Response Page | Book Of Mormon Page

My claims for the Book of Mormon have produced the following types of responses:

Have you ever bothered to investigate the true origins of the Book of Mormon (from sources other than the church itself)? You might be surprised to learn just how strong a case can be made that the book came from a stolen fiction manuscript.

The more generous ones think that: it was a fraud perpetrated by Joseph Smith and a few accomplices. The more informed ones mention the fact that a book was published privately (as a book of "inspirational fiction") about 20 years before Smith came out with the Book of Mormon, which is for the most part identical to it.

From what I have learned from ex-Mormons, the "mounting evidence" points the OTHER way.

One of the theories for the origin of the Book of Mormon states that Joseph plagerized a book by Solomon Spaulding. This book does deal with ancient inhabitants of North America, but Joseph would have had to use much more than the Spaulding manuscript to come up with the Book of Mormon. There are many things in the Book of Mormon that correctly relate to the setting of the Book of Mormon that are known now but were not known by anyone in the world at the time of Joseph Smith.

Let me start by giving a brief description of the historical nature of the Book of Mormon.

The Book of Mormon deals with the history of three groups of people.

1. Lehi and his family who left Jerusalem about 600 BC before the destruction of Jerusalem. The Book of Mormon follows their history up until 400 AD including a visit by the resurrected Christ to this continent after His ministry in Palestine.

2. Mulekites - A second group that had left at the time of the destruction of Jerusalem. This group brought no records with them.

3. Jaredites - A group that came to America at the time of the tower of Babel.

Now let me also explain what the Book of Mormon is not:

1. It is not a history of these people. The history is incidental to the main message of the Book which is to be a second witness for Christ.

2. The Book of Mormon is not a history of all the inhabitants of the American continents. In fact the Book of Mormon may have covered only a small part of the inhabitants of this land.

3. It is not a history of the Lost Tribes of Israel. Those tribes are still lost.

I will show through the course of this discussion that the Book of Mormon is supported by both internal and external evidences. That to assume that Joseph used a book like Spaulding's ignores the content of the Book of Mormon. I will show that no mortal man had the capability to publish such a book. I can not prove that it is true, I can only prove that it was not produced out of New York state (or anywhere) in the early 1800's.