Defense of the Faith and the Saints (Volume 1 of 2)Roberts, B. H. (Brigham Henry)
Religion
Defense of the Faith and the Saints (Volume 1 of 2)
Roberts, B. H. (Brigham Henry)
Latter Day Saint churches
"In Nephi xiv:1," says the Unknown, "the repeated expression "mother
of abominations" and "mother of harlots" are taken from Revelations
xvi:5." I here quote Nephi, xiv:1: "And it shall come to pass that if
the Gentiles shall hearken unto the Lamb of God in that day that he
shall manifest himself unto them in word, and also in power, in very
deed, unto the taking away of their stumbling blocks." After reading it
I wondered where the Unknown found in it his "mother of abominations"
and the "mother of harlots." Of course, the gentleman may have given
the wrong reference, and I will not press his errors too hard upon him,
but how ridiculous to urge the rejection of the Book of Mormon on so
flimsy an argument, even if he should find somewhere else his "mother
of abominations" or his "mother of harlots."
THE "VITAL POINT."
Passing over some intervening matter in order to consider this whole
question of translation together, I next refer to what the Unknown says
under the heading, "A Vital Point." I accounted for the imperfections
of the language of the Book of Mormon on the ground that while the
translator obtained his ideas from the Nephite record, he was left
to express that thought in such language as he was master of, and
as he was uneducated, that language was here and there faulty, and
I accounted for the existence of some passages of the Bible in the
Book of Mormon by saying that where Joseph Smith found in the Nephite
records quotations from Jewish scriptures which the Nephites had with
them or when the teachings of Messiah in their order followed his
teachings to be found in the New Testament, Joseph Smith adopted, when
he could do so consistently, the language of our English Bible. This
the Unknown considers is "vital," and he holds that these quotations
would not be found in this translation of the Nephite record if the
Book of Mormon is honest in its claim of being an ancient book.
He urges that if Joseph Smith could thus incorporate these quoted
passages, then there is nothing to hinder him putting into the Book of
Mormon, when it suited him, quotations from other English books, from
Shakespeare, from books of geography and history, and the peculiar
views of Sidney Rigdon, with which the book is saturated, or his own
views; and this, he claims, is just what he did. Well, of course,
there is nothing that would prevent Joseph Smith from following a
course of this kind if he was the unmitigated impostor and scoundrel
that the Unknown tries to make him appear to be, but that is just
what Joseph Smith was not; and hence his own honesty and integrity
prevented his putting in quotations from the Bible or any other book
except just what the facts and statements in the Nephite records
justified him in adopting. And as for the views of Sidney Rigdon being
incorporated in it, that is impossible, since it is a well-established,
incontrovertible, historical fact that Sidney Rigdon never saw either
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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