Session 3 – The Canon of Mormonism
The Mormon Church has four Canonical books
Book of Mormon (1830 by Joseph Smith)
Pearl of Great Price (By Joseph Smith,
Canonized in 1880)
Doctrine and Covenants (By Joseph Smith
and others, Published 1835)
The Bible (So far as its translated correctly.)
And LDS Apostle Bruce McConkie said:
"Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints (known informally by the nickname Mormons)
believe the Bible. Indeed, so literally and completely
do their beliefs and practices conform to the
teachings of the Bible that it is not uncommon to hear
informed persons say: 'If all men believed the Bible,
all would be Mormons.' Bible doctrine is Mormon
doctrine, and Mormon doctrine is Bible doctrine.
They are one and the same" (What The Mormons
Think of Christ, p. 2).
There is an angel of light on top of
every Mormon temple
The Angel of light
named Moroni, told
Joseph Smith where
the golden plates
were hidden in
Palmira New York.
The writing on the Golden plates (in reformed
Egyptian hieroglyphics) was translated with the help
of Moroni and occultic seer stones.
Moroni or Nephi
The angel Moroni story has also been changed since
the first edition of the P.of G.P. was published in 1851.
That edition said that the angel "Nephi" revealed the
gold plates to Smith (p. 41). Other early Mormon
sources which mention the angel Nephi are:
The Millennial Star Vol III, pp. 53, 71 and Times and
Seasons Vol. III pp. 749, 753.
In the latter volume on page 710, Joseph Smith said,
"This paper commences my editorial career. I alone
stand responsible for it." Thus, if the angel's name is
wrong, Smith is at fault.
In 1853, Joseph's
mother, Lucy Mack
Smith, also said the
angel's name was Nephi
(Biographical Sketches,
p. 79). Most Mormons
today have never heard
that the angel Nephi
revealed the gold plates
to Joseph Smith.
Everyone today understands it to have been Moroni
who gave Joseph Smith the plates
The book of Mormon is supposed to have been
written long before it was found, and was translated
into perfect King James English.
There are over 25,000
words plagiarized out of
the King James Bible
The Book of Mormon is
supposed to be a history
of North/South America,
and the lost tribe
of Israel
According to Mormon lore, Smith claimed to receive
the “few plates” from Moroni in 1827 and from them
translated the Book of Mormon. When he was
finished translating the plates he gave them back to
the angel who he claimed “has them in his charge”
(Joseph Smith History 1:60).
In talking about the location of the plates Cameron J.
Packer, in his article “Cumorah’s Cave, (where the
plates were)” printed in the Journal of Book of
Mormon Studies (v.13, no.1-2, 2004), said “Was this a
real cave that Joseph and others actually walked into,
or was it a visionary, or ‘virtual,’ experience?”
The Story of the Golden Plates
As with much of LDS
history, Smith’s retrieval
of the gold plates is a
story of incredible drama.
Several LDS historians and
Church manuals
have repeated the story given by Lucy Mack Smith,
the mother of the Mormon prophet.1 In her account,
she says that her son took the plates from their secret
place and, “wrapping them in his linen frock, placed
them under his arm and started for home.”
After “traveling some distance,” he “came to a large
windfall, and as he was jumping over a log, a man
sprang up from behind it and gave him a heavy blow
with a gun. Joseph turned around and knocked him
down, then ran at the top of his speed.”2 She said her
son was attacked twice more, and since there is no
record of Smith rendering his assailants unconscious
or incapacitated, we must assume he outran them for
at least a portion of the distance necessary to reach
the Smith home three miles away. We must also
assume that he did all this with a slight limp that he
received from a childhood surgery.
Smith claimed the record he received from the angel
was “six inches wide and eight inches long, and not
quite so thick as common tin.” He also said the
“volume was something near six inches in thickness, a
part of which was sealed.”3 Given these dimensions,
we can conclude that the plates were one-sixth of a
cubic foot. Since gold weighs 1,204 pounds per cubic
foot, we can agree with LDS Apostle John Widtsoe
who said, “If the gold were pure, [the plates] would
weigh two hundred pounds, which would be a heavy
weight for a man to carry, even though he were of the
athletic type of Joseph Smith.
How do Mormon’s reply to this problem?
For the purpose of record keeping, plates made of
gold mixed with a certain amount of copper would be
better, for such plates would be firmer, more durable
and generally more suitable for the work in hand. If
the plates were made of eight karat gold, which is
gold frequently used in present-day jewelry, and
allowing a 10 percent space between the leaves, the
total weight of the plates would not be above one
hundred and seventeen pounds—a weight easily
carried by a man as strong as was Joseph Smith.
When people try
lifting up lead
plates (118
pounds) everyone
seems to agree
there is no way you
could run three
miles with them
Realizing that the story, as told, is quite impossible,
many Mormons resort to assuming that God gave
Smith supernatural strength to carry the plates.
Mormons who offer this
explanation at least seem
to recognize that the story
needs a bit of revision to
be believable. However,
such an explanation is
nothing more than an
argument from silence.
Smith never said he
needed God’s help to carry
(or run with) the plates,
and he certainly never
gave God credit for
enabling him to do so.
Kirk B. Henrichsen (Mormon Apologist) boldly affirms,
“Neither Joseph nor any of the witnesses said that the
ancient record was made from solid gold. Nor did
they use the term ‘gold plates,’ or ‘plates of
gold.’”6 Henrichsen’s assertion is not entirely correct.
In 1989, thirteenth president Gordon B. Hinckley cited
the words of Book of Mormon witness Oliver
Cowdery, who said, “I beheld with my eyes and
handled with my hands, the gold plates from which it
was translated.”7 In an interview that appeared in
the Saint’s Herald, David Whitmer, another one of the
Three Witnesses, stated that the plates
were made of “pure gold.”
In 1829, Lucy Mack Smith wrote a letter to Mary
Smith Pierce explaining how God showed Joseph
“where he could dig to obtain an ancient record
engraven upon plates made of pure gold and this he is
able to translate.”9 How did Lucy arrive at this
conclusion? Is it possible she learned that from her
son? In 1999, the LDS Church News printed an
editorial titled “Hands on Opportunity” that stated
how Joseph Smith was “entrusted with
plates of solid gold.”
We have ample evidence from Mormon sources
that the plates were gold
What about the eye witnesses
Mormon historian
Marvin Hill concedes
that the “evidence is
extremely
contradictory in this
area, but there is a
possibility that the
three witnesses saw
the plates in
vision only.”
In a revelation recorded in Doctrine and
Covenants 17:2, Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer, and
Martin Harris were told that it was by faith they
would obtain a view of the plates. This event did not
take place in the room where Smith had allegedly
been translating the plates, but out in the woods. It
was after retiring to the woods that Smith and the
three men tried “to obtain, by fervent and humble
prayer,” the fulfillment of that revelation.
One might ask why they needed prayer to see a
tangible, physical object. When praying did not result
in a “manifestation of divine favor,” Martin Harris
excused himself, thinking he was the hindrance.
Once he left, the remaining three men prayed again
and an angel stood before them holding the plates.
Smith then went to find Harris
who was a “considerable
distance” away. The two men
prayed and the “same vision”
was opened to their view. Eight
more men insisted they, too,
“saw” the plates, but again the
evidence suggests that they
saw them with spiritual eyes or
in “vision.”
Outside sources verify the plates?
Pearl of Great Price – Joseph Smith, History 63-65
“Sometime in this month of February, the
aforementioned Mr. Martin Harris came to our place,
got the characters which I had drawn off the plates,
and started with them to the city of New York. For
what took place relative to him and the characters, I
refer to his own account of the circumstances, as he
related them to me after his return, which was as
follows: “I went to the city of New York, and
presented the characters which had been translated,
with the translation thereof
to Professor Charles Anthon, a gentleman celebrated
for his literary attainments. Professor Anthon stated
that the translation was correct, more so than any he
had before seen translated from the Egyptian. I then
showed him those which were not yet translated, and
he said that they were Egyptian, Chaldaic, Assyriac,
and Arabic; and he said they were true characters. He
gave me a certificate, certifying to the people of
Palmyra that they were true characters, and that the
translation of such of them as had been translated
was also correct.”
February 17, 1834 – Mr. E. D. Howe wrote Charles
Anthon and asked him about this (Kingdom of the Cults pg.212)
The Book of Mormon on the Bible
The B. of M. also predicts a great and abominable
church has "taken away from the gospel of the
Lamb many parts which are plain and most precious;
and also many covenants of the Lord have they
taken away" (I Nephi 13:26).
The bottom of that page of the B. of M. dates this
perversion of the gospel around 600 B.C., which was
long before the "gospel of the Lamb" was even given
in the New Testament! LDS claim the B. of M. has
restored these "plain and precious things," and that it
is the "fullness of the gospel" (B. of M. I Nephi 13:34-35; D. & C. 20:8-9; 27:5).
Apostle Orson Pratt also claimed, "The Bible has been
robbed of its plainness; many sacred books having
been lost, others rejected by the Romish Church, and
what few we have left, were copied and re-copied so
many times, that it is admitted that almost every
verse has been corrupted and mutilated to that
degree that scarcely any two of them read alike"
(The Seer, p. 213).
This is a problem when we look at the manuscript
tradition of the New Testament and see that the
Bible hasn’t been changed
Joseph Smith’s story and Biblical errors
Smith's first vision in which he claims to have seen
God, also conflicts with the Bible, which says, "No
man hath seen God at any time" (John 1:18, I John
4:12). In Exodus 33:20, God also says, "There shall no
man see me and live." Men cannot see God because
He is Spirit (John 4:24), and spirit is invisible (Col.
1:15, I Tim. 1:17). Invisible means it cannot be seen.
John 1:18: “No one has seen God at any time. The
only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father,
He has declared Him.”
Joseph Smith and the occult
Joseph Lewis said that Joseph Smith should not be
kept on the Methodist Class roll because he was a
"practicing necromancer" and "dealer in
enchantments and bleeding ghosts." On March 20,
1826, Joseph Smith was brought to trial for deceiving
people into thinking he could find buried treasures by
looking through a certain stone. He was charged court
costs of $2.68 by Justice Albert Neely. (Fraser's
Magazine, February, 1873, Vol. VII, pp. 229-230).
Not only was he involved in the occult before
Mormonism, but also after
Stones named Urim and Thummim were used by
Joseph Smith to translate
The Mormon church tries to deny that Joseph Smith
used occultic seer stones before/during the
translating the book of Mormon
The proceedings of a court hearing dated March 20,
1826 – New York vs. Joseph Smith – revealed that
Joseph Smith “had a certain stone which he had
occasionally looked at to determine where hidden
treasures in bowels of the earth were”
Joseph Smith was also involved in the Masonic Lodge
More on the four standard works
Book of Mormon (1830 by Joseph Smith)
A history of North and South America
The Jaredites (Book of Ether) came to the new world
at the time of the tower of Babel. They were
instructed to build eight barges in which to sail to
America. This journey took three hundred and forty
four days. After years of occupying the land and
numbering in the millions, their civilization was
destroyed by war. The last survivor, Coriantumr, was
found by the Mulekites sometime before 200 B.C.
The Mulekites came to America from Jerusalem in
586 B.C. They were led by the last living son of
Zedekiah, Mulek. Although they lived in America
during the same period as the Nephites and
Lamanites, they did not encounter them until around
200 B.C. They then became amalgamated
with the Nephites.
This group is not important in Mormon history, the
next two groups are the primary focus
The two main groups in the Book of Mormon are
the Nephites and Lamanites. The story tells of a
family group led by an Israelite prophet named Lehi.
He is warned by God to flee Jerusalem at 600 B.C. He
and his family make their way to the southern part of
Arabia where they build a ship to sail across the
Pacific Ocean to America. Two of his sons, Nephi and
Laman struggle for leadership. This leads to the
division of the group into two warring factions,
the Nephites (usually the good guys)
and Lamanites (usually the bad guys).
The last battle between the two groups, in 421 AD,
wipes out almost all of the Nephites. Moroni, the last
surviving Nephite, buries the records of his civilization
in the hill Cumorah. Hundreds of years later, Joseph
Smith is directed to the spot by Moroni (some records
say Nephi), now a resurrected being who has
become an angel.
At the Hill Cumorah, around 230,000 Nephites were
supposed to have died… and know where the hill is
and have no evidence for a war
What has history and science told us?
-Mormon anthropologists from Brigham Young
University (BYU) took 5000 DNA samples from 140
Indian tribes to “prove” that they were all
-related to the Jews…
-It turns out that not one of them is… Native
Americans originated in Mongolia and
-Northern Siberia.
So close is the connection that surviving Native
American connection to Asiatic origin is close to 99%.
What do Mormon’s say about this?
“A spiritual witness is the only way to know the
truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. Although DNA
studies have made links between Native Americans
and Asians, these studies in no way invalidate the
Book of Mormon despite the loud voices of
detractors.” (John Butler, Mormon author)
Nothing in the book of Mormon has been
confirmed by archeology
Pearl of Great Price (By Joseph Smith,
Canonized in 1880)
The first paragraph of the Introductory Note in the
LDS edition of the Pearl of Great Price reads:
“The Pearl of Great Price is a selection of choice
materials touching many significant aspects of the
faith and doctrine of The Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints. These items were produced by
Joseph Smith Jr. and were published in the Church
periodicals of his day.”
The P. of G. P. contains the books of Moses,
Abraham, Joseph Smith-Matthew, Joseph
Smith—History and the Articles of Faith.
There are been
much debate on
the book of
Abraham, we don’t
have time to go
into detail though
Doctrine and Covenants (By Joseph Smith
and others, Published 1835)
“The Doctrine and Covenants is unique among our
books of scripture. It is the constitution of the Church.
While the Doctrine and Covenants includes writings
and statements of various origins, it is primarily a
book of revelation given through the
Prophet of this dispensation.
“In the Doctrine and Covenants we learn of temple
work, eternal families, the degrees of glory, Church
organization, and many other great truths of the
Restoration.” (lds.org)
LDS Apostle James Talmage wrote, "The Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints accepts the Holy Bible
as the foremost of her standard works, first among
the books which have been proclaimed as her written
guides in faith and doctrine" (A. of F., p. 236).
Joseph Smith also declared, "Ignorant translators,
careless transcribers, or designing and corrupt priests
have committed many errors" (T. of P.J.S., p. 327). And
LDS Apostle Mark E. Peterson said, "Many insertions
were made, some of them 'slanted' for selfish
purposes, while at times deliberate falsifications and
fabrications were perpetrated" (As Translated
Correctly, p. 4).
According to Joseph Smith the Book of Mormon is
the most important book of all time
Obviously the D. & C. and the Bible cannot both be in
"first" place above other LDS scriptures! But Joseph
Smith, the founder of Mormonism, said, "I told the
brethren that the B. of M. 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" (T. of P.J.S., p. 194).
Many Mormons do not hold the
Bible in high regards
“If it be admitted that the apostles and evangelists did
write the books of the New Testament, that does not
prove of itself that they were divinely inspired at the
time they wrote.... Add all this imperfection to the
uncertainty of the translation, and who, IN HIS RIGHT
MIND could for one moment suppose the Bible in its
present form to be a perfect guide? Who knows that
even one verse of the Bible has escaped pollution, so
as to convey the same sense now that it did in the
original?” (Divine Authority of the Book of Mormon, pp. 45, 47;
The B. of M. is not a big fan of the Bible
The B. of M. also says, "Many of the Gentiles shall say:
A Bible! A Bible! We have got a Bible, and there
cannot be any more Bible... Thou fool, that shall say a
Bible, we have got a Bible and we need no more Bible.
Have ye obtained a Bible save it were by the Jews?"
(II Nephi 29:3,6).
Notice that only "fools" trust in the Bible alone! Verse
10 of the same passage goes on to say, "Wherefore,
because ye have a Bible ye need not suppose it
contains all my words; neither need ye suppose that I
have not caused more to be written."
Is Doctrine and Covenant the most important
book on earth?
Joseph Fielding Smith, the tenth Prophet, Seer and
Revelator of the LDS Church wrote, "In my judgment
there is no book on earth yet come to man as
important as the book known as the Doctrine and
Covenants, with all due respect to the B. of M. and
the Bible, and the P. of G.P. which we say are our
standards in doctrine. The book of D. & C. to us stands
in a peculiar position above them all"
(D. of S., Vol. III, p. 198).
Mormons don’t know which book of
scripture is the most important
While Dr. Talmage said the Bible is the most important
book to Mormons, Joseph Fielding Smith said the D. &
C. was the most important, and the founder of
Mormonism declared the B. of M. was the book that
would get men nearer to God.
Summing it up
President Joseph Fielding Smith, the tenth LDS
prophet said: “Mormonism, as it is called, must
stand or fall on the story of Joseph Smith. He was
either a prophet of God, divinely called, properly
appointed and commissioned, or he was one of
the biggest frauds this world has ever seen. There
is no middle ground. If Joseph Smith was a
deceiver, who willfully attempted to mislead the
people, then he should be exposed; his claims
should be refuted, and his doctrines
shown to be false,..
…for the doctrines of an impostor cannot be made
to harmonize in all particulars with divine truth If
his claims and declarations were built upon fraud
and deceit, there would appear many errors and
contradictions, which would be easy to detect” (D.
of S. Vol. 1, p. 188).
Memory verse
Exodus 33:20: “But He said, “You cannot see My face;
for no man shall see Me, and live.”