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

by B. H. Roberts

Salt Lake City, November 18, 1903.

II.

The First Reply.

(Salt Lake Tribune, Nov. 29, 1903.)

Editor Tribune:—If any words of mine in the remarks made in the Tabernacle on the 8th of November could be construed into a "challenge" to a public discussion of the Book of Mormon—as the writers of headlines on some of the morning papers seem to think they could be—when the challenge was accepted, the courtesy of debate would certainly require that the acceptance of the challenge should be otherwise than from ambush. I mean that I am entitled to know the name of my opponent, that I may judge somewhat of his character and standing. And why should the gentleman remain in cog? Is he ashamed to be known as engaging in such a discussion? Or is it a precaution he takes so that if his argument does not rise to the expectation of his friends, he may remain unknown behind the mystery of a single initial. If the first supposition be true, it is a difficulty he could easily have avoided; if the second suggestion be the true reason for his remaining unknown, he is to be commended for his cunning. I need say nothing of his courage.

When on Saturday my attention was called to the editorial announcement that the alleged "challenge" had been accepted, and an article against the Book of Mormon would appear in The Tribune's Sunday issue, I remarked to a friend that I thought I could write an answer to the much heralded article without seeing it; and when on Sunday I read the Unknown's production I felt I had not been over-confident in the assertion, so closely has he followed in the well-beaten, not to say worn out, path of anti-Mormon argument. What a world of trouble Alexander Campbell would have saved many inferior disputants had he only stereotyped the objections he urged against the Book of Mormon in 1831! They then could have pointed to his utterances and said: "Them's my arguments." For from the days of Mr. Campbell until now, anti-Mormon geniuses have but rehashed the great man's arguments, with a uniform decadence in their strength, in proportion to the distance in time from which they are removed from him who first fashioned them. But now to the Unknown's "arguments."

THE TIME OF WRITING.

1. The Unknown states the fact that Nephi wrote between 600 and 500 B.C. and then presents what he calls the first difficulty that I am to overcome. "How can a writer," he asks, "claiming to live at that time make repeated quotations from the writings of Christ's Apostles who were not born until 600 years after the time when Nephi wrote?" He then charges that Nephi quotes "passage after passage" from the writings of Christ's apostles, Matthew, John, Paul, Luke, Peter, etc.; and gives what he calls just "two or three examples" of such quotations. The gentleman very much overstates the difficulty he presents, by making it appear that the alleged quotations are very numerous, when the fact is that the two or three cases he cites virtually exhaust the alleged quoted passages so far as the New Testament is concerned. In order that your readers may see how flimsy the charge here made is, I set down the quotations in question. (a) Nephi, describing his father's vision of the future coming of the Messiah, says: "And he spake also concerning a prophet who should come before the Messiah, to prepare the way of the Lord; yea, even he should go forth and cry in the wilderness, 'Prepare ye the way of the Lord, and make his paths straight; for there standeth one among you whom ye know not; and he is mightier than I, whose shoe's latchet I am not worthy to unloose. And much spake my father concerning this thing." To make this appear as a plagiarism from the New Testament the Unknown puts together two passages: (1) "I baptize with water; but there standeth one among you, whom ye know not; he it is, who, coming after me is preferred before me, whose shoe's latchet I am not worthy to unloose," (John i:26, 27). (2) "In those days came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judea" (Matthew iii). Of course, the story of the man who said he could prove that the Bible commanded every one to hang himself may be commonplace; but it illustrates the methods of the Unknown in making out his case of plagiarism. The proof was supplied in this way: He quoted the passage, "and Judas went out and hanged himself." Then from another passage, from another book, he quoted these words, "Go thou and do likewise." It must be remembered that the Nephites carried with them into the wilderness the Jewish scriptures, and Lehi was doubtless familiar with the prediction of Isaiah concerning this same prophet that should go before our Lord to prepare the way before him, translated in our English version as follows: "The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert an highway for our God." (Isaiah xl:3.) Is it more remarkable that the Lord should reveal to Lehi what the voice in the wilderness should cry than that he should reveal it to Isaiah? With reference to the Unknown's charge that on the same page quoted above, Nephi makes "several quotations from the writings of Paul in the xi. of Romans, about the 'olive tree,' and the 'branches broken off, with others grafted in,'" etc., the gentleman, if acquainted with the prophets of Israel ought to know that this simile is not original with Paul; but that the ancient prophets used it in illustration of Israel and the judgments that should come upon the people. Moreover, in addition to our books of Jewish scriptures the Nephites had some of the writings of the other prophets of Israel, notably the book of Zenos, in which was given at great length this simile of the tame olive tree and the branches being broken off and others grafted in, etc., from which book, unquestionably, Nephi obtained his ideas.

QUOTATION FROM PETER.

The Unknown charges that Nephi quoted from the words of Peter, which I give here, followed by the passage from Nephi. Peter: "Whom the heaven must receive until the time of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began." Nephi: "Behold, it is wisdom in God that we should obtain these records, that we may preserve unto our children the language of our fathers; and also that we may preserve unto them the words which have been spoken by the mouth of all the holy prophets, which have been delivered unto them by the spirit and power of God, since the world began, even down unto the present time." The omissions that are made in order to bring words together to establish the charge of plagiarism, will exhibit to what straits the Unknown is driven to make out his case.