Monday, March 20, 2023

Florence Pierce (1951) on the 8th Article of Faith and the Status of the Bible among Latter-day Saints

  

ARTICLE 8. We believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly. We also believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God.

 

(The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints accepts the Bible as the first and foremost of the standard works, chief among the books which have been proclaimed as her written guides in faith and doctrine. In the respect and sanctify 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 acknowledgement 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. There is, therefore, no specifically “Mormon” treatment of the Bible to be presented. The historical and other data upon which is based the current Christian faith as to the genuineness of the Biblical record, are accepted as unreservedly by the Latter-day Saints as by the members of any sect; and in literalness of interpretation of this church probably excels. Nevertheless, the church announces a reservation in the cases 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.) (Florence Pierce, Gospel Messages [N. P.: Florence Pierce, 1951], 426-27)