I have a strong testimony that the Book Of Mormon is true! I love it and I read it everyday. I constantly pray to have a reassurance that it is true. I know with all of my heart, might, mind and soul that it is TRUE! The reason I pray constantly to know that it is true is to have an unwavering testimony of it. I know Joseph Smith translated it for the world to read. I don't want to hide the principles and teachings it has of Jesus Christ in it from the world. I know it is ANOTHER Testament of Jesus Christ that HE LIVES! And that He loves ALL nations kindred, tongue and people. If our Heavenly Father wants to give us more scriptures to know that He and His son live how dare we say they can't! This wonderful book does NOT replace the Bible! It builds upon the truths that are in it! I love it and I invite you to read it and find out for yourself that it is true.
I found this challenge and I want to share it.
The Challenge The "Book of Mormon" makes to the world
If one scoffs at the missionary's explanation of the Book of Mormon, he is in so many words claiming it to be false: that it is a deceiving fraud formulated through the efforts and talents of a common man. What is produced by one man, can always be duplicated by another man. The challenge the Book of Mormon makes to the world is that of duplication. Because the book complies with every one of the following conditions, and in order for you to produce a similar record, you must comply with the same conditions.
Here is the challenge- Can you accept it?
1. Write a history of ancient Tibet covering a period from 2200 B.C. to 400 A.D. Why ancient Tibet? Because you know more about Tibet than Joseph Smith (or anyone else) knew about ancient America.
2. You're 23 years of age.
3. You have had no more than three years of formal school education, and have spent your life in backwoods farming communities.
4. Your history must be written on the basis of what you now know. There was no library that held information for Joseph Smith. You must use none. There is to be no research of any kind.
5. Your book must be 531 pages and over 300,000 words in length.
6. Other than a few grammatical corrections, you must have no changes in the text. The first edition as you dictated it to your secretary must stand forever.
7. This record is to contain the history of two distinct and separate nations, along with histories of different contemporary nations or groups of people.
8. You must describe their religious, economic, political, and social cultures and institutions. Cover every phase of their society, including the names of their coins.
9. Change your style of writing many times. Many ancient authors contributed to the Book of Mormon, each with his own style.
10. Weave into your history the religion of Jesus Christ and the Pattern of Christian living.
11. you must claim that your smooth narrative is not fiction with moral value, but true and sacred history.
12. You must include in your book fifty-four chapters dealing with wars, twenty-one historical chapters, fifty-five chapters on visions and prophecies you must have your record agree meticulously with the Bible. You must write seventy-one chapters on doctrine and exhortation, and here too, you must check every statement with the scriptures or yours will be proven to be a fraud. You must write twenty-one chapters on the ministry of Christ, and every thing you claim he said and did and every testimony you write in your book must agree absolutely with the New Testament.
13. Many of the facts, claims, ideas, and statements given as absolutely true in your writings must be entirely inconsistent with the prevailing beliefs of the world. Some of these worldly beliefs must prove to be in direct opposite of your claims.
14. Included in your narration will be authentic modes of travel; whether or not those ancient people used fire; description of their clothing, crops, mourning, customs, and types of government. You must invent about 280 new names that will stand up under scrutiny through the years as to their proper application and derivation.
15. you will have to use, properly, figures of speech, similes, metaphors, narrations, exposition, description, oratory,epic lyric and parables.
16. You must invite the ablest scholars and experts to examine the text with care, and you must strive diligently to see that your book get into the hands of those eager to prove it a forgery, and who are most competent to expose every flaw in it.
17. Thorough investigations, scientific and historical evidence, and archaeological discovery for the next 175 years must verify its claims and prove detail after detail to be true, for many of the details you put in your history are still buried beneath the soil of Tibet.
18. You must publish it to every nation kindred, tongue and people declaring it to be the word of God and another witness for the Lord Jesus Christ.
19. The book must not contain any absurd, impossible, or contradictory statements. Your history must not contain any statement elsewhere in the volume.
20. Many theories and ideas as to its origin must arise, and after discovering and examining the facts, they must fall. You have claimed that your knowledge had come from a divine origin, and this claim continues to stand as the only possible explanation. The strength of the explanation must not decrease as time passes, but actually increase to the point where it becomes the only logical explanation.
21. Your record is to fulfill many Bible prophecies, even in the exact manner i which it shall come forth, to whom delivered, its purposes, its accomplishments.
22. Call down and angel from heaven in the middle of the day and have him bear testimony to four honest, dignified citizens of your community that the record is the word of God. There witnesses must bear the angel's testimony to the world, not for profit or gain, but under great sacrifice and severe persecution, even to their deathbeds. you must put that testimony to the test by becoming enemies to these men.
23. Thousands of great men, intellectual giants, national and international personalities, and scholars for 175 years must accept your history and its teachings even to the point of laying down their lives rather than deny their testimony of it.
24. You must include within the record this promise; "And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, He will manifest the truth of it unto you by the power of the Holy Ghost."
25. Millions must bear record to the world for the next 175 years that they know the record to be true because they put the promise to the test and found it to be true. The truth of it was manifested to them by the power of the Holy Ghost.
26. Since 1830, hundreds of thousands of competent salesmen must be so sold on your book that they gladly give up two or more years of their lives to take it to all parts of the world for distribution. They not only pay their own way during these years, but return bearing testimony that the time spent will remain as one of the highlights of their lives. They receive nothing in return for their efforts but the joy of having shared your book with others.
27. Your book must not only raise the standards of millions of people but do it in such a way that they become one of the great moral, ethical and dynamic marvels of the day. They must become world renowned for this.
28. For the next 20 years you must watch those that follow you, your family, and the dearest of your loved ones persecuted, driven time after time from their homes, beaten, tortured, starved, frozen, and killed. Tens of thousands must undergo the most extreme hardships in your presence just because they believe your claims concerning the origin and content of what you have written on ancient Tibet.
29. you must gain no wealth from your work, but many times lose all that you have. Like those that believe you, you must submit yourself to the most vile persecution. And finally after 20 years of this, give your own life in a very savage and brutal manner, for your testimony concerning your history book. This must be done willingly on your part.
30. Start right now and produce this record which covers 2600 years of history, doing it, not in the peaceful atmosphere of your community, but under the most trying of circumstances, which includes being driven from your home several times, and receiving constant threats upon your life. Please have your book completed, talk to a friend into mortgaging his farm to raise money to have it printed- all in 60 days.
There is only one answer;The Book of Mormon is a divine record. It not, its origin must be stated and its claims must be explained by the critic. IT ISN'T ENOUGH TO MERELY DISCARD IT AS FALSE AND FORGET ABOUT IT!
The first thing to do in examining any ancient text is to consider it in the light of the origin and background that is claimed for it. If it fits into that background there is no need to look farther, since historical forgery is virtually impossible.
I want to tell you my testimony again, That I KNOW that this church is true and I know it with all of my heart, mind and SOUL! It is God's true church restored to the earth. It has many blessings that I would never want to live without. I have a powerful testimony of prayer and I know that Heavenly Father loves me and you and knows us ALL by name and knows how to help everyone of us no matter the circumstances. I love you and I want to help you and so does Christ.
I found this challenge and I want to share it.
The Challenge The "Book of Mormon" makes to the world
If one scoffs at the missionary's explanation of the Book of Mormon, he is in so many words claiming it to be false: that it is a deceiving fraud formulated through the efforts and talents of a common man. What is produced by one man, can always be duplicated by another man. The challenge the Book of Mormon makes to the world is that of duplication. Because the book complies with every one of the following conditions, and in order for you to produce a similar record, you must comply with the same conditions.
Here is the challenge- Can you accept it?
1. Write a history of ancient Tibet covering a period from 2200 B.C. to 400 A.D. Why ancient Tibet? Because you know more about Tibet than Joseph Smith (or anyone else) knew about ancient America.
2. You're 23 years of age.
3. You have had no more than three years of formal school education, and have spent your life in backwoods farming communities.
4. Your history must be written on the basis of what you now know. There was no library that held information for Joseph Smith. You must use none. There is to be no research of any kind.
5. Your book must be 531 pages and over 300,000 words in length.
6. Other than a few grammatical corrections, you must have no changes in the text. The first edition as you dictated it to your secretary must stand forever.
7. This record is to contain the history of two distinct and separate nations, along with histories of different contemporary nations or groups of people.
8. You must describe their religious, economic, political, and social cultures and institutions. Cover every phase of their society, including the names of their coins.
9. Change your style of writing many times. Many ancient authors contributed to the Book of Mormon, each with his own style.
10. Weave into your history the religion of Jesus Christ and the Pattern of Christian living.
11. you must claim that your smooth narrative is not fiction with moral value, but true and sacred history.
12. You must include in your book fifty-four chapters dealing with wars, twenty-one historical chapters, fifty-five chapters on visions and prophecies you must have your record agree meticulously with the Bible. You must write seventy-one chapters on doctrine and exhortation, and here too, you must check every statement with the scriptures or yours will be proven to be a fraud. You must write twenty-one chapters on the ministry of Christ, and every thing you claim he said and did and every testimony you write in your book must agree absolutely with the New Testament.
13. Many of the facts, claims, ideas, and statements given as absolutely true in your writings must be entirely inconsistent with the prevailing beliefs of the world. Some of these worldly beliefs must prove to be in direct opposite of your claims.
14. Included in your narration will be authentic modes of travel; whether or not those ancient people used fire; description of their clothing, crops, mourning, customs, and types of government. You must invent about 280 new names that will stand up under scrutiny through the years as to their proper application and derivation.
15. you will have to use, properly, figures of speech, similes, metaphors, narrations, exposition, description, oratory,epic lyric and parables.
16. You must invite the ablest scholars and experts to examine the text with care, and you must strive diligently to see that your book get into the hands of those eager to prove it a forgery, and who are most competent to expose every flaw in it.
17. Thorough investigations, scientific and historical evidence, and archaeological discovery for the next 175 years must verify its claims and prove detail after detail to be true, for many of the details you put in your history are still buried beneath the soil of Tibet.
18. You must publish it to every nation kindred, tongue and people declaring it to be the word of God and another witness for the Lord Jesus Christ.
19. The book must not contain any absurd, impossible, or contradictory statements. Your history must not contain any statement elsewhere in the volume.
20. Many theories and ideas as to its origin must arise, and after discovering and examining the facts, they must fall. You have claimed that your knowledge had come from a divine origin, and this claim continues to stand as the only possible explanation. The strength of the explanation must not decrease as time passes, but actually increase to the point where it becomes the only logical explanation.
21. Your record is to fulfill many Bible prophecies, even in the exact manner i which it shall come forth, to whom delivered, its purposes, its accomplishments.
22. Call down and angel from heaven in the middle of the day and have him bear testimony to four honest, dignified citizens of your community that the record is the word of God. There witnesses must bear the angel's testimony to the world, not for profit or gain, but under great sacrifice and severe persecution, even to their deathbeds. you must put that testimony to the test by becoming enemies to these men.
23. Thousands of great men, intellectual giants, national and international personalities, and scholars for 175 years must accept your history and its teachings even to the point of laying down their lives rather than deny their testimony of it.
24. You must include within the record this promise; "And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, He will manifest the truth of it unto you by the power of the Holy Ghost."
25. Millions must bear record to the world for the next 175 years that they know the record to be true because they put the promise to the test and found it to be true. The truth of it was manifested to them by the power of the Holy Ghost.
26. Since 1830, hundreds of thousands of competent salesmen must be so sold on your book that they gladly give up two or more years of their lives to take it to all parts of the world for distribution. They not only pay their own way during these years, but return bearing testimony that the time spent will remain as one of the highlights of their lives. They receive nothing in return for their efforts but the joy of having shared your book with others.
27. Your book must not only raise the standards of millions of people but do it in such a way that they become one of the great moral, ethical and dynamic marvels of the day. They must become world renowned for this.
28. For the next 20 years you must watch those that follow you, your family, and the dearest of your loved ones persecuted, driven time after time from their homes, beaten, tortured, starved, frozen, and killed. Tens of thousands must undergo the most extreme hardships in your presence just because they believe your claims concerning the origin and content of what you have written on ancient Tibet.
29. you must gain no wealth from your work, but many times lose all that you have. Like those that believe you, you must submit yourself to the most vile persecution. And finally after 20 years of this, give your own life in a very savage and brutal manner, for your testimony concerning your history book. This must be done willingly on your part.
30. Start right now and produce this record which covers 2600 years of history, doing it, not in the peaceful atmosphere of your community, but under the most trying of circumstances, which includes being driven from your home several times, and receiving constant threats upon your life. Please have your book completed, talk to a friend into mortgaging his farm to raise money to have it printed- all in 60 days.
There is only one answer;The Book of Mormon is a divine record. It not, its origin must be stated and its claims must be explained by the critic. IT ISN'T ENOUGH TO MERELY DISCARD IT AS FALSE AND FORGET ABOUT IT!
The first thing to do in examining any ancient text is to consider it in the light of the origin and background that is claimed for it. If it fits into that background there is no need to look farther, since historical forgery is virtually impossible.
I want to tell you my testimony again, That I KNOW that this church is true and I know it with all of my heart, mind and SOUL! It is God's true church restored to the earth. It has many blessings that I would never want to live without. I have a powerful testimony of prayer and I know that Heavenly Father loves me and you and knows us ALL by name and knows how to help everyone of us no matter the circumstances. I love you and I want to help you and so does Christ.
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