Criticism of Mormonism/Books/One Nation Under Gods/Chapter 4

Response to claims made in "Chapter 4: Smith's Golden Book"


Claims made in "Chapter 3: From Profit to Prophet"
A FAIR Analysis of:
One Nation Under Gods
A work by author: Richard Abanes
 Claims made in "Chapter 5: People of Zion"
This story would prove to be one of Smith's best tales.

—One Nation Under Gods, p. 60.

∗       ∗       ∗

60 (HB,PB)

Claim
  •  Author's quote: "This story would prove to be one of Smith's best tales."

Author's source(s)
  • Author's opinion.
Response

62 (HB,PB)

Claim
  • Were the Lamanites were cursed with a "skin of blackness?"

Author's source(s)
Response

62 (HB,PB)

Claim
  • Why does Jesus used "exactly the same wording" that is found in the 1611 King James Version of the New Testament?

Author's source(s)
  • No source provided.
Response

62 (HB,PB)

Claim
  • Were the "so-called American Indians" considered a "filthy, and a loathsome people?"

Author's source(s)
Response
  • The Book of Mormon never refers to "American Indians," "so-called" or otherwise.

63, 510n15 (HB)
508n15 (PB)

Claim
  • Was a "dark-skinned appearance" actually a curse traceable to a failure to follow God?

Author's source(s)
  • Oliver Cowdery, "Letter VII," Messenger and Advocate, July 1835, vol. 1, no. 10, 158, reprinted in Vogel, Early Mormon Documents, vol. 2, 450.
Response

63, 510n18 (HB)
508n18 (PB)

Claim
  • Is the genuineness of the Book of Mormon is "largely dependent" upon Native Americans being descendants of the Israelites?

Author's source(s)
  • David Persuitte, Joseph Smith and the Origins of the Book of Mormon, p. 102.
Response

63 (HB,PB)

Claim
  • Was Joseph inspired by the "mound builders" to write the Book of Mormon?

Author's source(s)
Response

64, 511n24 (HB)
509n24 (PB)

Claim
  • Did Joseph's mother, Lucy Mack Smith, say that Joseph "skillfully composed yarns about Native Americans while still just a teen; long before any golden plates had been found?" (HB) (emphasis added)
∗       ∗       ∗
  • Did Joseph's mother say that he "skillfully composed yarns about Native Americans while still just a teen; long before he obtained and translated any golden plates?" (PB) (emphasis added)

Author's source(s)

  • 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.

Response

  • The paperback edition corrects the small technical error, but ignores the larger issue: Lucy Mack Smith's account clearly states, "From this time forth, Joseph continued to receive instructions from the Lord, and we continued to get the children together every evening, for the purpose of listening while he gave us a relation of the same" prior to her statement about Joseph's "amusing recitals."
  • Joseph Smith/"Amusing recitals" of ancient American inhabitants
  • Use of sources: Tall Tales


66, 511n31 (HB)
509n31 (PB)

Claim
  • 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.'"

Author's source(s)
  • Alexander Campbell, "The Mormonites," Millennial Harbinger, February 1830, 93.
Response
  • Hugh Nibley notes:
Now if all this was so perfectly obvious, then as now, why on earth did the critics forsake such a neat and comfortable explanation to wander for a hundred years in a wilderness of speculation and contradiction [e.g., the Spalding theory? It was because the theory of the local origin collapsed at a touch. No sooner had Mr. Campbell's explanation been received with cries of joy and relief than it was seen that the picture had not been clarified by it at all, but made much messier. [1]

68, 512n41-43 (HB)
510n41-43 (PB)

Claim
  • Did Joseph copy text from other contemporary works into the Book of Mormon, such as Josiah Priest's The Wonders of Nature and Providence Displayed?"

Author's source(s)
  • 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.
Response

68-70, 512n44-45 (HB)
510n44-45 (PB)

Claim
  • Does the Book of Mormon contain parallels to Ethan Smith's View of the Hebrews?

Author's source(s)
  • Ethan Smith, View of the Hebrews, 172.
  • Persuitte, 107, 122.
Response

70-71 (HB,PB)

Claim
  • Did Joseph Smith plagiarize the Apocrypha?

Author's source(s)
  • 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.
Response

70, 513n52 (HB)
511n52 (PB)

Claim
  • Were several Bible stories reworked for the Book of Mormon?

Author's source(s)
Response

72, 513n59 (HB)
511n59(PB)

Claim
  •  Author's quote: "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."

Author's source(s)
Response

72, 514n61 (HB)
512n61 (PB)

Claim
  • Could the name "Lemuel" have been derived from the name of the Smith's landlord, Lemuel Durfee?

Author's source(s)
  • Vogel, [Early Mormon Documents] vol. 1, 321, footnote #128.
Response

73, 514n62 (HB)
512n62 (PB)

Claim
  • Could the names "Moroni" and "Cumorah" have been taken from the "Comoros" Islands off the coast of Africa?

Author's source(s)
Response

73, 514n66 (HB)
512n66 (PB)

Claim
  • The 1830 Book of Mormon contains many grammatical errors.

Author's source(s)
  • Jerald and Sandra Tanner, Mormonism: Shadow or Reality?, 85-88.
Response

74 (HB,PB)

Claim
  • Is the name "Sam" in the Book of Mormon "out-of-place?"

Author's source(s)
Response
  •  The author's claim is false: "While Sam is a perfectly good Egyptian name, it is also the normal Arabic form of Shem, the son of Noah." [2]
  • Book of Mormon names:Sam

74, 514n67

Claim
  • Is the French word "adieu" out-of-place in the Book of Mormon?

Author's source(s)
Response

74, 514n69 (HB)
512n69 (PB)

Claim
  • Why has the Book of Mormon had "nearly 4,000" textual changes despite being declared by Joseph Smith to be the "most correct of any book on earth?"

Author's source(s)
  • History of the Church, vol. 4, 461; vol. 1, 54-55.
Response

74, 514n70-71 (HB)
512n70-71 (PB)

Claim
  • The Book of Mormon mentions synagoges "after the manner of the Jews," despite Lehi's group leaving Jerusalem before the Babylonian captivity.

Author's source(s)
  • Book of Mormon (1830), 268 Alma 16꞉13
  • J.D. Douglas, rev. ed. and Merrill C. Tenny, gen. ed., The New International Dictionary of the Bible, 972.
Response

74 (HB, PB)

Claim
  • The author claims that 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."

Author's source(s)
  • No source provided.
Response
  • This is an absurd statement to make. The Book of Mormon does not describe Arabia as being bountiful in fruit and honey. It talks of a place within the Arabian peninsula which was bountiful in fruit an honey—such a location does indeed exist.
  • Book of Mormon geography—Old World—Bountiful
  • Absurd claims

74, 514n72(HB)
512n72(PB)

Claim
  • How could the Book of Mormon mentions a "continually flowing" river that runs to the Red Sea, when there is no such river in Arabia?

Author's source(s)
  • Thomas D.S. Key, Sc.D., Ed.D. (Biology), Th.D. (1985), "A Biologist Looks at the Book of Mormon," Journal of the American Scientific Affiliation, June 1985, XXX-VIII, 3.
Response
  •  The author's claim is false: Such a river has been found, if that is indeed the proper reading: Valley of Lemuel

74, 514n73 (HB)
512n73 (PB)

Claim
  • Why does the Book of Mormon mention animals such as cows, oxen, asses, horses, and goats as existing in the New World 600 years before Christ, when it is known that none of these animals existed in the New World at the time?

Author's source(s)
  • Key, 3.
Response

514n73 (HB)
512n73 (PB)

Claim
  •  Author's quote: "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."

Author's source(s)
  • John Sorensen, An Ancient American Setting for the Book of Mormon, 191-276, 299.
Response
  • Dr. Sorenson never suggested that Joseph "mistranslated" anything from the Book of Mormon. The word "mistranslated" or "mistranslation" doesn't even appear in Sorenson's book: He is instead describing the concept of "loan-shifting." Sorenson's suggestion was that the writers of the Book of Mormon may have applied these terms to the animals, not Joseph Smith.
  • "One thing is clear. The terminology the Nephite volume uses to discuss animals follows a different logic than the scheme familiar to most of us whose ancestors came out of western Europe." (John Sorenson, An Ancient American Setting for the Book of Mormon, 288. (emphasis added)
  • "In one column are listed Book of Mormon terms for various animals. In the other are names in modern and scientific nomenclature that could reasonably correspond. Several beasts are possible for each Book of Mormon name. Usually there is no basis for preferring one candidate above another. Take your choice. But the purpose is not to finalize identifications. Instead it is to show that there are plausible creatures to match each scriptural term." (John Sorenson, An Ancient American Setting for the Book of Mormon, 299. (emphasis added)

75, 514n75 (HB)
512n75 (PB)

Claim
  • Is there no archaeological evidence to support the Book of Mormon?

Author's source(s)
  • 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.
Response

75, 515n77 (HB)
512n77 (PB)

Claim
  • The Smithsonian Institution issued a statement refuting "any claims of BOM historicity."

Author's source(s)
Response

75, 515n78

Claim
  • Is is true that "Mormon scholars, such as Dee F. Green," have admitted that Book of Mormon archaeology does not exist?

Author's source(s)
  • Dee F. Green, "Book of Mormon Archeology: the Myths and the Alternatives," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 4 no. [2] (Summer 1969), 72-80.
Response
  • More correctly, Green argued in 1969 that nothing that had been done thus far qualified as Book of Mormon archaeology. He went on to argue that a broader anthropological perspective was needed—just as it was with the Bible:
  • For an up-to-date assessment of the Book of Mormon and archaeology, see:
    • John E. Clark, "'Archaeology, Relics, and Book of Mormon Belief'," Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 14/2 (2005). [38–49] link
  • Book of Mormon/Archaeology

75, 515n79

Claim
  • Did a lack of Book of Mormon archaeological evidence cause B.H. Roberts and Thomas Stuart Ferguson to "abandon their faith in the Book of Mormon?"

Author's source(s)
  • 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.
Response

75

Claim
  • Was Thomas Stuart Ferguson an "icon" of Latter-day Saint scholarship?

Author's source(s)
  • No source provided.
Response
  • Ferguson was an amateur without a rigorous research method or realistic ideas about what secular research could or could not provide:
  • John Gee, "The Hagiography of Doubting Thomas (Review of Quest for the Gold Plates: Thomas Stuart Ferguson's Archaeological Search for the Book of Mormon)," FARMS Review of Books 10/2 (1998): 158–183. off-site
  • Daniel C. Peterson, "On the New World Archaeological Foundation (Review of: Behind the Mask of Mormonism)," FARMS Review 16/1 (2004): 221–234. off-site
  • Daniel C. Peterson and Matthew Roper, "Ein Heldenleben? On Thomas Stuart Ferguson as an Elias for Cultural Mormons (Review of: Quest for the Gold Plates: Thomas Stuart Ferguson’s Archaeological Search for the Book of Mormon)," FARMS Review 16/1 (2004): 175–220. off-site

76, 515-6n81-84

Claim
  • Did B.H. Roberts actually conclude that Joseph Smith was inspired by Ethan Smith's View of the Hebrews?

Author's source(s)
  • 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.
Response

77-80, 516n88-90 (HB) 514n88-90 (PB)

Claim
  • 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]."

Author's source(s)
  • Ferguson, "Written Symposium on Book-of-Mormon Geography: Response of Thomas S. Ferguson to the Norman & Sorenson Papers," 4, 7, 29, reprinted in Jerald Tanner and Sandra Tanner, Ferguson's Manuscript Revealed.
  • Feb. 20, 1976 letter to Mr. & Mrs. H. W. Lawrence.
  • Thomas Stuart Ferguson, letter dated February 9, 1976.
Response

Notes


  1. ↑ Hugh W. Nibley, The Prophetic Book of Mormon (Vol. 8 of the Collected Works of Hugh Nibley), (Salt Lake City, Utah : Deseret Book Company ; Provo, Utah : Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 1989), 148. ISBN 0875791794.. Nibley continues: Note first of all that it was quickly realized, not only by the Mormons, but by the anti-Mormons as well, that Joseph Smith by his own wits could not possibly have written the Book of Mormon—and so farewell to Mr. Campbell's sublime certitudes: "I cannot doubt for a single moment but that he is the sole author and proprietor of it!" Note in the second place the admission that this obvious fact left the critics in a quandary—they "wondered much." And since quandaries are intolerable to critics, who are never at a loss to invent explanations, it is not the least surprising that "the wonder grew into a suspicion." From embarrassment to wonder and from wonder to suspicion: is there any doubt what the next step will be? Is suspicion ever at a loss to discover villainy? All at once, and last of all, comes the evidence: "almost simultaneously" people everywhere start remembering a certain unpublished and unregretted novel, a dull, befuddled composition that no one had the patience to read but the names of whose characters were remembered with crystal clarity by people who had forgotten all about the book until then. Then another "double-take" made it necessary to explain how Smith could have got hold of the book, and, presto! another brain-wave hit the public, and here and there people suddenly remembered a "mysterious stranger" who used to visit the Smiths by night, some three to ten and more years before! There is your answer, and no funny business, either: "There was no opportunity of collusion" between the "witnesses."
  2. ↑ Hugh W. Nibley, Lehi in the Desert, the World of the Jaredites, There Were Jaredites, edited by John W. Welch with Darrell L. Matthew and Stephen R. Callister, (Salt Lake City, Utah: Deseret Book Company; Provo, Utah: Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 1988), 39.
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