Just reading through a section of the original manuscript is helpful in understanding that this was an orally dictated story, which accounts for the long sentences without any punctuation. This is important because it helps us to understand that Joseph Smith was dictating the story to his scribe, and that there is no reason to believe in any theory such as the Spaulding manuscript theory that he was plagiarizing another text.

To be clear, the only book that Joseph Smith is directly using as a source text is the King James Bible, which we have covered in many of the previous overviews showing direct use in the Book of Mormon.

How Joseph Smith Authored the Book of Mormon

The first thing I want to state in this overview is that no one can state with absolute certainty how Joseph Smith created the Book of Mormon. While we have the accounts from those around him that he used his seer/peep stone in a hat, we simply do not have much more information beyond that.

The church readily accepts Joseph Smith’s claim that he translated the book by the “gift and power of God,” which is a catch-all phrase that is unfortunately indistinguishable from outright fraud as we discussed in both the tight vs loose translation theory as well as the “catalyst theory” for the Book of Abraham.

In this overview I’m not going to speculate on the exact method that Joseph Smith employed to author the book because no one can do that given the historical records we have regarding the dictation process that Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery employed, but instead look at how we can know that Joseph Smith was the author by a process of oral dictation, which matches the accounts of the translation process as well.

What we can show, however, is that when you look at the text of the Book of Mormon, that you can see how Joseph Smith was pulling from a variety of sources to write the text. This is an area where we can see the fingerprints of the author on the text, which is a tool that scholars have long used to analyze any ancient text. A great example of this is how scholars can date the Book of Daniel to a very specific timeframe 167-164 BCE, because the author of Daniel is so specific in his prophecies leading up to 167 BCE and then becomes completely vague (and incorrect) with prophecies after that time.

With the Book of Mormon, we can see similar elements such as the prophecy of Christopher Columbus (1 Nephi 13:12-15) which happened over 300 years prior to the Book of Mormon’s creation and the prophecy of the American Revolution (1 Nephi 13:16-19), which was just 50 years prior.

Furthermore, as we discussed in our ‘Surrounding Influences’ overview, the Book of Mormon talks about events that are happening as Joseph Smith is both thinking about and writing the book. Joseph Smith explicitly writes the Martin Harris visit to Charles Anthon into the Book of Mormon, altering Isaiah in an attempt to fulfill prophecy.

We also see Lehi’s dream, which mirrors the dream of Joseph Smith’s father prior to the production of the Book of Mormon. This is another area that has Joseph Smith’s fingerprints all over the text, in addition to the sections where he prophecies of himself later revealing the book to the world.

Last, the Book of Mormon warns about the “secret combinations” of the Masons in Joseph Smith’s lifetime. This was particularly important to Joseph Smith’s milieu after 1826, when William Morgan disappeared after preparing to reveal the signs and tokens of the Masonic ceremony. On a side note, those signs and tokens would make their way into Joseph Smith’s endowment ceremony just weeks after Smith becomes a mason while living in Nauvoo which we will cover in a future overview.

The point is that the Book of Mormon does give us events surrounding Joseph Smith’s lifetime that help us to date the book to the 19th century, and the Book of Mormon includes prophecies and stories that are incredibly specific in many instances until Joseph Smith’s time, but incredibly vague following it. There is no mention of the Civil War, the Civil Rights Movement, the struggle for the LGBT community, women’s rights, etc. Just like the Book of Daniel, these clues help scholars date the creation of these texts because of when the details stop being directly tied to historical events and start becoming vague.

Overall, the Book of Mormon is a time capsule for the religious beliefs in Joseph Smith’s lifetime. We’ve covered this throughout these overviews, and I can’t emphasize enough how each overview is connected to the next when putting together the puzzle of how Joseph Smith created the Book of Mormon.

As I’ve stated in many overviews, it is clear that Joseph Smith uses the King James Bible (KJV) as a foundational text for the Book of Mormon. This leads Joseph Smith to incorporate many errors in the Book of Mormon due to errors in the KJV, but it also helps us to see exactly how Joseph Smith was so gifted at aggregating sources to create a new text.

The Book of Mormon and the Parable of the Olive Tree

A great example of how Joseph Smith used the King James Bible and outside sources to create the Book of Mormon is the parable/allegory of the olive tree in Jacob 5. In this famous story from the Book of Mormon, Jacob retells an allegory from Zenos that was recorded on the brass plates that were retrieved from Laban.

This chapter of Jacob is referenced by church apologists as evidence for the Book of Mormon’s divine origins, because there’s simply no way that Joseph Smith could have known about olive horticulture in his time, and Daniel C. Peterson writes the following:

“One of the single most famous chapters in the Book of Mormon is Jacob 5, which recounts a lengthy olive tree allegory that it credits to a pre-Lehite Old World prophet, unknown to the Bible, that it identifies as Zenos…

According to an article by several professional botanists:
 

“Nearly all of the allegory in Jacob 5 corresponds exceptionally well with both ancient and modern botanical principles and horticultural practices. . . .  It is hard to imagine that its author was not personally familiar with the minute details and practices involved in raising good olives in a Mediterranean climate.  (163)”

 
Moreover, although some very limited information about olive cultivation might be derivable through careful, focused study of the Bible and a few other books that were available during Joseph Smith’s early years (though likely not anywhere near where he lived), they contained only sparse details.  And here’s another problem:
 

“Joseph Smith probably had little knowledge of olive trees in New York, as they will not grow in the northeastern United States.  (163)”” (Some Notes on Olive Cultivation and the Book of Mormon)

What is great about this article by Peterson is that he is intentionally setting up the familiar concept of “how could Joseph have known” while also tucking in that little detail about “although some very limited information about olive cultivation might be derivable through careful, focused study of the Bible.” Put another way, Peterson knows that what we see in Jacob 5 can be found in the Bible, and yet the author of Offenders for a Word: How Anti-Mormons Play Word Games to Attack the Latter-day Saints is using his own word game to present Jacob 5 as impossible for Joseph Smith to have known.

I wanted to set that up first because Jacob 5 is a perfect example of how Joseph Smith was able to aggregate surrounding ideas to create the Book of Mormon, and how this also led to Joseph Smith making mistakes that are now identifiable by scholars.

From a very good write-up on the parable of the olive tree:

“There are two major Biblical passages that provided structural material for this parable, and a number of shorter passages that supplied secondary ideas. The primary passages are Isaiah's parable of the vineyard, contained in Isaiah 5:1-7 and Paul's discussion of the relationship of Israel to the Gentiles (Romans 11:16-24), in which he used the metaphor of an olive tree.” (The Parable of Zenos)

Right off the bat we can see that Joseph Smith is not only pulling material from the King James Bible, but that he’s pulling from the New Testament which would not have been on the plates of brass or knowable to Zenos or anyone in that time. That is a problem that we’ve discussed before, but again needs to be noted that any reference to Romans is entirely anachronistic. Back to the article:

“That these two passages provided the framework upon which Joseph Smith built his parable is evident from several sources. Firstly, both passages were quoted by Smith earlier in the Book of Mormon narrative. Isaiah's song of the vineyard is found in II Nephi 15; Paul was alluded to in I Nephi 10:12-14 and other passages.

Secondly, several ideas presented in Zenos' parable can be found in these two passages. The theme of a well-tended vineyard, which failed to produce good fruit, is also a major theme of Isaiah's passage. Likewise, the contrast between wild and tame (or natural) fruit is found in Isaiah. From Paul's discourse, Joseph Smith obtained the idea of wild and natural branches, as well as one of his other major themes, that of cross-grafting branches between trees. We even find a few verbatim quotes from Isaiah, specifically the landowner's lament 'What could I have done more for my vineyard?' (Jacob 5:41). This is echoed in Isaiah's parable 'What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it?' (Isaiah 5:4)

The most telling piece of evidence, however, is that fact that the two passages are built on slightly different metaphors. Isaiah used a vineyard to represent Israel (Isaiah 5:7), while Paul used an olive tree. In the light of this, it is significant that the prophet Zenos appears to display some confusion about his metaphor. The parable of the vineyard begins with Israel as an olive tree located in a vineyard (Jacob 5:3). However, halfway through the narrative, the metaphor suddenly switches to the vineyard itself, significantly, just at the point that the Book of Mormon quotes Isaiah (Jacob 5:41). From this point on, the author repeatedly refers to 'the trees of the vineyard', apparently forgetting that the parable started out with olive trees as the primary metaphor, not grapevines.” (The Parable of Zenos)

To be clear, Joseph Smith is utilizing two main sources to create the parable of the olive tree, and we can see exactly when Joseph Smith switches between these two sources (Paul and Isaiah) due to how the metaphor itself changes from olive trees to the vineyard. Back to the article:

“There are at least three shorter passages that provided structural material for Zenos' parable. The concept of the Lord of the Vineyard and his servant, for example, is found in one of Jesus' parables, recorded in Luke 13:6-9. From this passage, we find the source of Smith's repeated reference to the useless branches 'cumbering' the ground and the trees (Jacob 5:9,30,44,49,66). It is from this passage, too, that Smith obtained the references to 'digging and dunging' (Jacob 5:47,64,76). We also here find the servant counseling his master against the wholesale destruction of the vineyard, a scene which is repeated in Zenos' parable (Jacob 5:26,27 and Jacob 5:49,50).

The concept of unfruitful branches being hewn down and burnt (Jacob 5:42,46,47,49,66) is found in Matthew 3:10 and John 15:6. Matthew 3:10 was quoted verbatim in Alma 5:52 (which was dictated before the book of Jacob, according to some theories). Verse 8 of Matthew 3, ('Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance') is quoted several times in the Book of Mormon (Alma 12:15;13:13;34:30).

As an interesting aside, it should be noted that Ethan Smith referred to several of these source passages in the View of the Hebrews. On page 62, we find a reference to Israel being "grafted in again". On page 254, the author quotes Luke "why cumbereth it the ground?". Ethan Smith also quoted and expounded on large portions of Isaiah, specifically with regard to Israel's restoration. He quoted Isaiah 5:26 on page 235, and Isaiah 5:13 on page 236. He also referred to the ripening of the vineyard as a sign of the end-times on page 243.

Thus we see that rather than representing an actual ancient parable, Zenos' story of the Vineyard is actually a conflation of several sources, some of which would not even be written for several hundred years.” (The Parable of Zenos)

I realize this might seem like a long example, but it is so critically important to understanding how Joseph Smith authored the Book of Mormon.

Above we see that apologist Daniel Peterson carefully stated “although some very limited information about olive cultivation might be derivable through careful, focused study of the Bible and a few other books that were available during Joseph Smith’s early years,” which we can then show through the text itself is exactly what happened.

Furthermore, it is crucial to understanding that Joseph Smith incorporated these passages earlier in the Book of Mormon, which shows that Joseph Smith both knew of these sources and was already thinking about them prior to creating this parable.

Not only can we see that Joseph Smith was aware of these passages in the Bible in the two books preceding Jacob, but we can see in the text of Jacob 5 exactly where Joseph Smith switches from using Paul’s writings to create the parable to Isaiah as the metaphor switches suddenly.

These are all fingerprints that help us to show that the Book of Mormon cannot be a historical record, and throughout the Book of Mormon they tell us that Joseph Smith is the author. This particular example shows us not just that Joseph Smith was using the KJV to produce the text, but that he was so familiar with the KJV that he was pulling directly from five sources in the parable of the olive tree.
Joseph Smith was not just pulling material from both Isaiah 5 and Romans 11, but he was using exact phrases from Luke, Matthew, and John. This is important to understand because a common argument is that Joseph Smith was uneducated and not literate in the Bible. Remember this famous Emma Smith quote:

“When he stopped for any purpose at any time he would, when he commenced again, begin where he left off without any hesitation, and one time while he was translating he stopped suddenly, pale as a sheet, and said, ‘Emma, did Jerusalem have walls around it?’ When I answered, ‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘Oh! [I didn’t know.] I was afraid I had been deceived.’ He had such a limited knowledge of history at that time that he did not even know that Jerusalem was surrounded by walls.” (Edmund C. Briggs, “A Visit to Nauvoo in 1856,” Journal of History, Jan. 1916, p. 454.)

This is such a great quote because it shows that Joseph Smith was gifted at creating confidence in his perceived gifts. I outlined this in great detail when looking at how Joseph Smith was able to sell his services as a treasure/money digger, but this quote is another perfect example of this.

It is beyond clear that Joseph Smith was extremely familiar with the Bible, so the idea that Jerusalem had walls would have been known to Joseph Smith. Furthermore, the idea that Jerusalem having walls would be the detail that would strike Joseph Smith as being deceived is simply ridiculous. But by making this comment (and we’re assuming here that Emma is not making this story up), he is creating more belief in his  claims of divinity in the eyes of his first wife Emma. When you read this quote knowing just how well Joseph Smith knew the Bible, it becomes even clearer how he was able to build charisma as a treasure digger and, later, the founder of a church.

Inconsistencies Following the Replacement Text for the Lost 116 Pages

We’ve covered many of the instances where we can show through the dictation order that the Lost 116 Pages seem to know the ending of the Book of Mormon before the middle prophets, which is an indicator that Joseph Smith authored the Book of Mormon. Otherwise there is simply no way to explain the inconsistencies. A good example of this that I have not previously covered is the use of Malachi in the Book of Mormon.

Malachi was written in the “first half of the 5th century BCE, for it clearly presupposes the reconstructed Temple (dedicated in 516 BCE) but does not reflect the reconstitution of the religious community that took place under Nehemiah and Ezra about 450 BCE.” (Britannica)

This is important because the book of Malachi was written after Lehi left with the brass plates, and in this case the author of the Book of Mormon is aware of this issue. We know this because when Jesus visits the Nephites, He declares the following:

3 Nephi 26:2 These scriptures, which ye had not with you, the Father commanded that I should give unto you; for it was wisdom in him that they should be given unto future generations.

This verse is referencing the extensive use of Malachi in 3 Nephi 24 and 25. A key verse in the copying of Malachi comes in 3 Nephi 25:1

3 Nephi 25:1 For behold, the day cometh that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble; and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of Hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.

As the Book of Mormon tells us, this is a verse that was unavailable to the Nephites until Jesus revealed it to them. However, this verse works its way into both 1st and 2nd Nephi:

1 Nephi 22:15 For behold, saith the prophet, the time cometh speedily that Satan shall have no more power over the hearts of the children of men; for the day soon cometh that all the proud and they who do wickedly shall be as stubble; and the day cometh that they must be burned.

1 Nephi 22:23 …they are those who must be consumed as stubble; and this is according to the words of the prophet.

2 Nephi 26:4 Wherefore, all those who are proud, and that do wickedly, the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of Hosts, for they shall be as stubble.

2 Nephi 26:6 …for the fire of the anger of the Lord shall be kindled against them, and they shall be as stubble, and the day that cometh shall consume them, saith the Lord of Hosts.

This is a clear example where the ending of the Book of Mormon tells us that these writings were inaccessible to the Nephites, yet in the replacement text for ‘lost 116 pages,’ which was written after the ending was completed, the prophets are suddenly aware of material that Jesus specifically said was unavailable to them.

Just as stated in the Lost 116 Pages overview, this is a clear example where the dictation order reveals fingerprints as to the author of the Book of Mormon. Remember that Joseph Smith composed the Book of Mormon starting with Mosiah until the end, and only then replaced the ‘lost’ text with 1 Nephi through Mormon. From historian Brent Metcalfe:

“Mosiah through 3 Nephi 23 betrays no knowledge of Malachi 3-4. Subsequent to Jesus’s 3 Nephi recital of Malachi’s prophecies, as the dictation proceeded, Malachi’s language is appropriated by other Book of Mormon prophets in Ether, 1 Nephi, and 2 Nephi.

Some Book of Mormon students argue that narrative patterns similar to the above can be explained by acknowledging the intervention of Nephite redactors Mormon and Moroni. Interpreters could thus hypothesize that post-Christ-advent Nephite editors embellished the replacement text with high christology or projected later prophecies back on their progenitors (cf. Epperson 1988, 80, 94-96, 98-99; Jorgensen 1981, passim; Ostler 1987, 86-87).

Such a theory can only be maintained at the expense of the redactors’ integrity. Mormon expressly states that the sole reason for inclusion of 1 Nephi-Omni was because they contained “pleasing … prophecies of the coming of Christ” (W of M 1:4[ff]). In this context, could the christological prophecies be the creation of Mormon? Also, why would Mormon or Moroni have inserted later, more developed elements into the narrative in some cases but neglected to do so in the homilies of Benjamin, Mosiah, Abinadi, and both Almas? And why would such inconsistencies of ancient redactors be so easily explained by Smith’s dictation sequence?” (Metcalfe, New Approaches to the Book of Mormon)

Again, these inconsistencies with the replacement text of the ‘lost 116 pages’ are only inconsistencies when the Book of Mormon is read in chronological order of the text today. When the Book of Mormon is read through the order it was dictated it as stated above, however, the puzzle pieces fit together exactly as you would expect. This is another area where you can show that Joseph Smith was the author of the Book of Mormon, and in his need to replace the Lost 116 Pages he unintentionally revealed a lot of clues as to how the book was created.

Other Fingerprints from Orally Dictating the Book of Mormon

As I’ve pointed out in these overviews, there are many places where Joseph Smith leaves his fingerprints on the text itself. I agree with many scholars that the Book of Mormon was an orally dictated text, where Joseph Smith would speak the words to Oliver Cowdery, and thus could not just go back and make changes as he wanted because of the underlying premise that he was reading off the stone in a hat.

Because it was an orally composed text, there are many hints that tell us that Joseph Smith would sometimes misspeak, and thus need to correct himself immediately. This is important because we are being told that Joseph Smith is reading the text off of his seer/peep stone in a hat, and that the words cannot change until they are written down correctly.

That means in these cases that, from a faithful perspective, we have to believe they were engraved onto the metal plates with these errors, which they then to had to spend more time engraving the correction immediately after.

Here are some examples where I believe Joseph Smith made an error, quickly realized it, and then had to correct it in the following part of the sentence:

Mosiah 16:6 And now if Christ had not come into the world [Mistake], speaking of things to come as though they had already come [Correction], there could have been no redemption.

Helaman 12:15 And thus, according to his word the earth goeth back, and it appeareth unto man that the sun standeth still [Mistake]; yea, and behold, this is so; for surely it is the earth that moveth and not the sun.

Mosiah 7:8 And it came to pass when they had been in prison two days they were again brought before the king, and their bands were loosed; and they stood before the king, and were permitted [Mistake], or rather commanded [Correction], that they should answer the questions which he should ask them.

Alma 43:38 ...they being shielded from the more vital parts of the body [Mistake], or the more vital parts of the body being shielded from the strokes of the Lamanites [Correction]...

Alma 24:19 ...and thus we see that they buried their weapons of peace [Mistake], or they buried the weapons of war, for peace. [Correction]

In addition to areas where Joseph Smith corrects himself immediately after realizing he dictated an error, we have multiple instances where you can see how Joseph Smith loses his train of thought while dictating and it leads to either awkward errors or the need to circle back to the original point. From the Mormon Stories essay on the Book of Mormon translation:

“In multiple places, the narrator appears to forget what he had previously dictated and is forced to resort to verbal circumlocution. If the words were indeed carefully abridged by Mormon, they are difficult to reconcile. However, such lapses are easily explained by a break in dictation for the night or simply a lapse in concentration.

“Alma 19:16 introduces a Lamanite woman named Abish, and informs that she “ran forth from house to house, making it known unto the people” that the power of God had come upon the king and queen. A mere twelve verses later, the narrator forgets her name and clumsily refers instead to “…the woman servant who had caused the multitude to be gathered together.”

Similarly, Alma 1 introduces an Antichrist named Nehor, who teaches false doctrine, kills a war hero named Gideon, and finally recants his unbelief before his execution for murder. In the very next chapter, the author appears to momentarily forget Nehor’s name, and introduces a new character, Amlici, as “he being after the order of the man that slew Gideon by the sword, who was executed according to the law.” Later, in Alma 24, the author uses the much simpler description, “after the order of Nehor.”

On the other hand, we occasionally encounter more information just a few verses after it would have flowed most easily. In Alma 17:36, narrating how Ammon defended King Lamoni’s sheep from would-be thieves, Joseph dictates that, “with mighty power he did sling stones amongst them; and thus he slew a certain number of them.” Two verses later, we are informed that “six of them had fallen by the sling..but he slew none save it were their leader with his sword.” (Mormon Stories, Translation Process)

Unique Names in the Book of Mormon

One common defense of the Book of Mormon is that it contains so many unique names and places that there is just no way that Joseph Smith could have invented them all and kept track of them throughout the book. A good example of this is a statement from Sunday School General President Tad R. Callister, who wrote the book A Case For the Book of Mormon:

“First, the critics must explain how Joseph Smith, a 23-year-old farm boy with limited education, created a book with hundreds of unique names and places, as well as detailed stories and events. Accordingly, many critics propose that he was a creative genius who relied upon numerous books and other local resources to create the historical content of the Book of Mormon. But contrary to their assertion, there is not a solitary witness who claims to have seen Joseph with any of these alleged resources before the translation began.” (October 2017 General Conference)

I’ve recently wrote about how Tad Callister uses strawman arguments to deflect critical arguments against the Book of Mormon, but this is another area where the church is intentionally framing what Joseph Smith did as miraculous when it is actually quite explainable when you take the supernatural out of the equation.

We’ve already discussed how Joseph Smith relied on books and surrounding events to create the Book of Mormon, and we’ve addressed the problems with Callister asserting that since no witnesses spoke of Joseph Smith using outside sources by simply outlining the literary reliance on the King James Bible.

But I want to briefly address the names before we wrap up, because it’s important again to understanding how we can show that this is an orally dictated book by Joseph Smith.

If you look at the names in the Book of Mormon, you will notice that many are only used once and most are only used within a very tight timeframe. In other words, Joseph Smith would orally dictate a section of the Book of Mormon and then move on to the next section, leaving most of the names and places he had created behind as the timeline continued.

Put another way, he’s not remembering “hundreds of unique names and places” in the Book of Mormon, which really undercuts the argument that he could not have done it. Because the Book of Mormon is continually moving through time, Joseph Smith can forget names after just a short amount of translation, and outside of the main characters, does just that throughout the book.

From a page that gives a frequency count of every word in the Book of Mormon, a few example of the frequency of mentions by name:

​

• Nephi 2,788

• Helaman 594

• Teancum 43

• Gadianton 30

• Jarom 20 (only mentioned in Jarom and Omni 1:1)

• Anti-nephi-lehi 11 (only mentioned in Alma 24, 25, 27, and 43)

• Gidgiddoni 10 (all 10 mentions between 3 Nephi chapters 3-6)

• Lehi-nephi 7 (all mentions in Mosiah 7 and 9)

• Amnigaddah 4 (only mentioned in Ether 1 and Ether 10)

• Muloki 2 (mentioned in Alma 20 and 21)

• Moriancumer 1

• Mathonihah 1

• Ishmaelitish 1

• Isabel 1

• Gadiomnah 1

• Gadiandi 1

• Hagoth 1

• Cumenihah 1

• Ammonihahites 1

• Abish 1

I picked this list just browsing through a chart of word frequency in the Book of Mormon and I am no means saying this is an exhaustive list, but I hope the point is clear that outside of the main characters and places, all of those unique names are quickly used and forgotten. This is not like Lord of the Rings calling back characters throughout the book that are unique to Middle Earth or Harry Potter creating a universe that constantly calls back places and names – the Book of Mormon is a story that is moving through time and thus is constantly changing and replacing characters and places.

Finally, we can show that many of the names in the Book of Mormon are similar to other names around him. For example, Charles Anthon compiled a dictionary of ancient names in 1827 that has a lot of similarities with Book of Mormon names. Some examples are:

​

• Morini → Moroni

• Gaditanum → Gadianton

• Marmarion → Morianton

• Zamora → Zarahemla

• Nepherites → Nephites

• Egyptus → Egyptus (Book of Abraham)

• Corinthium → Coriantumr

• Teanum → Teancum (Surrounded by ‘c’ names ‘Sidicinum’ and ‘Campania’)

• Memnon → Mormon (Memnon was a war hero who led 10,000 men to battle in the Trojan war and won, died in a subsequent war, and was known as a writer and inventor of the alphabet)

• Cremera → Cumorah (An entire family line of 300 was wiped out there: They came to a general engagement near the Cremera, in which all the family, consisting of 306 men, were totally slain, B.C. 477. There only remained one, whose tender age detained him at Rome, and from him arose the noble Fabii. The family was divided into six different branches, the Ambusti, the Maximi, the Vibulani, the Buteones, the Dorsones, and the Pictores…)

There are also a lot of sections on Egyptian culture and Egyptian theology. Joseph Smith would by this book alone knew that the word Nephi was of Egyptian origin (page 520)

Please visit “Charles Anthon's Proper Names and the Book of Mormon” for a list of 32 names similar to the Book of Mormon with links.

As I’ve stated before, I’m not saying that Joseph Smith plagiarized the Book of Mormon or directly stole all of these names from Anthon, but I am stating that we can detail over and over again where he is pulling from outside sources. We also know that Joseph Smith was familiar with Charles Anthon’s work to the point of sending Martin Harris to him as a respected scholar of ancient languages.

We can also show many names are taken from the Bible, with Nephi coming from the Apocrypha which was well known in Joseph Smith’s time:

2 Maccabees 1:36, King James Bible: “And Neemias called this thing Naphthar, which is as much as to say, a cleansing: but many men call it Nephi.”

2 Nephi 5:8 “And my people would that we should call the name of the place Nephi; wherefore, we did call it Nephi.”

Again, I am not saying that these are being directly pulled as we’ve shown in other areas with the King James Bible, but to say that these names are not nearly as unique as the church wants to proclaim, and the number of names is not nearly as impressive once you realize that very few of them are used outside of very small sections in the Book of Mormon.

Summary

This is the ninth overview specifically about the Book of Mormon, and the sixteenth if we include the biblical scholarship sections about the scriptures of Mormonism. In a lot of ways this summary here is a summary of all sixteen overviews, because as I’ve said before I truly believe they are all puzzle pieces that work together to show us the complete picture in totality.

While it might feel like this summary is a bit long, I hope you’ll read it and understand just how deep these problems are and why they all need to be both looked at and answered in totality.

Throughout these overviews I’ve tried to show how the entire concept of the gold plates and Book of Mormon was an outgrowth of Joseph Smith’s treasure digging, which manifests itself in the story of recovering the gold plates, the translation of the plates, and the text of the Book of Mormon itself.  I don’t think it can be overstated how important it is to understand how influential treasure digging is to the story of Mormonism, and why we have to accept treasure digging as being a real way of locating objects to accept the Book of Mormon as an ancient record on gold plates.

From that point we then have to believe that God would allow Joseph Smith to use the very same rock that he claimed to see this buried treasure with (which is why we have to accept treasure digging as a genuine practice that located lost items) to dictate the Book of Mormon instead of the interpreters the book itself tells us were preserved for the very purpose of translating. While some fringe apologists still contend that the “rock in a hat” was a hoax, the church itself now admits that is how the Book of Mormon was translated.

After you accept the rock in a hat for translation, you then have to accept that Joseph Smith could not replicate the ‘Lost 116 Pages’ even though he was claiming a tight translation, and thus needed revelation to create the idea of a second set of plates was preserved for this very purpose, even though the authors of the Book of Mormon are completely unaware of this second set of plates until the replacement text is created (which is after the end of the book is finished).

At this point we have the text of the Book of Mormon, so if you accept all of the above now we have to deal with the problems in the text itself. Because the Book of Mormon is literarily dependent on the King James Bible, we have to believe that God would allow for Joseph Smith to bring in translation errors into the Book of Mormon, even though it was originally written for the very purpose of providing us a book that had not lost its fullness through men translating it.

As I outlined in the biblical scholarship sections, the Book of Mormon requires that Adam and Eve are literal people who were the first humans ever, which is incredibly problematic by just looking at the text of the Bible itself. The Adam and Eve story was a late addition when the Pentateuch was compiled, likely after Lehi left with the brass plates.

From there it gets even more problematic. For the Book of Mormon to be true, we have to believe that the Tower of Babel was a literal event, with the languages of the world being confused after its destruction. Beyond the fact that there is no historical evidence for it, every secular linguist can explain why language development simply did not happen this way. Most religions can accept the Tower of Babel as an etiological myth, but the Book of Mormon requires it to be a literal event because Joseph Smith wrote it directly into the story.

Next we have to believe that the global flood occurred. Again, there is absolutely no evidence for this and ample evidence to show that a global flood that wiped out all living beings on land simply did not happen. But the Book of Mormon requires a global flood that baptized the Americas, leaving the lands uninhabited until God led the Jaredites here.

Even if we accept all of these problems with the Book of Mormon until this point, we still have many more to go. The Book of Mormon includes King James Bible sections that were simply unavailable to the Book of Mormon people, and yet they are included throughout the text.

The Sermon at the Temple, which is one of the crowning moments of the entire Book of Mormon, is a copy of the Sermon on the Mount from Matthew, making only superficial changes to problematic text while leaving in other errors and phrases that would have absolutely no meaning to the Nephites. Not only is this problematic because Joseph Smith is copying the text directly into the Book of Mormon, but scholars now believe Jesus never gave the sermon as written, but that the author of Matthew was using a “Q” or “sayings” source to weave the sayings of Jesus into a literary work.

We then run into these same problems with the “long ending of Mark,” where scholars do not believe that the ending of Mark was original to the author of Mark’s text because the earliest manuscripts do not contain it, which some Bibles even concede directly in the text.