79 lines
4.4 KiB
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79 lines
4.4 KiB
Plaintext
CUL:Plagiarisms in the Book of Mormon - from the KJV by Dr. Walter Martin
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According to a careful survey of the book of Mormon, it contains at
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least 25,000 words from the King James Bible. In fact, verbatim
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quotations, some of considerable length, have caused the Mormons no end
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of embarrassment for many years.
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The comparison of Moroni chapter 10 with 1 Corinthians 12:1-11, 2
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Nephi 14 with Isaiah 4, and 2 Nephi 12 with Isaiah 2 reveals that
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Joseph Smith made free use of his Bible to suplement the alleged
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revelation of the golden plates. The book of Mosiah, chapter 14 in the
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book of Mormon, is a reproduction of the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah
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the prophet; and 3 Nephi 13:1-18 copies Matthew 6:1-23.
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The Mormons naively suggest that when Christ allegedly appeared on
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the American continent after his resurrection and preached to the
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Nephites he quite natrually used the same language as recorded in the
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Bible. They also maintain that when Nephi came to America he brought
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copies of the Hebrew scriptures, which account for quotations from the
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Old Testament. The only difficulty with these excuses is that the
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miraculous plates upon which they were all inscribed, somehow or
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another, under translation, came out in King James English without
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variation approximately a thousand years before this 1611 version was
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written. Such reasoning on the part of the Mormons strains at the
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limits of credulity and only they are willing to believe it.
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There are other instances of plagiarisms from the King James Bible
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including paraphrases of certain verses. One of these verses (1 John
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5:7) is reproduced in 3 Nephi 11:27, 36. The only difficulty with the
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paraphrase here is that the text is considered by scholars to be an
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interpolation missing from all the major manuscripts of the new
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testament but present in the King James Bible from which Smith
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paraphrased it not knowing the difference.
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Another example of this type of error is found in 3 Nephi 11:33-34,
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and is almost a direct quotation from Mark 16:16, a passage regarded by
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many new testament greek scholars as an addition to that gospel by an
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overzealous scribe. But Joseph Smith was not aware of this either, so
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he even copied in translational errors, another proof that neither he
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nor the alleged golden plates were inspired of God.
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Two further instances of plagiarisms from the King James Bible which
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have backfired on the Mormons are worth noting.
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In the third chapter of the book of Acts, Peter's classic sermon at
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pentecost paraphrases Deuteronomy 18:15-19. While in the process of
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writing 3 Nephi, Joseph Smith puts Peter's paraphrase in the mouth of
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Christ when the Savior was allegedly preaching to the Nephites. The
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prophet overlooked the fact that at the same time Christ was allegedly
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preaching his sermon, the sermon itself had not yet been preached by
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Peter.
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In addition to this, 3 Nephi makes Christ out to be a liar, when in
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verse 23 of chapter 20 Christ attributes Peter's words to Moses as a
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direct quotation when, as we have pointed out, Peter paraphrased the
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quotation from Moses; and the working is quite different. But Joseph
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did not check far enough, hence this glaring error.
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Secondly, the book of Mormon follows the error of the King James
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translation which renders Isaiah 4:5: "for upon all the glory shall be
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a defense" (see 2 Nephi 14:5). Modern translations of Isaiah point out
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that it should read "for over all the glory there will be a canopy,"
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not a defense. The Hebrew word, "chuppah," does not mean defense but a
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protective curtain or canopy. Smith, of course, did not know this nor
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did the King James translators from whose work he copied.
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There are quite a number of other places where such errors appear,
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including Smith's insistence in Abraham 1:20 that "pharaoh signifies
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king by royal blood," when in reality the dictionary defines the
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meaning of the term pharaoh as "a great house or palace." The Revised
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Standard Version of the Bible renders Isaiah 5:25: "and their corpses
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were as refuse in the midst of the streets," corectly rendering the
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Hebrew "suchah" as refuse, not as "torn." The King James Bible renders
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the passage: "and their carcases were torn in the midst of the
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streets." The book of Mormon (2 nephi 15:25) repeats the King James'
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text word for word, including the error of mistranslating "suchah",
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removing any claim that the Book of Mormon is to be taken seriously as
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reliable material.
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