Article by: Kenneth J. Ester
The Latter Day Saints (Mormons) and Why They are Wrong
Sometimes to know if something is of God or not, we need to use a very special gift that God has given to us, but so few actually use it. It is called simple logic. This is the case when it comes to the book of Mormons. Let's take a look at the history of how the book came into being.
In 1823, Joseph Smith was 17 years old when an angel named Moroni appeared and told him that a collection of writings was burried in a nearby hill. They were supposedly golden plates with the writings etched into them. It is said that these plates were etched by ancient prophets around 400 AD. The next day after the angel had visited him, Smith found the plates via divine guidance. Smith was instructed by Moroni to not let anyone else see the plates without divine permission.
Depending on the account, Smith used either a "Seer Stone" or a pair of spectacles that had stones wrapped in wiring to look at the tablets and see the translation of the words. He would speak the words and not being able to read or write himself, he had others scribe the words. Some stories of this say that Joseph would say a word and the scribe would write it down. If it was misspelled, Joseph would not continue speaking until the spelling was corrected.
Now using simple logic, if he could not read or write, I fail to see how he could have read off the translations by looking at them. But lets say this was possible. From the way this was translated, it allows for no chance of errors. Yet over the last 200 years, the Book of Mormon has been edited multiple times. Though most of the edits were of spelling errors by the scribes, there were some changes that should never have been needed if it was truly a translation from golden plates written by a true prophet of God.
In 1966, it had an edition made to remove the repetitive use of "it came to pass". If that was truly in the writings of the tablets, it should never be removed. If it was used so much that they felt it needed to have some of them removed, it tells me the original was written by a man who was not a very good writer and not by a true prophet of God who was writing what God told Him.
In 2009, there was a new edition from a study of more than 5,000 textual variances across manuscripts and editions. This is not like with the Bible where it was copied and those copies recopied by scribes and a thousand years later they have to puzzle through the many errors the scribes made. With the Book of Mormon, the first edition should have been near perfect if not perfect. The text was supposedly translated directly from the golden tablets that prophets of God etched. Those tablets should have been perfect to begin with. Then as Joseph was somehow supposedly under the influence of divine understanding as he translated it, there should not have been errors on his part. For there to be near 5,000 variances when they had the originals and printing presses and such? Unacceptable.
Style of Writing
The real evidence that I believe proves that the Book of Mormon was not truly from God, is the style in which it was written. Remember, Joseph claimed the golden tablets He translated directly from, were etched around 400 AD. Joseph created this book in the 1800's. Yet the Book of Mormon uses words like "thee" and "thou" in the style of the KJV Bible. Which was very popular in the early 1800's.
If God was going to have a Prophet etch these writings into golden tablets, they would have been written in the style of wording used in the day of that prophet. If the Prophet knowing they would be read in the 1800's wrote them for the people of that time, then they would have been written in the style of the 1800's. To use thee and thou, that is in the style of the 1600's.
The only logical understanding of this is that Joseph Smith liked reading the KJV Bible. He thought those words were how God and the people of ancient times would have spoken and did not know it was only a short time in the 1600's that they even used such words. So trying to make it sound authentic, He used the same kind of style.
There is just simply no possible way the tablets etched in the 1600's would have used Thee and Thou among other words from the 1600's. There is no way they would have been translated to words used only in the 1800's.
Plagiarism
Though the plates were supposedly etched by ancient prophets, I find it quite unbelievable that the book would use some of the exact phrases used in the KJV Bible. Not just the same style of wording now, but some of the exact phrases.
They Contradict Gods Word
Mormons teach that salvation is from the following things....
According to Brigham Young....
1) Faith in Jesus Christ
2) Baptism by Emersion
3) Obedience to the Mormon church
4) Good Works
5) Keeping Gods Commandments
This was based on what He believed the Bible taught as well as adding in the whole thing about being obedient to the Mormon Church. .... Boy doesn't that sound like the typical cult teaching that only their church goes to heaven? The problem is, this actually contradicts what the Bible teaches.
Most churches today make the same mistakes, so I dont blame Joseph Smith for believing in the same false doctrines. But blaming him or not, it is evidence that it didn't come right from God because it contradicts Gods word.
There are 19 Primary scriptures about salvation in the Bible. primary scripture is a scripture that is so plainly stated that it can only have one plausible interpretation. Because God's word cannot contradict itself, a scripture with only one interpretation must be the truth. All 19 Primary scriptures on salvation tell us very plainly that we are saved by believing in Jesus. That is the ONLY rule they ever list. There is not one primary scripture in the Bible that tells us we are saved by any other means. This is a very good example....
John 3:18 (KJV)
18 He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
Jesus does not mention anything about sin or anything. Only that we must believe in the Son of God. He makes this clear 9 times overall in the Bible. The writers mention it another ten times. The fact that the Mormons have this wrong, proves to me they are false. The fact that they say you have to be Mormon confirms it.
It is one of the clearest examples of how to know a cult in my beliefs. The cults are afraid of the truth because the truth will reveal them for what they are. So they always insist that they are the only way to salvation, even though Jesus says "anyone" who believes in Him will be saved. Cults will also tell its members they shouldn't question what the church teaches them. Because to question their teaching would bring the truth ot the forefront.
The Truth is they Just dont make sense!
Jesus is the Son of God! He came and taught us how to live. Then He died a horrible death to save us. The men who followed Him for three years wrote everything down.
The Bible is 66 books by 40 writers over a span of around 1,5000 years. It references itself around 65,000 times. There are no real contradictions. The Bible, as much as I have studied it and many before me, has only proven itself to be the true word of God.
But Mormons are telling us that Jesus didn't do a good enough job. That He did not pick the right men for the job. That the books they wrote were not good enough. So God chose Joseph Smith, a 17 year old living in the 1800's to do a better job of writing everything down? And what He says trumps what the Bible says? Ridiculous!
The fact that they believe our works saves us is proof they do not understand how salvation works. For our own works would make it so that we save ourselves. Jesus didn't get the job done with all of His suffering and dying on a cross. He didn't actually save us, but He only made a way for us to save ourselves through works. But that is not what the Bible says....
Ephesians 2:8-9 (NASB)
8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.
The definition of the word "grace" is the same as "goodwill". It is by the good will of God that we are saved through faith (believing in Jesus). It is not of anything we do, it is solely a gift from God. It is NOT a result of works, because if it was, we would boast that we saved ourselves.
Salvation by works is the one thing every false religion has in common. It is a natural instinctive desire in man to be in control of his own destiny. So every man made religion is always about man earning his own way to heaven. True Christianity, which is the only true religion of the one true God, is not about us controlling our own destiny. It is about God taking on flesh and dying a horrible death and sacrificing Himself to save us.
True salvation is not about the forgiveness of sins we commit. Forgiveness of sin is more about our personal relationship with God. That is why God forgave sins throughout the Old Testament. That is why Jesus forgave the sins of two people before He even died on the cross. True Salvation is about the cleansing of our soul. The washing away of the stain of sin on our souls. It is a free gift from God to anyone who will accept it. But it is a spiritual gift because our soul is spiritual and not physical. The only way anyone can possibly accept that gift is if they truly believe in their heart that it is real.
Salvation is through Jesus Christ alone. Not through any particular church, but through our faith in Jesus. Any church that says they are the only ones who are saved is a church of the devil.
Just look at the multiple problems I have pointed out with the Mormon church. I simply do not know how anyone can look at these issues and say the Mormon church is definitely the perfect church of God.
My Personal Experience
As a Christian, throughout my life, I have had three awesome personal experiences with God. Twice I have suddenly felt Him embrace me with a love so powerful that I just broke down crying. I mean really bawling my eyes out. The third experience I have had was a physical healing.
Multiple times in my studies, God has shown me something either nobody has noticed, or few have noticed in His word. Each time as I dug in to test them, they proved out to be true.
I know plenty of others and have heard countless testimonies from others who have had amazing personal experiences with God. These personal experiences are things that do not happen in any other religion. God never takes a personal involvement with other religions and if He does on the rare occasion, it is nothing like how often He does it with Christians.
I know for absolutely certain that I am saved. That I will be changed and live forever. For any church to say that am not saved, and all those personal experiences do not mean anything because they are not saved either because they are not a part of their specific church? Ridiculous!
In 1823, Joseph Smith was 17 years old when an angel named Moroni appeared and told him that a collection of writings was burried in a nearby hill. They were supposedly golden plates with the writings etched into them. It is said that these plates were etched by ancient prophets around 400 AD. The next day after the angel had visited him, Smith found the plates via divine guidance. Smith was instructed by Moroni to not let anyone else see the plates without divine permission.
Depending on the account, Smith used either a "Seer Stone" or a pair of spectacles that had stones wrapped in wiring to look at the tablets and see the translation of the words. He would speak the words and not being able to read or write himself, he had others scribe the words. Some stories of this say that Joseph would say a word and the scribe would write it down. If it was misspelled, Joseph would not continue speaking until the spelling was corrected.
Now using simple logic, if he could not read or write, I fail to see how he could have read off the translations by looking at them. But lets say this was possible. From the way this was translated, it allows for no chance of errors. Yet over the last 200 years, the Book of Mormon has been edited multiple times. Though most of the edits were of spelling errors by the scribes, there were some changes that should never have been needed if it was truly a translation from golden plates written by a true prophet of God.
In 1966, it had an edition made to remove the repetitive use of "it came to pass". If that was truly in the writings of the tablets, it should never be removed. If it was used so much that they felt it needed to have some of them removed, it tells me the original was written by a man who was not a very good writer and not by a true prophet of God who was writing what God told Him.
In 2009, there was a new edition from a study of more than 5,000 textual variances across manuscripts and editions. This is not like with the Bible where it was copied and those copies recopied by scribes and a thousand years later they have to puzzle through the many errors the scribes made. With the Book of Mormon, the first edition should have been near perfect if not perfect. The text was supposedly translated directly from the golden tablets that prophets of God etched. Those tablets should have been perfect to begin with. Then as Joseph was somehow supposedly under the influence of divine understanding as he translated it, there should not have been errors on his part. For there to be near 5,000 variances when they had the originals and printing presses and such? Unacceptable.
Style of Writing
The real evidence that I believe proves that the Book of Mormon was not truly from God, is the style in which it was written. Remember, Joseph claimed the golden tablets He translated directly from, were etched around 400 AD. Joseph created this book in the 1800's. Yet the Book of Mormon uses words like "thee" and "thou" in the style of the KJV Bible. Which was very popular in the early 1800's.
If God was going to have a Prophet etch these writings into golden tablets, they would have been written in the style of wording used in the day of that prophet. If the Prophet knowing they would be read in the 1800's wrote them for the people of that time, then they would have been written in the style of the 1800's. To use thee and thou, that is in the style of the 1600's.
The only logical understanding of this is that Joseph Smith liked reading the KJV Bible. He thought those words were how God and the people of ancient times would have spoken and did not know it was only a short time in the 1600's that they even used such words. So trying to make it sound authentic, He used the same kind of style.
There is just simply no possible way the tablets etched in the 1600's would have used Thee and Thou among other words from the 1600's. There is no way they would have been translated to words used only in the 1800's.
Plagiarism
Though the plates were supposedly etched by ancient prophets, I find it quite unbelievable that the book would use some of the exact phrases used in the KJV Bible. Not just the same style of wording now, but some of the exact phrases.
They Contradict Gods Word
Mormons teach that salvation is from the following things....
According to Brigham Young....
1) Faith in Jesus Christ
2) Baptism by Emersion
3) Obedience to the Mormon church
4) Good Works
5) Keeping Gods Commandments
This was based on what He believed the Bible taught as well as adding in the whole thing about being obedient to the Mormon Church. .... Boy doesn't that sound like the typical cult teaching that only their church goes to heaven? The problem is, this actually contradicts what the Bible teaches.
Most churches today make the same mistakes, so I dont blame Joseph Smith for believing in the same false doctrines. But blaming him or not, it is evidence that it didn't come right from God because it contradicts Gods word.
There are 19 Primary scriptures about salvation in the Bible. primary scripture is a scripture that is so plainly stated that it can only have one plausible interpretation. Because God's word cannot contradict itself, a scripture with only one interpretation must be the truth. All 19 Primary scriptures on salvation tell us very plainly that we are saved by believing in Jesus. That is the ONLY rule they ever list. There is not one primary scripture in the Bible that tells us we are saved by any other means. This is a very good example....
John 3:18 (KJV)
18 He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
Jesus does not mention anything about sin or anything. Only that we must believe in the Son of God. He makes this clear 9 times overall in the Bible. The writers mention it another ten times. The fact that the Mormons have this wrong, proves to me they are false. The fact that they say you have to be Mormon confirms it.
It is one of the clearest examples of how to know a cult in my beliefs. The cults are afraid of the truth because the truth will reveal them for what they are. So they always insist that they are the only way to salvation, even though Jesus says "anyone" who believes in Him will be saved. Cults will also tell its members they shouldn't question what the church teaches them. Because to question their teaching would bring the truth ot the forefront.
The Truth is they Just dont make sense!
Jesus is the Son of God! He came and taught us how to live. Then He died a horrible death to save us. The men who followed Him for three years wrote everything down.
The Bible is 66 books by 40 writers over a span of around 1,5000 years. It references itself around 65,000 times. There are no real contradictions. The Bible, as much as I have studied it and many before me, has only proven itself to be the true word of God.
But Mormons are telling us that Jesus didn't do a good enough job. That He did not pick the right men for the job. That the books they wrote were not good enough. So God chose Joseph Smith, a 17 year old living in the 1800's to do a better job of writing everything down? And what He says trumps what the Bible says? Ridiculous!
The fact that they believe our works saves us is proof they do not understand how salvation works. For our own works would make it so that we save ourselves. Jesus didn't get the job done with all of His suffering and dying on a cross. He didn't actually save us, but He only made a way for us to save ourselves through works. But that is not what the Bible says....
Ephesians 2:8-9 (NASB)
8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.
The definition of the word "grace" is the same as "goodwill". It is by the good will of God that we are saved through faith (believing in Jesus). It is not of anything we do, it is solely a gift from God. It is NOT a result of works, because if it was, we would boast that we saved ourselves.
Salvation by works is the one thing every false religion has in common. It is a natural instinctive desire in man to be in control of his own destiny. So every man made religion is always about man earning his own way to heaven. True Christianity, which is the only true religion of the one true God, is not about us controlling our own destiny. It is about God taking on flesh and dying a horrible death and sacrificing Himself to save us.
True salvation is not about the forgiveness of sins we commit. Forgiveness of sin is more about our personal relationship with God. That is why God forgave sins throughout the Old Testament. That is why Jesus forgave the sins of two people before He even died on the cross. True Salvation is about the cleansing of our soul. The washing away of the stain of sin on our souls. It is a free gift from God to anyone who will accept it. But it is a spiritual gift because our soul is spiritual and not physical. The only way anyone can possibly accept that gift is if they truly believe in their heart that it is real.
Salvation is through Jesus Christ alone. Not through any particular church, but through our faith in Jesus. Any church that says they are the only ones who are saved is a church of the devil.
Just look at the multiple problems I have pointed out with the Mormon church. I simply do not know how anyone can look at these issues and say the Mormon church is definitely the perfect church of God.
My Personal Experience
As a Christian, throughout my life, I have had three awesome personal experiences with God. Twice I have suddenly felt Him embrace me with a love so powerful that I just broke down crying. I mean really bawling my eyes out. The third experience I have had was a physical healing.
Multiple times in my studies, God has shown me something either nobody has noticed, or few have noticed in His word. Each time as I dug in to test them, they proved out to be true.
I know plenty of others and have heard countless testimonies from others who have had amazing personal experiences with God. These personal experiences are things that do not happen in any other religion. God never takes a personal involvement with other religions and if He does on the rare occasion, it is nothing like how often He does it with Christians.
I know for absolutely certain that I am saved. That I will be changed and live forever. For any church to say that am not saved, and all those personal experiences do not mean anything because they are not saved either because they are not a part of their specific church? Ridiculous!
