May 5, 2005

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Asking around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is the
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Dividing Line. The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us, yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence.
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Our host is Dr. James White, Director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an Elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.
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This is a live program and we invite your participation. If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, call now at 602 -973 -4602 or toll -free across the
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United States. It's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now with today's topic, here is
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James White. And good afternoon. Welcome to Dividing Line. My goodness, my inbox exploded today.
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I was gone all morning and I get back in and how many, I must have had 40 emails and they're real ones.
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They're not, I'm not talking about spam, I mean, we took care of that, but good night. Well, part of it's sort of funny, but they're still, what in the world?
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I get an email from Campus Crusade for Christ Ministry Resources, celebrate
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Cinco de Mayo. I love it. I don't know how
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I got on that list, but I need to do something about that. And get off that list.
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But yes, that is today, isn't it? Yes, 5 -5 -5. I had to write a, why did
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I have to write a, oh yeah, I was in the dentist office, I had to fill out a form and I noticed it was 5 -5 -5 and so that was very fascinating and stuff like that.
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Do I understand that we have a special thing at the break today, so I really need to make sure to take a break today?
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Yeah. You know, you're starting to sound a little bit like the guy on Barry Young's program here.
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What's his name? I don't recall. Boy, and that's what you're going to be doomed to, no one recalling.
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That's good. That's good. Yes, we have a special, hang on here, fix that real quick.
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We have a, yes, we have a special spot today that we'll start running, and it's rather long.
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Is it? Yes. So I'll get a big break during the halfway. We might actually let you get a glass of water.
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Oh, that is really cool, yeah, oh, I almost had the guy's name, Kaminsky, oh, well, no one knows who
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Barry Young is out there anyways. That's right. But I can hear him saying it. Nobody cares, that's the thing.
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I can hear him saying it though, can't you? Bavinsky. Bavinsky, yes, yes, but I don't have a sultry voiced producer to sit in and, you know,
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I can't sit in and talk to you all day long either. You can bring Kelly over. Yeah, there we go. That would be the only way
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I could do that, yes. Yes, indeed. Hey, did Tired of New Jersey just say that his birthday is today, is that what he just said?
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No. It says, well, Kruber says he'll be dead on 5 -5 -55, but Tired of New Jersey says,
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I will be 73 on 5 -5 -55, now that doesn't, does that mean his birthday is today?
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Not necessarily, no. Oh, because it could be any time during the preceding year. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, okay. Yeah, could be, maybe.
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I don't know. We'll probably find out here in a minute, but anyways, hey, welcome to the Dividing Line on Thursday afternoon, and no, no, okay, he's saying it's no, okay, we were gonna,
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I was not going to sing Happy Birthday, because we tried that once before, it has been recorded and has been used against me in a court of law, and so I'm not going to do that in any way, shape, or form.
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That would be a very bad thing. 877 -753 -3341, I know that there are some folks that are probably sitting there going, come on, come on, get on with something, start yelling at somebody, and things like that, but you know, some days you just don't feel like yelling at anybody.
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You're just getting tired of having been yelled at yourself over and over again. But anyhow,
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I'm looking forward to that break. In fact, the time between now and then will just drag by, because I'm so excited about it personally.
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I really am. But anyway, I would actually, you know, half of my decision making anymore is deciding what
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I should address and what I shouldn't, simply because there are certain people that if you say anything about them, it's like they are a can of gas, and anything that you say is going to set them off.
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They're going to explode. And so, you know, they'll say things about you, and you just sit there and you ignore it because you need to ignore it.
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But then if you dare go, that's not what happened. Look at this right here.
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Boom! There they go. And then there are other people you ignore simply because you need to ignore them, because they wouldn't exist if you just consistently ignored them.
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Some of you know who I'm talking about, and I guess I just won't respond unless something meaningful could be done.
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But there's just, I don't know. I don't know how to explain it. So we'll just take phone calls.
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877 -753 -3341 is the phone number. I didn't get very far last week because I started preaching, obviously, and I'm cutting in and out again.
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I don't know why. But if I don't talk really, really loud, it disappears.
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So that little knobby thingy. We do that so that it doesn't pick up the air conditioner in your office.
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Excuse me. We live in Phoenix. Okay. People don't care if there's an air conditioner. We have to gate your microphones and that's what you're hearing.
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I think people should hear more of the air conditioning in my office because when
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I hear myself halfway through a word, that sounds really odd to me. Does it sound that way?
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That'll fix you right there. How about that? We're just wide open now. Everybody can get all the sound effects and room noise and fans and computers and all the different things that run in your office.
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Right there. Are you done? That sounds like you're done.
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Good. Okay. I don't know what to say.
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Anyway, what was I saying? Oh, yeah. I didn't get very far last week in reviewing the different Jesus book.
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I have seen some very interesting responses. A number of people have contacted
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Erdman's and there is a fair amount of discussion concerning Richard Mao.
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And I haven't seen anything on that. I've been sort of trying to keep an eye on whether he's going to say anything and I haven't seen anything so far.
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I would love to see some real discussion taking place, but I don't know if that's going to happen.
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I did want to take a look at the issue of the book of Abraham, and I've been noticing that the and I'm unfortunately
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I grabbed the actual book here. And so this isn't the one that I actually. Ah, there it is.
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It's question number 10. It's on page 155 in the book. For those of you who are not familiar with what
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I'm talking about or you're too busy calling in the massive number of phone calls coming in 877 -753 -3341.
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Last week, I began reading some materials from the
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Robert L. Millett book, A Different Jesus, the Christ, Latter Day Saints. We have a little tract and we're reprinting it.
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And I've seen some of the mock ups, the displays of what it's gonna look like.
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And it really looks really, really neat. And much fancier than anything we've had in the past.
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And it is called Men Is Not God. M -I -N,
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Men Is Not God. And a lot of people look at that and they go, don't you mean man is not a god?
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Or no, no, men is not God. That's that's what it's all about.
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And once you read it, you discover who men is and why we say that men is not
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God. And it is about the book of Abraham. If you have not, how many of you in the listening audience have read the book of Abraham?
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I remember stopping at the Provo Temple in Provo.
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Well, obviously it's in Provo, Utah. It's probably where the Provo Temple is located. And the two missionaries were walking across the parking lot.
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And so I and my friend sort of intercepted these two missionaries and asked them about the book of Abraham.
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These two missionaries were being trained. They were brand new. And they looked at us like we had just landed from another planet when we said, well, what do you think about the book of Abraham?
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And they're like, the what? They had never read the book of Abraham, didn't know it existed. It's right there in the scriptures they're carrying.
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Now, I know there are lots of evangelicals you could run into who maybe you could ask them, you might be able to trip them up with the fourth hesitations thing or ask them to find
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Habakkuk and they couldn't find Habakkuk. OK, that's fine. So you got to give the
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Mormons at least some credit because they've got a whole lot more books to be worrying about. But you would think that Mormon missionaries especially would at least know something about the distinctive scriptures that are theirs.
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And the book of Abraham is not buried somewhere in the back of the book of Mormon or something like that.
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And so, you know, I was very taken aback. They didn't know almost anything about it.
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The book of Abraham is unique. If you're not familiar with the LDS scriptures, and not many of you put your hands up, so many of you haven't read it.
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The book of Abraham in the LDS scriptures is extremely unique. It really is.
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It is the only book in the
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LDS scriptures that has illustrations. Illustrations. And these illustrations came from Egyptian papyri.
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From Egyptian writings that Joseph Smith took from some mummies, he had the church by,
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I believe it was in 1834. And as a result, the book of Abraham also is unique in that about 46 times in only two chapters.
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And it's only, you know, it's a very short, very, very short book. It could be read in literally a matter of moments. Was it five chapters?
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Five chapters long. So, 46 times you have the gods doing this, or the gods doing that.
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And the G in gods is capitalized. And Joseph Smith claimed he was translating the very writings of Abraham.
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So, I mean, this is a very, it's, the claims that Joseph Smith made for the book of Abraham are much greater than the claims for the book of Mormon itself.
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Now, that makes the book of Abraham very important to us for the reason that we can test the book of Abraham.
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The alleged golden plates upon which the book of Mormon was originally written were allegedly taken back to heaven.
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So, it's not like you can test those things. The only way we can test the book of Mormon is to go, well, does the book of Mormon, um, oh, well,
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I'm very sorry to see that. Someone who is going to be calling in, I think, calling in later in the program has to go as mom's been taken to the emergency room.
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So, we'll have to pray the Lord's will be done there. And that as you rush there, please do not drive in a crazy fashion.
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And trust the Lord will take care of those situations. So, someone on our channel, someone very close to us, very important in the ministry, his mom's been taken to the emergency room, just saw that.
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So, this is live. Those of you listening on archive, obviously it's not. But, all right, we'll be praying.
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See you later and let us know what happens. And we'll, of course, pray for his mom.
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Going back to the book of Abraham, we can test the book of Abraham. We can test it because of the fact that not only have the papyri from which it was originally translated been found, but even apart from that, and that's, that is where you encounter the issue.
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The Mormon church, one of the Mormon church defenses is that we really don't have the papyri from which the book of Abraham was translated.
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I think that you can demonstrate that we have. I think it is, it takes a tremendous amount of ingenuity to try to get around the papyri discovery that was made.
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But the fact of the matter is, we don't need that. We have the facsimiles that are in the book of Abraham.
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We have the pictures. We have what the, what Joseph Smith said they meant. And we then can determine from that whether he understood what they actually did mean, so on and so forth.
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And when we do that, we discover that the book of Abraham is, in fact, a portion of the
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Egyptian book of the dead. It has nothing to do with Abraham. Joseph Smith did not identify any of the people in the facsimiles in a proper fashion within the context in which the original authors of those writings and those drawings would have understood them.
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And this is the essence of the tract. Men is not God. We didn't even get into the manuscript material because it can become quite complex.
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But by the way, there are excellent books on this. Charles Larson's book on the book of Abraham, papyri, very, very good.
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The Mormon responses are extremely confusing and very, very poor in their substance.
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Well, given all of that, and we have two callers online. Well, I think we have two callers online.
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I only know of one at the moment, but there we go. Oh, okay. Let me at least read the section that is presented by, and it goes, there's more discussion of the book of Abraham in the recurring questions part than there is of God being exalted man from another planet, which is interesting.
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But once again, this is what's being put out by Eerdmans. And you tell me
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Eerdmans has told, Eerdmans has told all of us that the intention of this book is to explain what
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Mormons believe about Christ, not to persuade or convert. Okay, that's interesting.
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Then why do we have an entire section defending the book of Abraham? The book of Abraham has next to nothing to do with the specific doctrine of Christ.
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It is where you get the name of Kolob, the star that God's planet circles.
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But it's not, I mean, what's this doing in here if this is not a part of apologetics? Question number 10, do not recent translations of so -called
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Joseph Smith papyri by experts demonstrate the book of Abraham as a hoax? Now, even by putting it in that form, you can see what's going to happen here.
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The clear, embarrassing errors of Joseph Smith in his identification of the facsimiles can be skipped over and are skipped over.
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Here's what he writes, in the summer of 1835, members of the church purchased from Michael Chandler four mummies and two or more papyrus scrolls that have been discovered in Egypt by a man named
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Antonio Lobolo. Joseph Smith showed little interest in mummies, but was fascinated by them. The papyri, through the use of the
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Urim and Thummim, Joseph began to translate the scrolls with W. W. Phelps and Oliver Cowdery's scribes.
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I commenced the translation of some of the characters of hieroglyphics, and much to our joy found that one of the scrolls contained the writings of Abraham and other writings of Joseph of Egypt, etc.,
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a more full account of which will appear in its place as I proceed to examine or unfold them. Truly, we can say the
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Lord is beginning to reveal the abundance of peace and truth. That is from the
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Messenger and Advocate, December 1835. Note that in the Prophet's one October 1835 journal entry, he stated that during the research, the principles of astronomy as understood by Father Abraham and the ancients unfolded to our understanding.
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Early on, Oliver Cowdery reported that when the translation of these valuable documents will be completed, I am unable to say.
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Neither can I give you a probable idea how large volumes they will make, but judging from their size and the comprehensiveness of the language, one might reasonably expect to see a sufficient, might reasonably expect to see a sufficient to develop much upon the mighty acts,
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I think there's a typographical error there somewhere, it doesn't make any sense, of the ancient men of God and of his dealing with the children of men when they saw him face to face.
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In 1838, Anson Call visited the Prophet in the far west. Joseph invited him in and said, sit down, we will read you from the translations of the book of Abraham.
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Oliver Cowdery then read until he was tired. When Thomas Marsh read, now note this comment, making altogether about two hours,
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I was much interested in the work. The book of Abraham and the three facsimiles as we now have them, the Pearl of Great Price, were published in the
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Times and Seasons in March of 1842. In the first, one February 1843 issued the
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Times and Seasons, editor John Taylor, encouraged the saints to renew their subscriptions to the paper, adding the following intriguing detail, we would further state that we had the promise of brother
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Joseph to furnish us with further extracts from the book of Abraham. The history of the papyri after the death of the
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Prophet in 1844 is somewhat sketchy. The Egyptian relics were kept by Lucy Mack Smith, Joseph's mother, until her death and then sold by Emma Smith Bitteman, Joseph's widow who remarried, to a
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Mr. A. Combs. Combs sold two of the mummies with some papyri to the St. Louis Museum in 1856 and later in 1863, there sold the
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Chicago Museum, later renamed the Woods Museum. It has generally been assumed that all the papyri destroyed in the
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Great Chicago Fire of 1871. However, in 1967, an announcement was made that Dr. Aziz Atiyah, a professor of Middle Eastern Studies at the
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University of Utah, had found 11 papyrus fragments, including facsimile number one in the
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New York Metropolitan Museum of Art. Not being a Latter -day Saint himself, he was a Coptic Christian, but being somewhat familiar with LDS culture and the
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Pearl of Great Price, Dr. Atiyah recognized facsimile number one and made contact with church leaders who eventually took possession of the papyri fragments.
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When the announcement was made that the papyrus fragments had been acquired, both committed Latter -day Saints and critics of the faith were intrigued by what would come of the find.
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The latter group exalted that once for all, once and for all, the Book of Abraham could be exposed for what it was, a figment of Joseph Smith's fertile imagination.
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The translation of the 11 fragments and the facsimile by trained Egyptologists revealed parts of the ancient Egyptian Book of Breathings, an excerpt of the larger
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Book of the Dead, which are actually funerary texts, material associated with the burial and future stay of the dead.
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In other words, the fragments presumably had nothing to do with the person and work of Abraham. In response, the late H. Donald Peterson, Professor of Ancient Scripture at BYU and serious student of the
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Book of Abraham replied, the Book of Abraham and Joseph's papyri were described as beautifully written on papyrus with black and a small part red, ink or paint in perfect preservation.
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The 11 fragments, recovered from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, do not fit that description at all. What was discovered was facsimile one and some other fragments unrelated to the published account of the present
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Book of Abraham. They were part of the original scrolls, once owned by Joseph Smith, but not directly related to Abrahamic text.
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The partial text, the Book of Breathings, returned to the church in 1967, was not the text of the Book of Abraham, end quote.
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Professor Peterson went on to say, it, the Book of Abraham, was not finished. In fact, it was hardly begun. The Book of Abraham was a lengthy record.
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Oliver Cowdery spoke of volumes necessary to contain it. Only two short installments were published during Joseph Smith's lifetime, although more was promised.
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Had not Joseph Smith's last 16 months been so turbulent, no doubt more of the translation would have been forthcoming, as he had promised.
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We have but a small fraction of a rather lengthy record. Is the Book of Abraham true? Elder Bruce R. McConkie asked.
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Yes, he answered. But it is not complete. It stops almost in midair. Would that the prophet had gone on in his translation or revelation, as the case may be, end quote.
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End of discussion. And it moves on to the next question by Dr. Millett.
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Now, again, if you are not familiar with the subject of the
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Book of Abraham, then that may sound rather convincing. If you have read the
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Larson work, if you've read what the Tanners have written, if you have read Nibley, if you have looked at Joseph Smith's Egyptian Alphabet and Grammar, you know that that is a purposefully skewed, inaccurate, but the best the
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Mormons can do as far as an apologetic for the Book of Abraham. But it's an apologetic. That's not an explanation.
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That's an excuse. So what's it doing in a book that Eerdmans tells us is not meant to persuade.
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It's not meant to convert. It's only meant to inform. No, it's not. That is specifically designed to deflect, as best it can, the arguments and the documentation that exists demonstrating that the
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Book of Abraham, as Joseph Smith claimed, is a complete and total fraud. And the documentation shows this to be the case.
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We do have the documents from which the Book of Abraham was allegedly translated.
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We have Joseph Smith's Egyptian Alphabet and Grammar. And it's interesting to me that the new defenses being offered of the
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Book of Abraham, since, I mean, Nibley came up with, I don't know how many different self -contradictory defenses, but in the years since Nibley became rather aged, really end up disproving their own case.
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For example, part of what was just said here was, well, look at all these citations that say that the
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Book of Abraham was supposed to be very big and it might take many volumes. Well, you know what? One of the really embarrassing things about the
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Egyptian Alphabet and Grammar, which is probably what was being read from and what bored that guy to tears, is the fact that Joseph Smith took sections of the
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Book of the Dead. He took individual hieroglyphic characters, like the symbol for the word moon, or water, or if there was a word that took two symbols, he'd take half of those two symbols, one of those two symbols.
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And in the Egyptian Alphabet and Grammar, next to it, you'd have an entire paragraph of English, all allegedly contained in this one simple, tiny little pictogram.
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And so it's easy to understand why they felt it would be so huge when they had this whole scroll and they're getting entire paragraphs out of each individual character in the papyri.
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Of course, if you went through the entire papyri, the result would be huge. I mean, it makes perfect sense why they did that.
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But that doesn't change the reality of the fact that even laying aside the papyri that were found, what
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Joseph Smith describes in the Book of Abraham, in the facsimiles, is not what those facsimiles represented.
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Facsimile number one is not the angel of the Lord and Abraham fastened upon an altar. Facsimile number one is a well -known picture from Egyptian funerary materials.
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Yeah, we have the whole tract online if you go to aomin .org slash MINTRACT, and MIN is capitalized, capital
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M, then MINTRACT, M -I -N -T -R -A -C -T dot H -T -M -L. It's available if you want to look at that. That doesn't have facsimile number one.
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It has facsimile number two in it, which is an Egyptian hypocephalus. It is an object that's placed under the head of the deceased.
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Look at what Joseph Smith claimed these things are, and then read what
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Egyptologists say they are, and you can see for yourself. Now, you would have no idea of any of this.
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You would know nothing about the Egyptian alphabet and grammar. You'd know nothing about the facsimiles. If you just simply read what
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Eerdmans is putting out at the recommendation of Richard Mao of Fuller Seminary and publishing
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LDS apologetics works and distributing them to Christian bookstores. Isn't that exciting?
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I personally am quite excited about it myself, but you wouldn't know that.
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Now, I'm sorry, but if the position was reversed, you know, I suppose I do fully understand, for example, such things as word length limitations and, you know, page number limitations, and there's just only so much you can do.
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But you know what? That presentation of the book of Abraham is just simply dishonest.
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I'm sorry. That's the only way to put it. It's dishonest. That's not dealing with the issue.
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That is just simply trying to keep someone who has heard maybe some criticism of it to, in essence, put that off and dismiss it.
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Hopefully, by the point at which it is addressed in the book, Millett has grabbed your trust enough that you can then just put that off to the side.
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See, that's what I see happening. And it's, again, extremely frustrating because you know the real information that's out there that has not been actually dealt with and dealt with in an honest fashion.
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877 -753 -3341. We're going to take our break and then come back with your phone calls right after this.
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This portion of the dividing line has been made possible by the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.
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The Apostle Paul spoke of the importance of solemnly testifying of the gospel of the grace of God. The proclamation of God's truth is the most important element of his worship in his church.
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The elders and people of the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church invite you to worship with them this coming
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Lord's Day. The morning Bible study begins at 930 a .m. and the worship service is at 1045.
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Evening services are at 630 p .m. on Sunday and the Wednesday night prayer meeting is at 7.
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The Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church is located at 3805 North 12th Street in Phoenix.
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You can call for further information at 602 -26 -GRACE. If you're unable to attend you can still participate with your computer and real audio at prbc .org
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where the ministry extends around the world through the archives of sermons and Bible study lessons available 24 hours a day.
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Christians around the globe are having the very foundation of their faith challenged at an unprecedented level from every imaginable source.
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Never before in history has the authority and inspiration of the holy scriptures been so viciously attacked by those outside the pale of orthodoxy.
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Within the walls of traditional evangelicalism itself questions that plague the steadfast
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Christian from the onslaught of Bible skeptics such as the Jesus seminar, the Da Vinci Code, and wolves in sheep's clothing leave many without needed answers.
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Is the Bible a product of man not of God? Is it true that the
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New Testament is a false testimony? Is it true that the canon of scripture was distorted by men with a political agenda?
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Is it true that Jesus's divinity was the result of a boat of bishops? Is the
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Bible true? Join us
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August 26th and 27th for the 2005 Alpha and Omega Ministries National Conference in Seattle, Washington as we answer the tough questions and challenge the false presuppositions of the skeptics and deniers of the gospel of Jesus Christ with the
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Founders President and Director of the Baptist Studies Center at Westminster Theological Seminary, Dr.
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James Renahan, Grammy Award winning reformed Christian musician Steve Camp, and President and Founder of Alpha and Omega Ministries, Dr.
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James White. And on Saturday, the 27th of August, don't miss the most important debate of 2005,
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Dr. James White versus Jesus Seminar Chairman and Bible Critic, Dr.
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John Dominic Croson. Is the Orthodox Biblical account of Jesus of Nazareth authentic and historically accurate?
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Featuring three hours of debate and cross -examination. Join us and be a part of this historic event that will sharpen your apologetic and reassure your convictions in God's perfect and holy word.
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Seating is limited, so sign up today at aomin .org, 877.
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Under the guise of tolerance, modern culture grants alternative lifestyle status to homosexuality.
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Even more disturbing, some within the church attempt to revise and distort Christian teaching on this behavior.
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In their book, The Same Sex Controversy, James White and Jeff Neal write for all who want to better understand the
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Bible's teaching on the subject. Explaining and defending the foundational Bible passages that deal with homosexuality, including
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Genesis, Leviticus, and Romans. Expanding on these scriptures, they refute the revisionist arguments, including the claim that Christians today need not adhere to the law.
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In a straightforward and loving manner, they appeal to those caught up in a homosexual lifestyle to repent and to return to God's plan for his people.
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The Same Sex Controversy, defending and clarifying the Bible's message about homosexuality. Get your copy in the bookstore at aomin .org.
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Wow, that was, uh, that, that, that was, that was commercial.
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Uh, somebody tells us that's gladiator music. Nah, it's, uh, but I, I might be the, no,
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I don't think it is the same guy, but it's, that was cool music. Yeah, that was neat. Anyways, 877 -753 -3341, um,
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I need to have a little button that I can push that zaps Rich with some, uh, electricity, wakes him up so that he can see the, uh, little thing of a body on the, uh, uh, that I, that I, you know, it's the only way
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I can communicate to him, you know, cause I asked a question and I don't yet have an answer. And so this is called stretching where you, you talk.
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Okay. It is okay. Well, uh, uh, then he'll understand why I'm going the direction that I'm going with calls.
34:29
See, and that'll be really cool. So you got buttons over there. I gave you buttons.
34:35
You can push whatever buttons you want. That doesn't tell me that doesn't answer the question that I asked you. However, I asked about who's on the other line.
34:42
See, and I can press buttons all I want and that's not going to tell me. Well, the answer I did.
34:49
You did. Yes, you did. And I appreciate that. Thank you very much. Oh boy. Yeah.
34:58
Okay. We've been talking about Mormonism the past couple of weeks. So how much more fitting could it possibly be than to talk with, um, the official favorite
35:09
Mormon of, of the dividing line webcast and of the broadcast back even when we were on KPXQ, uh, our favorite
35:18
Mormon, Pierre. Hi, Pierre. Hi, how you doing? Should we, uh, should we like print out a little certificate for you or would that get you in trouble with the
35:27
Bishop? It might. Yeah. I think if he came for his, his, uh, his visit and saw that on the wall that he, he might wonder how in the world that happened.
35:38
So we won't, we won't do that to you. We'll, we'll, uh, we'll keep it on the slide. Okay. Have you seen the book yet?
35:44
I have not. Oh, okay. Are you going to take a look at it? I'll probably will. Yeah. Yeah.
35:49
Okay. So what can we do for you? Well, I just was calling to make some comments on some of the things that you talked about the last couple of times.
35:59
Right. Uh, one of them, um, having to do with, uh, your repeated, uh, mentioning that there appears to be a parent doctrinal shift on the part of the church towards perhaps evangelicalism.
36:19
Um, well, I might be overstating it. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and I'm not the only one that's, that's mentioned what is being called the neo -orthodox movement that's focused around people like Steven Robinson.
36:32
I mean, the, the fact that there are people at BYU, um, who really, really, really dislike the doctrinal writings of Bruce R.
36:40
McConkie is, is well known, right? Um, I'm not so sure that I would agree with that.
36:45
I, that might be your perspective on it. Yeah. Are you, are you saying that that's not well known or that you don't agree that there's a difference?
36:52
I mean, I, I've talked, I've talked to these folks myself. Oh, well, then maybe, maybe you're correcting because I haven't.
36:58
I mean, let, let's put it this way. Uh, have you seen, uh, the comment that, uh,
37:04
Dr. Peterson made when he said that the idea that Jesus is the only begotten of the father in the flesh is based upon, um, uh, how do you put it?
37:17
Um, specific words just came to mind, random 19th century speculations, but that he had never heard that taught in the church.
37:29
Really? Yeah. Isn't that amazing? I, I find that hard to believe that I, that's why
37:34
I, what I wanted to mention to you is that I've been a member of the church for 35 years and, uh,
37:42
I can tell you that at least from my perspective, uh, I don't see any doctrinal shift at all taking place.
37:50
Okay. I don't think that there's any concern, uh, at least from my perspective and from many of my other
37:58
Orthodox, uh, Mormon friends, uh, that, uh, there's any attempt to shift, uh, away from, uh, traditional, uh,
38:08
Mormon doctrine. Well, tell me, uh, did you hear my, my reading of what, uh, was said by, by Millett regarding the concept of God having been a, um, having been a man?
38:25
Yes. And would you, would you say that, uh, a person saying, well, you know what?
38:33
We, we don't, we just don't know much about the idea of God being a man.
38:39
And this really isn't central to our theology. Do you think that's, uh, that's accurately representing the regularity with which the
38:48
King Follett funeral discourse has been, has been cited over the past 35 years you've been in the
38:53
LDS church in your priesthood manuals? I would say that the answer is actually yes. And that was going to be my second comment.
38:59
Okay. And I'll, and I'll tell you why. Uh, in the 35 plus years that I've been a member of the church and a regular attender of priesthood meetings and Sunday schools and regular attender to the temple and so forth, uh, we really almost never discussed these doctrines.
39:21
Um, I mean, we know that they're there and they'll, you know, pop up maybe once in a great while, but they're never a central focus of our discussion.
39:31
In fact, I was sort of surprised when you two or three years ago gave that presentation on from the, apparently from one of our manuals for, um, teaching people to be prepared for the temple, which seemed to very clearly teach that particular situation.
39:50
Oh, it does. Yes. And so I said, yeah, I'd never heard of that before being presented that clearly. And so, um, so anyway, so I think that he's absolutely correct in what he has said that, uh, you know, we just really do not discuss these doctrines.
40:06
We don't have any lessons teaching that. I mean, the books are there available and we occasionally will quote the small portions from the
40:15
King Follett Sermon, uh, and, and, and, uh, um, a couplet from,
40:22
I'm blocking his name, right? Lorenzo Snow. Lorenzo Snow. Thank you. Uh, you know, but, and of course we have some, a couple of our hymns, uh, discuss that or at least allude to it, uh, for instance, for instance, uh,
40:36
Oh My Father. Right. Um, and then, uh, you know, the, the song or the hymn, uh,
40:42
If You Could Hide to Kolob, uh, also goes into that. Right. It does.
40:48
So, and we still sing those. And wouldn't you, there's probably a lot of Mormons there who don't even know what
40:56
Kolob is, huh? That's probably very true, I guess. I was sort of surprised in your program today, you mentioned those two missionaries did not know the
41:03
Book of Abraham. Because that's a regular part of our seminary, uh, you know, morning seminary teaching for our high school children, uh, youth.
41:12
They, they may not have been morning people. They may not have been morning people. That's correct. I understand that.
41:19
Now, now let me, you know, I'm, I'm listening to this and here I have, I have talked with thousands of LDS folks in various and sundry contexts.
41:30
And when I first started, the, the, the first two missionaries I, I ever spoke with,
41:35
Elders Reed and Reese, um, had no problem whatsoever affirming that not only we are the same species as God, uh, but they said, while we don't have any knowledge of the gods that existed before Elohim, or the
41:57
God that he worshipped when he was a man, yet we know Joseph Smith told us that these gods exist.
42:05
We don't worship them, so we don't have to acknowledge them. But, and here's where he said that. They went to the King Follett Discourse and they tried to prove it out of Revelation 1 -6 and, um, a, a
42:16
King James, uh, poor rendering of a Granville Sharp construction where even Joseph Smith, uh, it says, of God and his father, and it's actually
42:25
God the father and it's a Granville Sharp construction type, type situation, but the King, the King James rendering of it is unclear and so Joseph Smith had gone there and said, see, here's
42:34
God and here's God's father. And the missionaries that I, the first missionaries
42:39
I spoke to, and this was, the missionaries were as old as I was at that point, that's how long ago this was now, but, um, in the early 1980s, the missionaries had no problem in talking with a quote -unquote investigator or a non -member of the church during a visit to a home, uh, defending the concept that God was once a man and that we could become gods and very frequently in my discussions with LDS people, uh, they have made it very clear that it's, that the two are connected together.
43:12
I mean, the idea of our becoming exalted and our great destiny is directly related in the eternal law of progression, uh, to the fact that God is glorified by bringing his children to, uh, to exaltation.
43:30
And so what are we going to do if it is not to be sealed for time and eternity and to do the same thing as well?
43:37
So it is, it has not been my experience and maybe there's a difference between where you are in, in Mormons in, in Utah, uh,
43:45
Utah Mormons are definitely, you know, uh, different in some ways, but, uh, I don't think that's really the case.
43:51
I have found that when I first started witnessing to Mormons in the 1980s, I didn't have to carry teachings of the prophet
43:58
Joseph Smith with me. Even the youngest, even the young kids, 10, 11, 12, 13 years old, they already knew what
44:06
Joseph Smith taught there. That's not the case anymore, by the way. There has been, I have seen a tremendous change there, and I don't know that so much a shift in theology as it is, you go from 3 million to 12 million,
44:17
I don't know that the educational system has kept up in teaching those things, to be perfectly honest with you. But that may well be the case, and maybe that's, that's the answer, but, uh,
44:27
I also want to say, just so you don't misunderstand me, I think that all mature, uh,
44:32
Latter -day Saints who attend the temple and who read the scriptures, et cetera, uh, know and understand these doctrines very well.
44:40
We just don't spend any time, you know, at Sunday schools, et cetera, you know, spending lengthy discussions on it.
44:46
Like I said, there's some previous, sometimes they're briefly mentioned in passing, uh, so I think everyone who is mature in the gospel, in the
44:59
LDS gospel, um, understands these things. So you would agree with Joseph Smith when he said, we have imagined and supposed that God was
45:07
God from all eternity, I will refute that idea and take away the veil so that you may see. You would agree that that is, in fact, an accurate representation of LDS belief?
45:17
In my view, the answer is yes. Okay. Um, and so, you could possibly understand my being somewhat, um, uh, unhappy with someone like Richard Mao for his blanket condemnation of people, uh, who have spoken on the subject of Mormonism for allegedly misrepresenting you when that's the type of thing we've been saying?
45:41
Yeah, I can understand that. Sure. Okay. Well, I just, I just want to make sure that was the case.
45:46
Um, you know, I, let me put it this way. Could you be a Mormon general authority in your opinion?
45:54
I know you're, you're not a general authority, so I can't, I'm not asking you to speak for the church at this point, but just as a member of the church for 35 years, can you imagine a general authority, the
46:04
Mormon church, who would believe the opposite of what
46:10
Joseph Smith just said? Who, who would reject the idea that men can become gods and who would reject the idea that God himself is of our species?
46:21
Can you imagine a general authority who would say, God is completely other than man, he's eternally been
46:27
God and is unchangeable? In the sense that I understand that, not just the
46:33
Book of Mormon, but he's never progressed. No, I think that most, I think all general authorities understand that.
46:42
And as I said a moment ago, I think that all mature Latter -day Saints understand these doctrines very well.
46:48
What would happen in your opinion, Pierre, if the church tried to embrace the view of God that I hold?
46:57
Would that not demonstrate a, either an utter apostasy from the restoration or that the restoration wasn't a restoration in the first place?
47:07
I would think so. I mean, it would speak directly against the First Vision. Right, right, right.
47:13
But you do realize that there are, there are people who call themselves
47:18
LDS who are stating, are you familiar with Sunstone? I am, yeah. And am
47:25
I reading too much into your response there to say that you don't really think a whole lot of that particular?
47:34
I do not. Okay, all right. But you know they're there. Yes. All right. And they, they are having an impact.
47:42
I mean, I am seeing, coming out of BYU, writers who are seeking, for example, to interpret the
47:50
Book of Mormon in an allegorical, non -historical manner. Would you agree that if the
47:55
Book of Mormon is not historically true, that Joseph Smith was not a prophet? Yeah, I would, yeah. Okay. I know,
48:01
I, I, I'm sure that there are people who are doing this. This is not a new thing. You know, that would be my explanation for what happened to Christianity in the first century.
48:11
Okay. True Christians began to drift away from the truth. They began to, to combine the
48:17
Greek philosophy with Christianity and eventually evolved into what we now call the
48:23
Historic Christian Church. And do you think that could happen to the LDS Church? I don't think it will.
48:30
I think that there are individuals who can and will do that. There may be groups that break away.
48:35
It's not unusual for groups to break away. I've heard that there are several dozens of groups over time that have broken away and formed their own churches.
48:45
Oh yeah, actually 165 different groups a few years ago traced themselves back to Joseph Smith, yeah. Yeah, I'm sure that's an ongoing process.
48:53
People who apostatize. This is not a new thing. And to me that would be completely consistent with our belief of an apostasy.
49:01
That's what happened to the first century Christian Church. But, let me just ask you one more thing and then we've got another caller. I sense, as I read
49:09
BYU scholars, especially the BYU scholars who are starting to teach at BYU who did not get their degrees there.
49:19
They got their degrees outside of Utah, outside of an LDS context. I am reading much more openness to what would classically have been identified as mainstream
49:34
Christian concepts and redefining historic LDS beliefs in light of that.
49:40
Now, the question I have for you would be, is it a possibility that with BYU going that direction and the next generation of leaders who will become general authorities frequently coming out of BYU.
49:55
I don't know, maybe you know. Do you have any idea what percentage of general authorities were trained at BYU?
50:02
I bet you there's a pretty decent percentage though, huh? I would probably agree with you. Yeah, I imagine so.
50:08
If that's what's at BYU now, could that not then greatly impact the next generation of the general authorities?
50:17
The 12, the first presidency, the 70. And in your system, since you believe in continuing revelation, is there any way to actually safeguard against, for example, a fundamental redefinition of the first vision so it no longer teaches the plurality of gods?
50:35
I mean, what if somebody gets up 50 years from now as the prophet and says, that's not what
50:42
Joseph Smith meant. How can you challenge that? What can you do about that? Well, I guess we'll have to cross that bridge when we come to it.
50:50
It's a tough question, isn't it? It is. But I don't see it happening. To me, it's an impossibility.
50:57
Okay, but you see, from my perspective, that's one of the reasons I believe in Sola Scriptura. I can't go back and make
51:07
John say something John didn't say because my job as an exegete is to interpret
51:14
John in John's context. Now, you and I would probably agree, there's no way, knowing what literature exists, that you could look at the first vision account of Joseph Smith as he, in its final form, the 1838 version that's in the
51:29
Joseph Smith history, and not come to the conclusion that that was meant to present a plurality of gods.
51:34
Would you agree with me? Oh, yeah, absolutely. But, when you have someone who you call a prophet, how can you not accept what the prophet says if the prophet were to say, no, that's not what
51:53
Joseph Smith meant? I mean, isn't that what Joseph Smith did with the Bible, with the Joseph Smith translation itself?
52:00
Once you give that authority to someone, how can you challenge it? Well, I would agree that it would be hard to challenge, but, again, it has to take place first, and I don't see it happening.
52:10
Okay, I understand that. I'm just simply saying, I see an authority issue there. I see a problem there in maintaining truth over time.
52:20
Because, you know, I believe that what I believe is the truth, and I believe that what I believe is what
52:26
John taught, or what Paul taught, and I go back to their words, in their context, in their language, for those things, and I try to detect when traditions that have developed since then are impacting my exegesis.
52:39
But with your view of the canon, and your view of authority, and your view of the prophets, and the concept of continuing revelation, even though there really hasn't been a whole lot of it as far as canonical revelation, but still the possibility,
52:51
I would imagine you would admit, exists, you're stuck in a similar position to the
52:59
Roman Catholic, who has this idea of tradition, but the only way he can know what tradition is is through the leadership of the
53:06
Church telling him what the tradition is. Yeah, I would agree with that. And to me, the
53:12
General Authorities' position and opinion takes precedence over anything else.
53:19
Okay, so if the General Authorities as a group adopted that perspective, then does that become the truth?
53:27
Could it be possible that you and I today are wrong in our understanding of the context of Joseph Smith's first vision?
53:35
Or isn't it really, really obvious that what Joseph Smith meant in the 1838 account of the first vision is exactly what he did mean.
53:41
He was talking about plurality of gods. He was talking about God the Father and Jesus Christ as separate and distinct physical personages.
53:48
And it doesn't matter what anyone ever says, that's what he meant. And so you'd either have to repudiate
53:55
Joseph Smith, or accept unquestioningly the leadership of these
54:01
General Authorities, but then abandon all sense of continuity with history.
54:06
And any type of concept of truth. I would agree if that were to happen. And I think that's sort of what's happened with, for instance, the
54:13
RLDS Church, who have made a gigantic paradigm shift. Yes, they have. But I don't see that happening.
54:20
There's nothing that is beginning to... That's why I quote my original statement. Nothing like that is even beginning to happen.
54:28
Okay. I think you're simply wishfully thinking that this might happen. Believe me. Honestly, Pierre, I would much rather talk with a
54:35
Mormon like you, who actually believes what Joseph Smith said, than many of these people that maybe you don't talk to them, but I sure have talked to them, and they are getting into all of these paradigm shifts, and they tend to be
54:50
BYU students, especially graduate students, and all of a sudden they have these new insights, and, nah,
54:57
Joseph's never meant to indicate that, yada, yada, yada, yada. Believe me, I find it much easier to talk with you, because we can go to the scriptures, and I can say, here's this, here's this, here's this, and I can...
55:09
Since you have a sense of history being something that is... I mean, what's true 35 years ago can't be untrue today.
55:17
I have a whole lot more... I can talk with someone like that. People who say, well, it may have been true 35 years ago, but it's not true today.
55:23
I have a problem dealing with someone like that. I really do. And yet that's the kind of people that I'm starting to run into with a fair amount of regularity, and I'm wondering where it's coming from.
55:35
Again, I think everyone's entitled to their own opinions. Maybe they're just trying to narrow the divide.
55:43
Yes, they are. But I think... The Baptist church came out with a program about the
55:52
Mormons one time. The Southern Baptists, yes. And in it they had... I went to see at least one of their sessions, and they played a section where they had a number of the
56:03
BYU professors basically very clearly defining these doctrines that we've just been talking about.
56:10
And I think they were some of these same men that you were talking about. I believe Stephen Robinson was on there and others, and very clearly stating these doctrines about our belief of who
56:23
God is and what our relationship is to him. Real quickly, because we're about out of time, and I apologize to David.
56:31
Certainly he knows that we can chat with him in another context. But does it not strike you...
56:39
I mean, maybe as far as you all talking about things together within the context of Mormonism, maybe you don't spend a lot of time talking about this.
56:50
But my understanding is the whole idea of the temple and of the endowment ceremony, and I'm not going to ask you to go into details, obviously.
56:59
But the whole concept here is directed toward the celestial room and exaltation and the family unit together and the eternal marriage ceremony and all the rest of this stuff.
57:10
And you might say, well, that's just a given. We all know that, so we don't chat about it. But if you were going to write a book like Millett's book that was going to be published by an allegedly evangelical publishing concern, an amazing thing to begin with, would you not discuss the issue of the difference between our views on the nature of God and the plurality of gods until the last quarter of the book?
57:35
Or would you see that as what's absolutely definitional of where we differ from one another? I would certainly see it as definitional.
57:42
And I would have no problem myself discussing the differences that exist between us.
57:50
Well, I appreciate that, Pierre. You've always discussed our differences in a fair and even -spirited way, and I appreciate that, and I appreciate your comments today on the program.
58:01
Okay. Thank you. Bye -bye. Well, that does it for today. That was an excellent conversation. I appreciate
58:06
Pierre's—we didn't call him or anything. Pierre just called in. And there's a Mormon, been a Mormon for 35 years, not speaking for the church.
58:13
I'm not going to put words in his mouth. But you know what? I think that illustrated a lot of what
58:19
I've been talking about in regards to where the issues are, and we will see as they develop.
58:26
Folks, this is it until May 26th.
58:32
May 26th is the next dividing line. I know that that's three full weeks from today, but I'm going to be in Italy, and there's not much
58:38
I can do about it. So we'll see you on the 26th. Keep watching the blog. God bless. Join us again next