Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: ssimmons@unix.cie.rpi.edu (Stephen Simmons) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Book of Mormon Message-ID: Date: 16 Aug 90 16:49:10 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: CIE, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY Lines: 320 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In article frog!jp@harvard.harvard.edu (John Pimentel) writes: >>Stephen Simmons writes: >>I think the case about errors in the Bible is a little >>overstated...The English Bible has (except in very early times) been >>translated from the Greek and the Hebrew; most copies of the Bible (I >>would suppose) have been translated only once; that is, they have been >>translated from Greek/Hebrew/Aramaic --> English/German/French/etc. >What the original poster was refering to and what I am refering to is: >The Bible was translated to the extent that the original meaning has >been, in parts, lost. What do I mean by that, you might say? Simply, >that, if I take something (I've done this for others) say, in Portuguese, >and translated into english I have two ways: 1) Meaning for meaning, >in which the meaning is preserved; 2) Meaning for words, in which >the meaning is translated to the approximate meaning, because the >meaning for meaning might be just too long, thus in this case I would >lose the author's true feelings, and have my interpertation of what >he/she wanted to say. Essentially, the original poster was refering >to an article of the LDS faith in that [paraphrase if not correct] "We >believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is correctly >translated; we believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God." As the moderator pointed out, and as I tried to point out in the previous posting, the original meaning has not been lost because we still have manuscripts (even ones quite ancient) in the original languages. >From what I understand the Bible was translated into english in 1540, >or thereabouts, but prior to this time, scholars preserved the bible >by writing out copies of it. The belief is based on, in my opinion, >on these rewrites, to the extent that errors may have crept in. The >Book of Mormon, on the other hand was translated once into english, and >any corrections to the BoM were made from the original or the printer's >manuscript (which I understand was copied once by Oliver Cowdery). If I may clarify, scholars preserved copies of these in the original language. This is a pretty simple operation, and provided no mistakes are made in the process, a perfect replica of the original (other than the handwriting style) is produced. However, mistakes did creep in, and the scribes and copyists were not ignorant of this possibility. In fact, some of the extremes that the Jewish scribes went to to preserve the quality of the O.T. text are almost unbelievable. They kept counts of the total number of letters in each book and chapter of the Old Testament. The kept track of the middle letter of each verse, chapter and book. In this means the Talmudic and Masoretic texts of the Old Testament were preserved. This kind of error checking precludes many mistakes. As you mentioned, the English Bible was translated in about 1540. It was not translated from 16th century Greek manuscripts, however. It was translated from 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th century Greek manuscripts and 10th century Hebrew manuscripts. However, as time passed, some remarkable discoveries were made, and our moderator has noted some of these and modern translations have been largely translated from these. Not all of these manuscripts are complete, but many are: [*** Begin Bible Evidence -- Long ***] New Testament & Greek Old Testament 130 AD Greek Fragment containing about 3 verses of John 18; 140-200 AD Text containing John 1-14. 200 AD Text containing Luke 14-John 14 225 AD Texts for Paul's letters (minus Pastorals), Revelation, Acts, and four Gospels. 250 AD Text for 1 Timothy to Jude 350 AD Entire Bible in one Codex (Codex Sinaiticus, Codex Vaticanus) except for a few missing pages (actually, quite a few in the Vaticanus). 400 AD Codex Byzantanticus (sp?) containing most of the Bible 450 AD+ Archaeologists have found over 2400 Greek manuscripts, 10000 Latin manuscripts, and manuscripts from some 20 or so other languages dating to 450 AD or later. All together, as of about 1988 or so, there are over 24,000 manuscripts and fragments; some five or ten thousand of these have not yet filtered from the scholar's desk to Bible translations because they have been discovered in the last 10 years or so. Modern translations of the New Testament are based upon Greek texts known as the Textus Receptus, the Majority Text, and the Revised Greek text, the latest edition of which is published by Nestle-Aland and the United Bible Societies. Hebrew Old Testament Sources 150 BC to 100 AD Dead see scrolls; some scrolls date early (like Isaiah) and some apparently date later. 900 AD Oldest copy of the Masoretic Text (note: the Jews considered a new copy so reliable that it was worth more than the old, as the old was generally several hundred years old and was becoming fragile. The old texts were used for teaching students, the new for public reading. When the old became unusuable, they were burned. That's why the oldest manuscript is so late. 1050 AD Oldest copy of the Samaritan Pentateuch Translations of the Old Testament generally follow the Masoretic text, but the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Samaritan Pentateuch, the Targum (an Aramaic paraphrase of the O.T.), the Syriac (a translation), the Septuagint (the Greek O.T., above), and the Vulgate (a Latin translation) are consulted. Other, less well known sources have been used, but I don't know the exact names. By my estimations, the fragments that we have of the book of John are no more than a third-hand copy, and possibly a second-hand copy. I doubt that the complete texts of the Sinaiticus and Vaticanus are more than fifth-generation. That's not much room for error. The reason, therefore, for the many minute differences in the New Testament is the fact that the texts were generated in a tree structure, which is perhaps no more than 15-20 levels deep, but contains, overall, perhaps 100000 manuscripts. Simply an error made in a text near the root of the tree is perpetuated into all of its leaves. But since near the leaves there are many copying processes going on, there can be many possible different mistakes. According to one (liberal, not conservative) scholar, there are only about 40 uncertainties in the New Testament that affect the meaning of the text. None of these cover any major doctrine (such as some that the BoM disagree with). Therefore, I ask you (or any Mormon, or any Muslim, for that matter), where did the errors creep in? Could there have been some authority somewhere that didn't like what the Bible said and changed all the copies? No, for two reasons. First, there were many copies in existence, and there was no central authority that knew where all the copies were. Second, the only possibly group with this type of authority before 350 AD (the date of the oldest complete manuscript) was the Roman Empire. However, when they were not concerned with their own internal problems, the burned the Bible, not perverted it. It was simply easier to burn than to corrupt. And if they did corrupt it, they did not succeed, for they would still be offended at its contents today. And the evidence I presented above concerning the New Testament does not even consider the times that the Bible was quoted. A guy by the name of Sir Richard Darymaple (I think that's his name) was posed this question by his students: if all the copies of the New Testament were destroyed before 300 AD, and all that was available to Christians of that day were the writings of the early Church Fathers, how much of the New Testament could be reconstructed? After a bit of analysis (several years), the answer came: all but eleven verses. The early church writers (before Eusebius, but not including him) quoted the New Testament over 32,000 times that we still have record of today, and of these quotations, all but 11 verses of the New Testament are covered. Altogether, there are over 84,000 quotations of the Bible from the time of Jerome or earlier (I'll have to check this, though). Additionally, the Bible was translated into many languages before the age of the printing press, and many before the collapse of the Roman Empire. Such languages include (NT only) Old Syriac, Aramaic, Latin, Frankish, Sogdian, Ethiopic, Arabic, and at least 10 others including in part, Old English! Some manuscripts have several languages in parallel. The point is, we have additional references: how ancient authorities translated the Bible too. [*** End Bible Evidence -- Long ***] That's why I said in the previous posting: >>I think the case about errors in the Bible is a little >>overstated... To show you the vast amount of support there is for the accuracy of the modern translations among the manuscripts, I tell you that this evidence came from my memory of what I have read (I will look up and quote anything anyone would like to have a reference for). The above is basically all that I can remember off hand. In otherwords, it only scratches the surface. In summary (to this question, anyway), I state that the New Testament could not have been corrupted nor are there any significant errors in it. >>In many of these cases [of the Bible], we have entire passages repeated >>word for word. > >This goes back to the example, in part, I listed above, if I were given >a work to translate and during my reading I found a section that looked >familiar,e.g., something I wrote earlier, I would copy that section in >the spot of this familiarity, rather than translate that section again. You miss the point. I was refering to original languages, not translations. If anyone thinks that the Translators of our Bibles have done such a thing, let him learn Greek & Hebrew and see the contrary. >One further item, Joseph Smith also retranslated parts of the Bible, to >put back the meaning that was accidently/deliberately omitted (not >intended as an accusation, but covering all the bases). Because of this "controversy," I have recently started reading the Book of Mormon to see what it is about. Today, I read a verse that said something to this effect: "and an angel said it, wherefor can one doubt?" (I don't have the BoM handy. I'll look it up for anyone who is interested). Indeed, this verse disturbed me deeply. The writer of the text trusted an angel because he was an angel. But that's in stark contrast to the statement of the Bible: "But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed." Gal. 1:9. Why? because, "And no wonder! For Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light." 2 Cor. 11:14 The Book of Mormon even prophetically quotes this (somewhere in the books of Nephi, I think). Yet, what appeared to Joseph Smith? An angel (messenger) of light! Was this angel of light Satan? Joseph Smith never found out. He just trusted the angel (messenger). The angel said he was from the presence of God. Joseph Smith's father declared, upon hearing the story, "it is of God." How did he know? By the way, the Bible does give a way for testing spirits (and angels are spirits, according to the Bible -- Heb. 1:14): "Now he who keeps His commandments abides iin Him, and He in him. And by this we know that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us. Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in he flesh is not of God. And this is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard was coming, andis now already in the world." 1 John 3:24-4:3. Did Joseph Smith apply this test? As far as I can tell from his telling of the story, no. So now we come to the other part of the verse from Galatians: does the Book of Mormon contradict the teachings of Paul: preliminary investigations indicate that it does. Another very curious thing about the Book of Mormon. The name "Jesus" is very rare. I have encountered it two or three times. Instead of Jesus, I find Christ. Now, if you have read the New Testament, you know that Paul almost uses the terms interchangably. In fact, he uses Christ a bit more than Jesus. But the ratio that I have discovered in the BoM is more like 40:1. And when there are direction quotations of Jesus, so far, it has always been "and Christ said." This phrase never occurs in the Bible. Not even in "Jesus Christ," but only "Jesus said" or variants thereof. What is the significance to this? In my experience, the name of Jesus is a difficult name to say sometimes. Sometimes, even in front of Christians it is difficult to say Jesus. Christ is very much an easier word to say. And when I say difficulty here, I refer to the fact that it takes spiritual effort to choose the word Jesus over Christ. There is power in the name of Jesus that's not present in the word "Christ." One more thing that I discovered: the prophet Nephi (about 600 BC), and the brother of Jared (about 2200 BC) had great revelations of Jesus Christ. They had many details about Jesus that no other prophet, including Isaiah was given. Why is this surprising? Well, look at the details: Jesus death on the cross was clearly foretold; The atoning purpose of the death was clearly foretold; The fact that salvation would come to all men was clearly foretold But if you read the Bible you find that "had they [Satan and his forces] known [about the results of the resurrection] they would not have crucified the Lord of glory." (I'll get the exact quote for any interested party). And thus, that is why neither the purpose nor the plan of Jesus' coming was given in detail in the Bible. This makes me severely doubt that the book of Mormon (specifically Nephi & Ether) was written before 33 AD, as the book supposes. Furthermore, the Book of Ether states that the brother of Jared sees Jesus Christ. In fact, Jesus Christ is revealed to him, and claims something like this: "I am Jesus Christ, I am the Father and the Son" But doesn't the Bible say, "You are My Son, Today I have begotten you?" Therefore, 2200 years before he was begotten, he was called the Son. And didn't John say, "No man has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him (John 1:18)" Yet, Jesus, the Father & the Son--God, was revealed visibly to this man 2200 years before he appeared on earth. And didn't Isaiah say, "He shall be called Immanuel" -- that is, Jesus was named after his birth, not before? Yet the Book of Ether states the Jesus had the name "Jesus" and the title "Christ" 2200 years before he was given these names. From a cursory reading of the Book of Mormon, I find many things (I'll provide a list of current "discoveries" to any one interested) that are unacceptable to me because they contradict what the Bible says and because some of them seem quite unhistorical. If I am misusing these quotations and the BoM does not contradict the Bible, then, pardon me & correct me; the BoM is only misleading, not incorrect. Because of this, though, Mormons, like Muslims are forced to the questionable conclusion that the Bible has many mistakes, whether intentional or unintentional. But as I have shown, this is very unlikely. And neither groups have given me a shred of manuscript evidence to support their claim that the Bible is unreliable (although to be fair, I have not dealt much with Mormons, and they may posses such evidence somewhere). Speaking of Muslims, I find many similarities between Joseph Smith's account of his angelic (or saintly) visits and Muhammed's angelic visitations. Both angels claim to come from the presence of God; neither proves it. Who, if either are we to believe? The Koran and the BoM certainly don't agree, so one of them has to be wrong. (Or, to cover all bases, imperfect). Dear Mormon friends: If you can answer these questions that I have raised, please do. But without presenting evidence for an unreliable Bible don't try to convince us that the Bible is reliable. --Stephen Simmons P.S. Does any one have a computerized version of the BoM?