Evidences of The Book of Mormon

First, let me make it perfectly clear that the evidences that I present here are by far not the only reason I love and believe in The Book of Mormon.  All the facts in this topic simply compound the love I have for the book.  What I love most about the evidences here is being able to share them.  

Over the years I have come across many sources that refer to this subject.  There are entire books dedicated to this very topic and I do not intend to replace them here.  To keep it short I will exclude the majority of examples that experts have found and include only the shorter examples, or what I feel most impressed with.  This will be a simple list in no particular order with applicable explanations in as few words as possible. 

As we shall see, The Book of Mormon was a carefully orchestrated book, the origin of which could only be very ancient and very Hebrew.  Keep in mind that Joseph Smith (the person usually accused of authoring it) never had more than a 3rd grade education, and according to his mother was the least inclined of her children to read.

The Book of Mormon, according to the author, was written in Hebrew using Egyptian characters.  The people who wrote it claimed to have come from among the Hebrews.  If this were true surely we should find some Hebrew style of writing somewhere in its pages.  

This has in fact turned out to be the case.  Although not noticeable to most, to an expert these things exist throughout the book.  Often these Hebraisms translate into bad English, but when looking at it from the opposite translation turn out to be very good Hebrew.  Many of these have been cleaned up to proper English in later editions, but can be found in the original documents.  Quite often it is through criticism that discoveries are made.  Therefore, I will frequently cite the criticism attached to the discovery.

• Chiasmus:  This is a Hebrew style of writing only extensively discovered to be in the Bible in 1880—long after the 1830 publication of the Book of Mormon.  A chiasmus takes concepts one by one in ascending, then again in descending order, often to accentuate a separate concept in the middle.  Perhaps this is best understood by an example... I walked to the store, picked up some bread, paid for the bread, carried the bread out and walked home.  (ABCBA) This example underscores the fact that the bread was paid for.  There are many great examples of chiasmus in the Book of Mormon.

• Plural amplification:  Example: “there shall be bloodsheds.” (2 Ne 1:12)  Again, purely a Hebrew writing characteristic amply found in The Book of Mormon.

• Repetitive “and”:  This word is used to make extremely long sentences in Hebrew.  A method also found in the Bible but odd in English (1 Sam 17: 35,36; Joshua 7: 24)  Example:  “...men armed with bows, and with arrows, and with swords, and with cimeters, and with stones, and with slings; and they had their heads shaved ; and they were girded with a leathern girdle.” (Mosiah 9: 16)

• Gender/noun association:  Hebrew has gender associated with all nouns.  i.e. sun, moon, grace, love.  Such is true in the Book of Mormon, and in every case the gender matches that of ancient Hebrew.

• “If...and”:  Hebrew has no “then” but instead uses “and,” in their sentence structure.  Since this is such bad English it was edited out and can only be found in the 1830 edition.  Example: “If ye shall ask...and He shall manifest the truth of it unto you.” (Mor 10:4) There are several more examples of this.  It is important to note that this style was already taken out of Bible translations into English, and there is very little chance Joseph Smith could have known this or other Hebraisms listed here.

• As stated above, The Book of Mormon authors wrote in Hebrew with Egyptian characters.  Until recently, detractors have claimed this to be a preposterous claim.  However, recent discoveries indicate that from 900 BC to 600 BC, several texts in Hebrew and Aramaic were in fact written using Egyptian characters.  This is said to take up less space--important when writing on gold.  Exactly the claim of one of the Book of Mormon authors, Moroni.

• Robbers and thieves.  In ancient semitic writing, these two have different meanings.  Robbers are outsiders--of a different people, while a thief is from among their own people.  There are many thieves and robbers in The Book of Mormon and it follows this pattern every time.

• The letters Q, X, W, and F do not exist in Hebrew names.  Of the 337 names used in the Book of Mormon exactly ZERO of these letters are used. 

• Speaking of names, of these 337 names, 188 were lost to mankind and completely unknown at the time the Book of Mormon was published.  Since then they have all been rediscovered.  Most of these 337 names turned out to be Hebrew names and a few Egyptian names—but they all turned out to be actual names.  An amazing feat, when considering names such as Coriantumr, Gadianton, Kishkumen, etc.  A good example of a Book of Mormon name with a boomerang effect is Alma.  This is a male name in the Book of Mormon, which was a ridiculous claim at the time, since it was only known as a Latin female name.  It has only been recently that Hebrew men have in fact been shown to have had this name anciently.

• Shakespeare, undeniably one of the greatest writers of all time, is said to have contributed more phrases and sayings to the English language than any other individual.  In his 43 works he came up with 135 unique phrases.  It is no small thing, therefore to make the claim that the Book of Mormon adds more than 45,500!  Phrases such as, “shrink beneath the glance”, “stand in their arms”, or “the deafness of their ears”, were first and only found in the Book of Mormon as well as endless more.  Clearly this is a work of a lost people who had their own peculiar method of communication, unfamiliar with modern English.  Now add to this the fact that 153 individuals spoke with more than 1500 speaker changes.  Many very lengthy stories are parenthetically added spanning several years without skipping a beat and making complete sense throughout with no use of a word processor.  Quite a feat, even for an accomplished writer.

• Word print analysis.  This is a statistical analysis that determines a particular author’s “fingerprint” or style of writing.  Everyone has their own unique identifiable style.  It is next to impossible to even fake this.  Even a talented writer such as Tolstoy, when he writes attempting to be another person, still turns out to have the Tolstoy fingerprint.  Two studies, one from BYU and another from non-LDS sources (Berkley) conducted independent studies.  Both studies determined that none of the Book of Mormon was written by the authors that many detractors claim must have written it—Joseph Smith, Oliver Cowdery, Sidney Rigdon or even Solomon Spaulding.  In fact the separate books within the book were determined to have been written by separate authors—exactly as one would expect if it were genuine.  The chance that a single author could have written The Book of Mormon was statistically shown to be 1 in 100 billion.  If Joseph Smith did not write The Book of Mormon, it is remarkable that nobody ever came forward to claim authorship of this amazing work.

• In what is called the Lachish letters, an actual Israeli general around 600 BC--the time the Book of Mormon story began--was told to search for some families who left Jerusalem toward Egypt and took ancient records with them.  Of course this correlates perfectly with the story of Lehi in the Book of Mormon.  

• In the desert south of Jerusalem, exactly the path that Lehi’s group in the Book of Mormon story would have taken, a cave has been discovered which contains drawings dated back to 600 BC.  The name of the cave is Khirbet Beit Lei, which translates as, “Ruin of the house of Lehi.”

• In The Book of Mormon where Zemnarihah’s execution is reported (3Ne 4:28), the tree from which he was hanged was ritually chopped down.  Recently it was discovered that this bizarre ritual was in fact part of ancient Jewish law, which required that the tree from which a person was hanged must be chopped down.

• As is the case in the Bible, the Book of Mormon often quotes other scripture.  Some critics have pointed out that some of the verses of Isaiah in The Book of Mormon are different from those in the Bible.  Recent studies have shown that the Isaiah verses in The Book of Mormon, when compared to more recently discovered ancient texts, are actually more accurate than the verses in the King James version of the Bible.  Joseph Smith did not have access to these documents.  In at least one case, the added verses in the Book of Mormon actually completes a chiasmus.

• Critics once laughed at Alma 7:10, which predicted that Jesus would “be born of Mary, at Jerusalem which is the land of our forefathers.”  Everyone knows that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, not Jerusalem.  Recent evidence shows, however, that Bethlehem was regarded anciently as a town “in the land of Jerusalem.”

• Some history books say the Native Americans descended from groups that came from Mongolia and the Orient, who crossed the Bering Strait.  They most likely did.  However, in Mongolia and the Orient, type B blood is very common.  Type B blood is almost nonexistent among Native Americans and are in the same proportion as among Arabs and Jews.

• In the book of Alma, a group of cast-away people are given the land of Jershon “as a land of inheritance.”  As it turns out Jershon, or Yershon translates to “place of inheritance” in Hebrew.

• In 1830 The Book of Mormon mentioned the use of cement for construction, which at that time, the world did not know how to use.  Over the past fifty years, archaeologists have found more than 4,000 miles of highway built using cement by ancient American inhabitants.  Cement has also been found to be used in ancient Central American buildings that have withstood many earthquakes.  

• Archaeologists originally laughed at the mention of elephants in The Book of Mormon.  Even when they later discovered elephants in the La Brea tar pits in California, they said such elephants lived during a different period of time than man.  However, they then found an elephant skeleton with an arrowhead embedded in one of its joints.

• Likewise, the mention of horses still is scoffed at.  Even though they have found many paintings made more than 2,000 years ago depicting horses in ancient America.  Besides some horse bone fragments that have been found, at least one complete horse skeleton dating to the exact time of the Book of Mormon has now been found.

• The Book of Mormon mentions copper for making tools.  Initially, this was a ridiculous claim since copper is a soft metal and they didn’t have access to metal anyway.  Over 10,000 ancient tools have since been found which were made from hardened copper.  Even today we are not capable of hardening copper as these ancient people did.  Archaeologists have found that these people even used hardened copper for surgical tools.

• Speaking of copper--metal work, while mentioned in the Book of Mormon, was believed to be non-existent in the Americas.  However, in 2004 and 2005, a massive iron mine was discovered in the Ingenio Valley of the Andes Mountains in southern Peru. The findings of the excavation are published in the Journal of the Minerals, Metals & Materials Society.  The researchers determined that the mine was human-made and was first created around 2,000 years ago. An estimated 3,710 metric tons of iron was extracted from the mine during more than 1,400 years of use.  Where did it all go?

• Archaeologists did not believe these people had a knowledge of wheels, as mentioned in the Book of Mormon. They have since found toys with wheels as well as wheels as large as nine feet in diameter.

• Scientists thought these people consisted of a few, small nomadic tribes, and scoffed at the mention of large cities in The Book of Mormon.  They have since found ruins of many ancient cities where it is estimated more than one million people lived.

• Claims that records were written on gold plates and placed in a stone box were laughed at in 1830.  Today, scholars admit that metal plates and stone boxes were in standard use for ancient records in many areas of the world.

• In Mesoamerica--the place most experts believe the bulk of the Book of Mormon to have taken place--hundreds of rock sculptures have been found depicting men with full beards, often with attire resembling the ancient Jews.  The rise and decline of these sculptures coincides with the rise and fall of the Book of Mormon people.  Since native Americans have little facial hair, the discovery of these sculptures led one expert to label them as, “bearded foreigners.”  Another wrote of her work, “What I was looking for were typical 'Indian' heads.  It was not long, however, before I discovered that in the early, lower levels these 'genuine Indians' were not to be found.  The earliest figures encountered were those with Mongoloid characteristics, and all kinds of white people, especially Semitic types.”

• Some other things mentioned in the Book of Mormon is the existence of large cities, trade, barley, thrones, literacy, warfare, towers, and the use of armor, all of which were unknown to people in the day of Joseph Smith but have since been verified in ancient America.

• It has only been in comparatively recent years that actual places mentioned in the Bible have been discovered that were previously unknown.  Although the Book of Mormon is a much more recently translated document, and although an unrealistic expectation in the much more humid Americas, it has been criticized for not having led archaeologists to lost cities.  Such a claim can no longer be said.  

There are many places that are strikingly similar to places mentioned in The Book of Mormon, but the climate in the new world is just not as conducive to find material as in the old world, making it difficult to find definitive proof.  However, the trail followed by Lehi’s group in the old world is given in fairly good detail.  This route has been mapped out very well and it turns out to follow what was known anciently as the frankincense trail.  Along this trail Lehi names the places they stay with symbolic names.  Naming places one comes upon turns out to be a true Semitic tradition.  But more significantly, there is only one instance in the Book of Mormon that mentions an actual place that was already named.  It tells us that during their journey through Arabia, Ishmael died and was buried, “in the place which was called Nahom.”  After this they tell us they turned to a near easterly direction, staying near the coast in Arabia.  This description gives us a pretty good idea where to find this “Nahom” in Arabia.  

Between 1999 and 2002, German archaeologists in this very area excavated an ancient burial site they dated to 600 BC –exactly the time of the exodus of Lehi’s group.  The name of this place was determined through 3 alters found at the site which gives the name as NHM.  As vowels are not used in Hebrew, this can easily be translated exactly as the Book of Mormon tells us--Nahom.  This all gives us a name, a date, and a place (with an easterly turn in the frankincense trail), all of which was virtually unknown to the world until recently, and much less to an uneducated farm boy in 1830.  The chances that Joseph Smith somehow just got lucky on this are astronomical.

• In addition to this, as they moved near eastward from Nahom, they eventually came to a place they called Bountiful, being rich in plants and “much fruit,” “wild honey” and timber for building a ship.  Making a claim of a place such as this existing in Arabia--one of the most desolate places on earth, would have been quite a stretch.  Nevertheless, a place called Khor Kharat, again, unknown to the outside world until the last few decades, matches the description of Bountiful very well.  In addition to the above it could supply ore, flint, a nearby mount, cliffs, and even a natural harbor for launching a ship, all mentioned in the Book of Mormon.

• In Ether 1: 18,19 there is mention of a city where “Kish” was king.  In the Mayan city of San Lorenzo in Santa Cruz, Mexico there are ancient hieroglyphics all over this city saying there was a king in 993 B.C. named Kish who ascended to the throne in 967 B.C.  This fits very well with the Book of Mormon, not only in place, but the exact name.

• In Ether 9:3 there is a Jaredite hill named Shim.  The Mayan have a hill also named Shim in southern Vera Cruz.  Again, the place and the name are exact matches.  The Aztecs claim that the corn grown on that hill grows from the dead bodies of their ancestors.  In the Book of Mormon a hill with this name is where the great and last battle was fought between the Nephites and Lamanites.  

• It is worth noting that there is a growing body of evidence from New World archaeology that supports The Book of Mormon.  Dr. John Clark of the New World Archaeological Foundation has compiled a list of 60 items mentioned in the Book of Mormon.  In 1842, only 8 or 13% were confirmed by the evidence.  By 2006, 45 or 75% had been confirmed.  This shift is what would be expected only if the claims were indeed true.

• It is no small thing that Joseph Smith is not the only witness to the existence of the gold plates and the process of translating the Book of Mormon.  There have been thousands of “crazies” claiming supernatural experiences who have come and gone.  The difference is not only the "fruit" of an actual book, but also that Joseph was not alone in his translation and revelations and actually loved to have others share in the experience.  Several helped in the translation process.  More than a dozen men and women saw and handled the actual plates.  Three not only saw the plates, but saw the same angel that Joseph saw, as well as heard the voice of God Himself declaring that these things were of God.  Even when some of these witnesses became angry with Joseph and left the church, they all continued to hold firm to actually having had these experiences, even at the threat of death.  This is not something that can be written off as some form of psychological belief.  It was not a matter of convincing them it was all true--they knew as direct witnesses whether it was a lie or the truth, yet they never retracted their stories.  They were all found to be men of sound mind and good reputation.  (see Investigating the Book of Mormon Witnesses by Richard Lloyd Anderson)

In concentrating on all these evidences, I have not even mentioned the rich teachings that are found in its pages.  There are stories that captivate and inspire.  It gives great insight into a lost people, and enlightenment on what is sometimes hazy or incomplete doctrine in the Bible.  Many times I have been lifted and inspired on a specific topic I had been pondering about after having read from the Book of Mormon.  How lucky I am to belong to an organization that possesses such a book as this.  How thankful I am that I have it to read for myself, to live by its precepts and have my life enriched thereby.  I have become familiar with most if not all of the criticisms of The Book of Mormon and when all is said and done it is my opinion that those who advance these things are motivated from their simply feeling threatened by its very existence.  How much they are missing!

Jeffrey R. Holland: "If anyone is foolish enough or misled enough to reject 531 pages of a heretofore unknown text teeming with literary and Semitic complexity without honestly attempting to account for the origin of those pages—especially without accounting for their powerful witness of Jesus Christ and the profound spiritual impact that witness has had on what is now tens of millions of readers—if that is the case, then such a person, elect or otherwise, has been deceived; and if he or she leaves this Church, it must be done by crawling over or under or around the Book of Mormon to make that exit. In that sense the book is what Christ Himself was said to be: “a stone of stumbling, … a rock of offence,” a barrier in the path of one who wishes not to believe in this work. Witnesses, even witnesses who were for a time hostile to Joseph, testified to their death that they had seen an angel and had handled the plates. “They have been shown unto us by the power of God, and not of man,” they declared. “Wherefore we know of a surety that the work is true.”" (General Conference, Oct 2009)

I realize it can only be a personal evidence, but this is the absolute most powerful witness that The Book of Mormon is exactly what it purports to be.  I have prayed intently to know whether this book was the word of God, and as God is my witness, I can honestly say my prayers were answered immediately in the affirmative.  Words cannot adequately express the details of my answer.  I will just say an intense warm feeling immediately entered my bosom, accompanied with the love of God that filled me to overflowing.  This feeling stayed with me the entire day.

For a much more extensive look at this subject, go here.