By Jerald and Sandra Tanner

Joseph Smith claimed that after the Bible came from the Jews to the Gentiles, a “great and abominable church” was formed, and that this church made many changes in the Scriptures. In the Book of Mormon we read:

. . . thou seest the foundation of a great abominable church which is most abominable above all other churches; for behold, they have taken away from the gospel of the Lamb many parts which are plain and most precious; and also many covenants of the Lord have they taken away. (Book of Mormon, 1 Nephi 13:26)

Mormon writers still teach that the “great and abominable Church” altered the Bible. Joseph Fielding Smith, Jr. (son of the Mormon Historian Joseph Fielding Smith) made this statement:

The early “Apostate Fathers” did not think it was wrong to tamper with inspired Scripture. If any scripture seemed to endanger their viewpoint, it was altered, transplanted, or completely removed from the Biblical text. All this was done that they might keep their traditions. Such mutilation was considered justifiable to preserve the so-called “purity” of their doctrines. (Religious Truths Defined, page 175)

The Mormon Apostle John A. Widtsoe made this statement concerning Joseph Smith’s criticism of the text of the Bible:

The teachings of the Book of Mormon, and the revelations he had received, convinced Joseph that in the Bible were many errors, . . . after placing the matter before the Lord, he began the so-called “inspired translation” of the Bible . . .

Towards the end of the year 1830, with Sidney Rigdon as assistant, he began a somewhat full “explanation and review” of the Old and New Testaments. The work then done is a convincing evidence of Joseph’s inspiration. (Joseph Smith—Seeker After Truth, Salt Lake City, 1951, page 139)

In 1859 the Mormon Apostle Orson Pratt claimed that the “oldest manuscripts of the New Testament which this age are in possession of are supposed to date from the sixth century of the Christian era” (Journal of Discourses, vol. 7, page 26). While the Apostle Pratt’s statement was an exaggeration (Codex Vaticanus was probably written in the fourth century), there was a substantial gap between the original manuscripts and the earliest copies known to scholars. Consequently, Mormons would not accept these manuscripts as evidence against Joseph Smith’s “Inspired Translation” of the Bible.

Since the turn of the century the situation has entirely changed, for papyrus fragments have been found which virtually close the gap and prove that the Scriptures have not been rewritten by a “great and abominable church.” F. F. Bruce, of the University of Manchester, states:

In addition to the two excellent MSS of the fourth century mentioned above, which are the earliest of some thousands known to us, considerable fragments remain of papyrus copies of books of the New Testament dated from 100 to 200 years earlier still. The Chester Beatty Biblical Papyri, the existence of which was made public in 1931, consists of portions of eleven papyrus codices, three of which contained most of the New Testament writings. One of these, containing the four Gospels with Acts, belong to the first half of the third century; another, containing Paul’s letters to churches and the Epistle to the Hebrews, was copied at the beginning of the third century; the third, containing Revelation, belongs to the second half of the same century. . . .

Earlier still is a fragment of a papyrus codex containing John xviii. 31-33, 37f., now in the John Rylands Library, Manchester, dated on palaeographical grounds around AD 130, showing that the latest of the four Gospels, which was written according to tradition, at Ephesus between AD 90 and 100, was circulating in Egypt within about forty years of its composition (if, as is most likely, this papyrus originated in Egypt, where it was acquired in 1917.) It must be regarded as being, by half a century, the earliest extant fragment of the New Testament.

A more recently discovered papyrus manuscript of the same Gospel, while not so early as the Rylands papyrus, is incomparably better preserved: this is the Papyrus Bodmer II, whose discovery was announced by the Bodmer Library of Geneva in 1956: it was written about AD 200, and contains the first fourteen chapters of the Gospel of John with but one lacuna (of twenty-two verses), and considerable portions of the last seven chapters.” (The New Testament Documents—Are They Reliable? Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1976, pages 17-18)

The Papyrus Bodmer II, dated about 200 A.D., provides an excellent test for Joseph Smith’s “Inspired Translation” of the Bible. Below is a photograph of the first page of the Gospel of John in Papyrus Bodmer II.

The reader will notice that we have placed an arrow at the beginning of the text of the Gospel of John—the writing just above this is the introduction to John’s Gospel. In this study we are only dealing with the first line and about half of the second. Below we have copied the characters—written in the “Greek Uncial Script”—from the papyrus, and with the help of Berry’s Interlinear Literal Translation of the Greek New Testament we have been able to divide the words and give the English translation below each word.

The reader will note that the right side of the fragment is damaged, and that we have restored the word which translates “God” (ΘΝ is an abbreviation for ΘΕΟΝ). According to Floyd V. Filson, the word “God” is always abbreviated in this manuscript (The Biblical Archaeologist, September, 1957, page 59). Except for the last letter in the word TON, this is the only restoration we have had to make. This word means “the,” but in this case it is best to leave it untranslated. W. E. Vine states that “the article is often used with proper names, but must not be rendered in English” (New Testament Greek Grammar, page 21).

It is extremely interesting to find that the translation of the papyrus confirms the reading found in both the King James Version and the Revised Standard Version:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

When we examine Joseph Smith’s “Inspired Revision,” however, we find that this verse has been drastically altered:

In the beginning was the Gospel preached through the Son. And the Gospel was the word, and the word was with the Son, and the Son was with God, and the Son was of God.

While Joseph Smith would have us believe that he was restoring the text of the Bible to its original purity, the evidence indicates just the opposite. Because of recent discoveries of papyrus manuscripts Mormon writers are faced with a serious dilemma. It is almost impossible to maintain Joseph Smith’s teachings concerning the Bible in light of these discoveries.

Dr. Richard L. Anderson, of Brigham Young University, is undoubtedly one of the top authorities on Bible manuscripts in the Mormon Church. In a paper read at the “Fourteenth Annual Symposium on the Archaeology of the Scriptures,” Dr. Anderson seemed to be warning his people against the idea that the New Testament has been drastically altered:

This process of uncovering the major papyrus manuscripts of the New Testament has largely taken place not only in our own century, but in our own generation. . . . Almost the whole New Testament is represented in the papyrus fragments. The only two exceptions now are I and II Timothy. The real achievement, then, is that the antiquity of the text has now been pushed back almost another century. . . . the gap now separating the time of the writing of the New Testament and the oldest preserved manuscripts is now generally no more than 200 years. To underline the extent of the findings, let us stress that some part of every book of the New Testament is represented by papyrus dated as early as the third century, with the present exception of Philemon, I Timothy, II Timothy, I, II and III John. . . . As to its antiquity, P46 is thought by leading papyrologists to be no later than 200 A.D. This means that the oldest collection of Paul’s letters now dates from a maximum of 150 years after Paul wrote. With such an early collection, the question naturally arises how the text is different from the traditional one. Differences lie in numerous details, but the outstanding conclusion is that there is little, if any, significant change. . . .

Among the Bodmer Papyri, the greatest treasures are the copies of the Gospels dating back to the end of the second century. The original publication took place in 1956 of a manuscript enumerated P66. It is a practically complete copy of the Gospel of John, which the editor dates about 200 A.D. . . . the most impressive contribution of the new manuscripts of Luke and John is not the few differences, but the extent of their agreement with the life and teachings of Christ as preserved in other manuscripts. . . . For a book to undergo progressive uncovering of its manuscript history and come out with so little debatable in its text is a great tribute to its essential authenticity. In tracing the history of manuscript investigation, the student finds that two great facts emerge. First, no new manuscript discovery has produced serious differences in the essential story. This survey has disclosed the leading textual controversies, and together they would be well within one percent of the text. Stated differently, all manuscripts agree on the essential correctness of 99% of the verses in the New Testament. . . .

It is true that the Latter-day Saints have taken the position that the present Bible is much changed from its original form. However, greatest changes would logically have occurred in writings more remote than the New Testament. The textual history of the New Testament gives every reason to assume a fairly stable transmission of the documents we possess. (Fourteenth Annual Symposium in the Archaeology of the Scriptures, Brigham Young University, 1963, pages 54-59)

Robert J. Matthews, Director of Academic Research for the Department of Seminaries and Institutes in the Mormon Church, has done a great deal of research on Joseph Smith’s “Inspired Version” of the Bible. In an article published in a recent issue of BYU Studies, Dr. Matthews goes so far as to admit the possibility that Joseph Smith may have added material which was never contained in the original manuscripts of the Bible:

The question might be raised whether the Prophet actually restored the text as Matthew wrote it, or whether, being the seer that he was, he went even beyond Matthew’s text and recorded an event that actually took place during the delivery of the Sermon, but which Matthew did not include. . . .

It is probable that the Inspired Version is many things, and that only portions of it represent restorations while other portions may be explanations, interpolations, enlargements, clarifications and the like.

The science of textual criticism offers an objection to the Inspired Version being a restoration of the original text on the basis that the Prophet’s work is not extensively supported by the many ancient manuscripts and fragments of the Bible that are now in common use by scholars. However, this may possibly be accounted for in two ways. First, no original manuscripts of the Bible are available, and even the earliest available documents are removed from the originals by many decades. Corruption of the texts could have taken place in the intervening years. Second, many of the passages in the Inspired Version may be reiterations of events which were either not recorded by the Biblical writers or were lost before the Bible was compiled in which case even the original Bible manuscripts would not contain the information. . . .

My analysis leads me to conclude that the Inspired Version is many things. There are passages that are strongly persuasive of being restorations of the original text, or even of historical events beyond the text. There are other passages that may be inspired explanations, but not necessarily restorations. (Brigham Young University Studies, Winter 1969, pages 170, 173 & 174)

The Mormon scholar Dr. Hugh Nibley has recently stated that “Whatever translation comes by the gift and power of God is certainly no translation in the ordinary sense, . . . In every case in which he has produced a translation, Joseph Smith has made it clear that his inspiration is by no means bound to any ancient text, but is free to take wings at any time” (Brigham Young University Studies, Autumn 1969, page 71).

Dr. Nibley and other Mormon scholars would, no doubt, like to prove that Joseph Smith carefully followed the ancient texts which he claimed to translate, but since the evidence is so clearly against such an idea, they are forced to say that Joseph Smith’s inspiration went beyond the written texts. We feel that this is a very compromised position and comes very close to rejecting Joseph Smith’s entire work. The question comes to mind: Where do you draw the line between “inspiration” and “imagination”?

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