THE LDS RESTORATIONIST MOVEMENT,
INCLUDING THE MORMON CHURCHES

Who wrote the Book of Mormon?
Various viewpoints

Sponsored link.

Who wrote the Book of Mormon?

Nobody knows for certain.

There are no proofs, but there are some really strong indicators

An argument based on the location of the Hill Cumorah:

The Hill Cumorah Pageant is held yearly on Hill Cumorah, near Palmyra, NY. According to the description on the "official Internet site" of the LDS Church:

"The pageant portrays the account of a group of people who left Jerusalem about 600 B.C. and were guided to what is now the American continent. Live actors depict events that lead up to the climactic visit of Jesus Christ to the Americas."

"A history of this people, written on gold plates, was deposited in this hill approximately A.D. 420 by Moroni, the last survivor of a great civilization. In 1827, Moroni returned as an angel and delivered the gold plates to Joseph Smith, who translated them through the power of God. The translation of the gold plates is called the Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ." ₆

The Smith farm is located at what is now 843 Stafford Rd in Palmyra, NY. The distance between the farm and the Hill Cumorah is only 1.1 miles.

An argument based on 19th century secular beliefs:

In the late 18th century and part of the 19th century, there were two beliefs circulating concerning Native Americans:

1. That they were descendents of Hebrew groups who emigrated from Israel and came to the Americas.
2. That there were originally two groups of Hebrews in the Americas: the faithful group was exterminated by a second group who had abandoned their faith.

There was no hard evidence that either of these two beliefs were accurate. However, they were very useful during the genocide of Native Americas. Building on a major theme in the Christian Bible -- that it is morally acceptable to punish innocent people for crimes committed by their ancestors -- the genocide was justified by the belief that Natives had been responsible for the earlier genocide of faithful Jews. Eventually, the beliefs about the origins of American Aboriginals were abandoned by all but the LDS Restorationists because of lack of evidence.

However, during this interval, the Book of Mormon was published and included these two themes.

Suggestions of plagiarism:

Listing of Joseph Smith as author on the first edition:

Smith's name is listed as "author and proprietor" of the first edition of the Book of Mormon, published in 1830. Some skeptics have used this as proof that Smith was the actual author. However, copyright laws of the time required that his name be listed as author, even if he were only the translator. The preface of the first edition explains that he was the translator not the author of the book. ₈

Did a colleague or colleagues of Smith write the book?

An article in Wikipedia suggests:

"According to this theory, someone else (either Sidney Rigdon or some other close friend of Smith) wrote the book and allowed Smith to take credit for it. Some consider this theory more probable than the view that Smith wrote the book himself. Both Sidney Rigdon and Oliver Cowdery had more formal education and could have helped Smith author the book. According to one theory, after dictating the primary text, Smith and his scribes would spend the evenings poring over the text, editing and making adjustments. In this case, the Book of Mormon would be considered a collaboration between Smith and his scribes, primarily Oliver Cowdery. ₈

Material copied from the King James Version of the Bible:

According to Wikipedia:

"Segments of the Book of Mormon, namely 2 Nephi chapters 7, 8, and 12-24, matches nearly word-for-word the chapters 50, 51-52:1-2, and 2-14 (respectively) of the King James Translation (1611) of the Book of Isaiah. The book claims that Nephi quoted the prophet Isaiah from the "Brass Plates" which were brought with them out of Jerusalem. Additionally, the footnotes and chapter headings acknowledge this and encourage readers to compare Isaiah and 2 Nephi. Of the 433 verses of Isaiah quoted in the Book of Mormon; over half are not verbatim. These changes vary from a minor preposition change to significant changes in meaning."

Material copied from a forgery added to Mark 16:

Mormon 9:22-24 appears to be copied, almost word-for-word, from the "longer ending" of the Gospel of Mark, found in many Bible translations as Mark 16:15-18. However, the verses 9 to 20 appear to be a forgery:

"The longer ending...differs in vocabulary and style from the rest of the Gospel, is absent from the best and earliest mss. now available, and was absent from mss. in patristic times. It is most likely a 2nd-cent. compendium of appearance stories based primarily on Luke 24, with some influence from John 20." ₁₀

If God carefully preserved the golden plates on which the Book of Mormon was written, it seems most unlikely that they would contain a forgery that was not in the original Gospel of Mark. More details.

Related essay on this web site:

Two books on the origin of the Book of Mormon:

These books reach totally different conclusions about the book's origins:

  David Persuitte, "Joseph Smith and the Origins of the Book of Mormon" (2nd Edition, paperback)

Excerpt from an Amazon.com review:

"This impressive work, now in an expanded and revised second edition incorporating new findings, presents new biographical information about Smith and resolves many of the controversies concerning his character. Through an extensive comparative analysis it posits as a probable conceptual source for The Book of Mormon, a book written by New England minister Ethan Smith entitled View of the Hebrew; or the Tribes of Israel in America. The results of this research were presented together for the first time ever in the first edition of this work and are instrumental in shedding much new light on the path Joseph Smith took toward founding the Church of the Latter-day Saints.'

Read reviews or order this book safely from Amazon.com online book store

  Noel B. Reynolds, Ed., "Book of Mormon Authorship Revisited: The Evidence for Ancient Origins"(Paperback)

Excerpt from an Amazon.com spotlight review by Robert Boylan:

Read reviews or order this book safely from Amazon.com online book store

References:

The following information sources were used to prepare and update the above essay. The hyperlinks are not necessarily still active today.

1. Ethan Smith, "View of the Hebrews," Mormons in Transition, at: http://www.irr.org/
2. "View the 1830 Book of Mormon," Mormons in Transition, at: http://www.irr.org/
3. Wayne Cowdrey et al., "Who Really Wrote The Book of Mormon? : The Spalding Enigma," Concordia Publishing House , at: http://www.cph.org
4. D.I. Holmes, "A Multivariate Technique for Authorship Attribution and its Application to the Analysis of Mormon Scripture and Related Texts,"  Oxford University Press.
5. "Salt Lake City Messenger," Utah Lighthouse Ministry, Issue 84, 1993-April, P. 9-10.
6. "The Hill Cumorah Pageant: America's Witness for Christ," at: http://www.lds.org/
7. Wayne Cowdrey et al., "Who Really Wrote The Book of Mormon? : The Spalding Enigma," Concordia Publishing House (2005). Read reviews or order this book safely from Amazon.com online book store
8. "Book of Mormon: Joseph Smith as Author," Wikipedia, at: http://en.wikipedia.org/
9. Mohamed Ghounem & Abdur Rahman, "Gospel of Mark?," at: http://www.geocities.com
10. R.E. Brown, et al., "The New Jerome Biblical Commentary," Pearson PTP, (Reissued 1989). Read reviews or order this book safely from Amazon.com online book store
11. The text of the Book of Mormon is available online at: http://etext.virginia.edu/

Copyright © 1997 to 2006 by Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance
Latest update: 2006-NOV-14
Author: B.A. Robinson