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THE TEACHINGS OF MORMONISM EXAMINED IN THE LIGHT OF THE BIBLE AND HISTORY THE PLURALITY OF GODS Deviating from the clear message of the Bible, wherein the unvarying teaching about God is monotheistic, Joseph Smith taught his belief in a plurality of gods. Consider the following: Joseph Smith stated "I will preach on the plurality of gods. I am going to tell you how God came to be God. We have imagined and supposed that God was God from all eternity. I will refute that idea, and take away the veil, so that you may see. God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man" (the King Follett Funeral Discourse). "President Joseph Smith read the third chapter of the Apocalypse, and chose as theme the sixth verse of the first chapter:" And he has made us kings and priests for God and his Father; to him be glory and empire forever and ever. Amen" ("Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith", p.459). It should be noted that Smith was reading the King James Version, which is the version that Mormonism uses in English, and it is in this version where the phrase "And he has made us kings and priests for God and his Father" (Revelation 1: 6) appears. After quoting the text of Revelation 1: 6, the Prophet Smith said: "The translation is entirely correct" ("Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith", p.459). If this passage is correctly translated, why in his "Joseph Smith Translation" is this verse "corrected"? The answer seems to be that as at the time he was 'revising' the Bible, he still believed in the normal "church" heresy of "the trinity", which also appears in the Book of Mormon - see here - in Spanish only at present. Therefore he corrected the verse so that in his "Inspired Version of the Bible" it reads: "And he made us kings and priests for God, his Father", as it appears in the Reina-Valera Version (revision of 1960) of the Bible in Spanish, and in the Reina-Valera Version 2009 published by the Mormon Church itself. Joseph Smith later elaborated his theory about a supposed plurality of gods based on a mistranslated verse. But when the Mormons published their own edition of the Bible in Spanish (actually, an update of the Reina-Valera Version of 1909), they were forced to put the correct translation of that passage, and it now reads as follows: "And He has made us kings and priests for God, his Father". The plurality of Gods is not a Biblical teaching - it is not even a Book of Mormon teaching (Alma 11: 26-31) - but see here (in Spanish only at present) for trinitarian teaching in the Book - while in stark contrast to both errors, the uniform teaching of the Bible about Divinity is that there is only one God (Isaiah 43:10; 1st Timothy 2:5) - link to 'God' - page 1. In general, the Mormon concept of God is an absolute chaos. According to the Book of Mormon, there is only one God (nevertheless it contradicts true Bible teaching by promulgating the heresy of "the trinity"). According to the teachings of Joseph Smith, there is an infinity of gods, but this universe is governed by three distinct and separate gods. Brigham Young added the doctrine of "Adam-god", but later it was abandoned because it was considered to be erroneous. However the doctrine of good men (especially Mormons) becoming gods is still alive in the Church today. |