This day in history: On this day in 1823 Joseph Smith claims to have found the golden plates after being directed by God through the Angel Moroni to the place where they were buried. This then led to the Book of Mormon and an overpriced musical not presently playing on Broadway thanks to the shutdown. However, there were a few problems with the Book of Mormon:
The French word "Adieu" closes the book of Jacob (Jacob 7:27). The Book of Mormon dates Jacob between 544 and 421 BC. The French language didn't even exist until around 700 AD!
The Book of Ether speaks of steel (7:8,9) and breakable windows (2:23) back in Abraham's time. Neither had been invented at that time.
The Book of Mormon implies that the North American Indians are descended from the Jews. But we now know that American natives are descended from east Asia.
2 Nephi 22:2 quotes Isaiah 12:2 almost verbatim from the King James Bible:
"Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and not be afraid: for the Lord Jehovah is my strength and my song; he also is become my salvation."
However, this scripture in the Book of Mormon is dated at 559 and 545 BCE, the King James Bible was not released until 1611 AD.
However, one of my favorite quotes about the Mormons comes from a Jewish academic, Alan Goldberg:
"Mormonisn teaches the deity of Christ and the Trinity, and freely admits its followers recognize many gods. Trinitarian Christianity denies that it is in any way polytheistic, but is it not the same basic qualitative form of theology" It is not a perversion of Trinitarian theology to draw a parallel to Mormonisn, Yet, it would be impossible to draw this parallel from Judaism or Unitarian Christianity, neither of which ever recognized component parts of God, nor ever made God a man. It is clear that, except for differences in degree, the same basic principles for the foundation of Trinitarian Christianity and Mormonism. The qualitative similarity is that both teach multiple divine entities. The qualitative difference is that Mormonism admits it." Every Tree is Known by Its Fruit-A Journal of Radical Reformation Vol. 6, No. 1, Fall 1996
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