foreign [Music] I had lived in the state of Utah for more than 15 years before moving here to Jerusalem capital of Israel along with many Jews Muslims and Christians I also found a strong Mormon presence here for example this is the Jerusalem Campus of Brigham Young University [Music] this is Greg Gifford I met him while he was touring the country Greg is a generational Mormon and a lifelong member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to me the Book of Mormon is a beautiful book I love reading the book of Mormon all of Christianity could be likened to an elementary education I believe that Mormonism is kind of the high school education we just have more information than Christians Greg agreed to get together at my Jerusalem apartment to have a discussion about the Prophecies of both Mormon and biblical Prophets We Begin our conversation focused on the test of a prophet found in the Bible in the book of Deuteronomy chapter 18. Deuteronomy 18 21 asks a question how can we know when a message has not been spoken by the Lord would you consider that to be an important question to ask oh absolutely and why so that’s the difference between a man speaking and the Lord speaking the next verse answers this question if what a prophet proclaims in the name of the Lord does not take place or come true that is a message the Lord has not spoken [Music] what is it that would cause a prophet to fail the test of a profit whatever the profit proclaims has to take place or come true says right there which makes sense right because by Nature God is the only one that knows the future you and I both don’t know what’s going to happen in the next five minutes it’s a brilliant and very logical test isn’t it yeah foreign is someone who claims God is speaking through them so how can we know when a message has not been spoken by the Lord the answer is the test of a prophet here’s how it works since only God knows the future people can test a Prophet by how accurately he predicts the future if even one of his predictions does not take place or come true that Prophet fails the test and if a prophet fails then God commands a people to put him to death and to not be afraid of him the introduction page to the Book of Mormon reads the book was written by many ancient prophets by the spirit of Prophecy and revelation by the spirit of Prophecy and revelation then we should be able to test we should be able to take this Deuteronomy 18 simple test and apply it to Mormon prophets correct correct and we should be able to take that simple test and to be fair we should also apply it to biblical Prophets so are you willing to do that yeah do it [Music] [Music] first profit we will test is the Book of Mormon prophet Nephi one of his prophecies is summarized by the Mormon church under the chapter heading of first Nephi chapter 13. here Nephi is predicting the loss of many plain and precious parts of the Bible causing a need for the restoration of the Gospel the coming forth of Latter-day scripture so you would agree then that Christianity is is based on the old and the New Testament alone as scripture and then Mormonism is saying well no there’s a problem with the Bible it’s been corrupted this is the restoration of that corruption and so these books you need to take into account and to addition to the to the Bible yes so this is what you would trust in as as a Bible would you would it be like this would it be the Bible first and then Mormon scripture uh well it’s been corrupted it’s always gotta be this way it’s got to be that way okay in the Book of Mormon the prophet Nephi also States thou fool that shall say a Bible we have got a Bible and we need no more Bible so do you think that as a Christian I’m a fool for believing in the Bible alone I do really the notes at the bottom of the page claim that this prophecy was given between 600 and 592 BC at this time the Mormon prophet Nephi prophesied that after the Twelve Apostles of the Lamb would come the formation of that great and abominable church for behold they have taken away from the gospel of the Lamb many parts which are plain and most precious [Music] so around 600 BC Nephi prophesied that after the 12 Apostles of Jesus the Abominable Church which refers to the early Christian Church would corrupt the Bible so let me make sure that I get this absolutely straight here’s the Bible that I use as a Christian what what chapter 13 is saying is that plain and precious portions went missing from my Bible that’s that’s basically what our whole religion is based on is that there’s a lot of plain and plain and precious truths that have been removed from the Bible because of these things which are taken away out of the Gospel of the Lamb Satan hath great power over them and that great pit which hath been digged for them by that great and abominable Church which was founded by the devil and his children that he might lead away The Souls of men down to Hell so is the Book of Mormon saying that because of this Corruption of the Bible those who follow this corrupted Bible would end up in hell yes so to test Nephi’s prophecy I talked to Greek linguists Dr Christopher Rico because he is an expert on the reliability of the Bible Nephi is uh according to Mormonism is a a profit and he is prophesying if you if you look at the notes here between 600 and 592 BC so this is a prediction of the distant future well the first thing is uh I won’t find any scholar who would take seriously uh the this statement that this Prophet is from the years 600 and 592 before Christ the first question I would ask or the first demand I would ask is that they produce a single manuscript of these uh of this Prophet I mean there is nothing there is not a single manuscript either from Antiquity or even from the Middle Ages that they could produce so this is a text that has been written in modern times I mean there’s there’s nothing more that can be said about it are there any ancient copies of the Book of Mormon that would predate the time of Joseph Smith you know not here on Earth anyway but what happened was the gold plates were given to Joseph Smith he copied them he translated from them and then the gold plates were taken back into heaven okay um you know tomorrow I can come and I say look I have had a revelation from heaven and this is the holy book and all the the all the other stuff is stuff is nonsense I can do that so uh the only the only guarantor of it is me what does it mean it doesn’t mean anything so there are no ancient manuscripts to back up the prophecy of Nephi about the loss of many plain and precious parts of the Bible in my conversation with Greg he explained to me what the Mormon church had taught him about how this Corruption of the Bible occurred well it’s always been my understanding that there has been one manuscript and as it faded over time then monks would free copy it over and over and over again as the manuscript would fade then they’d create a new one with new ink and if they didn’t like the way something read or if they thought it was too controversial they’d just leave it out isn’t it the case that in Antiquity the way that the Bible was preserved was that there was only one copy of the Bible and that that copy faded over time and then as it faded they would make another copy of it by copying it over but just one copy at a time no that’s all no that’s all the situation is completely different what you do have in Antiquity is first of all the church start spreading over the Roman Empire and other parts so everywhere they need copies so at the very beginning what you need is copies copies of the New Testament copies of the New Testament because there’s thousands of copies of course well I I understand after having been here and visited that there are literally thousands of manuscripts people would go places and want to take their scriptures with them so they would copy down from another manuscript and a whole bunches of people would do that so there’s literally thousands we have uh like six thousand uh copies uh uh of uh that that go back to Antiquity that are either in Hebrew for the Old Testament or in Greek for the New Testament if we are talking about the versions We are we the the figure is much higher we have 40 000 copies so which is something amazing you don’t have a single other book in Antiquity where you have so many uh so many texts so let me get this straight the Book of Mormon has zero ancient manuscripts to back it up yet it is criticizing the Bible of being unreliable when the Bible has 40 000 ancient manuscripts to support it if that were to happen over and over again that monks didn’t like something so they would take it out of the New Testament with all that you have with the different translations and all the fragments and all the copies that you have would you be able to determine that that happened impossible this is impossible because soon after the original writings of the New Testament thousands of copies were made so if a monk wanted to make a change his change would stand out like a sore thumb [Music] this is also true for the Old Testament but these copies are actually older than when Nephi says the corruption of the Bible took place [Music] so being here in Israel um we can test our modern Bibles with what’s been found in the Dead Sea Scrolls [Music] I met up with Dead Sea scroll expert Dr Randall price who was Excavating at kumaran where the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered so again Nephi prophesied that the Bible would be corrupted after the Twelve Apostles of Jesus and because the Dead Sea Scrolls are older than this predicted corruption we can compare the Dead Sea Scrolls with our modern Bibles to see if any plain and precious portions are missing this is cave one this is where the first discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls was made so the the plain and precious things were were missing this is saying after the 12 apostles and after the scriptures went to the Gentiles what does the Dead Sea scroll say about that because that would predate that yeah obviously this is before Jesus uh birth before the birth of the church they were hidden away not discovered for 2000 years after so it gives us a chance to look at a history before any of this became controversy or any possible changes could have been introduced and it tells us that the texts remained unchanged there’s nothing different between it and the translation from which our modern Bibles come so there’s nothing missing are these plain and precious portions missing from the New Testament look when we are talking about the New Testament we are talking about the best ever well-known book of antiquity and the difference between what we know about the New Testament and any other book from Antiquity is amazing and so if the reality is as if it is this way but we can show with the evidence that it hasn’t been corrupted that that we have the we have it preserved in our modern Bibles then that would nullify that whole need for restoration in a nutshell did that prophecy come true in history absolutely not when we see when we compare all the ancient copies of the New Testament that we have the the differences are very small so you cannot even show me a text where these has been done because the difference between the different copies that we have are very very very tiny they don’t affect the substance of the of of the of the meaning it is like a saying instead of how can I put it but saying however it is this kind of small and Tiny changes you you don’t have changes that affect the substance of of the meaning of of the New Testament so it’s uh it’s something that that it’s uh utterly impossible so back to what is being claimed by Nephi in Chapter 13 did his prediction that the that our modern Bibles would become corrupt after the time of The Twelve Apostles of the Lamb did that come to pass in history I believe that well from what I’ve been taught as a youngster yes it has occurred and what does the evidence that you find here going and looking at these ancient copies of the Bible tell you in regards to that that it has not they’re all the same then what would the logical conclusion be well it just shows Nephi was wrong when he said when he made that statement since Nephi’s prediction that the Bible would be corrupted did not take place in history he fails the test of a prophet we can also test the prophets in the bible the central theme of the prophecies made by the Old Testament prophets is in the coming of a person known as the Messiah someone who would come to save and eventually rule the world the writers of the New Testament believe that Jesus Christ was this messiah in the New Testament the title Christ has the same meaning as the Old Testament title Messiah the first biblical Prophet we will test is Micah around 700 BC Micah prophesied that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem but you Bethlehem though you are small among the clans of Judah out of you will come from me one who will be ruler over Israel whose Origins are from of old from ancient times amazingly a fragment containing Micah’s prophecy was discovered among the Dead Sea Scrolls Dr Price took me to the cave where it was found what we know is beneath this floor there were 15 000 fragments that were uncovered this fragment containing Micah 5 2 dates to 100 BC making it a century older than the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem in Matthew’s gospel he states that Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea and then he quotes Micah 5 2 to show that Jesus fulfills Micah’s prophecy so there is a link between the prophecy of Micah and then in the New Testament it is it is said that he was born in Bethlehem and that he fulfills the uh the that prophecy [Music] I went to Bethlehem for Christmas along with crowds of people from all over the world [Music] this is the Church of the Nativity it’s built over the traditional place of Jesus’s birth a site that pilgrims have been visiting for almost two thousand years Jewish archaeologist Dr Gabriel barkai has been working in Israel for more than 40 years listen I’m very objective first of all I’m an archaeologist and I’m not Christian where personally do you believe that Jesus was born under the church of nativity in Bethlehem there are some caves and those cavities were in use in the first century beyond the needle for very important places a very significant places in Christian Christian faith I would regard the traditional places as authentic but Mike is not the only Prophet who predicted where the Messiah would be born in the Book of Mormon the prophet Alma prophesied and behold he shall be born of Mary at Jerusalem [Music] you can turn to Alma chapter 7 verse 10. foreign Book of Mormon is saying that Jesus is born in Jerusalem Micah is in the Bible is saying that the Messiah is born in Bethlehem can they both be right no Mormon Scholars try to argue that since Bethlehem is so close to Jerusalem they can be considered the same place that was Bethlehem part of the land of the Bible well even today if you go to Bethlehem you realize it’s essentially a suburb Bethlehem is how far away from Jerusalem about six miles of course it’s going to be in the land of Jerusalem is this for sure a mistake because the Mormon Scholars say well Bethlehem is close to Jerusalem so they can be the same but the historical geographers in fact I interviewed a historical geographer and I didn’t tell them what the issue was I just I just started trying to convince him that Bethlehem and Jerusalem are so close to each other that they could be considered the same thing and he treated me like I didn’t know what I was talking about and corrected me have you ever heard of uh Bethlehem being described as the land of Jerusalem it’s not the land of Jerusalem Bethlehem is a city six miles south of Jerusalem could you is there any way that you could say that Bethlehem is uh is so close to Jerusalem that you could just call it Jerusalem no and there’s there’s cities in between Bethlehem and Jerusalem because Jesus was born in Jerusalem right no Jesus was born in Bethlehem so historically have you been to Bethlehem which one do you think is right historically historically it’s Bethlehem causes me great angst I’m I’d like to say that Alma is a human that he makes mistakes but Deuteronomy says that you in that context you cannot make mistakes so I I it’s hard for me to to declare that Alma well he obviously made a mistake so is there any other way to look at that but that that’s a mistake no so do you think there’s any other way to look at this but that this is a mistake that it’s just a mistake I I don’t know what else to say about it it’s thank you how could you make this mistake it’s but but think about it back in our test for a profit is God trying to trick us or does he want us to be protected he wants us to be protected so he gives us a simple test right not a complex one that’s right and and isn’t it isn’t it something that that we should test and and if it fails isn’t it for our protection it is for our protection [Music] the New Testament declares that Micah’s prophecy was fulfilled when Jesus was born in Bethlehem since Jesus was not born in Jerusalem Alma fails the test of a prophet [Music] next Greg and I tested the biblical prophet Isaiah [Music] around 700 BC the Old Testament prophet Isaiah made several prophecies about the coming Messiah one of the most significant was the prediction that the Messiah would come from the ancestry of King David in love a throne will be established in faithfulness a man will sit on it one from the House of David the oldest copy of this prophecy dates to 125 BC and is preserved in what’s known as the great Isaiah scroll it was time for Greg and I to make the climb up to Cave number one where the great Isaiah scroll was discovered [Music] but this is literally right here is where they found an entire Scroll of Isaiah that dates to 125 BC wow I got to see the actual great Isaiah scroll [Music] because it was on display to the public for three months last year for the 60th anniversary they brought it out and displayed it [Music] a discovery like this is do you have anything like this in Mormonism for the Book of Mormon or any Mormon scripture not that I know of [Music] [Music] Isaiah says that the Messiah will come from the House of David do we know that the House of David is real so the House of David which is first mentioned in the bible but is also mentioned extra biblical sources such as the tell done inscription this is one of two inscriptions that have been found dating to the 9th century BC that specifically mention the historical House of David the House of David is the family out of which the Messiah is supposed to come so we have two ancient inscriptions that mention the House of David specifically yes both of them 9th century BC and then and then was Jesus from the House of David that is the tradition which we have in the uh in the um in the New Testament [Music] foreign what does it mean he is giving to Jesus a Messianic title son of David there is also additional evidence outside of the Bible that Jesus is from the ancestry of King David eusebius an ancient source reports what happened to the descendants of Jesus’s brother Jude at the end of the First Century A.D the descendants of Jude were related to Christ himself and they were brought to the emperor and he asked them if they were descendants of David and they confessed that they were this fact is very telling for us because it shows that the family of Jesus was the family of The Heirs of King David so Jesus was the heir of King David So when in the at the cross you have a title which is nailed uh uh under the cross or up on the cross we don’t know where it was written Jesus uh from Nazareth King of the Jews this has a very serious meaning he is the son of David so there is both biblical and extra biblical evidence that Jesus fulfills Isaiah’s prophecy that the Messiah would come from the House of David Then Greg and I went from a prophecy about King David to a prophecy that King David himself gave King David’s prophecies about the coming Messiah are in the book of Psalm including one that predicts details about the messiah’s death they have pierced my hands and my feet [Music] a fragment containing this prophecy was found among the Dead Sea Scrolls we have found a fragment of that Psalm beside the Dead Sea that reads or translates they have beards pierced my hands and my feet an obvious form of execution that pierced the hands and feet of the victim was Roman crucifixion there is strong evidence that the Romans crucified their prisoners by nailing them hands and feet to crosses do we have any archaeological evidence that people were crucified by being nailed to crosses yes there was found the bone box and ashuri and inside it there were found the bones of one individual he ended his life upon the cross his heel bones were found with the nails still inside them it proves Beyond any doubt they practice of crucifixion there’s also literary evidence outside of the Bible that people were nailed to crosses the first century historian Josephus wrote as an eyewitness that the Roman soldiers amuse themselves by nailing their prisoners in different postures and so great was their number that space could not be found for the crosses nor crosses for the bodies incredibly Josephus also wrote about the crucifixion of Jesus now there was about this time Jesus and pilate had condemned him to the cross [Music] I understand I joined the crowds in the streets of Jerusalem on Good Friday as they commemorated the crucifixion of Jesus an event that took place almost 2 000 years ago in the New Testament the eyewitnesses to Jesus’s crucifixion wrote about the nail marks in his hands the Greek word that is uh that that appears there is precisely a nail so Jesus was really nailed uh and and also you have uh in the book of Acts it is uh clearly said and the word that you have in Greek uh clearly says that Jesus was nailed so uh you see Jesus was nailed to the cross and these uh fulfills that prophecy of Psalm 22 where it is said that they have pierced my hands and my feet [Music] foreign prophecy that the Messiah would die by having his hands and feet pierced is preserved in a Dead Sea scroll fragment that is over a hundred years older than when Jesus was nailed to a cross through his hands and his feet [Music] next Greg and I tested the biblical Prophet Daniel the Old Testament prophets not only give us detailed information about how the Messiah would die but the Prophet Daniel even predicts when Daniel predicted that the Messiah will be cut off and have nothing and the people of the prince who is to come will destroy the city and the sanctuary cutoff is an Old Testament term meaning killed the city referred to here is Jerusalem and its Sanctuary is the temple so in about 538 BC Daniel predicted a significant sequence of events he predicted first that the Messiah would be killed and then the temple in Jerusalem destroyed we know in history that from Daniel until today the only time that the temple was destroyed was in 70 A.D so in order for Daniel’s prophecy to be fulfilled the Messiah would have to be killed before 70 A.D this is precisely when Jesus was crucified after Jesus was crucified is it true that Jerusalem and the temple were destroyed crucifixion took place in Jerusalem around the year 33 of the Common Era in the year 70 of the Common Era the temple got burned down by the soldiers of Titus Titus and his army his engineering forces intentionally ruined the entire city of Jerusalem as well as the focal point of Jerusalem that’s the Temple mount there’s no question right that the that the writings of Daniel including that particular prophecy predate the 70 A.D destruction that’s for sure that’s for sure so the city of Jerusalem and the temple will be destroyed after the Messiah is cut off and that’s what happened [Music] so just as Daniel predicted Jesus was killed just before the temple and Jerusalem were destroyed after his death Jesus was taken down from the cross and laid in a tomb like this one [Music] this tomb is 2 000 years old dating back to the time of Jesus [Music] today the Tomb of Jesus is protected beneath this mass of construction will bury it beneath this mass of construction here is the Tomb of Jesus [Music] there is a very very ancient tradition about the pla the location of the Tomb and the place of crucifixion which is in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher this is Dr Shimon Gibson he is a secular archaeologist who has personally excavated here in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher [Music] if I weigh up all this evidence that I have the ecological historical evidence this has to be the Tomb of Jesus and it’s nothing I’m not swayed by any kind of sort of religious belief here it’s based on archaeological historical evidence this has to be the Tomb of Jesus please finally I showed Greg another prophecy by King David [Music] not only prophesied about how the Messiah would die but he goes on to predict that he would not stay in the grave but would again know the path of life you will not abandon me to the Grave nor will you let your Holy One see Decay you have made known to me the path of life the disciples believed that Jesus was the Fulfillment of David’s prophecy because his body did not decay in the grave he had risen from the dead on the third day after Jesus’s burial some of his women followers found his tomb empty on the the Sunday following the execution which took place on on Friday the women come to the tomb expecting to see the body of Jesus inside and they find nothing it’s an empty truth I talked with Dr William Lane Craig the author of The groundbreaking book assessing the New Testament evidence for the historicity of the resurrection of Jesus we have very very strong literary evidence for the empty tomb namely the evidence found in the gospels and the rest of the New Testament in the gospels an angel at the empty tomb tells the women he is not here he is risen the original explanation that the disciples themselves the eyewitnesses gave was God raised Jesus from the dead that was the message they proclaimed in Jerusalem and were willing to die for it there is no doubt that the apostles saw Jesus’s resurrection as a direct fulfillment of David’s prophecy in fact the Apostle Peter quotes David’s prophecy in his sermon and preaches that David died and was buried and his tomb is here to this day but he was a prophet and he spoke of the resurrection of the Christ that he was not abandoned to the Grave nor did his body see Decay God has raised this Jesus to life and we are all Witnesses of the fact the contrast was very clear whereas David’s tomb was there identifiable the Tomb of Jesus was empty his body was not to be found God had raised him up and so in the sermons of the Acts of the Apostles we have independent evidence for the empty tomb of Jesus in these Apostolic sermons but the literary evidence even goes beyond the New Testament again the first century historian Josephus even though he is not a follower of Jesus still writes of his resurrection those that loved him at the first did not forsake Him for he appeared to them alive again the third day as the Divine prophets had foretold we have multiple independent early witnesses to the facts of Jesus empty tomb post-mortem appearances and the origin of the disciples belief in his resurrection and it’s on that basis that the majority of New Testament historians have come to believe that these are in fact uh historical pay dirt and belong to the portrait of the historical Jesus that we can reconstruct when I weigh the historical evidence pertinent to the resurrection of Jesus and the various competing hypotheses to explain this evidence then I’m convinced objectively and honestly that the best explanation of this evidence is the hypothesis that the original eyewitnesses gave that God raised Jesus from the dead and for that reason I think that this was a historical event even today pilgrims returned to the site of Jesus’s tomb to celebrate his resurrection just as they have been doing for almost two thousand years once a year Pilgrims from all over the world Peck into the Church of the Holy Sepulcher a fire is then lit from within his tomb and has spread from candle to Candle through the church then throughout Jerusalem and then to the ends of the Earth [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] foreign [Applause] [Music] according to the New Testament Jesus’s resurrection clearly fulfilled David’s prophecy [Music] in this world there are over 6 billion people alive today but if you want to send a letter to just one person out of those 6 billion how much information do you have to put on a letter to do that not much surprisingly small amount a few lines of information on a letter can pinpoint one person in the world in the same way the details given to us by David Isaiah Micah and Daniel can identify one person out of all the people that have ever lived who else in the scope of History was born in Bethlehem from the House of David pierced hands and feet killed before the temple was destroyed and whose tomb was found empty this is this is God speaking to us he really did tell us before he sent his son Jesus he really did tell us what his plan was before it happened [Music] after applying the Deuteronomy 18 test of a prophet to both Bible and Book of Mormon prophets it becomes clear that the biblical prophets accurately predicted the future while the Mormon prophets failed the biblical prophets are surrounded by an abundance of historical evidence while there’s no evidence at all for any of the Book of Mormon prophets in fact none of them appear in any written Source until the Book of Mormon was published in 1830. The Book of Mormon prophets prophesied of Joseph Smith the Latter-Day Seer and that the Book of Mormon shall come forth [Music] it shall come to pass that the Lord God shall bring forth unto you the words of a book the book shall be delivered unto a man and he shall deliver the words of the book since there are no ancient texts that contain these prophecies we’re simply left with the fact that in 1830 Joseph Smith published The Book of Mormon that prophesied that Joseph Smith would publish The Book of Mormon this is why non-mormon Scholars conclude that the Book of Mormon prophets were created through the imagination of Joseph Smith himself [Music] the only thing that you have is something that has been printed in the 19th century it has been written by someone in the 19th century and given to print okay I can do the same if you want you can do the same you can take you can write I Joel I say that I now I am the true prophet and the Bible has been corrupted and all the Bible of the Christians is nonsense and this is the true Bible and yet what what can we say who is the witness of that who is the who is the who is the guarantor guarantor of what you are saying only you yourself but Joseph Smith took it a step further by inserting these prophecies about himself and the Book of Mormon into the Bible Joseph Smith claimed the Bible was not translated correctly so he did his own translation of the Bible in it he inserted prophecies about himself and the coming of the Book of Mormon this is the new translation of the Bible by Joseph Smith of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints this is the new translation of the Bible by Joseph Smith of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints yes um have you ever heard of this it’s the new translation of the Bible by Joseph Smith of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Joseph Smith’s translation is also known as The Inspired version on each page the column on the left contains the text of Joseph Smith’s inspired version while the column on the right contains the text of the Bible throughout Smith’s translation there are multiple pages of additional text that are not found in the Bible [Music] you can see where Joseph Smith’s translation goes on and on look at these sections in here of of text that look at that foreign what’s being said here is this is the plain and precious portions that have been lost from the Bible and this is it being restored by Jesse Smith and he’s talking about Corruption of the Bible here’s Isaiah chapter 29. so we’re not talking about a letter here of difference we’re not talking about a few words we’re talking some some major differences in how much text is in Joseph Smith’s Isaiah and our modern Bibles so are you curious what is in this house absolutely Joseph Smith inserted these prophecies about the coming of the Book of Mormon and himself into his translation of Isaiah it shall come to pass that the Lord God shall bring forth unto you the words of a book Smith’s Isaiah says the same thing it shall come to pass that the Lord God shall bring forth unto you the words of a book the book shall be delivered unto a man and he shall deliver the words of the book the book shall be delivered unto a man and he shall deliver the words of the book [Music] but the book shall be delivered unto a man that sounds familiar and who what man do you think that’s talking about prophesying about uh Joseph Smith but the book shall be delivered unto a man and he shall deliver the words of the book what he’s doing is he’s adding prophecies about himself and the Book of Mormon into Isaiah three Witnesses shall beholded by the power of God and they shall testify to the truth of the book three Witnesses shall beholded by the power of God and they shall testify to the truth of the book three Witnesses shall beholded by the power of God okay so is that the same verse as we find over here yes it is logically what what is your what do you think when we compare the Isaiah scroll to Joseph Smith’s Isaiah do you think that this information about the coming of the Book of Mormon through Joseph Smith and the three Witnesses is in it afraid to say I doubt it [Music] all we need to do to test Joseph Smith’s translation of Isaiah is compare it to the great Isaiah scroll that was some of the early attempts of Mormon Scholars to see if the great Isaiah scroll supported a text that Smith had the fact is it doesn’t support his translation and I think for the most part Mormon Scholars have moved away from trying to make that case does it is this an add-on yeah so what does that say about what Joseph Smith did to Isaiah well it sounds like it came from an ordinary man rather than God and so so uh it is not a new translation it is a re-writing of uh of uh of the Bible he’s rewriting the Bible a key verse that Justice Smith rewrote is John 1 1 that refers to Jesus as the word in the Bible John 1 1 reads in the beginning was the word and the Word was with God and the Word was God but Smith’s version reads 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 by changing was God to was of God Smith stripped Jesus of his deity the world was with the sun and the son was with God and the son was of God not a single scholar could tell you that this is an accurate translation of the Gospel of John the most ancient copy of the Gospel of John that we have goes back to the year 150 more or less that is a Papyrus which is called papyrus 66. we are very sure about the text that we have this earliest copy we have of John 1 1 is only about 50 years older than when John originally wrote that Jesus was God as one who personally knew Jesus John is a more trustworthy witness of who he was rather than Joseph Smith who rewrote John’s testimony roughly 1700 years later foreign isn’t it true that if people take this left side and what Joseph Smith is saying and that they’re persuaded by it to follow that wouldn’t wouldn’t they wouldn’t truth be corrupted and wouldn’t they be led astray uh I mean they will be reading Joseph Smith not the gospel when you read John 1 1 in the Joseph Smith version in John 1 1 in the Bible are those two different jesuses oh yes completely completely we are talking about something completely different in each case you can believe in the Jesus Joseph Smith Jesus of John 1 1 or you can believe in the John 1 1 of the New Testament but you can’t believe in both no you can’t Joseph Smith also changed Romans 4 16. hear the Apostle Paul declares how men are saved when he writes therefore it is of faith that it might be by Grace but Smith’s version reads therefore ye are Justified of faith and works through Grace Joseph Smith added and works to Paul’s Gospel of which he warned even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preach to you let him be eternally condemned foreign [Music] you are Justified of faith and works so he added and works yeah so that the the the the word works is not there he added and works he did and would you say that that gospel that that includes the works is the gospel message that that represents Mormonism yes another Revelation given through Joseph Smith the prophet was that these works even enable men to become gods it’s my belief that God was uh like me at one point in time do you believe men can become gods that’s what I’ve been taught the Apostle Paul preached that by Grace God became a man to save men from their sins in contrast Joseph Smith preached that by their Works men can become gods interestingly enough Paul says that anyone who changes the gospel that he preaches is to be eternally condemned [Music] it’s Mormonism that’s saying corrupting the Bible is a serious serious problem right correct that doesn’t the evidence show that Joseph Smith is the one that corrupted the Bible if we’re being criticized because we took the plain and precious portions out of the Bible and therefore we’re Satan’s got power over us as as the Book of Mormon says and that we’re being led to hell if the evidence shows that actually the reverse of that is true and Joseph Smith is the one that changed the Bible then wouldn’t it be his followers in in the church that he’s associated with that are in serious Eternal trouble hmm boy that’s scary the evidence clearly shows that it is Joseph Smith who corrupted the Bible in addition to this Joseph Smith made his own predictions about the future so he too can be tested recorded in Mormon scripture is a revelation given through Joseph Smith the prophet that was given In 1832 that a temple shall be built in Missouri Joseph Smith predicted that the temple shall be reared in this generation for verily this generation shall not all pass away until a house shall be built unto the Lord foreign just over a year later the Mormons were forced to leave the area and eventually the entire state of Missouri where the temple was prophesied to be built 38 years after the prophecy was given as Joseph Smith’s generation was coming to a close the Mormon Apostle Orson Pratt had not yet given up hope in his Prophet when he preached the Latter-Day Saints just as much expect to receive a fulfillment of that promise during the generation that was in existence In 1832 as they expect that the sun will rise and set tomorrow why because God cannot lie he will fulfill all his promises foreign [Music] as a follower of Joseph Smith Paul Trask moved his family to Independence Missouri but he lost faith in Joseph Smith as a prophet through failed prophecies like this one Joseph Smith prophesied in the doctrine of covenants that the temple here in Independence would be built in this generation as a sign to the people which prophecy never came to pass we could go and take a look at the temple lot today and see that it’s completely bare piece of ground with nothing but grass growing on it [Music] and we’re certainly very far removed from the 1830s when that prophecy was given so certainly this is has to go be counted as one of many failed prophecies by Joseph Smith [Music] foreign do you know of any prophecies that Joseph Smith himself gave that failed yeah I do [Music] Jesus also prophesied about the temple that stood in Jerusalem in his day his disciples remarked about the massive stones and magnificent buildings that were on top of the Temple mount do you see all these great buildings replied Jesus not one stone here will be left on another every one will be thrown down Jesus is specifically predicting about the buildings that they would be so thoroughly demolished that not one stone would remain on top of another not only this but all these Stones would be thrown down off the Temple Mount platform is there any archaeological evidence for the prophecy of Jesus and the destruction of the temple that there wouldn’t be one stone on top of another this is the evidence this is the evidence look at it it speaks for itself there is there is evidence in front of our eyes to the prophecy that came through foreign Jesus talks about that Stones being cast down and what he’s talking about is they would be cast down from the destruction of the buildings off of the platform onto the ground here here you have it and when they were cast down and it struck this uh this road that we’re sitting on the street if you look at it there are certain places like here and over there where there are depressions this is from the pressure enormous pressure of these uh gigantic stone blocks each of them several tons in weight now the 9th of Av or Tisha brav in Hebrew is traditionally thought to be the date of the destruction of the temple and on that day laments are said for the destruction of Jerusalem and on the eve and the morning of that day they read the book of Lamentations [Music] and you may see even people sitting and crying [Laughter] this is an event which took place almost 2 000 years ago and they still feel it as if it was yesterday alive I hey hey [Music] looking at the stones I can hear the voice of the the sound of the stones collapsing and breaking the slabs of the street I can hear the people around shouting I can hear the uh the hussing of the Flames around so with a little bit of imagination those stones can become even more talkative than they are [Music] another single building of Jerusalem was left and not a stone upon the stone of the temple remain [Music] [Music] Jesus’s prophecy that the Jewish temple in Jerusalem would be destroyed took place in history while Joseph Smith’s prediction that the Mormon Temple would be built in Missouri did not so Joseph Smith fails the test of a prophet is there any way to look at this other than that he fails the test of Deuteronomy 18. when you apply the scripture verbatim then it does it paints it paints a sorry picture of Joseph and so what does Deuteronomy say your responsibility is because it’s not it’s not written to it’s written to uh to the one who’s reading it obviously and there’s there’s a responsibility to the if if what a prophet proclaims in the name of the Lord does not take place or come true that is a message the Lord has not spoken and it says what you’re to do with that person you must be put to death and and what that what what is that responsibility that God is giving in response to the prophet that’s found to false prophet who’s got the responsibility to put that Prophet to death well the people God’s not going to strike him dead yeah it’s to the people who have come to realize this person has failed this test of a prophet right therefore it’s the people’s responsibility to put him to death right and so in context to Joseph Smith we remember that death means separation so what it means from a spiritual standpoint a Biblical standpoint to put Joseph Smith to death is to separate ourselves from him and his writings in his church and that responsibility God has given to the one who sees that he fails the test so you’re saying that he’s failed the test but you don’t want to put him to death I don’t know what to believe anymore sometimes I’m I totally see what you’re talking about and it’s I have no fear of Joseph Smith whatsoever because again Deuteronomy 18 says if a prophet fails a test do not be afraid of them I’m not afraid of Justice myth I’m not afraid of being condemned to hell because I don’t believe that he is a true Prophet because he fails the test of a prophet and therefore I can walk in freedom without having to fear what the Book of Mormon says about me what it says about the Bible that I believe in and so on and so forth this is what I believe I believe in this alone and I don’t believe that it’s foolish to do so this I have a problem with because there’s so many contradictions between this and this that to believe in all of that logically doesn’t work then you have to honestly you have to add this to the mix too because that’s a work of Joseph Smith this is a work of Joseph Smith now you’ve got a new translation how can that’s just a confusing mess and there’s John 1 1 isn’t the same as John 1 1 in here in Romans 4 16 isn’t the same as Romans 4 16 in here in Isaiah the prophet Isaiah isn’t the same and the Torah isn’t the same and then you have this reflected more in this I just it’s hard for me to grasp how logically you can believe in that whole ball of wax without having what’s called cognitive dissonance which is these contradictory beliefs that that cause great confusion yeah foreign for me to answer your question it’s going to take a lot of study and I have to come to grips in my own mind as to I can’t just take your word for it I have to study it out for myself absolutely and let me just end by saying this if it’s simple logically I think it has to be because I I don’t believe that God says he says you know to understand his truth that we got to be more like children not more like Scholars yeah so bottom line has got to be simple I think he makes it simple for our protection I think Deuteronomy 18 test of a prophet is simple for a Reason by God’s design it is and when you apply Deuteronomy 18 that simple test to Joseph Smith and you put him to death this is what happens and I believe that that is where peace is and where the confusion ceases to you know to manipulate into and to where you can go okay now the confusion’s gone now I can go into what what the Bible says about what the problem is and what the solution is and how Jesus is that solution about the Old Testament and the New Testament and really begin to be free [Music] while Greg remains a member of the LDS church he made a commitment with me that he would thoroughly study these things out for himself and I am convinced that anyone who is willing to do the same will fulfill the promise that Jesus made almost 2 000 years ago then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free [Music] to learn more about evidence for the Bible you can order a copy of my heavily illustrated book where God came down which has been a number one bestseller in archeology just click the link in the description below this video