Why The Bom?

[Damien the Leper]

I accept the Book of Mormon as scripture by Restoration tradition. Do I use it for spiritual enlightenment? Not often. But that doesn't take away from the importance that I see in it.

[Damien the Leper]

Just like the many different books in the New Testament, I see the Book of Mormon as a book of scripture intended to speak to a community of believers who are seeking. I don't know, personally, what these people from the 19th century forward are seeking; but if the Book of Mormon provides answers and insights that satisfy the soul and brighten the spirit then I have no problem with it. Sola Scriptura, even as a non-member, is odd and perplexing to me.

[Nathair/|\]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39bgq7mRLe0

[Bill “Papa” Lee]

Was there any need for the Book of Mormon?

That man does not live by bread alone, that all are alike unto God, to dispell false doctrines.

[Glenn101]

Without the Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith's claims of divine visitations would have received nothing but scoffs and scorn. Production cause no little bit of stir from the very beginning and critics have been strnuously trying to prove it to be a fraud or the product of a deranged mind ever since.

It has ceased to be the object of intense curiosity that was the case when it was first published, but I dare say that it is still the lynchpin of the church and the catalyst for the testimony of most converts to the restored gospel.

Glenn

[Programmer]

It's just that we have God's word in the Bible, as so much of the BoM is taken from the Bible, and nothing new is really in it, theologically then why was it necessary in this great restoration. The BoM doesn't teach mormoism any more than the Bible does, that's all in the D&C etc, so why?

Why have not you read the book of Mormon yet? it is painfully obvious you have not due to your obviously false assertions about that book. I read the book when I was 13 years old, and you being an adult have not read it.... And you have the wickedness to come and pretend you have.

Here is why are wrong...

1. Very little percentage wise is quotes of Isaiah.

2. the book of of Mormon is packed full of theology that is new , missing from the Bible or clarifies doctrines found in the Bible.

I liken it to replacing an image of 60 x 60 pixels, that was blurred, had chunks blacked out, and the pixels inverted. all that replaced with a hi resolution 4000x3000 pixel image in a floating point bit depth.

[thesometimesaint]

The purpose of the Book of Mormon is to show unto the remnant of the house of Israel what great things the Lord hath done for their fathers; and that they may know the covenants of the Lord, that they are not cast off forever—And also to the convincing of the Jew and Gentile that Jesus is the Christ, the Eternal God, manifesting himself unto all nations

Edited January 28, 2013 by thesometimesaint

[Alvino]

It's just that we have God's word in the Bible, as so much of the BoM is taken from the Bible, and nothing new is really in it, theologically then why was it necessary in this great restoration.

Did Christianity really need four gospels? There isn't much new from one to the other and some pretty much took from the other. Theologically, why was that necessary?

The BoM doesn't teach mormoism any more than the Bible does, that's all in the D&C etc, so why?

Why did Christianity accept so much of the Torah as true (though now, after Christ, not applicable)? Those passages in the Torah don't teach Christianity more than you seem to think the BoM teaches Mormonism, so...

You get the drift.

But that doesn't address the issue. A possible way to address it is as follows:

Prophets came to cities and preached. Either got killed or some people followed what they said. Other prophets came after them and others to other places. We have records of this prophet-cycle to shows us that God's hand is stretched out still and pours out unceasingly. The BoM exists to show that even in these days God's hand is stretched out. The destiny of God's words is similar to those of God's prophets and, alike, they get sent to preach, not only to bring hope to those that are perishing, but also to show, through their sacrifice or the sacrifice that they testify of (similar to Christ's) that God's hand is stretched out still.

[CV75]

It's just that we have God's word in the Bible, as so much of the BoM is taken from the Bible, and nothing new is really in it, theologically then why was it necessary in this great restoration. The BoM doesn't teach mormoism any more than the Bible does, that's all in the D&C etc, so why?

We have God's word in the Bible, but not all of it.

Whatever in the Book of Mormon that can be suggested to have been taken from the Bible actually teaches additional and deeper truths through context and clarification.

There are many new theological things in the Book of Mormon in addition to the context and clarification mentioned above--but I suppose that depends on how you define "theology."

"Mormonism" is a witness of Christ, which is also what the Book of Mormon is. D&C is about what is to be done with that witness in the last days, in preparation for the Lord's Second Coming.

As a witness of Christ, the Bible also teaches "Mormonism."

Have you read the Book of Mormon?

Edited January 28, 2013 by CV75

[Questing Beast]

Was there any need for the Book of Mormon?

None. But Joseph Smith established his religious calling with it, and evidently wanted it to turn people to the Bible with greater belief....

[rameumptom]

Among the Dead Sea Scrolls are hundreds of documents that do not belong to the Bible. Many of them reference the Bible, and even quote from it. However, there are still some important distinctions, clarifications, and doctrines that are enhanced by studying the DSS.

So it is with the BoM. It brings to light many things that are obscured or missing from the Bible. It focuses more on Christ and his atonement than the majority of the Bible (OT speaks little of Christ, though symbolism of Christ may be found). If the Bible were as complete as many think, then why is there a need for thousands of Christian churches today? This is an obvious sign that the Bible has provided some answers, but also many questions and divisions among mankind. The Book of Mormon narrows those distinctions down.

[BlueDreams]

It's just that we have God's word in the Bible, as so much of the BoM is taken from the Bible, and nothing new is really in it, theologically then why was it necessary in this great restoration. The BoM doesn't teach mormoism any more than the Bible does, that's all in the D&C etc, so why?

I doubt i'll say anything new, but still want to comment:

The BoM is not the Bible....yes there is much quoted from it, but it's around a third of the writing. And all scriptures quote or use past (or parallel) scriptures in their text. All of them. Being repetitious is poor reasoning for why it's unnecessary.

That said the BoM and bible both "teach mormonism." Just because you don't see it, doesn't make it so. The BoM especially, has more significance to me after the temple....much of the similar patterns are found in the text.

So the necessity of the BoM, to me is in part the pattern that it sets up. It alters the idea beforehand of what scripture is and how it is brought about. It is a further witness of the reality of God.I'm aware that others can and have and will take the BoM as more an inspired alegorical writing (or whatnot). But IMO it's a lot harder to do so than it is the Bible alone due to the means that it came about. It focuses on what is most important/central. So yes, it does contain the fullness of the gospel. Christ, the principles of the gospel, the means that God speaks to His children, the ultimate goals for His children, the pattern of further revelation, and the many pitfalls to the truth are all clearly outlined. The fullness of the gospel doesn't mean the entirety of all knowledge (or we still wouldn't have the fullness of the gospel now).

On a completely personal note, I believe it's also about the power to convert, which I believe is exceptional to the BoM based on the purpose of it's collection and the promises and power spoken of within the text. Again this is largely from what I've seen of those who've read the book seeking help and from my own personal experience. Do I enjoy and learn and grow from the other books? Of course! But there is a great power that I feel comes from the great sacrifice made to bring the book about

Freedom,p lease elaborate, the fullness of the gospel according to your church is not in it. JS needed ancillary writings to produce the fullness of the gospel, what great clarifications? What is found, theologically, that is not in the Bible.My feeling is that it can be completely bypassed which I think the RLDS are doing, the Bible and the rest of your mormon doctrine should be enough as this work adds nothing.

I personally think the RLDS are a great reason to why the BoM cannot be bypassed without losing much of what is unique and true about the restored gospel.

With luv,

BD

[cinepro]

Easy answer. How many witnesses are needed for everything? The Bible is the record of the Lord's people in Israel, it is one witness. Look up, in the Bible, the necessary number of witnesses for anything. It is always 2 or more. It is never single.

The Bible isn't "one witness". You have Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Peter, Paul etc. It's many, many witnesses.

Just because all their testimony is bound together into one book doesn't make it a single "witness", otherwise the Lord would have needed to bring forth another book of scripture when the Church started printing quad-bound scriptures.

[Darren10]

My response to this o/c thread is based upon my own reasoning and spiritual insights. Much of which has already been superbly posted in this thread by other posters. Here's my take as to why the Book of Mormon is essential and how it restores plain and precious truths to the world.

When I was called to teach Gospel Doctrine last year I took over the class (the previous teacher doing a superbly marvelous job but had to move his family to Colombia) to teach the last portion of the Book of Mormon. The question of "what plain and precious truths have been lost and restored by the Book of Mormon", a question I have long had but due to my callng finally took center place in my prayers.

First and foremost, it dawned on mye how clear the Book of Mormon is in decaring a filial relationship as the governance of the universe. All that is has *always* been governed by the Father through His Son. Though nathair's citation is incorrect (it's 3rd Nephi), the verses he cited are well established doctines among Christianity. All Christians, LDS and non LDS, believe the Father sent the Son to do the will of the Father. But while traditional Christianity limits Jesus Christ submitting Himself to the will of the Father in mortality and in some sense after mortality, it is the Book of Mormon which testifies to this filial relationship even in pre-mortal times. It also ays out why Jesus Christ is both the Son of God and the "Eternal Father".

16 And after they have been ^ascattered, and the Lord God hath scourged them by other nations for the space of many generations, yea, even down from generation to generation until they shall be persuaded to ^bbelieve in Christ, the Son of God, and the atonement, which is infinite for all mankind—and when that day shall come that they shall believe in Christ, and worship the Father in his name, with pure hearts and ^cclean hands, and look not forward any more for ^danother Messiah, then, at that time, the day will come that it must needs be expedient that they should believe these things.

2 Nephi 25

This is a pre-mortal Christ prophecy for His people to a) believe in Jesus Christ as the Messiah and *only* messiah for redemption; b) worship the Father in the name of the Son. I think that the reason the Bible is not so explicit in this teaching is that by the time the texts were compiled, the idea of a disctinct Father reigning and governs through His Son. That the eternal reality of the Son submiting to the will of the Father (who is His Father and His God) was lost. That the Father and the Son were conflated as existing as only one being.

To reinforce this idea, Nephi spoke of baptism and in so doing declared the necessity of the entire Godhead: Father Son, and Holy Ghost. In this sermon Nephi wrote:

15 And I heard a voice from the Father, saying: Yea, the ^awords of my Beloved are true and faithful. He that ^bendureth to the ^cend, the same shall be saved.

2 Nephi 31

Not only does the Book of Mormon teach that salvation means coming unto the Father through the Son during and after Christ's mortal ministry but also before it. It explicitly declares that this is salvation and always has been and true knowledge of God has always included the Father as supreme and that His Son rules and reigns wth Him and has always carried out the Father's will.

The Book of Mormon also teaches how and why the Son may be called the Father despite being a separate and distinct being from the Father, that the resurrection is in direct connecton to our final judgement for our salvation (or condemnation), that baptism has always been required by God for salvation, explains, better than any other book, why the atonement is necessary, and other doctrines explicitly clear in the Book of Mormon but not in the Bible.

In the end the Book of Mormon stands as a powerful witness to the divinity of Jesus Christ. That he was always known to man from the beginning of man's creation and that He is and always has been central to all the Father does. That is why it has the "fulness" of the gospel of Jesus Christ, not that it has all of God's revelations to "bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man" but that despite all the particular doctrines, immortality and eternal life depend precisely on the Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

[cinepro]

To the point of the thread, here's a better question.

How would the Church be different today if the Lord had chosen to use the Book of Abraham as the keystone of "our religion" instead of the Book of Mormon? So instead of the story of the plates, we would have Joseph acquiring and translating the papyrii in the late 1820s.

I suspect one huge difference is that the Book of Mormon told the people of the early 19th century what the religious status was of the American Indians. It presented an American foundation for the history (and future) of the new Church. We might not talk about it as much these days, but at one time it was a big deal.

America received her first consecration as a favored land when the Lord planted here the Garden of Eden as a habitation for Adam and Eve.

A thousand years later Enoch's Zion flourished here.

And then some six hundred years thereafter this land was deluged by the Flood and left uninhabited, so far as human beings were concerned, until the Lord led to this land from the tower of Babel a colony of people, the Jaredites, declaring as he led them that he was bringing them to a "land of promise, . . . choice above all other lands," and "that whoso should possess this land . . . from that time henceforth and forever, should serve him, the true and only God, or they should be swept off when the fulness of his wrath should come upon them" (Ether 2:7– 8 ).

Here in this land these people, the Jaredites, built a nation of which the Lord said, "There shall be none greater . . . upon . . . the face of the earth" (Ether 1:43). They dwelt here for some two thousand years. Finally, however, they ripened in iniquity and were, pursuant to God's decree, swept off the land in a fratricidal war.

Six hundred years B.C., as time was running out for the Jaredites, the Lord brought to this land Lehi and his colony. Before they arrived here the Lord said to them, as he had said to the Jaredites, "Inasmuch as ye shall keep my commandments, ye shall prosper, and shall be led to a land of promise; yea, even a land which I have prepared for you; yea, a land which is choice above all other lands" (1 Nephi 2:20). Simultaneously he warned them that if they did not serve him, they would not prosper in the land but would be cut off from his presence.

The Book of Mormon record testifies to the fact that, when they obeyed the laws of God, they prospered, and that when they did not obey them, they were cut off from the presence of God. Finally the Nephite branch of those people, having ripened in iniquity, was destroyed by the Lamanites, who, under the curse of "their unbelief and idolatry," were scattered and became the people discovered by Columbus when he was led here in 1492 (see Mormon 5:15).

You, of course, know that the facts I have just recited are not to be found in profane history books. Nowhere in all secular history is mention made of America before Columbus. Why? Because this land has been from the beginning reserved by the Lord for those whom he himself would lead here. This we learn from the ancient prophet Lehi.

Edited January 28, 2013 by cinepro

[cdowis]

To the point of the thread, here's a better question.

How would the Church be different today if the Lord had chosen to use the Book of Abraham as the keystone of "our religion" instead of the Book of Mormon? So instead of the story of the plates, we would have Joseph acquiring and translating the papyrii in the late 1820s.

I suspect one huge difference is that the Book of Mormon told the people of the early 19th century what the religious status was of the American Indians. It presented an American foundation for the history (and future) of the new Church. We might not talk about it as much these days, but at one time it was a big deal.

Another what if question?

Short answer ==>> The BOM is a second witness of Christ, where he appeared to the Nephites and taught his gospel.

It restores and clarifies many of the doctrines taught in the Bible.

It reveals the location of the land of Zion, and the blessings to the Gentiles. The role that they play and the Western Hemisphere plays in the preparation for the Second Coming.

The BOA is relatively focused in its teachings, while the BOM is very broad in what it teaches.

[Darren10]

Okay. I've got a huge doctrine that the Book of Mormon clears up.

The 66 Book Bible People can't agree about whether those books teach infant baptism or not. Lutherans, Presbyterians, and Anglicans think the short Bible allows infant baptism while Baptists and most community churches says it doesn't. Those who believe the Book of Mormon, of whatever offshoot, could never ever wonder about infant baptism anymore. If for no other reason, it seems to me like Protestants could wish for some more revelation to clear up such a divisive question.

Heh. Ain't that the truth.

[Darren10]

The Book of Mormon offers critical evidence of the authority that Latter-day Saints attach to the Prophet Joseph Smith and his successors. I don't know how Mormons could have reasonably claimed to know about the history of Christ in America without the Book of Mormon or something similar. It seems to me that even if it is similar to many of the other Scriptures in some places, especially the Book of Isaiah, there are significant texts that obviously add to the 66 Book Protestant Bible and helps to clarify difference between LDS teaching and that of other Christians.

It is as easy to understand why the LDS see a need to add the Book of Mormon to their Bibles as it is easy to see why Protestants delete Judith, Tobit, the Wisdom literature, and the Maccabees. I am not persuaded of the Book of Mormon, but if I had to choose between adding the Book of Mormon or deleting the other mentioned Scriptures, I think I'd lean toward adding the Book of Mormon.

Wow!!!

[Bart Burk]

An interesting aside perhaps is the Jehovah's Witnesses and the Seventh Day Adventists, two denominations that are often compared to the LDS Church, have a larger number of people both in total membership and in active membership. I suspect Joseph Smith's movement might have been more successful without the Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon may in fact act as a weight on Mormonism's growth.

[Tacenda]

An interesting aside perhaps is the Jehovah's Witnesses and the Seventh Day Adventists, two denominations that are often compared to the LDS Church, have a larger number of people both in total membership and in active membership. I suspect Joseph Smith's movement might have been more successful without the Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon may in fact act as a weight on Mormonism's growth.

I wonder that too because so many non LDS are angry because they think that LDS don't think the bible is the word of God or is enough.

[altersteve]

An interesting aside perhaps is the Jehovah's Witnesses and the Seventh Day Adventists, two denominations that are often compared to the LDS Church, have a larger number of people both in total membership and in active membership. I suspect Joseph Smith's movement might have been more successful without the Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon may in fact act as a weight on Mormonism's growth.

Um, "Joseph Smith's movement" would even EXIST without the Book of Mormon. How would it be more successful without it?

[Bart Burk]

Um, "Joseph Smith's movement" would even EXIST without the Book of Mormon. How would it be more successful without it?

I suspect that Joseph Smith's movement could have existed just based on the restoration of keys, the introduction of new apostles and prophets, and the revelations in the Doctrine and Covenants. As I recall there is a very large group from Germany (the New Apostolic Church) which has grown based very much on a restoration of the apostles. It started in Germany in the late 1870's and already has over 10 million members.

[savedbygrace]

Why have not you read the book of Mormon yet? it is painfully obvious you have not due to your obviously false assertions about that book. I read the book when I was 13 years old, and you being an adult have not read it.... And you have the wickedness to come and pretend you have.

Here is why are wrong...

1. Very little percentage wise is quotes of Isaiah.

2. the book of of Mormon is packed full of theology that is new , missing from the Bible or clarifies doctrines found in the Bible.

I liken it to replacing an image of 60 x 60 pixels, that was blurred, had chunks blacked out, and the pixels inverted. all that replaced with a hi resolution 4000x3000 pixel image in a floating point bit depth.

Programmer, I object to your assertions that I have not read the BoM, I have, a couple of times, I also object to your assertion that I am wicked. Only God is my judge, not a perfect stranger. What I would ask is your forgiveness, as it would seem that I have caused you offence with my post

[savedbygrace]

AS for the rest, I definitely need time to unravel the many points of view and attempt a coherent and inoffensive reply

[halconero]

Why not the Book of Mormon?

If the Bible says there cannot be a continuation of God's word then there is a great fault in myself or the Book(s), for I cannot find it anywhere.

Therefore the only way you could know that there was to be no more revealed word of God is through revelation...