FINDING BIBLE TRUTH - MORMONS (CHURCH OF THE LATTER-DAY SAINTS)


Any consideration of Mormonism must start with the personality of its founder, Joseph Smith, who wa clearly a considerable and talented character, intelligent, charismatic, possessed of a very strong imagination. His mother has told of how, as a teenager, he would entertain family and visitors with lively tales of peoples and wars. He clearly had the ability to create at least a large part of the Book of Mormon from his imagination alone.

There was a local belief that certain stones, called "scrying stones or "seer stones" had the power of seeing beyond normal vision, and were used for treasure hunting. The law recognised this as fraudulent and Joseph's father was charged and convicted of so using one. Later Joseph was similarly charged, but not convicted, apparently through a lack of witnesses willing to give evidence. He later used a seer stone when producing a transcription of the gold plates.

Whether or not you accept the plates and his transcription of them as genuine there can be no doubt that another enterprise, the translation of the hieroglyphs of an Egyptian papyrus into a "Book of Abraham" was straight fraud. The Book of Abraham is still included in another of the Mormon sacred books, the "Pearl of Great Price". The papyrus was later acquired by the St Louis Museum and after being conclusively identified as the one Joseph Smith had used, was found to contain only Egyptian funerary prayers for the dead, and to have no conceivable connection with Abraham. The papyrus was recovered by the Mormon Church but is never publicly diplayed.

It cannot be shown that the various stories of the discovery and subsequent disappearance of the golden plates, or even of their existence, are fraudulent any more than it can be shown that they are true. However three of the witnesses that originally verified the plates left the Latter Day Saints to join a rival sect. Smith claimed that "Urim and Thummin", described as an oversized pair of spectacles mounted on a breastplate were provided him to enable the plates to be read, but witnesses who were present do not say that any such object was used.

David Whitmer was one of the three primary witnesses to the Book of Mormon. He later left the Latter Day Saints along with the other two, one of whom later returned. This was his testimony, backed up by similar statements from other witnesses.

"I will now give you a description of the manner in which the Book of Mormon was translated. Joseph Smith would put the seer stone into a hat, and put his face in the hat, drawing it closely around his face to exclude the light; and in the darkness the spiritual light would shine. A piece of something resembling parchment would appear, and on that appeared the writing. One character at a time would appear, and under it was the interpretation in English. Brother Joseph would read off the English to Oliver Cowdery, who was his principal scribe, and when it was written down and repeated to Brother Joseph to see if it was correct, then it would disappear, and another character with the interpretation would appear. Thus the Book of Mormon was translated by the gift and power of God, and not by any power of man."

"I, as well as all of my father's family, Smith's wife, Oliver Cowdery and Martin Harris, were present during the translation. . . . He [Joseph Smith] did not use the plates in translation"
THE BOOK OF MORMON.

The heart of Mormonism is the Book of Mormon itself, which is believed by followers to be absolute literal truth. The Bible is only of equal authority to the Book of Mormon, when it is interpreted properly, i.e. in the light of the Book of Mormon. The whole elaborate Mormon structure stands or falls on the credibility of this book.

The book purports to relate the stories of groups of Hebrews that came to America - both North and South - prior to the time of Christ. The first group, called the Jaredites, came direct from the Tower of Babel. After splitting into two groups there was a series of wars in which they were all wiped out, leaving behind among the corpses a set of copper plates relating their story. Another group laft Jerusalem in about 600BC and travelled to America taking with them gold plates carrying the Pentateuch and other books of the Bible to be. They followed a similar history to the Jaredite, splitting into two groups, Nephites and Lamanites, believers and non-believers, the Nephites eventually being wiped out around 400 AD, leaving behind a buried set of plates detailing their history. The origin of a third group who founded a state called Zarahemia, and was found by the Nephites, is not given, but they were also wiped out. The Lamanites were initially said to be the ancestors of all native tribes in both North and South America, expanded later to include the Polynesians. The Mormon leadership have been forced to backtrack on all this to some degree.

More than a half of the book is concerned with the battles of the various groups, The rest consisting of sermonising by Nephite leaders and extracts from the Bible; from Isaiah and from the Gospels. The extracts are from Isaiah 2, written after the Exile, and not available to people who left long before the exile; extracts from the Gospels also given long before they were written. The book is full of prophecies which later chapters fulfill. At one stage the Nephites are visited by the risen Christ, who delivers a potted version of teachings culled from the Gospels. The Nephite beliefs are wholly Bible-based, highly moral but unexceptional, the more difficult Christian issues of Joseph Smith's time are generally by-passed. All current beliefs and religians are declared to be of the Devil. The claim is made that the early Church deliberately suppressed some of Christ's teaching, however nothing in the book shows any significant additions to that teaching, apart from different ideas on the nature of God and Christ.

Otherwise there is little that is particularly different from mainline Christianity; Joseph Smith rejected the notion of the Trinity, but is exceedingly vague and confused about the nature of God, whom he said was once a man and dwelt on another planet before becoming exalted (now denied by the leadership), and of Christ. After changing their minds several times they say now that God is the Elohim of the Bible while Jesus is Jehovah. Smith is elevated to the status of a God, almost on the level of Christ himself. See "No man or woman in this dispensation will ever enter into the celestial kingdom of God without the consent of Joseph Smith" (Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, vol. 7, p. 289)." By the process of baptising dead relatives it is possible to get them to Heaven even if they died earlier or did not accept Mormonism.

The main differences come not so much from the Book of Mormon itself as from the pronouncements of his successors (who are claimed to be infallible, any questioning of what they say is apostasy).

The book is full of miraculous events, which have to be dealt with in the same way as the Bible's miracles, there is no logic to help decide whether there is truth in them. on the other hand there is a great host of problems which call into question the truth of supposedly factual matters.

DNA has shown that there is no Hebrew blood in indiginous Amsricans, who migrated from Asia long before the period covered on the book. Mormonism now claims that the Hebrew groups landed in a country fully populated, and that there was no signicant intermarriage. But there is no mention of an existing population, not one single contact with an existing population is shown, none of the conflicts that would have been inevitable. Yet the Hebrew populations grew to exceed some five million in number.

Not one single verifiable archaeological trace has been found. Mormon scholar Dee F. Green, who from 1958-1961 was editor of (Brigham Young) University Archaeological Society Newsletter writes in an article in 1969 for the Mormon periodical, Dialogue, a Journal of Mormon Thought:

“The first myth we need to eliminate is that Book of Mormon archaeology exists. Titles on books full of archaeological half-truths, dilettante on the peripheries of American archaeology calling themselves Book of Mormon archaeologists regardless of their education, and a Department of Archaeology at BYU devoted to the production of Book of Mormon archaeologists do not insure that Book of Mormon archaeology really exists. If one is to study Book of Mormon archaeology, then one must have a corpus of data with which to deal. We do not. The Book of Mormon is really there so one can have Book of Mormon studies, and archaeology is really there so one can study archaeology, but the two are not wed. At least they are not wed in reality since no Book of Mormon location is known with reference to modern topography. Biblical archaeology can be studied because we do know where Jerusalem and Jericho were and are, but we do not know where Zarahemla and Bountiful (nor any other location for that matter) were or are. It would seem then that a concentration on geography should be the first order of business, but we have already seen that twenty years of such an approach has left us empty-handed.”

Nothing has been found since 1969 either. Particularly telling is the fact that not one single shard of pottery has been found. Hebrew pottery is distinctive.

There are descriptions of the extent of settlement eg:

BOOK OF MORMON 1:7. "The whole face of the land had become covered with buildings, and the people were as numerous almost, as it were the sand of the sea. "

Nothing is now to be found.

There is mention of the wearing of "wimples and stomachers" - in ages before Christ!

Geographical details cannot be matched to any known part of the continent of America.

There is no art to be found; cave paintings or inscriptions, carvings.

Smith claimed that the plates were inscribed in "reformed Egyption". Examples or illustrations of the script given by him bear no relation to any Egyptian (or other) script.

Current indigenous peoples have no legends which could relate to events described in the book.

How many civilisations have ever passed without leaving multiple traces of their existence?

There are more than a dozen items and species mentioned in the book that had never or probably never existed in the New World before the arrival of Europeans in the 15th century such as coins, glass, Egyptian hieroglyphs, metal swords, functional wheels, chains, carriages, brass armor, chariots, wheat, figs, olives, grapes, barley, sheep, oxen, goats, asses, horses, bulls, elephants.

So to some conclusions:

The first unavoidable conclusion is that the Book of Mormon is totally fraudulent. The only truths in it are those that it has copied from the Bible. I have read a great deal of the apologetics published on Mormon web-sites like SHIELDS and FARMS; the inadequacy of these responses merely strengthens the conviction that there is no truth in what they are defending.

But does it matter? Like the religions that it denigrates Mormon teaching is squarely based on the words of Christ. As with all such religions it has its quirks, like its confusion about the nature of God, baptism of the dead, its bizarre temple rites, its views on female rights. While it is true that Jesus is often mentioned in Mormon circles, he is not the Jesus of the Bible. Jesus was procreated, the son of Elohim and a goddess mother, his spirit brother was Lucifer. He became a god by obeying the Mormon ordinances, just as we can become gods if we do the same. According to the Encyclopedia of Mormonism, "Gods and humans are the same species of being, but at different stages of development in a divine continuum, and the heavenly Father and Mother are the heavenly pattern, model, and example of what mortals can become through obedience to the gospel." Nevertheless Mormons are strong Christians, even if the theology is skewed, devoted to family and country, morally reliable, with low crime rates. They are said to make good soldiers, patriotic and ready to accept discipline. So why worry about the details?

The downside comes from the authoritarianism of the sect. Mormons are required to accept without question what they are told. Any critical examination of doctrine is apostasy, intellectual freedom is curtailed. They are required to give a considerable amount of time and money to their Church, and are indoctrinated into seeing this as their duty. George Orwell's Big Brother would be proud of them.

Their leaders must be aware that the Church is founded on sand. But they are managing a hugely wealthy and successful business, whose primary aim, like that of all businesses, is to expand. A little while ago they "discovered" that the Polynesians were also descended from the Lamanites, giving the new area of Hawaii and the Pacific islands into which to grow. They see themselves as promoting a Christian morality. There is, after many changes, now less direct connection between the Book of Mormon and the ethos of the Mormon Church. Any internal challenge would cause massive upheaval and could destroy everything. So they accept things as they are.

Charles Wyndham.
November 2005.

If you feel that some facts offered in these pages are in error, or some piece of analysis is logically faulty, I would appreciate hearing from you.
awyndham@bigpond.net.au

* Return to HOME