Does the 8th Article of Faith Contradict What the Church Teaches?

Question

Gramps,

The church claims the Bible to be a sacred volume of scriptures and the Word of God. However, we learn that the Bible is not correctly translated – even though there is no historical evidence to support this opinion and, unlike the Book of Mormon, the Bible has found vestiges of its old pages and there’s never been a claim regarding the incorrectness of its translation. The 8th AF also says we believe in the Bible since being “correctly translated”. Isn’t it contradictory? Thanks.

Debora

Answer

Debora,

There are some considerations that need to be addressed to answer your question.

1. No matter how old the historical documents are which we possess, we don’t have the originals. We have evidence that people who transcribed did, indeed, change the Bible. One of the most famous instances is that someone decided to change the number of the beast in Revelation from “666” to “616” because they thought “Oh, we all know we’re talking about the Emperor Nero (who at the time seemed to have satisfied the prophetic details of the beast). And the reason for them to change it was actually quite ignorant, since a different rendering of Nero’s name would have given 666 as well.

Think about it. We do NOT have the ORIGINAL documents. There was no printing press. There was no copy machine. Everything had to be hand written. Then they had to be transcribed over and over again. The likelihood that all such copies were made perfectly word-for-word is pretty small — just from simple mistakes alone. Then add into it the fact that some people will transcribe a “paraphrased” version based on their own understanding. Then that gets mistakes added into it. Then finally, we will always have some people who were men of evil intent who purposefully changed things through those early days. And those changes were copied.

To read the entire article:  askgramps.org