And again, the elders, priests, teachers of
this church shall teach the principles of my gospel, which are in the Bible and
the Book of Mormon, in the which is the fullness of the gospel. (D&C 42:12)
Some critics of our Church have (through eisegesis) wrested D&C
42:12 out of context. For a discussion and a refutation, see:
An additional refutation of this can be seen in the following from the
very popular book by LDS apostle LeGrand Richards (1886-1983) who, writing
about the sufficiency of the Bible, stated:
. . . the everlasting gospel could not be discovered
through reading the Bible alone—the old bottles full of old wine could not
contain the new wine. So glorious was to be the day when the Lord would
"proceed to do a marvellous work among this people, even a marvellous work
and a wonder," that he had to select one free from all exposure to the
unsound philosophies of men. That is why our original statement is consistent:
that this is the only Christian church in the world that did not have to rely
upon the Bible for its organization and government and that if all the Bibles
in the world had been destroyed we would still be teaching the same principles
and administering the same ordinances as introduced and taught by Jesus and the
prophets. True, we take the Bible to prove that these principles and ordinances
are in accord with divine truths of all ages, but if we had no Bible, we would
still have all the needed direction and information through the revelations of
the Lord to his servants the prophets in these latter days. (LeGrand Richards, A Marvelous Work and a Wonder [Salt Lake
City: Deseret Book, 1976], 40, emphasis in bold added)
While many Protestant readers will be shocked by this, Richards was
correct in rejecting the formal sufficiency of the Bible for many reasons,
including the fact that, even if Sola Scriptura were true, it would be impossible for any biblical text to
teach such, as it was written during a time of special revelation, a time when
proponents of the doctrine admit that there were non-inscripturated sources of
revelation en par with the authority
of inscripturated revelation(!) For a fuller discussion, including an exegesis of
the relevant texts (e.g., 2 Tim 3:16-17), see:
