A Disciple. [Reply to John E. Page.] Morning Chronicle (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) (2 July1842).
For the Chronicle.
Not feeling that I have any personal difference, or controversy with Elder Page, I cannot consent to bandy hard language.—What I have said concerning the use of the Mariner’s Compass by Nephi, 2,000 years before it was discovered; the quotation from Shakespeare, ages before he was born; the piling of the earth on the city of Moronihah—the ships and genealogy of Jaredites, are matters that can be ascertained by reference to the 1st edition of the Book of Mormon.—The Elder quotes from the 3 d edition, and although the translation was professedly made by divine inspiration, I am preferred to show, thut there exist essential variations in the 3 d from the 1 st editiou. Will you join issue, Elder?
That part of my communication of Wednesday last, which claims superior attention, is, the charge brought against the Book of Mormon, namely, that in two important facts it contradicted the Bible. These are,
First. — The Book of Mormon records it as a fact that Jesus Christ was born in Jerusalem. The Bible records that he was born in Bethlehem.
Second.—The Book of Mormon informs us, that at the time of Christ’s crucifixion and burial, there were three days of darkness.— The Bible informs us of only three hours of darkness.
Here then, in two plain matters of fact, about which there ought not to be the slightest difference, the Bible and the Book of Mormon contradict each other; and I defy the ingenuity of Elder Page, or any other man, to reconcile them. The Book of Mormon claims to be divinely inspired. The Bible we all believe to from God. Now if both books were dictated by the same author, why are matters of fact recorded so very differently? Both of these records cannot be true, one of them must be false.
Which is it? Certainly not the Bible.—Then it must be the Book of Mormon. I say then triumphantly, that I have established it as a fact, admitting the Bible to be true, that the Book of Mormon is false.
Dagon has fallen on his face before the ark of the Lord.
A DISCIPLE.