We continue to receive comments, questions and criticisms
being sent in from readers of our blog. And since it is our policy to answer
all such, here are a few more with our responses.
Comment #1: “When Alma baptized Helam, he went down into the water himself, an act
he did not repeat with subsequent baptisms. It has been explained that he did
this to baptize himself, but I didn’t know a person could baptize himself” Bruno
F.
Response: We
have no record of a person ever baptizing himself. Even the Lord was baptized
by another. As for Alma’s act, President Joseph Fielding Smith explained that
Alma did not baptize himself, but went under the water as token to the Lord of
his humility and full repentance.
Comment
#2: “The Book of Mormon is still the
baited hook by which Mormons lure thousands of new converts into their ranks
every year. Prospective converts are urged to read it and then pray to ask God
if it is true. Only upon reading it do they learn of its threats of eternal
condemnation to all who reject it (2 Nephi 33:10-15)” Fergal B.
Response:
The same might be said of the Bible, but let us look at the verse cited: “And now, my beloved brethren, and also Jew, and all ye ends of the
earth, hearken unto these words and believe in Christ; and if ye believe not in
these words believe in Christ. And if ye shall believe in Christ ye will
believe in these words, for they are the words of Christ, and he hath given
them unto me; and they teach all men that they should do good. And if they are
not the words of Christ, judge ye -- for Christ will show unto you, with power
and great glory, that they are his words, at the last day; and you and I shall
stand face to face before his bar; and ye shall know that I have been commanded
of him to write these things, notwithstanding my weakness. And I pray the
Father in the name of Christ that many of us, if not all, may be saved in his
kingdom at that great and last day. And now, my beloved brethren, all those who
are of the house of Israel, and all ye ends of the earth, I speak unto you as
the voice of one crying from the dust: Farewell until that great day shall
come. And you that will not partake of the goodness of God, and respect the
words of the Jews, and also my words, and the words which shall proceed forth
out of the mouth of the Lamb of God, behold, I bid you an everlasting farewell,
for these words shall condemn you at the last day. For what I seal on earth,
shall be brought against you at the judgment bar; for thus hath the Lord
commanded me, and I must obey. Amen.”
Other verses could also be cited along this line: 2 Nephi 33:10-15; 15:11-18; Mormon 8:16-17;
4:21-22. The point is, we are to believe in Christ and we have three sources from which that belief stems: 1)The words of the Jews; 2) The words spoken by Christ; and 3) The words of
Nephi. While one may reject the words of Nephi, one is still under condemnation
if they reject the words of the Lord and the Bible, and that is what is being
said here by Nephi.
Comment
#3: “Another Joseph Smith gaff? After
all, he said the book was written in "Reformed Egyptian," which he
claimed to translate from the writings on gold pates he unearthed in Upstate
New York. Non-Mormon scholars have never heard of such a language and wonder
why Jews would use the language of their oppressors rather than Hebrew to
record their sacred history.” Zach P.
Response: I believe you meant gaffe, (gaff is incorrectly used to
describe a blunder—it means a spear or spearhead, hook, or ship’s spar; it can
also mean a hoax or fraud, or even gimmick or trick (but not a blunder or
mistake as you used it). You mention two points, so let me take them one at a
time: 1) Never heard of such a language.
Perhaps we should recognize that the word Reformed,
in Reformed Egyptian, is a verb, or descriptive verb. That is, “reformed” describes
an action taken with the Egyptian language—it was reformed (shortened, changed,
altered, refigured) from the language everyone knew into a version perhaps only a few
knew. Some people have a completely singular language they write in taking
notes that only they can read; others know a written form unknown to most, such
as short-hand used by secretaries in the past generation. It has been suggested
that Lehi knew this language from his dealings with Egyptians in the monetary
field having to do with his acquiring or managing his wealth—a brief language
used for cryptic writing for record keeping. While this is speculation, it did
take the Spirit to translate the writing through Joseph Smith. It would not be
surprising that scholars of today not only did not know of it, would not even
have heard of it.
2) The language of their
oppressors. Your scholars must be unaware of the connection pointed out in
biblical literature, which shows Israel's sentiments towards Egypt ranging from
the negative depiction of the Pharaoh in the Exodus narrative (Exodus 1-15), to
testimony to the political partnership between Egypt and Israel, a partnership
upon which the independence of the Israelite and later the Judahite states
depended.
Once
Israel established its monarchy on a par with the Egyptians and other smaller
neighboring states, attitudes towards Egypt changed. As an example, the first
Israelite monarchy, established by King David (left), was further maintained by
his son, Solomon, through political marriages, including the marriage to a Pharaoh's
daughter (1 Kings 3:1); In
the years leading up to the destruction of the State of Judah in 586, the kings
of Judah allied themselves with the Egyptians in order to resist the pressure
of the Neo-Babylonian Empire ("Assyrians") under Nebuchadnezzar II (2
Kings 24-25), which proved a fatal tactical error, foreseen only by some of the
prophets (Jeremiah 26:20-24; 37:3-16). The ensuing Babylonian captivity or
exile is the decisive catastrophe in Israelite history, and was considered as
more disastrous than the slavery in Egypt of old (Isaiah 52:4).
The
southern Egyptian border city of Elephantine opposite Aswan (above) was the
site of a Jewish place of worship (first an altar, then a temple), built
perhaps as early as the late-7th century B.C. (Isaiah 19:19), to serve the
needs of the members of a Jewish garrison of mercenaries as well as of Jewish
traders settling there (rebuilt again under Persian rule after 525 B.C.) In
addition, when prophets fled Israel fearing for their lives, they went down
into Egypt, where they were welcomed by numerous Jewish settlements there.
It
should also be pointed out that Moses, who wrote the first five books of the
Old Testament (Pentateuch, Books of the Law), and as God’s chosen people,
Israel became the custodians of the Old Testament, the recipients of the
covenants of promise, and the channel of Messiah (Romans 3:2; 9:1-5). Since
Moses led Israel out of Egypt 430 years to the day from when they first
arrived, making the Exodus around 1446, and Genesis (the Book of Beginnings)
was written between 1450 and 1410 B.C., we find that Moses as the author and
one to whom Egyptian was his primary language, one could make an argument that
he wrote his record in Egyptian.
It
might also be of interest to you to know that there are still dozens of ancient
languages that have not been deciphered simply because man does not know how.
One, in particular, which Mesoamericanists love to ignore, is the Rongorongo languge (kohau motu mo
rongorongo: "lines incised for chanting out") of ancient Easter
Island, which the elders when first encountered claimed came from the east
(Peru). There are also said to have been more specific names for the texts
based on their topic. For example, the kohau ta‘u ("lines of
years") were annals, the kohau îka ("lines of fishes")
were lists of persons killed in war (îka "fish" was
homophonous with or used figuratively for "war casualty"), and the kohau
ranga "lines of fugitives" were lists of war refugees.
Man
is arrogant when he thinks and claims to know all—or just because he does not
know something claims it does not exist.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment