Anti-Mormon Claims
Anti-Mormon ClaimscanonBibleRevelation 22add to the bible

Revelation 22 — You Can’t Add to the Bible?

Doesn’t Revelation 22 — and Deuteronomy 4:2 — forbid adding anything to God’s word? How can Latter-day Saints have more scripture?

Bible

They quote this

Bible · Revelation 22:18–19

KJV + NRSVUE

The favorite ‘you can’t add’ verse. It is about the scroll of Revelation, not a table of contents bound in 367.

King James Version

For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.

NRSVUE

I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to that person the plagues described in this book; if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away that person’s share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.

How we read it

John is protecting the scroll of Revelation (“this book,” “this prophecy”), not a table of contents bound centuries later. Moses said the same thing in Deuteronomy 4:2, and God still sent Isaiah and then a New Testament. A warning against forging words is not a muzzle on God. If Revelation closed the canon, Deuteronomy closed it first — and they still have Matthew.

The Bible answers

Bible · Deuteronomy 4:2

KJV + NRSVUE

Moses said the same thing — and God still sent Isaiah, and then a New Testament.

King James Version

Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you.

NRSVUE

You must neither add anything to what I command you nor take away anything from it, but keep the commandments of the LORD your God with which I am charging you.

Bible · Proverbs 30:5–6

KJV + NRSVUE

A warning against forging words is not a muzzle on God.

King James Version

Every word of God is pure: he is a shield unto them that put their trust in him. Add thou not unto his words, lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar.

NRSVUE

Every word of God proves true; he is a shield to those who take refuge in him. Do not add to his words, or else he will rebuke you, and you will be found a liar.

Book of Mormon

The Book of Mormon answers

2 Nephi 29:6–9

The Lord already answered ‘A Bible! A Bible!’ — He is God of more than one nation.

Thou fool, that shall say: A Bible, we have got a Bible, and we need no more Bible… Know ye not that there are more nations than one? Know ye not that I, the Lord your God, have created all men… and I bring forth my word unto the children of men, yea, even upon all the nations of the earth? … because that I have spoken one word ye need not suppose that I cannot speak another; for my work is not yet finished; neither shall it be until the end of man, neither from that time henceforth and forever.

Also restored

Articles of Faith 1:8–9

We love the Bible. We also refuse to tell God He is finished speaking.

We believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly; we also believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God. We believe all that God has revealed, all that He does now reveal, and we believe that He will yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to the Kingdom of God.

Ancient witnesses

Dead Sea Scrolls and related extra-biblical texts that illuminate the same pattern the Restoration restores.

1 Enoch 1:9 (quoted as prophecy in Jude 14–15); Wisdom of Solomon; the broader Second Temple library

Jude cites Enoch as prophecy. Qumran copied Moses and also wrote the Temple Scroll, pesharim, and Hodayot. The New Testament authors did not live with a shrink-wrapped Protestant table of contents.

If Jude can treat 1 Enoch as prophecy, ‘do not add’ cannot mean ‘the later Protestant canon is the last sound God is allowed to make.’ Revelation 22 protects ‘the prophecy of this book’ — John’s apocalypse — the same way Deuteronomy 4:2 protected Moses’ words before God sent more prophets. A Bible that did not yet exist as a single bound volume cannot be the ‘book’ John was holding.

Faithful answers

FAIR

Does the Bible forbid additional scripture?

FAIR Latter-day Saints

The argument is popular because it fits on a tract. It does not survive a second verse. Deuteronomy 4:2 and 12:32 already forbade adding to that word — and then God sent Joshua, Samuel, Isaiah, and the entire New Testament. Proverbs 30:6 said the same — and then we still received the Gospels. Revelation 22 is a colophon to John’s apocalypse: do not tamper with this prophecy. John is not sitting at a table of contents meeting for a book that would not be bound for centuries. Sola scriptura is a Reformation slogan, not a verse. The Dead Sea Scrolls prove Jews treasured more books than your table of contents. The Restoration is God refusing to be silenced after the fourth century.

A God who cannot speak is not the God of Amos 3:7. He is a relic. Revelation 22 does not retire Him.

  • ‘This book’ in Revelation 22 is ‘the prophecy of this book’ — the scroll John is writing. The Bible as one volume did not exist.
  • If Deuteronomy 4:2 closed the canon, Christians have no right to Matthew. Nobody actually believes their own slogan when it is applied to Moses.
  • John 21:25: the world itself could not contain the books of Jesus’ acts. That is not a man who thought God was done talking.
  • Jude quotes 1 Enoch. The Ethiopian church still prints it. Closed-canon Protestantism is a local custom, not a biblical law.
  • 2 Nephi 29 was written for this exact shout: ‘A Bible! A Bible! We have got a Bible, and there cannot be any more Bible.’
  • Adding a forgery or altering John’s words is cursed. Receiving more words from the same Lord is how the Bible happened in the first place.
Read the original

Gospel Topics

The Bible

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Latter-day Saints love the Bible. We read it, teach it, and start here with it. We also refuse to tell God He is not allowed to speak to other nations or later centuries. Article of Faith 8 is reverence, not a slight. Article of Faith 9 is the Bible’s own pattern: God has spoken, speaks, and will speak.

We believe the Bible to be the word of God. We also believe He is still God, and still speaks.

  • The eighth Article of Faith puts the Bible first in the sentence.
  • An open canon is not a license to contradict the gospel of Christ. It is the claim that the same Christ still governs His church.
  • John 16:12: Jesus already said He had more to say than the Twelve could then bear.
Read the original

Suggested videos

Faithful voices only. Most of these are independent — not official Church productions unless marked as such.

Keystone (David Snell)

This is why weaponizing 2 Timothy 3:16 is a problem

Watch on YouTube

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

What Is The Book of Mormon? | Now You Know

Watch on YouTube

Ward Radio

Top 9 Misconstrued Scriptures in the Bible Against Latter-day Saints

Watch on YouTube

Further reading

Keep going

Rate this answer

Be the first to tell us if this case is strong.