For the past several years I’ve been convinced the Holy Bible is a pretty unreliable and even dangerous book filled with inaccurate information that is designed to lead people astray. As a result, I rarely read it and if I do, I take it with a rather large grain of salt.

The reason I thought this way was primarily because of what we read in 1 Nephi 13 and 14 wherein Nephi speaks of a corrupted book carried around by Gentiles. I believe it was Daymon Smith’s Cultural History of the Book of Mormon (but I can’t recall exactly) that convinced me the counterfeit book spoken of by Nephi is today’s Holy Bible. However, I’ve lately concluded that’s not accurate. In this post I’ll explain why that’s a bad reading of Nephi’s vision.

I don’t want to post an overly lengthy BoM citation so I will liberally apply ellipses to keep it as concise as possible. The context for this quote is Nephi is in the middle of a vision where an angel is showing him various things and explaining what they mean. Here goes:

And it came to pass that I saw among the nations of the gentiles the foundation [the modern BoM says “formation” instead of “foundation” but the original shows that the Gentiles did not form or create this abominable church, they were themselves already subjected to it, it having been formed by Melkor from the foundations of the world.] of a great church.  And the angel said unto me:  

Behold the foundation of a church which is most abominable 

Above all other churches … 

And it came to pass that I looked and beheld many waters [i.e. outer space], and they divided the gentiles from the seed of my brethren. …

And I looked and beheld a man among the gentiles … and he went forth upon the many waters, even unto the seed of my brethren who were in the promised land.  And … other gentiles … went forth … upon the many waters.  

[…this event of Gentiles going forth has yet to occur, in my opinion, and does not represent the European scattering of Native American Indians. These Gentiles are in my view, dwarves reborn here as men who finally fulfill ancient prophecy in taking the BoM and other writings to the Lehite remnant, scattering them, later repenting, restoring the Lehites, and being adopted into their house….]

… I beheld many multitudes of the gentiles upon the land of promise and I beheld … my brethren … were scattered before the gentiles … And … the gentiles … did prosper and obtain the land of their inheritance. …

And … did humble themselves before the Lord, and … their mother gentiles were gathered … to battle against them.  … And … the gentiles that had gone out of captivity were delivered by the power of God out of the hands of all other nations.  … And I beheld a book, and it was carried forth among them.  And the angel said unto me:  Knowest thou the meaning of the book? [now we’ll get into the meat of exactly how the Gentiles accomplished what they did and the question of “the book”]

And I said unto him:  I know not.

And he said:  Behold! It proceedeth out of the mouth of a Jew.  … 

The book … is a record of the Jews, which contains 

The covenants of the Lord, …

And it also containeth many of the prophecies of the holy prophets. 

And it is a record like unto the engravings which are upon 

The Plates of Brass, … Wherefore, they are of great worth unto the gentiles. …

It contained the plainness of the gospel of the Lamb, … And after they go forth … from the Jews unto the Gentiles, thou seest the foundation 

Of that great and abominable church, … [T]hey have taken away from 

The gospel of the Lamb many parts which are plain and most precious. 

…  Wherefore, thou seest that 

After the book hath gone forth … that there are many plain and precious things 

Taken away from the book, which is the Book of the Lamb of God.

And after these plain and precious things were taken away it goeth 

Forth unto all the nations of the gentiles

I used to read that as saying the Book of the Lamb of God was published AFTER the Gentiles scatter the Lehite remnant, but I now find that a pretty tortured reading. Instead, it seems pretty clear that the angel is saying the Gentiles are carrying a book with them when they do the scattering, and not just that, but it is because of that book the Gentiles have power to do this.

He explicitly names this book as the Book of the Lamb of God, not the Holy Bible. And not just the Book of the Lamb of God but actually a corrupted version of it that is missing some very important information.

Have you ever wondered why the Gentiles scatter the Lehite remnant? Why scatter them only to later repent and join them? It’s because the Gentiles will work under some false premise because they receive a corrupted Book of the Lamb of God and later they realize their mistake, repent, etc.

As we learn in 2 Nephi, it is subsequent writings that teach the Gentiles the error of their ways, but it’s only AFTER they scatter the Lehites that they are told that their beloved book is corrupted and in need of correction.

Based on this timeline, and what the angel is clearly implying, is that it is the corrupted Book of the Lamb of God that gives the Gentiles the power to cross space (yes, outer space) to wherever the Lehite remnant now resides, scatter them, somehow be made to glow “white” meaning “bright” (essentially looking like angels), and to claim the Promised Land for their own. Does the power that comes from that book sound like the Bible to you because it doesn’t sound like it to me? I don’t know of anyone who reads the Holy Bible and starts glowing.

Delivered From All Nations

Most people assume this scattering Nephi refers to has already happened when the Europeans sailed across the Atlantic to kill the Native Americans and take their lands. And hey, they were white Anglos who mostly believed in the Holy Bible, ergo the Holy Bible is the corrupted Book of the Lamb of God.

Here’s the biggest reason I don’t think that fits:

I, Nephi, beheld that the gentiles that had gone out of captivity were delivered by the power of God out of the hands of all other nations.

Yes, sure, the USA is the “land of the free”, or so it is claimed, but I don’t think we can reasonably declare that the people living in the US are “delivered…out of the hands of all other nations.” When they first got here, the Colonists were under England’s rule. Later they famously rebelled and set up their own government as its own nation.

Did that make them “delivered” from all nations? Certainly not their own nation. And especially not today. For one, the US is clearly beholden to the wishes and desires of other nations like Ukraine, Israel, Nato members, etc.

And even excluding that, the citizens of the US have yet to be delivered from their own nation. The US govt and the oligarchs who control the largest corporations are the true rulers here. If you really think you are currently delivered from “all other nations”, try not paying your taxes and see what happens. A nation will show up at your door and you will forcibly comply.

If you find that argument compelling, then I think you have to conclude, like me, that this vision Nephi is describing is either yet to occur or it has occurred off planet and we just aren’t aware of it. And ergo: the book that the Gentiles carry forth is NOT the Holy Bible. It is instead a corrupted version of the Book of the Lamb of God.

As such, I think we ought to be wary of any book coming out that is called the Book of the Lamb of God. Nephi seems pretty adamant that the first version of that book is very corrupted, and while it apparently empowers the Gentiles to do some amazing things, he warns that:

Because 

Of these things which are taken away out of the gospel of the Lamb, 

An exceedingly great many do stumble, yea, insomuch that Satan 

Hath great power over them.  

So let’s be cautious about any book coming out with that title.

But What About 2 Nephi 29?

True, the BoM does mention the “Bible”, or at least at first glance it appears to. The context is in the middle of a pretty long rant by God about how various groups of Gentiles and “Jews” (and remember, Jews of the BoM are not the same as the Jews of our world) will be corrupt at the end of days and very much in need of records to come forth to cure them of their unbelief. God goes off on the Gentiles for getting upset about new records because when they see them, they will say

A bible!  A bible! 

We have got a bible, and there cannot be any more bible.

Think of this as lower case “b” bible, not the Holy Bible of our era. Why? Because bible is a word that just means book or scroll or parchment. All these Gentiles are saying is “we already have a book and there can’t be more to it” and the book they mean is the Book of the Lamb of God. The reason they will say this is not the same reason today’s Bible thumpers use similar language.

These Gentiles will say this because of the power that will come from their corrupted Book of the Lamb of God. After all, if you could suddenly sail across space and take over a celestial Promised Land all while glowing bright like an angel, and all because of the power of a book (corrupted though it will be), you’d be pretty defensive of it too I suspect!