I’ve posted about the importance of a core book twice before (here and here). I also wrote about prophets contradicting Jesus himself here.
But today I want to break this down in a fundamental way, with a specific approach that members of the LDS church can take.
Let’s follow a sequence of logic in relation to LDS claims:
(1) The Bible isn’t fully translated correctly. Things have been corrupted or twisted. Plain and precious things have been removed.
(2) So we need additional scripture, something God gave straight to us without generations of translators or layers of translations
(3) But since the Book of Mormon is still silent on many issues, and we need someone to make it relevant to life today, we also need a living prophet.
It’s a trail of simple logic that leads us to the need of additional scripture and a living prophet.
And that trail of logic justifies doctrines that actually end up contradicting the Bible.
But what if we could stop the trail of logic at step one?
What if we could address the (perceived) issue of the Bible being translating incorrectly, and then steps 2 and 3 become moot.
What’s funny is that Mormons already have the solution to the Bible being translated incorrectly! And yet they ignore it!
They have already provided their own solution!
Joseph Smith solved that problem, in compiling his own “inspired translation” of the Bible.
So why isn’t the JST respected as an edition of the Bible that is translated correctly and contains the complete gospel?
Why isn’t it even published or used in its entirety?
If the reason Mormon prophets are allowed to contradict the Bible the fact that it’s incorrectly or unreliable, then why do these “prophets” still contradict the JST???
Let’s take a look at why scriptures exist and the need to take them seriously without contradiction:
In Acts 17, we see a group of “investigators” examining the scriptures every day to see if what Paul taught was true (see verses 10-12).
Wow! Just fancy if investigators speaking to the LDS missionaries would do that! Imagine if LDS families would do that! Weigh the teachings of the prophet against the scriptures to see whether he teaches true doctrines or not!
That’s exactly what I did last year.
That’s exactly why my “faith crisis” didn’t last very long— the moment I saw a contradiction, a contradiction that even the JST didn’t correct, I knew the teaching in the Bible was true and the teaching of the Mormons was false.
Bam.
Easy Peasy.
That’s the importance of scripture!
So, especially with the JST claiming to correct all the mistakes in the Bible, there is zero excuse why any Mormon prophet should be contradicting the scriptures.
Zero.
I’m accumulating a file here with verses that contradict the LDS church and proof that the JST did not change them, thus rendering these verses true, and translated correctly from the LDS perspective. Please share this blog post and use this file to prove to your LDS friends that these doctrines in the Bible are in fact true, by their very own standards, and should not be contradicted by anyone claiming to be a prophet.
Also, R and I discuss this here on our podcast:
All I Possess 