Disproving with Proof

Hi, I'm Grace. This is going to be my first post on the BOM Talks blog.  I wanted to start out by taking a step back and looking at something interesting about the Book of Mormon. Bear with me.


Alma 8:109
"And thus ended the words of Amulek, Or this is all that I have written."

Wait, I'm sorry but this mystifies me. Isn't the BOM inspired as well? The person writing this doesn't know if the words of Amulek ended there or not? If he just puts that because there was more and he knows it but he didn't write it, why put the first statement in there at all? Shouldn't it be assumed if that's all that is there, then that's all we need to know?

Something Else Interesting...
The Testimony of the Three Witnesses! And The Testimony of The Eight Witnesses!
This is neatly tucked at the end of the Book of Mormon to prove that the plates Joseph Smith used to write the Book of Mormon did in fact exist. Eleven people total signed testimonies saying they saw the plates.

Now let's flip to the back of the Bible. we've got maps maybe, a brief concordance, maybe a picture if you have certain versions, etc. But guess what's not there? You guessed it, no testimony of witnesses!

There's several reasons for this:
1. The Bible stands on it's own as the inspired Word of God and doesn't need a verification certificate.
2. The Bible was written by many people over hundreds and hundreds of years, thusly, each individual person is a witness to God and the things that happened.
3. Events of the Bible were also witnessed by secular scholars without Jewish/Christian faith that have non-bias accounts of the happenings.
4. Events and teachings of the Bible can be backed up by factual science. By this I mean not the theories that are spouted without evidence, but by any science that is proven in stone. In fact, the Bible enlightens us on scientific happenings that were written down before science ever discovered it.
5. The original text, prior translation, is still available for others to read. There is no need to believe just one man's translation because you can get original Hebrew and/or Greek copies of the text and study it yourself.

This brings up another interesting point of how you can still get the original Bible text and study the Bible for yourself. Yes, there are many different interpretations out there of the Bible, I say interpretations because that's what most of them are, they aren't translations, but you can get a side by side Bible. I have a side by side and also a King James Version, which is the closest direct translation I have so far found. At any rate, my point is, if you don't trust something, such as the NIV (since they change a MULTITUDE of things in the Bible), go BACK to the original text. Get a side by side. Or even learn Greek and Hebrew and read it for yourself! It's still there.

However, the plates are not. Not only that, but good luck learning Reformed Egyptian, which has never even been verified as an actual language and in fact looks more like topsy turvy Greek letters than Egyptian. So how can you verify that the BOM translation that you have is the right one? You can't.

And you can't go by the older is better rule because the older you go the more blatant fallacies you will find. That's right, the newer versions took out a lot of information that PROVED the Book of Mormon false.

Then there is always their other tactic of just trying to change the facts that disprove their book by doing things such as starting the rumor that we never landed on the moon. Or we never went into space. We did. We certainly did. And there are no men living there. We also have satellites and pictures of space. If you don't believe in satellites either, don't use Satellite internet, tv, etc because all of that most be fake as well.

So, yes, I've gone on a bit of a bunny trail, but my point is, why should it be so hard to believe in something?

The verified facts should point to the TRUTH of your faith, not the falsehoods. If you have to grasp at straws to try and prove something is true, and if you have to make up evidence and hide the truth, then there may be an issue there.

So if the Book of Mormon is true, show me the evidence.

~Grace Marshall