Books / Essays – Page 2 – Garrett's Polished Diamonds

Chapter 6: The Great Schism

Part 1: From Apostles to Apostates

The Western interpretation regarding the two natures of Christ, carved in stone, prevailed in the Christian world in the end, but not because of its merits Both sides were wrong. They had based their conclusions on the single false doctrine derived from a miss-translation, “God Created everything from nothing”. (EX NEHILO) Genesis 1:1

However, there was an other equally dangerous threat that arose that no one was anticipating. It began in 605 AD and its founder was called Mohamed. The threat was Islam. By the time the Catholic Church of the Western Roman Empire were able to call for another vote of its orthodoxy of the two natures of Christ, the Muslims had over run the Christian Church in the East including Constantinople and there was no one left standing to oppose them.

It is hard to imagine that the Leaders of the Roman Empire who were constantly and completely occupied with the running of State Affairs during a period of perpetual military wars, would allow themselves to become so deeply involved in the affairs of a religious nature.

From the time of the first Council, Constantine was clever enough to have figured out that a people divided over their allegiance to their God would only be a short step away from becoming divided over their allegiance to their Emperor. His main concern was his Empire and anything that threatened that, threatened him. He called a council and selected Christianity to become the State religion. That put an end to the persecution of Christians. The second council he called was to establish a common creed that everyone could agree upon to avoid future divisions and disagreements.

When Constantine built a New Rome in the East (Constantinople) it created many advantages but also exacerbated its one big disadvantage. You can shift a Capital relatively easily, but you cannot as easily shift a people’s loyalty. Rome had always been the center of the civilized world. There were many who felt it should stay that way. The Empire was slipping into chaos. With communications slow and unreliable, moving to a new, far away center of power was very challenging to say the least. However, if you could unite the people through their religion and have control over them as a result, the chances of survival of the Emperor would be multiplied many fold. To have power over a man’s life is a high level of control. To have power over a man’s religion means you have power over him even after he was dead. Now that is total control, and it was the kind of total control Constantine was desperate for.

The Chalcedon Creed was crafted to establish the doctrine of the two natures of Christ called in Greek, Dyophysite. The first nature being Divine, while the second being Human. According to such belief, it was the “man nature of Christ” that was born of Mary. She would be called Christostokos: giver of life to Christ’s body. However it was an unacceptable and impossible proposition. Such a concept did not take into account that she could not possibly bring life to a God, who already existed before she or for that matter all mankind had even been created. It must have been the “man nature of Christ” that was born to the woman called Mary. Likewise, it must have been the “man nature of Christ” that died on the cross because a God cannot die. When the “divine nature of Christ” retook the Body of Christ, he was resurrected as a God. Further, as God is pure intelligence surely he would have no need to have been born at all, or to require a resurrected physical body which was composed of lesser and opposite substance to himself.

The opposing group was a called the Monophysites. They believed that Christ had only one nature and that nature was divine. This school of thought originated in the Eastern Christianity. They saw Christ as a God who was Incarnate– born as a man. At the same time, he became a fusion of both man and God sometime later when he was adopted by God the Father and became his Son. Mary, as a woman, gave birth to him and is therefore deserving of the title Christostokos because she was the giver of life to God.

Nestorius was one of the Bishops with this view. We must not forget there were many other views and opinions. Arianism was still a problem. Arius, a Libyan and Priest from Egypt, was teaching that Christ the son, was a God also but that there was a time when only God existed. Therefore, the Son was not equal to the Father. This thought was not original with Arius but had been debated for decades before he was born. Nonetheless, the movement that he founded bore the name Arianism and was deemed by the Pope or senior Bishop of Rome to be heretical doctrine.

These issues may sound like micro-minor nitpicking to us today but at the time it was a black or white issue upon which everything hung. Attempting to put a creed together that appeased both opposing sides was impossible. Nonetheless, The Nicean Creed was a final attempt after much maneuvering through compromises, bickering and personal threats. It is understandable why many today dismiss this amazing Creed’s linguistic achievement as simply a smoke screen of political doublespeak.

Comparison between Creed of 325 and Creed of 381 AD

The following table which indicates by square brackets the portions of the 325 text that were omitted or removed in 381 A.D. and uses italics to indicate what phrases, absent in the 325 text, were added in 381, juxtaposes the earlier (325 AD) and later (381 AD) forms of this Creed in the English translation given in Schaff’s work, Creeds of Christendom.

First Council of Nicea (325)	*First Council of* *Constantinople (381*)
We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of all things visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten of the Father [the only-begotten; that is, of the essence of the Father, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father;	We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds (æons), Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father;
By whom all things were made [both in heaven and on earth];	by whom all things were made;
Who for us men, and for our salvation, came down and was incarnate and was made man;	Who for us men, and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, and was made man;
He suffered, and the third day he rose again, ascended into heaven;	He was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate, and suffered, and was buried, and the third day he rose again, according to the Scriptures, and ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of the Father;
From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.	From thence he shall come again, with glory, to judge the quick and the dead, whose kingdom shall have no end.
And in the Holy Ghost.	And in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of life, who proceedeth from the Father, who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified, who spake by the prophets.
	We Believe In one holy catholic and apostolic Church; we acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins; we look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.
[But those who say: There was a time when he was not and He was not before he was made;’ and ‘He was made out of nothing,’ or ‘He is of another substance’ or ‘essence,’ or ‘The Son of God is created,’ or changeable,’ or ‘alterable’— they are condemned by the holy Catholic and apostolic Church.]

We must remember that while these very fine, barely distinguishable differences, caused nonetheless, considerable trouble for the proud and influential participants of their day. They were not fringe radicals or eccentrics but scholars with credentials and reputations at stake. Others were Monks hardened by years of tortuous self-denial having achieved a mental fortitude that only comes from isolated solitude. Then there were the Bishops with large congregations and followers trying to influence the Ego-maniacal Emperors whose total political and religious powers allowed them to impose and enforce whatever they could be persuaded to believe.

Such were the main players in this very serious and dangerous game. They met, not to discover the nature of Christ, but to win. Each took to the conference a fanatical conviction of their own orthodoxy that was “poured and set in concrete.” Now, their agenda was to root out those who did not believe as they believed and pronounce their curses (anathemas) upon them. They were not willing to even compromise on the equally logical conclusions already reached by their opponents. Rather they simply asked, “Are you an orthodox believer or a heretic?” What did that mean? What was orthodox at one conference was heresy at the next. One had to be very astute and focused just to stay alive. The answer they gave could bring them a cherished appointment or cost them their head.

At each conference there were winners and losers. The winners however could never be assured their triumph at one conference would survive long enough to influence the next. The losers could be vilified, judged, condemned or beaten to death before the news reached their home supporters. In some cases, the judgments were reversed but that was of little use to those who had perished. Emperors died and were replaced by new ones. There were no guarantees as to where the new Emperor’s sympathies lay. The same was true for Popes. What the Emperor giveth to one Pope, another Emperor taketh away. Blessed be the names of the Emperor.

Although the Niacin Creed was accepted by all at the council while under the ever-watchful eye of Emperor Constantine, it was by no means a done deal. It still had to be implemented throughout the Empires, both East and West. But as soon as the members returned home, the bickering, squabbling and disagreements regarding both the words and the intents of the Creed, always began afresh. It continued to simmer and boil and smolder for decades.

Finally, another Council, 46 years later was called to meet at Constantinople. Again, the most important business was to refine the creed so as to make perfectly clear what was orthodoxy and what wasn’t. What would be deemed heretical and what deemed acceptable. As before, even this tinkering and rearranging did not “a meeting of minds” make.

Two additional councils were called at Ephesus to clarify the one nature verses the two natures problem. Unfortunately, the one nature or Arianism group were victorious this time and the representatives even got so carried away as to beat the Bishop of Constantinople, Flavian, so badly that he died of his injuries a few days later.

Incensed at the death of their Bishop, and at the outcome of the council’s actions, Pope Leo and Emperor Marcian, both supporting the two natures theory, called a fourth council to reverse all that had been done at Ephesus. Chalcedon was still considered a safe place for the moment. All areas were too dangerous due to the threat from the advances of the army of Attila the Hun, so it was decided to convene the conference there.

At Chalcedon in 451 A.D. then, with Marcian presiding and Leo leading, all conclusions reached, and all anathemas pronounced upon the opposing Bishops of the East at the former council at Ephesus, were reversed. It was labelled as a gangster Council and deleted from the list of council as non- existent. Those who were responsible were deposed as Bishops, exiled and anathematized. The new creed, the Chalcedon Creed was formulated and not only approved but made orthodoxy. Any deviant to this Creed would result in a charge of heresy which had now been raised to a crime equal to treason and thereby, punishable by death.

An English translation of the Chalcedonian Creed

“We, then, following the holy Fathers, all with one consent, teach men to confess one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, the same perfect in Godhead and also perfect in manhood; truly God and truly man, of a reasonable soul and body; co-substantial with us according to the manhood; in all things like unto us, without sin; begotten before all ages of the Father according to the Godhead, and in these latter days, for us and for our salvation, born of the virgin Mary, the mother of God, according to the manhood; one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten, to be acknowledged in two natures, inconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably; the distinction of natures being by no means taken away by the union, but rather the property of each nature being preserved, and concurring in one Person and one Subsistence, not parted or divided into two persons, but one and the same Son, and only begotten, God the Word, the Lord Jesus Christ, as the prophets from the beginning have declared concerning him, and the Lord Jesus Christ himself taught us, and the Creed of the holy Fathers has handed down to us.”

Its purpose was:
1/ To exclude all those who still upheld the Monophonic theory of Arius or any other opposing view.
2/ To stop the destructive religious wars that were dividing the two Empires.
3/ To bring the polarized and fractured Empire together.

So much for the common creed which would bring peace and unite the Empire. What about the Biblical teachings of Christ? What about love, tolerance, good will to those that despise or use you? All that had been scrapped. The Hawks had won. The Church had lost. From hence forth, the decrees were to be backed up by sword.

By the fifth century, the knowledge that we are children of a Heavenly Father had been lost and this was the result of that loss. What greater example of the reliance on the spirit of the Holy Ghost to guide us could we have? Without that influence what other outcome could we have expected?

Everything that the convention at Chalcedon was expected to achieve, history reveals that it was denied. The Roman Empire imploded, with the Eastern Empire the first to go down. One half of the civilized Christian World was lost. Each side blamed the other. Eastern Christians thought it was God’s punishment against Rome because she had cast off the Eastern Empire through her heretical, compulsory teachings. They welcomed the Muslims and actually experienced greater freedom of religion under them than while under Roman rule.

When Rome fell, the survivors in the West thought it was a replay of the Fall of Jerusalem – God’s punishment because they did not rid themselves from the heretics of the east as they should have done.

East is East and West is West and never the twain shall meet. Neither in thought nor in correcting their faults, it appears.

The latest of God’s attempt to establish a Zion society had failed miserably. He had tried with the freed Israelite slaves under Moses. Again, he tried with Lehi in the Promised Land. And now with the successors of Peter in the Covenanted Land, he tried and again another failure.

God has been reduced to:
1/ An abstract (having no material existence)
2/ Irrelevant (of no value)
3/ Incomprehensible (beyond understanding)
4/ Inconceivable (impossible to imagine)
5/ Inexplicable (impossible to explain)
This definition may have been a good excuse at the time when they were seeking conformity to avoid the church being extinguished. However, for the generation in which we live, the result has been a headlong rush to abandonment of all responsibility.

Today’s Christians have spiritually fallen asleep, so far as the “great division because of the two natures of God” are concerned. If you were to ask most Christians today about the one or two natures and which they accept, I would venture to predict they would say, “I don’t understand the question.” Or they may ask, “What difference does it make?” As far as religion goes, with its pained dark history, it has all now become totally irrelevant.

This definition may have been a good excuse at the time when they were seeking conformity to avoid the church being extinguished. However, for the generation in which we live, the effect of an impotent God is obvious. We are led to blindly believe there are no long-term consequences for our actions. We suffer only if we are foolish enough to be caught.

In the midst of all this blind wandering and wanton behavior, has come a still, soft voice of reason, a musical note in a cacophony of chaos, heard only by those who are tuned to its pitch.

The soft voice of Jesus Christ can be felt more than heard. He is coming as planned and “Every knee shall bow and every tongue confess” his name (Romans 14 : 11). God has restored the truth through Joseph Smith in these latter days. The struggle today is not between two untruths, but between ignorance and truth. Yet much like the days of ancient Rome, there will be a lot of challenges, cleansing, self-correcting and repenting before the night ends and the day dawn breaks.

The definition of ignorance is to “make fools out of madmen and madmen out of fools.” Truth restores knowledge and the truth is what ultimately really makes you free (John 8: 32), from both madmen and fools.

Will we of the final dispensation be able to achieve what others in history could not? We are about to find out.

Chapter 7: Monasticism

Part 1: From Apostles to Apostates

The idea of monks, monasteries and hermits began long before Christ. It is thought to have begun in India and early writings of such holy monks date back to 2400, B.C. Its origin was not Christian and there were no Christian monks or monasteries prior to the middle of the third century. It was certainly never a teaching of Christ who taught love, serve and treat your neighbours as yourself. Rather, it was motivated by a more selfish withdrawal from the wicked world in an attempt to save one’s own self. Somehow, the idea of torturing the body to increase the purification of the soul seems to be linked to all sects who embrace this style of life.

The beginnings of Christian monks began as a movement of individuals without any kind of Church authority or encouragement. All were laymen without priesthood or office. During the period of the Decian persecutions (250 A.D.), many Christians fled to the caves in Upper Egypt spawning a legacy of hermits and small communities.

There were of course no rules and each not only lived as they saw fit but also developed lifestyles that included a competition to see who could out do the other in their extremes of self-punishment. Athanasius, defender of the Nicaean Creed, wrote a biography of one such person known only as Anthony. He, like his mentor Augustine, was influenced by the words of Christ who said, “If thou wouldst be perfect, Go, sell all that thou hast and give to the poor and come follow me.” Strange how some people react to that scripture. They seem to get the first part right, “go sell all that thou hast,” but totally miss the next part, “Come follow me.” They all seem to get lost by trying to find themselves.

Living a life in rags, solitude and perpetual pain was never what Christ advocated. How could such behaviour produce the leaven for the bread that Christ spoke about? (1 Corinthians: 5: 7-8) This lifestyle was more like the salt that had lost its savour (Matthew 5: 13). The idea of fleeing to the wilderness and giving up all luxuries has a very luring melody. Even in our society today, there are those who yield to it. Alaska, British Columbia, Montana and other areas of North America have become havens for those who have the desire to do the exact same thing for the exact same purpose: “Me first”. In the process, they have become lost to Christ, to the rest of society and most of all, to themselves.

Anthanasius’ biography of Anthony, pictured such a lifestyle choice with such colour and allure that it started a headlong rush to the hills and caves. Before too long, Saint Anthony, as he has since become known, had over 15,000 followers. Well know personalities of the early Church promoted the concept. Hilary brought monastic life to Palestine. Cassian took it to Gaul. Even Anthanasius became a monk and when he was banished to Alexandria, his lifestyle drew admiration. To those in Rome who could see the Church absolutely devoid of morals, this life of asceticism became a very attractive option for those still seeking personal salvation. By the end of the fourth century there were legions of hermit monks. The life of a hermit was even more popular than the institute of Monasteries. Neither had any sort of ecclesiastical authority or formal connection to the Church.

It was not until the Bishop of Caesarea, Basil, visited the Monks in Egypt, Syria and Palestine that things changed for the better. He started to live the life of a monk at age 21 but became disgusted by those he perceived had, through ignorance, self-deprivation and austerity, reduced themselves to a collection of wasted lives and meaningless ideals. As a priest first, then a Bishop, he was determined to turn the lives of Monks towards religious channels or at least something that could be beneficial to both the Church and the lost legion of humanity of self-imposed exiles. He drew up a new rule to be added to the three existing rules of Voluntary, Poverty and Chastity. The fourth was “Irrevocable vows.”

Many monks began to join his order. He insisted upon law and order and in particular, absolute obedience. The monastic life began to shift somewhat to being subject to the supervision of the Church, which was Basil’s hope and desire. This all took place about the same time that Jerome was busy translating the Bible from Greek to Latin. So the timing was perfect to rewrite the rules regarding Church Monasteries into Latin as well.

The movement towards the Monastic life had a great revitalizing effect to the flagging Christian Church in the fourth Century. By the fifth century convents for Nuns began to appear. Christianity found its greatest strength in the cloisters of the monks. Here they provided training, discipline and education as they qualified themselves as missionaries, teachers and even leaders of the Church. At first things seemed to benefit everyone:,the monasteries, the Church, the monks and those common people both in and out of the Church. But the fundamental ideals of monastic living are not supported or in harmony with the gospel of Jesus Christ for a very good reason.

As the monasteries grew, they became prosperous. Various orders of monks (Augustine, Benedictine, Trappist, Cistercians, Medicant Friars, Dominicans, Jesuits and Franciscan), each in their own time and in their own turn became rich, powerful, corrupt and self-indulgent. In the medieval monasteries, the majority of monks were priests. The abbots became landowners and as such they wielded great social and political power. They became immoral and their behavior brought denunciation and condemnation from the very populous they were commissioned to teach. They became so impervious to Christian virtues and moral living, the core principles of personal salvation, as to produce extreme personal and offensive selfishness.

Under the leadership of corrupt Bishops or despot Emperors, they became, in some cases, armies or militias to enforce edicts and suppress heretics. Fanatical and cruel, they fought soldiers as well as one another. To press their cause, they incited riots and intimidated members of meetings into submission. They were instrumental in keeping Bishops in office or likewise, deposing them. Through it all, lots of innocent blood was shed. Augustine, Jerome, Ambrose and many others tried to contain the abuses and corruption but with little success. The persecution and obliteration of the Albigenses was just a forerunner to the period of the inquisitions when thousands were tortured before dying on the rack, burned alive or mercifully beheaded. They interfered in the political affairs and drew the wrath and hatred of every nation in Europe.

Started by the noble and pure intent of seeking salvation for themselves by purifying themselves to the honour of Christ, and while rejected by a cruel and corrupt society themselves, they evolved instead into the perhaps most brutal, cruel and completely corrupt religious force the Christian world had ever known.

In hindsight it was entirely predictable what the end result would be. Such men, living such austere conditions without the moderating influence of the Holy Ghost, became what King Mosiah described as the “Natural Man.” (Mosiah 3 :19)

“For the natural man is an enemy to God and has been from the fall of Adam and will be for ever and ever unless he yields to the enticing s of the Holy Spirit and putteth off the natural man and becometh a Saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord and becometh as a child, submissive, meek humble, patient, full of love willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him even as a child doeth submit to his Father.”

The Holy Ghost is the source of such virtues as love, compassion, mercy and forgiveness. And we are obliged to mention women for whom in this world is more responsive, generally speaking, to the enticing of the Holy Spirit than women?

Proverbs 31: 10 – 31 “Who can find a virtuous woman for her price is far above rubies …”

Men most often truly only learn such virtues by the examples they see at the feet of their mothers and in the arms of their wives. In monasteries, the monks would have had none of these influences. Once they were brought into the political influence and control of the most powerful Emperors of Europe as well as the Roman Church, what should anyone have expected?

Through such a willing, natural minded, brutal army to enforce its will, the Church was able to survive as a powerful political entity well into the nineteenth century.

Chapter 8: The Development of Papacy

Part 1: From Apostles to Apostates

“The Papacy grew up in silence and obscurity. The names of the early Bishops of Rome are known only by barren lists, spurious decrees and epistles inscribed centuries later with their names. After the embellishment , if not the invention of St Peter’s pontificate, his conflict with Simon Magus in the presence of the Emperor and the circumstances of his martyrdom, it was content with raising the successive Bishops to the rank of martyrs without any particular richness or fullness of legend.”
“For some considerable part of the first three centuries, the Church of Rome and most, if not all the Churches of the West were, if we may so speak, Greek religious colonies.” Africa, not Rome, gave Birth to Latin Christianity.”
Historians History of the World vol 8 pp 519-522

The word “Pope” means Supreme Pontiff or Pontifex Maximus and was first used in the third century A.D. by Tertullian when he referred to Callixtus (217- 222 AD) as having assuming too much unilateral authority in his capacity as leader of the Christian Church. In fact, the title Pontifex Maximus had been used long before this time by the Pagans as their title of the highest position within the Roman Republic’s Religion. No scripture in the Bible makes any reference to such an office, and Peter and all other apostles certainly never made any reference to such a person holding power over all Christians.

It is astonishing to believe that the sarcastically intended label would eventually become a title that instantly evoked fear and terror throughout the civilized world. The truth is, the development of the Papacy, as it was later called, was the result of political conquest, political aid and outright fraud perpetrated by the Roman Church on itself and by itself.

A review of the historical facts discloses that the concept of a superior Bishop, especially in Rome, that held jurisdiction over the entire Church in the West prior to the fifth century, is entirely fictional. So far as Rome holding any such jurisdiction over the Eastern Church, it too is fictional as Rome never at any time, held any such authority.

In the early Church, under the Apostles, the Church was organized from the top down. Christ was at it head. A Presidency of three apostles had authority over the rest of the quorum of twelve apostles. They had the authority to call Bishops who were sustained by the people through a show of hands.

After the death of the apostles, the Church was organized from the bottom up. The clergy called the Bishop and the people approved or disapproved by vote. Over time, the church organization began to resemble the Roman Imperial organization with the Bishops becoming Metropolitans. Branches resembled small communities which were under the Bishops’ jurisdiction. He had the authority to call councils. With no ground rules or limitations on their authority, there were widespread abuses. Bishops, irritated by the squabbling members whose votes were necessary for the appointment of other clergy, soon lobbied and got the members’ right to vote abolished.

Metropolitans themselves became competitive. Many of the Bishops were ambitious, specifically those in Antioch, Alexandria and Rome. It was for that very purpose that Constantine intervened hoping to solve the constant feuding among these Bishops and to bring peace and harmony to the Church. Constantine called the Nicaea Council which approved doctrine and gave legal recognition to Metropolitans by defining their jurisdictions.

The Bishop of Rome, of course, was one of those Metropolitans and had no universal authority granted to him above and beyond that which was also was given to all the other Bishops. Later claims to the line of authority from Peter being passed to Bishop Linus of Rome are bogus. Peter never was the Bishop of Rome or of any other Metropolitan. There was no transfer of apostolic authority to Linus or any other Bishop. The same applies to universal authority in jurisdiction or authority to the interpretation of policy, doctrine or the receiving of revelation for the entire Church.

In the First Council of Constantinople, called to settle Doctrinal disputes, Rome was not even present. It had no administrative function outside Italy and its islands. The term “Catholic Church,” meaning “Universal Church,” was really meant to signify “Universal Unity in Faith.”

In the primitive Church, no one volunteered for the office of Bishop. It carried too great a risk to life and limb. However, with the change of recognition of Bishops, or Metropolitans, by the imperial authority, such an office became a coveted opportunity for wealth and power. Presents were showered upon the Bishops, and bribes were made in the hopes of future favours to the donors and parties for those held. The Churches formed by Paul and other missionaries were almost all in the capital cities rather than in outlying towns and villages. That’s where most people were and where the highest rate of conversions could be expected to come from. Just as today, one can see how easily the smaller branches, being weaker, would of necessity look to the more mature branches for leadership. This of course is exactly what happened. Disagreements or transgressions were referred to the larger centers to be resolved. Again, as the Church grew from the bottom up, the lack of any central figure or divine authority at the top to unify them, administration, common standards, guidelines or rules where made up on the spot and much confusion and abuse resulted.

Meanwhile, with the Bishops of Antioch and Alexandria in the East, and Rome in the West, all vying for superiority because of their claim to Peter as their Founder, competition and friction among the Bishops was rampant. When Constantinople became the “Second Rome” it did not hesitate to claim its Superiority as well. Couple that problem with the inability of the Bishops to come to a common consensus among themselves regarding doctrine, a common creed, orthodoxy or acceptable scriptures, the need for the Holy Ghost was never greater. As expected, only bickering, fighting and discord resulted. The battle lines drawn up between these factions formed a spiritual as well as a geographical fault line running between East and West. Eventually, that fault line would become a permanent split, a division of Christianity that, when it came, proved to be simultaneously catastrophic, calamitous and crippling. The Church was beyond repair and the greatest tragedy was, it was preventable.

The fact that the Bishop of Rome began to acquire more recognition than his rival Bishops was due to his location, greed and political timing. Rome was located at the historical seat of the Empire. Having the ear and the cooperation of the Emperor was no small advantage. He, no doubt, used this advantage often.

Another was an event which at first seemed innocuous and of little consequence. It started when the Council of Constantinople gave a designation of a purely religious Honorarium to the Bishop of Jerusalem called “Patriarchate”. This was an ancient title and tradition, which, because it was not the real title, significantly, fell short of satisfying the ambitious Bishops of Jerusalem. They were hoping for the official title of Patriarch.

At the Conference at Nicaea, they were finally given their coveted title along with jurisdiction and supremacy over Phoenicia and Arabia. Palestine had already been given to them by Emperor Theodosius. But the rank of Patriarch was a coveted position that had been considered for many years but not as yet officially instituted. The Bishops of Antioch and Alexandria also received their title 50 years after the council of Nicaea. How is it that Rome had been left out? Obviously at that time, Rome, as the only Western Metropolitan, was not considered that important. Even the preference of the new seat of power at Constantinople, resulted in the Bishop there obtaining the title of Patriarch. That was years before Rome’s Bishop was finally granted his Patriarch title in 451.A.D.

Now, all five Patriarchs occupied a superior position when compared to the other Bishops. These were the Patriarchs of Jerusalem, Constantinople, Antioch, Rome and Alexandria. All of them however continued to act independently because they could not exercise authority beyond their own diocese. They couldn’t even form a quorum when they were asked to call an ecumenical council by the Emperor.

The first evidence of seismic trouble was felt when the Emperor decreed, because of their location, (one in the old Capital and the other in the New), the two Patriarchs of Rome and Constantinople, would be given “pre-eminence” above the other three. This served to emphasize that their locations gave them no-small preferential advantage. This political favouritism was not received well by the other Bishops. As feared, at the Council of Constantinople 381A.D., the Bishops gave the first priority to Constantinople.

The second seismic tremor was felt when a statement regarding the status of superiority of Rome above all other Bishops was made by Bishop Damasus ( 366-384 AD). Being emboldened by the newly granted favouritism by Emperor Theodosius the Great, and taking the statement made by Christ to Peter as his justification, he pronounced that:
“The Holy Roman Church is raised above all others not by decrees of councils, but by the words of our Lord who said, “Thou art Peter and on this rock will I build my Church.”

He went on to explain, “By the presence and victory of Peter, Rome was raised above all other cities. The Eastern patriarchates are next in line and owe their origin to their relation to Peter the Apostle. The second see was consecrated at Alexandria in the name of Peter by his disciple Mark. It is also on account of the blessed apostle Peter that the third see, that of Antioch, must be honoured because Peter sojourned there before coming to Rome.”

Bishop Siricius (384-399 AD) issued what is called The First Decretal saying, “Peter Speaks through Sericius.” Leo, Bishop of Rome (440 – 461 AD) also sent a doctrinal letter to Flavian, Bishop of Constantinople, in which he stated, “Peter has spoken through Leo.” These consecutive assertions were followed up by a further attempt to establish Rome as superior at the next Council.

At the council of Nicaea, Alexandria had been the most prominent. But now at the council of Constantinople, some 56 years later, Rome made its bid for first place. They supported the claim by a falsified version of the 6th cannon of the council of Nicaea.

The council saw it quite differently. They judged that Constantinople and Rome were of an equal political level and therefor they reasoned, the two should be on equal ecclesiastical levels as well. Rome, sensing that a rival in Constantinople with equal prerogatives was dangerous, protested against this action. It again quoted the sixth cannon of the council of Nicaea in which there had been interpolated, the words “Rome has always held the primacy.”

As far as is known, the first use of this statement was at the council of Chalcedon by representatives of Leo the Great. After the falsified cannon was read, the cannon was again read in its original form, this time without the addition. When the council reconvened with its verdict, it went against the motion from Rome, in spite of its protests, and gave Constantinople equal status with Rome.

What is to be noted here is that it was the council that held a superior authority over the Bishops. It also reconfirms that Rome enjoyed no special status or superiority over the other Patriarchs in spite of their several attempts to have such.

This episode reveals the lengths to which the Patriarchs were willing to go to establish their superiority. If anyone held authority over all other Patriarchs, it was the State through the councils. Therein is evidence that Rome had no special power of jurisdiction over any of the other Bishops or Patriarchs. But this was the date when the earth began to shift in that direction.

The Roman Empire fell in 476 A.D.

The wars and strife continued unabated after the fall of the Western Roman Empire. Germanic tribes, the Barbarians, Huns, Goths, Franks, Burgundians, Vandals, Angles, Jutes and Saxons each extracted their toll. Most of these tribes had been converted to Arian Christianity and not bound by the Roman Church. Then Clovis, an ambitious King of the Franks, began taking over Gaul and some of the German tribes. When Clovis converted to Christianity, those under his rule were forced to accept the Roman Pope and Church upon threat of death.

Meanwhile, the Roman senate in Constantinople, no longer supported by a distant weak Emperor, began to crumble. People began to look at the church as the only instrument of authority that had not been beaten down and could be relied upon. This greatly boosted the recognition of the Patriarch of Rome and in turn, rekindled his desire for Western Empire domination. Rome as an Empire, had always looked upon the Church as a means to control both the lives and religion of its people to advance the unity of the Empire.

That, as it turns out, was also the dream of Gregory the Great who was Bishop of Rome (590 – 604A.D.). His goal was to expand Christianity beyond the Borders of the Empire and unite all Christians, binding (subjecting) them to the Church in Rome ecclesiastically, just as they had been united to the Empire politically.

By the time of Pope Leo III (795 to 816 AD), the church had managed to get some extra resources, thanks to a forged document known as the Donation of Constantine. With this boost of military might, all Leo III needed was a like-minded Commander to lead the troops. Charlemagne, King of the Franks fit that profile exactly.

Charlemagne set out to reclaim all the territories the Church had lost, and he succeeded. They were restored to the Western Empire through Charlemagne’s successful campaigns and then placed under the rule of the Bishop of Rome.

Step by step, country after country, as Charlemagne invaded, he first persuaded, and when that failed, secured conversions through force. In this manner, the Roman ecclesiastic power was extended to Britain, France, Spain, Germany and Africa.

For the first time, the Bishop of Rome had an army big enough to match his ambitions. Charlemagne had saved Leo III from the Lombards and given Leo III unprecedented power. In recognition, on Christmas day 800 A.D. Leo III placed the crown of gold on the head of Charlemagne and proclaimed him Emperor. Leo II had now created what he had always envisioned, A Holy Roman Empire working hand in hand with the Holy Catholic Church. Each would have world-wide dominion, each advancing the interests of the other, and each supreme in their own domain. The Church and the Empire. The Emperor and the Pope, each looking at the world with the goal of total domination.

In the minds of ambitious men, there is never room for the word “sufficient.” There can never be enough to satisfy greed, power or the need for possessions. The beautiful arrangement spoke by words of the mouth was doomed the moment they spoke them because the men who were bound by it never had accepted its limitations as a condition in their hearts.

While the Pope had the right to crown the Emperor and to govern all the affairs of the Western Universal Christian Church of Rome, it was not long before Charlemagne began to resort to his old familiar tactic of force to exercise his superiority over the Church. He began by appointing and deposing Bishops. He made them vassals of the State, swearing them by allegiance to the Empire, not the Church. It was he who called the councils and it was upon his own authority decisions were made regarding doctrine and dogma.

As the church became more and more to resemble their civic counterparts, a movement broke out among the Bishops, eager to strengthen the hand of the Pope whose reason for existence had been removed, and of course to free themselves from the oaths that bound them to the State.

In the middle of the ninth century, there appeared a document known as the “Isidorian Decretals”. Citing ancient cannon laws, the Bishops claimed that the Roman Church had received revenues, large tracts of lands and endowments from Constantine. This, they claimed proved that:

1/ The temporal power of the Pope was in existence before Charlemagne made his offering to the Church.

2/ The spiritual power of the Pope is infinitely superior to the secular powers held by the Emperor and Princesses. (The Pope had given him the crown and the powers vested in it.)

3/ The Bishops stand in the same relationship to the Pope as the apostles stood in relation to Peter.

4/ Provincial Synods (meeting of Bishops) cannot be held unless summoned by the Pope.

5/ The conclusions reached by the Synods can only be valid if recognized as such by the Pope.

6/ None of the clergy can be summoned before a secular tribunal. A layman cannot accuse a Priest. (It requires 72 trustworthy witnesses to substantiate a charge against a Bishop.)

It was brilliant, it was effective enough to convince the Emperor to back off.

There was only one problem with these Decretals: they were, all of them, to the very last, forgeries.

Throughout the middle ages, the decretals were held to be genuine. By the time they were found to be otherwise, the sixteenth century had arrived and so many other things were going on, including the Protestant Reformation, that this affair mattered little. There was already an abundance of evidence to bring a solid case of corruption against the Church by the reformers.

Upon the death of Charlemagne in 843, his empire was divided among his three grandsons. One formed modern Germany, one modern France and the third, a zone between the two.

Before too long they had broken into smaller kingdoms or fiefdoms. This left Europe without any leadership. The most wealthy or powerful of the nobility and landowners gathered the dispossessed peasants around them for mutual protection. Man’s god ruled without opposition. His word was sacrosanct, and the mighty hand of the kings’ forces were there to see they were obeyed. And thus, the age of Feudalism had begun.

Chapter 9: Under the Control of Evil Families

Part 1: From Apostles to Apostates

With the loss of any superior Empirical power to check the aggressive aristocracy, the Papacy was totally without a protector. That exposed it to the forces and dictates of rich, corrupt and ruthless Italian, French and German families. For the next century (870 AD to 970 AD) unholy princes and princesses bought, sold and totally controlled the office of Pope.

The family of Counts of Tusculum and the Family of the Theophylact imposed the candidates of their choice upon clergy and people alike. These they elected only from the ranks of the nobility. Included are:
Pope John X, Pope John XI, Pope John XII, Benedict VIII, Benedict IX, Benedict X

Wars of conquest and retaliation were waged constantly between the rival warlords. Meanwhile Otto I had succeeded at getting himself crowned King of the German tribes. His ambition was to rebuild the Empire of Charlemagne. Pope John XII felt threatened by both the Romans and the Lombards (one of the powerful Italian families), so he called upon Otto of Germany to come to his rescue. Otto, assuming the crown of Italy, proudly marched into Rome on Feb 2, 962 AD. While he was at it, he also accepted for his pretentious services the title of “Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire”. It was definitely not holy, and it certainly was no longer Roman. Far from protecting the Church, Otto oppressed it.

Pope Leo XII realized too late that he had exchanged a terrible fate for a deadly one. After quarrelling, Otto I chose a new Pope, Leo VIII, and Pope John XII fled. Within a year John XII was dead.

The Roman Italian families elected another Pope, Benedict. Otto of Germany threatened to besiege Rome unless Benedict was delivered to him and Leo VIII reinstated. The Romans had no choice but to surrender. This showdown gave Otto total power over the Papal seat and brought a temporary end to the control and domination of the Italian families.

Otto I strengthened his Empire by strengthening his hold on the Church. He appointed Bishops and made them Princes of the Realm. They swore allegiance to him before they were invested as Bishops. The custom of conferring a ring and a crosier (ornamental staff) upon Bishops, as a sign of episcopal dignity, can be traced back to this very ceremony. This combined office of Bishop and Prince now became very lucrative to the incumbent, and the basest of practices of simony and corruption developed. The power of the offices was sold, bought, rented, given as dowries and even in some cases, included their entire parish. The clergy no longer even made an attempt to keep up the visible charade of trustworthiness or honesty.

After Otto’s death, Otto III, who was only four years old, became Emperor. Under the influence of the corrupt and ambitious Cresentius Family a number of Popes were killed while they plotted to install a grand total of three of their own family members in their place.

When Henry III, Holy Roman Emperor, visited Rome in 1048 he found three rival Popes each claiming the coveted position: The Northern Italian city-states, divided by the Guelph and Ghibe lines had each appointed their own candidate because of the unprecedented, unbecoming behaviour of Benedict IX. Henry deposed all three and installed his own preference, Pope Clement II. The history of the Popes between 1048 and 1257 is replete with soiled and gangrenous incumbents followed by their tainted and corrupt replacements. The struggle for ultimate control for power between Emperor and Pope continued unabated.

Into this cesspool of infamy, Hildebrand, a monk from Cluny, appeared in Rome with an unbridled passion for reform. Fired up by the reform movement of the monasteries who were forced to return to the rules of St. Benedict and discontented with the complete corruption of everything to do with religion in Rome, he was imbued with a spirit for change. The manner of choosing Popes by the Emperor for instance, must cease. In 1059 a new Papal decree was issued demanding that the Pope must be chosen by the College of Cardinals, which consisted of Elders and Deacons of the Italian Churches in Rome. Hildebrand, was adviser to five succeeding Popes and eventually became Pope himself in 1073, taking the name of Gregory VII. More than everything else, he was obsessed with the idea of Papal World Supremacy. His conception of the Office was expressed in his own words:

“The Roman Church was founded by God alone. The Roman Pope alone can with right be called universal; he alone may use the Imperial Insignia, his feet only shall be kissed by all the Princes. He may depose the Emperors; he himself may be judged by no one, the Roman Church has never erred, nor will it ever err in all eternity.”

In 1075 Hildebrand, now Pope Gregory VII, issued a decree prohibiting Princes from ordaining Bishops. Still, the German King would not give up his right. The Germans had the bigger army, but the Pope held the more effective weapons. The Pope Gregory VII had five weapons at his command. Each were deadly. And they all hung on an incorrect principle of doctrine.

Weapon 1: That belief was that there was no salvation outside the Roman Church and of course, the Pope held all the keys to that door.
Weapon 2: The Pope could call Kings and release them.
Weapon 3: The Pope could excommunicate anyone he pleased. By a decree of excommunication, princes and all other such people, could not be provided with food or shelter as long as they lived, and a Christian burial would be denied to them when they died. Anybody helping an excommunicated person, would suffer the same fate.
Weapon 4: Sacrament was essential to Salvation. Excommunicated persons would be deprived of the sacrament. That meant they would be cut off from all rights provided by the Church. A Mass could not even be held in their presence. If it was a king, no services would be held in his kingdom. No funeral would be held. And no one would hear a prayer or a bell ring. Church buildings would be closed. Extreme unction applied.
Weapon 5: In the case of an errant king, the Pope could release the king’s subjects from their oath of allegiance to him. The king would then be without power, purse or pity. With this power, the Pope did not hesitate to both threaten and apply his total weight on all peoples, kings, rulers and subjects, with impunity. The horrors of facing hell had been taught since Augustine’s false interpretation of the teachings of Christ. Now, it successfully silenced all who would dare challenge the Pope. While Gregory did not see the fulfillment of his goal to raise the Papacy to ultimate superiority over all the Western World in his lifetime, it did reach that epitome under his successors, Urban II (1088 – 1099) and Innocent III (1179- 1180). This is also the point at which the Eastern and Western Ecclesiastical authorities, chose to excommunicate each other.

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall.
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the Kings horses and all the Kings men,
Couldn’t put Humpty together again
-English Nursery Rhyme

Often, when we think things cannot get worse, it proves to be the very point at which they do. Pope Urban II, the consummate warlord of Europe, having obtained what other Popes could only dream of, possessed complete power to enforce anything he wanted or imagined, in the name of the God. Looking around from this most enviable position, he decided that what was most needed was something or some cause to unite his people.

There are those who think the motivation for Pope Urban II’s solution to this problem was much more sinister. Perhaps it was a diversion to involve, and even cull out, many young heirs to thrones who were thirsty to make their name known in battle. Restless for fame or notoriety, these youth left to their own devises might cause great harm to the realm. Whatever his real reason might have been, the answer he came up with for forging unity would have been absolutely brilliant if it were not for its total lack of foresight and planning. Maybe that was the appeal and beauty of it. The plan was not impeded by facts and its gross stupidity was rationalized by the equally gross ignorance of those who were called upon to participate in its fulfillment. There is almost no other explanation for what was to have faultlessly become the most mind boggling, colossal failure of the middle ages. We are referring to, of course, the Crusades.

At the Council of Clermont in 1095 AD, Pope Urban II issued his infamous first rally call. He asked for a mighty army to repossess the Holy Lands then in the hands of the infidels.

What instantly emerged from the streets, jails, asylums, convents and slums of Europe, were the desperate and the destitute, almost to a person. Over half-a-million naive, poorly informed and unprepared men, women and children, rushed headlong onto the roadways to begin walking to The Holy Land. With their wholehearted acceptance and approval, they chanted and sang as they threw what little sanity they possessed to the winds and rushed blindly into hell.

As mentioned, the Pope had become the highest-ranking position of power in the Western World. The Pope, not the Emperor was the great warlord of Europe. Now he had opened a new front in his campaign. The First Crusade’s initial goal was simply to move in a mass against the infidels in the Holy Land. To ensure sufficient manpower, he issued indulgences to all who would go, the most enticing being the forgiveness of sins past and sins not as yet committed. Next he opened the doors of the prisons in Europe for the worst of criminals to join under the same generous conditions. A monstrous hoard of hundreds of thousands of people, of all ages and stages, lacking health, wealth or wisdom, obliviously worked their way like a vast lava flow directly aimed to the most inhospitable and hostile place in the world.

Exempted from any spiritual consequence regarding their immoral actions, they were instructed to find their own food and lodgings along the way. Can you imagine what those in the path of this hoard must have thought as they learned of its impending arrival in their community? It would be a worse fear than of a descending plague of the entire forces of Atilla the Hun. Pestilence, famine, destruction of crops and loss of property would have followed every footstep of the way. There would be nothing left to eat, drink or sleep under for those who survived after the “Pilgrims” had passed through. By the time they arrived to liberate Jerusalem, there were only 40,000 pilgrims left. The Islam forces, of course, attacked and killed most of those that were still alive. It was a total and complete annihilation, serving only to embolden the infidels.

There were ten crusades in all, each ending in failure like the first.

The second crusade had over a million, two hundred thousand soldiers. Sickness, heat, contaminated water and lack of food constantly reduced their force to impotency.

The third crusade involved Richard the Lion-Hearted of England. He fought, lost and left ignobly.

The fourth crusade of roughly the same proportions and objectives were terribly massacred.

The fifth crusade was aimed at Constantinople but achieved no military advantage. It only served to create a further alienation between the Eastern and Western Churches.

The six, seventh, eighth and ninth crusade were repeats.

The Children’s Crusade was led by a boy who vanished. Thousands were captured and sold into slavery.

All failed miserably. Most of the pilgrims carried no weapons of defense against Arab armies or other hostile forces, such as the many robbers, pirates, thieves and scoundrels who lay waiting in great anticipation of their arrival. All they brought was enthusiasm, and that, as everyone discovered, was woefully inadequate.

Hoping to reverse their failures, the next Pope, Innocent II started a crusade against heretics and Jews in France instead. But the Bishops of France did not participate with enough enthusiasm against their own people. The Crusade began to falter. Sensing another fiasco, Innocent II turned the episcopal inquiry over to the Mendicant orders and the Dominican and Franciscan Monks who had sworn allegiance to only the Pope himself. This action was called the Papal Inquisition. The efficiency and barbarity of the methods used against even the innocent, who were tortured to obtain confessions, and the despotic actions of the Pope, eventually led to a call for reform.

Pope Boniface VIII, an arrogant, delusional man, attempted to enforce his edicts by quelling the rebellious German King Phillip who had initiated the reform. But the time when those bullying tactics worked had passed. Phillip cut off vast resources which were generating tremendous revenue to the Pope by disallowing their removal to Italy. Included in King Phillip’s reforms were a call to cease:

1/ The shedding of blood.
2/ The widespread simony (or money charged for ecclesiastical services).
3/ Nepotism (or favouring relatives).
4/ Unethical means of securing money, such as the selling of priesthood offices to the highest bidder.
5/ Selling indulgences.
6/ The immoral and luxurious lifestyles of Pope and Papal staff.
7/ The uncontrolled tyranny of the Popes.

The Pope issued a Bull or edict which made extravagant claims regarding the authority of the Pope.

“The gospel informs us that there are in the Church and in the power of the Church, two swords, the spiritual and the temporal. Both swords, therefore the spiritual and the temporal are in the power of the Church, but the latter must be drawn for the Church and the former by the Church.
The first by the hand of the Priest and the second by the hand of Kings and Soldiers, but always with the consent and the will of the Priest.
As a consequence, we state, declare and define that all creatures must be subject to the sovereign Pontiff in order to be saved.”

Phillip reacted by calling together the heads of states of the realm, including the ecclesiastical leaders, and accused Boniface of crimes. Phillip’s accusations were brought before the General Council.

Following Phillip’s lead, Germany, England and Bohemia revolted from Papal authority. These countries were followed by the Italian Provinces under Austrian control. In 1849, an assembly elected by the people, striped the Pope of his temporal power and confiscated all his Ecclesiastical property. Under the leadership of Victor Emmanuel and military support from Garibaldi, all Italy was brought under one single government. Rome was made its capital. Thus, the career of Pius IX saw the grasp of temporal world power ripped from him. Since 1866, all that was left was the Vatican, which the Pope was allowed to occupy, as a virtual prisoner, until the end of his life.

We see through a review of historical evidence that the office of Pope never did have a continual link from Peter to itself. Peter was never a Bishop anywhere, let alone in Rome, where he died. The office was foreign and in complete contrast to the nature of the Bishops in the first and second centuries. If there is a continual link of any description that binds the Pope of the Roman church to its past, it has to be the link of continual fighting and quarreling about doctrine (with its bloody enforcement by torture and excommunications) and the continual destructive warring between Church and State for control over people, subjects, dominions and principalities.

Rome, as a center for the church, came to prominence through intrigue, fraud, manipulation, self-assertion and the process of elimination.

After the fall of the Eastern Church in Alexandria, Jerusalem and Antioch, Rome in the West was the only Patriarch left standing. There was no one else left to challenge what the Roman Patriarch did or said, so he ruled by default. The original church doctrines and scriptural messages were so completely missing and misunderstood by the Greek philosophers and apologists that all understanding of the nature of God and our relationship to him was completely skewed and lost by the fourth Century.

The long slow evolution of the church from apostles to apostates was complete by the end of the first millennium, transforming the Church of Jesus Christ into a politically powerful Empire, with absolute control over the spiritual and temporal affairs of all its subjects. It was enforced with blood, sweat and tears upon the entire Western civilized world until the middle of the nineteenth century, when its power was finally wrestled to the ground.

The “Times of the Gentiles” was coming to its inevitable end.

Chapter 10: Devolution

Part 1: From Apostles to Apostates

After passing through the hands of Greek philosophers, the Early Church experienced major changes in its understanding and interpretation of their basic Doctrine. When the apostles were lost to the Church, the organization was cut off from its spiritual channels to God. Church government began to be run from the bottom up, with clergy and members choosing Bishops who represented them at Councils. Doctrine and dogmas were discussed and resolved by debate and consensus.

Based on a false conclusion by Augustine regarding the nature of God, council members could not reach correct principles or agree on doctrine thereafter. Conclusions were then reached either by negotiations, intimidation or outright force. Before too long differences between these doctrines and the original teachings of Jesus were numerous and immense.

Many councils were called to resolve the differences, but no agreement could be reached that satisfied all sides of the argument. Settlements were imposed arbitrarily from the top down and enforced. Disagreement was punishable by any one of three alternatives:

Excommunication
Banishment
Execution

Under such circumstances, it is easy to understand how common folk accepted what they were told to believe – even if and when it was changed. To think differently than the orthodoxy was a dangerous choice. It could lead to a charge of heresy and that would bring any of those three penalties down on your head.

Over time, as the doctrine changed, it was accepted and written in credos. Here is a comparison between the original teachings of Christ and what they became as a result of this system.

Belief	Early Christian Belief	Belief Became
God Speaks	God spoke in Biblical times. He speaks to his Prophets today.	God spoke in Biblical times. He does not speak today.
God Same as Early Church	God is the father of our spirits. He is loving and caring. We are the center of His glory. He is material substance and spirit in a glorified body. He is omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent. We are made in his image. We are his sons and daughters. Christ told us to pray to God and he will answer our prayers.	God is an immaterial being. He is omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent. God is unlike us in every way. He is made of a different matter than we are. We cannot communicate with him. We cannot understand God or his Purposes We are not of the same spiritual matter as God Man cannot communicate with God
Jesus Christ Same as in Early Church	Jesus is the son of the Father. He is a separate person, distinct from his Father. He was chosen to be the creator of this world. He volunteered to be our Saviour. He was perfect. He was crucified for our sins and resurrected on the third day. He will return in the last days and will reign in the Millennium on earth with the Father. Jesus was the spirit son of God both in Heaven as well as on earth. When he was born, he was clothed in a physical body of flesh and bone, just as we are.	Jesus is co-eternal with the Father. Jesus is of the same substance as the Father. He was crucified, died and raised again on the third day. Jesus returned to the substance of the Father. He is immaterial. Jesus, the Word, is immaterial and co-eternal. He became flesh, at which time his two natures, which are entirely different and separated, were united.
Holy Ghost Same as Taught in Early Church.	The Holy Ghost is personage of spirit. He is third member of the God Head. He reveals, testifies, teaches and bears witness that Jesus is the Christ.	The Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son. He is of the substance of the Father: Immaterial. The Trinity of the Godhead is: One material substance, yet three distinct natures.
Man/ Mankind Same as early Church	Man is the spirit child of Heavenly parents. He is of divine nature and potential. At birth, man was clothed in a physical body. He existed before birth in the realm of his Heavenly parents. Man is on earth to be tested and to gain experience, for which he will be judged.	Man was created out of nothing. He is a creature built for God’s glory. If he is evil, it is to show God’s redeeming love. If he is good, then God works through him to reveal his glory and achieve his good works among men. Man did not exist until mortal conception. Man is entirely different from the divine nature of God.
Adam and Eve Same as early Church	Adam and Eve are man’s first parents. They transgressed and forfeited their home in Eden so that they might have children and learn the Plan of Salvation. Man does not suffer for their transgression, other than he has inherited a mortal body like theirs, which will die. Christ atoned for Adam and Eve’s sin and all mankind’s sins on the condition of repentance. This act, which overcomes the effects of death on the physical body, also negates the effects of sins on his spirit.	Man inherits the sins of Adam and Eve. By nature, man is sinful, weak and incapable of becoming good by himself or being able to accept Christ. Man must receive the gift of free grace from God, which may be received through the ordinances of the Church.
Same as early church	Salvation is a process. Mankind is on earth to determine “if they will do all things whatsoever the Lord their God shall command them”. Sin and virtue are placed before him, and he must choose for himself, by his own freewill. Time is permitted for him to experience the consequences of both. An option to repent is granted if he chooses to do so. Thus, through a series of tests, man choses and gains experience and wisdom through trial and error. Man may progress in strength by forsaking sin and living in accordance to the commandment: “Be ye perfect even as your Father in Heaven is perfect.” The ordinances of the Gospel are essential as a measure of man keeping the commandments and doing the will of the Father. This Plan of Salvation existed before man was on earth and is the means by which God himself qualified to became God.	Man’s salvation was given to him only once, when it was introduced by Jesus Christ during his lifetime. Salvation is offered to those who are the elect of God, which he predestined he would save before they were born. The outward signs of the elect are those who receive baptism and receive the rites of the Church for their sins, no matter how many times those sins are committed. These rites are indispensable and have saving power in themselves. The majority of mankind, unless they have been chosen by God to be saved, are doomed to hell with no possibility of hope or salvation – except by the intercession of the Saints, or merits of Mary or Jesus Christ.
Baptize total emergence in water Same as early Church	Baptism is performed for the remission of personal sins and admission into the Church. It is a required ordinance performed by an authorized Priesthood holder. A person must have reached the age of accountability (normally 8-years- old) before being baptized. The candidate is completely emerged in water, as demonstrated by John the Baptist when he baptized Jesus.	Baptism is performed by priests on babies, or a child of any age, for forgiveness of the original sin of Adam. Baptism is performed on adults for the same reason, plus forgiveness of personal sin and admission to the Church. The candidate is sprinkled with water.
Gift of the Holy Ghost Same as Early Church	The gift of the Holy Ghost is a required ordinance performed by an authorized priesthood holder. The directive given during the ordinance, is to “Receive the HolyGhost”, which for many may require a lifetime of faithful living in order to fully received these many blessing. These blessings include a testimony of the divinity of Christ, discernment and other blessings, such as those outlined in D&C 46: 8-26.	There is no Gift of the Holy Ghost other than that experienced in the early Church on the Day of Pentecost.
Revelation Same as taught in Early Church	Revelation is the revealing of God’s will by direct personal communication from the Father, the Son o through the influence of the Holy Ghost. Without this revealing of God’s will, man is left to himself to determine the best use of his talents and abilities, and what is right and what is wrong for himself and others. In order for man to receive revelation, he must first be living in accordance to the commandments he has already received from God.	There is no revelation from God. It ceased after the death of the last apostles. All that God wanted to tell or reveal to us, has been revealed. Nonetheless, when any Pope speaks officially for the Church, he is infallible regardless of the personal behaviour or character of the Pope. New doctrine comes about from speculative thinking, discussion and debate. It must also be accepted by the majority of council or it will not be binding on the Church.

As time passed more and more of the original teachings disappeared or were thought of as myths and fables. Lost to man was the understanding of the following:

1/ The purpose and nature of God, Christ and the Holy Ghost.
2/ The purpose and nature of man and his relationship to God.
3/ The premortal, present, future, post-earth life and the eternal nature of mankind.
4/ The plan of happiness / salvation.
5/ The role, atonement, and sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
6/ The purpose of evil and role of Satan.
7/ The three degrees of glory.
8/ The organization and purpose of the Church.
9/ The priesthood and its functions and offices.
10/ The necessity of the temple: the work and ordinances for the living and dead.
11/ Continuous revelation.

By the end of the 5th Century the original Church was no longer in existence and what was being taught was unrecognizable.

What followed was a form of Humanitarianism and Materialism. Below is a table of devolution of comparative theories resulting from a lack of understanding and the availability of revelation.

Original Teachings	Apostate Religions	Humanitarianism
The nature and purpose of the Godhead. Tangible and loving Father. We are his offspring.	An indifferent, incomprehensible, spiritual, superior God who we must obey or suffer eternal damnation.	There is no God. There is no right or wrong. Religion prohibits the progression of mankind.
We are here to be tested to see if we will be obedient to God and choose good, or disobedient and chose evil. Obedience bring happiness here in this life and eternal happiness in the hereafter.	God is responsible for everything. We can only appease him and save ourselves by confessing our sins and praying to the early Saints to intercede on our behalf. We have no say in our Salvation.	We should seek ways and means of solving human problems through our own knowledge and new technical or medical discoveries. God is a waste of our time and talents.
Obedience to God’s will leads to new knowledge. All knowledge comes from God and is useful. We learn by experience how to use that knowledge for the benefit of all.	Revelation ceased with the apostles. New knowledge come from debate and philosophical reasoning. The Pope has final say and he is infallible.	Science and education are the means of discovery and progress. The use of such knowledge will be determined by those in authority. There are no exceptions.
This life is a time of probation and testing. We are to work our way through to understanding and eternal life by discovering for ourselves the consequences of both evil and good choices.As we conform to Christ’s teachings, we become more like him. Thus, we become acceptable to God as Christ was loved and acceptable.	There is nothing we can do to override the will of God. He works his goodness through us, and if we are evil, we are an example to others why evil is wrong. God forgives the sinners to show his love and mercy towards us.	We do not have to wait for some miraculous hereafter to find happiness. Through science and the use of our own talents we can build it for ourselves by discovering the secrets of nature and applying them for the betterment of everyone.

Through this comparison we can see how humanitarianism evolves from false teachings, which in turn leads to extreme forms of humanitarianism such as socialism and communism. Under these philosophies, man becomes no more than a superior animal and the value of life depreciates accordingly. Survival is its main objective and brutality is its means of achieving and retaining it. Instead of evolving upward towards God, we devolve downwards towards the beasts/animals.

This condition was described by Mosiah as “the natural man”. (Mosiah 3: 19)
“For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit…”

“If men do not comprehend the character of God, they do not comprehend themselves”. – Joseph Smith.

“And this is life Eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.” (John 17: 3)

The decline and apostasy of the Church established in the Meridian of time was in the deepest depths of its despair. Yet God had not abandoned them. Like the parents of misbehaving children he had left them to their own devises until they could see the folly and foolishness of their choices. Now it was time to slowly reintroduce them to the principles of good behavior which he had given them freely and they had recklessly rejected. The time for the course correction of mankind was again at hand. A day of rebirth would be introduced again. The Lord would place righteous souls at the right time and in the right place for that to happen.

Chapter 9: Discovery of Lost Scriptures

Part 2 From Apostates to Apostles

1. Enoch

Enoch was the seventh of the Great Patriarchs who lived prior to the great Flood. While his name is mentioned several times in the Bible, we have all but noting regarding who he was and what he did. (See Genesis 5: 18-24, Luke 3: 37, Hebrews 11: 5 and Jude 1: 14-15) While it appeared the life and times of Enoch had been lost to the centuries, still rumors persisted that a Book of Enoch remained somewhere on earth.

The Book of Enoch

In 1773, while attempting to discover the source of the Blue and White Nile Rivers in Egypt, James Bruce of Scotland found himself in Ethiopia rummaging about in their archives, a permission he had not anticipated but had been granted by the generous hospitality of the King of Ethiopia.

It was there Bruce discovered some Abyssinian Manuscripts which also happened to include three copies of the Book of Enoch. On the pretense of borrowing them for study, he was allowed to take them from the monastery in which they had been stored for centuries.

Instead, Bruce hastily made his way to a waiting ship with Monastery guards hot on his heels. He managed to slip away and set sail for Europe. Knowing he had made the discovery of the century, he headed straight for Paris where one copy of the book was deposited in the Royal Library. Next he presented a copy to the Bodleian Library at Oxford in England. He kept the third for himself.

Instead of receiving fame and glory, Bruce earned only contempt and silence from his peers. The books were held by the Libraries in silence and all went on as if nothing had happened. It wasn’t until later that they received some of the attention they surely deserved.

As for Bruce, the skeptical world accepted neither his claims of discovered the source of the Nile’s famous rivers or the discovery of the Book of Enoch. The world was no more interested in knowing anything about the mysteries or the contents of the Book of Enoch than they had been when they were sealed about 1700 years earlier.

The Book of Enoch: Richard Laurence Translation

In 1821, 48 years after the Bruce claims, Richard Laurence, a Bishop of Cashel, Ireland had heard about the Enoch copy at the Oxford Library. He was able to convince the authorities to allow him to read the Book. However, they were not interested to have him reveal anything about Enoch. They did allow him to read it but would not allow him to remove it from the room in which it was kept. Neither was a candle provided by which to read the old dusty manuscripts. In spite of all this opposition, Lawrence was able to laboriously copy the book by hand in the light of a drafty window. He worked years alone in the dampness. All his hard work and sacrificing finally bore fruit when his first edition proved so popular, it sold out quickly.

Translations of this version of the Book of Enoch are referred to as the Ethiopic Book of Enoch or 1 Enoch.

Enoch – as mentioned in The Book of Moses

About nine years later (between June 1830 and February 1831), Joseph Smith, living in the small rural town of Palmyra, New York, also recorded an account of the life of Enoch found in the Book of Moses, Chapter 6: 26 to Chapter 7: 69 — a total of 111 verses. It consists of the experiences of Enoch when he was caught up in the Heavens with God. The account is very detailed and riveting.

According to this record, the Lord promised Enoch that if he would have the faith to obey, then God would protect him, and if he opened his mouth God would give him utterance. Enoch records his experiences in Moses 7: 3-69 and gives a complete description of being able to see the creations of God throughout the heavens. God further shows Enoch the souls that will reside on this earth and their future. From that humble start, Enoch goes through a transformation of character and begins to preach. He is so successful that he converts all the people of his city and it becomes a Holy City or Zion. Eventually they are translated as a group, removed to another realm where they are to prepare for the coming of Christ.

While the account in the Book of Moses is similar to the Ethiopian version, it is not identical. It is much more detailed and contains more dialogue between Enoch and God.

This fact that the Ethiopian copy and the Joseph Smith extract differ, did little to convince the enemies of Joseph Smith that he had not written the Book of Moses and The Book of Mormon himself. The ministers, preachers and clergy of his day simply assumed Joseph Smith was lying or engaged in a game of one-upmanship.

Given the difficulties Richard Laurence had obtaining access to the original Book of Enoch and the distances from Ireland to New York, coupled with the fact that the two never met or corresponded and that copies of Laurence’s book didn’t reach the vicinity of Palmyra until 1838-39, long after Joseph’s Enoch had been completed, it should be evident to anyone who bothered to check that Joseph’s claim to revelation should at least be considered.

Other Copies of the Book of Enoch

Later, more copies of the Book of Enoch surfaced. In 1857, manuscripts were discovered in St Petersburg, but the fact that there was an account of Enoch among them was not immediately noticed. This copy is considered the oldest and best account and is called “The Slavonic Enoch”. (It is also sometimes referred to as the Second Book of Enoch or 2 Enoch.) Only one translation was made of this manuscript and that was in 1896. (Click here for more information about the Ethiopic and Slavonic Books of Enoch.)

In 1927 Hugo Odeburg published a copy of the Book of Enoch, now called Third Enoch, which was originally in Hebrew.

In 1949 a Book of Enoch was discovered in the caves near the Dead Sea. It was given to Father J. T. Milik, but he kept the book hidden for twenty-seven years not allowing anyone access to it. Dated as written in the third century A.D., it includes the names of Mahijah and Mahujah – names recounted only in one other place, in the book produced by Joseph Smith. (See Moses 6:40 and Moses 7:2)

Why Might the Book of Enoch Have Become “Lost”?

It is understandable why Enoch’s writings were removed from canonized scripture when we consider the teachings of the early Christian Church Fathers. Having come to the false conclusion that Earth was the centre of God’s creations, they simply could not endure the constant references by Enoch to a Physical God who came and went and dwelt somewhere in the Cosmos. Every attempt to reconcile the Heavens and everything that in them were, ended up in contention amid the council members. To end this conflict his detractors determined to exclude his records from the Bible and even expunged his name altogether. From about the time of Origen and Hilary, Enoch had disappeared from all Christian and Jewish scriptures except where necessary for the continuity of genealogy and the begats.

Along with Enoch went all references to the premortal life experience, the grand councils in Heaven, the war between Satan and God, the war in Heaven which resulted in Satan’s rejecting God’s plan for the salvation of his children. The knowledge that Christ accepted the plan and volunteered to become our saviour. That which was lost included the necessity for a saviour, the understanding of the atonement, the special mission of Christ and the Holy Ghost, the plurality of other worlds, the great plan laid down for the progress of the sons and daughters of God our Father, and reference of the life after mortal death. All gone. All made to disappear.

At this point in history the discovery has little to no effect on mainstream Christian Churches who are still struggling after 70 years, with the problem of how to approach the discrepancy of information contained in the materials recovered from the Dead Sea Caves and how to reconcile that with what is being taught as doctrine in their own Churches. Meanwhile millions of copies of the Book of Moses, which contains the story of Enoch, have been printed and distributed freely to the world since its first formal publication in 1851.

2. Noah

The only record actually claiming to be part of the “Book of Noah” is a fragment of a record written as a chapter in the Book of Enoch which contains details about Noah’s birth. A translation of this fragment reports that his father, Lamech, was afraid of Noah because of his appearance. He ran to his Father, Methuselah saying…

“I have begotten a strange son, diverse from and unlike men, resembling the sons of God in Heaven. The hair of his head and his long locks were as white as wool and his eyes beautiful. The colour of his body is whiter than snow and redder than the bloom of a rose, and his eyes like the rays of the sun and he opened his eyes and lighted up the whole house.”

Methuselah called upon his father, Enoch, “from the ends of the earth” to calm Lamech. Enoch convinced Lamech that the babe he had begotten was mortal. None the less he commanded Lamech to call the boy, “Noah, for he shall be left to you and he and his sons shall be saved from the destruction that shall come upon the earth in his days.”

This account is not in our scriptures. The physical description of Noah does lead one to believe he was Albino or in any other way physically extraordinary (Genesis 5: 29).

3/ Abraham

The first mention of Abraham (known at first as Abram) in the Bible is found in Genesis 11: 27. The genealogy that proceeds the narrative is very accurate but also very short of details. It is obvious that something is missing. Abraham is considered to be the father of the three great religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam). But the information recorded in the Old Testament leaves many unanswered questions:

1/ How did Abraham’s brother die before his Father? (Genesis 11: 28)
2/ Where had Abraham spend the first 75 years of his life? (Genesis 12: 4)
3/ Did Abraham lie when he told the Pharaoh that Sarah was his Sister? (Genesis 12: 11-13)
4/ Why did God command Abram to “Get thee out of thy country and from thy kindred and from thy Father’s house, into a Land that I shall shew thee”. (Genesis 12: 1)
5/ Why was Abram’s name changed to Abraham? (Genesis 17: 5)
6/ How did Abraham come to be favored of the Lord? (Genesis 12: 2-3)

This story, as told by the Essenes and later passed to the Gnostics, is also found in various Midrashim (ancient commentaries) of the Jewish Talmud.

Abraham was born about 50 years before the death of Noah, in the days of the world’s worst and bloodiest tyrant, Nimrod. The society over whom he ruled had become a cesspool of immorality. Paranoid that the appearance of a new start in the sky indicated foreboding disastrous news, all Nimrod’s court soothsayers informed the King that this rare phenomenon was a sign that a new king had been born that would overthrow him. Hence the narcissistic Nimrod decreed that all children under the age of 2 were to be slaughtered. Abram/Abraham’s parents, Terah and his wife, had been notified by God before the birth of their child that he was special. He, like Jesus, had a specific role to play in God’s large scheme of human affairs. It was known in the community that Terah’s wife had just given birth to a baby boy, and so he was on the King’s list of parents who were expected to deliver the child up to be executed as per the decree of Nimrod. Terah was well known in the courts of Nimrod because his craft as a builder of idols had brought him to the attention of the King. Now, in a desperate decision between serving Nimrod or saving his son, Terah conceived of a desperate plan. One of Terah’s household female servants had also recently given birth to a son. Terah substituted that child for Abram/Abraham. That child was therefore brought before Nimrod and it was brutally murdered before Terah’s very eyes. Meanwhile the real Abram/Abraham was secreted away by his mother, to be raised by Seth, one of the sons of Noah. (See: Abraham, Abraham’s Early Life and Nimrod and Abraham.) The story goes on to record the re-appearance of Abram/Abraham some 50 years later at the home of his Father in Ur – about the time when the Bible begins its telling of Abraham’s life story.

Other account have been discovered in more modern day, including The Apocalypse of Abraham and the Book of Abraham.

These accounts seem to provide plausible answers to questions and confirm parts of Abraham’s story, such as how he received the Priesthood of God. (It was passed from Adam until the flood, and via Noah and his son Shem to Abraham.)

Recently, scholars John A. Tvedtnes, Brian M. Hauglid and John Gee have compiled information gleaned from Christian, Jewish and Muslim sources and published their comparisons in a collection of books called “Studies in the Book of Abraham”.

The common stories they relate tell of the struggles and adventures of Abraham and his wife Sarah who emerge from the sins and carnage of their times to become the leaders of their tribes, and prophetically are appointed and anointed to become the rulers of all nations in the future because of their righteousness and obedience. It also contains the accounts of the Earth’s spiritual and physical creation, the dramatic and life-changing events in the Garden of Eden, and the necessity for the fall of Adam and Eve, all of which were lost to the world.

4/ Moses

The Biblical record of Moses does not stand alone. His life and writings are also recorded in the Torah and the Quran. Moses was a great political leader, a military commander, scholar, writer, historian, shepherd, emancipator, prophet of Gods, revelator, miracle worker, legislator, judge, and pioneer. In the Pearl of Great Price, the Book of Mos e s starts with a resounding confirmation of the willingness of God to speak to man. Moses finds himself on an exceedingly high mountain when God appears, not as a spirit of an incomprehensible nature. Instead, “…he saw God face to face, and he talked with him, and the glory of God was upon Moses; therefore Moses could endure his presence.” (Moses 1: 2)

What We Gain From This Additional Information

We learn a lot about God and his prophets from the pages of these ancient writings. Yet this additional information is not unique in teaching us about the true nature of God.

“And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness… So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.”
Genesis 1: 26-27:

We have to wonder how the Christian churches failed so badly in their understanding of God when the very unaltered books they were referencing for the information, and that they recognized and canonized as scripture, had already spelled out in words impossible to misunderstand. We are created in God’s image. In no way does this demean or take away anything of the sacred nature and personality of God. What it does do is clarify our relationship to him and our potential as human offspring of noble, Godly parents.

We are Children of our God and have as our origin nothing short or less than we come from the courts where Gods dwell. We literally are children of our Heavenly Parents.

For as many as are led by the spirit of God, are the sons of God… Ye have not received the spirit of adoption whereby we cry” Abba, Father. The spirit itself beareth witness that we are the children of God: And if Children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ…
Romans 8: 14-17

Furthermore, we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence, shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of our spirits and live?
Hebrews 12: 9

The Lord instructed us to pray: Our Father, which art in Heaven…
Matthew 6: 9

Jesus saith unto her” Touch me not for I am not yet ascended to my Father. But go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God.”
John 20: 17

How much confusion and bloodshed could have been avoided if the early church fathers had stayed true to the teachings of Christ? Would man have been so willing to compete with such volatile indignation against his brother? Would he have so been as willingly to despise and kill knowing each person’s blood he spilled was that of his spiritual brother or his spiritual sister? All this critical knowledge removed and lost. No wonder man stumbled and became as brutish as the savage animals in the wilds. As predicted, the Children of God, not knowing their origins or destinies, became natural men and women, enemies to God. (Mosiah 3: 19-20)

Chapter 10: Revisiting the Word of God

Part 2: Apostates to Apostles

Vulgate to the King James Bible

During the subsequent 300 years following the life, death and resurrection of Christ, and after the persecutions of the Christians had ceased, many scrolls, parchments and other records were in circulation. They were written in Hebrew, Coptic, Greek and Latin. Many were authentic and verifiable, while others were of suspicious origin and even fraudulent. As the language of the people changed from Greek to Roman, a great need arose for scripture based in the language of the people.

In 382 A.D., under the direction of Pope Damascus, Jerome reluctantly accepted the daunting commission to produce a New Latin Version of the scriptures. Daunting because he recognized he would be judging ancient books by various authors scattered all over the known world and attempting to edit, correct, approve or disapprove them. Challenging because he knew he would be antagonizing almost everyone by assuming a position of ultimate authority of not only these sacred writings and their meanings, but of correctly translating them from their original languages. On the positive side, he saw his work as a means of making the scriptures available to the common people in their own tongue. Hence the name “Vulgate” which means language of the common people. Secondly, he felt a clearer and more accurate edition would enhance the preaching of the priests. And thirdly, he hoped it would give the ascetics or hermits a common reference record for their serious study of the words of God.

Jerome went to Bethlehem for the Hebrew texts for his translation of the Old testament and to the Greek for his translation of the New Testament. Nonetheless he counselled with many experts, scholar and rabbis to gain their opinions before he began his translations. This work of Jerome served as the standard scriptures for the Catholic Church until its revision, called Sixto-Clement Project in 1592, under Pope Clement VIII.

Books included in the original Vulgate are those found in many translations of the Bible today, plus the following:
Tobias (or Tobit)
Judith
Wisdom (or Wisdom of Solomon)
Ecclesiasticus (or Sirach)
Baruch
Letter of Jeremiah
Additions to Daniel: Song of the Three Children, Story of Susanna and Bel and the Dragon
1 Maccabees and 2 Maccabees
Apocrypha: Prayer of Manasseh, 1 Esdras and 2 Esdras

Apocrypha

The word Apocrypha means “doubtful authorship”. Jerome was of course faced with the huge and difficult problem of what to accept as authentic Holy Scripture and what to reject as Apocrypha, or not authentic. Even some of the texts which he accepted into his New Latin Scriptures Edition, were cut out by scholars when it was revisited 1200 years later at the Council of Trent in 1563

Alcuin Bible

When Charlemagne came to power in the late 8th Century, he appointed Alcuin, the greatest teacher England had produced to that date, to revise the Vulgate. Over the years soppy copying and other “gross blunders” had crept into the many wide-spread copies resulting in non- uniformity. The corrections were mostly minor and Alcuin’s Bible, as it became known, was a genuine attempt to bring the texts back to the purity of the works of Jerome.

Paris Bible

Before the 13th century, Bibles were typically produced in multiple volumes. It simply could not be written in a single tome due to its size and the materials used. However, with the rise of universities and the demand for copies of the Bible, a system was developed by Stephen Langton who taught at the Paris University. It allowed the entire Bible to be produce in a carriable-size single book. This was accomplished by organizing the individual books of the Bible into chapters, while showing them in double columns on each page. The heading on the top of the pages indicated which book was being viewed. This volume became known as the Paris Pocket Bible and became the standard format for manuscripts throughout Europe. Mass-produced, this single volume version ranks as one of the most important developments in the history of the Bible. It introduced many of the format elements of the Bible that are still in use today.

Wycliffe Bible

There was great opposition to the Bible being printed in the language of the common people. The Church had total power over the lives of the people. First by the military authority of the Emperor and secondly through threats of eternal damnation through the Ecclesiastical Authority of the Pope.

The reasoning was founded on the belief that it was the Church, through the Pope or Priest, who determined a man’s salvation. But if the people possessed the power and knowledge which comes from the truth in the Bible, and sufficient literacy to read it for themselves, they could look to salvation through Christ and bypass the clergy altogether.

The motivation of the translators was not a struggle for power. Rather they wished that every man could have the knowledge to find his own salvation through the reading of the words of Christ in his own language

A group of men banded together under the direction of John Wycliffe between 1382 – 1395. Known as the Lollards, this group of pre-reformation protesters rejected many of the Catholic teachings. At the time most people could not read and therefore had only a minimal knowledge of the Bible. Even that was gleaned through what was orally read to them from the pulpit by Priests. Wycliffe worked from the Latin Vulgate to make an English translation. Though not authorized, this Bible became very popular. But Wycliffe paid for its creation with his life. Burned at the stake, his remains were later exhumed and thrown into the river.

There were two versions of Wycliffe’s translations. The first was made while he was alive. The second is a revision of the first made ten to twelve years later by John Purvey, another member of the Lollard’s group. These translated versions did not have much effect upon the efforts of the later translators, because of the fact he had used the Vulgate from which to translate instead of going back to the Hebrew and Greek texts. But the efforts of Wycliffe and Purvey did help ignite the flames of the reformation and set the stage for the later King James translation of the Bible.

Gutenberg Bible

The Gutenberg Bible was the first bible to be produced using the newly-invented Gutenberg printing press.The printing of the first Bible in the 1450’s was a big event. While it was not the first book printed, it was the first major printing of any book in Europe. Whereas books had taken years to laboriously write or copy by hand, Gutenberg was able to produce 180 copies in 3 years. That is 60 a year or 5 per month, which is more than 1 per week. Each double sheet had 42 lines per page. To do this production, he used movable metal type. This set off an explosion of printed material which could be cheaply, mass produced and quickly distributed to an audience of hungry, eager and waiting people.

Erasmus Bible

Desiderius Erasmus (1466-1536) was a scholar and contemporary of Martin Luther. Instead of taking sides with either the Catholic Church or the reformer Martin Luther, he condemned them both with equal intensity. Erasmus’ intention was to make a collation between the Greek and Latin texts and in the process translated the first Greek translation of the New Testament.
– His first edition unified the Greek and Latin traditions.
– His second edition was used by Martin Luther for his translation of the Bible in the German language.
– His third edition was used by William Tyndale in his first translation of the Bible into English.
– His Fourth edition included a translation of Revelations.

– His fifth, published in Latin was quickly translated into many other languages.

In 1550 Robert Stephanus (also known as Robert Estienne) printed a version of the Erasmus text with a critical apparatus (showing variant readings in various manuscripts) which proved invaluable to scholars and future translators alike.

Luther Bible (1522-1534)

It was Martin Luther’s goal to enable every German speaking Christian to read the Bible in his own language. Using the translation of Erasmus, second Edition, Luther translated directly into German without reference to the Latin Vulgate.

To Romans 3: 28, Luther added the word “alone”. This rendered the thought as follows: “Man is justified without the help of the works of the law, alone by faith.” It actually reflected what most translators of his time believed.

He was contemptuous of the Books of Esther, Hebrews, James, Jude and the Revelations of John. But these influences of his translation were perhaps unintentional.

Most of the Germanic tribes spoke their own dialect and could not communicate with each other. The German language that he employed raised the level of language German people spoke and was a unifying force upon them as a German people nationally. He not only broke the dominance of the Catholic Church but influenced the translations of Tyndale and Coverdale.

Tyndale Translations 1530-35

While Tyndale did not produce a Bible as such, he did translate the entire New Testament and 50% of the Old Testament from Greek and Hebrew texts and had them mass produced and distributed before he was executed. As a result, these translations were used by John Rogers and Myles Coverdale. to publish the book under the pseudonym Matthew Bible. In addition, it was Tyndale’s translations that influenced every English translation that occurred thereafter.

Tyndale’s last words were in a prayer that God “Would open the King of England’s eyes” which was of course, what happened, evidenced by the printing of the Matthew Bible shortly thereafter.

Coverdale Bible

Printed by Myles Coverdale in 1535, it became the first complete English translation of the Bible. Using translations of Tyndale, Martin Luther, and his original translations from the Vulgate, the publication received official Royal consent making it also the first translation of the Bible in English to receive such distinction.

Matthew Bible

Printed in 1537 by John Rogers under the pseudonym “ Thomas Matthew”, it contained the New Testament as translated into English by William Tyndale and as much of the Old Testament as he had been able to translate before he was burned at the stake, and the translations of Myles Coverdale from German and Latin. It also contained the Apocrypha, except the Prayer of Manasseh.

Thus, the Matthew Bible forms a vital link in the history of the Bible’s translation into English. It was the work of three individuals, working from different sources and in different languages. Both John Rogers and William Tyndale were burned at the Stake while Myles Coverdale was employed by Thomas Cromwell to work on the Great Bible of 1539 and was thus spared.

Much of this work was used for the compiling of the King James Version and it was William Tyndale’s beautiful and masterful use of the English language that we treasure as we quote his epic phrases from our current King James Bible.

The Great Bible

So called, because of its size. King Henry the VII ordered such a copy of The Great Bible to be set up in each English Church in 1539, to be read in services and to be accessed and read by its parishioners. It was chained so that it could not be carried away. The first authorized English version of the Bible, it contained the words of Tyndale so far as he had able to complete his translations into English (The same Tyndale who had been burned at the stake for his translations which were now to bring him fame.) The untranslated balance, including the Apocrypha, was translated by Myles Coverdale from the Latin Vulgate and German sources. It is also sometimes referred to as Cromwell’s Bible or Cranmer’s Bible (after Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury) because of Cranmer’s notation in the preface in the book.

Geneva Bible

Under the reign of Queen Mary I, a group of Protestant scholars fled to Geneva to avoid persecution. Led by William Wittingham, the group consisted of such men as Myles Coverdale, Christopher Goodman, Thomas Sampson, William Coby and Anthony Gilby, began another English translation that would become known as the Geneva Bible. Wittingham focused on the New Testament and Gilby on the Old Testament.

The tone of the translation was much more assertive and forceful. In the margins was an elaborate system of commentary and notes. There were study aids: Maps, illustrations, indexes of names and topics, tables and an introduction before each chapter. It was also more affordable and of convenient size.

One of the illustrations of Adam and Eve showed Adam with an Elizabethan mustache and goatee. When Adam and Eve discovered their nakedness, it reported they made “breeches” to cloth themselves. This of course was later corrected by changing the word to “aprons”. Despite these humorous anachronisms the book’s popularity soon swept away the Great Bible when it was finally allowed into England in 1579.

Bishop’s Bible

Citing excuses such as the notes and comments of the Geneva Bible, which they detested, the Bishops complained it was too Pro-Calvinistic. In addition, they objected because the Great Bible had been partially translated from the Vulgate rather than the original Hebrew and Greek, which rendered it “severely deficient”.

As a result, the High Church Bishops of the Church of England began a move to make and circulate their own version of the Bible. In 1568 the Church of England gave its authority for them to do so. The version became known as the Bishop’s Bible. After a great deal of kerfuffle, tinkering and jiggering, their finished product still resembled The Great Bible. Their arguments didn’t achieve their aims and the end product was equally unconvincing.

The Bishop’s Bible failed to replace the Geneva Bible with all its aids, notes, comments, illustrations and chapter introductions. These were the very things that appealed to the many faithful who were becoming familiar with the Bible for the first time. The Bishop’s Bible was not reprinted and was replaced by the new King James Version in a few short years.

Douay-Rheims Bible

In the face of mounting pressure from the Protestant reformation, an attempt was made by English exiles to a college in Douai, France, to fortify English Catholics in upholding their own faith. A translation of the Vulgate into English was published 1592. Called the Rheims-Douay Bible it underwent a correlation with the Bishop’s Bible. Then in 1610, because of the heavy Latin context, a New Version was made by Bishop Richard Challoner taking the King James Version as its base. Further Revision was done by Bernard McMahon between 1783- 1810 in Dublin.

McMahon’s version is the source of the modern generation of translations such as:
The Jerusalem Bible
New American Bible Revised Edition
Revised Standard Edition
Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition

The Douay-Rheims Bible is still the Bible of choice of most traditional, English-speaking Catholics today.

King James Bible 1611

When James the VI of Scotland, became James I of England, upon the death of Queen Elizabeth, he inherited a Kingdom that resembled a spent battlefield of religious wars between Protestants and Catholics. Competitors and dissidents, even their favored versions of scriptures, meant to be the source of guidance to peace and understanding, were contested or rejected, flaunted or slandered. There seemed to be no common ground. James instinctively recognized that if he was to rule at all he would have to first untie this Gordian Knot. The Puritans were threatening to form a new country, the Protestants were in favour of exterminating all Catholics, the Royalists decreed Kings were meant to rule by Biblical sanction and would not accept any concession of their position The Catholics smouldered with bitter hatred since their demise under Queen Elizabeth I and longed for their repatriation. The scriptures they favoured were symbolic icons of their differences, so when it was suggested at the first council of religious leaders in 1603 that a new Bible should be created which united them all, James seized upon the idea as the solution.

Brilliantly, King James commissioned 54 or so of the top religious scholars, drawn from the ranks of all the contesting groups, except the Catholics. They had been pushed from their favored position thanks to Queen Elizabeth’s rival to the throne, Mary Queen of Scots, and because of the carnage “Bloody Mary” had inflicted on England in the name of the Catholic faith, they would not be granted an opportunity to repeat it again.

The selected scholars were divided into 6 groups and each was given a section of the Bible to focus on. Drawing on all the resources and previous translations now in their possession, the task took eight years before the restrictions in their mandate had been met.
1/ No bothersome notes were in the margins.
2/ A clearly understood, common-use language was employed.
3/ The text was accurate.
4/ It embodied the responsibilities inherent in the calling of mortal kings, making them answerable to God.
5/ It had appeal to all ranks of society from the highest to the lowest.
6/ It would stand as THE word of God unto Man.

In all it was possessed of only one gross error, it was shot through with spelling and clerical mistakes. The most glaring of all caused it to be given the nickname of “The Wicked Bible” because a reference in Exodus 20; 14 omitted the word “not“ from the seventh commandment. It read as follows: “Thou shalt commit adultery.”

While it amused most readers, the printers were heavily fined.

The King James Version did not become the most popular Bible overnight. Many continued to read the Geneva Bible because of it aids, maps and commentary. The Bishop’s Bible, while favoured by the Bishops, had far too many Latin words for the common man to understand, so it presented no competition at all. Yet by the late 1600’s the King James Version had just about replaced all other versions. Most of the translations used were from William Tyndale – he who was so tragically and cruelly put to death for his never-failing determination to make the Bible available to everyone. The King James Version has been edited and revised several times, including in 1769, 1881, 1901and 1952.

After these many years, it still remains the most published book in the English language and has become embedded in the English language. It has been termed “the greatest monument to English prose” and praised for its simplicity, its dignity, its power, its happy turns of expression, the music of its cadences and the felicities of its rhythms.”

It was complicit in the uniting of all English-speaking nations including the Americas. We owe its compilers and translators an immense debt of gratitude and appreciation. It must be a great sense of satisfaction for each of them to know that through their work, words and sacrifices God spoke to their fellow men — in their day and continuing still even today.

Chapter 11: The Dead Sea Scrolls

Part 2: From Apostates to Apostles

The Dead Sea Scrolls are the wave of records to come forth “out of the dust”. Discovered in 1947 by some Bedouin shepherds who were climbing the hills by the Dead Sea while tending their goats, it wasn’t too long before everyone was combing the hills around Qumran to cash in on the money archaeologists were willing to pay for even the smallest scrap of parchment. Along the journey from discovery to publication, many precious records were lost to underground dealers and treasure hunters before a committee was formed to protect and preserve the discoveries, and to legitimize the appraisal and translating process of the over 800 documents discovered – so far.

Even now, the world has yet to know the extent of what had been uncovered. An elite and secretive group of religious scholars managed to acquire authority over the translation and printing of any of the materials and has held them from the world. For forty years, they were successfully able to deny anyone accept themselves permission to have access to the scrolls or even photograph them. That monopoly was broken in 1991 when the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) took control of the project. Since then a tsunami of scrolls and texts have been released to an amazed and confused public. With the publication of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the knowledge regarding the conditions surrounding Christianity in its infancy during the first Century, has been greatly enhanced.

Included in the scrolls and texts are the following:
The Book of Isaiah
Community Rules
Habakkuk
War Scroll
Thanksgiving Hymn
Genesis
Testimony of Levi
Exodus
Leviticus
Deuteronomy
Judges
Samuel
Ezekiel
Psalms
Micah
Zephaniah
Jubilees
Words of Moses
The Three Tongues of Fire
New Jerusalem
Festival Prayers
Daniel
Job
Ruth
2 and 3 Apocrypha of Daniel
Apocrypha of Moses
Apocrypha Prophecies
Book of Giants
Enoch
Temple Scrolls
Copper Scrolls

(See them at: https://www.deadseascrolls.org.il/featured-scrolls)

One of the most fascinating questions about the scrolls is the question, who exactly hid them? Uncovering who these people were, what they believed, and why they buried their records, provides a whole new frame of reference in which to understand and appreciate the scrolls themselves.

Known today as the Qumran community, the excavation of their city ruins was started shortly after the discovery of the scrolls. Slowly, there emerged evidence of a group of faithful Jews who can be best described as “Messianic elite.” They had separated themselves from the evil of their fellow men to purify themselves in preparation for the arrival of the Messiah. For some considerable time (some experts have placed their existence from 200 B.C. to 70 A.D.), they had inhabited desert camps where they were literally expecting to be joined by “Heavenly Hosts”.

Theories abound regarding the origin of the inhabitants. For instance, they were Zealots because they could easily have been part of or the same group who eventually were besieged and met their end at Masada. Or Essenes, Sadducee or Jewish Christians. Regardless, they had established a very pious community just fifteen miles from Jerusalem, calling themselves “saints”. With strict rules of membership, their organization was founded by a leader whose name is never mentioned but who is referred to in the scrolls as the “Teacher of Righteousness”, the mouthpiece of God. He was evidence that the “last days” or the “end of times” of that epoch was upon them. All the prophecies of Habakkuk, Micah, Haggai and Zechariah were about to be fulfilled. After the death of the first Righteous Leader, every prophet after him was called by the same title. They practised baptism (total immersion), the use of the Urim and Thummin is mentioned, and names such as Bishop, The Twelve and Priesthood are referenced.

The effect of the Dead Sea Scrolls upon the teachings of traditional Churches has so far been very minimal. Still, much information has been gleaned. Prior to their discovery, scholars used medieval texts as their references. Now the Dead Sea Scrolls provide writings penned 1000 years earlier. With this new resource, much has been learned about the transition period between the Old and New Testaments, along with the history of various Christian religious sects of the first century. We have learned about their ancient scribal practices, and their inclusion of notes in the texts. With the exception of the Book of Esther, every other Old Testament Book is represented in findings from the caves of Qumran. Other Apocryphal records have also been discovered including Tobit (or Tobias), Sirach (or Ecclesiasticus), Letter of Jeremiah, Baruch, Enoch and The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, along with the Gospel of Thomas.

The people responsible for hiding and preserving the Dead Sea Scrolls have marked similarities with the people who recorded The Book of Mormon:

1/ Both left their communities and went into the dessert to avoid the evil and corruption of their societies.
2/ Both believed the judgment of God was about to fall on their peoples.
3/ Both strictly obeyed the Law of Moses.
4/ Both followed a righteous spiritual leader
5/ Both leaders had the Priesthood of God.
6/ Both required baptism by immersion for new followers.
7/ Both waited for the imminent coming of their Messiah.
8/ Both kept records of their experiences, which became scriptures.
9/ Both buried these records to come forth in the latter days.

Both groups show that God speaks to more “other sheep” than previously thought. These groups also recorded God’s words and regarded them as scriptures. A comparison of their records serve to show the drift by modern day traditional churches in their understanding of God from how it was understood during that earlier time.

The Law of Moses required two witnesses to bear testimony for a statement to be considered as authentic. The Book of Mormon (the record of the house of Joseph) and the Bible (the record of the house of Judah) in fact fulfill not only that requirement but also the prophecy of Ezekiel. Ezekiel 37: 16, 19 explains as the two sticks (scrolls or records) witnessing the truth of the Gospel come together in the hands of the people they shall reunite and rebuild their two kingdoms into one mighty nation.

Ezekiel 37: 15- 22
The word of the Lord came again unto me, saying,
Moreover, thou son of man, take thee one stick, and write upon it, For Judah, and for the children of Israel his companions: then take another stick, and write upon it, For Joseph, the stick of Ephraim, and for all the house of Israel his companions;
And join them one to another into one stick; and they shall become one in thine hand. And when the children of thy people shall speak unto thee, saying, Wilt thou not shew us what thou meanest by these?
Say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I will take the stick of Joseph, which is in the hand of Ephraim, and the tribes of Israel his fellows, and will put them with him, even with the stick of Judah, and make them one stick, and they shall be one in mine hand.
And the sticks whereon thou writest shall be in thine hand before their eyes.
And say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I will take the children of Israel from among the heathen, whither they be gone, and will gather them on every side, and bring them into their own land:
And I will make them one nation in the land upon the mountains of Israel; and cone king shall be king to them all: and they shall be no more two nations, neither shall they be divided into two kingdoms any more at all:

SUMMARY

Since the end of persecutions of the first century to the middle of the 16^th century, the scriptures remained a sealed book. Written in a language spoken by a select few and access to its pages controlled, it remained locked to the very people it had been written to serve.

Only after many brave and inspired men gave their lives and their liberty, did the holders of the records begin to grudgingly give up their priceless treasures. The translators, the reformers and the teachers all paid a high price for the scripture’s redemption before the words of those books could fill the world with their glorious messages of faith, hope and salvation.

Today the Bible is printed in more than 200 languages and is distributed to every nation in the Free World to prepare God’s people for the time when the Savior shall return to claim them. Then every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is the Christ.

Today many Christian churches have turned off their lights and closed their doors while millions of their members have gone home with hearts that have waxed cold. Nonetheless, the light and truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ has been restored and is going forth like described Nebuchadnezzar’s dream which Daniel interrupted as follows:

Daniel 2: 44 – 45
And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever.
Forasmuch as thou sawest that the stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, and that it brake in pieces the iron, the brass, the clay, the silver, and the gold; the great God hath made known to the king what shall come to pass hereafter: and the dream is certain, and the interpretation thereof sure.

Today, we bear our witness that the Book of Mormon is a “record of the people of Nephi and also the Lamanites. Written to the Lamanites who are a remnant of the house of Israel: and also to the Jew and Gentile”, containing the message to the house of Joseph and the house of Judah. Its express purpose is to bring them and their fellows, the House of Israel, together to their promised Messiah, even Jesus Christ.

We witness to the world that these prophecies are being fulfilled and will continue to unfold until the Savior himself appears and ushers in his millennial reign.

Chapter 12: Bringing forth the Ancient Record Called the Book of Mormon

Part 2: From Apostates to Apostles

New Testament: John 10: 16
“And other sheep I have which are not of this fold: them also I must bring , and they shall hear my voice : and there shall be one fold and one shepherd”

Book of Mormon: 3 Nephi 15: 11-17, 19-24
“And now it came to pass that when Jesus had spoken these words, he said unto those twelve whom he had chosen: Ye are my disciples; and ye are a blight unto this people, who are a remnant of the house of Joseph.
And behold, this is the land of your inheritance; and the Father hath given it unto you.
And not at any time hath the Father given me commandment that I should tell it unto your brethren at Jerusalem.
Neither at any time hath the Father given me commandment that I should tell unto them concerning the other tribes of the house of Israel, whom the Father hath led away out of the land.
This much did the Father command me, that I should tell unto them:
That other sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd.
But, verily, I say unto you that the Father hath commanded me, and I tell it unto you, that ye were separated from among them because of their iniquity; therefore it is because of their iniquity that they know not of you.
And verily, I say unto you again that the other tribes hath the Father separated from them; and it is because of their iniquity that they know not of them.
And verily I say unto you, that ye are they of whom I said: Other sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd.
And they understood me not, for they supposed it had been the Gentiles; for they understood not that the Gentiles should be converted through their preaching.
And they understood me not that I said they shall hear my voice; and they understood me not that the Gentiles should not at any time hear my voice—that I should not manifest myself unto them save it were by the Holy Ghost.
But behold, ye have both heard my voice, and seen me; and ye are my sheep, and ye are numbered among those whom the Father hath given me.”

Two of the most astounding discoveries that have occurred in recent time has been the coming forth of the Book of Mormon and the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Both these records were different from all other discoveries in the sense they had been deliberately buried by a group of people who were witnessing the destruction of their civilizations and were determine to preserve their records so that they would come forth in the future and be a guide and direction for those living in the last days.

Both accounts laid hidden for centuries to come forth untouched, in their purity. Consequently, they were protected from the tampering and tinkering of scribes and religious scholars who might have bend or distort the writings to comply with ever-changing philosophies.

One may wonder why these ancient writings remained hidden for so long. The loss of the true gospel of Christ had been the cause of religious intolerance, persecution and bloodshed. The world needed a reformation for centuries. Instead, history reveals the records remained in the hands of a few who used them as an instrument of power and control. With so little direct access to scriptures, for all intents and purposes, they remained a sealed book written in languages only the rich and educated could read.

The world had to wait until a time when favourable conditions would allow the records to emerge without the threat of them – and those who believed their words — being destroyed.

The first of these favourable conditions was the weakening of the controlling power of the Catholic Church. Martin Luther was able to survive where other reformers had been executed for challenging the authority of Rome. This opened the door for others to follow.

The second was Political freedom. In all cases in the European theatre, Monarchs and Kings determined which Church was the authorized representative of God, which Bible was to be used and in which language it would be read. Each made its own creed and any persons who failed to show obedience to these decrees would suffer severe penalties. And it was there, in the wild frontier of 19th century New England, that old and new intermingled. Settlers from the old country brought their traditional and reformed faiths. Many were based upon the doctrines established by Augustine. Confessions, obedience to the Pope and priest, the Holy Trinity, everlasting punishment, salvation for some, damnation for others. Those that died could expect to dwell in Heaven or Hell, saved through grace alone, or condemned to the burning of everlasting fires.

It was not until America was discovered and settled, and a New Constitution written that the opportunity to set up the restored gospel became a reality. Only in such a time could new ideologies be brought forth with a hope of surviving. Here, at last, was the freedom to choose for one’s self and not suffer death for religious expression.

The young American Nation was the most favourable place in the world at that time for the lost Gospel of Christ to be restored. Yet even with that freedom, the price was high, and tolerance low, for bringing about the restoration of the Church of Jesus Christ, as Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum discovered. They paid with their lives, while those who followed suffered banishment.

The Book of Mormon covers about 1000-year period (from 600 BC to 400 AD) of the history of a specific civilization in ancient America. At that point their civilization was wiped out.

Joseph Smith, a farm boy in upper State New York, was directed by God to go a hill not far from his parent’s property, where records of that ancient civilization had been deposited by its last surviving prophet.

Engraved on plates (flattened gold sheets), the record was comprised of 15 main divisions or books. Joseph Smith translated the writings despite having little formal education and absolutely no experience in any language other than the American Frontier English.

Joseph attributes the astonishing achievement of translating the gold plates to assistance he received from God, which included the use of “seerer stones” also called the Urim and Thummin. (In Hebrew the term means “light and perfection”.) An instrument prepared of God to assist man in obtaining revelation from the Lord, references to their existence anciently can be found in Exodus 28: 30, Leviticus 8:8, Numbers 27: 21, Deuteronomy 33: 8, 1Samuel 28: 6, Ezra 2: 63 and Nehemiah 7: 65.

Joseph Smith was not a scholar or philosopher. In the process of translating the record, restoring the Priesthood and organizing Christ’s Church, Joseph had many questions. He wrote down the answers he received, and they were eventually published in a book called the Doctrine and Covenants. Along with instructions regarding the restoration of Christ’s Church and Priesthood, Joseph was also given information about the application of principles, rules and the commandments.

Of interest to us all is the differences of doctrinal understanding between traditional Christian Churches and that of Joseph’s translation of the ancient record and his modern revelation – which have subsequently been carried on through the restored Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Days Saints. The following list outlines many of those differences. Although it is quite extensive, it is by no means complete.

1/ The necessity of a living prophets and continuous revelation from God.
2/ The concept of a plan of salvation whereby mankind may qualify for salvation.
3/ The concept of personal progression which began before this earth life.
4/ The knowledge that man is co- eternal with God: Man did not come into existence at the time of his earthly biological birthday.
5/ The knowledge that we are literal children of a Heavenly Father and Mother.
6/ The knowledge that there are necessary ordinances for salvation instituted by God — but they of themselves will
not save us. Instead these ordinances are part of process that will, through the testing of our obedience, bring us closer to Christ and help us become more like his character.
7/ All of God’s commandments, laws and ordinances are for the eternal growth of mankind and not for the punishment or the penalizing of his children.
8/ God is a loving and patient parent whose “work and glory is to bring about the immortality and eternal life of mankind.”
9/ The Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost are three distinct personages. The Father and the Son have bodies of flesh, as we have, but the Holy Ghost is a being of spirit matter.
10/ Men will be punished for their own sins and not the sins of Adam and Eve. (See: Article of Faith 2)
11/ God speaks through prophets and reveals h i s will through them for the salvation of his children. As in days past, he speaks to his chosen prophets today and will always do so unless we become disobedient and reject his prophets. In which case, God will withdraw his spirit, and miracles will cease.
12/ When God speaks to his prophets, they are commanded to record what he says. These records are called scriptures. All such scriptures are for our edification and are considered binding. We believe all that God has revealed, all that he does now reveal and that he will yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to the Kingdom of God. (See: Article of Faith 9)
13/ Part of the great work for the salvation of mankind is the work done in the God’s temples. There, all ordinances necessary for the salvation of man can be done, for one’s self as well as for those who have died before hearing the gospel. Work is done by proxy for those who for one reason or another were unable to do this important work for themselves.

The mandate given to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and its followers is to go throughout the world and bring the message of the restoration of these truths to all persons of all nations. (See Matthew 28: 19-20) As a result, the Church’s population has grown from a handful in 1830 to over 16 million in 2016. This is still a small percentage of the world’s population. Obviously so much has yet to be done before we see the time when “every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is the Christ.”

Over 80,000 missionaries are voluntarily fulfilling this mandate throughout the world today as witnesses and examples to the truthfulness of this divine message. They invite all to come unto Christ.

Doug Garrett