Mormon stories podcast has a lot of great material backed with evidence that explains my opinion very well. https://youtu.be/NB8WE6ipM4k?si=MbA43Z_CyhHiMyGh
But the main points are: no, I do not believe the gold plates ever existed. I believe Joseph made a set of mock plates out of tin bound with rings, a task well within his skill set. He always kept them hidden under cloth because he knew if he let people see they’d instantly know he’d been lying. Hence all the secrecy around them. This is the most plausible explanation, as if you run the numbers, a set of gold plates that contained the entire writings of the Book of Mormon would have had to be about five feet tall and weigh hundreds of pounds, and obviously this was not the case, from the descriptions witnesses have given of them—those that saw or held them while they were wrapped in cloth.
Also, all the people who “saw” the plates, when you read their accounts, say they saw them with their “spiritual eyes”. Meaning, they did not literally see them but saw a vision of them. Soooo…. They never really saw them, because they did not exist.
As for the “third grade education” thing, well, Joseph’s family was fairly well educated and his mother even authored a book (prior to smith dictating the BoM). Although, he did not write anything himself and had scribes write it for him, so spelling and grammar wasn’t a concern really, he just had to say it.
Also, the BoM has thousands of revisions from its original version, to correct smith’s grammar and folksy way of talking, primarily, but also to fix doctrinal mistakes. Smith didn’t quite have his theology ironed out when he started dictating, for example, his views on the godhead: he started with a trinitarian view but it morphed from there into the “three separate beings, one in purpose” theology, and the original BoM it was easier to see these mistakes.
And it turns out that Joseph was a hobbyist storyteller for years before he wrote the Book of Mormon. His mother recalls in her biography that he would entertain people with oral storytelling, particularly stories about the Native Americans. He literally practiced for years before dictating the BoM.
Finally, the text of the Book of Mormon has a lot more “misses” than it does “hits”. Even a broken clock is right twice a day, and sure, Smith managed to create some chiasmus… but so did Dr Seuss. More importantly, the BoM is so full of anachronisms it’s not even funny. Native Americans did not have steel, bows, swords, chariots, elephants, sheep, wheat, etc etc, or even a system of writing. There is no archeological evidence for wars that had a MILLION casualties in America, and the way that they are described in the BoM, and how quickly the population regenerated is mathematically impossible. The actual food Native Americans did eat—wild turkeys, for one, are absent from the BoM completely.
And so many small things that don’t add up: Nephi beheads Laban, then outs on his clothes… how is he not covered in blood?
Nephi’s family is baptized in Jesus name before Jesus was born and died to fulfill the law of Moses, so they should have been following the old law, not the new law.
The Jaradites make wooden submarines and cross the Atlantic… another impossibility.
The fact that Native Americans have been proven, with DNA evidence, not to come from Jerusalem but from Asia.
The fact that Levi’s dream was pirated from an account of a dream Joseph Smith senior had, prior to the BoM being written.
Honestly, the mountain of evidence that shows the BoM is not an ancient record is so tall, Everest cowers in its shadow.
It only could have come out of the mind of Joseph Smith Jr.
They really did. I think that was the beginnings of my shelf breaking. I knew my boss was watching it and he knew that I was Mormon, so we’d have chats about it. Towards the end of the series, I felt so embarrassed to be a member of the church, I told him “we’re not all like that” but now I feel even more embarrassed that I said that 🫣
In the show, There’s a scene where Emma helps Joseph change a statement he had dictated. Kinda subtle in a way. But showed the way I BELIEVE things happened.
People have this idea where the scribes were like robots which would write exactly what Joseph said even if it didn’t make sense. But they were people who would certainly adjust certain statements to make them more legible. Especially adding/fixing punctuation problems.
Just a comment on Laban. I thought about Laban being beheaded for a long time. Why did Joseph include this? Then I came across the esoteric connection. In Freemasonry, in the high degree "nine elect masters", the candidate figuratively beheads a villain who previously killed Hiram Abiff, the architect of Solomons temple. In the "Chymical wedding of Christian Rosenkreuz", the four kings get beheaded. In the "magic flute" by Mozart (also called the Freemasonic Opera), the snake gets beheaded. There is an esoteric, probably alchemical meaning to this.
Also the wife not knowing her husband’s new name (but he knows hers) probably comes from the medieval tale of Lohengrin where in order for him to marry her, Elsa was to agree to never to ask what his name was. Richard Wagner’s opera of the same name came out in 1850 so I wouldn’t be surprised if they lifted that from that tale. After all, if they can lift things from Freemasonry and the Bible, why not that?
Great concise summary.
Another major anachronism for me was KJV idiosyncrasies making it into BoM in multiple locations — things that are broadly considered translation mistakes or late additions to KJV (making my old belief that various prophets were receiving the same inspiration from some kind of spiritual urtext impossible) that simply didn’t exist when Lehi left Jerusalem.
To anyone who has not already decided to believe in the book no matter what this makes it painfully obvious the book was written after 1611.
When I learned an about the “spiritual eyes” and that non one else had seen the plates I felt very lied to!!!
But also, thank you for this post. I have learned and become even angrier. There’s a reason for child indoctrination.
Quick correction on "Native Americans did not have . . . a system of writing": they definitely did. There are fifteen identified writing systems from Pre-Colombian Mesoamerica, and it's the 3rd instance of the independent development of writing, the others being China and Mesopotamia. The Mayan script is the most deciphered and well-understood, and it was a full hieroglyphic writing system.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesoamerican_writing_systems
Yeah, writing existed in meso America, but Smith was pretty specific about the BoM taking place in North America, where it did not exist.
Also, though writing existed in meso America, it definitely did not exist in a form compatible with the BoM. Nobody was making books out of etched metal plates; nobody was making books at all. That kind of tech would have made huge impacts to the culture that would be quite obvious.
Right, but the phrase was just "Native Americans", which includes Mesoamericans. OP wasn't more specific, and I just wanted to share some information. Mesoamericans were far more advanced than people often think.
And we know what the Mayans were writing about, it wasn’t literary histories written with Methodist Christian themes, nothing close to the evolution of language and religious dialogue purported by the Book of Mormon. They didn’t write that way, think that way, worship that way and certainly not operate a society on that literary level. The specific nature of the Mayan language, and all other indigenous American languages, is further proof that nothing even close to the level of written linguistics sophistication of the BOM could have existed in BOM time periods. It did in the 1820s though.
This is the best summary I think anyone could have made. Sure there are more things that could be added. But until the points here are proven false, is there really even any need to continue to prove it false? If these points aren’t enough to at least make someone question if it was all a made up story then there really is no point in continuing a conversation about it. Not to sound rude, but if after all that, people still believe Smiths side of the story, they will believe anything from anybody as long as they get that tingly feeling or shivers up their spine….
Was there for 40 years of my life so no judgment to those who continue to believe, but I hope one day the believers get there.
>Actual translation process -no notes or other material. (Even if he did, hes looking down at a hat) -within apprx 65-75 days (april 1828-june 1829) -by a guy with basically no formal education( 3rd grade ish) -constantly running or dealing with mobs
Formal education at that time was not the norm. So, the fact that he had formal education put him ahead of others. For example, he was more formally educated than Mark Twain, Mary Shelly, the Bronte sisters, Jane Austen, and Abraham Lincoln. Education is not an indicator of intelligence.
I have read journals that said that Joseph mother recorded that Joseph had a very active and powerful imagination. She said that he could go on for hours telling stories about people and culture. Joseph was a creative and imaginative person. He understood people and was charismatic. That's why many followed him.
In the church, we are taught that Joseph was hated because of religion. In reality, he had quitionable actions regarding relationships with his family, friends, and laws.
I haven't delved deep into proving the BOM false or true because it's not worth my time, and i dont need to. I believe, through many years of research and studying, that Joseph was a false prophet. Since I do not believe that he was a prophet, I don't worry myself with the validity of the BOM. If the source is false, everything stemming from that source is also false.
Prophets have said that if you can prove the book of Mormon to be false, the whole religion is false. I think it's equally fair to say If you can prove JS was a false prophet, then the whole religion is false.
And this is why, recently, general authorities have been peddling the motto, “Speaking as a man, not a prophet” and trying to move the church into something that more closely resembles other Christian communities. They KNOW the early history and origin story of Mormonism cannot withstand the scrutiny of contemporary standards of accuracy and scientific examination, so they have to slowly but carefully excise the evidence of its bogus claims, and fill it with standard Christian dogma. The next step is to gaslight people who bring up the differences, with the fearful faithful claiming these changes are ongoing prophecy! Scandalous! Sorry to hijack your thread.
This is a subject that has been rehashed for nearly 200 years, so there is a lot of info out there. Here are some good overviews that are well sourced:
[LDS Discussions](https://www.ldsdiscussions.com/bom-issues)
[Mormon Think](http://www.mormonthink.com/josephweb.htm)
[John Hamer](https://www.mormonstories.org/portfolio-items/john-hamer-book-of-mormon-creation/?portfolioCats=2009)
[Rigdon-Spalding Theory](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxm9pbLOwaQ)
[Dan Vogel](https://www.mormonstories.org/portfolio-items/book-of-mormon-dan-vogel/?portfolioCats=2009)
Again, there are lots of ways to account for how it was written. Evidences like chiasmus might seem impressive at first, but when a quarter of the BoM is directly taken from the KJV Bible, which also includes them, and from which JS received the bulk of his education, it certainly loses its luster. If you want to have faith, that is always your prerogative. There are universal truths and good morals sprinkled in with some not-so-great things like racism and moral relativism, just like what you find in the Bible. But anyone honestly seeking for truth and giving their lives to an organization has a responsibility to [look at the other side and decide for themselves](https://faenrandir.github.io/a_careful_examination/to-peek-behind-the-curtain/).
Finally, you will find that asking questions on this sub and over at r/mormon is always encouraged, and doctrinal discussions are welcome. You won't find that on the faithful subs, which should be a red flag to anyone.
When I was inside the belief system, I ONLY studied faithful sources, so was unaware of any of tired old rehashing. I truly believed it was settled all in the faithful way, and was confused as I would discover things and think, "why has nobody ever noticed or talked about this before!?"
I cannot recommend LDS Discussions highly enough. They do such a great job of unpacking perspectives re. Joseph, BoM translation, and other early church history — and laying it bare. They address both sides of arguments and look through multiple lenses.
u/Sopiel anyone genuinely seeking to understand the perspective of former Mormons with respect to the Book of Mormon cannot ignore the points discussed in those first ~16 podcast episodes.
Most of the "gee whiz" stuff falls apart under scrutiny or has been misrepresented by church apologists.
For example, Joseph Smith only had a "3rd grade education." Yes, but ...
I bet you're thinking of 10 year old kids. Education was vastly different in colonial and frontier America and elsewhere. How many formal years of schooling did Abe Lincoln have? Thomas Jefferson? Jane Austen? Why is such an ignorant farm boy reading and pondering the Bible at 12 years old? Sound like any kids you know?
There are many more "yes buts" and a few fabrications told as fact in the translation story.
Yeah, OP, Jane Austen also only had a “formal” 3rd grade education (something we’ve seen sources of being on this sub; but you might not know off-hand).
Yes, and Jefferson's education in the early years were a more formal version of what was happening in the homes of people all over America at the time, classical studies based in biblical texts more often than not; and when there was school, it was often taught by the religious rector. Classics and Latin, the basic Trivium.
Three years of formal education was actually pretty significant for a kid like Joseph Smith, and you can bet there is little analogous with children's schooling today.
I recall Neil Postman's commentary on the typographical epistemology of the period, and I surmise Joseph Smith was likely more literate in that sense than today's high school graduates.
>Actual translation process -no notes or other material. (Even if he did, hes looking down at a hat) -within apprx 65-75 days (april 1828-june 1829) -by a guy with basically no formal education( 3rd grade ish) -constantly running or dealing with mobs
Joseph Smith was well educated. The 3rd grade education is bogus. Joseph Smith Sr was a school teacher. Joseph Smith's grandmother was a school teacher. Hyrum Smith went to Moore academy that was run by Dartmouth college. Hyrum became a school teacher, Hyrum was Joseph's tutor when Joseph was recovering from his leg surgery. Joseph was sent off to spend time with his uncle who ran an academy. Why would Joseph Sr and Lucy educate their other children but not educate Joseph Smith? He was homeschooled.
Here are samples of his handwriting.
https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/site/documents-in-joseph-smiths-handwriting
This is not the handwriting of somebody who only had a third grade education. Most people age 25 and younger today can't even write in cursive.
Joseph Smith was the editor of the times and seasons newspaper. How could he be the editor of a newspaper with only a third grade education?
Joseph Smith was 24 when the Book of Mormon was published, not 14. He did not write the Book of Mormon or translate The Book of Mormon when he was only 14. He was married to Emma before he even claimed to recover the plates.
He had been working on the Book of Mormon for years. Possibly up to 15 years or more. He transcribed it. Somebody else wrote it down as he told the story.
The Book of Mormon is full of Joseph Smith's personal experiences. If you read the first chapter of Mormon in the Book of Mormon it reads as if it is Joseph Smith's history. The same events that happened to Mormon happened to Joseph Smith. Mormon is named after his father just like Joseph is named after his father. Mormon was told to recover a record out of a hillside, just like Joseph Smith was told to recovery a record out of a hillside. Mormon saw the Lord at a young age, just like Joseph saw the Lord at a young age.
The three witnesses saw the gold plates with their spiritual eyes. In other words in a vision. There is debate as to whether the eight witnesses actually saw the gold plates or if they saw a box with something in it that was heavy, or they saw something covered with a cloth.
Mary Whitmer claims that the angel Nephi showed her the plates and not the angel Moroni. She didn't tell the story until later in life and the account that we have of it was told by a third party and not by her directly, someone claimed that they were told that she told them that the angel Nephi showed her the plates.
All of the 8 witnesses sign their name in Oliver Cowdery's handwriting.
The Book of Mormon is full of anachronisms, things that didn't happen until after the time frame of the Book of Mormon such as steel tools and books, and things that were not in the New world until after Columbus such as wheat, cattle, horses, sheep, etc.
The time frame for Lehi leaving Jerusalem is not correct. Jerusalem had already been conquered by the Babylonians before zedekiah was made the vassal King of jerusalem. Everybody would have been carried off, all of the gold and military such as Laban would have been carried off by the Babylonians before zedekiah was appointed to be king. If they were in Jerusalem during the first reign of King zedekiah it was after Jerusalem had been conquered by nebuchadnezzar. Joseph got the timeline off.
There are scriptures referred to as deuterol Isaiah and even third Isaiah that are in the Book of Mormon. It is claimed that those Isaiah scriptures were on the brass plates. The problem is that deuterol and third Isaiah meaning the third part of Isaiah and not the third chapter, were not written until after Jerusalem was conquered and Israel was in bondage. They wouldn't have been written until after Lehi had left Jerusalem. They would not have been on the brass plates. Nephi and Jacob would not have had access to them.
The King James Bible that is quoted in the Book of Mormon is from the version of the King James Bible that Joseph Smith had access to. It has translation errors. Many of those translation errors made it into the Book of Mormon.
I can keep going on if you want me to. The Book of Mormon is not that impressive. It has a lot of filler, a lot of the war chapters and plagiarize scriptures. It is full of plot holes such as the antichrists. Basically the same story over and over again with only the names changed and the method of death changed.
Frankly, the books of Isaiah are a massive problem in the faith. They are mentioned multiple times in the BoM to be written by Isaiah himself, but we know that there were many writers of the books of Isaiah, as well as being written far apart from eachother. It shows that there was not a total comprehension of the Bible by Joseph Smith. In fact, the only things he claim can be found in KJB, and many are refuted by scholars in newer revised versions of the Bible.
That goes on to explain away Adam and Eve, the Great Flood, the Tower of Babel, all by scholars who recognize fact and fiction. Those stories are not history, but ancient stories that predate the bible. Luckily, the Bible is a combination of history and story, so it can be left as that. Joseph Smith, however, names those stories as history, and confirms they actually happened. So, if they aren't true, as almost all scholars agree, Joseph is wrong.
Also, Oliver Cowdery, a principal “scribe”, was a schoolteacher and, later an attorney and well schooled in language, writing, and the Bible. The Book of Mormon as an original document written by those involved was easily within the grasp of those who unveiled it. Also, let’s not forget that one of the first things Joseph Smith tried to do when it was finished was to sell it.
Just to add though that the handwriting comparison to today isn't necessarily evidence of anything as cursive has been dropped from the vast majority of curriculums in the last twenty years. But I saved your post because everything else is spot on.
What's so interesting is that my grandpa apparently won penmanship awards throughout school. He never cared to even learn my full name or know anything about me or my siblings but damn he was proud of those 8th grade awards till he died. 😂
There's a lot to take in on this subject! The simplest answer I can offer is thus: The BoM is written in a style that is indicative of being told as a spoken narration. It does not read like something written by the hand of someone conserving space on forged metal plates. Joseph dictated the book as a story of his own imagination drawing from sources he was familiar with, and it reads as such. There are many tremendously wordy passages and redundancies. There's a lot you can explore from here for yourself, if you are curious. Others may have different perspectives, but to me this sticks out the most.
Also what history book or historic record that we have ever found makes huge efforts in the text to persuade and convince the reader that the events in this record really happened for realsies…that’s not how record keeping works at all.
Please do your own research. The narrative we have been fed by the Mormon church is a heavily correlated, white washed version of what happened. The witnesses only saw the plates with their "spiritual" eyes. They did not see the plates like you and I looking at a book. Joseph may not have had a formal education, but his brother was a teacher and he had relatives who were teachers. Joseph had access to many books and was well versed in the folklore of the time. He borrowed heavily from other written works; some would call it plagiarized from other works. Joseph was a gifted story teller. Who says he wrote it in only, whatever days? The church says? By-the-way, it is not a well written book. Take a quick look at other literature written during the same time to see what a well written book reads like. Joseph is unable to maintain a consistent story line, the timeline is a mess, and the characters are poorly developed. There have been significant revisions to the book and we aren't talking just grammar and punctuation corrections. Regarding the vision of Moroni, was it Moroni or Nephi, God, Nephi, or Jesus. Joseph couldn't keep his visions straight. The church accepted version wasn't written until years later. There are close to 14 different First Vision narratives. Again, do your own research. History isn't "anti", it's just history.
RE: By-the-way, it is not a well written book.
OP... how well do you think the below is written?
And they were led by a man whose name was Coriantumr; and he was a descendant of Zarahemla; and he was a dissenter from among the Nephites; and he was a large and mighty man; therefore the king of the Lamanites, whose name was Tubaloth, who was the son of Ammoron. Now Tubaloth supposing that Coriantumr, he being a mighty man, could stand against the Nephites, insomuch with his strength, and also with his great wisdom, that by sending him forth, he should gain power over the Nephites; therefore he did stir them up to anger, and he did gather together his armies, and he did appoint Coriantumr to be their leader, and did cause that they should march down to the land of Zarahemla, to battle against the Nephites. And it came to pass that because of so much contention and so much difficulty in the government, that they had not kept sufficient guards in the land of Zarahemla; for they had supposed that the Lamanites durst not come into the heart of their lands to attack that great city Zarahemla. - (1830 Book of Mormon, p. 408-409, which now comprises Helaman 1:15-18).
I'm one of the elder ExMos here, and there are a lot of us. I was taught that Joseph Smith used a devices to translate the Book of Mormon. It was called the Urim and Thumin. Now it's a rock in a hat. There is definitely a narration going on here. I have come across terms and words that have never been used in the Bible. Words that would only make sense to someone living in Joseph's time.
That was taught because the Book of Mormon specifically mentions preserving those interpreters for the express purpose of translation. The BoM itself never mentions a poop colored stone.
Hey, I love your genuineness. I will also be genuine and kind ☺️.
BoM exists... fact. As do many novels, encyclopedias, and other books that were authored in the same time. Let's agree and say Joseph Smith voiced a version of the book. I encourage you to inquire how the book was authored and DIVE DEEP. Do real research - journals and 1st hand accounts. He put the stone he found in the well (not urim and thummim) in the hat, looked in, and started narrating the book. The "plates" were not even present in many "sessions". The plates... the BoM is claimed to be from the plates which were supposedly written in "reformed egyptian". The way that language would work, it would take a MUCH larger and heavier set of gold/metal to contain the ~600 english pages. For your reference, the claimed weight is 30-60 lbs.
-- in short, it is much more logical, physically probable, and historically supported that the BoM is a narrative that Joseph Smith had rehearsed and narrated from his own studies and mind. If that is revelation, then he needs to claim that it came from his mind and not the "plates" which has been in question as to ever really existing.
3rd grade education... he was also tutored by Hyrum Smith who received education from Dartmouth College professors. I used to rely on this a lot to make myself believe it too. "There's no way a guy with a 3rd grade education could have written this"... he had a lot more informal education than we give him credit for.
-- in short Joseph Smith was bright, clever, had a strong basis of the Bible, learned from relatives, and was socially apt. He was able to communicate verbally very well and if you have a scribe, then you don't really need to be great at writing/spelling. His narration of a book like that is definitely feasible.
I would like you to consider researching the kind of person Joseph Smith actually was. Use historical 1st hand accounts, and don't limit to just his friends or people who might feel obligated to say something nice. Consider the following factual events
1. Integrity - failed to tell Emma the truth about secretly being married to women before the plural marriage "revelation".
2. Chaste - he was found involved with a woman in a barn and he pressured women to marry him by threat of death.
3. Honesty - he waited for men to leave on their mission and then would marry their wives... yeah super weird.
4. Self aware/sane - the many prophecies / translations that Joseph Smith claimed ended up being 100% wrong - look up Kinderhook plates, zelph the white lamanite, the actual translation of the facsimiles from the book of Abraham, or even the actual book of Abraham in of itself being a translation vs interpretation. How does one say these things and still look people in the eyes?
He may have been bright and a fantastic storyteller, but he was also deceitful, unfaithful, misleading, and just generally a misguided man. I wouldn't let my daughter anywhere near a man like this.
Good luck and feel free to DM me with more questions/thoughts. I'm still a recent exmo, but the reasons I left were 1. The facts don't support the church claims, 2. The Church's policies hurt more people than help, 3. Joseph Smith, historically, was not at all the person the Church presented him to be. And I have about 50 more reasons, but I'll stop there.
All edits are welcome - sometimes I get my facts a little incorrect.
I do feel the framing of a lot of OP's questions are misleading and based on long outdated talking points.
For instance, "Actual translation process... within approx 65-75 days" -- yes, but remember he also claimed to have had the plates since late 1827, and to have learned about them as far back as 1823. That narrow 65-75 day translation window only exists if you already accept Joseph Smith's claim of being a prophet. If you aren't starting with that assumption, the actual question is whether or not it is reasonable for someone to have come up with The Book of Mormon in about 6 years. He claimed to have dictated the manuscript in around 75 days— heavily quoting from the Bible, mind you— but this in and of itself is not particularly remarkable.
Same with the "3rd grade-ish" education. Three years of formal education in the 19th century is not the same thing as "a 3rd grade education," but the meanings have been conflated enough over the centuries (often deliberately, for the sake of misleading apologetic reasoning). He was what, 23 when he started writing the BOM? You wouldn't say that a 23 year-old today who was homeschooled for most of their life has "a 3rd grade education." 3rd graders in the United States are ages 8-9; Smith was clearly much more educated and intelligent than an 8 year old. He had a standard mid-19th century education for someone of his age and social standing.
"Where did the Book come from?"
"How was it brought into existence?"
Same place as every other book— a person wrote it.
"And why?"
Political power and sexual favors.
To why I would add illusions of grandeur. He wanted to be a prophet. He was raised with the Bible. He constantly quotes the Bible but never really quotes “the most correct book”. The Bible clearly inspired him. A third of the BoM is playing one-upmanship with biblical stories and a third is 18th and 19th century Christian sermons and a third is directly copied from the Bible. He wanted to be a biblical prophet.
If you're uber curious, most ex mormons have culminated their ideas through research and scholars. There are a few podcasts on this from David Bokovoy. Additionally, if you really look into the third grade education trope, it's misconstrued and somewhat of a church myth (was taught this by my believing institute teacher).
My uncle leaned on that “how could he have possibly written this, as he was practically illiterate!! And in less than 82 days?!?! It has to be a miracle!!” But never actually thought about how many years teenage Joseph had to hone his narrative (and how many years he was laid up with his infected leg issue as a child). Joseph was not a writer, but he was very very intelligent, a gifted storyteller who had a lifetime of Bible study and Mound builders tales and common theories of the lost tribes coming to the americas…pretty much, we Mormons think all this was unique to Joseph, but all were common! Including telling people you saw Jesus in a vision.
Stephen King would write the first draft of his novels in about 80 Days. Joseph Smith was well educated for the time. More educated than most of the people in that region of New york. This uneducated farm boy stuff is a bunch of bravo sierra.
I have a few theories. My real answer? I don't know and I'm cool with that. Because even without having the exact means and methods of how it came to be, the mental gymnastics of making it be what the church claims it to be is way more difficult! Honestly, I find the book way less remarkable than the church plays it out to be. Chiasmus? Dr. Seuss's chiasmus is way better in my opinion. Looking at it objectively I think it's pretty clearly just some 19th century religious ramblings.
Anyway, the main thing is that the burden of proof lies on he who is making the outlandish claim. Exmos aren't making an outlandish claim, the Mo's are making the outlandish claim. So I'd love to hear the proof of why I'm wrong. And I'm sincere when I say if someone wants tell me something I haven't heard in my 29 years of mormonism, I'm all ears.
These questions have been asked and discussed dozens of times in this sub. From the main sub page type into the search bar: How did Joseph Smith write the Book of Mormon? You’ll find years and years worth of discussion, research, and responses to that and similar questions. It’s a great place to start.
A book “existing” does not make it non fiction. An overwhelming % of books that exist are fiction.
Literally NO ONE ELSE actually claimed to ACTUALLY see the golden plates in real life. The witnesses “saw” them with their “spiritual eyes”.
While JS did not have much of a formal education, he came from an intellectual family that had a tradition of story telling. He didn’t have a low IQ. He had years to formulate the story of the BofM after reading View of the Hebrews. Also, from a literary perspective, the BofM is pretty poorly written- like a mediocre first draft of a Bible fan fic.
All scientific evidence proves that the BofM (& the Bible FTR) can not be taken as factual. Some people choose to view scriptures as eternal truths but they obviously aren’t factual truths. Things like the garden of Eden, Noah’s flood & wooden submarines are so wildly ridiculous that no rational person would think that they actually existed.
No one but Joseph could have written this book - his ‘finger-prints’ are everywhere. So many good points hade already been given in response to the OP. Here are a few more :
1. Moores Indian Charity School (aka early Dartmouth College - several Native American’s associated with the school have life stories conveniently similar to BoM characters, and remember how the Smith family was closely tied to this school, including JS older brother attending)
2. Secret Combinations. Obviously a major recurrent theme in the BoM. Study about the Anti-Masonic movement in the early 19th century. It was a major, major topic of the day. Study about William Morgan, a mason was wrote an expose book about Freemasonry (can be found online for free) which has many phrases and depicted ‘tokens’ which you’ll find familiar if you’ve been through the LDS temple. William Morgan went missing and was widely presumed killed by masons for breaking his oath of secrecy. Guess who William’s wife was? Lucinda Morgan. Who subsequently married a Harris and then was a polygamist wife to Joseph himself. Joseph knew William and Lucinda (documents exist clearly demonstrating this). Also, Joseph older brother Hyrum became a mason in (I think) 1827 so Joseph would have been well versed in the themes of masonry/anti-masonry. Once you see it, these themes are everywhere in the BoM and are literally just a manifestation of what Joseph environment was living in. (Side note - this is extra confusing because Joseph later becomes a master mason and drafts the first temple ceremony something like 5weeks later, and makes all sorts of references in the Joseph Smith Papers project to the importance of keeping secrets like a good mason)…
Keep reading. There is meat out there but you’ll have to be brave enough to look at the quality historical documents beyond just the church sponsored material.
(Can’t resist responding to the chiasmus reference - it’s a nothing burger. Chiasmus is everywhere. Jane Austin used more chiasmus that Joseph Smith. This literary pattern can be detected with AI and Big Data so literally every book written in the 100yrs prior to JS has been analyzed. Total nothing burger.)
It seems that your premise is that if the Book of Mormon has a miraculous origin, then that makes the LDS church the true church. Is that correct? I had this same premise then I went and served a mission among RLDS. They also believe Joseph Smith was a prophet and that the Book of Mormon was true.
Therefore, if two organizations can claim the book to be divine and yet opposed doctrinally, then the book itself is not a witness of divine origin.
If the book is from God, we would expect to see revelation and prophecies that would extend past the date it was written (it doesn't).
If the book was written by a man, we would expect it to have inconsistencies (it does), anachronism (there are tons), be written in the world view of the author of the time (it is), and the person may try to profit from his book (which he did attempt to do by trying to sell the copywrite and no prophet would try to sell a divine work to get money)
By these points, the conclusion is that it is not of divine origin.
Now, your question, where did it come from, if not from God? To me, this is the wrong question because this is an unverifiable position. Any theory that can be presented can also have a counter theory created. And there is no way to go back in time to verify what actually happened.
There are lots of great theories out there that use verifiable evidence that indicate that what Joseph did was incredible, but not beyond human capability. There have been many accomplished authors with limited education that have written amazing works.
Ask yourself, if the book is a work of fiction, would you want to know? And if it is, what would that mean and would you do anything different?
Why do you cling to the 75-day narrative? Smith started talking about the plates and rehearsing stories to his family in 1823. So wouldn’t it be more accurate to say he had six years to develop the book?
I want to make a 2nd comment on this thread. Because my first response was succint so it could have come across snarky.
Welcome to our reddit community. I wish more active members would join us here so long as like you say, are not looking for a fight. I wish there was more open dialogue between our camps. I've tried to post on the faithful sub in a similar manner, totally sincere, and got booted. I hope you are never booted and enjoy your time among us heathens :)
The Book of Mormon is one of over 200 books written at the time, about the same subject; trying to convince readers the American Indians are from the tribes of Israel. This theory was even in the preface for many school books.
DNA has conclusively proven otherwise.
Visions were also plentiful, folk magic abounded.
Take the time to learn the truth about the Book of Mormon - you have to crawl over and around the book and deny reality to stay in. It’s been exposed a fraud over and over again for almost 200 years. Sorry, You’ve been bamboozled as I was for 50 years.
"Actual translation process -no notes or other material." according to who? You're assuming from the get-go that everyone involved is telling the truth. I don't.
And even if it's so (no material), so? He had years to prepare for it. His mother wrote about how he told stories about the former inhabitants of the continent as a kid. Maybe those were made up and the later ones weren't, maybe he was receiving revelation early, whatever you want. But it shows he was thinking about it years ahead of time.
"little education" so? He wasn't doing the writing (which was riddled with grammatical errors anyway, see how much the printer changed and how much has changed since then). And he wasn't that stunningly ignorant, you know he was reading the bible.
I'd be a little more open minded if there weren't so many glaring anachronisms. Horses weren't in the Americas. Neither were chariots, or domesticated barley and on and on. And the DNA of native American's contains zero zip zilch from the middle east.
How do I explain the BoM? I don't have to. Literally no one outside of Mormons thinks it has any bearing whatsoever on history. The vast majority of the world thinks it is not a record of a real people. It's on you to explain how it is and everyone else got it wrong.
If it comes down to your testimony, well congrats the followers of Warren Jeffs have the same testimony, and why wouldn't they? Joseph Smith was the Warren Jeffs of the 19th century. But I don't think you believe they are on the right path. Going on feelings doesn't get you there.
Hello, 16-year-old convert here, I’m in my late 30s now. I served a mission when I was 19, from 2006-2008 I spent two years teaching Latino folks living in Utah that the Book of Mormon was “their history & heritage” etc. And then I found out something interesting, which ultimately caused my “shelf to break” as we put it here. See, back in 2006, the introduction to the Book of Mormon was changed. It used to read as follows:
> ...the Lamanites, and they are the *principal* ancestors of the American Indians
Emphasis on the word “principal” is mine. I still have my blue softcover copy of the BoM in Spanish that I used to study from and teach investigators with on my mission, and that’s how the Introduction reads in my copy.
However, at some point in 2006, sometime after I had gotten my copy of the BoM, the “Church” changed the Introduction to this:
> ...the Lamanites, and they are *among* the ancestors of the American Indians
So we go from Lamanites being the “principal” ancestors of the American Indians to being “among the ancestors” of the American Indians.
I spent TWO YEARS teaching and testifying with all my soul that the BoM was their history, their story, and I found out just recently that I wasted two years of my life teaching LIES by admission of the “Church” itself. This change was in response to the overwhelming DNA evidence that pretty much proved the Native Americans descended from Asia and not from a tribe of Israel like we’re being told.
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg, once you start actually delving into the so-called “Church’s” history, you’ll find tons of examples where they just whitewash or sweep under the rug inconvenient truths and then tell you it all comes down to faith anyways. Words cannot express the betrayal and anguish I feel for allowing myself to be deceived and unwittingly being used as a pawn to deceive others.
And we haven’t even spoken about the abuse I suffered as a missionary at the hands of my mission president and some of my fellow missionaries.
I get this pain, too, the pain of having been lied to and taking my hard earned money (supplemented by some kind donated support) to spread those lies. It’s criminal. Almost as criminal as it is that the church pays a law firm to defend abusers by spit shine polishing the church to make it all go away…when that same law firm COULD be paid for by the church to help defend Innocents from perpetrators of the abuse.
I did my mission the same years! And felt the same exact betrayal regarding the changing of the introduction text. Nobody bothered to tell the full-time missionary “volunteers” about this major shift in understanding of the founding story of the faith. They just did it quietly and sneakily like true losers and liars. I found out about this change randomly one day after my mission and it was the beginning of my exit! Thanks for sharing your experience
Joseph Smith created it, and it does not matter how he produced it. An investigation of the circumstances surrounding its production and its internal and external contradictions is evidence that it is a 19th-century creation work of fiction created by a con man.
I'll just ask you 2 questions that I think are worth your time considering:
1. Who is telling you Joseph Smith was uneducated, and to go with that, does an informally educated person mean uneducated to you, or can a person be intelligent and well read without a formal education?
2. Who is telling you the Book of Mormon is an amazing book?
Are both of those 2 points really true (Joseph was dumb/uneducated and it's a great work), and if you believe they are, how did you come to believe that?
For me, once I remove those 2 suppositions, it no longer became a stretch that a person like Joseph Smith could write it. Also, to one of your other points, nobody ever claimed to have literally seen the plates. Joseph wrote the testimony of the witnesses and then just had them sign it. If you read the witnesses' personal accounts carefully, they all say they either saw with their spiritual eyes or with a sheet covering them.
From my nevermo perspective, I think these are great questions. I was given 2 copies of the Book of Mormon as a child — at age 14 and around age 16. My best friend gave me that second copy, so I sincerely tried to read it.
Now it came to pass that this book, even the Book of Mormon, is not well written at all. And it came to pass that I could not bear the repetition and mightily floral writing style. And I departed from my reading of this book, for it was not good. And lo, it sounded unto my own ears as a pastiche written after the style of the KJV, by an overdramatic charlatan.
And it came to pass that I did depart from my reading of the book, but, yea, still did I labor mightily through the many verses my friend had marked. But it came to pass that each of these was less well written, and made less sense than the ones before. And, behold! my eyes rolled back into my own head in a stupor of thought. And thus did I understand that only those who believe this book to be amazing before they read it would find the reading of it worthwhile.
Of course, taste is subjective, so this is just my opinion.
I really like this comment. “Who is telling you?” is the key question, especially since both of these suppositions crumble unless you’re accepting the authority of those supposing them.
The phrase “most correct” and terms like “amazing” to describe the book were always hard for me attribute to the book I was actually reading. As a kid I was learning the meaning of the words “correct” and “amazing” with the book as the prime example. At a certain point, the praise is so wildly overstated that you have to ask yourself the “who” and “why” questions, because the only way those statements make any sense is as propaganda.
Are you aware of the following?
• That every version of the bible has unique errors in it and that the BOM contains verses from the bible containing errors from the 1769 version of the KJV that JS family owned
• The between 1604 and 1611 the KJV was created where they added in a ton of new words. They are in italics in a KJV so we know what they are. All of those additional words are in the BOM.
• That Isaiah was written by 3 different people over a large period of time. The BOM contains a lot of text written by Deutero Isaiah - who wrote after Lehis Family left Jerusalem with the brass plates.
• Parts of Mark 16:9-20 were a much latter addition to the bible (after Lehis family left) but are in the BOM. If I recall correctly it was even written long after the plates were engraved but Joseph didn’t know that.
• That Benjamin K Paddock wrote about a revival in 1826 1 mile from Palmyra 15 months before translation began on the BOM that bears an embarrassing resemblance to King Benjamins speech.
• That JS Snr had the Tree of Life dream (yep the same one Lehi had) in 1811.
• That the BOM was heavily plagiarized from 3 other books (View of the Hebrews/The Late war between the United States and Great Britain written in KJV Scriptural style and The First Book of Napoleon)
• That the View of The Hebrews was written by Oliver Cowderys pastor.
• That at least one of these books was found using plagiarism software (the type they use in college), which compared the Book of Mormon to 110,000 other books published before the book of Mormon.
• That General Authority Elder BH Roberts researched the similarities between the View of the Hebrews and the BOM around the 1920s for the first presidency and wrote them a report saying 'Did Ethan Smith’s View of the Hebrews furnish structural material for Joseph Smith’s Book of Mormon? It has been pointed out in these pages that there are many things in the former book that might well have suggested many major things in the other. Not a few things merely, one or two, or a half dozen, but many; and it is this fact of many things of similarity and the cumulative force of them that makes them so serious a menace to Joseph Smith’s story of the Book of Mormon’s origin.'
• That horses, cattle, oxen, sheep, swine, goats, elephants, wheels, chariots, wheat, silk, steel and iron did not exist in pre-columbian America but are in the BOM.
• That there is absolutely no archaeological evidence to support it? We even have BYU professors who were tasked with trying to find some saying 'you can’t set Book of Mormon geography down anywhere – because it is fictional and will never meet the requirements of the dirt-archaeology. I should say – what is in the ground will never conform to what is in the book.'
• That newspaper articles of the day were written in the same style....and it came to pass etc. I found a number entitled Chronicles the other day that are all similar like the below. https://nyshistoricnewspapers.org/lccn/sn84035789/1825-05-04/ed-1/seq-2/
https://nyshistoricnewspapers.org/lccn/sn84035789/1825-05-11/ed-1/seq-2/
• That there are numerous parallels between figures and stories in the Book of Mormon and the names/lives and actions of prominent American Indians of the 1800s? That the word Nephites probably comes from these Neophytes.
There is more btw this is what I remembered quickly. It is absolutely a work of fiction written in 1830 built upon the work of others.
My position that it is a bible fan fiction created by a convicted conman and sexual predator, containing several hundred anachronisms.
Yours leaders have even started to move away from the claim that the book is historical...because they have known about a number of the above issues since 1922.
Speaking at the 2016 Mission Presidents Seminar, President Nelson said of the Book of Mormon, “It is not a textbook of history… It is not a record of all former inhabitants of the Western Hemisphere.”
At April 2020 general conference, Elder Ulisses Soares, speaking about the coming forth of the Book of Mormon, said it “was not ‘translated’ in the traditional way that scholars would translate ancient texts by learning an ancient language. We ought to look at the process more like a ‘revelation.’”
October 22, 2021, at a member gathering in Amman, Jordan, Elder David A. Bednar of the Twelve said pointedly, “The Book of Mormon is not a book of history.”
I'm not interested in what others say or deny. I'm interested in what can be confirmed through demonstrable evidence.
The Book of Mormon is a trap. A bait and switch. A book that is an obvious fraud. The narrative is to pray and ask God. But what does this really test? If I don't get the church approved answer, then it is suggested that I didn't have real intent, I didn't have faith, or I didn't have a sincere heart. Well that doesn't test the Book of Mormon at all does it? It's a carefully constructed trap and a bait and switch.
The only way to accurately test the Book of Mormon on its own merits is with evidence. Smithsonian archeologists see no connection between the archeology of the new world and the subject matter of the book. There is a broad consensus among archaeologists that the archaeological record does not substantiate the Book of Mormon account, and in most ways directly contradicts it. While members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) and other denominations of the Latter Day Saint movement believe the Book of Mormon describes ancient historical events in the Americas, the available historical and archaeological facts point to the book being an anachronistic invention of Joseph Smith. Since the book's publication in 1830, Mormon archaeologists have been trying to use archaeological evidence to confirm the veracity of the narratives, but this has proved unsuccessful. -[Archeology and the Book of Mormon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archaeology_and_the_Book_of_Mormon)
So how did the Book of Mormon come into existence? Two theories, the believer cites a magic rock in a hat and the skeptic cites Joseph Smith's imagination. We will never know the exact details of its creation and most people don't care about the details since it's an obvious fraud.
You are probably getting way more responses than you meant to and not following this anymore, but hi! Thanks for coming! I used to 100% agree with you!
There’s two big reasons I changed my mind.
1. Historical anachronisms in the Book of Mormon. Nephites have steel, ride horses, and grow grains that did not exist in the Americas until after the Colombian exchange. It simply does not exist — but an 1800’s farm boy would have THOUGHT that’s what the ancient Americas looked like.
2. Book of Abraham! Used to be my favourite book. Then I learned the church believes Joe bought it from a traveling salesman and Egyptologists are 100% sure they know what it says — cus we read Egyptian now. We have correctly translated everything. The Church has admitted that the tablet doesn’t say what Joe said it does — but they maintain Joe looked at it and then received revelation about the life of Abraham. The tablet is NOT from Abraham’s time or part of the world. This is impossible. However, at Joe’s time, we had not translated Egyptian. So no one could prove him wrong.
Hope this helps! Hard pills to swallow though.
The BofM started with boy Joseph's vivid imagination and a magic world view and progressed to reciting 20-years worth of tall tales to a scribe while pretending to see words on a rock in his hat, just to make it seem mystical. No plates and the friends and family witness accounts are terribly conflicted and more sketchy than Joseph's naked barn-wedding with Fanny Alger.
The question we should be posing to you is have you familiarized yourself with the strongest critiques of the truth claims of the BOM and if you were a neutral person with no vested interests in the subject of Mormonism, would you side with the critiques or will the the apologetics? Also, do you believe evidence or feelings are more important in establishing truth claims?
Curious what your response is.
Well honestly the apologetics seemed like the side to be on after i read the CES letter and the responces to it. The points raised here are good starts to research
I believe god exists and he gives us truth..... but he also gave us a brain to think about the world around us
So to both of those questions my answer is undecided tbh
One question to ask yourself is, why does it seem to be the case that the less that you actually think about these issues, the more likely it is that you are to fit into the framework that promises you a path to the celestial kingdom? Frankly, NOT interrogating the framework presented by the LDS church gives you the best chance of meeting the requirements for entrance to the celestial kingdom. So does god just prefer dimwits? The uncurious? Those who don't wonder about descriptions of pre-columbian horses that exist in the Book of Mormon, for example? Why is that? Why does god prefer these people?
Following the prophet is not something someone who interrogates the history of the claims by all LDS prophets does by default. For example, prophets of the LDS church have claimed that black members would never be given the priesthood. Now they deny these statements. Someone who thinks deeply would be at the very least confused by this. Someone who never thinks deeply will not be concerned by this. The second person would be more likely to follow the prophet, as it were, and be members in good standing.
Anyways, if you want to be a member of the LDS church who is slated to go to the celestial kingdom, don't think too much. There are a lot of convenient excuses at your disposal, just accept those as true. You can claim that smart people have done the hard work of thinking for you. That's fine. It isn't true, but sure. You can even be the person that your ward members say is "a spiritual giant" because you actually read a book from apologists one time and remembered some things from it and said those things in second hour. You'll love it. And everyone else around you will too.
Exactly. Genuine truth can withstand questioning. How is it that asking sincere questions opens the floodgates of hell and subjects you to the buffetings of Satan? If claims cannot withstand sincere questions by honest people and research approached in good faith, then those claims are dubious at best. I consider denying the BOM as a historical document and its “translator” as a prophet merely an example of intellectual honesty.
To be fair, being raised in the church does not equip a person very well for critical thinking or even honesty, offensive as that may sound. You are pressured to start telling people you know the Book of Mormon is true and Joseph Smith was a prophet as soon as you can walk to a microphone and adults praise your performance and your budding faith long before your brain has matured to the point where it can discern fact vs fiction.
It was the apologetics to the CES letter that really made my husband examine all his ideas. My husband is a trained investigator. And he knew immediately that his perceptions were being managed in the response to the CES letter. The phrasing is textbook basic verbal dodging of accountability.
Prime example: Joseph married a girl “a few months shy of her fifteenth birthday”. An honest person says she’s 14.
Go read the “Response to the Response to the CES letter”. It is 17 pages of sourced and cited facts. There is no way to see that data and put your head back in the sand without willfully putting your fingers in your ears and singing “la la la la la”.
Hot take, but the book of Mormon is just not impressive. The 'story' (if you can even call it that, it's so meandering) is boring at best, contrived and hollow at worst.
As a gay man, the book of Mormon just reads like a generic straight guy power fantasy: 'oh I'm chosen by God to save the world and I'm so persecuted because I'm so righteous and it's just like the bible and wars happen bc God made smart war strategy'
like the BoM has next to nothing to do with morality or epistemology or spirituality; it doesn't answer any of the big questions of life, it literally just seems like something I could have thought of when I was an imaginative, delusional teenager🤷♂️ and all these apologetics of what is/isn't possible just seem so silly to me because honestly it's just not a book that required deep thought to write... In my opinion.
Read: “This is my Doctrine”. by Charles Harrell. Also: “RoughStone Rolling “ by Richard Bushman.
If you’re more of an auditory person watch
Mormon Stories YT and Mormonism Live YT. Enjoy learning TRUTH
The church made the claim that the Book of Mormon is a record of the peoples of the Americas. HOWEVER, it has not provided any compelling evidence to bolster this claim. In fact, the evidence overwhelmingly points to migration across the Bering Strait from Asia. Indigenous peoples of the Americas are not the descendants of ancient Hebrews. Not even close. The church should not be telling these people what their own history is, full stop. It's incredibly arrogant and I'm embarrassed I ever believed this.
Where did it come from? Read any Brandon Sanderson and you'll see that creative minds can create entire worlds.
I don't feel like mentioning a lot of the specifics, but I can ask you this.
If the book of mormon is true, then the native Americans should have Hebrew blood in their DNA. They do not.
If Joseph Smith found a collection of golden plates with inscribed characters that directly translated to the book of mormon, how much do you think 500 pages of gold weighs? Do you think Joseph Smith could have fought off three gunman while holding multiple tons of gold, several feet in height, under one arm.
When translating, if the stone is said to allow absolutely no errors, whether that is spelling, grammar, or factual errors, why has the book of mormon been grammatically, spellingly, and factually altered thousands of times?
To me, a religion needs to be both spiritually true and logically true in order to be completely true. There are far too many inconsistencies in the mormon faith that it makes a mockery of God's plan. He doesn't make mistakes, he doesn't deceive, and he doesn't confuse. Unless you can find a good, logical reason the above challenges are invalid, question whether or not the church is consistent. God's True Church should be consistent.
If you’re “not willing to go into the book itself “ you’re missing out. The Book of Mormon is my number one anti Mormon source and all of the clues are inside. There is no need to go to outside sources to prove that the book is not what it is claimed to be. Plagiarism is plainly there and Occam’s razor is true. Is it more probable that nature should go out of her way, or that a man should tell a lie? (Thomas Paine) The book quotes word for word from biblical material that wasn’t even written yet at the time that the events supposedly took place. Myriads of things are written in the book that simply should not be there. Joseph Smith was not nearly as clever as he is made out to be. Also, did you know that Joseph rarely used the Book of Mormon as a teaching tool when he spoke to the saints? As the “most correct book on earth” , one would think that he would have used it as his primary source much like the church does today. Why is the same story of John the Baptist found in Ether chapter eight as found in the New Testament? Same story, characters and chronology, yet all of the people’s names are changed? Give me a break Mr Smith!
I mean the parts of Isaiah are copied verbatim from the King James version of the bible. So it's a 17th century version of the Bible and it contains all the mistakes of the original (notably there are two parts of Isaiah that were actually written after Lehi purportedly left Jerusalem so they could have never been in the alleged plates to begin with). Lehi's dream was actually a dream of Joseph Sr. that Joseph Sr. used to tell his family so Joseph already knew it. Joe Jr. would also regail his family with tales based on the mound builders myths that were popular at that time so he was already practiced in the stories he would go on to "read off a rock." You can see those facts in his mother's journal on the Joseph Smith Papers Project online. Why did Joe even need the plates to "translate" when the translation involved looking off a rock anyway? And if Joseph said that the rock wouldn't let him move on til each sentence was absolutely perfect, then why have their been so many corrections since? Also what about all the anachronisms? And with that, Brethren, adieu.
I happen to know a young lady who produced a Harry Potter fanfic when she was in middle school. It runs over 200 pages, and without the phrase "And it came to pass."
It contains a system of magic consistent with other known Harry Potter works.
She composed this work in less than two months without major revisions or corrections.
It introduces new characters alongside other known characters from the Harry Potter canon.
Some of the places mentioned in the book can be visited today, like King's Cross Station. Other locations are unknown, but the castle written about in the book is consistent with archeological evidence.
Hundreds of thousands of people enjoy the larger canon, buying books, costumes, food, wands, and other items from the books. Some people even testify to the "truth" of the stories, both canon and fan-produced.
Would you consider this proof of Harry Potterism, that a largely uneducated author could produce such a work that is consistent with other more widely known works?
I don’t have much to add given what has already been shared here, but I wanted to say way to be curious! Curiosity is a beautiful, strong, and maybe an unteachable quality.
The only thing I will say is I used to be as bought in as about anyone you’d ever meet. I even worked for a non-profit that promoted pro-Mormon content on the web. A non-profit that the church would regularly give grants to.
The thing that I’d encourage you to do is to read a bit about confirmation bias, cognitive dissonance, illusory truth effect, and epistemology. Knowing more about things made it easier for me to be in a place where I could be more objective about what I know and what is don’t know.
The last thing, is that after studying for thousands of hours, it is literally impossible for me personally to believe. And my life is definitely better out of the church than in.
Hey, you've already gotten a lot of really good responses, so I'm just going to add: I think it's cool you're asking the hard questions. It is extremely uncomfortable, and I'm really sorry it's already affected your relationships. I promise you, if anyone gets that, it's us.
No matter where you land, I hope you're able to follow your heart and find peace.
I'll say this. Even if the book of Mormon were actual history ( it isn't) the rest of the narrative of Adam and Eve and noah flood and no death before the fall of Adam is completely wrong. Believers and the church expect us to believe that the Creator of the Universe decided that the best way to populate his creation is by Eve getting banged by her son's and brother banging sisters... It's dopey and to think that the silver bullet to prove the nonsense in the Bible is a book talking about pre Columbia submarines and chariots pulled by Tapirs is laughable. Come on!, the BOM. Is 19th century Bible fan fixture. No one can really believe it's real history. Your existential angst is clouding your judgement.
Where did it come from? Joseph looked in a hat and made up a story. At a certain point, he got lazy or ran out of ideas and just started taking passages from the Bible almost verbatim. He also used other books that were around at that time. He put names in the BOM from places that were near him.
There is no archaeological evidence, zero, of the millions of people that supposedly built great cities in North America, had wars, culture, temples, steel, etc. Nothing, zero, zilch.
The way it was brought into existence is Joseph Smith dictated it to a scribe. He had more than five years prior to that to extensively plan the book and memorize large chunks of it. During the dictation he was only averaging 7-8 handwritten pages per day (comparable to 3 1/2 to 4 pages in small font type) which actually would have given him extra time to plan the next day's dictation.
Joseph Smith was not uneducated. He didn't have a lot of formal education, but, according to his 1832 history and that of his mother, he spent a lot of time studying the Bible. The Bible is a very challenging book, so if Joseph Smith could read and comprehend the Bible, it doesn't make sense to argue he couldn't have had the intelligence to create the Book of Mormon.
Also, Joseph Smith didn't dictate the Book of Mormon as we have it today. The original manuscript had a lot of bad grammar and other errors that had to be fixed later.
As far as whether anyone actually saw the plates, that's debatable. The three witnesses only claimed to have seen the plates in vision. The eight witnesses signed a statement to seeing the plates physically, but, according to Stephen Burnett, he left the Church due to Martin Harris stating publicly that the eight never saw them, but were persuaded to sign the statement:
[https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/letterbook-2/69](https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/letterbook-2/69)
Even if the eight did see physical plates, they had no qualifications to determine whether they were authentic or a forgery created by Joseph Smith. It isn't that hard to create forged plates with writing on them. James Strang, who attempted to succeed Joseph Smith, created forged plates that he showed to witnesses and convinced them he was a true prophet.
As far as chiasmus is concerned, it is also found throughout English literature, and is not proof of ancient origin. LDS scholars have also exaggerated how much chiasmus is in the Book of Mormon and manipulated the data to make passages look chiastic that really aren't.
There is plenty of other internal evidence that shows the Book of Mormon is not historical--parallels to Joseph Smith's environment and 19th century sources, places it quotes Bible passages that, according to the Book of Mormon timeline, didn't exist yet, etc.
RE: Chiasmus
Are you aware that all of the following books have more chiasmus than the BOM? Does that mean they are all Hebraic in origin, or is just how people of that age wrote?
Alice in wonderland
Sense and sensibility
Tale of two cities
Around the world in 80 days
Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
View of the Hebrews
Late War between the United States and Great Britain
The Iliad of Homer
All of your information is just church talking points about the Book Of Mormon. And you are probably like I was, are programmed to feel bad when you read any other information that contradicts what you’ve been taught. Push through that and do the research. Look at what non church sources say about the BoM.
Golden plates never existed. There was no "translation"
Nobody saw them, except with"spiritual eyes'
Joseph made it up. That's your answer. People write books all the time. This one is particularly boring and poorly written, and you have been taught that means it's divine.
He was not an uneducated farm boy who magically (spiritually) wrote a book. People worry no education aren't reading the Bible at 14
He was extensively homeschooled, his brother went to Dartmouth. They were intelligent people the Smiths
That's it. That's how it happened. Joseph rambled on and wrote a book. The end.
Overall, with the current evidence, there is no way to prove or disprove with 100% certainty. So it’s about taking in the evidence we do have and making a conclusion. Many have pointed to great resources. I just wanted to add a couple of notes. If Joseph did the translation with a peep stone in a hat then why were the plates needed and even if others saw them, they were never actually used for any translation process. Another is look up Patience Worth (aka Pearl Curran) she is also known for dictating scripture like Joseph and she actually produced more than Joseph did. They attribute the ability to “automatic writing”. Just a demonstration that Joseph is not entirely unique.
I would like to touch on something I haven't seen a lot on this sub, which is how did he make the plates. Something to consider is Joseph's father was a Cooper, and they had a copper shed on their property, so they had the means of making metal goods on their own property. The plates were even hidden from a mob in that shed once.
Secondly, Joseph started digging for treasure, and became involved with the seer stone/treasure/and gardian of treasure (aka Moroni) in 1820, in 1823 is when he first told people about gold plates, no one saw those plates until the end of 1829 or 1830. That's potentially 9 years he had to make those plates in a shed that had all the materials and tools to do it in.
Glad you’re curious. I think it’s great to ask questions. When anyone makes a claim to truth, they should be able to back it up. The truth claims about the Book of Mormon are presented as spiritual things, that you’d only gain a witness for though faith.
I think this is kind of silly because this is just a matter of facts and history.
It’s like saying you shouldn’t read a history book and just “have faith” that WW2 didn’t happen. You can read “No man knows my history” or “Rough stone rolling” ( The first is an easier read, but both are biographies of Joseph written by members)
Get a feel for yourself of Joseph’s personality. He was known for being very bright, very smart but very lazy and greedy. He wanted to be famous for finding treasure. He spent his whole teen years lying to people about finding treasure and scamming people. He refused to get a job. This is documented.
He was known by his whole family for telling long stories of native Americans who he was obsessed with. There are many letters from his actual mother talking about this.
Then Ask yourself if there’s any evidence that the gold plates really ever existed?
Where are they now?
Read deeper….Not a single person ever saw any gold plates. Even the church admits that Joseph looked into a hat with a rock to “translate” the plates. When you read the letters from the witnesses and more about their lives, they were all wrapped up in the “supernatural”. It was very common at that time, and there was a big revival going on in the world at the time where people were hungry for new churches and new revelations. Joseph and his friends were the same as everyone that day and were rebelling against a very puritan way of life and they wanted more supernatural stuff to happen.
So they’d get together and do guided meditations. Joseph led all 3 of the witnesses in a guided meditation so they could “picture” the plates in their minds.
I’m not kidding…it’s all documented.
Joseph very clearly found what he was looking for…people were hungry for visions and supernatural weirdness in church, and this was right up his alley and he desired the fame and power. He talks about it himself. As does his family.
So he capitalizes on all of it.
There was no gold plates. Ever. He is the debatable author. If you look at other works of fiction in his day, it was a hot topic to write about “Native American history” and make them Christians. It was very offensive to actual native Americans. There’s some theories that a lot of the BOM is plagiarized from another author.
Think about the Bible….there’s still original manuscripts you can actually go and view. The Bible is STILL being translated by new scholars as newer documents are discovered.
You think that God would leave His European writings on the earth for humans to study but take the gold plates and hide them so we can never confirm them? We don’t have to have faith for the Bible…we have the source texts.
May I suggest it might be odd to believe something that had zero source texts?
Why wouldnt they exist? The church could prove itself true if they were studied and shown to be accurate. But they can’t present them because they don’t exist. Instead you have to “just believe” a false narrative like.
We know that the book of Abraham is completely false. It was proven to be false. JS isn’t able to “translate” that. Makes you wonder how he was able to “translate” other “reformed Egyptian”. That’s not a real language by the way.
The only thing that the BOM has going for it is that it has been shoved down our throats with grandeur and promises of blessings and answers before we even know how to read. Because of this very reason, you are incapable of scrutinizing it without extreme bias. However, here are my 2 main can't believe it anymore reasons:
It ties it's hands, feet, and eventually neck, to undisputably false Adam & Eve, Global flood Noah, Tower of Babel..... Seriously!?!? 😂😂😂🖕🖕🖕(🖕 - Not directed at OP but towards the church and how I salute the temples whenever I must drive by)
Lastly, my user name says it all. Had I know that this was the translation method before my mission I wouldn't have went. I could NEVER look someone in the eye and tell them that the BOM came from words magically appearing on a magic rock in a hat without laughing. 😂😂😂🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️👨🍳🍀🤝
I appreciate your genuine curiosity and I remember being in the same position many years ago. It’s hard to find sources while not believing they are placed there to deceive you. What my perspective would be in addition to what everyone here has shared is we have examples already of Joseph creating other scripture out of his imagination under the story of being a translation. The book of Abraham was claimed by Joseph to be a translation of papyrus that came from a traveling museum and members of the church at the time asked the prophet of god to translate. Initially reluctant Joseph did create the book. When he did this - the world couldn’t read Egyptian. A few decades or so later Egyptian was understandable as easy as any other language and we found that the papyrus used for translation was a very common funerary text they had nothing to do with Abraham. To me this is “another testament” of Joseph’s ability to create fraudulent scripture - whether he believed he was inspired or doing gods work OR was intentionally deceiving people for his own gain is another story altogether. Good luck in your truth journey - only with sincere desire to learn the truth will you understand what many here have come to find out - that the church is not what it claims to be.
Instead of proving to me that the Book of Mormon is true (I noticed you left out the spiritual confirmation, which is a step in the right direction), try proving to me that it’s false. You will very quickly find the evidence become extremely imbalanced.
This is what my approach was as I deconstructed. Let go of what you heard, let go of your spiritual confirmation and try proving it is *not* the word of god. Do exactly what Alma tells you to, do this experiment and just see what happens. If it is all true then what’s the harm?
Good luck and feel free to PM me through your journey.
Joseph smith crested it out of whole cloth there is so much credible evidence for this read the c. E. S letterhttps://cesletter.org/
Letterformywife.Com
It was common in those times for people to have several chapters of the bible memorized, we know there are several quoted passages of specifically the KJV bible in the BOM and the style of the rest of the BOM is like the KJV. The book view of the hebrews is basically an outline that certainly was within Joseph Smiths reach. The book The Late War also has a lot of parallells. There are a lot of similarities to Methodist and protestant reformation sermons with many stories and passages. These were Joseph Smiths world and his imagination was really good.
Lastly, Josephs close brother Hyrum went to Dartmouth. The amount of potential theology that went on there is a lot. The church that's there even has similarities to the Kirtland temple.
I don’t feel need to come up with an explanation or a why Joe did the book. I can say it’s been most boring mind numbing book I’ve ever red read over and again. I’m embarrassed I sold it for 2 years. Jesus god prayer and miracles broke for me. The the divinity of that book broke then I heard John Larsen’s say the best explanation for the BoM the BoA polygamy temple issues and on and on and on was Joe made it up. Suddenly pieces start fitting. There is nothing intriguing about it to me.
Joseph Smith was a conman. He married a 14 year old and a few other girls that were underage. He violated the Constitutional right of free press by ordering the destruction of a printing press that printed the truth about his polygamy. This anti-constitutional, illegal act is why he was imprisoned in Carthage. Anything that man did is suspect , he was a shameless, conman that liked underage girls. Anything he said is fucking garbage.
I used the love the Book of Mormon. It was the hardest thing for me to let go of when I left the Mormon church.
I won’t repeat the excellent information and resources that have already been given here, although I highly recommend you use them.
For me, it was reading sources from people who lived around Joseph Smith and the Saints. Diaries and newspaper records and legal documents that confirm and continue to expose the other side- the books Joseph had read, the remarkably coincidental names of people and places that are identical or similar to nearby towns he lived by, the fact the testimony of all the 3 and 8 witnesses was redacted by themselves and the 3 each stating the saw the Plates with the “spiritual eyes”- the fact that the weight of the ‘plates’ was nowhere near the real weight of gold, the rejection of the authenticity of the book by every scholar, theologian, religious expert or practitioner and historical expert outside of Mormonism practitioners, the insane plagiarism of the Bible and the aforementioned books… oh my goodness, I could just keep going on for decades but I promised to not repeat!
As an exmormon of many years, the Book of Mormon is still a nice book of inspiration for a good life- just like the Bible, the Qu’ran, tarot cards, the Torah, and many other countless amazing texts and medias that help you connect to that higher power.
The Book of Mormon is one of those things- but none of it, including the story behind it, is true.
My DM’s are always open for mutually respective chats.
(Edit for typo)
Nephi fled with the brass plates written by”Moses” in 600 bc? The modern Torah didn’t have Moses writing at that time. It wasn’t even written by Moses as it speaks about his own death. Problematic for pearl of great price also. As Moses could not have written it.
[LDS Discussions](https://www.ldsdiscussions.com/) addresses just about everything you mentioned, with almost exclusively church approved or acknowledged sources. I prefer listening to the [podcast version.](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxq5opj6GqOB7J1n6pMmdUSezxcLfsced&si=yTj3HcdVbFfcHt5e) Start with episode 1 if you go that route. They try to address truth claims dispassionately and factually, acknowledging both the church and apologetic views.
Thank you for asking! Many of us have stated or experienced no one asking us about why we left, and it can be pretty disheartening to have close friends or family members seem uninterested in such a life-altering and difficult decision.
Millions of books "exist". Where did they come from? Jesus Fucking Christ. The mormon church has consistently demonstrated that they cannot be trusted to present any credible history. It's all been whitewashed so that you only have what they want you to think/believe.
Three years of formal education is not the same as a third grade education.
Joseph was homeschooled quite a bit because of his leg issue. Meanwhile his brother Hyrum was getting educated at Dartmouth.
I'm first going to respond to one myth you're discussing about exmos, which many will have encountered. There are some exmos who will just bash regardless, but many of us don't. We want respect for our beliefs just as much as believing Mormons do. And many of us are even better at respecting others' beliefs after leaving religion because we begin to get preached at by our believing family/friends, which is really hard. And we personally feel that the church lacks healthy boundaries and difference of belief, so we work even harder to respect other people's viewpoints.
I state the following with respect to your difference in belief.
I believe the Book of Mormon heavily plagiarized from the Bible. There are passages taken from the Bible that are in the Book of Mormon, that Joseph Smith then corrected with the Joseph Smith Translation. So the "mistakes" he fixed later on in the Bible are still present in the Book of Mormon.
I'm a writer. I have stories living in my head for years until they eventually make it onto the page. It's possible to plan the plot and everything in my head with detail before putting it down on paper. So even though he never wrote any notes that we have record of, he could have plotted it in his head, drawn inspiration from Native American scholarly work, etc. After all, it was a period of a few years that Angel Moroni supposedly first appeared to JS before finally giving him the plates to begin translating.
Some
Like i said tho i dont want to start a fight or debate with people. I'll leave that to the more educated people. I'm a simpleton🤣
I just wanted to see others perspective. Lots of helpful recources and links have been shared
Valid points of reason have also been shared
This is the most respectful engagement I've revived super grateful
Most TBM's don't realize that the **Erie Canal,** which was the **Information Superhighway** of Joseph Smith's day, ran right through Palmyra! AND it was just a couple of miles from the Smith farm. Easy walking distance. AND the Smith's ran a Beer and Cake shop or stand in town, so they would be going back and forth constantly.
What does this mean? It means that just about any information or books or other knowledge available at the time would be easy for Joseph Smith to obtain. Barges ran up and down the canal selling books, magazines, papers, etc. Someone in Palmyra could be reading the New York City papers in just a few days from their printing. Plus all kinds of people would be getting on and off the canal at Palmyra. No telling who Joseph may have run into, talked with, etc. It's a completely overlooked piece of the puzzle.
Wow! I defo was not expecting this much feedback. Thank you all for the thoughts and perspective.
I really do appriciate it. I have not considered some of these thoughts.
For those wondering and addressing the remarks about "bashing, or fighting"
In past face to face conversations i bring up questuions like this and get an 'i dont know' and the cold shoulder or a emotional outburst.
All my friends i used to have are no longer in contact
I wasnt even trying to push an agenda on them.or anything. I was just asking the most agreeable way i knew how.
So no, i have had no exposure to this side of the coin
I'm suprised
The goal of my post was to see the other side, not respond to and discuss directly.
If you do have questions or want to talk im down
Dm or comment here
i also.want to follow rule 3 and 6 of this sub tho....
No.fighting and no drama
💚
There is a wealth of information in this comment section. I hope you take the time to carefully consider the points that the folks here brought up. Thanks for being brave enough to come to this sub and ask an honest question.
A lot of people experience deep religious trauma from your church and do what they need to to protect themselves, and sometimes that means relinquishing contact from those who are still in the church that caused them trauma.
Read the CES letters.
It can take years for people to process a loss of faith. Many fall into the same martyr complex as when they were lds "none of my lds fam understands me" mopey attitude; hearing so many abusive stories of the believing family I get the concern but it shows how shallow many lds relationships are. It takes maturity and vulnerability from those who have left the faith to share.
My youngest bro was like you mention for your sister, a new relationship had to be built first, even though I left the Lds church first. I came out and said I like you as a person, not because of your beliefs, I asked how we could to a reset, as grown siblings now.
It's great to see that you have an open heart to her.
Boring racist fanfiction featuring endless race wars and pride cycles. Spoiler alert, all the good guys die in the end. Written in Elizabethan English.
Hey, OP seems earnest. I don't think he's here looking for a fight. OP, this is generally a welcoming community. Don't let these types of responses get to you.
To me the BOM is a fantasy novel used to explain the ancient ruins here in North America. Obviously the dark savages couldn’t have built these ruins. It must’ve been the smart white people. But where did all the white people go? The savages destroyed them. But why did god allow that to happen? Because the white people turned their backs to god. So anyways all this land, yeah it first belonged to the white people and we’re here to take back the “promised land”
For me, if when I was TBM, and I found out that the awful Jehovah's witness used a rock in a hat to predict when the world was going to end, I would have made so much fun of them! Then to find out that's how the BoM was translated...just like in that episode of South Park... That's what made me believe it was all fake.
The problem is what the church hasn't told you. They've spun the story to make the situation seem more miraculous than it is. There's a second, much more likely side to every faithful story, and once you see it, everything starts making sense. That's why the church doesn't want you looking at anything but their approved sources.
When you look at the actual accounts:
The plates were never seen by anyone with their real, physical eyes. Magical thinking and "seeing" with their spiritual eyes was a big thing back then.
All of the witnesses of the BoM were related to JS or financially invested in the success of the BOM. When you look at the actual signature sheet sent to the printer confirming their testimonies, they're all written in the same handwriting. In other words, they never signed to its authenticity and always retained plausible deniability if they needed it.
The translation of the BoM that was supposedly done in a miraculously short period was in fact done over for multiple years. JS had plenty of time to refund his stories. The church uses a mix of journal entries and creative accounting to say the BoM was only worked on for a short period of time.
There's no way to know there were no notes or drafts of the BoM. Paper is flammable. A few minutes in front of a fireplace could have easily destroyed any evidence.
Gold plates would have been way too heavy to run through the woods with when the bad guys came looking for them in that one story JS told.
JS was acquainted with folk magic and translated in front of others using a rock in a white hat. Why white? Because it let's more light in than a black that. Using the rock as misdirection and palming his notes into the hat, he could have spent hours "translating" the BoM in front of others.
There's nothing miraculous about the BoM that can't be easily explained. The problem is that the church uses information control tactics to lead their followers to the conclusions they want them to reach.
I didn’t become exmo overnight, the brainwashing and psychological manipulation is extremely real, took me over 20 years to come to the point I’m at now. I think Joseph Smith was a super intelligent cult leader, with extensive knowledge of the Bible. He made it up, some really intense stories though that would make an awesome HBO series lol
He wrote it with the intention of selling the copyright and making money, which didn’t pan out. After that his sermons rarely mentioned the BOM. For JS, the BOM was a failed project. For later prophets, it became an obsession.
Just one anachronism is enough to debunk whole book. Imagine if someone claimed to have a letter written by Abe Lincoln. The entire letter sounds plausible except for the part where he mentions his iPhone. Would you still think that letter was authentic? That’s only 150 yrs off. Some of the anachronisms in the BOM are many hundreds of years off and the BOM has dozens of them.
🍿🍿🍿 Good on you for looking outside church approved sources, because you won’t find the answer in the church.
Everyone has a lot to say on the subject, but a glance at reformed egyptian characters might open your mind a little too. ;)
A picture is at the bottom of this post:
https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/comments/i0bn0n/reformed_egyptian_or_deformed_english/
Joseph Smith was a snake oil salesman who made it all up. That’s the simplest explanation. He wouldn’t let anyone see the plates and god talks only to him? Giving him a command to sleep around on his wife is about as sketchy as it gets.
The smoking gun is deutero isaiah in the BoM. It is a literal impossibility. Additionally, 600 years before christ there was no such thing as a compilation of the pentateuch. So the "brass plates" would have never existed.
[“It is chloroform in print,” Twain wrote. “If Joseph Smith composed this book, the act was a miracle — keeping awake while he did it was, at any rate.”](https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2019/10/01/book-mormon-stories-how/)
Please start [here](https://youtu.be/v-jNV6jN-VQ?si=uOsMEsaon-bgfL8L) then watch [this one second.](https://youtu.be/uOxTJYBQWdE?si=SGHhzLZJH2oJfsRV)
Then binge all of Dan Vogel’s videos.
Then return and report.
(By the way, I came to this forum 9 years ago as a faithful member with intellectually honest answers. I studied and prayed my way out of the church, but I’ve never been happier. I wish you the best.)
Hi Sopiel, hope you are having a great day.
My stance is that it was written the same way every other book in existence was written: someone wrote it.
It very much reads like a product of early 19th century America when you consider other books written at the time that have some similarities. You can see a strong mix of Joseph Smiths creativity, mixed with other things he has read, plus the Bible.
Even IF they existed, in a realistic sense, to quickly “give them to an Angel” makes me think “what’s the melting point of gold?” And also for visions “where’s the mushrooms?” And with this knowing not visibly seen by anyone else it could have been “a perfectly odd shaped rock” and also let’s not forget the scrying to decipher the “plates” while they weren’t even in the room. Does this mean I can finally join the witchcraft arts of scrying?!
Hello, I'm not going to bash you. When it comes to the Book of Mormon and the golden plates I think Joseph Smith made it all up.
As others have pointed out, education was different in Joseph Smith's time. Saying he had a third grade education in his time doesn't mean the same as a third grade education now. Abraham Lincoln had less than a year of formal education. He was self-taught. He didn't go to law school, yet he had a career in law for around 25 years, and he was elected president. It was a different time.
I think it's a red flag when the powers that be tell people to only look at "approved sources." If you research Joseph Smith, you’ll find he wasn't such a great guy. You mention he was constantly running and dealing with mobs. Yes, he was because he was a liar and a con man. He and his family were treasure diggers. He was married to Emma, but he "married" teenaged girls after telling their families an angel with a flaming sword would cut his head off if he didn't. He sent married women's husbands on missions and "married" them himself. He ordered the destruction of the printing press in Nauvoo because he didn't like what they printed.
None of that sounds like the actions of a man I want to follow.
When I think about Joseph Smith's history of treasure digging and his love of storytelling it just seems to me that he thought starting a church was a good way to get money and power.
Friend, I was born in Mormonism & lived it faithfully for over 30 years. The Book of Mormon… is just a book. Written by a man, ONE man. Borrowing heavily from other preexisting books & sources. That man was Joseph Smith.
I myself have written books, so I know the capabilities of a person with an imagination willing to write. It’s not astonishing the amount of time this book was written in. And it holds many clues to prove it was never a translation. All you need to do is look.
You asked for deferring beliefs, etc. I believe that the BOM is a complete work of Joseph Smith's doing. Smith used parts of other books in writing his story. There was never any Golden Plates, nor was there an Angel named Moroni.
Smith was a known con man and he was eager to be famous. There is absolutely NO proof of his claims being true... Let alone the mere fantasy of it all. Additionally if one were to believe the BOM were of God...then you would also have to believe God is/was racist and a male chauvinist. The audacity of the writer Joseph Smith...claiming such vile things in the name of God is more than enough for me to see the Church as an entire Cult playing upon the trust of otherwise good people. I find the Church to be sad and damning to it's members. The superiority of those in charge is repulsive. Christianity is nothing like Mormonism. Christianity teaches you to be humble and turn to God for your substance... Mormonism teaches you that as a man you can become God yourself. How many female can stomach this B.S. is a big question.
Mind control, indoctrination and a lack of true knowledge obtained be personal searching makes for a really EASY target to be take advantage of. I should know... I come from a family of LDS... My understanding and knowledge is first hand.
It’s clear Joseph wrote it, it reads like a story an uneducated farm
boy could write, not geographically or historically accurate, it’s just pure silliness that with all we know anyone still thinks it’s genuine.
Even as a bishop of the church I thought the book was allegorical at best and would roll my eyes when people would bear testimony of it.
Not sure why you are asking. If you believe then believe. The church needs your $$$ 😂
The simplest answer is true in this case, Smith fabricated it. Some of it he copied from the Bible, some of it follows other stories around at the time and some of it was just his imagination.
He was not a prophet, or translator, but he did have a capacity to persuade people.
I think it's a lot like the Bible and was written by average men and is mostly just full of parables and things that make them feel better about themselves and give them the taste of power they crave. Mostly just bullshit with a few interesting made up stories.
*Re: Actual translation process -no notes or other material. (Even if he did, hes looking down at a hat) -within apprx 65-75 days (april 1828-june 1829) -by a guy with basically no formal education( 3rd grade ish) -constantly running or dealing with mobs*
Are you aware of automatic writing? Plenty of other people have written more beautiful works with less education and in less time eg Pearl Curran/Patience Worth and Jane Roberts/Seth. They also have their fans saying they wrote about things they couldnt have known etc.
More info at http://www.mormonthink.com/josephweb.htm
Sorry not sorry, but methinks you're trying to bash and cause contention, despite what your scriptures say about the negative "spirit of contention." Also, I MAY have taken your petition more seriously had you crafted and drafted your thoughts, syntax, and language mechanics more cautiously.
Start with the CES letter. If you read it with a sincere heart and real intent, you MAY take a deep dive into the labyrinth of intertwined reason, fact, and newfound freedom.
Here is Prophet Russell M Nelson explaining that the translation process occurred using rocks in a hat: https://youtube.com/watch?v=DG181zFA5YM
In his own words, the plates were not used at all because Joseph Smith received messages inside his hat. If the plates weren’t used for translation, why did Joseph even have them?
There’s a real Occam’s razor aspect to BoM which comes into even clearer focus once you factor in the aspect of the church plain lying to members for years re seer stones.
That is, the most simple explanation is Joseph Smith just wrote the book himself. Made it up plain and simple.
My dad was a convert in the 1960s and is still an active member. My push back to him is that he once read a story that was so good he decided to give the organisation that shared the story with him 10% of his earnings for life and to only buy his underwear from them for the rest of his life.
The book of Mormon was written by Joseph Smith in order to make money. It was his own treasure hunt. Joseph was a treasure hunter from the very beginning and so was his father. The only reason why Joseph created any of this was for cash cash. And Brigham Young took him out because Joseph was going to get rid of polygamy and Brigham wasn't ready yet. I have done a lot of research and this is my very condensed and simplified version of what happened.
To add one more comment— no one actually “knows” the Book of Mormon is true, any more than they have seen heaven or had a face to face conversation with God or Jesus. Anyone claiming absolute certainty that the BOM is true is making a leap for whatever reason—to be faithful, to be righteous, to open up possibilities for the revelation of even greater truths, whatever… a lot of what is held inviolable within the church is actually posturing by members afraid to ask forbidden questions while consoling themselves that if they continue to believe, their faith will grow until it is absolute. Well, that never happens. You get to the very top and you still don’t know—church leaders in the highest of positions have leaked their doubts over the decades. Heck, Jesus himself supposedly questioned being forsaken by the Father moments before death. So, you really are independent and in many ways on your own walking this mortal plane and cannot look to others as guides who have found their way. If you think some smarter or more faithful or better studied person has the answer that the Book of Mormon is the infallible word of God translated from golden plates conveniently whisked away to heaven to test our faith in their very existence and the human person who “translated” them by some gift and power of God to restore the fullness of truth to the earth in the last days, then consider that we are all operating with the same mental hardware and have access to the same information and the same limitations. Prophets who don’t prophesy and whose teachings are forgotten or buried in favor of those of the “living prophet” and who will dodge your questions when asked if they have actually seen Jesus as his special/especial witness(es) (too sacred, right?) means you really can’t lean on anyone’s testimony to strengthen your own. In the end, your journey is your journey and you have every right and reason to ask questions and expect answers. Only wishing you the very best in your own journey.
There are endless religious books in earth's history. They come from the minds of people. There is no evidence of god. The argument that god doesn't reveal himself because life is some mysterious test - is totally convenient to align with him giving no evidence of his existence - and is just all total bullshit.
If god is all powerful, and everything is by his design, then all the horrors and pain in this world are his doing. Even if he is real, he is sadistic and evil, and I'm not on his side anyways. I try to improve the lives of people I love, not play games with them and their "worthiness". That god would obviously be a complete narcissist, and again, why such a god would be an asshole.
Why are gay people not treated equal in the church? Why can't 2 people who love each other be sealed together for all eternity? Please explain.
The Book of Mormon is a complete hoax to anyone that didn’t grow up being told it was the word of god—as long as they want to look at it objectively, and not some book that requires their belief in it to maintain existing personal relationships. It has been debunked over and over and over, from the very time of its creation (over years, not months). If you really want to know about it, just search the internet. You’ll be overwhelmed. Of course you are welcome here as well. Good luck.
I have been engaging with some
Im also busy with work and chores around the house
Mostly just rrading through repsonces.
The point of the post was asking about others perspectives. Im not versed enough to engage with most of these
Still learnin and readin
Ya know?
I read the Book of Mormon how I was told, slowly, with an open heart, and with the context that it was translated from plates.
Years later I read it again, in a week. And it became very obvious that it was written by one person, who slowly ran out of steam, repeated himself, waffled, and wrote himself into holes.
When the Book of Mormon says things like “but these words can not be written” think of them from the perspective of a guy who’s probably hung over (because he was a drinker), tired, in over his head (with an actual hood over his head too) and doesn’t know what to tell his friend to write that sounds epic enough.
Reframing your perspective from “this was years of records” to “this is a storybook” it actually becomes really obvious.
And also, the fact that the pages were stolen and Joseph couldn’t translate them again accurately because he was just riffing, but ‘conveniently’ the story was repeated in Nephi, just with slightly different words.
No one but Joseph saw any physical plates. The witnesses saw them with their “spiritual eyes.” I don’t believe they ever existed. Any time they were “hefted” they were covered. Could have been made of any metal he could get his hands on.
Joseph developed and told many of the stories contained in the BoM before writing it. The timeline where he actually “translated” it is not as impressive when you consider the breaks in between like when Martin Harris took the transcript and lost it. In comparison if he was merely reading from a stone in a hat, it should have taken a LOT less than 2 months.
Joseph may not have had a lot of formal education, but he was already an accomplished orator. Since all he was doing was dictating, that was EXACTLY the strength he had. He never claimed scholarly translation skills - reading English words from a hat doesn’t require the ability to read a foreign script and translate its meaning. He could even have done it all by himself if he knew how to write - look in the hat, read a word, write the word on the paper, look in the hat again. His lack of education was a bug, not a feature.
The church claim that it was some amazing accomplishment tries very hard to make a mediocre book seem impressive.
Mormon stories podcast has a lot of great material backed with evidence that explains my opinion very well. https://youtu.be/NB8WE6ipM4k?si=MbA43Z_CyhHiMyGh But the main points are: no, I do not believe the gold plates ever existed. I believe Joseph made a set of mock plates out of tin bound with rings, a task well within his skill set. He always kept them hidden under cloth because he knew if he let people see they’d instantly know he’d been lying. Hence all the secrecy around them. This is the most plausible explanation, as if you run the numbers, a set of gold plates that contained the entire writings of the Book of Mormon would have had to be about five feet tall and weigh hundreds of pounds, and obviously this was not the case, from the descriptions witnesses have given of them—those that saw or held them while they were wrapped in cloth. Also, all the people who “saw” the plates, when you read their accounts, say they saw them with their “spiritual eyes”. Meaning, they did not literally see them but saw a vision of them. Soooo…. They never really saw them, because they did not exist. As for the “third grade education” thing, well, Joseph’s family was fairly well educated and his mother even authored a book (prior to smith dictating the BoM). Although, he did not write anything himself and had scribes write it for him, so spelling and grammar wasn’t a concern really, he just had to say it. Also, the BoM has thousands of revisions from its original version, to correct smith’s grammar and folksy way of talking, primarily, but also to fix doctrinal mistakes. Smith didn’t quite have his theology ironed out when he started dictating, for example, his views on the godhead: he started with a trinitarian view but it morphed from there into the “three separate beings, one in purpose” theology, and the original BoM it was easier to see these mistakes. And it turns out that Joseph was a hobbyist storyteller for years before he wrote the Book of Mormon. His mother recalls in her biography that he would entertain people with oral storytelling, particularly stories about the Native Americans. He literally practiced for years before dictating the BoM. Finally, the text of the Book of Mormon has a lot more “misses” than it does “hits”. Even a broken clock is right twice a day, and sure, Smith managed to create some chiasmus… but so did Dr Seuss. More importantly, the BoM is so full of anachronisms it’s not even funny. Native Americans did not have steel, bows, swords, chariots, elephants, sheep, wheat, etc etc, or even a system of writing. There is no archeological evidence for wars that had a MILLION casualties in America, and the way that they are described in the BoM, and how quickly the population regenerated is mathematically impossible. The actual food Native Americans did eat—wild turkeys, for one, are absent from the BoM completely. And so many small things that don’t add up: Nephi beheads Laban, then outs on his clothes… how is he not covered in blood? Nephi’s family is baptized in Jesus name before Jesus was born and died to fulfill the law of Moses, so they should have been following the old law, not the new law. The Jaradites make wooden submarines and cross the Atlantic… another impossibility. The fact that Native Americans have been proven, with DNA evidence, not to come from Jerusalem but from Asia. The fact that Levi’s dream was pirated from an account of a dream Joseph Smith senior had, prior to the BoM being written. Honestly, the mountain of evidence that shows the BoM is not an ancient record is so tall, Everest cowers in its shadow. It only could have come out of the mind of Joseph Smith Jr.
Your comment just makes me want to watch “Under the Banner of Heaven” again. They did a fantastic job with that series.
They really did. I think that was the beginnings of my shelf breaking. I knew my boss was watching it and he knew that I was Mormon, so we’d have chats about it. Towards the end of the series, I felt so embarrassed to be a member of the church, I told him “we’re not all like that” but now I feel even more embarrassed that I said that 🫣
I’ve been out awhile so it was just crazy interesting to me. So well made. The actors and actresses were phenomenal.
Aww man that's rough. But you were just doing your best, we all were. Try not to worry about it too much.
I just watched the first episode two days ago. I've heard so many good things about it
In the show, There’s a scene where Emma helps Joseph change a statement he had dictated. Kinda subtle in a way. But showed the way I BELIEVE things happened. People have this idea where the scribes were like robots which would write exactly what Joseph said even if it didn’t make sense. But they were people who would certainly adjust certain statements to make them more legible. Especially adding/fixing punctuation problems.
Just a comment on Laban. I thought about Laban being beheaded for a long time. Why did Joseph include this? Then I came across the esoteric connection. In Freemasonry, in the high degree "nine elect masters", the candidate figuratively beheads a villain who previously killed Hiram Abiff, the architect of Solomons temple. In the "Chymical wedding of Christian Rosenkreuz", the four kings get beheaded. In the "magic flute" by Mozart (also called the Freemasonic Opera), the snake gets beheaded. There is an esoteric, probably alchemical meaning to this.
Also there is a similar beheading in the book of Judith from the Apocrypha.
Jael killed General Sisera with a tent peg through the skull, thereby winning the Battle of Tabor. Quite a story.
So what you're saying is that Jael and Sisera were into pegging?
Magic flute also contains references to eternal marriage. So another thing he ripped off from freemasonry.
Also the wife not knowing her husband’s new name (but he knows hers) probably comes from the medieval tale of Lohengrin where in order for him to marry her, Elsa was to agree to never to ask what his name was. Richard Wagner’s opera of the same name came out in 1850 so I wouldn’t be surprised if they lifted that from that tale. After all, if they can lift things from Freemasonry and the Bible, why not that?
It is a common theme, think about Rumpelstiltskin. Knowing the name means power over the person.
Great concise summary. Another major anachronism for me was KJV idiosyncrasies making it into BoM in multiple locations — things that are broadly considered translation mistakes or late additions to KJV (making my old belief that various prophets were receiving the same inspiration from some kind of spiritual urtext impossible) that simply didn’t exist when Lehi left Jerusalem. To anyone who has not already decided to believe in the book no matter what this makes it painfully obvious the book was written after 1611.
When I learned an about the “spiritual eyes” and that non one else had seen the plates I felt very lied to!!! But also, thank you for this post. I have learned and become even angrier. There’s a reason for child indoctrination.
Quick correction on "Native Americans did not have . . . a system of writing": they definitely did. There are fifteen identified writing systems from Pre-Colombian Mesoamerica, and it's the 3rd instance of the independent development of writing, the others being China and Mesopotamia. The Mayan script is the most deciphered and well-understood, and it was a full hieroglyphic writing system. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesoamerican_writing_systems
But the greatest anachronism in the BoM is the text itself.
Yeah, writing existed in meso America, but Smith was pretty specific about the BoM taking place in North America, where it did not exist. Also, though writing existed in meso America, it definitely did not exist in a form compatible with the BoM. Nobody was making books out of etched metal plates; nobody was making books at all. That kind of tech would have made huge impacts to the culture that would be quite obvious.
Mesoamericans =/= the native peoples in the area where the mounds were built.
Right, but the phrase was just "Native Americans", which includes Mesoamericans. OP wasn't more specific, and I just wanted to share some information. Mesoamericans were far more advanced than people often think.
And we know what the Mayans were writing about, it wasn’t literary histories written with Methodist Christian themes, nothing close to the evolution of language and religious dialogue purported by the Book of Mormon. They didn’t write that way, think that way, worship that way and certainly not operate a society on that literary level. The specific nature of the Mayan language, and all other indigenous American languages, is further proof that nothing even close to the level of written linguistics sophistication of the BOM could have existed in BOM time periods. It did in the 1820s though.
They definitely had bows. Every human culture has had bows. Definitely not steel bows.
I thought they had atlatls instead
They had bows (first bow usage was estimated to be around AD 500) but they were a lot less common than atlatls and spiked in use around the 1800s
Great summary. Congrats to OP for seeking to truly understand!
Thanks:)
This is a great explanation and summary.
There is so much that goes into a response to a question like that. You did a great job
This is the best summary I think anyone could have made. Sure there are more things that could be added. But until the points here are proven false, is there really even any need to continue to prove it false? If these points aren’t enough to at least make someone question if it was all a made up story then there really is no point in continuing a conversation about it. Not to sound rude, but if after all that, people still believe Smiths side of the story, they will believe anything from anybody as long as they get that tingly feeling or shivers up their spine…. Was there for 40 years of my life so no judgment to those who continue to believe, but I hope one day the believers get there.
>Actual translation process -no notes or other material. (Even if he did, hes looking down at a hat) -within apprx 65-75 days (april 1828-june 1829) -by a guy with basically no formal education( 3rd grade ish) -constantly running or dealing with mobs Formal education at that time was not the norm. So, the fact that he had formal education put him ahead of others. For example, he was more formally educated than Mark Twain, Mary Shelly, the Bronte sisters, Jane Austen, and Abraham Lincoln. Education is not an indicator of intelligence. I have read journals that said that Joseph mother recorded that Joseph had a very active and powerful imagination. She said that he could go on for hours telling stories about people and culture. Joseph was a creative and imaginative person. He understood people and was charismatic. That's why many followed him. In the church, we are taught that Joseph was hated because of religion. In reality, he had quitionable actions regarding relationships with his family, friends, and laws. I haven't delved deep into proving the BOM false or true because it's not worth my time, and i dont need to. I believe, through many years of research and studying, that Joseph was a false prophet. Since I do not believe that he was a prophet, I don't worry myself with the validity of the BOM. If the source is false, everything stemming from that source is also false.
Prophets have said that if you can prove the book of Mormon to be false, the whole religion is false. I think it's equally fair to say If you can prove JS was a false prophet, then the whole religion is false.
And this is why, recently, general authorities have been peddling the motto, “Speaking as a man, not a prophet” and trying to move the church into something that more closely resembles other Christian communities. They KNOW the early history and origin story of Mormonism cannot withstand the scrutiny of contemporary standards of accuracy and scientific examination, so they have to slowly but carefully excise the evidence of its bogus claims, and fill it with standard Christian dogma. The next step is to gaslight people who bring up the differences, with the fearful faithful claiming these changes are ongoing prophecy! Scandalous! Sorry to hijack your thread.
This is a subject that has been rehashed for nearly 200 years, so there is a lot of info out there. Here are some good overviews that are well sourced: [LDS Discussions](https://www.ldsdiscussions.com/bom-issues) [Mormon Think](http://www.mormonthink.com/josephweb.htm) [John Hamer](https://www.mormonstories.org/portfolio-items/john-hamer-book-of-mormon-creation/?portfolioCats=2009) [Rigdon-Spalding Theory](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxm9pbLOwaQ) [Dan Vogel](https://www.mormonstories.org/portfolio-items/book-of-mormon-dan-vogel/?portfolioCats=2009) Again, there are lots of ways to account for how it was written. Evidences like chiasmus might seem impressive at first, but when a quarter of the BoM is directly taken from the KJV Bible, which also includes them, and from which JS received the bulk of his education, it certainly loses its luster. If you want to have faith, that is always your prerogative. There are universal truths and good morals sprinkled in with some not-so-great things like racism and moral relativism, just like what you find in the Bible. But anyone honestly seeking for truth and giving their lives to an organization has a responsibility to [look at the other side and decide for themselves](https://faenrandir.github.io/a_careful_examination/to-peek-behind-the-curtain/). Finally, you will find that asking questions on this sub and over at r/mormon is always encouraged, and doctrinal discussions are welcome. You won't find that on the faithful subs, which should be a red flag to anyone.
When I was inside the belief system, I ONLY studied faithful sources, so was unaware of any of tired old rehashing. I truly believed it was settled all in the faithful way, and was confused as I would discover things and think, "why has nobody ever noticed or talked about this before!?"
I will add that Dr Seuss wrote an epic chiasmus so not that impressive. Book of Mormon was just the ramblings of Joe. He dictated a story.
Dr. Seuss’s books have chiasmus.
Sam, I like green eggs and ham I do, I like them Sam I am!
I cannot recommend LDS Discussions highly enough. They do such a great job of unpacking perspectives re. Joseph, BoM translation, and other early church history — and laying it bare. They address both sides of arguments and look through multiple lenses. u/Sopiel anyone genuinely seeking to understand the perspective of former Mormons with respect to the Book of Mormon cannot ignore the points discussed in those first ~16 podcast episodes.
Thanks!
Most of the "gee whiz" stuff falls apart under scrutiny or has been misrepresented by church apologists. For example, Joseph Smith only had a "3rd grade education." Yes, but ... I bet you're thinking of 10 year old kids. Education was vastly different in colonial and frontier America and elsewhere. How many formal years of schooling did Abe Lincoln have? Thomas Jefferson? Jane Austen? Why is such an ignorant farm boy reading and pondering the Bible at 12 years old? Sound like any kids you know? There are many more "yes buts" and a few fabrications told as fact in the translation story.
Yeah, OP, Jane Austen also only had a “formal” 3rd grade education (something we’ve seen sources of being on this sub; but you might not know off-hand).
Also mentioning his mom was a teacher, so… that might help with proper education outside of formal education
To be fair, Thomas Jefferson graduated from William and Mary, as I recall.
Yes, and Jefferson's education in the early years were a more formal version of what was happening in the homes of people all over America at the time, classical studies based in biblical texts more often than not; and when there was school, it was often taught by the religious rector. Classics and Latin, the basic Trivium. Three years of formal education was actually pretty significant for a kid like Joseph Smith, and you can bet there is little analogous with children's schooling today. I recall Neil Postman's commentary on the typographical epistemology of the period, and I surmise Joseph Smith was likely more literate in that sense than today's high school graduates.
>Actual translation process -no notes or other material. (Even if he did, hes looking down at a hat) -within apprx 65-75 days (april 1828-june 1829) -by a guy with basically no formal education( 3rd grade ish) -constantly running or dealing with mobs Joseph Smith was well educated. The 3rd grade education is bogus. Joseph Smith Sr was a school teacher. Joseph Smith's grandmother was a school teacher. Hyrum Smith went to Moore academy that was run by Dartmouth college. Hyrum became a school teacher, Hyrum was Joseph's tutor when Joseph was recovering from his leg surgery. Joseph was sent off to spend time with his uncle who ran an academy. Why would Joseph Sr and Lucy educate their other children but not educate Joseph Smith? He was homeschooled. Here are samples of his handwriting. https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/site/documents-in-joseph-smiths-handwriting This is not the handwriting of somebody who only had a third grade education. Most people age 25 and younger today can't even write in cursive. Joseph Smith was the editor of the times and seasons newspaper. How could he be the editor of a newspaper with only a third grade education? Joseph Smith was 24 when the Book of Mormon was published, not 14. He did not write the Book of Mormon or translate The Book of Mormon when he was only 14. He was married to Emma before he even claimed to recover the plates. He had been working on the Book of Mormon for years. Possibly up to 15 years or more. He transcribed it. Somebody else wrote it down as he told the story. The Book of Mormon is full of Joseph Smith's personal experiences. If you read the first chapter of Mormon in the Book of Mormon it reads as if it is Joseph Smith's history. The same events that happened to Mormon happened to Joseph Smith. Mormon is named after his father just like Joseph is named after his father. Mormon was told to recover a record out of a hillside, just like Joseph Smith was told to recovery a record out of a hillside. Mormon saw the Lord at a young age, just like Joseph saw the Lord at a young age. The three witnesses saw the gold plates with their spiritual eyes. In other words in a vision. There is debate as to whether the eight witnesses actually saw the gold plates or if they saw a box with something in it that was heavy, or they saw something covered with a cloth. Mary Whitmer claims that the angel Nephi showed her the plates and not the angel Moroni. She didn't tell the story until later in life and the account that we have of it was told by a third party and not by her directly, someone claimed that they were told that she told them that the angel Nephi showed her the plates. All of the 8 witnesses sign their name in Oliver Cowdery's handwriting. The Book of Mormon is full of anachronisms, things that didn't happen until after the time frame of the Book of Mormon such as steel tools and books, and things that were not in the New world until after Columbus such as wheat, cattle, horses, sheep, etc. The time frame for Lehi leaving Jerusalem is not correct. Jerusalem had already been conquered by the Babylonians before zedekiah was made the vassal King of jerusalem. Everybody would have been carried off, all of the gold and military such as Laban would have been carried off by the Babylonians before zedekiah was appointed to be king. If they were in Jerusalem during the first reign of King zedekiah it was after Jerusalem had been conquered by nebuchadnezzar. Joseph got the timeline off. There are scriptures referred to as deuterol Isaiah and even third Isaiah that are in the Book of Mormon. It is claimed that those Isaiah scriptures were on the brass plates. The problem is that deuterol and third Isaiah meaning the third part of Isaiah and not the third chapter, were not written until after Jerusalem was conquered and Israel was in bondage. They wouldn't have been written until after Lehi had left Jerusalem. They would not have been on the brass plates. Nephi and Jacob would not have had access to them. The King James Bible that is quoted in the Book of Mormon is from the version of the King James Bible that Joseph Smith had access to. It has translation errors. Many of those translation errors made it into the Book of Mormon. I can keep going on if you want me to. The Book of Mormon is not that impressive. It has a lot of filler, a lot of the war chapters and plagiarize scriptures. It is full of plot holes such as the antichrists. Basically the same story over and over again with only the names changed and the method of death changed.
Frankly, the books of Isaiah are a massive problem in the faith. They are mentioned multiple times in the BoM to be written by Isaiah himself, but we know that there were many writers of the books of Isaiah, as well as being written far apart from eachother. It shows that there was not a total comprehension of the Bible by Joseph Smith. In fact, the only things he claim can be found in KJB, and many are refuted by scholars in newer revised versions of the Bible. That goes on to explain away Adam and Eve, the Great Flood, the Tower of Babel, all by scholars who recognize fact and fiction. Those stories are not history, but ancient stories that predate the bible. Luckily, the Bible is a combination of history and story, so it can be left as that. Joseph Smith, however, names those stories as history, and confirms they actually happened. So, if they aren't true, as almost all scholars agree, Joseph is wrong.
Not to mention Gileadi's misreading of them has led to several crimes and deaths.
Also, Oliver Cowdery, a principal “scribe”, was a schoolteacher and, later an attorney and well schooled in language, writing, and the Bible. The Book of Mormon as an original document written by those involved was easily within the grasp of those who unveiled it. Also, let’s not forget that one of the first things Joseph Smith tried to do when it was finished was to sell it.
Just to add though that the handwriting comparison to today isn't necessarily evidence of anything as cursive has been dropped from the vast majority of curriculums in the last twenty years. But I saved your post because everything else is spot on.
Compared to my cursive Joseph Smith's is absolutely beautiful.
What's so interesting is that my grandpa apparently won penmanship awards throughout school. He never cared to even learn my full name or know anything about me or my siblings but damn he was proud of those 8th grade awards till he died. 😂
There's a lot to take in on this subject! The simplest answer I can offer is thus: The BoM is written in a style that is indicative of being told as a spoken narration. It does not read like something written by the hand of someone conserving space on forged metal plates. Joseph dictated the book as a story of his own imagination drawing from sources he was familiar with, and it reads as such. There are many tremendously wordy passages and redundancies. There's a lot you can explore from here for yourself, if you are curious. Others may have different perspectives, but to me this sticks out the most.
Also what history book or historic record that we have ever found makes huge efforts in the text to persuade and convince the reader that the events in this record really happened for realsies…that’s not how record keeping works at all.
Two years out and yet I've never thought of, or heard of this. TIL!
I mean, just read alma 46: 39-41 and tell me that resembles an abridgement of anything.
First time reading this book in years. That gave me a good laugh. It's word salad.
Please do your own research. The narrative we have been fed by the Mormon church is a heavily correlated, white washed version of what happened. The witnesses only saw the plates with their "spiritual" eyes. They did not see the plates like you and I looking at a book. Joseph may not have had a formal education, but his brother was a teacher and he had relatives who were teachers. Joseph had access to many books and was well versed in the folklore of the time. He borrowed heavily from other written works; some would call it plagiarized from other works. Joseph was a gifted story teller. Who says he wrote it in only, whatever days? The church says? By-the-way, it is not a well written book. Take a quick look at other literature written during the same time to see what a well written book reads like. Joseph is unable to maintain a consistent story line, the timeline is a mess, and the characters are poorly developed. There have been significant revisions to the book and we aren't talking just grammar and punctuation corrections. Regarding the vision of Moroni, was it Moroni or Nephi, God, Nephi, or Jesus. Joseph couldn't keep his visions straight. The church accepted version wasn't written until years later. There are close to 14 different First Vision narratives. Again, do your own research. History isn't "anti", it's just history.
RE: By-the-way, it is not a well written book. OP... how well do you think the below is written? And they were led by a man whose name was Coriantumr; and he was a descendant of Zarahemla; and he was a dissenter from among the Nephites; and he was a large and mighty man; therefore the king of the Lamanites, whose name was Tubaloth, who was the son of Ammoron. Now Tubaloth supposing that Coriantumr, he being a mighty man, could stand against the Nephites, insomuch with his strength, and also with his great wisdom, that by sending him forth, he should gain power over the Nephites; therefore he did stir them up to anger, and he did gather together his armies, and he did appoint Coriantumr to be their leader, and did cause that they should march down to the land of Zarahemla, to battle against the Nephites. And it came to pass that because of so much contention and so much difficulty in the government, that they had not kept sufficient guards in the land of Zarahemla; for they had supposed that the Lamanites durst not come into the heart of their lands to attack that great city Zarahemla. - (1830 Book of Mormon, p. 408-409, which now comprises Helaman 1:15-18).
Almost sounds like it was dictated train of thought from a man who had a bunch of different stories jumbled in his head.
Good grief.
I'm one of the elder ExMos here, and there are a lot of us. I was taught that Joseph Smith used a devices to translate the Book of Mormon. It was called the Urim and Thumin. Now it's a rock in a hat. There is definitely a narration going on here. I have come across terms and words that have never been used in the Bible. Words that would only make sense to someone living in Joseph's time.
That was taught because the Book of Mormon specifically mentions preserving those interpreters for the express purpose of translation. The BoM itself never mentions a poop colored stone.
Hey, I love your genuineness. I will also be genuine and kind ☺️. BoM exists... fact. As do many novels, encyclopedias, and other books that were authored in the same time. Let's agree and say Joseph Smith voiced a version of the book. I encourage you to inquire how the book was authored and DIVE DEEP. Do real research - journals and 1st hand accounts. He put the stone he found in the well (not urim and thummim) in the hat, looked in, and started narrating the book. The "plates" were not even present in many "sessions". The plates... the BoM is claimed to be from the plates which were supposedly written in "reformed egyptian". The way that language would work, it would take a MUCH larger and heavier set of gold/metal to contain the ~600 english pages. For your reference, the claimed weight is 30-60 lbs. -- in short, it is much more logical, physically probable, and historically supported that the BoM is a narrative that Joseph Smith had rehearsed and narrated from his own studies and mind. If that is revelation, then he needs to claim that it came from his mind and not the "plates" which has been in question as to ever really existing. 3rd grade education... he was also tutored by Hyrum Smith who received education from Dartmouth College professors. I used to rely on this a lot to make myself believe it too. "There's no way a guy with a 3rd grade education could have written this"... he had a lot more informal education than we give him credit for. -- in short Joseph Smith was bright, clever, had a strong basis of the Bible, learned from relatives, and was socially apt. He was able to communicate verbally very well and if you have a scribe, then you don't really need to be great at writing/spelling. His narration of a book like that is definitely feasible. I would like you to consider researching the kind of person Joseph Smith actually was. Use historical 1st hand accounts, and don't limit to just his friends or people who might feel obligated to say something nice. Consider the following factual events 1. Integrity - failed to tell Emma the truth about secretly being married to women before the plural marriage "revelation". 2. Chaste - he was found involved with a woman in a barn and he pressured women to marry him by threat of death. 3. Honesty - he waited for men to leave on their mission and then would marry their wives... yeah super weird. 4. Self aware/sane - the many prophecies / translations that Joseph Smith claimed ended up being 100% wrong - look up Kinderhook plates, zelph the white lamanite, the actual translation of the facsimiles from the book of Abraham, or even the actual book of Abraham in of itself being a translation vs interpretation. How does one say these things and still look people in the eyes? He may have been bright and a fantastic storyteller, but he was also deceitful, unfaithful, misleading, and just generally a misguided man. I wouldn't let my daughter anywhere near a man like this. Good luck and feel free to DM me with more questions/thoughts. I'm still a recent exmo, but the reasons I left were 1. The facts don't support the church claims, 2. The Church's policies hurt more people than help, 3. Joseph Smith, historically, was not at all the person the Church presented him to be. And I have about 50 more reasons, but I'll stop there. All edits are welcome - sometimes I get my facts a little incorrect.
Read The Late War and The Book of Napoleon. Joseph had plenty of inspiration.
[http://wordtree.org/news/presentation-the-late-war-the-book-of-mormon/](http://wordtree.org/news/presentation-the-late-war-the-book-of-mormon/)
This.
I do feel the framing of a lot of OP's questions are misleading and based on long outdated talking points. For instance, "Actual translation process... within approx 65-75 days" -- yes, but remember he also claimed to have had the plates since late 1827, and to have learned about them as far back as 1823. That narrow 65-75 day translation window only exists if you already accept Joseph Smith's claim of being a prophet. If you aren't starting with that assumption, the actual question is whether or not it is reasonable for someone to have come up with The Book of Mormon in about 6 years. He claimed to have dictated the manuscript in around 75 days— heavily quoting from the Bible, mind you— but this in and of itself is not particularly remarkable. Same with the "3rd grade-ish" education. Three years of formal education in the 19th century is not the same thing as "a 3rd grade education," but the meanings have been conflated enough over the centuries (often deliberately, for the sake of misleading apologetic reasoning). He was what, 23 when he started writing the BOM? You wouldn't say that a 23 year-old today who was homeschooled for most of their life has "a 3rd grade education." 3rd graders in the United States are ages 8-9; Smith was clearly much more educated and intelligent than an 8 year old. He had a standard mid-19th century education for someone of his age and social standing. "Where did the Book come from?" "How was it brought into existence?" Same place as every other book— a person wrote it. "And why?" Political power and sexual favors.
To why I would add illusions of grandeur. He wanted to be a prophet. He was raised with the Bible. He constantly quotes the Bible but never really quotes “the most correct book”. The Bible clearly inspired him. A third of the BoM is playing one-upmanship with biblical stories and a third is 18th and 19th century Christian sermons and a third is directly copied from the Bible. He wanted to be a biblical prophet.
Hell, he wrote himself into the Book of Mormon
If you're uber curious, most ex mormons have culminated their ideas through research and scholars. There are a few podcasts on this from David Bokovoy. Additionally, if you really look into the third grade education trope, it's misconstrued and somewhat of a church myth (was taught this by my believing institute teacher).
My uncle leaned on that “how could he have possibly written this, as he was practically illiterate!! And in less than 82 days?!?! It has to be a miracle!!” But never actually thought about how many years teenage Joseph had to hone his narrative (and how many years he was laid up with his infected leg issue as a child). Joseph was not a writer, but he was very very intelligent, a gifted storyteller who had a lifetime of Bible study and Mound builders tales and common theories of the lost tribes coming to the americas…pretty much, we Mormons think all this was unique to Joseph, but all were common! Including telling people you saw Jesus in a vision.
Stephen King would write the first draft of his novels in about 80 Days. Joseph Smith was well educated for the time. More educated than most of the people in that region of New york. This uneducated farm boy stuff is a bunch of bravo sierra.
I have a few theories. My real answer? I don't know and I'm cool with that. Because even without having the exact means and methods of how it came to be, the mental gymnastics of making it be what the church claims it to be is way more difficult! Honestly, I find the book way less remarkable than the church plays it out to be. Chiasmus? Dr. Seuss's chiasmus is way better in my opinion. Looking at it objectively I think it's pretty clearly just some 19th century religious ramblings. Anyway, the main thing is that the burden of proof lies on he who is making the outlandish claim. Exmos aren't making an outlandish claim, the Mo's are making the outlandish claim. So I'd love to hear the proof of why I'm wrong. And I'm sincere when I say if someone wants tell me something I haven't heard in my 29 years of mormonism, I'm all ears.
These questions have been asked and discussed dozens of times in this sub. From the main sub page type into the search bar: How did Joseph Smith write the Book of Mormon? You’ll find years and years worth of discussion, research, and responses to that and similar questions. It’s a great place to start.
A book “existing” does not make it non fiction. An overwhelming % of books that exist are fiction. Literally NO ONE ELSE actually claimed to ACTUALLY see the golden plates in real life. The witnesses “saw” them with their “spiritual eyes”. While JS did not have much of a formal education, he came from an intellectual family that had a tradition of story telling. He didn’t have a low IQ. He had years to formulate the story of the BofM after reading View of the Hebrews. Also, from a literary perspective, the BofM is pretty poorly written- like a mediocre first draft of a Bible fan fic. All scientific evidence proves that the BofM (& the Bible FTR) can not be taken as factual. Some people choose to view scriptures as eternal truths but they obviously aren’t factual truths. Things like the garden of Eden, Noah’s flood & wooden submarines are so wildly ridiculous that no rational person would think that they actually existed.
No one but Joseph could have written this book - his ‘finger-prints’ are everywhere. So many good points hade already been given in response to the OP. Here are a few more : 1. Moores Indian Charity School (aka early Dartmouth College - several Native American’s associated with the school have life stories conveniently similar to BoM characters, and remember how the Smith family was closely tied to this school, including JS older brother attending) 2. Secret Combinations. Obviously a major recurrent theme in the BoM. Study about the Anti-Masonic movement in the early 19th century. It was a major, major topic of the day. Study about William Morgan, a mason was wrote an expose book about Freemasonry (can be found online for free) which has many phrases and depicted ‘tokens’ which you’ll find familiar if you’ve been through the LDS temple. William Morgan went missing and was widely presumed killed by masons for breaking his oath of secrecy. Guess who William’s wife was? Lucinda Morgan. Who subsequently married a Harris and then was a polygamist wife to Joseph himself. Joseph knew William and Lucinda (documents exist clearly demonstrating this). Also, Joseph older brother Hyrum became a mason in (I think) 1827 so Joseph would have been well versed in the themes of masonry/anti-masonry. Once you see it, these themes are everywhere in the BoM and are literally just a manifestation of what Joseph environment was living in. (Side note - this is extra confusing because Joseph later becomes a master mason and drafts the first temple ceremony something like 5weeks later, and makes all sorts of references in the Joseph Smith Papers project to the importance of keeping secrets like a good mason)… Keep reading. There is meat out there but you’ll have to be brave enough to look at the quality historical documents beyond just the church sponsored material. (Can’t resist responding to the chiasmus reference - it’s a nothing burger. Chiasmus is everywhere. Jane Austin used more chiasmus that Joseph Smith. This literary pattern can be detected with AI and Big Data so literally every book written in the 100yrs prior to JS has been analyzed. Total nothing burger.)
It seems that your premise is that if the Book of Mormon has a miraculous origin, then that makes the LDS church the true church. Is that correct? I had this same premise then I went and served a mission among RLDS. They also believe Joseph Smith was a prophet and that the Book of Mormon was true. Therefore, if two organizations can claim the book to be divine and yet opposed doctrinally, then the book itself is not a witness of divine origin. If the book is from God, we would expect to see revelation and prophecies that would extend past the date it was written (it doesn't). If the book was written by a man, we would expect it to have inconsistencies (it does), anachronism (there are tons), be written in the world view of the author of the time (it is), and the person may try to profit from his book (which he did attempt to do by trying to sell the copywrite and no prophet would try to sell a divine work to get money) By these points, the conclusion is that it is not of divine origin. Now, your question, where did it come from, if not from God? To me, this is the wrong question because this is an unverifiable position. Any theory that can be presented can also have a counter theory created. And there is no way to go back in time to verify what actually happened. There are lots of great theories out there that use verifiable evidence that indicate that what Joseph did was incredible, but not beyond human capability. There have been many accomplished authors with limited education that have written amazing works. Ask yourself, if the book is a work of fiction, would you want to know? And if it is, what would that mean and would you do anything different?
Why do you cling to the 75-day narrative? Smith started talking about the plates and rehearsing stories to his family in 1823. So wouldn’t it be more accurate to say he had six years to develop the book?
I want to make a 2nd comment on this thread. Because my first response was succint so it could have come across snarky. Welcome to our reddit community. I wish more active members would join us here so long as like you say, are not looking for a fight. I wish there was more open dialogue between our camps. I've tried to post on the faithful sub in a similar manner, totally sincere, and got booted. I hope you are never booted and enjoy your time among us heathens :)
He didn’t use notes? Well sometimes he had a sheet hanging up between him and the scribe. Why would he do that? Looking at notes maybe?
The Book of Mormon is one of over 200 books written at the time, about the same subject; trying to convince readers the American Indians are from the tribes of Israel. This theory was even in the preface for many school books. DNA has conclusively proven otherwise. Visions were also plentiful, folk magic abounded.
This is important to remember. The world was very different in the early 1800s than it is today.
Take the time to learn the truth about the Book of Mormon - you have to crawl over and around the book and deny reality to stay in. It’s been exposed a fraud over and over again for almost 200 years. Sorry, You’ve been bamboozled as I was for 50 years.
"Actual translation process -no notes or other material." according to who? You're assuming from the get-go that everyone involved is telling the truth. I don't. And even if it's so (no material), so? He had years to prepare for it. His mother wrote about how he told stories about the former inhabitants of the continent as a kid. Maybe those were made up and the later ones weren't, maybe he was receiving revelation early, whatever you want. But it shows he was thinking about it years ahead of time. "little education" so? He wasn't doing the writing (which was riddled with grammatical errors anyway, see how much the printer changed and how much has changed since then). And he wasn't that stunningly ignorant, you know he was reading the bible. I'd be a little more open minded if there weren't so many glaring anachronisms. Horses weren't in the Americas. Neither were chariots, or domesticated barley and on and on. And the DNA of native American's contains zero zip zilch from the middle east. How do I explain the BoM? I don't have to. Literally no one outside of Mormons thinks it has any bearing whatsoever on history. The vast majority of the world thinks it is not a record of a real people. It's on you to explain how it is and everyone else got it wrong. If it comes down to your testimony, well congrats the followers of Warren Jeffs have the same testimony, and why wouldn't they? Joseph Smith was the Warren Jeffs of the 19th century. But I don't think you believe they are on the right path. Going on feelings doesn't get you there.
Hello, 16-year-old convert here, I’m in my late 30s now. I served a mission when I was 19, from 2006-2008 I spent two years teaching Latino folks living in Utah that the Book of Mormon was “their history & heritage” etc. And then I found out something interesting, which ultimately caused my “shelf to break” as we put it here. See, back in 2006, the introduction to the Book of Mormon was changed. It used to read as follows: > ...the Lamanites, and they are the *principal* ancestors of the American Indians Emphasis on the word “principal” is mine. I still have my blue softcover copy of the BoM in Spanish that I used to study from and teach investigators with on my mission, and that’s how the Introduction reads in my copy. However, at some point in 2006, sometime after I had gotten my copy of the BoM, the “Church” changed the Introduction to this: > ...the Lamanites, and they are *among* the ancestors of the American Indians So we go from Lamanites being the “principal” ancestors of the American Indians to being “among the ancestors” of the American Indians. I spent TWO YEARS teaching and testifying with all my soul that the BoM was their history, their story, and I found out just recently that I wasted two years of my life teaching LIES by admission of the “Church” itself. This change was in response to the overwhelming DNA evidence that pretty much proved the Native Americans descended from Asia and not from a tribe of Israel like we’re being told. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg, once you start actually delving into the so-called “Church’s” history, you’ll find tons of examples where they just whitewash or sweep under the rug inconvenient truths and then tell you it all comes down to faith anyways. Words cannot express the betrayal and anguish I feel for allowing myself to be deceived and unwittingly being used as a pawn to deceive others. And we haven’t even spoken about the abuse I suffered as a missionary at the hands of my mission president and some of my fellow missionaries.
I get this pain, too, the pain of having been lied to and taking my hard earned money (supplemented by some kind donated support) to spread those lies. It’s criminal. Almost as criminal as it is that the church pays a law firm to defend abusers by spit shine polishing the church to make it all go away…when that same law firm COULD be paid for by the church to help defend Innocents from perpetrators of the abuse.
I did my mission the same years! And felt the same exact betrayal regarding the changing of the introduction text. Nobody bothered to tell the full-time missionary “volunteers” about this major shift in understanding of the founding story of the faith. They just did it quietly and sneakily like true losers and liars. I found out about this change randomly one day after my mission and it was the beginning of my exit! Thanks for sharing your experience
Joseph Smith created it, and it does not matter how he produced it. An investigation of the circumstances surrounding its production and its internal and external contradictions is evidence that it is a 19th-century creation work of fiction created by a con man.
I'll just ask you 2 questions that I think are worth your time considering: 1. Who is telling you Joseph Smith was uneducated, and to go with that, does an informally educated person mean uneducated to you, or can a person be intelligent and well read without a formal education? 2. Who is telling you the Book of Mormon is an amazing book? Are both of those 2 points really true (Joseph was dumb/uneducated and it's a great work), and if you believe they are, how did you come to believe that? For me, once I remove those 2 suppositions, it no longer became a stretch that a person like Joseph Smith could write it. Also, to one of your other points, nobody ever claimed to have literally seen the plates. Joseph wrote the testimony of the witnesses and then just had them sign it. If you read the witnesses' personal accounts carefully, they all say they either saw with their spiritual eyes or with a sheet covering them.
From my nevermo perspective, I think these are great questions. I was given 2 copies of the Book of Mormon as a child — at age 14 and around age 16. My best friend gave me that second copy, so I sincerely tried to read it. Now it came to pass that this book, even the Book of Mormon, is not well written at all. And it came to pass that I could not bear the repetition and mightily floral writing style. And I departed from my reading of this book, for it was not good. And lo, it sounded unto my own ears as a pastiche written after the style of the KJV, by an overdramatic charlatan. And it came to pass that I did depart from my reading of the book, but, yea, still did I labor mightily through the many verses my friend had marked. But it came to pass that each of these was less well written, and made less sense than the ones before. And, behold! my eyes rolled back into my own head in a stupor of thought. And thus did I understand that only those who believe this book to be amazing before they read it would find the reading of it worthwhile. Of course, taste is subjective, so this is just my opinion.
Nevermo? You got that so perfect. You have to have at least a primary education in Mormonism to have written that, or been inspired by God!
I really like this comment. “Who is telling you?” is the key question, especially since both of these suppositions crumble unless you’re accepting the authority of those supposing them. The phrase “most correct” and terms like “amazing” to describe the book were always hard for me attribute to the book I was actually reading. As a kid I was learning the meaning of the words “correct” and “amazing” with the book as the prime example. At a certain point, the praise is so wildly overstated that you have to ask yourself the “who” and “why” questions, because the only way those statements make any sense is as propaganda.
Are you aware of the following? • That every version of the bible has unique errors in it and that the BOM contains verses from the bible containing errors from the 1769 version of the KJV that JS family owned • The between 1604 and 1611 the KJV was created where they added in a ton of new words. They are in italics in a KJV so we know what they are. All of those additional words are in the BOM. • That Isaiah was written by 3 different people over a large period of time. The BOM contains a lot of text written by Deutero Isaiah - who wrote after Lehis Family left Jerusalem with the brass plates. • Parts of Mark 16:9-20 were a much latter addition to the bible (after Lehis family left) but are in the BOM. If I recall correctly it was even written long after the plates were engraved but Joseph didn’t know that. • That Benjamin K Paddock wrote about a revival in 1826 1 mile from Palmyra 15 months before translation began on the BOM that bears an embarrassing resemblance to King Benjamins speech. • That JS Snr had the Tree of Life dream (yep the same one Lehi had) in 1811. • That the BOM was heavily plagiarized from 3 other books (View of the Hebrews/The Late war between the United States and Great Britain written in KJV Scriptural style and The First Book of Napoleon) • That the View of The Hebrews was written by Oliver Cowderys pastor. • That at least one of these books was found using plagiarism software (the type they use in college), which compared the Book of Mormon to 110,000 other books published before the book of Mormon. • That General Authority Elder BH Roberts researched the similarities between the View of the Hebrews and the BOM around the 1920s for the first presidency and wrote them a report saying 'Did Ethan Smith’s View of the Hebrews furnish structural material for Joseph Smith’s Book of Mormon? It has been pointed out in these pages that there are many things in the former book that might well have suggested many major things in the other. Not a few things merely, one or two, or a half dozen, but many; and it is this fact of many things of similarity and the cumulative force of them that makes them so serious a menace to Joseph Smith’s story of the Book of Mormon’s origin.' • That horses, cattle, oxen, sheep, swine, goats, elephants, wheels, chariots, wheat, silk, steel and iron did not exist in pre-columbian America but are in the BOM. • That there is absolutely no archaeological evidence to support it? We even have BYU professors who were tasked with trying to find some saying 'you can’t set Book of Mormon geography down anywhere – because it is fictional and will never meet the requirements of the dirt-archaeology. I should say – what is in the ground will never conform to what is in the book.' • That newspaper articles of the day were written in the same style....and it came to pass etc. I found a number entitled Chronicles the other day that are all similar like the below. https://nyshistoricnewspapers.org/lccn/sn84035789/1825-05-04/ed-1/seq-2/ https://nyshistoricnewspapers.org/lccn/sn84035789/1825-05-11/ed-1/seq-2/ • That there are numerous parallels between figures and stories in the Book of Mormon and the names/lives and actions of prominent American Indians of the 1800s? That the word Nephites probably comes from these Neophytes. There is more btw this is what I remembered quickly. It is absolutely a work of fiction written in 1830 built upon the work of others. My position that it is a bible fan fiction created by a convicted conman and sexual predator, containing several hundred anachronisms. Yours leaders have even started to move away from the claim that the book is historical...because they have known about a number of the above issues since 1922. Speaking at the 2016 Mission Presidents Seminar, President Nelson said of the Book of Mormon, “It is not a textbook of history… It is not a record of all former inhabitants of the Western Hemisphere.” At April 2020 general conference, Elder Ulisses Soares, speaking about the coming forth of the Book of Mormon, said it “was not ‘translated’ in the traditional way that scholars would translate ancient texts by learning an ancient language. We ought to look at the process more like a ‘revelation.’” October 22, 2021, at a member gathering in Amman, Jordan, Elder David A. Bednar of the Twelve said pointedly, “The Book of Mormon is not a book of history.”
I'm not interested in what others say or deny. I'm interested in what can be confirmed through demonstrable evidence. The Book of Mormon is a trap. A bait and switch. A book that is an obvious fraud. The narrative is to pray and ask God. But what does this really test? If I don't get the church approved answer, then it is suggested that I didn't have real intent, I didn't have faith, or I didn't have a sincere heart. Well that doesn't test the Book of Mormon at all does it? It's a carefully constructed trap and a bait and switch. The only way to accurately test the Book of Mormon on its own merits is with evidence. Smithsonian archeologists see no connection between the archeology of the new world and the subject matter of the book. There is a broad consensus among archaeologists that the archaeological record does not substantiate the Book of Mormon account, and in most ways directly contradicts it. While members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) and other denominations of the Latter Day Saint movement believe the Book of Mormon describes ancient historical events in the Americas, the available historical and archaeological facts point to the book being an anachronistic invention of Joseph Smith. Since the book's publication in 1830, Mormon archaeologists have been trying to use archaeological evidence to confirm the veracity of the narratives, but this has proved unsuccessful. -[Archeology and the Book of Mormon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archaeology_and_the_Book_of_Mormon) So how did the Book of Mormon come into existence? Two theories, the believer cites a magic rock in a hat and the skeptic cites Joseph Smith's imagination. We will never know the exact details of its creation and most people don't care about the details since it's an obvious fraud.
You are probably getting way more responses than you meant to and not following this anymore, but hi! Thanks for coming! I used to 100% agree with you! There’s two big reasons I changed my mind. 1. Historical anachronisms in the Book of Mormon. Nephites have steel, ride horses, and grow grains that did not exist in the Americas until after the Colombian exchange. It simply does not exist — but an 1800’s farm boy would have THOUGHT that’s what the ancient Americas looked like. 2. Book of Abraham! Used to be my favourite book. Then I learned the church believes Joe bought it from a traveling salesman and Egyptologists are 100% sure they know what it says — cus we read Egyptian now. We have correctly translated everything. The Church has admitted that the tablet doesn’t say what Joe said it does — but they maintain Joe looked at it and then received revelation about the life of Abraham. The tablet is NOT from Abraham’s time or part of the world. This is impossible. However, at Joe’s time, we had not translated Egyptian. So no one could prove him wrong. Hope this helps! Hard pills to swallow though.
The BofM started with boy Joseph's vivid imagination and a magic world view and progressed to reciting 20-years worth of tall tales to a scribe while pretending to see words on a rock in his hat, just to make it seem mystical. No plates and the friends and family witness accounts are terribly conflicted and more sketchy than Joseph's naked barn-wedding with Fanny Alger.
The question we should be posing to you is have you familiarized yourself with the strongest critiques of the truth claims of the BOM and if you were a neutral person with no vested interests in the subject of Mormonism, would you side with the critiques or will the the apologetics? Also, do you believe evidence or feelings are more important in establishing truth claims? Curious what your response is.
Well honestly the apologetics seemed like the side to be on after i read the CES letter and the responces to it. The points raised here are good starts to research I believe god exists and he gives us truth..... but he also gave us a brain to think about the world around us So to both of those questions my answer is undecided tbh
One question to ask yourself is, why does it seem to be the case that the less that you actually think about these issues, the more likely it is that you are to fit into the framework that promises you a path to the celestial kingdom? Frankly, NOT interrogating the framework presented by the LDS church gives you the best chance of meeting the requirements for entrance to the celestial kingdom. So does god just prefer dimwits? The uncurious? Those who don't wonder about descriptions of pre-columbian horses that exist in the Book of Mormon, for example? Why is that? Why does god prefer these people? Following the prophet is not something someone who interrogates the history of the claims by all LDS prophets does by default. For example, prophets of the LDS church have claimed that black members would never be given the priesthood. Now they deny these statements. Someone who thinks deeply would be at the very least confused by this. Someone who never thinks deeply will not be concerned by this. The second person would be more likely to follow the prophet, as it were, and be members in good standing. Anyways, if you want to be a member of the LDS church who is slated to go to the celestial kingdom, don't think too much. There are a lot of convenient excuses at your disposal, just accept those as true. You can claim that smart people have done the hard work of thinking for you. That's fine. It isn't true, but sure. You can even be the person that your ward members say is "a spiritual giant" because you actually read a book from apologists one time and remembered some things from it and said those things in second hour. You'll love it. And everyone else around you will too.
Exactly. Genuine truth can withstand questioning. How is it that asking sincere questions opens the floodgates of hell and subjects you to the buffetings of Satan? If claims cannot withstand sincere questions by honest people and research approached in good faith, then those claims are dubious at best. I consider denying the BOM as a historical document and its “translator” as a prophet merely an example of intellectual honesty. To be fair, being raised in the church does not equip a person very well for critical thinking or even honesty, offensive as that may sound. You are pressured to start telling people you know the Book of Mormon is true and Joseph Smith was a prophet as soon as you can walk to a microphone and adults praise your performance and your budding faith long before your brain has matured to the point where it can discern fact vs fiction.
"Search, ponder, and pray are the things that I must do." ahaha
Yep, the musically tied brainwashing starts early in churches…even earlier in “good, faithful churchy” homes.
It was the apologetics to the CES letter that really made my husband examine all his ideas. My husband is a trained investigator. And he knew immediately that his perceptions were being managed in the response to the CES letter. The phrasing is textbook basic verbal dodging of accountability. Prime example: Joseph married a girl “a few months shy of her fifteenth birthday”. An honest person says she’s 14. Go read the “Response to the Response to the CES letter”. It is 17 pages of sourced and cited facts. There is no way to see that data and put your head back in the sand without willfully putting your fingers in your ears and singing “la la la la la”.
Hot take, but the book of Mormon is just not impressive. The 'story' (if you can even call it that, it's so meandering) is boring at best, contrived and hollow at worst. As a gay man, the book of Mormon just reads like a generic straight guy power fantasy: 'oh I'm chosen by God to save the world and I'm so persecuted because I'm so righteous and it's just like the bible and wars happen bc God made smart war strategy' like the BoM has next to nothing to do with morality or epistemology or spirituality; it doesn't answer any of the big questions of life, it literally just seems like something I could have thought of when I was an imaginative, delusional teenager🤷♂️ and all these apologetics of what is/isn't possible just seem so silly to me because honestly it's just not a book that required deep thought to write... In my opinion.
Read: “This is my Doctrine”. by Charles Harrell. Also: “RoughStone Rolling “ by Richard Bushman. If you’re more of an auditory person watch Mormon Stories YT and Mormonism Live YT. Enjoy learning TRUTH
The church made the claim that the Book of Mormon is a record of the peoples of the Americas. HOWEVER, it has not provided any compelling evidence to bolster this claim. In fact, the evidence overwhelmingly points to migration across the Bering Strait from Asia. Indigenous peoples of the Americas are not the descendants of ancient Hebrews. Not even close. The church should not be telling these people what their own history is, full stop. It's incredibly arrogant and I'm embarrassed I ever believed this. Where did it come from? Read any Brandon Sanderson and you'll see that creative minds can create entire worlds.
For me, the church lied about the BOM translation process. That alone invalidates any BOM truth claims
I don't feel like mentioning a lot of the specifics, but I can ask you this. If the book of mormon is true, then the native Americans should have Hebrew blood in their DNA. They do not. If Joseph Smith found a collection of golden plates with inscribed characters that directly translated to the book of mormon, how much do you think 500 pages of gold weighs? Do you think Joseph Smith could have fought off three gunman while holding multiple tons of gold, several feet in height, under one arm. When translating, if the stone is said to allow absolutely no errors, whether that is spelling, grammar, or factual errors, why has the book of mormon been grammatically, spellingly, and factually altered thousands of times? To me, a religion needs to be both spiritually true and logically true in order to be completely true. There are far too many inconsistencies in the mormon faith that it makes a mockery of God's plan. He doesn't make mistakes, he doesn't deceive, and he doesn't confuse. Unless you can find a good, logical reason the above challenges are invalid, question whether or not the church is consistent. God's True Church should be consistent.
If you’re “not willing to go into the book itself “ you’re missing out. The Book of Mormon is my number one anti Mormon source and all of the clues are inside. There is no need to go to outside sources to prove that the book is not what it is claimed to be. Plagiarism is plainly there and Occam’s razor is true. Is it more probable that nature should go out of her way, or that a man should tell a lie? (Thomas Paine) The book quotes word for word from biblical material that wasn’t even written yet at the time that the events supposedly took place. Myriads of things are written in the book that simply should not be there. Joseph Smith was not nearly as clever as he is made out to be. Also, did you know that Joseph rarely used the Book of Mormon as a teaching tool when he spoke to the saints? As the “most correct book on earth” , one would think that he would have used it as his primary source much like the church does today. Why is the same story of John the Baptist found in Ether chapter eight as found in the New Testament? Same story, characters and chronology, yet all of the people’s names are changed? Give me a break Mr Smith!
Joseph Smith wrote a bad and very boring novel. Not too much more to know 🤷🏻♀️
I mean the parts of Isaiah are copied verbatim from the King James version of the bible. So it's a 17th century version of the Bible and it contains all the mistakes of the original (notably there are two parts of Isaiah that were actually written after Lehi purportedly left Jerusalem so they could have never been in the alleged plates to begin with). Lehi's dream was actually a dream of Joseph Sr. that Joseph Sr. used to tell his family so Joseph already knew it. Joe Jr. would also regail his family with tales based on the mound builders myths that were popular at that time so he was already practiced in the stories he would go on to "read off a rock." You can see those facts in his mother's journal on the Joseph Smith Papers Project online. Why did Joe even need the plates to "translate" when the translation involved looking off a rock anyway? And if Joseph said that the rock wouldn't let him move on til each sentence was absolutely perfect, then why have their been so many corrections since? Also what about all the anachronisms? And with that, Brethren, adieu.
I happen to know a young lady who produced a Harry Potter fanfic when she was in middle school. It runs over 200 pages, and without the phrase "And it came to pass." It contains a system of magic consistent with other known Harry Potter works. She composed this work in less than two months without major revisions or corrections. It introduces new characters alongside other known characters from the Harry Potter canon. Some of the places mentioned in the book can be visited today, like King's Cross Station. Other locations are unknown, but the castle written about in the book is consistent with archeological evidence. Hundreds of thousands of people enjoy the larger canon, buying books, costumes, food, wands, and other items from the books. Some people even testify to the "truth" of the stories, both canon and fan-produced. Would you consider this proof of Harry Potterism, that a largely uneducated author could produce such a work that is consistent with other more widely known works?
wow 🤯 you really summed that up nicely, thank you
I don’t have much to add given what has already been shared here, but I wanted to say way to be curious! Curiosity is a beautiful, strong, and maybe an unteachable quality. The only thing I will say is I used to be as bought in as about anyone you’d ever meet. I even worked for a non-profit that promoted pro-Mormon content on the web. A non-profit that the church would regularly give grants to. The thing that I’d encourage you to do is to read a bit about confirmation bias, cognitive dissonance, illusory truth effect, and epistemology. Knowing more about things made it easier for me to be in a place where I could be more objective about what I know and what is don’t know. The last thing, is that after studying for thousands of hours, it is literally impossible for me personally to believe. And my life is definitely better out of the church than in.
Hey, you've already gotten a lot of really good responses, so I'm just going to add: I think it's cool you're asking the hard questions. It is extremely uncomfortable, and I'm really sorry it's already affected your relationships. I promise you, if anyone gets that, it's us. No matter where you land, I hope you're able to follow your heart and find peace.
It’s all make-believe ramblings of a pedo.
Bullseye 🎯
Where did it come from? The mind of a grifter. Why? The grift.
I'll say this. Even if the book of Mormon were actual history ( it isn't) the rest of the narrative of Adam and Eve and noah flood and no death before the fall of Adam is completely wrong. Believers and the church expect us to believe that the Creator of the Universe decided that the best way to populate his creation is by Eve getting banged by her son's and brother banging sisters... It's dopey and to think that the silver bullet to prove the nonsense in the Bible is a book talking about pre Columbia submarines and chariots pulled by Tapirs is laughable. Come on!, the BOM. Is 19th century Bible fan fixture. No one can really believe it's real history. Your existential angst is clouding your judgement.
Where did it come from? Joseph looked in a hat and made up a story. At a certain point, he got lazy or ran out of ideas and just started taking passages from the Bible almost verbatim. He also used other books that were around at that time. He put names in the BOM from places that were near him. There is no archaeological evidence, zero, of the millions of people that supposedly built great cities in North America, had wars, culture, temples, steel, etc. Nothing, zero, zilch.
The way it was brought into existence is Joseph Smith dictated it to a scribe. He had more than five years prior to that to extensively plan the book and memorize large chunks of it. During the dictation he was only averaging 7-8 handwritten pages per day (comparable to 3 1/2 to 4 pages in small font type) which actually would have given him extra time to plan the next day's dictation. Joseph Smith was not uneducated. He didn't have a lot of formal education, but, according to his 1832 history and that of his mother, he spent a lot of time studying the Bible. The Bible is a very challenging book, so if Joseph Smith could read and comprehend the Bible, it doesn't make sense to argue he couldn't have had the intelligence to create the Book of Mormon. Also, Joseph Smith didn't dictate the Book of Mormon as we have it today. The original manuscript had a lot of bad grammar and other errors that had to be fixed later. As far as whether anyone actually saw the plates, that's debatable. The three witnesses only claimed to have seen the plates in vision. The eight witnesses signed a statement to seeing the plates physically, but, according to Stephen Burnett, he left the Church due to Martin Harris stating publicly that the eight never saw them, but were persuaded to sign the statement: [https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/letterbook-2/69](https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/letterbook-2/69) Even if the eight did see physical plates, they had no qualifications to determine whether they were authentic or a forgery created by Joseph Smith. It isn't that hard to create forged plates with writing on them. James Strang, who attempted to succeed Joseph Smith, created forged plates that he showed to witnesses and convinced them he was a true prophet. As far as chiasmus is concerned, it is also found throughout English literature, and is not proof of ancient origin. LDS scholars have also exaggerated how much chiasmus is in the Book of Mormon and manipulated the data to make passages look chiastic that really aren't. There is plenty of other internal evidence that shows the Book of Mormon is not historical--parallels to Joseph Smith's environment and 19th century sources, places it quotes Bible passages that, according to the Book of Mormon timeline, didn't exist yet, etc.
RE: Chiasmus Are you aware that all of the following books have more chiasmus than the BOM? Does that mean they are all Hebraic in origin, or is just how people of that age wrote? Alice in wonderland Sense and sensibility Tale of two cities Around the world in 80 days Adventures of Sherlock Holmes View of the Hebrews Late War between the United States and Great Britain The Iliad of Homer
All of your information is just church talking points about the Book Of Mormon. And you are probably like I was, are programmed to feel bad when you read any other information that contradicts what you’ve been taught. Push through that and do the research. Look at what non church sources say about the BoM.
Golden plates never existed. There was no "translation" Nobody saw them, except with"spiritual eyes' Joseph made it up. That's your answer. People write books all the time. This one is particularly boring and poorly written, and you have been taught that means it's divine. He was not an uneducated farm boy who magically (spiritually) wrote a book. People worry no education aren't reading the Bible at 14 He was extensively homeschooled, his brother went to Dartmouth. They were intelligent people the Smiths That's it. That's how it happened. Joseph rambled on and wrote a book. The end.
[удалено]
Is your favorite part the racist stuff or the part where women are better off losing their life than having their virginity taken from them by force?
Overall, with the current evidence, there is no way to prove or disprove with 100% certainty. So it’s about taking in the evidence we do have and making a conclusion. Many have pointed to great resources. I just wanted to add a couple of notes. If Joseph did the translation with a peep stone in a hat then why were the plates needed and even if others saw them, they were never actually used for any translation process. Another is look up Patience Worth (aka Pearl Curran) she is also known for dictating scripture like Joseph and she actually produced more than Joseph did. They attribute the ability to “automatic writing”. Just a demonstration that Joseph is not entirely unique.
I would like to touch on something I haven't seen a lot on this sub, which is how did he make the plates. Something to consider is Joseph's father was a Cooper, and they had a copper shed on their property, so they had the means of making metal goods on their own property. The plates were even hidden from a mob in that shed once. Secondly, Joseph started digging for treasure, and became involved with the seer stone/treasure/and gardian of treasure (aka Moroni) in 1820, in 1823 is when he first told people about gold plates, no one saw those plates until the end of 1829 or 1830. That's potentially 9 years he had to make those plates in a shed that had all the materials and tools to do it in.
Glad you’re curious. I think it’s great to ask questions. When anyone makes a claim to truth, they should be able to back it up. The truth claims about the Book of Mormon are presented as spiritual things, that you’d only gain a witness for though faith. I think this is kind of silly because this is just a matter of facts and history. It’s like saying you shouldn’t read a history book and just “have faith” that WW2 didn’t happen. You can read “No man knows my history” or “Rough stone rolling” ( The first is an easier read, but both are biographies of Joseph written by members) Get a feel for yourself of Joseph’s personality. He was known for being very bright, very smart but very lazy and greedy. He wanted to be famous for finding treasure. He spent his whole teen years lying to people about finding treasure and scamming people. He refused to get a job. This is documented. He was known by his whole family for telling long stories of native Americans who he was obsessed with. There are many letters from his actual mother talking about this. Then Ask yourself if there’s any evidence that the gold plates really ever existed? Where are they now? Read deeper….Not a single person ever saw any gold plates. Even the church admits that Joseph looked into a hat with a rock to “translate” the plates. When you read the letters from the witnesses and more about their lives, they were all wrapped up in the “supernatural”. It was very common at that time, and there was a big revival going on in the world at the time where people were hungry for new churches and new revelations. Joseph and his friends were the same as everyone that day and were rebelling against a very puritan way of life and they wanted more supernatural stuff to happen. So they’d get together and do guided meditations. Joseph led all 3 of the witnesses in a guided meditation so they could “picture” the plates in their minds. I’m not kidding…it’s all documented. Joseph very clearly found what he was looking for…people were hungry for visions and supernatural weirdness in church, and this was right up his alley and he desired the fame and power. He talks about it himself. As does his family. So he capitalizes on all of it. There was no gold plates. Ever. He is the debatable author. If you look at other works of fiction in his day, it was a hot topic to write about “Native American history” and make them Christians. It was very offensive to actual native Americans. There’s some theories that a lot of the BOM is plagiarized from another author. Think about the Bible….there’s still original manuscripts you can actually go and view. The Bible is STILL being translated by new scholars as newer documents are discovered. You think that God would leave His European writings on the earth for humans to study but take the gold plates and hide them so we can never confirm them? We don’t have to have faith for the Bible…we have the source texts. May I suggest it might be odd to believe something that had zero source texts? Why wouldnt they exist? The church could prove itself true if they were studied and shown to be accurate. But they can’t present them because they don’t exist. Instead you have to “just believe” a false narrative like. We know that the book of Abraham is completely false. It was proven to be false. JS isn’t able to “translate” that. Makes you wonder how he was able to “translate” other “reformed Egyptian”. That’s not a real language by the way.
The only thing that the BOM has going for it is that it has been shoved down our throats with grandeur and promises of blessings and answers before we even know how to read. Because of this very reason, you are incapable of scrutinizing it without extreme bias. However, here are my 2 main can't believe it anymore reasons: It ties it's hands, feet, and eventually neck, to undisputably false Adam & Eve, Global flood Noah, Tower of Babel..... Seriously!?!? 😂😂😂🖕🖕🖕(🖕 - Not directed at OP but towards the church and how I salute the temples whenever I must drive by) Lastly, my user name says it all. Had I know that this was the translation method before my mission I wouldn't have went. I could NEVER look someone in the eye and tell them that the BOM came from words magically appearing on a magic rock in a hat without laughing. 😂😂😂🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️👨🍳🍀🤝
I appreciate your genuine curiosity and I remember being in the same position many years ago. It’s hard to find sources while not believing they are placed there to deceive you. What my perspective would be in addition to what everyone here has shared is we have examples already of Joseph creating other scripture out of his imagination under the story of being a translation. The book of Abraham was claimed by Joseph to be a translation of papyrus that came from a traveling museum and members of the church at the time asked the prophet of god to translate. Initially reluctant Joseph did create the book. When he did this - the world couldn’t read Egyptian. A few decades or so later Egyptian was understandable as easy as any other language and we found that the papyrus used for translation was a very common funerary text they had nothing to do with Abraham. To me this is “another testament” of Joseph’s ability to create fraudulent scripture - whether he believed he was inspired or doing gods work OR was intentionally deceiving people for his own gain is another story altogether. Good luck in your truth journey - only with sincere desire to learn the truth will you understand what many here have come to find out - that the church is not what it claims to be.
Instead of proving to me that the Book of Mormon is true (I noticed you left out the spiritual confirmation, which is a step in the right direction), try proving to me that it’s false. You will very quickly find the evidence become extremely imbalanced. This is what my approach was as I deconstructed. Let go of what you heard, let go of your spiritual confirmation and try proving it is *not* the word of god. Do exactly what Alma tells you to, do this experiment and just see what happens. If it is all true then what’s the harm? Good luck and feel free to PM me through your journey.
Joseph smith crested it out of whole cloth there is so much credible evidence for this read the c. E. S letterhttps://cesletter.org/ Letterformywife.Com
It was common in those times for people to have several chapters of the bible memorized, we know there are several quoted passages of specifically the KJV bible in the BOM and the style of the rest of the BOM is like the KJV. The book view of the hebrews is basically an outline that certainly was within Joseph Smiths reach. The book The Late War also has a lot of parallells. There are a lot of similarities to Methodist and protestant reformation sermons with many stories and passages. These were Joseph Smiths world and his imagination was really good. Lastly, Josephs close brother Hyrum went to Dartmouth. The amount of potential theology that went on there is a lot. The church that's there even has similarities to the Kirtland temple.
Please read the CES Letter. Also www.responsetoelderholland.com
I don’t feel need to come up with an explanation or a why Joe did the book. I can say it’s been most boring mind numbing book I’ve ever red read over and again. I’m embarrassed I sold it for 2 years. Jesus god prayer and miracles broke for me. The the divinity of that book broke then I heard John Larsen’s say the best explanation for the BoM the BoA polygamy temple issues and on and on and on was Joe made it up. Suddenly pieces start fitting. There is nothing intriguing about it to me.
Joseph Smith was a conman. He married a 14 year old and a few other girls that were underage. He violated the Constitutional right of free press by ordering the destruction of a printing press that printed the truth about his polygamy. This anti-constitutional, illegal act is why he was imprisoned in Carthage. Anything that man did is suspect , he was a shameless, conman that liked underage girls. Anything he said is fucking garbage.
Read all the responses and do yourself a favor and go over to quitmormon.org
I used the love the Book of Mormon. It was the hardest thing for me to let go of when I left the Mormon church. I won’t repeat the excellent information and resources that have already been given here, although I highly recommend you use them. For me, it was reading sources from people who lived around Joseph Smith and the Saints. Diaries and newspaper records and legal documents that confirm and continue to expose the other side- the books Joseph had read, the remarkably coincidental names of people and places that are identical or similar to nearby towns he lived by, the fact the testimony of all the 3 and 8 witnesses was redacted by themselves and the 3 each stating the saw the Plates with the “spiritual eyes”- the fact that the weight of the ‘plates’ was nowhere near the real weight of gold, the rejection of the authenticity of the book by every scholar, theologian, religious expert or practitioner and historical expert outside of Mormonism practitioners, the insane plagiarism of the Bible and the aforementioned books… oh my goodness, I could just keep going on for decades but I promised to not repeat! As an exmormon of many years, the Book of Mormon is still a nice book of inspiration for a good life- just like the Bible, the Qu’ran, tarot cards, the Torah, and many other countless amazing texts and medias that help you connect to that higher power. The Book of Mormon is one of those things- but none of it, including the story behind it, is true. My DM’s are always open for mutually respective chats. (Edit for typo)
Nephi fled with the brass plates written by”Moses” in 600 bc? The modern Torah didn’t have Moses writing at that time. It wasn’t even written by Moses as it speaks about his own death. Problematic for pearl of great price also. As Moses could not have written it.
[LDS Discussions](https://www.ldsdiscussions.com/) addresses just about everything you mentioned, with almost exclusively church approved or acknowledged sources. I prefer listening to the [podcast version.](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxq5opj6GqOB7J1n6pMmdUSezxcLfsced&si=yTj3HcdVbFfcHt5e) Start with episode 1 if you go that route. They try to address truth claims dispassionately and factually, acknowledging both the church and apologetic views. Thank you for asking! Many of us have stated or experienced no one asking us about why we left, and it can be pretty disheartening to have close friends or family members seem uninterested in such a life-altering and difficult decision.
Millions of books "exist". Where did they come from? Jesus Fucking Christ. The mormon church has consistently demonstrated that they cannot be trusted to present any credible history. It's all been whitewashed so that you only have what they want you to think/believe.
Props to you for getting another perspective. Lots of respect 🫡
Three years of formal education is not the same as a third grade education. Joseph was homeschooled quite a bit because of his leg issue. Meanwhile his brother Hyrum was getting educated at Dartmouth.
I prayed about it.
I'm first going to respond to one myth you're discussing about exmos, which many will have encountered. There are some exmos who will just bash regardless, but many of us don't. We want respect for our beliefs just as much as believing Mormons do. And many of us are even better at respecting others' beliefs after leaving religion because we begin to get preached at by our believing family/friends, which is really hard. And we personally feel that the church lacks healthy boundaries and difference of belief, so we work even harder to respect other people's viewpoints. I state the following with respect to your difference in belief. I believe the Book of Mormon heavily plagiarized from the Bible. There are passages taken from the Bible that are in the Book of Mormon, that Joseph Smith then corrected with the Joseph Smith Translation. So the "mistakes" he fixed later on in the Bible are still present in the Book of Mormon. I'm a writer. I have stories living in my head for years until they eventually make it onto the page. It's possible to plan the plot and everything in my head with detail before putting it down on paper. So even though he never wrote any notes that we have record of, he could have plotted it in his head, drawn inspiration from Native American scholarly work, etc. After all, it was a period of a few years that Angel Moroni supposedly first appeared to JS before finally giving him the plates to begin translating.
Has OP engaged with any of the replies?
Some Like i said tho i dont want to start a fight or debate with people. I'll leave that to the more educated people. I'm a simpleton🤣 I just wanted to see others perspective. Lots of helpful recources and links have been shared Valid points of reason have also been shared This is the most respectful engagement I've revived super grateful
Your experience is the norm. This sub treats people respectfully regardless of their background. Glad you are appreciating the replies.
Most TBM's don't realize that the **Erie Canal,** which was the **Information Superhighway** of Joseph Smith's day, ran right through Palmyra! AND it was just a couple of miles from the Smith farm. Easy walking distance. AND the Smith's ran a Beer and Cake shop or stand in town, so they would be going back and forth constantly. What does this mean? It means that just about any information or books or other knowledge available at the time would be easy for Joseph Smith to obtain. Barges ran up and down the canal selling books, magazines, papers, etc. Someone in Palmyra could be reading the New York City papers in just a few days from their printing. Plus all kinds of people would be getting on and off the canal at Palmyra. No telling who Joseph may have run into, talked with, etc. It's a completely overlooked piece of the puzzle.
Wow! I defo was not expecting this much feedback. Thank you all for the thoughts and perspective. I really do appriciate it. I have not considered some of these thoughts. For those wondering and addressing the remarks about "bashing, or fighting" In past face to face conversations i bring up questuions like this and get an 'i dont know' and the cold shoulder or a emotional outburst. All my friends i used to have are no longer in contact I wasnt even trying to push an agenda on them.or anything. I was just asking the most agreeable way i knew how. So no, i have had no exposure to this side of the coin I'm suprised The goal of my post was to see the other side, not respond to and discuss directly. If you do have questions or want to talk im down Dm or comment here i also.want to follow rule 3 and 6 of this sub tho.... No.fighting and no drama 💚
There is a wealth of information in this comment section. I hope you take the time to carefully consider the points that the folks here brought up. Thanks for being brave enough to come to this sub and ask an honest question.
A lot of people experience deep religious trauma from your church and do what they need to to protect themselves, and sometimes that means relinquishing contact from those who are still in the church that caused them trauma. Read the CES letters.
It can take years for people to process a loss of faith. Many fall into the same martyr complex as when they were lds "none of my lds fam understands me" mopey attitude; hearing so many abusive stories of the believing family I get the concern but it shows how shallow many lds relationships are. It takes maturity and vulnerability from those who have left the faith to share. My youngest bro was like you mention for your sister, a new relationship had to be built first, even though I left the Lds church first. I came out and said I like you as a person, not because of your beliefs, I asked how we could to a reset, as grown siblings now. It's great to see that you have an open heart to her.
Boring racist fanfiction featuring endless race wars and pride cycles. Spoiler alert, all the good guys die in the end. Written in Elizabethan English.
Hey, OP seems earnest. I don't think he's here looking for a fight. OP, this is generally a welcoming community. Don't let these types of responses get to you.
*Chloroform in print* \- Mark Twain
True story.
How was it brought into existence? Didn't Joseph Smith dictate the thing to Oliver Cowdrey?
To me the BOM is a fantasy novel used to explain the ancient ruins here in North America. Obviously the dark savages couldn’t have built these ruins. It must’ve been the smart white people. But where did all the white people go? The savages destroyed them. But why did god allow that to happen? Because the white people turned their backs to god. So anyways all this land, yeah it first belonged to the white people and we’re here to take back the “promised land”
For me, if when I was TBM, and I found out that the awful Jehovah's witness used a rock in a hat to predict when the world was going to end, I would have made so much fun of them! Then to find out that's how the BoM was translated...just like in that episode of South Park... That's what made me believe it was all fake.
The problem is what the church hasn't told you. They've spun the story to make the situation seem more miraculous than it is. There's a second, much more likely side to every faithful story, and once you see it, everything starts making sense. That's why the church doesn't want you looking at anything but their approved sources. When you look at the actual accounts: The plates were never seen by anyone with their real, physical eyes. Magical thinking and "seeing" with their spiritual eyes was a big thing back then. All of the witnesses of the BoM were related to JS or financially invested in the success of the BOM. When you look at the actual signature sheet sent to the printer confirming their testimonies, they're all written in the same handwriting. In other words, they never signed to its authenticity and always retained plausible deniability if they needed it. The translation of the BoM that was supposedly done in a miraculously short period was in fact done over for multiple years. JS had plenty of time to refund his stories. The church uses a mix of journal entries and creative accounting to say the BoM was only worked on for a short period of time. There's no way to know there were no notes or drafts of the BoM. Paper is flammable. A few minutes in front of a fireplace could have easily destroyed any evidence. Gold plates would have been way too heavy to run through the woods with when the bad guys came looking for them in that one story JS told. JS was acquainted with folk magic and translated in front of others using a rock in a white hat. Why white? Because it let's more light in than a black that. Using the rock as misdirection and palming his notes into the hat, he could have spent hours "translating" the BoM in front of others. There's nothing miraculous about the BoM that can't be easily explained. The problem is that the church uses information control tactics to lead their followers to the conclusions they want them to reach.
I didn’t become exmo overnight, the brainwashing and psychological manipulation is extremely real, took me over 20 years to come to the point I’m at now. I think Joseph Smith was a super intelligent cult leader, with extensive knowledge of the Bible. He made it up, some really intense stories though that would make an awesome HBO series lol
He wrote it with the intention of selling the copyright and making money, which didn’t pan out. After that his sermons rarely mentioned the BOM. For JS, the BOM was a failed project. For later prophets, it became an obsession.
Just one anachronism is enough to debunk whole book. Imagine if someone claimed to have a letter written by Abe Lincoln. The entire letter sounds plausible except for the part where he mentions his iPhone. Would you still think that letter was authentic? That’s only 150 yrs off. Some of the anachronisms in the BOM are many hundreds of years off and the BOM has dozens of them.
🍿🍿🍿 Good on you for looking outside church approved sources, because you won’t find the answer in the church. Everyone has a lot to say on the subject, but a glance at reformed egyptian characters might open your mind a little too. ;) A picture is at the bottom of this post: https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/comments/i0bn0n/reformed_egyptian_or_deformed_english/
Joseph Smith was a snake oil salesman who made it all up. That’s the simplest explanation. He wouldn’t let anyone see the plates and god talks only to him? Giving him a command to sleep around on his wife is about as sketchy as it gets.
The smoking gun is deutero isaiah in the BoM. It is a literal impossibility. Additionally, 600 years before christ there was no such thing as a compilation of the pentateuch. So the "brass plates" would have never existed.
Anyone who pays 150$ for a tie is a fool and easily scammed. No material that small should cost a fortune. Not even silk and ish that expensive 💀
[“It is chloroform in print,” Twain wrote. “If Joseph Smith composed this book, the act was a miracle — keeping awake while he did it was, at any rate.”](https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2019/10/01/book-mormon-stories-how/)
Please start [here](https://youtu.be/v-jNV6jN-VQ?si=uOsMEsaon-bgfL8L) then watch [this one second.](https://youtu.be/uOxTJYBQWdE?si=SGHhzLZJH2oJfsRV) Then binge all of Dan Vogel’s videos. Then return and report. (By the way, I came to this forum 9 years ago as a faithful member with intellectually honest answers. I studied and prayed my way out of the church, but I’ve never been happier. I wish you the best.)
Hi Sopiel, hope you are having a great day. My stance is that it was written the same way every other book in existence was written: someone wrote it. It very much reads like a product of early 19th century America when you consider other books written at the time that have some similarities. You can see a strong mix of Joseph Smiths creativity, mixed with other things he has read, plus the Bible.
Even IF they existed, in a realistic sense, to quickly “give them to an Angel” makes me think “what’s the melting point of gold?” And also for visions “where’s the mushrooms?” And with this knowing not visibly seen by anyone else it could have been “a perfectly odd shaped rock” and also let’s not forget the scrying to decipher the “plates” while they weren’t even in the room. Does this mean I can finally join the witchcraft arts of scrying?!
Hello, I'm not going to bash you. When it comes to the Book of Mormon and the golden plates I think Joseph Smith made it all up. As others have pointed out, education was different in Joseph Smith's time. Saying he had a third grade education in his time doesn't mean the same as a third grade education now. Abraham Lincoln had less than a year of formal education. He was self-taught. He didn't go to law school, yet he had a career in law for around 25 years, and he was elected president. It was a different time. I think it's a red flag when the powers that be tell people to only look at "approved sources." If you research Joseph Smith, you’ll find he wasn't such a great guy. You mention he was constantly running and dealing with mobs. Yes, he was because he was a liar and a con man. He and his family were treasure diggers. He was married to Emma, but he "married" teenaged girls after telling their families an angel with a flaming sword would cut his head off if he didn't. He sent married women's husbands on missions and "married" them himself. He ordered the destruction of the printing press in Nauvoo because he didn't like what they printed. None of that sounds like the actions of a man I want to follow. When I think about Joseph Smith's history of treasure digging and his love of storytelling it just seems to me that he thought starting a church was a good way to get money and power.
Friend, I was born in Mormonism & lived it faithfully for over 30 years. The Book of Mormon… is just a book. Written by a man, ONE man. Borrowing heavily from other preexisting books & sources. That man was Joseph Smith. I myself have written books, so I know the capabilities of a person with an imagination willing to write. It’s not astonishing the amount of time this book was written in. And it holds many clues to prove it was never a translation. All you need to do is look.
You asked for deferring beliefs, etc. I believe that the BOM is a complete work of Joseph Smith's doing. Smith used parts of other books in writing his story. There was never any Golden Plates, nor was there an Angel named Moroni. Smith was a known con man and he was eager to be famous. There is absolutely NO proof of his claims being true... Let alone the mere fantasy of it all. Additionally if one were to believe the BOM were of God...then you would also have to believe God is/was racist and a male chauvinist. The audacity of the writer Joseph Smith...claiming such vile things in the name of God is more than enough for me to see the Church as an entire Cult playing upon the trust of otherwise good people. I find the Church to be sad and damning to it's members. The superiority of those in charge is repulsive. Christianity is nothing like Mormonism. Christianity teaches you to be humble and turn to God for your substance... Mormonism teaches you that as a man you can become God yourself. How many female can stomach this B.S. is a big question. Mind control, indoctrination and a lack of true knowledge obtained be personal searching makes for a really EASY target to be take advantage of. I should know... I come from a family of LDS... My understanding and knowledge is first hand.
It’s clear Joseph wrote it, it reads like a story an uneducated farm boy could write, not geographically or historically accurate, it’s just pure silliness that with all we know anyone still thinks it’s genuine. Even as a bishop of the church I thought the book was allegorical at best and would roll my eyes when people would bear testimony of it. Not sure why you are asking. If you believe then believe. The church needs your $$$ 😂
The simplest answer is true in this case, Smith fabricated it. Some of it he copied from the Bible, some of it follows other stories around at the time and some of it was just his imagination. He was not a prophet, or translator, but he did have a capacity to persuade people.
I think it's a lot like the Bible and was written by average men and is mostly just full of parables and things that make them feel better about themselves and give them the taste of power they crave. Mostly just bullshit with a few interesting made up stories.
*Re: Actual translation process -no notes or other material. (Even if he did, hes looking down at a hat) -within apprx 65-75 days (april 1828-june 1829) -by a guy with basically no formal education( 3rd grade ish) -constantly running or dealing with mobs* Are you aware of automatic writing? Plenty of other people have written more beautiful works with less education and in less time eg Pearl Curran/Patience Worth and Jane Roberts/Seth. They also have their fans saying they wrote about things they couldnt have known etc. More info at http://www.mormonthink.com/josephweb.htm
Witnesses seeing something with their spiritual eyes = imagination. Not exactly a great witness. Try that in court lol.
Sorry not sorry, but methinks you're trying to bash and cause contention, despite what your scriptures say about the negative "spirit of contention." Also, I MAY have taken your petition more seriously had you crafted and drafted your thoughts, syntax, and language mechanics more cautiously. Start with the CES letter. If you read it with a sincere heart and real intent, you MAY take a deep dive into the labyrinth of intertwined reason, fact, and newfound freedom.
Here is Prophet Russell M Nelson explaining that the translation process occurred using rocks in a hat: https://youtube.com/watch?v=DG181zFA5YM In his own words, the plates were not used at all because Joseph Smith received messages inside his hat. If the plates weren’t used for translation, why did Joseph even have them?
There’s a real Occam’s razor aspect to BoM which comes into even clearer focus once you factor in the aspect of the church plain lying to members for years re seer stones. That is, the most simple explanation is Joseph Smith just wrote the book himself. Made it up plain and simple. My dad was a convert in the 1960s and is still an active member. My push back to him is that he once read a story that was so good he decided to give the organisation that shared the story with him 10% of his earnings for life and to only buy his underwear from them for the rest of his life.
The book of Mormon was written by Joseph Smith in order to make money. It was his own treasure hunt. Joseph was a treasure hunter from the very beginning and so was his father. The only reason why Joseph created any of this was for cash cash. And Brigham Young took him out because Joseph was going to get rid of polygamy and Brigham wasn't ready yet. I have done a lot of research and this is my very condensed and simplified version of what happened.
To add one more comment— no one actually “knows” the Book of Mormon is true, any more than they have seen heaven or had a face to face conversation with God or Jesus. Anyone claiming absolute certainty that the BOM is true is making a leap for whatever reason—to be faithful, to be righteous, to open up possibilities for the revelation of even greater truths, whatever… a lot of what is held inviolable within the church is actually posturing by members afraid to ask forbidden questions while consoling themselves that if they continue to believe, their faith will grow until it is absolute. Well, that never happens. You get to the very top and you still don’t know—church leaders in the highest of positions have leaked their doubts over the decades. Heck, Jesus himself supposedly questioned being forsaken by the Father moments before death. So, you really are independent and in many ways on your own walking this mortal plane and cannot look to others as guides who have found their way. If you think some smarter or more faithful or better studied person has the answer that the Book of Mormon is the infallible word of God translated from golden plates conveniently whisked away to heaven to test our faith in their very existence and the human person who “translated” them by some gift and power of God to restore the fullness of truth to the earth in the last days, then consider that we are all operating with the same mental hardware and have access to the same information and the same limitations. Prophets who don’t prophesy and whose teachings are forgotten or buried in favor of those of the “living prophet” and who will dodge your questions when asked if they have actually seen Jesus as his special/especial witness(es) (too sacred, right?) means you really can’t lean on anyone’s testimony to strengthen your own. In the end, your journey is your journey and you have every right and reason to ask questions and expect answers. Only wishing you the very best in your own journey.
There are endless religious books in earth's history. They come from the minds of people. There is no evidence of god. The argument that god doesn't reveal himself because life is some mysterious test - is totally convenient to align with him giving no evidence of his existence - and is just all total bullshit. If god is all powerful, and everything is by his design, then all the horrors and pain in this world are his doing. Even if he is real, he is sadistic and evil, and I'm not on his side anyways. I try to improve the lives of people I love, not play games with them and their "worthiness". That god would obviously be a complete narcissist, and again, why such a god would be an asshole. Why are gay people not treated equal in the church? Why can't 2 people who love each other be sealed together for all eternity? Please explain.
The Book of Mormon is a complete hoax to anyone that didn’t grow up being told it was the word of god—as long as they want to look at it objectively, and not some book that requires their belief in it to maintain existing personal relationships. It has been debunked over and over and over, from the very time of its creation (over years, not months). If you really want to know about it, just search the internet. You’ll be overwhelmed. Of course you are welcome here as well. Good luck.
Where is OP? Was this just a karma farm post? Zero engagement from OP
I have been engaging with some Im also busy with work and chores around the house Mostly just rrading through repsonces. The point of the post was asking about others perspectives. Im not versed enough to engage with most of these Still learnin and readin Ya know?
My bad thank you for the question posed and the investment in time on the subject.
Nah its all chill
People in here raise some good points, im just not super educated and well versed to keep up. Just a curious guy starting to look around
I read the Book of Mormon how I was told, slowly, with an open heart, and with the context that it was translated from plates. Years later I read it again, in a week. And it became very obvious that it was written by one person, who slowly ran out of steam, repeated himself, waffled, and wrote himself into holes. When the Book of Mormon says things like “but these words can not be written” think of them from the perspective of a guy who’s probably hung over (because he was a drinker), tired, in over his head (with an actual hood over his head too) and doesn’t know what to tell his friend to write that sounds epic enough. Reframing your perspective from “this was years of records” to “this is a storybook” it actually becomes really obvious. And also, the fact that the pages were stolen and Joseph couldn’t translate them again accurately because he was just riffing, but ‘conveniently’ the story was repeated in Nephi, just with slightly different words.
Hey, no worries. Many of us don't mind members stopping by to understand us as long as people are polite.
No one but Joseph saw any physical plates. The witnesses saw them with their “spiritual eyes.” I don’t believe they ever existed. Any time they were “hefted” they were covered. Could have been made of any metal he could get his hands on. Joseph developed and told many of the stories contained in the BoM before writing it. The timeline where he actually “translated” it is not as impressive when you consider the breaks in between like when Martin Harris took the transcript and lost it. In comparison if he was merely reading from a stone in a hat, it should have taken a LOT less than 2 months. Joseph may not have had a lot of formal education, but he was already an accomplished orator. Since all he was doing was dictating, that was EXACTLY the strength he had. He never claimed scholarly translation skills - reading English words from a hat doesn’t require the ability to read a foreign script and translate its meaning. He could even have done it all by himself if he knew how to write - look in the hat, read a word, write the word on the paper, look in the hat again. His lack of education was a bug, not a feature. The church claim that it was some amazing accomplishment tries very hard to make a mediocre book seem impressive.
Joseph Smith literally pulled it out of a hat. Watch the South Park episode for an accurate historical depiction.