Apostle Richard G. Scott,
This open letter to you would be a great LDS October, 2011 Conference Talk TOPIC for your message to the world. Your credentials about being smart in word, definition and application is endless based on the fact you have been an excellent nuclear engineer since you were hired by Admiral Hyman G. Rickover to work on the design of the nuclear reactor for the Nautilus, the first nuclear-powered submarine of the US Navy.
When I was a BYU Bishop I worked directly with you and President Howard W. Hunter (president of the Quorum of the 12) because of family connections. Your son's girlfriend was in my ward (returned missionary from NY, a convert). She got involved in polygamy as a BYU student (5 visits to the Provo Temple each week). I assisted you and the BYU to clean up that mess. You assisted me. I mentioned to you my Ward Book of Mormon project and how successful it was. I also mentioned the importance of the Original Book of Mormon because my relative, Apostle Parley P. Pratt, paid for the second printing in 1837 (3,000 copies), which contained hundreds of alterations from the original printing.
The importance of the restoration of the 1830 Published Original Book of Mormon to the LDS Church today was revealed and the importance given to the “original” text out of Jerusalem at the Hebrew University campus since 1958. It was created after “….a priceless Hebrew Bible manuscript arrived in Jerusalem after it was smuggled out of Aleppo, Syria, by a Jewish cheese merchant who hid it in his washing machine. This was the 1,100-year-old Aleppo Codex, considered the oldest and most accurate version of the complete biblical text in Hebrew….”
When I was ten year old I was in a 78 hour coma, after being accidently shot in the head by my father, just south of Tucson, Arizona. I had a vision with Angel Moroni about a special mission, as stated in the Book of Mormon. I was told that I had a guardian angel because I had been promised by the Lord to fulfill a specific sentence in the Book of Mormon:
“And there shall rise up one mighty among them, who shall do much good, both in word and in deed, being an instrument in the hands of God, with exceeding faith, to work mighty wonders, and do that thing which is great in the sight of God, unto the bringing to pass much restoration unto the house of Israel, and unto the seed of thy brethren.” (2 Nephi 3:24)
The word “restoration” is the key emphasis in this sentence. What is the definition of restoration? -- a bringing back to a former position or condition; or, something that is restored; especially: a representation or reconstruction of the original form.
In 1965 I was fifteen year old and in Independence, Missouri and I gave RLDS President Wallace Smith, the Grandson of the Prophet Joseph Smith Jr., $15,000 while my family was traveling from Tucson, Arizona to the New York World’s Fair. I asked him to reprint the Book of Mormon manuscript the RLDS owned from the Palmyra, NY printing press. In 1970, RLDS President printed 5,000 copies, as ordered by me five years earlier.
When one compares the Original Book of Mormon to the 2011 edition of the LDS Church, one word; one phrase added or deleted, changes the whole meaning of the message. The changes are so significant, the the identity of God as Jesus Christ on this earth has literally been "taken out" as prophesied in the warning that "the most great and abominable church" (where much is given, much is expected) would take out the "plain and precious truths" (1st Nephi 13).
Please enjoy the following article what Jewish scholars have been working on for 53 years, only completing three books of the original twenty-four ancient books from the Old Testament.
Steve Davis, Trustee, ATLAS Cities of Commerce (over 53,000 copies distributed all over the world since 1971)
In Jerusalem, scholars trace Bible's evolution
Associated Press, Friday, August 12, 2011
JERUSALEM — A dull-looking chart projected on the wall of a university office in Jerusalem displayed a revelation that would startle many readers of the Old Testament: the sacred text that people revered in the past was not the same one we study today.
An ancient version of one book has an extra phrase. Another appears to have been revised to retroactively insert a prophecy after the events happened.
Scholars in this out-of-the-way corner of the Hebrew University campus have been quietly at work for 53 years on one of the most ambitious projects attempted in biblical studies — publishing the authoritative edition of the Old Testament, also known as the Hebrew Bible, and tracking every single evolution of the text over centuries and millennia.
And it has evolved, despite deeply held beliefs to the contrary.
For many Jews and Christians, religion dictates that the words of the Bible in the original Hebrew are divine, unaltered and unalterable. For Orthodox Jews, the accuracy is considered so inviolable that if a synagogue's Torah scroll is found to have a minute error in a single letter, the entire scroll is unusable.
But the ongoing work of the academic detectives of the Bible Project, as their undertaking is known, shows that this text at the root of Judaism, Christianity and Islam was somewhat fluid for long periods of its history, and that its transmission through the ages was messier and more human than most of us imagine.
The project's scholars have been at work on their critical edition of the Hebrew Bible, a version intended mainly for the use of other scholars, since 1958.
"What we're doing here must be of interest for anyone interested in the Bible," said Michael Segal, the scholar who heads the project.
The sheer volume of information makes the Bible Project's version "the most comprehensive critical edition of the Hebrew Bible in existence at the present time," said David Marcus, a Bible scholar at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, who is not involved with the project.
But Segal and his colleagues toil in relative anonymity. Their undertaking is nearly unknown outside a circle of Bible experts numbering several hundred people at most, and a visitor asking directions to the Bible Project's office on the university campus will find that many members of the university's own staff have never heard of it.
This is an endeavor so meticulous, its pace so disconnected from that of the world outside, that in more than five decades of work the scholars have published a grand total of three of the Hebrew Bible's 24 books. (Christians count the same books differently, for a total of 39.) A fourth is due out during the upcoming academic year.
If the pace is maintained, the final product will be complete a little over 200 years from now. This is both a point of pride and a matter of some mild self-deprecation around the office.
Bible Project scholars have spent years combing through manuscripts such as the Dead Sea Scrolls, Greek translations on papyrus from Egypt, a printed Bible from 1525 Venice, parchment books in handwritten Hebrew, the Samaritan Torah, and scrolls in Aramaic and Latin. The last member of the original team died last year at age 90.
The scholars note where the text we have now differs from older versions — differences that are evidence of the inevitable textual hiccups, scribal errors and other human fingerprints that became part of the Bible as it was passed on, orally and in writing.
A Microsoft Excel chart projected on one wall on a recent Sunday showed variations in a single phrase from the Book of Malachi, a prophet.
The verse in question, from the text we know today, makes reference to "those who swear falsely." The scholars have found that in quotes from rabbinic writings around the 5th century A.D., the phrase was longer: "those who swear falsely in my name."
In another example, this one from the Book of Deuteronomy, a passage referring to commandments given by God "to you" once read "to us," a significant change in meaning.
Other differences are more striking.
The Book of Jeremiah is now one-seventh longer than the one that appears in some of the 2,000-year-old manuscripts known as the Dead Sea Scrolls. Some verses, including ones containing a prophecy about the seizure and return of Temple implements by Babylonian soldiers, appear to have been added after the events happened.
The year the Bible Project began, 1958, was the year a priceless Hebrew Bible manuscript arrived in Jerusalem after it was smuggled out of Aleppo, Syria, by a Jewish cheese merchant who hid it in his washing machine. This was the 1,100-year-old Aleppo Codex, considered the oldest and most accurate version of the complete biblical text in Hebrew.
The Bible Project's version of the core text — the one to which the others are compared — is based on this manuscript. Other critical editions of the Bible, such as one currently being prepared in Stuttgart, Germany, are based on a slightly newer manuscript held in St. Petersburg, Russia.
Considering that the nature of their work would be considered controversial, if not offensive, by many religious people, it is perhaps surprising that most of the project's scholars are themselves Orthodox Jews.
"A believing Jew claims that the source of the Bible is prophecy," said the project's bearded academic secretary, Rafael Zer. "But as soon as the words are given to human beings — with God's agreement, and at his initiative — the holiness of the biblical text remains, even if mistakes are made when the text is passed on."
