Our
Acceptance of the Bible:—The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints accepts the
Bible as the first and foremost of her standard works, chief among the books
which have been proclaimed as her written guides in faith and doctrine. In the
respect and sanctity with which the Latter-day Saints regard the Bible, they
are of like profession with Christian denominations in general; differing from
them only in the additional acknowledgment of certain other scriptures as
authentic and holy, which others are in harmony with the Bible, and serve to
support and emphasize its facts and doctrines . . . Nevertheless, the Church
announces a reservation in the case of erroneous translation, which may occur
as a result of human incapacity; and even in this measure of caution we are not
alone, for biblical scholars generally admit the presence of errors of the
kind, many of them self-apparent. The Latter-day Saints believe the original
records to be the word of God unto man, and, as far as these records have been
translated correctly, the translations are regarded as equally authentic.
(James E. Talmage, The Articles of Faith:
A Series of Lectures on the Principle Doctrines of The Church of Jesus Christ
of Latter-day Saints [Salt Lake City: Deseret News, 1899], 240)
Further Reading