Concordance in the Standard Works of the Church of Jesus Christ Of Latter Day Saints -- Version 1.0 Many facts and fictions are dismissed about Mormon history by faithful LDS due to the source of such information. Suspicions run high when a revealing piece of knowledge originates from outside First Presidency approved sources, and the revealer is often treated with the same skepticism. Proofs that rely solely on the standard works (The King James Bible, Book of Mormon, Pearl of Great Price and the Doctrine & Covenants) to underscore some insight have much more validity. PART 1: Setting the Stage The Bible (KJV) The LDS church uses the King James version of the Bible as one component of their liturgy. According to the articles of faith, the Bible is considered the word of god so long as it is translated correctly. They rightfully suspect that much of the information in the Bible is erroneous, due to the passing of time through re-translations and re-tellings. Any pious claims made by the Bible are inherently suspect until they are weighed against other godly knowledge. Using the Bible, therefore, is a very ineffective way to communicate with anyone in the LDS faith. The Book of Mormon (BoM) To correct the translation problems in the Bible, and to provide a testament of Jesus Christ to the Americas, god purportedly visited Joseph Smith and presented him with some gold and brass plates of prophets who lived on the American continent. The plates begin with the journey of Lehi and his family from the middle east to America in 600BC. It follows their American history through the visitation of Christ after his resurrection and beyond. The Book of Mormon is unique in that the number of translations it has gone through is very minimal. The actual prophets of old wrote on the very same plates that were later compiled by the prophet Mormon and then present to Joseph smith some 1,500 years later. This means that there are at most 2 or 3 points of potential error; the original author, the compiler (Mormon and Moroni) and Joseph Smith. This book is known as "the most correct book" ever made by LDS members. The Doctrine & Covenants (D&C) If the number of translations is any indicator, the D&C must be an almost perfect collection of writings (it isn't generally considered a "book"). It contains latter-day, or post-Joseph-Smith revelation by prophets of the LDS church. Almost all of it was written by Joseph Smith with very minor additions by Brigham Young and Joseph Fielding Smith. Because it was penned directly by modern prophets, there are very few translation mistakes and must be considered the trump card of all LDS scripture. PART 2: Concordance LDS beliefs are stacked on a number of foundations, and the more stable those foundations are, the better a point is accepted by the church. Concordance among the various standard works is a game that is played by the faithful to strengthen such foundations, while outside influences are generally ignored as not being "faith promoting" ideas. In seminary, and on my mission, we would often construct scripture chases that linked a single idea among several works; if the Bible made an appearance in those links it was an added bonus, and if a secular person came up (a philosopher or politician) then it was extremely poignant; a truth that had made it through all those translations or memes must be very important. Unfortunately, the standard works don't always agree with each other. I've already mentioned the concept of "trumping" by using various scripture and writings. There is a definite precedence in scripture chasing that seems to boil down to this (from least important to most important): o Secular Writings o The Old Testament o The New Testament o Church Talks o General Conference Talks o General Authority Articles (Journal of Discourses, etc.) o The Book of Mormon o The Doctrine & Covenants o First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Edicts So, for example, something said by the current prophet can trump something in the Book of Mormon, which can in turn trump a conference talk, which in turn can trump the Bible. There are some exceptions to this behavior, but the structure is largely as described. Some theological examples of this process are blacks and the priesthood, baptism by immersion, celestial marriage and the word of wisdom. PART 3: Discordance These precedence rules make sense. Modern godly edicts should supersede older or erroneous beliefs. Many Christan churches play the same game with different sections of the Bible (the Old Law vs. the New Law and such), so it really isn't so strange. If architected by a higher power, then these games would provide a set of rules which we could use to govern our lives according to some plan of sorts. What happens, though, when the higher power makes a glaring mistake? What does this say about the sources of godly information and the prophets that presented them as divine? Using the trump system, many mistakes can be corrected further along the classification scheme. A modern prophet can "clarify" some past verbiage, or the "context" can be changed by new revelation. Even so, some problems pit modern revelations against each other to such an extent that the foundation of these ideas must be considered suspect. One can, therefore, test the validity of such revelation by pitting it against itself to see if it passes muster. An Example: The Sermon on the Mount Since Jesus' word is recorded in both the Bible (the gospels) and in the BoM (3Nephi) it would seem like a likely candidate to test concordance. In particular, anywhere that the Bible and the BoM agree, we should definitely presume that god has spoken and the truth is known. One such verse is 3Nephi 14:1-2 And now it came to pass that when Jesus had spoken these words he turned again to the multitude, and did open his mouth unto them again, saying: Verily, verily, I say unto you, Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged; and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. Which we can compare with KJV Matt 7:1-2 Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. Leaving out the presentation verbiage, they are almost identical. We can assume, therefore, that Jesus did indeed say exactly those words because the odds that all the translations of the KJV coming to exactly the same language that Nephi recorded for Joseph to translate by accident is minuscule. It would be highly unlikely that these verses concord in such a parallel manner if Jesus didn't say these words. Having established this, let's look at some verses from the D&C Section 45:60 And now, behold, I say unto you, it shall not be given unto you to know any further concerning this chapter, until the New Testament be translated, and in it all these things shall be made known; Section 73:3-4 Now, verily I say unto you my servants, Joseph Smith, Jun., and Sidney Rigdon, saith the Lord, it is expedient to translate again; And, inasmuch as it is practicable, to preach in the regions round about until conference; and after that it is expedient to continue the work of translation until it be finished. Section 93:53 And verily I say unto you, that it is my will that you should hasten to translate my scriptures, and to obtain a knowledge of history, and of countries, and of kingdoms, of laws of God and man, and all this for the salvation of Zion. Amen. Section 124:89 If he will do my will let him from henceforth hearken to the counsel of my servant Joseph, and with his interest support the cause of the poor, and publish the new translation of my holy word unto the inhabitants of the earth. God is telling us about the new translation of the Bible (JST) that he commanded Joseph to complete for the salvation of Zion. The work was never finished (I suppose he forgot about it, or the salvation of Zion isn't important now), but the new testament was completed. Let's look at the sermon on the mount verse from there: JST St. Matthew 7:1-3 Now these are the words which Jesus taught his disciples that they should say unto the people. Judge not unrighteously, that ye be not judged; but judge righteous judgment. For with what judgment ye shall judge, ye shall be judged; and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. Strange; let's see BoM and KJV again (they are the same for this clipping): Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged; and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. They significantly differ! We know that if the KJV and the BoM have word-for-word concordance, which they do in this case, then the odds are astounding that Jesus did indeed teach this concept. Then, we have the D&C demanding that Joseph translate the bible for the salvation of Zion, but he CHANGES this verse in it. Not only that, but this change produces a doctrinal deviation; "Judge not lest ye be judged" is not at all the same as "judge not unrighteously ... but judge righteous judgment" AND 2 of the modern day sources for this doctrine are from the SAME prophet: Joseph Smith, Jr. The church has buried the Joseph Smith translation of the bible into footnotes in the KJV and BoM triple (or quad) sets; leaving pretty much all of it out. Fortunately, they still had this translation in my footnotes (~1985 KJV) so all of the cited publishers for this gross error are from the First Presidency of the church. There are many such concordance errors that can be given to true believing Mormons who distrust outside evidences. -- Any mistakes above are MINE, please inform me and I'll correct them and change the version number so that people don't mistake me for a whimsical latter-day prophet.