Why do Bible passages show up in the Book of Mormon? Ep. 105

Have you ever been reading your Book of Mormon and suddenly thought to yourself, "This all seems very familiar..."? Well that's probably because you've encountered that verse before - in the Bible. Let's talk about that.

-Book of Mormon Central addressed this topic extensively in an awesome 9-part series, which was extremely helpful for me in my research on this subject. Big shout-out to them, because a lot of the information given in this video is just a summary/repackaging of their research. Links:

Notes:

-Concerning my percentage estimate, researcher Michael Hickenbotham came to a similar conclusion (7% versus 6.4%): “If Joseph or anyone else actually tried to plagiarize the Book of Mormon, critics have failed to show the source of the remaining 93% (when all similar texts are removed). A 100% non-biblical book of scripture wouldn’t have been much more difficult to produce” -Michael W. Hickenbotham, in “Answering Challenging Mormon Questions.” Of course, I’m not sure how he conducted his study. Perhaps he went so far as to draw that percentage based on word-count versus verse-count. I’m not nearly that patient.

SUBSCRIBE:

Follow Us:

Follow the Hosts:

[katbos]

Wow! Your written notes in the video description are awesome! ❤

[Sunshine-eosp]

David you always knock these videos out of the park, well done

[AwesomeTingle]

great video, as always. really appreciate the work you guys do to candidly answer hard questions

[andreafaldon]

I would think if we believe God is the same yesterday, today and forever we would want scripture to match, right, just saying.

[TimDavie]

Really great summary and perspective. Thank you!

[intz]

Fascinating and informative. Thank you for your content.

[sumguyfromutah]

Lol why? Because religious people always quote from their sacred texts to make their point. The Nephites were no different. They had a version of the Bible down to the time of Jeremiah scribed on the plates of brass and quoted that bible for the learning of their audience while giving an interpretation of its meaning through the Holy Spirit. Why do people give long talks in various churches? Why not just quote the bible and sit down? Because they feel moved upon to apply it to their listeners to increase their testimony about God.

[francescogorbechov]

One problem, the BOM contains errors and mistranslations that are unique to the KJV and not in the original texts

[thefreedomrag]

I am an "anti morman" and I was really impressed with that video.

Well done.

I didn't think it was possible to come up with a plausible explanation for why Paul's letters to the Corinthians appear verbatum - but you managed to prove me wrong.

God gave devine inspiration to Moroni who happened to use the same devine words in his summary.

God inspires Paul and Moroni to use the same words ...

Well done.

A good solid attempt to try to explain something that most critics have problems with.

You have now got an explanation for everything that looks like plagerism.

I guess if you believe in God (which I do) then it follows that almost anything is possible ...

[renee-oyxb]

hey, you guys should do a video on 1 Corinthians 14:31-37!!!!

[bryanpratt]

Have any of you ever been open to the Book of Mormon being false?

[alainauter]

Asked myself this earlier this week❤️❤️✨

[protochris]

This is a major dilemma within the text: The KJB interpolations are preserved in the 5th century AD Book of Mormon, 1100 years before it went to print. If Joseph did not copy directly from the KJB, then this has no explanation. It's most likely not all of the BoM text was translated without a supporting document. Joseph probably took liberties by copying the text of Isaiah in order to accelerate the completion of the book.

[larryfrakous]

Why is Jesus described of as God often in the BoM if the trinity is wrong?

[andriiiudchenko]

Check out the book Sapiens, which explains why religions and other myths actually exist in the first place

[aBrewster]

3:52 “There’s no evidence that a Bible was present during the translation.”

This video was three years ago, so maybe your view has shifted. The word-for-word replication of the KJV, errors and all, is its own evidence that a Bible was referenced.

The descriptions of the translation process are snapshots in time, so the omission of a Bible being used isn’t surprising, especially considering that the vast majority of the BOM is new content, not replication of the Bible.

This matters because the BOM, itself, attributes errors in the text to man. Your suggestion that God zapped the KJV to Joseph would put God’s endorsement on those errors, and this all becomes highly problematic when you start talking about translating the BOM into other languages.

Edit to add: what exactly is the problem in a Bible being part of the process?

[atheistapostate]

Major issue.. why does “god” use the English translations of Latin words words in the BoM that are the same words used in the KJB from 1769...? Scribes in the KJB messed up NOT translating the Greek word to English... ops Smith!

The KJB was an attempt to bring the bible back to a Greek translation to English over the Catholic Latin which they took from the Greek and many meanings changed...
that is the errors we speak of in the bible to the BoM... there should be NO Latin translated words in the BOM, they should have been Greek translations.... fail on Smith

[gonrb]

Min 3:58 " personally i believe God revealed the KJV text EVEN WITH THE ERRORS as it was sufficiently plain to suit His purpose" ...WOW!!!! REALLY.????....so you really think God would quote a mistake or error rather than using His perfect word to avoid controversy and confusion.? Please Read 1 Corinthians 14:13 God is not a God of confusion.

[jacobmartin]

I think it’s strange you mentioned Brigham young. He also said they you have to go through Joseph smith to have your sins forgiven to enter the kingdom of heaven....! Also you are also saying because it is Possible that Joseph smith didnt have a Bible with him at the time of his translation, it’s possible it wasn’t fraud what he wrote? A person doesn’t have to have a Bible with them to know what the scriptures are. I mean do you see every mechanic have directions with them making sure they don’t make a mistake??

[edenicchristian]

To be honest, I have found much of the Book of Mormon just to be a retelling or re-imagining of various Biblical stories or tropes. Many of them very repetitive (i.e. many lines start with "it came to pass..." as you note). I think that there are verbatim passages from the KJV is somewhat evidence of this. I don't mean this to be negative (I like a lot of Mormon ideas, but just my honest thoughts). For all Smith's talk of dreams and visions, I don't believe the Book of Mormon is meant to be interpreted literally. Much like much of the Bible.