Is the Book of Mormon Reliable?

We have examined the Bible and found it to be the most reliable ancient document without a near contender, so how does the Mormon’s “the most correct book on earth"stack up?

The Book of Mormon was the result of an encounter between the religions founder, Joseph Smith, and the angel Moroni in 1823. The angel provided the location of ancient golden plates comprising the “fullness of everlasting gospel.” The plates were abridged by Moroni and his father, Mormon, over a millennium before. Smith claims they were written in “reformed Egyptian hieroglyphics.” Smith was quite lucky to find a pair of magical spectacles to interpret the writing. That is how the Mormon’s got their book.

To finish Smith’s quote on The Book of Mormon, it is “the most correct of any book on earth and the keystone of our religion.” Does evidence back this claim up? Unfortunately for those of the Mormon faith, it falls flat because of a slew of errors. For example, in Ether 3:14, Smith denies the trinity. He holds to modalism, God simply manifested Himself in various forms throughout history. He is therefore not uniquely three-in-one.

 

One of the biggest killers for The Book of Mormon is archeology. If you haven’t read my blog on the archaeology of the Bible do so here. Then contrast it to the rest of this paragraph. There is no archeological evidence for “reformed Egyptian hieroglyphics.” There is also zero archeological proof or even hints to the lands mentioned in the book, such as the land of Moron. No maps or geology provide evidence to the lands either.

The book mentions people groups called the Jaredites, Nephites, and Lamanites. The book claims these people migrated from Israel to the Americas. There is, again, no proof to support these stories. Unfortunately, for the Latter-day Saints, anthropology and archeology provide zero proof for its claims. The claims in The Book of Mormon appear to be nothing more than myth and fairy-tales.

Joseph F. Smith, the sixth president of the Mormon church was so confident in Joseph Smith’s translation of the golden plates, as to say “every letter was given to by the gift and power of God.” This must be why the book has undergone thousands of rewrites to make it free of errors. Errors include, spelling, grammar, chronology and other mistakes.  See Mosiah 21:28. Here they church replaced “Benjamin” with “Mosiah.” They realized Benjamin was already dead in the story.  Whoops.

You can see from archeology, anthropology, hermeneutics, and common sense, The Book of Mormon is unreliable and frankly, preposterous. But ya never know, perhaps Ether 15:31 is true “…after he had smitten off the head of Shiz, that Shiz raised up on his hands and fell; and after that he had struggled for breath, he died.” That’s right…they cut off his head, he got up, and then for some reason he kept breathing and died…apparently from lack of oxygen.  

My advice, stick to the Bible.