Mormons- If the BOM is the most correct book, how could have this mistake been made?

Question

1830's Text--- Mosiah 9, p. 200 … King Benjamin had a gift from God, whereby he could interpret such engravings …


Current Text---- Mosiah 21:28 … King Mosiah had a gift from God, whereby he could interpret such engravings …


1830 text---- Ether 1, p. 546 … and for this cause did King Benjamin keep them …

current text---- Ether 4:1 … and for this cause did King Mosiah keep them

http://www.irr.org/mit/CHANGINGSCRIPS.HTML

Unsing a wrong name in a book of "scripture" is hardly a clerical error!! Would you write off such mistakes in your kid's history text book as a "clerical error"?

Answer 1

"Joseph Smith would put the seer stone into a hat, and put his face in the hat, drawing it closely around his face to exclude the light; and in the darkness the spiritual light would shine. A piece of something resembling parchment would appear, and on that appeared the writing. One character at a time would appear, and under it was the interpretation in English. Brother Joseph would read off the English to Oliver Cowdery, who was his principal scribe, and when it was written down and repeated to Brother Joseph to see if it was correct, then it would disappear, and another character with the interpretation would appear. Thus the Book of Mormon was translated by the gift and power of God, and not by any power of man." (David Whitmer, An Address to All Believers in Christ, 1887

Seems that the description suggests a 'stop and go' method of translation: If it wasn't right the first time, the translation could not proceed. Benjamin=Mosiah? Nope. It was right the first time although Mosiah was already dead.

Answer 2

It is interesting that the Bible has a situation similar to that found in the Book of Mormon. We read in 1 Kings 15:29-15:5 that Abijam (also called Abijah, as in the parallel passage in 2 Chronicles 12:16) became king of Judah after the death of his father Rehoboam and that, despite his sins, the Lord preserved his kingship for the sake of his ancestor David. Then, in the verses that follow (1 Kings 15:6-7), we read, "And there was war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam all the days of his life. Now the rest of the acts of Abijam, and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah? And there was war between Abijam and Jeroboam." The name Rehoboam is anachronistic, since he was dead and the passage was intended to describe events in the days of his son Abijam. The error is actually corrected in a few Hebrew manuscripts and in the Peshitta (Christian Syriac) version to read, "And there was war between Abijah the son of Rehoboam." The parallel passage in 2 Chronicles 13:2 reads, "And there was war between Abijah and Jeroboam."

Answer 3

As part of the introduction to the Book of Mormon there is an explanation that includes the following:

About this edition: Some minor errors in the text have been perpetuated in past editions of the Book of Mormon. This edition contains corrections that seem appropriate to bring the material into conformity with prepublication manuscripts and early editions edited by the Prophet Joseph Smith.

Answer 4

Somehow I don't think the claim of being the "most correct book" was referring to spelling and clerical errors...

The more relevant question is this: If the BOM is true, wouldn't God tell a person who asked Him sincerely, having faith and real intent? If so...why not ask Him? Because...ultimately, that's the only way to really know for sure.

EDIT: OK, now you're just being silly. Do you know how the Book of Mormon got published originally? It was written by hand with a quill pen. Those handwritten notes were taken to a 19th century printing press where they were published one page at a time, by setting all the letters in place by hand. Do you honestly expect there to be no errors of any kind in the original printing???

Answer 5

If Joseph Smith had all the time in the world to make the translation from the plates, then he might not have made some mistakes, but he only had two scant months to do this, and all while he was trying to avoid mobs.

Besides, when Joseph Smith said it was the most correct book, he wasn't referring to it as a book of grammer or research. Someone at IRR really had a lot of time on their hands, if you ask me. Talk about nit picky!

Answer 6

Once again the urim and thummim was used for casting lots to see what the will of th elord was and not for translation purposes, so Joseph Smith would have been throwing those lots all day long for each word to see what each word would have been according to the lord, that would have taken too long.

Answer 7

Humans make mistakes. When he was talking about it being the most correct book he was not talking about it having absolutely no grammatical mistakes. People make mistakes when writing all the time, as I can attest to :) When he is talking about it being the most correct book, he is saying that it has the most truth in it, and that if we pray sincerely about it, we can draw closer to God then by any other book.

Answer 8

the 116 lost pages of the bom were from this section and may have contained the story of King Benjamin - this may have caused some error.

Also - humans are not perfect - no matter what God gives them.

Answer 9

There are numerous other errors, mostly in the form of references to old testament events which are now known to be fictitious.

Answer 10

God likes to test us with little mistakes like that. Remember how he tested Job? He killed his family, gave him AIDS and destroyed his crops - just to prove a point to Satan that Job would still worship him. Job did still worship God, so too should you.