Who wrote the Book of Mormon?

[Peace]

I am intriqued by the Mormons, otherwise known as the LDS. They sprang up about the same time the 7th-day Adventist movement was formed and people sometimes confuse us with them...SDA versus LDS.

Mormons believe that their prophet, Joseph Smith, discovered gold plates buried in the ground and Joseph Smith had the writings on the gold plates transcribed into the Book of Mormon. Many are skeptic as to how the Book of Mormon actually orginated.

What are your thoughts?

[Neil D]

There are rumors that the book of mormon was written by a man that Joseph Smith worked for a short time. He wrote the book, a fictional piece, because he wanted to give the reader something to puzzle about...and based it upon some local evidence. The author died, but his wife says that the BoM had some minor changes, generally was her husbands book that disappeared. She read the book and said that except for the religious stuff, the book was the same as her husbands...

of course, she was many years old, and looked upon as being somewhat senile...

[Peace]

Where did you get that information?

[Neil D]

There are a few books that have researched it...I read about this 20 years ago...I have forgotten most of the information...Seems to me that I used to have a book on that information....but where it is, I know not...

after googling BoM, I found this from Amazon and the book-

Joseph Smith and the Origins of the Book of Mormon by David Persuitte

Synopsis

Just as a growing interest in millennialism at the turn of this century has rejuvenated religious debate and questions concerning the fate of the world, so did Mormonism develop from millennial enthusiasm early in the nineteenth century. Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism, and a provocative, even controversial figure in history, declared that he had been given the authority to restore the true church in the latter days. The primary source of Smith's latter-day revelation is The Book of Mormon, and to fully understand his role as the founder of the Mormon faith, one must also understand The Book of Mormon and how it came to be. Unfortunately, the literature about Joseph Smith and The Book of Mormon is permeated with contradiction and controversy. In the first edition of this impressive work, David Persuitte provided a significant amount of revealing biographical information about Smith that resolved many of the controversies concerning his character. He also presented an extensive comparative analysis positing that the probable conceptual source for The Book of Mormon was a book entitled View of the Hebrews; or the Tribes of Israel in America, which was written by an early New England minister named Ethan Smith. Now in an expanded and revised second edition incorporating many new findings relating to the origin of The Book of Mormon, Mr. Persuitte’s book continues to shed much new light on the path Joseph Smith took toward founding the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

I wish you well on your understanding of the BoM...

[John317]

Have you read the Mormon version of how the Book of Mormon was "translated" from the "reformed Egyptian"?

[rush4hire]

If you haven't seen "The God Makers", you can see a low fi version here:

Part 1

Part 2

The Bible speaks of many places that still exist today, but the Book of Mormon speaks of places that never existed, except in a fiction author's imagination. There is so much archaeological and historical evidence that shows the Bible to be a historical document, but the Book of Mormon gets everything wrong. For instance, in the Americas they didn't have horses and barley and things like you see in the Book of Mormon.

For more information about that, watch: The Bible VS. The Book of Mormon

I was talking to some owners of a computer shop in the Philippines. They asked about my religion, (they do that alot in the Philippines), so I said "Seventh Day Adventist", just as clear as you could possibly say it. But she said: "Ohh. I have relatives that are Latter-Day Saints."

I was mad.

I explained there was a big difference between SDA and LDS.

The LDS movement is really an abomination. I think it's the Devil's attempt to confuse people about the Adventist movement. The things in common seem more than a coincidence:

1. A prophet.

2. Extra-Biblical writings.

3. A focus on the reality that we are living in the last days.

4. Pointing out the corruption in nominal churches.

5. The concept of a "true church" or "remnant church".

6. Renunciation of tea, coffee, tobacco, alcohol.

7. House to house work.

8. Three letter initials that both have S and D in them, (SDA - LDS)

(SDA backward is ADS, which sounds like LDS)

I don't know how many times I've heard the phrase: "LDS, SDA, and JW". Like the "big three", main-stream Christian cults that we need to be aware of and be sure to avoid. Like Ford, Chevy, Chrysler, the "big 3" in American car manufacturing.

I can't help but believe this is prophetic. Notice Jesus is crucified between 2 thieves. Notice how the Jewish council compared Christianity with 2 other cults.

[color:#BF0000]Acts 5:36 For before these days rose up Theudas, boasting himself to be somebody; to whom a number of men, about four hundred, joined themselves: who was slain; and all, as many as obeyed him, were scattered, and brought to nought.

5:37 After this man rose up Judas of Galilee in the days of the taxing, and drew away much people after him: he also perished; and all, [even] as many as obeyed him, were dispersed.

5:38 And now I say unto you, Refrain from these men, and let them alone: for if this counsel or this work be of men, it will come to nought:

5:39 But if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it; lest haply ye be found even to fight against God.

But now, such abominations are actually allowed to prosper.

[color:#BF0000]Daniel 8:12 And an host was given [him] against the daily [sacrifice] by reason of transgression, and it cast down the truth to the ground; and it practiced, and prospered.

Daniel 7:21 I beheld, and the same horn made war with the saints, and prevailed against them;

Rev. 13:7 And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations.

[Peace]

No, John317...what is the Mormon version of how the book was translated?

[John317]

The official teaching of the Mormons is that the Book of Mormon was written on the American continent by ancestors of the Indians in a language called "the Reformed Egyptian." (No such language has ever been shown by linguists to have existed.) These people were descendants of Hebrews.

The angel Moroni told Joseph Smith where to find them. He also told Joseph who he could show the plates to, and the angel said that Joseph would be destroyed if he showed them to anyone else.

Inside the box with the gold and brass plates, Joseph found a pair of something like glasses which, when he wore them, he could decipher the Reformed Egyptian written on the plates.

He took the plates into a room that was enclosed within a curtain, and from that room, inside the curtain, Joseph Smith dictated what he read on the plates when wearing the glasses-like apparatus-- called the "Urim and Thummin."

These men in turn would write what Joseph Smith would dictate to them from the plates. They could never see Joseph as he was doing the actual work of "dictation."

(Interesting to note is that the Book of Mormon contains many pages of various books of the Old Testament which were "dictated" in the same words as the 1611 King James Version. There are some slight variations on some of those verses, but essentially they repeat the KJV word for word, even down to the mistakes that the KJV translators made. Joseph Smith's dictation from a supposedly ancient text did not make any corrections of the KJV translation of the Old Testament.)

These men did not understand the Reformed Egyptian language, of course, but they signed a document stating that the Book of Mormon was a true and accurate translation of the plates. (How they knew this to be true, I can't figure out.)

After the plates were translated, Joseph Smith said that an angel took them back to heaven.

(However, a religious organization, the Rosicrusians (sp.?), claim to have the original plates in their possession in San Jose, CA. No proof of this, of course. According to them, then, the angel either lied to Joseph Smith or else Joseph Smith lied.)

It may also be worthy of note that the men who took Joseph Smith's dictation were later disfellowshipped by the Mormon Church and were accused of lying about other matters. However, the Mormons say they are absolutely certain that these men told the truth 100% about the Book of Mormon.

[Peace]

Rush, how long does it take to load those videos you suggested? They're not coming up.

[Peace]

I have been to the San Jose Rosicrusian Egyptian Museum twice and have never seen the plates.

What do you know about the blood atonement?

[John317]

Rush, how long does it take to load those videos you suggested? They're not coming up.

Those videos aren't working from the link Rush supplied. At least for me either.

[John317]

I've heard things about it but I don't know enough to talk about it. I would need to study it before. Gary Gilmore was supposed to have believed in it, which is why he wanted the state of Utah to execute him. Remember Gary?

[John317]

I have been to the San Jose Rosicrusian Egyptian Museum twice and have never seen the plates.

Don't hold your breath. Whether they ever did exist is problematical to say the least. My own belief is that Joseph Smith did not make everything up.

[rush4hire]

Rush, how long does it take to load those videos you suggested? They're not coming up.

They don't "come up" as in start playing right away in your browser or Windows Media player.

You have to download the files and play them in some media player. I recommend VLC, found at http://www.videolan.org/ That player plays about every format there is. It comes with lots of codecs.

Those videos are 200, 30, and 250 MB, so they might take awhile to download, depending on your internet speed. On that host, I guess the out speed is about 256 KB / sec. That's a guess, 'cause my speed here is only 56 KB/s. But if that where true, it should only take about 13 minutes to download the 200 MB file.

Free Download Manager might help for downloading several big files. It's free...

And another funny thing, when you translate something from an ancient language, you would put it in the dialect of the time, and not one spoken hundreds of years ago.

Enos 1:5 And there came a avoice unto me, saying: Enos, thy sins are forgiven thee, and thou shalt be blessed.

http://scriptures.lds.org/en/enos/1

[Peace]

Now that's a new one for me. I've never heard of the glasses he had to wear to read the plates. Maybe that's where Harry Potter got his. JK

I understand also that Joseph Smith had a "peep stone" which he would put in his hat and from there he was given divine revelation of the texts which he would relate to someone to write down. Sounds like spiritualism to me.

[Woody]

What ever happened to that poster who came and tried to convert us to Mormonism? OR was he just a drive-by shooter gone by the wayside?

[Nan]

I think he must have felt he was casting The Pearl of Great Price before swine.

[Pickle]

While the Mormons teach that Joseph Smith used the Urim and Thumim glasses to translate the golden plates, the RLDS folks teach differently.

The RLDS teach that Joseph Smith put a chocolate-colored stone in a hat, and then put his face in the hat, and then the translation would come before his eyes in the darkness of the hat. He would then dictate that.

[Pickle]

I was talking to two Mormon missionaries in Natchez, MS, back around 1989 or so. They gave me a study and then urged me to read the Book of Mormon. I asked them how Smith knew where the plates were. They said that the angel Moroni told him where they were. I asked them who the angel Moroni was. They said he was someone who died and went to heaven.

I said I had a problem, then. What I needed them to do for me was find Bible passages that would give a different view of things than Eccl. 9:5, 6, and verses like that. They said they would look for some.

Next time we got together they gave me just such a passage ... from the Book of Mormon. I was disappointed.

[John317]

What ever happened to that poster who came and tried to convert us to Mormonism? OR was he just a drive-by shooter gone by the wayside?

I didn't know about him. I'm sincerely sorry I missed him.

I begin by talking to them about their own books. There's a surprisingly close relationship between their beliefs and SDA beliefs. There are huge differences, of course, too.

[Pickle]

Dave Hunt in, I think, Seduction of Christianity, cited the Journal of Discourses. I contacted some Mormons around where I was at in MS to see if I could verify what Hunt had quoted. No one seemed to want to help me. A sister of an Adventist was suspicious. A Mormon elder said he lost them.

During an Adventist camp meeting in Lamoni, IA, I stopped by the library at the college there, which has RLDS roots. They had a set of Journal of Discourses. Quite a volumes in that set.

Since I didn't have Hunt's book with me, I couldn't verify that I wanted to. But I did find where Brigham Young said that the sun and moon were inhabited, no question about it, he said.

And where another Mormon elder complained that the early Mormons were rebellious. How so? Because when Joseph Smith would tell them that the Lord had said that he should have their wife, they would cuss him out. That was the wrong attitude. the right attitude was to say, Sure, you can have my wife, my house, my land; there's plenty more.

He added that Joseph Smith didn't really mean that. He was just testing them.

[Pickle]

An RLDS pastor in Iowa was showing me his inspired version. The Mormons call it the Joseph Smith Translation. The idea is that the Bible has been miscopied and altered, and Smith put it back the way it was supposed to be.

In Genesis Enoch has this city called Zion. It gets taken to heaven before th Flood. Then there is this prophecy in there that says that when men keep all of God's commandments, the city of Zion will come back down to earth.

I was looking for something to talk to him about that might raise some conviction. He had already told me that he thought Saturday was the Sabbath, and that he wished his church kept it. So after he showed me that in Genesis in his inspired version, I said, "So if what you read is true, until your church starts keeping the Sabbath, that prophecy can't be fulfilled."

He agreed.

[John317]

... I asked them who the angel Moroni was. They said he was someone who died and went to heaven.....

I know exactly what you mean. I believe the same. The problem is that Moroni was not resurrected. He went to heaven as a spirit without a body.

Personally I believe that the beings who visited Joseph Smith-- and I do believe someone did visit him-- were fallen angels impersonating Moroni. A lot of people don't realize it but Smith also said that God the Father and Jesus Christ appeared to him.

Satan knew that it was about the end of the 2300 days, and he also knew that it was the end of the 1, 260 years. Therefore he had to have known that God would soon raise up a prophet, but he didn't know if it would be a male or female. So Satan has had both male and female counterfeit prophets in order to cause confusion.

[John317]

Something rather remarkable about the Book of Mormon is that it says Jesus was born in Jerusalem.

When I asked some Mormon missionaries about it, they didn't even realize the error. When I pointed it out, they said that maybe Bethlehem didn't exist at the time the Book of Mormon was written. Of course that is false, because Bethlehem was the city of David, over 1000 BC.

It is very likely that it was an oversight on the part of Joseph Smith. There are many in the Book of Mormon.

[Tallmark]

These people don't seem to care about global overpopulation. What's up with everyone having 5 kids or more?