Why Dont Christians Accept the Book of Mormon as Valid?

[Bishka]

Well this started out bad. The very first word to describe to us what we are seeing is totally mispelled. He puts it as "Caractors".

Joseph Smith had the equivalent of a third-grade education. That's why characters was probably misspelled.

 

[Melissa G]

It's a fabrication.

melissa g

 

[Bishka]

It's a fabrication.

melissa g

Do you care to elaborate on your broken-record Melissa?

 

[Dirty Penguin]

Joseph Smith had the equivalent of a third-grade education. That's why characters was probably misspelled.

:sarcastic

 

[Katzpur]

:sarcastic

I'm terrible at interpreting smilies. In the context of this discussion, what's :sarcastic supposed to mean?

 

[Bishka]

:sarcastic

What's that supposed to mean?

Joseph Smith had a third grade education; this is the explanation for the word "characters" being misspelled.

 

[silvermoon383]

Allow me to introduce you to this chart:

http://www.religiousforums.com/forum/photopost/showphoto.php?photo=787&cat=500&ppuser=5457

 

[Troublemane]

Allow me to introduce you to this chart:

http://www.religiousforums.com/forum/photopost/showphoto.php?photo=787&cat=500&ppuser=5457

...so, out of all of em, how many resemble egyptian short-hand? by this chart its just 8 characters. and out of those four look like common numbers: 4,5,9, and 2. if this was an actual, physical plate with characters engraved on it, why not just pull a rubbing?

This is my difficulty with it, I don't believe there were any physical plates. I have no problem personally believeing in angels or J.Smith gazing into a "seeing stone" to gain his information----ancient seers did this all the time. Its this dependence on physical plates that causes a ruckus. Mystical beings dont require physical proof for their existence, typically its their message thats more important.

 

[silvermoon383]

That chart wasn't compiled from the plates, it was compiled from the Anthon Transcript (the piece of paper shown on the previous page).

 

[trinity2359]

We LDS will continue to look at your beliefs with respectful bewilderment, just as you do ours. .

I love the phrase "respectful bewilderment"! Very apt!

 

[trinity2359]

Joseph Smith had the equivalent of a third-grade education. That's why characters was probably misspelled.

But was Joseph doing the writing? Wasn't he just dictating as opposed to letter by letter spelling?

 

[nutshell]

But was Joseph doing the writing? Wasn't he just dictating as opposed to letter by letter spelling?

Yes - that's true.

Personally, I would not attribute misspellings to Smith's 3rd-grade education.

What I'd like to know is this: What was the average education of those in the community? of those writing stories?

 

[Bishka]

We LDS will continue to look at your beliefs with respectful bewilderment, just as you do ours.

Perhaps you do.

In my mind, there is no bewilderment, because I've taken the time to research and find out what others believe. They have truth in their faiths and they are trying just as hard as we are, so what I have is respect.

 

[Dirty Penguin]

...so, out of all of em, how many resemble egyptian short-hand? by this chart its just 8 characters. and out of those four look like common numbers: 4,5,9, and 2. if this was an actual, physical plate with characters engraved on it, why not just pull a rubbing?

This is my difficulty with it, I don't believe there were any physical plates. I have no problem personally believeing in angels or J.Smith gazing into a "seeing stone" to gain his information----ancient seers did this all the time. Its this dependence on physical plates that causes a ruckus. Mystical beings dont require physical proof for their existence, typically its their message thats more important.

I agree with you to a point here. But the bible, not saying it is more of an authority or if you consider it more of an authority, mentions in plenty of chapter and verses of books we don't have in our presence today.

 

[rasor]

But was Joseph doing the writing? Wasn't he just dictating as opposed to letter by letter spelling?

Maybe he didn't have spellcheck ??

 

[Starfish]

But was Joseph doing the writing? Wasn't he just dictating as opposed to letter by letter spelling?

Pertaining to the misspellings. Have you ever read letters written by just about anyone from back then? Misspellings were common! Many people didn't own a dictionary and simply sounded words out as best they could. And they certainly didn't have spell-check.
(Hmmm--it's intimidating to write about spelling errors--for fear I make a few of my own!)

 

[Mister_T]

***MOD POST***

This is the "Same Faith Debates" section. If you are not a Christian, do NOT post in this thread.

Thank You.
​

 

[sojourner]

The difference between what are generally considered to be either scriptural or pseudo-scriptural writings and the BoM, is the process of redaction, whereby spelling mistakes have been mostly corrected. Why would this not also be the case with the BoM?

 

[SoyLeche]

The difference between what are generally considered to be either scriptural or pseudo-scriptural writings and the BoM, is the process of redaction, whereby spelling mistakes have been mostly corrected. Why would this not also be the case with the BoM?

What Mormon did may well be considered redaction (he used at least 4 different source documents). Joseph Smith couldn't have done any redaction, because he only had one source document to begin with.

When the BoM was first published there were plenty of spelling and gramatical errors. Those have been corrected in subsequent publications. There have also been attempts to get the BoM closer to what the hand written manuscript say (or, at least those parts of it that we have - I'm not sure if we have the whole manuscript or not) - so that may be somewhat considered "redaction" as well.

 

[neillien]

John the Baptist held the Aaronic Priesthood (in fact, he was the only one on earth at the time who did), which gave him the authority to baptize Christ. Which is why Christ sought him out to be baptized.

Thanks for adding that to my previous post. I was not aware that the seed of Aaron had all died out except for JtB.

You also said

The law of Moses, Judaism, was the correct religion in it's day (though by the time Christ came it was greatly corrupted), and Christ is the fulfillment of that law. True Christianity is, in a sense, the current and correct version of the old law.

Judaism wasn't corrupted. The people were ("all have sinned"). The law had not changed. Christ fulfilled the law because we couldn't. He then was sacrificed for us. Now there is no longer a need for an Aaronic priesthood because there are no sacrifices (if you follow Judaeo-Christianity).

This was the intention of my original post. LDS have revived a Jewish tradition that has no place in Traditional Christianity.

Traditional Christianity and LDS have opposite beliefs. This is why LDS are not considered to be Christian by Traditional Christianity . And LDS should espouse loudly that those of Traditional Christianity are also not Christians to them.

Don't try to get Traditional Christianity to say that you're one of them. Instead, proudly say that Traditional Christianity is not Christian.