Richard L. Anderson,”Book of Mormon Witnesses”,Maxwell Institute
For over forty years, I have been a student of Joseph Smith’s life and teachings. I have a testimony of what those close to Joseph reported: They had full confidence that, as a prophet, Joseph Smith was in touch with God and powerfully brought those hearing him closer to Christ; they knew that Joseph translated the Book of Mormon, an ancient record of Christ’s American ministry, from metal plates; they felt God’s power as Joseph privately and publicly taught the gospel and gave full meaning to Bible verses ignored by traditional Christians. The Book of Mormon relies not only on the record of an ancient people, but also on the separate testimonies of Three and Eight Witnesses published in the back of the book’s original 1830 edition and in the front of its more recent editions.
I first encountered the concept of witnesses in law school as I learned that in property transactions and other legal documents, you need two or three witnesses to attest to the signature. Then while studying history in graduate school, I learned that all history is reconstructed by witnesses. I feel there is no religious leader whom I know about—in the contemporary scene or historically—outside of the Bible, who really deals with the issue of witnesses.
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by Hugh Nibley
This article appeared in the Millennial Star 124 (November 1962): 274-77.
It is impossible to read the Book of Mormon with an “open mind.” Confronted on every page with the steady assurance that what he is reading is both holy scripture and true history, the reader is soon forced to acknowledge a prevailing mood of assent or resentment.
It was the same uncompromising “yea or nay” in the teaching of Jesus that infuriated the scribes and Pharisees against him; the claims of the Christ allowed no one the comfortable neutrality of a middle ground. Critics of the Book of Mormon have from the beginning attempted to escape the responsibility of reading it by simple appeal to the story of its miraculous origin; that is enough to discredit it without further investigation.
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“Jeff Rosenbaugh Testimony”, bookofmormontruth.com
I guess I should start by saying that I didn’t always believe the Book of Mormon to be true… My Father is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon) and my Mother is a Presbyterian. I grew up going to church with my Dad, but I spent a fair amount of time once I really began thinking about my faith wondering whether or not any of the stuff I was being told was true. It’s a little fantastic to think, isn’t it? A boy named Joseph Smith seeing God the Father and Jesus Christ, then being instructed some years later to translate a story of people here in the Americas and their religious experiences… You have to admit, it’s kind of hard at first glance to believe that a story like that could be true.
My testimony is that it IS true. When I was in high school I decided that it was time for me to figure out whether or not this book really was what everyone told me it was. I grew up in the Chicago-land area, so I had my church friends telling me it was true and my school friends telling me it was written by Satan. The only way I could think of to prove it one way or another was to read it and to pray about it-trusting that God would never lead me astray if I were to pray in full faith, asking for enlightenment. (Remember John 11:22 – “But I know, that even now, whatsoever thou wilt ask of God, God will give it thee.”)
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Dallin H. Oaks, “Historical Authenticity” bookofmormontruth.com
by Elder Dallin H. Oaks
Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies Annual Dinner Provo, Utah, October 29, 1993
Some who term themselves believing Latter-day Saints are advocating that Latter-day Saints should “abandon claims that [the Book of Mormon] is a historical record of the ancient peoples of the Americas.”1 They are promoting the feasibility of reading and using the Book of Mormon as nothing more than a pious fiction with some valuable contents. These practitioners of so-called “higher criticism” raise the question of whether the Book of Mormon, which our prophets have put forward as the preeminent scripture of this dispensation, is fact or fable—history or just a story.
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John Hilton III, “The Book of Mormon Will Change Your Life” (Excerpt), bookofmormontruth.com
BYU Education Week 2005
The Book of Mormon is the Keystone of our Religion
“The Book of Mormon is the keystone of our religion. This was the Prophet Joseph Smith’s statement. He testified that ‘the Book of Mormon was the most correct of any book on earth, and the keystone of our religion’ (History of the Church, 4:461). A keystone is the central stone in an arch. It holds all the other stones in place, and if removed, the arch crumbles.
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