Does the Book of Mormon plausibly reflect God’s hand at work in restoring Christ’s gospel? Or, is it likely that Joseph Smith fabricated it? Here is a challenge for you.
1. You are 23 years of age, and have no more than three years of formal education. You have spent your life in backwoods wilderness communities.
2. Write a history of a distant ancient land (e.g., Tibet) covering a period from 600 B.C. to 450 A.D. (Why ancient Tibet? Because you probably know no more about Tibet than Joseph Smith or anyone else knew about ancient Meso-America in 1830).
3. Write your history on the basis of what you now know. There was no library that held information for Joseph Smith. You must use none. There is to be no research of any kind.
4. Your history must be 531 pages and over 300,000 words in length.
5. This record is to contain the history of two distinct nations, along with the histories of other contemporary nations and societies.
6. Describe their religious, economic, political, and social cultures and institutions. Cover every phase of their society, including the names of their coins.
7. Change your style of writing throughout the text. Many ancient authors contributed to the Book of Mormon, each with his own style.
8. Weave into your history profound insights about Jesus Christ and the pattern of Christian living.
9. Include in your book fifty-four chapters dealing with wars, twenty-one historical chapters, fifty-five chapters on visions and prophecies. Remember, when you write visions and prophecies, you must have your record agree with the Bible. Write twenty-one chapters on the ministry of Christ clarifying both Old Testament prophecies and the New Testament record.
10. Include in your manuscript actual modes of travel, descriptions of their clothing, crops, mourning customs, and types of government. Invent about 280 new names that will stand up under scrutiny through the years as to their proper application and derivation.
11. Properly use figures of speech, similes, metaphors, narration, exposition, descriptions, oratory, epic lyric, and parables unknown at the time of your writing, but later corroborated by scholars not of your faith.
12. Many of the facts, claims, ideas, and statements given as truthful in your writing must be inconsistent with the prevailing beliefs of your day.
13. Invite the ablest scholars and experts to examine the text with care, and strive diligently to see that your book gets into the hands of those eager to prove it a forgery, and who are most competent to expose any flaw in it.
14. Thorough investigation, scientific and historical evidence, and archeological discoveries for the next 175 years must verify its claims and prove detail after detail to be true, although many of the details you put in your history are still buried beneath the soil.
15. The book must not contain any internal inconsistencies. The text must not contain any statement that contradicts other statements elsewhere in the volume.
16. Claim that your narrative is not fiction with moral value, but true and sacred history.
17. Claim that your knowledge came from divine origin although many contrary theories as to its origin must arise. After years of discovery and examination, they must fail. The strength of your claim must not decrease as time passes, but actually increase as alternative explanations are systematically disproved.
18. Fulfill many Bible prophecies, especially as to the manner in which this work shall come forth, to whom it is to be delivered, its purposes, and its accomplishments.
19. Produce this record, not in the peaceful atmosphere of your home and community, but under the most trying of circumstances, including being driven from your home numerous times and receiving constant threats upon your life.
20. Under these circumstances, complete your book as outlined above in 60 days.
21. Other than a few grammatical corrections, make no later changes in the text. The first edition as you dictate it to your secretary must stand.
22. Talk a friend into mortgaging all his holdings to have it printed.
23. Call down an angel from heaven in the middle of the day and have him bear testimony to three honest, dignified citizens of your community that the record is the word of God. These witnesses must bear the angel's testimony to the world, not for profit or gain, but under great sacrifice and severe persecution. Their testimony of the work itself, and of the angelic visitation, must stand even to their deaths in spite of these men turning against you personally.
24. Publish this work to every nation, kindred, tongue, and people declaring it to be the word of God and another witness for the Lord Jesus Christ.
25. For the next 20 years after publishing your text, you must watch as those that accept it, your family and your loved ones, are persecuted, driven repeatedly from their homes, tortured and killed. Tens of thousands must undergo the most extreme hardships in your presence because they believe your claims concerning the origin and content of what you have written.
26. You must gain no wealth from your work, but multiple times lose all that you have. Like those that believe you, you must submit yourself to the most vile persecution. And finally, after 20 years of this, willingly give your own life for your testimony concerning your work.
27. Over 60,000 “salesmen” must be so convinced by the message of the book that they gladly give up two years of their lives to take it to all corners of the world. These missionaries must bear record to the world that they know the record to be true because they have put it to the test and found it to be true, not by the persuasions of man, but by the power of the Holy Ghost. They not only pay their own way, but return rejoicing that the time spent endures as one of the highlights of their lives. They receive nothing in return for their efforts but the joy of having shared this message with others.
28. For over 175 years, millions of honorable men and women from literally all walks of life in all nations must accept this work – its origins and its teachings – even to the point of laying down their lives rather than denying their testimony of it. It must resonate within the hearts of both dignitaries and common peasants.
29. The power of your work must bless the spiritual and overall well-being of millions of people so that they become a real influence for good throughout the world.
30. Include within the record this promise: "And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these are not true; and if ye 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." (Moroni 10:4)
Reason alone cannot prove the validity of the Book of Mormon. Yet clearly, The Book of Mormon cannot be dismissed out of hand. “The primary evidence for the authenticity or truth of the Book of Mormon comes from God. As promised in the Book of Mormon, anyone can know of its truth by reading it and asking God with a sincere heart and with real intent to know that it is true. "With real intent" means that those who ask must be willing or committed to act upon a manifestation once it is received. Otherwise, there is no promise. The Holy Ghost confirms the truth by revelation directly to the individual. All other evidences for authenticity of the Book of Mormon are secondary. Millions of people have testified that they have received a personal witness from God by the power of the Holy Ghost that the Book of Mormon is true.” (www.lds.org) To those with sincere hearts, real intent, and faith in Christ, the sure proof of a witness from God will come. “When he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth.” (John 16:13)
The Book of Mormon stands as credible evidence of God’s fulfilling of Biblical prophecy, of Jesus Christ’s words, and of Christ’s reality as our Savior and Redeemer.
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