For those reading this blog with no prior understanding, we are talking about the ‘Book of Mormon’ which claims to be a compilation of many books with different titles within that 500 plus page book, i.e. Book of Mosiah, book of 1 Nephi, 2 Nephi, 3 Nephi, Alma, etc, etc. The main story line claims to be about the Jewish ancestors of the Amerindian living on the North and South American continents contained within these books, who migrated from Jerusalem to Chile, South America about 600 BC. The book of Ether became the insertion by Smith of a history of what in Smith’s day was referred to as the ‘Mound Builders’ who preceded the Native American Indian civilizations including the Mayan, Aztec, Olmec and Inca civilizations. This ‘history’ is what Mitt Romney’s faith is based on and considers ‘scripture’ more correct than the Bible, he is currently a High Priest of that faith.
Smith and Cowdery, in their early twenties were not dumb and had fanciful storytelling abilities. It is not clear what Smith originally had in mind when he first thought up the possibility of two or three stories of two or three different groups of people back in the book of Mosiah. There was the second sketchy account of a voyage of Jews from Jerusalem with an unknown (made up) son of Jerusalem’s King Zedekiah (that Smith called Mulek), who also sailed from Palestine to South America and lived apart from the Nephites in the area of present day Columbia and grew, unbeknownst to the Nephites, into a great nation…but that is a different discussion.
Back to the Mound Builders, Smith brings up the discovery of this ‘Mound Builder’ civilization in the form of 24 gold plates in chapter 8 of Mosiah written in this unknown ‘Adamic’ tongue. At one point Smith was going to have Mormon translate this record and presumably include it in the book of Mosiah. Smith decides to have king Mosiah become a Seer and translator and has him translate this unknown (Adamic tongue) into reformed Egyptian at about 92 BC with seer stones just like Smith claimed to do over 2000 years later. (Mosiah 28:11) Whether Smith forgot this ‘Jaredite’ record was already translated by a Seer Mosiah or not, he had Moroni, who was not identified as a Seer and without the seer stones, translate these 24 gold plates again in his book of Ether with copious personal remarks, the origins if which we find in the King James New Testament.
It is remarkable that Smith, at his age, did as well as he did keeping the story, with all these records covering over 3,000 years in at least three unrelated languages, as believable as he did. It is just that the mind of the average person gets tired of following it all. The only thing consistent about the ‘writers’, is that someone needed to know the whole convoluted story, and that someone was Smith. But, with the loss of the book of Lehi by Smith’s first scribe containing the first 475 years, it presented real logistical problems for Smith and required all of his creative thinking to address this dilemma. (maybe with some help from Cowdery)
(As President, I wonder how many returned Mormon Missionaries Mitt will have as part of his government? As a Mormon, he believes in the ‘last days’ the American Constitution will be saved by the Mormon Priesthood.)
Smith fails to create a credible scenario for the winding up scene. He does have a couple of ‘flash backs’ in his final chapters of the book of Moroni when he realized he had established no Father/Son relationship between Mormon and his newly found son Moroni, discovered in 385 AD. The story by Moroni saying his father was slain in battle is patently false. (Mormon 8:5) This chapter 8 of his father’s small book is written 15 years after Mormon’s description of the last battle in chapter 7, where only he and his son and 22 others survived. Smith has Mormon say in Mormon 6:6 that Mormon had hid up all the records except the few plates that he was going to give his son, Moroni, before the last big battle. This is where the story, logistically, bogs down. Mormon could conceivably have made a record of the things he had observed on a few plates as he was commanded to do in Mormon 1:4 and might have wanted to hand those few plates to his son before the battle, but the abridgment of the whole Nephite record, supposedly done by Mormon, required Mormon to have all the tons of records at his disposal with plenty of time to study, in order to find the 1% that Mormon felt was worthy to include in his abridgment.
The only time and way this could possibly happen would be if there had been an Aladdin like cave in the Hill Cumorah that opened and closed based on Faith. (both Smith and Cowdery described one with an ever burning light that contained tons of records that even Brigham Young characterized as being many wagon loads of records, here Mormon would feel safe from his hated enemy the Lamanites, to peruse and find time and a place to mine ore in order to make dozens of fresh gold plates to engrave his abridgment on. The wicked Lamanites, without faith, could never find or open the cave to get the gold! (Naturally, the Mormon God had to move these sacred records back to hill Shim in So. America to keep Smith’s followers faith strong.)
The purported abridgment by Mormon of the tons of Nephite record plates could only have happened after the big battle where Mormon himself hid in this Aladdin cave with all the records. His son and the 23 others deserted him until Smith had Moroni return 15 years later to find the completed abridgment his father had made during those 15 years. (In a true story, old Mormon could have used his son’s help in mining for ore and procuring food while his father studied and abridged the tons of records) But Smith has Moroni following the savage Lamanites while they massacred the remaining white Jews over thousands of miles back to Columbia. When he returned again to Palmyra, New York he of course had to find the 24 gold plate Jaredite record as well when Smith wanted it translated again, instead of using the Mosiah version. He could have looked among the plates for Mosiah’s translation, but since Smith at that point, was going to turn Moroni into an angel, Smith thought making him a Seer first while still in this life was a good twist. It just made God look very impractical and not cost effective. Where the two seer stones ended up in that large pile of gold, the reader will never know or care. (An angel brought these magic stones to Smith and we presume an angel dropped them off on King Mosiah’s balcony when he did the first translation as described in Mosiah 28:12. The description is the same as Smith said he used until he found that his ‘peep’ stone in his hat was more convenient.) Again, this is all stuff that Mitt Romney considers the word of his God! Or terrorist Christ!
Smith thought the insertion of the small book, ‘Words of Mormon’ into the record right after the replacement record and before the book of Mosiah would clarify and not make him or his God look like they were inept. Unfortunately, the dating is wrong and Mormon could not possibly have made the abridgment of the book of Lehi down to the reign of king Benjamin before the big battle! He goes on to say, at this point, that he, Mormon was still perusing the records and lo and behold he just magically lays his hands on what will be Smith’s ‘replacement record’ (hurray, hurray!) that ‘All Seeing’ God had Nephi start about 950 years earlier, but was never mentioned by any of the record keepers after it was finished, even though Amaleki was to deliver it to king Benjamin, the official keeper of the records. (WOM vs. 9) Smith forgot to modify his already completed drafts of the book of Mosiah to cover this important change of events and the new character, Amaleki, the last prophet and writer of the replacement story, who Smith let live to be about 300. (Smith needed about 8-10 more father-to-son writers in his replacement record to keep age and dating more in line. The same problem occurs again with Smith in the book called 4 Nephi.)
Smith/God wasn’t thinking clearly when he had Moroni return to hill Cumorah 15 years after the last battle and say that his father had been slain in battle, and then insert the WOM indicating Mormon was in the big cave with all the records waiting for his son while in the middle of his abridgment. Mormon certainly had a long wait for his son. (15 years to 400 AD!)
Find more in “Fatal Flaws of the Most Correct Book on Earth” Book of Mormon at Amazon.com
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