Prelude

As a modest first step, I would like to put the Book of Mormon in its context. It is a beautiful context that has sprung a beautiful movement, but one that is highly misunderstood and needs more explaining. Similar to almost anything else, I guess, like Christianity itself.

As a prelude, I suppose illustrating what the Book of Mormon is not will help us get on the right footing. It is not an ancient record of God's dealings with the ancient inhabitants of the Americas. It believes that it is, however.

That may be the crux of the whole issue. The Book of Mormon is a sincere revelation of a magnificent worldview about Christ and his imminent return in the 19th century, the establishment of Zion and restoration of the Chosen race(s), and the eradication of wickedness on the earth. It contains the certainty of an impending world-wide crisis, and the blueprint for successfully navigating that crisis.

Before we can really get involved with what the Book of Mormon has to say about the universe, it is necessary to demonstrate that it is not what claims to be, that it is not a translation of an ancient record, but that it came from a brilliant, sincere, 19th-century mind. Also, it is not what mainstream latter-day saints claim it is, or even faithful LDS scholars. I'll try to make it as short and straightforward as possible, by relating some of the most blatant and hopefully least controversial contradictory internal and scriptural evidence that can be gathered from it.

1) 1 Nephi 1:4 - Zedekiah began his reign in 597 BCE, not 600 BCE. If we follow Matthew's chronology (Matt. 2), then Jesus was born before Herod died. Herod is well known to have died in 4 BCE, so most scholars place Jesus' birth at around 5 BCE. If we account that the Jews followed a lunar calendar before they were scattered by the Babylonians in 587 BCE, then 600 lunar years is about 591 1/2 years. That works pretty well, only if we throw out Luke 2, because he mentions Cyrenius (or Quirinius), who called a census in 6 AD, which is when Luke places the birth of Jesus. So really no one is certain when he was born, and this chronological problem therefore is merely an academic exercise.

2) 1 Nephi 3:19 indicates that Lehis family needed the brass plates so they could preserve the language of their fathers. So in Mormon 9:32-33, Moroni indicates that they still know Hebrew, but they write in "reformed Egyptian". Well, Mosiah 1:3-4 indicates that the brass plates, which is a record of the Jews, are written in Egyptian. How they retained their old Phoenician-style Hebrew without even a large record like the brass plates is never mentioned. Or how a Jewish record in Jerusalem ends up being written in Egyptian.

3) 1 Nephi 18:7, 2 Nephi 2:1 indicate that (using our 600 BCE for Zedekiah chronology to make calculations easier) Jacob was born somewhere around 593-591 BCE. Enos 1:25 indicates that Jacobs son Enos "began" to be old around 421 BCE. Enos' son Jarom lived to at least 362 BCE. Now lets put this in a modern context. If Jacob was born around the time of Joseph Smith, 1805, then his son Enos lived to see at least the year 1975, and Jacob's grandson would still be around today, and alive even 20 years from now. And yet especial attention was never drawn to these centenarians.

4) Mosiah 11:5 indicates that King Noah got rid of all the righteous priests of his father and set up his own instead. Later, in Mosiah 18:13, Alma, who was one of those priests of Noah (Mosiah 17:1-2), who had only repented of his sins (Mosiah 18:1), somehow now had the authority to baptize an entire congregation - and himself! (Mosiah 18:14)

5) Alma 2 - the Amlicites presumably began their existence with Amlici. They were "Nehors" (Alma 1). This was around 87 BCE. The book of Alma takes us through a time warp when it mentions the events surrounding the sons of Mosiah, in Alma 17-27. However, beginning in Alma 21:2, you hear about the Amlicites building cities and firmly established in the land of the Lamanites - around 90 BCE. This detail is missed because original Book of Mormon manuscripts had various ways to spell "Amlicite", including Amalekite, which is how it is currently spelled in the latter parts of Alma. No wonder... even though their origin is never explained if we accept the Book of Mormon as it is right now, it would be even weirder to try and explain their time travel if we change their name back to Amlicites.

6) Alma 3:5 indicates that the Lamanites wore skins about their loins, and armor. This is somewhere around 87 BCE. But in Alma 43:19-21, around 74 BCE, the Lamanites no longer wear armor!

7) Alma 33:2 -- have you ever wondered how Alma expects a lower-class, illiterate group of people to search the scriptures on their own? Especially Egyptian scriptures!

8) Alma 53:8-23 indicates that the army of Helaman was formed in the 27th year of the reign of the judges, and Alma 52:18-19 indicates it was possibly in the 28th year. However, in Alma 56:9 Helaman himself indicates it was in the 26th year!

9) Helaman 8:20 - "Ezias" and "Isaiah" are put right next to each other as if they are different prophets. See Matthew 3:3 for an example of where Isaiah (this time, Isa. 40:3) is quoted as "Esaias", due to the "ah" ending being feminine in Greek. Just like how "Yeshua" = "Joshua" becomes "Jesus" in the Greek. (Of course, that's not how Joseph Smith saw it, at least in the beginning. See D&C 84:11-13 for his placement of the prophet "Esaias").

10) Helaman 9:18 indicates that the five men who saw the chief judge murdered in the judgment seat were liberated on the day of burial, before Nephi was taken and questioned. But Helaman 9:38 indicates that the five men were kept prisoner until after the trial and conviction of Seantum.

11) Helaman 14:20 indicates that Christ will be dead for three days before he rises again, although Mosiah 3:10 indicates he will rise the third day. Of course, the Gospels have the same kind of problem. Jesus dies on a Friday and is resurrected at dawn on a Sunday, but Matthew claims (Matt 12:40) that Jesus would be buried for 3 days and 3 nights (compare Matt 12:39-41 to the more reasonable earlier version of the saying in Luke 11:29-32).

12) 3 Nephi 19:4 mentions two curious Nephite names: Timothy, which is Greek, Jonas, which is the Greek perversion of the name Jonah

13) 3 Nephi 20:30-33 prophesies that the Jews will believe in Christ, and then be gathered to Jerusalem. Hmm... how come the "physical" gathering happened without the "spiritual" one?

14) 3 Nephi 28:3 indicates that 9 of the 12 disciples would live to be 72, and then be translated and taken to paradise. Remember that in 3 Nephi 19:4, Nephi is one of those 12. According to 4 Nephi 1:14, by 100 AD all the 9 had gone to paradise, but in 4 Nephi 1:19 the same Nephi from the 12 finally dies in 110 AD (almost 80 years after Christ came), and you know he was one of the 12... (3 Nephi 23:7)... but apparently not one of the 3 permitted to tarry. What's going on here?

15) Mormon 9:22-24 quotes Mark 16:15-18. This is a serious problem because this ending in Mark, evidenced here, is highly disputed. It looks like some early Christian decided to amalgamate references to Luke and Acts together in order for the book to end more smoothly. How did this late 1st or early 2nd century fraud end up in the Book of Mormon? It gets further sanction in D&C 24:13. Furthermore, Mark 16:16 is one of the strongest "evidences" that a person has to be baptized to be saved.

16) Ether 5:4 presents a strong predicament. It says, "and the testimony of three, and this work, in the which shall be shewn forth the power of God, and also his word, of which the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost beareth record" (1830 edition). The problem is that this paraphrases 1 John 5:7, "For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost". This is the well-known Johannine Comma, which is almost certainly a late addition to the original text. What's it doing in the Book of Mormon?

I have a quite thorough list I have been making of biblical references within the Book of Mormon, which will be quite useful in driving home the point that the Book of Mormon is full of King James Version New Testament language and (as understood from the early 19th century frontier) ideology. That will have to be reserved for a further post.

For a single example, 3 Nephi 7:8 references a pig wallowing in the mire. Jews didn't keep pigs, and wouldn't understand the reference. This would have been a nice reference to Proverbs 26:11, which is what Peter quotes in 2 Peter 2:22, except Peter added the part about pigs. So we have a clear New Testament quotation casually made in the Book of Mormon that is completely out of context with anything you'd expect out of Judaism or the early Americas, for that matter. You will find plenty more as you read the text carefully.


In summary, the Book of Mormon is a very human book. It gives itself away both in its narrative, and in the assumptions it makes. However, it is a brilliant book that still merits close attention.