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Criticism of Mormonism/Books/One Nation Under Gods/Chapter 4: Difference between revisions

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|75, 515n79||Lack of archaeological evidence caused B.H. Roberts and Thomas Stuart Ferguson to "abandon their faith in the ''Book of Mormon''. This is supported through "private letters and various other manuscripts."
|75, 515n79||Lack of archaeological evidence caused B.H. Roberts and Thomas Stuart Ferguson to "abandon their faith in the ''Book of Mormon''. This is supported through "private letters and various other manuscripts."
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*[[B.H. Roberts' testimony of the Book of Mormon]]
*[[B.H. Roberts' testimony of the Book of Mormon]]

Revision as of 15:48, 22 December 2008


A FAIR Analysis of:
Criticism of Mormonism/Books
A work by author: Richard Abanes

Claims made in "Chapter 4: Smith's Golden Book"

Page Claim Response Author's sources
60 "This story would prove to be one of Smith's best tales."
  • Author's opinion.
62 The Lamanites were cursed with a "skin of blackness."
62 "Coincidentally, in most instances, Jesus used exactly the same wording found in the 1611 King James Version of the New Testament, even though the BOM was supposedly written more than 1,000 years before the King James Bible was published in England."
  • No source provided.
62 (HB) "By the time Columbus found them, these so-called American Indians had become a "filthy, and a loathsome people"
63, 510n15 (HB) They "had no idea that their dark-skinned appearance was a curse traceable to their failure to follow God."
  • Oliver Cowdery, "Letter VII," Messenger and Advocate, July 1835, vol. 1, no. 10, 158, reprinted in Vogel, Early Mormon Documents, vol. 2, 450.
63, 510n18 The genuineness of the Book of Mormon is "largely dependent upon the veracity of the idea that the Native Americans are descendants of the Israelites."
  • David Persuitte, Joseph Smith and the Origins of the Book of Mormon, p. 102.
63 Joseph was inspired by the "mound builders."
64, 511n24 (HB) "Joe Smith...loved hearing, as well as telling, tall-tales about American Indians." According to Lucy Mack Smith, Joseph "skillfully composed yarns about Native Americans while still just a teen; long before any golden plates had been found."
  • Lucy Mack Smith, Biographical Sketches of Joseph Smith the Prophet, and His Progenitors for many Generations [Liverpool: S.W. Richards, 1853), 85, reprinted in Dan Vogel, ed., Early Mormon Documents [Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1996], vol. 1, 296.
66, 511n31 (HB) According to Alexander Campbell, the Book of Mormon "commented on nearly 'every error and almost every truth discussed in New York for the last ten years.'"
  • Alexander Campbell, "The Mormonites," Millennial Harbinger, February 1830, 93.
68, 5121n41-43 (HB) Joseph "copied portions" of other works into the Book of Mormon, such as Josiah Priest's The Wonders of Nature and Providence Displayed."
  • Joseph Smith, Times and Seasons, June 1, 1842, vol. 3, no. 15, 813-14.
  • Josiah Priest, The Wonders of Nature, 598, 469, 524.
  • Book of Mormon (1830), 560, 61, 471-472.
68-70, 512n44-45 Joseph Smith contains parallels with Ethan Smith's View of the Hebrews
  • Ethan Smith, View of the Hebrews, 172.

Persuitte, 107, 122.

70-71 (HB) Joseph Smith plagiarized the Apocrypha
  • Reed C. Durhap, "A History of Joseph Smith's Revision of the Bible," BYU, 1965, 25
  • Jerald and Sandra Tanner, "Joseph Smith's Use of the Apocrypha," Salt Lake City Messenger (#89), December 1995.
70, 513n52 (HB) Several Bible stories were reworked for the Book of Mormon.
72, n59 "Joseph's adventures as a money-digger...are described in a section of the BOM where one character speaks of hidden treasures in the earth that 'have slipped away' back into the ground."
72, 514n61 (HB) The name "Lemuel" may have been derived from the name of the Smith's landlord, Lemuel Durfee.
  • Vogel, [Early Mormon Documents] vol. 1, 321, footnote #128.
73, 514n62 The names "Moroni" and "Cumorah" may have been taken from the "Comoros" Islands off the coast of Africa.
73, n66 The 1830 Book of Mormon contains many grammatical errors.
  • Jerald and Sandra Tanner, Mormonism: Shadow or Reality?, 85-88.
74 The name "Sam" in the Book of Mormon is "out-of-place."
74, 514n67 The French word "adieu" is out-of-place in the Book of Mormon.
74, 514n69 The Book of Mormon has had "nearly 4,000" textual changes despite being declared by Joseph Smith to be the "most correct of any book on earth."
  • History of the Church, vol. 4, 461; vol. 1, 54-55.
74, n70-71 The Book of Mormon mentions synagoges "after the manner of the Jews," despite Lehi's group leaving Jerusalem before the Babylonian captivity.
  • Book of Mormon (1830), 268 Alma 16꞉13
  • J.D. Douglas, rev. ed. and Merrill C. Tenny, gen. ed., The New International Distionary of the Bible, 972.
74 (HB) The Book of Mormon "describes Arabia as being 'bountiful' because of its fruit and wild honey. The fact is that Arabia has never had bountiful supplies of either fruit or honey."
  • No source provided.
74, n72 The Book of Mormon mentions a "continually flowing" river that runs to the Red Sea, but there "has never been such [a] river in Arabia.
  • Thomas D.S. Key, Sc.D., Ed.D. (Biology), Th.D. (1985), "A Biologist Loods at the Book of Mormon," Journal of the American Scientific Affiliation, June 1985, XXX-VIII, 3.
74, 514n73 The Book of Mormon mentions cows, oxen, asses, horses, and goats 600 years before Christ, but none of these animals existed in the New World at the time.
  • Key, 3.
514n73 "Mormon apologist John Sorenson has suggested that Smith mistranslated numerous words from the Book of Mormon golden plates. For example, cattle and oxen should have been rendered deer and bison. Moreover, horses should also have been translated deer, while swine more accurately refers to the wild pig."
  • John Sorensen, An Ancient American Setting for the Book of Mormon, 191-276, 299.
75, 514n75 There is no archaeological evidence to support the Book of Mormon.
  • Michael D. Coe, letter to William McKeever, Aug. 17, 1993, printed in William McKeever, "Yale Anthropologist's Views Remain Unchanged," Mormonism Researched (Winter, 1993), 6.
75, 515n77 The Smithsonian Institution issued a statement refuting "any claims of BOM historicity."
75, 515n78 "Mormon scholars, such as Dee F. Green, have conceded that there exists no such thing as BOM archaeology."
  • Dee F. Green, "Book of Mormon Archeology: the Myths and the Alternatives," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought (Summer 1969), vol. 4, 72-80.
75, 515n79 Lack of archaeological evidence caused B.H. Roberts and Thomas Stuart Ferguson to "abandon their faith in the Book of Mormon. This is supported through "private letters and various other manuscripts."
  • Jerald and Sandra Tanner, "B.H. Robert's Doubts," Salt Lake City Messenger (#84), April 1993.
  • Jerald and Sandra Tanner, "Ferguson's Two Faces," Salt Lake City Messenger (#69), September 1988.
  • Jerald and Sandra Tanner, "Ferguson's Rejection of the Book of Mormon Verified," Salt Lake City Messenger (#76), November 1990.
  • Jerald and Sandra Tanner, "Quest for the Gold Plates," Salt Lake City Messenger (#91), November 1996.
75 Thomas Stuart Ferguson was an "icon" of "Mormon scholarship."
76, 515-6n81-84 B.H. Roberts concluded that Joseph Smith was inspired by Ethan Smith's View of the Hebrews.
  • B.H. Roberts, Studies of the Book of Mormon, 243, 271.
  • Wesley P. Lloyd, Private Journal of Wesley P. Lloyd, August 7, 1933.
  • Truman G. Madsen, "B.H. Roberts and the Book of Mormon," BYU Studies [Summer 1979,] vol. 19, 427-445.
79-80 Thomas Stuart Ferguson wrote a letter stating "Perhaps you and I have been spoofed by Joseph Smith. Now that we have the inside dope -- why not spoof a little back and stay aboard [the Church]." He also "recommends the anti-Mormon book Mormonism: Shadow or Reality? by Jerald and Sandra Tanner."