The Coming Forth of the Book of Mormon

Where did the Book of Mormon come from?

The Book of Mormon haunted me when I attempted to leave the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. No matter how hard I tried, I could not develop a working naturalistic theory explaining the Book of Mormon that made sense. There is a large, divine-sized gap between Joseph Smith in 1829 and the Book of Mormon. Any theory asserted by critics only brought up more questions.

Who wrote the Book of Mormon?

Joseph Smith was a poor farm boy from upstate New York with a limited frontier education. Until the Book of Mormon, he had never written a book or demonstrated a knack for long dictation. When the original manuscript was finished in the summer of 1829, Joseph was 23 years old. Critics attempt to explain the Book of Mormon with far-fetched and contradictory claims.

If not by divine means, how did Joseph Smith come up with the Book of Mormon? If it wasn’t from God or Joseph, then where did it come from? Who wrote it?

Historians concede that Joseph Smith had metal plates.⁵ Where did he get them from? How could he afford the gold or brass or lead to “make” the plates? Could he have assembled them with no experience in metallurgy? Why are there no witnesses to him fabricating plates?

If someone else wrote the Book of Mormon, why did no one come forward?

Sidney Rigdon was an educated preacher and an early church leader. Critics sometimes say that he wrote the Book of Mormon or provided material for it. If that is true, how was he converted in November 1830 by the book “he wrote” in 1829? Then, he never took credit for it?

Others claim that Oliver Cowdery wrote or gave Joseph Smith ideas about the Book of Mormon. If that is true, why did he never admit it? Wasn't he estranged from Joseph Smith and the Church for years?⁶

If Joseph Smith used other sources, why did he have nothing else with him during the translation process?⁷

Source Claims for the Book of Mormon

The Book of Mormon translation was completed at the end of June 1829 and published in Palmyra, New York, in March 1830. Critics believe Joseph Smith wrote the Book of Mormon himself or plagiarized someone else. The Church teaches that the Book of Mormon is an ancient record from dozens of authors written over a 1,000-year period.

If Joseph wrote the Book of Mormon, how did he dictate a complicated 580-page, 269,320-word religious book with a compelling narrative, consistent geography, and brilliant lectures/sermons/allegories/poetic structures in less than three months?

Joseph Smith was not formally educated beyond basic primary education in reading, writing, and math. He had no documented experience writing books and was not known to be a prolific reader. He had no formal preaching experience and was not well-traveled. He had limited life experience beyond the hardship of planting and harvesting crops. How could Joseph create a work like the Book of Mormon?

In the 173 public Nauvoo discourses, Joseph Smith only referenced two Book of Mormon scriptures, whereas dozens of biblical scriptures were quoted.⁸ Joseph seems unacquainted with the Book of Mormon, especially compared to the Bible.

If Joseph Smith is the author of the Book of Mormon himself, why is he so unfamiliar with it compared to the Bible?

How did Joseph Smith dictate the Book of Mormon in 65 (or perhaps 90) days⁹ in one draft with his limited experience and education?¹⁰

How did Joseph Smith create a complex narrative with consistent geography within the book?¹¹ There are 100 unique names of places in the Book of Mormon. It contains around 600 references to place names. The distances, relative locations, and topography are consistent throughout the text. Other authors like JRR Tolkien have sprawling geographies, but how did Joseph Smith do it in 65 days?

Other prolific authors have written fictional stories and characters, whereas the Book of Mormon purports to be a historical, not fiction, book. If Joseph Smith is making up the Book of Mormon, why are so many of its claims proving more true as time goes on? If the Book of Mormon comes from the imagination of a 23-year-old farm boy, how have millions of members been touched by it and joined the Church?

Some authors have written short books quickly. How many uneducated and inexperienced authors have written something close to 269,320 words in one draft in less than three months? Is there any example of a feat remotely close to what critics say Joseph Smith did?

Critics write off the “one draft” argument by pointing out the approximately 4000 authorized changes made in the 1837 and 1840 editions of the Book of Mormon, compared to the 1830 edition.¹² Weren’t the vast majority of the changes typographical in nature? The changes were for the purpose of aligning the printer's manuscript with the original translation, correcting spelling, or clarifying the intended meaning. Sentence structures and order were unchanged, and no more than 4-5 words were changed in any given passage. Isn’t that feat incredibly impressive for an inexperienced, uneducated, and unknown farmer in upstate New York in the 1830s?

Could Joseph Smith have written or dictated the Book of Mormon by using another, non-divine source? If critics answer “yes,” then they are burdened with developing a working theory for where it came from. The most common candidates are the Spaulding Manuscript, View of the Hebrews, the Late War, The First Book of Napolean, and the Bible.

The Spaulding Manuscript

In early church history, critics of the Church gave no credence to Joseph Smith’s intelligence. They presumed someone else wrote the Book of Mormon. The most common source proposed was a lost manuscript by then-deceased Reverend Solomon Spaulding.

Initially, there were no copies of the manuscript to compare to the Book of Mormon. Years later, affidavits by critics said that Sidney Rigdon gave Joseph Smith the Spaulding Manuscript, and it was the primary inspiration for the Book of Mormon.¹³ A manuscript was finally found years later and published in 1885. It was apparent then and now that the Book of Mormon and the Spaulding Manuscript have virtually nothing in common. Manuscript Found¹⁴ or the Spaulding Manuscript, is a draft of a pseudo-pirate romance novel about Romans. I have read the manuscript. Any similarity is general and superficial. Plus, the manuscript is considerably shorter than the Book of Mormon.¹⁵

Why do many critics still reference the Spaulding Manuscript as a source for the Book of Mormon? Why talk about a claim that has been debunked since 1886?

Why do critics still maintain that there must be a missing “2nd manuscript”? What are the odds that the mysterious (likely non-existent) second manuscript is the Book of Mormon? If the first draft was pirate romance fiction, what are the chances that the second draft is the Book of Mormon?

Why does the CES Letter omit the Spaulding Manuscript theory? Isn’t the Spaulding Manuscript source theory among the most widely believed critical theories since the publication of the Book of Mormon?

Is there any evidence at all that Joseph Smith used the Spaulding Manuscript? Do we have an eyewitness who saw Joseph using that book? Did he have a copy? Did anyone he knew have a copy?

Why did the Church of Jesus Christ publish the Spaulding Manuscript if it was a source for the Book of Mormon?¹⁶

View of the Hebrews

Seventy-two years after the Book of Mormon was published, I. Woodbridge Riley (1902) was the first person to theorize that the View of the Hebrews was a source for it.¹⁷

Why did none of the critics that were contemporary to the publication of the Book of Mormon think of the View of the Hebrews as a source? Wasn’t the View of the Hebrews widely available in 1830?¹⁸ None of the eager early church critics put two and two together?

View of the Hebrews was published in Poultney, Vermont, in 1823 and 1825. The Book of Mormon was published in Palmyra, New York, in 1830. Why does the CES Letter falsely relay that the Book of Mormon was published in Sharon, Vermont (a county neighboring Poultney, Vermont), despite its publication being 300 miles away in Palmyra, New York?¹⁹

The CES Letter insinuates, without evidence, that Oliver Cowdery used the View of the Hebrews as source material for the Book of Mormon.

“This direct link between Joseph and Oliver and View of the Hebrews demonstrates that Joseph is very likely to have been aware of the theme and content of that book.”²⁰

– CES LETTER, section on the View of the Hebrews

If this scenario is correct, how do critics explain the lost 116 pages of the Book of Mormon? Wasn't that dictated in 1828, months before Joseph Smith met Oliver Cowdery?

Joseph Smith met Oliver Cowdery for the first time on April 5th, 1829.²¹ Oliver Cowdery was Joseph Smith’s primary scribe during the translation of the Book of Mormon from April 7^th 1829, to the last week of June 1829, when the dictation was completed.

Did Oliver Cowdery have a vast knowledge of the View of the Hebrews? How did Joseph Smith convince Oliver Cowdery in three days to use what Oliver knew about the View of the Hebrews to help him make up the Book of Mormon? Is there any evidence that Oliver Cowdery had read or had a copy of the View of the Hebrews? Is there any evidence that Joseph had other materials with him during the translation?

Parallels shown side by side can seem compelling. Such is the case with the Book of Mormon and the View of the Hebrews. Critics use expressive language like “striking parallels” to drive home the point. There seem to be around 26 possible parallels between the two books. How strong of a correlation is that in a 269,320-word book?

Are parallels convincing evidence? If so, do critics give credence to the Book of Mormon for its 35 parallels with the ancient Dead Sea Scrolls found 100 years after the publication of the Book of Mormon?²²

At first, looking at an official-looking table of parallels seemed convincing. Then, as I started reading the View of the Hebrews, the matches characterized as "bullseyes" looked more like a stretch.

If the View of the Hebrews was a major source for the Book of Mormon, why did no one notice the loose parallels between them until 1902? Among the people who did not notice the connections was the View of the Hebrews author Ethan Hill, who was alive for 19 years after the publication of the Book of Mormon.

The reality is that any parallels with the View of the Hebrews are tenuous at best. High-level parallels are not a source. Many of the "parallels" are not parallels once they are thoroughly examined:²³

Some "parallels" between the Book of Mormon and View of the Hebrews are also parallels with the Bible as well:

Why do critics still cite the View of the Hebrews as a source for the Book of Mormon?

The View of the Hebrews is around 57,000 words long. If Joseph Smith used the View of the Hebrews as his primary source for the Book of Mormon, where did the other 200,000 words come from?

Is there any evidence that Joseph Smith used the View of the Hebrews as a source? Do we have an eyewitness of Joseph using the book? Did he have a copy of it? Did anyone else he knew have a copy of it? Do we have anyone in letters or journal entries mentioning him referencing it?

If Oliver Cowdery was involved, why didn't he admit it when he was estranged from Joseph Smith for years?

If View of the Hebrews was a source for Joseph, why did the BYU re-publish and make it available for free to read online?²⁴

The First Book of Napolean

From the CES Letter (emphasis added) – “The following is a side-by-side comparison of selected phrases the Book of Mormon is known for from the beginning portion of the Book of Mormon with the same order in the beginning portion of The First Book of Napoleon (note: these are not direct paragraphs).”

The wording “selected phrases,” “known for,” and “from the beginning portion” are suspicious, right? Here is the critic's attempt to make the Book of Mormon and the First Book of Napolean seem similar.

“Condemn not the [writing] … (skip a page) an account…(skip a page) the First Book of Napolean (skip two pages)… upon the face of the earth…(skip four pages) it came to pass… (next paragraph) the land…(skip a page) their inheritance, their gold and silver… (skip two pages) the commandments of the Lord… (skip five pages) the foolish imaginations of their hearts… (skip two pages) small in stature… (skip two pages) Jerusalem… (skip four pages) the wickedness and perverseness of the people”

With all due respect, what?

Why do Jeremy Runnells and other critics claim that the beginning of the First Book of Napolean is similar to the start of the Book of Mormon? Doesn’t the critic need to use words and phrases from 25 different pages in the First Book of Napolean and several from the Book of Mormon to make them look similar?²⁵ Isn’t that connection dishonest? Why include it in the CES Letter?

If I can select words and phrases from dozens of pages, couldn’t I make almost any two books seem similar with this logic?

Isn’t the First Book of Napolean a quasi-biblical work that describes the French Revolution and Napolean Bonaparte’s rise to power? Isn’t Napolean the central figure of the First Book of Napolean, whereas Christ is the central figure of the Book of Mormon? Aren’t the themes radically different?

Did any contemporaries of Joseph Smith notice the parallels between the First Book of Napolean and the Book of Mormon? Why not?

The First Book of Napoleon has around 22,500 words. If Joseph Smith used the First Book of Napolean as a primary source, where did the other 230,000 words of the Book of Mormon come from?

Is there any evidence that Joseph Smith used the First Book of Napolean as a source? Do we have an eyewitness of Joseph using that book? Did he even have a copy of it? Did anyone else he knew have a copy of it? Do we have anyone in letters or journal entries mentioning him referencing it?

The Late War

In 2013, Chris and Duane Johnson presented results from a breakdown comparing the Book of Mormon with 100,000+ books. Computing power allows for this sort of analysis to happen in modern days. They found that the book most correlated with the Book of Mormon was a textbook published in 1819 called The Late War.²⁶ The textbook uses a scriptural writing style to describe the War of 1812. Until 2013, no one had made this connection with the Book of Mormon, including anyone in Joseph Smith’s day.²⁷

The Johnsons’ analysis showed 74 parallels between the books; how strong of a correlation is that in a 260,000-word book? Don’t many of those correlations also correlate with the King James Version of the Bible?

Isn’t it true that something else would have been the most correlated if not the Late War? Why isn’t The View of the Hebrews, The First Book of Napolean, or the Spaulding Manuscript more correlated?

Is there any proof that Joseph Smith had read The Late War or even had access to it?

Since 2014, after several debunkings, the Johnsons have not followed up on their study. Why?

The Late War has 56,632 words. Where did the other 200,000 words in the Book of Mormon come from if Joseph Smith used The Late War as a source?

Is there evidence that Joseph Smith used The Late War as a source? Do we have an eyewitness of Joseph using the book? Did he even have a copy of it? Did anyone else he knew have a copy of it? Do we have anyone in letters or journal entries mentioning him referencing it?

Is it reasonable to think that Joseph Smith used all these listed sources (and much more) from memory to dictate the Book of Mormon in 65 days? Is there any proof that he used any of these sources? Has anyone ever mentioned seeing Joseph Smith using them or even having them? Were they in Joseph Smith’s library? Did Joseph Smith ever reference these books in casual conversation at all?

The Bible

The Book of Mormon and the Bible have parallels for more obvious reasons. Depending on the method used, between 5% and 10% of the Book of Mormon is from the Bible, or 15% at the very most.²⁸

Isn’t more than 10% of the New Testament a citation or allusion to an Old Testament scripture? Don’t the biblical parallels make a better, not weaker, case for the Book of Mormon’s divine origin?

If 5%-15% of the Book of Mormon is from the Bible, where did the other 85%-95% come from?

Is there any evidence that Joseph Smith referenced the Bible during the translation?

The Narrative of Zosimus

The Narrative of Zosimus is an ancient text written originally in Hebrew. It appears to be at least as old as the time of Christ and likely much older. Critics usually do not reference this text, but the parallels to the story of Lehi are striking.²⁹

• The narrative explains how a group of sons, led by their father, escaped the destruction of Jerusalem at the time of Jeremiah
• The family survived the scattering of Israel
• They were led by God to an ideal land across the ocean
• Zosimus, dwelling in a cave in the desert, prays to the Lord and obtains spiritual passage to a land of blessedness
• Zosimus must wander in the wilderness without knowing where he is being led
• He attains his destination by constant prayer and divine intervention
• Zosimus arrives at the bank of an unfathomable river of water covered by an impenetrable cloud of darkness
• After crossing the water, Zosimus sits beneath a beautiful tree, eating its fruit
• Zosimus is met by an angelic escort, who asks him what he wants
• Zosimus is shown a vision in which he thinks he beholds the Son of God
• Their history is "engraved" upon soft stone plates.
• The family is allowed to occupy a land of paradise and abundance

Critics may not claim the Narrative of Zosimus as a source for the Book of Mormon, as its first major English publication was not until 1867. If critics claimed it to be a source, they would have to explain how Joseph got his hands on this ancient document decades before it was translated into English.

“Accounting for the similarities between these texts is intriguing and complicated. In a religious context, the parallels between the two writings may be explained as deriving from a common source of revelation or religious experience. Academically, the parallels are an intellectual challenge with no definite resolution. Even though I cannot account for these parallels in all respects, their mere existence tends to support claims of ancient Near Eastern origins for Book of Mormon authorship.” (emphasis added) - John Welch³⁰

Vernal Holley Model

³¹In 1992, Vernal Holley theorized that Joseph Smith got the names and geography of the Book of Mormon by altering the names of cities/bodies of water in the Great Lakes area. Below are the two maps provided in the CES Letter (Vernal Holley maps). The insinuation is that Joseph Smith modified names and places from his surroundings. When I first saw these maps, I was unsure what to think. At first glance, in a convincing-looking map, it seemed conclusive.

Here is the problem: The whole thing is bogus. According to the geography of the Book of Mormon, virtually everything in the Vernal Holley map is in the wrong place. Fair Latter-day Saints provides a thorough debunking of the Vernal Holley map.³² Below is my attempt to fix the map.

Morianton should be by the eastern seashore; Holley places it near the “sea west.” Ramah is the Jaredite name for the Hill Cumorah, yet Holley places it in Ontario, much further north than New York. Holley places Jacobugath in the land southward, while in the Book of Mormon, it is northward. Ogath in the Book of Mormon is south of Ripliancum, not east of it, as Holley’s map proposes. Angola should be north of Zarahemla, not south. Alma should be north of Lehi-Nephi, not far to the west. The list goes on. Worst of all, many of Holley’s “parallels” are locations in the Book of Mormon that are only named once and not given a location. Holley likely leans on Jaredite place names because their location is less clear than Nephite ones.

Why do critics use the Vernal Holley map when it is objectively wrong?

There are 86 place names in the Book of Mormon. The Holley model theorizes that 28 of the names were created by looking at a map and altering the names. Joseph would have needed to take names from five US states and two Canadian provinces, hundreds of miles away from the upstate New York farmer.

Aren’t some of the “parallels” a bit of a stretch? (IE Oneida is Onidah, Antioch is Ani-Anti, Monroe is Moroni, and Ripple Lake is Ripliancum)

Is it not true that other parallels are Biblical names like Jerusalem, Boaz, Midian, and Jordan?

Didn’t many of the 28 parallel cities not appear on 1820-1830 maps? Didn’t many of the parallel cities not exist at all until after the publication of the Book of Mormon?

Angola, New York, was established in 1854, twenty-four years after the publication of the Book of Mormon.

Tecumseh did not have a name until 1912, eighty-two years after 1830.

Alma was a small, unincorporated community in Tyler County, West Virginia. It does not appear on the maps Joseph would have used, and it was settled in the early 1830s.

Irish migrants named Conner, Canada, after the migrant's hometown in Ireland. The name came in 1865, thirty-five years after the publication of the Book of Mormon.

Jacobsburg was established in 1815 but was too small to appear on maps. Its first appearance on a map of Ohio was in 1831, one year after the publication of the Book of Mormon.

The Kiskimentas Township in Pennsylvania was named such in 1832, two years after the publication of the Book of Mormon.

Mantua Village, Ohio, was incorporated in 1898, sixty-eight years after 1830.

Monroe, New York, existed in 1830 but was too small to appear on maps of New York in 1822 or 1831.

Creation of Minoa was in 1895, 60 years after the publication of the Book of Mormon.

Ripple Lake is already a stretch for the waters of Ripliancum. Even so, it is so small that locating even on modern-day maps is challenging. Plus, it is one of more than 250,000 lakes in Ontario. Did Joseph Smith like the name of a small and obscure body of water hundreds of miles away so much that he kept the first three letters of "Ripple Lake," added seven letters, and called it Ripliancum?

Here is a breakdown:

Potential names connected to the Book of Mormon	Existed in 1830
Sodom (Sidom)
Ripple Lake (Ripliancum)
Oneida (Onidah)
Oneida Castle (Onidah, Hill)
Moraviantown (Morianton)
Lehigh (Lehi)
Hellam (Helam)
Antrim (Antum)
Rama (Ramah)
Omer (Omner)
Morin (Moron)
Minoa (Minon)
Mantua (Manti)
Kishkiminetas (Kishkumen)
Jacobsburg (Jacobugath)
Conner (Comner)
Antioch (Ani-Anti)
Alma (Alma, Valley of)

The following eight names theorized in the Vernal Holley model are also in the Bible. So, if Joseph Smith were to copy them, the Bible would be a more plausible source for these names in the Book of Mormon than random towns and lands, sometimes hundreds of miles away. At the same time, if ancient peoples came from the Old World to the New World, they may have named these cities after Israelite names.

Potential names connected to the Book of Mormon	Existed in 1830
Land of Midian (Land of Midian)
Noah Lakes (Valley of Noah)
Jordan (Jordan)
Boaz (Boaz)
Shiloh (Shilom) *Shiloh existed but did not appear on maps in 1822/1831
Monroe (Moroni) *Monroe existed but did not appear on maps in 1822/1831
Jerusalem (Jerusalem)
Ephrem, Saint (Ephraim, Hill)

How did Joseph Smith borrow names from small towns and bodies of water hundreds of miles away that did not exist until after 1830?

When I discovered the above facts, I was floored that critics still use the Holley model to criticize the Book of Mormon. Why has Jeremy not removed this section from the CES Letter? Jeremy removed the Monroe and Moroni connection, but the rest remains. The original 28 out of 86 connections were not particularly strong in the first place.

With only 9% potential connections remaining (8 out of 86), why do critics still use the Vernal Holley model?