Mormon Terminology

26 August

Creation

The book of Moses in the Pearl of Great Price is the account of the creation.  Moses 2:1-31 is much like the account of the creation as told in the Bible.  Now if we skip over to Abraham chapters 4 and 5 in the Pearl of Great Price we see an entirely different story of the creation.  Here it tells the Mormon that the ‘Gods’ created the earth and then created man.  This is just one example of how the Mormons became confused.

Now if you are a bookworm the following may (or may not) interest you.  If you aren’t the bookworm type then let me summarize this section for you in advance.  Smith changed the meanings and the spellings of the Hebrew words for beginning, God, without form, void and created.  The reason I’ve chosen to expound in this area is for two purposes.  The first is because I’m highly repulsed by Smith’s flagrant disregard for the Word of God and his hatred towards God Himself.  The second reason is for every Mormon missionary out there.  When they come knocking on your door, they like to use Smith’s ‘revelation’ of how the creation story should have been translated.  To that I say; yes, let’s take a good look at what it really says.

The Bible says in Genesis 1:1-2; “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.  And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.”

Now let’s take a side by side look of those first two verses in the English and Hebrew before we get into Smith’s translation.

 beginning   re’shiyth
God   ‘elohiym
created   bara’
and (with Strong’s) #0853   ‘eth
earth     ‘erets
void   bohuw
without form   tohuw

The Encyclopedia of Joseph Smith’s Teachings, pg. 151 says;

“In the translation [referring to Genesis 1:1-2], “without form and void” it should read, “empty and desolate.” The word “created” should be formed or organized. (Joseph Smith, The Words of Joseph Smith, p. 60).”

 He then goes on to translate some Hebrew for us by stating:

“…Now, the word create came from the word baurau, which does not mean to create out of nothing; it means to organize; the same as a man would organize materials and build a ship. Hence we infer that God had materials to organize the world out of chaos—….Element had an existence from the time He had… They had no beginning and can have no end…”

 As you can see, Smith should have used a dictionary…read on to see how he outright lied to the people about God, the Bible and translations:

“I want to analyze the word Berosheit [in Genesis 1:1]. Rosh, the head; Sheit, a grammatical termination. The Baith was not originally put there when the inspired man wrote it, but it has been since added by an old Jew. Baurau signifies to bring forth.”

 Ask the Mormon which ‘old Jew’ added to the scripture.  This is where I challenge the Mormon to really think for themselves!  Ask them the five ‘W’s and an H’.  Smith continues to make it worse as he goes on to say the following about God:

 Eloheim is from the word Eloi, God, in the singular number; and by adding the word heim, it renders it Gods. It read first, “In the beginning the head of the Gods brought forth the Gods,” or, as others have translated it, “The head of the Gods called the Gods together.” . . .”

His explanation of the word elohim is a lie through and through.  The Bible says in Genesis that God created the earth.  It says nothing of some council of gods or the head of the gods concocting a plan.  Smith’s utter disdain for the Holy Omnipotent God can be clearly seen from his choice of words he employs here.  The word elohim means the fullness or the deity of God; in other words, the Trinity.  Additionally, the root word for elohim is ‘el’.  It means strength, mighty, and power.  Eloi means the supreme Divinity but it is not used in the first verse of the Bible.  You can find it in Mark 15:34.

For anyone living back in the 1830’s, a foreigner to the United States, uneducated and alone in a foreign country it is easy enough to see why people would be confused.  Goodness it’s easy enough for me to get confused living in the twenty-first century with the added benefit of technology today!  All this to say that I’m not a Hebrew or Greek scholar at all!  I have never professed to be and would be remiss if I didn’t tell everyone that I rely heavily on my Strong’s Concordance, Vine’s Expository Dictionary and various other Lexicons that I have at my fingertips.  I do know enough however to trust God Almighty, look up the meaning of a word and take the reputable scholars’ word for it that they know what they’re doing.

Tags: , , , , , , ,

No comments yet.

Leave a Reply