Problems with the Book of Mormon

Written by R. Philip Roberts

JOSEPH SMITH AND THE BOOK OF MORMON

According to the official LDS Church, as canonized in the Pearl of Great Price ("Joseph Smith – History"), the golden plates remained buried until 1823. That year, Joseph Smith, who had been called by God in 1820 to restore true Christianity to the earth, had a vision of an angel named Moroni. This angel Moroni was the same person who had buried the plates twelve hundred years earlier. He now appeared in a resurrected angelic form. He directed Smith to the exact location where the plates were buried. "Convenient to the village of Manchester, Ontario County, New York, stands a hill of considerable size, and the most elevated of any in the neighborhood. On the west side of this hill, not far from the top, under a stone of considerable size, lay the plates, deposited in a stone box."{1}

Smith was not allowed to take possession of the plates until September 22, 1827. On that date he took the golden plates, a miraculous instrument called the Urim and Thummim, and a breastplate. He began the tedious work of divinely inspired translation late that year.

Smith’s wife, Emma, acted as his first recorder while they resided at her parent’s home in Harmony, Pennsylvania. According to the descriptions by Emma and later scribes, Joseph would miraculously discern the writings on the plates while sitting behind a curtain. He read aloud the words as he deciphered them, and the scribes recorded them. Others who served in that function included Martin Harris, David Whitmer, and Oliver Cowdery, who apparently recorded the greatest portion.

Early in the process, Smith faced a crisis. Martin Harris was a Palmyra farmer who helped finance the project. His wife protested that Harris was spending too much time and money on Smith and demanded to see evidence that it was worthwhile. Smith reluctantly turned over to Harris 116 pages of manuscript they had completed to that point. Smith feared for their safety since they were the only copies he possessed.

His concerns proved warranted, for shortly thereafter, Harris reported back tearfully that the manuscript had inexplicably vanished. It was never recovered, so Smith was forced to translate again the section that was lost. However, his second version lacked much of the detail of the first. Smith maintained it was a more "spiritual" work. He was probably afraid that if the original was found it would demonstrate his translation’s fallibility since it did not exactly match the second attempt.

Most LDS descriptions of the translation process say Smith utilized the Urim and Thummim as the instruments for translation. However, documented testimonies from several of those involved in the process, including Emma Smith and David Whitmer, described the process differently. Years later they stated that Smith actually used a small magic rock called a "seer stone" to comprehend the words on the plates and transcribe them into English. Smith found the stone years earlier while digging a well. He claimed it possessed occult divining properties for finding buried treasure (see chap. 3).

The Book of Mormon was finally completed and published in 1830. Five thousand copies of the original edition were produced by Egbert B. Grandin, a newspaper publisher in Palmyra. Smith included in his first edition two written testimonies of eleven men, all who claimed to have seen and touched the golden plates, along with his own description of the events surrounding the discovery and translation. Smith asserted that the original plates were returned to Moroni who took them to heaven.

In the nearly 170 years since the original edition, the Book of Mormon has undergone numerous revisions. Jerald and Sandra Tanner have documented nearly four thousand changes since the first edition, including some significant textual alterations.{2} Nonetheless, the Book of Mormon remains the best known extrabiblical LDS scripture. It has been translated from the English edition into more than sixty languages and is the focal point of Mormon missions and study.

EXAMINING THE BOOK OF MORMON

The official position of the LDS Church and the belief of most of its members is that the Book of Mormon is a divinely inspired and historically accurate ancient book given to Joseph Smith who translated it miraculously "by the gift and power of God." Many compelling facts, however, as documented by dozens of both LDS and non-LDS researchers, have cast grave doubts on the claims of Smith and the veracity of the Book of Mormon.

Historical Problems

The LDS Church says the Book of Mormon is an actual historical record of ancient civilizations located on the American continents. Mormons are hard put to explain, however, why no external archaeological record of any of the Book of Mormon people groups has ever been found. Decades of massive archaeological research have uncovered evidence of many great, pre-Columbian, Native American civilizations throughout South, Central, and North America. Unfortunately for LDS believers, nothing of substance has ever been found to confirm even one significant event recorded in the Book of Mormon. When it comes to the Bible, though, Near Eastern archaeological study has verified its credibility by uncovering many facts corroborating peoples, places, and events recorded in Scripture. No such confirmation can be found among New World sites to corroborate claims of the Book of Mormon. Consider this list of eight nondiscoveries concerning the Book of Mormon:

1. No Book of Mormon cities have been found.
2. No Book of Mormon names have been found in New World inscriptions.
3. No genuine inscriptions have been found in Hebrew.
4. No genuine inscriptions have been found in Egyptian or anything similar to Egyptian, which could correspond to Joseph Smith’s "reformed Egyptian."
5. No ancient copies of the Book of Mormon scriptures have been found.
6. No ancient inscriptions of any kind indicate that the ancient inhabitants held Hebrew or Christian beliefs. Instead, the beliefs of New World natives are pagan.
7. No mention of any people, nations, or places mentioned in the Book of Mormon have been found.
8. No artifacts of any kind that demonstrate the truth of the Book of Mormon have been found.{3}

Some LDS researchers have tried at various times to tie New World archaeological discoveries to the Book of Mormon’s claims. To their chagrin, however, the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History has provided a written statement denying the Book of Mormon’s archaeological validity for inquirers for years.{4}

Another significant historical problem concerns the LDS Church’s claim that Native Americans are descendants of pre-exilic Jews who migrated to America approximately twenty-six hundred years ago. This assertion contradicts every known anthropological study of Native American populations. The almost universally accepted view is that Native Americans are not descendants of Middle Eastern Jews, but of various Asian populations who migrated from Siberia across a now submerged land bridge into Alaska and south into the Americas. Some theories place the earliest migrations as far back as thirty thousand to fifty thousand years ago.

(Editor's note: recent DNA studies further confirm the Asian lineage.)

Other historical problems involve anachronisms found throughout the Book of Mormon, such as reports of metals and weapons never known in pre-Columbian times. Biological and zoological anomalies also appear. Horses, cattle, elephants, and other animals are described in detail despite the undeniable facts that they were unknown in the Western Hemisphere until after Europeans arrived more than a thousand years after the closing events of the Book of Mormon.

All these facts cast a great shadow of doubt on the truth of the Book of Mormon. What should we make of this? How reliable could we say the Bible is if there were absolutely no external support for any of the events, persons, places, or things it describes? Would we defend its veracity if we found numerous anachronisms, geographical errors, or biological inaccuracies in its passages? But the Bible has stood the test of rigorous objective scrutiny. Such cannot be said for the Book of Mormon.

Problems with Joseph Smith’s Claims

The Book of Mormon stands or falls on the truthfulness of Joseph Smith’s claims about its discovery and translation. Several key facts, however, call into question Smith’s account of what happened.

For one, though Smith talked about the angel Moroni’s visit of 1823 and the golden plates as early as 1827, he did not write the official version until 1838, fourteen years afterward. More important, other descriptions of the events have been found that vary considerably in their details from those in the official version.{5}

Also troubling is the evidence tying Smith to various occult practices. Until the late 1960s, Mormon apologists denied Smith used a seer stone, an object employed in some occultic practices. But the fact could no longer be denied. A Bainbridge, New York, court record was found documenting Smith’s 1826 arrest on a charge of being a disorderly person as a "glass looker" – a reference to his using a seer stone.

One cannot help but question the character of Joseph Smith based on other known details of his life. For example, Smith was later charged with such crimes as bank fraud and treason. He also is known to have engaged in polygamy as early as 1835.

Notes

1. Joseph Smith, "Religious History" 1:51, in Pearl of Great Price.
2. Jerald and Sandra Tanner, 3913 Changes in the Book of Mormon (Salt Lake City: Utah Lighthouse Ministry).
3. Hal Hougey, Archaeology and the Book of Mormon (Concord, CA: Pacific Publishing, 1983), 12.
4. Department of Anthropology, Smithsonian Institution, "Statement Regarding the Book of Mormon" (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 1988).
5. Stephen L. Shields, Latter-day Saints Beliefs: A Comparison Between the RLDS Church and the LDS Church (Independence, Mo.: Herald Publishing House, 1986), 11.

© 2008 LifeWay Christian Resources

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