I never claimed that there are changes to the existing doctrine, I claimed that God can reveal himself to who he pleases, and it's therefore difficult to say with confidence who has more opportunities to know God.

I have no problem if you say that you've heard from God, and propose a new religion that does not hinge on an existing doctrine. If you propose the flying spaghetti monster as God and a new redemption process, or that no redemption process is necessary, that's fine, and difficult to disprove, and I wouldn't argue that you are wrong. When, however, you try to add new doctrine to the current one, and you begin to contradict the old one (e.g. a new salvation process) then you lose all credibility.

Christianity is Christ centred, with salvation coming through him alone. When you begin to add to that, that salvation is Christ plus X, the original doctrine begins to unravel, and you've destroyed your own foundation. If you build a brand new foundation, that's totally acceptable.

This is only based on your own definition, which is far too restrictive.

If I believe Christ is the son of god, preached forgiveness, and died so that mankind may be forgiven of its sins, what religion would I be?

The pope believes atheists who do good are redeemed, and he is a Christian. So clearly your definition is not accurate. And if God spoke to him, then you may also be factually incorrect regarding redemption.

I am sure that some denominations will hold your view, but they do not speak for everyone.

I already explained this. This is an example of you saying that god's communication cannot change or enhance current doctrine. The post already indicated why this is flawed thinking, with the judaism/mormonism examples, and with god's ongoing communicatuion, and humanity's interpretation of it.

The only credibility lost is from those who are unable or unwilling to comprehend that doctrine X might not actually be correct.

Depends on your belief about salvation. You can believe that Christ is the son of God and died for our sins, but you can also get to heaven by eating chicken every day. There are some disagreements about salvation, but no one will disagree on the fact that Christ is the only way to be redeemed, even if the if's and how's are disputed.

You can be a Christian and have bad theology. The view that everyone is redeemed no matter what is impossible to defend if you claim the bible as an authority. You undermine the basic tenet of salvation through Christ. Surely you can agree with that.

If you read the bible objectively, it is nearly impossible to not agree that salvation is through Christ alone. At the very least, you must believe in him as God. If you disagree with this, then I don't think you're being honest. And I'm not saying you MUST believe that the bible is true, only that this is what it says regarding salvation.

I don't think we are going to agree here. The OT does not stand alone, because of all the prophesies of the coming Messiah. It points to God bringing salvation to the world, which is where Christ fits in. The NT doesn't cancel the OT, it brings it all together. Christ is the fulfillment.

Even if you disagree and believe that it contradicts it, that's no reason to suppose that any other doctrine that contradicts a previous one should be allowed to stand because the NT is allowed to stand. It would only mean that the NT is dubious, not that all other doctrines should likewise be allowed because we allow this fallacious one.

If you build on doctrine X with doctrine Y, and doctrine Y contradicts X, how do you think that makes sense? the NT doesn't contradict or cancel anything in the OT, it fits together. If the NT had described salvation by any other means than the Messiah and proposed a new way of salvation, I would agree that it's dubious.

This is odd. I've read the Old Testament, and I don't think the Messiah is a particularly important part of it. The Law, the relationship and covenant between Israel and God, those things are important. But the Messiah really only comes in a relatively few passages in some of the Prophets--mostly Isaiah. I would also say that the view of the Messiah in the Old Testament is different from the kind of Messiah Christians believe Jesus to be.

Again this seems wrong. In a later post you say this: "When, however, you try to add new doctrine to the current one, and you begin to contradict the old one (e.g. a new salvation process) then you lose all credibility."

I don't see how you can deny that the New Testament adds new doctrine to the current one. In fact, it is probably an explicit part of your theology that a new salvation process (one of salvation through Jesus rather than through keeping the law) was inaugurated in the events described in the New Testament. So would you say that you have no credibility?

The major theological doctrines of Christianity are quite different from those you'll find in the Old Testament. They might be consistent in the sense that they don't explicitly contradict each other, but it isn't hard to find the same kind of consistency between the theology of Mormonism and the New Testament.

I disagree with you that the Messiah is not particularly important, but rather that you need to be well versed with the scripture (I'm not saying you're not), like the Jews were. The fact that they were expecting him, and still are, is indicative of the fact that their theology was not entirely complete. One example is how the samaritan woman responded to Jesus, saying that the coming Messiah would explain all these things to them, an incident that took place before the NT existed.

The fact that the parallels between the OT stories and the NT covenant are very similar, is also important. They are so similar that you can argue that they just copied them to give the illusion of prophecy fulfilled. Take the story of Abraham sacrificing his first born son Isaac, who carried the wood for the fire, to God sacrificing his first born son, Jesus, who who carried the cross where he would be sacrificed, the location of which many believe to have been the same.

This is going to be a matter of interpretation, so I don't especially want to debate this. I think there is a difference between Jesus fulfilling the law as the awaited Messiah, than simply adding a new Messiah out of the blue. Maybe I was too quick to say that nothing new was added to the doctrine, but you can argue that it does not introduce contradicting theology, since they were waiting for their Saviour. Since the Saviour has already arrived (if you believe in Christ) there is nothing new to add to what he taught.

I'm sure you're familiar with the verse in the end of revelation which says to not add to the book, which many believe speaks of the entire bible, not simply the book of revelation.

I just don't see how we can compare the transition from the OT to the NT, to the NT and some other doctrine that undermines Christ, it is unnecessary. If the OT was a finished work, with no awaited Messiah and prophecy of the Messiah and the coming covenant, then I would agree that it's problematic, but as it is, I don't see it as a problem.

Yeah Mormonism is even more far fetched.

There isn't a single mention of the Messiah in the Torah, which is the center of the Old Testament. In fact, as I said, outside of Isaiah, there really is very little discussion of a Messiah. So you are wrong to disagree with me: the Messiah is not a central concept in most of the Old Testament, including its most important bits.

Second, the Messiah that was expected by the Jews was a military/political leader, not a God who was killed by the Romans and then rose from the dead to redeem sinners.

How so? This makes no sense to me. Remember, the Messiah they are expecting is not someone who will die on a cross for the sins of the Jews. That kind of atonement doesn't exist in Jewish theology (the atonement of Torah is a corporate rather than individual atonement).

More to the point, this implies that any religion with an eschatological element is incomplete. But Christianity is just as much an eschatological religion (probably more so) as Judaism, and looks forward to a future where Jesus returns and rules over the world. Does that mean that Christianity is also an incomplete religion?

Ummmm...you are quoting a Christian source here, not a Jewish source, so this is not an example of Jewish views about the Messiah distinct from Christia views.

There is a superficial similarity, but the theological themes are different. First of all, Abraham didn't actually sacrifice Isaac. Second, the emphasis is on Abraham, not Isaac (which is where the emphasis is in the NT). Third, the sacrifice of Isaac didn't have any redeeming aspect to it, but rather was a test of Abraham's obedience.

I think some interpretations are better than others, so this is exactly the type of thing you should want to debate. After all, the point is that I think your interpretation is incorrect.

The Jews were not waiting for a Savior as you mean it here--one that redeems the entire world. However, I have already said that I don't think this is a matter of contradicting theology (a very low bar to clear in my view), but rather that Christian theology ends up being very different from the Jewish theology of Second Temple Judaism (for example--where are the sacrifices and other rituals, or following the law as Paul argued against in Christian theology?).

Okay, well the people who argue that are wrong. Here is the passage:

Pretty clear that it is referring only to Revelation.

Okay. The problem here seems to be that you rely entirely on Christian polemical writings for information about the religion of the Jews. This is functionally equivalent to a Mormon who relies solely on the Mormon polemical writings to learn about other versions of Christianity. Would you be surprised if such a Mormon claimed that Mormonism "completed" Christianity, that it is fully compatible with Christianity, but shows a more complete picture of the relation between God and humans?

Belief in a coming messiah among the Hebrews was prevalent- it was a part of Maimonides' 13 principles of Faith, which were the minimum requirements of Jewish belief, commonly recited daily.

Paul was a practicing Jew of stature in the Hebrew community. Peter, Mark, John, and others were all Torah-observant Jews at one time. The Christian movement started and spread from Hebrew synagogues. Jesus didn't preach in churches. Christianity started as a movement among the Hebrews. Only one new testament writer is considered to be a non-jew. And all of those crowds gathered around Jesus as he taught- mostly Jewish.

When I get home from Harrah's and can reference my Michael Brown books, I will utterly demolish all of the rest of of his typical anti-missionary claims.

First, let me say that I was looking back in this thread, and I think I came off kind of rude at times, to all the people I've disagreed with, I never meant to come off like I have an authority on the truth, it's just what I believe, sometimes your passion gets the best of you.

Original Position, I'll answer you point for point more out of respect for the detailed response you gave me, but I think you've dragged me quite far from my original complaint. I acknowledge that the NT is different than the OT, my perspective is that it still fits without changing critical tenets, and most importantly, the foretold Messiah brings salvation without contradicting the original scriptures.

My complaint is that other religions are not successful in introducing a theology that is as congruent as the NT is with the OT.

The Messiah is mentioned in many books, but I'm not sure why this is your focus. The fact that he is part of the theology should be enough, not the number of times he is mentioned, or the importance you think this played in the theology. They expected a Messiah and he arrived, it fits perfectly. You can reject the NT if you don't believe Christ is the Messiah, but you can't say that the NT is not congruent with the OT because the Messiah is not a primary focus.

Some Jews did accept Christ as the Messiah, even if they did not expect him to come as a servant. They did not understand that the kingdom was a spiritual kingdom, not an earthly one. Christ rebuked the apostles many times for thinking that he would set up his kingdom on earth.

Christianity is "incomplete" in the sense that Christ has not yet taken his bride, I didn't mean it in a derogatory way, but that the Christ was still to come.

That's fair, that I'm not allowed to use any references from the NT, but do you think they fabricated this story, as well as the fact that people were expecting a Christ, like the Samaritan woman allegedly was?

I disagree that it's superficial, there are many of these parallels, but this is one of the reasons it's difficult to debate this, because many of these interpretations are subjective.

Well it's definitely different, since it's a new covenant, I have no problem with that, but different doesn't mean that the changes are arbitrary or contradictory, Christ fulfilled the law.

Like I said, I think we've gotten very far from my original complaint, which is that religions that build on Christianity aren't congruent with Christianity, because they undermined Christ. They directly contradict the most important facet of any religion, salvation. The fact that the OT was awaiting a Messiah, even if you're right and it was not central, and they expected someone different, made it easy to introduce a "new chapter". The NT on the other hand, particularly salvation, is very final.

I would not complain if a religion would build a foundation on the OT, and claim a different Messiah altogether and undermine Christ, but to build on the NT is so fundamentally different, it's almost impossible for such doctrine to stand, especially one which changes God's character.


I'm not sure how clear it is, but I won't argue it.

I've seen Orthodox Jews debate about Christ not being the Messiah, I think it's more important to them than you believe. They quoted more passages than I was even aware existed, that pointed to Yeshua.

If I believed that the Book of Mormon adequately fit in with Christianity, I would not argue this point, just like I don't discount any other Christian denomination that adheres to a Christ-only salvation, or even other religions that can stand on their own.

I do understand your point, there may be truth to what you are saying, but I don't think the differences are enough to make the NT completely null.

I love Michael Brown, I visited his church when he was still a Pastor in Brownsville, Florida. He has a great channel on youtube which I watch from time to time.

I agree with the first sentence--that isn't what is at issue. As for Maimonides, he wrote almost 1100 years after the end of Second Temple Judaism and is formulating the rules of a later version of Judaism, so that isn't really relevant.

Okay? Not sure what this is supposed to prove.

This isn't a large point. You said that the OT "aligns well with the NT, even if just because the OT deals so much with the coming Messiah." I was arguing that your claim fails because the OT does not in fact "deal so much with the coming Messiah." In fact, I would say the Messiah is only a major part of one OT book (Isaiah). Thus, talking about the importance of the Messiah to later understandings of the Jewish religion is irrelevant.

Now, note that I am not thereby claiming that the NT is not congruent with the OT, only that the evidence you cite to support the claim that the two collections are in "alignment" doesn't exist.

What does this have to do with my question?

No, you do not get to quote the Gospel of John as an example of non-Christian views.

This isn't good enough. If you disagree, then give me the reasons for your disagreement.

Okay?

I'm not arguing about whether Mormonism is congruent with Christianity, but whether it is congruent with the New Testament.

Anyway, I don't think you are clear on what you want to say here. Your claim is this:

Christianity is congruent with the prior religion of the Jews, but Mormonism is not congruent with Christianity.

Fine. So what are the differences in these two cases? You listed a whole bunch of things, but none of them differentiate between the two cases.

1) Jewish religion was incomplete because they were awaiting a Messiah.
BUT, Christian religion also incomplete because they are awaiting Jesus' Return.

2) Mormonism isn't congruent w/Christianity because it changes the rules of salvation BUT Christianity changed the rules of salvation from the Jewish religion.

3) Christianity was a new covenant from Jewish religion BUT Mormonism is a new covenant from Christianity.

4) There are parallels between the life of Jesus and some of the legends of the OT BUT there are parallels between the events in the Book of Mormon and the NT (since this is as you put it just a matter of interpretation).

As long as you have good reasons to believe what you do, then there is nothing wrong with being passionate about it.

However you also need to understand the Pope also has good reasons for his belief, and for his statement.

...

To say that salvation is the most important aspect of any religion is incorrect. No one can claim what the most important fact of all religions are unless they understand all religions. For example, salvation may not have been the post important part of Native American religions, or of Shinto, or Buddhism, or many others.

...

You have to argue the point, otherwise your argument falls apart. If the Christian doctrine may not be final, and if the Book of Mormon has as much a legitimate claim vs the NT as the NT does compared to the old, then the ideas that you cite regarding salvation lose their relevance. It could not be said that salvation was through Christ alone, as you assert, if God communicates with us and through his words we can achieve salvation, irrespective of what is said in the NT. The NT doctrine would not be final.

I don't agree that the Messiah was not important, and he is mentioned in other books, especially where you would expect to find him, the major prophets. Some have argued that the entire book of Hosea points to Christ, with Hosea as the Christ figure and we as the prostitute, whom he married and paid for, despite her rebellion and sins, God being holy and we being the harlot.

This is a problem with this discussion, that one can easily dispute these claims. You've already dismissed Abraham's sacrificing Isaac as a good comparison, but there are many of these parallels. Whether or not they are apt, or everyone agrees is somewhat irrelevant in the fact that the NT fits well with them. Take the story of "water from the rock", which has been interpreted as a prophecy of Christ being struck to bring salvation, the Rock being Christ and the water being the "living water". This is just one of many examples which make both books fit in well, even if as some people claim, they were written purposely to give the illusion of prophecy fulfilled, or as you claim that the similarities are superficial. There are dozens of prophecies in the OT that are confirmed in the NT, even details of Christ's birth and death, to the fact that they would cast lots for his clothing.

Still though, even if you don't believe that the Messiah was an important aspect of the Jewish religion, this belief paved the way for additional doctrine in a way that most other religions do not. The Book of Mormon changes who Christ was without any precedent, and his relationship with God. These changes are more difficult to affirm given that there was no previous mention of why this should be, and with Christ finalizing salvation.

1 - I have no problem with calling it "incomplete" since Christ is expected to come, just like the Jews were awaiting a Messiah. The difference is that the NT built on the one part that was incomplete, the coming Messiah. If Christ had returned, or when he does return, and you write doctrine directly related to that, I could see it as additional doctrine that fits, but simply adding to the NT because Christ has not yet returned doesn't make sense, especially when the doctrine changes who Christ is.

2 - My hesitancy to adopt Mormonism has to do not only with salvation, but with who they make Christ and God to be, which directly reflects salvation. Some argue that they changed Christ so much, that you can hardly call him the same God.

3 - I guess you can argue this, but the OT points to things that the NT expounds on, where the BOM changes things that were never mentioned, I think this difference is why many Christians dismiss it, since there is less reason to believe that God would contradict what he said earlier about who he is.

4 - If someone wants to argue that the BOM fits in with the NT, that's fine, but the burden of proof is on them. I don't personally believe that the BOM is as congruent with the NT as the NT is with the OT. I think if you were told to argue this point, you would do much better than you can with the OT vs NT. All it takes is one aspect that does not fit in with the previous doctrine to dismantle the entire thing.

Salvation where available is the most important aspect of religion. If you construct a religion with no means or purpose for redemption, that's much different than religions that claim that salvation is necessary.

The fact that the BOM has as much a legitimate claim is what we are arguing, and I believe it does not. If there was no redemptive process it would be a different story. We don't achieve salvation irrespective of what is said in the NT, my point was that salvation is through Christ, and Christ has the power to reveal himself to anyone, this is not a contradiction.

What do you suppose would happen if I said that Allah spoke to me and introduced a prophet that undermined Muhammad? The NT was introduced by the actions of Christ, not just anyone. Even the NT, while written by people, was written by multiple authors all of which agree with each other on fundamental theology. To say that the BOM, introduced by a single person which contains conflicting theology with Christianity, with no precedent to why these changes occurred, is the same as the NT being introduced where the Messiah was expected, is not remotely the same. By this logic, anyone can introduce any new doctrine at anytime, because the NT exists. I may as well introduce a new doctrine that undermines Joseph Smith.

Edit: Forgot about the pope. The Pope may have good reasons to believe what he does regarding salvation, but it's basically impossible to sustain that belief biblically. Salvation without Christ, while still maintaining the bible as an authority is an impossible task.

naked, you could take almost any story, and interpret it to fit the jesus/christ story or idea. I mean, you could take harry potter, the boy who lived , as jesus, who died, but "lived" , and battled voldemort ( evil/death/sin) with the power of love ( mothers love helped him survive etc). So I dont think any of your comparisons with the OT and NT stories hold any water at all. They sound very convoluted and ridiculous to me.

Christ did not write the NT. In fact, it was not written by anyone with first hand accounts, who are unidentified, is entirely here-say which is automatically dismissed in any court of law, and was written decades after the fact, and put together by a committee hundreds of years later, at which it was edited, and many books were specifically excluded. And its a miracle that the stories somehow are similar?

You then are favoring it over a book by a single author who we actually can identify and know who lived - Joseph Smith - and who had a (supposedly) first-hand account and did not write it by committee.

Seriously?

This is just one aspect of why they OT and NT are compatible, we can ignore this facet altogether if you don't like those specific parallels, but I've only mentioned two of many that are considered to point to Christ. What is hard to ignore is the numerous prophecies that are fulfilled, which many have argued were written to give the illusion of fulfillment, that is, someone just went through the OT scriptures and wrote it as to make them prophetically accurate.

Still though, despite the problems you may have aligning the OT and NT scriptures, these problems are even more prevalent with any religion that builds on the NT. Not only is it subject to the same objections you have about the NT and OT, since it builds on them, but it has to align with them as well.

Your complaint about non first-hand accounts (which is arguable), which were written decades after the fact also applies to Smith, who lived nearly 2 millenniums after the fact. Plus, if you discredit the NT, you also discredit the BOM which is hinged on the NT. If I agree with you and say that the NT doesn't make sense, what does that say about the BOM?

I agree - if NT is false/inconsistent, then BOM is as well. With the BOM, Smith did claim an angel (or whatever) showed him the tablets, so if that is true, then the text is at least as reliable as any biblical text.

(I personally think the BOM is a scam, but that is besides the point for this discussion...)

I think we're getting closer to agreeing. I can concede that God could have spoken to Smith, that's not the problem I have with his account, only that since he is claiming that the bible is true in addition to his own doctrine (which God showed him) there should be no contradictory claims, which many people claim there are.

I'm not saying that God could not have spoken to someone, or that other theologies may not be right. Take Islam for instance, Allah could be God with Muhammad as his prophet, I'm not in the business of trying to claim that Christianity is correct, even if I believe it is. These things are all a matter of faith. If however, someone added to the Qu'ran in a way that described Muhammad differently, you have to question it, and I question the BOM for this reason alone.

I have no problem if you question the NT with regards to the OT, and if you conclude that the accounts are false, but I'm not sure that discrediting the NT with regards to the OT does much to help Mormonism.

Fair enough. I think Mormonism needs a lot of help irregardless of this particular area of debate.

I actually don't question NT based on OT, or Mormonism based on NT... I am equally skeptical of all of them. But logically, I don't see an issue with the concept of OT->NT->M if I grant that they could be generally true or if I grant that God could exist. Any issue I have with them would be with lack of first-hand accounts, corroborated sources, and verifiable physical evidence. But that's not really the purpose of this thread though.

I understand and agree with the point you are trying to make here, but this statement is not accurate. First, not all courts prohibit hearsay. For example, Sweden courts allow hearsay evidence. Second, in United States courts, where hearsay is inadmissible, it is not "automatically dismissed" counsel must first make a timely objection, then the judge will rule on admissibility, as there are numerous exceptions to the hearsay rule.