ROBERT - How come prophets in the Old testament could be both male and female and in the NT were subservient to apostles, while LDS Prophets can only be male and they are superior to apostles?

JOEL - The word "prophet" comes from the Greek prophetes, which means "inspired teacher." By scriptural definition, a prophet is anyone who has a testimony of Jesus Christ and is moved by the Holy Ghost (Rev. 19:10). This goes for both males and females.
President Wilford Woodruff said of Brigham Young to a congregation:
"He is a prophet, I am a prophet, you are, and anybody is a prophet who has the testimony of Jesus Christ, for that is the spirit of prophecy" (Journal of Discourses 13:165)

So this is how prophets in the Bible or in our time can be both male or female.
Perhaps the confusion comes in where we say that the President of the Church(or Moses or Noah, etc.) is "THE Prophet" of God on earth. He is the one who receives revelation for the entire church. But he holds this position of "THE Prophet" of the Church because he is the Senior Apostle and President of the church, both of which requires priesthood authority and that is why it is always a male.
But anyone can be called a "prophet" as I explained above. This is why it sometimes seems prophets are subservient to Apostles in the Bible. The three members of the First Presidency and the twelve Apostles are all called "prophets, seers, and revelators".

ROBERT - Is it true that, in Mormon theology, Jesus wasn't always God and he had to gain His own salvation?

JOEL - No. Jesus is and was always God no matter what form He happens to be in. He was the God of the Old Testament, the New Testament, the Book of Mormon people, and is our God today. The only thing He had to do was to be born so He could get a body so He could atone for our sins and bring about the resurrection. He also allowed Himself to be baptized, not for His own salvation, but to "fulfil all righteousness"(Matt 3:15).

ROBERT - Why is the God of the D&C unforgiving? Unlike the God in the NT who commands us to forgive our enemies and so forth, he tells Joseph Smith and the LDS that he will give them the power to kill all their enemies and so forth.

JOEL - I mostly only see scriptures that tell us to not kill. (D&C 42:18-19, 79, D&C 59:6)
You are doing a lot of selective reading to come to this conclusion. The D&C mostly tells us to forgive our enemies in several places:

"Wherefore, I say unto you, that ye ought to forgive one another; for he that forgiveth not his brother his trespasses standeth condemned before the Lord; for there remaineth in him the greater sin.
I, the Lord, will forgive whom I will forgive, but of you it is required to forgive all men. (D&C 64: 9-10)

VERILY, verily, I say unto you, my servants, that inasmuch as you have forgiven one another your trespasses, even so I, the Lord, forgive you. (D&C 82: 1)

"And again, verily I say unto you, if after thine enemy has come upon thee the first time, he repent and come unto thee praying thy forgiveness, thou shalt forgive him, and shalt hold it no more as a testimony against thine enemy" (D&C 98:39)

In fact, in this Section 98, God tells the saints to forgive their enemies at least three times for the same offense before leaving it up to Him to pass judgment on them.
These were serious enimies of the church God was refering to who were persecuting and killing them.
The only other times when God talks about defeating their enemies is in cases when they must defend themselves from direct attacks on their lives, which happened often because of the severe persecution they suffered.

ROBERT - Is it true that LDS believe that there are pre-requisities for being born again spiritually? If so, how can one explain Alma where, prior to being born again, he was an evil man?

JOEL - Being born again spiritually can happen in different ways taking different lengths of time. Alma's situation was somewhat unusual in that he had an angel of the Lord actually appear to him and gave him some undeniable signs which convinced him of his evil ways(Mosiah 27).
During the few days he was physically incapacitated he had time to think about what he had done wrong, repent of his sins and then receive a spiritual witness from God. He had already been taught the gospel and everything he needed to know from his father before he went bad. He just needed to be hit over the head to realize how evil he had become.
I see nothing wrong with this particular situation. A similar thing happened to Paul who had persecuted the saints until Christ appeared to him, suddenly changing his ways(Acts 9).
But for most of us who don't get to see an angel or Jesus the process might take a little more effort and time.

ROBERT - Doesn't Deut. 18:10 go against Baptism for the Dead, Joseph Smith's use of a seer stone to translate the Book of Mormon and the Lord allowing Oliver Cowdery to use a divining rod?

JOEL -
"There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch," (Deut 18:10)

It depends on the purpose one has in mind for using such things. The Deut scripture is talking about using such things for evil. God can just as easily cause similar things to be used for good.
For example, as you mentioned, Oliver Cowdery was given a rod similar to to the one Aaron had to help Moses perform God's work(See Ex 8:16-17, Num. 17: 6, 8).
Oliver used this gift to help Joseph Smith translate the Book of Mormon(D&C 8:11, 28:3). In the Book of Commandments this was called the "gift of working with the rod"(BOC 7:3). In the D&C the name of this gift was changed to read the "gift of Aaron"(D&C 8:6-9), perhaps to emphasize the similarity between Oliver's and Aaron's gifts, which they both used to help their respective prophets perform God's work.

ROBERT - Does the Bible (Genesis 2:7, John 3:13/8:23,24/Zec. 12:1) and the Book of Mormon (Jacob 4:9 and Alma 18:28, 34-36) go against a belief in the pre-mortal existance?

JOEL - "And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." (Genesis 2:7)

"breathed into his nostrils the breath of life" means that he placed his spirit into his body.

"And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven." (John 3:13)

To me this scripture is good evidence of a pre-mortal life. The word "heaven" can be used to mean coming from wherever God is, which includes the pre-mortal realm.

"And he said unto them, Ye are from beneath; I am from above: ye are of this world; I am not of this world.
I said therefore unto you, that ye shall die in your sins: for if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins." (John 8:23-24)

I don't see how these scriptures go against a pre-mortal existance. The bodies of all human beings are made from the dust of this earth, and the spirits come from God as the following Ecclesiastes scripture tells us:

"Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.(Eccl. 12: 7)

"THE burden of the word of the LORD for Israel, saith the LORD, which stretcheth forth the heavens, and layeth the foundation of the earth, and formeth the spirit of man within him." (Zec. 12:1)

This simply means that God is responsible for placing man's spirit in his body.

"For behold, by the power of his word man came upon the face of the earth, which earth was created by the power of his word. Wherefore, if God being able to speak and the world was, and to speak and man was created, O then, why not able to command the earth, or the workmanship of his hands upon the face of it, according to his will and pleasure?" (Jacob 4:9)

This is simply stating that God created man. I don't see how these scriptures go against a pre-mortal existance.

"And Ammon said: This is God. And Ammon said unto him again: Believest thou that this Great Spirit, who is God, created all things which are in heaven and in the earth?
Ammon said unto him: I am a man; and man in the beginning was created after the image of God, and I am called by his Holy Spirit to teach these things unto this people, that they may be brought to a knowledge of that which is just and true;
And a portion of that Spirit welleth in me, which giveth me knowledge, and also power according to my faith and desires which are in God.
Now when Ammon had said these words, he began at the creation of the world, and also the creation of Adam, and told him all the things concerning the fall of man, and rehearsed and laid before him the records and the holy scriptures of the people, which had been spoken by the prophets, even down to the time that their father, Lehi, left Jerusalem." (Alma 18:28, 34-36)

Once again these scriptures are simply saying that God created man. They don't say anything against the possiblity of a pre-mortal life.

There are several scriptures that do suggest a pre-earth existance. In the following scriptures God is talking to Job about the creation of the earth:

"Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding. When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?"(Job 38:4, 7)

These scriptures bring up two questions. If there were no pre-earth life why then would God ask Job where he was when he created the earth? God knew where he was but He knew that Job would not be able to remember. And while God was creating the earth, who were all those "sons of God" who "shouted for joy"? They were all of the spirit children of God(us) anxiously anticipating the completion of His work.

In Genesis before God created Adam and placed him on the earth it says:

"Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them." (Gen 2:1)

The only thing that the word "host" could be refering to are those spirits who would eventually inhabit the earth God created.

The Lord said to Jeremiah: "Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations" (Jer. 1:5).

Here God explains to Jeremiah that He knew him, sanctified him, and ordained him before he was born. Jeremiah must have existed in some form for this to be possible.
The "Preacher" asserted "The spirit shall return unto God who gave it" (Eccl. 12:7). You can't return to somewhere if you did not come from there in the first place.
In the New Testament Jesus and his disciples saw a man who had been born blind. The disciples asked if the man was blind due to his own sins or due to his parent's sins.

"And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth. And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?" (John 9:1-2)

Jesus explained neither the man nor his parents had sinned, but the man was born blind that the works of God should be made manifest in him (John 9:3), that is, so Jesus could heal him. The account in John gives no reason for us to believe the disciples were insincere or incorrect in asking if the man had sinned prior to his birth. Likewise, Jesus said nothing to indicate it was impossible for the man to have sinned prior to birth. These verses thus imply the man could have sinned prior to birth, that is, he had a pre-earth existence of some type and had the capacity to sin in that existence.

ROBERT - How can one explain Ether 8:20? Moroni was supposed to have been writing for us, so why the conspicious silence on the practices of the Lamanites?

JOEL -
"And now I, Moroni, do not write the manner of their oaths and combinations, for it hath been made known unto me that they are had among all people, and they are had among the Lamanites." (Ether 8:20)

Moroni knows that the oaths and secret combinations have already been recorded at many other places in the records that we can read about(2 Ne 9:9, Hel 3:23, 4 Ne 1:42, 3 Ne 9:9); so there is no need for him to tell us about them. This includes the Gadianton robbers and other rebellious groups.
And as he said, "they are had among all people" which means he assumes they will exist in our time also, so there is no need to go into detail about something we already know about.

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