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Hey Bruce, welcome to the forum. Hope you enjoy yourself. If you have any questions, I volunteer our moderators to answer them.

Would it be called 'yet another thing the government wants to charge you for but isn't your fault tax?' Or the 'Help I'm gonna burn tax?' :D:D

I personally love science and try to incorporate as much of it as possible into religion. I think religion is who and why and science is how and when. I think that God is the ultimate scientist. When I consider the doctrines of the scriptures and the prophets, I find few if any disagreeing subjects. Fascinating if you ask me.

Based on personal, sacred, spiritual experiences and the like, I believe we all knew what we were individually getting ourselves into as far as temporal welfare goes. Maybe we didn't really know what we would do about it, but I think we knew that we would be born poverty stricken or rich, sickly or healthy, dead on arrival or have a long life. I believe we welcomed these circumstances as they are to be growing experiences for us. For those of us who welcomed the opportunity to be born with a bit more of the temporal goodness, I believe we agreed to impart as we are capable to those who agreed to live in such a way that our wealth had meaning and could be used for true charity.

Hey Jenn, first and foremost, regardless of what goes on in this website, do what God tells you to. Much of what is said, particularly in this thread is speculation anyway. Listen to the prophets, study the scriptures, and if you act on what is said in these places, you'll do fine. Keep it up sister. :)

Just to clarify, we are both talking about Christ quoting himself right? I am talking about Christ reoffering the Lord's prayer during his visit to the Nephites. Please correct my if I am wrong, but it seems as though you are talking about an external author quoting Christ from Matthew. I think that the two accounts will be mostly the same because they are both quotes from Christ. I just don't think they would be quite the same because of the distinct needs of the Nephites verses the Jews. If I am right about how we are separately viewing this, let me know. I understand a lot better where you are coming from if this is the case.

I just want to make sure that I understand what you are saying here. Are you saying that the author of 3 Nephi had read Matthew? Or did I miss something? Thing is, as far as members are concerned, no one in the Book of Mormon knew of Matthew, Luke, or anyone specifically in the NT except Christ. Christ visited those in the BOM. If there are differences in the prayer, it is because he didn't quote himself, which actually follows his teaching about vain repetitions. If I missed something though, please let me know. :)

So I had a personal experience which could potentially exhibit why it is that the Bible may have errors that hold varying levels of impact. I recently got a parking ticket. Really. Anyway, the written ticket says I drive a green 2 door sedan. When you go to the proper website, the electronic ticket says I drive a teal 4 door sedan. These two instances exhibit to me 2 widely varying accounts, one should have been based on the other, and both took no more than 10 minutes to process. The number of doors my car has (4) should be obvious to anyone there to see. The color not so much (actually 3 depending on where you look - teal, blue, and red). Like I said. Ten minutes of direct observation, and the entire thing is messed up. If I called in and reported my car stolen and said it was a 2 door green sedan, the cops would never find it. likewise, if any similar misrepresentation is present in the bible, we are in trouble. The biggest differences are that the ticket is a 6 inch receipt with less than a line of legal size text. The bible is over 1.5 thousand pages of small print. The other big difference is time frame. It took ten minutes or less to accidentally skew my ticket. The Bible has been around for 2 to 6 thousand years depending on which part you look at. I dunno about you guys, but I see this as a pretty outstanding example. I mean sure, my ticket isn't the Bible, or anything similar to the word of God, but it is still subject to human error. Just another thought.

Thanks for your further clarification pc. I do understand where you are coming from. I think that the key difference is whether we consider it to be literal or symbolic, as well as how we view the defining of terms, and lastly whether or not we believe the BoM, D&C, or Pearl of Great Price. I won't proceed to argue my point because in my personal experience, and what seems to be a trend on this whole website, that doesn't get anywhere. :)

gotcha

dgov, thats an interesting thought. Did they encounter local tribes though? I thought the only other people there were the people of Zarahemla (who I thought also came from Jerusalem), and Coriatumer of the Jaredites.

In a mild and somewhat mythical support of such biblical stories, there are many other cultures which share these stories in their mythologies. Greek mythology and some African mythology are the ones I have read, though I can't remember where as I was a sophomore in high school. That said, I don't know if these stories rose from alterations to stories the christian missionaries told or if they came before even that.

Hmmm, on some level I do agree that we shouldn't remove a fear of hell. Fear is something of a motivator. I personally think though that faith is a greater motivator and it carries with it the righteous intent. For instance, if I follow God's commandments, I think it is more effective and better for me to do so because I love Him than because I fear punishment. Under the premise that I obey out of fear, one could easily argue that I still don't love Him. I think this would still keep me out of heaven. With reference to the burning Hell, this is my understanding. The outer darkness is what most Mormons think of when we consider endless hell. I dunno about the burning part with reference to that. When I consider eternal, burning hell, I think of it in ths respect. First, I think it is a spiritual burning. Guilt would be an earthly equivalent, but I don't think that it holds a candle to the post life burning. I also think of the the word 'eternal' when I consider things relating to God. An example is the phrase 'eternal life.' I understand this to mean 'God's life.' Hence when we consider eternal life we come across the part of LDS doctrine that involves becoming like Him. I consider the same when I thik of eternal hell. What might God's hell be? The atonement. Even God trembled because of that mix of spiritual and physical pain. I believe we are promised the same demise when we don't accept the atonement and repent because we must pay for our own sins rather than allowing Christ to. The biggest difference between what I understand to be typical Christian hell doctrine and what I have described above is timing. My understanding is that most christians believe this happens after the judgment. I (and the rest of my Mormon cohorts) believe that it occurs in the spirit world. I hope that explains adequately my position, and perhaps adds clarification to the difference between LDS and typical Christian doctrines/ideals.

My advice (corrupted though it may be) would be to completely skip Numbers. Its always been a snoozer for me.

My understanding is that we aren't supposed to blindly obey any command given to us. We are to pray over it, and then obey it. That aside, in my experience, obedience to most commandments leads to a testimony of its rightfulness eventually.

I for one don't believe the Bible to be completely allegorical, but I hope that doesn't remove my being allowed to add my two bits. :) Personally I think that we must be very careful when we establish something as fiction with a point verses establishing it as history. The reason for this is that if we proceed to dumb down Gods miracles as 'inspirational stories,' we begin to remove our faith in his being capable of all things. If we don't believe him capable of all things then it would be hypocritical to believe that he can perform the most miraculous task... salvation for man. I believe that the atonement happened literally. I believe that the creation, fall, flood, conception of Christ, and the parting of the red sea were all literal stories. I don't argue to know how God did it. For all I know each event was simply a word. Or he may have created via divinely controlled evolution, had a fruit that literally gave knowledge, flooded with a super tidal wave, conceived Christ in an inconceivable way, and parted the Sea by blowing on it. I have no idea. But I personally feel that to claim that none of these is true is akin to dumbing down Gods divinity, which I doubt he appreciates. My ideas.

I would also like to point out that with issues as speculative as this, it doesn't do any good to thrash each others intelligence or lack thereof. If someone here says something, and I don't agree with it, that doesn't give me the right to assume they don't know what they are talking about, or that their input is unproductive. None of us know completely what happened. Some may have a better idea than others. Some may have an idea based on a certain perspective. Still more may be like me and unable to supply sources because we can't remember where we read something. I admit that this is dangerous because it can start rumors. But it doesn't change the fact that none of us are capable of producing 100% truthful verification on exactly what happened, why it happened, how it happened, and who did it with regard to a topic of this nature.

I admit that I haven't read the whole thread, as it seemed to have generally degraded into personal attacks where I stopped reading it. First I would like to point out that we all agree that there are mistakes, purposeful or not, in the text. I believe that even Snow has stated that some of these exist. Whether purposely corrupted or not, mistakes in the message of the gospel are potentially dangerous. Proof of this fact is present in the very number of varying beliefs that have risen purely from the bible. Next, I would like to point out that wikipedia is not a very credible source, especially where the church is concerned. It is open to personal view, and heavy bias. That isn't to say that it doesn't try to do a good job, or to say that it isn't largely successful. But we must be careful how we use it. I will point our that most university professors that I have had refuse to accept it as a source of information on any assignments. Third, to source the various mistakes, cuts, and possibly but not necessarily corruptions in the bible. I turn first to the Bible dictionary. If you read the section Lost Books, it reviews the scriptures and calls out the references to every single missing book that is referred to in the scriptures. Of course there is the option that individuals decided that these didn't need to be there. But were they prophets? If not, then they were acting outside of their stewardship and were (even if inadvertently) corrupting the scriptures, even if on a very small level. Personally, I see so many omissions as being dangerous and I am certain that there are various doctrines that were contained in those that are not in what we have. I admit that I can't source these, because I don't have the books to say what they actually had. Another observation supporting the potentially harmful mistakes surrounding the bible is given in the existence of both the apocrypha and the dead sea scrolls. These are not in the canonized scripture, and yet were possibly at one time in the Bible as well. I will again point out the allegations of Article of Faith 8, which is doctrinally correct, and infers that the Bible may not be completely translated correctly. My final observation to mistakes in the bible can be seen in the continuing example of man to change what has been written to follow their own interpretations. How many variations of the Bible have been written just in the last 10 years? I doubt they all deliver the same gospel message, and so we see that there are definitely potentially harmful translations out there. With regard to the ideas of various scholars, I don't wish to discredit them. They are definitely wiser than I am and are more learned with regard to the scriptures. But we still must be wary of their claims. 2 Nephi chapter 9 both verses 28 and 42 are scriptural evidence of this need. The same can be said as we read 2 Nephi 26:20, 27:22, and 27:26. Perhaps these wise and learned men have been able to establish 99% accuracy to what is present to study. I doubt that they have done so with regard to all of the books mentioned in the Bible dictionary, or to those that haven't even been named. Thats my take. I hope I have provided enough sources to support it.

Glad to know he is getting up. My thought was to dump it on him if he hit the snooze button. But it's always better when there is more free will than threatened motivation. 3)

Okay okay, so I'm not a girl, and I seriously doubt that I am sweet, but I am LDS. I was thinking about it and ya know, a cold bucket of ice water is a wonderful morning motivator. In fact, the mere consideration of a cold bucket of ice water is a wonderful morning motivator.

I think we could ask our selves... were they really tomatoes?

I like the lawsuit option. Being from oklahoma though I will point out that sometimes we turn to more...radical means.

My team is playing an entirely different sport. :):):)

I am way stoked for th OT. Most of it is awesome. I admit to usually falling asleep during Numbers, but hey, we all have weaknesses. :)

After reading Ranman's response to Taldarin, I had an additional thought concerning Paul's writings. I would just like to point out that not everything he said or wrote is in the Bible. I'd bet that most of his opinions and words are not scripture. As it happens, it wasn't as easy then to record things as it is now (lack of audio recording equipment to refer to), so I think they only recorded what they considered most important, where we tend to record everything.