Golden Bible, The

DESCRIPTION: "A new Golden Bible was lately discovered, Which for six thousand years could not be found." The singer describes "The new Golden Bible, the new-fangled Bible... that lay under the ground," and all the great figures, like Moses, who never saw it
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1837 (Painsville [Ohio] Telegraph, May 26, 1837, according to Fife/Fife-SaintsOfSageAndSaddle)
KEYWORDS: derivative humorous | Book of Mormon
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Fife/Fife-SaintsOfSageAndSaddle, pp. 118-121, "The Golden Bible" (1 text, tune referenced)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Old Oaken Bucket" (tune) and references there
NOTES [412 words]: I have no evidence that this is traditional, but better to leave it in just to be sure.
According to W. Paul Reeve and Ardis E. Parshall, editors, Mormonism: A Historical Encyclopedia, ABC-CLIO, LLC, 2010, p. 72,
"The Book of Mormon is a book of scripture used by embers of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), the Community of Christ (formerly known as the Reorganized CHurch of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, or RLDS), and all other denominations that look to Joseph Smith (1805-1844) as their founding prophet. Published in Palmyra, New York, in the spring of 1830, it is the foundational text of the LDS Church and is the source of its nickname, the Mormon Church.
"Joseph Smith, named according to copyright laws as author and proprietor of the book, claimed to have translated the Book of Mormon from ancient metal plates whose location was revealed to him in 1823 by an angel named Moroni. The narrative begins in Jerusalem in 600 BC with the prophet Lehi, who sailed with his family to the Americas." Although this quote doesn't say so, Smith describes the metal plates as being made of gold; hence the song's reference to the Golden Bible.
There is of course reason to suspect that Joseph Smith -- who according to his biographer Fawn M. Brodie had a history of trying get-rich-quickly-at-others'-expense schemes -- made up the Book of Mormon. But this song lays it on too thick. Moses, if he existed, probably lived around 1200 BCE; David died around 950 BCE; Solomon died before 900 BCE; thus they could not have known the Book of Mormon even if Smith's claimed history were true. And it is demonstrable that Luther, Calvin, etc. worked with substantially defective copies of the New Testament, so the fact that they didn't know the Book of Mormon is not an argument relevant to its historical significance or even its canonical state. As a non-Mormon, I found the first few lines of this a lot of fun. But then it started laying it on a little too thick, exchanging logical argument for illogical, and asserting as true things which are at least subject to question.
There is an actual book called the Golden Bible (several, in fact), because they have so much gold leaf in them. Echternach has a Golden Bible, "Codex Aureus"; Stockholm has another "Codex Aureus"; Munich's Bible of St. Emmeram is also a "Codex Aureus"; there are a few other golden codices which are of less note because the quality of their texts is very inferior. - RBW
Last updated in version 6.6
File: FSSS118

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