For full disclosure in starting this, I have to say that this is not my first encounter with Mormonism or the Book of Mormon and that I already have an opinion on the veracity of the Book of Mormon and how it stacks up against the Bible. I do not think this in any way discredits me. After all, the Bible and the Book of Mormon are both objective things. They are either the similar or dissimilar from an objective standpoint, and this is something that a biased observer cannot simply change. Also, if the Book of Mormon cannot persuade a skeptic who knows the Bible of its claim to be comparable to the Bible, it is truly a powerless book with nothing at all in common with the Bible (which has persuaded a good many skeptics).
The preliminary conclusion I have come to from previous experience and study is that the Book of Mormon is false--not at all comparable to the Bible--and that Joseph Smith, Jr., wrote it as a false prophet. I have several reasons for believing this.
The first is that the truth claims of the Mormon Church (which claims to derive its beliefs from the Book of Mormon, among other sources) and those of Christianity at large (derived from the Bible) are incompatible and mutually exclusive. They cannot both be true. The foremost example is the Mormon theological claim that "as man is, God once was; as God is, man may become." God, in Mormonism, is pictured as part of a lineage of gods, founding worlds, placing humans on them, and elevating them to godhood. Not only may we become gods, but the god of Mormonism is himself a human from another world who, under another god, ascended to godhood--and the god under which he did that was once human too, ascending under some other god, etc, etc. Whereas Christianity holds that only one God exists and that He has no beginning, end, or peers and is a spiritual rather than corporeal being, Mormonism states (though usually not explicitly--after all, for some reason Mormonism is trying to market itself as a mainline Christian denomination these days) that a nearly-infinite pantheon of gods and goddesses (they are said to reproduce in the normal human manner, in several Mormon sources) exist and that none of them have always been divine, just as no human has ever been always an adult. The problem with this, aside from its obvious conflict with the strict monotheistic passages of the Bible (which do not allow for God to be the only god we have to concern ourselves with, but explicitly state He is the only God in existence, the only God that God Himself--who knows all things--is aware of), is that it is too much like generational human reproduction. Though human population is vast, it is still not infinite. Going back in time, each succeeding generation is smaller than the one before until one comes to a time when the very first generation came into being. At that point, previous generations of humans cease to be a sufficient explanation for the existence of humanity: humans must have been brought into existence (along with all things) by an outside source: the First Cause (which, following the Cosmological Argument, is God, the God of the Bible). Since the god (and gods) of Mormonism all have beginnings, they fall prey to the same logic: that is, at some point in the distant past, the first generation of the Mormon pantheon came into being and could not have done so without some external First Cause--thus, strangely enough, the gods of Mormonism require the God of the Bible to create them and be their God in order for them to exist. This is one reason I feel quite at ease rejecting the god of Mormonism: even if Mormonism is true, the God I serve must still be real.
The second reason is the historicity of the Bible verses the Book of Mormon. Both books make testable historical claims. The Bible, for instance, says a great many things about the historical existence of Israel, about events that happened to it and in it, and about people, places, and technologies related to its history. The New Testament further goes on to say a great many things about Jesus Christ, the times, places, and events He lived through, and about His followers after Him. All of these and more are testable historical claims. With the Bible, none of them have yet been proven false. In fact, the Bible's historical claims have proven so reliable that it is used by many archaeologists as a guide, and all historians accept it as a legitimate primary source (that is, something written by a historical people regarding events of their time). The Book of Mormon is quite another matter. It also makes historically testable claims, saying things about the historical existence of the Lamanite, Nephite, and Jaredite peoples in the Americas, going on in detail about the events that befell them, the times and places that were important to their civilizations, and the technologies they possessed. However, none of these testable historical claims have been verified and the vast majority of them have actually been falsified by the discovery of a gross number of anachronisms. Not only is the Book of Mormon not accepted as a historical guide, but the Smithsonian Institute and the National Geographic Society have both issued statements disavowing its historicity. It is simply not credible to accept it as a primary source, or a source at all. In fact, the state of the historicity of the Book of Mormon is such that the book contains no maps, though maps in Bibles are very common. The reason for this is that not even its staunchest supporters can reliably relate sites talked of in the Book of Mormon with known locations in real geography. Occam's Razor dictates that the simplest explanation for the complete lack of historical evidence and many historical contradictions to the Book of Mormon is the most likely to be true: that is, there is no historicity to the Book of Mormon because its events did not take place in actual history, but are fictional.
The third reason is the absurdity of the concept of the Book of Mormon itself. It purports to be a translation of a book written in "Reformed Egyptian" on plates of gold bound into a book form, as was the usual custom of writing in the culture that produced it. Analysis of literate cultures and their writing habits shows just how absurd it is that any literate culture would use books of gold plates as their main mode of writing. A great number of literate civilizations have existed throughout history and have chosen different mediums for their writing. The Egyptians used papyrus--sheets made from pressed and dried pulp from reeds--, the Sumarians used clay, the Europeans used parchment (derived from animal hide), the Greeks used wax tablets, the Mesoamericans and modern people use paper--made from wood in much the same way papyrus was made from reeds. Though inscriptions on metal from these cultures are not uncommon, they are not the normal way any culture recorded and preserved information. Gold plates particularly violate several of the common features necessary to any writing material used as the mainstay of any literate society. First, any literate society will not only write, but write a lot and so whatever they write on must be common and cheap because they will use a lot of it. Gold has always been, and continues to be, one of the rarest and most valuable metals known to man, such that many societies prized it and used it as a medium of exchange. Notably, the Book of Mormon even includes references to use of gold as a medium of exchange, which reduces the idea of the Book of Mormon cultures routinely writing on gold to the level of absurdity. It would be like our culture commonly printing books on pages made of sewn-together $100 bills. Second, these materials must be light. Writings that are not intended for decorative or memorial purposes are going to need to be transported, stored, and used easily. They will also consist of a lot of whatever the writing material is (rolls of papyrus, pages of parchment, tablets of clay or wax...etc). The denser this material is, the heavier a book made of it will be and the more difficult it will be to transport and use. Even a large book of paper sheets (which, individually, weigh practically nothing) can be prohibitively heavy to move. This presents a huge problem for books made of any metal, but especially of gold. All metals are much denser than any of the other materials used for normal writing, but gold is dense even for a metal. Even a tiny book made of gold would have immense weight. A lengthy tome of the material would weigh hundreds of pounds and be impossible to move and extremely difficult to even use (turning to the page you wanted would involve repeatedly lifting and moving dense metal plates, with a cumulative weight of several hundred pounds). Third, these materials must be able to preserve what is written on them. Papyrus, paper, and parchment are all excellent in this respect in that the act of writing on them permanently stains them. Only immersion in water can deface such writing, and precautions against exposure to the elements are easily taken. Clay is good, for it can and was hard-fired to preserve the writing, as firmly as if written in stone itself. The wax tablets are perhaps the only exception to this, though the wax could still be preserved if care was taken in storing, moving, and using the tablets. Gold, however, is a very soft metal. Anything etched in gold will be easy to obliterate. In this respect, it's very much like the wax tablets, except that it would be extremely difficult to take the necessary care to preserve writing etched in gold plates, given their extraordinary weight. A sufficiently heavy book of such plates might even efface the writing in it under its own weight alone. Finally, there's the matter of "Reformed Egyptian," a language that does not exist. If the Book of Mormon were the product of a literate society that commonly wrote books in reformed Egyptian hieroglyphs on golden plates, we should be finding such books and such writings everywhere (literate societies leave a lot of manuscripts behind), but as it is, no such books nor any such writings have ever been found. Again, the most logical explanation is that the Book of Mormon did not originate the way Joseph Smith, Jr., claimed but was, in fact, written by him.
Fourth, there is the common Mormon challenge that Joseph Smith, Jr., a teenager at the time, could not possibly have written the Book of Mormon in the alleged time period of three months. I stand as living proof that this is not so, since as a sophomore in high school (age 15), I completed the manuscript for a fantasy novel in no more than three months. Compared to me, Joseph had several advantages. First of all, he wasn't writing in class, while simultaneously passing said classes with flying colors (I multitask). He could devote his complete attention to the book. Second, he was, by many accounts, dictating to another rather than writing himself, a method which would have proceeded much faster. Third, much of the work was done for him. Portions of the Book of Mormon are simply copies of the King James Version of the Bible, complete with errors unique to that translation. The concept of the Book of Mormon was lifted directly from theories on the origins of Native Americans that were circulating at the time and published in A View of the Hebrews. Joseph came from the "burned-over district" where theological discussions and preaching were common, so most of the ideas for the theological content could have been lifted directly from the discussions going on around him. Very little of the book needed to be original. Mine was. Third, Joseph already had a previous draft to look back to, the "Lost 116 Pages." This draft was written three years previous to the publication of the rest of the book and the first portion of the final book is simply (and explicitly) a rehash of this material, rather than (as I produced) and actual first draft. Fourth, as hinted at above, Joseph did not complete the book in just three months, from concept to final product (as I did). The Lost 116 Pages shows that Joseph had been working on drafting the manuscript for at least three years. His own accounts place his first encounter with Moroni (which probably marks the first time he conceived of the book) in September of 1823, a full seven years before the book was completed. I just recently completed a book that took me five years to go from concept to completion, and that's the longest I've ever taken, and I did it before as a teenager in just three months. Surely Joseph could have done it in seven years. Fifth, Joseph was not actually a teenager, as many suppose. The Book of Mormon was published in 1830 and Joseph was born in 1805, which means he was in his mid twenties when he composed the book. I am nearing that age now, and I have composed five large novels (the largest being 287,000 words, the four others not being far behind), two novellas, and numerous short stories--and your telling me all Joseph could do was write one 275,000 word manuscript? Its not like it even needed to be his final draft, since the Book of Mormon would later go through 3,000 revisions. Finally, when I have shared this with Mormons, they've said, "Well, could you produce something that would be an enduring work?" I point them to Mary Shelley, who wrote the classic Frankenstein at 18 years old. She's far from alone. Motzart wrote classical compositions at 5. Michelangelo painted famous works before he was 15. Chopin was a well-known composer by 15. Ernest Hemingway wrote one of his classics, The Sun Also Rises, while in his early twenties (remember Joseph didn't publish his work until his mid twenties). Wilson Rawls wrote the widely acclaimed Where the Red Fern Grows in three weeks. Christopher Paolini wrote the 500+ page bestseller Eregon at 15. "But do people believe any of those to be the word of God?" a Mormon once replied. No, because none of the above were deluded or twisted enough to try to pull such a deception off. However, what we know historically about Joseph and his family's reputation indicates that he was. Also, others have been. The Quran is of similar length to the Book of Mormon and issues a similar challenge in an effort to prove its divine origins. His following is much, much larger than Mormonism and is the second largest religion on Earth. There have also been numerous more modern works, some, such as Christopher Nemelka's Sealed Plates that attempt to do the same thing. Their success or failure remains to be seen. Certainly, Joseph Smith, Jr., could have done it.
Finally, there is the matter of spiritual experience. To myself, spiritual experiences--given their inherently subjective nature, are the least reliable source of proof. If they contradict objective facts, I do not think they can be taken as proof at all. For instance, there are people out there who feel very strongly that the Earth's axis of rotation is changing, but since objective facts say it is not changing and, in fact, cannot change, their subjective testimonies are thereby falsified. However, from talking with Mormons I've gotten the impression that, when it comes to the Book of Mormon, they feel the opposite is true. Even if the objective facts say the Book of Mormon is not and cannot be true, they have a subjective spiritual "testimony" that it is true, which invalidates the objective facts in their minds. So, I will set forth my subjective spiritual experiences as proof of equal weight, even though I would otherwise not consider them worth mentioning alongside the objective facts. Mormon missionaries always ask you to pray and ask God if the Book of Mormon is true. From the objective facts above, I knew it was not and would not insult God by asking Him to tell me a fraud was true, so I simply asked Him to tell me the truth about it. What I received was a vision of Joseph Smith, Jr., as a "treasure hunter" who found that men's hearts were the greatest treasure of all and so invented the book and the religion to con men out of their devotion. Rather than being a great man of peace and God, I heard Him say, "he died with a gun in his hand, a pagan talisman in his pocket, and no god in his heart." The vision matches the historical evidence of Joseph Smith's life. Smith and his family are known to have supplemented their farming income by digging for treasure and conning others into believing they could find treasure with seeing stones. From history we know that he died in a gun battle when the Carthage Jail where he was being held was raided by a mob. He used a pepper-box pistol in the gunfight and had a Jupiter Talisman on his person when he died. Of course, when Mormons talk about "testimony" they generally do not mean detailed visions which miraculously match historical evidence to the smallest detail. They generally mean subjective feelings of peace, happiness, love, and joy that arise from reading the Book of Mormon and praying about it. I can say I have experienced such things reading the Bible, though I've also experienced "warm fuzzies" reading and watching numerous other thing which aren't divinely inspired truth (feelings do not truth make). While reading the Book of Mormon, I was continually sickened and frustrated by its deceptions, inaccuracies, and nearly illegible style. I was supposed to experience positive feelings and divine confirmation that the Book of Mormon was true, but instead, I've received quite the opposite, agreeing with all the other evidence in my possession that the Book of Mormon is false.
Now, if the Book of Mormon really is true, will reading it not show that to me? However, if it is false, can I not expect the above arguments against it to only be strengthened and affirmed? Time will tell if the Book of Mormon really is comparable to the Bible.
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