You are right Bond, It is believed that in the case of the Gospel of Luke (who probably wrote the Book of Acts also), that it was written sometime around 60+AD. It is believed that he recorded the first hand accounts of some of the apostles regarding Christ's ministry.

In other words he wrote about events he wasn't present for just like Just Me said.

(Please start using the quote feature. It's at the bottom of every post, just click it to respond to a post.)

I wonder why it is that death and time seem so important to people. What is important is truth. Truth does not change and can be written by anyone who knows what actually happened whether they were there or not. The only issue is did the revelation come from someone who has access to the truth. Here faith comes into play and the witness of the Holy Spirit. Not only does God declare truth to His servants but He gives the elect the ability to determine independently the truth of scripture. Almost like it was planned from the beginning.

If you understood some truth you would realize that no one is challenging that, only that the likelihood goes down.



Yet all these groups think they have the holy spirit and are the elect and can't agree with each other.

For one thing, we all face death and death marks the end of our mortal existence. Once death has entered the scene all things mortal have expired. All we have is time and it's quickly running out with each passing day.




Truth is important but not neccessary to survive. It's a luxury. If you think you know the truth you may consider yourself, lucky.




Truth is also in the eye of the beholder. Everyone sees their own truth and how they perceive truth. Truth is open to debate in this mortal world. However, things like 2 + 2 will always be 4 no matter what anyone says. The fact that there is no king's name in Facsimile No. 3 is an established truth because the language says what it does just like my paragraph is telling you a message but it says nothing about ancient Chinese traditions.




And if Joseph Smith was telling us the truth then Egypologists today would have told us the name of the Egyptian king in Facsimile No. 3 and confirm the other things Joseph claimed as revelation in the Explanations of the same.




There are too many Latter-day Saints that have faith in Joseph Smith's Explanations of Facsimile No. 3 even though they have been shown to be untrue. Having faith in something that is untrue in the face of obvious lying is not healthy.




Truth to god's servants? Let's elect you! Why did Joseph Smith call an Egyptian god a slave in Facsimile No. 3?

Paul O

Why is it that some refuse to accept a statement at face value? Your "if" "then" requirement is very common for those who do not wish scripture to be true. They search for any crack in the logic or any historical mismatch between scripture and man's account to toss scripture. And why is this done, because accepting scripture comes with accepting the commandments of God. You can make your own rules and live your own life. That is your choice. But to use a declared omission in scripture as justification is pretty small. Just man up and say you wish to follow your own rules.

I won't accept the statement found in Facsimile No. 3 at face value because it has no legitimate value. It's utterly false. It's utterly incorrect. It's utterly a wrong translation. What part of that can't you understand?

Your problem is that you believe Joseph Smith is a prophet no matter what evidence and proof shows otherwise because you think the Holy Ghost has told you the church is true. That is dangerous and leads to deception. It's like having a cart with no horse. You can't get anywhere without a horse and neither can Joseph's translation have credibility without a king's name to prove his translation correct. Simple logic. But Mormonism throws logic out the window in effort to save the testimony at all costs.

You want me to acccept the Explanations of Facsimile No. 3 as true and live Mormon commandments? I wish you would man up and admit that Joseph Smith gave false translations. Own up! Make that step into intellectual honesty and see if things don't seem a bit different afterward. The false translation of Facsimile No. 3 is no small thing. It's an indicator that Joseph Smith didn't know how to translate but used his own cunning. Where does that leave the Book of Mormon? Well, just look at all the KJV errors of Isaiah found in the pages of the Book of Mormon. Error preserved in error. That's Mormon translations for you.

No thanks, pal. I'm an honest man. I won't credit Joseph Smith with anything of value when it comes to his translations. You can, but not me. There is no king's name. Joseph Smith lied. And I don't think you are a person with an honest heart and mind. Sorry.

Paul O

Paul,

I accept that Joseph Smith was a man with all of the faults of a man. I accept that the scriptures are filled with errors of man. I think we are lucky to have what we have. What we do have is enough to understand the plan of salvation and enough to obtain guidance in our life of flesh. The rest we pick up by our personal relationship with a living God. My desire is that you to could experience the joy of that relationship. If not now then maybe one day.

When you accept Joseph Smith as a man with man's fault then you, I assume, admit that he lied about his ability to translate Egyptian as shown in Facsimile No. 3. When you confess that the scriptures are filled with the errors of men you are left with having to pick up the pieces and make sense of it the best you can.

The doctrine of salvation as contained in the scriptures is just as fake as the Explanations of Facsimile No. 3. It was all made up. Jesus can't save you. The Father isn't so insane as to have to send his Son to die just to forgive us. Can't you see that the Christians were trying to one-up the insanity of the Hebrew's religion by overcoming animal sacrifice? The whole doctrine of blood atonement and salvation through Christ's blood is insane. He's dead. May Jesus rest in peace.

I view Christianity as a sick religion, a mind sucking cult.

Paul O

It always amazes me how Mormons and Christians attempt to support absurd folklore and myths in the Bible by referring to other folklore and myths in the Bible. In fact, the Old Testament is conclusive proof that Mormonism is false and that Jesus is not divine. The Old Testament is full of stories that are nothing more than outrageous folklore and myths. For example: 1) Adam and Eve--humans were on the earth thousands of years before this mythical story of origin; 2) Noah's Ark--impossible for a number of reasons; 3) the Tower of Babel--see below; 4) Lot's wife getting turned into a pillar of salt because she disobeyed God's command not to look back at the destruction of Soddom--think what God would have done to her if she refused to become one of Joseph's plurar wives; 5) Lot's daughters getting him drunk and raping him on successive nights and then giving birth to the fathers of Israel's two traditional enemies, the Ammonites and Moabites,who were thus incestuous bastards; 6) Moses being commanded by God to have the Israelite armies kill every man, woman and child occupying the promised land so the Israelites could take over the land and then when the armies wouldn't kill the women and children, Moses being angry and making them go back and kill the women and children; 7) God forbidding Moses to enter the promised land because instead of talking to a rock to command the rock to give forth water for all the thousands of Israelites and their animals to drink, Moses got the rock to give up the water by striking the rock with his staff; 8) The battle of miracles between Moses's God and the Pharaoh's magicians (there isn't even any archeological evidence any large number of Israelites were ever slaves in Egypt); 9) Jonah and the Whale (or was it Giapetto and Pinnochio?), etc., etc., not to mention all of the back-dated prophesies and conflicting theology in the book.

Jesus was a devout Jew who considered the Old Testament as sacred scripture. If you believe the Gospels, Jesus quoted from 24 different books of the Old Testament, including Genesis. The New Testament as a whole quotes from 48 books of the Old Testament. Never once did Jesus tell his followers that the Old Testament was not sacred scripture. Thus, because the Old Testament is full of tall tales made up by an ancient, superstitious people, Jesus could not believe in it and still be God. Some Christians attempt to get around this problem by arguing that you aren't suppose to take the Old Testament literally. That is not what Jesus said. The Mormons can't use this dodge because Joseph Smith clearly taught that the Old Testament was sacred scripture and was to be taken literally. Mormon leaders continue to the present time to teach that at least Adam and Eve, Noah's Ark and the Tower of Babel stories are literally true. Most damaging to the Mormons, the Book of Mormon says that the Jeredites travelled to the new world in their submarines at the time of the confusion of tongues at the Tower of Babel. This story is simply a myth of origin. Numerous languages existed many hundreds of years before the Tower and people were scattered over the earth many hundreds of years before the Tower. Moreover, does it really make sense that these ancient people believed that they could build a tower that reached into the heavens or that God thought they could do so and that he had to scatter the people and confound their language as opposed to just having a good celestial laugh or maybe destroying the tower by lightning after the people had worked on it for ten years or a thousand years? Consequently, because the Tower of Babel (and the other stories Joseph believed in) is pure fiction, Joseph could not have been a prophet. Add this to your list.

If you want to support the truth of your Biblical folklore and myths with more folklore and myths, you might as well include stories of Zeus and Thor and Hercules.

simply not true


so, you are saying you do not have that argument - check!

Yet no reason is given how one who was not witnessed is as likely to get the story accurate as one who was there.



Let me be more clear. Your statement that if one cannot find good reasons that show a story is false that they must conclude it is true is one of the stupidest ones I have seen. Although your one above is right up there as well. What makes this one so stupid is that you only follow it with religious texts you want to believe in. You don't follow it with religious texts you don't believe in.

Your comment about running your mouth is on par with the rest of your arguments. You need a new peep stone.

Bond, the event which I referred to was an event recorded in the gospel of John (see John 9th chapter). John was an apostle of Jesus Christ who was with Him during His ministry. Also, as I previously stated, it is believed by scholars that Luke's account was written from direct information from the apostles also.

Yes the point is that the Luke account was written many years after Jesus's death when he had probably already beginning to be regarded more as god than a man with a vision. People talk about George Washington in fawning terms now, but he had his own contemporary critics. The point is that a lot of stuff gets whitewashed by writers who didn't know the person directly as well as by writers writing from a biased position.

Class, here we have a firm affirmation of my earlier statement about how most of the critics are actually not critical but instead just plain old run of the mill cynical people.
The presupposition that a "story" is false, when no good reasoning concludes it to be false, and unless the story has proof of being true is an absolute irrational and unreasonable position.
Basically, your assertion above illustrates your inability to both understand or refute the Principle of Credulity. (and likely contradicts your own behavior)

LOL Sub thinks he's a teacher. Maybe that is why he thinks he can't learn anything and never actually listens or tries to find out what people think. I never stated that unless we have evidence or proof that a story is true, or that evidence is lacking in showing it false, that the conclusion must be false. You need to get out of this black and white thinking. You may have heard of things like agnostic, but I doubt you even know what it means.

I see your point Bond. However, John had a pretty intimate knowledge of the Saviors ministry, and also there are so many accounts of His miracles. I find it interesting also that so many people were willing to die for their testimony shortly after the time of Christ's ministry. I think that this would have never happened had there not been so much evidence of His divinity.

Not quite sure this is correct.
There is one account of his miracles which a number of others rewrote.
IIRC the Gospel of Mark is the original piece that the other Gospels took their information from.
So, just one account with lots of copies.

That's a gross oversimplification and not accurate at all.