The Articles of Faith Part 31

(_II_) _The Pauline Epistles._--The following extracts from the testimony of the Tubingen critics on four of Paul's epistles, are instructive.

De Wette says, in his introduction to the "Books of the New Testament" (123, a.):--"The letters of Paul bear the marks of his powerful genius. The most important of them are raised above all contradiction as to their authenticity; they form the solid kernel of the book of the New Testament."

Baur says, in his "Apostle Paul" (1, 8):--"Not only has no suspicion of the authenticity of these Epistles even arisen, but they bear so incontestably the seal of the originality of Paul, that one cannot comprehend for what reason critics could raise any objection to them."

Weizsaeker writes (Apost. Zeitalter, 1866, p. 190):--"The letters to the Galatians and the Corinthians are, without doubt, from the hand of the Apostle; from his hand also came incontestably the Epistle to the Romans."

Holtzmann says ("Einleit in's N. T.," p. 224):--"These four Epistles are the Pauline h.o.m.ologoumena (books universally received) in the modern acceptation of the word. We can realize, with respect to them, the proof of authenticity undertaken by Paley against the free-thinkers of his time."

M. Renan in _The Gospels_ (pp. 40, 41), thus expresses himself:--"The epistles of Paul have an unequaled advantage in this history--that is, their absolute authenticity." Of the Epistles to the Corinthians, the Galatians, and the Romans, Renan speaks as "indisputable and undisputed;" and adds, "The most severe critics, such as Christian Baur, accept them without objection."

=7. Archeological Evidence Confirming the Bible.=--Prof. A. H.

Sayce, M. A., sums up his learned treatise on the testimony of the ancient monuments, thus:--"The critical objections to the truth of the Old Testament, once drawn from the armory of Greek and Latin writers, can never be urged again; they have been met and overthrown once for all. The answers to them have come from papyrus and clay and stone, from the tombs of ancient Egypt, from the mounds of Babylonia, and from the ruined palaces of the a.s.syrian kings."

=8. Missing Scripture.=--Those who oppose the doctrine of continual revelation between G.o.d and His Church, on the ground that the Bible is complete as a collection of sacred scriptures, and that alleged revelation not found therein must therefore be spurious, may profitably take note of the many books not included in the Bible, yet mentioned therein, generally in such a way as to leave no doubt that they were once regarded as authentic.

Among these extra-biblical scriptures, the following may be named; some of them are in existence to-day, and are cla.s.sed with the Apocrypha; but the greater number are unknown. We read of the Book of the Covenant (Exo. xxiv, 7); Book of the Wars of the Lord (Numb. xxi, 14); Book of Jasher (Josh. x, 13); Book of the Statutes (I Sam. x, 25); Book of Enoch (Jude 14); Book of the Acts of Solomon (I Kings xi, 41); Book of Nathan the Prophet, and that of Gad the Seer (I Chron. xxix, 29); Book of Ahijah the Shilonite, and visions of Iddo, the Seer (II Chron. ix, 29); Book of Shemaiah (II Chron. xii, 15); Story of the Prophet Iddo (II Chron. xiii, 22); Book of Jehu (II Chron. xx, 34); the Acts of Uzziah, by Isaiah, the son of Amoz (II Chron. xxvi, 22); Sayings of the Seers (II Chron. x.x.xiii, 19); a missing epistle of Paul to the Corinthians (I Cor. v, 9); a missing epistle to the Ephesians (Eph. iii, 3); missing epistle to the Colossians, written from Laodicea (Col. iv, 16); a missing epistle of Jude (Jude 3); a declaration of belief mentioned by Luke (i, 1).

LECTURE XIV.

THE BOOK OF MORMON.

=Article 8.=--... We also believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of G.o.d.

DESCRIPTION AND ORIGIN.

=1. What is the Book of Mormon?=--The claims made for the Book of Mormon affirm it to be a divinely inspired record, made by the prophets of the ancient peoples who inhabited the American continent for centuries before and immediately after the time of Christ; which record has been translated in the present generation through the gift of G.o.d and by His special appointment. The authorized and inspired translator of these sacred scriptures, through whose instrumentality they have been given to the world in modern language, is Joseph Smith, whose first acquaintance with the plates was mentioned in the first lecture.[768] As stated, on the 21st of September, 1823, Joseph Smith received, in answer to fervent prayer, a visitation from an angelic personage, who gave his name as Moroni; subsequent revelations showed him to be the last of a long line of prophets whose translated writings const.i.tute the Book of Mormon; by him the ancient records had been closed; by him the graven plates had been deposited in the earth; and through his ministration they were brought into the possession of the modern prophet and seer whose work of translation is now before us.

[768] See pages 10, 17.

=2.= On the occasion of Moroni's first visit to Joseph Smith, the angelic visitor declared the existence of the record, which, he said, was engraved on plates of gold, at that time lying buried in the side of a hill near Joseph's home. The hill, which was known by one division of the ancient peoples as c.u.morah, by another as Ramah, is situated near Palmyra in the county of Wayne, State of New York. The precise spot where the plates lay was shown to Joseph in vision; and he had no difficulty in finding it on the day following the visitation referred to. Joseph's statement of Moroni's declaration concerning the plates is as follows:--"He said there was a book deposited, written upon gold plates, giving an account of the former inhabitants of this continent, and the source from which they sprang. He also said that the fulness of the everlasting gospel was contained in it, as delivered by the Savior to the ancient inhabitants. Also, that there were two stones in silver bows, (and these stones, fastened to a breastplate, const.i.tuted what is called the Urim and Thummim), deposited with the plates; and the possession and use of these stones was what const.i.tuted Seers in ancient or former times; and that G.o.d had prepared them for the purpose of translating the book."[769]

[769] Pearl of Great Price: Extr. Hist. of Joseph Smith, 34-35.

=3.= Joseph found a large stone at the indicated spot on the hill c.u.morah; beneath the stone was a box, also of stone; the lid of this he raised by means of a lever; then he saw within the box the plates, and the breastplate with the Urim and Thummim, as described by the angel. As he was about to remove the contents of the box, Moroni again appeared before him, and forbade him taking the sacred things at that time, saying that four years must pa.s.s before they would be committed to his personal care; and that, in the meantime, Joseph would be required to visit the place at yearly intervals; this the youthful revelator did, receiving on each occasion additional instruction concerning the record and G.o.d's purposes with it. On the 22nd of September, 1827, Joseph received from the angel Moroni the plates and the Urim and Thummim with the breastplate. He was instructed to guard them with strict care, and was promised that if he used his best efforts to protect them they would be preserved inviolate in his hands; and that on the completion of the labor of translation, Moroni would visit him again, and receive the plates.

=4.= The reason prompting the angelic caution regarding Joseph's care of the treasures soon appeared; thrice in the course of his short journey homeward with the sacred relics, he was attacked; but by Divine aid he was enabled to withstand his a.s.sailants and finally reached his home with the plates and other articles unharmed. These attacks were but the beginning of a siege of persecution which was relentlessly waged against him by the powers of evil as long as the plates remained in his custody. News that he had the golden record in his possession soon spread; and numerous attempts, many of them violent, were made to wrest the plates from his hands. But they were preserved; and, slowly, with many hindrances incident to persecution by the wicked, and to the conditions of his own poverty which made it necessary for him to toil and left little leisure for the appointed labor, Joseph proceeded with the translation; and in 1830 the Book of Mormon was first published to the world.

=5. The t.i.tle Page of the Book of Mormon.=--Our best answer to the question: What is the Book of Mormon? is found on the t.i.tle page to the volume. Thereon we read:

"The Book of Mormon: an account written by the hand of Mormon, upon plates taken from the plates of Nephi. Wherefore it is an abridgment of the record of the people of Nephi, and also of the Lamanites; written to the Lamanites who are a remnant of the house of Israel; and also to Jew and Gentile: written by way of commandment, and also by the spirit of prophecy and of revelation. Written and sealed up, and hid up unto the Lord, that they might not be destroyed; to come forth by the gift and power of G.o.d unto the interpretation thereof: sealed by the hand of Moroni, and hid up unto the Lord, to come forth in due time by the way of Gentile; the interpretation thereof by the gift of G.o.d.

"An abridgment taken from the book of Ether also; which is a record of the people of Jared; who were scattered at the time the Lord confounded the language of the people when they were building a tower to get to heaven; which is to show unto the remnant of the House of Israel what great things the Lord hath done for their fathers; and that they may know the covenants of the Lord, that they are not cast off forever; and also to the convincing of the Jew and Gentile that Jesus is the Christ, the Eternal G.o.d, manifesting Himself unto all nations. And now, if there are faults, they are the mistakes of men: wherefore condemn not the things of G.o.d, that ye may be found spotless at the judgment seat of Christ."

This combined t.i.tle and preface is a translation from the last page of the plates, and was presumably written by Moroni, who, as before stated, sealed and hid up the book in former days.[770]

[770] See Note 1.

=6. Main Divisions of the Book.=--From the t.i.tle page, we learn that in the Book of Mormon we have to deal with the histories of two great nations, who flourished in America as the descendants of small colonies brought hither from the eastern continent by Divine direction. Of these we may conveniently speak as the Nephites and the Jaredites.

=7. The Nephite Nation= was the later, and in point of the fulness of the records, the more important. The progenitors of this nation were led from Jerusalem 600 B. C., by Lehi, a Jewish prophet of the tribe of Mana.s.seh. His immediate family, at the time of their departure from Jerusalem, comprised his wife Sariah, and their sons Laman, Lemuel, Sam, and Nephi; at a later stage of the history, daughters are mentioned, but whether any of these were born before the family exodus we are not told. Beside his own family, the colony of Lehi included Zoram and Ishmael, the latter an Israelite of the tribe of Ephraim.

Ishmael, with his family, joined Lehi in the wilderness; and his descendants were numbered with the nation of whom we are speaking. The company journeyed somewhat east of south, keeping near the borders of the Red Sea; then, changing their course to the eastward, crossed the peninsula of Arabia; and there, on the sh.o.r.es of the Arabian Sea, built and provisioned a vessel in which they committed themselves to Divine care upon the waters. Their voyage carried them eastward across the Indian Ocean, then over the south Pacific Ocean to the western coast of South America, whereon they landed (590 B. C.). The landing place is not described with such detail as to warrant definite conclusions.

=8.= The people established themselves on what to them was the land of promise; many children were born, and in the course of a few generations a numerous posterity held possession of the land. After the death of Lehi, a division occurred, some of the people accepting as their leader Nephi, who had been duly appointed to the prophetic office; while the rest proclaimed Laman, the eldest of Lehi's sons, as their chief. Henceforth the divided people were known as Nephites and Lamanites respectively. At times they observed toward each other fairly friendly relations; but generally they were opposed, the Lamanites manifesting implacable hatred and hostility toward their Nephite kindred. The Nephites advanced in the arts of civilization, built large cities, and established prosperous commonwealths; yet they often fell into transgression; and the Lord chastened them by permitting their foes to be victorious. They spread northward, occupying the northern part of South America; then, crossing the Isthmus, they extended their domain over the southern, central, and eastern portions of what is now the United States of America. The Lamanites, while increasing in numbers, fell under the curse of darkness; they became dark in skin and benighted in spirit, forgot the G.o.d of their fathers, lived a wild nomadic life, and degenerated into the fallen state in which the American Indians,--their lineal descendants,--were found by those who re-discovered the western continent in later times.

=9.= The final struggles between Nephites and Lamanites were waged in the vicinity of the hill c.u.morah, in what is now the state of New York, resulting in the entire destruction of the Nephites, about 400 A. D. The last Nephite representative was Moroni, who, wandering for safety from place to place, daily expecting death from the victorious Lamanites, who had decreed the absolute extinction of their white kindred, wrote the concluding parts of the Book of Mormon, hid the record in c.u.morah, and soon thereafter died. It was this same Moroni who, as a resurrected being, gave the records into the hands of Joseph Smith in the present dispensation.

=10. The Jaredite Nation.=--Of the two nations whose histories const.i.tute the Book of Mormon, the first in order of time consisted of the people of Jared, who followed their leader from the Tower of Babel at the time of the confusion of tongues. Their history was written on twenty-four plates of gold by Ether, the last of their prophets, who, fore-seeing the destruction of his people because of their wickedness, hid away the historical plates. They were afterward found, B. C. 123, by an expedition sent out by King Limhi, a Nephite ruler. The record engraved on these plates was subsequently abridged by Moroni, and the condensed account was attached by him to the Book of Mormon record; it appears in the modern translation under the name of the Book of Ether.

=11.= The first and chief prophet of the Jaredites is not mentioned by name in the record as we have it; he is known only as the brother of Jared. Of the people, we learn that, amid the confusion of Babel, Jared and his brother importuned the Lord that He would spare them and their a.s.sociates from the impending disruption. Their prayer was heard, and the Lord led them with a considerable company, who, like themselves, were free from the taint of idolatry, away from their homes, promising to conduct them to a land choice above all other lands. Their course of travel is not given with exactness; we learn only that they reached the ocean, and there constructed eight vessels, called barges, in which they set out upon the waters. These vessels were small and dark within; but the Lord made luminous certain stones, which gave light to the imprisoned voyagers. After a pa.s.sage of three hundred and forty-four days, the colony landed on the western sh.o.r.e of North America, possibly south of the Gulf of California, and north of the Isthmus of Panama.

=12.= Here they became a flourishing nation; but, giving way in time to internal dissensions, they divided into factions, which warred with one another until the people were totally destroyed. This destruction, which occurred near the hill Ramah, afterward known among the Nephites as c.u.morah, probably took place at about the time of Lehi's landing in South America,--590 B. C. The last representative of the ill-fated race was Coriantumr, the former king, concerning whom Ether had prophesied that he should survive all his subjects, and live to see another people in possession of the land. This prediction was fulfilled in that the king, whose people had become extinct, came, in the course of his solitary wanderings, to a region occupied by the people of Mulek, who are to be mentioned here as the third ancient colony of emigrants from the eastern continent.

=13.= _Mulek_, we are told, was the son of Zedekiah, king of Judah, an infant at the time of his brothers' violent deaths and his father's cruel torture at the hands of the king of Babylon.[771] Eleven years after Lehi's departure from Jerusalem, another colony was led from the city, amongst whom was Mulek. His name has been given to the people, probably on account of his recognized rights of leadership by virtue of his lineage. The Book of Mormon record concerning Mulek and his people is scant; we learn, however, that the colony was brought across the waters, to a landing on the northern part of the continent. The descendants of this colony were discovered by the Nephites under Mosiah; they had grown numerous, but, having had no scriptures for their guidance, had fallen into a condition of spiritual darkness.

They joined the Nephites, and their history is merged into that of the greater nation.[772] The Nephites gave to North America the name Land of Mulek.

[771] See II Kings xxv, 7.

[772] Omni i, 12-19.

THE ANCIENT PLATES AND THE MODERN TRANSLATION.

=14. The Plates of the Book of Mormon= as delivered by the angel Moroni to Joseph Smith, according to the description given by the modern prophet, were of gold, of uniform size, each about seven inches wide by eight inches long; in thickness a little less than ordinary sheet tin; they were fastened together by three rings running through the plates near one edge; together they formed a book nearly six inches in thickness, but not all has been translated, a part being sealed. Both sides of the plates were engraved with small and beautiful characters, described by those who examined them as of curious workmanship, with the appearance of ancient origin.

=15.= Three cla.s.ses of plates are mentioned on the t.i.tle page of the Book of Mormon, viz:--

(1.) _The Plates of Nephi_, which, as will be shown, were of two kinds:--(a) the larger plates; (b) the smaller plates.

(2.) _The Plates of Mormon_, containing an abridgment from the plates of Nephi, with additions made by Mormon and his son Moroni.

(3.) _The Plates of Ether_, containing, as we have seen, the history of the Jaredites.

To these may be added another set of plates, as being mentioned in the Book of Mormon, viz:

(4.) _The Bra.s.s Plates of Laban_, brought by Lehi's people from Jerusalem, and containing Jewish scriptures and genealogies, many extracts from which appear in the Nephite records. We have now to consider more particularly the plates of Nephi, and Mormon's abridgment thereof.

=16. The Plates of Nephi= are so named from the fact that they were prepared, and their record was begun, by Nephi, the son of Lehi. These plates were of two kinds,[773] which may be distinguished as the "larger plates" and the "smaller plates." Nephi began his labors as a recorder by engraving on plates of gold a historical account of his people, from the time his father left Jerusalem. This account recited the story of their wanderings, their prosperity and their distress, the reigns of their kings, and the wars and contentions of the people; the record was in the nature of a secular history. These plates were handed from one recorder to another throughout the generations of the Nephite people; so that, at the time they were abridged by Mormon, the record covered a period of about a thousand years, dating from 600 B.

C., the time of Lehi's exodus from Jerusalem. Although these plates bore the name of their maker, who was also the first of the writers, the separate work of each recorder is known in general by his specific name, so that the record is made up of many distinct books.

[773] I Nephi ix; xix, 1-5; II Nephi v, 30; Jacob i, 1-4; Words of Mormon i, 3-7.

=17.= By command of the Lord, Nephi made other plates, upon which he recorded particularly the ecclesiastical history of his people, citing only such instances of other events as seemed necessary to the proper sequence of the narrative. "I have received a commandment of the Lord," says Nephi, "that I should make these plates for the special purpose that there should be an account engraven of the ministry of my people."[774] The object of this double line of history was unknown to Nephi, it was enough for him that the Lord required the labor; that it was for a wise purpose will be shown.

[774] I Nephi ix, 3.