### Background Latter Day Saints believe that "plain and precious truths" were lost from the Bible : > Wherefore, thou seest that after the book hath gone forth through the hands of the great and abominable church, that **there are many plain and precious things taken away from the book**, which is the book of the Lamb of God. - (**1 Nephi 13:28**) LDS/Non-LDS Christian disputations often center on apparent discrepancies between the Christian Bible vs Mormon scriptures. ### Question If LDS believe important information that corroborates the Book of Mormon and Mormon beliefs were lost from the Christian Bible, are LDS and non-LDS Christian disputes always talking past one another? Can scriptural arguments ever be employed against a belief system like Latter Day Saint theology which always has the "escape hatch" of 1 Nephi 13:28?

In 1842, Joseph Smith, the founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (LDS) acquired writings in Egyptian hieroglyphics.These writings were genuine hieroglyphs and were the bases for his translation, the Book of Abraham (see sample in Wikipedia). But, after the discovery of the Rosetta Stone, linguists ascertained that Joseph Smith's translation of the hieroglyphs was not only inaccurate, but better described as fraudulent. His hieroglyphs contained no theological information and nothing about the biblical Patriarch Abraham. Thus,the main question arises,if Joseph Smith fraudulently translated his Book of Abraham, then what is the probability that he also committed fraud in his Book of Mormon, the very centerpiece of LDS?

2 Nephi 2:23 states > And they would have had no children; wherefore they would have > remained in a state of innocence, having no joy, for they knew no > misery; doing no good, for they knew no sin. Often, it is said that Adam and Eve *could* not of had children, based on this verse. But the verse says *would*, not *could*. Are there any other verses or latter day saint doctrine explaining whether or not they *could* have children?

I understand that the Bible, consisting of the Old and New Testaments, is the most translated book in the world. It seems that giving the Word of God to all the world is considered part of the Great Commission. Since the LDS church holds the Book of Mormon to be the Word of God, just like the Bible, what is the current total number of languages into which it has been translated. I would also be interested in statistics for the Pearl of Great Price and the Doctrines and Covenants.

The Book of Mormon speaks of an influential person in Jerusalem named Laban who was the keeper of the record of the Jews, and had power to command at least 50 men (see 1 Nephi 3:31 ). > "Laban hath the record of the Jews and also a genealogy of my > forefathers, and they are engraven upon plates of brass." (1 Nephi 3:1-27 ) We know Laban was a man of some degree of power and influence in Jerusalem, that he had servants, and a treasury, and kept the genealogy of the Jews in his treasury, but it apparently wasn't beneath him to go out and get black-out drunk in the streets (see 1 Nephi 4:7-8 ). Who was Laban? What position did he hold in Jewish society?

Close to 2,000 years elapsed after the ascension of Jesus Christ and the death of His Apostles until Joseph Smith had his first vision in 1820. In that vision Smith was told by two personages (presumably God the Father and the Son) that he must join none of the current churches because they were all corrupt. Apparently, men corrupted the principles of the gospel and made unauthorized changes in Church organization and priesthood ordinances. This is explained in detail here: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics/apostasy?lang=eng It should be noted that in the Bible God anticipated this would happen and there are strong warnings for those who apostatized. 1 John 2:19, "They went out from us but they were not really of us; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us; but they went out, in order that it might be shown that they all are not of us." There is also the Parable of the Wheat and the Tares that Jesus spoke of at Matthew 13:24-30. And what the Apostle Paul said at 2 Corinthians 13:5, "Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith, examine yourselves! Or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you--unless you fail the test?" Eventually apostates will be made known by their fruit, Matthew 7:16-20. So again, why did it take so long for God to do something about apostasy when He "supposedly" appeared to Joseph Smith in 1820? In view of this fact even before the resurrection of Jesus, He and His Apostles warned us that this would happen and how to recognize apostasy.

Most Mormons seem to be under the impression that the Community of Christ agreed to denounce the Book of Mormon as scripture in order to be accepted into the World Council of Churches. It's obvious that this isn't true, because the CofChrist names the Book of Mormon as accepted scripture in their Basic Beliefs . Did the Community of Christ denounce the Book of Mormon? If not, then why are the LDS under the impression that they did?

I know that the general answer to this question can be found easily. It was added to the Book in 1981, which is when Spencer W Kimball was the president of the Church. So it could probably be said that it was written under his direction - or something like that. However, I'm interested in more information than that. Also, although he did write at least one book I can think of , at that time President Kimball was having health problems which seem to me may have stopped him from doing much more than just approving writing work. I'm wondering if there's any specific information about who wrote the Introduction , who supervised the writing of it, or anything like that - or if it was just anonymously produced "by The Church".

[Reformed Egyptian](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reformed_Egyptian) is the language that Joseph Smith claimed the Golden Plates (or the Book of Mormon) was written in. But this seems to be a problem considering that there are no [non-LDS scholars that accept it as a legitimate language](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistics_and_the_Book_of_Mormon#Native_American_language-development) . So how do Mormons defend this language as real using actual evidence, rather than "just take it on faith?"

I apologize for the length of this question, but it requires establishing some premises that refute the most common response, being that the purpose of suffering is for us to learn and grow, and be tested . > Abraham 3:25 - And we will prove them herewith, to see if they will do all things whatsoever the Lord their God shall command them;. I've been thinking about this a long time and have been unable to find satisfactory answers. Please point out any flaws in my logic or research. According to the LDS Institute Doctrines of the Gospel manual : > Earth life, though brief, is crucial to us in our quest for eternal life. Here we receive bodies of flesh and bones and are tested in all things. Those who learn obedience and gain self-mastery will return to live with God the Eternal Father. In the 1977 April Ensign, Elder Bruce R. McConkie teaches that children who die before the age of accountability will be saved in the Celestial Kingdom: > Are all little children saved automatically in the celestial kingdom? > >To this question the answer is a thunderous yes, which echoes and re-echoes from one end of heaven to the other.... They are saved through the atonement and because they are free from sin. They come from God in purity; no sin or taint attaches to them in this life; and they return in purity to their Maker. This leads to another question then, which McConkie answers also. Will they be saved into the highest possible Celestial Kingdom (in other words they are not worse off in any way for dying young)? > "Will they have eternal life?" > > Eternal life is life in the highest heaven of the celestial world; it is exaltation; it is the name of the kind of life God lives.... In the providences of Him who is infinitely wise, the answer is in the affirmative. Salvation means eternal life; the two terms are synonymous; they mean exactly the same thing. Further down in the same page , the question of "Will children ever be tested?" is answered: > Absolutely not! Any idea that they will be tested in paradise or during the millennium or after the millennium is pure fantasy. At this point, it seems logical to wonder, given the immense amount of suffering that people face in this world, would you not be better off to die young? McConkie seems to anticipate this logical progression: > Are those who die better off than those who remain in mortality? > > We may rest assured that all things are controlled and governed by Him whose spirit children we are. He knows the end from the beginning, and he provides for each of us the testings and trials which he knows we need. President Joseph Fielding Smith once told me that we must assume that the Lord knows and arranges beforehand who shall be taken in infancy and who shall remain on earth to undergo whatever tests are needed in their cases. This accords with Joseph Smith’s statement: “The Lord takes many away, even in infancy, that they may escape the envy of man, and the sorrows and evils of this present world; they were too pure, too lovely, to live on earth.” (Teachings, pp. 196–97.) It is implicit in the whole scheme of things that those of us who have arrived at the years of accountability need the tests and trials to which we are subject and that our problem is to overcome the world and attain that spotless and pure state which little children already possess. All of this seems to suggest that: 1. It is possible to reach the highest levels of Salvation/Exaltation without going through mortal life and all the suffering it entails. 2. God can know our hearts and our purity without testing us in mortality (otherwise he could not know that those who die before the age of accountability are worthy of exaltation) 3. The test (and growth) in mortality is therefore unnecessary, which means that mortal life is unnecessary. 4. If mortal life is unnecessary than so is all of the suffering in the world. So my question is, what is the purpose of suffering? It is not a requirement for us to learn and grow and be tested, otherwise kids who die before the age of accountability could not be saved (yet they are). Why would an all-loving (omni-benevolent) Heavenly Father subject us to unnecessary torture (in many cases)? Logically, it also seems that one of the best things a parent could do for their children would be to hope they die prior to reaching the age of accountability. This is obviously a disturbing thing to say and will no doubt create an emotional reaction (it's difficult to even type for me), but it does seem logical. By having your children grow, you are risking their exaltation and rolling the dice (they might grow up and reject the faith). If you love them enough to let them die, they could be guaranteed eternal exaltation. If that is not correct, where is the flaw in the logic?

According to the Book of Mormon itself, it was written by many ancient prophets. The authors of this study made the assumption > that the writers of each verse, or partial verse, could be identified according to information given in the text. The authors of the study found their assumption accurate. > Through the process of assigning each quoted segment a source, we identified over one hundred authors or originators. Unfortunately the study was conducted in the infancy of the internet and I haven't been able to locate the database of verse-author assignments. What available resource provides the author of each verse according to internal authorship statements?

In Jewish history around 150 years before Christ came Jews began taking the name Jehovah out of the Bible. In the book of Mormon, the record of the bible is on brass plates claimed from Laban 600 BC. Why is it that in the 600 BC version the name Jehovah only appears once when quoting the Bible, when in the old testament manuscripts it appears over 7,000 times? My question is relating mainly to when books of the old testament are quoted in the Book of Mormon. Mostly in 2 Nephi.

I understand the Book of Mormon has a list of witnesses. However, I have heard that these witnesses may not have actually ever seen the gold plates that contained the original manuscripts for the Book of Mormon, but were witnesses in a different sort of way. So, just how many people physically saw and/or touched the gold plates from which Joseph Smith is said to have translated the Book of Mormon? *Note: Martin Harris, one of the witnesses, later explicitly denied seeing the plates with his physical eyes. See article. .*

Simple question: non-LDS Christians believe the testimonies of the apostles, yet they reject the testimonies of the (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Witnesses) & (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight_Witnesses) witnesses to the golden plates. Why? *In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every matter be established* (2 Cor 13:1) -- why is this reason not enough? _____ EDIT: Why should they? From a Latter-day Saint perspective, because this is one of the positive arguments for the divine inspiration of the Book of Mormon -- which should be of the utmost importance if it happens to be the case. See [this answer](https://christianity.stackexchange.com/a/83978/50422) and [this answer](https://christianity.stackexchange.com/a/83904/50422) for example presentations of this argument. _____ Related: [Is there anything close to a consensus on how to assess the credibility of eyewitness accounts as supportive evidence for supernatural beliefs?](https://christianity.stackexchange.com/q/84551/50422) _____ For a defense of the credibility of the Book of Mormon witnesses (the opposite view), see https://christianity.stackexchange.com/q/89274/50422

This topic has come up occasionally in other posts, but I found no question on the site asking about this specifically. *** In 1834, ED Howe published *Mormonism Unvailed* [sic], claiming based upon the work of Philastus Hurlbut that the Book of Mormon, published in 1830, plagiarized an earlier work of Solomon Spaulding entitled *Manuscript Found*. Most proponents of this theory suggest that Sidney Rigdon served as the connection between Solomon Spaulding and Joseph Smith, who Latter-day Saints believe translated the Book of Mormon from an ancient record by the gift and power of God (source ) Spaulding died in 1816 without having completed or published *Manuscript Found*; from his own correspondence we know he was working on the manuscript in 1812. The manuscript remained in the possession of his family until the 1830s. The manuscript was lost for several decades and was rediscovered in 1884; the popularity of the theory declined after this time. How do Latter-day Saints respond to the Spaulding theory? *** Background on Solomon Spaulding's manuscript and the theories associated with it can be found here .

I've never seen a Mormon establish doctrine on the Book of Mormon, only arguing that the Book of Mormon is "another testament of Jesus Christ." So, since Mormons believe that is the case, surely they base some doctrine on the book of Mormon. So what important doctrines do Mormons believe are taught in the book of Mormon that we couldn't find in the Bible already?

I am slightly confused about foreordination. What I thought I had understood was that foreordination is happening in the premortal life retro-causally because of the faith and good choices in this life. That's how I used to understand Alma 13, since it talks about how the foreordination happens due to the foreknowledge of God and their faith and good works (which I assumed means in this life due to the close proximity of mentioning foreknowledge??). This all makes sense for me considering God's foreknowledge of our mortal life and our ignorance of the premortal due to the veil. It is in line with what I think to understand from D&C, that the elect are elect because they don't harden their hearts, not that they don't harden their hearts because they are elect. However when I look up foreordination on the church website, I am lead to understood a foreordination is result of faith and good choices in premortal life. Which has me scratching my head because Alma 13:5 explicitely calls out choices that would be made. So, which is it? Maybe both?

Multiple sources have put forward this argument. For example, the Journal of Book of Mormon Studies article *Stylometric Analyses of the Book of Mormon: A Short History* ([link](https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1492&context=jbms)) affirms: > **Abstract** > The abundance of skeptical theories about who wrote the Book of Mormon has led many scholars to seek scientific data to discover the > answer. One technique is stylometry. Having first been developed in > the 1850s, stylometry seeks to find the “wordprint” of a text. > Although these stylistic studies are not as accurate as a human’s > fingerprint, they can give researchers a good idea either of > differences in style between authors or of who might have written a > text from a list of possible authors. Beginning in the 1960s > individuals have completed four major stylometric studies on the Book > of Mormon, studies that varied in both findings and quality of > research. In addition to these four studies, this article presents a > fifth study—using extended nearest shrunken centroid (ENSC) > classification—that incorporates and improves on the earlier research > > [...] > > **Conclusion** Stylometric analyses of the Book of Mormon have generated much interest over the past thirty years. Some of these analyses have produced interesting information, but some of the studies have been characterized by hyperbole, faulty reasoning, and misapplication of statistical methods. **When examining all the evidence, our overall conclusion is that the Book of Mormon displays multiple writing styles throughout the text consistent with the book’s claim of multiple authors and that the evidence does not show the writing styles of alleged nineteenth century authors to be similar to those in the Book of Mormon. Further, the claims thus far put forward for alternative authorship of the Book of Mormon, other than as described by Joseph Smith, are untenable**. Similarly, the article *Is Stylometry the Ultimate Proof that Joseph Smith Did Not Write the Book of Mormon?* ([link](https://searchisaiah.org/headlines/is-stylometry-the-ultimate-proof-that-joseph-smith-did-not-write-the-book-of-mormon/)) states: > [...] Together this presentation helped the audience consider **the impossibility of someone of Joseph Smith’s age and limited experience working with Oliver Cowdery over 60 working days to compose anything so complicated as the Book of Mormon**. It worked for me and others in the audience. > [...] Like Fields and Roper, many other scholars have used stylometry to show the distinctive styles of the book. These studies show that the major contributors, Nephi, Mormon, Moroni and Alma, all have distinctive “wordprints” in comparison to Joseph Smith’s. **Clearly, he did not author the book, but a team of many writers compiled it and none of them were Joseph’s contemporaries**. User @HoldToTheRod presents the stylometry argument too in his [answer](https://christianity.stackexchange.com/a/83978/50422) to the question https://christianity.stackexchange.com/q/83901/50422 : > *** > 1. Positive arguments > *** > In order to pretend to be concise I'll just focus on 3. > > A. *Stylometry* > > (Drawn from *Book of Mormon Authorship – New Light on Ancient > Origins*) > > Stylometry studies word-prints and offers a means of determining who > wrote an anonymous text. Like a fingerprint, people leave traceable > patterns in their writing. Very small samples (e.g. a few verses) are > insufficient for statistically-significant stylometric analysis, but > longer passages are quite relevant and the scientific apparatus is > well-studied. Stylometry has been used to determine authorship of a > variety of documents, including some of the Federalist Papers. > > An author’s word-print has been shown to survive translation, and > authors who try to game the system and mimic another author’s style > have been betrayed by their own unconscious writing habits—stylometry > can catch the ruse. Even when an author has multiple characters who > speak and behave differently, the author’s word-print can be > discerned. > > The Book of Mormon has been subjected to stylometric analysis which > has demonstrated, among other things: > - Neither Joseph Smith, Oliver Cowdery, Sidney Rigdon, nor Solomon Spaulding wrote the Book of Mormon > - The Book of Mormon was written by multiple people. I.e. Nephi, Alma, Mormon, Moroni etc. are not just different characters—their > words were written by different people > > The authors of the aforementioned *Book of Mormon Authorship* provide > an extensive discussion of the statistical data, and they offer > rebuttals to counterarguments that have failed to capture the depth of > the stylometric analysis that has been performed. _____ **Question** How do non-LDS Christians respond to the stylometry argument for the authenticity of the Book of Mormon? _____ **Related questions** - https://christianity.stackexchange.com/q/92431/50422 - https://christianity.stackexchange.com/q/83906/50422 - https://christianity.stackexchange.com/q/84581/50422 - https://christianity.stackexchange.com/q/89274/50422 - https://christianity.stackexchange.com/q/83901/50422

Inspired by [my previous question on the divine inspiration of the Bible](https://christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/83868/what-are-the-strongest-arguments-for-the-belief-that-the-bible-was-supernaturall) , I would like to ask a similar question on the Book of Mormon: According to Latter-day Saints, what are the strongest apologetic arguments for the divine inspiration of the Book of Mormon? What evidence do we have to be confident that the Book of Mormon was supernaturally inspired by God? *Note: the counterpart question can be found at [What are scholarly objections to the divine inspiration of the Book of Mormon?](https://christianity.stackexchange.com/q/83906/50422)* _____ Related - https://christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/6039/what-is-the-biblical-basis-for-believing-in-the-book-of-mormon - https://christianity.stackexchange.com/q/89274/50422

This question is inspired by comments from this post: https://christianity.stackexchange.com/a/92394/35508 In this question, I am referring to the Bible as the 66 books of the Old Testament and New Testament (as per the KJV). For any religious text such as these two, when considering how or why that work came into existence, there is at least the explanation and account as presented in the text itself. If one is to reject the validity of that account, they would need to be able to present a plausible alternative explanation to explain how and why that work was created. At the least, this explanation would have to account for the motivations of the authors and any other witnesses who attest to the veracity of the message given. Additionally, it may have to account for any information included in that work which would otherwise not have been known to the authors. How much of a stretch would any alternate theories have to go in order to be a plausible alternate explanation of each? **Is there any consensus on which of the two works would have a more simple alternate explanation?** There are people who both believe and reject belief in both books, and there are many reasons one may do so. Furthermore, there may be good reasons to believe a work which otherwise has a plausible alternate explanation, and so this question does not address the believability of either account. This is only to examine the most simple alternate explanation for each. # Edit First, I would like to thank those of you who have attempted an answer. However, from the responses, it seems that I would need to clarify that I am not asking about whether either account is actually true or supported by evidence. I am only interested in how plausible an alternative explanation could be for either work. This would include things like describing least number of people would have to be involved in providing false or mistaken information. This may also involve whether or not there were any information included which could not have been readily obtained by the alleged author(s) apart from the proposed narrative. It can be assumed that people in a time when they are writing a work would have information that is available to people in that time and place, regardless of whether or not they are telling the truth. It might also be helpful to include potential motivations for why people might have attempted to create these works.