Have Precious Truths
Been Lost from the Bible?

By Gary F. Zeolla

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (i.e. Mormonism) teaches that men can become gods, that God the Father used to be a man, that there is more than one true God, along with many other doctrines that conflict with historic Christianity (Ludlow, pp. 71- 79).

The problem is NONE of these ideas are contained in the Bible (see Mormonism vs. The Bible). Thus, Mormons are forced to make the claim that the Bible used to contain these ideas, but they were somehow removed from it.

Brigham Young (the second president of the Mormon church) proclaimed, ". . . many precious things may have been rejected in the compilation and translation of the Bible . . ." (Ludlow, p. 346). Mormon missionaries will often reiterate this idea by saying, "Precious truths have been lost from the Bible."

This claim that the Bible has been altered is an interesting one. But it is easy to make such a claim. It is another thing altogether to verify it. The evidence, in fact, argues otherwise.

The New Testament Text

The preface to the New King James Version of the Bible states, "There is more manuscript support for the New Testament than for any other body of ancient literature. Over five thousand Greek, eight thousand Latin, and many more manuscripts in other languages attest the integrity of the New Testament" (NKJV, p. vii).

These manuscripts have been discovered throughout the entire area of what used to be the Roman Empire. Some of the manuscripts date to within decades of the originals. So any systematic attempt to alter them would have been extremely difficult (McDowell, pp. 39-52).

This is not to say there are no variants between the manuscripts. There are differences. But most of these are insignificant. "Some variations exist in the spelling of Greek words, in word order, and in similar details. These ordinarily do not show up in translation and do not affect the sense of the text in any way" (NKJV, p. vii).

In the few places where a variant would affect the meaning of a verse, most modern day translations will indicate the alternate reading in footnotes. However, these differences ". . . should not overshadow the overwhelming degree of agreement which exists among the ancient records" (NKJV, p. viii).

Thus, the overall integrity of the New Testament text remains intact. The burden of proof is with the one who claims otherwise.

The Old Testament Text

As regards the Old Testament, the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls helped to uphold its integrity. These scrolls were ". . . the remnants of the library of a religious community which had its headquarters at Khirbet Qumran between 145 BC and 68 AD . . ." (Bruce, p. 297).

In 68 AD, during the Jewish-Roman wars, this community carefully sealed its scrolls in jars, hid them, and fled the area. These jars remained undisturbed till their discovery in 1947 (McDowell, p. 57).

Among these scrolls, at least parts of all of the books of the Old Testament were found except for Esther. These manuscripts date to the second to third centuries BC. They thus predated by 1000 years the oldest copies we had previously (Bruce, p. 298). Upon comparison, there was found to be no substantial differences between these two sets of manuscripts (McDowell, pp. 57-58).

For example, "Even though two copies of Isaiah discovered in Qumran Cave I near the Dead Sea in 1947 were a thousand years earlier than the oldest dated manuscript previously known (A.D.980), they proved to be word for word identical with our standard Hebrew Bible in more than 95 percent of the text. The 5 percent of variation consisted chiefly of obvious slips of the pen and variations of spelling" (Archer, p.25).

Furthermore, since these scrolls were unknown and undisturbed for 1900 years, there is no way any particular doctrines could have been "lost" or removed from them.

More details on these matters can be had by consulting such books as Evidence That Demands a Verdict by Josh McDowell or The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable? by F. F. Bruce.

Conclusion

All this information demonstrates, "Precious truths have NOT been lost from the Bible." As such, Mormon doctrines are not, and never have been, in the Bible. For more on the textual integrity of the New Testament text, see An Introduction to Textual Criticism.

Bible Study and Versions

The first book is for the person struggling in life and for the person struggling with how God sovereignly works in people’s lives. The second answers questions such as: Why do Bible versions differ? Why does the same verse read differently in different versions? Why do some versions contain words, phrases, and even entire verses that other versions omit? Which Bible versions are the most reliable? The third book answers the question posed by the title.

The LORD Has It Under Control: What the Bible Teaches About the Sovereignty of God

Differences Between Bible Versions: Third Edition

Is the New World Translation a Reliable Bible Version? Edition 2.2

Have Precious Truths Been Lost from the Bible?

The New Testament Text

The Old Testament Text

Conclusion

Have Precious Truths
Been Lost from the Bible?