The eighth article of faith states: "We believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly; we also believe the Book of Mormon to be the Word of God."

What does that mean? In 2 Nephi 29: we find some important clues:

3 And because my words shall hiss forth&emdash;many of the Gentiles shall say: A Bible! A Bible! We have got a Bible, and there cannot be any more Bible.

4 But thus saith the Lord God: O fools, they shall have a Bible; and it shall proceed forth from the Jews, mine ancient covenant people. And what thank they the Jews for the Bible which they receive from them? Yea, what do the Gentiles mean? Do they remember the travails, and the labors, and the pains of the Jews, and their diligence unto me, in bringing forth salvation unto the Gentiles?

5 O ye Gentiles, have ye remembered the Jews, mine ancient covenant people? Nay; but ye have cursed them, and have hated them, and have not sought to recover them. But behold, I will return all these things upon your own heads; for I the Lord have not forgotten my people.

6 Thou fool, that shall say: A Bible, we have got a Bible, and we need no more Bible. Have ye obtained a Bible save it were by the Jews?

Our answer to that question is No; we would not have obtained a bible "save it were by the Jews"

After reading this scripture I decided to investigate exactly how we obtained our bible the following is just a brief outline of the major events that transpired into the current translation that we have.

Paul frequently warned the church against "Jewish fables and commandments of men, that turn from the truth" (Tim1:4; 4:7; 2 Timothy 4:4; Titus 1:14)

Such was the status of a nation at the time of Christ in which Rabbis had replaced prophets and traditions had replaced revelations. According to their law which said "The rabbi is greater than the prophet", to them prophecy had ceased because "it was no longer necessary". Priests like Zacharias were known as "idiot priests" because they had no formal schooling.

According to their traditions God gave Moses both the written law and the oral law upon the mount Sinai. In other words Moses was given all that would ever be expounded by their scholars. Moses wanted to write it all down but the Lord forbade him because the Lord knew that others would then be able to claim divine support from the bible. Therefore Moses was forbidden to write it down so that the Jews would have an exclusive on the proper dealing that one should have with the Lord. As time went on the oral message was placed above the written law. In other-words the oral law was first given to supplement the written law and then substituted in place of it. At this point the Jews had returned again to idol worship; this time it was not of idols of wood, stone, or gold; but they worshiped law in place of God.

Next the Jews wanted to fit into society. In 587 B.C. Jerusalem fell and the Jews were scattered around the land. After the dispersion a great many returned to Judea, but the greater part continued to live outside of Palestine in the nations around the mediterranean. As a matter of fact when Alexander the great founded the city Alexandria in 332 B.C. the Jews constituted an important part of the population. In an effort for the Jews to not be restricted in trade with their neighbors they adopted many of the cultures of the Greeks. Desiring to maintain their heritage they would need to translate the scriptures into greek; the language that had been adopted by most of them. Most Jews having forgotten how to read or write Hebrew. This version of the bible became known as the Septuagint, (Sep 2 we jint) meaning "seventy" because it was translated by seventy men 2 from each tribe, and it is said to have been translated in seventy days. This version of the bible reflected many of the cultural ideas of the greeks. Also added at this time were the 15 Apocryphal books that are now part of the Catholic Bible. This version was to be a translation and the Jews desired to weed out some of the social embarrassments from their past. They did this by suggesting that the bible was now nothing more than a series of allegories, the bible was not to be read literally but in the form of an allegory.

The Bible was once again interpreted by the Latin Fathers. These Apostolic Fathers seemed to be beset with almost insurmountable difficulties in trying to get a version of the bible in a Christian form. The New Testament was not complete until about 400 years after the death of the Savior, and they were without an agreed upon form for the Old Testament until around the sixteenth century. Along with the faulty bible translation that they finally agreeded upon they were surrounded by "Paganism, Judaism, and heresy of every description".

Now since the Jews had done everything that they could to take any reference of Christ out of the bible the Catholic Fathers were left only to interpreter the bible through the use of Allegories to find a witness for Christ in the Old Testament. Once that started however they had much disputation as to were to stop the allegories. Because the Fathers had so much trouble with the bible and the interpretation they decided to lock it up from the world and the Pope became the infallible interpreter.

By the sixteenth century the whole papal system had, by the admission of its own historians, "sunk into a formalism and corruption which was a curse to mankind". It was then that the excommunicated John Wycliffe would give English speaking people the first bible they could read. Wycliffe translated his version from Jerome's Latin Bible. Forty years later Martin Luther gave the Germans a version in their native tongue. It was Luther that announced that "christianity has ceased to exist among those who should have preserved it". Luther rejected the idea that the Bible was all allegories and tried to translate, his translation is suggested to be one of the best, but that does not mean that Luther did not practice a little authorship in the translation. He decided that Chronicles was inferior to Kings; the Book of solomon he rejected, Jude he thought was unnecessary. He placed Hebrews, James, Jude and Revelation in the back because he did not want to just through them out. So he put them in the back, numbered the rest of the bible 1 - 23 and gave no number to the last four books, so that they would appear almost as an appendix.

The Lord knew that this would happen and had so testified so in the scriptures that foretold of the Apostasy. The following are just a few of the examples found in the Bible.

II Timothy 3:

1 This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.

2 For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy,

3 Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good,

4 Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God;

5 Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away

As the prophet Amos said:

Amos 8:

11 Behold, the days come, saith the Lord GOD, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the LORD:

12 And they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east, they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the LORD, and shall not find [it].

 

There would come a famine in the land, but this famine would be different than others they had known. This would be a famine of hearing the words of the Lord. The people would wander from sea to sea to seek the word but not find it...Why because as Joseph was told while down on his knees pouring out his heart to the Lord in an effort to learn which church he should join in his own words says:.

JS 2:

v19 I was answered that I must join none of them, for they were all wrong; and the Personage who addressed me said that all their creeds were an abomination in his sight; that those professors were all corrupt; that: "they draw near to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me, they teach for doctrines the commandments of men, having a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof."

The Prophet Micah saw the day about the same as he said in Micah 3:5-7,11 that there " is no answer from God"

Paul wrote in II Timothy Chapter 4:3-4

II Timothy 4:

3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears;

4 And they shall turn away [their] ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.

Paul with these other prophets knew the displeasure that the Lord has for those that should assume to change the truths of the gospel:

Galatians 1:

8 But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.

 

When John was banished upon the Isle of Patmos, he saw the power that would be given to Satan:

Revelations 13:

7 And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations.

 

Story from the Life of Heber C Kimball.

The Lord as would be expected would also foretell of the restoration of the Gospel to the earth.

Since the departure from the Gospel that Christ had set up was universal, just as these prophets had foretold and then was later confirmed by the Prophet Joseph Smith, it would then logically follow that a restoration would be needed. Such a restoration is the message of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

The Lord moved upon Peter to prophesy to those who crucified the Lord:

Acts 3:

19 Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord;

20 And he shall send Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto you:

21 Whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began.

 

A careful analysis of this promise is as follows:1)that their sins might be forgiven (2) that the Lord would send to them again that same Jesus Christ which had preached to them before (3) that there would be a "restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began". If one observes there could only be a restitution if something was lost, and we know that it indeed was lost. Paul was speaking of this restitution of things when he wrote to the Ephesians (Eph 1:9-10) and spoke about the Dispensation of the Fullness of Times. He said in verse 10: " That in the dispensation of the fullness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; [even] in him:" Brothers and Sisters this is the dispensation of the fullness of times that Paul spoke of and there is only one church that I know of that even makes such a claim and that is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. This restitution of all things is still going on and will continue until the end of the thousand years of personal reign of Christ upon the earth when death will be destroyed (1 Cor 15:24-26)

24 Then [cometh] the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power.

25 For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet.

26 The last enemy [that] shall be destroyed [is] death.

 

In vision the Apostle John saw that satans power would be upon the face of the whole earth for a season, then the angel from heaven would deliver the "Everlasting gospel" to be preached to all the earth (Rev 14:6-7). Again we find reference that if the gospel existed on the earth then there would be no need to bring it back would there.

The prophet Malachi said in Mal.3:1

>"Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple"

Now this could only be referring to the second coming since he was born the first time and did not come suddenly to the temple. This restoration of the "everlasting gospel" was not to be achieved any differently this time than in times of past. It would be done by and through a prophet, the Lord said in Amos 3:7

"surely the Lord God will do nothing, but he revealeth his will unto his servants the prophets."

Once again the Lord did just as he has in the past he restored the gospel to the earth through a prophet. This time the prophet was Joseph Smith and he was called by the Lord to translate the Book of Mormon and restore the Church of Jesus Christ to the earth for the last and final time.

It has been said that if the plates from which the Book of Mormon was translated would have been found in a field by a young man plowing his field and then taken to the local college to be translated it would have been the greatest event of the 19th century. so then simply because our story comes from the boy prophet, and differs a little from just finding them in the field. These plates ar special they are delivered by an angel. Instead of giving them to a professor to translate, he translates them through the power of god and then takes them to the professor for verification. But due to the fact that this story involves divine revelation most everyone cannot believe the story. I find it almost amusing that a bunch of people that don't believe the story that an angel delivered plates of gold to Joseph; then turned around and spent so much time trying to get something that they didn't even believe that Joseph had.

There are those whom would believe the story if only it would have been someone other than a young uneducated farm boy. However a careful review of the scriptures shows time after time examples of those whom had faith in God and how they were pitted against those who had both the physical or intellectual powers. Examples might be Samson slaying the thousand with the jawbone of an ass, David standing up to the giant Goliath and slaying him, Moses and Aaron confronting the pharaoh and the armies of Egypt, the son of God himself born in a stable, Stephen confounding the sanhedrin (Israel's greatest scriptural scholars, Paul testifying before Agrippa and so on down to the prophet Joseph Smith of whom the Lord said "I raised you up , that I might show forth my wisdom through the weak things of the earth" D&C 124:1

 

I testify to you this day that the Lord did raise up Joseph Smith to restore the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the Earth.....