What is the Book of Mormon?

According to Joseph Smith, in 1823, an angel named Moroni appeared to him and revealed the location of a set of gold plates inscribed in a language Smith called “reformed Egyptian.” Smith met with Moroni over a period of four years to prepare to translate the plates, which Smith allegedly accomplished by peering inside of a hat and using a set of seer stones to illuminate the reformed Egyptian characters on the plates. Smith would then dictate the translation he saw to a scribe.^cclxxxvi 

In 1828, a wealthy farmer named Martin Harris offered to assist Smith in the translation process, but Harris lost 116 pages of the translated manuscript Smith gave him. Smith claimed that God was angry at the loss of the pages and would now allow only Smith to translate from another set of golden plates. These plates told the same story as the original plates but from a slightly different perspective. 

Of course, if Smith were just dictating the story from memory and not actually translating, it would have been nearly impossible for him to reproduce what he originally dictated to Harris and prove he was a prophet. Smith himself describes how his critics would have used the loss of the pages to try and prove that he was not actually translating the golden plates but reciting a story from memory.^cclxxxvii Despite these challenges, in 1829 a schoolteacher named Oliver Cowdery helped Smith finish his translation, and on March 26, 1830, the Book of Mormon was published. 

The book follows the descendants of Lehi, a righteous man living at the time of the prophet Jeremiah, who traveled with his family from Jerusalem across the Atlantic Ocean to the Americas. It is divided into chapters based on the allegedly different authors who recorded the history of Lehi’s descendants. The two primary lines of Lehi were the Nephites and the Lamanites, both of whom built elaborate cities and engaged in several massive and violent wars with each other. The high point of the Book of Mormon takes place in 3rd Nephi, when Jesus appears to the Nephites shortly after his resurrection and preaches the gospel to them. 

The book concludes with the testimony of Moroni, who was the only Nephite to survive a final battle with the Lamanites in the fifth century (the Lamanites then became the ancestors of modern Native Americans).^cclxxxviii Before he died, Moroni gathered the golden plates that recorded the history of his people and buried them on a hillside. After his death, Moroni became an angel and later revealed to Joseph Smith the location of the plates (which turned out to be in upstate New York). 

Most of the arguments Mormons offer in defense of the authenticity of the Book of Mormon are variants of the following four: 

The argument from witnesses 

No one can presently verify the authenticity of the golden plates, because an angel allegedly took them back to heaven after they were translated.^cclxxxix However, the opening pages of the Book of Mormon record the testimony of three witnesses—Martin Harris, Oliver Cowdery, and David Whitmer—who claimed to have seen the plates. The Book of Mormon also includes the testimony of eight other witnesses who handled the plates. 

The argument from author incapability 

Mormons often claim that Joseph Smith could not have created the Book of Mormon, because he was not educated enough to write such a long and detailed work. They point to letters in which Smith writes things about his childhood such as, “I was merely instructed in reading, writing, and the ground rules of arithmetic.”^ccxc 

The argument from biblical prophecy 

Mormons sometimes quote verses from the Bible that they say predict God’s revelation in the Book of Mormon. One example of this is Ezekiel 37:16-17: “Mortal, take a stick and write on it, ‘For Judah, and the Israelites associated with it’; then take another stick and write on it, ‘For Joseph (the stick of Ephraim) and all the house of Israel associated with it’; and join them together into one stick, so that they may become one in your hand.” Mormons claim the Bible represents the stick of Judah and the Book of Mormon represents the stick of Ephraim, and the two are finally united in the LDS faith.^ccxci 

The argument from the Holy Spirit 

When LDS missionaries present the Book of Mormon to potential converts, they often ask them to read the book, or certain excerpts, and then ask God to confirm in their hearts that it is true. The missionaries usually appeal to James 1:5: “If any of you is lacking in wisdom, ask God, who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly, and it will be given you.” 

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