The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commonly known as the Mormon church, has widely advertised the Book of Mormon as “another testament of Jesus Christ.” How reliable is it and other Mormon scriptures? What evidence might a Mormon offer in favor of them, and how might a Catholic respond?
Robert L. Millet is professor of ancient scripture at Brigham Young University. Jimmy Akin is senior apologist at Catholic Answers.
Robert Millet:
Latter-day Saints (Mormons) believe the Bible is the word of God as delivered to ancient prophets and apostles in the Old World.
We also believe in modern revelation, continuing conversation between God and his authorized servants on earth.
Our concept of post-biblical revelation is based on the knowledge that God loves his children in all ages and is no respecter of persons; God revealed himself to prophets anciently; God will not do anything unless he reveals it to/through his servants, the prophets (Amos 3:7); and to claim that the Bible is the final revelation of divine truth, the “end of the prophets,” is to claim more for the Bible than it claims for itself.
While critical observers may doubt the credibility of angels and golden plates in 19th-century America, Mormons are quick to point out that every major religious tradition—especially Jewish, Christian, and Muslim—had at its origins one or several miraculous events, whether that be a bush that burns and is not consumed (Moses), a bodily resurrection from the dead (Jesus), or angelic dictation of a holy book (Muhammed).
Jimmy Akin:
Catholics believe that God’s word is expressed through the Bible and sacred Tradition passed down from Christ and the apostles.
We acknowledge that God continues to guide the Church, particularly through the hierarchy Christ established. At times, God gives individuals private revelations, though these do not disclose new doctrines.
The Bible does not say explicitly that it is the final public revelation before the Second Coming (something known by Tradition). But the New Testament acknowledges the uniqueness of God’s revelation through his Son (Heb. 1:1-2) and that the Faith “was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3).
Consequently, “Christian faith cannot accept ‘revelations’ that claim to surpass or correct the revelation of which Christ is the fulfillment” (Catechism of the Catholic Church 67).
The Mormon scriptures claim to do just this (1 Nephi 13:21-41), and that gives Catholics reason to reject them.
Robert Millet:
Mormons feel that the only sure and reliable test for determining the truthfulness of religious claims, such as the veracity of the Book of Mormon, is spiritual. That is, the things of God are known only by the power of the Spirit of God (1 Cor. 2:11).
The process of coming to know entails actually reading the book (rather than what “experts” have said about it), pondering its contents, considering the spirit that attends it, entertaining for a time a willful suspension of disbelief, and praying earnestly to the one Being in the universe who knows all things (Matt. 7:7; James 1:5).
Physical evidence will be forthcoming in time, but wise seekers after truth will not allow their faith to be held hostage by what science has or has not yet discovered.
Jimmy Akin:
It is reasonable for a person who has not yet identified God’s revelation to be prayerfully open to whether a particular, reported source of revelation might be genuine. However, once he has identified an authentic source of revelation, additional reports of revelation must be judged in light of it.
It does not make sense for a person who has already recognized the authority of God’s word in the Bible and Sacred Tradition to be prayerfully open to a source that contradicts that.
It would have been wrong for an Israelite to willfully suspend his disbelief in order to be prayerfully open to the prophets of Ba’al, and it would be wrong for a Catholic to do the same toward sources that contradict the Catholic faith—particularly without compelling evidence.
The various Mormon teachings that contradict the Catholic faith belong to another discussion, but in light of them, Mormons need to offer Catholics more than an invitation to prayerful openness in favor of their scriptures.
Robert Millet:
Let me respond this way: Why cannot God reveal new doctrines?
Didn’t God “disclose new doctrines” in and through the Incarnation? Didn’t the supernal teachings of the Gospel of John on the divine Sonship of Jesus supplement what the Gospel of Mark had offered?
What of doctrinal developments or inspired direction that came to the post-Pentecostal Christian church, such as the gospel being taken to the Gentiles (Acts 10) or the decisions of the Jerusalem Council (Acts 15)?
Didn’t the revelation that came to Peter and Cornelius “surpass or correct” the previous teachings that the gospel was to be taken only to “the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matt. 10:5-6; 15:24)?
In our vigilance concerning the spurious, is there also not a danger in closing ourselves to what God may yet choose to say through his earthly servants?
Isn’t it a bit audacious for finite human beings to state categorically what the Almighty can and cannot do?
Do we have the power or authority to seal the heavens, to close the canon, to say to God, in essence, “We will receive this and that and no more”?
Jimmy Akin:
The question is not what God can do but what he has chosen to do. Since he has chosen to tell us in Scripture and Tradition that the Faith has been “once for all delivered to the saints,” that means he has chosen not to reveal new points of faith.
We must check our subjective impressions with objective facts whenever possible, for “there is a way which seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death” (Prov. 14:12).
Robert Millet:
I too would be nervous about a purported revelation that contradicts the Bible, but one should not confuse contradiction with additional light and truth.
I presume when you say that Mormons “need to offer Catholics more than an invitation to prayerful openness,” you mean that we need to provide rational and empirical “proof” for the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon.
I’m just grateful that honest truth seekers through the centuries were not required to rest their faith in the Virgin Birth, the feeding of the 5,000, the raising of Lazarus, or the Resurrection on archaeological, historical, or linguistic evidence of the same.
People would have waited a long time before they would have been prepared to believe.
Jimmy Akin:
One need not have a background in apologetics or Bible scholarship to embrace the Faith, but having embraced it, one is obliged to remain in it. St. Paul tells us: “Even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to that which we preached to you, let him be accursed” (Gal. 1:8).
If you want someone to change his religion, then at the very least you need to offer compelling evidence that isn’t purely subjective.
If I were asking a Mormon to consider becoming Catholic, I could provide an enormous amount of objective evidence in favor of the Bible.
Just considering the question of whether it is actually a collection of ancient documents, I could point to the fact that it is written in known ancient languages that are still understood today; that it refers to numerous individuals, peoples, and places whose existence can be verified independently of the Bible; and that we in fact have manuscripts of it that go back to antiquity and are, in some cases, actually thousands of years old.
Nothing remotely like this body of evidence can be amassed for the Mormon scriptures that claim to be ancient. They therefore lack credibility on the basic question of whether they are ancient documents in the first place.
So I ask: What evidence is there that Joseph Smith didn’t just make them up?
Robert Millet:
American religious historian Randall Balmer has written: “I believe because of the epiphanies, small and large, that have intersected my path—small, discrete moments of grace when I have sensed a kind of superintending presence outside of myself. I believe because these moments . . . are too precious to discard, and I choose not to trivialize them by reducing them to rational explanation. I believe because, for me, the alternative to belief is far too daunting. I believe because, [in] the twenty-first century, belief itself is an act of defiance in a society still enthralled by the blandishments of Enlightenment rationalism.”
In summary, Latter-day Saints hold tenaciously to a tenet of the Christian faith that we fear is gradually being lost.
In a world overrun with technological advances, at a time when we are in the midst of an information explosion, we maintain the quiet confidence that God can inspire his children, can make sacred things known to them, can answer their prayers and reveal truth by the power of his Spirit. “If any of you lack wisdom,” James wrote, “let him ask of God” (Jas. 1:5).
Physical evidence or tangible proof is a wonderful supplement to one’s faith, but for us the core, the crux, the rock upon which Christians must build is the revealed witness that Jesus is the Christ and that his gospel is the only means by which salvation comes.
Jimmy Akin:
We’ve noted the role of subjective experience and the need to check subjective impressions with objective evidence.
Despite the enormous emphasis it places on the subjective in evangelistic appeals, the LDS church seems to acknowledge the role of objective evidence in principle.
It prints the testimonies of the three and eight witnesses in each copy of the Book of Mormon as confirmation for the existence of the golden plates.
Similarly, with the Book of Abraham it prints facsimiles of Egyptian writings along with Joseph Smith’s notes on what they mean.
These are printed with the Mormon scriptures, where they give the appearance of objective confirmation to non-experts, but Mormon representatives are often reluctant to bring them up in apologetic discussions.
Presumably, this is because of the problems with them. For example, the Three Witnesses say that they saw the plates “by the power of God, and not of man” because “an angel of God came down from heaven” and revealed them—suggesting a subjective vision.
The Eight Witnesses claim they saw and handled the plates and saw engravings on them. However, there are difficulties here as well.
Almost all eleven witnesses belonged to two families and were related by marriage or blood, meaning they were not eleven independent, objective observers.
One witness—Martin Harris—later said that all eleven had seen the plates only in a vision. Joseph Smith’s brother William said that his father and two brothers were allowed only to pick up a cloth-covered box that Joseph claimed the plates were in.
All the witnesses except Smith’s father and two brothers later left or were excommunicated from the Mormon church. This does not lend credibility to their testimony.
Robert Millet:
First of all, Latter-day Saints are indeed not only interested in but linked inextricably to the physical world. We believe that Jesus Christ was a real man in real time who lived among real people.
In addition, we believe that lack of physical evidence at a given time does not invalidate the claim—any more than a lack of physical proof that Jesus rose from the dead or that Saul of Tarsus encountered that Risen Lord on the road to Damascus or that Joseph Smith was visited by angels and translated the Book of Mormon by the gift and power of God does not invalidate those experiences.
As to the veracity of the claim of the witnesses of the Book of Mormon, may I remind you that several of the original apostles were brothers (Peter and Andrew, James and John, etc.). Do we doubt their claims concerning Jesus, or do we cry out conspiracy or complicity?
Further, what you see as a weakness of the testimony of the witnesses—that many of them left the church—is in fact strong evidence to me that what they claim happened actually happened.
Why? Because no one of them ever denied the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon or denied seeing the angel or handling the plates.
If ever they had an opportunity to expose the hoax of Mormonism or to deny the testimony that is still found in every copy of the Book of Mormon, it would be after they broke away from the church. But they did not. To me, that makes their witness even more credible.
Jimmy Akin:
Compared to the evidence for the Bible as a collection of ancient documents, the evidence that the golden plates even existed is weak at best.
But “Did the plates exist?” is not the only question. We also need to ask, “Was Joseph Smith a supernaturally endowed translator?”
This is a testable question because of the facsimiles of Egyptian texts printed, alongside Smith’s explanations, with the Book of Abraham.
For example, Facsimile 3 depicts five figures, which Smith identifies as “King Pharaoh,” Abraham, the “Prince of Pharaoh,” “Shulem, one of the king’s principal waiters,” and “Olimlah, a slave belonging to the prince.”
Smith also tells us that “King Pharaoh’s” name “is given in the characters above his head,” the prince’s identity is “written above the hand” and that Shulem’s identity is “represented by the characters above his hand.”
But Egyptian writing is now well understood, and all of Smith’s identifications are wrong. In fact, two of the figures he identified as males are females.
The figures are, respectively, the goddess Isis, the god Osiris, the goddess Ma’at, a priest named Hor, and the god Anubis. They are identified as such in the text above their heads and hands, as even Mormon Egyptologists admit.
Smith’s explanations of the other two facsimiles fare no better.
This destroys Smith’s credibility as a translator, supernatural or otherwise. The text simply does not say what he claims. It is not even close.
Smith’s credibility as a translator is essential to the credibility of the Mormon scriptures, and his inability to translate texts such as these indicate that the Mormon scriptures are not credible.
Robert Millet:
There is no historical account of Joseph Smith’s specific dealings with the Abraham papyrus—that is, exactly how the Book of Abraham came to be.
A growing number of LDS scholars believe that the papyrus served as a catalyst to the receipt of an independent revelation dealing with Abraham.
One thing is for sure—critics of the Book of Abraham, the Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith, and Mormonism in general will never be guilty of studying the texts too carefully, of analyzing what LDS scriptural records actually say about God, about Christ, and about how men and women may come to know God and grow into a meaningful spiritual relationship with him.
Everyone is an expert on falsifying Mormonism, and no one seems to care, to even be in the slightest bit curious, about the religious messages of these texts.
I have read a slew of anti-Mormon polemical materials, and few if any of the writers take the time to actually investigate the content of the texts. What a strange phenomenon. What an unusual world we live in!
Jimmy Akin:
Since Smith’s explanations of the Book of Abraham facsimiles are demonstrably wrong, it is understandable Mormon scholars would develop the theory that encountering Egyptian writings merely spurred him to receive an “independent revelation.”
But this is not what Smith claimed. The preface to the Book of Abraham says it is “a Translation of some ancient Records that have fallen into our hands from the catacombs of Egypt. The writings of Abraham while he was in Egypt, called the Book of Abraham, written by his own hand, upon papyrus.”
Our topic isn’t the Mormon doctrine of God, but since it has been brought up, it is worth noting that what the Mormon scriptures claim about God is actually an enormous source of concern.
The Book of Abraham claims that our spirits have existed from all eternity, that God lives near a star or planet called Kolob, and that a council of gods made the world (Abraham 3-5). Other Mormon teachings include the idea that human beings and gods are the same species, so that God is simply “an exalted man.”
Mormonism and its scriptures portray a fundamentally different vision of God and man than the Christian faith, which gives Christians reason to reject them.
This reason is strengthened when the evidence for the golden plates is examined, and it grows immeasurably when we look at the actual, testable cases of Joseph Smith’s ability as a translator.
Because of their content, the lack of evidence that they even existed as ancient documents, and Smith’s demonstrably false translations, the Mormon scriptures are not credible.