The Book of Mormon

Moroni 8:11

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~AD 401–421

1830 Edition

and their little children need no repentance, neither baptism. Behold, baptism is unto repentance to the fulfilling the commandments unto the remission of sins.

Influences

Luke 15:7 (KJV)
I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance.
Matthew 3:11 (KJV)
I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance. but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire:
Matthew 26:28 (KJV)
For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.

Changes

aAnd their little children need no repentance, neither baptism. Behold, baptism is unto repentance to the fulfilling the commandments unto the remission of sins.

Simple English

Little children don’t need to turn from sins. They don’t need baptism. Baptism is for turning from sins and obeying God’s commands to have sins forgiven.

Paraphrase

'Little children don’t need repentance or baptism. Baptism is for people who need to repent, so they can obey God’s commands and have their sins forgiven.'

Notes

8:9-11

Jerald and Sandra Tanner note in Joseph Smith's Plagiarism of the Bible in the Book of Mormon, "A popular controversy in Joseph Smith's day was whether or not infants needed baptism. Since Joseph Smith's mother, sister and two brothers had all joined the Presbyterian Church in the mid-1820's, which practiced infant baptism, we assume this was a point of discussion in his own home. Joseph Smith, Sr., was distrustful of organized religion and Joseph Smith, Jr., favored the Methodists. When Joseph Smith related his first vision to his mother he is reported to have said: 'I have learned for myself that Presbyterianism is not true.' Conveniently, this issue was settled in the Book of Mormon by the great general, Mormon, Moroni's father, in approximately 400 A.D."

LDS author Grant Hardy writes in his Understanding the Book Of Mormon, "In 1831, Alexander Campbell, one of the book's first critics (and certainly the first one to read it carefully), famously observed that it seemed to weigh in on all the popular religious questions of the day, including 'infant baptism, ordination, the trinity, regeneration, repentance, justification, the fall of man, the atonement, transubstantiation, fasting, penance, church government, religious experience, the call to the ministry , the general resurrection, eternal punishment, who may baptize, and even the question of freemasonry, republican government, and the right of the man.' This is a fair list, and references to these topics-or their analogous counterparts-can be found throughout the Book of Mormon." -Hardy, Understanding the Book of Mormon, p. 184