Category: Book of Mormon Archaeology
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Where Did Joseph Smith Get His Ideas for the Book of Mormon?
By Sandra Tanner One of the claims often made by LDS people is that there was no information on the Indian ruins in Mexico and Guatemala available prior to 1830. Actually, numerous books recounting similar ideas as those in Joseph Smith’s Book of Mormon had already been published. Many of the books published on the…
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Joseph Smith — The Early Years
Some influences in Joseph Smith’s youth can be seen in his later writings such as the religious environment in his family and surroundings, his family’s dabbling in folk magic, and the public interest in the American Indians.
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Understanding the Book of Mormon
By Ross J. Anderson (Christian Pastor, Former Mormon)Published by the Zondervan Publishing Corporation Search for a Missing Civilization:Is the Book of Mormon Really an Ancient Book? (Excerpt from Chapter Seven) As a teenager, I remember the excitement I felt the evening my father and I were invited to visit the ruins of Central America. I…
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Zelph the White Lamanite Warrior
By Sandra Tanner Today many of the LDS scholars want to limit the Book of Mormon geography to southern Mexico and Guatemala. However, the leaders of the LDS Church have always maintained that the story happened over the larger land mass of North and Central America. One of the problems of limiting the geographic area…
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Where Is Cumorah?
By Sandra Tanner View of the Hill Cumorah (New York state) from nearly a century ago.(Photographed by George Anderson, in Church History in the Fullness of Times, [Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1989]) Every year in July the LDS Church produces the Hill Cumorah pageant in Palmyra, New York. This pageant places the…
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Who Are the Lamanites?
By Sandra Tanner For over one hundred and seventy years LDS leaders and most LDS members have considered the American Indians to be the direct descendants of the Israelites in the Book of Mormon. However, in recent years there has been a growing number of LDS scholars claiming a limited geography for Book of Mormon…
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Anthon Transcript
By Sandra Tanner What is the Anthon Transcript? An excerpt from the Encyclopedia of Mormonism Vol. 1, explains: The Anthon Transcript was a sheet of paper, thought to be lost, upon which Joseph SMITH copied sample “reformed Egyptian” characters from the plates of the Book of Mormon. In the winter of 1828, Martin HARRIS showed…
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Book of Mormon Overview
By Sandra Tanner Storyline The Book of Mormon contains the purported stories of three different groups which sailed to the Americas. Jaredites Mulekites Lehi and family Translation The Urim and Thummim, specially prepared spectacles preserved with the golden plates as an aid in translating, were used to translate the first 116 pages of the Book…
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Quest for the Gold Plates
Stan Larson’s New Book By Jerald and Sandra Tanner Stan Larson, who was a scriptural exegete for Translation Services of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormons), has recently published a book entitled, Quest for the Gold Plates: Thomas Stuart Ferguson’s Archaeological Search for the Book of Mormon. In this book Dr.…
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Ferguson’s Rejection of the Book of Mormon Verified
By Jerald and Sandra Tanner In our book, Ferguson’s Manuscript Unveiled, we presented a great deal of evidence showing that the noted Mormon scholar, Thomas Stuart Ferguson, became a complete unbeliever in the Book of Mormon during the last 12 or 13 years of his life. Notwithstanding the fact that there is a collection of…