Lets put all beliefs aside and strictly look at their claim.
They believe that they restored everything.
(1) The Temple
(2) The Gospel (Bible had many "plain and precious" teachings removed or lost to time.)
(3) The Priesthood
When I think of a restoration, I think of bringing something back, in it's original form, like it was brand new.
When you restore a car, you make it like new again, on the showroom floor.
Questions for any Mormon lurkers reading this:
Does today's temple resemble the biblical temple in any way?
Does today's priesthood resemble any Bible (Levitical) priesthood?
Did Joseph Smith really restore the gospel after many "plain and precious" things were lost, distorted, or removed... even though Jesus Christ himself said that would not happen (Mark 13:31)?
If you do your research...
THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER DAY SAINTS IS NOT A RESTORATION AT ALL.
It's a totally new religious construct, built by the early church leaders, bastardizing and abusing biblical concepts.
I've always been fascinated by the early history of Christianity. According to the Morg, Jesus established his church when he was on the earth. After he died there was an apostasy and things went to crap. Then Joseph Smith claimed to put things to right in the 1800s.
Fact is, after Jesus died there were a wide variety of Christianities. Some believed that the gods of the old and new testaments were two completely different beings. Some believed that "God" entered the body of Jesus when he was baptized, and left that body before it was crucified. And on and on and on.
The version of Christianity we have today solidified much later - that there is one God, Jesus is the son of God, Jesus died for our sins, Jesus was resurrected, etc. These things were agreed upon at the council of Nicea in the 4th century. In other words, among all the different interpretations of Christianity that existed, the version we have now is the one that "won" at the council of Nicea. Even the books that make up the Bible that the Mormons use were decided on at the council of Nicea.
Even the organization of the early Christian church that Joseph Smith "restored" - "apostles, prophets, pastors, teachers, evangelists, etc." - didn't exist until a century or two after Christ died.
So what the hell did Joseph Smith restore??? Christianity as we know it wasn't officially established until the council of Nicea. But according to Mormonism, the council of Nicea was the "Big Bang" of the apostasy.
The BoA was restored to its status as an impudent fraud. The errors of the 1767 KJV bible were restored to the BoM. The Masonic rituals were restored to the temple. The writings of Isaiah were restored to a time before he could have written them. Joe's reputation as a lying con man has been restored.
Early Mormonism was heavily influenced by Campbellism and the Restoration Movement. Sidney Rigdon, who was Joseph Smith's co-conspirator in starting the scam, had been a Campbellite minister and borrowed a lot of its doctrine for the fledgling cult.
The Mormon claim that Joseph Smith restored Christ's church really says that Christ failed miserably to establish his church. Joseph Smith had to come in a fix things because Christ didn't do it right to begin with.
that fairly well backs up my point about MORmONISM -that it is an ongoing insult and mockery to decency and to any kind of god that really represents decency
yeppers Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Really? > > Lets put all beliefs aside and strictly look at > their claim. > > They believe that they restored everything. > > (1) The Temple temple endowment ceremony evolved/changed (so no restoration here).
> (2) The Gospel (Bible had many "plain and > precious" teachings removed or lost to time.) BoM and DyC (or book of commandments) went through changes because of "mistakes" made when they were revealed from god, the perfect and everlasting god (so, no restoration here).
> (3) The Priesthood The story of the restoration of both priesthoods was created years later that it was supposed to happen (so, unless you believe this fairy tale, no restoration here too).
"Bezoar" (above) is correct about the wide interpretations and loosely defined doctrines of the budding and diverse versions of Christianies before and after the death of Christ.
I've often wondered WHY this is. WHY didn't Christ make His "Church" and doctrines explicitly succinct and perfectly clear?
I believe it's because He knew what would happen with the "True Church" claim of the Churches, especially the Catholic Church. They would (and did) claim sole authority over the world, and they would create doctrines to pursue their personal and corporate agendas of obtaining wealth and power, and they would (and did) murder dissenters.
Because of this, Christ allowed the budding Churches to grow and develop diversely. HIS TRUE AND LIVING CHURCH is NOT on the Earth yet, according to the Bible. This is one of the BIG reasons the LDS Church wants to discount the Bible as untrustworthy. One cannot read the Bible without noticing how LDS doctrines conflict with it.
It really doesn't matter what you believe. What matterS is HOW you have lived, and HOW YOU HAVE LOVED.