There are many serious objections to the claim of Joseph
Smith and the LDS church that the Book of Mormon is divinely
inspired latter-day scripture supplemental to the Bible.
However, none are more significant than the numerous
contradictions between Book of Mormon teaching and the Bible.
This list is illustrative only, not exhaustive.
1. The Book of Mormon teaches that little children are not
capable of sin because they do not have a sinful nature (Moroni
8:8). In contrast, the Bible in Psalm 51:5 clearly teaches that
we have sinful nature from birth: "Surely I was sinful at birth,
sinful from the time my mother conceived me" (NIV). (This does
not mean that those who die in infancy are lost.*)
2. The Book of Mormon teaches that the disobedience of Adam and
Eve in eating the forbidden fruit was necessary so that they
could have children and bring joy to mankind (2 Nephi 2:23-25).
In contrast, the Bible specifically declares that Adam’s
transgression was a sinful act of rebellion that unleashed the
power of sin and death in the human heart and throughout God’s
perfect world (Genesis 3:16-19; Romans 5:12; 8:20-21). There is
no Biblical support for the view that Adam and Eve could only
fulfill the command to "be fruitful and multiply" (Genesis 1:28)
by disobeying God’s command regarding the forbidden fruit
(Genesis 2:17). The Book of Mormon teaching that these divine
commands are contradictory, and that God expected Adam and Eve
to figure out that in reality He wanted them to break the latter
command ("of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou
shalt not eat of it") in order to keep the former ("be fruitful
and multiply"), has no basis in logic or the Biblical text, and
attributes equivocation to God.
3. The Book of Mormon teaches that black skin is a sign of God’s
curse, so that white-skinned people are considered morally and
spiritually superior to black skinned people (2 Nephi 5:21). In
contrast, the Bible teaches that God "made of one blood all
nations of men" (Acts 17:26, KJV), that in Christ distinctions
of ethnicity, gender and social class are erased (Galatians
3:28), and that God condemns favoritism (James 2:1).
4. The Book of Mormon teaches that, "it is by grace that we are
saved, after all we can do" (2 Nephi 25:23; see
also Moroni 10:32). In contrast, the Bible teaches that apart
from Christ we are dead in sin (Ephesians 2:1,5) and
unable to do anything to merit forgiveness and eternal life.
Salvation is wholly of grace (Ephesians 2:8-9; Romans
11:6; Titus 3:5-6), not by grace plus works. Good works are a
result, not the basis, of a right relationship with
God (Ephesians 2:10).
5. According to the Book of Mormon, about 600 years before
Christ, a Nephite prophet predicted that "many plain and
precious parts" (1 Nephi 13:26-28) would be removed from the
Bible. In contrast, from the Bible it is clear that during His
earthly ministry, Jesus himself constantly quoted from the Old
Testament Scriptures, and showed full confidence in their
completeness and accurate transmission as they had survived down
to His time. Jesus declared that "heaven and earth shall pass
away, but my word shall not pass away" (Mark 13:31; see also
Matthew 5:18), and promised His disciples who were to pen the
New Testament that the Holy Ghost "shall teach you all things,
and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said
unto you" (John 14:26); Jesus further promised the apostles that
they would "bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should
remain" (John 15:16). These promises clearly imply that the
fruit of the apostles — the New Testament Scriptures and the
Christian church — would endure.
6. According to a Book of Mormon prophecy (Helaman 14:27), at
the time of Christ’s crucifixion "darkness should cover the face
of the whole earth for the space of three days." In
contrast, the New Testament gospel accounts declare repeatedly
that there was darkness for only three hours while Jesus
was on the cross (Matthew 27:45; Mark 15:33; Luke 23:44).
An earlier prophecy in 1 Nephi 19:10 implies the three days of
darkness will be more than regional in scope for it says this
sign will be "unto those who inhabit the isles of the sea, more
especially given unto those who are of the house of Israel." The
darkness then would extend over the ocean to the islands and
reach as far as Israel in the Middle East.
Book of Mormon references to the fulfillment of this prophecy,
however, use wording that could be understood to mean the three
days of darkness was only in the Americas, stating that the
three days of darkness would be "over the face of the land." (3
Nephi 8:3ff; 10:9). This appears to be the position of the late
Mormon General Authority B. H. Roberts in his book
Studies of the Book of Mormon,
p. 292). If this is the case, then this would resolve the
apparent contradiction between the Bible and the Book of Mormon
regarding what happened at the time of Christ's death, for we
would have 3 hours of darkness in Israel and 3 days of darkness
on the American continents. However, this would make the earlier
prophecies of 1 Nephi and Helaman internally contradictory with
later BOM references, since their phrasing of "the isles of the
sea ... those who are of the house of Israel" and "the whole
face of the whole earth" is difficult to understand as merely a
localized time of darkness.
7. The Book of Mormon people are said to have observed "all
things according to the law of Moses (2 Nephi 5:10; 25:24).
However, although they are supposed to have been Hebrews, they
were descendents of the tribe of Joseph (1 Nephi 5:17) or
Manasseh (Alma 10:3), not the tribe of Levi and family line of
Aaron, as the Law of Moses dictates (Numbers 3:10; Exodus 29:9;
Numbers 18:1-7), so they would not have had a legitimate
priesthood.
8. According to the Book of Mormon, there were many high priests
serving at the same time (Mosiah 11:11; Alma 13:9-10; 46:6,38;
Helaman 3:25) in the New World, among those it describes as
Jewish immigrants from ancient Israel who "kept the law of
Moses" (e.g., 2 Nephi 25:10; Jacob 4:5; Jarom 1:5). In contrast,
it is clear from the Bible that only one individual at a time
occupied the office of high priest under the Old Testament
dispensation (see, for example Leviticus 21:10; Matthew 26:3;
Hebrews 8:6-7). (The mention in Luke 3:2 of "Annas and Caiaphas
being the high priests" is not a real exception -- in Christ’s
time Israel was under the domination of the Romans, who
intervened to change the high priest at will. That is, this
office became a kind of "political football," rather than
following the appointment process dictated in the Law of Moses.
See John 18:13, which describes Annas as "father-in-law to
Caiaphas, which was the high priest that same year.")
9. The people described in the Book of Mormon operated multiple
temples (Alma 16:13; 23:2; 26:29). This violates the dictates of
the Old Testament Scriptures on two counts: First, God commanded
Israel to build only one temple to reflect that fact that there
is only one true God (Deuteronomy 12:5,13-14; 16:5-6). Second,
the one legitimate temple was to be built in Jerusalem (Zion),
the location designated by God (The Old Testament is filled with
explicit references to God choosing Jerusalem [Zion] as the
place where "His name would dwell" in the temple: for example, 1
Kings 8:44,48; 11:13,32,36; 14:21; 2 Kings 21:7; 23:27; 1
Chronicles 28:4; 2 Chronicles 6:6; 7:12,16; Psalm 78:68-69;
Isaiah 18:7.
10. The most common biblical terms used to describe the Old
Testament priesthood, temple and appointed feasts, are entirely
missing from the Book of Mormon. Here are 10 examples of such
biblical terms with their frequencies, that never appear once in
the Book of Mormon:
- "laver" (13 times in Bible)
- "incense" (121 times in Bible)
- "ark of the covenant" (48 times in Bible)
- "sons of Aaron" (97 times in Bible)
- "mercy seat" (23 in Bible)
- "day of atonement" (21 times in Bible)
- "feast of tabernacles" (17 times in Bible)
- "passover" (59 times in Bible)
- "house of the LORD" (627 in Bible)
- "Aaron" – this name appears 48 times in the Book of Mormon, but never in reference to the biblical Aaron or the Aaronic priesthood
Conclusion: The
contradictions between the Book of Mormon and the Bible
constitute a most serious obstacle to accepting the Book of
Mormon as Latter-day scripture that is supplemental to the
Bible. The Bible came first, not the Book of Mormon. And whereas
the Bible is organically linked to the earthly ministry of Jesus
Christ by extensive surviving manuscript evidence going back as
far as A.D. 125-30, the Book of Mormon is wholly lacking in any
such evidences of ancient origin. Is it not reasonable,
therefore, to make the Bible the standard for judging the Book
of Mormon, and not the other way around? If we accept the Bible
as our "measuring stick" for spiritual truth, the Book of Mormon
must be rejected.
*A free article on infant salvation is available on request from the Institute for Religious Research, 1340 Monroe Ave. N.W., Grand Rapids, MI, 49505, U.S.A. Please include a stamped self-addressed envelope with your request.