Matthew 28:11-15 The chief priests of Israel had given large amounts of money to the soldiers to perpetuate a lie. We know they told lies for the following reasons: If the soldiers had been asleep when Jesus body was supposedly removed, they would never had known what or how the incident took place. They would have never told that they were asleep for that would have been an immediate death sentence. If they had been awake, then they would have prevented the thief of the body. In verse 15 it states, that it is still commonly reported to the Jews until this day–how accurate, why else do you think that there was so much interest in the tomb and the remains that was found last year? People will believe what they want to, and not read what is in God’s book for themselves.

Arguments made by man can be debated and refuted and I’ve read them all, probably more than you have because they have been made regarding my faith. The words of Paul seem appropriate to explain why I believe how I do.

“And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power…

…But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God…

But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.”

(1 Corinthians 2:4, 10-12, 14)

As the words of Paul could not be understood and accepted but by the Spirit, so do I feel about the words and teachings of Joseph Smith.

To bring it back to the topic of this thread, I’d take the spiritual teachings of Joseph Smith over the temporal teachings of Albert Einstein. Dr. Einstein I respect as a man of huge intellect and capacity. Joseph I revere as a prophet of God.

Thanks for the question, John.

Since he is more intelligent than I, I will use the words of Dr. Stephen Ricks when he refuted that same argument when it was made by Pastor Wesley P. Waters in his paper, “The Use of the Old Testament in the Book of Mormon.”

Says Dr. Ricks,

“Walters accuses Joseph (and the Book of Mormon) of endless anachronistic steals from the language of the King James New Testament. But he notes that Latter-day Saints, in response to his claim, might argue that Joseph Smith was “not given the words of the Book of Mormon in the “translation’ process but was given only the thoughts or concepts and allowed to express them in his own words,” a position which he regards as “contrary to the facts.” After all, says Walters, “the Book of Mormon is not written in Joseph Smith’s own style of writing. We have copies of his letters dating from 1829, the period in which he was working on the Book of Mormon. His style is not that of the King James version’s Elizabethan English.” This argument, crucial to the impact of much of what he writes later, borders on incoherence. Aren’t we all capable of articulating our thoughts in different “registers” (levels of language in speech or writing)—to borrow a term from linguistics—depending on the situation in which we find ourselves?” Quite unconsciously, our choice of vocabulary and sometimes even of syntax varies depending on whether we are casually conversing among friends, talking to children, speaking in a formal setting, writing, or praying. The registers for letter writing and for translation can also be substantially different. I am currently translating a fairly complex and technical book from German into English, an English that is distinct from what I would use in letter writing. By Walters’s view of these matters, my letters and my translation could not possibly both be expressed in my “own style.” These differences, by Walters’s assessment, could only have arisen either (1) because I didn’t do both the translation and the letters, since only one, at most, is done in my “own style”; or (2) because the putative translation isn’t really a translation at all, but a collage of bits and scraps of one or more English sources that I have cobbled together by free association. (Would Walters have been more convinced if the Book of Mormon were more like Joseph Smith’s letters, or if his letters were more like the Book of Mormon?) I can say with fair confidence that neither of these conclusions is correct in my case, and that they are equally flawed with respect to Joseph Smith and the translation of the Book of Mormon. When Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon, he quite understandably rendered it into what he regarded as a scriptural register. For him, this meant language like that of the King James Version, with whose phrases and cadences he was very familiar. Could he have translated the Book of Mormon in the same style as he wrote letters, without the use of King James phraseology? Certainly, but much of its impact would have been lost and its nuances missed by its readers—precisely the reason for differences in registers. Even most of the more recent translations of the Bible into English have maintained much of the elevated style of the earlier versions (a notable exception to this would be some of the—in my opinion execrable—paraphrases of the Bible, which are in fact no translations at all).”

To put it in my own words, I speak different if I’m speaking to God in prayer than I do when I’m speaking to my children (I certainly do not use “thee” and “thou” when speaking to my children; I do when I pray because I believe the elevated language shows respect to a Father I love and adore.) and I write differently if I am writing a term paper than I do when I’m writing a letter to my mother.

Joseph, even at a young age, was very familiar with the writing style of the Old and New Testaments, KJV, so to have used that same language in a translation would have not been extraordinary.

Just one reason why I try to keep in my mind that no matter the learning of man, we will never be wiser than an all-knowing Father. As brilliant as Dr. Einstein was, his wisdom is not that of God and too many times we mistake theory for truth. Like all of us, I am amazed at the capacity of someone like Dr. Einstein, but I try to remember who created that brilliance in the first place.

I think they said “circle of the earth” because when you stand on something high and look around, the horizon is circular to the naked eye. I think if they thought it was a big ball, they would have said something more clearly meaning that.

And, even when you’re writing poetry, or liturgy, when you know science, it comes through. For example, in the famous “Star Wars” prayer, in the 1979 Book of Common Prayer, there’s no doubt what we’re referring to: “At your command all things came to be: the vast expanse of interstellar space, galaxies, suns, the planets in their courses,
and this fragile earth, our island home.”

And, just to be ultra-inclusive, we’ve also added a traveler’s prayer for those traveling through outer space.