ATTENTION BOOK OF MORMON BELIEVERS!
DO YOU KNOW THAT THE BIBLE WAS USED IN THE PRODUCTION
AND COMPOSITION OF THE BOOK OF MORMON?
Any serious examination soon shows that both the Old Testament and New Testament of the King James Version of the Bible are a major source for the composition of the Book of Mormon. Believers in the Book of Mormon try to escape the force of this evidence by suggesting that the translator, in “translating” the book, was given an understanding of the ideas that were on the “Gold plates”, but was left to his own discretion in the choice of words to express these ideas. Consequently, where a thought was sufficiently close to some biblical wording the translator adopted or adapted the biblical phrase. This suggestion not only fails to explain why, if the translator put the book into his own words, the King James style is used throughout the entire work, but it also ignores the fact that the use of the Bible goes far deeper than mere use of phrases from the New Testament in the Old Testament portion of the Book or Mormon.
The Book of Mormon author does not merely introduce random New Testament phrases, but reflects upon and expands on the New Testament interpretation of Old Testament material. The Book of Mormon’s own theological statements are drawn out of, depend upon, expand, and explain the interpretations already present in the New Testament record. The New Testament quotations are a part of the very fabric of the text and cannot be regarded as mere figures of speech employed in the process of “translating” the Book of Mormon. Indeed, the material in the Old Testament portion of the Book of Mormon reads like a late Christian document, written after the New Testament was compiled.
In the New Testament portion of the Book of Mormon the evidence indicates that the doctrines spoken by Jesus in Palestine were used in the Book of Mormon but remodeled to fit a different context.
Not only does the Book of Mormon borrow heavily from the New Testament, but the Old Testament also provided the author with additional material for his story. Old Testament verses and chapters were copied into the Book of Mormon. There are some differences made in copying, but essentially the material is the same.
The Book of Mormon would justify this wholesale use of the Bible and especially New Testament words and ideas, by having us believe that Christianity existed in full bloom in Old Testament times. By examining the Old Testament documents, we can see that the Book of Mormon has a gospel which was not taught and practiced in the Old Testament period as we know it from Old Testament texts and from archeology. Rather, it was taught when Christ and His apostles preached it as recorded only in the New Testament writings.
The Book of Mormon uses this later knowledge (as written and recorded in the New Testament) in its supposed Old Testament historical narrative. These anachronisms clearly mark the Book of Mormon as a work produced after Jesus was resurrected and the Christian church established.
The Book of Mormon, by injecting the New Testament material into the Old Testament period, completely disrupts the division that an Old and a New Covenant demands.
While the Book of Mormon relies on the Bible, oddly enough it also discredits the Bible and says that a person is a fool to maintain that he needs no more Bible or another Bible. With this in mind one should note that it is the Book of Mormon which depends upon the Bible and has hundreds of quotations, excerpts, revised verses, and part-verses, which were taken consciously from the King James Version. Of this there is no doubt.
For an in-depth documentation of the Book of Mormon’s dependence upon the Bible write for a free copy of “THE USE OF THE BIBLE IN THE BOOK OF MORMON.” Supply is limited.
The Bible states, ‘Prove all things- hold fast that which is good.” Also “…that no lie is of the truth.” And we are told to “…try the spirits whether they are of God: because MANY FALSE PROPHETS ARE GONE OUT INTO THE WORLD.” (1 Thess. 5:21, 1 John 2:21 and 1 John 4:1)