Examining the
Book of Mormon
 

“I told the bretheren that the Book of Mormon was the most correct of any book on earth, and the keystone of our religion, and a man would get nearer to God by abiding by it’s precepts, than by any other book. DHC 4:461, November 28,1841”

    –Joseph Smith Jr. (The Teachings of the Prophet       

    Joseph Smith, p. 194)

 

 

If the original 1830 Book of Mormon was inspired then why were there so many errors, changes, additions and deletions, when compared to current editions?

 

If the book were true and inspired why would it need so many changes?  A couple named Gerald and Sandra Tanner have counted 3913 changes in the Book of Mormon, excluding punctuation changes.

 

In the Mormon Article of Faith #8,

 

“We believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly; we also believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God.”

 

Why is the phrase, “as far as it is translated correctly”, only added there to describe the Bible and not the Book of Mormon, when in fact the Book of Mormon has had far more translating errors than the Bible.

The King James Version, from 1611 went untouched, undisputed, and remained steadfast for 300 years. When the new modern Bible versions began to appear, they, in fact were the ones containing errors due to the fact that they were from different manuscripts, which have been proven to be corrupt, and not the originals. 

(see last page for details on references)

 

It is very apparent that just as soon as someone starts to teach another gospel, another Jesus, or another doctrine than that which we have received, they need a handy little version of their own to be able to convince people of their version of the gospel.

 

ERRORS IN THE BOOK OF  MORMON

 

Why does the Book of Mormon mention Bellows (1 Nephi 17:11), Brass (2 Nephi 5:15), Breast Plates & Copper (Mosiah 8:10), Iron and Silver (Jarom 1:8), Gold and Silver currency (Alma 11),  and Steel Swords (Ether 7:9)????

No evidence indicates that these items existed during Book of Mormon times.  

“Metallurgy (science or technology of metals) does not appear in the region until about the 9th century A.D.”  Tom Ferguson

 

Why does the Book of Mormon mention the following animals: Ass, Bull, Calf, Cattle, Cow, domestic Goat (the Nephites claimed to have found the domestic goat!), Horse (the horse plays a major role in the Nephite and Lamanite societies), Ox, domestic Sheep, Sow, Swine, and Elephants.  None of these animals existed in America during Book of Mormon times. However, why are none of theses animals mentioned  when they are the one’s that did actual exist during that time? The Coatimundis, Deer, Jaguars, Tapir, Monkeys, Sloths, Turkeys, ect……????

Why are Greek names such as Lachoneus, Timothy, Jonas, and Alpha & Omega in a book that should have absolutely no Greek influence?

 

The Nephi Golden Plates

 

Why did the angel take the plates back to Heaven? Don’t they belong to man? Wouldn’t their existence prove that Mormonism is truth?  God allowed the Jews to carry the 10- Commandments for several centuries in their original form, written by the finger of God.

How did Joseph Smith carry home the golden plates and how did the witnesses lift them so easily

? (They weighed about 230 lbs.  Gold, with a density of 19.3 weighs 1204.7 lbs. per cubic foot. The plates were 7” x 8” by about 6”. See Articles of Faith, by Talmage, p. 262, 34th ed.)

Why were the witnesses only allowed to see the plates with “spiritual eyes”? If the plates were real, why would it take faith to see them?

(Doctrines & Covenants 17:2)

How could he have translated without the plates, as his scribes said, if he was doing a literal translation of a physical object?

 

Similarities of the KJV of the Bible

 

Why does the Book of Mormon use old KJV type English at a time when it was not currently used?  Why is about 1/8

th

of the B of M copied directly from the 1611 KJV when it was supposed to have been written some 1200-2000 years before the KJV existed?

 

How do you explain the fact that Joseph Smith copied from the KJV but deleted the italicized words in the KJV? Maybe because he figured out that they were not in the original??? Here is an example, Isaiah 6:5;  Then said I, Woe

is me! for I am undone; because I am

a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: ……the words is & am are deleted in the Book of Mormon.

Why are statements that Paul said referred to before his time? (i.e. Paul said, “Death where is thy sting” in Alma 22:14 and Mormon 7:5)

From the KJV,  I Cor, 15:54-55.

Alma 22:14,

   And since man had fallen he could not merit anything of himself; but the sufferings and death of Christ atone for their sins, through faith and repentance, and so forth; and that he breaketh the bands of death, that the grave shall have no victory, and that the sting of death should be swallowed up in the hopes of glory; and Aaron did expound all these things unto the king.                                 

Mormon 7:5,

   Know ye that ye must come to the knowledge of your fathers, and repent of all your sins and iniquities, and believe in Jesus Christ, that he is the Son of God, and that he was slain by the Jews, and by the power of the Father he hath risen again, whereby he hath gained the victory over the grave; and also in him is the sting of death swallowed up.

 

Why do the words of Malchi 4:1 appear in 1 Nephi 22:15 over 100 years before Malachi wrote them?

Malachi 4:1

For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.

 

1 Nephi 22:15,

15 For behold, saith the prophet, the time cometh speedily that Satan shall have no more power over the hearts of the children of men; for the day soon cometh that all the proud and they who do wickedly shall be as stubble; and the day cometh that they must be burned.

 

Why do so many stories seem like exaggerated borrowings from the Bible?

Examples:

 

  • Ammon killed six sheep rustlers with a sling (Alma 17:36), vs. David killing Goliath with a sling (I Samuel 17:50)

 

  • The Lord instructs Noah to build the Ark (Gen.6:14), vs. The Lord instructs Nephi to build a ship (1 Nephi 17:8), and the Jaredites to build barges (Ether 2:16) in which he brought flocks two of a kind just like Noah.

 

  • Aminadi deciphered writing on the wall (Alma 10:2-3), vs. Daniel and writing on wall (Dan. 5)

There are many more errors, questions, and similarities. The B of M is only an imaginary book imitating the Word of God.

 

A PERSONAL TESTIMONY

 

2 Nephi Chapter 5 of the Book of Mormon – Metals

 

I explain in

my story

that metallurgy in the Book of Mormon was one of the reasons I no longer believe the Book of Mormon to be a story of real people. Here is an article about a portion of the Book of Mormon – metallurgy.

In 2Ne5:5 Nephi and his family and friends separate from the Lamanites 12 years after landing in the Americas. They quickly develop a complex metallurgical culture that other civilizations in history required centuries to create. Here are the cast of characters:

*Nephi and family – wife and possibly a possibly some children
*Zoram and his family – wife and possibly some children
*Sam and his family – again a family
*Jacob – a young man or boy
*Joseph – an even younger man or boy
*Others of Nephi’s sisters – perhaps as many as 3-4 women.

*”and all those who would go with me”. That could at best be a few of Ishmael’s family. So let’s give some credit here to 4 more men, 4 more women and a few more children even though these extra people are never mentioned in the Book of Mormon.

These total to (again these are HIGHER estimates than the story allows): 8 men, 15 children, 10 women.

 

Mormons could argue for slightly different numbers of people, but for the sake of the story it really does not matter. The numbers are small, very small. A few Mormons have written me and the highest number given me is 500 people. That 500 people could already exist as Nephites is a great leap of faith in Nephite procreation.

Now from the Book of Mormon:

2Ne5:14-16 “14.) And I, Nephi, did take the sword of Laban, and after the manner of it did make many swords… 15.) 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

. 16.) And I, Nephi, did build a temple; and I did construct it after the temple of Solomon save it were not built of so many precious things; for they were not to be found upon the land, wherefore, it could not be built like unto Solomon’s temple. But the manner of the construction was like unto the temple of Solomon…”

I have both a BS and MS in metallurgical engineering, so I think I can speak with some authority here.

How likely is it that 8 men, 15 children and 10 women, who just fled into the wilderness, would be able to do the following? Just for fun, is this any more plausible with a society of 500 people, most of them children?

Steel making – this is complex all by itself – mixing iron with carbon, Iron mining and manufacturing – the production of elemental iron from iron ore, Coal mining – coal is required in the production of iron and is refined into coke, Limestone mining – limestone is also required, Tin or zinc mining – depending on the definition of “brass”, Refining and manufacturing of tin or zinc since they do not occur in an elemental state in nature, Smelting, Fluxing, Grinding, Roasting – to eliminate sulfur in copper, silver and some iron ores, Copper mining, Complex furnaces – to have reduction atmospheres to produce the metals, Mining tools – where did the hardened tools come from to start with? Prospecting – how did they know how to identify ores? Gold mining, Silver mining, Complex wood working – a small replica of Solomon’s temple.

 

How could a few people run a complex metallurgical culture in the wilderness and at the same time make shelters, get food and just plain survive? This is only a few years after coming to the American continent by boat. Some LDS apologists refer to meteoric iron as the raw material Nephites had used. This is quite unlikely as there is no archeological evidence that meteoric iron fragments were used beyond simple ornamental items like crude mirrors or decorations. The meteoric iron would have to be melted then mixed with correct percentages of carbon to make steel. That is as a complex of a technology as producing elemental iron, so which ever way you look at it, the possibility is incredibly remote that steel was manufactured.

Let us look at more claims.

They were working with copper!!

This requires roasting (remove the sulfides with oxygen) and a completely different set of metallurgical processes than steel making. Native copper, which requires no processing, is quite rare. If Nephi were referring to native copper, there would have been no need to “train” in it as it is already in its elemental state and easily workable. Some LDS apologists have written me saying that the Nephites went all the way to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to get their copper. They traveled thousands of miles for some metal? Mormons can not have it both ways. LDS scholars claim Nephites lived in only a very small geographical area of South America. To also claim they traveled thousands of miles to do their mining is grossly straining credibility. They developed brass!! They had to learn how to make alloys with copper. They would have had to then develop zinc and/or tin mines with these metallic elements each requiring different metallurgical processes to extract the metals from the ore. How bizarre can the story get? It gets worse….

They were working with precious ores. This adds gold and silver mining to the list and different metallurgical methods again are required for processing the ore.

This was all done with 8 men, 10 women and 15 or so children. How could I have ever believed it? But it gets even worse yet….

They then went and built a temple like Solomon’s. Solomon’s Temple was built by, according to the Bible, 180,000 men over a period of 7 years. Since Nephi would have been familiar with what that temple was like. How could he possibly even imagine that 8 men and 10 women, along with running their mining and manufacturing industries, build a temple that could be compared to it?

I could go on about the self contradictory statements in the verses like precious ores being in abundance and then not being there in the very next verse. The story is so absurd that it alone should keep a rational person from believing in the Book of Mormon.

And to top it off, no archeological evidence supports mining activity, which leaves indestructible evidence, during the Book of Mormon period in Central America where nearly all LDS apologists claim the Book of Mormon peoples lived. What is more likely – a handful of people developed an unprecedented and “yet to be discovered” complex metallurgical society or that the Book of Mormon is a fairy tale?

 

Does Revelation 22:18 Condemn the Book of Mormon? By Bill McKeever

“For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book.”

Many Christians wonder if this passage speaks directly to the extra biblical books of Mormonism, specifically the

Book of Mormon

. In our opinion it does not. The context of verse 18 seems to speak directly to the book of Revelation, the last book of the Bible written by the apostle John while he was in exile on the island of Patmos.
In the November 20, 1999 issue of the LDS Church News (p.14), an article entitled “Warning applies to the book of Revelation” quotes LDS president Howard Hunter, who, while serving as an apostle for the LDS Church, responded to this query by saying,

“A careful reading of the words makes it clear that the warning against adding or taking away does not refer to the whole Bible or even to the New Testament, but to use John’s words, on the words of the ‘book of this prophecy.’ That is, the prophecy contained in the book of Revelation.”

We would agree. Still, confining this warning to just the book of Revelation does not get Joseph Smith off the hook entirely. Actually, the Bible contains other warnings regarding those who would attempt to put words in God’s mouth. These include Deuteronomy 4:2;

“Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you.” And Proverbs 30:6 states “Add thou not unto his words, lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar.”

If both passages were strictly speaking to the problem of adding scripture to the canon, it could be argued that nothing should have been written (or accepted) after Moses penned Deuteronomy since it contains the first of such admonitions. In both cases these passages address the temptation for anyone to presumptuously speak for God. God does not take lightly those who would pretend to speak for Him when they were not authorized to do so. In fact, to be found guilty of speaking for God when God did not speak warranted the death penalty according to Deuteronomy 18:20, “But the prophet, which shall presume to speak a word in my name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or that shall speak in the name of other gods, even that prophet shall die.”

The real issue lies in whether or not Joseph Smith was really acting as a mouthpiece for the Almighty. Did he truly reflect the mind and will of God by his teachings? Or did he inject his own views into what is today referred to as the “restored gospel”? Since it is obvious that his teachings conflict in many respects with those of the Bible, we must choose the latter.