Comments on: Book of Mormon Origins – If Not Angels Then Who?

By: Ted Meikle

Ted Meikle — Sat, 26 Apr 2014 15:48:13 +0000

You conclude: “But there is no evidence to show that a fourteen-year-old Joseph Smith sought God, went into a grove to pray, saw visions, or was led by an angel to the hidden repository of gold plates.”

Response: There is his testimony. Just because you don’t believe him, it is still direct, eye-witness, non-hearsay evidence. I believe his testimony, as I believe the testimony of Paul about seeing the Lord. A skeptic who throws out Paul’s testimony could say of Paul’s vision what you say of Joseph’s vision.

You conclude: “And yet no account has been found of the vision in any records of the time, or for almost twenty years after. “

Response: Joseph’s vision was in 1820. “A skeptical account from Rev. John A. Clark mixed nine First Vision story elements together with the story of the coming forth of the Book of Mormon and said that he learned them all in the Fall of 1827 from Martin Harris.” http://en.fairmormon.org/Joseph_Smith%27s_First_Vision/No_reference_to_First_Vision_in_1830s_publications

That is 7 years after the event. How does this compare with Paul’s conversion on the road to Damascus?

Paul’s conversion occurred in AD 34. http://www.blueletterbible.org/study/paul/timeline.cfm

The first written reference to Paul’s experience was 14 years later, in AD 48, in Galatians 1. http://www.freebeginning.com/new_testament_dates/ The first full account we have was written some 28 years after the vision, and not by Paul. Acts 9.

The mere fact that time passed between the event and the formal written account does not make the account false.

You conclude: “There are marked parallels between the Book of Mormon and the Westminster Confession and Catechisms.”

Response: About the only parallel is that one chapter in the Book of Mormon talks about similar subjects using similar Christian language. “http://en.fairmormon.org/Book_of_Mormon/Plagiarism_accusations/Westminster_Confession

You argue: “Who can walk in the footsteps of Abraham… or of Israel as they travelled from Egypt, across the wilderness, to the promised land; or of St Paul if they wish…or follow in the steps of Jesus himself as he walked the shores of Galilee or the streets of Capernaeum and Jerusalem?
“But no one can tell us where Nephi walked.”

Response: Actually, there is convincing archeological evidence of at least two places Nephi walked: First, Nahom, where one of Lehi’s party was buried. http://www.deseretnews.com/article/705385583/Michael-R-Ash-Discovering-Nahom.html?pg=all

and second, Bountiful, where Lehi’s group built the ship. http://www.ldsmag.com/article/1/14259

Professional archeologist John L. Sorenson’s recent book, Mormon’s Codex, 800 pages long including 85 pages of bibliographic references, shows that, on a broad level and also in hundreds of small correspondences, the history of the Book of Mormon is consistent with the cultures, chronology, archeology, and history of Meso-America. For a short review, see: http://mormanity.blogspot.com/2014/04/mormons-codex-rich-support-for-book-of.html

By: Ann Jones

Ann Jones — Sat, 26 Apr 2014 15:35:43 +0000

The use of the word “adieu” really plants the book more firmly in the 1820s. At that time, the use of the word was common among people who wanted to seem more worldly wise. Seems like a word Smith may have used himself. (Wish I had the source for that info, but I don’t. You may take it with a grain of salt.)

By: Henry Lions

Henry Lions — Sat, 26 Apr 2014 15:08:13 +0000

Anyone who looks can find out, and always could, who wrote the book of Mormon, much work has been done on this by many people inside and outside of the “Faith” and to keep insisting the statement that the Book was written by an inspired “ignorant young boy” is now a parody of itself.
Ironically the very same forensic techniques that proved the Hoffman papers a forgery have been used on the BOM to prove the same thing, yet no one from the church has ever come forward to say that this being the case perhaps the Hoffman pages “were” actually genuine after all, since they match the BOM as being the work of a talented forger.
The Book of Mormon, or rather the original Book of Mormon not the “version” used by the SLC version of the Church today, was clearly and provably a joint project in plagiarism and exploitation by Joseph Smith, members of his immediate family, Sidney Rigdon, Orson Pratt and Oliver Cowdry.
Initially a scheme to get money out of the extremely gullible Martin Harris (a man infamous for being an easy touch for every new religion that came along, check out haow many cults he joined before and after falling in to Smith’s clutches) the fraud succeeded beyond the even the Smith family avaricious dreams and continues to exploit the gullible to this very day.

By: Henry Lions

Henry Lions — Sat, 26 Apr 2014 14:52:20 +0000

Yes Ted it is unthinkable that Shakespeare had read the Bible, or that Joseph Smith had either.
But of course God may have given Job a sneak preview of the BOM? If so then it’s not unthinkable the Nephites were given some words of French before that language even came in to existence, so Joseph could translate it accurately all those years later.

By: Ted Meikle

Ted Meikle — Sat, 26 Apr 2014 14:19:46 +0000

I guess Job paraphrased Shakespeare also: “When a few years are come, then I shall go the way whence I shall not return.” Job 16:22

And even more shocking than that the last word in the Book of Jacob is (gasp) French, the second to last word is *English*