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


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."
  • {{CriticalWork:Brodie:No Man Knows|pages=34.
64, 511n24 (HB) Joseph Smith's "amusing recitals" of ancient American inhabitants.
  • 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.
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.