Quote:
Originally Posted by Indy Coug
The value the BOM has over the Bible is that the pedigree of it is unquestionable, assuming you accept Joseph Smith as a prophet and that he was truthful about how he obtained the plates.
The records that comprise the BOM were for over 1,000 years in the hands of men entrusted by God to preserve them until their compilation by Mormon/Moroni.
There are no questions about the origin of the "source documents". There are no questions over translation issues. There are no questions over theological malfeasance on the part of those that wrote, translated or transcribed the records.
There may be a fair amount of doctrinal redundancy between the Bible and the BOM, but the Bible's history is so questionable in so many circumstances that it's difficult to trust much of what is said in there in the absence of the substantiation provided by the BOM.
The reverse of that is NOT the case.
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I understand this point of view, and agree it is mainstream.
However, perhaps we are not clear as to the "translation" method of the prophet. It is clear to me that JS did not academically translate along traditional methods. Because of that, I do not know phenomenally how it functioned. Did it act upon his subconscious triggering subconsicous understandings and thereby providing a theologically consistent document, but not necessarily providing the only translation possible?