The Bible vs The Book of Mormon

Translation, the Septuagint, and the Original Languages of Scripture

I just want to understand what you meant by translation, and translation, and translation. Because the Hebrew, the Old Testament is primarily Hebrew, except for the Septuagint. The Septuagint was written in, it was a Greek translation from scholars for the mostly, yeah, Hellenization had taken place by then.

And the Gospel to a lot of the Hellenistic, it was supposed to be, you know, bringing the Jews' Gospel to the known world at that time.

But the New Testament is written in primarily Cornean Greek. And we go, today, I can get you a copy right now of the Cornean Greek, you can translate it from there to English yourself. It seemed like you were saying that you believe that the Bible has gone from like, say, Cornean Greek to translation, to translation, to translation, to translation, and we've just lost it.

No, no, no, we definitely haven't lost the true meaning. If that's what you thought I was saying, sorry for misspeaking, but just like, as an example, there was the councils that the Roman Catholic Church called in the early days of existence where the Roman Emperor wanted the, he wanted the priests of Rome and of the, well, I guess Rome was the whole country back then, but he wanted the different Christian sects to kind of come to a consensus of what they believed.

Doctrine was meaning, because a lot of them were having conflicting purposes.

What do you, what do you, give me an example, what do you mean by that?

Forgetting the names, but there were two councils that were called, and they were of all the, they were of all the different Christian communities of Rome and the Roman Empire, and he wanted them to kind of, he got a whole bunch of the priests who were teaching, they got them all together into, and this is the actual thing that happened, I'm out of data, I would look it up, the name.

You're referring to Nicaea?

The Council of Nicaea.

What do you think happened there?

Well, the different sects of people got together, or not sects, that's not the correct term, but different priests of the area and of the church had been teaching different things, and they were just, it's sort of like how, he's a Mennonite, I'm a Mormon, you are, what sect are you part of?

I'm Reformed Baptist.

Reformed Baptist.

Yeah.

We all have different sort of views on doctrine. The Roman Catholic Church...

He and I not so much.

Probably not.

Well. Yeah.

We...

We've talked about that already.

Yeah.

Like, we have different views on doctrine. Well, in the early days of the Roman Catholic Church, they needed to come to a uniform sort of belief, so the Roman Emperor of the time got them together, and he wanted them to point by point go through the doctrine that they had, and he wanted them to select the beliefs and what they meant, and sort of reform.

The Council of Nicaea and the Early Church Against Arianism

Just real fast, what you just said didn't happen. Council of Nicaea, the way you described your understanding of Nicaea, that's not what happened.

What happened?

Nice.

Just to encourage me, because that often is, I think, and I mean this respectfully, a myth propagated amongst Mormons in terms of what took place in the ecumenical councils and things like that. You can research this yourself.

Nicaea was called specifically to address a man named Arius of Alexandria, Bishop Arius, who was teaching essentially that Jesus Christ was the greatest creation of the Father, that the Father had created Jesus, which had essentially, of course, not been taught in the Bible.

The Bible refutes that position, and all the other early church unanimously would have rejected that from the earliest stages of the church. And so when Arius of Alexandria, a popular bishop, was teaching this, the church gathered together to refute him publicly.

And the second council of Nicaea was the same thing, or was it?

No, so the councils were called specifically to deal with heresy, and so the churches would gather together to deal with a specific heresy, and then essentially formulate a response, a public response, around the scriptures to that heresy.

And so, Council Nicaea had nothing to do with...

So they made a picture of guidelines and...

Yeah, confession. Calling upon heresy. So when you see councils form, they're essentially forming to refute a heretical belief that was opposed to the scriptures, and of course the church's whole understanding for centuries.

Council Nicaea had nothing to do with books of the Bible, and I'll also encourage you to see that when you say Roman Catholic Church, the Roman Catholic Church didn't exist then. It was a Catholic-meant universal.

That I hadn't been taught, that I was just inferring.

Sure, yeah, yeah.

So I just want to give you some encouragement here so you understand how beautiful this.

Is.

When you talk about translation, and translation, and translation, right now with the amazing gifts that God has given to us, you and I can pull up an app on our phone and pull up the original Greek language from the manuscripts that have been transmitted, and you can translate from the Greek to, right, you can do a translation on the spot.

Like, for example, John chapter 1, verse 1, That's the Greek. And you can do a translation on the spot. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. That's an English translation from the Greek.

Now what's interesting is you made a parallel that I just want to encourage you to think.

About.

You made a, or I say a contrast, I should say. You talked about the Bible being translated, and translated, and translated in terms of its corruption, which actually isn't how it's transmitted to us, nor how we translate it.

But this is interesting. You mentioned the Book of Mormon. You said it was only translated one time. I assume you're meaning from...

There have been revisions of it, and wordings and such.

I mean in terms of, you, I guess, I think you meant, you can correct me if I'm wrong, that it was written in Reformed Egyptian hieroglyphics, and Joseph translated it into English.

Yes.

But when he published the 1830 version, he said that it was the most correct book of any book on earth, and that a man can get closer to God by obeying its precepts than any other book.

That's true.

And yet, from the 1830, from 1830 till today, that's less than 200 years, it's changed. 4 ,000.

Times.

There's 4 ,000 changes from the 1830 version, which is the most correct book of any book on earth.

Do you know what those changes were though?

Yeah, doctrinal changes, entire sections and sentences taken out. They're not spelling errors and things like that, like you're often told.

It said, it said that, it said that, let's see what it was, they put the son in, where he was the eternal God, and then they put in later the son of the eternal God.

Right.

There's significant doctrinal changes, sections taken out, things like that.

And they thought that he was dead, so they probably, you know, they actually brought these, I think it was some records for him to translate, and they realized later on, I don't know what year it was, when they put it back to Mosiah.

18, oh, you're talking about the Book of Mormon?

Yeah, it was originally, originally it was written as King Benjamin was translating his place, but he had already died, and they realized there was supposed to be Mosiah in that.

Yeah, so errors, anachronistic stuff, errors of history.

A lot of grammatical problems.

Changes in those, in those, in those ways. And so the point is, I just want to encourage you with this, the Bible had said long before Joseph came along, it said that the grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever.

Jesus talked about his words in terms of it never falling away. He said heaven and earth will pass away, my words will by no means pass away. That's how he talked about what he said. Now when Joseph came along, he taught that the Bible had been corrupted, and that essentially the church had fallen away, needed to be restored, and the Bible, he was going to give it the JST, the Joseph Smith Translation.

But that contradicts what God said in his word about his word, that it would never perish or fall away, that he would in fact preserve it.

Well perhaps it would have been preserved by the restoration.

It was preserved long before Joseph came along. So in other words, like I said, you mentioned translation to translation to translation. We can go back to just say the New Testament. We have over 5 ,700 Greek manuscript copies and pieces of the New Testament record itself.

Over 19 ,000 early translations, and the early church fathers quoting from the New Testament copiously in their journals and councils and creeds and their sermons. You can create the New Testament essentially just from the church fathers quoting it.

So we haven't lost the New Testament.

The Preservation of the New Testament and the Claims of the Book of Mormon

The thing is that a lot of Christ's words, Christ didn't write anything. He never wrote down any words. This is from word of mouth. You played the game telephone, right?

Yeah, but that's not how the Bible came to us though.

No, exactly. But it was a lot of the prophets and a lot of the apostles wrote down their teachings of Christ several years after they heard him say it.

Through divine inspiration.

Yeah, through divine inspiration.

So God did that.

Yeah, so same with the Book of Mormon, divine inspiration.

Well that's what Joseph claims. But how do you test Joseph as a prophet? How do you test him?

As a prophet, I, personal revelation.

Okay.

That's what I'm doing.

What would you say to the Jehovah's Witness that says that he has personal revelation that Jesus is Michael the Archangel, the first and greatest creation of Jehovah God. Or would you say to the Muslim that says he has personal revelation that Jesus Christ is not the divine son of God, he didn't die for sins and didn't rise from the dead.

They have personal revelation of that.

What would I say?

What would you say to the Muslim that says he didn't die and rise from the dead?

I'd say we both have our own sort of beliefs on the situation.

When the Muslim says to you, he says Jesus is not the divine son of God, but I believe in Jesus and he didn't die or rise from the dead. What would you say to respond to that? How would you respond to that?

How would I respond?

Yeah.

Well what I would say is I would say, well I personally believe that he is and that Jesus Christ is the son of God and he rose from the dead and he suffered through the garden of Gethsemane and died on the cross for our sins and he is our savior.

And if he responds by saying that, I'd say, well listen, we both have our own beliefs on the situation. And I'm never going to be able to, psychologically you will never be convinced of someone else's opinion because you'll start to fortify yourself in your own belief because you feel attacked by it.

Or if you don't feel attacked, you won't change your opinion. I'm not going to be able to change that guy's opinion. If he doesn't want to believe what I believe, that's perfectly fine.

What if a guy came to you in your church, a friend of yours at the ward, and he said, I'm sleeping with my girlfriend outside of marriage. We've prayed about it, we feel like we have a revelation from God that is perfectly appropriate for us to have sex outside of marriage.

Would you say, hey man, that's your belief man, I'll leave you to it? Or what would you say to him?

I'd say, well did you know that that's not supposed to be happening?

How do I know?

Well, have you read the Bible?

There you go. Did you see what he just did?

No, the words of God.

Did you see what he just did? That was right on. I'm saying, right on man. When I touched a subject that didn't relate to Joseph Smith being a prophet, I talked about sexual morality, your first response was, no, the Bible says.

But when you're talking to the Muslim and he denies Jesus Christ died and rose again, you said, well no, my experience tells me otherwise. But you didn't say what you just said, but the Bible says. What's interesting, and I mean this in a sense of encouragement to you, because I care for you, Joseph came and said, Jesus Christ is Lucifer's brother, he's one God among many gods, you can become a god one day yourself, right?

He said, salvation is not by grace alone through faith in Christ alone, as Paul says, it's by grace after all you can do. Now, what you and I should do with Joseph's revelation is go to what God says and say, what did he say?

That's what you do with the sexually immoral guy. But you didn't do it with Joseph.

Well, what I would do with Joseph is, I explained to him earlier, was that Joseph Smith claims to be a prophet.

Right.

And how would I know he's a prophet? Well, you know him by his works, and you know that all things that are good are of God and all things that are bad are of Satan. That's a direct parable from the gardener, forgetting the name of the parable, I'm sorry.

Parable of the sower.

Yeah, the sower.

Thank you.

You know him by his works. Everything good is of God and everything bad is of Satan. For one thing, that's one assurance to me. What I see the church, the church is good, so it has to be of God. Because I believe people who aren't part of my church have the gospel.

I believe you guys have parts of the gospel, and I have parts of the gospel. And I believe that we're all Christian people and we're all doing good things.

So I'm not of the church of the devil?

No.

My creeds aren't an abomination?

No.

So you deny the first vision?

I do not deny the first vision.

Joseph said, join none of the churches, they're all wrong. Their creeds are an abomination, their professors are corrupt. They draw near to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. I believe everything those Christians believed.

Okay.

Do you see what's important there? Is that there is a distinction that Joseph taught and Brigham taught that I'm of the church of the devil, I'm wrong. Now as a 21st century Mormon, you want to be a lot more loving and gracious and not hold to those things, but that is in fact the official teaching of your church.

And I think what's important here, just in terms of the most important thing, is not our little differences and disagreements over coffee or anything like that, but in terms of who is God and how do I come to know him.

Because Joseph said, my God is false. He said, my gospel is false. And I actually am happy to see him be honest about that. And the Bible does teach that if you have a false gospel, you are accursed. And that false gospel that Paul was addressing there in Galatians chapter 1 was a gospel that said Jesus is God, he died and rose again.

But it's not just faith in Christ alone for peace with God. It's also faith plus this one work of the law in order to be right with God. So it's not just faith in Christ and his work, but it's also my own works.

Paul says that's a false gospel, eternally condemned by God. If you choose that route, you're under the law to fulfill the entire thing. Joseph taught a false gospel and that's how you're supposed to compare him.

Do you have the time?

It's 10 to 2.

I'm going to be leaving very shortly.

That's okay, that's okay. So since you're leaving soon, here's the fundamental issue. In 2 Corinthians 11, I know there's a lot to throw at you, but 2 Corinthians 11 verses 3 and 4, Paul warns the early church.

It's like 20, 30 years after Jesus died and rose again. He warns them that he was worried they'd be deceived and somebody would come in and preach another Jesus, another gospel, another spirit, and they would put up with them.

That's in the first century.

He also said that, speaking to the people of Corinth, he was saying that people were claiming that they were followers of this prophet. This guy had baptized them, so they were baptizees of blank.

I'm of Paul, I'm of Apollos, I'm of Peter.

And all of that. And he claimed that we are all of Christ. So we are all followers of Christ in our own way.

Which one? Jesus, Satan's brother?

Jesus Christ is the only Christ.

Okay, well I just gave you one example of a Jesus that you disagree with. The Muslim Jesus didn't die and rise from the dead.

No, it's not a different Jesus. They're claiming that the Jesus Christ is not the Son of God. I claim the Jesus Christ is the Son of God.

So which one is true?

My personal belief to me is true, and to him, he thinks differently.

So Jesus says, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father but by me. He said he was the only way to the Father. You believe that you can come through other false Christs to come to the Father?

I don't believe that... Let me state this. I've never been the kind of guy who tries to show up and prove people wrong. That's not how I've been. I've been talking to him for a long time, and I'm talking to you now.

No, I appreciate that very much.

You guys are very kind, and I'm very glad. I love talking doctrine. But what I like to do is I like to hear people's views. And I'm not going to change my view, and I don't think you're going to change your view.

But the thing is that I don't get nitpicky about my gospel a lot. What I believe is in the 10 Articles of Faith.

Right.

Those, that's...

The 10...

The 10 Articles...

The 13 Articles of Faith.

I was wondering, yeah.

Sorry.

The 13 Articles...

I was like, is there something new that's coming out recently?

I'm really tired.

Yeah, it's okay, man. It's all right. I'm following you.

The 13 Articles of Faith.

Right.

Those sum up basically what it is. I don't believe, I don't have to, because if I don't understand it, I won't claim that I understand and know every single thing every prophet or apostle or anyone has said in my church.

And that's not what I'm expecting of you. But like, just briefly, the fundamentals. The Jesus I believe in is the creator of Satan. John chapter 1, he created everything in existence and all things came into being through him.

Nothing's come into being except through him. That's Jesus creating Satan. Your Jesus, Joseph's revelation, is Jesus is one God among many gods. He is the brother of Lucifer, right? Those are two different Christs opposed to one another.

And so do you see the important issue there?

My wife gives an example, if I may.

By the way, I know you have to leave, so I want to give you this.

All right.

Get a hold of me. You said you'd be willing to look. You said you'd be willing to look. Just read through it so you see what we're saying.

Appreciate your honesty.

And look at the references. Check us out. Check the references in context. Make sure we're referencing the right place. And then check those verses out in there.

Okay?

I just want to, I want to leave you guys with saying, I love Jesus Christ. He's my Lord and Savior, and he has guided me in my life a lot.

Which one?

The Jesus Christ.

Satan's brother?

No.

The one and only.

The one who didn't die on a cross and rise from the dead?

Listen.

Michael the archangel?

I don't know why you keep jumping to that.

Those are all different Christs.

He keeps coming back to the same one.

See, that's the thing I was going to say.

This is LDS. I'm LDS.

I'm also LDS.

He just gives.

But consider what I just said to you. That's important, right? There's only one Christ that can save. You would fundamentally agree.

I would say to you that my wife knew a guy named Jesus in Argentina. Oh, yeah, yeah, I know that guy.

Jesus, yeah.

Oh, he's got three daughters.

Oh, yeah, yeah, that's him. That's him.

Jesus.

But he's got blue eyes and black hair. Oh, no, no, no. That's a different Jesus. He's also got a son. Oh, no, no. We're talking about a different Jesus. They actually call him Jesus.

Talking about Jesus.

He doesn't go to the Bible. What does the Bible say?

The Bible?

He goes to parts of the Bible. He goes to parts of the Bible.

Steven, we've done this for over 10 years, and you've never provided a response. Can you answer John 1, 1 through 3 right now? Do it right now.

Here you go.

Ready? In the beginning was the Word. The Word was with God. The Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were created through him. Nothing came into being that's come into being except through him.

Go ahead, Steven. It's your one chance.

Read the whole Bible.

I just gave you a verse. What's your response?

Read the whole Bible.

Okay, let's read John 1 through 18. 1 through 18.

No, I won't.

How about John 5, verse 28 and 29?

Fantastic. But we're talking about which Jesus?

We're talking about the Jesus of the Bible.

Yes.

The eternal God. The eternal God.

The same Jesus.

The one that created Satan? Or is he Satan's brother?

God the Father.

Answer John 1, because it says Jesus created Satan there.

I'm going to answer it. Look, I don't put words in your mouth.

I'm letting you answer, Steven. I'm letting you answer.

Remembering Passover is very important.

The first member of the Godhead, the G-O-D-H-E-A-D, which is in the King James Version of the B-I-B-L-E.

Steven, you've used that for 10 years.

God the Father.

Right.

He is your Father. He is my Father.

Does he have a God before him?

Yes. Gotcha.

So that contradicts Scripture flat out. Isaiah 43, 10. It's written on that sign right there. Before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me. Over 10 years you've never provided an answer.

I've said read Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

There's the answer.

Did God say that? Did God say that?

Yes.

Is it true?

Through Isaiah.

Is it true?

Yes.

In the context that it's given.

And in the context that it's given, he's the only God. There's none before, none after, the first, the last.

No Baal. No Ashtoreth.

Or anything else.

No Chimash.

Or anything else.

Okay, let me ask you. What are the names of the gods that Latter-day Saints worship?

Well, you have the Father. He's one God. The Son is one God. And the Holy Spirit are three distinct personages and three gods, according to Joseph and history of the church. So three gods of this earth.

Uh-huh.

Okay.

So we don't worship Ashtoreth.

No, you worship three gods. We don't worship Baal. You worship the three gods of this earth.

The three gods of heaven and earth.

The three gods of this earth. But the God of the Bible says that he doesn't even know of any other gods.

In other words, the Father doesn't know of any son.

No, no. He says, I don't know of any other gods.

Well, let's see. You can say three gods, one God.

Well, just take it in. Take it in. Don't, don't, don't. Yeah, don't smoke screen it. I want to hear you answer.

I cannot answer to your satisfaction.

Because your beliefs contradict the text. Yes, yes.

Just as you cannot answer an atheist to the atheist's satisfaction.

Sure I can.

Now you mentioned.

Christianity needs to be defended because it's the truth.

Just a minute.

Yeah.

You mentioned that you had a debate with the founder of freedomfromreligion .org.

Yes.

An atheist.

Yes.

Is he a Christian today?

No.

Dan Barker?

No.

No, he's a rabid militant atheist.

Sorry. Watch out.

Excuse us.

So question.

Are you now an atheist?

What's that? Are you now.

He's not a Christian. He's still an atheist.

Right.

You're a Christian. You're not an atheist.

Which has no bearing on the truth.

What I'm saying is that you and he are of the same opinion even after your debate.

What's that have to do with Isaiah 44 .6 or 44 .10?

I'm not.

Or 43 .10?

I don't go by.

But that's what we're talking about.

I don't go. No, that's what you're talking about.

That's the verse I asked you to answer. You told this young man.

I answered you.

You told this young man.

That Asherah and Baal are not gods.

No, he goes beyond that, Stephan. He says that he's the only God in the heavens above and on the earth below. You don't believe that either.

He's trying to communicate to an idolatrous and an adulterous Israel.

By telling them he's the only God. There is no other.

Yes.

None before. None after. He doesn't know of any other gods. You don't believe that.

Well, the Pharisees would tell Jesus the same thing.

No, no, no.

You blaspheme.

The Pharisees and Jesus both were monotheistic.

Yeah.

And they accused Jesus of blasphemy. They accused him of being a devil, of which I've heard that you and others have accused us of being a church of the devil.

No, no, no. That's what your book says about us. You're getting it confused. There's a church of God and a church of Satan.

I've heard plenty of people here on the corner say that we, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is a church of the devil.

But you don't have any problem with that.

I never did turn this thing on.

But you don't have any problem with that, Stephan, because your church teaches that I am of the devil.

No.

Yes.

Do I need to pull the reference?

I am saying that anyone who bears false witness and tells half-truths about other people's churches is not of God.