By Jerald and Sandra Tanner

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In 1967 the LDS Church glowingly predicted reaching 10,000,000 members by the year 2000. But serious problems underlying their faith claims have remained to this day, such as evidence that Joseph Smith plagiarized material for the Book of Mormon that was supposedly received by revelation.

The Mormon Church leaders now claim that the church has almost 3,000,000 members, and they predict that if they continue to grow at the same rate they will have 10,000,000 members by 2000 A.D. (Deseret News, Church Section, October 21, 1967, page 1)

One Mormon wrote:

As a Mormon I am impressed with the tremendous growth of the Church. I understand that our membership will soon reach 3 million. I note with interest that while most other churches are floundering and drifting, the Mormon Church seems to be on course and as a result is a very successful religion. By 1975 we will probably be one of the five largest churches in America. As far as I know, the only problems the Church has are those associated with rapid growth.

Is All Well in Zion?

While the growth of the Mormon Church has been rather impressive, we do not feel that this makes them “on course” or shows that there are no problems except those associated with rapid growth. Actually, there are very serious problems which the Mormon leaders must face if they continue to send missionaries throughout the world. The LDS missionary is supposed to tell each prospective convert that God has spoken from heaven and restored the true Church of Christ to the earth. After this he proceeds to tell the contact that his church is false. In fact, the handbook used by the missionary tells him that the contact must reach this conclusion: “There was a complete apostasy and my church is false” (A Uniform System for Teaching Investigators, published by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, August 1961, page 9).

If God had actually spoken from heaven and established the Mormon Church, we would not object to this attack upon the contact’s religion, but there is convincing evidence that no such revelation has been given.

In fact, the very revelations upon which the LDS Church is based, i,e., the Book of Mormon, Pearl of Great Price, and the Doctrine and Covenants, can now be shown to be man-made.

Plagiarism

The Book of Mormon was supposed to have been translated from ancient gold plates by Joseph Smith, yet we have found that it quotes from the Westminster Confession which was not written until 1646 A.D. (see our Case Against Mormonism, vol. 2, pages 71-73). We have also shown a number of parallels between the Book of Mormon and the Wayne Sentinel, a newspaper in Joseph Smith’s area. On pages 107-108 of our Case, vol. 2, we show that a statement which was supposed to have been made by Lehi almost 600 years before the time of Christ, quotes from the works of William Shakespeare, who was not born until 1564 A.D. Below is a comparison of the statement in the Book of Mormon with the words of Shakespeare:

[Bold in quotations is added for emphasis and does not appear in originals.]

The Mormon apologist Sidney B. Sperry, made this comment:

In fairness to critics, and in anticipation of future discussions of the problem, we wish to call attention to a particular word used in the quotations by both Lehi and Shakespeare, . . .

The word we have in mind is “traveller.” It stands out like a sore thumb as far as Lehi is concerned. . . .

We are led to the conclusion that the only word that Joseph Smith might have put into Lehi’s mouth from Shakespeare, assuming he was exposed to the lines from Hamlet, is “traveller.” (The Problems of the Book of Mormon, 1964, pages 128-129)

Even though Dr. Sperry admits that the word “traveller” might have been “put into Lehi’s mouth from Shakespeare,” he states that it “would be very difficult to prove that Joseph Smith was familiar with the works of Shakespeare; it would be especially difficult to prove that he was acquainted with the Bard’s work at the time he made his translation of the Book of Mormon” (Problems of the Book of Mormon, page 124).

Although we have shown that “Shakespeare’s works, 10 vols.” were sold at the Wayne Bookstore in Joseph Smith’s neighborhood (Wayne Sentinel, January 26, 1825), we now have a much better idea of where Joseph Smith might have found these words. In 1825 Josiah Priest published a book in Albany, N.Y., entitled The Wonders of Nature and Providence Displayed. Rev. Wesley P. Walters has sent us a photograph of an original copy of this book containing a sticker showing that it belonged to the “Manchester Library.” This is very interesting because, according to Joseph Smith’s own story, he lived in “Manchester” (Pearl of Great Price, Joseph Smith 2:3). Mr. Walters also found that library records show that this book was checked out by a number of people during the year 1827. Therefore it was well known in the area of Palmyra and Manchester.

The interesting thing about this book is that it contains a story which quotes the words of Shakespeare. In quoting these words, however, they are in the wrong order, and this makes the end of the quotation almost identical to that in the Book of Mormon.

Because of this quotation we feel that there must be a relationship between these two books, and this is strengthened by a number of other important parallels. The Book of Mormon teaches that the Indians are the descendants of a group of Hebrews who came to America. The Wonders of Nature and Providence, Displayed (published five years before the Book of Mormon) contains “proofs that the Indians of North America are lineally descended from the ancient Hebrews” (Wonders, page 297).

Josiah Priest’s book contains a great deal of information about the Indians. It is interesting to note that Josiah Priest’s book speaks of the “isthmus of Darien” and uses the words “narrow neck of land.” These same words are found in the Book of Mormon. Below is a comparison:

There are other important parallels which we hope to present in our work, The Case Against Mormonism.

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