"Even if. every parallel [in the Book of Mormon] were the purest
coincidence, we would still have to explain how the Prophet contrived to
pack such a dense succession of happy accidents into the scriptures he
gave us. Where the world has a perfect right to expect a great potpourri
of the most outrageous nonsense, and in anticipation has indeed rushed to
judgment with all manner of premature accusations, we discover whenever
ancient texts turn up to offer the necessary checks and controls, that the
man was astonishingly on target in his depiction of general situations, in
the almost casual mention of peculiar oddities, in the strange proper
names, and countless other unaccountable details.... As the evidence
accumulates, it is not the Prophet but his critics who find themselves
with a lot of explaining to do."
—The Prophetic Book of Mormon (1989), 325-26, quoted in Echoes and
Evidences, of the Book of Mormon