Hard Evidence

According to one recent scholarly summary, here is what Joseph Smith effectively produced in 65 working days of translation: 

“Not only are there more than a thousand years of history [in the Book of Mormon] involving some two hundred named individuals and nearly a hundred distinct places, but the narrative itself is presented as the work of three primary editor/historians—Nephi, Mormon, and Moroni. These figures, in turn, claim to have based their accounts on dozens of preexisting records. The result is a complex mix that incorporates multiple genres ranging from straightforward narration to inserted sermons and letters to scriptural commentary and poetry. It requires considerable patience to work out all the details of chronology, geography, genealogy, and source records, but the Book of Mormon is remarkably consistent on all this. The chronology is handled virtually without glitches, despite several flashbacks and temporally overlapping narratives; … and the narrators keep straight both the order and family connections among the twenty-six Nephite record keepers and forty-one Jaredite kings (including rival lines). The complexity is such that one would assume the author worked from charts and maps, though Joseph Smith’s wife … explicitly denied that he had written something out beforehand that he either had memorized or consulted as he translated, and indeed she claimed that Joseph began sessions of dictation without looking at the manuscript or having the last passage read back to him.” (Matthew Holland, “The Coming Forth of the Book of Mormon,” Ensign, July 2015, p.44)

Hard evidence only goes so far. There will ALWAYS be opposition. At some point we just have to get down on our knees and ask Heavenly father... Is this true? That's the only way to know for sure. Then take the answer and run with it.

Love you all, Work hard!

Elder Sork