Each summer for the past several years I have spent some time witnessing to Mormons. This necessarily involves some apologetics, which is not a part I particularly relish. These days I am content being a teacher, not a debater. But I am still just as passionate for truth.
I was reflecting this evening that while there is abundant external corroboration for the authors of the Biblical books, especially the New Testament, being historical persons, there is absolutely no external evidence for the existence of any of the authors of the various books contained in the Book of Mormon. Mormons will counter that these “prophets” lived in the ancient Americas, not the Greco-Roman world, but that does not eliminate the problem that, unlike the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, there is no documentation anywhere outside the pages of the Book of Mormon that the figures contained in it (and the purported authors of its various books), as well as the church and civilization in which they supposedly lived, ever existed.
In contrast, the writers of the New Testament were known by and attested to by numerous witnesses.
The Book of Mormon goes back no farther than Joseph Smith and his fertile imagination.
“Fertile imagination” is putting it charitably I would think.
A good Mormon friend, now a physics professor at BYU, once allowed that it would have been better if the gold tablets were still in LDS possession. Preferably of a metallurgical purity far beyond the technology of the day. Much better than the affidavits.
Wasn’t there also a recent DNA test experiment done on Native Americans that conclusively proved that they could not be, or be related to, the supposed “lost tribe” of Israel that Mormonism said existed in North America?
As a teenager I ran across a copy of the Book of Mormon in my fathers office/library. When I read through what impressed me was how it read like some childs attempt to sound like King James English. In short it reeked of fakery. I mentioned this years later to a linguist who said that is one of the criticisms of it. As it turns out it appears a great deal of the supposed ‘translation’ seems to be plagiarised from a another document, a sort of pious fantasy novel. It’s a mashup of fake isrealite stories, masonic rituals and treasure hunting that somehow has gotten completely out of hand.
True. And just to add one more to the numerous examples cited by Rev’d Munday, only 5 years after Irenaeus’ death but over a thousand miles away, Tertullian gives an independent account of the four gospels and many other books being received as authentic in the churches and used since the Apostles’ day (Against Marcion Book IV, Chap 2).
Excellent point – how can the Mormons have any confidence that the New Testament can be relied upon, given their beliefs about those who provide the essential witness to the contents of the New Testament? If the early church fell into apostasy, then why would we think that the early church accurately identified the writings which were written eitehr by Christ’s apostles or under their direct authority?
The comment by the ex-Mormon “MichaelC” on Rev’d Munday’s blog is also heartening to read.