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The Double Standard

by Mike Sageloff

How some Christian fundamentalist anti-Mormons try to hold the
Book of Mormon to a standard that even the Bible can't pass!
It's a shame to have to say this, but here it is - Many of the most vocal critics of the book of Mormon have not only never read the Book of Mormon, but it is sometimes doubtful that they've read the Bible either. This is not particularly surprising given the fact that many of the critical comments leveled at the Book of Mormon apply just as easily to the Bible. This is not a problem to members of the LDS faith, since we believe that both books are the word of God, and that there are reasonable explanations for the anomalies in both books. But if one believes, as most anti-Mormons believe, that one is the word of God and the other a con, then how does justify excusing the same sorts of anomalies in one, but not the other? Do you think it could have something to do with preconceptions and bias?

The Apparent Book of
Mormon Anomally		 The Same or Similar
Bible Anomally		 The Reasonable
Explanation for Both
Book of Mormon
Cureloms and Cumoms
Ether 9:19

"And they also had horses and asses, and there were elephants and cureloms and cumoms; all of which were useful unto man, and more especially the elephants and cureloms and cumoms."

Critics like to point out that if these creatures existed at all, no one knows what they were. That, they say, undermines the autheniticity of the Book of Mormon.		 Bible
Unicorns
Did you know that there are at least nine mentions of unicorns in the Old Testament?

Check out Num 23:22, 24:8, Deut 33:17, Job 39:9-10, Ps 22:21, 29:6, 92:10, and Isa 34:7

Job 39:10 - "Canst thou bind the unicorn with his band in the furrow?" 		Explanation:
Relatively easy to explain - when confronted with a name of an animal that is unknown to the translator, or for which there is no english equivalent, the translator will often look for a similar word. The BoM cumoms and cureloms may have been Llamas or something similarly unknown to Joseph Smith, and the Bible unicorn may have been an ibex or oryx. The real question should be, if the BoM was a fraud, why would Joseph Smith include words for which there were no english equivalents?
Book of Mormon:
Coins or Measures?
Alma Ch.11, 3 Nephi 12:26

"Now the reckoning is thus—a senine of gold, a seon of gold, a shum of gold, and a limnah of gold. A senum of silver, an amnor of silver, an ezrom of silver, and an onti of silver."

Critics love to belabor the fact that none of these "coins" have yet turned up for archeological examination, yet nowhere in the BoM are these measures called "coins." They are called "measures." In fact, the word "coin" doesn't appear even once in the BoM. 		Bible:
Pennies and Farthings

Pennies: Matt 20:2,9,10,13 and 20:19, Mark 6:37, 12:15, Luke 20:24, John 6:7, Rev 6:6

Farthings: Matt 5:26, 10:29, Mark 10:1, 12:42, Luke 12:6

Mites: Mark 12:42 - "And there came a certain poor widow, and she threw in two mites, which make a farthing." 		Explanation:
So, here we have a situation where the Book of Mormon mentions measures of gold and silver, which might explain why anyone looking for evidence of coins might be disappointed.

Yet the Bible mentions coins such as pennies, farthings, and mites which are the coinage of 16th century England.

Suffice to say that the BoM needs no more explanation than what has been given, and the Bible can simply be said to be suffering from a translator's efforts to make the coinage familiar to [his] contemporary readers.
Book of Mormon:
Foreign "adieu"
Jacob 7:27

"...and to the reader I bid farewell, hoping that many of my brethren may read my words. Brethren, adieu."

Admittedly, this can be a little disconcerting the first time one reads it. The question might arise, "How is it that this French word has found its way into a book written over 1500 years ago on the American continent? The answer, of course, is that the French word was never in the original BoM which was translated by Joseph Smith. The word "adieu" was chosen by Joseph Smith as a translation of whatever Nephite term or concept that was in the original. It might be interesting to see how this word is translated into the various other languages that the BoM has been translated into! 		Bible:
Foreign "talitha cumi"
Mark 5:41

"And he took the damsel by the hand, and said unto her, Talitha cumi; which is, being interpreted, Damsel, I say unto thee, arise."

The Jews (and early Christians) of Palestine in the first century AD spoke mostly Aramaic, yet the bulk of the New Testament was written in Greek. So, one could conceivably make the argument that the entire NT was written in a "foreign language."

This interesting fact also addresses the criticism, "Why would the Nephites, who spoke a form of Hebrew, write in reformed egyptian?". Answer: Perhaps for the same reasons that first century Jews, who spoke Aramaic, would write in Greek! 		Explanation:
Sometimes, a translator has to choose words that capture the orignal flavor of the writings he is translating. Sometimes, the original may include words foreign to that culture, words for which there are adequate translations, but then the reader loses the flavor that the original foreign term had. Thus, the translator may include foreign words which are more familiar to the modern reader, but still capture the mood or flavor of the original. Perhaps the Nephite who penned the word translated as "adieu" had actually used a Jaredite or Lamanite term there originally. As for the biblical passage, we may never know why the writer of Mark used a foreign term here, and then translated it, rather than simply translating it to begin with.


Book of Mormon:
Quoting Isaiah

Critics of the BoM like to point to extensive quoting from Isaiah, particularly in 2 Nephi, and call it "plagiarism." 		Bible:
Quoting Isaiah

Jesus quoted Isaiah more frequently than he quoted any other prophet. Isaiah is also quoted frequently by Peter, John, and Paul in the New Testament. 		The Explanation:
Let's face it... prophets love to quote the prophets who came before them, and the scriptures contain hundreds, if not thousands of examples of earlier scriptures being quoted or expounded upon. The fact that Isaiah is a moving, and powerfully prophetic work makes it all the more likely. In fact, some might make the argument that a lack of such practice would be far more suspicious.
Book of Mormon:
Steel
1 Nephi 4:9, 16:18, 2 Nephi 5:15, Jarom 1:8, Ether 7:9

Ether 7:9 - "Wherefore, he came to the hill Ephraim, and he did molten out of the hill, and made swords out of steel..."

It is significant to note that two fo the five references to steel are during the period before the voyage to the new world. This is not unusual, when one notes the many biblical passages of the same sort, used in the same way. 		Bible:
Steel
2 Sam 22:35, Job 20:24, Ps 18:34, Jer 15:12

2 Sam 22:25 - "He teacheth my hands to war; so that a bow of steel is broken in mine arms."

Interestingly enough, all of these Old Testament references to steel predate the discovery of steel by as much as a thousand years.		 The Explanation:
Most scholars believe that references to steel that predate its discovery are most likely references to bronze, copper, or even tin. There are also some scholars who believe that in ancient cultures, "steel" could have referred to alloys and metals other than the modern alloy that we think of when we hear the term today. Even now, there are several different kinds of steel, each using a different alloy combination, sometimes adding chromium, nickle, or other metals to the mixture. There are even scholars who postulate that meteoric steel containing iron, carbon, and nickle could have been found, heated, and hammered into weapons and other tools.
Book of Mormon:
Missing Animals?
Many BoM critics like to point out that the BoM mentions elephants in the americas. This, they opine, is proof that the book is spurious, since no one has ever seen an elephant in the New World. What many don't realize is that there have been many elephant and mastodon-like skeletal remains found in the americas. The only real scientific question is in regards to when elephants or their cousins became extinct in the americas. 		Bible:
Missing Animals?
Lev 11:30 or Isa 2:20 - "In that day a man shall cast his idols of silver, and his idols of gold, which they made each one for himself to worship, to the moles and to the bats."

Okay, so maybe moles aren't nearly as impressive as elephants as mystery animals go, but as far as Israel is concerned, they are much more non-existent. There have never been any true moles (or even mole skeletons) in Israel. 		The Explanation:
Once again, both mysteries can be explained by the fact that translators, when confronted with a term or animal they are unfamiliar with, will often pick a word in their own language or animal which they are familiar with. The BoM elephants could have been any large pack-animal unfamiliar to Joseph Smith. Of course, it is entirely possible that a few elephants or mastodons survived in the area well beyond the time we generally think of as their era of extinction. As for the moles in the Bible, most scholars thinks this refers to rats and mice.
This page is a work in progress. Other items will be added as time permits. Coming topics include: geography, prophecy, more animals, original documents, plates of gold and brass, and more! If you have any contributions you'd like to submit, please email them to me at mike@the-book-of-mormon.com
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© 2007 Mike Sageloff