Astonishing audio of a Christian & Mormon dialogue

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You've been LDS for... you said 40 years? Would you... Well, 50 years,

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I guess. 50 years? OK. I'm Jeff, by the way. Yeah. So, when you say it ties it all together...

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Well, a lot of people consider the Old Testament... a lot of Christians consider the New Testament completely foreign from the

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Old Testament, and they have a very difficult time reconciling it. For instance, you start reading

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Leviticus, you start reading... and all those other things, and they talk about all this stuff about sacrifice, and God is seen in the

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Old Testament as a very harsh person, as opposed to a person full of grace and so forth.

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In the New Testament, how do you reconcile that? Oh, yeah. I would say that in the

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New Testament, both the wrath of God and the love of God are amplified, because you see the cross as a display of the wrath of God poured out on the

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Son, and you also see the infinite love of God poured out on the Son. So I don't think there's a conflict there.

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But what would that have to do with, say, the Book of Mormon being consistent with Scripture? I guess

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I put it in this way. You know, we're Christians. We love you guys. We have a deep love for people who are

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LDS. We love your community. We care for you. And I guess our concern is that we believe that Joseph taught a false

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God and false gospel, and our concern for you would be that... Why do you say he taught a false

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God? I think more and more the God that Joseph taught is consistent with a lot of the early

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Christian teachings. The doctrine of most churches was set in the

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Council of Nicaea, which was headed by a pagan.

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Do we believe in one God? You know, the

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Trinity is so contradictory. I don't know how anyone can even believe in it. I can't. You know, all the contradictions of the

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Trinity. Well, I mean, it's a lot of issues. I would say, when you ask that question, for instance, no early

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Christian... I mean, the Bible doesn't even talk about... I mean, the

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Bible talks about an anthropomorphic God. It doesn't talk about the Trinity. I mean, that's all an invention of a lot of the early church councils.

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Well, that's a claim. But I would say I don't think you can back that claim up with Scripture. Here's what I mean by that.

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There's no early Christian that taught different than the Scriptures teach that God is without beginning, that He's eternal and uncreated.

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Every Christian taught that. And that would be a major difference between what Joseph taught about God and what the

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Bible teaches about God. Christians were committed to... Now, what did you say again? That God is without beginning and that He's uncreated.

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Now, Joseph taught in the King Follett Discourse, we've imagined and supposed that God was God from all eternity, but I will refute that idea and take away the veil so that you may see.

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He says you've got to learn to become gods yourselves the same way all gods have done before you. Now, that,

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I believe, puts Joseph into the category of false prophet and false teacher because he's teaching a different view of God.

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Now, the Bible teaches, as an example, and there's many verses like this, Isaiah 43 .10, Before me there was no

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God formed, neither shall there be after me. Now, how would you, as someone that's LDS, I'm sure that's very zealous and just a sweet man, but how would you respond to God when

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He tells you there's none before Him and none after Him? What was that?

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43 .10. 43 .10. Isaiah, Before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me.

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And he says, continuing to show a little more context, he says in Isaiah 44 .6, right after that, I am the first and the last.

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Besides me there is no God. Is there a God besides me? Indeed, there is no other God. I know not one.

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Right in the first of the

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Bible, in Genesis, it says let us go down and create man in our own image.

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What is that talking about? The Trinity. God speaking as Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Which is interesting because...

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Well, you could say that, but there's no way to absolutely prove that. Well, I can if you allow me.

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Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible. Jesus confirmed that. Moses wrote in the

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Pentateuch repeatedly. He writes, say, for example, Deuteronomy 4. He says, verses 35 or 39, that He's the only

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God in the heavens above and on the earth below. There is no other. He says in Deuteronomy 6 .4...

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Well, there's a lot of other passages in the Bible too that Christ said He are gods. Well, the passage you're referring to, when

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Jesus says, that's in John 10, He's quoting from the Psalms. And when He quotes from the

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Psalms there, that Psalm passage has nothing to do with them being gods. It has to do with God condemning the corrupt and false judges of Israel and condemning them.

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So that reference Jesus uses there, of I said ye are gods, is from the Psalms, and it's not a good passage you want applied to yourself.

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Because God condemns those people as He says it to them. It's a rhetorical thing where God's saying, I said ye are gods, ye shall die like men, you unjust judges.

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He condemns the unjust judges of Israel, which Jesus is condemning the unjust judges before Him. In that time, that's not a good

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Psalm to apply to yourself. You don't want that applied to you. It was a condemnation Psalm to the unjust judges of Israel.

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Now, back to Deuteronomy 4. How would you respond to that? Where God says He's the only God in the heavens above and on the earth below.

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You don't believe that. Do you? Well, He's the only

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God that we have anything to do with. Well, right. I know you believe that. But He says He's the only God in the heavens above and on the earth below.

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There is no other. Well, you know, to me, a lot of that is talking about stuff that we know very little or hardly nothing about.

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I mean, I, you know, to me, it's not really,

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I don't know. I think there's a lot more important and basic things.

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I don't think anybody can explain the

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Trinity to me. As far as I understand, the only thing that could fit that definition of a

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God that is so contradictory is nothing, as far as I'm concerned. I mean, that He's everywhere present and yet nowhere present, occupies no space.

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The only thing that could describe that is nothing. Well, the Bible, well, the interesting thing is the Bible actually describes

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God as omnipresent. Psalm 139, the Bible says, where can I flee from your presence?

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If I go into heaven, you're there. Omnipresent, does that mean His power is omnipresent, or does that mean that He is?

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You were speaking about, it says Him, His presence. It says in Psalm 139, if I go into heaven, you're there.

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If I go and dwell in Sheol, the grave, you're there. If I dwell in the remotest part of the sea, even there your hand will lead me.

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It talks about His presence, and that's about specifically His presence. Jesus says to His people,

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He says, wherever two or more are gathered in My name, there I am with them. And so there's the omnipresence of God there.

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But I would just say this to you. Interesting thing is there are clear and direct statements in the Bible where, for example,

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I gave you about three or four verses already that God says He's the only one, none before, none after. And as a person that's

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LDS, that's a sweet gentleman and a nice guy, you have no response to that.

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You don't have an answer to it. Well, that's one isolated scripture. I mean, that's not...

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I can give you more. I mean, specifically Isaiah 43 .10, before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me, is pretty definitive.

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Because you don't believe, and you can correct me if I'm wrong. Please don't let me misstate this.

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You believe that there were gods before God, and you are hoping to go through exaltation to become one.

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Now, God says already, long before Joseph comes along, that's not a possibility. And as someone that's a

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Latter -day Saint, that's a sweet and gentle man, you can't answer with your theology what

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God says there. There's a lot of things I can't answer. I mean, and a lot of things...

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I mean, you start looking at the size of the universe, and it's just literally billions of light years, and you're going to tell me everything that's out there, and I'm going to call you a liar.

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I wouldn't attempt that, but I would say this about that question.

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I'd be with you on there. It's pretty awesome. And today, I was looking at a new site that talked about this massive black hole that's in a distant galaxy.

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It's the size of, like, I don't even know how many millions or billions of our suns. Holy moly, that's amazing.

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But this question... That whole thing, I mean, you even get into creationism, and you even get into the organization of even just one multi -celled organism, and it's so incredibly complex...

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I agree with you. ...that the probability it would all be created by accident is so...

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It's an impossibility. It's so... It's an impossibility. But would you agree that this is a little different because God has spoken on this issue so that you can have certainty?

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You see, you and I are asking questions about the universe that God hasn't revealed to us necessarily, but what with this about God is pretty fundamental.

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He says he's the only one, the first and the last, none before and none after, and you disagree with that because of Joseph's testimony.

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I think the only way that you're going to know God is if he's revealed to them. Now, you... Would you agree he's revealed himself in the scriptures?

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Well, like, there's another big issue there, that the scriptures...

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I mean, most, the typical Christian belief is to believe that God has spoken in the scriptures and he hasn't spoken anywhere else, hardly, which is...

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Well, I guess what I'm getting at there is that... I mean, and you start looking at all the stuff that's out there, all the, you know, all the other things that are coming to light through the...

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You know, there's just thousands and thousands of texts that are coming out there. A lot of the... For instance, one of the main things, like Brigham Young, they've got a lot of all the ancient

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Isaiah texts and everything else that they're... You know, they've been working with a lot of... Of Isaiah, manuscripts of Isaiah that we have in Isaiah.

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No, no, some of the more, the stuff, the originals, like, and some of the... Awesome. Like, there are a lot of things that they've dug out of the

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Dead Sea Scrolls and everything that are hundreds and hundreds of years before anything in the

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Bible was written. Well, the Isaiah... Well, no, the Isaiah was written... Most of it is not that much different.

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Well, it's not at all. Matter of fact, the Isaiah... Isaiah wrote around 700 BC. The scroll that you're referring to in the

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Dead Sea Scrolls is not owned by BYU. No, it's not, but... But it predates Christ by 200 years.

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They've had a project where they've computerized all of it in association with a lot of people in Israel.

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And they've got it where anybody can go and look at a lot of the scrolls, whether they're

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LDS or... No matter who they are. Yeah, you can do it right now. I can pull it right now and I can see my thing.

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I can get a copy of it. But that would be an interesting point, because Isaiah, the scroll you're describing, we do have a scroll of Isaiah that predates

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Christ by 200 years that jives with the Isaiah that we have in our Bibles. And in that Isaiah, the book of Isaiah, God says that there's none before him, none after him.

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He's the only one. He doesn't even know of any other gods. Now, I would say that would be another point I would press, is that Joseph taught something different.

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He says that there's a council of gods and that God was once a man who became a god. You can become one one day.

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Now, that is in conflict with what God says, and it's said for a long time. Why do you say that's in conflict with what

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God said? It was God once a man who became a god. I don't know.

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Well, Joseph says he was. King Follett discourse. God himself was once as we are now and is an exalted man who sits enthroned in yonder heavens.

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If you were to see him today, you'd see him in a body as tangible as man's. And he says, you've got to learn to become gods yourselves the same way all gods have done before you.

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And the famous one, and I would assume you know this. Try this. That is not official scripture, anyway.

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Well, it's his preaching. How about this one? Well, there's a lot of things. I can show you a lot of things.

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Would you agree with the Pearl of Great Price? How about the Pearl of Great Price? In the beginning, the head of the gods.

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Or in the beginning, the gods created. Well, no, it's in the beginning, yeah. The Pearl of Great Price. In the beginning, the gods created.

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So, see, you do believe... Well, it's... You could use the same thing that you're talking about, that that was the trinity.

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I mean, if you want to... No, we only believe in one god. We don't believe in three gods. You do. You believe in three gods of this earth.

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What do you mean? You don't believe that... You believe that there's just one god?

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You believe they're all one? One being of God. Three persons. Well, what about in the... I mean, if you believe...

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You believe there's only one person or three persons? Three persons, one being. But what about at the martyrdom of Stephan, where he saw

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Christ up on the right hand of... Well, he saw... He saw

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God in Christ? He quotes from Daniel 7, where Christ, the Messiah, was told to have been seated at the right hand of the

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Father, which was not a direct position of right hand, but was speaking about a position of authority and power and of the reigning

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King. So, as Stephen's dying, he's telling them, Christ is seated. He is

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King. He is Lord. He is Daniel 7 fulfilled. And it's not speaking about a literal right hand.

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Well, Christ said, My Father is greater than I. As a man. When Philippians says that Jesus was...

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I mean, so then they're not... They're not one person.

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Well, no, no, no. We don't believe that. See, that's an interesting thing. Tell me if I'm wrong on this. You're taught in seminary and in your classes, you're taught that Christians believe that Jesus and the

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Father are the same person. Well... When you say that, you're covering a whole lot of different grounds.

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I don't think that there's any general agreement about that among Christians.

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Oh, there's universal agreement on the Trinity. Always has been. There have been aberrant views, like I would say

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Mormonism is, that have come up throughout the centuries that we've had to come together and collectively... Well, I think like the Greek Orthodox Church, I'm not sure about that.

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Oh, yeah. There's no Christian in history that could be a consistent Christian in violating what the

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Bible says about God. See, that would be the difference is that our standard is what God actually says about himself.

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And every Christian throughout the centuries, when we've come against error, we've gone back to the scriptures to refute it.

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And maybe formulated a creed even against it based on the scriptures. There's thousands and thousands of different churches.

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They have different beliefs. They fight one another. Well, we have in -house... They've had wars and killed one another.

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Well, would you... Christianity, I mean... So, wait. So, your standard is... First of all,

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I'd say Christians have the same God, the same scriptures, the same gospel universally. Always have.

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Like, for example, I'm technically a Reformed Baptist minister. But all my heroes are

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Presbyterian. We have in -house debates over each other over non -essentials. We have the same God, same gospel. And I would stand here with a

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Presbyterian, a Baptist, a non -denominational Christian denomination, and we'd stand here with the same message with you.

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Same message. In -house disagreements. But here's the major difference. You bring up a good point. There are over 100 different sects of the

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LDS church. There's the Reformed LDS community. There's Temple Law.

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There's all these different sects. They would say that you're not Mormon. As far as numbers goes, those are not...

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But they would say that you are not faithful to the LDS teachings. Are you a polygamist?

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No. But they would say that you're disobeying the Doctrine and Covenants and Brigham Young. They would say,

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Brigham Young says that the only men who become gods or even the sons of God are those who enter into polygamy. And Joseph says that if you basically are not a polygamist, you're basically denying this eternal covenant of God to be a polygamist.

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And you won't become a god without being a polygamist. Well, I've... I've never heard anything like that.

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Well, check out the Doctrine and Covenants. I've read that... I've read that many times.

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Okay. There's nothing like that. Well, can I show you? Oh, go ahead. Okay. As I find it. Need help?

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Yeah, just grab that right there. Sure. I will show you...

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show you this right here. This is a photocopy of the teaching of Brigham Young on the

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Point of Notion of DC. Just because I think it's important. Well, the... As far as I understand it, anyway,

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I mean, there are so many things that Brigham Young said. And Brigham Young was mostly illiterate a lot of times.

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And he had... I mean, he wasn't a very literate man. He had scribes writing a lot of the things from him that are written about him.

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I don't even know that that's what he said. Well, he... he approved... he approved what was printed in...

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what was printed in... That's the truth. What was printed in England and in Salt Lake City he first had to... It was both presses,

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Liverpool and Salt Lake City. Young... Young had to approve them. The Elder Reynolds had to approve it, his secretary.

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And then Elder Carrington, he double -checked the type before they actually went out. And here's what Brigham Young said. He said,

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I have never yet preached a sermon and sent it out to the children of men that they may not call Scripture. And he says, let me have the privilege of correcting a sermon and it is as good as Scripture as they deserve.

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And that's... so he says his sermons are Scripture. Well, I don't know. Well, and...

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That's not the official position of the church regardless of what he said. That was the prophet of your church's official position. He was the president of the church at that time.

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That was your prophet's church... Again there, I... you know, I've read a lot of stuff from Brigham Young.

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Did they believe it as Scripture when he said it? When he said that? Did they take it as Scripture?

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I would think so. Brigham Young says, if any of you deny the plurality of wives and continue to do so,

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I promise that you will be damned. Journal of Discourse is Volume 3. What does that mean? Deny that they can't be plural wives or deny that everyone has to be?

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If you deny the practice of polygamy, which was considered an eternal covenant, an eternal decree basically.

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Well, that's in the Bible. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, they all had multiple wives. And what did God say to them in the law?

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He said, do not multiply wives. So what were they doing? If God says specifically that was not his command and don't do it, and then they do it, what did they violate?

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Where is that said? Deuteronomy 17, 17. He told the king not to multiply wives.

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Brigham says here, he says... Well, I mean... Brigham said, the only men who become gods or even the sons of God are those who enter into polygamy.

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Do you believe you're going to become a god one day? Well, I don't... That's not the official position of the church.

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Is he a prophet? Don't you believe that Joseph taught that they restored prophets, priests, and everything else to the church?

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So is he a prophet? Well, Joseph...

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Do you see, I just want to show you there the inconsistency you're trapped into when you follow a teacher that's contradicting

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Scripture. When you follow a man that teaches you falsely about God, you're caught in a place where you can't come to the text as it is because what you're being taught is in violation to it.

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And God says in Deuteronomy 13 that one of the ways you know someone's a false prophet is they lead you after other gods.

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And I think that what you're seeing here, and I mean this with love and respect to you, that's what's happening right now. You're brought into a conflict, a fundamental conflict with what

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God has already said about Himself, about you. Let me ask you a question.

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If God told you that you couldn't become a god one day and Joseph says that you can, who would you believe?

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God or Joseph? I believe God, but I don't believe God's told me that. What if I can tell you right now,

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Isaiah 43 .10 says, Before me there was no god formed, neither shall there be after me. None before Him.

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I could go and research it and find other passages probably, because you're not, I mean

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I'm, I'd love to listen. Obviously you're, you're what? Well I care for you.

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I'm not here because I'm interested in just debate. I'm here because I care for you. I'm here because we love, we love you, we love your community and our desire is that you come to know the true and living

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God. We believe that Joseph was a false prophet and we can show you that from the scriptures and our desire is, listen, not to rob you of God and faith, but it's to point you to the true and living

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God, to come to Him for salvation. It's a free gift through what Christ accomplished, not through your works like Joseph taught.

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Well Joseph, anybody that thinks that they can get to heaven on works is sadly mistaken.

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All the works you're going to do, if people tries it, tries to do it, is just going to show them their own inability to keep the law because everyone's going to fail just about.

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I don't care who it is. I don't care if it's you or who it's, who else it is. And so, you know to say that, you know, as far as, but the problem, a lot of the things that I see a lot of the

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Christians have swung to is they say, well grace covers any kind of sinning without you even trying.

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And that is, that is obvious. I don't know what you mean. I mean, but well, that's a quote by some ministers.

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Well the Bible, the Bible says, I mean that he says there's, there are a lot of people that use religion, you know, to,

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But what does the Bible say would be the question? Not what are people doing, but what does the Bible say?

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That's the, that's the issue is if the total authority is in the

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Bible or it is in, is in having a personal relationship with God and getting revelation so you understand it.

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I mean, Would you, would you, would you tell me how you would respond to this? The Bible says in 2

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Timothy 3 .16 that all scripture is God breathed from his mouth. Peter says a holy man of God, but it also says that, you know, it's of no personal interpretation, but the holy man of God explained it.

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That's just what I was going to quote to you. As a matter of fact, I was just quoting that exact verse. Peter says, a holy man of God spoke as they were carried along by the

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Holy Spirit. We're in the same passage, actually. It's interesting that you were quoting that. So Peter says that the origin of scripture is the

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Holy Spirit. Right? He carried them along to write what they wrote. And the Bible says in Timothy that it's

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God's word. It says it breathed out by God. So with that, what I'm getting at is this. If God, the Holy Spirit is the origin of the revelation and it is actual

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Theanostos, God breathed is what the word is. Then, here's my question. Would God who gave you that revelation in his word contradict it by personal revelation with you?

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In other words, No. There you go. And that's what I'm getting at. The, if, you know, if someone would go out and say that there was, they had a revelation that there was no

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Christ or something, obviously they would be Why would that be wrong? Because Based on what? Based on what?

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Why would that be wrong? How would you refute someone that said that to you? I'll give you, you shoot at this. I'll give you something to aim at.

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not Mormon, Muslim, Muslim says Jesus is not the son of God, he was not Messiah, he did not die for, not

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Messiah, sorry, not the son of God, he did not die for sins, he did not rise from the dead. How would you refute the

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Muslim who says that? What would you go to? He's not the son of God, he didn't die for sins, he didn't rise from the dead.

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What's the first thing you would do to show that Muslim he was incorrect? Where would you go?

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Well, he's he's not going to believe the Bible, so how are you going to quote a lot of...

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But he's using your terminology, he's saying Jesus, the Messiah. He says, I believe in Jesus, the

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Messiah. Well, it's, you know, like it's like Mohammed said, he said that it's an abomination that God should have a son, that he's so far, you know, he's so far above us, it's even it's even a heresy to consider that he could be anything at all like us.

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That's kind of more Mohammed's position, as far as I understand it. Right, right. You are right about that.

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You're right on. But I think that you and I would do it the same way. I think that you and I would show the Muslim that Jesus says that he was going to die for sins and rise from the dead.

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The Bible says that he did that. The Testament of the Eyewitnesses, you would go to the scriptures. Yeah, well, there's a lot of things that you could show that there were all these thousands of predictions, you could do it mathematically, that there's no...

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And where would you go? The scriptures? Yeah, back to the scriptures. Now, with that... That all this stuff was predicted and Christ fulfilled it.

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I agree with you. And the probability of anybody ever being able to do that is so astronomical that it's impossible.

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You're right. You and I would totally agree on that. I have a whole message to give on that. It's good. So here's what I'm saying with you is that our loving question to you is, with the

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Muslim you would do that. He has a false version of Jesus that's not Jesus. But our statement is that Joseph gave you a false

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Jesus as well. One God among many gods. Satan's brother. And then when we want to show you that, we go to the scriptures to show you this is what he says about himself.

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But what you have to end up doing is being somewhat in a place as any other religion where you say, but our authority tells us that's wrong.

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I have some points, but... I'll tell you what. My name is Jeff. And I don't know if you have a thing.

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This is a way... Just look at this. Tell me what you think. You got one already. Okay. My name...

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Way to get a hold of you in the back. You can get a hold of me and look through that and let's just have a dialogue. Okay. Okay. Let's see what's...

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What is there? There's a... Oh, you can get... I'm Jeff. So you can go jeff at defendthefaith .org

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Okay. Okay. Let me look at it. All right, man. Bless you. All right. Take care. Bless you. I don't see...

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You know, a lot of people that are just picking things out of the Book of Mormon have...

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I mean, I don't see how any man could create that, you know, as far as a lot of the doctrines about Christ and everything else.

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I mean, it's just... There's nothing at all about polygamy or gods or anything else like that. Well, do you know that Joseph plagiarized from the

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Bible the 1611 King James Version multiple times in the Book of Mormon? I don't know that...

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You can't really say that because the Bible repeats itself many times. I mean, it goes... I mean, and if you look at the way those

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Isaiah passages are put in there, there's a lot of commentary about them afterwards in the...

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What I mean is that Joseph purported to have translated from Reformed Egyptian hieroglyphics in the

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Golden Plates that were B .C. era writings from the Hebrews. First of all, there is no such language as Reformed Egyptian hieroglyphics.

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Second of all, how would 1611 King James English be in a B .C. era record by Hebrews?

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there really is, you know, if you go into a lot of the other things that they're finding now in a lot of the archaeology places that Egypt and...

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from a lot of the dialogues, Egypt and Israel were very much together and a lot of the...

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a lot of the... But that doesn't answer the plagiarism question. Well, I don't know about...

29:49

I don't... I wouldn't call it plagiarism if he just quotes a lot of it. What about the fact that the

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Book of Mormon, this would be something I would ask you, because I actually would love to hear how you would respond to this because you've been a Mormon for a long time.

30:00

What about the fact that the Book of Mormon, Joseph, when he publishes it, says that it's the most correct of any book on earth and that a man can get closer to God by obeying its precepts than any other book.

30:09

That was in 1830, but it's changed near 4 ,000 times since 1830. but nothing...

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nothing consequential. I mean... How about... Ellen Shidey right down there has an original edition.

30:20

How about doctrinal... How about doctrinal changes? I mean, this is... this is a copy of the 1830 version, photocopies, but the change is marked.

30:27

There's doctrinal changes, there's passages completely changed, there's...

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I mean, these are not insignificant changes. They're not just spelling errors, things like that. I mean, it's... it's a...

30:38

Well, I've... I've read the original version and I don't see that much difference in it. Well, if it's the most correct of any book on earth, why would it need to change 4 ,000 times in less than 4 years?

30:47

Well, yeah, but... but I think, to me, it explains the centrality of Christ and a lot of other things a lot better than any other book and what's...

30:57

what's more important. I don't think there's anything that's... that's perfect. I can show you some of the contradictions in the

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Bible about... Can you name one? ...the little things. Yeah, well, in the vision of Paul where...

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once where it says that he saw a voice and yet... and yet didn't see anybody and then

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I think it says somewhere else something like that. No, it's... it's that he had people with him who... one part, he talks about how they heard it and the other one, they didn't.

31:23

Yeah. And that's... you have to understand the Greek to understand when one is hearing with another... it's... it's not a contradiction at all.

31:30

It has to do with the English translation not getting across the full message in the Greek. That's not a contradiction. And besides,

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I would say to that that you as a person that's LDS have at that point violated what

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God says Himself about His Word that He says very clearly that the grass where there's a flower fades but the

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Word of our God will stand forever and it says that Heaven and Earth will pass away and my words will by no means pass away and it's from His very mouth.

31:55

but there's 30 or 40 books that the Bible refers to that we don't even know about.

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Yeah, but we do. I mean such as the analogs and annals of the kings of Judah, there's about 30 of them.

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Yeah, there were historical books that the writers in the New Testament and Old Testament... But how can you be sure about that?

32:16

Well, here's... well, very clearly they would never refer to any of those books by the divine formula of what does the Scripture say or what does

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God say. They would refer to historical books to make a reference point but never referring to it as Scripture but they did.

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Jesus did refer to all the Old Testament books save Esther as Scripture and so did the

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Apostles in the New Testament and they always would use something like the divine formula. Have you not read what was spoken to you by God?

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What does the Scripture say? So, yes, like for example, I'll give you one example. In Mars Hill, Paul quotes

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Serratus of Cilicia and Epimenides of Crete which are pagan first century poets or poetry literature they pull from.

32:52

Well, he doesn't mean that that's Scripture but he does refer to it but not as Scripture to get across the point.

32:58

Yeah. Right. And that's what the other things are doing in the New Testament but the big difference here is this is that Joseph comes up with a revelation he says is from God and it's changed 4 ,000 times in less than 200 years.

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He plagiarizes from the 1611 version of the Bible. Well, I wouldn't agree with that. It contradicts the Bible. How does it contradict the

33:17

Bible? Well, I'll give you a major theological one and also just a mistake he made. I'll start with a mistake.

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He says that Jesus' birthplace was Jerusalem. Jesus was born in Bethlehem. Yeah, yeah, but you go back into history and the way they spoke they would consider at that time there was city -states and Jerusalem would be like this city -state and it would it would be like a city -state and it would and it would encompass a bunch of suburbs as far as I understand.

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It's actually incorrect because when Jesus came into his ministry and they said that he was from Nazareth Well, I'm talking about history.

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Let me just finish real fast the point. Yeah, in history, in the book. I'm talking about history at that time from some of the other

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Well, I'm saying in the first century context when they actually had this discussion there was a point where they said well, Jesus is from Nazareth and the struggle with the leaders in Jerusalem is they were saying

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Nazareth isn't the Messiah supposed to come from Bethlehem? So they did see a very distinct difference between one city and another they said he can't be from Nazareth and be a

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Messiah you have to be from Bethlehem and so this is a major problem because it was specific so that's an issue of just one example another example

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That's not substantive enough for me to hear Well, I told you it's a serious issue in a sense of getting it right but the second issue

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I'll give you theologically would be Paul says in Ephesians 2 8 and 9 By grace are you saved through faith and that not of yourselves it is the gift of God not according to works lest any man should boast but in 2

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Nephi 25 23 Joseph records By grace are you saved listen, sounds the same after all you can do

34:55

That's a different message Well, but then you go to James and it says faith without works is dead

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Right, and what's the context of James 2? James 2

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That's where you quoted from James 2 Where are we going? Faith without works is dead Yeah And James in the context there in James 2 10 says whoever should keep the whole law and not stumble on one point is guilty of all

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You know certainly what James is not teaching there is that you can obey law in order to get right with God So it violates

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James' own statement Yeah, but he's And what James is talking about there is the difference between dead faith and living faith

35:32

There's other things in there Well really You know like if a man doesn't support his own family and so forth

35:38

He's worse than an unbeliever Yeah, he's worse than Yeah, but that has nothing to do with justification Paul says that we I mean, but if you want to say that I mean, if you want to say that people are saved, that works have absolutely nothing to do with the person's salvation

35:52

Well, Paul said that Are you ready for it? Romans 3 28 We conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from works of law

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At that time Let me let that sit with you for a second before you respond We conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from works of law

36:08

Faith by itself apart from works of law That is how you declared righteous before God Now, Joseph disagrees with that Mormon theology disagrees with that That's a different gospel