SIGNS IN THE BOOK OF MORMON THAT IT IS A MODERN DOCUMENT

The Book of Mormon claims to be a record of life in ancient America that God revealed to Joseph Smith the founder of the Mormon Church in the 1830’s. But there are many reasons for denying this. The book makes serious historical blunders. It is a product of Smith's day.

Be careful that you do not see historical errors in the Book of Mormon that are not there.

Alma 7:10 predicts that Jesus will be born in Jerusalem when it should be Bethlehem according to the Bible. But the verse speaks of Jerusalem as the name of a land. It is just what the Nephites called the land they came from therefore there is no contradiction. Also, the Book of Mormon never says Jesus was born at Bethlehem and claims that the Bible has been changed and corrupted. Was the Bethlehem birth one of the corruptions?

Helaman 14:20 is supposed to make the error of saying the whole world will be cloaked in darkness for three days at the time of the death of Jesus. But the verse never actually says that the entire world will see it but that all America will be cloaked in darkness.

The biggest giveaways are anachronisms. 

Moroni 7 contains teaching on charity that is almost straight out of St Paul’s teaching on charity in 1 Corinthians 13. Moroni could not have had access to Paul’s writings for Moroni was in America and there was no contact with Europe where Paul’s epistles were distributed. The simplest explanation is that Joseph Smith copied out of his Bible and wrote the Book of Mormon himself. Mormons disagree and conjecture that Moroni saw Paul’s writings in a vision or that Jesus made the teaching not Paul and Moroni and Paul were copying Jesus and Paul was not copied by Moroni. This would involve holding that Jesus voiced the teaching both in Palestine and in America. This shows how dangerous belief in miracles is. You can pass off any pack of lies as the truth as long as you can suppose miracles happened. Because any religion can do the same you end up with having no real credibility – you end up giving no real reason to believe. Unless you stick to simple non-supernatural explanations you will never get anywhere. This is true even if you believe in the supernatural for you should only believe in it when you have to. Anything that confuses and obscures the truth is dangerous and fanatical for we need to be grounded in reality to live wholesome lives. If we reason away the evidence that the author of the Book of Mormon used the Bible to help him write it and was not translating from golden plates then that opens the way for any forger to do the same. If it is right to slander scholarly critics and do away with science then how can it be wrong to command suicide in the name of faith? Follow reason, not rationalisation.

Alma 46:15 says that the Nephites were called Christians in 73 BC. Acts says that the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch. But the Mormons say the Church Acts is on about was called that for the first time which does not rule out an unknown Church being called that before then. They are assuming that people being called Christians before Christ is explicable. It is not. They are assuming miracles. Miracles are so improbable that they should never be assumed. You need the evidence for every miracle. If a miracle doesn’t have any evidence then it fails to be a proper miracle to us. Miracle means wonder. Stories about miracles don’t cause wonder – only evidences for miracles do.