The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints is one of the fastest growing religious groups in the world, with an
international membership of over 15 million.1 Its current assets
total a minimum of $40 billion, with over $8 billion in annual gross income. Financial
gain comes from its profit-making businesses and investments, and imposing a
compulsory 10% income tax (“tithe”) on its members.2
The founder of Mormonism, Joseph Smith,
Jr., alleged to have been visited by Moroni, an angel of God, on 21 September
1823. This messenger purportedly revealed to him the location of an ancient
book, engraved on gold plates, which contained “a record of the fulness of the
divine laws and covenants” which God had delivered to the ancient inhabitants
of the Americas. With these gold plates were two transparent stones, called
Urim and Thummim, which Smith was to use in translating the book into English. Four
years later he supposedly received the plates, and the first edition of the
Book of Mormon was published in 1830.
Three other men (Oliver Cowdery [Smith’s
cousin], David Whitmer, and Martin Harris) also claimed to have seen the plates
and the angel and heard the voice of God. Their testimony is printed in the
front of the Book of Mormon. But how reliable are these witnesses? It is
interesting that although they were all ordained as high priests, apostles, and
church presidents, each left the Mormon Church within a few years, denouncing
Joseph Smith, Jr. as being guilty of numerous crimes. In return the Mormon
Church condemned them as reprobates and criminals. Whichever may be true, the
testimony of these witnesses destroys the Book of Mormon’s credibility.
There were also eight others who claimed
to have seen the plates. Five were related to David Whitmer (one of the “three
witnesses”), and the others were Joseph Smith, Jr.’s father and two brothers.
By 1838, however, all of them who were still alive had left the Church, except
Smith’s family (cf. R. C. Evans, Forty Years in the Mormon Church: Why I
Left It 24-26). Further, of the first twelve apostles appointed in the
Mormon Church and chosen by the “three witnesses” (Church History 1:541),
seven were excommunicated (LDS Church News 50-51, cited in The Utah
Evangel [Jan.-Feb. 1987]: 6).
What about the testimony of Joseph Smith,
Jr. himself? Can he be trusted? Today the Mormons portray him as a humble,
godly man who simply answered the divine call to restore true religion. However,
the facts of history paint a different picture of Smith. In 1826, three years
after his alleged angelic visit, Joseph Smith, Jr. was arrested, tried and
found guilty of fraud in Bainbridge, New York. Oliver Cowdery, one of the
“three witnesses,” reported that before the plates were found, “some very
officious person complained of him [Smith] as a disorderly person, and brought
him before the authorities of the county” (Latter Day Saints’ Messenger and
Advocate [Oct. 1835] 2:200-201).
The account of the trial was first
published in Fraser’s Magazine in Feb. 1873 (7:229-30), in which Smith,
described as “a disorderly person and an impostor,” confessed to using a seer
stone to find hidden treasure for purposes of fraud and deception. As early as
1831 these events were mentioned in a letter published in the Evangelical
Magazine and Gospel Advocate, stating that for several years prior to the
appearance of the Book of Mormon, Smith “was about the country in the character
of a glass-looker: pretending, by means of a certain stone, or glass, which he
put in a hat, to be able to discover lost goods, hidden treasures, mines of gold
and silver . . .” (120). The letter went on to explain that Smith was “arrested
as a disorderly person, tried and condemned before a court of justice.”
In the court record Smith confessed that
“for three years” prior to 1826 he had used a stone placed in his hat to find
treasures or lost property. It is interesting that his money-digging activities
began in 1823, the very time that he claims to have been visited by Moroni and
received knowledge of the gold plates and transparent stones.
For years the Mormon Church has denied the
authenticity of this court document. The Mormon scholar Francis W. Kirkham
agreed that if the court record could be proven authentic, “then it follows
that his [Smith’s] believers must deny his claimed divine guidance which led
them to follow him . . . . How could he be a prophet of God, the leader of the
Restored Church to these tens of thousands, if he had been the superstitious
fraud which ‘the pages from a book’ declared he confessed to be?” (A New
Witness for Christ in America 1:486-87). Dr. Hugh Nibley, in his attempt to
discredit this document, wrote: “. . . if this court record is authentic it is
the most damning evidence in existence against Joseph Smith” (The Myth
Makers 142). In the August 1971 issue of the Salt Lake City Messenger,
the discovery of a document was announced which proved the authenticity of the
published court record. It was the original bill of the 20 March 1826 trial, in
which Joseph Smith, Jr. is called “The Glass looker.” A copy of this document
is published in Jerald and Sandra Tanner’s Mormonism-Shadow or Reality? 33.
Joseph Smith, Jr. is hailed by his
followers as a martyred hero, who “willingly” gave his life for his testimony. But
the facts of history tell us that he shot three of his assailants before he was
killed (Time [4 August 1997]:52; cf. History of the Church 7:100-103).
The Mormons may celebrate Joseph Smith, Jr. as a martyr, but he certainly did
not go willingly!
Furthermore, where are the gold plates? Can
they be examined so that Smith’s story may be verified? Smith conveniently
claimed: “When, according to arrangements, the messenger called for them, I
delivered them up to him; and he has them in his charge until this day . . .” The
plates were supposedly written in a language called “the reformed Egyptian,”
and the Book of Mormon states: “But the Lord knoweth the things which we have written,
and also that none other people knoweth our language; and because that none
other people knoweth our language, therefore he hath prepared means for the
interpretation thereof” (Mormon 9:32, 34). Thus Smith, with the aid of the Urim
and Thummim, was the only one able to translate the plates, and the world is
asked to believe that his “inspired translation” is the word of God.
Smith supposedly copied some of the
characters off the plates and Martin Harris (one of the “three witnesses”) took
them, along with Smith’s translation, to Professor Charles Anthon for
examination. Professor Anthon purportedly said that “the translation was
correct, more so than any he had before seen translated from the Egyptian.” Harris
claimed that Professor Anthon gave him a certificate of authenticity, but then
tore it to pieces when he was told the background of the writing (Joseph
Smith-History 1:64-65, in The Pearl of Great
Price 56-57).
Isn’t it ironic that Professor Anthon
could determine the accuracy of Smith’s translation when the Book of Mormon
maintains that “none other people knoweth our language”? How did Professor
Anthon learn “the reformed Egyptian” since no other literature in that language
exists? The truth is, Professor Anthon wrote a letter to E. D. Howe on 17 Feb.
1834 in which he denies the statements attributed to him by the Mormons. He
said their claim “is perfectly false,” and considered the incident “a trick,
perhaps a hoax.” His entire letter is reproduced in Walter Martin’s The
Kingdom of the Cults 181-82.
The Mormon Apostle Le Grand Richards
wrote: “There is not an honest man or woman in this world who loves the Lord
who wouldn’t join this Church if they knew what it was” (Deseret News [22
Jan. 1966]:16). After honestly examining the facts, however, and coming to know
the true history of Mormonism, one’s love for the Lord would lead him/her in a
different direction.
--Kevin L. Moore
Endnotes:
1 See “Mormonism is
fastest-growing faith in half of USA,” USA Today 2012,
<http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/religion/story/2012-05-02/religion-census-mromon/54701198/1>;
also “Mormons Are Fastest Growing Religion,” CBN 2014,
<http://www.cbn.com/spirituallife/churchandministry/evangelism/mormons_are_fastest_growing_religion.aspx>.
2 See Time (4 August 1997): 50-57; and more recently Bloomberg Businessweek, “How the Mormons Make Money” (18 July
2012),
<http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-07-10/how-the-mormons-make-money>.
Addendum:
Since
this article was posted, the Mormon Church has publicly acknowledged that its
founder, Joseph Smith, Jr., was married to up to 40 women, including a
14-year-old girl and others who were already married. They seek to vindicate Smith
by alleging that God commanded polygamy and then later retracted it. See <www.lds.org/topics/plural-marriage-in-kirtland-and-nauvoo?lang=eng>.
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