GoGoGoff published a blog post in 2016 [see it HERE] which was sent to me by my local missionaries in 2021. I have a wonderful and productive relationship with them, and I promised I would write out an honest and detailed response. I think truth is important, and even though I believe that missionaries from the Church of Latter-Day-Saints mean well, I don’t think they have the truth. In this article I hope I can clearly articulate many of the reasons I don’t don’t accept the Church’s claims.
First, the introduction to the list. “There are only two options when it comes to the Book of Mormon: It is either a true record and Joseph is a Prophet who was called to translate it. OR it is a forgery and Joseph Smith wrote it and was a con-man who made it all up.” The author sets up the 30-point challenge meant to detail for us exactly how unlikely it would be for someone like Joseph Smith to write the Book of Mormon. Unfortunately, there is already an issue! Joseph Smith really COULD have believed the things he was dictating from the seer stones in the hat! (If you aren’t familiar with the origin of the BoM, come back to this article later). Maybe he wasn’t a con-man at all but thought he was doing the best thing for humanity at the time. In other words, he could have been a liar, but not for his own benefit. There is an inherent problem any time someone tries to limit the possible explanations, because really it may just be to make their job a little bit easier. The logic goes: “If I can thoroughly disprove the other explanation, that means MY explanation must be true!” My hope, dear reader, is that you are able to find the problem in this statement for yourself. And so, the entire premise of this challenge is to dismiss the “Con-man who made it all up” theory of the origin of The Book of Mormon, yet I don’t necessarily accept this side of the dichotomy. I also don’t think The BoM is “a true record and Joseph is a Prophet who was called to translate it.” My hope is that by going through the challenge point by point, you might be able to understand why.
Point #1: “Write a history of Ancient Tibet. Why? Because you know no more about Tibet than Joseph Smith knew about ancient America.”
Response: We have good reason to think Joseph Smith actually got a few things wrong about ancient America, much as I might get a few things wrong if I were surmising about the history of ancient Tibet with the information I currently have available. I’ll mention one such inconsistency here. The Book of Mormon mentions several animals, plants, and technologies that are not found in the ancient American archaeological record until after the supposed time they were used in ancient America. For example: horses, elephants, chariots, wheat, steel, and silk would not have existed in the the BoM time period, yet they are referenced and used. Smith would not have known these things were not in existence during that time. I’m aware of at least one other type of inconsistency which would include WHO was around in ancient America. Namely, indigenous Americans, but not the nations of people mentioned in the BoM.
Point #2: “You are 23 years of age.”
Response: Is this supposed to inhibit me? For many people, the 20s are full of decisions, change, and action. For some, it is not a time of simple youthfulness, rather it’s a time comprised of the type of motivation which accompanies the realization that parental units will not always be there to support you. When I think of the start-up ‘entrepreneurial types,’ I picture a young person such as Joseph Smith.
Point #3: “You have had no more than three years of formal school education and have spent your life in backwoods farming communities.”
Response: Not every intelligent person wants or gets a formal education. From PBS, according to Smith himself, he was “instructed in reading, writing, and the ground rules of arithmetic.” He was also a thoughtful person by nature, his mother stating that he was “given to meditation and deep study.” Additionally, universal free public education was not a thing yet (the US Department of Health, Education, and Welfare wasn’t established until 1953, then the Department of Education came to its modern form in 1979). Horace Mann revolutionized education in the United States after he became the secretary of education in Massachusetts in 1837, when Joseph Smith was 22. By the way, he was aided by Sidney Rigdon and Oliver Cowdery, who both had more formal education than Smith in the creation of the Book of Mormon.
TL;DR: Education in the United States was not universal when Joseph Smith was school-age, and he didn’t author the BoM alone.
Point #4: “Your history must be written on the basis of what you now know. There was no library that held information for Joseph Smith. You must use none. There is to be no research of any kind.”
Response: Presumably Joseph Smith would have read the Bible extensively. Much of the BoM is based on Biblical prose, story-lines, etc. Hundreds of verses in the BoM are copied directly from the King James Version of the Bible. For example, Isaiah 9:1 (KJV) and 2 Nephi 19:1. According to the Wikipedia article on this subject, the Second Book of Nephi contains 18 quoted chapters of the Book of Isaiah. If I had extensive knowledge of mystical teaching from the people of ancient Tibet, I could probably plagiarize and add to it as much as Joseph Smith did with the Bible.
Point #5: “Your history must be 531 pages and over 300,000 in length.”
Response: I feel like this article might be that long by the end of it.
Point #6: “Other than a few grammatical corrections, you must have no changes in the text. The first edition as you dictate it to your secretary must stand forever.”
Response: I don’t think we have a way of knowing that what Joseph Smith dictated to his secretary or co-authors. And again, if it was written to work with the Bible, he had the benefit of hind-sight.
Point #7: “This record is to contain the history of two distinct and separate nations, along with histories of different contemporary nations or groups of people.”
Response: The Lord of the Rings universe tells of nations of people for whom no evidence exists as well. This isn’t the mark of truth. There is no confirmation of Nephite or Lamanite existence in the archaeological record.
Point #8: “You must describe their religious, economic, political, and social cultures and institutions. Cover every phase of their society, including the names of their coins.”
Response: This is only interesting if you’ve already accepted the Book of Mormon’s authenticity. See my response to #7 as it also applies here.
Point #9: “Change your style of writing many times. Many ancient authors contributed to the Book of Mormon, each with his own style.”
Response: If an English teacher saw that you changed your style of writing many times, they would accuse you of plagiarism. Maybe we should apply that same standard here. From having three separate contributors to borrowing heavily from the Bible (which is also compiled from different authors), this outcome would seem to follow. Give me the same types of help for my history of ancient Tibet, and I’m sure we could say the same.
Point #10: “Weave into your history the religion of Jesus Christ and the pattern of Christian living.”
Response: My understanding is that Smith was raised Christian and was unhappy with the denomination and politics in his region. The Book of Mormon presumably would be his attempt to fix the problems he found within Christianity. To match this level of authenticity for the Ancient Tibet challenge, I would have to be raised in an Eastern Religious home which had foundational texts that I found to be inadequate in contemporary society.
Point #11: “You must claim that your smooth narrative is not fiction with moral value, but true and sacred history.”
Response: I would not be alone in this claim. This Wikipedia article lists some of the other scriptures making similar claims. If my standard of belief for holy text is simply to take someone at their word, then I would have to accept each of these holy texts.
Point #12: (In my words and abbreviated) Everything in your history must agree with the Bible.
Response: Hopefully I’ve shown that Ancient Tibet would have a different context and need a different text from which to based my history on. Also, this is further evidence of plagiarism and the benefit of hind-sight.
Point #13: “Many of the facts, claims, ideas and statements given as absolute truth in your writing must be entirely inconsistent with the prevailing beliefs of the world. Some of these worldly beliefs must be the direct opposite of your claims.”
Response: I’m not one for prevalent cultural beliefs, and certainly I think questioning the world around you is a better path to truth and accepting what is told to you. However, I wouldn’t go so far as to say that whatever I say in any context is absolute truth. I can only say what I am convinced is true, share my methodology, and compare my findings with yours. In any case, writing things that are inconsistent with direct observation should be considered evidence that what I’m writing is incorrect.
Point #14: “Included in your narrations will be authentic modes of travel … You must invent about 280 new names that will stand up to scrutiny through the years as to their proper application and derivation.”
Response: I’m not entirely sure if this helps helps us discover the truth of the Book of Mormon. These seem to be new names, so I’m left wondering what kind of scrutiny would have been able to show that they are inauthentic. To me, it seems like realm-building similar to Game of Thrones or The Lord of the Rings. “Proper application and derivation,” in my, “History of Ancient Tibet,” could easily be achieved by making the English form sound like other well-known names from Eastern Philosophy.
Point #15: “You will have to properly use figures of speech, similes, metaphors, narrations, exposition, descriptions, oratory, epic lyric, and parables.”
Response: When many of the phrases or chapters are borrowed heavily from a source text, this becomes a bit easier. So, if the challenge to remain analogous, I will need to borrow a text from Ancient Tibetan religion. The form of my history will quote and amend the Tibetan text as I see fit. Challenge completed.
Point #16: “You must invite the ablest scholars and experts to examine the text with care, and you must strive diligently to see that your book gets into the hands of those eager to prove it a forgery, and who are most competent to expose every flaw in it.”
Response: Criticisms to do exist for the Book of Mormon. There is a rigorous debate between LDS apologists and non-LDS apologists, as well as between both of these groups and non-religious scholars! There is no certain agreement between the experts in the field, and as a person who remains skeptical about the existence of a god or gods in the first place, it isn’t in my area of expertise to straighten these disagreements out. If anything, making my “History of Ancient Tibet” divisive and controversial should be the easiest point in this challenge.
Point #17: “Thorough investigation, scientific and historical evidence, and archeological discovery for the next 125 years must verify its claims and prove detail after detail to be true, for many of the details you put in your history are still buried beneath the soil of Tibet.”
Response: This is the most blatantly false point so far. Some aspects of archeological discovery in fact DO NOT line up with what we find in the Book of Mormon. Apologists help us be good skeptics and, “doubt our doubt,” but can’t do anything more conclusive than that. Chariot wheels, horses, etc., were not around at the time of the BoM. IF we accept explanations within the BoM, THEN it makes sense, but logically, this would be putting the cart before the horse. Certain connections need to be made before leaping into other unfounded beliefs.
Point #18: “You must publish it to every nation, kindred, tongue, and people declaring it to be the word of God and another witness for the Lord Jesus Christ.”
Response: To be analogous, I would need my, “History of Ancient Tibet,” to be spoken of as a true text within the local religion. Asking an Eastern area to do a 180-degree shift toward a Hebrew or Western-derived religion seems unlikely. I suppose, though, the LDS Church hasn’t changed the majority of minds in that area either.
Point #19: “The book must not contain any absurd, impossible, or contradictory statements. Your history must not contain any statement that will contradict any other statement elsewhere in the volume.”
Response: I’m again unsure how this would help the credibility of the content within the volume. I could write part of the history book about how my children from the future stretch the fabric of space time. I could then make no contradictory statements to that fact, but that wouldn’t make the claim, “My future children stretch the fabric of space time,” true.
Point #20: “Many theories and ideas as to its origin must arise, and after discovering and examining the facts, they must fail. You have claimed that your knowledge had come from divine origin, and this claim continues to stand as the only possible explanation. The strength of this explanation must not decrease as time passes but actually increases to the point where it becomes the only logical explanation.”
Response: I have some beef with the phrase, “This claim continues to stand as the only possible explanation.” Besides the fact that this statement appeals to ignorance, there must be an infinite number of possible explanations. Some will be more plausible than others, but you absolutely can not say, “I prefer this explanation, so until this explanation is undoubtedly proven false, I shall believe it.” There is not a rational way to defend, “I believe [x] because there is no other explanation.” There are better supporting arguments than this one.
Point #21: “Your record is to fulfill many Bible prophecies, even in the exact manner in which it shall come forth, to whom delivered, its purposes, and its accomplishments.”
Response: With the same level of hindsight given to Smith, I’m sure I could make similar matches to Eastern theological texts in my Tibetan history.
Point #22: “Call down an angel from heaven in the middle of the day and have him bear testimony to four honest, dignified citizens of your community that the record is the word of God. These witnesses must bear the angel’s testimony to the world, not for profit or gain, but under great sacrifice and severe persecution, even to their death beds. You must put that testimony to the test by becoming an enemy to these men.”
Response: Groups of men who agree on certain facts have been known to have disagreements within their group. And larger groups still have been known to be completely wrong. Any member of the LDS Church reading this would understand what I mean when they consider the disagreements between Sunni and Shia Muslims. The LDS Church and I agree that the premise of Islam, that Muhammad is who the Quran says he is, is unreliable at best. So I feel the same is true with the origin story of the Book of Mormon.
Point #23: “Thousands of great men, intellectual giants, national and international personalities, and scholars for 165 years must accept your history and its teachings even to the point of laying down their life rather than deny their testimony.”
Response: And my history would not be unique in this regard either. Followers of Baha’i, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Sikhism, and various political ideologies have all laid down their life for their cause. Martyrdom could be viewed as virtuous, but it is not a good reason to accept the content as true, simply because of the question, which martyr should we trust? I must admit however, how improbable it would be that my particular history would procure followers who would lay their life down for its content. I’m not sure how proud I would be.
Point #24: “You must include within the record this promise: “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 are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, He will manifest the truth of it unto you by the power of the Holy Ghost.”
Response: This is from Moroni 10:3–5, the exact passage shared with me by my wonderful friends and missionaries as we discussed methods for finding truth. Unfortunately, within this method, one has to already assume God’s existence and the truth of Christianity before finding truth. I haven’t yet accepted either of these premises, but I’m open to new information.
Point #25: “Missionaries must bear record to the world for the next 165 years that they know the record to be true because they put the promise to the test and found it to be true. The truth of it was manifested to them by the power of the Holy Ghost.”
Response: Once you see the benefits from accepting a certain collection of premises within your network, it’s hard to take a step out and try to contradict the accepted reality. You can not really fail the ‘test’ given in Moroni 10 because supposedly God will answer on His terms and it may not be in the way you expect. My instinct is to think that this primes the follower into accepting semi-mundane functions of life to be answers to prayer.
Point #26: “Over 52,900 plus competent salesman must be so sold on your book…”
Response: Raise children to believe in my Tibetan History and create the sense that sharing this History with others will save their eternal soul. Got it.
Point #27: “Your book must not only raise the standards of millions of people but do it in such a way that they become one of the great moral, ethical, and dynamic marvels of the day. They must become world renowned for this.”
Response: Some might say that this book would have to be some form of behavior control. It would be a marvel if my Ancient Tibetan History got its followers to act in certain ways, even if it was in amoral ways. There are texts within the LDS Church which prohibit having hot drinks, alcohol, etc, even when moderation is perfectly acceptable or even beneficial to our health. A text that contains unnecessary, over-bearing rules rings more of a dictator than a divine revelation to my ears.
Point #28: “For the next 20 years, you must watch those that follow and you, your family, and the dearest of your loved ones persecuted, driven time after time from their homes, beaten, tortured, starved, frozen and killed. Tens of thousands must undergo the most extreme hardships in your presence just because they believe your claims concerning the origin and content of what you have written on ancient Tibet.”
Response: It’s an unfortunate fact, but the Book of Mormon would not be unique in this, either. I’ve submitted lists in this article already of other religions who have martyrs, and my criticism in this case is the same. Also, even if it was unique, a claim isn’t true simply because people died believing in the claim’s truth. I’m happy to be shown my errors in thinking this.
Point #29: “You must gain no wealth from your work, but many times lose all that you have. Like those that believe you, you must submit yourself to the vilest persecution. And finally after 20 years of his, give your own life in a very savage and brutal manner, for your testimony concerning your history book. This must be done willingly on your part.”
Response: I’m not sure how willing Joseph Smith was to get shot by a mob while awaiting trial for plotting to destroy a newspaper established by non-mormons and ex-mormons (info here). Smith enjoyed a good reputation among his followers and city, seeing as he was the mayor of Nauvoo, Illinois. Some might call his actions in office as un-American. Additionally, this point helps drive home the fact that many people were true-believers in the early days. This would not be unique, as societies around the globe have demonstrated time and time again that humans tend to believe things that help them maintain or gain comfort and safety. This is not necessarily indicative of truth.
Point #30: “Start right now and produce this record which covers 1,000 years of history, doing it, not in the peaceful atmosphere of your community, but under the most trying of circumstances which include being driven from your home several times, and receiving constant threats upon your life. Please have your book completed, talk a friend into mortgaging his farm to raise money to have it printed — all in 60 days.”
Response: I’m looking for documents that say Smith did this in 60 days, and I’m finding none. According to the official website, Smith ‘translated’ the Book of Mormon in 65 working days, but he already had most of it down before that work started. Learn more at the official website.
In conclusion: WOW! What a list! I hope I was able to communicate clearly some of my concerns about the reliability of the Book of Mormon. I would never presume to have the answers to life’s biggest questions, but I’m certain at this time that the Book of Mormon has enough room for doubt that I’m comfortable living without practicing the LDS faith. There are some wonderful people who are follow the LDS Church, and I’m glad I can call them friends. For those of you who are more critical than me, I do have some concerns about the harm I believe is caused by the church, but this was not the time to share. Maybe next time. To the question at hand, “Could You Write The Book of Mormon?” I definitely *could*. Not that I’d want to. Until then, keep looking for reliable pathways to truth!