FAIR is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing well-documented answers to criticisms of the doctrine, practice, and history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Question: Did Joseph Smith ignorantly include an error from the Bible into the Book of Mormon when including the Lord's Prayer in 3 Nephit 13:13?
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Criticism
Critics of the Book of Mormon point to the ending of the Lord's Prayer as found in 3 Nephi 13:13 which reads "For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen." This phrase, called the doxology, is missing from early manuscripts of Matthew 6:13 but is included in the King James Version. The argument is that Joseph Smith ignorantly included a late addition to the Bible into the Book of Mormon, thus proving it to be a creation of Joseph Smith and not an ancient text.
Source of the Criticism
H. Michael Marquardt, Literary Dependence in the Book of Mormon: Two Studies, 2000. Accessed on April 14, 2008, on the Institute for Religious Research (IRR) website.
Response
Conclusion
Endnotes
None