Is There Any Evidence for the Book of Mormon?
"The Book of Mormon is the keystone of testimony. Just as the arch crumbles if the keystone is removed, so does all the Church stand or fall with the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. The enemies of the Church understand this clearly. This is why they go to such great lengths to try to disprove the Book of Mormon, for if it can be discredited, the Prophet Joseph Smith goes with it. So does our claim to priesthood keys, and revelation, and the restored Church."
- Ezra Taft Benson, thirteenth President of the Church
- Ezra Taft Benson, thirteenth President of the Church
The Book of Mormon is a compiled history about ancient peoples somewhere in the Americas. Unlike the Bible, which is universally recognized as an authentic compilation of ancient texts written by ancient people and describing real civilizations regardless of whether one accepts its theological content, the Book of Mormon's historicity is inseparable from its validity as a volume of scripture. Moroni, a character from the book resurrected as an angel, delivered the tangible physical plates it was written on to Joseph Smith, who showed them to several people and translated them by the power of God. So there's no middle ground. The book is either divine scripture or a complete fabrication. But if the Book of Mormon is true, then Joseph Smith was a prophet and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is true as well and continues to be led by prophets. Likewise, if the book is bogus then so is the rest. No wonder it's frequently singled out for attack by people who hate the Church.
Critics of the Church are fond of saying that there is "not one shred" of evidence for the Book of Mormon. (It really is astounding how often that exact phrase shows up. It's almost as if they're repeating the same thing with zero independent thought - but nah.) Sometimes they'll get creative and list all the types of evidence there are no shreds of - archaeological, linguistic, genetic, and various other fields they know little or nothing about. Before I address this claim in more detail, let's get one thing straight that anyone over the age of five should recognize. When these people say "evidence", what they really mean is "proof". The two are not synonyms. Feeling so threatened by the possibility of the Book of Mormon being true that one is compelled to reflexively deny a priori the possibility of any evidence for it existing is a pathetic, childish, dogmatic way to look at the world. You can believe the Book of Mormon is a lie without pretending nothing observed in the world bears any resemblance to it.
Those demanding secular proof of the Book of Mormon have spectacularly, perhaps deliberately missed the point. The Church of Jesus Christ, like all religions, is based on faith. Specifically, it teaches that we chose in a pre-mortal existence to come to Earth and be tested on whether we would obey God. The test would be altogether pointless if God showed Himself to the world and said "Hey everybody, here I am! Look at me!" People would do the right things for the wrong reasons and be paralyzed with fear and self-loathing the moment they messed anything up. Likewise, if the Book of Mormon were incontrovertibly proven by secular data to the point where only total morons wouldn't rush to join the Church of Jesus Christ, it would completely ruin the test and the entire purpose of the human race living on this planet. The Church has never insinuated that the book will or should be proven this way.
Having said all that, of course, there is evidence for the Book of Mormon, and more than a little bit. I won't go into it all here when there are plenty of better websites and books to read about it (see for example Book of Mormon Central, Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship, the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, and FairMormon), but I'll try to give a decent overview.
Critics of the Church are fond of saying that there is "not one shred" of evidence for the Book of Mormon. (It really is astounding how often that exact phrase shows up. It's almost as if they're repeating the same thing with zero independent thought - but nah.) Sometimes they'll get creative and list all the types of evidence there are no shreds of - archaeological, linguistic, genetic, and various other fields they know little or nothing about. Before I address this claim in more detail, let's get one thing straight that anyone over the age of five should recognize. When these people say "evidence", what they really mean is "proof". The two are not synonyms. Feeling so threatened by the possibility of the Book of Mormon being true that one is compelled to reflexively deny a priori the possibility of any evidence for it existing is a pathetic, childish, dogmatic way to look at the world. You can believe the Book of Mormon is a lie without pretending nothing observed in the world bears any resemblance to it.
Those demanding secular proof of the Book of Mormon have spectacularly, perhaps deliberately missed the point. The Church of Jesus Christ, like all religions, is based on faith. Specifically, it teaches that we chose in a pre-mortal existence to come to Earth and be tested on whether we would obey God. The test would be altogether pointless if God showed Himself to the world and said "Hey everybody, here I am! Look at me!" People would do the right things for the wrong reasons and be paralyzed with fear and self-loathing the moment they messed anything up. Likewise, if the Book of Mormon were incontrovertibly proven by secular data to the point where only total morons wouldn't rush to join the Church of Jesus Christ, it would completely ruin the test and the entire purpose of the human race living on this planet. The Church has never insinuated that the book will or should be proven this way.
Having said all that, of course, there is evidence for the Book of Mormon, and more than a little bit. I won't go into it all here when there are plenty of better websites and books to read about it (see for example Book of Mormon Central, Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship, the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, and FairMormon), but I'll try to give a decent overview.
Spiritual Evidence
"I opened it with eagerness, and read its title page... I read all day; eating was a burden, I had no desire for food; sleep was a burden when the night came, for I preferred reading to sleep. As I read, the spirit of the Lord was upon me, and I knew and comprehended that the book was true, as plainly and manifestly as a man comprehends and knows that he exists."
- Parley P. Pratt, Apostle
- Parley P. Pratt, Apostle
This isn't what anybody came to the page for and may seem like a cop-out, but it's important and it needs to be covered. I promise to move on to more interesting stuff. Although the Book of Mormon and the Church as a whole are based on faith, that faith isn't supposed to be blind. Moroni wrote near the end, "And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truthof it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost." This sets the pattern for personal revelation that every Latter-day Saint is supposed to seek. The leadership of the Church has never asked or expected anyone to do believe or do something just because they said so. We are entitled to direct confirmation or denial from God of any given religious principle or directive.
Many people nowadays insist that only emperically verifiable evidence is valid (even though that belief is not emperically verifiable). That's their loss. We are not beholden to their worldview. Spiritual evidence is much like physical evidence, and the process of gaining a testimony is much like science, with this one crucial difference that gets people's knickers in a twist. The feelings and impressions of the Spirit virtually always come on a one-on-one basis. Science can verify that they happen by measuring people's brain patterns, but not their source, their meaning, or even what they actually feel like to the individual. They cannot be replicated, dissected, or peer-reviewed. They remain subjective. They're supposed to be. See my above comments on faith and God's plan. For many people, though, they may be so powerful as to cross the line from evidence to proof. But the Book of Mormon and the Church of Jesus Christ have only been proven for those people, one at a time.
I, myself, have never prayed about the Book of Mormon. Its truth has been so obvious to me from the first day I started taking it seriously (after a childhood spent rebelling against the Church because it was "boring") that I never felt the slightest need. I don't say that to brag but by way of full disclosure. I have my own spiritual knowledge of the book's truth that nobody, least of all some random jackass on the internet, can take away from me. This knowledge has kept me anchored, sometimes uncomfortably so, any time I experienced a faith crisis over various historical or philosophical issues. No matter how much doubt or confusion I experienced about the Church, my integrity compelled me to stick with it because I could not with any degree of honesty deny my testimony of the Book of Mormon. I promise the point of this page isn't to bear my testimony, but I can't overstate how real and crucial this type of evidence is notwithstanding the widespred denial that this type of evidence exists.
Is there uncertainty in spiritual methods? Of course. There's uncertainty in scientific methods too. None of us can ever really be a hundred percent sure that we really know anything about the universe at all. We don't know that our senses and logic are reliable just because our senses and logic tell us that they are, and we can't actually prove that everything and everyone beyond our own minds isn't a figment of our imaginations, or that we ourselves aren't the figment of something's imagination. (I shudder to think what poor sick deity or computer would dream me up.) But that doesn't stop normal people from trusting science and going about their lives as if everything is real regardless. Likewise, I trust the thoughts and feelings I receive from what I know as the Holy Ghost.
Many people nowadays insist that only emperically verifiable evidence is valid (even though that belief is not emperically verifiable). That's their loss. We are not beholden to their worldview. Spiritual evidence is much like physical evidence, and the process of gaining a testimony is much like science, with this one crucial difference that gets people's knickers in a twist. The feelings and impressions of the Spirit virtually always come on a one-on-one basis. Science can verify that they happen by measuring people's brain patterns, but not their source, their meaning, or even what they actually feel like to the individual. They cannot be replicated, dissected, or peer-reviewed. They remain subjective. They're supposed to be. See my above comments on faith and God's plan. For many people, though, they may be so powerful as to cross the line from evidence to proof. But the Book of Mormon and the Church of Jesus Christ have only been proven for those people, one at a time.
I, myself, have never prayed about the Book of Mormon. Its truth has been so obvious to me from the first day I started taking it seriously (after a childhood spent rebelling against the Church because it was "boring") that I never felt the slightest need. I don't say that to brag but by way of full disclosure. I have my own spiritual knowledge of the book's truth that nobody, least of all some random jackass on the internet, can take away from me. This knowledge has kept me anchored, sometimes uncomfortably so, any time I experienced a faith crisis over various historical or philosophical issues. No matter how much doubt or confusion I experienced about the Church, my integrity compelled me to stick with it because I could not with any degree of honesty deny my testimony of the Book of Mormon. I promise the point of this page isn't to bear my testimony, but I can't overstate how real and crucial this type of evidence is notwithstanding the widespred denial that this type of evidence exists.
Is there uncertainty in spiritual methods? Of course. There's uncertainty in scientific methods too. None of us can ever really be a hundred percent sure that we really know anything about the universe at all. We don't know that our senses and logic are reliable just because our senses and logic tell us that they are, and we can't actually prove that everything and everyone beyond our own minds isn't a figment of our imaginations, or that we ourselves aren't the figment of something's imagination. (I shudder to think what poor sick deity or computer would dream me up.) But that doesn't stop normal people from trusting science and going about their lives as if everything is real regardless. Likewise, I trust the thoughts and feelings I receive from what I know as the Holy Ghost.
Internal Evidence
"[T]his book has been examined and attacked, denied and deconstructed, targeted and torn apart like perhaps no other book in modern religious history - perhaps like no other book in any religious history. And still it stands... None of these frankly pathetic answers for this book has ever withstood examination because there is no other answer than the one Joseph gave as its young unlearned translator."
- Jeffery R. Holland, Apostle
- Jeffery R. Holland, Apostle
The Book of Mormon, by its own unlikely existence and persistence, provides compelling evidence of itself that must be taken seriously. Most people have never given it a chance. In fairness, most people don't have the time or inclination to read every religious text just in case it turns out to be true, but the more they know about how the Book of Mormon came about and what it claims to be, the more intrigued they should be. To be as frank as Elder Holland, the idea that Joseph Smith wrote this book, with or without help, is laughable. Any honest person who bothers to read the darn thing can see that. Critics insist that it was easy, that he just plagiarized from every book that existed in 1829 (and a couple that didn't) and this somehow explains everything, but nobody in all this time has bothered to replicate his unparalleled literary achievement. This massive failure of theirs is covered in far more detail in Hugh Nibley's Book of Mormon Challenge.
The Book of Mormon was clearly not written in English. Though it was translated into language similar to the King James Bible, it clearly follows Hebraic sentence structures and wording. Any non-scholar can see this just by comparing it to the Doctrine and Covenants, a series of new revelations that were revealed to Joseph Smith in English, or anything that he ever wrote himself. That's without getting into specific forms like chiasmus, a Hebrew technique that runs throughout the book and was little known or understood until well into the twentieth century. The technique, which highlights meaning by reversing gramatical structures in an "X" format with the most key point in the center, is more advanced than simple repetition. It's absurd to suggest (as some have) that Joseph Smith with his third grade education did this subconsciously, and just very, very, very unlikely that he did so deliberately or knew anybody who could, but even if he did, why did he never point it out as evidence of the book's authenticity?
An even more recent discovery was that every writer has a distinct "wordprint", or pattern of words that they subconsciously use even when trying to imitate someone else's writing style. This finding has been used to determine the authorship of anonymous or disputed documents. A wordprint study at University of California, Berkeley strongly indicated that each part of the Book of Mormon claiming to be written by a separate person was, in fact, written by a separate person. In fairness it should be noted that some critics once retaliated with a depressingly stupid "study" of their own and concluded that most of the book was written by Sidney Rigdon. How? By comparing it to various known authors and then concluding that because it was more similar to Sidney Rigdon than to any of the other authors, it must have been written by him. Using the same "logic", they could have just as well determined that it was written by Kurt Vonnegut.
The Book of Mormon never specifies in modern terms what part of the Americas it actually takes place in, and the Church has received no further revelation and has no official stance. This is a topic of scorn for many critics. However, the fact remains that the book is overflowing with geographical references and details that Mormon and Moroni chose to include despite space limitations. These clues can be and have been used to determine where most cities and landmarks were in relation to each other, and to construct a remarkably (or, if Joseph Smith wrote it, impossibly) consistent map of the book's geography. Several attempts have been made to overlay this geography onto real world locations. Most of the people who are into this sort of thing, whom I agree with, believe that the most plausible setting by far is Mesoamerica. Again, the Church doesn't say whether or not the Book of Mormon took place in Mesoamarica, but do I think the stunning correlations are coincidental? Heck no.
The Book of Mormon was clearly not written in English. Though it was translated into language similar to the King James Bible, it clearly follows Hebraic sentence structures and wording. Any non-scholar can see this just by comparing it to the Doctrine and Covenants, a series of new revelations that were revealed to Joseph Smith in English, or anything that he ever wrote himself. That's without getting into specific forms like chiasmus, a Hebrew technique that runs throughout the book and was little known or understood until well into the twentieth century. The technique, which highlights meaning by reversing gramatical structures in an "X" format with the most key point in the center, is more advanced than simple repetition. It's absurd to suggest (as some have) that Joseph Smith with his third grade education did this subconsciously, and just very, very, very unlikely that he did so deliberately or knew anybody who could, but even if he did, why did he never point it out as evidence of the book's authenticity?
An even more recent discovery was that every writer has a distinct "wordprint", or pattern of words that they subconsciously use even when trying to imitate someone else's writing style. This finding has been used to determine the authorship of anonymous or disputed documents. A wordprint study at University of California, Berkeley strongly indicated that each part of the Book of Mormon claiming to be written by a separate person was, in fact, written by a separate person. In fairness it should be noted that some critics once retaliated with a depressingly stupid "study" of their own and concluded that most of the book was written by Sidney Rigdon. How? By comparing it to various known authors and then concluding that because it was more similar to Sidney Rigdon than to any of the other authors, it must have been written by him. Using the same "logic", they could have just as well determined that it was written by Kurt Vonnegut.
The Book of Mormon never specifies in modern terms what part of the Americas it actually takes place in, and the Church has received no further revelation and has no official stance. This is a topic of scorn for many critics. However, the fact remains that the book is overflowing with geographical references and details that Mormon and Moroni chose to include despite space limitations. These clues can be and have been used to determine where most cities and landmarks were in relation to each other, and to construct a remarkably (or, if Joseph Smith wrote it, impossibly) consistent map of the book's geography. Several attempts have been made to overlay this geography onto real world locations. Most of the people who are into this sort of thing, whom I agree with, believe that the most plausible setting by far is Mesoamerica. Again, the Church doesn't say whether or not the Book of Mormon took place in Mesoamarica, but do I think the stunning correlations are coincidental? Heck no.
External Evidence
"It is the author’s opinion that all the scriptures, including the Book of Mormon, will remain in the realm of faith. Science will not be able to prove or disprove holy writ. However, enough plausible evidence will come forth to prevent scoffers from having a field day, but not enough to remove the requirement of faith. Believers must be patient during such unfolding."
- Neal A. Maxwell, Apostle
- Neal A. Maxwell, Apostle
Now what you've all been waiting for! If the Book of Mormon had reflected the anthropological knowledge of Joseph Smith's day - in other words, if Joseph Smith had written it - then it would have become less plausible over time as new discoveries contradicted it. Instead, the opposite happened. Critics of the Church are fond of copy-pasting lists of perceived anachronisms; discrepancies between what the Book of Mormon mentions being in ancient America (or Israel) and what is known from archaeology to have been in ancient America (or Israel). To begin with, they're overlooking the fact that archaeology of the Americas is in its infancy and has excavated a single-digit percentage of known sites, and the fact that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. But more to the point here, they're either ignorant or dishonest for not recognizing that this list of anachronisms is much shorter than it was in 1830.
No sane person expects to find a city labeled "Zarahemla" or a rock labeled "Nephi was here" in letters we can actually read, yet this is exactly what our critics seem to demand (though of course, if any such thing were discovered, they would make up a reason why it didn't count). Some of the best archaeological evidences for the Book of Mormon are things that were discovered some time after it was published, like steelworking in ancient Israel, the Hebrew male name "Alma", the exact route through the Arabian peninsula described at the beginning complete with altars labeled NHM (Nahom), and advanced civilizations of millions of people with highways, towers, gardens, barley, and cement in pre-Columbian America. Do you think any Latter-day Saint familiar with the book was surprised when archaeologists discovered cement in pre-Columbian America? Of course not. The critics were, but they just quietly removed it from their list of anachronisms and hoped nobody would notice.
Hundreds, even thousands of parallels can be and have been drawn between what the Book of Mormon describes and what mainstream scientists have discovered. Critics will point out that these parallels are only considered meaningful by LDS scholars and apologists. No duh. By definition, virtually anyone who takes the Book of Mormon seriously as a historical text is a Latter-day Saint. Like I said, its historicity is inseparable from its divinity, and that's a strong incentive for any non-believer who doesn't want to deal with some really hard questions to avoid considering its historicity at all. The work of these scholars and apologists deserves to be considered on its own merits instead of fallaciously dismissed because of their religious bias. I'm not interested in the opinion on this topic of anyone who's never bothered to read Mormon's Codex by Dr. John Sorenson. Critics bashing the Book of Mormon on archaeological grounds often rely on sources from the 1970s or earlier, which is just sad.
But again, these LDS people aren't trying to "prove" the Book of Mormon to the world. In that sense they're not like creationists who start with a conclusion and then try to support it by cherry-picking or misrepresenting science. They have faith in the Book of Mormon for primarily spiritual reasons, and their main audience is others who have faith in the Book of Mormon for primarily spiritual reasons and enjoy seeing how secular discoveries validate and enrich that faith. They're not trying to convert the world, because this is not how people are converted to the Book of Mormon. I think the secular evidences are overwhelming and marvel that anyone could think otherwise, but I acknowledge that I'm not immune to confirmation bias. The point is that it's an epic lie to claim there's "not one shred" of evidence for this most remarkable book.
No sane person expects to find a city labeled "Zarahemla" or a rock labeled "Nephi was here" in letters we can actually read, yet this is exactly what our critics seem to demand (though of course, if any such thing were discovered, they would make up a reason why it didn't count). Some of the best archaeological evidences for the Book of Mormon are things that were discovered some time after it was published, like steelworking in ancient Israel, the Hebrew male name "Alma", the exact route through the Arabian peninsula described at the beginning complete with altars labeled NHM (Nahom), and advanced civilizations of millions of people with highways, towers, gardens, barley, and cement in pre-Columbian America. Do you think any Latter-day Saint familiar with the book was surprised when archaeologists discovered cement in pre-Columbian America? Of course not. The critics were, but they just quietly removed it from their list of anachronisms and hoped nobody would notice.
Hundreds, even thousands of parallels can be and have been drawn between what the Book of Mormon describes and what mainstream scientists have discovered. Critics will point out that these parallels are only considered meaningful by LDS scholars and apologists. No duh. By definition, virtually anyone who takes the Book of Mormon seriously as a historical text is a Latter-day Saint. Like I said, its historicity is inseparable from its divinity, and that's a strong incentive for any non-believer who doesn't want to deal with some really hard questions to avoid considering its historicity at all. The work of these scholars and apologists deserves to be considered on its own merits instead of fallaciously dismissed because of their religious bias. I'm not interested in the opinion on this topic of anyone who's never bothered to read Mormon's Codex by Dr. John Sorenson. Critics bashing the Book of Mormon on archaeological grounds often rely on sources from the 1970s or earlier, which is just sad.
But again, these LDS people aren't trying to "prove" the Book of Mormon to the world. In that sense they're not like creationists who start with a conclusion and then try to support it by cherry-picking or misrepresenting science. They have faith in the Book of Mormon for primarily spiritual reasons, and their main audience is others who have faith in the Book of Mormon for primarily spiritual reasons and enjoy seeing how secular discoveries validate and enrich that faith. They're not trying to convert the world, because this is not how people are converted to the Book of Mormon. I think the secular evidences are overwhelming and marvel that anyone could think otherwise, but I acknowledge that I'm not immune to confirmation bias. The point is that it's an epic lie to claim there's "not one shred" of evidence for this most remarkable book.
