A Letter to an Apostle

The Clock Struck Nine: Anachronisms in the Book of Mormon

Interrogatory No. 2

Anachronism – [uh-nak-ruh-niz-uh m – noun]

Something or someone not in its correct historical or chronological time, especially a thing or person that belongs to an earlier or later time.

A practical approach to confirm the authenticity of ancient or historical writings is the identification of anachronisms found within them. Anachronisms are chronological errors, and they might include mention of events that could not have occurred during the period under discussion. These errors can also include names, locations, languages, tools, and so on that did not exist or were unknown at the time the historical document was written.  

For example, in Romeo and Juliet, Act II, Scene 5, Shakespeare has Juliet utter, “The clock struck nine when I did send the nurse.” Romeo and Juliet is, however, set in the 1300s, well before the invention of the first mechanical pendulum clock. This is an anachronism. It was an error, similar to one made in the motion picture Spartacus, where the film editor failed to notice some of the slaves were sporting wristwatches. 

Now, ‘The Bard of Avon’ was not trying to fool anyone, and a slave wearing a wristwatch at a time of Christ is hilarious. However, when we put serious writing to the anachronism test, and it comes up short, it usually indicates fraud or deception.

The Book of Mormon does not fare well when put to the anachronism test.  The Book of Mormon cites horses fourteen times. However, not only is there no evidence that horses existed in North, Central or South America during the time of the Book of Mormon’s supposed describes (2500 BC– 400 AD). Indeed there is considerable compelling scientific evidence that horses became extinct by the end of the Pleistocene era (2.5 million–12,000 years ago). Horses only reappear in the Americas when the Spaniards brought them from Europe in about 1519.

Elephants are mentioned in (Ether 9:19) swinging their trunks for the Jaredites (2500 BC). But again, fossil records show that they became extinct at the end of the last Ice Age (10,000 years ago).  

Chariots are mentioned numerous times in the Book of Mormon (Alma 18:9-10, 12, Alma 20:6, 3 Nephi 3:22), yet again, there is no archaeological evidence to support the use of wheeled vehicles in the pre-Columbian Mesoamerica. They would be of little use, considering there were no horses to pull them. Ether 9:18 refers to cattle, but here again, there is no evidence that Old World domesticated cattle inhabited the New World before European contact.

Likewise, iron and steel cited several times (1 Nephi 16:18, 2 Nephi 5:15, Jarom 1:8, Ether 7:9) is a problem as there is no evidence of hardened steel being present in pre-Columbian America. A sophisticated metallurgical society would leave considerable evidence. The Book of Mormon also refers to “swords,” stating that “the blades thereof were cankered with rust” (Mosiah 8:11) relating to the Jaredites’ final battlefield where some 250,000 warriors perished. But again, no such battlefield, no such soldiers, and no such weapons have ever been found. 

2 Nephi 5:14-15 reads: “And I, Nephi, did take the sword of Laban, and after the manner of it did make many swords… And I did teach my people to build buildings, and to work in all manner of wood, and of iron, and of copper, and of brass, and of steel, and of gold, and of silver, and of precious ores, which were in great abundance.” And how is it possible that a small group of ‘immigrants,’ likely no more than 50 to 100 in number, managed to do all of the following in a short period of time: Mine Iron Ore – and extract elemental iron from that iron ore. Mine Coal – and refine it into coke as required in the production of iron. Make Steel – a complicated process of mixing iron with carbon. Mine Limestone – a necessary ingredient necessary for the production of steel. Locate and Mine Copper. Mine Tin and Zinc – for the production of “brass.” Refine this Tin or Zinc, which does not appear in an elemental state. Develop expertise in prospecting – locating and identifying ores. Prospect for Gold. Locate and Extract Silver. Roast to eliminate sulphur as required in the production of both copper and silver. Smelt and flux all of these metals. Construct blast furnaces – to produce these metals. Manufacture hardened mining tools. 

What an incredible, intrepid and industrious little band! Mining, smelting, refining, roasting, all leave indestructible and robust evidence, yet in all of the Americas let alone the Northeastern United State, there is no such evidence.  Also, the story of the construction of transoceanic vessel borders on the ridiculous.

We learn in 1 Nephi that the Lord in directing the building of a sea-going craft tells Nephi where he can find iron ore to make his tools. The obvious question is how could Nephi et al extract the iron ore without already having tools? As well, Nephi tells us that they had to molten the ore to make the tools, one must ask how did they build a blast furnace hot enough to produce molten iron – at least 1,500 degrees celsius.

Burning wood can only produce a temperature at tops 600 degrees and coal is anachronistic to the Sinai peninsula. Charcoal can produce higher temperatures up to about 1,100 degrees using Nephi’s ‘bellows,’ but producing char is a complicated process requiring acres of hardwood, again anachronistic in the Sinai, and the construction of a charcoal furnace reaching temperatures of 1,500 degrees is a real stretch. Good charcoal is mostly pure carbon, called char, which is made by cooking wood in a low oxygen environment, a process that can take days as it burns off volatile compounds such as water, methane, and hydrogen. When ignited, the carbon in char combines with oxygen and forms carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, water, and other gases, packing more potential energy per ounce than raw wood. Char burns steady and hot, but not 1,500 degrees hot.

A sea-going craft also requires metal strapping and a great many nails – certainly in the thousands – each handmade. Joseph Smith was not just ignorant of what existed before the Spaniards appeared on this continent, but was also ignorant when it came to shipbuilding. He was, it would seem, only familiar with the canoes and flat bottom boats that went up and down his local Erie Canal.

A real sea-going ship needs a keel, a flat blade sticking down into the water from a sailboat’s bottom. It performs two functions: it prevents the ship from being blown sideways by the wind and holds the ballast that keeps the ship right-side up. I know something of boating, I once owned a 53-foot motor yacht, without a real keel, that a dozen of us would sail around Puget Sound on. Let me assure you that even with radar and sonar and GPS plot finders and a smaller boat on board,  I would not be foolish enough to take my boat out on the blue water, let alone cross the ocean.

Also, the lumber created to build a seagoing vessel also must be steamed to bring the bow to a point. Steaming lumber is no mean feat. This is problematic in two ways. First, you have to laminate and steam wood to make the keel. Second, you need a dry dock to build it. Because of the keel, you can’t simply build your ship on skids and launch it into the sea. Building a dry dock with a deep enough hole for a ship the size described in the Book of Mormon with water-tight gates as well as a steaming station is an enormous task that would have taken several years to construct. Also, wood is porous and needs pitch or tar derived from oak to keep the boat from leaking. What about rope, or the wool needed to make the sails.

It takes two sheep to produce one square meter of sail. You can only sheer a sheep once a year, therefore hundreds of sheep are required – where did these hundreds of needed sheep come from? Wild sheep? Feral sheep? How about the tall straight trees for the masts? How were they lifted in place?

How did Nephi intend to steer the ship as the rudder (requiring ropes and pulleys) wasn’t invented until the 12th century?

Bountiful must also have been a fabulous place with surface iron ore, hundreds of acres of hardwood, and pasture land, as well as herds of feral sheep.

And perhaps most significantly we have the problem of water. How do you carry enough water for the people and animals on board to make the crossing? Water is heavy, and since the barrel was also not yet invented, how did they carry enough water for the long crossing? Clay jars are not very smart on a ship being buffeted by waves. Maybe they tanned sheep bladders and made waterskins, but tanning requires tannic acid again only found in oak and takes years to properly produce and you are going to need a lot of them. Lehi’s voyage however would have taken them from the Saudi Arabian peninsula to the western shores of Mesoamerica.

The Book of Mormon is silent on how long the voyage lasted, but oceanographic research has shown using ‘drifters’ (floating buoys that transmit their positions to satellites orbiting the earth) that the route could have taken about 580 days. Medical experts tell us that an adequate daily fluid intake is about 15.5 cups (3.7 litres) of fluids for men and about 11.5 cups (2.7 litres) of fluids a day for women. If we assume a group of 45 people. John L. Sorenson concluded that between 40 and 50 people entered the boat that carried the group to the promised land (Sorenson, “The Composition of Lehi’s Family,” 195). That means not even considering the livestock on board and assuming no one ever bathed, they would have required 83,000 litres or 22,500 gallons of water on the ship to make the crossing. Certainly, rain could be collected, but how do you estimate how much? It is not inconceivable that the trip enjoyed largely fair weather.

That amount of water would have weighed over 188,000 lbs. or 94 tons. If sheep waterskins were used to carry the water for the voyage over 30,000 sheep would have to have been slaughtered to harvest enough bladders. Is Smith’s yarn beginning to sound a little far-fetched? 

Six times silk is spoken of in the Book of Mormon (1 Nephi 13:7,8, Alma 1:29, Alma 4:6, Ether 9:17, Ether 10:24). Silk, of course, is a product of the Orient and unknown in the pre-Columbian Americas. The word, ‘compass’ (Alma 37:38), is dated to be 73 B.C. in the Book of Mormon, even though, this instrument was not invented until the twelfth century. 

Alma 11 is also problematic in that it mentions a monetary system based on the weights of precious metals and strongly implies the use of coins. However, recognizing the anachronistic problem of new world coins showing up before the time of Christ, the church made yet another change to the ‘most correct book in the world,’ removing the reference to ‘coinage’, from the introduction of Alma 11. Before the change, the introduction read: “Judges and their compensation—Nephite coins and measures—Zeezrom confounded by Amulek…”

The introduction’s reference to “Nephite coins and measures,” was written by a committee, although James Talmage is given special credit. I guess we are now to believe that this was just sloppy work on his part even though Talmage’s biographer, James P. Harris, noted that Talmage “was customarily meticulous, making sure there were no errors or omissions.” As well, regardless of the church’s willingness to throw Talmage under the bus, the introductions and footnotes were undoubtedly approved by the LDS First Presidency.

We have, of course, never found any evidence of the Alma 11 monetary system nor have any coins ever been unearthed – not a seon, shum, limnah, amnor, senums or ezrom. In fact, not a single onti! The church’s position now is that the seon, shum, limnah, etc. were not coins even through their reference as ‘pieces of their gold,’ and pieces ‘of their silver,’ would suggest the opposite.

LDS apologists now take the narrow view that these pieces of metal of particular weights and values are not coins because they were not minted or inscribed. Their mention in the Book of Mormon indeed indicates; however, they were used as coins. ” “And the judge received for his wages according to his time–a senine of gold for a day, or a senum of silver, which is equal to a senine of gold; and this is according to the law which was given. Now, these are the names of the different pieces of their gold, and of their silver, according to their value.” (see Alma 11:1–19)

For many decades Alma 11 has been understood by members to speak of coins. B.H. Roberts, an LDS Seventy and Church historian, wrote, “In addition to these words we also have a number of names of Nephite coins and the names of fractional values of coins…” Brother Roberts continues his uses of the term ‘coins’ we have no means of obtaining specifically the value of these coins in modern terms,” and, “there is stated a system of relative values in these coins that bears evidence of its being genuine” (A New Witness for God, 3:145).

In the 1979 Book of Mormon Student Manual (Religion 121-122), it asks students, “how valuable were the Nephite pieces of money?” Showing that “pieces” meant “coins,” the manual presents a chart to show “the relative value of silver and gold coins under the system set up by Mosiah.” 

The difficulty, of course, does not just lie in a lack of any Nephite coins being unearthed, It lies in Smith’s suggestion that such coins existed in the first place. So, Alma 11 paints the Church and her apologists into a corner. Either it presents more artifacts that have never been confirmed by archaeology or it is yet another of the many anachronisms found in Joseph Smith’s Book of Mormon.

The word “Bible,” denotes a canon of scripture (2 Nephi 29:3, 4, 6, and 10) and is also problematic. The word ‘Bible’ is the Anglicization of the Greek word ‘Biblia,’ which means book. The problem here is that Greek wasn’t spoken in Israel until long after Lehi’s supposed emigration to the Americas in about 600 BC.

2 Nephi 31:13 references the “Holy Ghost,” but, the word “ghost” did not come into parlance until hundreds of years after it was inscribed in the Book of Mormon. The name ‘Isabel’ (Alma 39:3) given to a harlot, first appeared in France and Italy in the middle ages. Again, wrong time, wrong place. Six times, we find the abbreviation “&c” (and so forth), a convention peculiar to the nineteenth century in the Book of Mormon – never used before, never used after.

The words “alpha” and “omega” appear in 3 Nephi 9:18. These two words are, of course, the English spellings of the Greek words found in the Book of Revelations in the Bible. As the Book of Mormon was not recorded in Greek, why do we find these words? The most obvious answer is that Smith simply copied them from the King James Version of the Bible. There are numerous instances where Smith uses words that were not relevant to his time but peculiar to the English spoken in the early 1600s. “Prayest,” “durst,” “thou,” “thee,” “thy,” “thine,” “hast,” “doth,” “knoweth,” “hearest,” “cometh,” and “thirsteth.”

Did God select these words for the Book of Mormon? No, it demonstrates the writer’s exposure to King James’ terminology. One must ask, why would the Book of Mormon be translated into King James/Elizabethan English in the first place? This language was neither spoken in 1830 America nor in the day of Mormon, Moroni, et.al.?

Does God speak Elizabethan English, or was this a cunning ploy Smith used to give his writing greater gravitas and also make the numerous passages he plagiarized from the King James Version of the Bible fit in more seamlessly?

Scores of passages in the Book of Mormon, either in part or whole, verbatim or paraphrased, have been taken directly from the King James Version of the Bible. Perhaps the most egregious error Smith made throughout the Book of Mormon was the use of the word “Christ.” He uses it as though it was the surname of the Lord Jesus. However, as any seminarian can tell you, the word “Christ” is the Anglicization of the Greek word ‘Christos,’ meaning the anointed or chosen one (the equivalent of the Hebrew word Mashiach, or Messiah.)

Much is made of the appearance of the word ‘adieu,’ (Jacob 7:27) because it is so obviously and ridiculously out of place.

And of course, there is the ‘Isaiah problem.‘ Nearly all Bible scholars doubt that the Book of Isaiah was written by one person. They tend to date the last third of Isaiah to the 6th century BCE some 200 years after Isaiah’s death and well after Lehi’s family left Jerusalem with the brass plates.

If Chapters 40–66 were not written until after Lehi’s departure, then what are they doing in the Book of Mormon. For example, Isaiah 44:28 mentions Cyrus who we know lived 200 years after Isaiah and long after Lehi. Likewise, the threats against Babylon found in Isaiah 47:1 and 48:14), were well after Lehi’s voyage to the New World.

It is not then surprising that non-Mormon archaeologists and scholars have concluded that the Book of Mormon’s many anachronisms, let alone its subject matter, clearly reveals the 19th-century origin, leading to the inescapable and indisputable conclusion that it is a work of fiction composed during Joseph Smith’s time and nothing more.

FairMormon did produce the attractive chart below in which they attempt to show those anachronisms within the Book of Mormon that have now been ‘confirmed.’ Of course, no supporting evidence or references are provided.

This chart is intended to show how many things believed to be anachronistic in 1842 have now been proven to have existed in the Americas in Book of Mormon times: 

The problem is the information it contains is bogus. For example, in the 2005 iteration, it lists the Hebrew language, brass plates, and swords (steel and otherwise) as confirmed. When and where were these things confirmed and by whom?

I am also curious as to why horses are listed as ‘indeterminate.’ Perhaps this refers to the tapir postulate! Let me assure you that the Hebrew language, swords (steel and otherwise) have NEVER been discovered, FairMormon’s colorful chart notwithstanding.

If the LDS church has what this chart says they do, would they not be trumpeting all these ‘important discoveries’ across their media and beyond? In addition to horses, it also lists as ‘indeterminate,’ goats, large armies and the language that no one has ever heard of – ‘Reformed Egyptian.’

I have travelled to Egypt and examined hieratic script with non-Mormon archaeologists from Alexandria to Aswan and have visited most of the tombs and temples in between. I have never seen evidence of this peculiar language, nor do I know any Egyptian scholars who have ever heard of ‘Reformed Egyptian.’

Where is the evidence that backs any of these classifications? Many professional linguists would love to know more about the discovery of the Hebrew language in the Americas that this chart confirms. Somehow every non-Mormon linguist seems to have missed this ground-breaking find that the nameless ‘scholars’ at FairMormon have discovered!

The discovery of the Hebrew language in ancient America is not a subject for debate. It is well established that there have NEVER been any such discoveries. Some Mormon apologists have also suggested that the horses spoken of in the Book of Mormon were really deer. Give me a break! I have a spread on the North Saskatchewan river up in Alberta, Canada, on which roam the odd moose, bear, cougar and many many whitetail deer. Let me assure you having directly observed the temperament of this animal for decades; that it is beyond absurd to suggest that you could ride them!

Here again, FairMormon drags out their ‘go to’ archaeologist/scholar/apologist John L. Sorenson, to spin another tale, this time out of ‘silk:’ “Linen and silk are textiles mentioned in the Book of Mormon (Alma 4:6). Neither fabric as we now know them was found in Mesoamerica at the coming of the Spaniards. The problem might be no more than linguistic. The redoubtable Bernal Diaz, who served with Cortez in the initial wave of conquest, described native Mexican garments made of “henequen which is like linen.” The fiber of the maguey plant, from which henequen was manufactured, closely resembles the flax fiber used to make European linen. Several kinds of “silk,” too, were reported by the conquerors. One kind was of thread spun from the fine hair on the bellies of rabbits…” 

OK, so according to Sorenson they didn’t exist, it was all just a big misunderstanding, a matter of labels – semantics. When the Book of Mormon says linen it means henequen, silk isn’t silked its hair from the bellies of rabbits; barley is Hordeum, a species of grass native to the Americas. By horse, Mormon writers meant tapir, by cattle they meant buffalo, and when they use the word pig this is really code for the Chic, a ‘wonderfully active, small dog, with a snout like a sucking pig.’ 

FairMormon also states: “When they say “directly” support, they typically mean that they are looking for a direct corroboration, such as the presence of the name “Nephi” or “Zarahemla” in association with ancient American archaeological data.” First, I am not sure who ‘they’ are but if ‘they’ are archaeologists I doubt they are looking for road signs when they speak of “direct corroboration.”

I would suggest that direct corroboration would be the discovery of evidence of the places – animals or technology that match the Book of Mormon claims. The skeletal remains of an elephant would be an example of direct corroboration, one piece of armor or a sword from the many battles involving millions of people would be direct corroboration. None of these, of course, are indicated, rather FairMormon provides yet another quote by Sorenson, this time without any citation:

“Without even considering smelted iron, we find that peoples in Mesoamerica exploited iron minerals from early times. Lumps of hematite, magnetite, and ilmenite were brought into Valley of Oaxaca sites from some of the thirty-six ore exposures located near or in the valley. These were carried to a workshop section within the site of San Jose Mogote as early as 1200 B.C. There they were crafted into mirrors by sticking the fragments onto prepared mirror backs and polishing the surface highly. These objects, clearly of high value, were traded at considerable distances.” 

I can understand why Sorenson starts with, ‘Without even considering smelted iron,’ as there is none to consider. Instead, he talks about lumps of meteoric minerals fashioned into primitive mirrors as being proof of iron or steel. FairMormon again trumpets the discovery of wild barley in Arizona. While I would like to have seen peer-reviewed articles, this is something that the reader might want to investigate further as it indeed refutes the critics who say that barley did not exist in the Americas.

The December 1983 issue of the magazine Science 83 reported the discovery in Phoenix, Arizona, by professional archaeologists of what they supposed to be pre-Columbian barley. That same month, F.A.R.M.S. carried a preliminary notice of the discovery. Mosiah 9:9 lists barley among several crops that were cultivated by the Nephites in the land of Nephi, and Alma 11:7 singles out barley as the primary grain into which silver and gold were converted in the Nephite system of weights and measures.1

In a blog article entitled, ‘Barley Found in the New World.’ Raymond C. Treat heralds this find, “This discovery constitutes one of the most important archaeological breakthroughs ever in support of the Book of Mormon. If this identification of barley is valid, and it appears to be, it will cause a major shift in the thinking of New World archaeologists, a shift which will be a giant step toward the ever-growing physical validation of Book of Mormon history.”  

Mr. Treat may be a little too enthusiastic, but keep in mind that a few grains of wild barley in Arizona does not parallel the domesticated variety taken from the Holy Land to the Americas and used to feed millions of people. The simple truth is the Mormon Church has nothing but as an act of desperation produce very sketchy ‘evidence.’

For example, there is a pre-Columbian city located on the Yucatan Peninsula called Tulúm which is often included in LDS tour packages and identified as a ‘possible’ Book of Mormon site. The tour guides describe it as one place mentioned in the Book of Mormon and make a big fuss over the depiction of the “Descending God,” which the guides often tell their naive Mormon tourists what they want to hear – that it is Christ.

The problem is that extensive archaeological research conducted at Tulúm has shown that the time is all wrong. All structural and ceramic evidence at Tulúm, and its corpus of murals and reliefs, date from the Middle and Late Postclassic (AD 1200-1520) period. The Ancient History Encyclopedia has this to say: “While it has long been held that Tulum is the only temple complex to depict the Descending God, his image has been found elsewhere. Attempts to link him to the figure of Jesus Christ have been dismissed by all reputable scholarly authorities.” In addition, competent non-Mormon archaeologists believe that the Descending God, .…also known at Cobá and Sayil, are commonly thought, based on their apparent antennae and insect-like torsos, to represent the bee gods Ah Muzencab, known from the Madrid Codex.

Another ‘F.’

References

1 https://www.fairmormon.org/answers/BookofMormon/Plants/Barley.

2 “An Ancient American Setting for the Book of Mormon,” 1984.

3 Robert Wane Hope, “Ten Years Of Middle American Archaeology.”

4 John L. Sorenson, Metals, and Metallurgy Relating to the book of Mormon Text, FARMS, Provo, 1992.

5 Del Dowdell Who Really Settled Mesoamerica.

Damned DNA: Why do recent DNA studies conclusively show that Native Americans are of Siberian/Asiatic and not of Hebrew/Middle Eastern Origin?

DNA consists of four pairs of “molecular bases” – adenine, cytosine, thymine, and guanine that form a ribbon-like chain in a molecule that is then twisted upon itself twice (a double helix.) You have likely seen the Watson-Click model somewhere in your educational experience.

As Simon Southerton points out, “Each base is always opposite its complementary base, A with C, and G with T or vice versa. They can thus be understood as a coded sequence (which they are), and replication occurs because the complementary pairings always line up with stray molecules (called nucleotides) when reproduction takes place. A single change in the sequence represents a “mutation” that can be detected.                                                                                
In human mitochondria  (for simplicity think of this as a part of a cell), there are approximately 16,500 “letters,” and five sequences are currently found among Native American populations in what is identified as “haplogroups.” These five haplogroups also exist among the Siberian population of Eastern Asia in the same statistical proportions.                                            
These haplogroups are not found in Semitic populations, and additionally, there are other haplogroups found among the peoples of the Middle East that are not found in Native Americans. ¹ Got that, mutually exclusive.

Meldrum and Stephens two leaders in DNA analysis have found that “The data accumulated to date indicate that 99.6 percent of Native American genetic markers studied so far exhibit Siberian connections.”  ²            

As the following statements by leaders in the field indicate, based on DNA evidence alone there is no nexus between the Middle-Eastern Jews and America’s aboriginal peoples.

As Michael Crawford at the University of Kansas puts it, “I don’t think there is one iota of evidence that suggests a lost tribe from Israel made it all the way to the New World. It is a great story, slain by ugly fact.” ³   

“Genetic research, particularly that using mitochondrial and Y chromosome markers, provide quite an emphatic refutation of any such relationship between Jews and Native Americans.” ⁴

Recent DNA testing conducted on 150 tribes located across the Americas have shown conclusively, that contrary to traditional Mormon claims, their ancestors migrated from Asia between 7,000 and 50,000 years ago.

Mormon anthropologist Thomas W. Murphy commented on these findings:

“Some Latter-day Saints have expressed optimism that DNA research would lead to a vindication of the (Book of Mormon) as a translation of a genuine ancient document… The results, though, have been disappointing… Genetic data repeatedly point to migrations from Asia between 7,000 and 50,000 years ago as the primary source of Native American origins. DNA research has substantiated the archaeological, cultural, linguistic, and biological evidence that also points overwhelmingly to an Asian origin for Native Americans.”          

Investigation of mitochondrial DNA of more than 5,500 living Native Americans reveals that 99.4% can be traced back to Asia… Only 0.6% came from Africa or Europe, most likely after 1492.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the Church quietly made yet another changeto the Book of Mormon, in 2006 shortly after the irrefutable DNA results were first published by the scientific community:

“…the Lamanites, and they are the principal ancestors of the American Indians.” to

“…the Lamanites, and they are among the ancestors of the American Indians.”

Apologists’ Responses to Recent DNA Studies

The Mormon Essay on DNA suggests the following:

“Basic principles of population genetics suggest the need for a more careful approach to the data. The conclusions of genetics, like those of any science, are tentative, and much work remains to be done to fully understand the origins of the native populations of the Americas. Nothing is known about the DNA of Book of Mormon peoples, and even if their genetic profile were known, there are sound scientific reasons that it might remain undetected. For these same reasons, arguments that some defenders of the Book of Mormon make based on DNA studies are also speculative. In short, DNA studies cannot be used decisively to either affirm or reject the historical authenticity of the Book of Mormon.” ⁶

FAIRMORMON COMMENT

‘Why do all recent DNA studies conclusively and without exception indicate that Native Americans are of Siberian/Asiatic and not of Hebrew origin.’

“FACT-CHECKING RESULTS: THIS CLAIM CONTAINS MISTAKES AND/OR ERRORS – THE AUTHOR HAS STATED ERRONEOUS OR INCORRECT INFORMATION OR MISINTERPRETED THEIR SOURCES

DNA evidence cannot be used to either prove or disprove the Book of Mormon.”

DOUGLAS’ RESPONSE

I agree that DNA evidence cannot be used to either prove or disprove the Book of Mormon, but it is another arrow in the quiver. Here again, the Mormon Church’s apologists are on the defensive because they have no affirmative argument for the implications this science has on the Joseph Smith’s ‘story.’

But DNA is well understood and established science. The criminal justice system accepts it as reliable and its identification so accurate that people are often convicted of capital crimes on the basis of it. So when the best DNA researchers say that 99.4% of native populations in North, South and Central America have Eastern Asian DNA, we need to sit up and listen.

FairMormon suggests that the currently accepted conclusion that the ancestors of the indigenous peoples of North and South America migrated from Asia is tentative, Really. If you want to go down that rabbit hole, the currently accepted conclusion that DNA represents our genetic building blocks can also be considered tentative. The conclusion you call tentative is based on evidence. There have been NO middle-Eastern markers found in the more than 12,000 samples taken from North and South American aboriginal populations. I can’t seem to find anywhere in the reams of FairMormon musings where they present any affirmative evidence showing Middle East” or “Jewish” DNA in native populations.

Secondly, to say that nothing is known about the DNA of the Book of Mormon people is disingenuous. We know, according to the story that Joseph Smith tells that they were Jews, from the Middle East. We know what Middle-Eastern Jewish DNA looks like. There are unique markers.

I agree that there are explanations as to why it is possible that no Hebrew DNA has been discovered. There might be some disagreement as to how sound they are.

Nevertheless, genetic drift offers a possibility. Genetic drift is the gradual loss of genetic markers in small populations due to random events.

The Church’s essay uses the illustration of colored marbles to make the case, a simple but good illustration of the concept of genetic drift:

“Fill a jar with 20 marbles—ten red, ten blue. The jar represents a population, and the marbles represent people with different genetic profiles. Draw a marble at random from this population, record its color, and place it back in the jar. Each drawing represents the birth of a child. Draw 20 times to simulate a new generation within the population. The second generation could have an equal number of each color, but more likely it will have an uneven number of the two colors. Before you draw the third generation, adjust the proportion of each color in the jar to reflect the new mix of genetic profiles in the gene pool. As you continue drawing, the now-uneven mix will lead to ever more frequent draws of the dominant color. Over several generations, this “drift” toward one color will almost certainly result in the disappearance of the other color.” 

The marble metaphor seems to make sense with 20 marbles, and 20 draws although to complete the story, it would have been good to know how many ‘generations,’ and color adjustments and draws it would take to end up with all the same colored marbles.       

The law of probabilities would predict we would get an equal number, but since the sample is so small, you might get 9 of one and 11 of the other one time or 8 and 12 another time and so on. If that were consistently the case and always one-sided (say blue marbles coming out on top – not likely) after about ten or eleven generations, all the marbles would be the same color.

The marble scenario starts to fall apart however when the numbers become greater, say 10,000 or 20,000 marbles It would likely take 1,000 or 2,000 generations (25,000 – 50,000 years). In other words, we would still expect to find a lot of red marbles!

FairMormon also takes umbrage with my comments that, “The Church quietly made yet another change to the Book of Mormon, in 2006 shortly after the irrefutable DNA results were first published by the scientific community.” They assert:          

FAIRMORMON COMMENT

“FACT-CHECKING RESULTS: THIS CLAIM CONTAINS PROPAGANDA AND/OR SPIN – THE AUTHOR, OR THE AUTHOR’S SOURCE, IS PROVIDING INFORMATION OR IDEAS IN A SLANTED WAY IN ORDER TO INSTILL A PARTICULAR ATTITUDE OR RESPONSE IN THE READER

How can one claim that the Church “quietly” changed the introduction to the Book of Mormon when they published news of the change in the Church-owned newspaper, the Deseret News in 2007? From the Deseret News, 8 November 2007.”      

DOUGLAS’ RESPONSE    

You say that “they published news of the change in the Church-owned newspaper, the Deseret News in 2007?” referring to an article by Carrie Moore entitled, Carrie A Moore

Is the “they” you refer to here is the First Presidency of the Church

If I am mistaken, please share with me any official pronouncement.

Quietly is a relative term. The circulation of the Deseret News is advertised in their ‘2015 media kit’ as being 84,891 (in-State: 34,838  out-of-State: 50,053).        

Does the publication of an article in a periodical with a very limited circulation, three-quarters of which reside in Utah constitute a ‘Quiet’ announcement of a fairly significant change to the Book of Mormon?

I would rate the apologist’s defenses here a ‘C.”

Chapter References

1 Simon Southerton, “Losing a Lost Tribe,” Signature Books, 2004

2 Jeffrey Meldrum and Trent D. Stephens, “Who are the Children of Lehi,” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies, v. 12, no. 1,  p. 41

3 Michael Crawford, at the University of Kansas, as quoted in Thomas Murphy, Mormon anthropologist, American Apocrypha, p. 53.

 4 Dr. David Glenn Smith, U.C.-Davis molecular anthropologist, 2002 Sunstone Symposium, Salt Lake City

5 From an essay entitled, “Lamanite Genesis, Genealogy, and Genetics.>”

6 Book of Mormon and DNA Studies, An LDS Essay

7 “Debate Renewed with Change in Book of Mormon Introduction,” Deseret News (8 Nov. 2007).

The Difficulty with the Population Growth Described in the Book of Mormon

The unparalleled population growth suggested in the Book of Mormon is also problematic. Could huge populations and armies arise in such a short period; from a handful of people to many millions?

Professional demographers agree that this population growth rate would have to be about thirty times the rate that existed in the world as a whole during the same era to reach the numbers spoken of in the Book of Mormon.

Population growth during this pre-agricultural period was virtually nonexistent, roughly .0001 percent per year or less. This is an established fact that can easily be confirmed.

“For the Amlicite-Nephite war of 87 B.C.E., Alma 2:17-19 reports a total of 19,094 fatalities. On the basis of these figures John Sorenson, a professor of anthropology at Brigham Young University, estimated the total Nephite-Lamanite population to be over 600,000 at that time (about 200,000 Nephites-Amlicites and over 400,000 Lamanites). For an original band of thirty reproductive individuals in 590 B.C.E. to proliferate even to 19,094 by 87 B.C.E. would require an average annual growth rate of 1.3 percent sustained over the span of five centuries. To reach the 600,000 level Sorenson determined to have existed at that point; the growth rate would have had to be 2 percent, again maintained for five centuries. This is a level never reached on a global scale until C.E. 1960 and fifty times the actual world rate of the pre-industrial epoch.” ¹

Also, who was producing the food for the hundreds of thousands, even millions of soldiers, so they could wage war? It is estimated that just 100,000 soldiers would need 400,000 farmers to produce enough food for them. As well, it would take thousands of tradesmen to produce weapons of war, armor and other tools, and basic needs – barrels, clothing, lumber, etc. Not to mention the thousands of workers dragging everything around on wheel-less carts dragged by tapirs!

FAIRMORMON COMMENT

“Question: Was the Lehite colony too small to produce the population sizes indicated by the Book of Mormon?

The Book of Mormon contains many overt references, and some more oblique ones, to ‘other’ peoples that were part of the demographic mix in Book of Mormon times

A superficial reading of the Book of Mormon leads some to conclude that the named members of Lehi’s group were the only members of Nephite/Lamanite society.

The Book of Mormon contains many overt references, and some more oblique ones, to ‘other’ peoples that were part of the demographic mix in Book of Mormon times. Indeed, many Book of Mormon passages make little sense unless we understand this. The Nephite record keeps its focus on a simplistic “Nephite/Lamanite” dichotomy both because it is a kinship record, and because its focus is religious, not politico-historical.

But, as one author observed, it is inescapable that there were substantial populations in the “promised land” throughout the Nephite record, and probably in the Jaredite era also. The status and origin of these peoples are never made clear because the writers never set out to do any such thing; they had other purposes. We cannot understand the demographic or cultural history of Lehi’s literal descendants without taking into account those other groups, too.           
Hereafter, readers will not be justified in saying that the record fails to mention “others” but only that we readers have hitherto failed to observe what is said and implied about such people in the Book of Mormon.”

DOUGLAS’ RESPONSE

I think this is a fair response to this interrogatory. I rate the apologists argument as an ‘A.”

Chapter References

1 Parsons, Jack. Population versus Liberty. London: Pemberton, 1971, 33; Miller, G. Tyler. Living in the Environment. Belmont, MA: Belmont, 1985 91; Ehrlich, Paul R., and Anne H. Population Resources 1970.

Plagiarism in the Book of Mormon

A major criticism of the Book of Mormon is that material was taken verbatim from other sources available to Joseph Smith at the time.  I will discuss the View of the Hebrews and the Last War Between the United States and Great Britain, The Last Book of Napoleon and other possible sources later, but here let’s examine the vast amount of text from the Old, and New Testaments found in the Book of Mormon.

The Bible

On average one of every nine chapters in the Book of Mormon is copied from the Bible!

Twenty-seven chapters in the KJV of the Bible are repeated almost verbatim in the 239 chapters of the Book of Mormon.

The table below details the passages copied from the Bible: ¹

There are also many King James Bible translational errors contained within the Book of Mormon, specifically the 1769 version that Joseph Smith owned.

For example, in 2 Nephi 15:25 (which is the same as Isaiah 5:25). The correct translation of the Hebrew “cuwchah” is “filth,” not “torn,” as found in the Book of Mormon. Also in 2 Nephi 14:5, which again is the same as Isaiah 4:5, the word “Chuppah” is translated as “defense,” not the correct translation from the Hebrew of “canopy.”

The Book of Mormon certainly sounds ‘Biblical’ not only because like the Late War Between the United States and Great Britain (another possible source) it was written in King James’ 17th-century language, but also because more than 27,000 words – hundreds of verses are copied directly from the King James Version of the Bible. Let me repeat that, hundreds of verses are copied verbatim.

There are cases where entire passages are lifted from the Bible. Sometimes the quotation is explicit, as in Second Nephi, which contains 18 chapters quoted from the Book of Isaiah, at other times it is a passage here and a passage there. The bigger question is of course, how could the Book of Mormon contain anything whatsoever from the King James Version of the Bible? Moroni supposedly buried the gold plates in 421 A.D. The King James Bible came out 1,190 years later. Ergo, the Book of Mormon could not be based on plates buried in 421 A.D. since it contains translation errors that didn’t occur until 1,190 years later; not to mention that the language of the King James Bible was not the language of 421 A.D. or 1830 USA for that matter.

Another significant concern is the fact that italicized words from the King James Version of the Bible also appear in the Book of Mormon. The italicized words in the King James Version of the Holy Bible were not in the original Greek text but added by the translators to give greater clarity of thought because word meanings and idioms change. This is usually necessary when translating from one language to another, a fact that Joseph and his scribes it would seem were ignorant of. The italicized words in the King James Bible are words that were added by the King James translators to help the reader. However, to make sure that everyone understood that these words were not in the available manuscripts they set them in italics.

Here are a couple of examples:    

Isaiah 9:1 (KJV) Nevertheless the dimness shall not be such as was in her vexation, when at the first he lightly afflicted the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, and afterward did more grievously afflict her by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, in Galilee of the nations.

2 Nephi 19:1 Nevertheless, the dimness shall not be such as was in her vexation, when at first, he lightly afflicted the land of Zebulun, and the land of Naphtali, and afterwards did more grievously afflict by the way of the Red Sea beyond Jordan in Galilee of the nations.

Malachi 3:10 (KJV) … and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.

3 Nephi 24:10 . . . and pour you out a blessing that there shall not be room enough to receive it.

This is conclusive proof that Joseph Smith (or Oliver Cowdrey) merely copied the passages from his Bible to the Book of Mormon. The King James version was completed in 1611 AD and the Book of Mormon published in 1830. Indisputable proof that the Book of Mormon was written after 1611 and clearly not twelve centuries before.

I believe, Curt van den Heuvel, contributed to this discussion greatly by highlighting the large number of words that appear in the King James context alone, implying that these words are the result of biblical quotations, and are not simply a coincidental part of the author’s vocabulary.

“A few examples – the word ‘manifestation’ (or its plural) is used in I Corinthians 12:7, in the phrase ‘…the manifestation of the Spirit…’. This verse (and a number of surrounding verses) is quoted in Moroni 10:8. This, in itself, is not an anachronistic quote, since Moroni lived long after the establishment of the New Testament canon (although it is a little unclear how these New Testament quotes managed to cross the continental divide.) However, we find that every time the word ‘manifestation’ is used in the Book of Mormon, regardless of context, author or time, it appears in the phrase ‘manifestation of the Spirit. This can hardly be ascribed to coincidence.

As another example, the word ‘bitterness’ appears in Acts 8:23, in the phrase ‘…the gall of bitterness, and in the ‘bond of iniquity.’ We find that every time the word ‘bitterness’ is used in the Book of Mormon, it appears in the phrase ‘gall of bitterness, again regardless of context or author. (Even more significant, the word, in all but one instance, also occurs with the phrase ‘bonds of iniquity.) A final example: every time the word ‘intents’ is used in the Book of Mormon, it appears in the phrase ‘thoughts and intents of the heart’, as in Hebrews 4:12.” ²

I have provided below a small sampling of the 769 times Smith (or Cowdrey or Rigdon) ‘copied’ directly from the King James Version of the Bible to the Book of Mormon, as shown in ‘The Skeptics Annotated Book of Mormon’ to show just how extensive the plagiarism is:

1. 1 Nephi
2. The mysteries of God — 1 Corinthians 4:1 1:1, 2:16
3. Great and marvellous are thy works, O Lord God Almighty! – Revelation 15:3 1:14
4. Being grieved for the hardness of their hearts — Mark 3:5  2:18, 7:8, 15:4
5. To stir you up by putting you in remembrance — 2 Peter 1:13 2:24
6. Behold, I dreamed a dream — Judges 7:13 3:2
7. Spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began — Acts.3:21 3:20
8. It is expedient for us, that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perishes not. — John 11:50 4:13
9. Now I know of a surety that the Lord hath… — Acts 12:11 5:8
10. All nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues — Revelation 14:6 5:18, 11:36, 14:11, 19:17, 22:28
11. They are not of the world. — John 17:14 6:5
12. I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord. — John 1:23 10:8
13. There standeth one among you, whom ye know not … whose shoe’s latchet I am not worthy to unloose. John 1:26-27 10:8
14. One mightier than I cometh, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose. — Luke 3:16 10:8
15. In Bethabara beyond Jordan — John 1:28 10:9

The entire list of 769 examples of unattributed copying from the Old and New Testaments can be found at The Skeptics Annotated Book of Mormon:³                 

FAIRMORMON COMMENT

“How do you explain the large volume of material in the Book of Mormon lifted directly from the Bible and the presence of numerous errors found in the Book of Mormon unique to the 1769 King James edition of the Bible”     

FACT-CHECKING RESULTS: THIS CLAIM IS BASED UPON CORRECT INFORMATION – THE AUTHOR IS PROVIDING KNOWLEDGE CONCERNING SOME PARTICULAR FACT, SUBJECT, OR EVENT

DOUGLAS’ RESPONSE

FairMormon does not indicate what ‘incorrect information’ they are referring to.

I would like to deal individually with the numerous explanations FairMormon’s has proposed:         

“Some of the Book of Mormon Isaiah passages generally match the version of Isaiah found in the Bible of the time. However, not all of them do.

That is true, but I think you must agree the clear majority of it is verbatim.

“The Book of Mormon incorporates text which seems to be taken from the Bible, including passages which are now considered to be mistranslations in the King James Version. If the Book of Mormon is an accurate translation, why would it contain translational errors that exist in the King James Bible?

We do not know the specific mechanism by which the biblical passages were included in the translation, therefore we cannot answer this question based upon current historical information. The only description of the translation process that Joseph Smith ever gave was that it was performed by the “gift and power of God,” and that the translation was performed using the “Urim and Thummim.”  I interpret your response as saying essentially; we don’t know why King James Bible Version errors would appear in the Book of Mormon because no one reports Joseph using it or source materials while he translated.

This is, of course, a very weak argument. I acknowledge all the quotes you include from witnesses to the translation, that Joseph had his head in his hat and/or behind a curtain during the translation.

“I know Mormonism to be the truth and belief the church to have been established by divine direction. I have complete faith in it. In writing for [Joseph] I frequently wrote day after day, often sitting at the table close by him, he is sitting with his face buried in his hat, with the stone in it, and dictating hour after hour with nothing between us.

Q: Had he not a book or manuscript from which he read, or dictated to you?

A: He had neither manuscript or book to read from.

Q: Could he not have had, and you not know it?

A: If he had anything of the kind he could not have concealed it from me.”

Yes, Emma says she never saw him use the Bible as a reference but let’s be honest here, Emma didn’t see or was even aware of the fact that Joseph had married dozens of girls and women with whom he was having sex.

The fact that she didn’t see that does not mean it didn’t happen. If Joseph was wily enough to pull that off, could he not have managed to hide his use of the Bible from her on those occasions when he was ‘translating’ from it?

As well we know that Emma did not act as scribe for most of the translation and certain not when 2 Nephi, the portion containing many of the plagiarized chapters from Isaiah were being ‘translated.’ Emma’s involvement was very limited. She and her brother Reuben Hale acted as scribes between December 1827 and February 1828.⁴        

Most of the plagiarism of Isaiah occurred in 2 Nephi:

BIBLE                BOOK OF MORMON

Isaiah 2                2 Nephi 12

Isaiah 3                2 Nephi 13|

Isaiah 4                2 Nephi 14

Isaiah 5                2 Nephi 15

Isaiah 6                2 Nephi 1

Isaiah 7                2 Nephi 17

Isaiah 8                2 Nephi 18

Isaiah 9                2 Nephi 19

Isaiah 10               2 Nephi 20

Isaiah 11                2 Nephi 21

Isaiah 12               2 Nephi 22

Isaiah 13               2 Nephi 23

Isaiah 14               2 Nephi 24

Isaiah 48               1 Nephi 20

Isaiah 49               1 Nephi 21

Isaiah 50               2 Nephi 7

Isaiah 51               2 Nephi 8

Isaiah 52               3 Nephi 20

Isaiah 53               Mosiah 14

Isaiah 54               3 Nephi 22

We also know that chronologically 2 Nephi was written last – between June 12th and June 21st, 1829.

Oliver Cowdrey was the exclusive scribe during all of the plagiarized chapters of Isaiah. Indeed, as this quote by Royal Skousen appearing on BYU Religious Studies Centre indicates, Oliver was also the principal scribe for the production of the Printers Manuscript (P):

“The other manuscript, the printer’s manuscript (P), is virtually intact. Only three lines of its text, from the first leaf of the manuscript, have been worn away. This manuscript is owned by the Community of Christ (formerly the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints). Oliver Cowdery is the main scribe for P: ⁵

Oliver Cowdery           84,6 percent

Scribe 2 of P.              14.9 percent

Hyrum Smith.              0.5 percent”

We do not know which portion of the Book of Mormon was translated behind the curtain. It is far from inconceivable to believe that Joseph may have secreted a copy of the Bible and other reference materials to his side of the curtain which separates him from his scribes.

Also, if fraud was at play, Oliver Cowdery, the principal scribe may have been in on it.

I think we also need to ask, why the use of a curtain?

 We know from numerous sources that Joseph translated through a stone in his hat. We are also told that the Gold Plates were not used directly in the translation process and indeed were sometimes not even present. That said, why then was a physical separation from the scribe necessary other than to provide an opportunity to refer to reference material.

FAIRMORMON COMMENTS

“Although there is not a single witness that saw Joseph consult any books during the translation process, some scholars believe that it is still a possibility that he did consult a Bible. If so, then he could have copied the relevant passages whenever he reached a point in the translation which he knew matched material in the Bible.”

DOUGLAS’ RESPONSE

I think this is a sensible assertion and certainly reasonable. The great majority of the material we are speaking about comes at the very end of the translation process which might have also been a motivator to move things along. This avowal also removes the accusation of fraud.

FAIRMORMON COMMENTS

New Testament writers literally quoted hundreds of Old Testament scriptures including 76 verses from Isaiah.

DOUGLAS’ RESPONSE        

That is true, the Savior Himself ofter quoted the Old Testament Prophets, but I see this as somewhat different, the Lord usually let us know where it came from:

Mark 12:26

And as for the dead being raised, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the passage about the bush, how God spoke to him, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’?

Mark 10:19

You know the commandments: ‘Do not murder, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor your father and mother.’

Mark 7:10

For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother’; and, Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’

Matthew 5:21

“You have heard that it was said to those of old, you shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’

Matthew 5:38

You have heard that it was said, An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’

Luke 19:46

“… saying to them, “It is written, My house shall be a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a den of robbers.”

Luke 4:8

And Jesus answered him, It is written, You shall worship the Lord your God, and he only shall you serve.’

In the case of the Book of Mormon, we have large tracts of material copied almost verbatim.

But I think this distracts us from the bigger question, which is; how could the Book of Mormon contain anything whatsoever from the King James Version of the Bible? Moroni supposedly buried the gold plates in 421A.D. The King James Bible came out 1,190 years later. Ergo, the Book of Mormon could not be based on plates buried in 421 A.D. since it contains translation errors that didn’t occur until 1,190 years later; not to mention that the language of the King James Bible was not the language of 421 A.D. nor 1830 USA for that matter.           

My other concern is the fact that italicized words from the King James Version of the Bible also appear in the Book of Mormon. The italicized words in the King James Version of the Holy Bible were not in the original Greek text but added by the translators to give greater clarity of thought because word meanings and idioms change. This is usually necessary when translating from one language to another; the fact that Joseph and his scribes it would seem were ignorant of.

The italicized words in the King James Bible are words that were added by the King James translators to help the reader.

However, to make sure that everyone understood that these words were not in the available manuscripts they set them in italics. Here are a couple of examples:

Isaiah 9:1 (KJV) Nevertheless the dimness shall not be such as was in her vexation, when at the first he lightly afflicted the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, and afterward did more grievously afflict her by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, in Galilee of the nations.

2 Nephi 19:1 Nevertheless, the dimness shall not be such as was in her vexation, when at first, he lightly afflicted the land of Zebulun, and the land of Naphtali, and afterward did more grievously afflict her by the way of the Red Sea beyond Jordan in Galilee of the nations.

Malachi 3:10 (KJV) … and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not

be room enough to receive it.

 2 Nephi 24:10 . . . and pour you out a blessing that there shall not be
 room enough to receive it.

Is this not conclusive proof that Joseph Smith (or Oliver Cowdrey) merely copied the passages from his Bible to the Book of Mormon. The King James version was completed in 1611 AD, and the Book of Mormon published in 1830.

     It seems to me there are only two possible conclusions:

1. Joseph Smith or someone else in 1829 took passages from the Bible, errors and all and copied them into the Book of Mormon.
2. God for reasons best known to Himself put the unique 1769 KJV edition errors and the King James Version translators’ italic clarifications into the “most correct book on earth.”

The second conclusion is, of course, absurd but the first is also problematic. First, because so much has been made of the fact that Joseph did not use reference materials to aid in his translation. And    Second, the method translation according to Smith himself and may observers indicated that English words or sentences would appear in his hat which he would announce to the scribe.

Why does the Church not concede that Joseph or his scribe – likely Oliver Cowdrey who, as I have shown fulfilled that role when the majority of the Bible plagiarism took place? 

After all, this in itself is not terribly damaging. It is reasonable that when Joseph could see that the words of Isaiah were coming up passage after passage, why not then just speed things along by just reading from his Bible to the scribe. Perhaps he was even inspired to do so.
 
I believe the reason this concession is not forthcoming is that the Church realizes that this admission opens the door to Joseph’s possible use of other resource materials behind the curtain; – The Late War, The View of the Hebrews, and so on. They just can’t afford to go down that rabbit hole.

Similarities Between the Book of Mormon and View of the Hebrews  

View of the Hebrews is an 1823 book written by Ethan Smith, a United States Congregationalist minister. While not claiming any divine command, this Smith, like his prophetic namesake, also argued that Native Americans were descended from the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel. Several commentators on Mormon history and the Book of Mormon, including LDS Church general authority B. H. Roberts and Fawn Brodie, Joseph Smith’s, biographer noted the considerable similarities in the content of View of the Hebrews and the Book of Mormon, which was published seven years after Ethan Smith’s book.

We certainly know that Joseph Smith had read the View of the Hebrews, as he refers to it: “If such may have been the fact, that a part of the Ten Tribes came over to America, in the way we have supposed, leaving the cold regions of Assareth behind them in quest of a milder climate, it would be natural to look for tokens of the presence of Jews of some sort, along countries adjacent to the Atlantic. In order to this, we shall here make an extract from an able work: written exclusively on the subject of the Ten Tribes having come from Asia by the way of Bherings Strait, by the Rev. Ethan Smith, Pultney, Vt., who relates as follows:… -Smith’s view of the Hebrews. Pg. 220.” ⁶

Elder B.H. Roberts, the LDS church historian, considering the profound similarities in this book published seven years before the Book of Mormon which Joseph Smith not only had access to but admits that he had read, couldn’t help but wonder:

“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 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.” ⁷

I have listed below just a few of the striking similarities and parallels between the two books:

View of the Hebrews                                 Book of Mormon

Published: 1823                                           Published 1830

Published in: Vermont                              Published in: Vermont

Both feature:

The destruction of Jerusalem

The scattering of Israel

Hebrews leave Old world for the New World

The restoration of the Ten Tribes

Religion as the motivator

Encountered “seas” of “many waters,”

Reached an uninhabited America

Settlers then travelled Northward

Migrations by a long sea journey

They encounter the valley of a great river

Breastplate, Urim and Thummin present

Gospel preached in America

Quotes full passages in Isaiah

Lord visits America

Hebrews divide into two classes

The wicked destroy the righteous

Fortifications and “watch towers,”

Egyptian hieroglyphics

Hebrew origin of Indian languages

Opposition in all things

View of the Hebrews:

A set of “yellow leaves” buried in Indian Hill. Elder B.H. Roberts noted these “leaves” may have been gold.

Book of Mormon:      

Gold Plates buried in the Hill Cumorah

     Can any reasonable and open-minded person read the following ‘warnings by a man on a wall’ and not conclude that the similarities are more than coincidence?

View of the Hebrews:

Jesus, son of Ananus, stood on the wall saying “Wo, wo to this city, this temple, and this people.” Came to preach for many days, cried in a loud voice, preached the destruction of Jerusalem and had stones cast at him.

Book of Mormon:      

Samuel, the Lamanite, stood on the wall saying “Wo, wo to this city, or this people.” Came to preach for many days, cried in a loud voice, preached the destruction of Jerusalem and had stones cast at him. ¹⁰

“Since Oliver Cowdery was born in 1806 and was in Poultney from 1809 to 1825, he was resident in Poultney from 3 years of age until he was 19 years of age – 16 years in all. And these years encompassed the publication of View of the Hebrews, in 1822 [1823] and 1825. His three little half-sisters, born in Poultney, were all baptized in Ethan Smith’s church. Thus, the family had a close tie with Ethan Smith.”      

FAIRMORMON COMMENTS

FACT CHECKING RESULTS: THIS CLAIM CONTAINS PROPAGANDA AND/OR SPIN – THE AUTHOR, OR THE AUTHOR’S SOURCE, IS PROVIDING INFORMATION OR IDEAS IN A SLANTED WAY IN ORDERTO INSTILL A PARTICULAR ATTITUDE OR RESPONSE IN THE READER

It is claimed that a 19th-century work by Ethan Smith, View of the Hebrews, provided source material for Joseph Smith’s construction of the Book of Mormon.         

Some also postulate a link between Ethan Smith and Oliver Cowdery, since both men lived in Poultney, Vermont while Smith served as the pastor of the church that Oliver Cowdery’s family attended at the time that View of the Hebrews was being written.               

“The View of the Hebrews theory is yet another attempt to fit a secular origin to the Book of Mormon. Many of the criticisms proposed are based upon B, H. Roberts’ list of parallels, which only had validity if one applied a hemispheric geography model to the Book of Mormon. There are a significant number of differences between the two books, which are easily discovered upon reading Ethan Smith’s work. Many points that Ethan Smith thought were important are not mentioned at all in the Book of Mormon, and many of the “parallels” are no longer valid based upon current scholarship.” ⁴

Firstly, is the current scholarship he refers to his own? Welch was the founding director of the now mercifully defunct FARMS apologist group.

Just a couple of comments on his statements:

“Advocates of the Ethan Smith theory must also explain why Joseph, the ostensible forger, had the chutzpah to point out the source of his forgery.”

Chutzpah indeed, just like Joseph never thought people would learn to read Egyptian and thereby expose his translation of the Papyri as nonsense, or figure out that the gold plates that Joseph tells us he darted through the woods with ‘at full speed’ would have weighted more than half as much as he did, or that people would notice when he went back and changed numerous passages in the Book of Mormon to match his evolving view of the Godhead!              “They must also explain why, if Joseph found this evidence so compelling, he did not exploit it for use in the Book of Mormon text itself, since the Book of Mormon contains no reference to the many “unparallels” that Ethan assured his readers virtually guaranteed a Hebrew connection to the Amerindians. 

The theory the Joseph Smith plagiarized View of the Hebrews was never advanced   during  his  lifetime.  The  prevailing  theory  of  the  day  was   the Spalding Theory, which quickly lost credibility upon the discovery of an actual Spalding manuscript in 1884 which bore no resemblance to the Book of Mormon. There are no records which indicate that Joseph Smith came into contact with the View of the Hebrews during the period of time that he was translating the Book of Mormon. The View of the Hebrews theory was in fact first proposed by I. Woodbridge Riley in 1902, 58 years after the death of the prophet.”

DOUGLAS’ RESPONSE        

I can’t seem to find your arguments here other than to draw attention to the fact that Joseph knew of the book as he quoted from it and that Oliver Cowdrey not only came from the small town where the author lived but attended the church where he was the pastor.

The Late War Between the United States and Great Britain

There was also a textbook written in 1819 in King James language entitled, The Late War Between the United States and Great Britain; used in New York state schools which Joseph Smith likely was exposed to, that reads very much like and has staggering parallels and similarities to, the Book of Mormon. Another coincidence?  

Both books contain:  

• Devices of “curious workmanship” in relation to boats and weapons.
• “Stripling soldiers “
• “A certain chief captain…was given in trust a band of more than two thousand chosen men, to go forth to battle.”
• Fortifications: “the people began to fortify themselves and   entrench the high places round about the city.”
• “Their polished steels of fine workmanship.”
• “Rod of iron.”
• War between the wicked and righteous.
• Righteous Indians vs. savage Indians.
• Conversion of Indians.
• Brass plates.
• Worthiness of Christopher Columbus.
• Ships crossing the ocean. `        
• A battle at a fort where righteous white protagonists are     
  attacked by an army made up of dark-skinned natives.
• A cataclysmic earthquake followed by great darkness.
• Elephants in America.
• Literary Hebraisms/Chiasmus.
• The mind-numbing overuse of “it came to pass,”

Apologists’ Responses to the Similarities Between the Late War Between the United States and Great Britain

“The Late War Between the United States and Great Britain; used in New York state schools which Joseph Smith likely was exposed to, reads very much like and has staggering parallels and similarities to, the Book of Mormon

FACT-CHECKING RESULTS: THIS CLAIM CONTAINS PROPAGANDA AND/OR SPIN – THE AUTHOR, OR THE AUTHOR’S SOURCE, IS PROVIDING INFORMATION OR IDEAS IN A SLANTED WAY IN ORDER TO INSTILL A PARTICULAR ATTITUDE OR RESPONSE IN THE READER

The spin: The “staggering” parallels aren’t so “astounding” once you take a closer look at them. The facts: The critic scours a book in order to extract similar phrases, then declares that this proves that this book was a source for the Book of Mormon.”

DOUGLAS’ RESPONSE

Again, FairMormon does not deal with my concerns but provides thirty-two links to prior generic apologies they have made on this subject. This lazy man’s approach is like Uchtdorf’s form-letter method of dealing with members reaching out to him.

The concept itself is quite simple but its application all but impossible until the advent of powerful computers. An n-gram is a contiguous sequence of items from a given sequence of text or speech.

The items can be words, letters, or syllables. The ‘n’ in n-gram represents the number of elements of the sequence, for example, 4-gram would be four words in sequence, ‘now is the time.’       

With the aid of modern, powerful computers, we can compare two documents regarding how often the same four (or three words in the case of 3-gram, five words in the case of 5-gram, etc.) words in the same sequence or order appear in both. When two books have a high relative frequency of n-grams the greater the probability that plagiarism has occurred. I say relative because the n-gram finding is compared to
n-gram frequencies found within other documents from the same period.

An example would be comparing the Book of Mormon (1830) with Pride and Prejudice (1813). You would expect that the 4-gram would show a very low frequency. This is, in fact, the case. In October 2013, researchers Chris and Duane Johnson conducted an n-gram analysis of The Book of Mormon comparing it to over 100,000 books from the pre-1830 era. They found that a book called The Late War Between the United States and Great Britain had a very high n-gram score. 

In fact, the computer algorithm found over 100 rare 4-grams shared by both The Book of Mormon and The Late War. To put this into perspective, they found that The Late War contained more 4-gram connections to The Book of Mormon than 99.999% of the other books published before 1830.
 
These findings are highly significant because they show beyond any reasonable doubt that the author(s) of the Book of Mormon plagiarized from The Late War Between the United States and Great Britain published in 1816, fourteen years before the Book of Mormon.

Does this in itself prove that Joseph Smith consciously, purposefully and with fraudulent intent copied material from The Late War Between the United States and Great Britain?     
 
While likely, I don’t think we can go quite that far.

In 1976, former ‘Beatle’ George Harrison was sued by Bright Tunes Music, the publisher of “He’s So Fine,” on behalf of Ronnie Mack, the songwriter who had died in 1963, shortly after his tune became the No. 1 hit in the United States. Harrison testified at trial, “I wasn’t consciously aware of the similarity between ‘He’s So Fine’ and ‘My Sweet Lord’ when I wrote the song, as it was more improvised and not so fixed.”     

Judge Owen, who analyzed the music of both songs, ruled that “it is perfectly obvious to the listener that in musical terms, the two songs are virtually identical.”    

The judge found that Harrison “subconsciously” plagiarized “He’s So Fine.” He also stated that, “…I do not believe he did so deliberately,”’ but “under the law, infringement of copyright is no less so even though subconsciously accomplished.”     
 
It is impossible for us to know what went on in Smith’s head, perhaps we can best determine his motivations by examining his conduct and character in in other matters.

The First Book of Napoleon:

There are a couple of similarities in text but not enough to make an issue out of it, for example:

The First Book of Napoleon:

Condemn not the (writing)…an account…the First Book of Napoleon…upon the face of the earth…it came to pass…the land…their inheritances their gold and silver and… the commandments of the Lord…the foolish imaginations of their hearts…small in stature…Jerusalem…because of the perverse wickedness of the people.

Book of Mormon:

Condemn not the (writing)…an account…the First Book of Nephi…upon the face of the earth…it came to pass…the land…his inheritance and his gold and his silver and… the commandments of the Lord…the foolish imaginations of his heart…large in stature…Jerusalem…because of the wickedness of the people.          

The First Book of Napoleon was published prior to the Book of Mormon.

The Golden Pot

In 1814, E. T. A. Hoffman wrote a German novella entitled, “The Golden Pot”? It tells the story of a German boy, named Anselmus who meets an ancient and mystical archivist from the lost civilization of Atlantis. Anselmus is told that he has been chosen to interpret and translate some special Atlantean documents. “The Golden Pot” also has some similarities to Smith’s accounts, a few of which are:

• Pillar of bright and blinding light when his guide

first appears to him, and later that same night, he receives a second vision.

• Both are given a special message of where they
  will find a hidden ancient record.         
          
• Eventually, a holy artifact made of solid gold is
  revealed to Anselmus, and he is asked to decipher
  he writing on it by magical means.

An advertisement of a literary magazine’s review of Hoffman’s “The Golden Pot” appeared in Joseph Smith’s local newspaper The Wayne Sentinel, 30 November 1827.

Again, not much here either.
           
FAIRMORMON’S COMMENTS

The many similarities between the Book of Mormon and The Golden Pot

FACT CHECKING RESULTS: THIS CLAIM CONTAINS MISTAKES AND/OR ERRORS – THE AUTHOR HAS STATED ERRONEOUS OR INCORRECT INFORMATION OR MISINTERPRETED THEIR SOURCES

The “Golden Pot” theory by Grant Palmer is claimed to be a source for the story of Moroni’s visit to Joseph Smith, not a source text or inspiration for the Book of Mormon text.

I am a little confused as I don’t think I suggested in my letter that the Golden Pot was a likely reference source for the Book of Mormon even through there are a couple of similarities. Perhaps you meant to discuss the Westminster Confession of Faith where there is a much greater likelihood of plagiarism.

The Westminster Confession of Faith

The Westminster Confession of Faith was drawn up by the 1646 Westminster Assembly as part of the Westminster Standards to be a confession of the Church of England and has been very influential within Presbyterian churches throughout the world.
Again, not much here either.

The name Westminster Confession comes from the fact that in In 1643, the English Parliament called upon “learned, godly and judicious Divines”, to meet at Westminster Abbey to provide advice on issues of doctrine, government, and discipline within the Church.

The Confession was adopted by the Presbyterian Church in the United States in 1729.

We, of course, know that members of Joseph Smith’s family joined the Presbyterian Church in the 1820’s,

It would seem by examining the following passages, that Joseph Smith also plagiarized this document, specifically, the Westminster Confession and Catechism.

Please make a note of the fact that the thoughts in each document progress in the same order:

Alma 40:11 – the state of the soul between death and the resurrection . . .

Westminster Confession, Ch. 32 – the state of Men after death, and of the resurrection

Alma 40:11 – the spirits . . . are taken home to that God who gave them life.

Westminster Confession, Ch. 32:1 – their souls . . . return to God who gave them.

Alma 40:12 – the spirits of those who are righteous are received into a state of happiness.

Westminster Confession, Ch. 32:1 – The souls of the righteous . . . are received into the highest heavens . . .    

Alma 40:13 – the spirits of the wicked . . . shall be cast out into outer darkness;  

Westminster Confession, Ch. 32:1 – the souls of the wicked are cast into hell, and utter darkness.     

Alma 40:14 – the souls of the wicked, yea, in darkness . . . remain in this state . . . until the time of their resurrection.

Westminster Confession, Ch. 32:1 – the souls of the wicked . . . remain in darkness, reserved to the judgment of the great day.               

Alma 40:20 – the souls and the bodies are re-united, . . .

Westminster Confession, Ch. 32:1 – bodies . . . shall be united again to their souls

Mosiah 5:3 – infinite goodness of God

Westminster Confession, Ch. 5:4 – infinite goodness of God 

Alma 42:2 – our first parents

Westminster Confession, Ch. 6:1 – our first parents 

2 Nephi 28:21 – carnal security

Westminster Confession, Ch. 33:3 – carnal security

It is not my intention here to go into the myriad examples of where Joseph may have found ‘inspiration’ from the many atlases and maps available to him when chooses names and places. But let me give you one.

It is the suspicious link between the hill Cumorah and the Comoros Islands off the eastern coast of Mozambique, the capital of which is Moroni,

 The apologists, of course, claim coincidence and that ‘Comoros’ in not close to ‘Cumorah’. The truth however is that in Smith’s day, prior to the French occupation of the late 1860s, Comoros was known by its original Arabic name, Camora.

Is it more than a little suspicious that the 1830 Book of Mormon uniformly spells ‘Cumorah’ as ‘Camorah, ‘for example:   

“And I, Mormon, wrote an epistle unto the king of the Lamanites, and desired of him that he would grant unto us that we might gather together our people unto the land of Camorah, by the hill which was called Camorah, and there we would give them battle.”

Could Joseph Smith have written the Book of Mormon?

As an aside, I would like to comment on the view often expressed by apologists and others within the Church, that Joseph Smith, an ignorant young farm boy could never have created something like the Book of Mormon. A book which:

• Covered a period from 2200 B.C. to 421 A.D.
• Has 102 chapters, twenty-five of them about wars, ten about history, twenty-one about prophecy, and thirty-two about doctrines.
• Includes the history of two distinct and separate nations, along with histories of different contemporary nations or groups of people.
• Describes the economic, religious, social, and political cultures of these two distinct nations.
• Contains over 500 pages with over 500 words per page.
• Includes ancient Hebrew literary writing styles such as idioms and Chiasmus.
• That introduces roughly 150 new proper nouns

Could an uneducated boy come up with 531 pages of ancient scripture on his own that was historically accurate and prophetic in nature?

The short answer is, YES, he could!

In the first place, Joseph had a lot of time. The translation of the Book of Mormon did not really take place in less than three months. It spanned a year, and Joseph may have possibly been working on the story line for several years before the reported start date.

Remember too that the Book of Mormon, “the most correct of any book on earth” has undergone thousands and thousands of textual and grammatical corrections including many significant changes in doctrine.

A large portion of the Book of Mormon simply quotes and plagiarizes the Bible, and many of its themes bear strong parallels to ideas popular in nineteenth century America as well as Smith family dreams and experiences.

As well, amazing similarities to The View of the Hebrews, The Last War Between the United States and Great Britain and the Book of Napoleon suggest much of the content of the Book of Mormon was sourced from these popular books all published prior to the Book of Mormon.

The book itself is not particularly well written. The story line is no more complex than the ‘Game of Thrones’ or Faulkner’s ‘Absalom, Absalom’ or Tolkien’s ‘The Silmarillion’ or ‘Lord of the Rings.,’ and certainly far less entertaining! 

Non-LDS authors or literary critics are not so impressed with it as to entertain the notion that it could not have been written without Divine assistance.

The essential question is, what is more logical. That Joseph Smith wrote the book, or that a Divine being showed a young treasure-hunter the location of golden plates which by placing a “magic stone,” in his hat, could translate.

And finally, he could have had help.

When General Authority, B.H. Roberts was asked if he thought Joseph Smith could have written the Book of Mormon, he stated

“… was Joseph Smith possessed of a sufficiently vivid and creative imagination as to produce such a work as the Book of Mormon from such materials as have been indicated in the preceding chapters …? That such power of imagination would have to be of a high order is conceded; that Joseph Smith possessed such a gift of mind there can be no question.” ¹¹                                         

He also quotes Smith’s mother’s history of Joseph, “During our evening conversations, Joseph would occasionally give us some of the most amusing recitals that could be imagined. He would describe the ancient inhabitants of this continent, their dress, mode of travelings, and the animals upon which they rode; their cities, their buildings, with every particular; their mode of warfare; and also their religious worship. This he would do with as much ease, seemingly, as if he had spent his whole life among them.” ¹²

Roberts concluded that “these evening recitals could come from no other source than the vivid, constructive imagination of Joseph Smith, a remarkable power which attended him through all his life. It was as strong and varied as Shakespeare’s and no more to be accounted for than the English Bards.” ¹¹

“Since Oliver Cowdery was born in 1806 and was in Poultney from 1809 to 1825, he was resident in Poultney from 3 years of age until he was 19 years of age – 16 years in all. And these years encompassed the publication of View of the Hebrews, in 1822 [1823] and 1825. His three little half-sisters, born in Poultney, were all baptized in Ethan Smith’s church. Thus, the family had a close tie with Ethan Smith.” ¹³      

Chapter References

1 Source: Robert M. Bowman, Jr., The Book of Mormon and the Bible, March 2012        

2 https://infidels.org/library/moder n/curtheuvel/bom_kjv.html 
           
3 http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/bom/plag

4  John W. Welch, “The Miraculous Translation of the Book of Mormon,” from Opening the Heavens, Accounts of Divine Manifestations 1820-1844, p.77-213, (2005), Brigham Young University.

5 Elden J. Watson, Approximate Book of Mormon Translation Timeline, April 1995

6 Joseph Smith Times & Seasons, 3:813-814        

7 B.H. Roberts – Mormon Seventy and LDS church Historian, Studies of the Book of Mormon, p.240  

8 Source: B.H. Roberts, Studies of the Book of Mormon, p.240-242,324-34

9  Thomas Ferguson to Ronald Barney, Jan. 10, 1983, Ferguson Collection, University of Utah; see Mormon Mavericks Mavericks: Essays on Dissenters, pp. 270-271

10 John W. Welch, “View of the Hebrews: ‘An Unparallel,’ in Reexploring the Book of Mormon edited by John W. Welch (Provo, Utah: FARMS, 1992), 83–87.

11 B. H. Roberts, Studies of the Book of Mormon, p. 243.

12 B. H. Roberts, Studies of the Book of Mormon, p. 243.

13 Thomas Ferguson to Ronald Barney, January 10, 1983, Ferguson Collection, University of Utah; see Mormon Mavericks: Essays on Dissenters, p. 270

Substantive Changes made to the Book of Mormon

There have been many thousands of changes made to the Book of Mormon since the original 1830 and other early editions. Granted many are minor, grammatical and spelling corrections, but as I discussed in the last chapter their existence is not a minor issue. There have been numerous substantive changes and doctrinal revisions as made as well. Consider the following examples:

1 Nephi 13:40   

Original

“… These last records … shall make known to all kindreds, tongues, and people, that the Lamb of God is the Eternal Father, and the Savior …”

Present

“… These last records … shall make known to all kindreds, tongues, and people, that the Lamb of God is the Son of the Eternal Father, and the Savior”

Original

1 Nephi 11:18    

“… Behold, the virgin which thou seest, is the mother of God, after the manner of the flesh.”

Present

“… Behold, the virgin whom thou seest is the mother of the Son of God, after the manner of the flesh.     “

Mosiah 21:28   

Original

“King Benjamin had a gift from God, whereby he could interpret such engravings …

Present
      “King Mosiah had a gift from God, whereby he could interpret such engravings 

1 Nephi 20:1      

Original

… O house of Jacob, which are called out of the waters of Judah, which swear by the name of the Lord …

Present

… O house of Jacob, which are called out of the waters of Judah, or out of the waters of baptism, which swear by the name of the Lord. 

2 Nephi 12, p. 117        
2 Nephi 30:6 (1840 edition 

Original

… and many generations shall not pass away among them, save they shall be a white and a delightsome people.

Present

 … and many generations shall not pass away among them, save they shall be a white pure and a delightsome.  

2 Nephi 12:9      

Original
And the mean man boweth  down…

Present
And the mean man boweth not down…

A significant change made to the Book of Mormon is the name of the angel who is claimed, to have appeared in Joseph Smith’s bedroom.An event incidentally that four of Joseph’s brothers slept through. In the Joseph Smith’s first history, we learn that the angel’s name was Nephi: “He called me by name and said … that his name was Nephi” (Times and Seasons, vol. 3, p. 753). But in modern printings of the History of the Church, the name has been changed to “Moroni” (History of the Church, vol. 1, p. 11).

“The original handwritten manuscript shows the name as “Nephi,” but after Joseph’s death, someone later wrote the word “Moroni” above the line.

It should be noted that Joseph Smith lived for two years after the name “Nephi” was printed in the church’s official publication Times and Seasons, and never had a problem with it or published a retraction or correction.

As well, the August 1842 edition of the Millennial Star, also printed Joseph Smith’s story stating that the angel’s name was “Nephi.” ⁴

The name was also published in the 1851 edition of the Pearl of Great Price as “Nephi.”

Many members are also familiar with the Rocky Mountain Prophecy, that predicted that Salt Lake would be the place the Saints would settle after leaving Nauvoo. Unhappily, it is not true even though the church presented it as true for more than a century.

The ‘Rocky Mountain Prophecy’ was added after the Mormons arrived in Utah.⁵

Some LDS scholars have lamented the suppression of the truthful Church history.  Leonard Arrington, the official LDS Church Historian (1972‐1982) voiced his concern over the withholding of true Church history in favor of a faith-promoting version. Dr. Arrington wrote: “It is unfortunate for the cause of Mormon history that the Church Historian’s Library, which is in the possession of virtually all of the diaries of leading Mormons, has not seen fit to publish these diaries or to permit qualified historians to use them without restriction.” ⁶

Dr. Arrington’s refreshing honesty resulted in his demoted in 1982 and transferred from the church historian’s office to BYU. ⁷

As well, doctrines now considered false by the present-day Church leadership have simply been altered to conform to the doctrine du jour. Notice the following examples:

Helaman 1:16 –  An incomplete sentence that shows the writer of the Book of Mormon was unfamiliar with proper sentence structure. To correct this embarrassing problem, two words were removed from the text, and a period was changed to a comma. The original reads, “…who was the son of Ammoron. Now Tobiah supposing that….” The corrected edition, however, reads, “who was the son of Ammoron, supposing that….” Obviously, this is not merely a typographical change, but a change to correct lousy sentence structure. Would God have allowed such a mistake to be penned under His supervision?    

Mosiah 21:28 –  In this passage, “king Benjamin” is spoken of as being alive. Apparently, however, the writer forgot that fifteen chapters earlier he recorded this man’s death. What he meant to write was “king Mosiah.” The second edition of the Book of Mormon made this change. Again, how did such a glowing error slip into a translation being overseen by the power of God?
The above are not minor “typographical errors.” These are “errors” that make changes to characters names, completely alter the meaning and context of verses, and even modify the divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Though defenders of the Book of Mormon often discount as minor or meaningless the tens of thousands of grammatical, syntactical and spelling errors that appear in the original edition, I think we need to seriously question this.

Apologists often claim that these changes were made to improve punctuation and fix a few, minor grammatical problems. This is a gross understatement.

The following are only a few of literally thousands of examples:      

The original read, “… the cause of diseases which was subsequent to man, by the nature of the climate…” (page 353, 1830 Book of Mormon)

Today’s edition reads, “… the causes of diseases, to which men were subject, by the nature of the climate…”

Another example:  

“And when Moroni had said these words, he went forth among the people, waving the rent of his garment in the air, that all might see the writing which he had wrote upon the rent, and crying with a loud voice…” ¹

Today it reads, “And when Moroni had said these words, he went forth among the people, waving the rent part of his garment in the air, that all might see the writing which he had written upon the rent part, crying with a loud voice…”           

And, another example:

“… for behold, his army had been reduced by the Lamanites because of the numerority (sic) of their forces having slain a vast number of our men…” ²

The modern edition reads, “… for behold; his army had been reduced by the Lamanites because their forces had slain a vast number of our men…”

Commenting on the real significance of these numerous errors, B.H. Roberts, unquestionably one of the great historians in LDS church history, painfully admits that the errors in the original edition, were so numerous and such a part of the “web and woof of the style” of the text, that they could not be easily explained away:

“Are these flagrant errors in grammar chargeable to the Lord? To say so is to invite ridicule…the awkward, ungrammatical expression of the thoughts is, doubtless, the result of the translator’s imperfect knowledge of the English language … that old theory cannot be successfully maintained; that is, the Urim and Thummim did the translating, the Prophet, nothing beyond repeating what he saw reflected in that instrument; that God directly or indirectly is responsible for the verbal and grammatical errors of translation. To advance such a theory before intelligent and educated people is to unnecessarily invite ridicule, and make of those who advocate it candidates for contempt…” ³

Apologists often pooh-pooh any criticism here by talking about Joseph’s lack of education and his use of the frontier grammar of the day.

As well, numerous Mormon writers and apologists have tried to explain why these myriad mistakes exist in the first place, and why thousands of changes have been made in subsequent editions of the Book of Mormon.

Various suggestions have been made, including such things as Joseph Smith’s poor education, his lack of communication with those who later copied the text, and typesetting mistakes. These are all woefully inadequate.

Some have suggested that Smith was not given the actual words, but only the “idea” or “sense” of the things that were to be written – therefore, allowing for the possibility of all kinds of human error.

However, according to all reports; it was not Joseph Smith but his magic seer stone that did the translating, Smith just had to read and announced the words appearing on it.

This rendition, that ideas came to Joseph, not words, contradicts the many clear statements made by distinguished or at least well-known Mormon leaders who observed the process and had it explained to them by the man with his actual head in the hat.

David Whitmer, for example, said, “I will now give you a description of the manner in which the Book of Mormon was translated. Joseph Smith would put the seer stone into a hat, and put his face in the hat, drawing it closely around his face to exclude the light; and in the darkness, the spiritual light would shine. A piece of something resembling parchment would appear, and on that appeared the writing. One character at a time would appear, and under it was the interpretation in English.”

Martin Harris, another of the ‘three witnesses’ reported: 

“…sentences would appear and were read by the prophet, and if correctly written, that sentence would disappear, and another appear in its place, but if not written correctly it remained until corrected, so that the translation was just as it was engraven on the plates, precisely in the language then used.”

George Reynolds, the secretary to President John Taylor said, “There were no delays over obscure passages, no difficulties over the choice of words, no stoppages from the ignorance of the translator; no time was wasted in investigation or argument over the value, intent, or meaning of certain characters, and there was no reference to authorities… All was as simple as when a clerk writes from dictation. The translation of the characters appeared… Sentence by sentence, and as soon as one was correctly transcribed the next would appear.”  

Joseph Knight described the translation process. This way,

“Darkened his Eyes he would take a sentence and it would appear in Brite (sic) Roman Letters. Then he would tell the writer and he would write it. Then that would go away the next sentence (sic) would come and so on. But if it was not Spelt (sic) rite (sic) it would not go away till it was rite…”

The above statements are significant, in that they explain the specific nature of the translating – the very words being given by God, spelled out, recorded properly, one character at a time, then repeated and corrected in the case of error. All directed by “the gift and power of God,”           

Emma Smith, in an 1856 interview also described the process:

“When my husband was translating the Book of Mormon, I wrote a part of it, as he dictated each sentence, word for word, and when he came to proper names he could not pronounce, or long words, he spelled them out, and while I was writing them, if I made a mistake in spelling, he would stop me and correct my spelling, although it was impossible for him to see how I was writing them down at the time.”  

The one thing that is consistent in all these descriptions is that they portray a visual “crawl” coming across something that looks like parchment. Obviously, the only way these witnesses would know of, and repeat almost verbatim; this account is that Joseph had told them that this was the method.  

Ok, here is the rub. If we accept that Joseph Smith simply read words and sentences appearing on the seer stone, then we must assign responsibility for errors in language to a Divine instrumentality, that is God is not very skilled in the English language and a remarkably bad writer. This is absurd and ridiculous, even blasphemous. Or, if the contention is that the phraseology of the Book of Mormon, – letter for letter and word for word was given to the Smith by the direct inspiration of God, acting upon his mind, then again God is made accountable for the thousands and thousands of errors in the Book of Mormon – again, inconceivable.

There have been many LDS leaders and Mormon apologists that have claimed that the errors in the original 1830 Book of Mormon are simply typographical. This is really grasping at straws.   

The venerated early Mormon historian, B.H. Roberts made it clear that he did not buy it:

 “That errors of grammar and faults in dictation do exist in the Book of Mormon (and more especially and abundantly in the first edition) must be conceded; and what is more, while some of the errors may be referred to inefficient proof-reading, such as is to be expected in a country printing establishment, yet such is the nature of the errors in question, and so interwoven are they throughout the diction of the Book, that they may not be disposed of by saying they result from inefficient proof-reading or referring them to the mischievous disposition of the ‘typos’ or the unfriendliness of the publishing house. The errors are constitutional in their character; they are of the web and woof of the style, and not such errors as may be classed as typographical. Indeed, the first edition of the Book of Mormon is singularly free from typographical errors.” ⁴

How then could there be mistakes, English may not have been the Lord first language, but I would suggest He certainly has a perfect knowledge of it. Surely the Mormon apologists aren’t suggesting He only had a fundamental grasp of grammar, spelling, syntax and sentence structure.

Nor can these mistakes be blamed on typesetting errors. When we compare, the original handwritten manuscript allegedly dictated by Joseph Smith, and the corrected handwritten one from which the first printing was made, we discover copious changes—and this was before the typesetting was even done!

How then could the misspelled words below get into a translation supposedly overseen by the “power of God”?            

“adhear” (for adhere; Alma 60:34)

“bablings” (for babblings; Alma 1:32)

“bellowses” (for bellows; 1 Nephi 17:11)

“feading” (for feeding; Enos 1:20)

“eigth” (for eighth; Alma 53:23)

“eatheth” (for eateth; 3 Nephi 20:8)

“journied” (for journeyed; 1 Nephi 4:38; 5:6; 7:6; 18:25

“phrensied” (for frenzied; Alma 30:16)

“rereward” (for rearward; 3 Nephi 20:42; 21:29)

“sayeth” (for saith; Mosiah 12:21)

“tempels” (for temples; Alma 16:13)

“yars” (for years; Alma 19:16)

Joseph’s grammar was even worse:

A few of the thousands of grammatical errors – incorrect adjectives and adverbs, double negatives, etc. are shown below:  

• “And this he done” (Alma 2:10).
• “They did not fight against God no more” (Alma 23:7).
• “And now behold the Lamanites could not retreat neither
  way”  (Helaman 1:31).
• “Yea, if my days could have been in them days” (Helaman 7:8).
• “And Mosiah, nor the people of Mosiah, could not understand
   them” (Omni 1:17).
• “And it came to pass that there was certain men passing by”
  (Helaman 7:11).
• “That all might see the writing which he had wrote” (Alma 46:19).
• “I have wrote to them” (3 Nephi 26:8).
• “I were about to write to them” (3 Nephi 26:11).
• “…which was wrote upon the plates…” (Alma 44:24).
• “…that there might not be no more sorrow” (Alma 29:2).
• “Adam and Eve, which was our first parents…,” (1 Nephi 5:11).
• “…the multitude had all eat” (3 Nephi 20:9).
• “I Moroni have written the words which was commanded” (Ether 5:1).
• “…the gates of hell is…” (3 Nephi 18:13).

Redundancy too is an issue; many words and phrases that are and repeated ad nauseam:

The phrase, “And it came to pass,” occurs over 1200 times. Mark Twain commented that, “Whenever he found his speech growing too modern—which was about every sentence or two—he ladled in a few such Scriptural phrases as “exceeding sore,” “and it came to pass,” etc., and made things satisfactory again. “And it came to pass” was his pet. If he had left that out, his Bible would have been only a pamphlet.”

Also unlike the Bible, the Book of Mormon is much too wordy, another example of poor writing. Far too many words are used to express a simple thought or idea.  For example, 4 Nephi 6:

“And thus did the thirty and eight years pass away, also the thirty and ninth, and forty and first, and the forty and second, yea even until forty and nine years had passed away, and also the fifty and second; yea, and even until fifty and nine years had passed away.”

Why not just say, “59 years had passed!”

Likewise, the overuse of the words “behold,” insomuch” and “thereof,” often used repeatedly and needlessly.

Apologists’ responses to the many spelling, grammatical and syntactical errors in Smith’s original translation of the Book of Mormon

The Church’s apologists seem to follow three tracks in trying to explain away these myriad spelling, grammatical and syntactical errors: 

Blame the Printer: The man responsible for punctuating the first edition of the Book of Mormon was John Gilbert, who worked for E. B. Grandin, publisher of the first edition. According to Gilbert, it was Hyrum Smith who brought the first twenty-four pages of the handwritten printer’s manuscript to the publisher:       

“He had it under his vest, and vest and coat closely buttoned over it. At night [Hyrum] came and got the manuscript, and with the same precaution carried it away. The next morning with the same watchfulness, he brought it again, and at night took it away. … On the second day – [Martin Harris] and [Hyrum] being in the office—I called their attention to a grammatical error, and asked whether I should correct it? Harris consulted with [Hyrum] a short time, and turned to me and said: ‘The Old Testament is ungrammatical, set it as it is written.’

“After working a few days, I said to [Hyrum] on his handing me the manuscript in the morning; ‘Mr. Smith, if you would leave this manuscript with me, I would take it home with me at night and read and punctuate it.’ His reply was, ‘We are commanded not to leave it.’ A few mornings after this, when [Hyrum] handed me the manuscript, he said to me: ‘if you will give your word that this manuscript shall be returned to us when you get through with it, I will leave it with you.’ … for two or three nights I took it home with me and read it, and punctuated it with a lead pencil.’” ⁵

Blame the Scribe: “Although Joseph Smith was the translator of the Book of Mormon, the spelling in the first edition was Oliver Cowdery’s” ⁶

Blame the English language itself: “Before we can understand why many of these corrections have been necessary, we must know that American English spelling in 1829 was not yet standardized.”   

“…Webster’s own American Dictionary of the English Language was published in 1828; and, if it was available to Oliver Cowdery, that would add one more to the other five. Small wonder, then, that Oliver’s spelling would seem creative to the modern reader.” ⁷

None of these are satisfactory.

Why would Joseph not be given grammatically correct sentences rather than the dog’s breakfast found in the first edition? And surely the words that appeared on the seer stone were not misspelled?

If they were spelled correctly, (or at least in concert with Webster’s 1828 dictionary which the Lord knew was then and in the future, would be the standard) why did Smith not spell the words as they appeared if unfamiliar with them?

When the word ‘temple’ would appear on the stone, the spelling which Smith and Cowdrey knew as ‘tempels,’ or ‘eighth’ rather than ‘eighth’ or ‘journeyed’ instead of ‘journeyed’, or ‘years,’ not ‘yars’ would they not catch on after a few hundred words?

I have also discovered several contradictions within the Book of Mormon:

The Book of Mormon states that at the tower of Babel the Jaredites had their separate language (Esther 1:34-35). The Bible, however, tells us that “the whole earth was of one language” (Genesis 11:1).

The Bible says that Jesus was born in Bethlehem (Matthew 2:1). The Book of Mormon reads: “And behold, he shall be born of Mary at Jerusalem” (Alma 7:10).

The Bible relates that at the crucifixion there were three hours of darkness (Luke 23:44). However, the Book of Mormon states there was darkness “for the space of three days” (Helaman 14:20,27).

The Book of Mormon teaches that black skin is a sign of God’s curse (2 Nephi 5:21). In contrast, the Bible teaches that God “made of one blood all nations of men” (Acts 17:26).

The Book of Mormon tells us that “Melchizedek…did reign under his father” (Alma 13:18). However, the Bible teaches that Melchizedek was a priest under no one. The Bible states that Melchizedek was “without father, without mother, without descent” in other words, he did not inherit his priesthood (Hebrews 7:3).

The people described in the Book of Mormon operated multiple temples (Alma 16:13; 23:2; 26:29). This violates the dictates of the Old Testament Scriptures – God commanded Israel to build only one temple to reflect that fact that there is only one true God (Deuteronomy 12:5,13-14; 16:5-6).

There are thousands of grammatical errors in the first edition of the Book of Mormon – double negatives, incorrect adjectives, adverbs and often wrong or changing tenses.

Smith also used colloquial terms common to his day. The frequent use of “a” with various participles is noticeable in such phrases as: “a journeying,” “a preaching,” “a marching,” “a coming,” and so on! Such lingo betrays the influence of the vernacular of the 1800s and is not the language one might expect to find in scripts from ancient times.

As well, the first edition of the Book of Mormon contains numerous instances of exceptionally poor sentence structure, which was, changed in later editions.

In the next chapter, I will focus more on the substantive changes made to the Book of Mormon most to reflect Joseph Smith changing theology.

Chapter References

1 1830 Book of Mormon, P. 351.

2 1830 Book of Mormon, page 382

3 Defense of the Faith, by B. H. Roberts,   Deseret News, 1907-1912, pp. 278 – 308.

4 Defense of the Faith, by B. H. Roberts, pp. 280-281; reprinted in A New Witness For Christ in America, by Francis W. Kirkham, Vol. 1, pp. 200-201

5 Wilford C. Wood, Joseph Smith Begins His Work, vol. 1, Salt Lake City: Wilford C. Wood, 1959.

6 George Horton, “Understanding Textual Changes in the Book of Mormon,” Ensign, December 1983

7 George Horton, “Understanding Textual Changes in the Book of Mormon,” Ensign, December 1983

Changes made to the Doctrine and Covenants

The Doctrine and Covenants was printed in the year 1835 and replaced the Book of Commandments. Many changes, however, were made at that time to the former’s revelations.  David Whitmer, one of the three witnesses to the Book of Mormon, made this statement: 

“Some of the revelations as they now appear in the Book of Doctrine and Covenants have been changed and added to changed and added to. Some of the changes being the greatest importance as the meaning is entirely changed on some very important matters; as if the Lord had changed his mind a few years after he gave the revelations, and after having commanded his servants (as they claim) to print them in the “Book of Commandments;” and after giving his servants a revelation, being a preface unto His Book of Commandments, which says: “Behold this is mine authority, and the authority of my servants, and my preface unto the Book of my Commandments, which I have given them to publish unto you, oh inhabitants of the earth.” Also in this preface, “Behold I am God, and have spoken it; These commandments are of me.” “Search these commandments, for they are true and faithful.” The revelations were printed in the Book of Commandments correctly! This I know, and I will prove it to you.

These revelations were arranged for publication by Bro. Joseph Smith, Sidney Rigdon, Orson Hyde and others, in Hiram, Ohio, while I was there; and were sent to Independence to be published, and were printed just exactly as they were arranged by Bro. Joseph and the others. ¹

David Whitmer also says, “When the Book of Commandments was printed, Joseph and the church received it as being printed correctly. This I know. In the winter of 1834, they saw that some of the revelations in the Book of Commandments had to be changed, because the heads of the church had gone too far, and had done things in which they had already gone ahead of some of the former revelations.”

Whitmer provided us with four clear examples of changes made when the Book of Commandments became the Doctrine and Covenants:  

No Other Gift

In BC 4, God declares, “And [Joseph] has a gift to translate the book, and I have commanded him that he shall pretend to no other gift, for I will grant him no other gift.” But the revision in D&C 5 removes this limitation: “And you have a gift to translate the plates, and this is the first gift that I bestowed upon you; and I have commanded that you should pretend to no other gift until my purpose is fulfilled in this; for I will grant unto you no other gift until it is finished.”

Whitmer was concerned that the Church would be led by a man with vast, unaccountable powers.²

All Things Are Written     

God tells His saints in BC 15 that, “I give unto you a commandment, that you rely upon the things which are written; for in them are all things written, concerning my church, my gospel, and my rock. Wherefore if you shall build up my church, and my gospel, and my rock, the gates of hell shall not prevail against you.”

But D&C 18 sees the Book of Mormon as just a “foundation” upon which changes can be made at will: “I give unto you a commandment, that you rely upon the things which are written; for in them are all things written, concerning the foundation of my church, my gospel, and my rock; wherefore, if you shall build up my church upon the foundation of my gospel and my rock, the gates of hell shall not prevail against you.”           

Show Not These Things unto the World    

Whitmer also remarks on the changes made to BC 16: “I command you that you preach naught but repentance; and show not these things, neither speak these things unto the world, for they cannot bear meat, but milk they must receive: wherefore, they must not know these things, lest they perish.”

D&C 18 changes BC 16 to read “… show not these things unto the world, until it is wisdom in me.” Whitmer describes what he sees as the consequences of violating the divine command to keep these revelations hidden.

Like unto the Church in the Days of Old  

Finally, Whitmer points out the change made to BC 4 regarding the organization of the Church:

[I]f the people of this generation harden not their hearts, I will work a reformation among them, and I will put down all lyings, and deceivings, and priestcrafts, and envyings, and strifes, and idolatries, and sorceries, and all manner of iniquities, and I will establish my church, like unto the church which was taught by my disciples in the days of old. [Whitmer’s emphasis]

Another example of a change Joseph Smith made to one of his revelations in his attempt to cover up Cowdery’s ability to work with a divining rod. Below is a comparison of the original revelation as found in the Book of Commandments with the altered version which now appears in the Doctrine and Covenants.

Book of Commandments

Now this is not all, for you have another gift, which is the gift of working with the rod: behold it has told you things: behold there is no other power save God, that can cause this rod of nature, to work in your hands…

Doctrine and Covenants

Now, this is not all thy gift, for you have another gift, which is the gift of Aaron; behold, it has told you many things; Behold, there is no other power, save the power of God, that can cause this gift of Aaron to be with you.

For a complete side-by-side comparison of the Book of Commandments and the Doctrine and Covenants can be found in the article by Karl F. Best, entitled, “Changes in the Revelations, 1833 – 1835.”

Joseph retrofitted many earlier revelations to make it appear as if church doctrines and practices were revealed by God more sequentially and logically often excusing it as continuing revelation.

As his theological views changed or evolved, Smith also made several contradictory revisions to the original doctrines in the Book of Mormon.

Compare 1 Nephi 3 pp. 25, 26, 32 in the 1830 [original] version to current Book of Mormon version in 1 Nephi 11: 18, 21, 23, 40

There have been many thousands of changes made to the Book of Mormon since the original 1830 and other early editions. Granted many are minor, grammatical and spelling corrections, but as I discussed in the last chapter their existence is not a minor issue. There have been numerous substantive changes and doctrinal revisions as made as well. Consider the following examples:

1 Nephi 13:40   

Original

“… These last records … shall make known to all kindreds, tongues, and people, that the Lamb of God is the Eternal Father, and the Savior …”

Present

“… These last records … shall make known to all kindreds, tongues, and people, that the Lamb of God is the Son of the Eternal Father, and the Savior …”

1 Nephi 11:18    

Original

“… Behold, the virgin which thou seest, is the mother of God, after the manner of the flesh.”

Present

“… Behold, the virgin whom thou seest is the mother of the Son of God, after the manner of the flesh.     “

Mosiah 21:28   

Original

“King Benjamin had a gift from God, whereby he could interpret such engravings …

Present

      “King Mosiah had a gift from God, whereby he could interpret such engravings  

1 Nephi 20:1      

Original

… O house of Jacob, which are called out of the waters of Judah, which swear by the name of the Lord …

Present

… O house of Jacob, which are called out of the waters of Judah, or out of the waters of baptism, which swear by the name of the Lord. 

2 Nephi 12, p. 117        
2 Nephi 30:6 (1840 edition 

Original

… and many generations shall not pass away among them, save they shall be a white and a delightsome people.

Present

 … and many generations shall not pass away among them, save they shall be a white pure and a delightsome.   

2 Nephi 12:9      

Original
And the mean man boweth  down…

Present
And the mean man boweth not down…

A significant change made to the Book of Mormon is the name of the angel who is claimed, to have appeared in Joseph Smith’s bedroom.An event incidentally that four of Joseph’s brothers slept through. In the Joseph Smith’s first history, we learn that the angel’s name was Nephi: “He called me by name and said … that his name was Nephi” (Times and Seasons, vol. 3, p. 753). But in modern printings of the History of the Church, the name has been changed to “Moroni” (History of the Church, vol. 1, p. 11).

“The original handwritten manuscript shows the name as “Nephi,” but after Joseph’s death, someone later wrote the word “Moroni” above the line.

It should be noted that Joseph Smith lived for two years after the name “Nephi” was printed in the church’s official publication Times and Seasons, and never had a problem with it or published a retraction or correction.

As well, the August 1842 edition of the Millennial Star, also printed Joseph Smith’s story stating that the angel’s name was “Nephi.” ⁴

The name was also published in the 1851 edition of the Pearl of Great Price as “Nephi.”

Many members are also familiar with the Rocky Mountain Prophecy, that predicted that Salt Lake would be the place the Saints would settle after leaving Nauvoo. Unhappily, it is not true even though the church presented it as true for more than a century.

The ‘Rocky Mountain Prophecy’ was added after the Mormons arrived in Utah.⁵

Some LDS scholars have lamented the suppression of the truthful Church history.  Leonard Arrington, the official LDS Church Historian (1972‐1982) voiced his concern over the withholding of true Church history in favor of a faith promoting version. Dr. Arrington wrote: “It is unfortunate for the cause of Mormon history that the Church Historian’s Library, which is in the possession of virtually all of the diaries of leading Mormons, has not seen fit to publish these diaries or to permit qualified historians to use them without restriction.” ⁶

Dr. Arrington’s refreshing honesty resulted in his demoted in 1982 and transferred from the church historian’s office to BYU. ⁷

As well, doctrines now considered false by the present-day Church leadership have simply been altered to conform to the doctrine du jour. Notice the following examples:

Helaman 1:16 –  An incomplete sentence that shows the writer of the Book of Mormon was unfamiliar with proper sentence structure. To correct this embarrassing problem, two words were removed from the text, and a period was changed to a comma. The original reads, “…who was the son of Ammoron. Now Tobiah supposing that….” The corrected edition, however, reads, “who was the son of Ammoron, supposing that….” Obviously, this is not merely a typographical change, but a change to correct lousy sentence structure. Would God have allowed such a mistake to be penned under His supervision?    

Mosiah 21:28 –  In this passage, “king Benjamin” is spoken of as being alive. Apparently, however, the writer forgot that fifteen chapters earlier he recorded this man’s death. What he meant to write was “king Mosiah.” The second edition of the Book of Mormon made this change. Again, how did such a glowing error slip into a translation being overseen by the power of God?

Chapter References

1 Letter written by David Whitmer, published in the Saints Herald, Feb. 5, 1887

2 Book of Commandments, 4

3 Karl F. Best, entitled, “Changes in the Revelations, 1833 – 1835https://www.dialoguejournal.com

4 Millennial Star, vol. 3, p. 53

5 The Changing World of Mormonism, p. 406

6 Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, Spring 1966, p. 26

7 Deseret News, Church Section, July 5, 1980

Chapter 12 – The Dearth of Jewish Customs in the Book of Mormon

Recognizing that we are talking about devout Jew coming to the Americas, would it not be reasonable to expect that these immigrants would continue to live according to their customs and traditions?

Yet the Book of Mormon gives only a few superficial mentions of the intricate and rich religious heritage enjoyed by the Jews since the days of Moses.

The most common biblical terms used to describe Jewish customs or laws, holy days, feasts, the concept of clean/unclean, observances, dietary restrictions, religious ceremonies as well as Old Testament priesthood are entirely missing from the Book of Mormon. Here is a list of nine examples of important Jewish biblical terms with their relative frequencies, which simply never appear once in the Book of Mormon:

“Passover” (59 times in Bible)

“ark of the covenant” (48 times in Bible)

“mercy seat” (23 in Bible)

“burnt offerings” (39 times in Bible)

“circumcision” (96 times in Bible)

“incense” (121 times in Bible)

“alters” (17 times in Bible)

“sons of Aaron” (97 times in Bible)                                                        

“day of atonement” (21 times in Bible)

“feast of tabernacles” (17 times in Bible)

“house of the LORD” (627 in Bible)

Passover

The word Passover was used fifty-nine times in the Bible. In the Book of Mormon, however, not once. Is it not amazing that a book supposedly written by ancient Israelites would never refer to the Passover the most important holy day in all Judaism?

While the Israelites were in bondage in Egypt, Moses told the people to wipe the blood of a lamb to their side posts and lintel, “For the Lord will pass through to smite the Egyptians; and when he seeth the blood upon the lintel, and on the two side posts, the Lord will pass over the door, and will not suffer the destroyer to come in unto your houses to smite you.” (Exodus 12:21-23)

The Egyptians did not do this, and consequently lost all their “firstborn.” This convinced Pharaoh that he should let God’s people go.

The significance of the Passover to the Jews cannot be overstated. Since the Nephites were supposed to have been Jews who possessed “the five books of Moses” (1 Nephi 5:11), they should have observed and celebrated Passover hundreds of times after they arrived in the Americas.

The Sabbath 

The Book of Mormon also makes scant mention of the “Sabbath day.” It is only mentioned five times as compared to the 171 times it is mentioned in the Bible.

How odd, how incredible that the Book of Mormon, supposedly written by Jewish people, would virtually ignore the day which was held so sacred by the Jews.

Circumcision

There is no mention of circumcision or any evidence it was ever practiced, except for one verse in Moroni 8, in which Jesus declares that “circumcision is done away in me.”  

Burnt Offerings

Christ tells the Nephites that their “sacrifices and burnt offerings shall be done away” in 3 Nephi, but ironically there is no mention of burnt offerings after they arrive in the Americas. The only exception is found in Mosiah 2:3. Here it is explained that “they also took of the firstlings of their flocks, that they might offer sacrifice and burnt offerings according to the law of Moses.”

Ceremonial Cleanliness and Unclean Foods

No mention other than a one reference found in the large plagiarized portion of Isaiah, most significantly, there is no mention of Kosher eating.

FAIRMORMON COMMENTS

“Response to claim: “the Book of Mormon claims to be the story of religious Jews, yet there is scant or no mention of Jewish customs or laws”

FACT CHECKING RESULTS: THIS CLAIM CONTAINS PROPAGANDA AND/OR SPIN – THE AUTHOR, OR THE AUTHOR’S SOURCE, IS PROVIDING INFORMATION OR IDEAS IN A SLANTED WAY IN ORDER TO INSTILL A PARTICULAR ATTITUDE OR RESPONSE IN THE READER

The portions of the Book of Mormon that describe Lehi’s family in the Old World do reflect Jewish customs or laws (Specifics?)         
There is strong evidence of a Year of Jubilee in the King Benjamin address.
There is the covenant emphasis from King Benjamin that is evidence of Hebrew influence.         
The Book of Mormon was edited and compiled by people living post-Christ
The Book of Mormon lists sins which are consistent with the Ten Commandments.

That’s it?

 
DOUGLAS’ RESPONSE        

The above qualifies as scant, so let’s go with that! 

Below are the counts of the times that some of the various feasts are explicitly mentioned:       

	Chronicles	Book of Mormon
Passover	2	0
Tabernacles	1	0
Unleavened Bread	3	0
Weeks	1	0

Likewise in the Book of Mormon, there is no explicit mention of any regular Jewish sacrifice or offering. Again, here are the counts of some regular Jewish sacrifices in both books:

	Chronicles	Book of Mormon
New Moon	3	0
Evening & Morning	4	0
Drink Offerings	1	0

     As well, there is no mention of the temple items in the Book of Mormon.

     The Jewish temple had several parts which were all important, such as the altar, incense, the shewbread the court and the Holy of Holies. Nephi claims that his temple was built after the manner of Solomon’s temple (II Nephi 5:16), but none of these items are ever mentioned in the Book of Mormon,

	Chronicles	Book of Mormon
Temple Court	6	0
Temple Altar	20+	1*
Holy Place	6	0
Shewbread	7	0
Incense	8	0

The above, as well as the absence of any mention of the scores of Jewish dietary laws, leads Curt van hen Heuvel, an expert on Jewish Cultural traditions who I reference in my letter to state, “The Book of Mormon is not an ancient history but was rather made up by someone who had a good imagination, but very little understanding of ancient Jewish culture.”
    
Perhaps the Mormon apologist at FairMormon who wrote this critique should get out and actually meet a Jew.

Book of Mormon, The Fullness of the Gospel?

“This ancient volume of holy scriptures is a sacred companion to the Bible, containing the fullness of the everlasting gospel of Jesus Christ.” 

L. Tom Perry, Ensign, May 2007, pg. 88;

The fact is however that in spite of the mantra so often repeated in the Church that the Book of Mormon contains the ‘fullness of the Gospel,’ many of the essential features of that Gospel are absent from it.

The following is a list of significant features of the gospel NOT found in the Book of Mormon:

• God has a body of flesh and bones. 
• God is an exalted man. 
• God is a product of eternal progression. 
• The plurality of gods. 
• Baptism for the dead
• The temple endowment
• True nature of the Godhead
• Men can become gods. 
• “Intelligences” are eternal. 
• Pre-existing spirits of men. 
• Three degrees of glory. 
• A “mother” in heaven. 
• God “organized” the world rather than “created” it. 
• A Melchizedek priesthood consisting of the      
       offices of Elder, Seventy, and High Priest. 
• An Aaronic priesthood consisting of the offices of       
      Priest, Teacher, and Deacon.
• God has many wives/Mother gods
• God had sex with Mary
• Jesus and Lucifer are brothers
• Jesus was Married
• The Book of Mormon is the “Stick of Joseph.”
• There is no eternal hell and punishment. 
• Men can become gods. 
• “Intelligences” are eternal. 
• Pre-existing spirits of men. 
• Marriage for eternity. 
• Polygamy is not an abomination in the sight of God. 
• Negroes are to be denied the priesthood. 
• The functions and offices of Evangelists            ,
            Bishoprics, Stake Presidencies,
• Assistants to the Twelve, a First Presidency, and a       
            President of the Church. 

If the goal was a restoration, why wouldn’t the Lord have provided his people with a more complete understanding of the most fundamental and precious truths of the plan of salvation? If he did in fact reveal these things to the Nephites, why did they not record them?     

Ray Anderson suggests that:         

“Perhaps the paucity of latter-day doctrines and practices is best understood by examining early church history. Looking back on the early days of the Restoration, David Whitmer emphatically declared his belief that Joseph Smith was never meant to create a church – that his only calling was to bring forth the ‘marvelous work and a wonder,’ the Book of Mormon. He also claimed that the Book of Mormon was intended to be the ultimate authority on matters of truth and religious worship. …Could it be that Joseph’s original intention was to bring forth scripture that would ‘reform’ Christianity rather than ‘restore’ it? “ ¹

FAIRMORMON COMMENT

“How can the Book of Mormon contain the “fullness of the Gospel” if it does not speak of ordinances such as baptism for the dead or celestial marriage?      

FACT CHECKING RESULTS: THIS CLAIM CONTAINS MISTAKES AND/OR ERRORS – THE AUTHOR HAS STATED ERRONEOUS OR INCORRECT INFORMATION OR MISINTERPRETED THEIR SOURCES”

“The core of Mormon doctrine is centered wholly in Christ and his atonement. Without the foundation which the Book of Mormon lays, the other LDS teachings are meaningless. The Book of Mormon itself defines “the gospel” as simply the doctrine of Christ, faith in him, repentance, and the introductory ordinances. (What are these introductory ordinances?)

There are many religious topics and doctrines which The Book of Mormon does not discuss in detail (e.g., the premortal existence, see Alma 13:), and some which are not even mentioned (e.g., the ordinance of baptism for the dead).

This is unsurprising, since the Book of Mormon’s goal is to teach the “fullness of the gospel”—the doctrine of Christ.”         

DOUGLAS’ RESPONSE

You say, “The core of Mormon doctrine is centered wholly in Christ and his atonement. Without the foundation which the Book of Mormon lays, the other LDS teachings are meaningless.

Fine, except we are not speaking of ‘centrality;’ we are taking about ‘fullness.’

The difference is shouldn’t be too difficult for you to grasp if we use an example.

The central focus of the US Bill of Rights is the protection of individual rights and freedoms. The fullness would, however, include the ten amendments to the United States Constitution.

1. Freedom of speech
2. Right to bear arms
3. Protection against housing soldiers in civilian home
4. Protection against unreasonable search and seizure

Protection against the issuing of warrants without probable cause

• Protection against

trial without indictment double jeopardy

Self-incrimination property seizure

• Right to a speedy trial

Right to be informed of charges Right to be confronted by witnesses Right to call witnesses

Right to a legal counsel

• Right to trial by jury
• Protection against

Excessive bail excessive fines

Cruel and unusual punishment

• Rights granted in the Constitution shall not infringe on other rights
• Powers not granted to the Federal Government in the Constitution belong to the states or the people.          

Can it be argued that it is enough that our fellow citizens know that the US Bill of rights affords them certain rights without knowing what those rights are?   

No, to bring any benefit to the citizens of this great nation, to make our sacred freedoms come to life, we require the ‘fullness’ or the legislation.

Likewise, the efficacy, that is, that which animates the ‘Gospel’ comes from the fullness of it, not solely, although I agree it is most important, our Dear Lords atonement, our faith in him and our repentance of our sins.

But my friends are these are the just those things that all true Christians and their church’s belief.

You need to ask yourself the question:

“Is it possible that the Book of Mormon cannot contain “the fullness of the gospel” because it doesn’t teach certain unique LDS doctrines, such as baptism for the dead, the Word of Wisdom, the three degrees of glory, celestial marriage, vicarious work for the dead, and the corporeal nature of God the Father?”

I think with a little thought you will answer yes it cannot contain the fullness of the Gospel, without those things that make the Mormon religion unique.

If you answer it is yes, that the Book of Mormon can contain the fullness of the Gospel that baptism for the dead, the Word of Wisdom, the belief in three degrees of glory, and knowledge of celestial marriage, the importance of vicarious work for the dead, etc. are not significant, essential or even necessary to the Gospel. 
 
I invite you to make that comment in the next Gospel Doctrine class you attend:

“Brothers and Sisters, the Word of Wisdom, the three degrees of glory, celestial marriage, and the work for the dead, are not part of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, as they are not found it the Book of Mormon, so conduct yourselves accordingly!”

Chapter References

1 Ray Anderson, The Book of Mormon, A Voice From 19^th Century Dust, Seattle, WA, 2007, pp. 41-42

The Witnesses to the Book of Mormon Plates

From my perspective, the strongest proof of the truthfulness of the foundational claims of the church is the testimony of the witnesses, particularly the three witnesses, Oliver Cowdrey, Martin Harris and David Whitmer.

The following statements by the three are very convincing:

Martin Harris (1875)

“The Book of Mormon is no fake. I know what I know. I have seen what I have seen and I have heard what I have heard. I have seen the gold plates from which the Book of Mormon is written. An angel appeared to me and others and testified to the truthfulness of the record, and had I been willing to have perjured myself and sworn falsely to the testimony I now bear I could have been a rich man, but I could not have testified other than I have done and am now doing for these things are true.”

David Whitmer (1881)     

“I have never at any time, denied that testimony or any part thereof, which has so long since been published with that book as one of the three witnesses. Those who know me best, well know that I have adhered to that testimony. And that no man may be misled or doubt my present views in regard to the same, I do now again affirm the truth of all my statement[s], as then made and published.”

Oliver Cowdery (1848)   

“I wrote, with my own pen, the entire Book of Mormon (save a few pages) as it fell from the lips of the Prophet Joseph, as he translated it by the gift and power of God, by the means of the Urim and Thummim, or as it is called by the book, Holy Interpreters. I beheld with my eyes, and handled with my hands, the gold plates from which it was transcribed. I also saw with my eyes and handled with my hands the Holy Interpreters. That book is true.”

I also feel that there is no convincing evidence that these three individuals participated in a fraud, rather the evidence points to the fact that, at least at one time, they all honestly believed that Joseph was a true prophet and that the Book of Mormon is what it purports to be.

Nevertheless, there are a few major problems.

I think we need to exercise some caution in judging the witnesses’ 1829 testimony by the rational worldview that most hold today.  The three witnesses, like many, perhaps most people in the unsophisticated society of nineteenth century rural America, viewed second sight, magic, spells, witches, and treasure digging as objective reality and if anything, it drew them together as a society.         

Where did the printed testimony of the ‘Three Witnesses’ Martin Harris, Oliver Cowdery, and David Whitmer come from? Did they write their own personal witness statements? No!                                

It is believed that Joseph Smith composed the statement for them to sign. This appears to be evident since, at that time, he knew none of the witnesses had ever seen the plates with their natural eyes, a fact every one of them admitted at one point. The wording deliberately gives the impression that they had.                            

“Stretching or twisting the truth seems to be no problem for Joseph Smith when it suited his purposes. There is clear evidence he altered other revelations and made numerous retroactive changes to the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants. According to Apostle William E. McLellin, the testimony of the Twelve Apostles contained in the Introduction to the Doctrine and Covenants was a ‘base forgery.’ David Whitmer himself, one of the Three Witnesses, alleged the same thing.

Notwithstanding, their unsigned witness statement, carefully crafted by Joseph Smith does say they saw the gold plates as well as an angel. They attested to the same at other times that their experience with the plates and the angel were real in the sense that we would view something as ‘real’ today.

The problem is, there is also clear evidence that Cowdrey, Harris, and Whitmer, made numerous contradictory statements and admissions, in which they also said that they saw these things only in a ‘visionary state,’ often after being prepared and possibly coached by Joseph Smith.

The issue becomes, given this incongruity, which is true?

There is so much damning evidence that the Book of Mormon is nothing more than a work of 19^th-century fiction – the lack of archaeological support, the anachronisms, the contrary DNA evidence, the rampant plagiarism and the almost laughable means of translation – A magical peep stone in a top hat.

This coupled with Smith’s history of money digging, his many run-ins with the law. His many false and failed prophesies, his inaccurate translations of the Egyptian Papyri, and the Kinderhook Plates and most of all his dishonesty and immoral behavior. Lying to Emma and the Saints about his polygamy and polyandry. Convincing teenage girls, some as young as 14, by the use of coercive psychological techniques to marry and have sex with him, must give anyone with an ounce of sense pause.

Were it not for the testimony of these three men I think a reasonable person would be ready to proclaim that the LDS church is false, that Joseph Smith was a narcissistic con-man who used his superior intellect and charisma to acquire wealth, power, and sex.

But there is Larry, Curly and Moe! – David, Martin, and Oliver.

I think we need to examine each of the three participants carefully, honestly and yes, judiciously, for I believe on them rests the veracity of the whole Mormon narrative.

Martin Harris

Background and Life Experiences

Things were going well for Martin Harris by 1827. He had built a comfy life for himself and his wife and cousin Lucy in Palmyra, New York. By all accounts, he was a hard worker and the half section of land he had acquired and worked over the previous 14 years, had made him, by rural New York standards, very close to being a wealthy man.

At age 26, Martin married Lucy Harris, his first cousin, and the couple had five children, three of whom lived to be adults.

But now at age 45, he received a visit from Lucy Mack Smith, the mother of Joseph Smith, Jr., that led to a series of events that would rock his world.

Lucy Smith had come to tell Martin that her son Joseph had finally obtained golden plates from an angel, with a message inscribed in an ancient language that would change the world. Lucy Mack Smith asked Martin if he would visit Joseph. He agreed and thus began their relationship. Joseph Smith and Martin appeared to become friends, at least Martin saw Joseph as his friend hiring Joseph as a day laborer on his farm. Joseph may have viewed Martin as a tool (and I mean that in both uses of the word in current parlance) for compared to Smith, he was wealthy and none too bright.

Martin likely harbored some doubts about Joseph’s story, undoubtedly stoked by his wife, Lucy. But Martin was also a religious man, as well as a very superstitious one. Indeed some labeled him a “visionary fanatic.” This perspective explains Martin’s willingness to, not just consider, but accept the supernatural buying hook, line and sinker Joseph’s claims of angels and ancient buried golden plates. Martin was acting as a scribe for a time and, of course, he also journeyed to New York City in Joseph’s behalf seeking a reassurance from Professor Anthon, a well-known scholar that the plates were authentic. But Martin’s greatest contribution to the work was as a benefactor.

Following a revelation from the Lord, given through Joseph Smith, Martin was commanded “Thou shalt not covet thine own property, but impart it freely to the printing of the Book of Mormon.” Harris mortgaged his home and farm for $3,000, a generous loan in that era. By some estimates, comparing Martin’s wealth to the local economy at that time, his gift would be worth about $1.6 million today.

Other Religious Affiliations 

To say that Martin Harris was unstable religiously would be an understatement. He changed his religious affiliations 13 times. Even after his excommunication from the Mormon Church, he changed his religion beliefs eight more times. 

Pick virtually any Protestant denomination, and Martin had at one time been an adherent!

Character, Gullibility and Mental Stability

His contemporaries found him to be somewhat odd, to say the least, “Once while reading scripture; he reportedly mistook a candle’s sputtering as a sign that the devil desired him to stop. Another time he excitedly awoke from his sleep believing that a creature as large as a dog had been upon his chest, though a nearby associate could find nothing to confirm his fears. Several hostile and perhaps unreliable accounts told of visionary experiences with Satan and Christ, Harris once reporting that Christ had been poised on a roof beam.” ¹ 

Presbyterian minister Jesse Townsend of Palmyra called Harris a “visionary fanatic,” and Lorenzo Saunders said Harris was a “great man for seeing spooks.”

John A. Clark, reported that during the time the Book of Mormon was being translated, “on the way he met the Lord Jesus Christ, who walked along by the side of him in the shape of a deer for two or three miles, talking with him as familiarly as one man talks with another.” ²

Martin Harris testified that his testimony for Shakerism was greater than it was for Mormonism. The Shaker’s “Sacred Roll and Book” was also delivered by an angel. ³

Regarding his honesty, after getting in Smith’s bad books, the official Mormon newspaper of the day included Martin Harris with a few other men, as having, “a lying deceptive spirit attend them…they are of their father, the devil…the very countenance of Harris will show to every spiritual-minded person who sees him, that the wrath of God is upon him.” ⁴

In the Elder’s Journal for August 1838, Joseph Smith himself denounced Martin Harris as “so far beneath contempt that to notice him would be too great a sacrifice for a gentleman to make. The Church exerted some restraint on him, but now he has given loose to all kinds of abominations. “

Surprisingly, the non-Mormon press was more generous toward Martin:

“Mr. Harris was among the early settlers of this town, and has ever borne the character of an honorable and upright man, and an obliging and benevolent neighbor. He had secured to himself by honest industry a respectable fortune—and he has left a large circle of acquaintances and friends to pity his delusion. ⁵ 

“We have ever regarded Mr. Harris as an honest man. We first became acquainted with him at Palmyra, in the spring of 1828, shortly after the plates from which the Book of Mormon is said to have been translated, were found.. . . Though illiterate and actually of a superstitious turn of mind, he had long sustained an irreproachable character for probity. . . . By his neighbors and townsmen with whom he earnestly and almost incessantly labored, he was regarded rather as being deluded himself, than as wishing to delude others knowingly; but still he was subjected to many scoffs and rebukes, all of which he endured with a meekness becoming a better cause.” ⁶

Dan Vogel reports that a friend, who praised Harris as being “universally esteemed as an honest man,” also declared that Harris’s mind “was overbalanced by ‘marvellousness‘” (sic)  and that his belief in earthly visitations of angels and ghosts gave him the local reputation of being crazy. ⁷

Education and Intelligence

Martin had what passed for a normal education for people who worked the land in rural upstate New York at that time, not unlike that which David Whitmer and Joseph Smith received. Oliver Cowdrey’s formal education was a step above these three.

Motivations for His Involvement

Martin was deeply invested in the success of the Book of Mormon. He went as far as to mortgage his farm to make the publication of the Book of Mormon possible. If the book failed, Martin stood to lose the most.

I think we need to keep in mind that Martin’s motivation, as could be argued of Smith’s, was not altogether altruistic.

Abigail Harris, Martin’s sister-in-law, spoke to this important feature of his motivation:

“… Martin Harris and Lucy Harris, his wife, were at my house (1828). In conversation with the Mormonites, she [Lucy Harris] observed that she wished her husband would quit them, as she believed it all false and a delusion. To which I heard Mr. Harris reply: ‘What if it is a lie; if you will let me alone I will make money out of it!’ I was both an eye- and ear-witness of what has been above stated, which is now fresh in my memory, and I speak the truth and lie not, God being my witness.”

Nevertheless, one of the most powerful confirmations of Martin’s testimony was recorded by William Harrison Homer, which was replicated in the Improvement Era.        
      “Young man,” answered Martin Harris with impressiveness, “Do I believe it! Do you see the sun shining! Just as surely as the sun is shining on us and gives us light, and the [moon] and stars give us light by night, just as surely as the breath of life sustains us, so surely do I know that Joseph Smith was a true prophet of God, chosen of God to open the last dispensation of the fullness of times; so surely do I know that the Book of Mormon was divinely translated. I saw the plates; I saw the Angel; I heard the voice of God. I know that the Book of Mormon is true and that Joseph Smith was a true prophet of God. I might as well doubt my own existence as to doubt the divine authenticity of the Book of Mormon or the divine calling of Joseph Smith.” ⁸

In law, a ‘death bed’ confession or statement is given great credence as it should. The following is what amounts to Martin’s death bed testimony:

“A few hours before his death and when he was so weak and enfeebled that he was unable to recognize me or anyone, and knew not to whom he was speaking, I asked him if he did not feel that there was an element at least, of fraudulence and deception in the things that were written and told of the coming forth of the Book of Mormon, and he replied as he had always done so many, many times in my hearing the same spirit he always manifested when enjoying health and vigor and said: ‘The Book of Mormon is no fake. I know what I know. I have seen what I have seen and I have heard what I have heard. I have seen the gold plates from which the Book of Mormon is written. An angel appeared to me and others and testified to the truthfulness of the record, and had I been perjured myself and sworn falsely to the testimony I now bear I could have been a rich man, but I could not have testified other than I have done and am now doing for these things are true.” ⁹

However, Martin also said repeatedly that he, and the other witnesses, only saw the plates in vision.

“Martin Harris, one of the subscribing witnesses, has come out at last, and says he never saw the plates, from which the book purports to have been translated, except in vision and he further says that any man who says he has seen them in any other way is a liar, Joseph [Smith] not excepted.” ¹⁰

In 1838 when the Church was in crisis and experiencing massive apostasy. Martin’s statement about not really seeing the angel and plates, was the final straw that caused apostles Luke S. Johnson, Lyman E. Johnson, and John F. Boynton, high priest Stephen Burnett and seventy Warren Parrish to leave the Church, Burnett comments:

“I have reflected long and deliberately upon the history of this church & weighed the evidence for & against it, loth to give it up, but when I came to hear Martin Harris state in public that he never saw the plates with his natural eyes only in vision or imagination, neither Oliver nor David & also that the eight witnesses never saw them & hesitated to sign that instrument for that reason, but were persuaded to do it, the last pedestal gave way, in my view our foundations was (sic) sapped & the entire superstructure fell a heap of ruins,…I was followed by W. Parish[,] Luke Johnson & John Boynton[,] all of the[m] concurred with me. After we done speaking M Harris arose & said he was sorry for any man who rejected the Book of Mormon for he knew it was true, he said he had hefted the plates repeatedly in a box with only a tablecloth or handkerchief over them, but he never saw them only as he saw a city through a mountain. And said that he never should have told that the testimony of the eight was false, if it had not been picked out of him but should have let it passed as it was… “ ¹¹   
      And a few more of many more statements by Martin:

“While praying I passed into a state of entrancement, and in that state, I saw the angel and the plates.” ¹²

“I never saw the gold plates, only in a visionary or entranced state.” ¹³

Harris’ myriad public statement that he and his fellow witnesses only saw the plates and the angel in a ‘visionary’ or ‘second sight’ way caused many to leave the church as this letter from Stephen Burnett shows: 

“. . . when I came to hear Martin Harris state in public that he never saw the plates with his natural eyes only in vision or imagination, neither Oliver nor David & also that the eight witnesses never saw them & hesitated to sign that instrument for that reason, but were persuaded to do it, the last pedestal gave way, in my view our foundation was sapped & the entire superstructure fell in heap of ruins, I therefore three week since in the Stone Chapel…renounced the Book of Mormon…after we were done speaking M Harris arose & said he was sorry for any man who rejected the Book of Mormon for he knew it was true, he said he had hefted the plates repeatedly in a box with only a tablecloth or a handkerchief over them, but he never saw them only as he saw a city throught [sic] a mountain. And said that he never should have told that the testimony of the eight was false, if it had not been picked out of—[him/me?] but should have let it passed as it was…”  ¹⁴

The foreman in the Palmyra printing office that produced the first Book of Mormon said that Harris “used to practice a good deal of his characteristic jargon and ‘seeing with the spiritual eye,’ and the like.” ¹

Two other Palmyra residents said that Harris told them that he had seen the plates with “the eye of faith” or “spiritual eyes.” ¹⁶

John H. Gilbert, the typesetter for most of the Book of Mormon, said that he had asked Harris, “Martin, did you see those plates with your naked eyes?” According to Gilbert, Harris “looked down for an instant, raised his eyes up, and said, ‘No, I saw them with a spiritual eye.” ¹⁷

When Martin Harris was asked, “But did you see them [plates] with your natural, your bodily eyes, just as you see this pencil-case in my hand? Now say no or yes to this.” Martin answered, “I did not see them as I do that pencil-case, yet I saw them with the eye of faith; I saw them just as distinctly as I see anything around me, though at the time they were covered over with a cloth.” ¹⁸

 “Martin Harris later testified that he did not see the plates literally with his fleshly eyes: He said he saw the plates with ‘the eyes of faith and not with the natural eyes’. This we believe is the truth but it should eliminate him automatically as a witness none the less. This of course proves Mormonism is a fraud and that the Nephi Plates never existed and no one actually saw them.” ¹⁹

While Martin was not perhaps the smartest of men, I think he was a decent man. I think a case can be made that he might have been used and by a guileful and manipulative Joseph Smith. I think the conflicting statements Martin made throughout his life, his superstition, his magical mind-set, and his mental instability coupled with his conflict of interest assail his credibility.

David Whitmer

Background and Life Experiences

David Whitmer was born near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, the fourth of nine children of Peter Whitmer, Sr. and Mary Musselman both of German ancestry. By the 1820s, the Whitmer family had moved to a farm in Fayette, New York. Whitmer and his family were among the earliest adherents to the Latter-Day Saint movement. Whitmer first heard of Joseph Smith and the golden plates in 1828 when he made a business trip to Palmyra, New York, and there talked with his friend Oliver Cowdery.

When the Church moved from New York to Ohio in 1831, the Whitmers went along as they did to Jackson County, Missouri the short-lived Zion or gathering place for the Saints. When the differences between the Latter-day Saints and their neighbors erupted again into open conflict. Driven from Jackson County, the Whitmers settled in adjacent Clay County, Missouri.

By 1838 things were going sideways quickly. David described the situation: “In the spring of 1838, the heads of the church and many of the members had gone deep into error and blindness. I had been striving with them for a long time to show them the errors into which they were drifting, and for my labors, I received only persecutions. In June 1838, a secret organization was formed, Doctor Avard being put in as the leader of the band; a certain oath was to be administered to all the brethren to bind them to support the heads of the church in everything they should teach. All who refused to take this oath were considered dissenters from the church, and certain things were to be done concerning these dissenters, by Dr. Avard’s secret band.”

In response to the Church’s threats against him as well as Oliver Cowdrey, John Whitmer, William W. Phelps and Lyman Johnson, David left town and the Church.

This was Sidney Rigdon’s letter:

“To Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer, John Whitmer, William W. Phelps, and Lyman E. Johnson, greeting: Out of the county you shall go, and no power shall save you. And you shall have three days after you receive this communication…for you to depart with your families peaceably;…and unless you heed us,…there shall be no escape; for there is but one decree for you, which is depart, depart, or a more fatal calamity shall befall you…we will put you from the county of Caldwell: so help us God.”

Whitmer went on to condemn Smith’s church and raise some question as to the validity of his Book of Mormon witness statement. “If you believe my testimony to the Book of Mormon,” wrote Whitmer, “if you believe that God spake to us three witnesses by his own voice, then I tell you that in June, 1838 God spake to me again by his own voice from the heavens and told me to ‘separate myself from among the Latter Day Saints, for as they sought to do unto me, so it should be done unto them.”

Religious Experiences

After Joseph’s death in 1844, many of Rigdon’s followers became disillusioned, and by 1847, William E. McLellin and Benjamin Winchester, remembering Whitmer’s 1834 ordination to be Smith’s successor, urged Whitmer exercised his claim to be Smith’s successor and the Church of Christ (Whitmerite) was formed in Kirtland, Ohio. However, Whitmer never joined the body of the new church, and it dissolved relatively quickly.

David Whitmer belonged to at least three Mormon splinter groups at different times, but he died still rejecting the LDS Church and its priesthood. 

Like Martin Harris, David Whitmer later testified that he did not see the plates with his real eyes but, “by the eye of faith” handled by an angel. ²⁰

During the summer of 1837, while in Kirtland, like Oliver and Martin, David pledged his loyalty and allegiance to a prophetess who used a black seer stone and danced herself into ‘trances.’  ²¹

Education and Intelligence

David also had what passed for a normal education for people who worked the land in rural upstate New York at that time. Somewhat like that which Martin Harris and Joseph Smith had received.

David Whitmer was excommunicated from the Church, and he never returned to it, nonetheless near the end of his life, he made the following statement in the Richmond, Missouri, Conservator on March 25, 1881:

 “Unto all Nations, Kindreds, Tongues, and People, unto whom these presents shall come: . . . I wish now, standing as it were, in the very sunset of life, and in the fear of God, once [and] for all to make this public statement: That I have never at any time denied that testimony [of the Book of Mormon] or any part thereof, which has so long since been published with that book, as one of the Three Witnesses. Those who know me best well know that I have always adhered to that testimony. And that no man may be misled or doubt my present views in regard to the same, I do again affirm the truth of all my statements as then made and published. “He that hath an ear to hear, let him hear;” it was no delusion; what is written is written, and he that readeth let him understand. “And if any man doubt, should he not carefully and honestly read and understand the same before presuming to sit in judgment and condemning the light, which shineth in darkness, and showeth the way of eternal life as pointed out by the unerring hand of God?” In the Spirit of Christ, who hath said: “Follow thou me, for I am the life, the light and the way,” I submit this statement to the world; God in whom I trust being my judge as to the sincerity of my motives and the faith and hope that is in me of eternal life. My sincere desire is that the world may be benefited by this plain and simple statement of the truth. And all the honor to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, which is one God. Amen!”

However, again in the same document Whitmer testifies:

“If you believe my testimony to the Book of Mormon; if you believe that God spake to us three witnesses by his own voice, then I tell you that in June 1838, God spake to me again by his own voice from the heavens and told me to ‘separate myself from among the Latter Day Saints, for as they sought to do unto me, so it should be done unto them.” In the spring of 1838, the heads of the church and many of the members had gone deep into error and blindness. I had been striving with them for a long time to show them the errors into which they were drifting, and for my labors I received only persecutions.” ²²

Statements by Whitmer that He Saw the Gold Plates and the Angel in Vision

While more stable than Martin Harris, David also had a magical view of the world and spoke of seeing things with his “spiritual” eyes.

He was once asked to describe the angel who showed him the plates. He responded that the angel “had no appearance or shape.” When asked how he could then could bear testimony that he had seen and heard an angel, Whitmer replied, “Have you never had impressions?” To which the interviewer responded, “Then you had impressions as the Quaker when the spirit moves, or as a good Methodist in giving a happy experience, a feeling?” “Just so,” replied Whitmer. ²³

James Henry Moyle, a Mormon lawyer, interviewed Whitmer in 1885 He asked him if there was any possibility that he had been deceived. “His answer was unequivocal…that he saw the plates and heard the angel with unmistakable clearness.” But Moyle went away “not fully satisfied…It was more spiritual than I anticipated.” ²⁴

 “While praying I passed into a state of entrancement, and in that state, I saw the angel and the plates.” ²⁵

 “I never saw the gold plates, only in a visionary or entranced state.” ²⁶

“In regards to my testimony to the visitation of the angel, who declared to us three witnesses that the Book of Mormon is true, I have this to say: Of course we were in the spirit when we had the view, for no man can behold the face of an angel, except in a spiritual view, but ‘we were in the body also, and everything was as natural to us, as it is at any time. Martin Harris, you say, called it “being in vision.” We read in the Scriptures, Cornelius saw, in a vision, an angel of God, Daniel saw an angel in a vision, also in other places, it states they saw an angel in the spirit. A bright light enveloped us where we were, that filled [the woods as] at noon day, and there in a vision or in the spirit, we saw and heard just as it is stated in my testimony in the Book of Mormon.” ²⁷

David Whitmer changed his story about seeing the plates and later told of finding them lying in a field and later still told Orson Pratt that they were on a table with all sorts of brass plates, gold plates, the Sword of Laban, the ‘Director’ and the Urim and Thummim. ²⁸

David Whitmer informed Zenas Gurley Jr. on January 14, 1885, when asked if the witnesses touched “the real metal,” “We did not.” The witnesses handled “the plates” in a vision only, according to Whitmer. ²⁹    

       Also, the eight witnesses did not “imagine” seeing the plates or an angel at the same time as most members believe and as is popularized in church paintings.Rather the plates were imagined in two groups of four. ³⁰ John H. Gilbert, the typesetter for most of the Book of Mormon, said that he had asked Harris, “Martin, did you see those plates with your naked eyes?” According to Gilbert, Harris “looked down for an instant, raised his eyes up, and said, ‘No, I saw them with a spiritual eye.’” – EMD 2:548    
 
…. When Martin Harris was asked, “But did you see them [plates] with your natural, your bodily eyes, just as you see this pencil-case in my hand? Now say no or yes to this.” Martin answered, “I did not see them as I do that pencil-case, yet I saw them with the eye of faith; I saw them just as distinctly as I see anything around me, though at the time they were covered over with a cloth.” ³⁵

…. Also, in his An Address to All Believers in Christ pamphlet, Whitmer referred to the incident as a “vision,” and he told an interviewer that he saw the plates while “in the spir“In June 1829, I saw the angel by the power of God…The angel appeared in the light…Between us and the angel there appeared a table, and there lay upon it the sword of Laban, the Ball of Directors, the Record, and interpreters. The angel took the Record, and turned the leaves, and showed it to us by the power of God. They were taken away by the angel to a cave, which we saw by the power of God while we were yet in the Spirit.” ⁵⁰       

  . “When asked about his vision, David Whitmer told RLDS member J.W. Chatburn in 1882: “These hands handled the plates, these eyes saw the angel, and these ears heard his voice.” In 1886 a newspaper correspondent interviewed Whitmer and wrote: “Mr. Whitmer describes every detail of the ‘vision’ with great precision and much fervency and insists that he handled and scrutinized the plates, and that the form and appearance of the strangely engraved characters were so impressed upon his member that he would never forget them.” Recall that when asked by Gurley if the three witnesses actually did “touch” the “real metal,” Whitmer responded, “We did not.” In other words, if you they handled them, it was in vision rather than in plain sight. Moyle said that Whitmer “repeated to me that he did see and handle the plates; that he did see and hear the angel” in a vision, but that he “did not handle the plates” physically.” – An Insider’s View of Mormon Origins, p.199-200

As mentioned previously, Whitmer never denied this part of his interview with Moyle when he reaffirmed his testimony of the Book of Mormon. The question is not whether or not Whitmer denied his experience (he didn’t). The question is whether his experience was literal/physical or visionary/spiritual.

Marvin S. Hill, a LDS writer, remarked:

“. . . there is a possibility that the witnesses saw the plates in vision only. . . . There is testimony from several independent interviewers, all non-Mormon, that Martin Harris and David Whitmer said they saw the plates with their “spiritual eyes” only. . . . This is contradicted, however, by statements like that of David Whitmer in the Saints Herald in 1882, “these hands handled the plates, these eyes saw the angel.” But Z. H. Gurley elicited from Whitmer a not so positive response to the question,” did you touch them?” His answer was, “We did not touch nor handle the plates.” So far as the eight witnesses go, William Smith said his father never saw the plates except under a frock…”  ³¹

Oliver Cowdrey

Background and Life Experiences

Of the three witnesses, Oliver played the most significant role in the creation of the Church. He is also the most likely co-conspirator with Joseph Smith if the Mormon Church is a fraud.

He was the principal scribe, was a member of the Congregational church where Ethan Smith, the author of the View of the Hebrews preached and Oliver attended, and no doubt had a copy of it, as well, he was Joseph’s cousin.

There is evidence that Oliver knew Joseph before the time the Church claims. Lorenzo Saunders placed Oliver Cowdery on the Smith farm in Palmyra several years earlier in 1826:

“As respecting Oliver Cowdery, he came from Kirtland in the summer of 1826 and was about there [i.e., the Smith’s farm] until fall and took a school in the district where the Smiths lived and the next summer he was missing and I didn’t see him until fall and he came back and took our school in the district where we lived and taught about a week and went to the school board and wanted the board to let him off and they did and he went to Smith and went to writing the Book of Mormon and wrote all winter. The Mormons say it wasn’t wrote there but I say it was because I was there…” ³²

Oliver also claimed, “second sight,” he reports seeing convoy after convoy of angels at a worship service in Ohio.

It is rarely mentioned in the discussion of the veracity of the witnesses but should be remembered that we do not have an actual document of actual signatures of the Book of Mormon witnesses. The closest we have is a document in Oliver’s handwriting, providing the names of the Witnesses.

Without the original document, it is impossible to know with certainty whether the witnesses truly signed it.

As well, the Church is not forthcoming about the statements by the witnesses, who claim to have seen Smith’s gold plates and handled them. The faith promoting accounts do not tell us that their experience was one that took place in their imaginations, that they saw with their, “spiritual eyes,” “visions of the mind,” or through the “eyes of our understanding.”

David Whitmer informed Zenas Gurley Jr. on January 14, 1885, when asked if the witnesses touched “the real metal,” “We did not.” The witnesses handled “the plates” in a vision only, according to Whitmer. ³

Other Religious Experiences

There are often statements made within the Church to the effect that none of the three witnesses recanted their statements and I have no reason to believe that is not the case. However, there is some evidence that Oliver Cowdrey came very close.

When Oliver joined the Methodist Church later in his life, he apparently offered to repudiate his witness to the Book of Mormon in writing but was not required to do so by the elders of the Methodist Church.

“We accordingly waited on Mr. Cowdery at his residence in Tiffin, and there learned his connection, from him, with that order, and his full and final renunciation thereof. 

We then inquired of him if he had any objection to making a public recantation. He replied that he would if it were required of him. The following I from a sworn statement by G.J. Keen, one of the elders who interviewed Oliver.

“In a few years, Mr. Cowdery expressed a desire to associate, himself with a Methodist Protestant church of this city. Rev. John Souder and myself were appointed a committee to wait on Mr. Cowdery and confer with him respecting his connection with Mormonism and the Book of Mormon had objections; that, in the first place, it could do no good; that he had known several to do so and they always regretted it. And, in the second place, it would have a tendency to draw public attention, invite criticism, and bring him into contempt.  

“But,” said he, “nevertheless, if the church requires it, I will submit to it, but I authorize and desire you and the church to publish and make known my recantation.” 

We did not demand it but submitted his name to the church, and he was unanimously admitted a member thereof. At that time he arose and addressed the audience present, admitted his error and implored forgiveness, and said he was sorry and ashamed of his connection with Mormonism.  

He continued his membership while he resided in Tiffin, and became superintendent of the Sabbath-school, and led an exemplary the while he resided with us. I have lived in this city upwards of fifty-three years, was auditor of this county, was elected to that office in 1840. 

I am now in my eighty-third year, and well remember the facts above related.        

(Signed) G. J. KEEN.” 

Sworn to before me and subscribed in my presence, this 14th day of April 1885. FRANK L. EMICH, Notary

The Mormon Church claims Oliver came back to the Church, but if he did, he might have left shortly thereafter as he was buried by a Methodist minister in Richmond, Missouri. ³⁴

Motivations for His Involvement

What was Oliver’s motivation?

He was in on many of the most important policies and revelations of the Church, including:

An Angelic Witness of the Plates       
Translation of the Plates     
Restoration of Aaronic Priesthood  
Restoration of Melchizedek Priesthood       
Restoration of sealing keys and return of Elijah

When anything important happens, Oliver is there. When Smith hit a road block with Emma and Martin acting as scribes, Oliver shows up and gets things moving. Suddenly, hundreds of pages are translated in just a few months.

There are some suspicious actions involving Oliver and Sidney Rigdon. Upon the event of his death, Rigdon commanded his wife to burn all his papers, which were many. A man of letters does not destroy the collection of a lifetime unless there is something damning within it. Why else would he have had them burnt? I don’t imagine we will ever know what was so incriminating. Was there a reworking of the View of the Hebrews, or the Late War or was it a rough draft of the framework of the Book of Mormon, entitled Manuscript Found at Conneaut Creek by a failed preacher named Solomon Spaulding?

Spaulding failed at most everything he put his hand to, one of those flops was writing and selling novels. He wrote a story called Manuscript Found at Conneaut Creek but failed to get it published, as the story goes, Spaulding reworked the book and renamed it Manuscript Found. He took the manuscript to a publisher in Pittsburgh who agreed to publish it if he could come up with the money, but Spaulding never did find a backer, so the manuscript sat in the publisher’s office gathering dust.

At it happens somewhere in the 1810s, a man named Sidney Rigdon was visiting that same publisher’s office, and he came across Manuscript Found.      By then Spaulding had died, so Rigdon takes it.  Now Rigdon was also an adherent of Campbellism, which sought to restore Christianity to its first-century form and Rigdon sees an opportunity, a promote Campbellism and unite the various Christian denominations as well as Native Americans. He hatches a plan, an idea incidentally that he shares with his closest friends in and around 1825 to 1827 Rigdon tells his closest friends that soon a new book of scripture that would unite Christian Americans, convert Native Americans, and explain where the people who built the thousands of mounds around the eastern U.S. came from.

During this same period, a man named Oliver Cowdery who lived in Rigdon’s area gets wind of Rigdon’s idea. Cowdery used to live in New York and at one point went back to New York to visit with Joseph Smith, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Speculation, certainly but not wildly so. Several of Spaulding’s relatives familiar with Manuscript Found in the Wilds of Mormon swore affidavits that The Book of Mormon was a rip-off of Solomon’s second, missing manuscript. In fact, they claimed that “Nephites,” “Lamanites,” “Lehi,” “Mormon” and “Moroni” – these exact words were found in Solomon’s novel.

As we saw with the Hoffman affair, the church is quick to purchase and stick away in their vaults anything casting doubt on the official story.

I often wonder what we would find if Jeraldo got into that safe!

Cowdery publicly confessed his sorrow and shame for his connection with Mormonism. But did not go so far as to expose it as a fraud? Why not admit that your witness statement was false?

Obviously, no one relishes the admission that they have been deceitful, or that they have perjured yourself and lied under oath. Oliver may have been a lot of things, but he was not a fool. He understood that if he came clean, he would put himself in a very bad position. People had invested their fortunes, their time, even sacrificed their children to the carnal desires of the polygamists. Any admission on his part would certainly put him in legal jeopardy.

Is it not just easier and less trouble to just to stick to the original story? There are literally millions of people on the Mormon rolls today that do not believe the church is true and want nothing to do with it but just move on without making a fuss like the one I am making here. Just look at the statistics I have presented in my letter.  Oliver was interested in pursuing a political career, being associated with the Mormons was bad enough but admitting that he was involved in the creation of a fraud would be political suicide.

Education and Intelligence

The fact that Oliver accepted the position of teacher in a small rural school in Manchester township in 1828 and 1829 speaks to the fact that he was the better educated of the witnesses. We also know that after his disaffection with the Mormon church he became an attorney. ³⁵

In 1841 the Mormons published a poem which stated, “Or Book of Mormon not his word because denied by Oliver.”

The poem of the time, declares that Cowdery denied his Mormon testimony:

“Amazed with wonder! I look round
To see most people of our day
Reject the glorious gospel sound
Because the simple turn away:
But does it prove there is no time,
Because some watches wilt not go?

“Or prove that Christ was not the Lord
Because that Peter cursed and swore,
OR BOOK OF MORMON NOT HIS WORD
BECAUSE DENIED BY OLIVER?
Or prove that Joseph Smith is false
Because apostates say ’tis so?” (emphasis added) ³⁶

Oliver Cowdery’s Visionary Statements in Vision

Oliver Cowdery used a divining rod.

From the D&C 8 account, we don’t know much about what exactly the
      “gift  of Aaron” that Oliver Cowdery received.

What is “the gift of Aaron”?

The text provides several clues:

 Oliver has a history of using it, since “it has told [him]
   many things.”
 It is “the gift of God.”
 It is to be held in Oliver’s hands (and kept there,
   impervious to any power).
 It allows Oliver to “do marvelous works.”
 It is “the work of God.”
 The Lord will speak through it to Oliver and tell
   him anything he asks while using it.

 It works through faith.
 It enables Oliver to translate ancient sacred documents.

Martin Harris stated in public that he never saw the plates with his natural
      eyes only in vision or imagination and that neither did Oliver or David see
      them except in vision.

If the golden plates did exist and were real, why would the witnesses make
     the following kinds of statements:        

“While praying I passed into a state of entrancement, and in that state, I saw
      the angel and the plates.” ³⁷

“I never saw the gold plates, only in a visionary or entranced state.” ³⁸

“He only saw the plates with a spiritual eye.” ³⁹

“As shown in the vision.” ⁴⁰

“Never saw the plates with his natural eyes but only in vision or        imagination.” ⁴¹

“I did not see them uncovered, but I handled them and hefted them while wrapped in a tow frock.” ⁴²       

There are also several other things that call the witnesses’ reliability and trustworthiness into question. We know that all the witnesses had close ties to Joseph and his family. Some like Martin Harris had a substantial financial investment in the success of the Book of Mormon. 

“The witnesses’ experiences may have only been visionary in nature. There are many statements given by the witnesses that indicate they only saw the angel and the plates in a visionary experience. Why would people need to see real, physical plates in a vision or a real angel that was physically on the earth? There are also several statements saying that the only time they saw the plates was when the plates were covered in a cloth or tow frock.

The three witnesses did not all see the plates or angel at the same time. Only David Whitmer and perhaps Oliver Cowdery saw the angel together. Martin Harris removed himself from the group and did not see the angel until perhaps three days later.” ⁴³

FAIR says that this is well-documented in official Church sources but why then do the clear majority of members not know of this? Every
Painting and image of the three witnesses have them all together – does this constitute ‘well-documented.’

These men lived in the early 1800s and believed in magical things as many people did during that time-period such as divining rods, second sight, magic, dreams, seer stones, etc. Some of the witnesses, especially Martin Harris, were easily swayed by tales of the supernatural, especially in a religious context. 

Many of the witnesses ended up leaving the church and following other leaders and religions such as James Strang, the Shakers, Methodists, etc. By 1847 not a single one of the surviving eleven witnesses was part of the LDS Church.

“Of the witnesses that left the church, most believed that Joseph was at best a fallen prophet, the church changed its doctrines in error and changed revelations against God’s will.

The witnesses, who have been heralded as good, honest, Abe Lincoln-type of men were later called liars, counterfeiters, thieves, etc. by Joseph Smith himself.

The “testimony of the witnesses” is similar to testimonials which were commonly included in books etc. in those days to help spur sales. And of course, the BOM’s producers originally intended to sell copies for $1.75 each.

All three witnesses believed that God Himself had told them (through Joseph Smith) that they had been specially chosen to testify to the world that they had seen the angel and the plates –– if they had enough faith. Martin Harris was even told the exact words he must use: Joseph Smith said he had a revelation in which the Lord commanded Harris to say, “I have seen the things which the Lord hath shown unto Joseph Smith Jun., and I know of a surety that they are true, for I have seen them.” And just to clinch the command, God threatened Martin Harris, saying, “But if he deny this he will break the covenant which he has before covenanted with me, and behold, he is condemned.” A personal promise (and a threat of condemnation) coming directly from God is bound to have a powerful influence on a person’s thinking! ⁴⁴

Fred Anson remarks that if Joseph Smith’s goal was to provide truly convincing witness statements, there were several things he SHOULD NOT have done:

1. None of the witnesses should have been related to Joseph or each other. Most of the witnesses were either related or good friends. Having unrelated people as witnesses would be far more effective than using your brothers and father .
   
2. The witnesses should not have already been eager believers.
   There should have been some skeptics.  

• There should have been no financial motive. Martin Harris mortgaged his farm and invested at least $3,000 of his own money into printing the Book of Mormon, so of course, he had incentive to ‘promote’ the book.

• Each of the witnesses should have written their own testimony instead of merely signing a prepared statement written by Joseph. If the prepared document wasn’t 100%, accurate many people would simply sign it anyway as it would be too much of a hassle to have it completely rewritten by hand – especially in the 1800s.

• The witnesses should have been much more detailed about this amazing event. What did the angel look like? What exactly did he say? How did he speak? There are almost no details provided which can be analyzed and compared. If each witness had simply written their own account and provided significant details, then their testimonies could corroborate each other.

• The witnesses should have been interviewed independently immediately after going public. They should have been interviewed the same way police do with witnesses to crimes or that investigators do with UFO cases. Ask questions to see if their stories match; How was the angel dressed? How tall was he? How did he speak?     
  
• The witnesses should not have used subjective language and say strange things like comparing seeing the plates with seeing a city through a mountain or using spiritual eyes instead of their natural eyes to view physical plates.

• The witnesses should not have been gullible people that believed in things like ‘second sight,’ divining rods, finding treasure by placing a rock in a hat, etc. That the Three Witnesses were a gullible sort is illustrated by an incident in July 1837. Joseph had left on a five-week missionary tour to Canada, only to find on his return that all three of the Witnesses had joined a faction opposing him. This faction rallied around a young girl who claimed to be a seeress by virtue of a black stone in which she read the future. David Whitmer, Martin Harris, and Oliver Cowdery all pledged her their loyalty, and Frederick G. Williams, formerly Joseph’s First Counselor, became her scribe. The girl seeress would dance herself into a state of exhaustion, fall to the floor, and burst forth with revelations. See Lucy Smith: Biographical Sketches, pp. 211-213).
  
• All the witnesses should have been much more vocal and been interviewed much more often. There are very few interviews done with the witnesses that provide any additional information or corroboration of their statements. You would think that these people, after seeing such a magnificent sight, would spend their time testifying to the world about their experience instead of largely just signing a prepared statement and avoiding interviews by the media. Only three of the eight witnesses made separate statements that they had handled the plates. They were Joseph’s two brothers, Hyrum and Samuel, and John Whitmer.

1. And of course, it would have helped had all the witnesses remained loyal to the Church for the rest of their lives instead of having most of them abandoning it. It doesn’t make much sense to leave the one, true Church of God if you have received an indisputable witness that it was true. Why would these people risk being cast in Outer Darkness for all eternity for denying what they KNEW to be true unless they maybe had some doubts? ⁴⁵

And then there is Hypnotism

The 2014 American Psychological Association definition of hypnotic suggestibility;

“An individual’s ability to experience suggested alterations in physiology, sensations, emotions, thoughts, or behavior during hypnosis.” (APA, 2014)

A man they called Reveen, one of the world’s greatest concert hypnotists, put on a brilliant hypnotism show in the 1960s and 1970s. I attended more than a few of his performances and was greatly impressed by his ability to get regular people to do crazy things under a state of, “hypnosis.” He would have people shake hands and then tell them their hands were cemented together, and sure enough hard as they tried, they couldn’t separate them. I remember him telling one rather portly gentleman he was a famous ballerina after which he danced across the stage and doing pirouettes!

Incidentally, I was sitting in a typically dull sacrament meeting in Edmonton, Canada one Sunday when Raveen and his family walked in! Yes, he was a Mormon (at least for a time), and while touring would attend church.

We have often heard Joseph Smith described as charismatic and captivating, having a magnetic personality. Is it not possible that Joseph Smith understood the principles of hypnosis or mesmerism as it was called then? The English translation of Frans Anton Mesmer’s ground-breaking book, Mesmerism: The Discovery of Animal Magnetism (1779), was certainly known and available in the United States in Joseph’s day. No less than George Washington discussed Mesmer’s theories in a letter to the Marquis de Lafayette on November 25, 1784.

Put yourself in Martin’s place, you have a little formal education; you live in a place where news from the broader world is limited. Many perhaps most of your friends and family see the world as almost a mystical place. You believe in God, but you also believe in evil spirits and demons and witches and buried treasures. You have been affiliated with many churches and denominations, but none have excited you as much as Joe’s religion. You have invested heavily in this divine work, your time, your treasure, even your relationship with your wife have been sacrificed to the cause. You know the work is true. You know Joseph talks with God.

It is a beautiful warm morning as you go to the woods with David and Oliver and the Prophet. You have all knelt in prayer asking that the Lord will show you the plates, but nothing is happening. It must be you. You know how weak you are. You lack the faith of the others. You need to leave; you are ruining the experience for Oliver and David. Your heart aches as you walk on alone to another opening in the woods, where you again prey to your God for faith and forgiveness. Then suddenly Joseph is with you, comforting you and together you again knell down in prayer, with the prophet at your side, with your eyes closed.

You desire with all your heart, more than anything to have ever wanted to have the sure witness promised by a man you ‘know’ to be a true prophet of God, if only you could have enough faith.

 Joseph begins, slowly, in that monotone ‘conference-ease’ voice that all of today’s general authorities seek to emulate. Joseph prays, “Oh God, our heavenly Father, we come to you in fervent prayer and petition that you will show your dear and faithful servant, Martin the golden plates of which are spoken. Lord, I ask that you send an angel from your presence to show your loving servant Martin the same vision that your servants Joseph, David, and Oliver have been blessed with. That he may know the truth.”

“And Martin my brother, have faith in our Lord. Martin concentrate on the glory of God, forget all your daily cares, the Lord will take care of all your needs, put these foolish things out of your mind as you pray to our God to show unto you the golden plates, Martin with every breath you take feel the spirit fill you, Martin, the veil begins to lift, see the veil between this world and the heavens parting and behold…” and on and on and on.

Joseph goes on until he feels Martin is ready. Then Joseph declares, “Oh Martin can you see the angel, in that dazzling robe, so gloriously white? Martin can you see, look, he turns over the leaves one by one so that we can see, and discern the engravings thereon distinctly? He is talking to you, can you hear him, he says, ‘Martin, blessed is the Lord, and he that keeps His commandments;’ listen Martin, to that voice declaring, ‘These plates have been revealed by the power of God, and they have been translated by the power of God. The translation of them which you have seen is correct, and I command you to bear record of what you now see and hear.’ Oh Martin, blessed are you can you see, can you see?

Yes, Yes, you cry out in an ecstasy of joy, ’Tis enough; ’tis enough; mine eyes have beheld; mine eyes have beheld;’ and jumping up, you shout, ‘Hosanna,’ I bless God, I bless God.”

Was what Martin and the others saw a product of their own mind? Remember, by Harris’ own admission, everything he and the others saw came as a vision. Historical accounts reflect that the witnesses could very well have been induced to see the plates in a vision because of Smith’s mesmerizing methods. 

Smith persistently badgered them that only the faithful could see them. A persuasive but illogical technique Mormon missionaries still use today when they direct prospects to Moroni’s promise at the end of the Book of Mormon, which says that if one, “asks God, in the name of Christ, with a sincere heart, the truth will be manifest by the Holy Ghost.” 

One of the weakest arguments that members of the church too often make is that if a person sincerely prays to Heavenly Father, he will not be deceived, again the Holy Bible never gives that assurance. 2 Cor. 11:14 says that Satan often transforms himself into an angel of light, and 1 Timothy 4:1 warns of seducing spirits.
     
Did Smith use this same wily manipulative manner of intimidation? Did he pray upon these simple witnesses’ emotions, inducing them to conjure up a vision by telling them that God was not allowing them to see the plates because they were ‘not worthy’ and needed to ‘repent,’ and have ‘greater faith? Under this kind of pressure, is it possible that individuals will see exactly what they are expected to see? 

We know that Joseph had from an early age what only the most gifted revivalist preacher could boost of, the talent for making men see visions.

“An example of how Smith coerced the ‘Eight Witnesses’ to see a vision was told to the Governor of Illinois, Thomas Ford, by more than one of Smith’s key men:   
        
     ‘They [Smith’s men] told Ford that the witnesses were “set to continual prayer and other spiritual exercises.” Then, at last “he assembled them in a room and produced a box which he said contained the precious treasure. The lid was opened; the witnesses peeped into it, but making no discovery, for the box was empty, they said, “Brother Joseph, we do not see the plates.” The prophet answered them, “O ye of little faith! how long will God bear with this wicked and perverse generation? Down on your knees, brethren, every one of you, and pray God for the forgiveness of your sins, and for a holy and living faith which cometh down from heaven.” The disciples dropped to their knees and began to pray in the fervency of their spirit, supplicating God for more than two hours with fanatical earnestness; at the end of which time, looking again into the box, they were now persuaded that they saw the plates.”     

That they saw the plates in vision, or with their ‘spiritual eyes,’ rather than their natural eyes, makes it more likely, as Fawn Brodie notes in her book, ‘No Man Knows My History,’ ‘that the men were not conspirators but victims of Joseph’s unconscious but positive talent at hypnosis.’ 

The Three Witnesses and Hypnotic Susceptibility

Hypnotic susceptibility is a personality trait which remains remarkably stable over time. Hypnotizability, if I can call it that, or suggestibility have certain predictors.

Predictors and Correlates of Hypnotic Susceptibility

Absorption: Absorption is a disposition or personality trait in which a person becomes absorbed in their mental imagery, particularly fantasy. This trait thus correlates highly with a fantasy-prone personality. The original research on absorption was done by American psychologist Auke Tellegen.

      Fantasy Proneness: Fantasy Proneness: ‘Fantasy-prone personality’ (FPP) is an expression coined by psychologists Cheryl Wilson and Theodore Barber in a 1983 paper based on a small study on hypnotic susceptibility. Their work developed a theme put forth by Josephine R. Hilgard, a pioneer in the study of hypnosis. FPP is a personality peculiarity in which a person experiences a lifelong extensive and deep involvement in fantasy. This disposition is commonly described as having an “overactive imagination” or “living in a dream world.” An individual with this trait (termed a fantasizer) may have difficulty differentiating between fantasy and reality and may experience hallucinations, as well as self-suggested psychosomatic symptoms. This is closely related psychological constructs include absorption and eidetic memory.

Graham Wagstaff cautions against using the terms “suggestible” and “susceptible” interchangeably, about the extent to which one individual responds to incoming suggestions from another.  

“The two terms are not synonymous, however, as the latter term carries inherent negative bias absent from the neutral psychological factor described by suggestibility.”

In scientific research and academic literature on hypnosis and hypnotherapy, the term “suggestibility” describes a neutral psychological and possibly physiological state or phenomena. This is distinct from the culturally biased common parlance of the term “suggestible”. Both terms are often bound with undeserved negative social connotations not inherent in the word meanings themselves.

To be suggestible is not to be gullible. The latter pertains to an empirical objective fact that can be shown accurate or inaccurate to any observer; the former term does not. To be open to suggestion has no bearing on the accuracy of any incoming suggestions, nor whether such an objective accuracy is possible (as is with metaphysical belief).” ⁴⁶       

Hypnotic State, Suggestion, and Hypnotic Suggestion

Matthew Whalley provides clarification between a hypnotic state, suggestion and hypnoticsuggestion. He holds simply that a suggestion is hypnotic if it is delivered in the context of hypnosis. For example, if it is delivered after a hypnotic induction. The same suggestions can also be delivered outside of hypnosis, to a unhypnotized individual. In this, the latter case, it is known as a non-hypnotic suggestion or an imaginative suggestion. There is considerable research showing that hypnotic suggestions are only marginally more effective than imaginative suggestions. A fact that may be significant as we evaluate the three witnesses’ susceptibility.     

This brief discussion on hypnosis has shown that is not about a ‘battle of wills.’ People feel more comfortable when receiving positive suggestions in the understanding framework or context. People are less likely to resist the ideas for optimism or a positive perspective if they:  

1. Correspond with other ideas already held        
2. Contain positive rather than negative enforcement toward something good rather than away from something bad      
3. Flatter our self-identity to a level we accept.

Clearly, all three of these features were present regarding the ‘Three Witnesses.’ In fact, in every way, the position of the ‘Three Witnesses’ was ideal for a hypnotically-induced illusion or “vision.”

Was Smith trained in hypnosis or mesmerism, of course not, but neither were the magicians, priests, sorcerers or other charismatic individuals in the past who discovered it by accident?

How could the witnesses all make statements that suggest that their experience with the gold plates and the angel were visionary and later vehemently state they were real as you and I understand that word?

Remember a hypnotically-induced hallucination is very real to the person having it. In fact, it is only identifiable as a hallucination by someone other than the person hallucinating. If the individual having the hallucination recognized it as a hallucination, it would not then be a hallucination. It is almost impossible to convince a hallucinator that his or her experience is not real.

It is not that difficult to understand. Think of someone who witnesses a heated argument after school. When later asked about the “huge fight” that occurred, they recall the memory, but unknowingly exaggerate or distort it, because they now think of the event as a “huge fight” instead of a simple argument and the further away they get in time from the original event, the greater the distortion. There was no conscious attempt to mislead; it is just a feature of memory and the human mind.

There are, of course, examples of where suggestibility can also be seen in extremes which result in negative consequences.

Many a witness’ testimony is altered because the police make ‘suggestions’ during an interview, which causes that individual’s already uncertain observations to become distorted memories.

Another example might be a young girl suffering migraine headaches leading to sleep deprivation and depression. Her therapist, a specialist in child sexual abuse, repeatedly asked her whether her father had sexually abused her. This persistent suggestion causes the young girl to fabricate memories of her father molestation, which leads to her being placed in foster care and her father being tried on charges of abuse.

Were the ‘Three Witnesses’ targets of hypnosis or suggestion? We can only speculate, but one must consider the power Joseph Smith had over his followers and the differential in intellect and authority between these simple men and an ambitious, self-assured Svengali. 

The subject’s attitude towards authority plays an important part as well. It has been long known that army officers are much more difficult to hypnotize than enlisted men and women. Why? Because enlisted men and women, through the process of indoctrination and training, are taught to obey and follow orders without thought or reason. The transference of authority by Smith was readily accomplished then as it is now through the authoritarian construction and structure of the Church.

Apologists Responses to the Witnesses to the Book of Mormon

In what I assume was a presentation delivered at the FairMormon Conference in 2004, this apologist begins with the comment, “Columbus started on faith, Edison started on faith, and it’s that faith that is called a hypothesis in this scientific method. You have to conceive of something in terms of imagination and logical extension, extrapolation, before you ever really verify something beyond your little reality and so we’re really dealing with that basic issue below.”

Well, where do I start? The writer does not understand the scientific method nor for that matter faith. Faith and a hypothesis are not the same thing. A hypothesis is where – after doing your research, you try to predict the answer to your problem. Another term for a hypothesis is an ‘educated guess.’

Merriam-Webster defines ‘Faith’ as “a firm belief in something for which there is no proof.”

Columbus was a self-taught man, but he was not an ignorant man, ‘after doing his research,’ he set out to find to find a western sea route to China, India, and the fabled gold and spice islands of Asia.

He was aware that Pythagoras in the sixth century B.C. proved the earth was round, and that Aristotle in the fourth century B.C. provided the physical evidence, such as the shadow of the Earth on the moon, and like all sailors, he witnessed the curvature of the Earth approaching land.

I would suggest to you that my approach to the ‘witnesses’ to the Book of Mormon is a true application of the scientific method. I didn’t start with ‘faith’ I started by doing my research. Then I formulated the hypotheses that the ‘witnesses’ did not see the plates, angels, et cetera, with their ‘real’ eyes and/or they, for reasons best known to themselves, were not truthful.

The author of this article I quoted above goes on to beg the question, “Why in their personal statements do the eight witnesses consistently use the formulaic language that they ‘saw’ and ‘hefted’ and ‘handled’ rather than using other language or giving greater detail? Doesn’t this suggest a conspiracy?” Which he then goes on to answer his own question, “I come back to this issue where John Whitmer said if you doubt what happened… if you want my testimony go read it. I don’t see ‘hefted’ as formulaic. I think that’s, as I said, a very specific term of the period meaning they tried to estimate their weight. And whether it’s William Smith estimating the weight when he got handed the plates in a sack or the tow frock in the house when Joseph brought them home; or Martin Harris estimating the weight as he held the plates in a box, 40 to 60 pounds is basically what anybody who lifted the plates say.” ⁴⁷  
      All this is, of course, meaningless as Joseph Smith carefully crafted the witness affidavits, which the individual witnesses simply signed.

The witnesses are a hard call. They clearly state they saw the plates and the angel. But there are also many statements made by the witnesses themselves that their admissions were more visionary than real. The Witnesses,’ particularly Martin Harris’s, use of terms such as, ‘second sight,’ ‘with spiritual eyes,’ ‘visions of the mind,’ or through the “eyes of our understanding,” certainly give one pause.

I think to truly understand the Book of Mormon witnesses; one must appreciate the magical worldview people held in early 19^th Century in the backwoods of New England. Many folks believed in folk magic, visions, glass looking, divining rods, second sight, peep stones, treasure hunting and so on. 

Additionally, several issues call into question the witnesses’             independence. All had close ties to Joseph and his family. Martin Harris had a substantial financial stake in the success of the Book of Mormon. And to be kind, the witnesses were not society’s ‘cream of the crop.’

As well they all left the Church at some point and most held Joseph Smith in very low esteem as he did them. Joseph Smith said Dec 16, 1838, “Such characters as McLellin, John Whitmer, David Whitmer, Oliver Cowdrey, and Martin Harris are too mean to mention; and we had liked to have forgotten them.” ⁴⁸

David Whitmer—like the other witnesses—had been charged with being deluded into thinking he had seen an angel and the plates. Joseph Smith III remembered when David was such accused and said:         

“How well and distinctly I remember the manner in which Elder Whitmer arose and drew himself up to his full height—a little over six feet—and said, in solemn and impressive tones: ‘No sir! I was not under any hallucination, nor was I deceived! I saw with these eyes, and I heard with these ears! I know whereof I speak!’.

Martin Harris used the same qualifying statements to describe his experience in 1829:

“In introducing us, Mr. Godfrey said, ‘Brother Harris, I have brought these young men to hear your statement as to whether or not you believe the Book of Mormon to be true.’ His face was turned to the wall. He turned and faced us and said, ‘Now I don’t believe, but I know it to be true, for with these eyes I saw the angel and with these ears I heard him say it was a true and correct record of an ancient people that dwelt upon this the American continent’. ⁴⁹

As I had mentioned above, a hypnotically-induced hallucination is very real to the person having it. In fact, it is only identifiable as a hallucination by someone other than the person hallucinating. I have said it before, but it is worth repeating, if the individual having the hallucination recognized it as a hallucination, it would not then be a hallucination. It is almost impossible to convince a hallucinator that his or her experience was not real.

FAIRMORMON COMMENTS

“Several witnesses to the Book of Mormon confessed that they did not see the plates with their natural eyes, but with ‘visions of the mind.’ 

DOUGLAS’ RESPONSE

Visions of the mind, spiritual eyes, the eye of faith, second sight and the like are terms that differentiate from our natural eyes.

     There are myriad examples, many of which I have referenced in my letter that is used to indicate something other than physical sight. While I agree that hostile newspapers made hay over some of the statements made by Harris, there is no question he did make well-verified statements describing his ‘second sight’ as being something other than what we normally think of when we use the word sight.

Chapter References

1 Ronald W. Walker, “Martin Harris:   
 

2 John A. Clark letter, August 31, 1840, in EMD, 2: 271

3 Martin Harris-Witness & Benefactor, BYU 1955 Thesis, Wayne C. Gunnell, p.52.) 

4 Latter-Day Saints, Millennial Star, Vol 8 pp124-128

5 Wayne Sentinel, May 27, 1831 as quoted in Richard Anderson, Investigating the Book of Mormon Witnesses, 1981

6 Rochester Daily Democrat, June 23, 1841, as quoted in Richard Anderson, Investigating the Book of Mormon Witnesses, 1981

7 Pomeroy Tucker reminiscence, 1858, in Vogel & 1996-2003, 3: 71

Education and Intelligence

8 “The Passing of Martin Harris,” in the Improvement Era Vol. 29, No. 5 (March 1926):

9 George Godfrey, “Testimony of Martin Harris,” from an unpublished manuscript copy in the possession of his daughter, Florence (Godfrey) Munson of Fielding, Utah; quoted in Eldin Ricks, The Case of the Book of Mormon Witnesses (Salt Lake City: Deseret News Press, 1971), 65–66 (Is that third hand?)

10 Warren Parris to E. Holmes, August 11, 1838.

11 Stephen Burnett, Early Mormon Documents, 2:288-93

12 Martin Harris, (Anthony Metcalf, Ten Years Before the Mast, n.d., microfilm copy, p. 70-71

13 Early Mormon Documents, 2:346-47

14 Letter from Stephen Burnett to “Br. Johnson,” April 15, 1838, in Joseph Smith Letter Book, p. 2

15 Mormonism: Its Origin, Rise, and Progress, p.71

16 Early Mormon Documents 2:270 and 3:22

17 Eric Nelson, Leaving the Church, Part 9 Oct. 24, 2015

18 History of the Mormonites, Kirtland, 1831. Josiah Jones, The Evangelist  (1 June 1831) p.406

19 The Braden & Kelly Debate, p. 173 

20 Palmyra Reflector, March 19, 1831

21 Biographical Sketches, Lucy Smith, pp. 211-213 

22David Whitmer, An Address to All Believers in Christ 
Statements by Whitmer that He Saw the Gold Plates and the Angel in Vision

23 Interview with John Murphy, June 1880, Early    Mormon   Documents 5:63

24 Moyle diary, June 28, 1885, in Early Mormon Documents, Dan Vogel, Signature Book, Salt Lake City, October 1996

25 Early Mormon Documents, Dan Vogel, Signature Book, Salt Lake City, October 1996, 2:346-47

26 Early Mormon Documents, Dan Vogel, Signature Book, Salt Lake City, October 1996, 2:346-47

27 David Whitmer, to Anthony Metcalf, 2 April 1887; printed in A[nthony] Metcalf, Ten Years before the Mast (Malad City, Idaho: n.p., 1888, 73-74

28 Millennial Star, vol. XL, pp. 771-772 

29 Grant Palmer, An Insider’s View of Mormon Origins, Chapter 6

30 Deseret Evening News, 6 Aug. 1878

31 Marvin S. Hill, “Brodie Revisited: A Reappraisal,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, (Winter, 1972): pp. 83-84

32 Early Mormon Documents, 3:177-79

33 Grant Palmer, An Insider’s View of Mormon Origins  Chapter

34 The True Origin of The Book of Mormon, Charles Shook, 1914, pp. 58-59

35 Defense in a Rehearsal of My Grounds for Separating Myself from the Latter-Day Saints,” Presley Job Office, Norton, Ohio, 1839

36 Seasons and Times, Vol 2, p. 482 

37 Martin Harris, (Anthony Metcalf, Ten Years Before the Mast, n.d., microfilm copy, p. 70-71)

38 Early Mormon Documents, 2:346-47

39 “He only saw the plates with a spiritual eye

40 Joseph Smith Begins His Work, Vol. 1, 1958

41 Letter from Stephen Burnett to “Br. Johnson,” April 15, 1838, in Joseph Smith Letter Book, p. 2.

42 Early Mormon Documents 1:497

43 Anthony Metcalf, Ten Years Before the Mast, n.d., microfilm copy, p. 70

44 Facts on the Book of Mormon Witnesses, Jole B. Groat, July 8, 2011, Institute for Religious Research The Book of Mormon Witnesses, Recovery From Mormonism, http://exmormon.org/d6/drupal/file9

45 September 7, 2014, in Book of Mormon, Fred Anson, Mormon Studies

46 Wagstaff, Graham F. (1991). “Suggestibility: A social psychological approach.”  Florence Kentucky: Taylor & Frances/Routledge. p. 141

47 Unnamed source, 2004 FairMormon Conference

48 History of the Church, Vol 3, p232 

 49https://www.fairmormon.org/answers/Question:_Could_Joseph_Smith_have_hypnotized_the  _witnesses

50 – Letter from Edmund C. Briggs to Joseph Smith III, 4 June 1884

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