Comments on: 1 Corinthians 15:29

By: JLFuller

JLFuller — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 22:01:21 +0000

Mitchell
Thanks for the time you have taken to respond.

By: JLFuller

JLFuller — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 22:00:06 +0000

Joel
Thanks for the response.

By: JLFuller

JLFuller — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 21:58:09 +0000

You are correct in that Joseph didn’t begin the translation process until several years after the first visit. He was fourteen when He saw God and Christ. Good catch. Of course I can’t speak for Evangelicals at all. I was just passing on what one Baptist preacher told me.

By: mitchell b powell

mitchell b powell — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 21:50:26 +0000

Dear JL,

You have said,

Even some Evangelicals acknowledge it could not have been written by a fourteen year old boy with three years formal education.

Come on now. That sort of nonsensical argument would not even be worth responding too, where it not for the fact that some poor sap might be reading our comments and believe your claim that 14-year-old Joseph Smith produced this work. The B of M was not published until 1830, when Smith was 25, and by his own account he did not begin translation work until 1827, when he was 22 years old.

The fact that a 25-year-old would publish something evangelical scholars wouldn’t expect from a 14-year-old means nothing.

By: Joel

Joel — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 21:20:20 +0000

Actually, JL, I was going on what Smith himself said about having a better hand at church management than Christ. Assume not that I have no clue as to Mormon doctrine, heavy or otherwise. As I said, my sources are quite, while, knowledgeable.

And again, divination is not a practice allowed in Scripture.

Further, your ‘facts’ about Smith being 14 years old is wrong. Not merely off, but wrong. Born in 1805, Smith published his first edition which is different than the current one, in 1830. Further, given the measuring of the BOM by works current at the time, including the KJV, and certain Masonic rites and rituals, an overacted 25 year could very well publish something as the BOM.

By: JLFuller

JLFuller — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 19:06:46 +0000

Joel.
Thanks for the input. One danger in starting down this road is that it requires more than a short time to explore, at least from the LDS view of things. It gets into some pretty heavy doctrine, but one thing I would like to address is the part where you said “… a church greater than Christ and the Apostles.”. If you read Joseph Smith’s story about how all this came about you would know that just isn’t the case. So, just for clarification, Joseph said God the Father and Jesus Christ appeared to him in person and initiated the return of the Gospel. It wasn’t a new Gospel but rather the old one – the original one. I know many would take issue with the claim that God and Christ appeared to a fourteen year old boy especially for such a work as Joseph claims to have been charged with. It is perfectly understandable from a traditional Christian point of view. It always has been. Some dismiss it outright. Most do. But, a curious thing happens when you ask us to prove it. We don’t haul out a bunch papers written over the centuries by learned men. Our proof lies in the promptings of the Holy Ghost. We offer a simple proof. Read the Book of Mormon with an open mind and ask for Heavenly guidance while doing so. Ask sincerely with faith that God will answer you. Most people do not however, so they will never know. Most who refuse say the bible is correct and complete and they have no reason to read the B of M. Or they quickly scan through it looking for what they believe are things contrary to what they think the bible says about this and that. Or they say they would never insult God by asking about such an obviously heathen work or something like that. In the end they refuse for their own reasons. However those who do read it, and do so with an open mind, and even study and contemplate what it says, come away with a different understanding. Even some Evangelicals acknowledge it could not have been written by a fourteen year old boy with three years formal education. In the end, it is not any man’s testimony that confirms it. It is the Holy Ghost’s. I do not want to go too far down this road, but I just wanted to say these few things.

By: JLFuller

JLFuller — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 15:53:51 +0000

Mitchel
There is an interesting article at Belief Net this morning regarding Christ’s decent in to hell by a non LDS writer.

http://blog.beliefnet.com/jesuscreed/2010/02/is-death-final-2.html

By: JLFuller

JLFuller — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 14:06:33 +0000

Mitchel
You are not the first one who differs from us. Surprised? I mention all this because the LDS theology is so different from traditional Christians in a couple of key points that there is some natural division between us. We understand and expect it. And if some Johnnie-come-lately was going around to my friends preaching a radically different version of the gospel as we do, I would take serious exception as well. More importantly though, there is much more that we share than separate us. Mormons believe God allowed every faith tradition some elements of the gospel including Islam. His inspiration is not limited just to Christians. I guess all we ask is that those who differ with us an feel the need to do so openly, get it right. There is a correct version of what we teach and the commonly held versions which are not. I suppose some say we must surely get our version of the Gospel from someone other than Christ. I understand why you differ and I will not take you off my Christmas card list. Like one Scottish pastor said tot he LDS mission president some years back: “For such a small church you sure have a big theology.” Well Mitchel, you ain’t heard the big parts yet.

By: Joel

Joel — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 13:12:45 +0000

It is an argument based only on one’s presuppositions. If I say ‘x’ must be before ‘y’ regardless of anything else, and you cannot find ‘x’, then I have one the argument. Unfortunately, the bible and history tell us a different story. The Apostles were not a ‘priesthood’ and they did not hold the rite of baptism only. Otherwise, those men in whom they anointed and those that they anointed would today have the same power and only them. Therefore, you argument is refuted there. Yet, we know that baptism was given and not ordered confirmed by an Apostle only. Peter says that we, the entire church, is the priesthood.

Further, the notion that somehow we have a 5th century bible – like a 5th century doctrine – is erroneously taught and more so, believed. Textual evidences survive from before the 5th century, back until the 1st century. Further, the great amount of writing by early Christians align with our bibles today.

Binding and loosening in heaven is a Jewish rabbinical term which many seem to misunderstand to their own destruction. Reading the Rabbi’s, they are only doing what heaven says, not having heaven conform to what is happening on earth. How arrogant are we that we think we can bind heaven to our will. That passage is not talking about baptism, but about the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

When I hear Christ say that nothing will overcome the Church, His church, then I have a real difficult time believing that suddenly upon the death of John the church collapsed only to be resurrected 1800 years later by a man who claimed that he had a church greater than Christ and the Apostles.

The method you describe is to ask God if Joseph Smith is a prophet, which is akin to divination. Nowhere in the New Testament are we told to hold to such things. God gives us faith, opens out eyes to the glorious Gospel of Jesus Christ and call us. There is nothing about a heart being warmed. When Peter stood up on Pentecost, he didn’t ask about Joseph Smith, but preached Christ and Him Crucified. That pricked the hearts of the listeners and they were convicted by the Spirit of Living God. Paul, when he preached didn’t rely upon a question and answer session. We are commanded to preach the Gospel, and if people hear that Gospel, they will believe the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

By: mitchell b powell

mitchell b powell — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 03:46:25 +0000

Quorums and such being neccessary for baptism is, as I see it, nothing but an addition to the original meaning of baptism. And I do not agree with you that the Bible we use today is a fifth-century Bible, any more so than a third or seventh or fourteenth century Bible. And I find no basis on which to question the essential accuracy of the process by which the Bible was passed down to the present–it seems far more likely to me that a text which was quickly passed throughout the entire world in thousands of copies to many different churches, than that Joseph Smith’s Bible produced in the 1800′s would match the original.

You speak of “the errors in today’s Bibles” as evidence, but I’ve seen no evidence that the Scriptures as they exist in the hands of the LDS church are more accurate. It is not that I do not I am unwilling to break with tradition, but I simply do not believe the claims of Mormonism.