To recap from that section, we covered the Pyrgi Tablets (shown above), which apologists cite as proof of ancient writing on metal. You can read about them on Wikipedia, and take a look at how little text is on those three plates. If anything, the Pyrgi Tablets show how implausible the Book of Mormon is when you take a step back and think of the implications.

The Pyrgi tablets only contain about 200 words on the three plates/tables above. If you look at the images, you can see that the tablets/plates are packed with characters. Now understand that those three plates would need to have about 66,000 words for the math to work with the gold plates of the Book of Mormon.

This is a problem because the Book of Mormon includes the story of the brass plates, which were taken from Laban after Nephi killed him. These plates included very lengthy and detailed records. From the January 1988 Ensign:

“Although the information is sparse concerning the origin of the plates of brass, the Book of Mormon is quite detailed on what the plates contained. According to Nephi, the plates of brass contained the books of Moses and the Mosaic law (see 1 Ne. 4:15–16; 1 Ne. 5:11), tying the Nephites to their Old World kinsmen in both cultural practice and belief. They contained, in addition, a listing of Lehi’s fathers back through Joseph of old (see 1 Ne. 5:14), linking the Lehite colony genealogically with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, thereby perpetuating the patriarchal covenant—“the promises made to the fathers” (D&C 2:2; JS—H 1:39)—in a new hemisphere. Finally, the plates contained a more extensive account of Old Testament peoples and events than the Bible (see 1 Ne. 5:12–13; 1 Ne. 13:23), although only a few precious remnants of this account are found in the Book of Mormon.” (The Plates of Brass: A Witness of Christ, Engisn January 1988)

The problems here are numerous, but I want to highlight how anachronistic this story is in the Book of Mormon.

Most scholars today conclude that the Pentateuch was not written until the 6th century or, more likely, 5th century BCE. This means that when Lehi left in 587 BCE, these five books (outside of Deuteronomy) were likely not even written at this point. (Davies, G.I, "Introduction to the Pentateuch")

What this means is that if Lehi left with records, they would not resemble the Pentateuch that is used by Joseph Smith in the Book of Mormon.  Unfortunately for the Book of Mormon, the problems do not end here.

Beyond the text almost certainly not being written before Lehi left, the idea of a “codex” was not even practiced until the 4th century CE. Until this time the books of the Bible would have been on separate scrolls, which might have been kept together by religious leaders, but would not have been bound together. In other words, even if you believe Lehi had the ‘Five Books of Moses’ against the evidence that they had not been compiled yet, there is no way they would’ve been put together in a codex format. (Britannica)

Now even if we concede that the ‘Five Books of Moses’ were compile before Lehi left in 587 BC against the current consensus, and then even if we accept the idea that they were using a codex style of binding them together almost a thousand years before we have any record of that occurring, there is still the problem of language.

We are told that the brass plates were written in Egyptian, which is another problem for the Book of Mormon. Scholars can tell that the ‘Five Books of Moses’ were “originally written almost entirely in Hebrew, with a few short elements in Aramaic.” (Britannica)

This means that for the Book of Mormon’s narrative to be true, we would need the ‘Five Books of Moses’ to be compiled before Lehi left in 587 BCE, which is against the scholarly consensus that these books were being developed in the 6th and 5th centuries BCE. Then we would need these books to be translated to Egyptian, which goes against all evidence regarding the compilation of these books. After the translation, we would need them to be engraved on plates of brass, which again there is absolutely no evidence for and, as we will explain below, reasons to show this did not happen. After this translation into Egyptian and engraving on brass, we would finally need the five books to be compiled in a codex, which was not utilized until about a thousand years after Lehi left.

None of these four problems (compilation of the books, Egyptian language translation, engraved onto plates of brass, and codex format) are historically backed, which makes the idea that all four could’ve happened simultaneously impossible.

With regards to engraving these books on the plates, we also run into the same problems here that we did with the Book of Mormon, which is that the math is going to be a problem. The ‘Five Books of Moses’ alone contain 156,916 words, and that doesn’t even get into the vast material that are claimed to be on the brass plates beyond those five books.

There is no mention of “Reformed Egyptian” in the Old World, which means that these engravings would likely be in demotic Egyptian. As Egyptologist Dr. Robert Ritner explained, demotic Egyptian is a phonetic language, meaning that the amount of brass plates needed to engrave the ‘Five Books of Moses’ would be incredibly large.

Remember that those three Pyrgi plates above hold just about 200 words. The ‘Five Books of Moses’ alone contain over 156,000 words in English. That would imply that you’re looking at almost 800 plates needed just for the five books alone before getting into the rest of the material that were included in the plates that was mentioned in the Ensign quote above.

Just imagine having 800 brass plates that you’re carrying around with records. It just becomes absurd when you really break down this issue and look at how each layer creates another problem that is further compounded by the next. Even if we agree that the language could possibly allow for half the characters, you're still stealing a 400 plate collection at minimum.

The idea of plates was written into the Book of Mormon for two reasons: The first reason being that Joseph Smith claimed to have uncovered gold plates, so this allows the plates to have more weight as a method of record keeping by the inhabitants of ancient America. The season reason is that it made sense that you would need records to be on metal or stone in order to survive for so long in the ground, but it unfortunately is still incredibly anachronistic given not just what we have as examples of ancient writing on metal, but Joseph Smith’s indication that they were written in Egyptian before Lehi left.

Steel

The idea of steel is anachronistic to the Book of Mormon, and there’s really no way around it. From the Book of Mormon:

2 Nephi 5:15: “And I did teach my people to build buildings, and to work in all manner of wood, and of iron, and of copper, and of brass, and of steel, and of gold, and of silver, and of precious ores, which were in great abundance.”

Ether 7:9: “Wherefore, he came to the hill Ephraim, and he did molten out of the hill, and made swords out of steel for those whom he had drawn away with him; and after he had armed them with swords he returned to the city Nehor, and gave battle unto his brother Corihor, by which means he obtained the kingdom and restored it unto his father Kib.”

Creating steel necessitates a lot of resources that leaves a footprint behind, which is why we can be sure that there was no steel production in Book of Mormon times. When steel is produced to create weaponry, there is slag left behind along with remnants of steel weaponry along with the sites that would be used to create these weapons.

The Smithsonian puts it in even more clear terms:

“5. Iron, steel, glass, and silk were not used in the New World before 1492 (except for occasional use of unsmelted meteoric iron). Native copper was worked in various locations in pre-Columbian times, but true metallurgy was limited to southern Mexico and the Andean region, where its occurrence in late prehistoric times involved gold, silver, copper, and their alloys, but not iron.” (Smithsonian Letter)

Furthermore, the advantages that could be gained by having steel production are massive, and would not simply go away. This has led apologists to suggest that steel doesn’t mean “steel,” which is what FAIR Mormon replies to the Letter For My Wife with:

“The author assumes that "steel" refers to modern steel, which did not exist in pre-Columbian America. Steel has been found in the Old World in the appropriate time period.” (FAIR Mormon)

They further explain how this is not an anachronism in the following way:

“The steel of the Book of Mormon is probably not modern steel. Steel, as we understand today, had to be produced using a very cumbersome process and was extremely expensive until the development of puddling towards the end of the 18th century. Even in ancient times, however, experienced smiths could produce steel by heating and hammering pig-iron or, earlier still, the never-molten iron from a bloomery to loose the surplus of carbon to get something like elastic steel. Early smiths even knew that by quenching hot steel in water, oil, or a salt solution the surface could be hardened.

Any Mesoamerican production likely depended upon the first method, which requires lower temperatures and less sophistication. Laban's "steel sword" is not anachronistic; Middle Eastern smiths were making steel by the tenth century B.C.” (FAIR Mormon)

Anachronisms are elements that are out of time and place, which means that evidence of steel being made in the Middle East in the tenth century does not solve the problem in the Americas. This is an apologetic trick to try and focus in on a detail to ignore the problem at hand, but having evidence in the Middle East does not tell you anything about the Americas, which they cite because they know the Americans simply did not have this technology during Book of Mormon times.

FAIR then cites apologist William Hamblin’s contention that steel is not anachronistic because it is not specifically mentioned in the Book of Mormon after 400 BCE. Their conclusion is that “Significantly, there are no references to Nephite steel after 400 B.C.”

Again, steel is not a problem if the events of the Book of Mormon took place in the Middle East where there is evidence of early work with steel, but the events described in the Book of Mormon happen in the Americas. Furthermore, the verses quotes above both take place in the Americas, which makes Hamblin’s assertion a deflection rather than an answer.

In other words, evidence of steel being produced in the Middle East does not help the Book of Mormon’s problem, but instead shows us that Joseph Smith is pulling ideas from his milieu when dictating the story, which unfortunately did not yet understand that steel was not being made in the Americas for weaponry until long after the Book of Mormon times.

Wheat and Barley

The idea of wheat and barley being available in the Americas during Book of Mormon times is certainly anachronistic, and I will cite this (church friendly) Maxwell Institute summary to outline the issue:
 

“Of the more than twenty-eight references to grain in the Book of Mormon, barley is mentioned four times (Mosiah 7:22; 9:9; Alma 11:7, 15) and wheat once (Mosiah 9:9). These references to barley and wheat in an ancient American record have puzzled some readers because it is generally assumed that domesticated barley and wheat were introduced to the New World by Europeans after 1492.

Research on this matter supports two possible explanations. First, the terms barley and wheat, as used in the Book of Mormon, may refer to certain other New World crop plants that were given Old World designations; and second, the terms may refer to genuine varieties of New World barley and wheat.” (Bennett, Barley and Wheat in the Book of Mormon)

The first thing I want to note is that again here we are being told that barley and wheat don’t actually mean “barley” and “wheat.” This is again loan shifting words in order to make sense of the problems that Joseph Smith created by including them. Again, this becomes a problem that is compounded by the translation process which we will cover in our next overview, but the moment you’re telling us that words don’t mean what they mean at face value, it’s a problem.

Dr. Michael Coe, who was the Charles J. MacCurdy professor emeritus of Anthropology at Yale University and curator emeritus of the Division of Anthropology at the school’s Peabody Museum of Natural History, made clear that if there were wheat and barley in the Americas during Book of Mormon times, we would know it through our studies of soil cores.

During his Mormon Stories interview, Coe explained how these plants leave pollen that can be found during archaeological digs, which is how we have so much information on what plants were indigenous to the Americas and which ones were brought over.

The following is a great illustration of just how important pollen is to understanding the history of agriculture in an area:

“An example of the type of research that shows Book of Mormon agriculture to be nineteenth century fantasy is David J. Rue's 1987 paper in Nature titled "Early Agriculture and Early Postclassic Maya Occupation in Western Honduras." By studying soil corings from Lake Yojoa and Petapida Swamp, both in western Honduras, Rue was able to reconstruct the agricultural history of the area from a time 4770 years before the present up to modem times. He could tell from pollen when the region was forested, when the forest was cut and burned for agriculture, what crops were grown and for how long. Although he found clear records of pollen from corn (maize) and amaranth - two Amerindian staples - he makes no mention of wheat, barley, or flax pollen.” (Zindler, How Do You Lose a Steel Mill)

Furthermore, this kind of study can also show us where plants came from, which is important when it comes to Barley. From Zindler:

“What does archaeology tell us of the presence or absence of the crops Smith claimed were the staples of ancient America? No remains of wheat or domesticated barley have ever been found. In fact, the one possible pre-Columbian specimen of barley discovered at a site in Arizona [not a Book of Mormon location anyway per apologists] is of a species different from the species of domesticated barley allegedly brought from the Near East.” (Zindler, How Do You Lose a Steel Mill)

In other words, the lone example of barley in the Americas that apologists cite as proof for the Book of Mormon can be identified as a separate specimen from the barley that was domesticated in the Near East, which negates any credibility to it being evidence for the Book of Mormon.

If you’ve never listened to Dr. Coe’s Mormon Stories interviews, I highly recommend them because they go well beyond wheat and barley and cover the idea of horses, chariots, wheels, silk, and so many more anachronisms for the Book of Mormon. (2011 Interviews, 2018 Interviews)

King Zedekiah

This issue is one I don’t see covered too often, but is important because it shows that the author of the Book of Mormon erred in the chronology of events leading up to the departure of Lehi.

From 1 Nephi:4:

“For it came to pass in the commencement of the first year of the reign of Zedekiah, king of Judah, (my father, Lehi, having dwelt at Jerusalem in all his days); and in that same year there came many prophets, prophesying unto the people that they must repent, or the great city Jerusalem must be destroyed.”

The problem here is that Nephi says this happened during the first year of Zedekiah, but Zedekiah was only put in after Nebuchadnezzar II, king of Babylon, sieged Jerusalem and made him king.

In other words, the first year of Zedekiah was the first year of the Babylonian exile, meaning that the city was already devastated and thousands had been taken captive and their property pillaged. To be clear, the Book of Mormon has Lehi making a prophecy for something that had already happened.

This problem is further complicated by the Book of Mormon stating that Lehi lived in Jerusalem his entire life, which means that he could not have been unaware that Jerusalem was already taken over and devastated before making this prophecy. If the Book of Mormon was a true historical record, Lehi would have already lived through the besieging in 605 BCE along with the siege of 599-597 BCE that led to Zedekiah being installed as king.

Furthermore, Lehi’s sons do not believe Lehi’s prophecy that Jerusalem could be destroyed. From 1 Nephi 2:13:

“Neither did they believe that Jerusalem, that great city, could be destroyed according to the words of the prophets. And they were like unto the Jews who were at Jerusalem, who sought to take away the life of my father.”

Again, this makes absolutely no sense given that Jerusalem has already been devastated, many thousands of leaders and ruling class people had been taken captive, and the city and temple pillaged. The chronology is off, and this timeframe is crucial in that it’s where most scholars agree the Bible becomes more reliably historical beginning with the reign of Zedekiah.

The timing is also problematic in that Lehi is portrayed as a prominent figure in Jerusalem, descending from the line of Joseph. When Jerusalem was sieged, they took over 10,000 of its citizens to Babylon, and yet Lehi was left in Jerusalem. This is also true of Laban, who is given importance in the text, yet he also remains behind with brass plates that would have also been of great wealth to Babylon if they existed.

As I mentioned above, this is where scholars can identify these events as historical because there are corroborating materials. In this case, the sieges and captures are recorded in both the Bible and Babylonian records, yet are completely absent from the Book of Mormon.

While on the surface it might seem like a small issue, the fact that the opening chapter of the Book of Mormon are out of the correct timeframe is a big problem for any claim to being a historical record. (On a small side note, this is exactly what happens in the very beginning of the Book of Abraham as well.) There is absolutely no way that Lehi could live in Jerusalem all his days and not know that Jerusalem had been taken over, let alone have children that did not believe it could happen.

As we’ve pointed out in these overviews, these are the seemingly tiny mistakes that let us know that a text is not what it claims to be. In the case of the Book of Mormon, throughout these overviews we have provided example after example where we can show that not only can the Book of Mormon not be an ancient text, but that the author has to be Joseph Smith.

A Developed Christology Before Christ

As we’ve pointed out already throughout these sections, the Book of Mormon features a Christology that was not developed historically until after Jesus’ life, hundreds of years before Jesus even arrives.

The Book of Mormon includes being baptized in the name of Christ over 150 years before Jesus would be baptized. From Mosiah 18:13:

“And when he had said these words, the Spirit of the Lord was upon him, and he said: Helam, I baptize thee, having authority from the Almighty God, as a testimony that ye have entered into a covenant to serve him until you are dead as to the mortal body; and may the Spirit of the Lord be poured out upon you; and may he grant unto you eternal life, through the redemption of Christ, whom he has prepared from the foundation of the world.”

Even more to the point, the Book of Mormon states early on the need to baptized in Jesus’ name in 2 Nephi.

2 Nephi 31:5,12: “And now, if the Lamb of God, he being holy, should have need to be baptized by water, to fulfil all righteousness, O then, how much more need have we, being unholy, to be baptized, yea, even by water! …And also, the voice of the Son came unto me, saying: He that is baptized in my name, to him will the Father give the Holy Ghost, like unto me; wherefore, follow me, and do the things which ye have seen me do.”

While I understand the apologetic argument is that they received the concept of baptism through revelation, the Book of Mormon people are being baptized in Christ’s name before Christ even dies and before the atonement of Jesus Christ.

Furthermore, Nephi is rewriting Isaiah to make Isaiah 48 about baptism, which is a problem not just because it’s reinterpreting Isaiah to fit the Book of Mormon, but because Isaiah 48 is part of the Deutero-Isaiah text that was not written before Lehi left with the brass plates.

1 Nephi 20:1 “Hearken and hear this, O house of Jacob, who are called by the name of Israel, and are come forth out of the waters of Judah, or out of the waters of baptism, who swear by the name of the Lord, and make mention of the God of Israel, yet they swear not in truth nor in righteousness.”

Isaiah 48:1 “Hear ye this, O house of Jacob, which are called by the name of Israel, and are come forth out of the waters of Judah, which swear by the name of the LORD, and make mention of the God of Israel, but not in truth, nor in righteousness.”

 

Much as I highlighted about the Charles Anthon visit, biblical scholars do not believe that Isaiah was speaking about baptism in this verse, and you can read an assortment of commentaries on this verse at Bible Hub. This is another instance where Joseph Smith changes a writing of Isaiah to fit the Book of Mormon narrative in a way that has not only not been confirmed by scholarship, but refuted.

Apologists tend to point to the Mikveh (Jewish font for the tevilah, which is a ritual cleansing by immersion) as proof of pre-Christian baptism, but again that is not the same practice and apologists know this. From a great article on pre-Christian baptism in the Book of Mormon, here are some of the reasons that the tevilah, that is, the Jewish immersion ritual, is done:

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• For converts to Judaism. As far as I can tell, if you were born “in the covenant,” you do not have this ceremony done. To my knowledge, there is, and never has been, a Jewish custom of baptizing their youth when they reach 8 years old. It’s strictly for Gentiles.

• For men, after they ejaculate

• For women, after their period is over.

• For anyone who has had abnormal bodily discharges.

• For people with certain skin conditions

• For people that have come in contact with the aforementioned unclean people.

• For someone who is being consecrated to the Aaronic Priesthood.

• For the Priest who sends away the scapegoat

• For someone who’s touched a corpse or a grave

This is certainly nothing like the concept of Christian baptisms occurring centuries before the atonement of Jesus Christ, which makes the inclusion of it in the Book of Mormon problematic. From the aforementioned article:

“Now I should note that I’ve simplified a complex subject in making this list; the tevilah is not observed the same way among all branches of Judaism, and I described the list of reasons tersely, at the expense of precision. But these requirements come from the Torah (aka, the first five books of the Bible) and the Talmud. They faithfully represent the purpose of the tevilah in Rabbinical Judaism. When you take a step back, you quickly recognize that the tevilah is really not that much like the ordinance of baptism. There are some physical similarities, but it is clearly not the “gate” that you must enter described by Nephi. It’s clearly not a covenant between you and God that sets you on your life’s journey and absolves you of your sins. It’s part of the ritual washing and purification tenets of the Judaic law. There’s no laying on of hands for the Gift of the Holy Ghost afterwards. And of course – do I have to say it? – the tevilah is decidedly not done in the name of Jesus Christ.” (Pre-Christian Baptisms and Why It Was an Early Shelf Item for Me)

Again, apologists would argue that John the Baptist was performing baptisms before Christ, which means that the revelation from God could have occurred before Christ’s arrival. But that misses the point when we have Book of Mormon people doing it hundreds of years before Christ.

Another important point is that many biblical scholars contend that John the Baptist was an apocalyptical preacher and believed the end of the world was imminent. From New Testament scholar Dr. Bart Ehrman:

 

“And why is that significant [Jesus being a follower of John the Baptist] for understanding Jesus as an apocalypticist?  Because of what John stood for.   We get the clearest expression of John’s views in our earliest account of his preaching, in Q.  Here John is shown to be a proclaimer of imminent apocalyptic destruction.  As he says, in urging people to repent:   “The axe is already laid at the root of the tree; every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and cast into the fire” (see Luke 3:9).

This is an apocalyptic image of coming destruction.  People who do not live worthily of God by “bearing good fruit” will be cut down and destroyed by fire.  And when will that happen?  The axe is already laid to the root of the tree – in other words, the chopping is now ready to begin.  Judgment is here and will soon take place.” (Ehrman, The Baptism of Jesus as a Apocalyptic Event)

To be clear, John the Baptist was Jewish, and he would have almost certainly been performing the cleansing ritual of the tevilah to make sure people were clean before the end times. It is difficult to then use this as evidence of pre-Christian baptisms such as the fully developed Christian baptisms in the Book of Mormon.

What You Would Expect in the Book of Mormon

Now that I’ve covered a few examples of anachronisms in the Book of Mormon, I want to highlight very quickly some important items and concepts that should be in the Book of Mormon if it was a literal history of the ancient Americas.

Jewish Traditions

First, as I just mentioned above, the Book of Mormon has a Christology hundreds of years before Jesus Christ lives, which is problematic on its own. But what is even more telling about the Book of Mormon is that these are Jewish people who leave Jerasulem – not Christians – and yet they do not mention the most important Jewish customs in the Book of Mormon.

The Book of Mormon mentions the ‘Law of Moses’ multiple times throughout the text (2 Ne. 25:24–30; Mosiah 12:27–13:32; 3 Ne. 9:17; 15:1–8), yet nowhere in the Book of Mormon are Jewish traditions actually present. There are no mentions of important dates such as Passover, no mentions of the practice of circumcision, observing the Sabbath, or religious rites such as burnt offerings.

I don’t want to get into the geography debate here, but many scholars point to the Mesoamerican model as where the Book of Mormon took place, but anachronisms hinder the ability of Book of Mormon people to practice the Law of Moses in Mesoamerica.

“Mesoamerica did not have lambs, sheep, rams, bullocks, doves, wheat, barley or wine during the time of the Book of Mormon. These were all necessary animals and plants to practice the Law of Moses.

Not only this, but the proper seasons were required to practice the Law of Moses. In Mesoamerica there is very little change in seasons.” (What’s Wrong with the Mesoamerican Theory? Seasons, Migrating & Domesticated Animals, & the Law of Moses)

 

Instead of the traditional Jewish practices, the Book of Mormon has already moved on to a form of Christianity that is much more representative of Joseph Smith’s time than it is of Old Testament times. While it might not seem as glaring when you read the Book of Mormon because it features Christian concepts so close to our time, it is problematic that the people in the Book of Mormon do not appear to celebrate the traditions that they came from.

Agriculture and Animals Indigenous to the Americas

As I mentioned above, I highly recommend Dr. Coe’s interviews because he was one of the top experts in the history of the Mayas and, since many apologists contend that the Book of Mormon took place in Mesoamerica, he is a great source on understanding not just what is anachronistic in the Book of Mormon, but what is missing as well.

Coe makes clear that there was no system of coinage among the Mayans, but that they used cocoa beans (or cacao beans) as a currency when bartering for goods. Yet there is no mention of cocoa beans in the Book of Mormon while there are 28 references to grains and references to some sort of monetary system.

Furthermore, the Book of Mormon mentions animals that are highly anachronistic to the Book of Mormon’s time such as horses, elephants, and domesticated livestock, but they neglect to mention animals that were indigenous to the ancient Americas such as wild turkeys.

 

Unique Doctrines of Mormonism

Finally, we are told as members that the Book of Mormon brings us the fullness of the Gospel. I hope in these overviews I have illustrated why this is problematic, given that so much of what is in the Book of Mormon is a rehash of the King James Bible, but it goes even deeper when you look at what is not in the Book of Mormon.

Below is a selection of key concepts in Mormonism that do not have any mention in the Book of Mormon:

Jesus and God the Father being separate beings, Godhood, and the Premortal Existence:

Joseph Smith’s later theology is clear that Jesus and God the Father are separate beings, yet in the Book of Mormon we are given a very mainstream Christian view of the ‘trinity.’ Compare the following:

D&C 130:22: “The Father has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man’s; the Son also; but the Holy Ghost has not a body of flesh and bones, but is a personage of Spirit. Were it not so, the Holy Ghost could not dwell in us.”

Mosiah 3:8: “And he shall be called Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Father of heaven and earth, the Creator of all things from the beginning; and his mother shall be called Mary.”

Ether 4:7: “7 …saith Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the eFather of the heavens and of the earth, and all things that in them are.”

Ignoring that Mosiah not only foretells of Jesus, but of the specific name Mary as well, you can see clearly that the Book of Mormon does not teach that Jesus and God are separate beings just as the original First Vision accounts do not. This is significant, and we cover it in much more depth in our First Vision overview.

The Book of Mormon is also clear that there is only one God, which Joseph Smith will later contradict as he learns Hebrew and creates the Book of Abraham. From Alma 11:

“28 Now Zeezrom said: Is there more than one God?

29 And he answered, No.

30 Now Zeezrom said unto him again: How knowest thou these things?

31 And he said: An aangel hath made them known unto me.”

This contradicts Joseph Smith’s later teachings that there are multiple Gods, which is compounded by the Book of Mormon being unaware of a premortal existence. There is simply no mention of this, nor is there a mention of God being the literal father of our spirits.

Last, we are taught as members of the church that God was once a man who progressed to Godhood, but the Book of Mormon tells us that God has not changed nor has ever changed. From the Book of Mormon:

Mormon 9:9: “For do we not read that God is the same yesterday, today, and forever, and in him there is no variableness neither shadow of changing?”

Moroni 8:18: “For I know that God is not a partial God, neither a changeable being; but he is unchangeable from all eternity to all eternity.”

Again, these are problematic issues when we look at how Joseph Smith changes and evolves the theology of the church following the Book of Mormon. It is easy to miss these details when reading the Book of Mormon, but sometimes what isn’t in the Book of Mormon is as telling as what is included.

Other Key Doctrines Not Mentioned in the Book of Mormon

There are many doctrines that are considered crucial to Mormonism that are simply not mentioned in the Book of Mormon. Among them:

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• Baptism for the dead

• A temple marriage being a requirement for exaltation

• Celestial marriage lasting for time and all eternity

• That salvation in the highest kingdom requires going through the endowment ceremony (in the Book of Mormon not only is there no mention of exaltation or an endowment ceremony, but the idea of “secret combinations” requiring secret oaths are condemned)

• Multiple priesthoods or the Melchizedek priesthood

• That the sacrament should include water

• The Word of Wisdom

• That prophets are promoted to the office by church leaders instead of God

• The Garden of Eden being in Missouri

• The idea of the “presidency” of the church is entirely anachronistic, and the Book of Mormon makes no such mention of anything beyond twelve disciples

This is just a brief list of key concepts that are completely absent in the Book of Mormon, and in future sections we are going to cover areas where the Book of Mormon is later contradicted by Joseph Smith including polygamy, the First Vision (separation of Jesus and God the Father), the two separate priesthoods, the temple ceremony, and the dark skin problem in the Book of Mormon.

For a longer list of concepts that were either not mentioned in the Book of Mormon or later contradicted by Joseph Smith (or Brigham Young), please check out Richard Packham’s write-up which I utilized for this selection above. (The Book of Mormon vs Mormonism, Packham)

Conclusion

Throughout these Book of Mormon overview topics, I have attempted to show how completely reliant the Book of Mormon is not just on the King James Bible, but on the beliefs in Joseph Smith’s milieu.

I did not want to spend the section on anachronisms by simply listing the ones that are so commonly discussed, but to highlight where we can show that the Book of Mormon is a 19th century composition by looking at how Joseph Smith utilized the King James Bible. From there we can use scholarship to show where Joseph Smith made mistakes in the composition (Deutero-Isaiah, Sermon on the Mount, Long Ending of Mark, and the use of Christ and Messiah) to show that it cannot be an ancient text as the authors could not have accessed this material.

Furthermore, I wanted to highlight some of the key items and concepts that are not in the Book of Mormon, because that also helps us to understand that Joseph Smith did not understand what was ancient to the Americas, but instead relied on both the text of the Bible and what was around him to compose the Book of Mormon.

I tried to give some of the apologetics to these issues above, and in our biblical scholarship overviews I have covered them as well. This is a problem that we saw in the translation process, as apologists contend that translation doesn’t mean “translation,” because at the end of the day the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith cannot withstand scrutiny if we take their claims at face value.

The moment that we propose changing the meanings of words, we can make literally anything possible, but then we also have to admit that we are going to run into a lot of problems with the translation process, which we will cover in the next section.
When we look at what should be in the Book of Mormon but is not included, the apologetic response is that this is a living church that was being restored line by line. The problem is that not only does the Book of Mormon not include many of these key doctrines, but that in many areas the Book of Mormon directly contradicts them.

At the end of the day, if someone gives the Book of Mormon the same scrutiny they would give any other church, politician, or organization, they would immediately be able to point to the book being a modern creation. It simply does not fit in an ancient setting because it has too many modern themes, items, and beliefs, which then leaves apologists stating that it was an ancient text that was then filtered through Joseph Smith’s prophetic mind.

But that leaves us with more problems than answers, because the Book of Mormon contains so many errors that come from taking the Bible as a literal text (Adam and Eve, global flood, Tower of Babel), that we have to then ask why Joseph Smith is getting revelations that are riddled with errors. This is the same problem we run into with the Book of Abraham, and the church has moved from a literal translation off papyri to a “catalyst theory” following the ability to read Egyptian which makes clear that Joseph Smith got it completely wrong.

As I’ve said throughout these overviews, apologists want to take each problem in isolation to try and explain it away, but these issues are all very connected and need to be taken in totality. We see the exact same problems with the Book of Mormon that we do with the Book of Abraham, with the main difference being that we have the source material for the Book of Abraham where there is no source material for the Book of Mormon to compare to beyond the “Caractors” document, and that is already highly problematic as I’ve presented previously.

The problem is that once we take these issues in totality, there is no getting around the fact that the Book of Mormon is a 19th century text. This reality leads us to how apologists try to explain away these anachronisms, and in the next section, I want to give an overview of the “tight” and “loose” translation theories, looking at how apologists will shift between the two methods as needed, but why the Book of Mormon cannot be both loosely and tightly translated.

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Next section: Tight vs Loose Translation Methods/Theories

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Thank you for reading, and please follow us on Twitter and Facebook for more information and updates on future sections.
 

Resources:

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• Our Biblical Scholarship Overview Pages

• Mormon Stories Interview with Dr. Michael Coe

• Mormon Express Podcast: Top Ten Anachronisms in the Book of Mormon

• The Book of Mormon vs Mormonism by Richard Packham

• New Approaches to the Book of Mormon, Brent Metcalfe

• Mormon Think: Book of Mormon Problems, Anachronisms

• Mormon Stories Interview with Dr. David Bokovoy