Defense of the Faith and the Saints (Volume 1 of 2)

by B. H. Roberts

There remains to be considered under this head only this question. Is it a fatal objection to the Book of Mormon because Joseph Smith, finding the prophetic history of the Savior in the Nephite record, translated it in phraseology here and there found in the New Testament? Or in the language of accomplished fact. My contention is that it cannot be considered a fatal objection, or even a serious difficulty, especially when one considers upon what slight similarity the Unknown seizes to make good his objection. For example, where he tries to make it appear that I was in error when saying that the several passages he had already quoted practically exhausted the instances of New Testament phraseology in the writings of Nephi, he gave us such cases as these:

Nephi—Lehi prophesied that "these plates of brass should go forth unto all nations, kindreds, tongues and people who were of his seed."

Revelations—An angel should bring forth the gospel to be preached "to every nation and kindred and tongue and people."

Nephi—For he is the same yesterday, today and forever.

Hebrews—Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today and forever.

Nephi—I was caught away in the Spirit of the Lord.

Acts—-The Spirit of the Lord caught Philip that the eunuch saw him no more.

"In Nephi xiv:1," says the Unknown, "the repeated expression "mother of abominations" and "mother of harlots" are taken from Revelations xvi:5." I here quote Nephi, xiv:1: "And it shall come to pass that if the Gentiles shall hearken unto the Lamb of God in that day that he shall manifest himself unto them in word, and also in power, in very deed, unto the taking away of their stumbling blocks." After reading it I wondered where the Unknown found in it his "mother of abominations" and the "mother of harlots." Of course, the gentleman may have given the wrong reference, and I will not press his errors too hard upon him, but how ridiculous to urge the rejection of the Book of Mormon on so flimsy an argument, even if he should find somewhere else his "mother of abominations" or his "mother of harlots."

THE "VITAL POINT."

Passing over some intervening matter in order to consider this whole question of translation together, I next refer to what the Unknown says under the heading, "A Vital Point." I accounted for the imperfections of the language of the Book of Mormon on the ground that while the translator obtained his ideas from the Nephite record, he was left to express that thought in such language as he was master of, and as he was uneducated, that language was here and there faulty, and I accounted for the existence of some passages of the Bible in the Book of Mormon by saying that where Joseph Smith found in the Nephite records quotations from Jewish scriptures which the Nephites had with them or when the teachings of Messiah in their order followed his teachings to be found in the New Testament, Joseph Smith adopted, when he could do so consistently, the language of our English Bible. This the Unknown considers is "vital," and he holds that these quotations would not be found in this translation of the Nephite record if the Book of Mormon is honest in its claim of being an ancient book. He urges that if Joseph Smith could thus incorporate these quoted passages, then there is nothing to hinder him putting into the Book of Mormon, when it suited him, quotations from other English books, from Shakespeare, from books of geography and history, and the peculiar views of Sidney Rigdon, with which the book is saturated, or his own views; and this, he claims, is just what he did. Well, of course, there is nothing that would prevent Joseph Smith from following a course of this kind if he was the unmitigated impostor and scoundrel that the Unknown tries to make him appear to be, but that is just what Joseph Smith was not; and hence his own honesty and integrity prevented his putting in quotations from the Bible or any other book except just what the facts and statements in the Nephite records justified him in adopting. And as for the views of Sidney Rigdon being incorporated in it, that is impossible, since it is a well-established, incontrovertible, historical fact that Sidney Rigdon never saw either Joseph Smith or the Book of Mormon until six months after the book had been published.