Preface
Recently I was talking to a local librarian about Joseph Smith and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS) and she asked me, “Why are you so interested in this subject?” (Note: The LDS church is often referred to as the Mormon church by non-Mormons.) I could tell from her facial expression that she thought that I was more than just a bit obsessive with the subject. My answer; I am interested in Mormonism for three reasons: First, the Republican candidate for president is a Mormon, and I think that what people believe gives more than a hint as to how they will act. Second, it is one of the fastest growing religions claiming over fourteen-million members worldwide as of 2010. Third, the history of the Mormon church provides a rare opportunity to learn firsthand just how a major religion actually got started. Joseph Smith was born in 1805 and the church is less than two-hundred years old. Unlike older religions such as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam there is a rich and vast source of documents including public records, personal letters, diaries, written histories, and newspaper articles available to researchers.
The major source for what follows is the book, No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith written by Fawn McKay Brodie and first published in 1945, and later revised and republished in 1971 in order to take advantage of new materials discovered since the first edition was published. Brodie’s book is perhaps the most definitive and authoritative work on the subject. Few people could be more qualified for the task of writing the history of Joseph Smith than Brodie. She was born in Ogden, Utah in 1915 and was raised as a Mormon with deep family ties to the church. Her paternal uncle, David O. McKay, was the ninth president of the LDS church. Her maternal grandfather, George H. Brimhall, was president of Brigham Young University, and her father, Thomas Evans McKay, was a bishop in the church.
Fawn received a BA in English literature from the University of Utah in 1934. She also earned a MA degree from the University of Chicago in 1936. She eventually became a tenured professor of history at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in spite of not having a doctoral degree based on a number of published scholarly historical works including Thaddeus Stevens: Scourge of the South and Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate History.
After No Man Knows My History was published, her father, Thomas McKay, refused to read it and she was excommunicated from the Mormon church in May of 1946. In 1981 while she was in the hospital dying of cancer, she was visited by her brother who was still active in the church. She asked and received his priesthood blessing, but she also left a written signed note indicating that she was not requesting reentry into the church. She died on January 10, 1981 at the age of 65.
Early Life and History of the area
Joseph Smith, founder of the Mormon church, was born on December 23, 1805 at Sharon, Vermont, a small rural farm area located at the foothills of the Green Mountains. His parents were Joseph Smith Sr, and Lucy Mack. They had six other sons including one who died at birth. (Note. References to Joseph Smith throughout this essay refer to the “Prophet” unless otherwise indicated.) Joseph had two older brothers, Alvin (born 1798) and Hyrum (born 1800) and eventually three younger brothers, Samuel (born 1808), William (born 1811) and Don Carlos (born 1816).
The family moved from Sharon, Vermont to Norwich, Vermont, then to Lebanon, New Hampshire, and again in 1816 to Palmyra, New York. The Smiths were very poor farmers. At some point the senior Smith invested all his money in a scheme to export ginseng to China. Unfortunately, his partner made off with all his money leaving the Smith family destitute.
Second Great Awaking
The years around 1816 were a time of tremendous religious fervor and excitement in western New York including Palmyra. The Smiths were big believers in dreams, visions, and prophecies and were extremely religious. Lucy was the religious leader of the family and constantly switched from one sect to another. She eventually joined the Presbyterian Church but could not persuade the senior Smith to join. Young Joseph never showed much interest in organized religion.
This period in United States history was called the “Second Great Awaking.” The religious intensity was fueled by a host of itinerant preachers and prophets and was so great that western New York was referred to as the “Burned-over” district. This colorful group included Isaac Bullard who wore a bearskin girdle and thought that washing was a sin and claimed to go seven years without bathing. He preached free love and communism. Ann Lee, the “mother of the shakers” called herself the reincarnated Christ and preached celibacy and taught the gift of speaking in tongues. Jemima Wilkinson also claimed to be Christ incarnate and swore that she would never die, but in fact died on July 1, 1819. In 1812 Abel Sargent along with his twelve female apostles traveled around the area pretending to raise the dead and selling the idea that if one were sufficiently holy, one could live without eating. One convert tried it, but died after nine days. In 1828 Joseph Dylk claiming to be the true Messiah went around shouting, “I am God,” and gained a large following. It was in these times of extreme religious intensity that the young Joseph Smith grew up.
He was described by his neighbors as a likable ne’er-do-well, notorious for telling tall tales, practicing necromantic arts, and digging for buried treasures. Daniel Hendrix who eventually was the typesetter for the Book of Mormon said that Smith “could never tell a common occurrence in his daily life without embellishing it.” Sometime when he was about fourteen years of age, while he was praying in the woods, he had a vision of seeing God who told him that “all their creeds were an abomination in his sight.” Smith took the creeds in question to be all known organized religions.
Some time around 1825 Joseph Smith met Josiah Stowel who convinced him to travel to the Susquehanna Valley, Pennsylvania to help him locate a lost silver mine. Stowel had heard about Smith’s talent for locating buried treasures, but they in fact found very little of value. Smith and the other members of the party boarded with Isaac Hale in Harmony, Pennsylvania It was there that he met Isaac’s attractive twenty-one-year-old daughter, Emma. Isaac was not favorable impressed by Joseph, describing him as a “careless young man - not very well educated, and very saucy and insolent to his father.” Joseph fell deeply in love with Emma and asked Hale for her hand in marriage but was refused. Undeterred Joseph and Emma were secretly married on January 18, 1827. Afterwards the newly married couple left Harmony and returned to New York to live with his parents.
Palmyra and the surrounding areas was the site of many mounds of old Indian graves. It was usual for people to dig in these hills and find various Indian artifacts including the occasional silver trinket. Many people living in and around this area were very interested in Indian history and artifacts. It was about this time that Joseph heard a story about a Golden Bible being found in a tree in Canada. He was also fascinated by Indian history and was familiar with Ethan Smith’s (no relation) book, View of the Hebrews.
On September 21, 1823, Smith had a vision from the angel Moroni who revealed the location of a stone box containing the golden plates, two seer stones (Urim and Thummim), and a sword. Moroni further revealed to Smith that the plates contained an ancient record of divine origin, but he would not be allowed to remove the plates until he was ”purified and instructed in the things of the kingdom.” He was advised to return in exactly one year for further instructions and evaluation. He did this for four years before he was allowed to remove the plates. Finally on September 21, 1827, he was permitted to remove the plates with the warning, that if anyone other than Smith viewed them, they would die. There was much gossip about his find although there was never any mention at that time about anything of a religious nature.
Joseph told his father about his encounter with the angel Moroni in 1823 who assured his son that it was the work of God. However, in his Autobiography, Joseph did not mention anything about the years from 1823 to 1827. But they certainly were not years of penance and purification. It was around this time that young Smith was involved in the practice of “crystal-gazing,” an alleged way of locating buried treasures by looking into his hat containing a special stone that allowed him to see buried objects.
In March 1826, in the town of Bainbridge, New York, Joseph Smith was charged for being a “disorderly person and an imposter.” After a trial he was found guilty of disturbing the peace. Sixty-one of his neighbors signed an affidavit accusing him of being “destitute of moral character and addicted to vicious habits.”
Although Joseph could read, he could not write, necessitating the use of a scribe to record the words as he interpreted the plates. Emma was his first scribe. Their general procedures was to suspend a sheet on a rope in the kitchen with Emma on one side preventing her from seeing the plates, and Joseph on the other side deciphering the "Egyptian-looking" language from them. Joseph would put the seer stones in his hat and then place his face into the hat thus shielding the seers stones from any light which then revealed the writing that he read out to Emma who recorded it. At some point Joseph and Emma moved into a house owned by her father Isaac who was somewhat reconciled to Joseph who had promised to give up treasure hunting and live the life of a farmer.
In April 1828 Martin Harris moved to Harmony and took over the responsibility of taking Joseph’s dictation using the same procedure employed in Smith’s Palmyra kitchen. Martin had recently inherited a valuable farm and was considered wealthy for the times and area. His wife Lucy was extremely suspicious of the entire saga of the golden plates due to Joseph’s notorious reputation. She felt that her husband was weak-minded and naive, and feared that Joseph was perpetrating a scheme to swindle him out of his inheritance. She insisted that she accompany Martin to Harmony with unpleasant results.
Martin finally convinced Lucy to return home, but she continued to pressure him to give up the project and leave Harmony and rejoin her. Martin took up where Emma left off and eventually they completed 116 pages. At this point Martin talked Joseph into allowing him to take the completed 116 pages back home in an attempt to win Lucy’s support for the project. Unfortunately for Joseph the plan did not work. Lucy stole the manuscript, hid it, and refused to return it. To this day it has never been recovered and is assumed destroyed.
Martin and Joseph were frantic with fear, anger, and regret. They pleaded with Lucy to return the “missing” pages. She refused stating that if the golden plates really existed, Joseph could simply repeat the process and recreate the pages. Joseph realized that he was caught in a trap set by Lucy knowing that he could not interpret exactly the golden plates again. Since he did not know the whereabouts of original copy, it was possible that it could reappear at anytime in the future allowing for a comparison with the newly created pages. If they were not identical, the Book of Mormon would be exposed as a fraud.
Joseph Smith agonized and prayed over the problem, and finally received a "revelation" from God. It seems that Satin had intervened in an attempt to sabotage God’s plan, but God had anticipated Satin’s plot and had a backup plan. He directed Joseph to a site where a replacement golden plate was buried thus allowing for the true version to be interpreted and transcribed. The original pages were the work of the devil. With Satan thwarted, the work continued.
On April 7, 1829, Joseph replaced Martin Harris with Oliver Cowdery who proved to be more reliable and proficient. Also about this time John the Baptist appeared and directed that Smith and Cowdery baptize each other. John also bestowed the Hebraic priesthood of Aaron on Smith. In early July the 275,000- word manuscript was completed and 5,000 copies were printed and went on sale on March 26, 1830. On April 6, of the same year, the Church of Christ was established with six members. They included Joseph Smith, Hyrum Smith, Samuel H. Smith, Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer, and Peter Whitmer. Over the years the name of the church was changed many times and has been known as the Church of the Latter-Day Saints, the Church of Jesus Christ, and the Church of God. Finally in 1838 by revelation, the title, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS) was official established.
The Book of Mormon described by Mark Twain as “chloroform in print,” contained the phrase “And it came to pass” 2,000 times. Out of the first 200 sentences, 140 of them began with the word “And.” Out of the 275,000 words, 25,000 were taken from Isaiah and another 2,000 from the New Testament. It also clearly reflected the anti-Catholic sentiment of the times by describing the Catholic church as the “whore of all the earth.” The Book of Mormon also displayed an uncanny resemblance to Ethan Smith’s book, View of the Hebrews.
Luckily for Smith another book, American Antiquities, written by Josiah Priest was published three years after the Book of Mormon. It was essentially the identical story told by Ethan Smith but had the advantage of appearing after Smith’s work thus disarming the critics claiming he had copied Ethan’s earlier book.
There is a very interesting connection between the Book of Mormon and Freemasonry. Joseph Smith and his older brother Alvin were Freemasons, an extremely admired and popular group at this time in the country, until the William Morgan affair. Morgan was a disgruntled Freemason who threatened to publish a book exposing their secrets. He was arrested in 1826 and then allegedly kidnapped and murdered by the Masons. As a result the American people turned against Freemasonry and anti-Masonry was running rampant at the time the Book of Mormon was being written. There was even a political party formed called the Anti-Masonic Party. Not surprisingly Smith included considerable anti-Masonry sentiments in his book. He also borrowed and included considerable Masonic rituals and “secret combinations” in it. Later in 1838, Joseph Smith took Morgan’s widow, Lucinda Pendleton as his third plural wife.
At the time of the writing of the Book of Mormon Joseph Smith did not realize that Jean-François Champollion had deciphered the Egyptian hieroglyphs in 1822. Most people at this time including Smith thought that the Egyptian language was indecipherable, a “fact” that gave Smith great confidence that his translating results could not be challenged. He even wrote out a sample page of the characters that he allegedly copied from the plates and gave it to Martin Harris. Martin then took the sample to New York City and met with Charles Anthon, a professor of Greek and Latin at Columbia University.
Anthon declared the sample “Egyptian” letters to be “a hoax upon the learned” or “a scheme to cheat the farmer out of his money.” Harris pleaded with Anthon with the story of a “sealed book,” who replied “I cannot read a sealed book.” When Martin Harris reported Anthon’s disconcerting findings back to Smith, he used his quick-thinking and knowledge of Bible scriptures to his advantage. He immediately quoted Daniel 12:4 where it was written “But you, Daniel, shut up the words and seal the book, until the time of the end.” Harris took the entire affair to be a divine prophecy and was completely convinced that Smith was indeed a true prophet.
Smith’s ability to translate Egyptian hieroglyphs was called into question again in 1835 when he translated some writing from a mummy and Egyptian papyri purchased from a traveling exhibition. He claimed that it was the writing of Abraham which he then translated into the Book of Abraham. Later the materials were examined by eight scholars who concluded that they were not the writings of Abraham but simply ordinary funerary documents.
In 1843 Robert Wiley, Bridge Whitton, and Wilbur Fugate played an elaborate hoax on Smith. They fashioned sheets of copper into the shape of a bell along with some plates and then etched some strange-looking characters onto them and used acid to make them appear old. They then buried the bell along with some Indian bones in a mound located near Kinderhook, Illinois. Wiley then spread a rumor that he had a dream about buried treasure three nights in a row and recruited assistants including three Mormons to search for it. Of course they found the bell and plates and took them to Smith who translating them claiming that it was the word of a decedent of Ham. At some point Smith realized that he was the victim of a hoax and never did publish his “translation.”
In spite of the earlier claim that if anyone other than Joseph Smith viewed the Golden Plates they would die, Smith realized that other reliable witnesses would strengthen his claim as a true prophet. In June or July of 1829 he turned to his three most-enthusiastic believers, Oliver Cowdery, Martin Harris, and David Whitmer to “reveal” the plates. The event occurred out in the woods and after hours of prayer, a number of failures, and many exhortations, the three witnesses finally “saw” an angel holding the Golden Plates. It is important to note that eventually all three of the witnesses broke with the church.
Later at the end of the 1830 version of the Book of Mormon, there was a list of eight other witnesses to the Golden Plates. This group was made up mostly of Smith or Whitmer family members. Representing the Smith family was the senior Smith, and his son’s Hyrum, and Samuel. The Whitmer family included Christian, Jacob, Peter, and John. Hiram Page was also a witness. Mark Twain remarked that “I could not feel more satisfied and at rest if the entire Whitmer family has testified.”
The Book of Mormon
The narrative of the Book of Mormon begins in the ancient city of Jerusalem around the year 600 BC. It tells the story of Lehi who took his family and some other followers and left Jerusalem. Their journey took them across the Arabian peninsula where they eventually reached the promised land of America by ship. Lehi, just like the senior Smith, had six sons. They were Lamen, Lemuel, Sam, Nephi, Jacob, and Joseph. After Lehi died, Nephi and Lamen started two warring nations called the Nephites and the Lamanites. The Nephites were religious, God-fearing, honest, and hard-working people. The Lamanites are depicted as lazy, violent, and ferocious people who wandered in the wilderness like savages.
According to the Book of Mormon Jesus was born on the continent of America in the fourth century. After Jesus’ resurrection in the fourth century the Nephites became believers in Jesus Christ. In 385 AD the Nephites were almost totaled destroyed by the Lamanites. Mormon and his son Moroni was the last of the Nephite prophets, and they created the “Book of Mormon” by recording their history on gold plates with the final entry written in 421 AD. Moroni then, following God’s instructions, buried the plates in a hill called Cumorah located outside of Palmyra where in the future they would be found and translated.
Sidney Rigon (born 1793) was a Baptist minister who in 1826 became the minister of a Baptist church in Mentor, Ohio. One member, Parley Pratt was visiting Palmyra and learned of the Book of Mormon. He was baptized into Joseph’s Church of Christ in September 1830. Pratt showed Rigon a copy of the Book of Mormon and he also converted. In December 1830, Smith received a revelation directing him to move the New York church to Kirtland, Ohio. Therefore, in 1831 Smith, Pratt, and Rigon moved the church to Kirtland. At the same time they established an outpost in Independence, Missouri in Jackson County which Smith regarded as Zion. Smith also received a revelation from God indicating that the biblical Garden of Eden was actually located just outside of Independence, in Jackson county.
The Mormon church grew very fast in Kirtland but also created considerable resentment with their non-Mormon (gentile) neighbors due to many of their practices. They referred to theirselves as “Saints,” and experimented with a system designed by Rigon called the United Order. All their members were required to sign the title to their property over to the church. Also all fruits of their labor were deposited with the bishop who then disbursed them out based on need. Eventually Smith replaced the United Order with a mandatory tithe of ten percent. They also limited their contact with gentiles and would only do business with other Mormons. They were unpopular in Independence for the similar reasons plus their abolitionist views.
By 1831 the majority of incoming Mormons had located in Independence, but by 1838 their numbers in Kirtland grew from 100 in 1833 to 2,000. By 1836 they had constructed numerous church buildings including a temple perched on a hill overlooking the Chagrin river. In 1837 Smith started a bank he called the Kirtland Safety Society Bank, but when the legislature rejected his applications for a bank charter, he changed the name to the Kirtland Safety Society Anti-Banking Company. Since they had already printed the bank notes, they simply stamped the prefix “Anti” before the word “bank” and the suffix “ing” after it. In the beginning Smith collected silver from depositors and placed it in boxes marked $1,000. He then issued notes backed by silver. Later they filled boxes with rocks and issued more notes. It was not very long before no one would accept the notes and there was a run on the bank as depositors rushed to redeem their notes for silver. As a result the bank failed and Smith was fined for operating an illegal bank. Many lawsuits followed along with much hostility toward Smith and the Mormons.
A faction in the church developed when a young girl claiming to be a seer with the ability to read the future using a black seer stone challenged Smith for influence. Some of the oldest and most-prominent members including David Whitmer, Martin Harris, and Oliver Cowdery pledged their loyalty to her. Smith fought back by putting the dissenters on trial. The situation became very violent causing many of the elders including Brigham Young and Smith to flee to Missouri. On January 6, 1838, the printing office and school house was torched by an arsonist.
In April 1840 Joseph Smith and his followers relocated to Illinois where they purchased the town of Commerce which they then renamed Nauvoo. The Mormon’s new “city” grew rapidly becoming one of the largest towns in Illinois. They published two newspapers, laid the cornerstone for a new temple, and formed a militia of 2,000 men called the Nauvoo Legion. Smith was even made a Lieutenant General by the Illinois Governor Carlin. They also establish a Masonic Lodge in October 1841.
Although Smith had been practicing plural marriage for some time in secret, it was in Nauvoo that he started teaching it to the other leaders of the church claiming it was a revelation from God. John C. Bennett, Smith's closest adviser, a counselor in the First Presidency, and Mayor of Nauvoo sparked a controversy when he was caught in the act of adultery. In 1844 William Law, an important merchant and adviser to Smith broke with the Mormon church and started a reformed church he called the True Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He also started a newspaper, the Nauvoo Expositor, and threatened to expose the practice of plural marriage in the Mormon church.
Smith retaliated by dispatching part of his militia, the Nauvoo Legion, to attack the Nauvoo Expositor destroying the presses and burning every copy of the newspaper on hand. This turned out to be a major blunder on his part. Governor Thomas Ford ordered the arrest of Joseph, his brother Hyrum and two of his followers. They surrendered after Ford guaranteed their safety and were taken to a jail in Carthage located about fifteen miles from Nauvoo where they were protected by state militia. However, after Ford withdrew the militia, the jail was stormed by a mob who murdered Joseph and Hyrum. This was only the beginning of a program of expulsion for the Mormons and after Brigham Young was selected as a successor to Joseph Smith he led them on a long trek to Utah where he founded the church in Salt Lake City.
Smith’s widow, Emma, was not a supporter of plural marriage or Brigham Young. She believed that her son Joseph Smith III was the designated and legitimate heir to her husband. After the elders selected Brigham Young as the new president, she left the church founded by Joseph Smith and lived as unaffiliated Latter-Day Saint. On April 6, 1860, Joseph Smith III was named the president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and in 1872 the word “Reorganized” was added to the name. Today it is known as the Community of Christ.
The issue of plural marriages or “celestial” marriages was a major source of dissension both within and outside of the church. Smith was romantically linked to Nancy M. Johnson as early as 1832 and she eventually became one of his wives. In 1835 he seduced a seventeen-year-old orphan Fannie Alger who was living in the Smith home at the time. Benjamin F. Johnson, patriarch and brother of two of Smith’s wives was aware of the affair as was Oliver Cowdery who called it “a dirty, nasty, and filthy affair.” In early 1833 Fannie Alger became Smith’s first plural wife. Between the years of 1843 and 1844, he took six wives from women who lived in his home. Emma Smith was totally opposed to the idea of plural wives in general and fervently against her husband’s participation. Hyrum Smith urged him to put the revelation he received from God in writing in an attempt to appease Emma. After Emma read what Joseph had written, she finally gave in reluctantly, saying, “The Revelation says I must submit or be destroyed.” However she always thought that the revelation was the work of the devil.
One of the more interesting cases of Mormon plural marriages involved Parley P. Pratt, one of Smith’s earliest followers and highest-ranking church officials. He was appointed to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in 1835. During his life he had twelve wives, thirty children, and 256 grandchildren. He married his twelfth wife, Eleanor McLean, in San Francisco. Eleanor was still married to Hector McLean of Arkansas who deeply resented the entire affair especially the baptism of his children along with Eleanor into the Mormon church. In May 1857, Pratt was brought to trial on charges of stealing the McLean children’s clothing. At the time parents could not be charged with kidnapping their own children. He was acquitted but after the trial, Hector McLean hunted him down and murdered him on May 13, 1857 in the town of Van Buren, Arkansas. Today it is estimated that more than 30,000 people are descendants of Parley Pratt including Willard Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican candidate for President of the United States.
After Smith’s death, plural marriage became more entrenched in the doctrine of the church and their way of life. Brigham Young had fifty-five wives and by the time of his death more than fifty-seven children. Polygamy continued to be part of the official church doctrine and a way of life for Mormons until the 1890 Manifesto was issued by the church president, Wilford Woodruff in September 1890. It officially banned the practice of plural marriages. The decision by Woodruff was primarily a political one because the United States Congress would not allow Utah statehood until polygamy was eliminated from the territory. Utah was admitted into the union on January 4, 1896.
The 1890 Manifesto did not have any effect on existing plural marriages and some members quietly continued the practice, although in much smaller numbers. Also, dissenters established polygamous communities in Canada and Mexico, In fact, Romney’s father, George was born at one such colony in Mexico in 1907. Leaders of the LDS church admit that the ending the practice of plural marriages after the manifesto was gradual. Ultimately divisions in the church over the issue of polygamy led to a split with the formation of what is called the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS).
The FLDS church continued to have major legal difficulties culminating with the arrest of Warren S. Jeffs, the president of the FLDS church, for sexual conduct with minors in August 2006. He was convicted at a trial in St. George, Utah of two counts of rape as an accomplice in September 2007 and was sentenced to ten years in prison. Later his conviction was overturned because of incorrect jury instructions. He was then tried in Texas and found guilty of sexual assault of two girls, ages 12 and 15 years and was sentenced to life in prison plus 20 years. Today it is estimated that there are from six to seven-thousands members of the FLDS church with communities located at Colorado City, Arizona, Hildale, Utah, Eldorado, Texas, and Bountiful, British Columbia.
Conclusion
Joseph Smith and the church he created, is a wonderful story deeply rooted in American history. Just as we broke the yoke of British rule, Smith threw aside the bronze-age theology of a small group of Semitic dessert people in favor of an American story of native Indians and brave settlers. No longer was it necessary to travel to distant and foreign places to experience the holy land; it was as close as Missouri and available to every American. Mormonism also captured the spirit of individualism and egalitarianism that was prevalent at the time he lived. This was a religion of the people unburdened by the dictates of priests, where all members had unfettered direct access to God including the opportunity of receiving revelations. This was a religion without any professional clergy. Every male became a priest at the age of 12. “Only” woman and blacks were excluded from the priesthood.
In spite of the endearing and appealing story of the LDS church, my conclusion is that it was not divinely inspired, but is just the work of a very clever conjurer and charlatan. I base my conclusion in part on the following:
1. The character and history of Joseph Smith especially his propensity and skill at telling tall tales and convincing people that they were true.
2. The numbers of people who allegedly viewed the Golden Plates without any ill effects, in spite of Moroni’s declaration that anyone other than Smith viewing them would die immediately.
3. The obvious similarity of the Book of Mormon to published books including the Bible and Ethan Smith’s book, View of the Hebrews.
4. Smith’s inability to recreate the “missing” 116 pages that were stolen by Lucy Harris.
5. Professor Anthon’s conclusion that the samples of text furnished by Smith were a hoax.
6. Genetic analysis of the DNA of American Indians has conclusively demonstrated that they are not descendants of the ancient Jews.
7. Comparative linguistic analysis of Hebrew and Indian dialects failed to show any similarities.
8. Smith’s “translation” of the text from an Egyptian mummy that he claimed was the writing of Abraham was shown by language experts to be nothing but a common Egyptian funeral service.
9. Smith fell for the hoax perpetrated by Robert Wiley, Bridge Whitton, and Wilbur Fugate in 1843 when they buried fake objects and then led several Mormons to the site. They recovered them and took them to Smith for translation. He claimed that it was the word of a decedent of Ham.
Sources:
1. No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith, Fawn Brodie, 1971
2. Massacre at Mountain Meadow, Ronald Walker, 2008
3. Under the Banner of Heaven, Jon Krakauer, 2003
4. The Mormon People, Matthew Bowman, 2012
