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Continuing Revelation and an Open Canon

Doesn’t Revelation 22 forbid adding to scripture? Why do Latter-day Saints have more books and living oracles?

Bible

The Bible answers

Bible · John 16:12–13

KJV + NRSVUE

King James Version
I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come.

NRSVUE
I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.

Bible · Joel 2:28

KJV + NRSVUE

King James Version
And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions:

NRSVUE
Then afterward I will pour out my spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions.

Book of Mormon

The Book of Mormon answers

2 Nephi 29:9
I speak the same words unto one nation like unto another.
And I do this that I may prove unto many that I am the same yesterday, today, and forever; and that I speak forth my words according to mine own pleasure. And 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 1:9
He will yet reveal many great and important things. That is Amos 3:7 with a spine.
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.

Dead Sea Scrolls: a people still producing scripture-like texts

Qumran copied Moses and the prophets and also wrote pesharim, the Temple Scroll, Hodayot, and 1 Enoch. They did not act like a community whose God had finished speaking when Malachi died.

The closed Protestant canon is a decision of later churches, not a verse in the Bible. Deuteronomy 4:2 and Revelation 22:18–19 each protect the book in which they appear. If Deuteronomy closed the canon, we would have no Isaiah, no Gospels, and no Paul. The Restoration simply refuses to do to the New Testament what no one should have done to Deuteronomy.

Faithful answers

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Gospel Topics

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Canon is a shelf of what the Church has formally bound as scripture. Revelation is the living fountain. Latter-day Saints love the Bible, add the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price, and still expect more. That is Article of Faith 9.

We believe that God continues to reveal His will. Scripture is the record of revelation, and living prophets continue to receive revelation for the Church.

Revelation 22:18–19 parallels Deuteronomy 4:2. Neither verse closed the future mouth of God.
Jesus promised more truth than the Twelve could then bear (John 16:12).
Joel 2, quoted by Peter at Pentecost, is not exhausted by one afternoon in Jerusalem.
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.

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