Transcription
[Music] Hey everyone, Seth here from Theology with Seth. I'm so glad you could be with me today. We've got an exciting and kind of controversial video today. We're continuing our series on answering Mormonism by asking the question: Is the Book of Mormon the word of God? This is a really important question.
Now, I'm an Evangelical Christian, and most of my viewers are Christians from one stripe or another. And it's true that we don't generally accept the Book of Mormon as scripture. But in today's video, I really want to unpack the reasons why. I mean, it claims to be scripture; it speaks very highly of Jesus Christ; and the Book of Mormon has had a positive impact on millions of people. So why don't we just embrace it as scripture? Are we just being stubborn, or do we just not want to give up our coffee? Or are there legitimate reasons for this? Well, I believe that there are legitimate reasons for this, and I'm going to try to explain those reasons today in a way that'll make sense to most people.
Now, real quick, if you happen to be a Latter-Day Saint who's found your way onto this video, first of all, I want you to know I'm very glad you're here. I also want to be honest enough to admit upfront what you're in store for: We will be making some critical observations about the Book of Mormon today. And if you don't feel like you're in a place where you can handle that right now, that's totally fine. Maybe leave and come back at another time. But just know that this is coming from a place of care and concern, and so I hope that you'll receive this video in the spirit that it's intended. And so, if you're ready, let's go ahead and get started.
What does the LDS church actually claim about the Book of Mormon? Well, if you look at the introduction to the Book of Mormon, it says this: "The Book of Mormon is a volume of Holy Scripture comparable to the Bible. It is a record of God's dealings with ancient inhabitants of the Americas and contains the fullness of the Everlasting Gospel." And so they're saying the Book of Mormon is scripture, and it's on the same level—that is, it's comparable to the Bible.
Now, if you're familiar with Mormonism, you'll know that in actual practice, the Book of Mormon actually takes precedent over the Bible, because they believe that the Bible has been mistranslated; they think that it's been corrupted over time, and the Book of Mormon is seen as a much more pure translation of scripture. And so, if there's ever an apparent conflict between the two, it's the Book of Mormon that usually has the final say. Because Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism, said, "I told the Brethren that the Book of Mormon 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." And so he's saying that the Book of Mormon will get you closer to God than even the Bible will. And notice he calls the Book of Mormon the Keystone of their religion. If—if you were to picture a stone arch in your mind—the stone that's at the very top, in the very middle, is called the Keystone. And if you remove that, what happens to the rest of the arch? Well, exactly, it all crumbles. And that's the role that the Book of Mormon plays in the LDS church. In fact, one of their presidents, Ezra Benson, said this: "Just as the arch crumbles if the Keystone is removed, so does all the Church stand or fall with the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. If it goes down, everything else does too."
So how do we actually examine the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon? Well, if you ask a Latter-day Saint this, they're going to encourage you to seek after what they call a spiritual testimony. This comes from a verse near the end of the Book of Mormon. It says, "And when you shall receive these things," talking about the teachings of the Book of Mormon, "I would exhort you that you would ask God the Eternal Father in the name of Christ if these things are not true; and if you shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you by the power of the Holy Ghost." And so they're saying you need to pray about it; you need to ask God if the Book of Mormon's true; and as long as you're sincere, God will give you a spiritual testimony—that's an inward conviction that this church is true. Sometimes Mormons refer to it as a burning in their bosom, and that's what they want us to experience as well.
But now, as a Christian reading this, let me just say I believe wholeheartedly in the power of prayer. But the reason why this verse worries me is because of something that the Apostle Paul warns us about in 1 Timothy 4:1. He said, "Now the Spirit," talking about the Holy Spirit, "speaketh expressly that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils." So Paul says there's only one Holy Spirit, but there are countless deceitful spirits, and they are roaming to and fro just looking for somebody to lead astray. And because not every Spirit comes from God, that means not every spiritual testimony comes from God. This is why when Latter-Day Saints share their testimony with me, I believe every word they say; I don't think they're making it up. The only question I would have for them is: How do you know that it's the Holy Spirit giving you that testimony?
Now, when I've asked that in the past, usually the answer I get is some version of, "Well, because this spirit makes me feel so wonderful on the inside; he makes me feel so comfortable and at home, and like I've got a warm blanket wrapped around me." To which my follow-up question is simply: How do you think a seducing spirit would make you feel? You see, a seducing spirit is not going to make you feel scared and cold and clammy—like, no, he's going to make you feel nice and comfortable, like you're right where you need to be, and there's nothing to worry about. Because that's going to be a much more effective strategy for deceiving people. For example, let's think about the religion of Islam for a second. Muslims pray—in fact, did you know Muslims pray five times a day?—and they have a very powerful spiritual testimony about a prophet and about a book. Many of them are very sincere; they're even willing to die for what they believe in. And yet, all of us watching this video would agree that Muslims are deceived; they're following a false prophet. That should be a big red flag for us. Spiritual testimonies are very important, but we need to make sure they are based on fact and not just feelings alone.
And even the LDS Apostles have given us warnings about this. I want to share something that the Apostle Orson Pratt wrote, and he said this: "This book," talking about the Book of Mormon, "must be either true or false. If true, it is one of the most important messages ever sent from God to man, affecting both the temporal and eternal interests of every people under heaven. But if false, it is one of the most cunning, wicked, bold, old, deep-laid impositions ever palmed upon the world, calculated to deceive and ruin millions who will sincerely receive it as the word of God, and will suppose themselves securely built upon the rock of Truth until they are plunged with their families into hopeless despair." The nature of the message in the Book of Mormon is such that if true, no one can possibly be saved and reject it; if false, no one can possibly be saved and receive it.
Now, I actually agree with every word he said there. The stakes in this debate are much higher than most people realize, and that's why Orson Pratt went on to say, "If, after a what rigid examination, it be found an imposition, it should be extensively published to the world as such." In other words, he's saying, "Broadcast this; make a YouTube video about this," so that those who have been sincerely, yet unfortunately, deceived may perceive the nature of the deception and be reclaimed; and that those who continue to publish the delusion may be exposed and silenced, not by physical force, neither by persecutions, bare assertions, nor ridicule, but by strong and powerful arguments, by evidences adduced from scripture and reason. Well, we're going to obey the LDS Apostle today and do exactly that.
But before we get into all the arguments, what's the Book of Mormon actually about? Because not everybody knows. Well, we've kind of already alluded to it, but it's essentially a religious history of the ancient inhabitants of the Americas. There's a couple of different story lines in the Book of Mormon, but the most important one, and the one that everyone thinks about, is one that involves the Nephites and the Lamanites. Let me set the stage for you. So the Book of Mormon opens in Jerusalem in about 600 BC. Now, if you know your history, this is right before Babylon destroyed Jerusalem; King Nebuchadnezzar led his armies to sack Jerusalem, and they destroyed the temple, and this happened in about 587 BC. So we're a few years before that. And there's a Jewish man by the name of Lehi, and God actually speaks to Lehi and says, "Hey, just so you know, this whole place is about to crumble to the ground; you need to get out of town—like, way out of town." And so Lehi gathers up his family and some friends, and they actually build boats, and they sail from the Middle East to the Americas.
Now, the Book of Mormon doesn't specifically say where they landed, but it does mention a narrow neck of land. And hopefully you can see, kind of on the map there, that a very natural place to set the Book of Mormon would be somewhere down here in Central America, or sometimes we call it Mesoamerica. In fact, one of the leading pro-LDS apologetic sites, fairlatterdaysaints.org, they say this: "While precise locations for Book of Mormon cities are debated, nearly all informed Book of Mormon scholars agree that the Book of Mormon events would have taken place in Mesoamerica." And so Lehi and his family land there, and they discover the place to be uninhabited, and so they go about building a new life for themselves in the new world. But there's a conflict brewing. Lehi has these two sons named Nephi and Laman, and unfortunately Nephi and Laman have a falling out, and they actually part ways. And then we have these two divergent lines of descendants who eventually grow and multiply and become these two rival civilizations called the Nephites and the Lamanites.
Now, in the Book of Mormon, generally speaking, the Nephites are considered the good guys; they're righteous, they're industrious, they're civilized. But the Lamanites are considered the bad guys; they're wicked, they're barbaric, they're idolatrous. And a lot of the Book of Mormon is about these people groups' interactions with each other, and the conflicts and the battles that they have, and then God's interactions with them. But the main event of the Book of Mormon is actually about Jesus Christ. They believe that after Jesus was resurrected in Israel, that he actually traveled to the Americas too. They say the crowning event recorded in the Book of Mormon is the personal ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ among the Nephites soon after his resurrection. This is a painting that's familiar to many Latter-Day Saints, and you can see it's Jesus appearing to the Nephites in the Americas. And very quickly, just as a side note, you might also notice this Mayan-looking architecture in the background; it almost looks like a pyramid that you would see in Chichen Itza in the Yucatan Peninsula. But again, that kind of underscores the idea that this is taking place in Mesoamerica. And because of Christ's ministry here, he brings peace among the Nephites and the Lamanites. But unfortunately, the peace doesn't last; pretty soon they go right back to their old ways, and they start having fights again, and it eventually culminates in a final battle at a place called the Hill Cumorah. This would have taken—taking place around 421 AD, and sadly the good guys, the Nephites, are destroyed; they're wiped out. It was a colossal slaughter. In fact, the Book of Mormon says that there were over 230,000 Nephites who died during this battle. So this was a catastrophic event. But you need to know about someone—there was a Nephite prophet named Mormon, and Mormon had a book, and this book was written on gold plates, and basically it was a history of everything that we just learned about and more. He gave this book to his son named Moroni, and what Moroni did was he added his own addition to Mormon's book, and then he buried it in the Hill Cumorah. And then eventually he died, and the Lamanites actually go on to become the ancestors of the Native Americans that we know of today. And so, according to the Book of Mormon, this is the true origin of the Native Americans. And so that's the story of the Book of Mormon in a nutshell.
But where did it actually come from? Like, how did we get our hands on this? Well, I need to take you back to the year 1823. There was a young man who lived in New York named Joseph Smith. And one night, Joseph Smith is actually in his bedroom when suddenly he realizes that he's not alone in his bedroom. He looks over, and he sees a figure in his room; he describes him as an angel of light whose feet never touch the floor. And this being introduces himself as the angel Moroni. And if that name sounds familiar, it's because that's the same Moroni that we just learned about. And this is an important point to emphasize, because this is not an angelic encounter in the way that we as Christians would understand it. Moroni is a man who has died, and now he's come back to life, and he's appearing to Joseph Smith in his bedroom. But anyway, Joseph Smith starts taking commands from this angel, and Moroni informs Joseph Smith about the book that he buried—a book written on gold plates—and basically he commands Joseph Smith to go get those gold plates and bring them to light to the modern world. Now, he's not able to get them right away; there's a few twists and turns in the story that we don't have time to get into today, but he does eventually obtain them, and he discovers that these gold plates are written in reformed Egyptian. And then Joseph Smith begins translating them by the gift and power of God. And since this book was put together by someone named Mormon, it became known as The Book of Mormon, and it was published in the year 1830, and the Mormon church was officially launched, and the rest, as they say, is history.
And okay, that is the story of the Book of Mormon in a nutshell. So what should we think about this as Christians? Well, let me just say at the start, if I were to discover that Jesus Christ really did have an entire ministry here in the Americas, that would only increase and bolster my faith in him. Like, there's a part of me that actually wants this to be true. But is it true? We have to ask that question. How do we conduct this rigid examination as the Apostle encouraged us to? Well, if you're anything like me, the first thing that you're probably curious to look at would be the gold plates. I would want to know what studies have been done on these gold plates; are they genuine ancient artifacts, or are they perhaps a modern forgery? Because those things do exist. Well, well, unfortunately, this is kind of where we hit our first snag, because we don't have access to the gold plates. Joseph Smith said that Moroni actually took the gold plates back into heaven when he was finished translating them. And this leads into kind of our first issue that I wanted to talk about, and that's that there's a manuscript problem associated with the Book of Mormon. Basically, it's that there are no ancient manuscripts for the Book of Mormon at all. Let me put this on a timeline for visual learners. So let's just say that the Bible was completed around AD 100, and then the Book of Mormon would have been finished—finished by about 421 AD. But then the oldest manuscript that we have for the Book of Mormon comes from about 1830. And so, as you can see, that's a pretty sizable gap between the two—that's over 1,400 years. And I want to compare this real quick with the manuscript evidence we have for the Bible. The oldest manuscript of the New Testament that we have dates from about AD 25; it's a fragment from John's Gospel. And then we have other important manuscripts and codices coming in shortly behind that. But as you can see, this is a gap of only about 25 years. And that's important to know, because one of the standard criteria that scholars use to judge the reliability of ancient texts is based on how small of a gap there is between the original and the earliest available copy. Because the smaller the gap, the less time there is for changes to occur. And as you can see, we have a much smaller gap for the Bible than we do for the Book of Mormon.
The second criteria they use is how many manuscripts we have. For the Bible, specifically for the New Testament, scholars have cataloged over 5,000 copies, just—just in Greek alone. That's more than we have for any other book from antiquity. But with the Book of Mormon, we don't even have one ancient manuscript. That's concerning to us as Christians, because it shows that from a manuscript perspective, the Bible is not comparable to the Book of Mormon; it's actually in a class way above it.
But a far more concerning issue pertains to geography. So the Book of Mormon mentions major cities—sometimes even walled-in, fortified cities—and it mentions these cities in relation to rivers, and rivers in relation to mountains, and mountains in relation to valleys, and so on and so forth. And it gives you enough topographical information to where you can actually build a pretty detailed map of what the Book of Mormon lands should have looked like. And if you do that, you come up with something a little bit like this. This is a map produced by the LDS church; you can find it on their official website. But if you'll notice, we have the narrow neck of land up there; we've got all these major cities—the River Sidon near that; we've got Zarahemla, which was the capital city of the Nephites, and so on and so forth. But the problem with this is that this map doesn't correspond to any real location on Earth—that is, we're not looking at a real land mass here. And that's concerning, because if the Book of Mormon stories are true, then we should be able to take this map along with a real map and find some overlap between them. But unfortunately, we just can't do that; we can't place this anywhere. In fact, I'm not sure if you noticed, but there's some fine print down there at the bottom of the screen. Let's zoom in on that and see what it says. They write, "Possible relationships of sites in the Book of Mormon based on internal evidence. No effort should be made to identify points on this map with any existing geographical location." Now, that's a strange thing to put on a map, but basically what they're admitting is that this isn't real geography; you can't set it down anywhere because it doesn't have any basis in the real world. And that's a little bit troubling to me. And I want to be sure to contrast this with the Bible. Here's a map of the biblical lands at the time of Jesus, and hopefully you can already see that these are real places. The Sea of Galilee, for instance, really exists; Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Jericho, the Dead Sea—these are all actual places that you can go visit even today. Some of you may have been to these locations. In other words, the biblical geography is real. And then if we zoom out a little bit, we can see the Roman Empire. What we're looking at here is Paul's first and second missionary journeys, and again, as you can see, these are real, identifiable places. Like if you wanted to, you could actually retrace Paul's steps in real time. And what this tells us is that the Bible has a level of authenticity and verification that the Book of Mormon simply doesn't. I think that's very significant.
Now, having said all that, there is one location in the Book of Mormon that the LDS church has positively identified, and that's the Hill Cumorah. The reason they've been able to identify this hill is because this is where Joseph Smith said he found the gold plates; it was within walking distance of his house in New York. The Apostle James Talmage said this: "The final struggles between Nephites and Lamanites were waged in the vicinity of the Hill Cumorah, in what is now the state of New York, resulting in the destruction of the Nephites as a nation about 400 AD." And so...
That is one location that they've identified, but there are some significant problems even with that. Because number one, we'd have to ask why did the Nephites and Lamanites travel all the way to New York for battle? Like, if the Book of Mormon takes place in Mesoamerica, why are they going all the way to New York to have this final battle? That's a little bit unclear, but more importantly, why are there no artifacts left behind? Like, that's the real issue here. Like if this battle actually took place in real life, where nearly a quarter of a million people died, then we should be able to find some kind of archaeological evidence for that in the Hill Cumorah. We should be able to find the remnants of swords and arrowheads and shields and armor and even bones and skeletons. And yet, so far, the LDS Church hasn't found a single thing.
John Clark was the director of BYU's archaeological organization, and he said this: "In accord with these general observations about New York and Pennsylvania, we come to our principal object, the Hill Cumorah. Archaeologically speaking, it is a clean hill—no artifacts, no walls, no trenches, no arrowheads. The area immediately surrounding the hill is similarly clean. Pre-Columbian people did not settle or build here. This is not the place of Mormon's Last Stand; we must look elsewhere for that hill." So he's admitting that there's no archaeological evidence for this, and that's so compelling that it's convinced him that this isn't the right Hill Cumorah. In fact, many LDS scholars have actually proposed that there might be two Hill Cumorahs—that the one in New York is just named after the real one, and the real one is actually somewhere in Mesoamerica. But then the problem with that, though, is that if the real Hill Cumorah is in Mesoamerica, then that would mean that the gold plates would also still be somewhere in Mesoamerica. How did the gold plates get to New York? And so, in order to explain the problems, you actually end up creating more problems. And sadly, that's a common thing we see in LDS apologetics. And so geography remains a very serious problem with the Book of Mormon.
But this is closely related to a much larger problem associated with archaeology. Archaeology is built on the premise that when civilizations come and go, they leave behind evidence and artifacts. What kind of evidence? Well, for starters, we would expect to find the ruins of their civilization. Listen to how the Book of Mormon describes their civilization real quick. It says, "The whole face of the land had become covered with buildings, and the people were as numerous almost as it were the sand of the sea." All right, so this is not a small band of nomadic shepherds; this is a massive group of people sprawled out over a huge swath of land, and the land is covered with buildings. The text says it says, "And the people did dwell in tents and in houses of cement, their cities and their temples and their synagogues and their sanctuaries and all manner of their buildings." It speaks of many cities, both of wood and of cement. There are many records kept of the proceedings of this people, their shipping and their building of ships. So this is a very advanced civilization, and the question we have to ask is simply: where is all of this? Why can't we find the remnants of these cities and synagogues and buildings in the same way that we can find the ruins of other ancient civilizations, like the Mayans or the Aztecs, the Incas, the ancient Romans, the ancient Greeks? We can find all these other ancient civilizations preserved in the archaeological record, but we can't find the Book of Mormon civilizations.
And notice also it says that they kept many records—that is, this was a literate people group; they could read and write. The Book of Mormon talks about how they were writing on metal plates—that is, these are durable records that should be scattered all over the place out there, and yet we haven't been able to find a single one, which kind of ties back into the manuscript problem that we touched on earlier. Another key thing to look for would be their temple. Nephi says, "And I, Nephi, did build a temple, and I did construct it after the manner of the temple of Solomon." Now that's important because we know what the temple of Solomon looked like; it was in Jerusalem, and there's supposed to be one similar to that somewhere in the Americas, but why can't we find it? Now you might say, "Well, Seth, it's because the temple was destroyed," but so was the temple in Jerusalem twice, as a matter of fact, and yet we know exactly where it is, but we can't find the one mentioned in the Book of Mormon. These are all things that we would expect to find by now, and we simply haven't.
We would also expect to find the weapons of warfare. Remember, the Book of Mormon talks all about these battles and wars that are taking place between these two people groups, and listen to the kind of weapons they had: "And we multiplied exceedingly and spread upon the face of the land, making all manner of tools of every kind to till the ground and weapons of war; yea, the sharp pointed arrow and the quiver and the dart and the javelin and all preparations for war; and it came to pass that he met the Lamanites in the borders of Jershon, and his people were armed with swords and with cimeters, with breastplates and with arm shields." Again, where are the artifacts left behind from these battles that would have taken place? Well, we haven't been able to find those either.
Another problem comes from Nephite coins. I won't read through all this, but in Alma chapter 11, it mentions all these different coins minted by denomination, and that's significant because if you have a civilization with coins, those coins get dispersed everywhere. But do you know how many Nephite coins we've been able to find? Sadly, that would be zero. In fact, this problem was so acute that it actually prompted the LDS Church to change the chapter heading of Alma 11 in the 1981 edition. It said, "Nephite coinage set forth," but then the 2013 edition says, "The Nephite monetary system is set forth." You see what they're doing? They're trying to distance themselves from the idea that they were literal coins, but of course, this kind of just pushes the problem back because we haven't found the Nephite monetary system either. So this remains a significant archaeological problem.
But let's hear what the experts had to say about this. The National Geographic Society actually commented on the Book of Mormon once, and listen carefully to what they say: "The Book of Mormon is clearly a work of great spiritual power. Millions have read and revered its words, first published by Joseph Smith in 1830." All right, they're being very respectful here. Yet, "Smith's narration is not generally taken as a scientific source for the history of the Americas. Archaeologists and other scholars have long probed the hemisphere's past, and the society does not know of anything found so far that has substantiated the Book of Mormon." Similarly, the Smithsonian Institution commented on this as well. They said, "The Smithsonian Institution has never used the Book of Mormon in any way as a scientific guide." And listen to this: "Smithsonian archaeologists see no direct connection between the archaeology of the New World and the subject matter of the book." So they couldn't find anything either.
But enough of these critical sources; let's hear it from a faithful source. Let me introduce you to someone named Thomas Stewart Ferguson. If you didn't know, he was actually the president and founder of the New World Archaeological Foundation. It's part of BYU today, but Ferguson was a devout Latter-day Saint, and he made it his life's mission to find the artifacts of the Book of Mormon. He enthusiastically said, "If the anticipated evidence confirming the Book of Mormon are found worldwide, notice will be given to the restored gospel through the Book of Mormon. The artifacts will speak eloquently from the dust." I love the way he put that because he's exactly right. If the Book of Mormon tells real history, then these artifacts should be out there just waiting for us to find. And the LDS Church agreed because they invested hundreds of thousands of dollars to fund this man's expeditions. And I wish I had time to unpack this more, but long story short, after decades of searching and researching, do you know what Thomas Stewart Ferguson found? Well, that would be nothing. He couldn't find a single thing. He actually lost his testimony in the Book of Mormon and in Joseph Smith towards the end of his life. He wrote this: "The real implication of the paper is that you can't set the Book of Mormon geography down anywhere because it is fictional and will never meet the requirements of the dirt archaeology. I should say what is in the ground will never conform to what is in the book." Thomas Stewart Ferguson never officially left the LDS Church; he stayed in it largely for social and sentimental reasons, but because he understood the implications of the lack of archaeological evidence, he knew that the Book of Mormon could not possibly be a truthful history of the Americas.
And so the point is, if we were to believe that the Book of Mormon is a true story, we would have to believe that all these massive civilizations came and went without leaving any trace of themselves in the archaeological record. And sadly, that is simply not possible. But now I want to be fair and ask the same question about the Bible. Uh, what about biblical archaeology? Have we ever found anything that would support or corroborate the Bible stories? Well, yes, a million times yes. For instance, in 1993, we found something called the Tel Dan inscription. This is a stone dating back to the 9th century BC, and it actually mentions King David. And that's important because a lot of critical scholars were saying that King David was made up, that he was just military and political propaganda, but then they started seeing his name pop up in real life, and they had to change their tune a little bit. Then in 2004, we found the Pool of Siloam. If you remember in John chapter 9, Jesus heals the blind man, and he tells him to go bathe in the Pool of Siloam. Well, we know exactly where that is; we could literally go there today if we wanted to. We found shekels and widow's mites—these are coins talked about in the Bible; we found them all over the place. In fact, they're so plentiful you can actually buy these on the internet. In 1947, we found the Dead Sea Scrolls. These are basically ancient copies of the Old Testament dating back to before Christ. They testify to the reliability of the transmission of the Old Testament text down through the centuries. In 1990, we found the Caiaphas ossuary—this is basically a bone box that mentions Caiaphas, who was the high priest talked about in the Gospels. Then in 1961, we found the Pilate inscription—this is a stone block that mentions Pontius Pilate, who played a key role in the passion narratives in the Gospels. Again, a lot of critical scholars thought that he was made up, but then we found archaeological evidence for him as well. And then, of course, we have massive evidence for the Jewish-Roman war. In the Olivet Discourse, Jesus predicted that the temple in Jerusalem would be destroyed, and indeed, just a few decades later, it was, and you can actually go see the ruins of that even to this day.
Now, of course, you have to understand none of this proves that the Bible is the divinely inspired word of God, although I believe it is, but what it does prove is that the Bible deals with real people in real places in real time—that is, it's interlaced with reality in a way that the Book of Mormon simply isn't. Let's hear what actual archaeologists say about the Bible. Dr. Nelson Glueck said, "It may be stated categorically that no archaeological discovery has ever controverted a biblical reference. Scores of archaeological findings have been made which confirm in clear outline or exact detail historical statements in the Bible; and by the same token, proper evaluation of biblical description has often led to amazing discoveries." Similarly, the professor of archaeology at Yale University said this: "On the whole, however, archaeological work has unquestionably strengthened confidence in the reliability of the scriptural record. More than one archaeologist has found his respect for the Bible increased by the experience of excavation in Palestine. Archaeology has, in many cases, refuted the views of modern critics; it is shown in a number of instances that these views rest on false assumptions and unreal artificial schemes of historical development. This is a real contribution and should not be minimized." And then the chairman of the Department of Archaeology at Wheaton College said this: "Archaeology has confirmed countless passages which have been rejected by critics as unhistorical or contradictory to known facts. We do not know of any cases where the Bible has been proved wrong." And so again, from a geographical and archaeological standpoint, the Bible is not comparable to the Book of Mormon; it is light years ahead of it. And before we move to our next point, let me just say real quickly why I keep bringing up the Bible in this presentation. There's basically two reasons. First is that anytime Christians criticize the Book of Mormon, there's always a subset of people who accuse us of using a double standard. They'll say, "Oh, you Christians, you know, picking on the Book of Mormon; if you just applied that same standard of reasoning to the Bible, you wouldn't be a Christian anymore." And what I'm trying to show is that is definitively not true. I don't demand anything of the Book of Mormon that I don't also demand of the Bible, but where one falls, the other stands. But the second reason, and this is more important, I know that when Latter-day Saints lose their faith in the Book of Mormon, usually they lose their faith in the Bible too. They assume that it's equally fictional because they've been taught their whole lives that it's a packaged deal. But what I'm here to tell you is that the Bible and the Book of Mormon are not a package deal. You can absolutely have one without the other. Your life and your eternal life will be infinitely better because you'll be building your house on the rock instead of building your house on the sand.
And so archaeology is very much an Achilles' heel of the Book of Mormon, but another major problem has to do with something called anachronisms. If you've never heard of this, an anachronism is basically when you have something that's in the wrong place at the wrong time. For example, if you've ever been watching one of those old, old Western movies, sometimes in the exterior shots, if you look in the background, you can see an airplane flying overhead that the director just missed. Well, that would technically be an anachronism because there were no airplanes in the Wild West. It reveals that the film was made in modern times. And there are similar things like that in the Book of Mormon. For example, the Book of Mormon mentions horses, but the problem with that is that there were no horses in the Americas during that time. Because if you know your history, in 1492, Columbus sailed the what ocean blue—exactly—the horses were brought over by the Spaniards in the 15th and 16th centuries. That's over a thousand years after the time period of the Book of Mormon ends. Now, in Joseph Smith's time, horses were all over the place in the Americas, and so if you were trying to retroactively write a history of the Americas, this would be a really easy thing to slip up on, but the horses simply weren't there during the Book of Mormon time frame. Even LDS anthropologists will admit this, and they've had to come up with some interesting explanations. For instance, LDS anthropologist John L. Sorenson said this: "The horses mentioned in the Book of Mormon might have referred to some beast other than the one we think of when we hear the word. As already noted in the 16th century, Fray Ponts gave the example of the tapir, which the Maya called *sain*, a name they also gave to Spanish horses." You see what he's saying there? He's saying, you know, maybe the horses aren't really horses; maybe they were actually deer. And I'll let you decide if you find that persuasive or not, but you have a similar problem with cows, goats, and even elephants. Again, none of these animals actually existed in the Americas at the time, and yet they're in the Book of Mormon. And the more you try to argue that those animals aren't really what they appear to be, the more it starts to cast doubt on the idea that the Book of Mormon is translated by the gift and power of God. If it is, why are we having to correct all these apparent mistakes? There's a similar problem with steel and silk. For the sake of time, I won't read through these verses, but the Smithsonian says, "Iron, steel, glass, and silk were not used in the New World before 1492." And then again, again, the same problem exists with wheat and barley. You can see both of those in the Book of Mormon, and again, the Smithsonian says, "American Indians had no wheat, barley, oats before 1492." And so the Book of Mormon has the wrong animals; it has the wrong technology, and it has the wrong food. Again, these are all the telltale signs that this book was actually written in modern times.
But then, in more recent years, there's also been a major problem with DNA. DNA allows us to track ancestry, and this is significant because if you remember, according to the Book of Mormon, the Native Americans were descendants of the Lamanites, and the Lamanites ultimately came from Israel. What that means is that if the Book of Mormon is true, then within Native American populations, we should expect to see what you might call a Semitic or a Jewish DNA. And indeed, when DNA science was first emerging, a lot of Latter-day Saints were really excited because here was an opportunity to prove with hard science one of the central truth claims of the Book of Mormon. And so scientists began testing every Native American tribe you can think of. In fact, we even have the technology to extract DNA from tribes that are no longer around, like the Maya, for instance. And what they found in every case is that the Native Americans did not come from Israel; actually, they came from Asia. Now, for years, the LDS Church pushed back on that, and they resisted that, but they have finally conceded that point on their official website. They write, "The evidence assembled to date suggests that the majority of Native Americans carry largely Asian DNA. Scientists theorize that in an era that predated the Book of Mormon accounts, a relatively small group of people migrated from Northeast Asia to the Americas by way of the land bridge that connected Siberia to Alaska. These people, scientists say, spread rapidly to fill North and South America and were likely the primary ancestors of modern American Indians." So they're referring to something called the Bering Land Bridge here, which scientists believe would have existed about 15 to 20,000 years ago. Let me show this to you on a map real quick. So scientists believe that Russia and Alaska were originally connected, and scientists believe that the true ancestors of Native Americans originated in Mongolia and Siberia, and they crossed over the Bering Land Bridge kind of like this. So they didn't originate in Israel at all. This problem was so severe that it actually prompted a change in the introduction to the Book of Mormon. The 1981 edition said this—start at the top right corner with me—it says, "After thousands of years, all were destroyed except the Lamanites, and they, the Lamanites, are the principal ancestors of the American Indians." But because of the overwhelming DNA evidence to the contrary, they had to change that. Today it says, "After thousands of years, all were destroyed except the Lamanites, and they are among the ancestors of the American Indians." So you see what they're doing? They're trying to soften it a little bit, but of course, the problem is they're not among the ancestors at all; they have Asian DNA, not Israelite DNA.
Finally, there's a problem with the Gospel, and this point I think might be most concerning to Christians, but basically there's a conflict between the Bible and the Book of Mormon involving whether salvation is by works or whether it's by grace. Both Latter-day Saints and Christians would agree that because of our sin, we are actually separated from God because God is holy and righteous, and because we're separated, we need to be reconciled to God. And the most important question we can ask ourselves is: how are we reconciled to God? This is where the Book of Mormon and the Bible give opposite answers. The Book of Mormon teaches this: "For we labor diligently to write to persuade our children to believe in Christ and to be reconciled to God, for we know that it is by grace that we are saved after all we can do." So you see, in Mormonism, grace only comes into the picture after we've done our part. And what is our part? Well, it's total effort; it's all the good works that we can do. We have to do that first, and only then do we get the
Grace. The book of Moroni says, "Yay, come unto Christ, and be perfected in him, and deny yourselves of all ungodliness." And if ye shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness and love God with all your might, mind, and strength, then is his grace sufficient for you. So again, it's this conditional statement here that if you want sufficient Grace, you have to first do your part. And your part involves getting rid of all of your sin and successfully loving God with every ounce of your being. You have to do that first, and only then do you get sufficient Grace. In other words, it teaches salvation by works. And this is not what we as Christians believe. The Bible teaches that salvation is a free gift. It says, "For by grace are ye saved through faith: and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast." Nephi says that it's by Grace after all you can do, but Paul says that it's by Grace apart from anything that you can do. Grace in The Bible means unmerited favor; that is, it's not something that you deserve, it's not something that you can earn or work for. Romans 4 says, "Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt: But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness." You see, Moroni says that God does not justify the ungodly; you have to first get rid of all your ungodliness before God will accept you. But Paul says that God does justify the ungodly. He says this is given to the one that worketh not, but simply believeth, or put your faith in Christ. And this is one of the fundamental differences between the Mormon gospel and the biblical gospel. That's that in the Bible, God doesn't wait for us to clean ourselves up before we can approach him. Rather, the God of the Bible comes to us right here, right now, where we are, when we're still messed up, when we're still ungodly, and he justifies us; he cleanses us; he sanctifies us, not because of our works, but purely because of the work of Christ; because of his sinless life; because of his sacrificial death on a cross; and because of his glorious Resurrection from the grave. Jesus is not our co-savior; he is our complete savior. We were dead in our sins; we couldn't do any works, but Christ had mercy on us; he made us alive with him; and he gave us eternal life as a free gift by grace through faith. That's how we as Christians can know that we have eternal life with Heavenly Father, even as we watch this video. Our Lord Jesus Christ paid for salvation with his blood so that it can be free for us. And if you believe that, I can testify that that will absolutely change your life. You'll be transformed from the inside out with the Peace of knowing that you've been reconciled to God through faith. And that's why I make these videos, because I want all Latter-Day Saints to also be reconciled to God and to experience the Salvation that only he can provide.
And so, last slide here: why Christians have to reject Moroni. Because the Apostle Paul in Galatians 1:8 said, "But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed." He says in 2 Corinthians, "For if he that cometh preacheth another Jesus, or if ye receive another spirit, or another gospel, you better reject them: for such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light." That is, Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. You know, I don't know what Joseph Smith saw in his bedroom that night in 1823, but I do know this: he did not see an angel from the Lord. And I wish that Joseph Smith would have recognized that Moroni was ultimately leading him after a false gospel, and he should have said, "Moroni, in the name of Jesus Christ, get lost!" And indeed, that's what we as Christians have to say to Moroni as well. Our Eternal Souls depend on it.
With that said, it's time to conclude: why Christians reject the Book of Mormon. Well, first, it has no ancient manuscript support. Second, the geography doesn't fit any location in the real world. Third, none of the places, peoples, or events have been corroborated by archaeology. Fourth, numerous anachronisms reveal the book was written in modern times. Fifth, DNA proves that Native Americans originated in Asia, not Israel. And sixth, it ultimately proclaims a false gospel, leading us then to the indisputable conclusion: The Book of Mormon is false, and Christians should seek to lovingly share that with our LDS friends. I put a period there because I don't believe there's any room for debate on this. We need to set the Book of Mormon aside and simply go back to the Bible. We might lose some friends, we might lose some family, but what we will gain is worth far more than all of that if we follow the biblical Jesus. That means that this light and momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond our wildest dreams. And I hope that what I've shared with you today will resonate with many people. And okay, that is all I have for you guys. Thank you so much for watching. Sorry, this video took a little bit longer; it was a lot of research, a lot of studying. If it's been helpful, please be sure to like the video and subscribe to the channel if you haven't already. Share it with as many people as you can. If you have any questions, concerns, or prayer requests, please drop those in the comments below. And as always, I can't wait to see you in the next video. Bye. [Music]