LDS Defender

THE CHALLENGE OF THE BOOK OF MORMON

Marcel Kahne

Translated by Gerald D. Woodard

(Original French text at www.idumea.org)

In the spring of 1820, a young boy named Joseph Smith had a vision in which God the Father and his Son, Jesus Christ, gave him the task of restoring the Gospel and the Church of Christ. Others have had visions. They are personal by nature and no one can know if they truly occurred or if they were simply the product of the person’s imagination … or of a desire to swindle others.

Ideally, we need concrete proof of the vision, something that is such as to convince those who did not see it. In Joseph Smith’s case, this is unquestionably the Book of Mormon.

What is the Book of Mormon? Essentially, it is the story of two Israelite families who left Jerusalem in 600 BC, crossed the ocean and arrived in the Americas. The book is an abridgement of the religious history of the descendants of those two families over a period of a thousand years, culminating in Christ’s appearance among them following his resurrection in the Holy Land.

An unlikely story? Each person must decide, but we recommend that that decision be an informed one, not based on one’s own preconceptions. Generally, it is inconceivable to form an opinion on a matter without first examining it carefully. Such is even more the case if the issue is a major one: If God really did appear to Joseph Smith, it was the most important event to have occurred on this Earth since the Resurrection of Christ. It affects our eternal destiny, and what is more important than that?

Four Types of Challenges

The first challenge is found in the text of the Book of Mormon, in Moroni 10:4‑5. The second is that of the witnesses to the book. The third is the testimony of Emma, the Prophet’s wife. The fourth is scientific. We will examine each of these in detail.

1. The Challenge in Moroni 10:4-5

“And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost. And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things”

This is by far the most important challenge. Everything that comes from man can be questioned, can be doubted, but a witness from the Holy Ghost leaves no room for doubt and is indelible. The invitation in the Book of Mormon is simple: “Read and ask God if it is true. If you ask with sincerity, you will receive an answer that will leave no room for discussion.” Many people have had this experience and it has anchored them in truth.

2. The Three and Eight Witnesses

In the front of each copy of the Book of Mormon, there are two texts entitled The Testimony of Three Witnesses and The Testimony of Eight Witnesses. These two testimonies complement each other. While he had possession of the Book of Mormon plates, Joseph Smith was not allowed to show them to anyone, possibly to avoid conflicting testimonies. The three witnesses saw the plates in a glorious vision, in which an angel showed them to them while the voice of God commanded them to testify of them to the world. The eight witnesses saw the plates under normal conditions, shown to them by Joseph Smith. The were given the opportunity to touch and heft them.

Without the testimony of the eight, it could be claimed that the three had had an hallucination. Without the testimony of the three, it could be said that there was nothing special about the plates.

What adds weight to the testimony of these men is that the three witnesses and three of the eight witnesses had disagreements with Joseph Smith and left the Church (two of the three witnesses later returned). These men were very bitter against the Prophet and it would have been perfectly normal for them to deny their testimony and publicly reveal any collusion or any doubts they had regarding what they had seen. Without exception, all of them upheld their testimony to the very end.

3. The Testimony of Emma

The best person to talk about a man is unquestionably his wife. In a testimony given late in life, Emma Smith emphasized the fact that her husband could not have written the Book of Mormon:

“When Joseph began the translation, he needed someone to write for him as he dictated. Emma began her role as scribe. The schoolteacher in Emma recognized Joseph’s struggle with written English. ‘He could not pronounce the word Sariah,’ she said. Although Joseph’s own reading of the scriptures had been sporadic at best, Emma knew the Bible well and read it often. Once, as he translated, the narrative mentioned the walls of Jerusalem. Joseph stopped. ‘Emma,” he asked, ‘did Jerusalem have walls surrounding it?’ Emma told him it did. ‘O, I thought I was deceived,’ was his reply… When asked if Joseph could have written the story privately, then dictated it, pretending he was translating from the plates, Emma retorted, ‘Joseph Smith could neither write nor dictate a coherent and well‑worded letter, let alone a book like the Book of Mormon… it is marvellous to me… as much as to anyone. … I am satisfied that no man could have dictated the writing of the manuscripts unless he was inspired; for, when [I was] acting as his scribe, [he] would dictate to me for hour after hour; and when returning after meals, or after interruptions, he would at once begin where he had left off, without either seeing the manuscript or having any portion of it read to him.’ Emma continued, ‘It would have been improbable that a learned man could do this; and, for one so ignorant and unlearned as he was, it was simply impossible’” (Linda King Newell and Valeen Tippetts Avery, Mormon Enigma: Emma Hale Smith, New York, Doubleday, 1984, pp. 25-26).

4. The Scientific Testimony

We are living at a time in the time in the world’s history when science has gained acceptance, relegating faith and spirituality to the background. People today have become Doubting Thomases, only believing what they see, and stories of visions and visitations leave them very sceptical. The Book of Mormon has something for these people as well.

It is not presented as a novel, but as an historical document. According to the book, the families of Lehi and Ishmael are real people of flesh and blood who lived at that time. They actually crossed the Arabian Peninsula. They actually crossed the ocean to the American continent. Their descendants actually lived, in a specific place and at a specific time.

The historicity of a document can be verified. Even if the author of the book is concerned primarily with religion and is sparing in details regarding anything else, details regarding the author’s period and culture will nonetheless be evident in the writing. Joseph Smith (and the entire world in his day) knew little or nothing about the Arabian desert and the lifestyle and culture of people like the families of Lehi and Ishmael, or the specifics of the Mesoamerican world in which most of the events in the book occurred, cultural elements that were radically different from what a 19^th century American would know. It would have been impossible for someone like Joseph Smith to write a book like the Book of Mormon without giving himself away on almost every line.

This leads us to a very simple equation: if the Book of Mormon is truly an historical document, Joseph Smith could not have been its author, nor could any of his contemporaries. The only possible explanation for its existence is therefore that Joseph Smith’s story is true.

Obviously, one cannot expect anti‑Mormon historians to risk their reputation by undertaking such an investigation (at least not seriously). (This is also true for the plates. When people ask where they are and we explain that Moroni took them back, they smile as though to say: no evidence. However, even if we could show them, it would change nothing: no scholar would risk his reputation by paying the least attention to a document delivered by an angel.)

It was thus Mormon specialists who conducted the necessary research and the results are impressive:

In 1950, Professor Hugh Nibley of Brigham Young University published a groundbreaking work in the scientific study of the Book of Mormon, Lehi in the Desert, in which he identified a great number of cultural details that were unknown or about which there were false beliefs in Joseph Smith’s day. The work can be found on the Book of Abraham Project Web site or in French in the Livres section of the Idumea Web site.

In 1967, John Welch discovered Chiasmus, a structure that was widely used in the ancient Near East, particularly by the Hebrews. His research led him to discover this structure in the Book of Mormon. Today, some hundred instances of chiasmus have been identified in the Book of Mormon, some of which cover entire books or are remarkable in their complexity. (For more examples in French, see the “Études” section of the Idumea Web site, under Livre de Mormon / Structure / Chiasmes. Other examples will be provided later.)

In the 1970s, Lynn and Hope Hilton travelled and explored Arabia, showing that the general route taken by Lehi and his people, as described in the Book of Mormon, was consistent with the geography of the Arabian Peninsula. Their research is related in the September and October 1976 editions of the Ensign.

In 1985, ethnologist John Sorenson published a major work entitled An Ancient American Setting for the Book of Mormon, in which he demonstrated that, from a geographic, historical and cultural perspective, the Book of Mormon coincides perfectly with a specific area of Mesoamerica. A French translation of this book is available Idumea Web site.

During the same period, university professors and other researchers created an association, the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies (FARMS)[1], to publish the results of very strict scientific research into various aspects of the Book of Mormon.

Finally, in 2003, George Potter and Richard Wellington published Lehi in the Wilderness, the fruit of many years of research and a hundred thousand miles of travel, in which they show that, by following Nephi’s directions, they found “the borders near the shore of the Red Sea”, “the borders which are nearer the Red Sea” (1 Nephi 2:5), the valley of Lemuel (v. 14 – see Potter’s article on the Neal A. Maxwell Institute site), Shazer (1 Nephi 16:14), “the most fertile parts of the wilderness” (ibid), “the more fertile parts of the wilderness” (v. 16), wood corresponding to the bow made by Nephi (v. 23), the eastward route (2 Nephi 17:1)[2] and the most convincing site for Bountiful.

We can attempt to ignore the impressive amount of elements published in favour of the authenticity of the Book of Mormon, if only because acknowledging the authenticity of the Book of Mormon would also mean acknowledging the authenticity of Joseph Smith’s First Vision, a step that many do not want to take because it would put their current beliefs in question, but no one can now honestly challenge the validity of the Book without taking into consideration these discoveries.