Why I Believe the Book of Mormon is True

Apart from spiritual confirmations, as a writer I believe the Book of Mormon to be a true document and history because its organization is so stupid.

Honestly, no one would write like this if they were making this stuff up, especially not an uneducated laborer younger than me (I'm speaking of Joseph Smith, if you happen to not know of the 19th century man that brought the book forward). I just don't see it. And not in three months, which is how long it took to "translate" the document.

I don't know how many times I've read the Book of Mormon, and I have to confess: being a lifetime member of the church that uses it (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints), I only passively paid attention to what I read, while still picking up on a lot of the spiritual nuggets. Nevertheless, I spent this last year reading it and decided to make a conscious effort to understand every bit of it. Plus, I had questions I hoped, in some way, would be answered. Most weren't. That's okay.

Anyway, this time I read the entire book on my Kindle, having recognized some self-distancing and stand-off feelings when I approach the very structured columns in the print version. My Kindle made reading feel less impersonal and rigid. Also, I approached the entire book and characters as something completely foreign to me ("Nephi who?" -- cue acting skills). In the past, having heard the story of Nephi, and several other Book of Mormon stories, a thousand times, I would often tune out, because it felt like old news. These new techniques worked and helped! Soon, I found myself more engrossed than I had ever been before, which sparked me to take notes as I read.

Okay. Enough of how I did this reading.

Most of the book is an abridgment of volumes upon volumes of history concerning the Americas prior to its modern (within the last 1000 years) discovery, compiled by a man named Mormon. His writing takes over after a long discourse and history written by Nephi, who gives the record to his brother Jacob. A few of Jacob's progenitors hop in and add their few cents -- most just saying, "Hi. I existed. I possessed the record...Um, yeah..." Then, Mormon pops in, greets us, and takes us on from there into an abridgment that covers hundreds of years, which is eventually picked up by his son Moroni.

Occasionally, Mormon and Moroni interrupt to add their own comments, each with their own style -- Mormon more short and precise/simple; Moroni more lengthy and deep/bold. However, with the abridgment, Mormon is more detailed in his account, before adding his comments to simply sum up the point of each story. Moroni, on the other hand, is incredibly brief in his storytelling. His portion of abridgment is straight-forward, with a focus on the bottom line. The two men's voices are very different, but it is possible to say that their individual situations (of war) at the time of abridging could've played into their ability and accessibility to write.

If the Book of Mormon isn't real, and is just a playful man's creative effort, why would he write with so fragmented a voice? It's just dumb. Just have every period of time have their own author, or just have Mormon abridge it from the start. Why have an intruding voice at all? Why leave it as an awkward arrangement of first person accounts by its "authors?" Near the beginning of his abridgment, Mormon even hops back in time and abridges a short record (Mosiah 23-24) to fill us in on some other people we had been previously following. Stop! No! It's awful! He does do it with a transition, but it is far from eloquent and feels more like whiplash.

What a crappy way to put together your work of literature that has so much depth to it. As a writer, I felt like the organization I was looking at was a literary Frankenstein's monster. Anyone, to write such profound things as contained in the Book of Mormon, would have much more dignity than to have their creative baby sound like it was thrown together in such a randomly spliced way. It's so brilliant and so stupid at the same time. Anyone brilliant enough to write something so profound would go back to correct and work through things so stupid before publication, no matter how long it took. I don't care what outward mission or intention they had from writing it. It's a long, efficient book. As an author, you would see this as a staple of yourself and as a sacred piece of you. Anyone who would have fleshed out such a creative baby would take special, special care that it is brilliant through and through -- unless they were acting under the dictation of God to merely translate a thrown-together/compiled record and abridgment. That is what everyone talks about, right -- whether the Book of Mormon was an honest document translated by Joseph, or whether it is a work of his own creativity, his baby, his brainchild?

I don't see how a man younger than me, who hadn't seemed to foster his creativity in any great way prior to the Book of Mormon's publication, could release a book that possesses so many true-to-life people/characters in situations that are so super realistic in how people honestly respond to one another. There is so much variance in the book. You get your spiritual parts, family issues, lots of war and political strategy -- all true to life.¹

I can see the Book of Mormon being written in such a throw-together manner as an actual historical account -- someone's studied notes from reading other historical texts. But as a creative attempt by an uneducated laborer with a hobby for treasure hunting? No. Just no. People don't just cognitively do that, or pop out brilliance from nowhere. This account is too focused (in its individual authorships), concise, intelligent, true to life, true to itself, true to its instruction on life, that I don't see a man writing this in such a short time with the aid of scribes as he dictated a rant and rattling in his head. I have heard some peaceful quotes from Joseph Smith, but from what I understand about him, he doesn't sound like the type of intelligence to come up with a literary work like this. He doesn't really sound like he possessed the intelligence or experience needed to make something so sound to the truthfulness of human behavior and humanity at such an early age.

The only way is for him to have translated, with the power of God, a record he was divinely guided to. It is here for us, in our day.

Something I found striking is how much of the book is beyond a religious document, but a political pamphlet in its warnings against "secret combinations," which are any groups conspiring against the freedom of a people. Whether its genocide-promoting terrorists abroad or economic terrorists at home, our nations today can learn from the complete destruction of the nations in the Book of Mormon. It truly is written as a guidebook and warning for us today. Are we listening? As nations, what can we do to help ourselves against corruption? In what way can we band together? Are we avoiding and correcting "small-scale" corruption in our homes and communities? Are we building ourselves and one another, or tearing down -- and for what? What reason could, honestly, be so important for us to tear apart each other and ourselves?

Are we remembering our God?

In any case, I don't see Joseph writing the Book of Mormon by his own power and through his own creativity. In my creative recovery with The Artist's Way, that word, creativity, has grown to possess sacred meaning, too sacred a meaning for Joseph Smith and those around him to contrive such a wholesome, powerful document on their own. It does not read through to me as imaginatively created.

But don't take my word for it. And certainly don't take the internet's word for it. (Oh, the world wide web. There is a lot there to be found about the Book of Mormon, especially against it; and if you were to wake and think for yourself, as those doubters instruct, then do it: ) Read the document for yourself (here), and ask God fervently and reverently, as honestly as you would ask anyone a deep-felt, personally yearning question, of its truthfulness, as Moroni directs.

(I dig the pregnant chick on the right @ 2:15)

¹Seriously, if someone wants to make a great Book of Mormon movie, the whole issue with Amalickiah starting in Alma 46 is the blood and guts, sick betrayal and war movie I want to see! What epic entertainment and art that would be. Come on, people! I seriously want to see this grotesqueness on the big screen!