No. Whose chapter and verse indeed! Revealed truth is absolute; that extends to scripture. Scientific knowledge is nothing more than an aggregation of models, some of which are better models of reality than others, but ALL are incomplete and/or inconsistent with reality.But not all of scripture is "truth." Scripture is written by fallible human beings and is the closest approximation to the truth we have. Their weakness is made strong by the force of the Spirit, which teaches all sincere readers what the truth really is and fills in gaps/patches up holes, so to speak, in the text. It was by this same Spirit that Joseph Smith was able to render a more accurate translation of the Bible. In many cases he may have even been changing _original_ words written by ancient prophets (not mistranslations, omissions or additions) but whose meaning was still not totally clear.
As far as when the birth of Christ actually occurred, D&C 20 does not necessarily tell us the exact year it occurred. It totally depends on the context in which the scripture was given. I believe it is "wresting" the scriptures to claim that this gives us an exact year. The most likely answer is that Joseph, though dictating through the influence of the Spirit, was merely following the convention of his time in assuming that the year was correct. Don't forget that the Lord allows His servants to do His work even though much of their knowledge is limited and even wrong. Joseph only received revelation on matters that he took up with the Lord, and even then he wasn't able to share a hundredth part of it with the general body of the Church. The Lord doesn't force truth upon us--we only receive it when we diligently seek after it. Therefore we labor here below under many faulty assumptions and prejudices that we will outgrow later, but it has to be this way, because without the veil and the necessity of exercising faith we could not grow to become like God. Follow the Church not because it and its doctrines are infallible, but because it is the "only true and living [progressing] church" on the face of the earth, and because it is the chosen instrument by which the Lord's perfect and immaculate kingdom will one day be instituted on the earth. I'll give you an example of this principle from the history of the Church:
- When the church was founded in 1830, it was called the Church of Christ, according to the Lord's will as revealed in the Book of Mormon.
- Because of persecution, Joseph Smith later changed the name of "The Church to the Church of the Latter Day Saints," a decision which caused some to apostatize and abandon the Church.
- Later, as revealed in Section 1, the Lord revealed the full name of the Church as it is today. Even though the members who had previously left the Church were right in their objections to the name, they abandoned the instrument by which they could improve and progress. They failed to exercise humility and support the leadership of the Church in spite of its weakness and fallibility, and consequently they forfeited eternal blessings.
A good essay about this subject is called "Why the Church is as True as the Gospel," by Eugene England. It is an excellent message that I would highly recommend. Look it up in the HBLL.
Carl
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