Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Christ Appears in North America?

3 Nephi 11:8-10 [Book of Mormon]
“And it came to pass, as they understood they cast their eyes up again towards the heaven; and behold they saw a man descending out of heave, and he was clothed in a white robe; and he came down and stood in the midst of them, and they eyes of the whole multitude were turned upon him, and they durst not open their mouths, even one to another, and wist not what it meant for they thought it was an angels that had appeared unto them. And it came to pass that he stretched forth his hand and spake unto the people, saying: Behold, I am Jesus Christ whom the prophets testified shall come into the world.”
This is how Christ’s appearance in “North America”, or somewhere not yet known to man but speculated to be South or Central America today, is recorded in the Book of Mormon.
Of course when Jesus Christ ascended into heaven in the first chapter of Acts, the angels told the disciples he would return the same way he left. Jesus himself says this in the 25th chapter of Matthew, the 13th chapter of Mark, and the 17th chapter of Luke, among other places. But that revelation of the Son of Man, Jesus Christ, as we have it in the thoroughly reliable scriptures contained in that book commonly referred to as the Bible, says that this will not be a revelation to a particular people or to a particular continent, but it will be universal in nature and will commence the judgment of mankind, the separation of the sheep from the goats.
So there seems to be just a bit of discongruity between what the Bible says will happen, and the Book of Mormon says happened. Furthermore, there would be no need to tell the disciples to go to the ends of the earth preaching repentance and the forgiveness of sins,(Luke 24) if Jesus is just going to go around the world appearing to people on random continents.

3 comments:

Benjamin McLean said...

My understanding has always been that this happens before the ascension, not after, making this a moot point.

Bror Erickson said...

No it doesn't make it a moot point. Because if Jesus was going to go around the world before the ascension, why is he telling his disciples to go to the ends of the earth. They have no reason.
Interesting concept though. But check Luke 24, and ask yourself why? and then if he dose this before the ascension, why doesn't he let his disciples know what he has been up too? It's got more wholes than the Swiss Cheese I used for skeet practice.

Benjamin McLean said...

> "Because if Jesus was going to go around the world before the ascension,"

Jesus does say He has "other sheep" who will hear His voice in John 10:16, "And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, [and] one shepherd." http://bible.cc/john/10-16.htm

> "why is he telling his disciples to go to the ends of the earth. They have no reason."

Certainly they do. Jesus may have visited many people who were ready to hear Him right then but He didn't visit everyone. Not everyone was ready to hear. Some would be ready to hear later. All the Book of Mormon people were ready to hear, but we have no reason to suppose that Christ's ministry was limited to what we know about, and in fact we have good reason to think it wasn't. John concludes his gospel by saying, "And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written."