Joseph Smith Translation Bible, Genesis 50:33; “And that seer will I bless, and they that seek to destroy him shall be confounded; for this promise I give unto you; for I will remember you from generation to generation; and his name shall be called Joseph, and it shall be after the name of his father…..”
Genesis 50:26; “So Joseph died, being an hundred and ten years old: and they embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt.”
Genesis 50:26 is the last verse in the book of Genesis yet here we have Mr. Smith giving himself permission to write himself into scripture. If ever there was a picture perfect example of what the word interpolate means this is it.
Dictionary.com defines interpolate this way; ‘to alter (a text) by the insertion of new matter, especially deceptively or without authorization’.
Of course we have this LDS example today because of the Church’s view of the Bible. The ‘evilly disposed uninspired men didn’t translate the original text correctly’, thus the need for rewrites and supplemental teachings from a god not known in the Bible.
Were you aware that a copy of Genesis was found in the Dead Sea Scrolls? It’s identical to what we have in the KJV today!
A few weeks ago my pastor delivered the first sermon of a series he named the ‘heavy weights of the Bible’. He began his series with reasons why we can trust the Bible and how to explain it to others. One thing he said that stuck out immediately is that people will trust Julius Cesar’s Gaelic Wars but not the Bible. All I could think of is Mormonism…how true his words were!
Did you know…
There are only 10 copies of the Gaelic Wars. We use them today in history classes as proof the people at that time were a real society and we believe the events and even their conversations were real.
The great historian Tacitus (c 56-117 AD) who was also a senator, wrote two major works on the history and government of the Roman Empire. We have 3 surviving copies and they’re deemed trustworthy.
The Bible on the other hand is a completely different story –
We have 5,800 Greek manuscripts written less than 200 years after the death of Christ and yet people mistrust and malign its contents.
Even the Meshe Stele is treated with respect today. The Meshe Stele is from BC 840. It served as an oath to the god of the Moabites and described historical events taking place at the time that we read about in the book of Kings.
It was discovered in 1868 by a French Christian missionary serving in Jordan and before he could get back to claim it and take it to the museum, locals smashed it into hundreds of pieces. After putting it back together they were able to determine it held valuable historical info. It even mentions the ‘House of David’ which is a confirmation that King David existed and more evidence the Bible is trustworthy. Today it sits in the Louvre.
Now interestingly enough, many historians and archaeologists today use the Bible to look for cities and evidence that a people group existed, yet the contents of what God said is somehow tossed like yesterday’s news.
Our Mormon example today is proof of that.
Leave a Reply