Faith in Man or Faith in God

Since I’m posting this on Thanksgiving day I think I’m obligated to say I’m grateful for the Book of Mormon, how it makes me a better person, how it makes my home a happier place, what it teaches me about Jesus Christ, and the hope it gives me for an eternal future.

I will make a simple argument here.

My thesis:

Anyone who has read the Book of Mormon and believes it is a made-up story written by a man has more faith in the brilliance of a man than in the Glory of God. It is easier for that person to believe there is a man with otherworldly abilities than that God still speaks to humans.

Explanation –

Things that can’t be denied by any logical or thinking person:

1. The Book of Mormon exists. You can go get a copy now and read it.
2. The Book of Mormon was brought into existence in our day, for us to read, somehow.

If the above two points are true, then we can move on.

Next statements of truth:

1. Since the Book of Mormon exists, we must determine who played a role in creating it.

This leads us to only a couple options as far as I can tell. There may be other sub-options, but I think this mostly covers it. I’ve added sub points to each option to add important perspective:

1. Joseph Smith wrote it by his own mind and creativity.
   • Joseph Smith had a third-grade education.
   • There are many witnesses attesting to Joseph Smith’s involvement in the creation of the Book of Mormon.
   • If historical accounts are to be believed, Joseph Smith dictated it word for word without notes or reference materials.
2. Someone else wrote the Book of Mormon
   • This is hard to believe given countless eye-witness testimonies of Joseph Smith’s involvement in the creation of this book. It takes some creative gymnastics to determine how this could be true.
3. Joseph Smith wrote it with the assistance of somebody very learned, ex: Sydney Rigdon.
   • This would require some sort of explanation on why no one else ever came forward to claim writing such a brilliant book.
   • With any minor research we find much evidence to show Sydney Rigdon didn’t meet or know Joseph Smith until the Book of Mormon was published.
4. Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon by the power of God.
   • This would be taking the supposed creator of the book at his word.

I believe any basic research into this subject proves Joseph Smith’s direct involvement in the creation of the Book of Mormon. Whether that be through point 1 or point 4 will now be briefly discussed. If points 2 or 3 are to believed, then a vast and complex conspiracy has been going on for 200 years. For 200 years, no proof has come forth to show that anyone but Joseph Smith created the Book of Mormon. No one has come forward. No information has leaked.

If we come down to points 1 or 4, let’s address point 1, that Joseph Smith wrote the Book of Mormon by his own mind and creativity.

Let’s first just disregard the fact that he wrote it in 65 working days because I feel detractors will just say, “That’s not true” even though the historical account appears to support if not prove this. Let’s say Joseph Smith wrote it with as much time, editing, and re-editing as he needed (which many testimonies argue against, but for the sake of this argument, let’s say he did take months or years to write it before he turned 25 years old).

Those arguing Joseph Smith created the Book of Mormon from his own mind admit a man with little to no formal education, little to no access to any historical books or other reference materials, wrote a detailed account of a company leaving Jerusalem and travelling to the Americas. Instead of elaborating more on this, I will quote a challenge issued by Hugh Nibley to his students at BYU:

“Since Joseph Smith was younger than most of you and not nearly so experienced or well educated at the time he copyrighted the Book of Mormon, it should not be too much to ask you to hand in by the end of the semester (which will give you more time than he had) a paper of, say, five to six hundred pages in length.  Call it a sacred book if you will, and give it the form of a history.  Tell of a community of wandering Jews in ancient times; have all sorts of characters in your story, and involve them in all sorts of public and private vicissitudes [daily activities]; give them names — hundreds of them — pretending that they are real Hebrew and Egyptian names of circa 600 B.C.; be lavish with cultural and technical details — manners and customs, arts and industries, political and religious institutions, rites, and traditions, include long and complicated military and economic histories; have your narrative cover a thousand years.

Keep a number of interrelated local histories going at once; feel free to introduce religious controversy and philosophical discussion, but always in a plausible setting; observe the appropriate literary conventions and explain the derivation and transmission of your varied historical materials.  Above all, do not ever contradict yourself!  For now we come to the really hard part of this little assignment.  You and I know that you are making this all up — we have our little joke — but just the same you are going to be required to have your paper published when you finish it, not as fiction or romance, but as a true history!  After you have handed it in you may make no changes in it. . . .

What is more, you are to invite any and all scholars to read and criticize your work freely, explaining to them that it is a sacred book on a par with the Bible.  If they seem over-skeptical, you might tell them that you translated the book from original records by the aid of the Urim and Thummim — they will love that!  Further to allay their misgivings, you might tell them that the original manuscript was on golden plates, and that you got the plates from an angel.  Now go to work and good luck!” (The Prophetic Book of Mormon, F.A.R.M.S., 221-222)

I will add Alan C. Miner’s addition to this challenge, stating, “It shouldn’t be hard, living as we do in the computer world of the internet”:

“Because your story is supposed to be a religious record, include in your paper over 500 different descriptive titles for deity, all within a proper religious context that will not only explain these titles in relation to what we have in the Bible, but give added meaning and understanding to the text of the Bible and to your own story.  And while you are at it, have most all the proper names of people, places and things have intrinsic and symbolic meaning.  Because this is supposedly an ancient Hebrew record, give hundreds of ancient parallelistic Hebrew literary forms.  In fact, have the whole text written in parallelistic patterns.  Incorporate thousands of phrases from the Bible so that these intertextual usages give added meaning to both the Bible and the Book of Mormon.  Make sure that the biblical sources are from all different parts of the Bible, and for that added touch, use some extra-biblical texts.  But don’t limit yourself to just your own patterns of language, or that of the KJV Bible, also use Early Modern English terms that were dated near 1611 when the KJV Bible was first published and became the bible of the masses.  Weave in an underlying theme of covenants with the Lord, both culturally and scripturally using covenant terms and practices used in ancient times.  In fact, it would be a good idea to make every part of your narrative not only covenant-related, but Christ related as well. For one final challenge you must dictate your story to a scribe without the aid of a written script.  While you may be allowed to tell your scribe to adjust the spelling of proper names, you must leave your script as you dictate it, and never ask your scribe to tell you where you left off after lunch or the end of a day.  On his own, your scribe can adjust capitalization, punctuation, the spelling of traditional words, and some simple grammar, but that is all.  Dictate parts of your story in non-chronological order, and be sure to credit these parts of your story to different writers, varying your manner of using words so that a distinct separation of language style can be detected.”

What Joseph Smith wrote has been critiqued, criticized, evaluated, and been under a microscope for nearly 200 years. With additional evidence from archaeology, what we know about the Middle East and Jerusalem, and what we know about the Americas, the Book of Mormon is more validated, not disproven, despite what detractors may argue.

I hope this goes to illustrate how impossible this act would be. It would be miracle of extraordinary human skill, intelligence, and foresight (knowing things that hadn’t yet been discovered yet, like chiasmus).

Those who believe Joseph Smith wrote the book of Mormon through his own brilliance have more faith in the genius of a man than faith in the idea that God assisted in the matter. Put simply, you either have faith in the brilliance of Joseph Smith or in the Glory of God.

Those who believe Joseph Smith did not translate the Book of Mormon through the gift, power, and love of God “deny the power thereof” (2 Timothy 3:5, Joseph Smith History 1:19).

You must come to terms with this truth.  Either Joseph Smith was above and beyond the most brilliant man in the history of mankind.

Or. 

God loves His children and instituted a great work through Joseph Smith.

What does it say if you more easily believe in Joseph Smith than in God?

I am grateful for the Book of Mormon.