Mormon, Doctrines and Covenants, and The Pearl of Great Price. Dr. Walter Martin observes (the term “standard work” refers to “inspired” work):

There isn’t a single LDS-produced standard work that hasn’t undergone hundreds and even thousands of changes, additions, deletions, and corrections, many of which are much more than “typographical” in nature, and all of which were done without indications or acknowledgement of the actions taken. Even granting Joseph the “right” to revise what God had told him before (even though it is difficult to do so when we are talking about cases involving historical facts), why is there the deception associated with these changes?... Church leaders have even lied in public about these situations. Why?136

First, we will document that, given Mormon claims, no changes whatever should have been made in the Mormon scriptures. Second, we will document the fact of the extensive changes themselves. This will prove that even Mormon church authorities, apparently, do not consider their own scripture true, let alone sacred. Why they would then demand such allegiance from church members is apparently a mystery known only to them.

In his alleged history, Joseph Smith tells the story about the mode of translation of the gold plates. This story confirms the claim that the plates were translated “by the power of God” and therefore cannot permit even the slightest alteration.

It had been prearranged that after completion of the translation the “three witnesses” would see the gold plates so they could bear “testimony” to them. After a time of fervent prayer in the woods, two of the three witnesses (less Harris, who allegedly saw the same vision later):

Beheld a light above us in the air, of exceeding brightness; and behold, an angel stood before us [not in the light]. In his hands, he held the plates... he turned over the leaves, one by one, so that we could see them, and discern the engravings thereon distinctly.... [then] we heard a voice from [God] out of the bright light above us, saying, “These plates have been revealed by the power of God, and they have [now] been translated by the power of God. The translation of them which you have seen is correct, and I command you to bear witness of what you now see and hear.”137

This testimony is clear enough. No less an authority than God Himself has declared that the plates were translated by His own person and power. God has also testified that the translation “is correct.” And later, Jesus Christ Himself also allegedly stated of the translation, ‘As your Lord and your God liveth it is true.

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