Just how do ancient documents discovered in the Middles East in the mid-twentieth century relate to Latter-day Saint beliefs? In this intriguing discussion, Latter-day Saint scholar Eugene Seaich answers that question and many others as he explores the fascinating connections among the Dead Sea scrolls, the Nag Hammadi texts, and the teachings of Mormonism. He shows us conclusively that those connections do indeed exist and that they support the mission and message of Joseph Smith. The very doctrines revealed by Joseph Smith to a startled world a hundred and fifty years ago have begun to reappear in the writings of the early Jews and Christians.
Discover new technology that helps translators with previously unreadable Scroll fragments, supposedly "secret" scrolls in hiding, and the furious debate about who rightfully owns the Scrolls. Includes never before-published photographs.
Showing that Mormonism is a genuine restoration of Primitive Christianity. To demonstrate to Latter Day Saints that "" Mormonism"" is what it exactly what it claims to be a genuine restoration of the Gospel. Mormonism is an genuine restoration of the Gospel as it was taught by disciples of the Primitive Church. This is important because through out the world Mormonism is labeled as a non-scriptural, non-Christian ""cult"", which departs in alarming in alarming ways from the traditional concepts of the bible. The claim that Mormonism is a ""cult"", and not a Christian religion, is based on the fact that Mormonism accepts none of the traditional creeds of ""orthodoxy"". The chief difficulty with this assessment is that so-called ""orthodoxy"" never existed before the fourth or fifth centuries, until the Church's original teachings had been radically altered by Greek- informed metaphysical concepts, bearing little relationship to the thought of the earliest Christians
Showing that Mormonism is a genuine restoration of Primitive Christianity. To demonstrate to Latter Day Saints that "" Mormonism"" is what it exactly what it claims to be a genuine restoration of the Gospel. Mormonism is an genuine restoration of the Gospel as it was taught by disciples of the Primitive Church. This is important because through out the world Mormonism is labeled as a non-scriptural, non-Christian ""cult"", which departs in alarming in alarming ways from the traditional concepts of the bible. The claim that Mormonism is a ""cult"", and not a Christian religion, is based on the fact that Mormonism accepts none of the traditional creeds of ""orthodoxy"". The chief difficulty with this assessment is that so-called ""orthodoxy"" never existed before the fourth or fifth centuries, until the Church's original teachings had been radically altered by Greek- informed metaphysical concepts, bearing little relationship to the thought of the earliest Christians!
Current facts about Mormonism: Over 11 million members. Over 60,000 full-time missionaries—more than any other single missionary-sending organization in the world. More than 310,000 converts annually. As many as eighty percent of converts come from Protestant backgrounds. (In Mormon circles, the saying is, “We baptize a Baptist church every week.”) Within fifteen years, the numbers of missionaries and converts will roughly double. Within eighty years, with adherents exceeding 267 million, Mormonism could become the first world-religion to arise since Islam. You may know the statistics. What you probably don’t know are the advances the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) is making in apologetics and academic respectability. With superb training, Mormon scholars outclass many of their opponents. Arguments against Mormon claims are increasingly refuted as outdated, misinformed, or poorly argued. The New Mormon Challenge is a response to the burgeoning challenge of scholarly Mormon apologetics. Written by a team of respected Christian scholars, it is free of caricature, sensationalism, and diatribe. The respectful tone and responsible, rigorous, yet readable scholarship set this book in a class of its own. It offers freshly researched and well-documented rebuttals of Mormon truth claims. Most of the chapter topics have never been addressed, and the criticisms and arguments are almost entirely new. But The New Mormon Challenge does not merely challenge Mormon beliefs; it offers the LDS Church and her members ways to move forward. The New Mormon Challenge will help you understand the intellectual appeal of Mormonism, and it will reveal many of the fundamental weaknesses of the Mormon worldview. Whether you are sharing the gospel with Mormons or are investigating Mormonism for yourself, this book will help you accurately understand Mormonism and see the superiority of the historic Christian faith. Outstanding scholarship and sound methodology make this an ideal textbook. The biblical, historical, scientific, philosophical, and theological discussions are fascinating and will appeal to Christians and Mormons alike. Exemplifying Christian scholarship at its best, The New Mormon Challenge pioneers a new genre of literature on Mormonism. The Editors Francis J. Beckwith, Carl Mosser, and Paul Owen are respected authorities on the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the authors of various books and significant articles on Mormonism. With contributors including such respected scholars as Craig L. Blomberg, William Lane Craig, J. P. Moreland, and others, The New Mormon Challenge is, as Richard Mouw states in his foreword, “an important event for both Protestant evangelicals and Mormons” that models “to the evangelical community what it is like to engage in respectful and meaningful exploration of a viewpoint with which we disagree on key points.”
Do You Know Who You Really Are? presents an understanding of our pre-mortal lives, why we are here on earth, and where we are going after mortality. In ten succinct chapters, Fred Kohler Holbrook tackles matters such as the purpose of mortality, the meaning of the human body, and why we are born into a particular race or ethnicity. It is time for us to know who we really are, our intrinsic selves; and the author actively encourages the pursuit of theological answers to deep questions, calling us to know who we really are, and to make our eternal selves who we want to be.
This book was written with the hope that it might be of use in explaining Mormonism and the restored Gospel of Christ to the members of other persuasions, and in a way that will be both understandable and technically correct. At the same time, it should help Mormons to better comprehend their own doctrines, and to refute the arguments of would-be detractors that their beliefs are "unbiblical" and "non-Christian."
There is no credit to be taken by the author for this work, especially since the major part of this work is not his own but rather the words of the Lord God extracted from the scriptures. These things are written as the testimony of a humble servant of the Lord God and become the only legacy and expression of a son of God who has nothing else to leave the world following his short sojourn among those of mortality. It is hoped that they may be of some use and accomplish some good in bringing about a more righteous world for the glory of God. God has created all things for mankind, and it is hoped that men might be found to be worthy of all that the Lord God has prepared for man. There is much beauty and wonder to be found in what the Lord has done. May we be wise enough to take full advantage of what can be our inheritance both in this life and in that life to come.
