FROM LITERATURE EXPOSING MORMONISM 

Joseph Smith (1805-1844), the Mormon founder, claimed to have had golden plates given to him by an angel. To back up this extraordinary claim, he had to have witnesses to silence people who thought that the plates never existed. He chose three witnesses who said they saw the plates as an angel turned the leaves for them to have a look. They testified also that Smith's miraculous translation of the plates was correct. Then he chose eight witnesses who said that they saw the plates close up. This testimony led to the foundation of the Church of Christ which later became the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. The translation is called the Book of Mormon.

Source: A Letter to an Apostle: Another Testament of Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon by Paul Douglas

There should have been no financial motive. Martin Harris mortgaged his farm and invested at least $3,000 of his own money into printing the Book of Mormon, so of course, he had incentive to ‘promote’ the book. Each of the witnesses should have written their own testimony instead of merely signing a prepared statement written by Joseph. If the prepared document wasn’t 100%, accurate many people would simply sign it anyway as it would be too much of a hassle to have it completely rewritten by hand – especially in the 1800s. The witnesses should have been much more detailed about this amazing event. What did the angel look like? What exactly did he say? How did he speak? There are almost no details provided which can be analyzed and compared. If each witness had simply written their own account and provided significant details, then their testimonies could corroborate each other.

The Sermon on the Mount in the Bible and the Book of Mormon are identical. However, when Joseph Smith wrote the JST, he corrected Christ’s Sermon on the Mount in the Bible but also corrected concurrently the identical Sermon on the Mount passage in the Book of Mormon. Why was that necessary? He translated the Book of Mormon just a decade before, it certainly had not been corrupted over that short time and should not have needed correcting.

Here’s what Helen Mar Kimball, just 14 confided to a close friend in Nauvoo about her marriage to Joseph Smith: “I would never have been sealed to Joseph had I known it was anything more than ceremony. I was young, and they deceived me, by saying the salvation of our whole family depended on it.”

GRANT PALMER INSIDER VIEW OF MORMON ORIGINS

Smith when the first 116 pages of the Book of Mormon vanished said it could not be translated again as the words would not be the same which: "confirms the view that the English text existed in some kind of unalterable, spiritual form rather than that someone had to think through difficult conceptual issues and idioms, always resulting in variants in any translation. Joseph avoided this test altogether by translating a different version of the same story from a different set of plates."

Smith once taught that God and Jesus were the same person – contradicting the later Mormon doctrine that they are two gods: "The JST reads: “[N]o man knoweth that the Son is the Father, and the Father is the Son, but him to whom the Son will reveal it.”"

Smith when presented with the fraudulent Kinderhook plates intended to trap and expose him as a fraud said they were like the inscriptions on the Book of Mormon gold plates: "When he showed them to Joseph [Smith], the latter said that the figures or writing on them was similar to that in which the Book of Mormon was written..."

"I like the fact that Jesus emphasized an empirical test of his teachings to “know” him (John 7:16-17; 2 Pet. 1:4-10) rather than a metaphysical approach to truth (Moro. 10:4-5)." So we have an evidence based Jesus here. Moroni's teaching that prayer gives you the answers is false.