Holy Mary Mother of God

About a year before I left for my mission a good friend of mine and RM was on an apologetic kick. He suffered from depression and for whatever reason putting his mind to a set task seemed to bring some relief from his condition.

After several months of different small projects he came across accusations that the BOM in its' original form was not the same as the current version. He duly sent of to SLC for the Tanner's annotated copy of the original 1830 edition with the changes highlighted.

I had no idea he had done this. It just came up in conversation one day. He went on to explain that most of the differences were simply grammatical and spelling errors which had been corrected. I was inclined to agree and after having a flick through the book I decided he was right. He still is right.

Some time later in the mission field we were issued with a new translation of the BOM in German and told to stop reading the older 'Luschien' version as soon as the new investigator version i.e the single BOM was in circulation. Naturally we started to compare the translations to see what differences there were. Naturally there were a great many minor changes though nothing substantive other than the inclusion of JS-Matt for the first time. We did however get a kick out of the church releasing a 'new' version which still used the old 'rechtschreibung' rules.

My thoughts naturally turned to different versions of the BOM again and I was reminded of the discussions I had had some time previous with my friend. I went online and found that Herald House, the Deseret Book of the RLDS were selling replicas of the original 1830 edition, exactly the same as BKP had held up in conference not long before. I looked at the picture and thought it would be a cool gimmick for the street preaches we held ever week in the pedestrian precincts. (fußgängerzonen)

Though the BOM can be described as chloroform in print, I have always felt that the vision and dream sequences were vivid and well written. The reasons for that are obviously debatable given the magical thinking of JS's family. Anyway one of my favourite passages was the vision of Nephi in 1Nephi 11. The key passage, and the whole point of the is this:

Modern Version:
Quote:

14 And it came to pass that I saw the heavens open; and an angel came down and stood before me; and he said unto me: Nephi, what beholdest thou?
15 And I said unto him: A virgin, most beautiful and fair above all other virgins.
16 And he said unto me: Knowest thou the condescension of God?
17 And I said unto him: I know that he loveth his children; nevertheless, I do not know the meaning of all things.
18 And he said unto me: Behold, the virgin whom thou seest is the mother of the Son of God, after the manner of the flesh.
19 And it came to pass that I beheld that she was carried away in the Spirit; and after she had been carried away in the Spirit for the space of a time the angel spake unto me, saying: Look!
20 And I looked and beheld the virgin again, bearing a child in her arms.
21 And the angel said unto me: Behold the Lamb of God, yea, even the Son of the Eternal Father! Knowest thou the meaning of the tree which thy father saw?

Source LDS.org


Original Version:


Quote:
14 And it came to pass that I saw the heavens open; and an angel came down and stood before me; and he said unto me: Nephi, what beholdest thou?
15 And I said unto him: A virgin, most beautiful and fair above all other virgins.
16 And he said unto me: Knowest thou the condescension of God?
17 And I said unto him: I know that he loveth his children; nevertheless, I do not know the meaning of all things.
18 And he said unto me: Behold, the virgin whom thou seest is the mother of God, after the manner of the flesh.
19 And it came to pass that I beheld that she was carried away in the Spirit; and after she had been carried away in the Spirit for the space of a time the angel spake unto me, saying: Look!
20 And I looked and beheld the virgin again, bearing a child in her arms.
21 And the angel said unto me: Behold the Lamb of God, yea, even the Eternal Father! Knowest thou the meaning of the tree which thy father saw?

Source: Herald Heritage Re-print (1830 1st Ed. Book of Mormon)


To the untrained eye these do look like very minor differences, perhaps they were overlooked by my friend, or more likly he did not realise the huge ramifications in the changes.

Mormonism is in theological terms distinct from mainstream Christianity because it rejects traditional concepts of trinity, that is to say that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are one. Mainstream Christianity is therefore monotheistic, whilst mormonism's doctrine of Godhead creates polytheism. It if for this reason alone that mormon baptism is not accepted by many churches, not least the Roman Catholic church.

We can see a perfect and relevant example of montheism at work in the traditional 'Hail Mary' prayer:

Quote:
Hail Mary
Full of grace, the Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou amongst women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God. Pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen

Source: Catechism of the Catholic Church, Ignatius Press, pg.643


This prayer demonstrates the same interchangeabilityty of terms for god and Jesus as is found in the original 1830 version of Nephi's vision. Where clearly Mary is stated as being the mother of God, not the mother of the son of God as though there is a difference.

Why is this important? Well, it dispels the myth amongst TBMs that alterations of the BOM have been minimal tidying up exercises in grammar correction. Quite the opposite. The fundamental theology of the church has been altered, the very nature of the God being worshipped has changed from a mainstream nicean God to an idiosyncratic and literalistic version of God void of the traditional mystery and inherent contradiction.

It shows clearly how Joseph Smith was influenced in the writing of the BOM by his mainstream beliefs, those of Methodism and how those beliefs evolved as time went on. Evolution of ideas is simply not compatiblele with restorationist revelation.