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Facts supporting the truth of the Book of Mormon

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Some Mormons may not understand Joseph’s translation process

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On November 30, 2009

In Book of Mormon, Book of Mormon - Responses to Critics

Michael R. Ash, “Some Mormons may not understand Josephs translation process” mormontimes.com, Nov. 30, 2009

Michael R. Ash

Michael R. Ash

As we continue our discussion about the Book of Mormon translation, some members may be troubled that the process doesn’t match their conceptions of how they thought the process worked. For members who were unaware of the seer stone in the hat, at least two questions or concerns may arise: 1) Is it strange that Joseph used a stone in a hat? 2) Why have we have always been told that Joseph used the Urim and Thummim?

To answer the first question we might also ask: Is it strange that a man could rise from the dead, walk on water, heal the lame, create the heavens, and answer the prayers of billions of people? There are basically two kinds of non-Mormons who reject LDS beliefs: A) those who believe that there is no God (or that if such a being exists he doesn’t interact with humans), and B) those who believe that a supreme being exists and has communicated with mankind.

For those who don’t believe in a God, all supernatural and miraculous events are automatically brushed aside as imaginary, impossible, etc. All spiritual experiences are seen as “strange,” superstitious, and possibly the result of the evolutionary process of the mind. Joseph’s translation process is just as strange as any other supernatural claim. 

For those who believe that God can and has communicated with mankind, it seems hypocritical to summarily dismiss Joseph’s method of translation because it doesn’t fit with pre-conceived views of how God communicates. As with all spiritual claims, the only way to know if they come from God is to ask God for a witness.

For Mormons who think the seer stone in the hat is strange compared to a translation through the Nephite Interpreters, one might ask: Why is a translation through a stone outside of a hat (the Nephite Interpreters) acceptable, while a translation through a stone inside of a hat (the seer stone) is unusual? It should be obvious that if someone finds the one normal and the other odd, that such a perspective is based on nothing more than pre-conceived assumptions.

Number 2: Why have we have always been told that Joseph translated the book with the Urim and Thummim? The answer is simple: The early Saints referred to both the Interpreters and the seer stone as the “Urim and Thummim.” The real problem is not that the seer stone is called the Urim and Thummim, but rather that when most modern members hear the phrase they typically envision the Interpreters. Why is this? The critics claim that most members don’t know about the stone and the hat because the church hides the information. This claim, however, is false.

That Joseph used a seer stone in a hat to translate the Book of Mormon has been mentioned in several official church publications such as the Improvement Era, the Ensign, and even the Friend by such people as B.H. Roberts, Richard Lloyd Anderson, Neal A. Maxwell and Russell M. Nelson. It stretches the imagination to believe that the church would hide this information if it has been included in official church magazines.

So why are some members unfamiliar with the translation process? The answer is a bit more complex. This topic and the frequent but false claim that the church “hides its history from members” will be discussed in greater depth in a future issue.

Number 3: Why isn’t the seer stone used today? In Joseph’s world, he and many of his contemporaries believed that God could reveal things through a seer stone. Joseph’s mind was already open and prepared for revelation and a translation process through the Urim and Thummin. The Lord utilized Joseph’s worldview to help restore the gospel. If Joseph had been skeptical of seer stones, he may not have been receptive to translating the Book of Mormon.

As Joseph continued to receive more revelations, he discovered that the seer stone was merely an elementary tool for teaching him how to focus his thoughts on the things of God. By the time he was working on the Inspired Version of the New Testament, he no longer needed the seer stone. Joseph apparently told Orson Pratt that the Lord gave him the Urim and Thummim “when he was inexperienced in the Spirit of inspiration. But now he had advanced so far that he understood the operations of that Spirit and did not need the assistance of that instrument,” (Richard L. Anderson, BYU Studies 24:4, 489-560).

Safety for the Soul

By

On October 17, 2009

In Book of Mormon, Book of Mormon - Responses to Critics

Jeffrey R. Holland, “Safety for the Soul” lds.org

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland
Of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles


I want it absolutely clear when I stand before the judgment bar of God that I declared to the world . . . that the Book of Mormon is true.

Jeffrey R Holland

Prophecies regarding the last days often refer to large-scale calamities such as earthquakes or famines or floods. These in turn may be linked to widespread economic or political upheavals of one kind or another.

But there is one kind of latter-day destruction that has always sounded to me more personal than public, more individual than collective—a warning, perhaps more applicable inside the Church than outside it. The Savior warned that in the last days even those of the covenant, the very elect, could be deceived by the enemy of truth.1 If we think of this as a form of spiritual destruction, it may cast light on another latter-day prophecy. Think of the heart as the figurative center of our faith, the poetic location of our loyalties and our values; then consider Jesus’s declaration that in the last days “men’s hearts [shall fail] them.”2

The encouraging thing, of course, is that our Father in Heaven knows all of these latter-day dangers, these troubles of the heart and soul, and has given counsel and protections regarding them.

In light of that, it has always been significant to me that the Book of Mormon, one of the Lord’s powerful keystones3 in this counteroffensive against latter-day ills, begins with a great parable of life, an extended allegory of hope versus fear, of light versus darkness, of salvation versus destruction—an allegory of which Sister Ann M. Dibb spoke so movingly this morning.

In Lehi’s dream an already difficult journey gets more difficult when a mist of darkness arises, obscuring any view of the safe but narrow path his family and others are to follow. It is imperative to note that this mist of darkness descends on all the travelers—the faithful and the determined ones (the elect, we might even say) as well as the weaker and ungrounded ones. The principal point of the story is that the successful travelers resist all distractions, including the lure of forbidden paths and jeering taunts from the vain and proud who have taken those paths. The record says that the protected “did press their way forward, continually [and, I might add, tenaciously] holding fast” to a rod of iron that runs unfailingly along the course of the true path.4 However dark the night or the day, the rod marks the way of that solitary, redeeming trail.

“I beheld,” Nephi says later, “that the rod of iron . . . was the word of God, [leading] . . . to the tree of life; . . . a representation of the love of God.” Viewing this manifestation of God’s love, Nephi goes on to say:

“I looked and beheld the Redeemer of the world, . . . [who] went forth ministering unto the people. . . .

“ . . . And I beheld multitudes of people who were sick, and who were afflicted with all manner of diseases, and with devils and unclean spirits; . . . and they were healed by the power of the Lamb of God; and the devils and the unclean spirits were cast out.”5

Love. Healing. Help. Hope. The power of Christ to counter all troubles in all times—including the end of times. That is the safe harbor God wants for us in personal or public days of despair. That is the message with which the Book of Mormon begins, and that is the message with which it ends, calling all to “come unto Christ, and be perfected in him.”6 That phrase—taken from Moroni’s final lines of testimony, written 1,000 years after Lehi’s vision—is a dying man’s testimony of the only true way.

May I refer to a modern “last days” testimony? When Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum started for Carthage to face what they knew would be an imminent martyrdom, Hyrum read these words to comfort the heart of his brother:

“Thou hast been faithful; wherefore . . . thou shalt be made strong, even unto the sitting down in the place which I have prepared in the mansions of my Father.

“And now I, Moroni, bid farewell . . . until we shall meet before the judgment-seat of Christ.”7

A few short verses from the 12th chapter of Ether in the Book of Mormon. Before closing the book, Hyrum turned down the corner of the page from which he had read, marking it as part of the everlasting testimony for which these two brothers were about to die. I hold in my hand that book, the very copy from which Hyrum read, the same corner of the page turned down, still visible. Later, when actually incarcerated in the jail, Joseph the Prophet turned to the guards who held him captive and bore a powerful testimony of the divine authenticity of the Book of Mormon.8 Shortly thereafter pistol and ball would take the lives of these two testators.

As one of a thousand elements of my own testimony of the divinity of the Book of Mormon, I submit this as yet one more evidence of its truthfulness. In this their greatest—and last—hour of need, I ask you: would these men blaspheme before God by continuing to fix their lives, their honor, and their own search for eternal salvation on a book (and by implication a church and a ministry) they had fictitiously created out of whole cloth?

Never mind that their wives are about to be widows and their children fatherless. Never mind that their little band of followers will yet be “houseless, friendless and homeless” and that their children will leave footprints of blood across frozen rivers and an untamed prairie floor.9 Never mind that legions will die and other legions live declaring in the four quarters of this earth that they know the Book of Mormon and the Church which espouses it to be true. Disregard all of that, and tell me whether in this hour of death these two men would enter the presence of their Eternal Judge quoting from and finding solace in a book which, if not the very word of God, would brand them as imposters and charlatans until the end of time? They would not do that! They were willing to die rather than deny the divine origin and the eternal truthfulness of the Book of Mormon.

For 179 years this book has been examined and attacked, denied and deconstructed, targeted and torn apart like perhaps no other book in modern religious history—perhaps like no other book in any religious history. And still it stands. Failed theories about its origins have been born and parroted and have died—from Ethan Smith to Solomon Spaulding to deranged paranoid to cunning genius. None of these frankly pathetic answers for this book has ever withstood examination becausethere is no other answer than the one Joseph gave as its young unlearned translator. In this I stand with my own great-grandfather, who said simply enough, “No wicked man could write such a book as this; and no good man would write it, unless it were true and he were commanded of God to do so.”10

I testify that one cannot come to full faith in this latter-day work—and thereby find the fullest measure of peace and comfort in these, our times—until he or she embraces the divinity of the Book of Mormon and the Lord Jesus Christ, of whom it testifies. If anyone is foolish enough or misled enough to reject 531 pages of a heretofore unknown text teeming with literary and Semitic complexity without honestly attempting to account for the origin of those pages—especially without accounting for their powerful witness of Jesus Christ and the profound spiritual impact that witness has had on what is now tens of millions of readers—if that is the case, then such a person, elect or otherwise, has been deceived; and if he or she leaves this Church, it must be done by crawling over or under or around the Book of Mormon to make that exit. In that sense the book is what Christ Himself was said to be: “a stone of stumbling, . . . a rock of offence,”11 a barrier in the path of one who wishes not to believe in this work. Witnesses, even witnesses who were for a time hostile to Joseph, testified to their death that they had seen an angel and had handled the plates. “They have been shown unto us by the power of God, and not of man,” they declared. “Wherefore we know of a surety that the work is true.”12

Now, I did not sail with the brother of Jared in crossing an ocean, settling in a new world. I did not hear King Benjamin speak his angelically delivered sermon. I did not proselyte with Alma and Amulek nor witness the fiery death of innocent believers. I was not among the Nephite crowd who touched the wounds of the resurrected Lord, nor did I weep with Mormon and Moroni over the destruction of an entire civilization. But my testimony of this record and the peace it brings to the human heart is as binding and unequivocal as was theirs. Like them, “[I] give [my name] unto the world, to witness unto the world that which [I] have seen.” And like them, “[I] lie not, God bearing witness of it.”13

I ask that my testimony of the Book of Mormon and all that it implies, given today under my own oath and office, be recorded by men on earth and angels in heaven. I hope I have a few years left in my “last days,” but whether I do or do not, I want it absolutely clear when I stand before the judgment bar of God that I declared to the world, in the most straightforward language I could summon, that the Book of Mormon is true, that it came forth the way Joseph said it came forth and was given to bring happiness and hope to the faithful in the travail of the latter days.

My witness echoes that of Nephi, who wrote part of the book in his “last days”:

“Hearken unto these words and believe in Christ; and if ye believe not in these words believe in Christ. And if ye shall believe in Christ ye will believe in these words, for they are the words of Christ, . . . and they teach all men that they should do good.

“And if they are not the words of Christ, judge ye—for Christ will show unto you, with power and great glory, that they are his words, at the last day.”14

Brothers and sisters, God always provides safety for the soul, and with the Book of Mormon, He has again done that in our time. Remember this declaration by Jesus Himself: “Whoso treasureth up my word, shall not be deceived”15—and in the last days neither your heart nor your faith will fail you. Of this I earnestly testify in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

NOTES
1. See Matthew 24:24; see also Joseph Smith—Matthew 1:22.
2. Luke 21:26.
3. See History of the Church, 4:461.
4. 1 Nephi 8:30.
5. 1 Nephi 11:25, 27–28, 31.
6. Moroni 10:32.
7. Ether 12:37–38; see also D&C 135:5.
8. See History of the Church, 6:600.
9. Joseph Smith, in History of the Church, 4:539.
10. George Cannon, quoted in “The Twelve Apostles,” in Andrew Jenson, ed., The Historical Record, 6:175.
11. 1 Peter 2:8.
12. “The Testimony of Three Witnesses,” Book of Mormon.
13. “The Testimony of Eight Witnesses,” Book of Mormon; emphasis added.
14. 2 Nephi 33:10–11; emphasis added.
15. Joseph Smith—Matthew 1:37.

Joseph Smith becoming “the seer stone”

By

On August 30, 2009

In Book of Mormon, LDS Church

Michael De Groote, “Joseph Smith becoming the seer stone” Deseret News, Aug. 30, 2009

Joseph Smith small

Richard Neitzel Holzapfel was amazed at how often Joseph Smith was identified as “the Seer” in John Whitmer’s record of the early history of the LDS Church. Whitmer wrote the record from 1831 to 1838. Holzapfel read the book to prepare for a class he was teaching at BYU’s Campus Education Week.

“Dozens and dozens of times as (Whitmer) was writing out this faithful history  — commanded (to be kept) by the Lord Jesus himself — he would say, ‘Joseph the Seer said,’ or ‘the revelation was given to Joseph the Seer,'” Holzapfel said. “It struck me that the early church members knew Joseph in a way in which, maybe, we don’t appreciate.”

Holzapfel, a professor of church history and doctrine at BYU, told the class at Education Week why Joseph was known as “the Seer” and why his use of a seer stone to receive revelations eventually ended.

“Joseph Smith’s story didn’t start in the Sacred Grove,” Holzapfel said. Joseph was identified as a seer long before he was born. The ancient Biblical patriarch, Joseph, prophesied, “A seer shall the Lord my God raise up, who shall be a choice seer unto the fruit of my loins” (2 Nephi 3:6).

“Imagine. What must it have been like for Joseph to translate this very passage and all-of-a-sudden dawn on him the he’s the choice seer?” Holzapfel said.

According to Holzapfel, the Book of Mormon teaches that a seer is someone who uses the seer stones (see Mosiah 8:13). The terms “seer stones” and “Urim and Thummim” were used interchangeably in early Mormon documents.

In the Old Testament, the Urim and Thummim were stones used for divining the will of God. Holzapfel indicated that these were the translators given to Joseph with the gold plates. Joseph also found another stone that became his seer stone.

When a historical record says that a revelation was given through the Urim and Thummim, Holzapfel said we can’t be sure if it was the Urim and Thummin Book of Mormon “translators” or the Prophet’s seer stone.

Richard Neitzel Holzapfel speaks at BYU education week. Photo by Michael De Groote

“The use of the seer stone constitutes you becoming a seer. But the purpose of the seer stone is to make you a seer,” Holzapfel said. “The instruments are not magic. They help us concentrate our faith so that we begin to receive confidence so that we can do the right thing.”

Holzapfel compared it loosely to a wedding ring or a CTR ring. The rings help some people remember their covenants or “choose the right.” But the rings do not help everybody. Some choose the wrong. There is nothing magic about the rings. “But those objects can be means to recall and remember and have faith,” he said. “But obviously the real purpose is to move beyond those objects to become that person that (doesn’t need the objects).”

This is what happened to Joseph.

Orson Pratt remembered watching Joseph Smith receive inspiration while reviewing the New Testament. He wondered why Joseph didn’t need the Urim and Thummin or seer stone like he did when he translated the Book of Mormon. “Joseph … looked up and explained that the Lord gave him the Urim and Thummim when he was inexperienced in the Spirit of inspiration,” Pratt said. “But now he had advanced so far that he understood the operations of that Spirit and did not need the assistance of that instrument.”

Joseph at first used the Urim and Thummim and/or the seer stone for translating the Book of Mormon. Holzapfel said that by the end of the Book of Mormon translation process, Joseph was no longer even using the plates in front of him. He was receiving the translation from the seer stone directly. It wasn’t much longer before Joseph did not even need the seer stone to receive revelation.

Joseph Smith was taught by the Lord and grew in spiritual maturity. This is why, according to Holzapfel, Joseph was called the choice seer. “He wasn’t a person who used the seer stone. He became a seer stone.”



The Keystone of our Religion

By

On July 3, 2009

In Book of Mormon, LDS Church

James E. Faust, “The Keystone of our Religion” Ensign, Jan. 2004, 2-6,

James E. Faust

James E. Faust

After many years, I still remember holding in my hand my mother’s copy of her favorite book. It was a timeworn copy of the Book of Mormon. Almost every page was marked. In spite of tender handling, some of the leaves were dog-eared and the cover was worn thin. No one had to tell her that she could get closer to God by reading the Book of Mormon than by any other book. She was already there. She had read it, studied it, prayed over it, and taught from it. As a young man I held her book in my hands and tried to see, through her eyes, the great truths of the Book of Mormon to which she so readily testified and which she so greatly loved.

But the Book of Mormon did not yield its profound message to me as an unearned legacy. Indeed I question whether one can acquire an understanding of this great book except through singleness of mind and strong purpose of heart, manifest through study and prayer. We must not only ask if it is true, but we must also ask in the name of Jesus Christ. Said Moroni, “Ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things 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.” 1

Why a Keystone?

Joseph Smith, who translated the gold plates from which the Book of Mormon came, had this to say: “I told the brethren that the Book of Mormon was the most correct of any book on earth, and the keystone of our religion, and a man would get nearer to God by abiding by its precepts, than by any other book.” 2

One dictionary defines keystone as “the central wedge-shaped stone of an arch that locks its parts together.” A secondary definition is “the central supporting element of a whole.” 3

The Book of Mormon is a keystone because it establishes and ties together eternal principles and precepts, rounding out basic doctrines of salvation. It is the crowning gem in the diadem of our holy scriptures.

It is a keystone for other reasons also. In the promise of Moroni previously referred to—namely, that God will manifest the truth of the Book of Mormon to every sincere inquirer having faith in Christ 4—we have a key link in a self-locking chain.

A confirming testimony of the Book of Mormon convinces “that Jesus is the Christ, the Eternal God” 5 and also spiritually verifies the divine calling of Joseph Smith and that he did see the Father and the Son. With that firmly in place, it logically follows that one can also receive a verification that the Doctrine and Covenants and the Pearl of Great Price are true companion scriptures to the Bible and the Book of Mormon.

All of this confirms the Restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ and the divine mission of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, led by a living prophet enjoying continuous revelation. From these basic verities, an understanding can flow of other saving principles of the fulness of the gospel.

What It Is and Is Not

It is important to know what the Book of Mormon is not. It is not primarily a history, although much of what it contains is historical. The title page states that it is an account taken from the records of people living in the Americas before and after Christ; it was “written by way of commandment, and also by the spirit of prophecy and of revelation. … And also to the convincing of the Jew and Gentile that Jesus is the Christ, the Eternal God, manifesting himself unto all nations.”

President George Q. Cannon (1827–1901), First Counselor in the First Presidency, stated: “The Book of Mormon is not a geographical primer. It was not written to teach geographical truths. What is told us of the situation of the various lands or cities … is usually simply an incidental remark connected with the doctrinal or historical portions of the work.” 6

What, then, is the Book of Mormon? It is confirming evidence of the birth, life, and Crucifixion of Jesus and of His work as the Messiah and the Redeemer. Nephi writes about the Book of Mormon: “All ye ends of the earth, hearken unto these words and believe in Christ; and if ye believe not in these words believe in Christ. And if ye shall believe in Christ ye will believe in these words, for they are the words of Christ.” 7

Nephi and his brother Jacob join with Isaiah to constitute three powerful pre-Messianic voices proclaiming the first coming of Jesus. Nephi quotes Isaiah extensively because Isaiah was the principal Old Testament prophet who prophesied of the coming of the Messiah.

The Book of Mormon establishes the truthfulness of the Bible. 8 It is evidence “to the world that the holy scriptures are true.” 9 It foretells the establishment of the fulness of the gospel of peace and salvation. It was written to give us principles and guidelines for our eternal journey.

One of the ultimate messages of the Book of Mormon, and indeed of the Old Testament and all human history, is that mankind cannot reach perfection on our own. There is another message that comes through loud and clear from its pages. It is the often unpopular and seemingly harsh injunction “Repent or perish.” When the Book of Mormon people listened to this prophetic message, they flourished. When they forgot the message, they perished.

In Galatians Paul said, “The law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ.” 10 The records maintained by the Book of Mormon prophets—and portions of what is now the Bible brought from the eastern continent—served, according to Abinadi, “to keep them in remembrance of God and their duty towards him.” 11 So the Book of Mormon is a schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ. 12

Scriptural and Personal Testimonies

The test for understanding this sacred book is preeminently spiritual. An obsession with secular knowledge rather than spiritual understanding will make its pages difficult to unlock.

To me it is inconceivable that Joseph Smith, without divine help, could have written this complex and profound book. There is no way that an unlearned young frontiersman could have fabricated the great truths contained in the book, generated its great spiritual power, or falsified the testimony of Christ that it contains. The book itself testifies that it is the holy word of God.

References to teachings in the Old Testament and the New Testament are so numerous and overwhelming throughout the Book of Mormon that one can come to a definitive conclusion by logic that a human intellect could not have conceived of them all. But more important than logic is the confirmation by the Holy Spirit that the story of the Book of Mormon is true.

All scriptures are one in that they testify of Jesus. Jacob, a Book of Mormon prophet, reminds us “that none of the prophets have written, nor prophesied, save they have spoken concerning this Christ.”13 Speaking of the scriptures, the Psalmist said, “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.” 14

The Book of Mormon will encourage only righteousness. Why, then, has hostility been engendered against the book? In part, no doubt, it may have come because the origin of the book was from golden plates delivered to Joseph Smith by an angel. These were seen and handled by selected witnesses but not put on public display. Perhaps hostility comes also because the book is claimed to be primarily the work of ancient prophets here on the American continent.

The Savior Himself declared the great worth of the Book of Mormon. He said in 3 Nephi, “This is my doctrine, and it is the doctrine which the Father hath given unto me.” 15

The Redeemer further declared in the Book of Mormon, “Behold I have given unto you my gospel.” 16

As a special witness, I testify that Jesus is the Christ and that Nephi’s and Isaiah’s prophecies of His coming have in fact been fulfilled. Like Nephi, “we talk of Christ, we rejoice in Christ, we preach of Christ, we prophesy of Christ.” 17

I testify through the sure conviction that springs from the witness of the Spirit that it is possible to know things that have been revealed with greater certainty than by actually seeing them. We can have a more absolute knowledge than eyes can perceive or ears can hear. God Himself has put His approval on the Book of Mormon, having said, “As your Lord and your God liveth it is true.” 18

I can now see more clearly through the eyes of my own understanding what my mother could see in her precious old worn-out copy of the Book of Mormon. I pray that we may live in such a way as to merit and gain a testimony of and abide by the great truths of the Book of Mormon. I testify that the keystone of our religion is solidly in place, bearing the weight of truth as it moves through all the earth.


Notes

1. Moro. 10:4; emphasis added.

2. Book of Mormon introduction.

3. The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 4th ed. (2000), “keystone,” 961.

4. See Moro. 10:4.

5. Book of Mormon title page.

6. “The Book of Mormon Geography,” Juvenile Instructor, Jan. 1890, 18.

8. See 1 Ne. 13:40.

10. Gal. 3:24.

18. D&C 17:6.

Tangible Evidence

By

On April 10, 2009

In Book of Mormon

Craig C. Christensen, “A Book with a Promise,” Ensign, May 2008, 107

“The Book of Mormon is tangible evidence that Joseph Smith was chosen by the hand of the Lord to restore the Church of Jesus Christ to the earth in these latter days. As stated in the introduction to the Book of Mormon, ‘Those who gain [a] divine witness from the Holy Spirit [of the divinity of the Book of Mormon] will also come to know by the same power that Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world, that Joseph Smith is his revelator and prophet in these last days, and that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the Lord’s kingdom once again established on the earth.’ ”

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