Some of these people have claimed that Joseph Smith's story of how the Book of Mormon came about is just too far-fetched to be real (or words or thoughts to that effect).

This reminds me of the boy who came home from Sunday school, whose mother asked him what he'd learned that day.

The boy said, "We learned how Moses rescued the Israelites from Egypt."

The mother, wanting to make the most of a teaching moment, encouraged him: "Please, tell me about it. I'd love to hear more."

The boy rolled his eyes, took a deep breath, and began: "Well, God sent Moses behind enemy lines disguised as an Egyptian. When he got to the camps where the Israelites were being held prisoners, he organized a commando squad to blow the gates, and then they all retreated to the Red Sea. When they got there, they could see Pharaoh's tanks bearing down on them, so Moses got his corps of engineers to build a pontoon bridge across the Red Sea real quick. When the last Israelite had gotten across, Moses radioed in an air strike that destroyed the pontoon bridge and dumped the Egyptians into the Red Sea, where they drowned."

Slightly stunned, the mother stammered, "Son, are you sure that's the way it really happened?"

To which the boy retorted, "Well, no, but if I told you the way my Sunday school teacher told me, you'd never believe it!"

The claim that "Joseph Smith made up the Book of Mormon" is even more unbelievable than "the way my Sunday school teacher told me." Here's why. This is a list of all the things you'd have to do to duplicate Joseph Smith's work on the Book of Mormon.

Note that all I have listed are "facts," theoretically observable by any non-Mormon investigative reporter. The words "allegedly" and "claim" are sprinkled liberally throughout, to make the skeptics more comfortable.

1. First, if you have a college education, you're overqualified. Even if you're a high school dropout, you're overqualified. Joseph Smith had no formal education whatsoever. He was the fourth of 10 children, the son of a farmer, and the only education he received before 1927 was from his mother, and from reading the Bible. (refs: Nibley, Preston (ed.), History of Joseph Smith, By His Mother, Lucy Mack Smith; Berrett, William E., The Restored Church)

2. You cannot use any outside reference materials, other than the Bible. The first book on the Egyptian language did not appear until 1836, six years after the Book of Mormon was completed (ref. Berrett). You cannot have access to, or knowledge of, any archaeological discoveries in the Americas — at least no more than what was known in 1827, which was nearly zero. You cannot have any association, real or rumored, with anyone knowledgeable about native American legends. You cannot have access to a library, public or private, to do any research. These are the same restrictions Joseph Smith was faced with in 1829.

3. Okay, this one may be difficult. Maybe we can amend these requirements if you think they're too tough for you:
   • You have to acquire a reputation as a dreamer and a visionary at age 14, or fully nine years before you publish the book.
   • You have to conceive of the idea to write the book at or before age 17, or at least six years before you write anything down.
   • You can't put anything down on paper until you're 22, and you can only allow yourself a little over a year to write the book, publishing it at age 23.
   • You have to be killed 14 years later, or in your 40^th year, because of the book. (Salman Rushdie knows about this one. He published the book The Satanic Verses in 1988, and then had to go into hiding because Islamic clerics in Iran considered it blasphemy and put a price on his head.)

4. Now, with these restrictions, you have to create a history of an entire civilization, covering a period of 1000 years. You have to place your civilization on a continent where other civilizations (Norse, Chinese, Egyptian) cannot interfere with your civilization during the time period covered by your history. To make things even more difficult, you have to provide an abbreviated version of an even older civilization on the same undiscovered continent. Both of these histories must allegedly deal with people who left the Middle East in an era of unrest, and there can be no record in the Old World of them ever having existed.

5. Because your two civilizations allegedly came from the Middle East, your history must include actions, words, deeds and traditions consistent with the Middle Eastern cultures. You can make up new actions, words, deeds and traditions, but you have to include enough old ones to provide continuity between the two. (It's only logical. European settlers in the New World did the same thing.) (ref: Nibley, Hugh, Lehi in the Desert and The World of the Jaredites. A beautiful two-in-one volume that any serious student of the Book of Mormon should read.)

6. In published form, your book should take between 400 and 500 pages, in English (see a modern copy of the Book of Mormon for page size and font size restrictions). You have to write in the first person as much as possible, to give the impression of a scribe or leader narrating the entire thing. (If you wish, you can include explanatory notes by the last alleged scribe, whose job you allege it was to compile the record.)

   But it can't be just one scribe. You have to use the "voices" of at least 20 different people, and the different voices have to be verified by word count, after you have finished writing. (ref: Talmage, James E., The Articles of Faith, and the Book of Mormon itself)

7. You have to invent 196 proper nouns — names of places and people (ref: pronunciation guide in the back of the BoM). Shakespeare and Tolkein are the only people who even come close to this record. But what's more important, the proper nouns you create have to use Hebrew and/or Egyptian roots, and have to mean something (ref. Nibley). But you can't tell anybody that that's what you're doing. You have to keep it a secret. Tolkein invented an entire language for Middle Earth (several languages, actually), but he left enough notes and hints that anyone can figure out what the names in his books mean. (refs: Tolkein, J.R.R. The Return of the King and The Silmarillion, also Nibley again)

8. In addition to your 196 invented names, you must include enough Biblical names to establish an imaginary connection between the lost civilizations you invent and the land of their origin.

9. You must follow the ancient Jewish traditions of assigning place names. For example, when Lehi's friend Ishmael dies, they bury him in a place that they call "Nahom", which means "mourning." (refs: Book of Mormon, 1 Nephi 16:34,35 and any decent Bible dictionary) But remember, you can't tell anybody that that's what you're doing. You have to keep it a secret. Like I said, Tolkein invented an entire language for Middle Earth (several languages, actually), but he left enough notes and glossaries that anyone can figure out what the place names in his books mean. Joseph Smith didn't leave a glossary.

10. You have to include Hebrew literary elements in your text, such as chiasmus, octets, couplets, and opposition. If you have chosen to use a Bible as your reference material, you have to use a translation in which these literary elements have not been recognized by the Bible scholars as of the day your book is published.

11. Again, part of this might be difficult, but let's see how well you can do: your history has to include the time of Jesus Christ's alleged mortal ministry. You have to claim that the people were aware of the prophecies preceding his coming, the time of his advent, and the time of his death and resurrection. You also have to include an account of his appearance to the people of your civilization.

12. You have to quote extensively from the Bible in your text. Why must you do this?
    • To support your claim that your civilizations had root in the Holy Land.
    • To quote parts of the Old Testament (and the New Testament!) that would lend credibility to your story, including relevant prophecies or references to lost civilizations.
    • To support the account of the visit of Christ to your civilization.

    In your quotations from the Bible, you will have to face a trade-off between copying them verbatim from the best translation you can find (risking the possibility of exposure as a fraud, if you copy parts that are later shown to be mistranslated) and changing the wording a little, to make it look as though you weren't copying. Either choice will expose you to accusations of fraud, even if you have the alleged authors cite their references (and make sure they don't use chapter and verse!).

13. You have to include some of the customs and geography of the Asian lands that the forefathers of your people allegedly traveled through at the beginning of the history (but remember, you're not allowed to research any of this — you have to guess at it all). For example, the Book of Mormon claims that Lehi's people traveled through the Arab peninsula, built a ship on the borders of the Indian Ocean, and sailed from there. The only place on the south side of the Arab peninsula with trees large enough to build a ship, and a suitable harbor for launching it, was a place now called Salalah, and it's exactly where the Book of Mormon places Lehi's people after their exodus from Jerusalem. At Joseph Smith's time (and today), Salalah was as dry and treeless as the rest of the coast. The local Arabs will tell you that it was once forested, but nobody told Joseph Smith that.

    The Book of Mormon also claims that Lehi's people used the powerful oath "As the Lord liveth, and as I live" in their dealings in the Middle East. This oath is in common use among the Bedouins even today (ref: Nibley).

14. Your story has to mesh well with the stories and legends of the modern, indigenous peoples of your "lost" continent, although you're not allowed to have any knowledge of those particular legends until after your book is published.

15. You must identify by name over two dozen cities built by this civilization, and dozens of other place names; however, you cannot draw, use or publish a map to keep your geography consistent. Even Tolkein couldn't write his stories without first constructing a decent map!

    You must do this with the full knowledge that nobody will be able to match your story to any of the known archaeological sites anywhere in the world, for over a hundred years. Again, you're exposing yourself to charges of fraud, remember that.

    But don't worry about that too much. It wasn't until the 20^th century that archaeological support for any of the persons or events in the Old Testament turned up. As for the New Testament, well, all the archaeological "evidences" offered up for the existence of a Jewish religious leader called "Jesus of Nazareth" have been discredited as fakes.

Now come the real toughies.

16. First, you cannot write down any of the story yourself. You must dictate it, from behind a curtain, to someone sitting at a desk on the other side. That person must write it down longhand. No computers allowed. At all. Anywhere.

17. When you dictate the story, you cannot look back on parts that you have already written, to help you maintain consistency. If you stop for a break, you must continue right from the point where you left off. (Otherwise, you'll never get the book finished in a year!) Think of it as "serial output."

    Even the Bible has problems with chronology, but your book cannot.

    You may think that's easy, but you will not be able to mix up any facts, chronology, names or any details at all. You will have to keep thousands of details straight, in your head, for over a year. (And this, in an age where people rely on Day Planners to remind them of the 3 things they need to buy on their way home from work tonight!)

18. You will not be able to correct any errors in fact, chronology, names or doctrine after the book is printed. We will allow for corrections of typos or grammar, and changes in style and page layout, but that's about all.

19. Your history must be primarily a religious history, and the doctrines it teaches must be consistent with the doctrines taught in the Bible (though not necessarily in the churches of the day). You must claim that what you wrote is meant to be a companion to the Bible, and another witness of Jesus Christ.

20. You must claim that what you wrote is a true story — that it really, truly happened. You must carry this conviction to your (early) grave.

21. You must also convince three of your best friends to sign a sworn statement that they believe it's a true story, and that they saw the ancient records form which you (allegedly) translated the story. They, too, must carry this conviction to their graves, even if your friendships go sour and they no longer have any need to keep up the pretense.

    You must convince eight other close friends to pull the same stunt.

22. Nobody else is allowed to see the ancient records. You have to invent a story about where they went, as convincing — or far-fetched — as the story you invented about where you got them in the first place.

23. You must convince one of your friends to mortgage all his property to pay for the printing costs.

24. You must be willing to face prison and even murder as a result of what you have written, knowing full well that your freedom could be bought by a simple admission of fraud. (Hey, politicians admit to wrongdoing all the time and get away with it!)

25. Your story, with the cooperation of your friends and family, has to be good enough to deceive millions of people, and survive over 150 years of efforts to squelch it. Even though you're an uneducated farm boy, your name and work has to outlive the names and works of all the doctors and ministers who opposed you while you were alive.

26. Your book has to be powerful enough to remain in publication for over 150 years.

If, after reading this list, you are still convinced that a 22-year-old, uneducated farm boy invented the Book of Mormon, then your story is even more incredible than Joseph Smith's.

Created by Ray Depew, 16 Feb 2002
Last edited by Ray Depew, 01 Aug 2007

© 1991 by Ray Depew. May be copied or reproduced for personal use only. Do not copy on paper or electronically for the purpose of wider distribution without the author's express permission. Do not sell copies.