Mormon: Shares a story about Enos and how wonderful it was that God forgave him after he repented of his sin.
RIVERFORUM
This is not scripture
Mormon: Repenting is not scripture?
RIVERFORUM
No, the "Book of Enos" is not Scripture. There is a Book of Enoch which is an OLD testament Pseudoepigraphic work found in the Dead Sea Scrolls dated sometime between 260 BC and 160 AD.The "Book of Enos" was written in the 19th century and is a Mormon text, NOT an ancient Biblical Text originating from Apostolic authorship or eye witness testimony recorded contemporary with either the ministry of Jesus or the Apostles.
It is NOT part of the Christian canon of Holy Scripture. Further, it says that Enos was of the “Nephites” and mentions “Lamanites” which are a fictional tribe of diasporated Jews invented by Joseph Smith whose existence is heretofore uncorroborated by any historical or paleo-archaeological evidence. These names sound biblical but they are made up. Neither Nephites nor Lamanites ever existed. Unlike all actual 12 tribes of Israel which have external corroboration INCLUDING actual living genetic descendants.
In short, this book is a modern pseudoepigraphical (claims to be authored by the writer but it is not the actual person) work, modern theological fiction, which although it “sounds” like the style of “King James” English is not scripture. There are no manuscripts for the text of the Book of Enos from ancient to modern times. The entire New Testament was written in Greek and Aramaic not in English. AND we have MANY manuscripts and verified original NT canon fragments dating to the 1st century AD. For the Book of Enos - none.
So yes, “repentance” is a biblical concept which is discussed in this book, however this book is not Scripture and should not be treated as such.
Any other gospel or testimony of Jesus Christ that differs from that given by the Apostles is false teaching.
1800 years before Joseph Smith walked this planet, the Apostle Paul warned us about angels preaching false gospels. His (real person) letter to the church in Galatia (a real historic church), written in 49 A.D. only 16 years after the resurrection of Jesus. says this:
Galatians
1:8 But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.
9 As we said before, so say I now again, if any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed.
This letter is the OLDEST in the New Testament canon, meaning it is the FIRST book in use by the church at large - even before the synoptic gospels were written. And in that VERY first chapter of that VERY first letter we are WARNED against testimonies of Jesus that differ from the Apostles or which claim Apostolic Authority.
The revelations Smith claimed to receive from the angel WERE a different gospel. In fact the very cover of your Book of Mormon declares that it is “Another” Testament of Jesus Christ. Paul specifically told us that there IS NO OTHER GOSPEL than that taught by the Apostles.
So, while this little story about the fictional man Enos is nice, accepting the book as Scripture means we have to accept the apostolic authority and/or the divine inspiration of its author which we cannot. Especially when the full corpus of Smith's other works stand in clear contradiction to both the canon of the ACTUAL Bible and the sum total knowledge of all of ecclesiastical history since the time of Christ.
In summary. False scripture. Reject it. Follow the true gospel written by the apostles themselves - those that followed and KNEW Jesus and his apostles.
According to Michael Coe, pre-Columbian Scholar, Smithsonian Institution. -
"Mormon archaeologists over the years have almost unanimously accepted the Book of Mormon as an accurate, historical account of the New World peoples.
... Let me now state uncategorically that as far as I know there is not one professionally trained archaeologist, who is not a Mormon, who sees any scientific justification for believing the foregoing to be true, and I would like to state that there are quite a few Mormon archaeologists who join this group.
... The bare facts of the matter are that nothing, absolutely nothing, has even shown up in any New World excavation which would suggest to a dispassionate observer that the Book of Mormon, as claimed by Joseph Smith, is a historical document relating to the history of early migrants to our hemisphere"
Mormon: You are correct that the Book of Mormon was translated by Joseph Smith in early 1800s. Does it contain amazing truths? Obviously YES. So learn from it. That's all Johnathon is saying here. Try to take it easy on the guy, and extend some charity. His production value on this video is pretty great for a smart phone, and it has a great message
To ask someone to sift kernels of truth out of the sheaves of lies is at worst deceptive and at best lazy.
1. There is no manuscript. It was not "translated", it was written in English in the 1800's mimicking the rhetorical STYLE of the 1611 King James Version of the English Bible.
2. There is no "Enos", the man did not exist. v1
3. There are no Nephites or Lamanites v.13
4. All New Testament conversion stories (Acts of the Apostles) couple remission of sins with water Baptism in the name of Jesus Christ. This book omits that critical doctrinal point. v5.
5. The Lord did not tell the fictional Enos that he would visit the fictional Nephites because God does not Lie. v.10
6. The Lord obviously did NOT perserve a record of the Nephites since they never existed v.13
7. The Lord ceased to deal with peoples according to tribes and lands after the Cross. He would not have dealt with a people group thus after the atonement. This is Old Testament thinking inconsistent with the New Covenant v.10
8. the book quotes King James bible not source texts proving forgery and plagiarism v.15
and on and on and on.
The book contains LIES, sir. And that is the point.
It is the work of the adversary to play such games with semantics and twisting of words and concepts.
Eve was first deceived by the serpent who began with "hath god said?"
And then, Satan offered his OWN plausible version of what God had actually commanded. This, regrettably, is no different. Lies which cleverly steer people away from the TRUE gospel of Jesus Christ.
Mormon: Long retort, smartly done, but no consistent. The apocrypha is doctrine according to catholics, and it's written a long time ago too, and it was included in the canonized works for hundreds of yrs, but it wasn't by King James so it's not in the Bible. There are many books in the dead sea scrolls as well that aren't in the Bible, and those were written a long time ago. Under your learning these are scripture. Do you accept them as such? Consistency now sir.
The Dead Sea Scrolls are dated to 300-75 B.C. and do not contain ANY testimony therefore of Jesus Christ or his followers. The Tanakh, was formed 140-40 B.C. which lists all OT books in the protestant canon and NONE of the apocrypha. The OT Canon was solidified by the time of Christ and was recorded by Josephus (95 AD) and it did NOT include any texts from the CATHOLIC apocrypha.
The Apocrypha is NOT doctrine according to the Christian Church and according to the main corpus of Christianity, Catholicism is an apostate church movement which arose in the 4th century only after the Edict of Milan and certain bishops' political alignment with Imperial Rome. The Catholic Apocryphal books are OLD TESTAMENT and INTER-TESTAMENT, but not NEW TESTAMENT works.
The books in question are these:
Tobit |
Judith |
1 Maccabees |
2 Maccabees |
Song of Songs |
Wisdom |
Sirach (Wisdom of Jesus Ben Sira) |
Baruch |
Song of the Three Children |
Story of Susanna |
The Idol Bel and the Dragon |
Prayer of Mannassah (in Daniel) |
You are correct that the KJV doesn't include the apocrypha. The English were using the incomplete Tyndale (1522) and Coverdale (1535) Bibles until the King James Version (1611) all of which omit the Apocrypha. Since most of Christendom and even Catholicism rejected it from the start and all Bibles still exclude it, your point about early canonical inclusion is not strong. In practice, the Apocrypha really wasn't even effectuated in the Catholic Church until the Council of Trent (1545-1563) being quite clearly a counter-reformation measure. And again, as early as 95 AD, Josephus' OT canon excluded the eventual apocrypha.
Now, the oldest NEW TESTAMENT Canon we have are from Origen and Eusebius circa 250-260 AD which align fully to the present day NT protestant canon. The Muratorian fragment lists most and is a translated copy in media-res of what is believed to be a Greek canon from AD 140-170, again excludes the OT Apocrypha. The accepted canon found in Novum Testemantum Graece lists all NT canon books as we now have them today. The canon therefore of New Testament texts can be said to have been established as early as 140 AD (within 45 year of the death of the Apostle John and his Gospel) and as late as 367 appearing in Athanasius' Festal Letter.
BIG POINT HERE:
There are NO NT era Apocryphal texts that ever existed or were considered in the formation of the New Testament canon which deal with Jesus or the Christian era. There were no rejected or disputed books either that dangled in use in EITHER the Catholic or Protestant Churches with the possible exception of the writings of the Shepherd of Hermas. Hermas was an actual early church father whose authorship is not disputed, but whose writings were never under serious consideration for a canonical work. His writings were considered "recommended" reading, but not taken as Divine Scripture. To this day, The Shepherd of Hermas' writing exists on its own as simply the private thoughts and observations of a theologian.
HOW DO WE KNOW ALL OF THIS ABOUT THE BIBLE?
We know this because we have the documents, the manuscripts, the source texts, the letters, and the original greek copies. The NT canon were scrutinized heavily by ALL believers and critics across what is now almost 2000 years and the books are sustained better than even any extant work of Shakespeare!
BY CONTRAST
The Book of Mormon provides NONE of these corroborations to defend and authenticate its authority as a holy text. It fails almost every standard of textual analysis. No Mormon text was ever circulated by the church because they did not exist. There is NO CASE for canonization of MORMON TEXTS into the OT/IT/NT BIBLE canon.
SO WHAT IS THE BOOK OF ENOS THEN?
The "Book of Enos" is a modern (1800's) fictional (invented) Pseudoepigraphical story, which means we know the author (Joseph Smith) and we know he is writing under an assumed name in the first person (as "Enos").
IS THE BOOK OF ENOS CHRISTIAN APOCRYPHA?
No. Neither the Book of Enos or any of the Book of Mormon can be considered by the Christian Church to be Apocrypha. Apocryphal books would have been those that existed at the TIME that the NT was written and compiled but "were not received by a common consent to be read and expounded publicly in the Church" (Luther).
No early canon includes such ancient Mormon outliers because NOT ONE of the books in the Book of Mormon was ever brought before the church in even the first thousand year for canonization. So, without mention, without manuscripts/sources, without corroboration, they can be said to not have existed at the time. In fact, date of authorship to the 1800's is not disputed.
The Book of Mormon is NOT a collection of ancient recovered Apocryphal texts or even disputed texts (antilegomania). It is the invention of a modern man who desired to create a religion and hijack Christianity, Christ, and its concepts for his own posterity.
Sadly, despite the complete lack of manuscripts, Mormons will not accept the notion of Smith's fraudulent "authorship". They will agree the "Book of Enos" was written by Smith in the 1800's, but written as a "translation" not an "invention". When pressed, they cannot produce source documents from which they were translated. Quite unlike every English Bible which CAN produce the source documents in Koine Greek and Latin from which they derive.
Mormon - A lot of people on this thread are self attesting atheists. Wouldn't it be great for them to believe in Jesus even if they learned about Him from a Mormon?? Better than Atheism, right?
Regarding atheists on this post. Most atheists actually exhibit strong qualities of critical thinking and cynicism which keeps them as safely away from the lies of Mormonism as it does God's Truth.
It would GRIEVE God actually if you were to convince an atheist to become a Deist only to deliver them into a lie. Any smart atheist worth their weight in salt can already see past the nonsense. Any serious critical scholarly inquiry produces the same result.
IN fact you are like those in Matthew 23:15 that Jesus himself condemns for preaching lies:
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when you have succeeded, you make them twice as much a child of hell as you are."
So according to Jesus himself, "NO" it is not better that they learn lies about God from this well meaning man than they learn the Truth.
Mormon: I hear you. But what even with everything you said, what if you still believe God brought you the book to learn about Him through it?
I hear you too, but what if YOU accepted that God brought this Lie to my attention in order to provide a stalwart against the deception being offered. All to prove to YOU, by demonstrating the falsehood of the text, its sources, authorship and message which do NOT speak or teach of the true Jesus Christ. The Christian Bible was authored by contemporaries and holds eye witness accounts of Jesus by those whom Jesus taught directly.
2 Peter 1:16
For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty.
The Mormon text robs well-meaning people of the TRUTH of Jesus Christ and exchanges it for a cheap system of second-hand lies.
2 Timothy 3:3-9 warns us that in the last days (these are the last days) that there will be religious people like those who follow Jospeh Smith which...
5 having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people.
6 They are the kind who worm their way into homes and gain control over gullible women, who are loaded down with sins and are swayed by all kinds of evil desires,
7 always learning but never able to come to a knowledge of the truth.
8 Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so also these teachers oppose the truth. They are men of depraved minds, who, as far as the faith is concerned, are rejected.
9 But they will not get very far because, as in the case of those men, their folly will be clear to everyone.
IN SUMMARY
THE FOLLY of Mormonism is clear to all those of serious rational mind - especially to Spirit-Filled followers of Jesus himself. Follow the BIBLE not the works of Joseph Smith.
And to your point I will say this, that God has not led me to the Book of Mormon to be instructed by it. He has already revealed its nature to me.
Rather, (like Aquila and Priscilla below) he leads ME to sincere Mormons who need correction and pointing away from Joseph Smith toward the REAL Jesus Christ and TRUE Salvation through His Gospel.
Proverbs 3:5-6
Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.
Consider the Bible example of Apollos in Acts 18:24-28
24 And a certain Jew named Apollos, born at Alexandria, an eloquent man, and mighty in the scriptures, came to Ephesus.
25 This man was instructed in the way of the Lord; and being fervent in the spirit, he spake and taught diligently the things of the Lord, knowing only the baptism of John.
26 And he began to speak boldly in the synagogue: whom when Aquila and Priscilla had heard, they took him unto them, and expounded unto him the way of God more perfectly.
27 And when he was disposed to pass into Achaia, the brethren wrote, exhorting the disciples to receive him: who, when he was come, helped them much which had believed through grace:
28 For he mightily convinced the Jews, and that publicly, shewing by the scriptures that Jesus was Christ.
So here we have Apollos, a man who loves God and is sharing with everyone he knows the measure of truth that he knows and understands. Yet, God causes his path to cross Aquila and Priscilla who correct his understanding and teach him more accurately/perfectly how to understand Jesus and he then became very effective in his evangelism. However, that still left the people behind whom he taught in Ephesus who were only taught this partial truth. God LOVED Apollos and his zeal enough that he would care to send him Apostles of the Church to keep him in the Truth.
And then look what happens in Acts 19:1-8
1 And it came to pass, that, while Apollos was at Corinth, Paul having passed through the upper coasts came to Ephesus: and finding certain disciples,
2 He said unto them, Have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye believed? And they said unto him, We have not so much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost.
3 And he said unto them, Unto what then were ye baptized? And they said, Unto John's baptism.
4 Then said Paul, John verily baptized with the baptism of repentance, saying unto the people, that they should believe on him which should come after him, that is, on Christ Jesus.
5 When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.
6 And when Paul had laid his hands upon them, the Holy Ghost came on them; and they spake with tongues, and prophesied.
7 And all the men were about twelve.
8 And he went into the synagogue, and spake boldly for the space of three months, disputing and persuading the things concerning the kingdom of God.
The Apostle Paul arrives on the scene and fills in for the people whom Apollos originally taught partial truth.with the rest of the story. This brings Apollos, and the people he ministered to into harmony with the FULL gospel of Jesus Christ.
Mormon: great info and study good sir. I very much appreciate the enlightenment on the historical texts. I personally believe the apocrypha and dead sea scrolls ARE scripture with much good learning coming from them. But Under your view I guess we are supposed to cast the catholics and apocrypha aside bc of apostasy. Nothing to learn from them. No scripture to come from their Saints over 2k years, & only the reformed Christians of the last few hundred yrs can show us the right way. Well...My thoughts bring me elsewhere, that all good is from God, and if this book of Enos can gives us good life lessons then I'll look into it. That has been my position from the start, whether Mormon or Hindu or Confucius or catholic or non-denominational. In this case, Jonathan is giving us a great lesson from what he deems as scripture that tells us a repentance story. He believes it's scripture from a Modern day prophet. You say you don't believe in modern prophets. You also don't believe in many ancient prophets in those books you denounce. This is all fine. We all should believe what speaks truth to us. This story speaks truth to me, so I'll believe in the repentance teachings here explained. Simple as that
RIVERFORUM
1. whether you personally believe that Apocrypha and dead sea scrolls are "scripture" is immaterial to whether they are or they aren't. It is not a subjective matter. The Dead Sea Scrolls are not representative of an authoritative canon, they are simply a collection of scrolls. In fact 19 Old Testament books are outright missing, only 1 Apocryphal book (Sirach) is present, and the rest are disputed and pseudoepigraphic texts. Only 20 of the Hebrew Scriptures are present. Not all ancient books are "Scripture". Is the point. And you don't get to determine the canon because you like certain books.
2. Can we learn from ancient sources? Of course. I read the Apocrypha and many ancient texts.
3. We ARE supposed to cast aside as "scripture" those books which are not scripture, most definitely.
4. The New Testament was completed in around AD 95 and the canon settled as I previously documented between 140-367 AD.
5. "only the reformed Christians of the last few hundred yrs can show us the right way" I don't even know what you mean by this. Are you being sarcastic or stating an opinion? Certainly you don't believe that latter day prophets exceed the Divine Authority held by the Apostles?
6. Yes. moral teaching can be found in many places. But to look for Scripture, the Holy Bible is the only way.
John 5:39
"Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me."
7. Jonathan is sharing something yes, but he believes in ERROR that this book is divinely inspired of God when it is a fraudulent text. The power of deception is that the lie appears to be truth!
8. Joseph Smith is not a "modern day prophet" because he preached a gospel message that contradicts the Apostles. Again Galatians 1:8-9 speaks about this. He is a false teacher.
9. "You say you don't believe in modern prophets." I never said this. I do believe in the five fold ministry, the office of prophet, and the gift(s) of prophesy as outline by Paul in his epistles to the Corinthian church.
10. "We all should believe what speaks truth to us. This story speaks truth to me." Again sir, this entire book I have shown to be fabrications and have cited many many reasons why. If you want anecdotes about true Christian conversion, read the book of Acts. Truth is not subjective. The book of Acts records actual historical events. This book of Enos recounts imaginary events. It is therefore NOT speaking truth to you. It is using honeyed words that sound like scripture to deceive you into thinking the author is a prophet when he is not. You are calling lies "the truth to you". I submit that you have itchy ears and it is telling you what you want to hear.
Now that you have learned that the "Book of Enos" and understand its companion texts in the Book of Mormon are not Scripture, and knowing that you already love God in the way that you've been shown so far:
- Do you have enough courage to discard the Book of Mormon and put your trust in the actual Word of God, The Bible?
- Do you want to know the REAL Jesus Christ?
- Do you want to make sure that you are following the correct path to God?
- Do you want to lead the people you love and care about to Truth?
It is time for you to walk way from fables and into the marvelous light of Scripture.
1 Timothy 1:4
Neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which minister questions, rather than godly edifying which is in faith: so DO.
Think about it. Why would I, a total stranger to you, go to such great lengths to convince you of these great errors if heaven and hell were not at stake for you?
God loves you too much to let you bargain the birthright of your TRUE salvation for a cheap cup of soup the way Esau did. Why accept the counterfeit when you have easy access to the real thing? Matthew tells us in his gospel these words of Jesus:
Matthew 13:45-46
45 Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man, seeking goodly pearls:
46 Who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it.
Unshackle yourself from the cheap imitation that is the Book of Mormon and embrace the real Word of God.
Mormon - Excellent sermon sir, persuasive and full of conviction. I applaud you for your valiant spirit. I appreciate your love of strangers as the Samaritan had. I also appreciate the poster for his love of Samaritans. He is trying to share truths he has found, as you are. I say we applaud his valiant spirit as well. There is truth to be learned from his posts in their sweet simplicity. This is what I've been saying from the beginning as others have been sighting historical/archeological data. I hear you and your points. Well said. I think there is a TON more there to discuss. But you haven't yet said anything about Jonathan message of repentance. It's a great message! It's about walking away from sin and improving. This is a great message, but you've been stuck on whether or not it's technically scripture under your definitions. There's a simple view of his posts, thet they are spreading goodness and light, scripture study and self improvement, prayer and service. I think these are the great lessons of the day bc they encompass Gods 2 great commandments...love God, and love our neighbors.
Repentance is sweet indeed, only you have them repenting to the wrong God!
The god of the Book of Mormon is NOT the God defined by the Bible. Mormons are polytheist. There is ONE God (Deut 6:4) and Jesus is the ONE God made flesh. Elohim is not a man with a body and Jesus a second God with a body.
I repent of my sins to the REAL Jesus. If you had heard me, and heard the Truth, you’d have already turned away from these lies. Your heart and mind are closed. YOU keep going back to uplifting this false deceptive message via an affable messenger vs accepting it for what it is. Lies.
Just because your messenger is a nice guy and the topic is generally encouraging, doesn't make it TRUTH.
By your logic....
What if Bernie Madoff hired some beautiful models to go around sharing the retirement benefits from investing in his retirement investment scheme. Would you say that one should be encouraged and excited by the hopeful news brought by the models about my financial future? NO. Why? because Madoff is a fraud and he set up his ponzie scheme to short you in the end.
What if a Santa Claus company hired a bunch of criminal sex offenders as holiday costumed Santa Clauses? Would you let your child or wife go sit on Santa's lap and tell him their holiday wishes - to confess if they were bad or good? Is it wise to trust a strange man like that simply because he looks and sounds like Father Christmas and says lovely things like Ho Ho Ho and Merry Christmas? And because he sits on a beautiful chair on display for all? Certainly not!
And THIS is what your Joseph Smith has done to Christianity - no matter how you doll it up or how squeaky clean you make it look, Mormons spread a false gospel which does not have the power of salvation. You need to leave this plastic reinvented version of Christianity and embrace the real JESUS.
But you won't.
Why?
Because you are programmed to deflect, defend, and embrace the deception. Just like those running a ponzie scheme who have to double down on their message vs come clean, the more they entrench themselves the worse it becomes for them in the end.
You literally cannot process the criticism, learn from it, and make the cognitive leap to change your mind and heart. But you must. Jonathan is not spreading TRUTH or His Truth, or any KIND of Truth. He's spreading a false gospel condemned by the Apostle Paul.
Don't give me platitudes - change your heart and mind based on what I've just shared with you.
I BEG YOU. GET OUT! FLEE FROM IT as if your very soul depended on it.
Because it does!
RF