Our ultimate authority is God. But how can we know what God is like and what he wants? Both Latter-day Saints and traditional Christians agree that God has revealed himself in written scriptures. But the similarities end there. Let’s take a look at what Mormonism teaches about scripture and revelation compared to the biblical perspective.
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The LDS Church recognizes four standard scriptures: the Bible, the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price (which includes the Book of Moses and the Book of Abraham). As one of four volumes of scripture, then, the Bible alone is not enough for Latter-day Saints. In fact, in the Book of Mormon (2 Nephi 29:10), God describes how more scripture, beyond the Bible, is needed: “Wherefore, because that ye have a Bible ye need not suppose that it contains all my words; neither need ye suppose that I have not caused more to be written.”
For traditional Christians, however, the Bible stands alone. The early Christian church went through an extensive process to discern what writings had the features that validated them as being from God. Many books claiming divine authority did not make the cut. And unlike other books that claim to be scripture, the Bible is well supported by the external evidence of history and archaeology, as well as its internal consistency over thousands of years.
Christians recognize that Jesus, not any book, is God’s final revelation of himself to humanity. Hebrews 1:1 declares, “Long ago God spoke many times and in many ways to our ancestors through the prophets. And now in these final days, he has spoken to us through his Son.” Jesus himself is the highest revelation of God. Yet the Bible is the source by which we know Jesus. It tells us the history of God’s action leading up to his coming. It reveals his life and work. It explains his message and describes how it spread. It details how his people learned to follow him in the practical issues of life.
Mormons revere the Bible. Yet paradoxically, they also believe that the Bible cannot ultimately be trusted. The Bible Dictionary published by the LDS Church says:
Joseph Smith taught that ‘many important points touching the salvation of men, had been taken from the Bible, or lost before it was compiled.’ He also said that the Bible was correct as ‘it came from the pen of the original writers,’ but that ‘ignorant translators, careless transcribers, or designing and corrupt priests have committed many errors.’
This explains one reason why the Bible is not the final authority for Mormons. They believe it has been changed over time. Errors have crept in. Thus, the Bible can only be understood in light of LDS scriptures and modern prophets. In fact, Joseph Smith undertook a major revision of the Bible called the Joseph Smith Translation (JST), in which he attempted to correct the errors he believed had corrupted the Bible. (For various reasons, the JST is not the official Bible of the LDS Church. Instead, they use the King James Version.)
By contrast, historic Christianity holds that the Bible has been divinely safeguarded. Latter-day Saints cannot provide any specific example of a text in the Bible where an important truth has been lost, or where intentional corruption has occurred. To the contrary, an abundance of evidence points to the remarkable preservation of the biblical text.
Consider the Dead Sea Scrolls, discovered in the 1940s. One of the scrolls is a complete copy of the Book of Isaiah dating to about 200 BC. Before this discovery, the oldest copy of Isaiah was written in the 10th century, over 1,000 years later. When compared, these two documents proved to be amazingly similar. This undermines LDS claims of intentional or unintentional corruption, demonstrating how sophisticated and successful were the copying methods used to accurately transmit the biblical text.
The LDS view of scripture and revelation diverges from historic Christianity in another important respect. Mormons believe that their church is led by modern day prophets who continue to receive direct revelation from God. One of their recent prophets, Spencer W. Kimball, said, “But again we testify to the world that revelation continues and that the vaults and files of the Church contain these revelations which come month to month and day to day.” For example, consider one important example from Kimball’s own tenure as the LDS prophet. From the early years of Mormonism, Black men were not allowed to receive the LDS priesthood. In 1978, Kimball received a revelation changing this policy.
While most of the revelations received by LDS prophets are not added to the LDS standard scriptures, a few have been and others might yet be. In the Pearl of Great Price, we read, “We believe that [God] will yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to the Kingdom of God.”
The Bible never really claims that God will not or cannot ever reveal himself again in formal scripture. Yet we saw in Hebrews 1:1 that the coming of Jesus rendered the old approach to prophetic revelation obsolete: “Long ago God spoke many times and in many ways to our ancestors through the prophets. And now in these final days, he has spoken to us through his Son.” This verse describes two eras of revelation. God revealed himself in the “long ago” era partially and sporadically through prophets. Now, “in these final days,” God has revealed himself through Jesus, the ultimate prophet. Why would we want to go back to an imperfect form of revelation that marked a bygone era, when we now have something greater?
The Bible also makes it clear that any claims of new revelation must be tested against what God has previously revealed. Deuteronomy 13:1-3 outlines the standard:
Suppose there are prophets among you or those who dream dreams about the future, and they promise you signs or miracles, and the predicted signs or miracles occur. If they then say, ‘Come, let us worship other gods’—gods you have not known before— do not listen to them.
Anything a prophet says that leads in a new direction is illegitimate. It doesn’t even matter if the prophet demonstrates supernatural power. If his words lead to a new conception of God previously unknown, that prophet and his teaching must be rejected.
If we want to know God’s character and will, the Bible is perfectly reliable and complete. The additional scriptures and revelations of Mormonism fail the test in many ways, including leading people in a very different direction from what God has already revealed.