Mormon Scripture – The Articles of Faith/Part 16

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The eighth LDS Article of Faith declares, “We believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly; we also believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God.” The difference in the way Mormons accept those two books is obvious. Our last article showed that Mormonism teaches that the Bible has been corrupted by deceitful copyists, translators, printers and others and therefore their new scriptures are needed in order to clarify God’s message. They also claim that one of the reasons for so many different de­nominations is the lack of clarity in the Bible.

LDS Apostle Orson Pratt declared,

Is there a man among you who has candidly examined the present confused, divided, distracted state of all Christendom, who is not thoroughly convinced that something is radically wrong?… The voices of several hundred jarring contending, soul-sickening sects were constantly sounding in your ears; each one professing to be built upon the Bible, and yet each one differing from all the rest. Under this confused state of things, you have peradventure, involuntarily exclaimed; can the Bible be the word of God! Would God reveal a system of religion expressed in such indefinite terms that a thousand different religions should grow out of it?…

The true cause of all the divisions which distract modern Christendom is the want of inspired apostles and prophets: they, through wickedness and apostasy, lost the key of revelation some seventeen centuries ago, since which time they have been altogether unable to open the door of knowledge. Satan has taken the advantage of their dark and benighted condition, and robbed the world of a great number of sacred books, corrupting those few that remained to such a degree, that he has got the whole of Christendom quarreling about their true meaning…. He (Satan) can tolerate, and, indeed help his reverend ministers to promulgate all kinds of religion, except that which has true revelators and prophets in it: no other kind of religion displeases him.

But for a prophet or revelator to establish a religion on the earth, is more than he can quite put up with; it strikes a death blow to all that he has been doing since the great apostasy. He is exceedingly frightened, lest some of the old lost books of the ancient prophets and apostles should be again revealed. He is also raving mad, lest the books of the Old and New Testaments should be revealed again anew in their purity as at first–lest every point of Christ’s doctrine should be again revealed in such plain, definite, and positive language, that no two persons could possibly disagree upon it….

Yes! the day is come and the time is at hand when all nations are to hear the word of the Lord by the mouth of His chosen apostles and prophets to whom He hath restored the key of revelation for the last time, and the dispensation of the fullness of times. (Divine Authenticity of the Book of Mormon, pp. 47-48)

President Joseph Fielding Smith, the tenth LDS Prophet also said, “There is not one principle pertaining to the salvation of men that is so clearly stated in the Bible, as it has come down to us, that men do not stumble over–not one thing. There is not one principle they can be united on that has been so clearly stated that they do not find their interpreta­tions of it conflicting” (Doctrines of Salvation vol. I, p. 278).

Both Smith and Pratt made very serious accusations against the Bible as well as some tremendous claims for their latter-day scriptures and revelation, but are they true? Smith said that there isn’t one principle pertaining to the salvation of men that is clear enough in the Bible to prevent men from stumbling over it nor is there anything they can be united on without conflict. But millions of people from many denominations do agree on salvation as taught in the Bible, which is obvious when large, united evangelistic meetings are held all over the world! While some people do “stumble” over the Biblical doctrine of salvation, it is not because it isn’t clear, but because of their own unbelief and disobedience, as I Peter 2:7-8 says.

Pratt questioned whether the Bible could be the word of God when it is so indefinite that a thousand different, quarreling, contending religions all claim to be built upon it. But the differences between denominations aren’t as great as Pratt and Smith want people to believe. Elmer T. Clark wrote in the Preface to the Revised Edition of his book The Small Sects in America, “Among most of the religious bodies agreements are far more numerous and important than differences. In spite of superficial appearances the churches are nearly all alike, and the strife or contention between them has been greatly exaggerated.”

Pratt said Christian churches lost the key of revelation 1700 years earlier because they had no apostles and prophets and that allowed Satan to rob the world of a great number of sacred books and corrupt the few books that were left so that their true meaning has been lost. If that is true, why has Mormonism had over 200 schisms in less than 175 years when they claim to have Apostles and Prophets as well as latter-day scriptures that are superior to the Bible? Pratt also said Satan was afraid of a church with a prophet or revelator be­cause it might bring back some of the old lost books of the ancient prophets and apostles and because the Old and New Testaments might be revealed again in all of their purity so that there would be no disagreements about the meaning. Obviously, Pratt was claiming that the LDS Church restored some lost books of the Bible and corrected the errors in the Old and New Testaments. But what lost books of the Bible has Mormonism restored? Joseph Smith wrote his “Inspired Translation” of Old and New Testaments, but it is not the official LDS Bible nor is it so definite that “no two persons could possibly disagree” on what it teaches.

Next article we will discuss the latter part of the eighth Article of Faith. For those who want to read more about the reliability of the Bible, we suggest God’s Word, Final, Infallible and Forever by Floyd McElveen, published by Gospel Truths Ministries of Grand Rapids, MI in 1985.