Book of Mormon Borrowings from the New Testament

[_vessr]

Hi vessr, I'm not sure I understand the issue with the third one. Nephi and his brothers went back to get the brass plates from Laban. Those plates included whatever there was in the way of scripture at that time. So, Samuel would have been as important to the the people in the new world as in the old, given his prophecy of a Messiah. I must be missing something. What is it? ;-)

I probably spent too much time on the Samuel versus Samuel the Lamanite thing, but the real issue, it seems to me, is how all the elements of 3 Neph 20 are found in Acts 3, in many cases with identical or near identical wording. So we're not talking about the brass plates here, it seems to me, but about how the Savior could be saying so many of the same things in so many of the same ways as Peter said it in Acts 3.

Other than the direct borrowings from the Sermon on the Mount earlier in 3 Nephi, I don't think there is another place in the Book of Mormon that more clearly shows material, this case taken from Acts 3 to write 3 Nephi 20, has been copied from the New Testament to show up in the Book of Mormon.

[_Res Ipsa]

Ah, I was distracted by Samuel. I'll puzzle some more.

[_vessr]

vessr,

Simple. Do you think Peter came up with such things himself or did he hear them from the Lord instead and repeated them? I think the latter is much more likely.

Tobin, you claim it is more likely that Peter heard the sayings we find in Acts 3 from the Lord, who apparently repeated them near verbatim in 3 Nephi 20. The Lord would have had to been robotic in maintaining identical or near identical wordings in both places, Peter would have to have had a perfect memory, and the words in the book of Acts he allegedly spoke would have to have been preserved almost perfectly in the King James Version of the Bible, a Bible that is only good so far as it was translated correctly, which both Joseph Smith and subsequently Orson Pratt acknowledged it had not been, being riddled with many errors.

Here are the parallelisms we are faced with in 3 Nephi 20 when comparing it to Acts 3:

3 Nephi 20:23: “And the Lord will surely prepare a way for his people, unto the fulfilling of the words of Moses, which he spake, saying: A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you, like unto me; him shall ye hear in all things whatsoever he shall say unto you. And it shall come to pass that all those who will not hear that prophet shall be cut off from among the people.” (See also 1 Nephi 22:20 for an almost verbatim quote of the above by Nephi, before both the Savor and Peter said the same things.); “For Moses truly said unto the fathers, a prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me; him shall ye hear in all things whatsoever he shall say unto you. And it shall come to pass, that every soul, which will not hear that prophet, shall be destroyed from among the people”: Acts 3:23.

3 Nephi 20:24: “yea, and all the prophets from Samuel and those that follow after, as many as have spoken, have testified of me”; “Yea, and all the prophets from Samuel and those that follow after, as many as have spoken, have likewise foretold of these days”: Acts 3:24.

3 Nephi 20:25: “And behold, ye are the children of the prophets; and ye are of the house of Israel; and ye are of the covenant which the Father made with your fathers, saying unto Abraham: And in thy seed shall all the kindreds of the earth be blessed”; “Ye are the children of the prophets, and of the covenant which God made with our fathers, saying unto Abraham, And in thy seed shall all the kindreds of the earth be blessed”: Acts 3:25.

3 Nephi 20:26: “The Father having raised me up unto you first, and sent me to bless you in turning away every one of you from his iniquities; and this because ye are the children of the covenant—“; “Unto you first God, having raised up his Son Jesus, sent him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from his iniquities”: Acts 3:26.

There are a multiple of parallelisms in the Book of Mormon and in the New Testament; but nothing is more clear regarding a nearly verbatim Book of Mormon borrowing from the New Testament than in the verses above, in my opinion.

[_Tobin]

vessr,

Simple. Do you think Peter came up with such things himself or did he hear them from the Lord instead and repeated them? I think the latter is much more likely.

Tobin, you claim it is more likely that Peter heard the sayings we find in Acts 3 from the Lord, who apparently repeated them near verbatim in 3 Nephi 20. The Lord would have had to been robotic in maintaining identical or near identical wordings in both places, Peter would have to have had a perfect memory, and the words in the book of Acts he allegedly spoke would have to have been preserved almost perfectly in the King James Version of the Bible, a Bible that is only good so far as it was translated correctly, which both Joseph Smith and subsequently Orson Pratt acknowledged it had not been, being riddled with many errors.

The wording from the Lord is nearly verbatim in the New Testament and when quoted in 3 Nephi already when compared to the Gospels. I don't think that is a very strong argument. If the Gospel writers can quote what the Lord said accurately (and it is mirrored almost word for word in 3 Nephi), I don't find it surprising to see Peter being able to do the SAME thing in the slightest. And I don't understand why you would draw the line here either?!?

[_vessr]

Tobin, you wrote, "The wording from the Lord is nearly verbatim in the New Testament and when quoted in 3 Nephi already when compared to the Gospels. ... If the Gospel writers can quote what the Lord said accurately (and it is mirrored almost word for word in 3 Nephi), I don't find it surprising to see Peter being able to do the SAME thing in the slightest."

Tobin, I may not understand you. Are you begging the question? That is, are you assuming that Christ's Sermon on the Mount, as restated in 3 Nephi, was NOT copied by Joseph Smith when translating those parts of the Book of Mormon? Don't most apologists today acknowledge that Joseph probably was using the Book of Matthew in the New Testament to assist him in translating 3 Nephi?

In any event we do not find the wording from 3 Nephi 20, which is the chapter we are talking about, quoted nearly verbatim in the Gospels of the New Testament. 3 Nephi 20, in relevant part, is quoted almost verbatim from the book of Acts, which followed Christ’s appearance to the Nephites, right?

Joseph Fielding Smith wrote, "There is not one principle pertaining to the salvation of men that is so clearly stated in the Bible, as it has come down to us, that men do not stumble over — not one thing.”

Orson Pratt also wrote:

“If it be admitted that the apostles and evangelists did write the books of the New Testament, that does not prove of itself that they were divinely inspired at the time they wrote.... Add all this imperfection to the uncertainty of the translation, and who, IN HIS RIGHT MIND could for one moment suppose the Bible in its present form to be a perfect guide? Who knows that even one verse of the Bible has escaped pollution, so as to convey the same sense now that it did in the original?”

Pratt also claimed, "The Bible has been robbed of its plainness; many sacred books having been lost, others rejected by the Romish Church, and what few we have left, were copied and re-copied so many times, that it is admitted that almost every verse has been corrupted and mutilated to that degree that scarcely any two of them read alike.”

Pratt also wrote:

“The gathering together of the few scattered manuscripts which compose what is now termed the Bible was the work of uninspired man which took place centuries after John finished his manuscript. Among the vast number of professedly inspired manuscripts, scattered through the world, man, poor, weak, ignorant man assumed the authority to select a few, which according to his frail judgment, he believed or conjectured were of God, but the balance not agreeing, perhaps, with his peculiar notions of divine inspiration, were rejected as spurious. The few, selected from the abundance, were finally arranged into one volume, divided into chapter and verse, and named the Bible.”

Was Pratt wrong? Do you agree, at least, that the wording in Acts 3 and 3 Nephi 20 are very similar, if not identical, in the particulars I drew out from the parallelisms? Are you saying that Peter, in his sermon, was quoting near verbatin from the Savior's words in 3 Nephi 20 in the words that Peter used in Acts 3? And that the Savior's words in 3 Nephi 20 were said in almost exactly the same way in teachings that Peter would have heard the Savior speak?

[_Tobin]

Tobin, you wrote, "The wording from the Lord is nearly verbatim in the New Testament and when quoted in 3 Nephi already when compared to the Gospels. ... If the Gospel writers can quote what the Lord said accurately (and it is mirrored almost word for word in 3 Nephi), I don't find it surprising to see Peter being able to do the SAME thing in the slightest."

Tobin, I may not understand you. Are you begging the question? That is, are you assuming that Christ's Sermon on the Mount, as restated in 3 Nephi, was NOT copied by Joseph Smith when translating those parts of the Book of Mormon? Don't most apologists today acknowledge that Joseph probably was using the Book of Matthew in the New Testament to assist him in translating 3 Nephi?

I see no mention of Joseph Smith copying from the Bible during the translation process. Which apologists are saying this and what are their basis for their assertions that he copied from the Bible?!? But let's suppose Joseph Smith did open the Bible (for fun) and did copy relevant passages down word for word (for the sake of not having to retranslate something that had already been translated). Even in that case, finding parallels should not be a problem. After all, if the Lord had said something similar to what Peter stated and which Peter repeated in Acts, then Joseph Smith just "copied" the translation of the gist of what Peter repeated. Big deal. You end up in exactly the same place, though I seriously doubt that is what happened with the Book of Mormon translation.

The rest of your quotes have nothing to do with how the Book of Mormon was translated.

[_Res Ipsa]

Tobin, I'm not following your argument here. In the Book of Mormon, Jesus said the words. Nephi (I think was an earwitness) wrote them down. Mormon abridged them. Smith translated them to English.

In Acts, Peter said the words. We don't know who wrote them down, but the earliest date would be 30 years after the fact and as long as over 100 years after the fact. It's unknown whether the author was an earwitness. The original was in Greek, then translated to English through the KJV process after numerous copyings/translations/rewritings.

After those two very different processes, the language of the three verses is close to the same. How do we explain that. I think as between vessr's position (the Book of Mormon author copied from the Bible, with some changes to make the language look a little different) and my position (the parallelisms are the result of a combination of familiarity with the Bible and an attempt to copy the "voice" of the KJV), I'm going to have to concede the point to vessr. I don't think I can make a convincing case to support my position.

Now, if I assume the Book of Mormon is the result of God telling Smith the words to write down, I just have to throw up my hands. I have no basis to determine whether Smith copied and slightly changed or if God told Smith to write those specific words for whatever inscrutable reason God would have.

[_Res Ipsa]

Tobin, you wrote, "The wording from the Lord is nearly verbatim in the New Testament and when quoted in 3 Nephi already when compared to the Gospels. ... If the Gospel writers can quote what the Lord said accurately (and it is mirrored almost word for word in 3 Nephi), I don't find it surprising to see Peter being able to do the SAME thing in the slightest."

Tobin, I may not understand you. Are you begging the question? That is, are you assuming that Christ's Sermon on the Mount, as restated in 3 Nephi, was NOT copied by Joseph Smith when translating those parts of the Book of Mormon? Don't most apologists today acknowledge that Joseph probably was using the Book of Matthew in the New Testament to assist him in translating 3 Nephi?

I see no mention of Joseph Smith copying from the Bible during the translation process. Which apologists are saying this and what are their basis for their assertions that he copied from the Bible?!? But let's suppose Joseph Smith did open the Bible (for fun) and did copy relevant passages down word for word (for the sake of not having to retranslate something that had already been translated). Even in that case, finding parallels should not be a problem. After all, if the Lord had said something similar to what Peter stated and which Peter repeated in Acts, then Joseph Smith just "copied" the translation of the gist of what Peter repeated. Big deal. You end up in exactly the same place, though I seriously doubt that is what happened with the Book of Mormon translation.

The rest of your quotes have nothing to do with how the Book of Mormon was translated.

Tobin, I think part of the problem is that nothing in the text of the New Testament indicates that Peter is repeating something God told him word for word. Even if it was, the evidence is that Acts is not a contemporaneous account of what Peter said. In fact, the author may not be an earwitness. Then, to get from the original Greek source to the KJV introduces all kinds of potential changes in wording and tone. So, whatever Peter actually said, the odds are very low that the verse in Acts is an exact translation.

[_Tobin]

Tobin, I'm not following your argument here. In the Book of Mormon, Jesus said the words. Nephi (I think was an earwitness) wrote them down. Mormon abridged them. Smith translated them to English.

In Acts, Peter said the words. We don't know who wrote them down, but the earliest date would be 30 years after the fact and as long as over 100 years after the fact. It's unknown whether the author was an earwitness. The original was in Greek, then translated to English through the KJV process after numerous copyings/translations/rewritings.

After those two very different processes, the language of the three verses is close to the same. How do we explain that. I think as between vessr's position (the Book of Mormon author copied from the Bible, with some changes to make the language look a little different) and my position (the parallelisms are the result of a combination of familiarity with the Bible and an attempt to copy the "voice" of the KJV), I'm going to have to concede the point to vessr. I don't think I can make a convincing case to support my position.

Now, if I assume the Book of Mormon is the result of God telling Smith the words to write down, I just have to throw up my hands. I have no basis to determine whether Smith copied and slightly changed or if God told Smith to write those specific words for whatever inscrutable reason God would have.

You are over-analyzing it.

If Joseph Smith knew reformed Egyptian and the translation was something he did himself, then perhaps you might have a point. However, that is not what happened here. I have no idea how closely the Book of Mormon reflects what Nephi or any of them wrote since we don't have the originals and can't compare them. I am aware the process did not involve Joseph Smith being able to read or understand the text he was translating and as far as I know, he did not have the Bible present while translating either. The English words and concepts were formed in his mind in some manner and came in the KJB English (as best he understood it). Since that is clearly the case, finding parallels with the KJB is not that remarkable.

Now as far as my point, I highly doubt Peter (or whoever wrote what was said in Acts) originated the idea instead of God. I do not find it odd that God would say similar or parallel things in remote locations since he is the same person. Do we have record of Jesus saying it before then in the Bible? No, but much of what Jesus said and did is not in the Bible. As the scriptures state, many books could be written about that.

[_Tobin]

Tobin, I think part of the problem is that nothing in the text of the New Testament indicates that Peter is repeating something God told him word for word. Even if it was, the evidence is that Acts is not a contemporaneous account of what Peter said. In fact, the author may not be an earwitness. Then, to get from the original Greek source to the KJV introduces all kinds of potential changes in wording and tone. So, whatever Peter actually said, the odds are very low that the verse in Acts is an exact translation.

Much of the same criticisms could be made against the Gospels. The writers were not present at all the events and they were written much later than the events in which the depict. If these are inspired works from God, we either have to trust they are genuinely representative of what was said and what happened, or we should just discount them entirely. You can make this criticism of most biographical and auto-biographical works though.