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Hi guys. I am a somewhat recent convert to the church. I was baptized last April. I was ordained to the Melchizedek Priest hood about 6 weeks ago and I feel I am worthy to hold that office in the church. I also have a somewhat time consuming calling working with the young men in the ward. My conversion is a long story that I won’t bore everyone with. Long story short I never even considered the possibility that there is a god and thought the whole thing was nothing more than folk lore for quite some time. I was introduced to the gospel by a coworker, who is now my wife actually. She was born and raised in the church. After I started to read the BOM I became interested in the bible and as I started to read both books and started to live a righteous life and attended church regularly I not only started to believe in god, but at this point I’d bet my life on the fact that god exists and is real…I’ve seen a lot of small everyday miracles and find so much truth in the bible that it’s almost impossible for me to refute. My membership in the church has completely turned my life around in many ways and has been maybe one of the 5 best things that’s ever happened to me. It helped me get away from two different addictions (maybe not full fledged addictions, but for sure compulsions)..it’s helped me to become more aware of the people around me, and my place in the universe. The lessons I’ve learned in the last year are priceless and lessons that will hopefully last the rest of my life. So I’d say all in all not only have I been a member, but a very very happy member. My problem is that I’m naturally very curious. The more I look into the origins of the Book of Mormon the more I have doubts that its divinely inspired. It’s such a weird story. The whole revelation story that is. On one hand it’s just so unbelievable that he was visited by Jesus and Moroni, given gold plates to translate, translated them, gave them back to those angels, was later visited several more times, given the priesthood, given more revelation at convenient times throughout the rest of his life, and the only real evidence is his word. Not only that but it seems his story changed several times over the years. I’ve also read that in his “rough draft” of the book there were over 200 grammatical errors that were simple “as instead of is” “them people” etc type of errors.
On the other hand though, if all he wanted to do was to start a church and a different sect, couldn’t he have just done that without all the mysticism? Wouldn’t it have just been easier to start a different christian sect and claim that he was divinely inspired to do it without the plates and all that? Also I believe the law of tithing is actually from the bible originally. It’s mentioned I think in about 20 different biblical passages, so tithing wasn’t a Joseph Smith revelation. Also, it doesn’t seem like they gained a whole lot from the formation of the church in the way they did it. They were persecuted, and jailed and eventually murdered in the process weren’t they? Also the book itself seems to be pretty solid as far as it’s connection to the bible. …..
It’s just so hard know if it’s true or not. The more I read about it the more I feel like it might not be true, and if the book itself isn’t true, than it’s hard to believe anything That Joseph Smith claimed to have been told by angels…it’s hard to believe he was a true prophet, and if he wasn’t a true prophet, were any of the churches prophets true prophets? Are they the false prophets that the bible speaks of? These are all questions that bother the stuffing out of me!
So long story short (lol) I’m here looking for other opinions and answers from others as well. I can never bring stuff like this up to the people in my family or ward. They’d just tell me that my testimony wasn’t strong enough or look at me like I’m crazy…i’m sure others here can relate to that.
Thanks and I’m looking forward to talking with you all.
Welcome. Thanks for sharing your story with us. Two things jumped out at me:
1) Your life has changed dramatically for the good. The Book of Mormon and the LDS Church were the catalysts for that change. That is significant, in and of itself, and shouldn’t be dismissed or devalued.
2) You used the term “divinely inspired” not “translated in a traditional way as a literal history”. I believe your actual phrasing passionately, and, while I can leave open the historical reality option, it absolutely was not translated in a traditional way. Thus, I think you already have a workable foundation for how to view the Book of Mormon currently – as a divinely inspired work that brought you to Christ and changed your life in a good way. That is a really good thing that can be praised and valued, no matter what else you come to believe.
We have lots of threads in our archives about the things you mentioned in your introduction. We would love your participation in recent threads, but I would advise you to search through our older posts for those that address our concerns and resonate with you. Feel free to bump them up to current status by commenting on them or just read for your own edification and understanding. We don’t pretend to have universal answers, but, sometimes, it is enough to see that “faithful” people can disagree about central things and still be civil, accepting and friends. There really is room for different views, so please don’t feel like you have to see things exactly like others to be an active part in the Church.
Welcome Bds4206, Bds4206 wrote:I’ve seen a lot of small everyday miracles and find so much truth in the bible that it’s almost impossible for me to refute.
I agree with you…yet…you do not say that you have studied the origins of the bible to be convinced of its truth. Could you not just as easily replace the word “bible” in that sentence with “Book of Mormon” and have it be just as true.
I see the Book of Mormon as a spiritual text that just happens to be beloved by many people that are close to me. I find the book to be amazingly impressive internally and is 100% true to its subtitle as “Another witness for Jesus Christ”.
That in itself doesn’t answer a lot of questions that you may have about angels and plates etc. But at the very least – I think we can agree that God used the book (and a special coworker
I am not too sure if the BOM is true in the sense JS said but like you I am a convert and the teachings in the BOM and the church did change the direction I think my life would have gone and the direction of my family’s life after they got baptized. For now I am trying to make that work for me. There is no perfect church, but I feel the love and support of my ward and I want to love and support them also. I have learned to take every thing with a grain of salt and I trying to find the good, use that and pick and choose what works for me. Being an active, TR holder has it’s price and for now I willing pay because I still find value in doing so. Maybe right now I am reviewing how I pay tithing (gross vs net vs surplus), time I willing to spend, and how I will deal with my calling. For my wife, for my friends and for me I am really trying to make it work. Some days are more successful than others. One other thought, if you don’t put the teachings of the BOM and the Bible to use, it really doesn’t matter if they are ‘TRUE” or not. This is a good place to express your thoughts and feelings.
I’d like to thank everyone for their replies!! It has helped tremendously already. I appreciate all the points expressed and agree with almost everything posted here. It’s good to know there are others out there that are looking for answers to the same questions. I’m looking forward to catching up on what’s being discussed here!! Thanks. Welcome bds, good to have you with us. I’m sure we can discuss these issues further in the forum if you want to but a quick reply to a couple now:
– Angels and visions. I think this seems odd to us today because we seem to have moved on from that style of interaction with the heavens. I don’t know whether the prophet has visions and visitations, but he certainly doesn’t talk about them. This may be because he doesn’t have them or he does, but recognises that in today’s culture could be a stumbling block for some people. FWIW, my mother has had “visions” (more a near death experience) and significant dreams. Maybe angels don’t visit any more. Maybe they do and it’s private. Or maybe they never have.
– Joseph visions/visitations do have precedent in scripture and in religious history. Even though they seem a little ‘unbelievable’ in our culture, there are many others who make a similar claim in the Bible: Peter’s vision, Paul’s vision of Christ, women seeing an angel at the tomb, Abraham had several angels (one at the Isaac alter moment), Lot visited by angels, Moses on Mount Sinai, John’s visions for writing Revelation, Isaiah’s visions of the future birth of Christ, Peter James & John on the mount of transfiguration, Stephen seeing God and Jesus in vision. It’s possible these were also all made up… But if we’re comfortable with the Bible, then the mere notion of angelic visits is acceptable. Moses had heavenly visits to produce his scripture. So Joseph does have “precedent.”
– Is there enough evidence to cast doubt on the Book of Mormon being a perfect translation of an ancient document? Yes, for me. I’m comfortable with the idea of an inspired dictation where some of the content came out in Joseph’s own words. Similar to giving a blessing, we feel the message comes from heaven, but the words might articulated by us. I think that’s why we find grammar errors, re-edits and revisions. Sometimes I think back on a blessing as “that didn’t quite come out right.”
Saying that, there is also enough evidence to suggest there could have been an historical Nephi/Alma etc and even more evidence to suggest this was not a fabricated fraud. The words and principles inside it also work. So I’m left to conclude that there is divinity in it and Joseph was inspired… Even if it’s not exactly what I used to think it was, the changed view of it still makes me want to engage with it as an holy text.
Welcome and thank you for sharing your story. I always find it interesting how complex this journey can be. Reading other people’s stories, like yours, helps me to value the differences both in our own community and the greater church community.
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