But after much study, I fear the reason the Church sticks to the KJV is two-fold. One reason being good, the other questionable. First, the consideration of the JST. Adapting the JST footnotes to make sense in a non-KJV Bible would be an interpretive task, requiring prophetic intervention — but haven’t we all been waiting for a Prophet to come along and finish the “Inspired version of the Bible” anyway? I think this is a good reason, though, as I’d hate to see Joseph’s edits lost or corrupted through arbitrary application within a different text. The second and more significant reason, and the questionable one, is that by switching to a different version which is strong enough to endure, in other words, an accepted scholarly translation in modern English, a house of cards would begin to fall which would eventually destroy a few pet doctrines of the Church. The comparison between the two versions, and their chapter headings, footnotes, etc., would become a whirlwind of curiosity and criticism in the new edition, adding to the doctrinal pitfalls already extant in the current KJV now printed by Intellectual Reserve, Inc. (the Church’s holding company) Basically, it would give us a ton of new material to argue about. And I don’t think the general authorities of the Church would see that as a good thing.

We do believe that as God is, man may become- becoming perfected is the purpose of the resurrection and redemption- the purpose of the grace of God. It follows that becoming perfected and spotless is to become as God is. That’s as far as I take that doctrine.

I don’t think man can produce something inerrant, because man is so imperfect now: subject to biases, pride, and temptations. I would say that even the words we use are imperfect to describe the Gospel. That is the reason I agree with you on your point that errors in the KJV are often errors in reading. I would add to that- errors in putting ink to paper- in writing. The word of God is inerrant, but the means He has of putting the word in our hands are far from perfect, despite how much integrity and purity they possess. Mistakes are inevitable because on Earth, we cannot be perfect.

I believe that God gave us the Bible, and that’s it.

Being a literal believer in the Bible, can you please show me where it states that “God gave us the Bible?”

Huh, and I appealed to the Bible to answer the question, not to “modern revelation.”

Assuming I understand what you are asking, the best (and most official) definition of what Mormons consider the gospel to be is found in the Book of Mormon 3 Nephi 27:13-21. The author here (Mormon) is recording the words of Jesus Christ when he visited his disciples on the American continent, so the person speaking is Jesus. That should be enough context to understand what is going on in that passage.

What’s interesting is that Dan and I gave such different answers to you question about the couplet. I tried to explain why we believe that mortals can become like God. Danithew tried to explain why we believe that God once was like mortals.

And though both of us appealed to the Bible to explain the couplet, you responded by saying that you don’t believe in continuing revelation.

Regarding, “I don’t believe that man is like God or God is like man.” Surely, you overstate your opinion here. The Bible tells us that God created us in his image:

Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness…

      So God created humankind in his image,
      in the image of God he created them;
      male and female he created them.

(Genesis 1:26-27, NRSV)

I am not (nor have I ever been) Mormon (but I’ve actually been into one of the annual Mormon conferences in SLC. VERY interesting.). So, I don’t believe that man is like God or God is like man. Jesus Christ (John 10:30 “I and my Father are one”) was God manifest in the flesh. He put on flesh so that he could die for us.

SIDE QUESTION: What do Mormon’s believe the gospel is?

The usual defense for the Lorenzo Snow couplet is John 5:19, which reads:

17 But Jesus answered them, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.
18 Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not only had broken the sabbath, but said also that God was his Father, making himself equal with God.
19 Then answered Jesus and said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise.

If taken literally, Jesus does nothing but what he sees his Father doing. That includes everything. The belief then is that the Father acted as a Savior on another world in another time.

My own personal view? I don’t think enough has been revealed to state affirmatively anything of this sort, and I’ll wait patiently until more is revealed.

Lauren, I’m not exactly sure what nasmomdele means either. But here’s my answer to your question:

We Mormons believe something like the Lorenzo Snow couplet, but it’s among the more obscure doctrines of our church — as opposed to the more central ones like love God, love your neighbor, and proclaim the gospel. But basically, we take the couplet to be a restatement of Christ’s New Testament promise that we can inherit all that God has. We take that promise literally.

Also more central than the belief expressed by that couplet is the core belief that mortal man is the enemy of God, because, as Paul said, no man is without sin. But we have hope in Christ’s atonement, which is infinite and can cleanse us of our sins. Mormons look at sins as unfortunate mistakes that arise as part of learning (without Christ’s atonement, they’d be unfortunate mistakes that doom us). By God’s grace and mercy, He teaches us and we can learn and progress without being condemned for the imperfections that make it necessary for us to learn in the first place.

This kind of learning takes an awful long time, which brings us to the Mormon belief in eternal progression. In a nutshell, eternal progression means that if the we are to realize Christ’s promise that we can inherit everything that God has, it won’t happen during our sojourn on this earth as mortals. So there is no infallible man (well, Christ was, but he was God and man and all that).