Читать книгу The Story of the Mormons, from the Date of Their Origin to the Year 1901 - William Alexander Linn - Страница 24

Among the many anachronisms to be found in the book may be mentioned the giving to Laban of a sword with a blade "of the most precious steel" (1 Nephi iv. 9), centuries before the use of steel is elsewhere recorded. and the possession of a compass by the Jaredites when they sailed across the ocean (Alma xxxvii. 38), long before the invention of such an instrument. The ease with which such an error could be explained is shown in the anecdote related of a Utah Mormon who, when told that the compass was not known in Bible times, responded by quoting Acts xxviii. 13, where Paul says, "And from thence we fetched a compass." When Nephi and his family landed in Central America "there were beasts in the forest of every kind, both the cow, and the ox, and the ass, and the horse" (ix Nephi xviii. 25). If Nephi does not prevaricate, there must have been a fatal plague among these animals in later years, for horses, cows, and asses were unknown in America until after its discovery by Europeans. Moroni, in the Book of Ether (ix. 18, 19), is still more generous, adding to the possessions of the Jaredites sheep and swine* and elephants and "cureloms and cumoms." Neither sheep nor swine are indigenous to America; but the prophet is safe as regards the "cureloms and cumoms," which are animals of his own creation.

* "And," it is added, "many other kinds of animals which were

useful for the use of man," thus ignoring the Hebrew antipathy to pork.

The book is full of incidental proofs of the fraudulent profession that it is an original translation. For instance, in incorporating 1 Corinthians iii. 4, in the Book of Moroni, the phrase "is not easily provoked" is retained, as in the King James edition. But the word "easily" is not found in any Greek manuscript of this verse, and it is dropped in the Revised Version of 1881.

Stenhouse calls attention to many phrases in this Bible which were peculiar to the revival preachers of those days, like Rigdon, such as "Have ye spiritually been born of God?" "If ye have experienced a change of heart."

The first edition was full of grammatical errors and amusing phrases. Thus we are told, in Ether xv. 31, that when Coriantumr smote off the head of Shiz, the latter "raised upon his hands and fell." Among other examples from the first edition may be quoted: "and I sayeth"; "all things which are good cometh of God"; "neither doth his angels"; and "hath miracles ceased." We find in Helaman ix. 6, "He being stabbed by his brother by a garb of secrecy." This remains uncorrected.

Alexander Campbell, noting the mixture of doctrines in the book, says, "He [the author] decides all the great controversies discussed in New York in the last ten years, infant baptism, the Trinity, regeneration, repentance, justification, the fall of man, the atonement, transubstantiation, fasting, penance, church government, the call to the ministry, the general resurrection, eternal punishment, who may baptize, and even the questions of Freemasonry, republican government and the rights of man."*

* "Delusions: an Analysis of the Book of Mormon" (1832). An

exhaustive examination of this Bible will be found in the "Braden and

Kelley Public Discussion."

Such is the book which is accepted to this day as an inspired work by the thousands of persons who constitute the Mormon church. This acceptance has always been rightfully recognized as fundamentally necessary to the Mormon faith. Orson Pratt declared, "The nature of the message in the Book of Mormon is such that, if true, none can be saved who reject it, and, if false, none can be saved who receive it." Brigham Young told the Conference at Nauvoo in October, 1844, that "Every spirit that confesses that Joseph Smith is a prophet, that he lived and died a prophet, and that the Book of Mormon is true, is of God, and every spirit that does not is of Anti-Christ." There is no modification of this view in the Mormon church of to-day.