Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!tektronix!tekmdp!jonw From: jonw@tekmdp.UUCP (Jonathan White) Newsgroups: net.religion Subject: The case against The Book of Mormon Message-ID: <2109@tekmdp.UUCP> Date: Tue, 2-Aug-83 11:28:55 EDT Article-I.D.: tekmdp.2109 Posted: Tue Aug 2 11:28:55 1983 Date-Received: Wed, 3-Aug-83 02:48:59 EDT Lines: 111 Russ (dadla-a!russ) has presented net.religion readers with a series of articles that explain why he thinks that the Book of Mormon is a legitimate work (and therefore why the Mormon religion itself is not a fraud). However, I think that it can fairly easily be shown that the creation of the Mormon church and all of its "divinely inspired" scripture were part of an elaborate hoax perpetrated by Joseph Smith and a couple of accomplices. But before presenting this other side of the picture, I would like to say that I hope that none of the Mormons out there take this personally. Just because the origins of their belief system are fraudulent is no reason to believe that present-day Mormons are somehow dishonest (except maybe with themselves). Most of the following information is paraphrased from a book entitled "The Kingdom of the Cults" by Walter R. Martin, although I have quoted some of his sources. The Mormon church had its beginnings back in 1820 when young Joseph Smith was visited by two "personages" as he was praying in the woods. They told him that he had been chosen to launch a restoration of true Christianity, although it wasn't until seven years later that he was given the gold plates from which he translated the Book of Mormon. All historical evidence from this time period indicates that Joe Smith was a reprehensible character from a family of equally reprehensible characters. They were widely regarded as rip-off artists and "money diggers" (treasure hunters) by their neighbors (sixty-two of whom testified to this effect in a sworn affidavit). Also, the proceedings of a court trial dated March 20, 1826 -- New York vs. Joseph Smith -- revealed that Joe "had a certain stone which he occasionally looked at to determine where hidden treasures in the bowels of the earth were...and had looked for Mr. Stoal several times." On this occasion Joe was found guilty of money digging. There exists absolutely no pro-Mormon statements from reliable and informed who knew the Smith family intimately. Joseph Smith later tried to deny that he had ever been a money digger, but his story is inadvertently refuted by his own mother, Lucy Smith, who in a later writing described how Mr. Stoal "came for Joseph on account of having heard that he possessed certain keys [peep stones -JW] by which he could discern things invisible to the natural eye." In 1827 the location of the golden plates was revealed to Joe, and he set to work digging them up and translating them into English. They were supposedly written in "reformed Egyptian," but he was conveniently provided with two magic stones (sound familiar?) that he used as spectacles for translating. No independent witness ever laid eyes on the gold plates, but Joseph Smith later wrote in his book "Pearl of Great Price" that he sent Martin Harris to see Professor Charles Anthon of Columbia University for the purpose of verifying the authenticity of some of the characters which Smith had drawn from the plates. Smith quoting Harris: "Professor Anthon stated that the translation was correct, more so than he had ever seen translated from the Egyptian. I then showed him those which were not yet translated, and he said they were Egyptian, Chaldaic, Assyriac, and Arabic; and he said they were true characters" (Section 2, verses 62, 63, 64). One of several problems with the above story is that Professor Anthon never said any such thing, and went on record in a letter to E. D. Howe dated Feb. 17, 1834. I will only quote only two parts of this lengthy letter. "The whole story about my having pronounced the Mormonite inscription to be 'reformed Egyptian hieroglyphics' is perfectly false... Upon examining the paper in question, I soon came to the conclusion that it was all a trick, perhaps a hoax". The preceding story raises more than a few problems concerning the authenticity of the Book of Mormon and the veracity of Smith and Harris. How could the golden plates contain "Chaldaic, Assyriac, and Arabic" characters when the Book of Mormon itself declares that the characters were "reformed Egyptian?" And since reformed Egyptian was known to "none other people," why would Smith think than Anthon could verify the translation? Incidentally, no one has ever been able to find even the slightest hint of this language called "reformed Egyptian." All reputable linguists and Egyptologists who have examined the evidence put forth by the Mormons have rejected it as mythical. Probably the most damaging evidence to the authenticity of the Book of Mormon is found in the lack of archeological evidence to supports its claims. The book purports to be a history of two great civilizations who built ships, temples, synagogues, sanctuaries, and at least 38 different cities. These civilizations also made extensive use of metal (see Ether 15:15 and Alma 43:18) and domesticated animals such as horses, cattle, sheep, and goats. They even had elephants! (See Ether 9:17-19). You would naturally expect there to be a wealth of archeological finds, but such is not the case. A letter from no less an authority than the Smithsonian Institution (published in "The Book of Mormon Examined" by Arthur Budvarson) contains the following information: "There is no correspondence whatever between archeological sites and cultures as revealed by scientific investigations, and as recorded in the Book of Mormon. ...Smithsonian archeologists see no connection between the New World and the subject matter of the book... ...thus far no iron, steel, brass, gold and silver coins, metal, swords, breast-plates, arm shields, armor, horses and chariots, or silk have ever been found in pre-colonial archeological sites. ...Furthermore, cattle, sheep, swine, horses, and asses, such as we know them, were introduced in the Americas by Europeans in post-Columbian times. No actual elephants have ever been found in any archeological site." Another indication of the shaky nature of the Book of Mormon is revealed in the fact that there have been over 2,000 changes to the book over a period of 131 years. Evidently, the inspired word of God wasn't so inspired. Also, the Book of Mormon contains at least 25,000 words plagiarized from the King James Bible. Some of these are verbatim quotes of considerable length. Mormons have suggested that when Christ allegedly appeared in North America after the resurrection he quite naturally used the same language as in the Bible. The only problem with this is that the gold plates were written 1,000 years before the King James version, but Smith's translation came out in perfect King James English (complete with a few KJ errors that have been corrected in later editions, but remain in the Book of Mormon.) So if the Book of Mormon is obviously fake, where did it really come from? Well, that will be the subject of a future article, even though it really makes little difference. Jon White Tektronix Aloha, Ore