MORMON: Should good works be seen?
•Matthew 5:16 "Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works." •I Peter 2:12 "Having your conversation honest among the Gentiles: that . . . they may by your good works, which they shall behold, glorify God in the day of visitation."
vs.
•Matthew 6:1-4 "Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them . . . that thine alms may be in secret." •Matthew 23:3,5 "Do not ye after their [Pharisees'] works. . . . all their works they do for to be seen of men."
NCCG: The issue here is one of motive - we are to do good works to bring glory to God not to ourselves.
MORMON: Should we own slaves?
•Leviticus 25:45-46 "Moreover of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, . . . and they shall be your possession . . . they shall be your bondmen forever." •Genesis 9:25 "And he [Noah] said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren." •Exodus 21:2,7 "If thou buy an Hebrew servant, six years he shall serve: and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing. . . . And if a man sell his daughter to be a maidservant, she shall not go out as the manservants do." •Joel 3:8 "And I will sell your sons and your daughters into the hand of the children of Judah, and they shall sell them to the Sabeans, to a people far off: for the Lord hath spoken it." •Luke 12:47,48 [Jesus speaking] "And that servant, which knew his lord's will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes. But he that knew not, and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes." •Colossians 3:22 "Servants, obey in all things your masters."
vs.
•Isaiah 58:6 "Undo the heavy burdens . . . let the oppressed go free, . . . break every yoke." •Matthew 23:10 "Neither be ye called Masters: for one is your Master, even Christ."
NCCG: The terms for "slave" and "servant" are used interchangeably in the Bible and with a wide range of meanings. As Christians we are described as "slaves of Christ" but this is by no means to be considered oppression.
The last quote concerns seeking the honours of men in order to foster pride. It has nothing to do with not having masters and servants.
MORMON: Pro-slavery bible verses were cited by many churches in the South during the Civil War, and were used by some theologians in the Dutch Reformed Church to justify apartheid in South Africa. There are more pro-slavery verses than cited here.
NCCG: Slavery is a relative thing since we are all slaves of something. The fact that a person has external freedoms or liberties does not make him "free". The issue of freedom and slavery is a complex one - take S.Africa (where I have lived so I know something about it). The post-apartheit SA is a hell-house - that nation has the worst homicide rate in the world. I am not passing judgment on pre- or post- apartheid SA because the issues are complex. Just that people have a stereotypic vision of "slavery". Christians in communist Bulgaria considered themselves "freer" than Christians in the USA, and yet they were political slaves.
This is a big and immotive subject which we can discuss further if you like.
MORMON: Does God change his mind?
•Malachi 3:6 "For I am the Lord; I change not."
NCCG: God is faithful to His covenant.
•Numbers 23:19 "God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent." •Ezekiel 24:14 "I the Lord have spoken it: it shall come to pass, and I will do it; I will not go back, neither will I spare, neither will I repent." •James 1:17 " . . . the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning."
NCCG: Quick comment: the word "repent" has a slightly different meaning in KJV English to today's. It is better translated as "relent" (NIV).
vs.
•Exodus 32:14 "And the Lord repented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people." •Genesis 6:6,7 "And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth . . . And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth . . . for it repenteth me that I have made him."
NCCG: The Lord has always retained the right to limit His own absolute sovereignty on the basis of human response to His offers of pardon and restoration and His threats of jusgment and destruction (see Jer.18:7-10). Notice the "if" clauses throughout. God's threats and promises are always conditional upon man's actions. Yahweh, who though he does not change Himself (Num.23:19; Mal.3:6; Jas.1:17), nevertheless will change His previously announced response to man, depending on what the latter does. There are PLENTY examples of this in scripture.
•Jonah 3:10 ". . . and God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not." See also II Kings 20:1-7, Numbers 16:20-35, Numbers 16:44-50.
NCCG: See my comments above.
MORMON: See Genesis 18:23-33, where Abraham gets God to change his mind about the minimum number of righteous people in Sodom required to avoid destruction, bargaining down from fifty to ten. (An omniscient God must have known that he was playing with Abraham's hopes for mercy--he destroyed the city anyway.)
NCCG: Of course, but then our God is a God of mercy AND justice. As for God "playing", this is absurd - He was teaching His prophet and revealing His loving kindness. The city was only destroyed after the righteous has left and those that remained had made their choice. Perfectly just and merciful.
MORMON: Are we punished for our parents' sins?
•Exodus 20:5 "For I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation." (Repeated in Deuteronomy 5:9) •Exodus 34:6-7 " . . . The Lord God, merciful and gracious, . . . that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third and to the fourth generation."
NCCG: However, we are still individually responsible for the individual choices we make (Rom.14:12). God is simply stating a fact of life: ungodly parents tend to produce ungoldly children and granschildren. In this way, His judgment is exercised upon the descendants who hate Him.
This is a simple exposition of the consequences of sin and our responsibilities for one another. Children raised in a household where theft of the norm will likely become thieves themselves by example. It can take many generations to extricate a family from such sins.
• I Corinthians 15:22 "For as in Adam all die, . . ."
NCCG: This is physical death - nothing to do with the above.
vs.
•Ezekiel 18:20 "The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father."
NCCG: We are individually responsible for the choices we make. If my father is a murderer and I copy him, I am judged for my own choice.
•Deuteronomy 24:16 "The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers: every man shall be put to death for his own sin."
NCCG: Ditto.
There is really no contradiction at all because two different principles are being described - the consequences of family sin and our individual accountability.
MORMON: Is God good or evil?
•Psalm 145:9 "The Lord is good to all." •Deuteronomy 32:4 "a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he."
vs.
•Isaiah 45:7 "I make peace and create evil. I the Lord do all these things."
NCCG: A lack of a knowledge of Jacobean English would have sorted this one out because the word "evil" had a wider application than it does today. In the context "create evil" is better rendered "create disaster" as per pro the NIV. This is consistent with the Sovereign's right to pass judgment on the wicked as in Ex.10:21-23, etc.
MORMON: See "Out of Context" for more on Isaiah 45:7. •Lamentations 3:38 "Out of the mouth of the most High proceedeth not evil and good?"
NCCG: Same thing: "Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that both calamities and good things come?" (NIV).
•Jeremiah 18:11 "Thus saith the Lord; Behold, I frame evil against you, and devise a device against you."
NCCG: Ditto.
•Ezekiel 20:25,26 "I gave them also statutes that were not good, and judgments whereby they should not live. And I polluted them in their own gifts, in that they caused to pass through the fire all that openeth the womb, that I might make them desolate, to the end that they might know that I am the Lord."
NCCG: Superficially this may seen to contradict Ezek.20:11 in which God had promised that those who "do" His "statutes" and judgments would "live in them". Paul also confirmed that "the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just and good. Was then that which is good made death unto me? God forbid" (Rom.7:12-13). Cp. Lev.18:5; Ezek.20:13,21.
MORMON: Does God tempt people?
•James 1:13 "Let no man say . . . I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man."
vs.
•Genesis 22:1 "And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt Abraham."
NCCG: Silly. Check the Hebrew (nachah) which does not mean "tempt to do evil" (Jas.1:13) but is usually translated PROVE. Although God knew what Abraham would do, it must be "proved" to all (including even Abraham himself) that he loved Yahweh more than anyone else and that his faith in God's Word was absolute (skeptics and Mormons note!). Such action would demonstrate the validity of Yahweh's selection of him as father of the chosen nation.
MORMON: Is God peaceable?
•Romans 15:33 "The God of peace." •Isaiah 2:4 ". . . and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more."
vs.
•Exodus 15:3 "The Lord is a man of war." •Joel 3:9-10 "Prepare war, wake up the mighty men, let all the men of war draw near; let them come up: Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruninghooks into spears: let the weak say, I am strong."
NCCG: Absolutely ridiculous. Churchill was a man of war but he was also a man of peace. He hated war but when forced to conduct it, he did so well. The Lord hates war but must pursue it in order to effect judgment. Perfectly consistent with His nature. And the returning Jesus, the babe of Nazareth, is coming back with a sword in His hands. God is who He is, not what liberal atheists want to make Him out to be in order to create a straw man to beat down.
MORMON: Was Jesus peaceable?
•John 14:27 "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you." •Acts 10:36 "The word which God sent unto the children of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ." •Luke 2:14 " . . . on earth peace, good will toward men."
vs.
•Matthew 10:34 "Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. And a man's foes shall be they of his own household." •Luke 22:36 "Then said he unto them, . . . he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one."
NCCG: Same comment. The righteous will know peace of soul but the unrighteous will know torment of conscience. The latter must often occur to lead to the former.
MORMON: Was Jesus trustworthy?
•John 8:14 "Though I bear record of myself, yet my record is true."
vs.
•John 5:31 "If I bear witness of myself, my witness is not true."
MORMON: "Record" and "witness" in the above verses are the same Greek word (martyria).
NCCG: They key word is THOUGH, or "EVEN" (NIV). Jesus did not testify of Himself but said that EVEN IF HE DID His testimony would still be valid. Big difference.
MORMON: Shall we call people names?
•Matthew 5:22 "Whosoever shall say Thou fool, shall be in danger of hellfire." [Jesus speaking]
vs.
•Matthew 23:17 "Ye fools and blind." [Jesus speaking] •Psalm 14:1 "The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God."
NCCG: Who of man or Christ is able to make a perfect judgement? That aside, Mt.5:22 refers to believers whereas the latter two scriptures are to unbelievers. Such an insult ("Racca") to a fellow believer under the Law might warrant being charged before the council of the Sanhedrin, with slander. "Thou fool" is even stronger, and is derived from the Greek word from which we get the word "moron" (KEVIN GRAHAM NOTE), but it also implies rebellion. Calling a brother a rebellious Moron would be very out of character for a Christian.
But consider who JESUS is talking to - the Scribes and Pharisees, religious hypocrites, and to AHTHEISTS. These sets of passages are not therefore equivalents, for one is to believers and the others to religious hypocrities and atheists.
MORMON: Has anyone seen God?
•John 1:18 "No man hath seen God at any time." •Exodus 33:20 "Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live." •John 6:46 "Not that any man hath seen the Father, save he which is of God [Jesus], he hath seen the Father." •I John 4:12 "No man hath seen God at any time."
vs.
•Genesis 32:30 "For I have seen God face to face." •Exodus 33:11 "And the Lord spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend." •Isaiah 6:1 "In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple." •Job 42:5 "I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee."
NCCG: Dealt with in my previous post.
MORMON: How many Gods are there?
•Deuteronomy 6:4 "The Lord our God is one Lord."
vs.
•Genesis 1:26 "And God said, Let us make man in our image." •Genesis 3:22 "And the Lord God said, Behold, the man has become as one of us, to know good and evil." •I John 5:7 "And there are three that bear witness in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one."
MORMON: It does no good to claim that "Let us" is the magisterial "we." Such usage implies inclusivity of all authorities under a king's leadership. Invoking the Trinity solves nothing because such an idea is more contradictory than the problem it attempts to solve.
NCCG: We do not need to invoke the Trinity, just common sense. God is a generic or familial name and whether Barker likes it or not implies a plurality of persons. There is one God but several persons in the Godhead, just as there is one Warren family but several Warrens.
MORMON: Are we all sinners?
•Romans 3:23 "For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God."
NCCG: We have all fallen short of what God intended us to be - the glory is that which he had before the fall (Ge.1:26-27; Ps.8:5-6; cp. Eph.4:24; Col.3:10). However, we receive that glory back through faith in Christ (Heb.2:5-9).
MORMON: Romans 3:10 "As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one."
NCCG: The context here is important, viz, that there is no-one righteous enough before a holy God TO EARN HIS OWN SALVATION (Eph.2:1).
MORMON: Psalm 14:3 "There is none that doeth good, no, not one."
NCCG: Look at the context - this is not a general description of the whole of humanity but of Israel at that point in time. The description is also hyperbolic and reflects a time in David's life when he was very depressed, looking at everything through dark lenses.
vs.
•Job 1:1 "There was a man . . . who name was Job; and that man was perfect and upright."
NCCG: It didn't say he wasn't a sinner and indeed at the end of the book he repents in sackcloth and ashes for his sins. But he was perfect and upright in those areas in which Satan accused him.
•Genesis 7:1 "And the Lord said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation." •Luke 1:6 "And they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless."
NCCG: See above. They were justified by faith.
MORMON: How old was Ahaziah?
•II Kings 8:26 "Two and twenty years old was Ahaziah when he began to reign."
vs.
•II Chronicles 22:2 "Forty and two years old was Ahaziah when he began to reign."
NCCG: This is an undoubted scribal error.
MORMON: Should we swear an oath?
•Numbers 30:2 "If a man vow a vow unto the Lord, or swear an oath . . . he shall do according to all that proceedeth out of his mouth." •Genesis 21:22-24,31 " . . . swear unto me here by God that thou wilt not deal falsely with me . . . And Abraham said, I will swear. . . . Wherefore he called that place Beersheba ["well of the oath"]; because there they sware both of them." •Hebrews 6:13-17 "For when God made promise to Abraham, because he could swear by no greater, he sware by himself . . . for men verily swear by the greater: and an oath for confirmation is to them an end of all strife. Wherein God, willing more abundantly to shew unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath; See also Genesis 22:15-19, Genesis 31:53, and Judges 11:30-39.
vs.
•Matthew 5:34-37 "But I say unto you, swear not at all; neither by heaven . . . nor by the earth . . . . Neither shalt thou swear by thy head . . . . But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil." •James 5:12 ". . . swear not, neither by heaven, neither by the earth, neither by any other oath: but let your yea be yea; and your nay, nay; lest ye fall into condemnation."
MORMON: When was Jesus crucified?
•Mark 15:25 "And it was the third hour, and they crucified him."
vs.
•John 19:14-15 "And about the sixth hour: and he saith unto the Jews, Behold your King! But they cried out . . . crucify him."
MORMON: It is an ad hoc defense to claim that there are two methods of reckoning time here. It has never been shown that this is the case.
NCCG: Rubbish. It has been clearly established that the Pharisees and Sadducees used different systems of time reckoning.
MORMON: Shall we obey the law?
•I Peter 2:13 "Submit yourself to every ordinance of man . . . to the king, as supreme; Or unto governors." •Matthew 22:21 "Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's." See also Romans 13:1,7 and Titus 3:1.
vs.
•Acts 5:29 "We ought to obey God rather then men."
NCCG: There is no disharmony here. You obey the laws of the Land until they force you to disobey the laws of God, whence you make the decision to obey God before man. Simple.
MORMON: How many animals on the ark?
•Genesis 6:19 "And of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark." •Genesis 7:8-9 "Of clean beasts, and of beasts that are not clean, and of fowls, and of every thing that creepeth upon the earth, There went in two and two unto Noah into the ark, the male and the female, as God had commanded Noah." •Genesis 7:15 "And they went in unto Noah into the ark, two and two of all flesh, wherein is the breath of life."
vs.
•Genesis 7:2 "Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his female: and of beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female."
NCCG: No contradiction at all. The sevens went in two by two (three pairs of two) of the clean animals leaving one for sacrifice after they left the ark (Ge.8:20). Why more clean animals? Presumably those needed for domestication were more numerous to allow for wider variation in breeding.
MORMON: Were women and men created equal?
•Genesis 1:27 "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them."
vs.
•Genesis 2:18,23 "And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him. . . . And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man."
NCCG: Everybody was created as being of equal worth but having different functions. Typically atheists don't define what they mean by "equal".
MORMON: Were trees created before humans?
•Genesis 1:12-31 "And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: . . . And the evening and the morning were the third day. . . . And God said, Let us make man in our image . . . And the evening and the morning were the sixth day."
vs.
•Genesis 2:5-9 "And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground. . .And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground . . . And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food."
NCCG: Yes they were. So what? No contradiction here.
MORMON: Did Michal have children?
•II Samuel 6:23 "Therefore Michal the daughter of Saul had no child unto the day of her death."
vs.
•II Samuel 21:8 "But the king took the two sons of Rizpah . . . and the five sons of Michal the daughter of Saul."
NCCG: Dealt with in the previous post.
MORMON: How many stalls did Solomon have?
•I Kings 4:26 "And Solomon had forty thousand stalls of horses for his chariots, and twelve thousand horsemen."
vs.
•II Chronicles 9:25 "And Solomon had four thousand stalls for horses and chariots, and twelve thousand horsemen."
NCCG: Dealt with in the previous post.
MORMON: Did Paul's men hear a voice?
•Acts 9:7 "And the men which journeyed with him stood speechless, hearing a voice, but seeing no man."
vs.
•Acts 22:9 "And they that were with me saw indeed the light, and were afraid; but they heard not the voice of him that spake to me."
NCCG: Old English: "My companions saw the light, BUT THEY DID NOT UNDERSTAND THE VOICE of him who was speaking to me" (Ibid., NIV). So the voice was heard in both descriptions but not understood. In Jacobean (KJV) English to "hear" can also mean to "understand" just as to "know" someone can mean to have a sexual relationship with them.
MORMON: Is God omnipotent?
•Jeremiah 32:27 "Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh: is there anything too hard for me? •Matthew 19:26 "But Jesus beheld them, and said unto them, With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible."
vs.
•Judges 1:19 "And the Lord was with Judah; and he drave out the inhabitants of the mountain; but could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley, because they had chariots of iron."
NCCG: Oh dear, Barker really must be desperate. The Judeans failed to drive the Canaanites out because they failed to comply with Yahweh's commandments (Dt.7:1-5; 20:16-18). Five factors are listed for this failure: (1) The Canaanites possessed superior weapons (v.19); (2) Israel disobeyed God by making treaties with the Canaanites (2:1-3); (3) Israel violated the covenant the Lord has made with their forefathers (2:20-21); (4) God was testing Israel's faith to obey the commandments (2:22-23; 3:4); and (5) God was giving Israel, as his army, the opportunity to develop her skills in warfare (3:1-2).
God is omnipotent but He is also self-limiting otherwise there would be no laws, would there? He never contradicts Himself otherwise he would cease to be God.
MORMON: Does God live in light?
•I Timothy 6:15-16 " . . . the King of kings, and Lord of lords; Who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach . . ." •James 1:17 " . . . the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning." •John 12:35 "Then Jesus saith unto them, . . . he that walketh in darkness knoweth not wither he goeth." •Job 18:18 "He [the wicked] shall be driven from light into darkness, and chased out of the world." •Daniel 2:22 "He [God] knoweth what is in the darkness, and the light dwelleth with him." See also Psalm 143:3, II Corinthians 6:14, and Hebrews 12:18-22.
vs.
•I Kings 8:12 "Then spake Solomon, The Lord said that he would dwell in the thick darkness." (Repeated in II Chronicles 6:1) •II Samuel 22:12 "And he made darkness pavilions round about him, dark waters, and thick clouds of the skies." •Psalm 18:11 "He made darkness his secret place; his pavilion round about him were dark waters and thick clouds of the skies." •Psalm 97:1-2 "The Lord reigneth; let the earth rejoice . . . clouds and darkness are round about him."
NCCG: In heaven God dwells in Light but when He manifestes His glory on the earth He does so in a dark cloud (for reasons that should be obvious) per pro the Sinai wanderings (Ex.19:9; 24:15,18; 33:9-10; 34:5; Lev.16:2; Dt.4.11; 5:22; Ps.18:10-11).
MORMON: Does God accept human sacrifice?
•Deuteronomy 12:31 "Thou shalt not do so unto the Lord thy God: for every abomination to the Lord, which he hateth, have they done unto their gods; for even their sons and their daughters they have burnt in the fire to their gods."
vs.
•Genesis 22:2 "And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of."
NCCG: God did not "accept" any sacrifice - it was never carried out and He never intended it to be.
•Exodus 22:29 "For thou shalt not delay to offer the first of thy ripe fruits, and of thy liquors; the firstborn of thy sons shalt thou give unto me."
NCCG: LoL! This has nothing to do with human sacrifice but in DEDICATING THE FIRSTBORN to divine service. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, how much Bible does this man Barker actually know? Not only does he not understand KJV English but he doesn't understand modern English either.
•Judges 11:30-39 "And Jephthah vowed a vow unto the Lord, and said, If thou shalt without fail deliver the children of Ammon into mine hand, Then it shall be, that whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the children of Ammon, shall surely be the Lord's, and I will offer it up for a burnt offering. So Jephthah passed over unto the children of Ammon . . . and the Lord delivered them into his hands. . . . And Jephthah came to Mizpeh unto his house, and, behold, his daughter came out to meet him with timbrels and with dances: . . . And it came to pass at the end of two months, that she returned unto her father, who did with her according to his vow which he had vowed."
NCCG: What has Yahweh to do with this? This was Jephthah's stupid vow and contrary to the commandments. This was in a time of great apostacy and moral darkness and ignorance of the commandments.
•II Samuel 21:8-14 "But the king [David] took the two sons of Rizpah . . . and the five sons of Michal . . . and he delivered them into the hands of the Gibeonites, and they hanged them in the hill before the Lord: and they fell all seven together, and were put to death in the days of harvest . . . And after that God was intreated for the land."
NCCG: This wasn't human sacrifice to a deity! It was an act of blood atonement according to the Law.
•Hebrews 10:10-12 " . . . we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ . . . But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on the right hand of God." •I Corinthians 5:7 " . . . For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us."
NCCG: Jesus was not put in the fire to appease a demon. His sacrifice has nothing whatsoever to do with Exodus 22:29.
MORMON: Who was Joseph's father?
•Matthew 1:16 "And Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus."
vs.
•Luke 3:23 "And Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age, being (as was supposed) the son of Joseph, which was the son of Heli."
NCCG: Dealt with in the previous post.
NCCG: I still find it incredible that you, as a Mormon and a supposed Bible-believing Christian, aren't making an effort to refute this nonsense. Yet like most Mormons you are willing to offer up the Bible if iby doing so you can in any way justify the Book of Mormon's errors. This is what Wayne does all the time, hence his nonsensical statement below.
The Mormons claim that they believe the Bible to be the Word of God "insofar as it is translated correctly" which I can go along with, only be "translated" they mean something quite different to us. I too believe there are faulty translations but that the original autographs are correct. True, there is the odd scribal error, but nothing that alters any fundamental doctrine of the faith.
I give but three examples of how Mormons attempt to defend their own scriptures by attacking the Bible which supposedly they believe to be the Word of God. This tactic ought to send off every alarm bell in the Christian's defence system, alerting him to a more sinister reality behind Mormon claims, viz. that at its base THE BIBLE IS NOT THAT IMPORTANT and may be SACRIFICED in order to defend Joseph Smith's works.
Whilst holding it forth as God's Word with one hand the Mormon attempts to smash it to pieces with the other whenever his own belief system is threatened by it. It is truly a double-edged sword to the Mormon who is trapped by the instrument of his own theological execution.
Would it not be alot simpler and more honest to stick by the Bible, which has proven itself over and over again, is backed (unlike the Book of Mormon) by more than adequate archaeological proof, and (unlike the Book of Mormon) has a verifiable manuscript history?
In the end I gave up the Book of Mormon because it had neither credibility nor simple historical proofs and contradicted the Bible in so many places, and from which it had so obviously borrowed, even to the ludicrous extreem inserting New Testament passages in in the Book of Mormon "Old" Testament parts.
When a man is forced to mutilate one of his arms in order to protect the other, something is seriously wrong.
This page was created on 12 June 2000
Updated on 10 March 2001
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